Confirmed coronavirus cases hit 1 million worldwideVideo
NEW YORK - The number of coronavirus infections worldwide has hit 1 million, with more than 50,000 deaths, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The figures were another bleak milestone in the epidemic that has forced the lockdown of entire countries and brought economies to a shuddering...
Memo: Some in U.S. may not get stimulus checks until AugustVideo
WASHINGTON — The federal government expects to begin making payments to millions of Americans under the new stimulus law in mid-April, but some people without direct deposit information may not get checks until mid-August or later, according to a memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The document from the...
Coronavirus resets political calendar
Fears of coronavirus are resetting the political calendar in Pennsylvania and across the nation as the 2020 presidential election nears. Officials with the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday the party’s presidential nominating convention, previously scheduled for July 13 in Milwaukee, is rescheduled for Aug. 17. That announcement came as the...
U.S. border construction projects spur rural coronavirus fears
BILLINGS, Mont. — Major construction projects moving forward along the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico are raising fears that the coronavirus could race through temporary camps and workers could spread it to nearby rural communities that would not be able to handle an outbreak. Despite a clampdown on people’s...
Fauci says he feels safe despite threats, is focusing on job
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official, said Thursday he feels safe despite reports he’s received online threats and has had uncomfortable personal encounters with admirers that prompted the Trump administration to assign him a security detail. Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus...
Democratic convention moving from July to August
The Democratic National Committee is delaying its presidential nominating convention until the week of Aug. 17 after prospective nominee Joe Biden said he didn’t think it would be possible to hold a normal convention in mid-July because of the coronavirus pandemic. Convention CEO Joe Solmonese confirmed the decision in a...
Russia’s Putin orders non-working month to curb coronavirusVideo
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered most Russians to stay off work until the end of the month as part of a partial economic shutdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Speaking in a televised address to the nation on Thursday, Putin said he was extending the...
PennDOT further extends expirations on licenses, vehicle requirements
Pennsylvanians have until the end of May to renew driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and inspections that were scheduled to expire between March 16 and April 30. The new May 31 deadline applies to the following, according to PennDOT: • Driver’s licenses, photo identification cards and learner’s permits expiring from March...
Nissan recalls over 250K vehicles to replace Takata air bags
DETROIT — Nissan is recalling more than a quarter-million SUVs, trucks and vans worldwide to replace potentially dangerous Takata air bag inflators. The vehicles have air bags with volatile ammonium nitrate that can explode with too much force and hurl shrapnel. But they have a moisture-absorbing chemical that was supposed...
Record 6.6 million Americans apply for unemployment in 1 weekVideo
WASHINGTON — More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week — doubling a record high set just one week earlier — a sign that layoffs are accelerating in the midst of the coronavirus. The stunning report Thursday from the Labor Department showed that job cuts are mounting...
West Virginia governor’s coal companies to pay $5M in fines
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Billionaire West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s coal companies have agreed to pay more than $5 million for thousands of mine safety violations, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The civil case brought by prosecutors in Virginia last year on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Mine...
Trump resists national shutdown, leaving it up to states
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is resisting calls to issue a national stay-at-home order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus despite his administration’s projections that tens of thousands of Americans are likely to be killed by the disease. One by one, though, states are increasingly pushing shutdown orders...
Residents snitch on businesses, neighbors amid shutdowns
OAK PARK, Illinois — One Tulsa bar owner said more than a dozen motorcyclists showed up unannounced, but he served them a round of shots anyway to celebrate a birthday. Another live-streamed a drag queen show on Facebook while up to 20 people drank inside the locked bar, ignoring police...
Israel’s health minister has virus, top officials to isolateVideo
JERUSALEM — The new coronavirus is forcing more top Israeli officials into isolation after the country’s health minister, who has had frequent contact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tested positive, the Health Ministry said Thursday. The Middle East has over 81,000 confirmed cases of the virus, most of those in...
Pandemic closes Grand Canyon National Park
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The Grand Canyon closed indefinitely to visitors Wednesday, joining other national parks seeking to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Staff at the Grand Canyon had been shutting down visitors services piecemeal as the federal government initially rebuffed its request to shutter completely. On Tuesday, visitors had...
U.S. military in Caribbean targets drugs, Maduro regime
The U.S. is expanding its military presence in the Caribbean to fight drug cartels wanting to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis and to deny funds going to the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela, the Trump administration announced late Wednesday. “Today the U.S. is launching an enhanced counternarcotics operation in...
Pa. announces extension for firearms permits
The Pennsylvania State Police announced today that Governor Tom Wolf has granted an extension to license to carry firearms permits. Permits that expired on March 19, 2020, or later have been extended to May 30, 2020. The extension is necessary due to the closure of some county courthouses and sheriff’s...
‘Like a battlefield behind your home’: Deaths mount in New York
NEW YORK — New York authorities rushed to bring in an army of medical volunteers Wednesday as the statewide death toll from the coronavirus doubled in 72 hours to more than 1,900 and the wail of ambulances in the otherwise eerily quiet streets of the city became the heartbreaking soundtrack...
Man suspected of killing 3, taking child, stopped in Florida
TAMPA, Fla. — Florida state troopers were in a standoff Wednesday afternoon with a Georgia man accused of fatally shooting three people in his child’s mother’s family, and then leaving with the child, authorities said. Caesar Zamien Lamar Crockett Jr., 29, is wanted on three counts of murder and one...
California virus cases grow to at least 8,200; 180 deaths
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California nursing home has more than 50 residents infected with coronavirus — a troubling development amid cautious optimism that cases in the state might peak more slowly than expected. Cedar Mountain Post Acute Rehabilitation in Yucaipa has been told to assume that all of...
Healthy-looking people spread coronavirus, more studies say
More evidence is emerging that coronavirus infections are being spread by people who have no clear symptoms, complicating efforts to gain control of the pandemic. A study conducted by researchers in Singapore and published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wednesday is the latest to estimate that...
State police no longer sending troopers to some calls because of coronavirus pandemic
Pennsylvania State Police will no longer respond in person to some types of calls as the agency tries to limit troopers’ contact with the public and slow the spread of the coronavirus, officials announced Wednesday. Calls for lost and found, littering, identity theft and general requests to speak to a...
Pennsylvania prisons ratcheting up efforts to combat covid-19 outbreaks
A second inmate tested positive for covid-19 at a state prison located just outside of Philadelphia Tuesday night, Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel announced Wednesday. Four prison staffers also have tested positive for the virus, he said. Citing Department of Health privacy concerns, Wetzel declined to say where those...
Gov. Wolf orders all of Pennsylvania to stay at home
An expanded stay-at-home order now means that all Pennsylvanians must stay home unless they absolutely must go out, a move that state officials made in an effort to stanch the spread of the coronavirus. Gov. Tom Wolf’s order — which he doubled to include all 67 counties — came the...
Pa. addiction hot line getting fewer calls after liquor stores shut down
State drug and alcohol officials braced for a deluge of alcohol-related phone calls when Pennsylvania two weeks ago closed all state-run wine and liquor stores. “We were concerned that it could be a very big deal,” said Jennifer Smith, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. So...
