September 22, 2021 4:18 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The House has approved legislation to fund the government, suspend its borrowing limit and provide federal disaster and refugee aid. Republicans in the Senate are expected to block the measure, however, as Congress works to avoid a federal shutdown at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The GOP senators are insisting that Democrats go it alone when it comes to suspending the nation’s borrowing limit to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its debt. The measure includes $28.6 billion in disaster relief and $6.3 billion to support Afghanistan evacuees.
September 22, 2021 3:22 am
The search for a missing South Strabane Township man is intensifying. Sandra Duncan is the sister-in-law of 65-year-old John Ruffing who was last seen around three o’clock on Saturday afternoon at his home in Windsor Highlands. Duncan tells WJPA News that the family, along with police, have organized a Citizens Search team. Duncan says every day that her brother-in-law is missing becomes more crucial because of his medication needs. Duncan says he is on at least ten medications for various health issues, one of them being a blood thinner. She says if he is off of that medication for very long, he’ll begin developing blood clots. Ruffing, a Vietnam War veteran recently suffered a stroke and is believed to be traveling on foot, is described as being 5’9 and weighing about 200 pounds and was last seen wearing a red t-shirt with the phrase “Colonial Williamsburg,” tan shorts and black boots. Police are asking anyone with information to contact them.
September 22, 2021 2:46 am
HERSHEY, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s top health official says the state’s network of vaccine providers is ready to deliver booster shots of the coronavirus vaccine as soon as federal authorities sign off. The state says more than 2,000 providers have COVID-19 vaccine inventory. Federal authorities are considering a recommendation to give extra vaccine doses to people aged 65 or older and those who are at heightened risk from COVID-19. Pennsylvania’s acting health secretary, Alison Beam, says the state’s providers are “well prepared to start administering booster shoots.” Beam ordered providers to offer online vaccination appointments as well as live telephone support and serve walk-ins where possible.
September 21, 2021 10:43 am
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – President Joe Biden used his first address before the U.N. General Assembly to declare that the world stands and at an “inflection point in history” and that the world must act with haste to move quickly and cooperatively to address the festering issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and human rights abuses. With China tensions growing, he also declared America “is not seeking a new Cold War.” The president noted his decision to end America’s longest war, in Afghanistan, last month and set the table for his administration to shift the U.S. attention to intensive diplomacy with no shortage of crises facing the globe.
September 21, 2021 7:25 am
LONDON (AP) – Johnson & Johnson released data showing that a booster dose to its one-shot coronavirus vaccine provides a strong immune response months after people receive a first dose. The study’s results haven’t yet been peer-reviewed. J&J said in a statement Tuesday that it ran two early studies in people previously given its vaccine and found that a second dose produced an increased antibody response in adults from age 18 to 55.
September 21, 2021 4:16 am
DALLAS (AP) – A San Antonio doctor who said he performed an abortion in defiance of a new Texas law has been sued by two people seeking to test the legality of the state’s near-total ban on the procedure. Former attorneys in Arkansas and Illinois filed lawsuits Monday against Dr. Alan Braid, who in a weekend Washington Post opinion column became the first Texas abortion provider to publicly reveal he violated the law that took effect on Sept. 1. The law says the restriction can only be enforced through private lawsuits. Oscar Stilley of Cedarville, Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border, is a former lawyer who said he lost his law license after being convicted of tax fraud in 2010. Stilley said he is not opposed to abortion but sued to force a court review of Texas’ anti-abortion law.
September 21, 2021 4:14 am
TORONTO (AP) – Canadians have given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in parliamentary elections. But his gamble to win the majority of seats in Monday’s voting failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago. The 49-year-old Trudeau channeled the star power of his father, the Liberal icon and late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when he first won election in 2015 and now has led his party to the top finish in two elections since. Trudeau bet Canadians didn’t want a Conservative government during a pandemic. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats – one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons.
September 21, 2021 4:12 am
NORTH PORT, Fla. (AP) – The FBI says a county coroner has confirmed that human remains found in remote northern Wyoming along the border of Grand Teton National Park are those of 22-year-old Gabby Petito. Her body was discovered at a Wyoming national park over the weekend, months after the pair set out on a cross-country road trip. Officials said Tuesday that the coroner determined her manner of death was homicide, but did not disclose a cause of death pending final autopsy results. Police in North Port, Florida, say investigators have returned to a swampy preserve area to look for 23-year-old Brian Laundrie.
September 21, 2021 4:11 am
DEL RIO, Texas (AP) – The options remaining for thousands of Haitian migrants straddling the Mexico-Texas border are narrowing. The United States government is ramping up to an expected six expulsion flights to Haiti Tuesday and Mexico has begun busing some away from the border. U.S. officials say more than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants have been removed from an encampment around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. They also defended a strong response that included immediately sending migrants back to their impoverished Caribbean country and faced criticism for the use of horse patrols to stop them from entering the town.
September 21, 2021 4:09 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The fate of a constitutional amendment for victims’ rights that Pennsylvania voters apparently approved overwhelmingly nearly two years ago is about to go before the state’s highest court. The state Supreme Court justices will hear oral argument in Harrisburg Tuesday regarding whether the so-called Marsy’s Law amendment should have been split into more than just one ballot question. The court is considering whether to uphold a divided decision in January by Commonwealth Court. The lower court ruled the referendum ran afoul of a Pennsylvania Constitution provision that requires amendments to address a single subject only. The amendment has not gone into effect.
