November 21, 2020 2:39 am
One person was taken into custody Friday morning, after a high-speed chase on Interstate 79 ended in a two vehicle crash. State Police say the chase began in Robinson Township in Allegheny County after the car the driver was in was reported stolen. The accident shut down the north and southbound lanes of the interstate near the Houston Exit, causing major traffic back-ups. Parts of the interstate were reopened shortly before noon. The vehicle police were chasing crashed into another car around ten-thirty. The driver of that vehicle was taken to an area hospital while the driver of the stolen car was taken into custody. (Photo: WPXI)
November 21, 2020 2:38 am
Officials in the Canon-McMillan School District announced on Friday that the district will move to remote learning for all students beginning Tuesday, December 1, 2020, through and including January 4, 2021. They say the amendment to the Return to School Health & Safety Plan is necessitated by the impacts on staffing caused by the increase in community transmission, new Commonwealth’s requirements on self-quarantining/testing of persons traveling across state lines, and other COVID-related issues. They say they will monitor staffing issues and other conditions and may further amend the district’s Return to School Health & Safety Plan as circumstances dictate.
November 21, 2020 2:34 am
NEW YORK (AP) – The nation’s top public health agency is pleading with Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving, or to spend the holiday with people with whom they are not currently living. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the recommendations Thursday, one week before the traditional family gathering celebration – and at a time when diagnosed coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are skyrocketing across the country. If families do decide to include returning college students, military service members, or others in a gathering, the CDC is recommending that hosting families take added precautions. Gatherings should be outdoors, if possible, with people keeping 6 feet apart, wearing masks, and having just one person serve the food.
November 21, 2020 1:55 am
Officials in the Trinity School District announced on Friday that all students (K-12) will temporarily move to online learning from December 1st through December 23rd because of limited staffing availability and recent recommendations from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Officials say the limited staffing situation has come about because of mandatory quarantining. They say that on Thursday, 48 staff members were unable to work and the district was only able to get substitutes for 23 of the vacant positions. Officials say they are also not able to maintain the number of buses and vans needed on a daily basis because the number of available drivers is decreasing daily. In addition, officials say the state’s Department of Education and the Department of Health have both recommended that all students move to full remote instruction based on the surge of coronavirus cases in Washington County. District officials say that the contract tracing that has been done among students has shown that all infections are being traced back to a party, gathering or event outside of the school district.
November 21, 2020 1:16 am
WASHINGTON (WPXI) – Pittsburgh FBI agents are searching for a man wanted in connection with a drug trafficking organization primarily operating in Washington, Allegheny and Fayette counties. Patrick Ellis, 47, of Washington, Pa., is being charged along with 21 others who have been indicted by a federal grand jury for trafficking significant quantities of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl. Seventeen of the defendants were arrested yesterday as part of “FBI Operation Skyfall,” an investigation that spanned seven months and involved federal wiretaps of ten phones. Four other defendants were already in custody and Ellis is the only one at-large. Those charged brought the drugs from New Jersey to Western Pennsylvania from April through October of this year, according to the FBI.
November 20, 2020 4:15 am
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – President-elect Joe Biden is criticizing President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attempt to block the peaceful transition of power at the White House, saying it has hindered the flow of information about programs to fast-track a coronavirus vaccine. Biden told the National Governors Association’s leadership group on Thursday that his incoming team “hasn’t been able to get everything we need” from the Trump administration. Biden says Trump is likely to go down as the nation’s most irresponsible president – not just for his four years in office but also for his refusal to concede the election and cooperate in the transition.
November 20, 2020 4:14 am
ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s top elections official has certified results showing Democrat Joe Biden won the presidential race in the state. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the results Friday after a hand count of ballots affirmed Biden’s lead over Republican President Donald Trump. Raffensperger said during a news conference Friday that he believes the numbers his office has presented are correct. He says he’s a proud Trump supporter but he’s also an engineer who lives by the motto that “numbers don’t lie.” Now, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has until 5 p.m. Saturday to certify the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors.
November 20, 2020 4:12 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President-elect Joe Biden has a birthday Friday and is turning 78. In exactly two months, he’ll take the reins of a politically fractured nation facing the worst public health crisis in a century, high unemployment and a reckoning on racial injustice. As he wrestles with those issues, Biden will be attempting to accomplish another feat: demonstrating to Americans that age is but a number. Biden will enter office as the oldest president in the nation’s history, displacing Ronald Reagan, who left the White House in 1989, when he was 77 years and 349 days old.
November 20, 2020 4:10 am
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California is imposing a nighttime curfew as its coronavirus figures soar but it will lean heavily on voluntary compliance and sheriffs of some counties say they won’t enforce it. The stay-at-home order for 41 counties bars nonessential travel and closes nonessential businesses from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Saturday. The order will last until Dec. 21 and comes as a surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to overwhelm the health care system. The curfew covers 94% of the state’s nearly 40 million residents. But sheriffs and some lawmakers in at least four counties say they won’t enforce the curfew.
November 20, 2020 4:09 am
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) – The U.S. government has executed a man who kidnapped and raped a 16-year-old Texas girl before dousing her with gasoline and burying her alive. Orlando Hall is the eighth federal inmate put to death this year after a nearly two-decade hiatus. Hall died by injection Thursday at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. His attorneys cited concerns that Hall, who was Black, was sentenced on the recommendation of an all-white jury. The Trump administration renewed federal executions this year. Only three federal inmates had been executed in the previous 56 years. Hall was convicted in the abduction and death of Lisa Rene in 1994.
