July 13, 2020 4:17 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is slowly coming to accept that the Republican National Convention won’t be the four-night infomercial for his reelection that he’d anticipated. Already the late August event has moved from North Carolina to Florida, and now coronavirus cases are spiking and there’s an economic recession. Trump aides and allies are increasingly questioning whether the convention will be worth the trouble. Some are advocating that it be scrapped altogether. They reason that conventions are meant to lay out a candidate’s vision for the coming four years, not spark months of intrigue over the health and safety those who attend. Ultimately, the call on whether to move forward will be Trump’s alone.
July 13, 2020 4:13 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania schools are working on how they will safely transport students this fall, but one idea that won’t be part of the plan is to install plastic barriers around school bus drivers. The state Transportation Department rejected that idea recently, saying there wasn’t evidence it’ll make anyone safer. But a bus trade group spokesperson says the idea was to protect drivers, many of whom are older people at risk of serious illness. The challenge of getting students to school without putting them at heightened risk of COVID-19 infection could involve staggered schedules, limited ridership and health checks.
July 13, 2020 4:10 am
MURRYSVILLE, Pa. — (WPXI) – Police investigating a deadly motorcycle crash in Westmoreland County. It happened just after 4 p.m. in the westbound lanes of Route 366 eastbound just past Route 380 Auction in Murrysville. One person has been killed. The name of the person has not yet been released. Westbound lanes between Route 380 and Greensburg are shut down while crews work to clear the crash.
July 13, 2020 4:08 am
SOUTH HILLS, Pa. — (WPXI) – An employee at Blessed Trinity Parish in the South Hills has tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Diocese of Pittsburgh. People in direct exposure to the person who tested positive are being tested and will be self-quarantined. The Allegheny County Health Department has been contacted, and employees at the parish have been informed. As a result, churches and other buildings in the parish will be closed for extra cleaning and sanitizing. The church building involved is St. Albert the Great in Baldwin; however, as a precaution, all parish church buildings, including St. Basil in Carrick, St. Wendelin in Carrick, Holy Angels in Hayes and St. Sylvester in Brentwood will be cleaned and sanitized. Reopening schedules for Blessed Trinity Parish will be forthcoming. None of the churches will be open for daily Masses or will be used this week.
July 13, 2020 2:06 am
WASHINGTON, Pa. – Yet another county restaurant is closed for deep cleaning because of a reported positive COVID-19 case. Hungry Jose’s in downtown Washington said they were informed of a patron who eventually tested positive for the virus. According to a Facebook post, the person was at the bar on Wednesday, July 8th at around 7:00 p.m. The test did not come back positive until Friday. The deep clean of the facility will take place over the weekend, and Jose’s will not be open until the sanitation is complete. According to the online post, the bar will announce a later re-opening date. Additionally, Mad Mex in Canonsburg is closed because an employee tested positive for COVID-19 according to their website. The location just found out about the positive case Saturday and will not open until it is proven safe for all staff and customers.
July 12, 2020 8:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former special counsel Robert Mueller sharply defended his investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, writing in a newspaper opinion piece Saturday that the probe was of “paramount importance” and asserting that a Trump ally, Roger Stone, “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so” despite the president’s decision to commute his prison sentence. The op-ed in The Washington Post marked Mueller’s first public statement on his investigation since his congressional appearance last July. It represented his firmest defense of the two-year probe whose results have come under attack and even been partially undone by the Trump administration, including the president’s extraordinary move Friday evening to grant clemency to Stone just days before he was due to report to prison. Mueller wrote that though he had intended for his team’s work to speak for itself, he felt compelled to “respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office.
July 12, 2020 8:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump wore a mask during a visit to a military hospital on Saturday, the first time the president has been seen in public with the type of facial covering recommended by health officials as a precaution against spreading or becoming infected by the novel coronavirus. Trump flew by helicopter to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in suburban Washington to meet wounded servicemembers and health care providers caring for COVID-19 patients. As he left the White House, he told reporters: “When you’re in a hospital, especially … I think it’s a great thing to wear a mask.” Trump was wearing a mask in Walter Reed’s hallway as he began his visit. He was not wearing one when he stepped off the helicopter at the facility.
July 12, 2020 8:12 am
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A misaligned missile battery, miscommunication between troops and their commanders and a decision to fire without authorization all led to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shooting down a Ukrainian jetliner in January, killing all 176 people on board, a new report says. The report released late Saturday by Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization comes months after the Jan. 8 crash near Tehran. Authorities had initially denied responsibility, only changing course days later after Western nations presented extensive evidence that Iran had shot down the plane. The report may signal a new phase in the investigation into the crash, as the aircraft’s black box flight recorder is due to be sent to Paris, where international investigators will finally be able to examine it. The shootdown happened the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting U.S. soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone strike that killed Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3.
July 12, 2020 8:10 am
NEW YORK (AP) — A long-expected upturn in U.S. coronavirus deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West, according to data on the pandemic. The number of deaths per day from the virus had been falling for months, and even remained down as states like Florida and Texas saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations — and reported daily U.S. infections broke records several times in recent days. Scientists warned it wouldn’t last. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. And experts predicted states that saw increases in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too. Now that’s happening. According to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily reported deaths in the U.S. has increased from 578 two weeks ago to 664 on July 10 — still well below the heights hit in April. Daily reported deaths increased in 27 states over that time period, but the majority of those states are averaging under 15 new deaths per day. A smaller group of states has been driving the nationwide increase in deaths.
July 12, 2020 8:07 am
ROSTRAVER, Pa. (WPXI) — A deadly house fire broke out in Westmoreland County around 2 a.m. Sunday in Rostraver Township. According to fire officials, an elderly husband and wife, and their dog died in the fire. The couple were parents of a volunteer firefighter. The victims have been identified as Lloyd Oblack, 83, and Marie Oblack, 81. Multiple area fire departments responded to the scene The fire happened along the 800 block of Collinsburg Road.
