May 9, 2021 3:28 am
Pennsylvania officials are encouraging hundreds of thousands of college students to get their shots before they go home for summer. Gov. Tom Wolf appeared in State College on Wednesday with the president and head football coach at Penn State University to pitch younger people on the benefits of getting inoculated against the coronavirus. Penn State President Eric Barron calls it “the most important effort of our lifetime.” He says he calls on “all Penn Staters to lead now.” Statewide, vaccine demand is starting to wane. The Health Department says that vaccine supply exceeded demand for the first time last week.
May 8, 2021 9:28 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of three Washington Post reporters who covered the federal investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That’s according to a report from the newspaper on Friday. The disclosure sets up a new clash between the federal government and news organizations and advocates for press freedom. The secret subpoena was presumably aimed at identifying the reporters’ sources in national security stories published in the early months of President Trump’s administration, as federal investigators scrutinized whether his 2016 campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to sway the election.
May 8, 2021 9:27 am
PHOENIX (AP) – The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate is telling the U.S. Justice Department that ballots it is recounting from November’s presidential election are secure and the department’s worries about voter intimidation are unfounded. Senate President Karen Fann’s letter on Friday comes two days after the department’s Civil Rights Division sought assurances that 2.1 million ballots from the state’s most populous county were secured as federal law requires. The department also said contacting voters during the unprecedented election audit could amount to illegal voter intimidation. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters allege without evidence that he lost Arizona and other battleground states because of fraud.
May 8, 2021 9:23 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller is scheduled to testify next week about the Pentagon’s role in responding to the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. It’s the latest in a series of high-profile congressional hearings centered on the insurrection. Miller is expected to appear Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee alongside former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in one of several Jan. 6-related hearings scheduled for next week. Miller will almost certainly be asked to respond to complaints raised at previous hearings that the Defense Department took too long to dispatch the National Guard to the Capitol. Defense leaders have denied that there was a delayed response.
May 8, 2021 9:21 am
PORTO, Portugal (AP) – European Union leaders have cranked up their criticism of the U.S. call to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents, arguing the move would bring no short or midterm relief. They instead urged Washington to lift export restrictions if it wants to have a global impact on the pandemic. The U.S. has kept a tight lid on exports of American-made vaccines so it can inoculate its own population first. Meanwhile, the EU has become the world’s leading provider, allowing about as many doses to go outside the 27-nation bloc as are kept for its 446 million inhabitants. The EU says the U.S. position on patent waivers is not a “magic bullet.”
May 8, 2021 9:19 am
JERUSALEM (AP) – The Palestinian emergency service says more than 200 people were wounded in a night of heavy clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and elsewhere in Jerusalem, where tensions have soared in recent weeks. Nightly protests broke out at the start of the holy month of Ramadan over police restrictions in a popular gathering place and have reignited in recent days over threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinians from their homes in east Jerusalem, which is claimed by both sides in the decades-old conflict. Israelis and Palestinians are bracing for more unrest in the coming days.
May 8, 2021 9:17 am
BAGHDAD (AP) – The U.S. coalition and Iraq’s military say a drone strike targeted a military base in Iraq that hosts U.S. troops. There were no casualties. The attack on the Ain al-Assad base early on Saturday morning caused only minor damage. Coalition spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto says a hangar was damaged. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. The U.S. has blamed Iran-backed militia groups for previous attacks, most of them rocket attacks that have targeted the American presence in Baghdad and military bases across Iraq. Drone strikes are less common.
May 8, 2021 9:15 am
BENGALURU, India (AP) – Two southern states in India have become the latest to declare lockdowns, as cases surge at breakneck speed across the country. The announcements from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka come as pressure mounts on the federal government to announce a nationwide lockdown. On Saturday, India reported 401,078 new cases, including 4,187 deaths. That takes the total to over 21.8 million cases, in what is believed to be an undercount. One doctor in Karnataka’s capital of Bengaluru says he’s had to reject patients left, right and center as his hospital struggles to find more oxygen. Experts say the surge in Bengaluru is fast eclipsing other hard-hit cities like New Delhi and Mumbai.
May 8, 2021 9:12 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Paul Van Doren, co-founder of the Vans company whose iconic Southern California sneakers were beloved by skateboarders and became an international success, has died. He was 90. The company, based in Costa Mesa, announced Van Doren’s death on social media Friday but didn’t provide any details. Van Doren, his brother and two business partners opened their first store in Orange County in 1966, making and selling their own shoes. The shoes caught on with skateboarders and business also soared after Sean Penn wore a pair in the 1982 movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
May 8, 2021 3:31 am
WHITE OAK, Pa. (AP) – Authorities say a western Pennsylvania couple forced their children to sleep in locked basement rooms, physically abused them and handcuffed them. Thirty-seven-year-old Richard Hayes, of Mount Oliver, and his 26-year-old girlfriend, Natosha Bell, of Rankin, both face more than a dozen charges involving three children who lived in their home. It wasn’t known Friday if either one has retained an attorney. Authorities say White Oak police responded to an elementary school Wednesday after the eldest child refused to get into the couple’s vehicle during a school pick up. Witnesses say the 11-year-old boy clung to a school employee and said he didn’t want to be handcuffed again. Two other handcuffed boys were then found in the vehicle’s backseat.(Photo Credit WPXI)
