November 7, 2021 1:48 am
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration’s vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the action stops President Joe Biden “from moving forward with his unlawful overreach.” “The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution,” said a statement from Landry, a Republican. The U.S. Labor Department’s top legal adviser, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda, said the department is “confident in its legal authority to issue the emergency temporary standard on vaccination and testing.” OSHA has the authority “to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them,” she said.
November 7, 2021 1:47 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed Congress’ passage of his $1 trillion infrastructure package as a “monumental step forward for the nation” after fractious fellow Democrats resolved a months-long standoff in their ranks to seal the deal. “Finally, infrastructure week,” a beaming Biden told reporters. “I’m so happy to say that: infrastructure week.” The House passed the measure 228-206 late Friday, prompting prolonged cheers from the relieved Democratic side of the chamber. Thirteen Republicans, mostly moderates, supported the legislation while six of Democrats’ farthest left members opposed it. Approval of the bill, which promises to create legions of jobs and improve broadband, water supplies and other public works, sends it to the desk of a president whose approval ratings have dropped and whose nervous party got a cold shoulder from voters in this past week’s off-year elections. Democratic candidates for governor were defeated in Virginia and squeaked through in New Jersey, two blue-leaning states. Those setbacks made party leaders — and moderates and liberals alike — impatient to produce impactful legislation and demonstrate they know how to govern. Democrats can ill afford to seem in disarray a year before midterm elections that could give Republicans congressional control.
November 7, 2021 1:45 am
HOUSTON (AP) — Authorities said they would watch video, interview witnesses and review concert protocols to determine how eight people died at a Houston music festival when fans suddenly surged toward the stage to watch rapper Travis Scott. City officials said Saturday they were in the early stages of investigating the pandemonium that unfolded Friday evening at Astroworld, a sold-out, two-day event in NRG Park with an estimated 50,000 people in attendance. One attendee said that as a timer clicked down to the start of Scott’s performance, the crowd pushed forward. A woman said she was so desperate to get out that she bit a man on the shoulder to get him to move. The dead ranged in age from 14 to 27, and 13 people were still hospitalized Saturday, Mayor Sylvester Turner said. He called the disaster “a tragedy on many different levels” and said it was too early to draw conclusions about what went wrong. Dozens were injured.
November 7, 2021 1:41 am
PITTSBURGH (WPXI)— A University of Pittsburgh basketball player is facing charges after police said he assaulted an officer in Pittsburgh’s South Side early Saturday morning. The incident occurred in the 1700 block of E. Carson St. just after 1 a.m., police said. Officers responded to a call from a tow truck driver, who was attempting to tow a vehicle and the owner had become “extremely angry.” The owner, identified as Ithiel Horton, 21, of New Jersey, then punched a responding officer in the face, causing a laceration to his lip. He then ran from the officer before being arrested. He was charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, and is currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail. Horton is a a third-year guard and Pitt’s leading returning scorer from last season, with an 8.9 points-per-game average and a shooting percentage of 37.1 beyond the 3-point range. He appeared in all 22 games and started 18
November 7, 2021 1:40 am
SOUTH STRABANE, Pa. (WPXI) — A woman said that she was strip-searched on the side of Interstate 70 in South Strabane by the state police this summer after being pulled over for traveling 5 mph over the speed limit. Holly Elish, 34, of Bentleyville, said in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that she was heading home from work on June 27 when she was pulled over for speeding. Elish pulled over, and when Trooper Brian Rousseau approached her car, she gave him her identification, the complaint said. Rousseau returned to his vehicle for a few minutes, and then walked back to Elish’s passenger side window, the lawsuit said, where he asked her consent to search the vehicle. Elish refused, and Rousseau replied “something like ‘he had the right to search her vehicle,’” the complaint said. Around the same time, another trooper, who is unnamed in the complaint, arrived and spoke with Rousseau outside of Elish’s hearing. The troopers then asked Elish to exit her vehicle and again asked for permission to search it. Nothing was found in the search, and after at least 15 minutes, two more troopers arrived, including a woman. It was then that she was strip-searched. First, the trooper physically and visually inspected Elish’s breasts, the lawsuit said, then she directed Elish to pull down her pants and underwear to her ankles and “‘squat’ to the ground, during which she bent down to the ground with one knee and performed a visual cavity inspection.”
November 7, 2021 1:11 am
MCKEESPORT (WPXI) – An arrest has been made in the murder of 26-year-old Karli Short. Short, of McKeesport, died in September. Short was five months pregnant when she was murdered. Through their investigation, detectives determined that the father of the unborn child, 25-year-old Isaac Smith of McKeesport, was responsible for the killing. With the assistance of the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Smith charging him with criminal homicide and homicide of an unborn child. Smith was arrested by Allegheny County Homicide Detectives and Pleasant Hills Police at approximately 7:00 pm on Friday. Smith will be housed at the Allegheny County Jail to await arraignment.
November 6, 2021 10:47 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden is hailing Congress’ passage of his $1 trillion infrastructure package as a “monumental step forward for the nation.” This, after fractious fellow Democrats resolved a months-long standoff in their ranks to finally seal the deal. The package is a historic investment by any measure, one that Biden compares in its breadth to the building of the interstate highway system in the last century or the transcontinental railroad the century before. Approval of the bill sends it to the desk of a president whose approval ratings have dropped and whose party got a cold shoulder from voters in this past week’s off-year elections.
November 6, 2021 9:20 am
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A Taliban security official says two suspects have been arrested in connection with the killings of four women whose bodies were found in a house in northern Afghanistan. A co-worker of one of the victims identified her as a 29-year-old civil society activist who had been trying to flee Taliban rule. The Taliban official said Saturday that the suspects confessed they had lured the women to the house, and that their case would be referred to a court. The official did not say if the suspects also confessed to the killings. The Taliban have said they would allow people to leave Afghanistan, provided they have the required travel documents.
November 6, 2021 9:18 am
BERLIN (AP) – Police in Germany say a knife attack on a high-speed train has injured several people. Local police said a man has been arrested in connection with the Saturday morning attack at the train station in Seubersdorf. Police say multiple people were injured but they were unable to provide a specific number. So far, there is no information available about the attacker or possible motives. The train in question, one of Germany’s high-speed ICE trains, was traveling between the Bavarian cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg at the time of the attack. Germany’s interior minister said the background behind the “terrible” attack was “still unclear” and is “now being clarified.
November 6, 2021 9:16 am
HOUSTON (AP) – Officials in Texas say at least eight people are dead and numerous others are injured following a surge of the crowd during a performance by rapper Travis Scott at the Astroworld music festival Friday night. The Houston fire chief told reporters that the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage, which caused some people to panic. The show was called off shortly after people began suffering injuries. The fire chief says 17 people were transported to hospitals, including 11 people who were in cardiac arrest. An estimated 50,000 people attended the festival. Drake had also joined Scott on-stage at the concert, which was livestreamed by Apple Music.
