December 11, 2019 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House leaders are racing the clock on an emerging government-wide spending bill that’s likely to largely maintain President Donald Trump’s tactical ability to fund his much-sought border wall. Progress has slowed, though a top-level meeting between House Speaker NancyáPelosi, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the frustrated chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees generated pledges to redouble their efforts. A stopgap spending bill expires at the end of next week, and another temporary funding bill could be needed to avert a repeat of last year’s 35-day partial federal shutdown.
December 11, 2019 4:14 am
HARRISBURG (AP) – Faculty at Pennsylvania state universities will go without a pay raise this year but see their pay climb at least 12% over the next three years. The four-year contract approved Wednesday covers about 5,000 professors and instructors at 14 schools. Spokesman David Pidgeon of the state System of Higher Education says the raises are expected to cost about $22 million. A similar deal has been reached with about 700 other employees who work in student services. The agreement comes three years after prolonged contract talks between the educators’ association and the state led to a three-day faculty strike.
December 11, 2019 4:11 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Gov. Tom Wolf’sáadministration is warning that hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians stand to lose food stamps or see reduced benefits under changes being advanced by the Trump administration. Wolf’s Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller said 90,000 Pennsylvanians could lose eligibility in April when a new rule limits states from exempting work-eligible adults from having to maintain steady employment. Miller said a rule proposed in October to set a national standard utility allowance could reduce benefits for 775,000 households. Miller also said another rule proposed in July to stop allowing states to exceed federal income eligibility thresholds could strip another 200,000 people of eligibility. Roughly 1.7 million Pennsylvanians receive food stamps.
December 11, 2019 4:09 am
HERSHEY, Pa. (AP) – President Donald Trump is mocking Democrats for their efforts to impeach him as he rallies supporters in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania on Tuesday followed a momentous day at the U.S. Capitol, where Democrats unveiled articles of impeachment and shortly thereafter signaled their support for the president’s long-sought United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Trump says Democrats tried to downplay the impeachment inquiry because they’re “embarrassed” by it. But he says the “silver lining of impeachment” is that the USMCA is going to get passed.
December 11, 2019 4:08 am
SCOTTDALE, Pa.(WPXI)- Crews battled a fire Tuesday night at the Scottdale Manor senior apartment building on Pearl Street. The call came in around 7:50 p.m. after a mattress caught fire on the second floor of the five-story building. The fire was contained in one apartment, but smoke had to be ventilated from the building. Some residents were evacuated from their apartments. One resident was taken to a hospital and at least five were displaced, according to Scottdale Fire Department assistant fire chief Ben Savanick. Residents will be allowed back into the top three stories of the building. The Red Cross confirmed they are assisting people who have been affected by the fire.
December 11, 2019 3:48 am
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – West Virginia University’s president has announced he’ll be undergoing hip surgery this week. Dr. E. Gordon Gee will have the hip replacement surgery on Thursday, the university said in a statement. Doctors diagnosed the 75-year-old with a deteriorating hip joint following years of pain in his back. Gee said he hopes to be back soon “better than new,” but the university didn’t provide a timeline for when he may return. He did say that he will be missing the school’s winter commencement ceremony on Dec. 21 for the first time in 40 years
December 10, 2019 4:24 pm
Shares of exercise bike company Peloton are under pressure from a scathing research report. The selling comes on the heels of blowback from the company’s widely mocked ad. Andrew Left of Citron Research is well known on Wall Street for targeting companies he thinks have flawed business models. He places bets that their stocks will fall. And he’s now taking aim at Peloton Interactive Inc. The stock took a hit last week after Peloton aired an ad in which a husband gifts one of its stationary bikes to his wife for the holidays. Critics called the ad sexist and tone deaf.
December 10, 2019 4:15 pm
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – A report from a national watchdog group says a cut to the tax that coal companies pay to fund a trust for sick miners will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. The Washington-based group Taxpayers for Common Sense released a report that says the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund’s debt could be at least $15 billion by 2050. The excise tax on mined coal expired at the beginning of 2019 due to inaction by Congress. That led to a reduction in the amount coal companies pay into the fund. The fund pays benefits and medical bills for miners diagnosed with black lung disease.
December 10, 2019 2:56 pm
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) – A police officer and multiple others have been killed in a shooting in Jersey City that authorities say is not believed to have been a terrorism attack. Mayor Steven Fulop says one officer was pronounced dead at a hospital and multiple other people were found dead at the scene. He says a second officer was struck in the shoulder by gunfire, and two others were injured by shrapnel. A statement from the Archdiocese of Newark says the nearby Sacred Heart School was put on lockdown, but all staff and students were safe. SWAT teams, state police and federal agents responded to the scene. (Photo: AP)
December 10, 2019 12:44 pm
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Vice President Mike Pence has made another trip to the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania this year, this time in a campaign swing. Pence appeared Tuesday in Rochester, near Pittsburgh, to speak to a Veterans for Trump group before joining the president later in the day at a campaign rally at the Giant Center in Hershey. Pence has already made three trips to Pennsylvania this year to visit manufacturers and make the case for Congress to pass the Trump administration’s rewrite of a trade pact with Canada and Mexico. Tonight’s rally is Trump’s fourth visit to Pennsylvania this year. (Photo: WPXI)
