February 27, 2021 4:30 am
(AP) – The head of the CDC is sounding the alarm that recent gains against the coronavirus may be stalling. Dr. Rochelle Walensky says the CDC is looking at data that COVID-19 cases have been increasing the past three days. However, more time is needed to see if that is a blip or the start of a trend. Walensky says mutations are spreading in the U.S., with strains first detected in Britain and now variants in New York and California. She stressed now is not the time to relax protective measures of wearing masks and avoiding gatherings. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have fallen since the January peak. But Walensky says those gains could be in jeopardy because the background level of cases is still too high.
February 27, 2021 4:30 am
HOUSTON (AP) – President Joe Biden is in Texas on his first trip to a major disaster site since he took office a little over a month ago. The president’s empathy will be on full display as he and his wife, Jill, survey damage caused by severe winter weather and encourage people to get their coronavirus shots. The brutal winter weather across the South over Valentine’s Day weekend battered multiple states. Texas bore the brunt of unseasonably frigid conditions that caused widespread power outages and frozen pipes that burst and flooded homes. Millions of residents lost heat and running water.
February 26, 2021 4:24 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Costco will increase its starting wage to $16 an hour, surpassing most of its main competitors at a time when efforts to raise the minimum wage are gaining traction in the U.S.áCostco CEO Craig Jelinek announced the increase Thursday at a Senate Budget Committee hearing, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, to examine wages at major companies. Jelinek said the starting wage for Costco employees would rise to $16 next week, up from $15 the company instituted two year ago. The starting wage scale puts Costco above competitors including Amazon, Target and Best Buy, which have $15 minimum wages. Walmart’s starting pay is $11 an hour.
February 26, 2021 4:17 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince likely approved the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. That’s according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday. The finding could escalate pressure on the Biden administration to hold the kingdom accountable for a murder that drew widespread outrage in the U.S. and abroad. The central conclusion of the report was widely expected given that intelligence officials were said to have reached it soon after the brutal October 2018 murder of Khashoggi, a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s authoritarian consolidation of power. Still, the public blaming amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of the ambitious 35-year-old crown prince.
February 26, 2021 4:16 am
BAGHDAD (AP) – An Iraqi militia official says a U.S. airstrike in Syria has killed one militiaman and wounded a number of others with a powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi group. The official told The Associated Press that the strikes against facilities belong to the Kataeb Hezbollah militia, or Hezbollah Brigades, struck a site on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak of the attack. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops.
February 26, 2021 4:10 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are maintaining it was a mistake for Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration to order COVID patients to be readmitted to nursing homes from hospitals, although it’s not clear the policy led to an outbreak or death. Despite a high number of nursing home deaths in Pennsylvania, no investigation has pointed to the policy. Nursing home trade associations say they’re not aware it led to death or an outbreak. Rep. Natalie Mihalek during Thursday’s Appropriations Committee hearing urged acting Health Secretary Alison Beam to say the department’s order was a mistake. Beam responded that the state wanted to ensure hospitals weren’t overrun and clarify confusing federal guidance.
February 26, 2021 2:43 am
A regulatory agency that’s responsible for the water supply of more than 13 million people in four states has voted to permanently ban natural gas drilling and fracking in the watershed. The Delaware River Basin Commission first imposed a moratorium on gas development more than a decade ago. The agency says fracking poses too great of a risk to the water supply. Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania as well as a landowners group have filed lawsuits challenging the commission’s right to regulate gas development. The Delaware and its tributaries supply drinking water to Philadelphia and half the population of New York City.
February 25, 2021 4:26 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – Mr. Potato Head is no longer a mister. Hasbro, the company that makes the potato-shaped plastic toy, is giving the spud a gender-neutral new name: Potato Head. The change will appear on boxes this year. Toy makers have been updating their classic brands to appeal to kids today. Barbie has shed its blonde image and now comes in multiple skin tones and body shapes. Thomas the Tank Engine added more girl characters. And American Girl is now selling a boy doll. Hasbro said Mr. Potato Head, which has been around for about 70 years, needed a modern makeover.
February 25, 2021 9:26 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week but remained high by historical standards. Applications for benefits declined 111,000 from the previous week to a seasonally adjusted 730,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It is the lowest figure since late November. Before the virus erupted in the United States last March, weekly applications for unemployment benefits had never topped 700,000, even during the Great Recession of 2008-2009.
February 25, 2021 4:26 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Best Buy said Thursday that it laid off 5,000 full-time store workers earlier this month, even as the company’s sales soared during the pandemic as homebound people bought laptops, TVs and other gadgets. The company said it cut the jobs because more shoppers are choosing to buy online instead of coming inside its stores. Best Buy said it will replace the 5,000 full-time employees with 2,000 part-time workers. Best Buy’s workforce has shrunk in the last year after having to furlough workers when it closed stores during the pandemic. It currently has more than 100,000 workers, down by 21,000, or 17%, from the year before.
