December 27, 2021 4:10 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – At least one food court vendor has announced that it is pulling out of the annual Pennsylvania Farm Show citing concerns about the health of farmers and volunteers amid a rise in COVID-19 infection rates. PennLive.com reports that PennAg Industries Association said in a statement to members that it will not host its food court booth, one of the largest at the event. PennAg Industries cited anticipated spikes in illness, shortages of staff and space at medical facilities, and the enclosed Farm Show environment. The eight-day Farm Show begins Jan. 7 and celebrates the state’s agriculture industry. The in-person event was canceled in 2021.
December 27, 2021 4:08 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania is undertaking a comprehensive examination of the stories told by its 2,500 roadside historical markers. The state has undertaken a review of the markers, prompted in part by the 2017 racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s a process that’s found factual errors, inadequate historical context and inappropriate references. So far the state has removed two markers, revised two and ordered new text for two others. Disputes about how historical markers should be worded – or whether they should exist at all – have divided communities across the country in recent years. In Pennsylvania, the new markers getting approved are increasingly telling the stories of previously underrepresented people and groups.
December 26, 2021 7:55 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden marked his first Christmas in office by making calls to military service members stationed around the world, offering them holiday wishes and gratitude for their service and sacrifice for the nation. Joined by his wife, Jill, and their new puppy, Commander, the president on Saturday spoke via video to service members representing the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard, stationed at bases in Qatar, Romania, Bahrain and the U.S. Speaking from a studio set up at the White House, Biden told them they’re “the solid steel spine of the nation,” and emphasized the “truly sacred obligation” the nation has to care for soldiers and their families. Jill Biden expressed empathy for the difficulties their families experience spending the holidays away from their loved ones, noting that the Bidens experienced the same when their son Beau, who served as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, was deployed to Iraq.
December 26, 2021 7:53 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Airlines continued to cancel hundreds of flights Saturday because of staffing issues tied to COVID-19, disrupting holiday celebrations during one of the busiest travel times of the year. FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, noted nearly 1,000 canceled flights entering, leaving or inside the U.S. Saturday, up from 690 flights scrapped on Friday. Over 250 more flights were already canceled for Sunday. FlightAware does not say why flights are canceled. Delta, United and JetBlue had all said Friday that the omicron variant was causing staffing problems leading to flight cancellations. United spokesperson Maddie King said staffing shortages were still causing cancellations and it was unclear when normal operations would return. “This was unexpected,” she said of omicron’s impact on staffing. Delta and JetBlue did not respond to questions Saturday.
December 26, 2021 7:50 am
There was no holiday cheer for Powerball players on Christmas night. No one matched five numbers and Powerball on Saturday, meaning that Monday’s jackpot will be worth $416 million. The numbers drawn Saturday night were 27-29-45-55-58 and the Powerball number was 02, lottery officials said. According to Powerball officials, jackpot-winning numbers have not been selected in the past 35 drawings. No one has won a Powerball jackpot since Oct. 4, when one player won $699.8 million. That was Powerball’s fifth-largest and the seventh-largest for any lottery in the United States. Meanwhile, the largest Powerball jackpot to date was the $1.586 billion payout split by three winners in 2016, CNN reported. If somebody wins Monday night’s jackpot, they can take the full amount in an annuity or take a lump sum option of $299.5 million before taxes. Powerball is played in 44 states, according to lottery officials. The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292 million.
December 26, 2021 7:48 am
PITTSBURGH (WPXI)— Around 5:00 p.m. on December 25, police officers responded to a report of a person shot on the 5500 block of Avondale Place in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood. Upon arrival, officers found a male in the roadway with what looked like several gunshot wounds. Medics arrived and began treatment before transporting the victim to the hospital in critical condition. There are no arrests at this time and the investigation is ongoing.
December 26, 2021 1:56 am
SUNBURY, Pa. (AP) — The state of volunteer firefighting is in a crisis. That is the assessment of Acting Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner Thomas Cook and multiple fire officials in the state and nation. The current model of volunteer firefighting in Pennsylvania is based on the long-standing tradition going back to the 1700s when Ben Franklin founded the first volunteer department in Philadelphia. That model has continued virtually unchanged since that time, said Cook. The issues are complex. Cook and other fire leaders said they range from aversion to change to societal transformations of the family unit where both spouses are now working to increasing extracurricular activities for children. It means fewer people are coming out to fight fires, which leads to second and third alarms being called not due to the severity of the incident but to the lack of manpower. The National Volunteer Fire Council reported in 2018 that volunteers comprise 67 percent of firefighters in the United States. Of the total estimated 1,115,000 firefighters across the country, 745,000 are volunteers. The number of volunteer firefighters in the U.S. reached a nearly 40-year low in 2017 with 682,600 but rose again in 2018 with 745,000. At the same time, call volume has tripled in the last 30 years, due in large part to the increase in emergency medical calls, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council. In Pennsylvania, the number of firefighters is estimated to be between 36,000 and 38,000. The state does not require fire departments to report the number of volunteers. The number of volunteer firefighters is an estimated 30,000. In 1975, that number was 360,000, according to The National Volunteer Fire Council and the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
December 25, 2021 8:04 am
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis prayed Saturday for an end to the coronavirus pandemic, using his Christmas Day address to urge health care for all, vaccines for the poor and for dialogue to prevail in resolving the world’s conflicts. Amid a record-setting rise in COVID-19 cases in Italy this week, only a few thousand people flocked to a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square for Francis’ annual “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the city and the world”) Christmas address. Normally, the square would be packed with tens of thousands of holiday well-wishers. At least they could gather this year. Italy’s 2020 holiday lockdown forced Francis to deliver a televised address from inside the Apostolic Palace to prevent crowds from forming in the square. Although Italy this week counted more than 50,000 cases in a single day for the first time, the government has not ordered another lockdown. The pope’s Christmas Day speech gives him an opportunity to draw a global audience’s attention to conflicts big and small. This year was no different. Francis lamented ongoing conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, newly flaring tensions in Ukraine and Ethiopia, and an “unprecedented crisis” in Lebanon.
December 25, 2021 8:03 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Airlines canceled hundreds of flights as the omicron variant jumbled schedules and drew down staffing levels at some carriers during the busy holiday travel season. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines together canceled more than 600 flights on Friday and Saturday. As of early evening Friday, Delta canceled had 149 flights on Friday and 188 for Christmas Day, according to FlightAware. (Other factors, such as weather, are also causing cancellations.) United called off 189 flights on Friday, about 10% of its schedule, and 140 on Saturday. Planned cancellations continued into Sunday. Not all airlines said COVID was disrupting their travel schedules. American Airlines said it had “nothing to report,” while Southwest Airlines said “things are running smoothly.” JetBlue, which FlightAware said had canceled nearly 150 flights over Friday and Saturday, did not respond to a request for comment. Flight delays and cancellations tied to staffing shortages have been a regular problem for the U.S. airline industry this year. Airlines encouraged workers to quit in 2020, when air travel collapsed, and were caught short-staffed this year as travel recovered.
December 25, 2021 8:00 am
The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America’s northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky. The $10 billion observatory hurtled toward its destination 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos. First, the telescope’s enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket’s nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory won’t be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang. (Photo: AP)
