January 30, 2021 9:19 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden is warning of a growing “cost of inaction” on his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan. And the White House says the new administration is searching for “creative” ways to garner public support for a package that has gotten a cold shoulder from Senate Republicans. In the age of the coronavirus, it’s not a matter of jumping on a plane to travel the country and try to gin up a groundswell. And at a time of deep polarization, Biden may struggle to convince Republican voters of the urgency at this particular moment after Congress already has approved $4 trillion in aid, including $900 billion last month.
January 30, 2021 4:09 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A man who admitted firing more than a dozen shots into the entrance of a western Pennsylvania mall during a fight involving several people is now headed to prison. Brandon Noel was sentenced Thursday to a term of 2 1/2 to 5 years. The 23-year-old McKeesport man had pleaded guilty last November to an aggravated assault charge stemming from the incident at the Monroeville Mall in April 2019. Authorities have said two groups of males began fighting at the mall and the brawl soon spilled outside. Noel pulled a gun and about 14 shots were fired, but no injuries were reported. The mall, about 17 miles east of Pittsburgh, was placed on lockdown and later evacuated.
January 30, 2021 4:06 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – A political fight is brewing over who’s to blame for the frustrations of so many eligible Pennsylvania residents trying to get inoculated against COVID-19. Republicans are faulting the administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf for Pennsylvania’s slow vaccine rollout. Pennsylvania ranks second-to-last among the states in vaccine administration, with the state managing to get less than half of its federal allocation of doses into people’s arms. Wolf says insufficient supply is the real culprit. The state expects to get 160,000 doses next week. That’s an increase from prior weeks, but still far short of the 705,000 doses that vaccine providers requested.
January 30, 2021 4:04 am
Family and friends gathered for a vigil service on Friday night to honor the memory of Darnell “Cuddy” Brown. The vigil was held at the Family Dollar parking lot where Brown was gunned down on Tuesday afternoon. Pastor Lance Whitlock of the Legacy Church in Washington led the group in prayer before a release of balloons. The shooter remains on the loose. Police suspect Zackory James Sadler, 36 of Donora to be the gunman. Brown leaves behind a fiancée, Leeann Group, five sons and one daughter.
January 29, 2021 8:48 am
MCKEES ROCKS, Pa. (WPXI) – We’re continuing to learn new information about what led to a deadly shooting outside a club in McKees Rocks at about 2:30 a.m. Friday. Law enforcement tells our news partners at Channel 11 that two women started getting into a fight inside Club Erotica on Island Avenue. The fight spilled out the doors and that’s when the gunfire started. Five people were shot, and two men died. The two men who were killed were identified as Christopher Butler, 22, and Seth McDermitt, 31. The other three shooting victims were rushed to area hospitals for treatment. Homicide detectives are still investigating, but they know who fired in the situation and two people may be facing charges soon.
January 29, 2021 8:21 am
Johnson & Johnson says its vaccine appears to protect against COVID-19 with just one shot. It’s not as strong as some two-shot rivals but still potentially helpful for a world in dire need of more doses. Results released Friday show the single-shot vaccine was 66% effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness, and much more protective against the most serious symptoms. The vaccine worked better in the U.S. compared to South Africa, where it was up against a tougher, mutated virus.. The company says it will file an application for emergency use soon in the U.S., and then abroad.
January 29, 2021 4:19 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” won a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” has died. She was 96. A onetime model, Tyson began her screen career with bit parts but gained fame in the early 1970s when Black women were finally starting to get starring roles. Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”
January 29, 2021 4:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – With the COVID-19 pandemic raging, uninsured, low-income Americans are getting a new chance to sign up for subsidized health care benefits. President Joe Biden is ordering government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window. Biden signed an executive order Thursday directing the “Obamacare” HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits, something the Trump administration had refused to do. He also instructed his administration to consider reversing other Trump administration health care policies, including curbs on abortion counseling and the imposition of work requirements for low-income people getting Medicaid. The new health care sign-up period will run from Feb. 15 to May 15.
January 29, 2021 4:15 am
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Donald Trump has added two more former federal prosecutors from South Carolina to his impeachment legal team. Attorney Greg Harris tells The Associated Press that he and former acting U.S. Attorney Johnny Gasser have been added to the team that will craft a defense for Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial, set for the week of Feb. 8. Harris is a former county and federal prosecutor with expertise in white-collar cases. He’s currently in private practice with Gasser, who has also been a prosecutor at the local and federal levels They join a team that includes Butch Bowers, a noted South Carolina ethics and elections lawyer.
January 29, 2021 4:13 am
WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team is visiting a hospital where China says the first COVID-19 patients were treated more than a year ago. The visit is part of the experts’ long-awaited fact-finding mission on the origins of the coronavirus. The WHO team members and Chinese officials earlier had their first in-person meetings at a hotel. WHO has said they plan to speak to first responders and patients and visit markets and laboratories in Wuhan. The team’s mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak.
