January 22, 2022 9:38 am
MOSCOW (AP) – With tens of thousands of Russian troops positioned near Ukraine, the Kremlin has kept the U.S. and its allies guessing about its next moves in the worst security crisis to emerge between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. Amid fears of an imminent attack on Ukraine, Russia has further upped the ante by announcing more military drills in the region. It also has refused to rule out the possibility of military deployments to the Caribbean, and President Vladimir Putin has reached out to leaders opposed to the West. The muscle flexing reflects a bold attempt by the Kremlin to halt decades of NATO expansion. Russia wants guarantees the alliance won’t embrace Ukraine or other former Soviet nations.
January 22, 2022 9:34 am
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – The sweeping “zero-tolerance” policies that China has employed to protect its people and economy from COVID-19 may, paradoxically, make it harder for the country to exit the pandemic. Most experts say the coronavirus isn’t going away and believe it could eventually become, like the flu, a persistent but generally manageable threat if enough people gain immunity through infections and vaccines. But China’s uncompromising approach means most of its people have never been exposed to the virus. At the same time, the effectiveness of its vaccines against omicron has been called into question.
January 22, 2022 9:32 am
BROOKHAVEN, Ga. (AP) – Police in the Atlanta area say a stray bullet struck and killed an English astrophysicist while he was inside an apartment. Brookhaven police identified the man Thursday as 31-year-old Matthew Willson of Chertsey, Surrey, England. Officers say Willson was killed while laying in bed early Sunday morning when a bullet pierced the wall of the apartment that he was staying in. He was taken to a hospital with a bullet wound to the head and later pronounced dead. Police say the shooting was the result of people firing guns randomly. No arrests have been announced.
January 22, 2022 9:29 am
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris returned to her home state during challenging times for the White House to highlight funding for federal wildfire programs. The former California senator was in San Bernardino on Friday. She toured wildfire damage by helicopter and spotlighted federal dollars directed to disaster relief – including $600 million from the Forest Service for California. Harris’ visit comes at a time when President Joe Biden’s approval rating is sliding, Democrats are at risk of losing control of the House and Senate in the 2022 midterms and Harris continues to struggle to define her role in the administration.
January 22, 2022 9:26 am
BIG SUR, Calif. (AP) – A wildfire in coastal California has forced evacuations in the Big Sur area. News outlets report Monterey County officials ordered the evacuations late Friday after the wildfire started in the Palo Colorado canyon and grew to more than 250 acres. The wildfire is being called the Colorado Fire. Officials have shut down Highway 1 in both directions from Andrew Molera State Park to Carmel-By-The-Sea. The American Red Cross set up a shelter at a middle school. A wind advisory had been issued in the Bay Area for Friday night through Saturday morning, though meteorologists said strong winds were most likely in higher elevations.
January 22, 2022 4:04 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania has set another annual record for gambling revenue in the era of online gambling and sports betting. State regulators say casinos and other operators won more than $4.7 billion from gamblers in calendar year 2021 in one of the nation’s largest commercial casino states. The rebound continues after pandemic-related shutdowns sapped casino revenue in 2020. The more than $4.7 billion came from 16 operating casinos, including three new mini-casinos in 2021, as well as fantasy sports operators and truck stops. That beat the $3.9 billion recorded in fiscal year 2021, as well as the previous calendar year high of $3.4 billion, two years ago.
January 22, 2022 4:04 am
A dangerous cold snap will continue throughout the weekend and temperatures will be at zero degrees or below on Saturday morning. Temperatures will climb into the 20’s but winds will make it feel like it is still near zero. This cold air is dangerous. It can cause frostbite to uncovered skin and it may cause unprotected pipes to burst. Sunday will likely bring snow showers in the afternoon but temperatures will remain in the 20s. Monday will bring more snow but temperatures will climb into the low 30s.
January 22, 2022 3:52 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s payrolls are continuing to grow, but a persistent worker shortage is still keeping labor markets tight. The state Department of Labor and Industry said Friday that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of a percentage point to 5.4% in December. The national rate was 3.9% in December. In a survey of households, the labor force shrank for the seventh straight month, reflecting a worker shortage that some economists attribute partly to an increase in people who have recently gone to work for themselves. In a separate survey of employers, payrolls in Pennsylvania grew in December by more than 14,000, driven primarily by hiring in trucking and warehousing.
January 21, 2022 10:41 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Louie Anderson, whose four-decade career as a comedian and actor included his unlikely and Emmy-winning performance as mom to twin adult sons in the TV series “Baskets,” has died at age 68. Anderson’s publicist Glenn Schwartz says the comedian died Friday in Las Vegas. The publicist had said earlier this week that Anderson was hospitalized for a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He’d been a familiar face elsewhere on TV, including as host of a revival of the game show “Family Feud” from 1999 to 2002, and on comedy specials and in frequent late-night talk show appearances.
January 21, 2022 8:47 am
GENEVA (AP) – The United States and Russia sought to lower the temperature in a heated standoff over Ukraine, even as they said no breakthrough was imminent amid fears of a possible Russian invasion. Armed with seemingly intractable and diametrically opposed demands, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva at what the American said was a “critical moment.” With an estimated 100,000 Russian troops massed near Ukraine, many fear Moscow is preparing an invasion although Russia denies that. The U.S. and its allies are scrambling to present a united front to prevent that or coordinate a tough response if they can’t.
