August 16, 2019 11:46 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s jobless rate is up slightly but remains near record lows under state records that go back four decades.
The Labor and Industry Department said Friday the 3.9% rate in July was 0.1 percent higher than the record low that was in place from April to June. The national rate of 3.7 percent was unchanged from June. The size of the state’s workforce rose by 1,000 to nearly 6.5 million. The number of unemployed Pennsylvanians rose by 4,000, which is the first increase in the current calendar year. The state’s unemployment rate a year ago was 0.3 percentage points higher.
August 16, 2019 11:44 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is directing state police and other agencies under his control to focus greater efforts on addressing gun violence, two days after a gunman shot and wounded six Philadelphia police officers. The Democratic governor on Friday announced changes that include a new Special Council on Gun Violence, which will have six months to recommend how to reduce mass shootings, domestic violence, suicide and accidental shootings. Wolf is setting up a new Office of Gun Violence Prevention at the state commission on crime and delinquency. He wants state police to expand and support gun buy-back programs and increase monitoring of hate groups and white nationalists. The governor’s office says more than 1,600 people in the state died of gunshot wounds in 2017.
August 16, 2019 9:59 am
NEW STANTON, Pa. (AP) – Motorists will face detours when a section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike closes for bridge work. The toll road will close in both directions between New Stanton Exit 75 and Breezewood Exit 161 starting at 11 p.m. Saturday until approximately 6 a.m. Sunday, weather permitting. The turnpike commission says the closure is needed for workers to safely remove the temporary bridge over the turnpike at milepost 110 in Somerset. A new bridge opened to traffic on July 19. Motorists will be permitted to enter the turnpike eastbound at the Bedford interchange and westbound motorists can enter the toll road at the Somerset exchange. Detours will be posted.
August 16, 2019 8:54 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Two suspicious objects that prompted an evacuation of a major lower Manhattan subway station during the morning commute Friday are not explosives, police said. The bomb squad cleared the items found at the Fulton Street station, New York Police Department Counterterrorism Chief James Waters said on Twitter. Waters posted photos of the objects, which looked like pressure cookers or electric crockpots. “The suspicion is that they were placed there to suggest that they were electronic devices and possible bombs,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on WCBS-AM after the all clear was given. The devices were found at the line that carries No. 2 and 3 trains around 7 a.m. The station is a busy transit hub a few blocks from the World Trade Center.
August 16, 2019 7:57 am
There has been another issue with a ride at the Washington County Agricultural Fair. According to reports, one end of a car on the Sky Driver ride appeared to come loose around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, according to fair officials. Operators stopped the ride and removed the car. No one was hurt. This comes a day after a child was hurt on another ride.
August 16, 2019 6:20 am
UNIONTOWN, Pa. – (WPXI) – A traffic stop led to a scary discovery in Fayette County. Pennsylvania State Police pulled over a car Thursday night on Route 119 in Uniontown. The driver ran away, but then police found explosives in the car. Officers closed Route 119 for about an hour and a half. Police are not saying whether they found the driver or why they stopped the car. Pennsylvania State Police are expected to release more information later in the day. (Photo: WPXI)
August 16, 2019 6:16 am
JERUSALEM (AP) – Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib says she won’t visit her relatives in the West Bank after Israel issued a permit on humanitarian grounds, citing “oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me.” Israel barred Tlaib and another congresswoman from visiting Jerusalem and the West Bank over their support for the international boycott movement, but said Tlaib could visit her relatives in the West Bank on humanitarian grounds. The Interior Ministry released a letter purportedly signed by Tlaib in which she promised not to advocate boycotts during her visit.
In an official statement released later Friday, Tlaib said “visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother’s heart.” She added that “silencing me with treatment to make me feel less-than is not what she wants for me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands up against racism and injustice.”
August 16, 2019 4:20 am
ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (AP) – Dale Earnhardt Jr. will take the weekend off from broadcasting to be with his wife and daughter after the three were in a plane crash landing Thursday near Bristol Motor Speedway. The 44-year-old television analyst and retired driver was taken to a hospital for evaluation after the crash in east Tennessee. Earnhardt was with wife Amy, 15-month-old daughter Isla, a dog and two pilots. “We’re incredibly grateful that Dale, his wife Amy, daughter Isla, and the two pilots are safe following today’s accident,” NBC Sports said in a statement. “After being discharged from the hospital, we communicated with Dale and his team, and we’re all in agreement that he should take this weekend off to be with his family. “We look forward to having him back in the booth next month at Darlington.” Federal Aviation Administration officials said a Cessna Citation rolled off the end of a runway and caught fire after landing at Elizabethton Municipal Airport at 3:40 p.m. Thursday. FAA officials said the preliminary indication is that two pilots and three passengers were aboard the jet. The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that it’s sending two representatives to Elizabethton to begin investigating the crash. Carter County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Thomas Gray confirmed Earnhardt was aboard but said he wasn’t one of the pilots.
August 16, 2019 4:19 am
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea’s military says North Korea fired more projectiles into the sea to extend a recent streak of weapons tests believed to be aimed at pressuring Washington and Seoul over slow nuclear diplomacy. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday projectiles were twice launched from an area on the North’s eastern coast. The Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t immediately say what the weapons were or how far they flew. The North has conducted a slew of short-range ballistic tests in recent weeks in what is seen as an effort to build leverage ahead of negotiations with the United States, which may resume sometime after the end of joint U.S.-South Korea military drills later this month.
August 16, 2019 4:18 am
ATLANTA (AP) – If Georgia election officials fail to meet the tight timeline they’ve set to implement an entirely new voting system, they’ll have to quickly pivot to hand-marked paper ballots for the March presidential primaries. That’s according to a Thursday ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said the state’s new voting system will be in place for the March 24 primaries. The ruling means the state can keep its plans to use the old system for special and municipal elections this fall. Voting integrity advocates and individual voters had asked Totenberg to order an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots. She declined, citing concerns about the state’s capacity to make an interim switch to hand-marked paper ballots while working to implement a new system.
