October 29, 2021 4:11 am
NEW YORK (AP) – New York City is bracing for a worker shortage as its COVID-19 vaccine mandate looms and tens of thousands of municipal employees remain unvaccinated. Police officers, firefighters, garbage collectors and most other city workers face a 5 p.m. Friday deadline to show proof they’ve gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Workers who don’t comply will be put on unpaid leave starting Monday. Mayor Bill de Blasio held firm on the mandate as firefighters rallied Thursday outside his official residence, sanitation workers appeared to be skipping garbage pick ups in protest and the city’s largest police union went to an appeals court seeking a halt to the vaccine requirement.
October 29, 2021 4:10 am
SAN DIEGO (AP) – The U.S. Justice Department is in talks to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to each child and parent who was separated under a Trump-era practice of splitting families at the border. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the government was considering payments around $450,000 to each person affected. A person familiar with the talks tells The Associated Press that figure was under consideration but changed, though not dramatically. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. About 5,500 children were split from their parents under the practice.
October 29, 2021 4:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden says he has reached a “historic” framework with Democrats in Congress on his sweeping, though scaled-back domestic policy plan. But he still must nail down votes from a few skeptical fellow Democrats. Biden announced the framework at the White House after he traveled early Thursday to Capitol Hill to pitch House Democrats. The proposal is now $1.75 trillion and without a paid family leave program and other priorities. But it’s still robust with new health care, free-prekindergarten and climate change programs. He wanted a deal before he departed in the afternoon for global summits in Europe. But votes are still a ways off, as lawmakers push for more.
October 29, 2021 3:12 am
(WPXI) – The lawyer for the man accused of threatening to shoot up South Hills Village Mall said his client was suffering a mental health crisis, and was trying to warn of a shooting, not threaten one. Fifty-one-year-old Lance Crowley faced a magistrate judge Thursday, charged with making terroristic threats and public drunkenness. On Oct. 12, police from departments across the South Hills rushed to South Hills Village Mall after a Macy’s employee reported that Crawley had walked up to him carrying a large duffel bag, and said there was going to be a mass shooting. The incident prompted a mall lockdown. Defense attorney David Shrager said, “He believed he was assisting people and warning people of something that was going to happen. He believed that sincerely at that time. His intention was not to alarm, hurt or scare anyone.” The judge granted the continuance, but not before giving restrictions and a stern warning. Crowley is not to have any drugs or alcohol or step on mall property.
October 29, 2021 2:48 am
PennDOT says work on Wylie Avenue between Jefferson and Allison Avenue from Friday, October 29th at eight p.m. through Monday, November 1st at six p.m. has been cancelled due to rainy weather conditions. It has been tentatively scheduled for next weekend. Crews are continuing work on the Traffic Improvement Project on Route 18. Detours will be in place.
October 28, 2021 4:14 pm
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta, an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future. Experts point out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers, a document trove that has revealed how Facebook ignored or downplayed internal warnings of the negative and often harmful consequences its algorithms wreaked across the world. Zuckerberg insists that the metaverse – what you might think of as the internet rendered in three dimensions – represents the next technological horizon for humanity, and thinks a billion people could be connected to it within a decade. (Photo: AP)
October 28, 2021 9:27 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to a pandemic low last week, another sign that the job market and economy continue to recover from last year’s coronavirus recession. Jobless claims dropped by 10,000 to 281,000, lowest since mid-March 2020, the Labor Department said Thursday. Since topping 900,000 in early January, áweekly applications have steadily dropped, moving ever closer to pre-pandemic levels just above 200,000. In all, 2.2 million people were collecting unemployment checks the week of Oct. 16, down from 7.7 million a year earlier.
October 28, 2021 8:44 am
BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. — (WPXI) – A 12-year-old boy died Wednesday after collapsing during basketball practice at Chartiers Valley Middle School, officials said. The boy, identified by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office as Jayson Kidd, collapsed at about 5 p.m. during warmups. He was taken to a hospital, where he died just before 6:30 p.m. A message from Chartiers Valley Superintendent Johannah Vanatta said “the Chartiers Valley family is deeply saddened” by the tragedy. “I am confident that our community will rise in support. My thoughts and prayers are with the student’s family, friends, teammates, coaches, teachers, and all of those affected by this tragedy,” Vanatta’s message to families said. The Middle School Crisis Team will be available for students and staff on Thursday.
October 28, 2021 4:17 am
NEW YORK (AP) – A New York judge on Wednesday refused to pause a vaccine mandate set to take effect Friday for the city’s municipal workforce, denying a police union’s request for a temporarily restraining order. Judge Lizette Colon ruled that the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate can take effect as scheduled. She also ordered city officials to appear in court Nov. 12 to defend the requirement against a union lawsuit seeking to have it declared illegal. Also Wednesday, a federal appeals panel presiding in another mandate-related case seemed to be supportive of arguments that a New York state vaccine mandate for health care workers does not violate their Constitutional rights even though the mandate doesn’t provide religious exemptions.
October 28, 2021 4:10 am
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) – A tornado in western Louisiana damaged more than a dozen homes in a part of the state still struggling to recover from repeated weather disasters. The National Weather Service said in a preliminary report posted on Twitter that an EF-2 tornado caused “significant structural damage” to about a dozen homes when it touched down around midday Wednesday. Several other homes also received minor damage. Two people were injured. The tornado was part of a line of severe weather that moved from Texas across southern Louisiana and into Mississippi. Wednesday’s severe weather was the latest weather calamity to batter the Lake Charles region in a little over a year.
