September 10, 2021 4:03 am
SQUIRREL HILL – (WPXI) – The phones at Kids Plus Pediatrics have been ringing off the hook. Parents have been asking doctors to essentially lie so their kids won’t have to wear a mask to school. “People say, ‘Can you just sign this?’ Of course we aren’t doing that unless there’s a medical reason,” explained Dr. Todd Wolynn. That’s the question Wolynn and his colleagues have been hearing nonstop. Parents want him to sign a “mask exemption” form or an excuse for their child, so they won’t have to wear a mask while in school. “We are not going to change our professional and ethical stance because someone says ‘Can you write me an exemption?,’ that’s providing permission to infect,” Wolynn said. When parents hear that answer, they sometimes get aggressive. “Our staff is getting beaten up, verbally threatened, ‘I’m gonna come down there’ and bravado and bully people around,” Wolynn said. However, he says they will write medical excuses for children who actually need them; however, those cases are rare.
September 10, 2021 2:51 am
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – West Virginia University says it is expanding its mask mandate to include all indoor campus spaces. Officials said masks will be required beginning Monday in all buildings and facilities regardless of vaccination status through Oct. 6. That’s when public health conditions will be reevaluated. Last month, the university began requiring masks to be worn in classrooms and labs, citing several factors, including that not enough students and employees have submitted proof that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The school said on Friday that the move is precautionary due to the recent significant increase of COVID-19 cases in West Virginia.
September 9, 2021 8:49 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to 310,000, a pandemic low and a sign that the surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant has yet to lead to widespread layoffs. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims dropped from a revised total of 345,000 the week before. The number of applications has fallen steadily since topping 900,000 in early January, reflecting the steady reopening of the economy after the pandemic recession.
September 9, 2021 8:15 am
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Dozens of foreigners, including Americans, have left Kabul on an international commercial flight, marking the first large-scale evacuation since U.S and NATO forces left Afghanistan late last month. Their departure on Thursday represented a breakthrough in the bumpy coordination between the U.S. and Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders. The Taliban have said they would let foreigners and Afghans with valid travel documents leave, but a days-long standoff over charter planes at another airport had cast some doubt on Taliban assurances. The Qatar Airways flight is heading to Doha. A senior U.S. official said that Americans, green card holders and other nationalities including Germans, Hungarians and Canadians are on the flight.
September 9, 2021 4:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal health officials have delayed a high-stakes decision on whether to permit bestselling vaping brand Juul to stay on the market. At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of thousands of other, lesser-known electronic cigarettes and related products. Parents, politicians and anti-tobacco advocates have pressured the FDA for years to ban Juul’s high-nicotine devices, which many blame for the recent spike in underage vaping. Thursday’s action is part of a sweeping FDA review designed to bring scientific scrutiny to the multibillion-dollar vaping industry after years of delays. The FDA had faced a court deadline Thursday to issue its decisions.
September 9, 2021 4:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration has removed 18 people appointed to U.S. military academy boards by Donald Trump in the final months of his presidency. The director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Cathy Russell, sent letters calling on them to resign by close of business on Wednesday or face termination. Trump had named them to the boards of visitors for the Air Force Academy, Military Academy and Naval Academy. Among those Biden ousted are some high-profile Trump administration officials, including White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, press secretary Sean Spicer (pictured) and national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
September 9, 2021 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Navy says the sailor killed in the suicide bomber attack during the evacuation mission in Afghanistan late last month has been posthumously promoted. And he and the other 12 service members who died during the attack have been awarded Purple Hearts. The 13 troops were killed Aug. 26 as they were helping to screen Afghans and others at the Abbey Gate of the Kabul airport. At least 169 Afghans were also killed in the bombing, as they struggled to get into the airport and on flights out of the country.
September 9, 2021 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden has announced sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant. The government’s expansive new rules, announced Thursday, mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. Biden is also signing an executive order requiring vaccination for all employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government. No testing opt-out is expected to be included for the executive branch requirement.
September 9, 2021 4:09 am
(AP) – Michael Constantine, an Emmy Award-winning character actor who reached worldwide fame playing the Windex bottle-toting father of the bride in the 2002 film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” has died. He was 94. He made appearances on such TV shows as “My Favorite Martian,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Bonanza,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “The Fugitive,” “Quincy, M.E.,” “The Love Boat,” “Remington Steele,” “MacGyver” and “Murder, She Wrote.” His big break came on “Room 222,” an ABC comedy-drama set in a fictional, racially diverse Los Angeles high school, for which he won an Emmy for outstanding performance by an actor in a supporting role in 1970. (Photo: CNN)
September 9, 2021 4:09 am
BOISE, Idaho (AP) – Idaho’s move to crisis standards of care this week is allowing some hospitals to ration health care amid an onslaught of coronavirus patients and officials are warning the rationing could spread to hospitals statewide. The main hospital currently affected by the designation is Kootenai Health in the city of Coeur d’Alene. Some COVID-19 patients there are being treated at a conference center that now resembles a field hospital because the main hospital building is full. Smaller hospitals in the region are not rationing health care but they are frequently unable to transfer patients with serious conditions to Kootenai Health. Idaho has one of the lowest U.S. vaccination rates.
