July 5, 2021 4:35 pm
ROME (AP) – The Vatican says Pope Francis is in good condition, alert and breathing on his own after the pontiff underwent a three-hour operation that involved removing half of his colon. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Monday that the 84-year-old pope is expected to stay in Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic for about seven days, assuming no complications. The Vatican has given few details about the procedure. But an Italian newspaper reported, without citing sources, that surgeons began the operation laparoscopically but ended up having to operate with wider incisions after encountering unspecified complications. Monday’s brief medical bulletin mentioned no such complications. The Holy See said the pope needed the procedure because he has a narrowing of a portion of the large intestine.
July 5, 2021 4:25 am
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Authorities are investigating the cause of an accident that killed a boy on a popular boat ride at an Iowa amusement park, the second deadly incident on the ride in five years. Adventureland Park in Altoona, Iowa, says three other people are injured after the accident on the Raging River on Saturday night. The ride uses a conveyor belt to move rafts through faux river rapids. The injuries happened after a boat carrying six people flipped over. Altoona Police Department says 11-year-old Michael Jaramillo died Sunday of his injuries, and that another minor is in critical condition. A 68-year-old seasonal employee died on the same ride in 2016 after he became wedged between a boat and a concrete wall.
July 5, 2021 4:23 am
(AP) – If you’re planning to fly this summer, bring plenty of patience. Airlines are already struggling to keep up with the rising number of passengers. Travelers are posting pictures of crowded airports online, and they’re recounting horror stories about long delays, some of them because airlines are understaffed. The airline industry is quickly bouncing back after fighting for survival last year. They convinced tens of thousands of employees to quit last year, and now some of them don’t have enough pilots or flight attendants. The problems seem the worst at Southwest and American, but others have struggled too.
July 5, 2021 4:21 am
HAVANA (AP) – Tropical Storm Elsa is sweeping along Cuba’s southern coast, and forecasters expect it to make landfall on the island’s central shore by mid-afternoon Monday. Cuban officials evacuated 180,000 people as a precaution against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. Elsa is forecast to cross over Cuba by Monday night and then head for Florida, where a state of emergency has been declared in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County, where a high-rise condominium collapsed last week. Forecasters say the storm will weaken some while crossing over Cuba, but is likely to strengthen slightly as it moves toward Florida. Elsa was the Atlantic season’s first hurricane before weakening into a tropical storm.
July 5, 2021 4:20 am
SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) – Rescuers are searching through fresh rubble after the last of the collapsed Florida condo building was demolished. Officials said Monday that the demolition allowed crews into previously inaccessible places, including bedrooms where people were believed to be sleeping at the time of the disaster. Three more victims were discovered in the new pile, raising the death toll to 27 people. Another 118 people remain unaccounted for. The demolition raised the prospect that crews could increase both the pace of their work and the number of searchers at the site, although the chance of finding survivors 12 days after the June 24 collapse has diminished.
July 5, 2021 4:15 am
MCKEESPORT, Pa. (AP) – Authorities are investigating the death of a girl killed after being ejected from a vehicle that went over a western Pennsylvania hillside.Allegheny County police say the single-vehicle crash in McKeesport was reported shortly after 4 p.m. Saturday. County police say emergency responders found that a vehicle had gone over a hillside and a juvenile female passenger had been ejected from the vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene.Homicide detectives opened an investigation. Anyone with information was asked to call county police.
July 5, 2021 4:13 am
WEST YORK, Pa. (AP) – Authorities say improper disposal of fireworks sparked a blaze in a Pennsylvania duplex that killed one child and left another child and their two parents hospitalized. The York Daily Record reports that the blaze in West York was reported just before 11 p.m. Saturday. All four occupants were taken to York Hospital. The borough police chief, Matt Millsaps, says the two boys were taken to other hospitals, where one died Sunday morning. He says officials are trying to find out who was using the fireworks before the blaze.
July 5, 2021 4:11 am
MONESSEN, Pa. — (WPXI)- A firefighter who was injured after falling through the floor of a burning house in Monessen is recuperating at the hospital. According to the Charleroi Fire Department, Captain Matt Prentice is “doing well and in good spirits” after being injured in the incident on Park Way around 2:45 p.m. Saturday. “Please keep he, his wife Megan, and his two young boys in your thoughts and prayers as he begins his road of healing and recovery,” the department posted on Facebook. “We would like to thank everyone that has reached out to ask about Matt and offer their support.” Prentice was flown to UPMC Mercy with serious traumatic injuries after a house fire caused the floor to give out. According to the post, as firefighters were arriving on scene, a woman was standing out front screaming that her kids were trapped inside the home. While searching for the children, a floor joist broke, sending Prentice from the second floor down to the first floor. He was rescued from the building, and it was found that no children were inside the home. Two other firefighters also suffered heat-related issues and were taken by ambulance to Mon Valley Hospital. There is no word as to what initially started the fire. (PHOTO; Charleroi Fire Department Facebook)
July 5, 2021 3:38 am
ROANOKE, W.Va. (AP) – Authorities say a woman was killed and two others were injured in a tubing accident on Stonewall Jackson Lake in West Virginia. News outlets cited a statement from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources in reporting that a boat was pulling the women on a tube Sunday evening near the Vandalia boat ramp. The statement says it appears the driver of the boat swung the tube too close to a rock wall causing a collision. Officials say one woman died and two others were flown to a hospital with serious injuries.
July 4, 2021 7:44 am
ATLANTA (AP) — The young midshipman needed a date one evening while he was home from the U.S. Naval Academy, so his younger sister paired him with a family friend who already had a crush. Nearly eight decades later, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are still together in the same tiny town where they were born, grew up and had that first outing. In between, they’ve traveled the world as Naval officer and military spouse, American president and first lady, and finally as human rights and public health ambassadors. “It’s a full partnership,” the 39th president told The Associated Press during a joint interview ahead of the couple’s 75th wedding anniversary on July 7. It will be another milestone for the longest-married presidential couple in American history. At 96, Carter also is the longest-lived of the 45 men who’ve served as chief executive. Yet even having reached that pinnacle, Carter has said often since leaving the Oval Office in 1981 that the most important decision he ever made wasn’t as head of state, commander in chief or even executive officer of a nuclear submarine in the early years of the Cold War.
