December 12, 2020 4:16 am
PITTSBURGH (WPXI) — Sean Parnell and Rep. Mike Kelly filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. A Writ of Certiorari is a request that the Supreme Court orders a lower court to send up the record of a case to be reviewed. According to a news release, Parnell and Kelly are asking the court to address two questions:
- Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution permit Pennsylvania to rely on the laches doctrine to bar all forms of equitable relief for substantive constitutional challenges to election laws?
- Whether the Elections and Electors Clauses of the United States Constitution permit Pennsylvania to violate its own state constitution’s restrictions on Pennsylvania’s lawmaking power when enacting legislation for the conduct of federal elections?
Parnell’s opponent, Rep. Conor Lamb, declared victory in the days following Election Day. Parnell has vowed to continue fighting.
December 12, 2020 1:51 am
A Donora man has been charged with criminal homicide in connection with a fatal shooting early Thursday morning at his 6th Street home. The Washington County District Attorney’s Office says 23 year old Brian Harris fired a handgun at several individuals at the home. 34 year old Brandon Harrison of Masontown was struck and died from his injuries. District Attorney Eugene Vittone says a search warrant led to the discovery of 1,000 packets of heroin, multiple firearms and other drug trafficking materials. Harris faces charges of criminal homicide, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and tampering with evidence. He is being held in the Washington County Jail without bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for December 16. State Police continue to investigate.
December 11, 2020 4:57 pm
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – President Donald Trump has lost a Wisconsin lawsuit seeking to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots and overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the battleground state. Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek on Friday ruled against every argument Trump made challenging ballots in Wisconsin’s two largest counties, saying the election was properly administered and there was no wrongdoing. Trump quickly appealed and a ruling in a separate federal lawsuit could come as soon as Friday. Trump has called for quick rulings so he can file appeals before the Electoral College meets on Monday and casts Wisconsin’s 10 votes for Biden.
December 11, 2020 4:55 pm
HOUSTON (AP) – More than half of House Republicans, including their top two leaders, are backing a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in an extraordinary display of the party’s willingness to subvert the will of voters. Seventeen Republican attorneys general and 126 members of Congress have joined Texas in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out millions of votes in four battleground states based on baseless claims of fraud. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana on Friday signed onto a brief backing the longshot bid. The case demonstrates Trump’s remarkable political power even even as he spreads false claims that many Democrats and others fear risk deeply damaging democracy.
December 11, 2020 4:20 am
MISSION, Kan. (AP) – Just when the U.S. appears on the verge of rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine, the numbers grew ever more stunning. According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. recorded 3,124 deaths Wednesday, the highest one-day total yet and more than the 2,500 Americans who died on D-Day in World War II. Up until last week, the peak was 2,603 deaths on April 15, when New York City was the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak. More than 106,000 people were hospitalized – also a record total. A U.S. government advisory panel on Thursday endorsed widespread use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to help conquer the outbreak.
December 11, 2020 4:19 am
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) – The Trump administration has carried out its ninth federal execution of the year in what has been a first series of executions during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years. Federal prison officials in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Thursday executed a Texas street-gang member for his role in the 1999 slayings of an Iowa religious couple. The case of 40-year-old Brandon Bernard was a rare execution of a person who was in his teens when his crime was committed. He was 18 when he and four other teenagers abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley on their way from a Sunday service in Killeen, Texas. Four more federal executions, including one Friday, are planned in the weeks before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
December 11, 2020 4:18 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A Senate vote on a wide-ranging defense policy bill is being delayed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The Republican objects to a provision in the bill that would limit President Donald Trump’s ability to draw down U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Germany. Paul’s objection raises the slim prospect of a government shutdown if a short-term spending bill caught up in the dispute is not approved by Friday. Paul says he is concerned that the defense bill “creates 535 commanders-in-chief in Congress” and hampers the president’s ability to deploy troops as he sees fit. Trump has threatened to veto the bill.
December 11, 2020 4:17 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Time magazine has named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris its “Person of the Year.” Time’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal says Biden and Harris won the honor for “changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world.” Felsenthal notes, “Every elected President since FDR has at some point during his term been a Person of the Year, nearly a dozen of those in a presidential election year.” Other candidates included President Donald Trump; frontline health care workers and Dr. Anthony Fauci; and the movement for racial justice.
December 11, 2020 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – An emerging $900 billion COVID-19 aid package from a bipartisan group of lawmakers has all but collapsed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Republican senators won’t support a key compromise. It includes a slimmed-down liability shield for companies from virus-related lawsuits in exchange for adding $160 billion for cash-strapped states and cities that Democrats want. The hardened stance from McConnell creates a new stalemate over the $900-billion-plus package. Now a legislative pile-up is threatening Friday’s deadline to pass an unrelated government funding bill by midnight or risk a shutdown starting Saturday. Talks are continuing.
December 11, 2020 4:14 am
BRUSSELS (AP) – European Union leaders have reached a hard-fought deal to cut the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock ahead of a U.N. climate meeting this weekend. Following night-long discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels, the 27 member states on Friday approved the EU executive commission’s proposal to toughen the bloc’s intermediate target on the way to climate neutrality by mid-century, after a group of reluctant, coal-reliant countries finally agreed to support the improved goal.
