September 28, 2020 3:37 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is expected to announce the shipment of millions of rapid coronavirus tests to states this week. He plans to urge governors to use them to reopen schools. An administration official tells the Associated Press the federal government aims to ship 100 million tests to states over the next several weeks. The move to dramatically expand testing comes just five weeks before the November elections as Trump continues to face criticism for his handling of the coronavirus. The rapid tests from Abbott laboratories can be used outside of medical facilities. But experts warn they are less accurate and harder to track than older laboratory tests.
September 28, 2020 3:21 pm
LAKE JACKSON, Texas (AP) – Environmental officials in Texas have lifted a warning for a final Houston-area community to stop using tap water because it might be tainted with a deadly brain-eating microbe, but with a warning that the water should be boiled before being consumed. Earlier this month, 6-year-old Josh McIntyre died after contracting the microbe, naegleria fowleri.
The investigation into his death led to the detection of the brain-eating amoeba after heath officials conducted water sample tests. Lake Jackson City Manager Modesto Mundo said in a news release that three of 11 sample tests indicated preliminary positive results for the brain-eating microbe, with one sample coming from a hose bib at the boy’s home, Mundo. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality late Saturday lifted a warning for Lake Jackson not to use the water and replaced it with a notice to boil the water for drinking and cooking. They also advised residents to prevent water from getting into their nose when bathing, showering, swimming and washing their face. State and local officials are working to flush and disinfect the water system. Until the flushing and disinfecting process is complete, the city remains under the boil notice.
September 28, 2020 2:50 pm
(WPXI) – Officials with the Pittsburgh Steelers will be speaking with the Pennsylvania Department of Health this week about allowing fans back in Heinz Field. A team spokesman confirmed the call but did not say exactly when it will take place. Last week, the team said they were “optimistic” a limited amount of fans could return for home games in October. A source close to the situation says Pitt officials will also be speaking with the state this week about fans returning in some capacity. So far, the governor’s office has not replied to a request for comment.
September 28, 2020 1:52 pm
A well-known entrepreneur in Washington County has died. Ninety-two-year-old Jack Piatt of Chartiers Township, died Friday. Piatt may be best-known for the launch of Millcraft in 1957, as a small machine shop that grew into a diverse company with ties to several industries, and as the visionary behind Southpointe, a mixed use development project that now covers some eight-hundred acres in Cecil Township. Funeral arrangements are private but the family says it hopes to hold a “Celebration of Life” sometime next year.
September 28, 2020 7:47 am
Classes continue under their normal hybrid schedule in the Trinity School District Monday. The district notified parents Sunday that an “individual that works at Trinity North and Trinity East has tested positive for COVID-19”. According to the letter, “the individual will not return to our schools until they have completed isolation procedures”. “Impacted areas of our schools have been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized”. The letter, signed by Assistant Superintendent Dr. Donald Snoke says the individual had “only a few close staff contacts” and “currently, we have not identified any students that would be considered close contacts with this staff member”. The district says that a second confirmed case at Trinity North or Trinity East prior to October 8 would result in a short closure of the school buildings. The district is currently surveying parents as they look to move to five-day-a-week in-class learning beginning next month. Students also have the option of all online learning five days a week.
September 28, 2020 4:30 am
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – Florida police and campaign officials say President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has been hospitalized after he threatened to harm himself. Police officers say they talked Parscale out of his Fort Lauderdale home Sunday after his wife called police to say that he had multiple firearms and was threatening to hurt himself. He was hospitalized under the state’s Baker Act, which allows anyone deemed to be a threat to themselves or others to be detained for 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation. Parscale was demoted from the campaign manager’s post in July but remained part of the campaign, helping run its digital operation.
September 28, 2020 4:29 am
NEW YORK (AP) – A federal judge on Sunday postponed a Trump administration order that would have banned the popular video sharing app TikTok from U.S. smartphone app stores around midnight. A more comprehensive ban remains scheduled for November, about a week after the presidential election. The judge, Carl Nichols of the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia, did not postpone that later ban. The ruling followed an emergency hearing Sunday morning in which lawyers for TikTok argued that the administration’s app-store ban would infringe on First Amendment rights and do irreparable harm to the business.
September 28, 2020 4:28 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is pushing for quick confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett while his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, is imploring the Senate to delay voting on her nomination until after the Nov. 3 election to “let the people decide.” Trump’s announcement of Barrett for the seat held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is launching a high-stakes, fast-track election season fight over confirmation of a conservative judge who is expected to shift the court rightward as it reviews health care, abortion access and other hot-button issues. Biden urged his former colleagues in the Senate to “take a step back from the brink.”
September 28, 2020 4:27 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The bombshell revelations that President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for office and paid no income taxes at all in many others threaten to undercut a pillar of his appeal among blue-collar voters. It also provided a new opening for his Democratic rival just two days before the first presidential debate. Trump has worked for decades to build an image of himself as a hugely successful business mogul. But The New York Times on Sunday revealed that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.
September 28, 2020 4:26 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Pennsylvania Game Commission has approved the use of night vision and infrared (thermal) optics in the hunting of furbearers, animals traditionally trapped or hunted for their pelts. Commissioners gave final approval during a brief meeting Saturday to the change, which will go into effect in six to eight weeks after the regulation is reviewed and published. State lawmakers earlier this year authorized the commission to regulate such devices, use of which was previously prohibited by state law. Furbearing species that can be hunted in Pennsylvania are raccoons, foxes, coyotes, opossums, striped skunks, weasels, bobcats and porcupines.
