October 21, 2021 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A memorial service for Colin L. Powell, the retired Army general and former secretary of state, will be held Nov. 5 at Washington National Cathedral. A spokeswoman, Peggy Cifrino, said Thursday there will be limited seating and the service will be by invitation only. Powell died Monday of complications from COVID-19 at age 84. He had been vaccinated, but a family spokeswoman said his immune system had been compromised by multiple myeloma, a blood cancer for which he had been undergoing treatment.
October 21, 2021 4:13 am
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang that Haitian police say kidnapped 17 members of a missionary group is seen in a new video saying he will kill them if he doesn’t get what he is demanding. The video posted Thursday on social media shows Wilson Joseph dressed in a blue suit, carrying a blue hat and wearing a large cross around his neck. He also threatens Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the chief of Haiti’s National Police while speaking in front of coffins holding several members of his gang who were recently killed. Authorities have said the gang is demanding $1 million per person in the kidnapped group, though it wasn’t immediately clear that included the five children among the 16 Americans and one Canadian.
October 21, 2021 4:09 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Bottlenecks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have spilled over into a neighborhood where cargo trucks are clogging residential streets.. Last week the White House allowed the ports complex to become a 24-hour operation in an effort to break the logjam of container ships at the ports and reduce shipping delays that have interrupted the global supply chain. Since then, residents of the Wilmington area just north of the ports have complained that trucks are backed up in streets at all hours. On Tuesday, a container rolled off a truck making a turn on a narrow street, pancaking a parked car. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday issued an executive order that aims to ease the backlog.
October 21, 2021 4:06 am
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) – The White House is floating new plans for ways to pay for President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion proposal for expanding social services and tackling climate change. The ideas include shelving a proposed big increase in corporate tax rates though also adding a new billionaires’ tax on the investment gains of the very richest Americans. The abrupt changes in suggested “pay-fors” on Wednesday came as Biden returned to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to highlight what he says are the middle class values in the plan. Democrats are racing to finish it up but Biden has faced resistance from key holdouts not on board with plans to get rid of Trump-era tax breaks to help pay for it.
October 21, 2021 4:04 am
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) – Maintenance and service union workers at a West Virginia hospital have given notice that they intend to strike if a new contract isn’t reached soon. News outlets report the Service Employees International Union voted Wednesday in favor of giving a 10-day strike notice to Cabell Huntington Hospital. Union officials said in a statement that “workers are fighting for quality care, safe staffing, wages that allow them to provide for their families and health insurance coverage.” Cabell Huntington Human Resources Director Molly Frick says the hospital will continue “good faith negotiations in order to reach a fair and equitable agreement.”
October 21, 2021 2:46 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The statewide mask order for Pennsylvania schools does not need to be enacted through the state’s system of passing governmental regulations, as state House Republicans had sought, a panel decided Thursday. The Joint Committee on Documents, an obscure entity that includes of members of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration, other executive branch officials and legislative leaders, voted 7-4 that Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam’s Aug. 31 order did not have to be enacted as a regulation. The committee meeting was required after the House Health Committee voted along party lines to request the review and asked the committee to take it up in a Sept. 14 letter from its Republican chair, Rep. Kathy Rapp of Warren County. The hearing came a day after a state court heard argument in a pair of lawsuits challenging the order, including one filed by Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, a Centre County Republican. The status of Beam’s order as a regulation is also an issue in those cases. Opponents of leaving Beam’s order in place as it is said they were concerned about the fact that the order does not have an end date and said they doubted existing law gives Beam the authority she exercised. The committee’s decision can be appealed to Commonwealth Court. House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, who voted to make it go through the regulatory process, said a decision about the appeal has not been made.
October 20, 2021 1:36 pm
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) – Authorities say human remains have been found near where items – believed to belong to Brian Laundrie – were discovered in a Florida wilderness park as the search continues for clues in the slaying of Gabby Petito. Attorney Steven Bertolino says Laundrie’s parents took part in the search Wednesday with the FBI and local police more than a month after Laundrie was reported missing. They found unspecified articles that belonged to Laundrie and law enforcement efforts were ramped up. Laundrie is a person of interest in the death of Petito, who was reported missing Sept. 11. Her body was found Sept. 19 on the edge of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park and the coroner concluded she was strangled.
October 20, 2021 12:23 pm
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – Nikolas Cruz has pleaded guilty to murder in the 2018 massacre that left 17 dead at a Parkland, Florida, high school. A jury will now decide whether he will be executed for one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings. Relatives of the victims who sat in the courtroom or watched the hearing via Zoom on Wednesday shook their heads or broke down in tears as Cruz entered his pleas and later apologized for his crimes. Given the case’s notoriety, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer plans to screen thousands of prospective jurors for the death penalty trial. Jury selection is scheduled to begin in January.
October 20, 2021 8:07 am
One person was flown by medical helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital following an accident Wednesday morning in Beallsville. Washington County 9-1-1 dispatchers say it happened just before 6 a.m. near the intersection of Route 40 (Main St.) and Maiden Street. Dispatch says they received conflicting, initial reports; one claimed that it was a multi-vehicle accident with a person laying on the ground but another claimed it was a vehicle versus a pedestrian. State Police Belle Vernon are investigating but are not releasing any other details at this time.
October 20, 2021 4:18 am
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Negotiations are stretching into a fourth day seeking the return of 17 members of a U.S.-based missionary group kidnapped over the weekend in Haiti by a gang that is demanding $1 million ransom per person. The group includes five children whose ages range from 8 months to 15 years, but a top Haitian official said Tuesday that authorities are not clear whether the ransom amount includes them. Sixteen of the abductees are Americans and one Canadian. The abduction is one of at least 119 kidnappings recorded in Haiti for the first half of October, according to the Center of Analysis and Research of Human Rights, a local nonprofit group. It says a Haitian driver was abducted along with the missionaries.
