AP PA Headlines 7/15/20
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The first bills passed by Pennsylvania’s Legislature in response to widespread protests over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd are now law with Gov. Tom Wolf’s signature. In a news conference Tuesday in Harrisburg, Wolf, a Democrat, characterized the two bills he signed as small, but important steps toward making society fair. The two bills passed the House and Senate unanimously last month. They are designed to prevent problematic officers from continuing to find employment in police departments, provide officers with more cultural sensitivity training and provide officers with more mental health screening.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Republican-controlled Legislature is mounting another effort to strip some emergency disaster powers from Gov. Tom Wolf in the latest partisan fight over how the Democrat has handled the coronavirus pandemic in Pennsylvania. The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed two bills, largely along partisan lines, to allow counties to shed Wolf’s existing restrictions and give power to counties to determine which businesses must close or can stay open under a future state health emergency disaster. Wolf will veto both, his office says. The chamber also passed a measure to amend the state constitution to give lawmakers the power to end a governor’s disaster emergency after 21 days.
PHILADELPHIA’S The Mummers’ strut has been stopped in its tracks. Philadelphia’s famed, and often inflammatory, New Year’s Day parade was canceled by the city Tuesday, along with every other large event on public property through February 2021. Officials say they’re trying to keep a lid on the coronavirus pandemic. The city’s moratorium on large events also applies to festivals, parades, concerts and fairs, including the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Broad Street Run. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania recorded more than 900 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, though health officials say nearly a quarter of those were the result of a delay in lab reporting.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf says he supports legislation that extends millions of dollars in tax breaks to turn natural gas into fertilizer and other chemicals. The bill easily passed the Senate on Monday before the House of Representatives approved it Tuesday. The Democratic governor vetoed a similar bill in March, but said he negotiated changes to limit the scale of the subsidies available and to ensure construction workers building a qualifying petrochemical plant are paid union-scale wages. The bill bears similarities to a 2012 state law that was designed to lure a multibillion-dollar Shell ethane refinery now under construction in western Pennsylvania’s Beaver County.
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah protesters changed their mood from angry to celebratory in a weekend demonstration that remained focused on the message of ending police violence and systematic racism. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that demonstrators danced and passed out doughnuts and Popsicles on Sunday, saying the uplifting mood resonated with residents. Organizers say they mapped out the march through affluent neighborhoods near the city’s Sunnyside Park because they did not believe residents of those areas had witnessed previous demonstrations firsthand. Marchers distributed Black Lives Matter posters and cheered when onlookers waved or gave thumbs-up.
LONDON (AP) — An artist has erected a statue of a Black Lives Matter protester atop the plinth in the English city of Bristol once occupied by the toppled statue of a slave trader. Marc Quinn created the likeness of Jen Reid, a protester photographed standing on the plinth after demonstrators pulled down the statue of Edward Colston and dumped it in Bristol’s harbor on June 7. The statue, titled “A Surge of Power (Jen Reid)” was erected before dawn on Wednesday without approval from city officials. Colston was a 17th-century trader who made a fortune transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas. His money funded schools and charities in Bristol, 120 miles (195 kilometers) southwest of London.
TAHOE CITY, Calif. (AP) — California’s Squaw Valley Ski Resort is considering changing its name to remove the word “squaw,” a derogatory term for Native American women. Squaw Valley President and CEO Ron Cohen says resort officials are meeting with shareholders and the local Washoe tribal leadership to get their input. He says he can’t give a timeline on when a decision will be made. The possible renaming is one of many efforts across the nation to address colonialism and indigenous oppression. Washoe Tribe Chairman Serrell Smokey says the name Squaw Valley is a constant reminder of efforts to disparage native people.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump bristled at a reporter’s question about police killing African Americans and defended the right to display the Confederate flag as he continued to play into racial divisions in a pair of interviews. Trump seemed taken aback when asked by CBS’s Catherine Herridge why African Americans are still dying at the hands of police. “And so are white people,” he responded. There is no national database tracking police-involved shootings. But studies have shown that Black Americans are much more likely to be killed by police, even though more whites — who represent a larger portion of the population — are killed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential adviser Ivanka Trump has unveiled a White House-backed national ad campaign highlighting alternative ways to start a career. The initiative is geared toward students, mid-career workers and the millions of people now unemployed because of the new coronavirus. But the campaign, called “Find Something New,” was quickly bashed on social media as being tone deaf and inadequate for the times. One economist urged the White House and Congress to agree on another round of economic aid to help workers who are struggling and prevent future job losses.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential adviser Ivanka Trump has unveiled a White House-backed national ad campaign highlighting alternative ways to start a career. The initiative is geared toward students, mid-career workers and the millions of people now unemployed because of the new coronavirus. But the campaign, called “Find Something New,” was quickly bashed on social media as being tone deaf and inadequate for the times. One economist urged the White House and Congress to agree on another round of economic aid to help workers who are struggling and prevent future job losses.
UNDATED – Burger King is staging an intervention with its cows. The chain has rebalanced the diet of some of the cows by adding lemon grass in a bid to limit bovine contributions to climate change. By tweaking their diet, Burger King said Tuesday that it believes it can reduce a cows’ daily methane emissions by about 33%. Cows emit methane as a by-product of their digestion. Methane emissions from livestock comprised more than a quarter of the emissions from the agriculture sector. With an over-the-top social media campaign that teeters between vulgarity and science, Burger King is banking on the heightened awareness of climate change and its responsibility to limit its own role.
NEW YORK (CBS) – If you’re too lazy to find something new to binge, Netflix is introducing a ‘shuffle’ button to help even the most indecisive watchers ‘just pick something already!’ There’s word the function is rolling out on some Samsung and Fire TVs. Netflix has been testing a shuffle button for a while, but that one played random episodes only of a TV series. With this one, anything goes.
JERUSALEM (CBS) – Israel’s government is now suggesting hugging trees to help people overcome loneliness. The campaign is meant to get more people out in nature after being cooped up for so long. And actually, Israel says it’s grandma’s who are doing most of the tree-hugging, since their grandkids have been warned to stay away.
WASHINGTON (CBS) —President Trump says more white people die at the hands of police than Black people. When asked by CBS Senior Investigative Correspondent Catherine Herridge why Black people continue to get killed by police, the President said it was a terrible question, and that police kill white people too.
According to ‘The Washington Post,’ since Januay 1st, 2015, 5,468 people were killed by police. And indeed more white people have been killed than Black people. 2,499 compared to 1,301. However, with Black people making up only about 13 percent of the U.S. population, they’re shot at a disproportionate rate.
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