May 6, 2021 4:16 am
BOISE, Idaho (AP) – Authorities say a shooting at an eastern Idaho middle school has injured two students and a custodian, and a student suspected of being the shooter has been taken into custody. The Jefferson County sheriff says the victims’ injuries aren’t believed to be life-threatening. Police were called to the school around 9:15 a.m. Thursday, and multiple law enforcement agencies responded. Students were evacuated to a nearby high school in the small city of Rigby, which is about 95 miles southwest of Yellowstone National Park. A 12-year-old student says she heard loud noises, then screaming. She says when her teacher went to check it out, and he found blood.
May 6, 2021 4:15 am
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – An Army trainee has been arrested after authorities say he boarded a South Carolina school bus with a gun and held the driver and elementary school students hostage before letting them off the bus. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says the incident started around 7 a.m. Thursday near Fort Jackson, the U.S. Army’s largest basic training facility. Lott says the trainee “ran off post and escaped,” armed with a rifle. He then got on a nearby school bus but later let the driver and students off before driving the bus for several miles himself. The sheriff says the man was later arrested without incident and will face multiple charges including kidnapping.
May 6, 2021 4:11 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – For a group of Pittsburgh women, their spring vacation to Florida was wonderful, until they stepped onto a Southwest Airlines plane to return home to Pennsylvania. “I felt bad that I was sneezing, but it was my allergies. I said to her (the flight attendant) I’m fully vaccinated. I didn’t want people to feel uncomfortable,” said Kelly Smith. Kelly Smith along with her sister, mother and friend were on Southwest flight 4427, which was scheduled to depart West Palm Beach and head toward home, when she started to sneeze. Smith tells Channel 11, the flight attendant brought her tissues for her to use, which she did, by removing her mask. Moments after doing so, Smith was being escorted off of the aircraft. The women tell Channel 11, after being removed from the aircraft, they had to purchase a hotel room for the evening, because Southwest Airlines rebooked them on a flight more than an hour away, at a different airport. Southwest Airlines sent a statement pertaining to this incident that reads in-part, “Our reports indicate this Customer was not wearing a mask properly on multiple occasions while onboard the aircraft and in the presence of other Customers and Crew. Southwest Airlines says they regret the inconvenience Smith and her party experienced, but that they were following federal guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
May 5, 2021 2:52 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – The government’s key COVID-19 relief program for small businesses has run out of money. The Small Business Administration says the Paycheck Protection Program has been exhausted. As of Sunday, the PPP had given out nearly 10.8 million loans worth more than $780 billion since April of last year. The program, which has run out of cash and refunded by Congress twice before, was scheduled to expire May 31. It’s not yet known if lawmakers will approve another round of funding.
May 5, 2021 12:43 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – Peloton is recalling its treadmills after denying that they were to blame for the recent death of a child and the injuries of 29 others. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday that Peloton received 72 reports of adults, kids, pets or other items, such as exercise balls, being pulled under the treadmill. The recall comes after the safety commission warned last month that people with children or pets to immediately stop using Peloton treadmills. Peloton is best known for its stationary bikes, but it introduced the treadmill about three years ago and now calls it the Tread+. It costs more than $4,200. Those who own the treadmill can get a full refund from Peloton by Nov. 6, 2022.
May 5, 2021 4:17 am
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Two elderly Asian women were stabbed without warning as they waited for a bus in downtown San Francisco in the latest in a series of attacks against Asian Americans nationwide since the start of the pandemic. Police said in a statement that they have not ruled out the possibility that Tuesday’s attack was a hate crime, but officers were still gathering details. There have also been numerous attacks in New York City, where a police hate crime task force is investigating an assault of a 31-year-old Asian woman who was struck by a woman with a hammer while walking in Manhattan.
May 5, 2021 4:16 am
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Former President Donald Trump won’t return to Facebook. The social network’s quasi-independent Oversight Board has voted to permanently ban his account after it was suspended four months ago for inciting violence that led to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But the board said Facebook must reassess the penalty because it imposed it “indefinitely.” Trump has also been permanently banned from Twitter.
May 5, 2021 4:14 am
NEW YORK (AP) – The U.S. birth rate fell 4% last year – the largest single-year decrease in nearly 50 years. That’s according to a government report being released Wednesday. The rate dropped for moms of every major race and ethnicity, and in nearly age group. It fell to the lowest point since federal health officials started tracking it more than a century ago. Experts say the pandemic no doubt contributed to last year’s big decline. Anxiety about COVID-19 and its impact on the economy likely caused many couples to delay children. But many of the 2020 pregnancies began well before the U.S. epidemic.
May 5, 2021 4:10 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Mark Nordenberg, the former chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, is the state high court’s appointee and the tie-breaking fifth member of the panel that will redraw boundaries of Pennsylvania’s legislative districts. The state Supreme Court delivered the news Monday. Nordenberg, who also was Pitt’s law school dean, now chair’s the university’s Institute of Politics. For the past three decades at least, the state Supreme Court has appointed the panel’s fifth member after the four members – two Democratic lawmakers and two Republican lawmakers – could not agree on a fifth member. The state Supreme Court has a 5-2 Democratic majority, with four Democrats hailing from the Pittsburgh area.
May 5, 2021 4:08 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is solidifying its intention to begin imposing a price on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants next year, over the protests of coal- and gas-region lawmakers and elements of the energy industry. Wolf’s administration issued a final rule for the regulatory plan Tuesday with the same timeline and same goals for reductions in carbon dioxide. The rule must still go through two state regulatory boards. Wolf, a Democrat, in 2019 ordered his administration to start drafting regulations for the plan. If Wolf is successful, Pennsylvania would become the first major fossil fuel state to adopt a carbon pricing policy.
