January 3, 2022 10:08 am
The U.S. is expanding COVID-19 boosters as it confronts the omicron surge. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday allowed extra Pfizer shots for children as young as 12. Boosters already are recommended for everyone 16 and older, and the FDA says they’re also warranted for 12- to 15-year-olds. The FDA also said everyone eligible for a booster can get one as early as five months after their last dose rather than six months. But the move, coming as classes restart after the holidays, isn’t the final step. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must decide whether to recommend boosters for the younger teens.
January 3, 2022 4:25 am
MONTREAL, Quebec (AP) – Quebec is proceeding with the first of three planned closures of non-essential retail stores as the provincial government tried to curb a new wave of COVID-19 driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant. Hospitals and health-care resources in Quebec and Canada’s remote northern communities are also being stretched as case numbers explode. Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced last week that the bulk of the province’s stores would be closed for the next three Sundays, with the exception of pharmacies, convenience stores and gas stations. Charles Milliard, president of the Quebec Federation of Chambers of Commerce, urged the government to lift the measures as soon as possible.
January 3, 2022 4:24 am
A winter storm packing heavy snow is expected to roll into the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and central Maryland overnight, bringing at least 3 to 7 inches of snow through Monday afternoon. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the area from 1 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST Monday. Wind gusts of up to 35 mph were forecast and travel was expected to be very difficult because of the hazardous conditions. Snow began falling Sunday night in parts of Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. In Washington, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced that federal offices in the area would be closed on Monday. Emergency employees and telework employees would continue to work.
January 3, 2022 4:23 am
LOUISVILLE, Colo. (AP) – Search teams looked for two missing people in the smoldering debris from a massive Colorado wildfire while people who escaped the flames sorted through what was left. Investigators were still trying to determine what caused flames to tear through at least 9.4 square miles, leaving nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings destroyed in suburbs between Denver and Boulder. The inferno broke out Thursday, unusually late in the year following an extremely dry fall and amid a winter nearly devoid of snow. Experts say those conditions, along with high winds, helped the fire spread. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle says authorities are pursuing a number of tips. The sheriff refused to give details Sunday, including whether he thought the fire was arson.
January 3, 2022 4:21 am
Wintry weather combined with the pandemic to frustrate air travelers whose return flights home from the holidays were canceled or delayed in the first days of the new year. The tracking service FlightAware said more than 2,600 U.S. flights and more than 4,400 worldwide were grounded Sunday. That followed Saturday’s mass cancellations of more than 2,700 U.S. flights, and more than 4,700 worldwide. Saturday’s single-day U.S. toll of grounded flights was the highest since just before Christmas, when airlines began blaming staffing shortages on increasing COVID-19 infections among crews.
January 3, 2022 4:18 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – Pittsburgh Public Schools were set to return from winter break Monday but the district is already feeling the impacts of the holiday season COVID-19 surge. “With omicron, it’s inevitable that we’re going to see cases in the school,” said infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja. The district intended to bring all students back to the classroom, sending a notice to parents reiterating that universal indoor mask-wearing will still be mandated as well as distancing and other mitigation efforts. But staffing issues caused PPS to reverse course at a dozen schools. The district sent a second notice to impacted parents Sunday night, saying that “due to a staffing shortage caused by positive cases of COVID-19, COVID-related quarantines, and other staff-related absences, students and staff will transition to live streaming educational learning and instruction.” According to PPS, virtual learning is only scheduled for Monday.
January 3, 2022 4:14 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Scientists have released a size and mass estimate of an exploding meteor believed to have caused a loud boom and shaking of the ground across portions of suburban Pittsburgh on New Year’s Day. NASA’s Meteor Watch social media site says a nearby infrasound station registered the blast wave from the meteor as it broke apart – releasing energy equivalent to about 30 tons of TNT. Officials said a “reasonable assumption” of the speed of the meteor at about 45,000 miles per hour would allow a “ballpark” estimate of its size as about a yard in diameter with a mass close to half a ton.
January 3, 2022 4:11 am
ROSTRAVER, Pa. — (WPXI) – A 25-year-old man was arrested after police said he shot twice into a woman’s car and killed her hours into the new year. Anthony Montel Hairston was charged with first-degree murder, gun charges and driving with a suspended license. Investigators said Hairston was following closely behind 59-year-old Holly Vandella’s vehicle as she drove home after spending New Year’s Eve with her family. Police said Hairston passed her before shooting twice into her vehicle. Officials said Vandella was hit once and died at the scene. Hairston was taken to the Westmoreland County Prison and his bail was denied.
January 3, 2022 4:09 am
WASHINGTON CO. — (WPXI) – A body was found in the Monongahela River in Washington County on Sunday morning, according to the Washington County Coroner’s Office. The coroner’s office said a homeowner in the 500 block of 1st Avenue, Borough of Elco, Pennsylvania, called 911 at 10:36 a.m. to report a person unresponsive in the river. The body has been identified as 69 year old Joseph Passafiume of California Borough. The body was entangled in debris about eight feet off the river bank. The Roscoe fire department responded and brought the body to the river bank. Pennsylvania State Police are investigating.
January 2, 2022 8:12 am
SUPERIOR, Colo. (AP) — Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked a massive fire in a suburban area near Denver that burned neighborhoods to the ground and destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings. Three people are missing following the inferno that broke out Thursday. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said Saturday authorities were pursuing a number of tips and had executed a search warrant at “one particular location.” He declined to give details. A sheriff’s official who declined to provide his name confirmed one property was under investigation in Boulder County’s Marshall Mesa area, a region of open grassland about 2 miles ( 3.2 kilometers) west of Superior. A National Guard Humvee blocked access to the property, which was only one of several under investigation, the official said. Utility officials found no downed power lines around where the fire broke out in the area located between Denver and Boulder. The wildfire came unusually late in the year, following an extremely dry fall and amid a winter nearly devoid of snow, conditions experts say certainly helped the fire spread. At least 991 homes and other buildings were destroyed, Pelle said: 553 in Louisville, 332 in Superior and 106 in unincorporated parts of the county. Hundreds more were damaged. Pelle cautioned that the tally from the wind-whipped wildfire is not final.
