July 21, 2021 1:10 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Kennedy Center Honors is returning in December. The honorees will be Motown Records creator Berry Gordy, “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels, opera singer Justino Diaz, folk music legend Joni Mitchell and actress-singer Bette Midler. All will be honored on Dec. 5 with a program that includes personalized tributes and performances that are kept secret from the honorees until the event. Organizers expect to operate at full capacity. Last year’s Honors ceremony was delayed for months and later conducted under intense COVID-19 restrictions.
July 21, 2021 4:11 am
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Wildfires in the American West, including one burning in Oregon that’s currently the largest in the U.S., are creating hazy skies as far away as New York as the massive infernos spew smoke and ash into the air in columns up to six miles high. Skies over New York City were hazy as strong winds blew smoke east from California, Oregon, Montana and other states. Oregon’s Bootleg Fire grew to 606 square miles (1,569 square kilometers) – half the size of Rhode Island.
July 21, 2021 4:08 am
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A federal judge has blocked an Arkansas law banning nearly all abortions from taking effect this month. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction preventing the law’s enforcement while she considers a challenge to its constitutionality. The measure passed by the majority-Republican Legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson was set to take effect July 28. The ban allows the procedure to save the life of the mother and does not provide exceptions for those impregnated in an act of rape or incest. The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, which had challenged the outright ban, hailed Baker’s decision.
July 21, 2021 4:07 am
MISSION, Kan. (AP) – COVID-19 cases have tripled in the U.S. over two weeks amid an onslaught of vaccine misinformation. The spike in infections is straining hospitals, frustrating doctors and pushing clergy into the fray. Across the U.S., the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks to more than 37,000 on Tuesday, up from less than 13,700 on July 6. Health officials blame the delta variant and flattening vaccination rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 56.2% of Americans have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.
July 21, 2021 4:05 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is rejecting two Republicans tapped by House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to sit on a committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. McCarthy is now denouncing the decision as “an egregious abuse of power.” Pelosi on Wednesday refused two of McCarthy’s five picks to the panel, Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, who was tapped to head the panel, and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. Pelosi cited the “integrity” of the probe in refusing to accept those two close allies of former President Donald Trump, whose supporters laid siege to the Capitol that day.
July 21, 2021 4:04 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Harvey Weinstein has pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles courtroom to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts. Sheriff’s deputies brought the 69-year-old convicted rapist into court Wednesday in a wheelchair. He was wearing a brown jail jumpsuit and face mask. Attorney Mark Werksman entered the plea for the disgraced movie mogul a day after Weinstein was extradited to California from New York, where he was serving a 23-year prison term. He now awaits a second trial on a second coast, and the possibility of another lengthy sentence. Weinstein’s charges involve five women and span from 2004 to 2013. The 11 counts together could bring a sentence of 140 years.
July 21, 2021 4:02 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania state police say troopers shot and killed an armed man near Harrisburg after he allegedly fired into two occupied homes and toward troopers who were called to the scene. An agency spokeswoman said 34-year-old Mitchell James Shuller of Harrisburg ignored demands to drop his rifle and had shot in the direction of troopers when they killed him outside his home Tuesday morning. Shuller died at the scene in a rural area north of Harrisburg. He’d been home alone, and no one else was injured. Shuller’s estranged wife says he had mental and physical health problems and had lost a construction job because of the pandemic.
July 21, 2021 3:55 am
Associated Press (AP) – Pennsylvania health officials are defending their decision to award another no-bid deal for COVID-19 contact tracing after a serious data breach involving the state’s previous vendor. They call it an urgent priority with cases rising and schools preparing to reopen for fall. The Department of Health awarded a $34 million contract to Boston-based Public Consulting Group through an emergency procurement, allowing them to bypass normal contracting procedures. That’s the same process that state officials used to hire the first vendor, which the Health Department fired in May after company employees compromised the private data of more than 70,000 residents.
July 21, 2021 3:07 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s high court has dealt a blow to victims of child sexual abuse who are trying to revive their otherwise outdated claims. The court on Wednesday tossed a lawsuit by a woman whose earlier legal victory had given hope to other victims who sued in the wake of a landmark report that documented decades of child molestation within the Catholic church in Pennsylvania. The court says the two-year statute of limitations for plaintiff Renee Rice began to run in 1981. That’s when Rice says she was last assaulted by a priest from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The priest has denied the allegations.
July 20, 2021 9:50 am
VAN HORN, Texas (AP) – Jeff Bezos has blasted into space on his rocket company’s first flight with passengers. He’s the second billionaire in just over a week to ride his own spacecraft. The Amazon founder soared to space with a hand-picked group in his Blue Origin capsule and landed 10 minutes later on the desert floor. The passengers include Bezos’ younger brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from the Dallas area. They’re the youngest and oldest to ever hurtle off the planet. Named after America’s first astronaut, the New Shepard rocket soared from West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
