Breaking News

COVID-19

Centre virus cases climb

Fed by the return of students recently to University Park, the COVID-19 outbreak in Centre County continues, with 601 new cases for the week ending Friday. That is 27 more than for the previous week, according to information from the state Department of Health, which updates its Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard on Fridays. Centre has had 2,231 positive cases, almost 3.5 times as many the next closest area county — Blair — along with far higher “incidence” and positivity rates than all the other local counties, according to the DoH. But Blair is experiencing a ...

SCI Huntingdon hosts virtual reentry, career fair

HARRISBURG — The State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon recently hosted a virtual reentry/career fair in collaboration with the Department of Corrections’ Reentry Office. Nearly 30 soon-to-be-released inmates participated in a day of virtual presentations with employers and service providers, the Department of Corrections said in a release. Each state prison normally hosts a reentry/career fair for inmates who are within 12 months of reentry to allow them to meet employers and financial and housing institutions. Due to COVID-19 mitigation efforts, all 2020 fairs had to be ...

Wolf rebukes lawmakers over tactics

Gov. Tom Wolf scolded the Republican-led General Assembly on Thursday for its continued opposition to the administration’s COVID-19 policies, including a lawsuit that has voiding provisions in the governor’s emergency declaration, bills intended to lift restrictions on restaurants and bars and a bill seeking to ensure school districts retain local control of extracurricular activities. Republicans have “repeatedly tried to overturn the very mitigation measures that are keeping case counts (in Pennsylvania) low,” Wolf said in a webcast news conference. “If they succeed, we ...

PIAA spectator bill fails veto override

There were two major developments in the ever-changing landscape of high school sports amid the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday. The PIAA unveiled state playoff brackets for all fall sports at its board meeting, signaling its intention to hold statewide postseasons and declaring state champions, something that has been in doubt since the fall season began. Whether or not anyone will be in the stands for those games, however, remains in question. House Bill 2787, which was designed to allow school districts to decide their own spectator policies and was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf ...

PSU using hotels to quarantine students

A COVID-19 outbreak at Penn State Altoona in the last three weeks has filled the campus’ designated spaces for isolation and quarantine, forcing administrators to send overflow students to local hotels, according to campus spokesman Jonathan O’Harrow. There are 33 students in quarantine, segregated after potential exposure, although none of the 23 who tested positive — 17 of them with “active cases” — remain on campus in isolation, according to the Penn State Altoona COVID-19 online dashboard. The outbreak led the college to establish a “pop-up, on-demand testing ...

Inmates charged in unemployment fraud

HARRISBURG — Eighteen inmates in Pennsylvania state prisons and two girlfriends of inmates on the outside have been charged in what authorities describe as a scheme to fraudulently obtain jobless benefits for ineligible prisoners, prosecutors said Wednesday. The 20 sets of charges were announced by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro a month after prosecutors disclosed the investigation into illegal applications for unemployment compensation benefits that were temporarily enhanced because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Look, I know it is shocking and it’s wrong. Many who waited and ...