Several Departments Investigate Officer Shot

Police departments from around the Pittsburgh area are searching for 22-year-old Koby Francis, a man accused of shooting a police officer in McKeesport. KDKA's Royce Jones has the details.

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  • The CEO of a voting-systems company says politicians around the world are worried that Trump's conspiracy theories will be used to undermine their own elections

    Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica also said he is considering suing media networks that have spread baseless conspiracy theories about his company.

  • Biden Press Secretary Says He ‘Will Not Be Discussing an Investigation of His Son’ with AG Candidates

    President-elect Joe Biden will not be discussing any federal investigation of his son Hunter Biden's business dealings with any candidates for attorney general, Biden's incoming press secretary said Sunday.Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace whether Biden would promise to allow the U.S. attorney for Delaware to proceed with an investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes.“He will not be discussing an investigation of his son with any attorney general candidates. He will not be discussing it with anyone he is considering for the role. And he will not be discussing it with a future attorney general,” Psaki said.“It will be up to the purview of an attorney general in his administration to determine how to handle any investigation,” continued Psaki, who previously served as former president Barack Obama's communications director. “As you know, U.S. attorneys, that’s a personnel decision, we’re far from there at this point in the process.”Earlier this month, Hunter Biden announced that federal prosecutors were investigating his “tax affairs” but insisted he has handled his finances appropriately.“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors,” the younger Biden said of the federal probe in a statement.The former vice president addressed the investigation for the first time last week, saying he is “confident” his son did nothing wrong.Psaki noted that several positions in the administration have yet to be filled and that the administration would “allow the process to work how it should, which is for a Justice Department to be run independently by the attorney general at the top.”

  • UAE top diplomat acknowledges visa restrictions on Pakistan

    The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat has publicly acknowledged a so-far unexplained ban on visitors from Pakistan, which travel agents say also targets tourists and laborers from a dozen Muslim-majority countries amid the pandemic and the UAE's normalization of ties with Israel. Following a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan stressed “the temporary nature of recent restrictions imposed on the issuance of visas due to the outbreak of COVID-19,” the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency reported Sunday.

  • Trump administration cuts size of Arctic land offered for oil auction

    In a last-minute change, the Trump administration cut about 30 percent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge territory that it plans to auction off for oil exploration. The decision was announced late Friday by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency managing the oil lease sale. The ANWR lease sale is scheduled for Jan. 6, but under the BLM’s plan, companies may submit bids starting on Monday.

  • Mega-church pastor positive with Covid after White House Christmas party

    Pastor was missing from service on Sunday

  • Putin publicly praises Russian intelligence agency implicated in massive U.S. government hack

    Russia officially denies responsibility for the massive, ongoing cyber hack of U.S. government and business networks, despite growing evidence its SVR foreign intelligence service carried out the sophisticated breach. On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin left his COVID-19 bubble to speak at the 100th anniversary of the SVR's founding, and amid his general praise for Russian security services and the SVR specifically, he slipped in some laudatory words for counterintelligence operations, according to a translation shared by the Kremlin.> Vladimir Putin visited Foreign Intelligence Service headquarters and congratulated security agency personnel on their professional holiday https://t.co/TJ4dkOducY pic.twitter.com/9dIXkiUdz1> > — President of Russia (@KremlinRussia_E) December 20, 2020"I know what I'm talking about here," said Putin, a former agent of the KGB, the SVR's predecessor. "And I rate very highly the difficult professional operations that have been conducted."U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that Russia is "pretty clearly" responsible for the "very significant" cyber breach, and "White House officials had drafted a statement to be released Friday accusing Moscow of carrying out the cyber intrusions in a months-long campaign, but they were blocked from doing so," The Washington Post reports, citing a senior administration official. President Trump tweeted his first comments on the cyber attack Saturday, bizarrely suggesting that maybe China was to blame."Trump's aversion to calling out the Kremlin for its malign activities in cyberspace and his deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin has become a hallmark of his presidency," the Post notes.Trump "behaves so much like a paid Russian agent," says Gregory Treverton, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. "If you look at the string of his actions and pronouncements," he added, "the only consistent interpretation that you can logically draw is that he's in their thrall." Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed. "Starting with Trump's very first meeting with Putin to today's tweets we've seen an almost unbreakable pattern of denying the obvious about Russia's misdeeds while carrying water for the Kremlin," he told the Post.More stories from theweek.com Arizona GOP chair urges Trump to heed Flynn and 'cross the Rubicon,' alarming people who get the reference Biden to get COVID-19 vaccine shot on TV Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead?

