August 12, 2021 4:24 am
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – People have headed to cooling centers as the Pacific Northwest began sweltering under another major, multi-day heat wave. The hot weather comes just over a month after record-shattering hot weather killed hundreds of the region’s most vulnerable people. The National Weather Service says the temperature could reach as high as 111 in parts of western Oregon on Thursday and Friday before a weekend cooldown. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s.
August 12, 2021 4:23 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. is sending an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to assist in the evacuation of some personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Thursday the Army and Marine forces will enter Afghanistan within the next two days to assist at the Kabul airport with the partial embassy evacuation. State Department spokesman Ned Price said diplomatic work will continue at the embassy. The move suggests a lack of confidence by the Biden administration in the Afghan government’s ability to provide sufficient diplomatic security in Kabul as a series of provincial capitals fall to a Taliban offensive this week.
August 12, 2021 4:21 am
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says he may reconsider his decision not to mandate masks in the state’s public schools as cases of the coronavirus continue to surge higher. Justice’s statement Wednesday marked an about-face from his previous stance – that he would allow counties to make their own decisions for the upcoming school year. Health officials reported on Wednesday that 334 people had tested positive for the virus – the highest daily number in three months. The number of people who currently have the coronavirus has nearly doubled this month, to more than 4,600. Hospitalizations have increased more than fivefold since July 4. And the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units has hit a six-month high.
August 12, 2021 2:54 am
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) – A Pennsylvania man faces homicide charges after a human head was found in a freezer at his family’s home and a dismembered body was found in a bed. Thirty-two-year-old Donald Meshey Jr. also faces counts of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. It wasn’t known Thursday if he’s retained an attorney. Lancaster police went to the home Wednesday morning after a woman asked them to conduct a welfare check on a relative. Authorities say Meshey showed officers the head and said later said he had stabbed a body in his father’s bedroom multiple times and then dismembered it.
August 12, 2021 2:54 am
(WPXI) – Pittsburgh police are investigating a daylight shooting in Downtown Pittsburgh. Investigators said just before 1 p.m., they were called for reports of a person shot off Fort Duquesne Boulevard between Sixth and Seventh streets. Officers found a man lying in an alley at that location with a gunshot wound to the chest. They administered life-saving first aid measures until paramedics could arrive. The man was taken to the hospital in critical condition. A short time later, officers stopped a vehicle on the South Side. Two people from that vehicle were taken to police headquarters for questioning in relation to the shooting.
August 11, 2021 8:43 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Democrats have pushed a $3.5 trillion framework for bolstering family services, health, and environment programs through the Senate. The chamber’s party-line approval of the budget resolution advances President Joe Biden’s expansive vision for reshaping federal priorities. And it happened just hours after senators handed him a triumph on a companion $1 trillion infrastructure package. The budget’s passage was crucial for a president and party set on training the government’s fiscal might at assisting families, creating jobs and fighting climate change. That’s because the fiscal blueprint will protect a subsequent bill this fall actually enacting Democrats’ policies from GOP Senate filibusters that would kill it.
August 11, 2021 4:18 am
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Tropical Storm Fred has made landfall in the Dominican Republic, with forecasters warning that heavy rains could cause dangerous flooding and mudslides there and in the neighboring country of Haiti. The forecast track would bring it near Florida by the weekend.. After a quiet month in the region, Fred became the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season late Tuesday. Tropical storm warnings have been discontinued for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, though heavy rains and power outages were reported. Forecasters said Fred’s center could be over the southeastern Bahamas Thursday and north of Cuba on Friday as it approaches the U.S.
August 11, 2021 4:17 am
The latest wave of coronavirus infections in Texas continues to tax the state’s health care systems as health officials report that 10,000 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 for the first time since early February. State health officials reported Tuesday that 10,041 hospital patients in Texas were ill with COVID-19 as of Monday. That is the most since 10,259 COVID-19 hospitalizations were reported Feb. 4. Meantime, a state district judge in San Antonio granted a temporary restraining order to allow the governments of San Antonio and Bexar County to require public school students to wear masks in class and to quarantine unvaccinated students exposed to the virus.
August 11, 2021 4:16 am
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The Pacific Northwest is bracing for another major, multi-day heat wave just five weeks after temperatures soared in a record-shattering hot weather that killed scores of the most vulnerable in June. The National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon, warned that the thermometer would start to rise Wednesday and could reach as high as 110 F in some places before a weekend cooldown. Those numbers would have broken all-time records if it weren’t for the June heat wave, which killed hundreds of people across Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Seattle will be cooler than Portland but could still break records with temperatures in the mid-90s.
August 11, 2021 4:15 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Eight months after the death of beloved “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, the daily syndicated quiz show chose its executive producer Mike Richards as Trebek’s successor over a field of celebrity candidates. But after fan backlash to a selection process that turned messy in recent weeks, producer Sony split the pie by naming another guest host, actor Mayim Bialik, as emcee for “Jeopardy!” primetime and spinoff series, including a new college championship. In another nod to “Jeopardy!” devotees, longtime champion Ken Jennings will return as a consulting producer.
