Coronavirus category, Page 194
Wolf: More than 6K business owners granted waivers during covid-19 shutdown, nearly 13K denied
More than 6,000 Pennsylvania businesses received waivers to operate during the pandemic-spurred lockdown, or about 14% of those who applied for the exemption, data released Friday show. Among them were car washes, bike shops, furniture and appliance stores, lumberyards, sheet metal manufacturers, and toilet rental services. Also approved were bookkeepers,...
John Stossel: Ban plastic bags! No, never mind!
Recently, many politicians were in such a hurry to ban plastic bags. California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. Then Oregon, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont passed laws against them. More than 400 cities did, too. Why? Because plastic bags are evil , didn’t you know? “Look at the damage...
Western Pa. colleges making plans for online, face-to-face learning in fall semester
Universities that bring thousands of students to Southwestern Pennsylvania every fall are offering reassurances that they hope to reopen shuttered classrooms and dormitories in August. Although the region is scheduled to begin reopening on May 15, colleges and universities are not yet permitted to resume face-to-face operations in classrooms and...
SeaWorld develops plans for reopening; no official date set
ORLANDO, Fla. — SeaWorld guests could be sitting in every other row of the stadium to watch orca shows when the parks eventually reopen, the company’s CEO said Friday. Interim CEO Marc Swanson gave an update Friday on a coronavirus safety plan under development, but no official reopening dates have...
New Pennsylvania dental guidelines spark confusion
Pittsburgh orthodontist David Pechersky knows he has a lot of patients who need him right now and, like many in his profession, he’s been frustrated by his inability to see them. “I’ve got patients with braces who haven’t been seen for three or four months, because we schedule eight to...
IRS sets Wednesday deadline for direct deposit stimulus payments
WASHINGTON — The IRS said it will accept bank account information until noon Wednesday for people who want to receive stimulus payments by direct deposit. After that, the IRS will send the money by check to the address on file, with those payments expected to arrive in late May and...
New Mexico town near vast US reservation shuts everyone out
GALLUP, N.M. — Like clockwork, payday arrives and tens of thousands of people from the Navajo reservation and other rural stretches along the New Mexico-Arizona border flood into Gallup, a freewheeling desert oasis of just 22,000 that can quickly quadruple in size with all the visitors. Not now. As the...
Mike Pence says lack of religious services has been ‘burden’
URBANDALE, Iowa — Vice President Mike Pence spoke Friday to a group of faith leaders in Iowa about the importance of resuming religious services, saying the cancellations in the name of slowing the spread of the coronavirus have “been a burden” for congregants. Pence spoke with the religious leaders and...
Survey to gauge impact of coronavirus on Greensburg businesses
The Greensburg Community Development Corporation is conducting an anonymous survey of city business owners to learn more about how they’ve been affected by the coronavirus shutdown. “We know they have been negatively impacted, but we want to see how Greensburg compares to the rest of the country,” said corporation Executive...
Donald Trump knocks Joe Biden for campaigning from basement amid coronavirus
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump needled his Democratic rival Joe Biden on Friday for limiting his campaign appearances to virtual events from the basement of his home in Delaware. “I’d love to see him get out of the basement so he can speak,” Trump said in a telephone interview with...
Paul Finkelman: Intellectual property and protecting Pa. jobs
Paul Finkelman, Ph.D., is president of Gratz College and a former law professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The novel coronavirus has ravaged Pennsylvania, forcing more than 1.5 million of our neighbors to the unemployment line. This represents 23% of the Keystone State’s workforce. The devastation far...
Beaver County officials blast Wolf’s decision to keep county under heavy coronavirus restrictions
Beaver County officials blasted Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday for his decision to keep their county under the most restrictive pandemic-related guidelines, while the county’s district attorney declared he wouldn’t prosecute business owners who choose to flout the continued restrictions. Commissioners and lawmakers got ahead of Wolf’s 2 p.m. announcement...
