AP PA Headlines 6/11/20
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump/Pence campaigning is about to resume…Vice President Mike Pence will make an appearance at a manufacturing plant near Pittsburgh on Friday as part of a new campaign effort showcasing the nation’s economy making a comeback. President Donald Trump had planned to run for reelection on the back of a strong economy, a hope dashed by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic devastation, including a soaring unemployment rate. But he seized on a better-than-expected jobs report released last week, and his campaign quickly made an ad proclaiming “the great American comeback has begun.”
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives says his last day on the job will be Monday. Republican Speaker Mike Turzai of Allegheny County made the announcement on Wednesday, after a farewell address. Turzai has been in the House since 2001 and speaker since 2015. He says he hopes to work in the private sector but hasn’t announced any specific plans. Turzai played an active role in campaigns, helping his party expand its majority numbers, and provided forceful, conservative opposition to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The executive and legislative branches girded for a legal clash Wednesday over the emergency disaster declaration Gov. Tom Wolf issued at the beginning of the pandemic, with the majority Republicans voting to end it, the Democratic governor insisting he holds veto power and business owners left in limbo.
The Legislature late Tuesday declared an end to Wolf’s 3-month-old emergency declaration when members voted largely along party lines. Republicans asserted their resolution paved the way for businesses shut down by Wolf’s order to reopen. Wolf said that it did no such thing, that the shuttering of “non-life-sustaining” businesses had been authorized by his health secretary under a different law.
Their dispute quickly landed in court, with Senate Republicans suing to compel Wolf to issue an executive order officially ending the coronavirus emergency. “State law allows for the temporary suspension of civil liberties under dire circumstances,” Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati said in a written statement. “We allowed the governor that time initially to flatten the curve. The need to suspend civil liberties in the interest of public health and safety has clearly passed.”
Wolf, who has beaten back previous legal challenges on his actions to combat the virus, welcomed the chance to argue that Republicans had overstepped their authority. “I’m going to continue to focus on protecting Pennsylvanians and navigating our recovery, but I’ll tell you one thing: Ending the disaster declaration is not part of that plan,” Wolf said at a news conference Wednesday.
He ticked off a list of things he said would end if the Republicans get their way, including relaxed eligibility requirements for unemployment compensation, moratoriums on evictions and utility shutoffs, and emergency food distribution networks that serve needy children. “The choice we have is whether we prioritize safety by reopening carefully with precautions in place, or whether we just create chaos and confusion through carelessness,” Wolf said.
Supporters of the resolution — which they asserted would do away with many, if not all, pandemic restrictions — said that state law authorizes the Legislature to end the emergency declaration unilaterally. House leadership also threatened legal action. With about 2 million Pennsylvania residents filing unemployment claims since mid-March, Republicans have been pressing Wolf to reopen the state’s battered economy more quickly and more broadly.
Wolf’s gradual easing of pandemic restrictions has allowed retailers and many other types of businesses to reopen on a limited basis, but others, including barber shops and gyms, remain shut down in the most populous parts of the state. Republicans argued they had the right and responsibility to check Wolf’s power. “It has become apparent that for the entire state, these decisions are being made by one man, the governor,” argued Sen. Judy Ward, R-Blair. “How can we allow one man to continue to make poor decisions for millions?”
Wolf’s office said he will “disapprove” the resolute on if it makes it to his desk, but argued that much of the shutdown would not be affected. The Senate also voted 44-6 on Wednesday to add a provision to the state constitution that would limit governors’ disaster declarations to 30 days. After a month, both chambers of the General Assembly would have to vote to extend them.
That amendment was bundled with a separate section that would prohibit “denial or abridgment of equality of rights” based on race or ethnicity. As a constitutional amendment, it requires passage by the House before December, approval by both chambers in the next session, and then passage of a statewide voter referendum.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man released from death row last week after prosecutors concluded he very likely was not the person who killed a 4-year-old girl is now also free of all charges. A Philadelphia judge on Wednesday dismissed all remaining charges against Walter Ogrod over the 1988 slaying of Barbara Jean Horn. The 55-year-old Ogrod has been out of prison since Friday, when charges were reduced and he was granted bail. The dismissal of the remaining charges puts an end to his legal case. Ogrod spent nearly three decades behind bars, much of it on death row. Ogrod’s lawyers say police coerced a false confession and jailhouse informers fabricated statements.
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he’s planning to hold his first rally of the COVID-19 era next Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And he says he’s planning more events in Florida, Texas and Arizona as well. Trump made the announcement during a roundtable with African American supporters Wednesday afternoon that did not appear on his public schedule.
His signature rallies often draw tens of thousands of people but have been on hiatus since March 2 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more than 110,000 people in the U.S. Trump’s campaign has been planning to resume rallies as it tries to move past the pandemic, even as cases continue to rise in some parts of the country.
BEIJING — With much of the country reopened under safety measures, China has announced three new confirmed cases of coronavirus, all brought from outside the country. No new deaths were reported Wednesday and just 55 people remain in treatment for COVID-19, while another 157 were being monitored in isolation for showing signs of having the virus or having tested positive for it without showing symptoms. China has reported a total of 4,634 deaths among 83,046 cases of COVID-19 since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Donors are pushing Kansas’ higher education board to fire Wichita State University’s president after he canceled a virtual speech by Ivanka Trump for its technical school’s graduation. The Kansas Board of Regents held a private meeting Wednesday with President Jay Golden only two days after a former board member from Wichita said the regents should ask for his resignation. Golden canceled Trump’s speech after students and faculty protested. The Wichita Eagle reports that a former regent sent the state board a letter Monday saying the speech’s cancellation had damaged the school’s reputation with donors.
UNDATED (AP) — What is racism? Merriam-Webster has revised its definition of the word — after a Missouri woman said the entry needed tweaking. Because of emails sent by Kennedy Mitchum, the dictionary has expanded the definition of racism to include the systemic oppression of a group of people.
The change has already been made online — and will be in the new print edition. The revision comes amid reaction to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin his neck to the ground for nearly nine minutes, even as Floyd begged him to stop. He had been suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Buffalo’s mayor has announced several changes to police practices amid widespread calls for racial equality and police accountability. Mayor Byron Brown says the city will halt arrests for low-level, non-violent offenses like marijuana possession and make it easier for the public to view police body camera video under reforms announced Wednesday.
The city also will replace its police Emergency Response Team with a new “Public Protection Unit” after two members of the former unit were videotaped shoving a 75-year-old protester, who fell and cracked his head. The protester remains hospitalized and the officers are facing felony charges.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding that statues of Confederate figures such as Jefferson Davis be removed from the U.S. Capitol. The California Democrat made the announcement on the very day President Donald Trump vowed on Twitter that he would not rename military bases honoring Confederate generals.
In a letter, Pelosi told a House-Senate committee with jurisdiction over the controversial topic that Confederate statues “pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.” Pelosi lacks the authority to order the removal of the 11 statues honoring Confederates, but is urging the little-noticed Joint Committee on the Library to vote to remove them.
NASCAR, USA (AP) – NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag from all events and properties. NASCAR says the Confederate flag “runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry.” Former chairman Brian France in 2015 tried to ban the flying of Confederate flags at race tracks, a proposal too broad to enforce and one that angered NASCAR’s core Southern-based fan base. Bubba Wallace, the lone black driver in the series, had called for the ban. He says it has been a stressful couple of weeks.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
