August 25, 2021 4:19 am
LONDON (AP) – Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has died at the age of 80. Publicist Bernard Doherty said Tuesday that Watts “passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.” The self-effacing and unshakeable drummer helped anchor one of rock’s greatest rhythm sections for more than half a century and used his “day job” to support his enduring love of jazz. Watts had announced he would not tour with the Stones in 2021 because of an undefined health issue. He joined the Stones early in 1963 and ranked just behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the group’s longest lasting and most essential member.
August 25, 2021 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Democratic leaders have compromised with moderates and muscled President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle. Biden praised Tuesday’s 220-to-212 vote as a step toward “truly investing in the American people.” A band of moderate lawmakers had been threatening to withhold their support for the $3.5 trillion plan. They were demanding the House first approve a $1 trillion public works package that’s already passed the Senate. House leaders are offering them a Sept. 27 date for a vote on the bipartisan bill as a compromise. Consideration of the broader Biden package could come this fall.
August 25, 2021 4:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court says the Biden administration likely violated federal law in trying to end a Trump-era program that forces people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S. With three liberal justices in dissent, the high court refused Tuesday to block a lower court ruling ordering the administration to reinstate the program informally known as Remain in Mexico. It’s not clear how many people will be affected and how quickly. Under the lower court ruling, the administration must make a “good faith effort” to restart the program. There also is nothing preventing the administration from trying again to end the program.
August 25, 2021 4:13 am
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) – Thousands of firefighters are trying to box in a California wildfire that’s advancing toward Lake Tahoe and has shrouded the popular vacation spot with a pall of ash and yellow smoke. The Caldor Fire is less than 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of the lake that straddles the California-Nevada state line. People who hoped to boat, swim or gamble are finding themselves looking at thick haze instead of scenery. The Caldor Fire has destroyed at least 455 homes since it began Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada and it’s still threatening more than 17,000 structures. Fire officials say it’s the nation’s top priority for fire resources.
August 25, 2021 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Democrats have passed legislation that would strengthen a landmark civil rights-era voting law weakened by the Supreme Court over the past decade. It’s a step party leaders are touting as progress in their quest to turn back voting restrictions advanced in Republican-led states. But the bill passed Tuesday on a 219-212 vote faces dim prospects in the Senate, where they do not have enough votes to overcome opposition from Republicans, who have excoriated it as “unnecessary” and a “power grab.” That puts Democrats right back where they started, with slim chances of passing any voting legislation in time for 2022 midterm elections.
August 25, 2021 4:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Sharply divided leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies have clashed over U.S. President Joe Biden’s insistence on withdrawing from Afghanistan by August 31 in the face of the Taliban takeover. In a partial show of unity, G-7 leaders agreed on conditions for recognizing and dealing with a future Taliban-led Afghan government, but there was palpable disappointment Biden could not be persuaded to extend the U.S. operation at the Kabul airport so Americans, Europeans, other third-country nationals and all at-risk Afghans can be evacuated.
August 25, 2021 4:05 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Inmates in Pennsylvania’s state prisons will be counted in their home districts and not where their prisons are located after a divided vote by the five-member panel redrawing legislative district maps this year. The Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission voted 3-to-2 on Tuesday for the policy shift that had been introduced by House Minority Leader Joanna McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat. The House and Senate Republican leaders voted no, while McClinton was joined by the Senate Democratic floor leader and by the commission’s chair, former University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg.
August 25, 2021 4:04 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is ending a lawsuit against IBM after suing the company four years ago and accusing it of failing to deliver on a contract to produce an updated system for processing unemployment compensation claims. The Department of Labor and Industry refused to reveal any terms Tuesday other than saying that IBM “acknowledged no liability or wrongdoing.” The department only filed a one-sentence discontinuance in court. The lawsuit said the technology giant was paid $170 million on a 2006 contract but had delivered a failed project by the time the state let the contract expire in 2013. IBM had said the state’s claims had no merit.
August 25, 2021 4:02 am
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) – A woman who pleaded guilty to coughing and spitting on food at a supermarket in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic has been sentenced to at least a year in jail. Thirty-seven-year-old Margaret Ann Cirko pleaded guilty to a felony count of making bomb threats. She was sentenced Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Authorities say Cirko entered a Gerrity’s Supermarket near Wilkes-Barre, on March 25, 2020, and purposely coughed on fresh produce and other merchandise while yelling that she had the virus. The supermarket had to throw out more than $35,000 worth of merchandise. Cirko tested negative for COVID-19, according to her attorney.
August 25, 2021 4:00 am
North Strabane residents rejoiced after a park removal project was unanimously rejected at the township’s board of supervisors meeting on Tuesday. The project would rebrand Borland Manor park’s status as a vacant lot rather than recreational space, according to township manager Andrew L. Walz. “Because the property was deeded to the township back in the ‘40s as a recreation space, to remove that recreation space, the solicitor would’ve had to have authorization from supervisors to go to the courts and have that recreation removed,” says Walz. Once removed from the deed, that property would be sold off by the township. Frustrated residents urged the board to instead keep the park space. Resident Dave Banish said the property, which is mostly green space, is still a “gold park” that needs improved equipment instead. A neighboring resident worried that her property value would decrease if the lot were sold. The board of supervisors afterwards voted to reject the removal process, putting the township “back at square one”, according to Walz. “It either stays the way it is or there’s some planning to see what might be capable of putting into this one and a half acre park,” says Walz. Resident Kristy Scarmazzi says she’s grateful that the park can stay. “The kids need a nice, safe, green space to play, to grow, and to burn off energy- and there’s nowhere close by- the road is too busy for the kids to play in the front yard,” says Scarmazzi. Brain Virgin says the board’s denial to call it a vacant lot is a “good start,” but he hopes to see the township improve it. “I’d like to see the park get restored to the little jewel it once was in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” says Virgin.
