October 27, 2020 4:10 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Southern California Edison says its equipment may have sparked a Southern California wildfire that has prompted evacuation orders for more than 90,000 people and critically injured two firefighters. Edison filed a report with the state Public Utilities Commission that says a “lashing wire” may have struck a conductor in the area where the fire broke out Monday. That blaze and a smaller one nearby prompted evacuation orders in Irvine and other Orange County communities. The blaze came as the state was hit by another round of strong, dangerous winds, and the fire danger is expected to remain through Tuesday.
October 27, 2020 4:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court is siding with Republicans to prevent Wisconsin from counting mailed ballots that are received after Election Day. In a 5-3 order, the justices on Monday refused to reinstate a lower court order that called for mailed ballots to be counted if they are received up to six days after the election. A federal appeals court had already put that order on hold. The three liberal justices dissented from the order issued just before the Senate started voting on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination. Democrats argued that the flood of absentee ballots and other challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic makes it necessary to extend the deadline.
October 27, 2020 4:08 am
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) – Hurricane Zeta has come ashore on the Caribbean coast of the eastern Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, while whipping the resorts around Tulum with rain and wind. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Zeta made landfall late Monday just north of Tulum with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph). Zeta is predicted to lose some power while crossing the peninsula, before regaining hurricane strength in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday while heading for the central U.S. Gulf Coast and a likely landfall Wednesday night.
October 27, 2020 4:07 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Joe Biden plans to use the final week before Election Day to go on offense, heading Tuesday to Georgia and planning travel that may put President Donald Trump on defense in other states he won four years ago. The Democratic presidential nominee plans to hit Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin after a pair of stops in Georgia and is dispatching his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, to Arizona and the largest red state, Texas. Trump returns to Wisconsin on Tuesday, visiting West Salem just three days after holding a Janesville rally. While Biden rarely travels to more than one state per day, the president has maintained a whirlwind schedule.
October 27, 2020 4:06 am
OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) – The coronavirus is getting worse in states that President Donald Trump needs the most. The upper Midwest is bearing much of the brunt of new infections surging across the U.S. That includes Wisconsin, where Trump is fighting to catch Democrat Joe Biden in a state Trump narrowly won in 2016. Also seeing a surge is Iowa, where Trump is now in a toss-up race with Biden after carrying the state by 9.4 percentage points four years ago. Both states are in the top 10 of those with the fastest-growing number of cases per capita over the past two weeks.
October 27, 2020 4:03 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Two Republican candidates for Congress are settling a lawsuit they filed earlier this month and dropping their effort to force Allegheny County to let them send campaign representatives to observe inside satellite election offices. The candidates dropped that claim in a settlement approved Monday by a federal judge in Pittsburgh. The settlement, instead, describes Allegheny County’s stated process for counting ballots for nearly 29,000 voters who were mailed ballots with the wrong contests on them. State courts have already rejected a similar effort by President Donald Trump’s campaign to force Philadelphia’s election board to allow its campaign representatives to monitor satellite election offices.
October 27, 2020 4:01 am
Township Manager Paul Lauer and Township Engineer Mark Zemaitis updated Peters Township Council on the progress of the realignment of E. McMurray Road and the early development phase of Rolling Hills Park. Zemaitis indicated that the project is on schedule and the road will be open at the beginning of 2021. The realignment will be causing traffic delays as the new road gets tied into the old one. Zemaitis and Lauer suggest alternate routes for the next couple of weeks to avoid any traffic delays. Lauer said that bids will be opened on October 29 for the next phase of the park development. The road that carries traffic through the park and the picnic pavilions that will be located on the Great Lawn are of the park are to begin construction by year’s end. Preliminary drawings of the new aquatic park were also displayed. Bids are scheduled for next spring with a Memorial Day 2022 opening planned. An additional marketing study was done. It confirmed that there is a market for an aquatic park of this type. It will not be limited to Peters Township residents only. The study includes residents from neighboring communities to enjoy the water park also.
October 26, 2020 5:38 pm
(AP) – The stock market had its worst day in a month as virus cases surge and help for the economy from Washington remains nowhere in sight. The S&P 500 fell 1.9% Monday, deepening its losses from last week. Stocks of companies that need the virus to abate and the economy to return to normal had some of the biggest losses. Cruise lines and airlines fell sharply. Energy stocks also dropped in tandem with crude oil prices. In another sign of caution, Treasury yields pulled back after touching their highest level since June last week. Overseas markets also fell.
October 26, 2020 1:22 pm
ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio (AP) – Robert Murray, who as a leader of the largest privately owned U.S. coal operator long fought federal regulations to reduce black lung disease, has died. A lawyer tells The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register that Murray died Sunday at age 80 at his home in St. Clairsville, Ohio. He had announced his retirement Oct. 19 from American Consolidated Natural Resource Holdings Inc. as board chairman. The company sued unsuccessfully in 2014 over regulations to cut coal dust in mines to reduce black lung disease. No official cause of death was given. But recent reports stated Murray had applied for black lung benefits with the U.S. Labor Department.
October 26, 2020 4:20 am
LONDONDERRY, N.H. (AP) – The coronavirus has reached the upper echelons of the White House again, with an outbreak among aides to Vice President Mike Pence just over a week from Election Day. A top White House official declared on Sunday that “we’re not going to control the pandemic.” Officials also scoffed at the notion of Pence dialing back in-person campaigning despite positive tests among several people in his office. Democrat Joe Biden says that the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is effectively waving “the white flag of defeat.”
