October 7, 2020 4:33 am
The writer, singer and producer of the classic “I Can See Clearly Now” has died. Johnny Nash’s son says his father died Tuesday at his home in Houston of natural causes at 80. Nash was a Houston-born artist who rose from pop crooner to early reggae star to chart-topping status with “I Can See Clearly Now.” Released in 1972, the tune was covered by artists ranging from Ray Charles and Donny Osmond to Soul Asylum and Jimmy Cliff, whose version was featured in the 1993 movie “Cool Runnings.” It also turned up in the film “Thelma and Louise,” and a Windex commercial.
October 7, 2020 4:10 am
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) – Hurricane Delta has made landfall south of Cancun along the northeastern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, blowing down trees and knocking out power in some of the area’s resorts. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the center of Delta came ashore around 5:30 a.m. local time as a Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph). About 2,000 people took refuge in shelters in Quintana Roo state, whose governor is warning residents and tourists that it is the strongest storm since Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Forecasters predicted a storm surge of up to 13 feet (4 meters). (Photo: AP)
October 7, 2020 4:09 am
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) – A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments over whether North Carolina is providing voters sufficient opportunity to fix absentee ballots that arrive without full information on who witnessed it. U.S. District Judge William Osteen was holding a hearing on Wednesday afternoon concerning a trio of lawsuits filed over how the state handles absentee ballot. Late last month, the State Board of Elections had agreed to allow voters to fix problems with incomplete witness info by sending in an affidavit and not starting a new ballot from scratch and having it witnessed again. But that change was temporarily halted by a different federal judge, who sent two cases brought by GOP leaders to Osteen.
October 7, 2020 4:08 am
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger, California Sen. Kamala Harris, are poised to meet for a debate that will offer starkly different visions for a country confronting escalating crises. The faceoff Wednesday night in Salt Lake City is the most highly anticipated vice presidential debate in recent memory. It will unfold while President Donald Trump recovers at the White House after testing positive last week for the coronavirus and spending several days in the hospital, a serious setback for his campaign that adds pressure on Pence to defend the administration’s handling of the pandemic.
October 7, 2020 4:07 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House is trying to salvage its favored proposals for coronavirus aid now that President Donald Trump has ended negotiation with Democrats. Trump has used a flurry of tweets to press for Congress to approve $1,200 stimulus checks and new aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic. It’s an about-face from his abrupt move on Tuesday to abandon talks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She has rejected such piecemeal entreaties all along. Pelosi did speak with Trump’s treasury secretary on Wednesday morning about the possibility of passing a rescue bill just for the airline industry.
October 7, 2020 4:06 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is said by his doctor to be making progress in his recovery from COVID-19 – and the president tweets that he’s eager to get back on the campaign trail. Even so, he spent the all day Tuesday out of sight at the White House, and the outbreak that has killed more than 210,000 Americans reached ever more widely into the upper echelons of the U.S. government. Top military leaders are now in quarantine. And top White House aide Stephen Miller tested positive, too. In a major legislative move, the White House announced that it would not longer negotiate with Congress on an economic relief package.
October 7, 2020 4:02 am
Supervisors in North Strabane Township held a special meeting to award the contract for storm sewer and sanitary sewer replacements along Oakwood Drive in the Majestic Hills Plan. This is part of the repair project that was necessitated by a landslide that claimed several homes back in 2018. Seven companies bid the project. Bids ranged from $479,620 to $980,550. The bid was awarded to J5 Construction of Eighty Four, PA for the $479,620 figure. Supervisors had estimates of between $715,000 and $855,000 the project and the township’s engineer, Gateway Engineers made extra effort to make sure the bid by J5 Construction was accurate. J5 Construction stood by their bid each time they were asked to confirm numbers. The earliest that construction could begin is late October or very early November. In other township business, preliminary budget workshops began. Township Manager Andrew Walz will work with supervisors over the course of 7 workshops to develop a preliminary budget to be presented in November. Early numbers indicate that no real estate tax increase is anticipated.
October 7, 2020 2:59 am
(AP) – Eddie Van Halen, whose innovative and explosive guitar playing kept the hard rock band that bore his family name cemented to the top of the album charts for two decades, died on Tuesday morning after a long battle with cancer, a rep confirmed to Variety. He was 65. Eddie Van Halen was dogged by personal and health issues that would intermittently interfere with his work in music over the course of the next decade. A chronic joint problem, exacerbated by his reckless onstage style, forced him to undergo hip replacement surgery in 1999. The onset of cancer – likely the result of heavy smoking – led to the surgical removal of part of his tongue in 2000. Eddie Van Halen is survived by his second wife, the band’s former publicist Janie Liszewski, whom he married in 2009, and his son.
October 7, 2020 2:48 am
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) – Two people have died in a fire in northern West Virginia. The Wheeling Fire Department says the bodies of two adults were pulled from a home in Wheeling on Tuesday night. A passerby reported the fire. Firefighters battled the fire for more than an hour. The bodies have been sent to the state medical examiner and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
October 6, 2020 4:52 pm
(AP) – Pennsylvania’s chief fiscal watchdog is criticizing a state program under which businesses could seek permission to operate under Gov. Tom Wolf’s pandemic shutdown. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale says waivers were granted inconsistently and with little transparency, comparing the process to a “Keystone Kops routine.” DePasquale spoke Tuesday at a virtual news conference. The auditor general’s office has been investigating the business shutdown waiver program amid complaints it was managed unfairly. Wolf’s spokesperson referred questions to the Department of Community and Economic Development, which ran the program. The department says its waiver decisions were based on whether the business offered “life-sustaining services.”
