December 21, 2020 4:20 am
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) – More than 1 million people have passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints in each of the past two days in a sign that public health pleas to avoid holiday travel are being ignored. It marks the first time U.S. airports have screened more than 1 million passengers since Nov. 29. That came at the end of a Thanksgiving weekend that saw far more travel around the country than had been hoped as coronavirus cases began to spike again. Now, the big fear is the pandemic will get even worse if people don’t stay at home. Hospitals in many areas are being overwhelmed amid the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S. since March
December 21, 2020 4:18 am
BERLIN (AP) – A growing list of European Union nations and Canada have barred flights from the U.K. and others are considering similar action. The moves were made Sunday to try to block a new strain of coronavirus sweeping across southern England from spreading to the continent. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on U.K. travel. It came hours after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Christmas shopping and gatherings in southern England must be canceled. He blamed rapidly spreading infections in the region on the new coronavirus variant, which officials say is 70% more transmissible than existing strains.
December 21, 2020 4:17 am
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Authorities say a car went out of control and struck a northeast Philadelphia restaurant, killing one man and critically injuring two others. WPVI-TV reports that the car was heading south on Knights Road shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday when it left the road, landed on the roof of the barbecue restaurant and then fell to the parking lot. Police said 26-year-old John Cybulski was pronounced dead at a hospital about an hour later. A 21-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were reported in critical condition at hospitals. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
December 21, 2020 4:15 am
MCKEESPORT, Pa. (AP) – A spokeswoman for a Pennsylvania county says a law enforcement officer has been shot while taking a man into custody outside of a police station. Allegheny County Communications Director Amie Downs says the officer was shot outside of the McKeesport Police station Sunday evening and taken to a local trauma center. The officer’s identity and condition were not immediately known. Downs says the suspect escaped and is being sought by multiple law enforcement agencies. Allegheny County police say law enforcement and EMS have been dispatched to the station.
December 21, 2020 4:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Undeterred by dismissals and admonitions from judges, President Donald Trump’s campaign continued with its unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the Nov 3. election Sunday, saying it had filed a new petition with the Supreme Court. The petition seeks to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases having to do with mail-in ballots and asks the court to reject voters’ will and allow the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pick its own slate of electors. While the prospect of the highest court in the land throwing out the results of a democratic election based on unfounded charges of voter fraud is extraordinary unlikely, it wouldn’t change the outcome. President-elect Joe Biden would still be the winner even without Pennsylvania because of his wide margin of victory in the Electoral College. “The petition seeks all appropriate remedies, including vacating the appointment of electors committed to Joseph Biden and allowing the Pennsylvania General Assembly to select their replacements,” Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a statement. He is asking the court to move swiftly so it can rule before Congress meets on Jan. 6 to tally the vote of the Electoral College, which decisively confirmed Biden’s win with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. But the justices are not scheduled to meet again, even privately, until Jan 8, two days after Congress counts votes.
December 20, 2020 7:57 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyber espionage operation against the United States and tried to minimize its impact. In his first comments on the breach, Trump scoffed at the focus on the Kremlin and downplayed the intrusions, which the nation’s cybersecurity agency has warned posed a “grave” risk to government and private networks. “The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control,” Trump tweeted Saturday. He also claimed the media are “petrified” of “discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).” There is no evidence to suggest that is the case. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late Friday that Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the operation against the United States.
December 20, 2020 7:56 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California hospitals are battling to find beds to house patients amid fears the explosion of coronavirus cases will exhaust staffing resources. As of Saturday, nearly 17,400 people were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections — more than double the previous peak reached in July — and a state model that uses current data to forecast future trends shows the number could reach 75,000 by mid-January. More than 3,600 confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units. All of Southern California and the 12-county San Joaquin Valley to the north have exhausted their regular intensive care unit capacity, and some hospitals have begun using “surge” space. Overall, the state’s ICU capacity was just 2% on Saturday. The enormous crush of cases in the last six weeks has California’s death toll spiraling ever higher. Another 272 fatalities were reported Saturday and in the last week nearly 1,600 people died.
December 20, 2020 7:54 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top congressional lawmakers struck a late-night agreement on the last major obstacle to a COVID-19 economic relief package costing nearly $1 trillion, clearing the way for votes as early as Sunday. A Democratic aide said in an email that an agreement had been reached late Saturday and that compromise language was being finalized to seal a deal to be unveiled on Sunday. The breakthrough involved a fight over Federal Reserve emergency powers that was defused by an odd couple: the Senate’s top Democrat and a senior conservative Republican. “We’re getting very close, very close,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier Saturday as he spent much of the day going back and forth with GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Toomey had been pressing a provision to close down Fed lending facilities that Democrats and the White House said was too broadly worded and would have tied the hands of the incoming Biden administration.
December 20, 2020 7:53 am
OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. (AP) — Workers on Sunday began packaging shipments of the second COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S., a desperately needed boost to efforts to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control. Employees at a factory in the Memphis area were boxing up the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health. The much-needed shots are expected to be given starting Monday, just three days after the Food and Drug Administration authorized their emergency rollout. Later Sunday, an expert committee will debate who should be next in line for early doses of the Moderna vaccine and a similar one from Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech. Pfizer’s shots were first shipped out a week ago and started being used the next day, kicking off the nation’s biggest vaccination drive. Public health experts say the shots — and others in the pipeline — are the only way to stop a virus that has been spreading wildly. Nationwide, more than 219,000 people per day on average test positive for the virus, which has killed more than 314,000 in the U.S. and nearly 1.7 million worldwide. The Pfizer and Moderna shots shipped so far and going out over the next few weeks are nearly all going to health care workers and residents of long-term care homes, based on the advice of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
December 20, 2020 7:50 am
GREENSBURG, Pa. (WPXI) — Cassandra Gross has been missing since April 2018 but her mother, Kathe, said she’s not giving up or backing down until the man she believes is responsible is behind bars for good. Thomas Stanko has been in jail on charges not related to the disappearance. Officials believe murder charges will be filed against him soon. Two days after she spoke to her daughter on the phone, she was reported missing when she didn’t show up for work and her dog was spotted wandering the streets in Latrobe. The next day, her burned out car was found near Twin Lakes Park in Hempfield. Kathe Gross said she’s not sure what investigators found that linked Stanko to her daughter, but she always knew in her heart he was responsible.