  • McCarthy Calls on FBI to Brief Full Intel Committee on Swalwell’s Ties to Alleged Chinese Spy

    House Leader Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that all members of the House Intelligence Committee should receive a classified FBI briefing on Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.McCarthy received a closed-door FBI briefing on Swalwell's close ties to Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, on Friday and said afterwards that he thinks Swalwell should not be on the House Intelligence Committee."I’m going to request that every single member on the House Intelligence Committee gets the exact same briefing from the FBI that I did," McCarthy said Sunday on Fox News. "Because if this individual is sitting on this committee — Eric Swalwell — they’ve got to know the background of what has gone on. I can’t talk about the classified part, but you know what’s out there in the press.”“No one that was in that room could walk out and say Eric Swalwell should be on the intel committee," McCarthy said of the briefing. "I don’t know — they had a briefing before in 2015 and I don’t know what that briefing was like compared to this one, but it could not have been the same.”Between 2011 and 2015, Fang developed close relationships with Swalwell, bundling donations for the up and coming lawmaker and even placing an intern in his office.Since Swalwell's ties to Fang came to light earlier this month, Republicans on the intelligence committee have demanded answers, some even calling for an investigation and for him to be immediately removed from the committee in order to deprive him of the access to classified information that comes with membership on the high-profile panel.Fang, believed to have been acting at the behest of China’s Ministry of State Security, helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign and helped place at least one intern in the California Democrat’s office.Fang also had romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors over a three-year period. Swalwell, who married shortly afterwards in 2016, declined this week to answer questions about whether his relationship with Fang was sexual or romantic in nature.In 2015, federal investigators briefed Swalwell on their concerns about Fang, at which point he says he severed all his ties with her. However, Swalwell’s brother and father remained connected with Fang on Facebook.Swalwell said Tuesday that he has committed no wrongdoing and expressed confidence that the controversy will not threaten his seat on the House Intelligence Committee.“The one answer that I got out of that briefing was there is no way Eric Swalwell should continue to serve on the intel committee,” McCarthy added, noting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have to remove Swalwell from the committee if he refuses to step down.

  • Longtime Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Abrahamson dies

    Shirley Abrahamson, the longest-serving Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in state history and the first woman to serve on the high court, has died. Abrahamson, who also served as chief justice for a record 19 years, died Saturday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, her son Dan Abrahamson told The Associated Press on Sunday. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement that Abrahamson had a “larger-than-life impact” on the state's legal profession and her legacy is defined “not just by being a first, but her life’s work of ensuring she would not be the last, paving and lighting the way for the many women and others who would come after her.”

  • 'We must mobilise so it stops': Miss France runner-up hit by torrent of online anti-Semitism

    The runner-up in this year's Miss France beauty contest said it was disheartening to see that “we are still here in 2020” in response to a barrage of anti-Semitic abuse she received online after mentioning that her father was Israeli. Paris prosecutors on Monday said they had opened an inquiry into "racist insults and provoking racial hatred” against April Benayoum, 21, who is reigning Miss Provence and came second in the national pageant on Saturday night. The offence of publishing anti-Semitic remarks carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a €45,000 (£41,000) fine. Among the 40,000 tweets citing Miss Provence and Israel on Saturday night, one read "Hitler forgot about this one" and another "Don't vote for a Jew". The slurs marred an event watched by more than eight million people on TF1, France’s biggest TV channel. Reacting for the first time to the insults, Ms Benayoum, who is studying marketing in Aix, told regional newspaper La Provence: “We must mobilise so that it stops." “I didn’t try and provoke anyone at all. France is a cosmopolitan country. The “Miss” come from different origins, cultures and regions and that’s what makes this contest beautiful.” She told Nice-Matin, another regional paper, that despite the violence of the insults, they “don’t affect me at all”.

