October 22, 2021 2:09 am
The National Weather service has confirmed three tornadoes hit the region Thursday night. One was in Hopewell Twp, Washington County where reports say homes along Willow Road and Lowry Lane were damaged. The weather service will continue to investigate damage throughout the area over the next several days. WJPA has also heard reports of moderate to severe damage to structures in Mt Pleasant, Independence and Hopewell Townships. In Peters Twp, officials say the Venetia area was hit hard with reports of numerous trees and wires down and roadways blocked. There have been no reports of any injuries. West Penn Power crews continue work to restore service to hundreds of customers countywide. According to their outage website, some customer may not have their power restored until 4 p.m. (Photo shows storm damage in Venetia)
October 21, 2021 5:22 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – The House voted Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, a longtime ally and aide to former President Donald Trump, in contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Now the U.S. attorney’s office must decide whether to prosecute. The congressional committee has vowed to move swiftly and forcefully to punish anyone who won’t cooperate with the probe. The vote was mostly along party lines, with almost all Republicans voting against the contempt measure. The partisan debate is emblematic of the raw tensions that are still lingering in Congress nine months after the Capitol attack.
October 21, 2021 4:20 pm
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – In a stalemate with lawmakers over raising the minimum wage or requiring companies to have paid sick leave, Gov. Tom Wolf will impose those requirements on companies getting financial incentives from the state. Wolf signed an executive order requiring companies receiving incentives to pay at least $13.50 an hour, rising to $15 an hour in 2024. State contractors already must pay that amount, under a prior executive order Wolf signed in 2016. The sick pay requirement has no required time frame attached to it. The state annually budgets for tens of millions of dollars in grants, loans and tax breaks for companies that make certain promises to expand in Pennsylvania.
October 21, 2021 1:47 pm
WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. (AP) – The board of a small college in West Virginia will take unspecified discipline against its president on allegations that he plagiarized some speeches. West Liberty University’s Board of Governors unanimously approved the disciplinary approach Wednesday after a vote to fire President W. Franklin Evans narrowly failed. The university says the board will meet and decide all disciplinary actions. In January Evans became the first Black president in West Liberty’s 183-year history. Evans was accused of using quotes from several sources without attributing them during several speeches. Evans apologized earlier this month in a letter to the university.
October 21, 2021 8:54 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to a new low point since the pandemic erupted, evidence that layoffs are declining as companies hold onto workers. The Labor Department says unemployment claims dropped 6,000 to 290,000 last week, the third straight drop. That’s the fewest people to apply for benefits since March 14, 2020, when the pandemic intensified. Applications for jobless aid, which generally track the pace of layoffs, have fallen steadily from about 900,000 in January.
October 21, 2021 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A memorial service for Colin L. Powell, the retired Army general and former secretary of state, will be held Nov. 5 at Washington National Cathedral. A spokeswoman, Peggy Cifrino, said Thursday there will be limited seating and the service will be by invitation only. Powell died Monday of complications from COVID-19 at age 84. He had been vaccinated, but a family spokeswoman said his immune system had been compromised by multiple myeloma, a blood cancer for which he had been undergoing treatment.
October 21, 2021 4:13 am
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang that Haitian police say kidnapped 17 members of a missionary group is seen in a new video saying he will kill them if he doesn’t get what he is demanding. The video posted Thursday on social media shows Wilson Joseph dressed in a blue suit, carrying a blue hat and wearing a large cross around his neck. He also threatens Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the chief of Haiti’s National Police while speaking in front of coffins holding several members of his gang who were recently killed. Authorities have said the gang is demanding $1 million per person in the kidnapped group, though it wasn’t immediately clear that included the five children among the 16 Americans and one Canadian.
October 21, 2021 4:09 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Bottlenecks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have spilled over into a neighborhood where cargo trucks are clogging residential streets.. Last week the White House allowed the ports complex to become a 24-hour operation in an effort to break the logjam of container ships at the ports and reduce shipping delays that have interrupted the global supply chain. Since then, residents of the Wilmington area just north of the ports have complained that trucks are backed up in streets at all hours. On Tuesday, a container rolled off a truck making a turn on a narrow street, pancaking a parked car. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday issued an executive order that aims to ease the backlog.
October 21, 2021 4:06 am
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) – The White House is floating new plans for ways to pay for President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion proposal for expanding social services and tackling climate change. The ideas include shelving a proposed big increase in corporate tax rates though also adding a new billionaires’ tax on the investment gains of the very richest Americans. The abrupt changes in suggested “pay-fors” on Wednesday came as Biden returned to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to highlight what he says are the middle class values in the plan. Democrats are racing to finish it up but Biden has faced resistance from key holdouts not on board with plans to get rid of Trump-era tax breaks to help pay for it.
October 21, 2021 4:04 am
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) – Maintenance and service union workers at a West Virginia hospital have given notice that they intend to strike if a new contract isn’t reached soon. News outlets report the Service Employees International Union voted Wednesday in favor of giving a 10-day strike notice to Cabell Huntington Hospital. Union officials said in a statement that “workers are fighting for quality care, safe staffing, wages that allow them to provide for their families and health insurance coverage.” Cabell Huntington Human Resources Director Molly Frick says the hospital will continue “good faith negotiations in order to reach a fair and equitable agreement.”
