December 25, 2020 4:03 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI)- Soaking rain changed to snow Thursday night with icy roads making travel difficult on Christmas Eve. Roads became snow-covered and slick by the evening on Thursday. A Winter Weather Advisory will be in effect until 1 p.m. Friday for our entire area. Road conditions worsened through the evening as the snow fell. Travel restrictions were implemented by PennDOT for Interstates 70 and 79 in the area. Periods of moderate snow are still possible. Several inches will accumulate from this storm. The National Weather Service is predicting widespread accumulations of 4 to 6 inches.
December 24, 2020 4:21 am
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Millions of Americans are traveling ahead of Christmas and New Year’s, despite pleas from public health experts that they stay home to avoid fueling the raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 nationwide. Many people at airports this week thought long and hard about whether to go anywhere and found a way to rationalize it. Some are elderly and figure they don’t have many Christmases left. Others are trying to keep long-distance romance alive. Some just yearn for the human connection that’s been absent for the past nine months.
December 24, 2020 4:18 am
BALTIMORE (AP) – An explosion in a high-rise building in Baltimore has injured 23 people and temporarily trapped a window washing crew on dangling scaffolding. Twenty-one of the victims were brought to area hospitals following Wednesday’s explosion, which caused a partial roof collapse. The city’s fire department tweeted that at least nine of the victims were in critical condition, while another was in serious condition. The trapped workers were rescued through a window. The firefighters’ union says evidence points to an explosion on the 16th floor of the downtown building, where the offices of Baltimore Gas and Electric Company are located.
December 24, 2020 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has vetoed the annual defense policy bill, following through on threats to veto a measure that has broad bipartisan support in Congress and potentially setting up the first override vote of his presidency. Trump has offered a series of rationales for vetoing the bill, including a demand for lawmakers to include limits on social media companies he claimed are biased against him. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s action “an act of staggering recklessness.” A Republican ally of the president, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, said America’s troops “shouldn’t be denied what they need – ever.”
December 24, 2020 4:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A late-term maneuver by President Donald Trump to use lower drug prices paid overseas to limit some of Medicare’s costs suffered has a legal setback that appears likely to keep the policy from taking effect before the president leaves office. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake in Baltimore issued a nationwide injunction that prevents the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, from carrying out the so-called “most favored nations” rule as scheduled on Jan. 1. The policy would have applied to drugs administered in a doctor’s office, including many cancer medications.
December 24, 2020 4:12 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s new demand of $2,000 aid checks to Americans is threatening to tank a big year-end COVID relief bill. It’s also posing an uncomfortable test of allegiance for Republicans who reject such spending. On Thursday, House Democrats will all but dare Republicans to break with Trump, calling up his proposal for a Christmas Eve vote. GOP lawmakers are poised to object, offering their own proposal to cut foreign aid. Trump assailed the bipartisan $900 billion package, and suggested he may not sign it. His objection also threatens a government shutdown. House Democrats are considering stopgap funds to keep government running.
December 24, 2020 4:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump pardoned more than two dozen people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law. It’s the latest wave of clemency by Trump that benefits longtime associates and supporters. The actions announced Wednesday night bring to nearly 50 the number of people whom the president has granted clemency in the last week. Benefiting are multiple people convicted in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, plus some of the president’s legally troubled allies from Congress and other felons whose causes have been championed by friends.
December 24, 2020 4:06 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s governor wants to use $145 million in a worker’s compensation fund to help businesses cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal would require a vote from the Republican-majority Legislature to appropriate the money, and there has been no deal struck to accomplish that. Wolf is seeking to give the money in grants to businesses that have the greatest need for help. The money is a surplus in the Insurance Department’s Worker’s Compensation Security Fund.
December 24, 2020 4:05 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Republican state senators in Pennsylvania were invited to a White House lunch as President Donald Trump baselessly maintains Democrats stole the battleground state from him. A spokesperson for the caucus said every Republican senator received the invitation this week for the Wednesday lunch. It was unclear who decided to go, and the invitation included no agenda.
December 23, 2020 4:10 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has vetoed the annual defense policy bill, following through on threats to veto a measure that has broad bipartisan support in Congress and potentially setting up the first override vote of his presidency. The bill affirms 3% pay raises for U.S. troops and authorizes more than $740 billion in military programs and construction. Trump has offered a series of rationales for vetoing the bill. He has called for lawmakers to include limits on social media companies he claimed are biased against him.
