July 16, 2021 3:15 am
PITTSBURGH — The Diocese of Pittsburgh has announced the obligation to attend weekly mass is about to be reinstated for Catholics in the area. Bishop David Zubik made the announcement Thursday and says the obligation for Sundays as well as Holy Days will be put in place August 15 with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Zubik says since the public health restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic have been restricted, more people are making it back to services. The diocese is still encouraging those who are not physically able to make it to mass to utilize the live streaming services offered by many of the parishes across the area. The church also says if you are ill to stay home until you are healthy again.
July 16, 2021 1:40 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Penn State will impose its first tuition increase for incoming in-state undergraduate students since the 2017-18 school year. Under a plan approved by trustees on Thursday, incoming Pennsylvania resident students will see a 2.5% tuition increase at all campuses for the 2021-22 school year. At the University Park campus, that will mean a per-semester increase of $224, to $9,184, while the per-semester increase at the Commonwealth Campuses will range from $162 to $184, depending on the campus. Under the plan, out-of-state undergraduate students and all graduate students will see tuition increase by 2.75%. The student fee will remain flat for full-time students at the University Park campus.
July 16, 2021 1:32 am
The Washington County Commissioners meeting on Thursday was flooded with supporters of former President Donald Trump, who were calling on commissioners to launch a forensic audit of the 2020 election. Commissioners listened to nearly an hours worth of public comment from the group who claimed election fraud, with one woman calling it a “Digital Pearl Harbour.” Many in the group called on the county to dump the electronic voting machines and go back to using paper ballots. Commissioner’s Chairperson, Diana Irey-Vaughan pointed out that the county would sustain damages, not only from spending millions of dollars to replace the brand new voting machines, but they would be decertified by the state if a third party accessed them for such an audit. Donald Trump won the election in Washington County but lost Pennsylvania. Irey-Vaughn also pointed out that a new review committee oversaw the election and out of some forty allegations of fraud, only two actually warranted investigations. Irey-Vaughan also said that the board would need a recommendation from that committee to move forward with an audit.
July 16, 2021 1:21 am
Washington County commissioners announced Thursday that a special ‘virtual’ meeting will be held Friday July 23rd at 10 a.m. to pass an ordinance to give voters the right to decide if an 11-member committee should be created to study and determine if a structural change to county government is needed. Commissioner’s chair Diana Irey-Vaughan admits issues related to county row offices and concerns expressed by President Judge John Disalle about the Clerk of Courts, Register of Wills and Prothonotary in a recent memo are behind the move. Individuals would run for seats on the commission. Irey-Vaughan says if voters approve such a board in the November election, it would be possible for them to offer recommendations and changes for the 2023 election cycle. She admits changes to county government could take numerous forms.
July 15, 2021 4:57 pm
SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) – The recovery efforts for a South Florida condo building that collapsed last month might be coming to an end soon. Miami-Dade police identified four more victims of the Surfside condo collapse Thursday, meaning that 90 of the 97 confirmed dead have been identified. County officials have been able to account for 240 people connected to the building, with eight people still classified as missing, or “potentially unaccounted for.” If seven of those missing are matched to the seven still-unidentified remains, search teams would be looking for one more missing person. Officials have not confirmed that scenario nor said when the search would be complete.
July 15, 2021 3:59 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden visited the U.S. Capitol in search of Democratic support for his multi-trillion-dollar domestic agenda. Biden and top Democrats want to dramatically boost spending for infrastructure, health care and other programs. That would notch a landmark achievement. But they’ll need near-unanimous Democratic backing in the tightly divided Congress. Biden had a closed-door lunch with Senate Democrats on Wednesday, a day after leaders said they’d agreed to a plan for spending a whopping $3.5 trillion over the coming decade to beef up a wide menu of domestic initiatives, including a Medicare expansion.
July 15, 2021 3:58 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. government is starting to deposit child tax credit money into the accounts of more than 35 million families. President Joe Biden has expanded the credit for one year as part of coronavirus relief. The result is that most families will now qualify for monthly payments of as much as $300 per child beginning Thursday. Biden is seeking to extend the payments and make them permanent. He says that would cut child poverty in half and help economic growth. Some Republican lawmakers say the payments will make parents less likely to work.
July 15, 2021 3:57 am
BEIJING (AP) – Search and rescue teams are pumping out water in an attempt to find 14 construction workers trapped by a flood in a tunnel being built in southern China. The emergency management department in the city of Zhuhai says rescuers have not been able to contact the missing workers. The cause of the 3:30 a.m. flood is under investigation. Two workers died in March in another part of the tunnel when a protective wall collapsed. Zhuhai is a coastal city near Macao at the mouth of the Pearl River delta. It was one of China’s early special economic zones.
July 15, 2021 3:56 am
BERLIN (AP) – More than 60 people have died and dozens are missing as severe flooding in Germany and Belgium turned streams and streets into raging, debris-filled torrents that swept away cars and toppled houses. Authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia state said at least 30 people were killed, while 28 deaths were reported in Rhineland-Palatinate state to the south. Belgian media reported eight deaths in that country. German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock at the scope of the flooding and the number of deaths, adding that everything would be done to find those still missing. Evacuations also were ordered in the Dutch city of Maastricht.
July 15, 2021 3:55 am
PULGA, Calif. (AP) – A California blaze that erupted near the flashpoint of the deadliest wildfire in recent U.S. history is heading away from homes but survivors of the 2018 blaze in the town of Paradise are worried that history could repeat itself. Meanwhile, exploding trees and burning homes are among the terrifying sights residents in the Pacific Northwest are seeing as they flee dozens of fires amid a historic drought and sweltering heat. The Bootleg Fire has torched an area larger than New York City. The Dixie Fire is burning in California’s Butte and Plumas counties, not far from where a 2018 blaze killed 85 people.
