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.
December 11, 2020 4:11 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Lawyers for Pennsylvania are responding in the U.S. Supreme Court to Texas’ effort to overturn the election result in four states for President-elect Joe Biden. In a brief filed Thursday, lawyers for Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, are calling it a “seditious abuse” of the courts that rests on conspiracy theories and falsehoods. They also say Texas lacks standing and that its claims are barred by time limits, meritless and dangerous. They say Texas wants to anoint its preferred candidate for president, Donald Trump. The suit from the Texas attorney general demands Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin be invalidated.
December 10, 2020 3:29 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Ellen DeGeneres says she’s tested positive for COVID-19 but is “feeling fine right now.” The producer of her daytime talk show says taping is on hold until January. DeGeneres said in an Instagram post that anyone who has been in close contact with her has been notified and that she’s following “all proper CDC” guidelines. DeGeneres promised to see her viewers after the holidays and called for them to stay “healthy and safe.” Reruns of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” were to air starting Thursday. When the coronavirus outbreak hit in March, the show shifted to taping without a studio audience. In September, it put fans into seats virtually.
December 10, 2020 3:27 pm
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – An initially promising U.S. forecast for the northern lights has gone bust. The head of operations at the U.S. government’s space weather prediction center says stargazers in the continental 48 states have essentially zero chance of seeing the northern lights this week. That’s despite an initially promising forecast. Forecasters had thought they would be viewable as far south as Illinois this week. The northern lights are also known as aurora borealis. They are an astronomical phenomenon in which curtains of color are visible against the night sky.
December 10, 2020 9:32 am
State Police are investigating a fatal shooting early this morning in Donora. The Washington County Coroner’s Office says the unidentified victim was shot by a homeowner along 6th Street just after 1:30 a.m. The incident is being investigated as an attempted home invasion. The homeowner called 911. The victim was transported by ambulance to a landing zone near Donora Elementary Center awaiting a medical helicopter, but did not survive. They were pronounced dead in the ambulance just after 3 a.m. The Identity of the victim is pending notification of next of kin.
