December 12, 2020 4:24 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has signed a temporary government-wide funding bill into law, averting a federal shutdown at midnight and buying Congress time for on-again, off-again talks on COVID-19 aid. The short-term measure passed the Senate just hours earlier by a unanimous voice vote without much drama and sent senators home for the weekend without a clear picture of what awaits next week. The bill sets a new deadline of midnight next Friday. The House passed the bill Wednesday. COVID-19 relief talks remain stalled but there is universal agreement that Congress won’t adjourn for the year without passing a long-delayed round of pandemic relief.
December 12, 2020 4:23 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court and subvert the will of voters. Trump is bemoaning the decision, tweeting: “The Supreme Court really let us down. No Wisdom, No Courage!” The high court’s order was a stark repudiation of a legal claim that was widely regarded as dubious, yet embraced by many Republicans. Trump had insisted the court would find agree with his baseless position that the election was the product of widespread fraud and should be overturned. But the nation’s highest court emphatically disagreed.
December 12, 2020 4:22 am
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court is meeting in a rare weekend session to consider President Donald Trump’s lawsuit seeking to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the battleground state. The high court agreed to take the case at Trump’s urgent request Friday, soon after a state judge ruled against him and with Monday’s Electoral College vote bearing down. The court is controlled 4-3 by conservatives, but its willingness to hear arguments in the case Saturday isn’t necessarily an indicator of how it will rule. The court previously refused to hear the case before it went through lower courts, and a majority of justices have openly questioned whether the remedy Trump seeks is appropriate.
December 12, 2020 4:21 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. has given the final go-ahead to the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine, launching emergency vaccinations in a bid to end the pandemic. Shots will begin in a few days after Friday’s decision by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA called the vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech safe and strongly protective. But initial doses are scarce and rationed, with health workers and nursing home residents first in line. Enough for the general population isn’t expected until spring, and experts urge people to mask up and keep their distance during a long, grim winter.
December 12, 2020 4:16 am
PITTSBURGH (WPXI) — Sean Parnell and Rep. Mike Kelly filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. A Writ of Certiorari is a request that the Supreme Court orders a lower court to send up the record of a case to be reviewed. According to a news release, Parnell and Kelly are asking the court to address two questions:
- Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution permit Pennsylvania to rely on the laches doctrine to bar all forms of equitable relief for substantive constitutional challenges to election laws?
- Whether the Elections and Electors Clauses of the United States Constitution permit Pennsylvania to violate its own state constitution’s restrictions on Pennsylvania’s lawmaking power when enacting legislation for the conduct of federal elections?
Parnell’s opponent, Rep. Conor Lamb, declared victory in the days following Election Day. Parnell has vowed to continue fighting.
December 12, 2020 1:51 am
A Donora man has been charged with criminal homicide in connection with a fatal shooting early Thursday morning at his 6th Street home. The Washington County District Attorney’s Office says 23 year old Brian Harris fired a handgun at several individuals at the home. 34 year old Brandon Harrison of Masontown was struck and died from his injuries. District Attorney Eugene Vittone says a search warrant led to the discovery of 1,000 packets of heroin, multiple firearms and other drug trafficking materials. Harris faces charges of criminal homicide, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and tampering with evidence. He is being held in the Washington County Jail without bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for December 16. State Police continue to investigate.
December 11, 2020 4:57 pm
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – President Donald Trump has lost a Wisconsin lawsuit seeking to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots and overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the battleground state. Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek on Friday ruled against every argument Trump made challenging ballots in Wisconsin’s two largest counties, saying the election was properly administered and there was no wrongdoing. Trump quickly appealed and a ruling in a separate federal lawsuit could come as soon as Friday. Trump has called for quick rulings so he can file appeals before the Electoral College meets on Monday and casts Wisconsin’s 10 votes for Biden.
December 11, 2020 4:55 pm
HOUSTON (AP) – More than half of House Republicans, including their top two leaders, are backing a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in an extraordinary display of the party’s willingness to subvert the will of voters. Seventeen Republican attorneys general and 126 members of Congress have joined Texas in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out millions of votes in four battleground states based on baseless claims of fraud. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana on Friday signed onto a brief backing the longshot bid. The case demonstrates Trump’s remarkable political power even even as he spreads false claims that many Democrats and others fear risk deeply damaging democracy.
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.
