November 12, 2021 4:17 am
The contagious delta variant is driving up COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Mountain West and fueling disruptive outbreaks in the North. It’s a worrisome sign of what could be ahead this winter in the U.S. Meanwhile, trends are improving in Florida, Texas and other Southern states that bore the worst of the summer surge. But it’s clear that delta isn’t done with the United States. COVID-19 is moving north and west for the winter as people head indoors, close their windows and breathe stagnant air. A Vermont college recently suspended social gatherings after a spike in cases tied to Halloween parties. Hospitals in New Mexico and Colorado are overwhelmed.
November 12, 2021 4:15 am
HAMPTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) – State police say a man who traveled to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when a small plane crashed in northern New Jersey. One-time space tourist Glen de Vries, of New York City, and Thomas Fischer, of Hopatcong, were aboard the plane that went down Thursday in a wooded area. It isn’t clear who was the pilot. De Vries took a 10-minute flight to the edge of space Oct. 13 aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft. Blue Origin tweeted of de Vries that “he brought so much life and energy to the entire Blue Origin team and to his fellow crewmates.” (Photo courtesy of cmu.edu)
November 12, 2021 4:11 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – An application to overturn a pause in the state’s school mask mandate court proceedings was filed late Thursday afternoon. Commonwealth Court Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon ruled that Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam did not have the authority to enact such a requirement and that it was “void and unenforceable.” That meant the mask mandate was dead. Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration immediately filed an appeal, which put everything on pause. That meant the mask mandate was still in place. Confirmed by Attorney Thomas King III, Thursday’s application seeks to revert back to Cannon’s filing, which would overturn the mask requirement. “Within mere hours of this Court’s order, the Acting Secretary appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with complete disregard to the ongoing violation of Pennsylvania law,” the filing said. “The Masking Order has been declared to be illegal and void; and, thus, robs Petitioners of the ability to make decisions for themselves.”
November 12, 2021 4:05 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Details on the 18 lawyers who applied for an appointment to a Commonwealth Court vacancy in 2019 are in the hands of a news organization this past week after it won a two-year legal battle against Gov. Tom Wolf. LNP, The Caucus and Lancaster Online reported Wednesday that Wolf’s office released documents about the vacancy to which the Democratic governor appointed a former state Senate Republican lawyer. Wolf had tried to keep the judicial applicants’ names a secret. Crompton ran for a full 10-year term on the court in last week’s election and is trailing Democrat Lori Dumas, a Philadelphia judge, in unofficial results. State officials are directing a recount.
November 12, 2021 3:48 am
State Representative Jason Ortitay held a press conference to announce that he is fully supporting a law suit being filed by the townships of South Fayette and Collier and the Borough of Bridgeville in an effort to halt the proposed tolling of the bridge on Interstate 79 near the Bridgeville exit. Ortitay says that the procedures spelled out in Act 88 of 2012 to properly impose those tolls were not followed. State Senator Devlin Robinson states that the tolls will be in place in 2023, several years before construction on the bridge begins and there is no plan to stop collecting tolls. South Fayette Township Commissioner President Gwen Rodi says that the tolls would be an extra financial burden on citizens stating that the round trip fee for one car into Pittsburgh would be $1000 per year. She also states that those tolls could possibly kill an already growing financial boom to the township. The law suit was filed in Commonwealth Court Thursday morning.
November 11, 2021 5:29 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the release of White House records sought by a U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, granting – for now – a request from former President Donald Trump. The administrative injunction issued Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit effectively bars until the end of this month the release of records that were to be turned over Friday. The appeals court set oral arguments in the case for Nov. 30. The case is likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
November 11, 2021 12:14 pm
(WPXI) – The Piano Man, Billy Joel, will return to PNC Park next summer. It’s been six years since Joel first put on a show at the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. His upcoming concert will take place on Aug. 11, 2022. Last week, the 72-year-old singer-songwriter, who released his last album of new songs in 1993, played his first monthly residency show at Madison Square Garden in his native New York since Feb. 20, 2020. Tickets will go on sale on Nov. 19th at 10 a.m. through LiveNation.com.
November 11, 2021 4:11 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The head of lighting on the film “Rust” has sued over Alec Baldwin’s fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the Western. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles court Wednesday alleges widespread negligence that Serge Svetnoy says caused him “severe emotional distress” that will haunt him forever. The lawsuit names nearly two dozen defendants including Baldwin, the assistant director who handed him the gun, and the armorer who was in charge of weapons on the set. The defendants didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
November 11, 2021 4:09 am
HOUSTON (AP) – A 22-year-old college senior who was critically injured at the Astroworld festival in Houston has died. Attorney James Lassiter says Bharti Shahani died Wednesday. Her family says Shahani was studying electronics systems engineering at Texas A&M University and had been set to graduate next spring. She is the 9th person to die after festival goers rushed the stage Friday night when headliner Travis Scott took to the stage. Hundreds of others were injured in the melee. A criminal investigation into the deaths at Astroworld is underway.
November 11, 2021 4:08 am
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – Kyle Rittenhouse testified Wednesday that he was under attack when he shot three men during a turbulent night of street protests in Kenosha. Rittenhouse said he didn’t do anything wrong and was defending himself. His testimony was interrupted at one point by an angry exchange during which Rittenhouse’s attorneys asked for a mistrial over what they argued were “out-of-bounds” questions asked of Rittenhouse by the chief prosecutor. The judge did not immediately rule on the request. The startling turn came after Rittenhouse, in a high-stakes gamble, took the stand and testified that he was under attack when he shot three men during a night of turbulent protests in Kenosha. The 18-year-old said: “I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself.”
