Police: Florida couple jailed for refusing to quarantine
MIAMI — Two residents of the Florida Keys have been jailed for failing to quarantine after testing positive for the new coronavirus. Jose Interian, 24, and Yohana Gonzalez, 26, are facing charges of violating isolation rules for a quarantine and violating emergency management disaster preparedness rules, according to jail records....
Trump floats November election delay – but he can’t do that
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is for the first time floating a “delay” to the Nov. 3 presidential election, as he makes unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting will result in fraud. The dates of presidential elections — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year...
Red panda born in Berlin as part of global breeding program
BERLIN — A rare red panda has been born at a Berlin zoo, only a few months after its parents were brought to the German capital from India, the zoo said in a statement Thursday. The little cub was first discovered on June 6 in its mother’s cave at the...
Fast-moving Pa. building fire kills roughly 42,000 chickens
MARTIC — A fast-moving fire roared through a building at a southern Pennsylvania site, killing about 42,000 chickens and causing nearly $2 million dollars in damages, authorities said. No humans injuries were reported in the fire in Martic Township, which was reported around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The building was one...
1.4 million seek jobless aid as virus keeps forcing layoffs
WASHINGTON — More than 1.4 million laid-off Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, further evidence of the devastation the coronavirus outbreak has unleashed on the U.S. economy. The continuing wave of job cuts is occurring against the backdrop of a spike in virus cases that has led many states...
U.S. economy shrank at record-breaking 33% rate last quarterVideo
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy shrank at a dizzying 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter — by far the worst quarterly plunge ever — when the viral outbreak shut down businesses, throwing tens of millions out of work and sending unemployment surging to 14.7%, the government said Thursday. The...
NASA launches Mars rover to look for signs of ancient lifeVideo
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built — a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers — blasted off Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analyzed for evidence of...
Officials eye sedative given before death of Elijah McClain
Colorado health officials have opened an investigation into the use of a sedative given to a Black man by paramedics during a police stop in suburban Denver before his death last year. The inquiry is the latest in a series of new reviews of the case of Elijah McClain that...
Texas passes grim milestone of 6,100 covid-19 deathsVideo
AUSTIN — Texas passed a grim milestone of more than 6,100 deaths caused by the coronavirus, with 313 newly-reported fatalities Wednesday. The stark figures pushed Texas’ death total to 6,190 since the state recorded its first covid-19 death in early March. Death tolls escalated rapidly in recent weeks as the...
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez tries to stop housing rule as Trump stokes racial division
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump implied that having Black neighbors leads to lower house prices and increased crime in a pair of tweets Wednesday boasting about killing an Obama-administration fair housing rule and replacing it with one that a group of House Democrats led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hope to...
Trump says Fox News ‘totally forgot who got them where they are’
President Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News on Wednesday, accusing the cable channel of being ungrateful. “I was on Air Force One flying to the Great State of Texas, where I just landed. It is AMAZING in watching Fox News,” the president tweeted. “How different they are from four...
Administration wants West Wing remodel money in coronavirus relief bill
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants $377 million in the next coronavirus relief bill for a long-delayed modernization of the West Wing, but the timetable for construction is yet to be determined. The sum, included in the draft aid legislation from Senate Republicans, would also cover a new security screening...
U.S. death toll from coronavirus hits 150,000
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The death toll from coronavirus in the United States hit 150,000 on Wednesday, by the far the highest in the world, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The bleak milestone comes amid signs that the nation’s outbreak is beginning to stabilize in the Sun...
U.S. death toll from coronavirus hits 150,000
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The death toll from the coronavirus in the U.S. hit 150,000 on Wednesday, by the far the highest in the world, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The bleak milestone comes amid signs that the nation’s outbreak is beginning to stabilize in the Sun...
Pa. House speakers get reprieve from criminal history plaques
HARRISBURG — The portraits of three former Pennsylvania House speakers who went to prison on corruption-related charges have received a reprieve of sorts. In one of his last acts in office, Mike Turzai, who in June resigned from his post as House speaker and his House seat, quietly ordered the...
Outrage builds after NYPD hustles protester into unmarked vanVideo
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department’s use of plainclothes officers and an unmarked minivan to haul away a vandalism suspect during a protest Tuesday created confusion and drew outrage from people who compared it to covert tactics used recently by federal agents in Portland, Ore. Bystander video of...
Trump says he never raised Taliban bounties in talks with PutinVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he hasn’t discussed reports that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan with Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite having numerous phone calls as recently as last week. “I have never discussed it with him,” Trump told Axios in a...
MacKenzie Scott begins giving away her Amazon wealth: Here’s where nearly $1.68B is goingVideo
SEATTLE — MacKenzie Scott sees the $59.3 billion she’s accumulated through her ownership of about 4% of Amazon stock as “the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others.” On Tuesday, a day before her ex-husband, Amazon founder...
Pelosi orders masks for voting after Rep. Louie Gohmert tests positive for coronavirusVideo
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will require that masks be worn on the House floor after a Republican member of Congress tested positive for the coronavirus. The member, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, often shunned wearing masks and was known to vote without one. Pelosi announced on the House floor...
Western Pa. residents among those receiving ‘mystery seed’ packets
Shawn O’Mahony of Penn Hills ordered a bunch of seeds online to jump-start his 2020 garden. So, when a couple of packets he didn’t recognize showed up in the spring, it didn’t seem like a big deal. “I received two of them a couple months ago,” O’Mahony said. “They were...
U.S. energy use hit 30-year low during pandemic shutdowns
BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. energy consumption plummeted to its lowest level in more than 30 years this spring as the nation’s economy largely shut down because of the coronavirus, federal officials reported Wednesday. The drop was driven by less demand for coal that is burned for electricity and oil that’s...
Arizona train derails on bridge that collapses, catches fire
PHOENIX — A freight train traveling on a bridge that spans a lake in a Phoenix suburb derailed Wednesday, setting the bridge ablaze and partially collapsing the structure, officials said. Video images showed huge flames and thick black smoke rising into the air and three train cars in a park...
Prosecutors: Agents will probe crimes, not bust protests
MADISON, Wis. — Federal prosecutors worked Wednesday to dispel concerns that federal agents headed to a number of U.S. cities will be used to break up protests, insisting that the agents will work side-by-side with local and state investigators to solve violent crimes. President Donald Trump recently sent federal agents...
Pa. commissions denounce Trump memo excluding those in U.S. illegally from census
Several Pennsylvania commissions are denouncing an executive memorandum signed by President Donald Trump last week that seeks to bar people who are in the United States illegally from filling out the census, the once-a-decade survey that determines federal funding and congressional seats. Trump, who signed the memorandum July 21, said...
Pennsylvania coronavirus case total breaks 110,000
Pennsylvania surpassed 110,000 coronavirus cases on Wednesday, according to a report from the state’s Department of Health. A total of 834 new positive results brought the state’s total to 110,218. The state also reported 16 additional deaths to bring the total to 7,162 attributed to covid-19 since the state’s outbreak...
