January 29, 2021 8:21 am
Johnson & Johnson says its vaccine appears to protect against COVID-19 with just one shot. It’s not as strong as some two-shot rivals but still potentially helpful for a world in dire need of more doses. Results released Friday show the single-shot vaccine was 66% effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness, and much more protective against the most serious symptoms. The vaccine worked better in the U.S. compared to South Africa, where it was up against a tougher, mutated virus.. The company says it will file an application for emergency use soon in the U.S., and then abroad.
January 29, 2021 4:19 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” won a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” has died. She was 96. A onetime model, Tyson began her screen career with bit parts but gained fame in the early 1970s when Black women were finally starting to get starring roles. Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”
January 29, 2021 4:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – With the COVID-19 pandemic raging, uninsured, low-income Americans are getting a new chance to sign up for subsidized health care benefits. President Joe Biden is ordering government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window. Biden signed an executive order Thursday directing the “Obamacare” HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits, something the Trump administration had refused to do. He also instructed his administration to consider reversing other Trump administration health care policies, including curbs on abortion counseling and the imposition of work requirements for low-income people getting Medicaid. The new health care sign-up period will run from Feb. 15 to May 15.
January 29, 2021 4:15 am
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Donald Trump has added two more former federal prosecutors from South Carolina to his impeachment legal team. Attorney Greg Harris tells The Associated Press that he and former acting U.S. Attorney Johnny Gasser have been added to the team that will craft a defense for Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial, set for the week of Feb. 8. Harris is a former county and federal prosecutor with expertise in white-collar cases. He’s currently in private practice with Gasser, who has also been a prosecutor at the local and federal levels They join a team that includes Butch Bowers, a noted South Carolina ethics and elections lawyer.
January 29, 2021 4:13 am
WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team is visiting a hospital where China says the first COVID-19 patients were treated more than a year ago. The visit is part of the experts’ long-awaited fact-finding mission on the origins of the coronavirus. The WHO team members and Chinese officials earlier had their first in-person meetings at a hotel. WHO has said they plan to speak to first responders and patients and visit markets and laboratories in Wuhan. The team’s mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak.
January 29, 2021 4:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Democrats are rejecting a Republican pitch to split President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue plan into smaller chunks. Democrats and the White House appear ready to leave their GOP opponents behind and push the sweeping economic and virus aid forward on their own. Despite Biden’s calls for unity, Democrats say the stubbornly high unemployment numbers and battered economy leave them unwilling to waste time courting Republican support or curbing the size of the package. The bill would offer money for vaccines, help reopen schools and give $1,400 direct payments to most Americans. Biden has been appealing directly to Republican and Democratic lawmakers while signaling his priority to press ahead.
January 29, 2021 4:12 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says lawmakers face threats of violence from an “enemy” within Congress and more money is needed to protect them. The California Democrat’s remarks are a startling acknowledgement of how internal tensions over safety have escalated since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that Congress should provide more money to protect lawmakers “when the enemy is within the House of Representatives.” Pelosi said she was referring to members of Congress who want to bring guns on the House floor and “have threatened violence on other members of Congress.” She didn’t offer names.
January 29, 2021 4:09 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Facing a deep, pandemic-inflicted budget deficit, Gov. Tom Wolf will ask lawmakers for billions of dollars funded by higher taxes on Pennsylvania’s huge natural gas industry for workforce development and employment assistance to help the state recover. Wolf said Thursday the money would aid workers whose jobs were upended by the pandemic. Wolf, a Democrat, also wants lawmakers to raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage. Wolf is scheduled to issue his full budget proposal Tuesday to the Legislature. He is counting on the federal government for more coronavirus recovery aid to help fill the state’s projected budget deficit. Wolf is also entering the lame-duck stretch of his final term, when Republican legislators may be less interested in helping his agenda.
January 29, 2021 4:06 am
PITTSBURGH — Washington County State Representative Tim O’Neal wants the Pennsylvania National Guard to help distribute and administer the COVID-19 vaccine. O’Neal is asking other lawmakers to co-sponsor his resolution. If passed, the bill would require the National Guard to have a vaccination site up and running in every county in the state within 45 days. The Guard would be required to support local health officials with transporting the vaccine. “The guard has the infrastructure, human capital and logistics to support an efficient, timely vaccination program,” O’Neal said in a news release. O’Neal tells WJPA news that he hopes the measure will move to the senate by the week of February 22 and be on Governor Wolf’s desk by March 1. He says the governor’s office has said they are open to the idea.
January 29, 2021 2:37 am
Sherman Springer, known as “Detroit Shawn,” was arrested Wednesday in Monongahela, Pennsylvania on drug charges. According to investigators, Springer was charged with drug delivery resulting in death in connection with a situation where a person died of an overdose in April 2020 in Washington. Springer allegedly sold the narcotics to the overdose victim. The U.S. Marshals Western Pennsylvania Fugitive Task Force found out Springer was staying in Monongahela and were able to arrest him in the 100 block of Greenridge Drive.