Aide to Vice President Mike Pence tests positive for coronavirus
WASHINGTON — An aide to Vice President Mike Pence has the coronavirus, marking the second person in the White House complex known to test positive this week. The latest positive test was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters....
New York City stepping up distancing enforcement in parks
NEW YORK — Police officers will start limiting access to a handful of New York City parks whose scofflaw visitors have become poster children for bad social distancing, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday. Users of the parks, two built on piers that jut into the Hudson River and one...
Gov. Wolf announces most of Western Pa. moving to yellow phase May 15
Allegheny and Westmoreland are among the counties Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday can begin the first phase of a gradual reopening and easing of coronavirus-related restrictions. A majority of the Southwest and South-Central counties will proceed to the yellow phase of the tiered reopening plan on May 15. That includes...
Grit and red wine: Famous war photographer beats virus at 97
NEW YORK — Tony Vaccaro’s mother died in childbirth, and at a tender age he also lost his father to tuberculosis. By age 5, he was an orphan in Italy, enduring beatings from an uncle. As an American GI during World War II, he survived the Battle of Normandy. Now,...
World Health Organization says it has $1.3 billion funding shortfall
LONDON — The head of the World Health Organization says the agency needs $1.7 billion to fund its response efforts for covid-19 for the rest of the year — and that it’s about $1.3 billion short. Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was suspending funding to the U.N....
Pennsylvania reports 200 more coronavirus deaths, more than 1,300 new cases
Pennsylvania added 200 more coronavirus deaths to its toll on Friday along with more than 1,300 new cases of the virus, state health officials said. The new numbers bring the statewide death toll to 3,616. Of those deaths, 2,458 — 68% — have been in long-term care facilities. The total...
Lost your job? Here’s an updated list of things you need to know
Nearly 33.5 million Americans have lost their jobs and applied for unemployment benefits in the past 7 weeks — a stunning record high that reflects the near-complete shutdown of the U.S. economy. On Friday, the government said the U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the...
Locked-down stores, shoppers emerge in parts of Pennsylvania
People across a swath of Pennsylvania began opening stores Friday that had been shut down since March as some coronavirus restrictions were lifted, while residents began leaving their homes unfettered by a just-expired stay-at-home order that had been in place since April 1. Located in a primarily rural swath of...
Allegheny County reports 2 new coronavirus deaths, 16 more cases
Allegheny County officials reported 16 additional cases of covid-19 and two more deaths Friday, bringing the total to 1,455 confirmed or probable cases and 119 deaths countywide. The county reported 45 cases Thursday — the biggest single-day increase in reported cases in two weeks — but attributed that increase to...
Candace McKinley: Covid-19 pandemic underscores urgency of ending cash bail
Candace McKinley is the lead organizer for the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, which is working to end cash bail in Philadelphia. The mission of the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund is to end the use of cash bail in Philadelphia and, until that day comes, post bail for as many of...
Western Pa. leaders respond as most of region set to move to yellow phase next week
Officials in Westmoreland and Allegheny counties applauded Gov. Tom Wolf’s decision Friday to move most of Southwestern Pennsylvania to a phase of eased coronavirus restrictions, though many said the decision was overdue. “It’s a step in the right direction,” Westmoreland County Commissioner Sean Kertes said. “This should’ve happened a week...
U.S. jobless rate spikes to 14.7%, highest since Great Depression
WASHINGTON — The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression, as 20.5 million jobs vanished in the worst monthly loss on record. The figures are stark evidence of the damage the coronavirus has done to a now-shattered economy. The losses reflect what has...
Monroeville company cleans Westmoreland emergency vehicles for free
Nearly 150 emergency service vehicles in Westmoreland County got a thorough cleaning for free last month from Premier Automation in Monroeville. Nine employees at the engineered solutions company volunteered for more than a week to clean 148 fire trucks, police cars, ambulances and other vehicles, according to an announcement from...
