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COVID-19

Ex-worker sues Vitro over mask wearing

A former employee of Vitro Autoglass LLC of Tyrone has filed a federal lawsuit in Johnstown charging the company with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act for discharging him because he said he could not wear a face mask while doing his job due to medical conditions. In the lawsuit, Jonah Dorsey of Altoona said he was employed by Vitro, also known as the Pittsburgh Glass Works, for 18 months when the company temporarily shut down in late March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Dorsey was called back to his job in the glass fabrication warehouse on June 21. The company, in ...

COVID-19: Bars, eateries abiding by rules

Pennsylvania State Police issued liquor-licensed locations in Altoona six warnings and three notices of violations so far in October for disregarding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, state police reported. “The goal of our weekly reports is to show our liquor control officers are out there and doing their job every day,” PSP spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said. Since July 1, liquor control officers have conducted more than 52,000 compliance checks throughout Pennsylvania, PSP documents state. Of about 4,500 checks in Altoona since July, 93 resulted in warnings being issued and 24 ...

Efforts continue to fix COVID rent relief program

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf announced a step Tuesday to help more renters and homeowners benefit from a pandemic-created state program while a House bill to fix some problems with the program is in the pipeline. Wolf’s announcement ad­­dresses one aspect of the COVID Relief Mortgage and Rental Assistance Grant Program. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Authority, the program’s administrator, will now give landlords and mortgage holders the ability to reach agreements with renters and homeowners to repay the amount of rent and mortgage payments due above the program’s $750 ...

US jobless claims rise

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week by the most in two months, to 898,000, a historically high number and evidence that layoffs remain a hindrance to the economy’s recovery from the pandemic recession. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department coincides with other recent data that have signaled a slowdown in hiring. The economy is still roughly 10.7 million jobs short of recovering all the 22 million jobs that were lost when the pandemic struck in early spring. Confirmed coronavirus cases have been rising again nationwide in the ...

Walgreens rebounds with profit

COVID-19 took another bite out of Walgreens Boots Alliance quarterly numbers but this time left behind better-than-expected earnings. The drugstore chain said Thursday that it made $373 million in the final quarter of fiscal 2020 after losing $1.7 billion the previous quarter, when millions of shoppers stayed home to avoid the rapidly spreading pandemic. COVID-19 still hurt. The company estimated that the pandemic’s impact shaved about $520 million from its operating income in the most recent quarter. But Walgreens also grew sales and prescriptions in the United States and saw ...

Virus cases surge in Pa.

Pennsylvania is “at the start of the fall resurgence” of COVID-19, the state’s health secretary said Wednesday, but does not plan to reimpose a stay-at-home order or shut down businesses again in response. Wednesday marked the ninth consecutive day that Pennsylvania’s daily case count surpassed 1,000, and the average daily number of new confirmed cases is up by more than 50% over the past two weeks, according to The COVID Tracking Project. Though some of the increased caseload is due to expanded testing, the state’s hospitalization and test positivity rates are also rising. ...