August 20, 2021 4:14 am
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) – Hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients in northeast Florida, the hot zone in the state’s latest surge. But the patients rapidly filling wards in Jacksonville are younger than last summer’s peak outbreak. And they’re getting sick faster. The caseload is more than double that surge at Baptist Health’s hospitals. They’re making do by converting empty spaces, adding more than 100 beds and working overtime to persuade people to get vaccinated. Florida accounts for 1 in 5 cases nationwide as the highly-contagious delta variant spreads. Baptist’s medical director says they’re “bracing for the worst.”
August 20, 2021 4:11 am
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Anyone who wants to eat, drink or exercise indoors in San Francisco must show they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 when one of the nation’s most stringent restrictions on unvaccinated people takes effect Friday. The city’s mayor said the mandate is needed to stem the rise of COVID-19 cases and the rule goes beyond New York City’s, which requires only the first dose of a vaccine for indoor activities. Restaurant and bar owners say they plan to have extra staff at the front door to verify people’s proof of vaccination and make sure they match their identity cards.
August 20, 2021 4:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden is pledging to Americans still trapped in Afghanistan: “We will get you home.” Biden’s comments at a White House news conference Friday come as the U.S. government struggles to ramp up a massive airlift clearing Americans and other foreigners and vulnerable Afghans, rescuing them from a Taliban takeover of the country. Biden is facing criticism from some at home for the chaotic and often violent scene outside the airport as crowds struggle to reach safety. The pace of evacuations picked up some overnight, but flights from the Kabul airport had stopped for several hours as of Friday afternoon before resuming.
August 20, 2021 3:37 am
The Greater Washington County Food Bank recently rebranded the organization to become Food Helpers. On Thursday the Washington County Community Foundation visited the Food Helpers headquarters in West Brownsville to announce a grant. Betsie Trew, President and CEO of the WCCF announced the “Community CARE Fund Challenge” grant. The grant is for $250,000. It is a matching grant meaning that Food Helpers will need to raise funds to match the amount for a full donation. The grant will be disbursed in two phases, once Food Helpers raises $125,000, the WCCF will send over $125,000. When the second $125,000 is raised, The WCCF will complete its grant by sending the second half of the grant. The grand total of $500,000 will go to food distribution to not only existing customers but to who Trew identifies as the working poor, people that earn just enough to not qualify for any government assistance programs but still find themselves in a food insecurity scenario. Food Helpers will further their existing efforts of education and training to help the food insecure by teaching hydroponic farming, livestock training and even resume writing to offer a lift up in overcoming financial difficulties. This community outreach program began in July and has already served nearly 300 families that identify as the working poor.
August 20, 2021 2:13 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The top Republican in Pennsylvania’s state Senate says he’s putting a different senator in charge of an “election integrity” undertaking and removing a senator who had aimed to carry out an Arizona-style “forensic investigation” of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election. Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman said Friday he had had “many frustrations” with state Sen. Doug Mastriano. Instead, Corman said he asked Sen. Cris Dush, R-Bradford, to take over the caucus’ election integrity venture from Mastriano (pictured), who has spread former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the election was rigged against him. However, Dush, like Mastriano, has said he wants something similar to Arizona’s partisan audit carried out in Pennsylvania.
August 19, 2021 5:56 pm
DOVER, Del. (AP) – A bankruptcy judge has approved a proposal by the Boy Scouts of America to set up an $850 million fund to compensate tens of thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as youngsters by scout leaders. But the judge on Thursday also rejected two key provisions of the deal, potentially jeopardizing the agreement that the organization had been hoping to use as a springboard to emerge from bankruptcy later this year. It was not immediately clear how Thursday’s ruling will affect the future of the bankruptcy case for the Texas-based organization.
August 19, 2021 12:30 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – The man who claimed to have bomb in a pickup truck near the U.S. Capitol has surrendered to law enforcement, ending an hours long standoff. The man, identified by law enforcement officials as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina, crawled out of the vehicle and was being taken into custody shortly before 2:30 p.m. He had pulled up outside the library earlier in the day and told police he had a bomb in his truck. An officer saw what appeared to be a detonator in the man’s hand. The man had been negotiating with police during a standoff that lasted around five hours.
August 19, 2021 8:41 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week for a fourth straight time to a pandemic low, the latest sign that America’s job market is rebounding from the pandemic recession as employers boost hiring to meet a surge in consumer demand. The Labor Department reported that jobless claims fell by 29,000 to 348,000. The weekly pace of applications for unemployment aid has fallen more or less steadily since topping 900,000 in early January. The dwindling number of first-time jobless claims has coincided with the widespread administering of vaccines, which has led businesses to reopen or expand their hours and drawn consumers back to shops, restaurants and entertainment venues.
August 19, 2021 4:16 am
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Authorities in North Carolina have found two people dead and about 20 remain missing in Haywood County in floods caused by Tropical Storm Fred. Now as a post-tropical cyclone, Fred is drenching New York and New England. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Henri is sending dangerous swells onto East Coast beaches and is expected to become a hurricane as it approaches the northeastern U.S. early next week. More than 200 people searched flooded areas in western North Carolina along the Pigeon River. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper planned to join Haywood County officials Thursday afternoon to survey the flood damage. Farther north, about 10 families evacuated their homes in the rural town of Western in central New York as waters rose.
August 19, 2021 4:16 am
GRIZZLY FLATS, Calif. (AP) – A small wildfire that swept through a mobile home park and left dozens of homes in ashes is the latest in a series of explosive blazes propelled by gusts through Northern California. The drought-parched region is expected to see red flag warnings for dangerously high winds and hot, dry weather through Thursday. Those conditions have fed a dozen uncontrolled wildfires, including the Dixie Caldor fires in the Sierra Nevada that incinerated much of the towns of Greenville and Grizzly Flats. On Wednesday, another wind-driven fire destroyed dozens of mobile homes in Lake County and injured at least one resident before firefighters stopped its progress.
