Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1272
UPMC administers 1st covid-19 vaccines in PittsburghVideo
Five UPMC employees received Pittsburgh’s first doses of the covid-19 vaccine Monday, making tangible the long-awaited light at the end of the tunnel for a pandemic that has spared no state in its deadly waves. The employees — a doctor, two nurses, a transporter and an environmental services supervisor —...
Biden aides hope Electoral College vote is GOP turning point
WILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden’s aides have a message for President Donald Trump and his supporters: It’s long past time to move on. With the Electoral College set to formally elect Biden as president on Monday, his aides say they hope Republicans will consider their own long-term interests (and the...
U.S. set for first covid-19 shots as shipments begin arriving
Hospital workers begin unloading precious frozen vials of covid-19 vaccine Monday, with the first vaccinations against a scourge that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans expected later in the day. “It feels like the cavalry is arriving,” Robert C. Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, said as New Jersey’s largest health...
Gmail, YouTube down briefly as Google suffers brief outage
Google users in the U.S., Europe, India and other parts of the world were briefly unable to access their Gmail accounts, watch YouTube videos or get to their online documents during an outage Monday. Thousands of complaints popped up around 7 a.m. along the East Coast of the U.S. “We’re...
Watch live as Pa. electors formally choose Biden as presidentVideo
WASHINGTON — Presidential electors are meeting across the United States on Monday to formally choose Joe Biden as the nation’s next president. Monday is the day set by law for the meeting of the Electoral College. In reality, electors meet in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to...
Gov. Wolf, health officials want Pennsylvanians to stay home for the holidays
Dr. Carol Fox is worried about the holidays. She watches the rising coronavirus caseload in Westmoreland County and keeps daily tabs on the numbers that are impacting Excela Health, where she is chief medical officer. As the toll from family visits over Thanksgiving becomes more clear, she said she is...
CDC: Stay home for the holidays
This holiday season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants Americans to stay safe and protect themselves from contracting or spreading the coronavirus —namely by staying home for the holidays. The agency urges people to modify their plans in an effort to reduce the virus’ spread. The safest way...
Agent: Master spy writer John le Carre dies at 89
LONDON — John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89, Le Carre’s literary agency, Curtis Brown, said Sunday that he died in Cornwall, southwest England on Saturday...
Some in White House getting early access to covid-19 vaccine
WASHINGTON — Some White House officials who work in close proximity to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will be offered coronavirus vaccines as soon as this week, while its public distribution is limited to front-line health workers and people in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Two...
Vandals hit Black churches during weekend pro-Trump ralliesVideo
WASHINGTON — Vandals tore down a Black Lives Matter banner and sign from two historic Black churches in downtown Washington and set the banner ablaze as nighttime clashes Saturday between pro-Donald Trump supporters and counterdemonstrators erupted into violence and arrests. Police on Sunday said they were investigating the incidents at...
Meet Boone the disabled beagle: Therapy dog, fundraiser, class project, fashion plate, media starVideo
He’s a little beagle on a big mission. Meet Boone, a 3-year-old dog that was maimed and is now turning tragedy into triumph. Boone’s hind legs were intentionally cut off by his former owner when he was 6 weeks old. Tanya and Charlie Diable of Butler Township adopted Boone from...
Trump raises China concerns as reason to veto defense bill
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump offered a new rationale Sunday for threatening to veto the annual defense policy bill that covers the military’s budget for equipment and pay raises for service members: China. He did not specific his concerns. Republican lawmakers have said the wide-ranging defense policy bill, which the...
Thousands of Pa. families face potential eviction come the new year
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. Hundreds of thousands of families across Pennsylvania could lose their homes in January, after emergency unemployment benefits and federal eviction protections...
Vandals hit Black churches during weekend pro-Trump rallies
WASHINGTON — Groups of people tore down a Black Lives Matter banner and sign from historic Black churches in downtown Washington and set one ablaze as nighttime clashes Saturday between pro-Donald Trump supporters and counterdemonstrators erupted into violence and arrests. Police on Sunday said they were investigating the incidents at...
‘Monticello Lights’ display backs up traffic in Delmont, second night set for SundayVideo
When residents of Monticello Drive in Delmont replaced their annual holiday party with a neighborhood drive-thru Christmas-light competition, they were hoping for an enjoyable weekend and a chance to raise a little money for charity. What they didn’t expect was a four-and-a-half-hour parade of cars that backed up traffic along...
DOJ probe of Pa. Catholic church abuse goes quiet 2 years later
PHILADELPHIA — Two years ago, the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia joined the long line of ambitious prosecutors investigating the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of priest-abuse complaints. The Justice Department had never brought a conspiracy case against the church, despite exhaustive reports that showed its long history of burying abuse complaints...
More U.S. churches are committing to racism-linked reparations
NEW YORK — The Episcopal Diocese of Texas acknowledges that its first bishop in 1859 was a slaveholder. An Episcopal church in New York City erects a plaque noting the building’s creation in 1810 was made possible by wealth resulting from slavery. And the Minnesota Council of Churches cites a...
Covid-19 vaccine shipments begin in historic U.S. effortVideo
PORTAGE, Mich. — The first of many freezer-packed covid-19 vaccine vials made their way to distribution sites across the United States on Sunday, as the nation’s pandemic deaths approached the horrifying new milestone of 300,000. The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved by the Food and...
Sheraden dog-bite victim arrested after fighting with police
Police and medics responding to a reported dog bite early Sunday morning ended up filing charges against the victim after she fought with and bled on officers, public safety officials said. Police from Zone 6 and EMS responded to a home on the 3000 block of Motor Street in Pittsburgh’s...
Working through a pandemic: Ambulance services getting flooded with covid calls
The onslaught came all at once. One day, the coronavirus patient load was just as low it had been all summer. Then in mid-October, as the leaves began to change, days at work abruptly shifted. “It was all of a sudden,” said Dave Whipkey, paramedic and logistics director at Mutual...
Western Pa. nursing homes scramble for staff to care for covid patients
Kaitlin Smith was getting increasingly worried about covid-19 outbreaks at Quality Life Services, a nursing home chain where she works as a clinical reimbursement specialist. For weeks, she had been on daily calls with all of the facility administrators, hearing about rising infections and staffing struggles. Then one Friday last...
Restaurants along Leechburg Road in Lower Burrell run the gamut of compliance with pandemic restrictions
For business owners like John Clark of Clark’s Diner in Lower Burrell, the new covid mitigation efforts instituted by Gov. Tom Wolf are as much of a threat to his workers’ livelihood as the virus itself. As a result, he’s ignoring them and allowing indoor dining to continue — in...
Editorial: Transit workers are front-line soldiers in covid war
Much of the language surrounding the coronavirus pandemic is comparable to that of warfare. We talk about fighting the disease. Having a battle plan. Deploying assets. And more than anything, we talk about the front lines. As in any war, that is where things get real. With covid-19, the front...
Business owners buckle down for new covid restrictions
For some local business owners, the expanded state health and safety orders that went into effect Saturday were another punch to the gut, during a year in which they’ve already absorbed plenty of body blows. At Jioio’s Restaurant in Greensburg, owner Tony Jioio is buckling down for a tough holiday...
Charley Pride, country music’s first Black superstar, dies at 86
NEW YORK — Charley Pride, country music’s first Black star whose rich baritone on such hits as “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” helped sell millions of records and made him the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, has died. He was 86. Pride died Saturday in...
