February 25, 2022 4:08 am
UNDATED (AP) – U.S. officials say most Americans live in places where healthy people can safely take a break from wearing masks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday outlined a new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip. They focus less on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals. More than 70% of the U.S. population lives in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks for now. The agency is still advising that people, including schoolchildren, wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high. The new recommendations don’t change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation. (Photo: AP)
February 25, 2022 2:51 am
A contempt of court hearing for Washington County’s Clerk of Courts has been delayed again. Attorney’s for Brenda Davis filed the application to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition and request for an emergency stay earlier this week. The hearing had been scheduled for Monday. Davis has been facing a contempt of court hearing since shortly after Thanksgiving of last year when she was detained by Washington County Sheriff’s Deputies for allegedly refusing to allow the transfer of juvenile court records from her office to another office. The first hearing was delayed when she appealed to Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. Those appeals were rejected. There is no timeline on when the state supreme court will rule on the appeal, the high court is expected to make a decision in about two weeks.
February 25, 2022 2:29 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Friday is the first day for candidates for statewide office in Pennsylvania, including governor and U.S. Senate, and Congress to start gathering signatures from voters to get on ballots for the May 17 primary election. There are huge fields of candidates for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat and governor’s office, and the boundaries of the state’s new congressional districts are just two days old, sending would-be candidates scrambling to decide where to run. Candidates can circulate petitions through March 15, under a two-day-old court order by the state Supreme Court.
February 25, 2022 2:00 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Wolf administration is asking the state Supreme Court to keep the state’s mail-in voting law in place while the justices consider a lower-court ruling throwing it out. Lawyers for the Department of State in a Thursday filing argued the court should overturn a Commonwealth Court ruling that means the popular voting law may no longer be in effect as of March 15. That’s a week after the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral argument in the case. The state lawyers argue that eliminating mail-in voting ahead of the spring primary season “would, if anything, only exacerbate voter confusion and the danger of disenfranchisement.”
February 24, 2022 5:54 pm
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Three former Minneapolis police officers have been convicted of violating George Floyd’s civil rights. Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane were charged with depriving Floyd of his right to medical care when Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as the 46-year-old Black man was handcuffed and facedown on the street on May 25, 2020. Thao and Lane were also charged with failing to intervene to stop Chauvin. The videotaped killing sparked protests in Minneapolis that spread around the globe as part of reckoning over racial injustice. Chauvin was convicted of murder last year in state court and pleaded guilty in December in the federal case. Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders back.
February 24, 2022 1:41 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks tumbled worldwide Thursday after Russia’s attack of Ukraine sent fear coursing through markets and upped the pressure on the high inflation already squeezing the global economy. The S&P 500 sank 1.1% to continue its dismal start of the year. European stocks dropped even more, with the German DAX down 4%. Price swings for commodities were also much sharper in Europe than in the US because the continent’s economy is more closely tied to Russia and Ukraine. Bond yields fell as investors sought safety, while oil and gold rose. The conflict could send prices even higher at gasoline pumps and grocery stores.
February 24, 2022 9:29 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits fell to a 52-year low after another decline in jobless aid applications last week. Jobless claims fell by 17,000, from 249,000 to 232,000 for the week ending Feb. 19, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, fell by 7,250 to 236,250. In total, 1,476,000 Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 5, a decrease of about 112,000 from the previous week and the lowest level since March 14, 1970, the government said.
February 24, 2022 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of children in America living in poverty jumped dramatically after just one month without the expanded child tax credit payments, according to a new study. Advocates fear the lapse in payments could unravel what they say were landmark achievements in poverty reduction. Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy estimates 3.7 million more children were living in poverty by January. That’s a 41% increase from December, when families received their last check. The federal aid started last July but ended after President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill stalled in the sharply divided Congress.
February 24, 2022 4:08 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden has announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, charging that Russia’s Vladimir Putin “chose this war” and his country will bear the consequences. The sanctions target Russian banks, oligarchs, and high-tech sectors. The penalties fall in line with the White House’s insistence that it would look to hit Russia’s financial system and Putin’s inner circle, while also imposing export controls that would aim to starve Russia’s industries and military of U.S. semiconductors and other high-tech products. Biden, for now, is holding off imposing some of the most severe sanctions, including cutting Russia out of the international SWIFT bank payment system. (Photo: AP)
February 24, 2022 4:06 am
The European Union says it is planning the “strongest, the harshest package” of sanctions it has ever considered at an emergency summit Thursday, as the Russian military attacked Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “the target is the stability in Europe and the whole of the international peace order, and we will hold President (Vladimir) Putin accountable for that.” She said that “we will present a package of massive and targeted sanctions to European leaders for approval.” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called it the “strongest, the harshest package” ever considered.
