May 7, 2024 1:15 pm
(AP) – TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance are suing the U.S. federal government over a law that would ban the popular video-sharing app unless it’s sold to another company. The lawsuit filed on Tuesday may be setting up what could be a protracted legal fight over its future in the United States. The popular social video company alleged the law, which President Joe Biden signed as part of a larger $95 billion foreign aid package, is so “obviously unconstitutional” that the sponsors of The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act are trying to portray the law not as a ban, but as a regulation of TikTok’s ownership. (Photo: AP)
May 7, 2024 12:50 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security have been pushed back as an improving economy has contributed to changed projected depletion dates. That’s according to Monday’s annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report. Still, officials warn that policy changes are needed lest the programs become unable to pay full benefits to retiring Americans. Medicare’s go-broke date for its hospital insurance trust fund was pushed back five years to 2036. Meanwhile, Social Security’s trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035, instead of last year’s estimate of 2034.
May 7, 2024 5:11 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Porn actor Stormy Daniels has testified at Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial about a sexual encounter she says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid off to keep silent during the presidential election a decade later. Daniels’ testimony Tuesday included a detailed and at times graphic accounting of an encounter Trump has denied. Daniels’ testimony is central to the case because in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 to keep quiet. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payments. The former president has pleaded not guilty. (Photo: AP)
May 7, 2024 5:08 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology retook a barricaded encampment, those at the Rhode Island School of Design occupied a building, and Columbia University said its university-wide commencement ceremony will not happen following weeks of protests. At MIT, protesters were given an afternoon deadline in which to voluntarily leave the protest site or face suspension. An MIT spokesperson said many left but protesters breached fencing after the arrival of demonstrators from outside the university. Officials at Columbia said it will focus on smaller school-level graduation ceremonies. Campus protests have sprung up across the U.S. in recent weeks stemming from the conflict that started when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel in October.
May 7, 2024 5:07 am
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Powerful storms have erupted in the central United States, bringing tornadoes to rural Oklahoma and large hail in parts of Kansas. Forecasters are warning that the storms could stretch into the early hours of Tuesday. Tornadoes were spotted skirting northern Oklahoma, including one that caused extensive damage north of Tulsa in the small town of Barnsdall. The Osage County sheriff says there are no confirmed deaths. Homes were destroyed and trees and power lines were toppled by the tornado. In Kansas, some areas were pelted by apple-sized hail. The severe weather follows heavy rainfall in Houston, where floodwaters began to recede Monday.
May 7, 2024 5:06 am
CAIRO (AP) — An Israeli tank brigade has seized control of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, moving ahead with an offensive in the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge. The development on Tuesday comes after hours of whiplash in the Israel-Hamas war. The militant group on Monday said it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari mediated cease-fire proposal. Israel, meanwhile, insisted the deal did not meet its core demands. The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
May 7, 2024 5:04 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – At a time when new COVID-19 infections are considered low, new variations, called FLiRT variants are now starting to spread. Doctor Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert with Johns Hopkins, who is based out of Pittsburgh, says they evolved from Omicron. “The most recent variants that are becoming dominant are called FLiRT variants. The word FLiRT has to do with technical ways of describing the mutations that are present in it,” Adalja explained. “The virus that causes COVID-19 is going to continue to mutate in perpetuity, forever. That’s what viruses do, so there’s always going to be a new variant, whether that’s today, tomorrow, thirty years from now, there’s always going to be one variant rising, one variant falling, that’s how evolution occurs,” Adalja said. According to Adalja, FLiRT will have similar symptoms to all previous versions of COVID-19 — cough, cold-like-symptoms, muscle aches and pains, fevers, headaches, and sore throat — but most people will have some level of protection from vaccines and/or previous infections. For the general public, Adalja says new variants do not pose too much concern but he warns high-risk people need to take them very seriously. When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, Adalja says they will continue to evolve to handle new strains of the virus. He says talks are happening now about what should be included in the next version of the vaccine.
May 7, 2024 5:04 am
DALLAS (AP) — The decision by Boy Scouts of America to rebrand after 114 years and become Scouting America marks another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change. With flagging membership numbers, the Texas-based organization is leaning into a more inclusive message as it emerges from a long stretch of turmoil that includes bankruptcy and a flood of sexual abuse claims. The change was announced Tuesday at the Boy Scout’s national meeting in Florida but won’t take effect until February.
May 7, 2024 5:02 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump squirmed and scowled, shook his head and muttered as Stormy Daniels described the unexpected sex she says they had in a hotel nearly two decades ago. It was a story Daniels has told before. This time, Trump had no choice but to sit and listen. Years in the making, the in-person showdown between the former president and the porn actor happened Tuesday in a New York courtroom that has been the stage for Trump’s hush money trial. Trump denies her claims and has pleaded not guilty in the case. Trump is charged with falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep quiet.
May 7, 2024 4:57 am
The National Weather Service reports a confirmed tornado touched down overnight in northern Hancock County, West Virginia, and moved toward western Beaver County near Harshaville, Hanover Township. At this time, there are no reports of injuries. Washington County 9-1-1 tells WJPA that there are no weather related issues this morning in Washington County.
