April 5, 2020 7:41 am
MORGANTOWN (WPXI) — The sale of alcohol in one West Virginia county is being limited significantly, officials announced Saturday. Health officials said you now must have an official W.Va. ID to purchase liquor in Monongalia County, which lies on the Pa. state border. After state liquor stores were shut down in Pennsylvania, many people drove across state lines to purchase liquor. However, that will no longer be the case in at least one W.Va. county. Surrounding counties in the state have not issued a similar ban at this point.
April 5, 2020 4:22 am
Pennsylvania’s governor says residents should wear face coverings in public to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Gov. Tom Wolf urged Pennsylvanians to make their own cloth masks and put them on when they go to the grocery store, pharmacy and other places where people congregate. He spoke a few hours before the federal government issued its own recommendation for Americans to wear face coverings. The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported more than 1,400 additional people have tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number to over 8,420. There were 12 new deaths for a statewide toll of 102.
April 5, 2020 3:22 am
The Pennsylvania Department of Health announced 1,493 additional positive cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, bringing the total to 11,510 across the state. The statewide death total is now at 150. The Department of Health says that 66,261 people have tested negative so far.
Allegheny County: 605 (4 deaths)
Westmoreland County: 147
Butler County: 87 (2 deaths)
Beaver County: 84 (2 deaths)
Washington County: 50
Fayette County: 27 (1 death)
Lawrence County: 23 (2 deaths)
Mercer County: 18
Indiana County: 13
Greene County: 12
Armstrong County: 12
Clarion County: 5
Venango County: 3
Forest: 3
April 4, 2020 4:31 am
President Donald Trump says his administration will try to stop “profiteers” from exporting medical protective gear, shortly after picking a fight with manufacturing giant 3M, a major producer and exporter of face masks used to protect health care workers from the coronavirus. 3M argued that blocking exports will raise “significant humanitarian implications” abroad and lead other countries to retaliate by withholding much-needed medical supplies from the U.S. Nearly all of 3M’s exports of high-grade N95 masks go to Canada and Latin America. Canadian officials led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau took the company’s side. They lobbied Trump administration officials not to cut off part of their supply.
April 4, 2020 4:29 am
A section of state route 906 is now reopened in the Mon Valley. The section of the road near the Rostraver – Monessen line in Westmoreland County was closed earlier this week due to a mudslide that blocked portions of the road. PennDOT says the road was reopened to traffic on Friday afternoon.
April 4, 2020 4:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Joe Biden is set to announce a committee to oversee his vice presidential selection process and is already thinking about whom he’d choose to join his Cabinet. Biden made the disclosure Friday during a virtual fundraiser. He holds a significant lead in delegates over primary rival Bernie Sanders but hasn’t officially clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. He said he’s spoken to Sanders to let him know he’d be working on the vice presidential vetting process. Biden said he doesn’t want Sanders to think he’s “being presumptuous” by choosing a running mate. But he added that the vice presidential vetting process “takes time,” so he has to begin this month.
April 4, 2020 4:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community who handled the whistleblower complaint that triggered his impeachment. Trump informed the Senate intelligence committee Friday of his decision to fire Atkinson, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. Trump said in the letter that it is “vital” that he has confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general, and “that is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general.” Atkinson was the first to inform Congress about an anonymous whistleblower complaint last year that described Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden and his son.
April 4, 2020 4:12 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Attorney General William Barr has ordered the Bureau of Prisons to increase the use of home confinement. In a memo Friday, Barr says the agency must expedite the release of eligible high-risk inmates. beginning with three federal prisons where coronavirus cases have skyrocketed. They include FCC Oakdale, a prison complex in Louisiana where five inmates have died and more than a dozen others remain hospitalized. At FCI Elkton in Ohio, three inmates have died. And 20 inmates have tested positive for coronavirus at FCI Danbury in Connecticut. Congressional leaders and prison advocates have been pressing the Justice Department for weeks to release at-risk inmates ahead of a potential outbreak.
April 4, 2020 4:12 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration has abruptly changed its description of the Strategic National Stockpile and put forward a narrower vision of the role the federal government’s repository of life-saving medicines and equipment should play in supplying states’ needs. The change conforms with President Donald Trump’s insistence that it is only a short-term backup for states, not a commitment to ensure supplies get quickly to those who need them most during an emergency. The change was reflected on government websites on Friday. It came a day after Trump son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner offered a new argument about the stockpile.
April 4, 2020 4:10 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Scarce supplies of medical equipment are leading to growing competition within the U.S. and among nations, in what one French politician called a “worldwide treasure hunt.” The governor of New York state, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, has vowed to seize unused ventilators from private hospitals and companies, while President Donald Trump says he’s preventing the export of N95 respirator masks and surgical gloves, a move he said was necessary to ensure that medical supplies are available in the U.S. Worldwide, confirmed infections rose past 1 million and deaths topped 58,000. Europe’s three worst-hit countries – Italy, Spain and France – accounted for more than 32,000 dead, or over half the global toll.