  • Biden’s niece avoids prison time for driving under the influence crash

    Caroline Biden’s arraignment was one day after 3 November’s presidential election

  • Pastors: Loeffler's campaign against Warnock is 'broader attack against the Black church'

    More than 100 religious leaders have signed an open letter to Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), asking her to stop the "false attacks" against the "social justice theological and faith traditions" of Rev. Raphael Warnock, her Democratic opponent.Warnock and Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat in 2019 after Johnny Isakson resigned for health reasons, are fighting to win one of Georgia's two Senate runoff races on Jan. 5. Warnock is senior pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and throughout the campaign, Loeffler has tried to brand him as a "radical" liberal and "socialist," criticizing him for a 2011 sermon invoking the military and his support of women's reproductive rights.In their letter, the religious leaders — primarily pastors from Georgia — ask Loeffler to "cease your false attacks on Rev. Warnock's social justice theological and faith traditions which visualizes a just and ardent world where love, fairness, and equal justice under the law for marginalized people of all races is not only accepted as an authentic prophetic message in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, but also a central message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."Warnock has not said or written anything that indicates he is a "socialist" or "radical," the letter states, and the leaders see Loeffler's "attacks against Warnock as a broader attack against the Black church and faith traditions for which we stand."The race between Warnock and Loeffler has been filled with controversies. Earlier this month, an open letter against Warnock was released by conservative Black ministers, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Warnock also responded to criticism from two Orthodox rabbis upset over remarks he made about unarmed Palestinians being shot by Israeli soldiers, saying he is a "staunch ally and supporter of Israel."Loeffler has been scrutinized for selling stocks at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, when she received confidential information during Senate briefings. She has also spread baseless claims about election fraud in Georgia, supported President Trump's attempt to overturn the election results, and posed for a photo during a rally with Chester Doles, a white supremacist and former KKK leader who marched in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Loeffler's campaign later said she didn't know who he was, and otherwise would have removed him from the event.More stories from theweek.com Arizona GOP chair urges Trump to heed Flynn and 'cross the Rubicon,' alarming people who get the reference Biden to get COVID-19 vaccine shot on TV Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead?

  • Vatican permits use of COVID-19 vaccines made using aborted foetal tissue

    VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -The Vatican told Roman Catholics on Monday that it was morally acceptable to use COVID-19 vaccines even if their production employed cell lines drawn from tissues of aborted foetuses. A note from the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the use of such vaccines was permitted as long as there were no alternatives. Both the Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc vaccines have some connection to cell lines that originated with tissue from abortions in the last century, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which issued a separate note to American Catholics last week.

  • Mexico's president says army to run Maya train project

    Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday the army will run the Maya train project and several airports, and use any profits to finance military pensions. The army is already overseeing construction on some parts of the controversial project, while private firms build the rest. López Obrador has already given the army more tasks than any other recent Mexican president, with military personnel doing everything from building airports to transporting medicine and running tree nurseries.

  • A North Korean fisherman was publicly executed for listening to foreign radio stations at sea, Radio Free Asia report says

    The man, known by his surname, Choi, and said to be in his 40s, was killed by firing squad in front of 100 boat captains and fisheries executives.

  • Trump clashes with secretary of state Mike Pompeo over who was responsible for massive cyberattack

    Donald Trump was last night at odds with one of his closest allies, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, over who was responsible for the massive cyber-attack on the US government. While Mr Pompeo fell into line with the consensus that Russia orchestrated the hack, Mr Trump suggested without evidence that China could have been the culprit, adding that it may have also helped rig the election in favour of Joe Biden. Playing down the severity of the attack, the US president wrote: "The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. "I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!). "There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA."

  • No need to panic over new UK coronavirus strain, says India's health minister

    India's health authorities remain vigilant and prepared to deal with a new more transmissible strain of the coronavirus identified in Britain, the country's health minister said on Monday, adding that there was no need to panic. India has recorded the world's second highest number of infections and breached the 10 million case milestone over the weekend. "If you ask me, there is no reason for such panic," India's Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said at a press briefing in New Delhi.

  • Pope snubs Vatican's sci-fi Nativity scene and directs visitors to others

    Pope Francis on Sunday appeared to add his snub to widespread criticism of an unorthodox Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square, telling visitors to visit a nearby exhibition of traditional crèches instead.

  • Sheriff: Man arrested on cross-country trip with girl, 12

    Nathan Larson, 40, made the girl wear a long-haired wig to make her look older and told her to pretend to be mute during their travel, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims announced on Saturday. Mims said detectives learned that Larson, a resident of Catlett, Virginia, met the girl previously through social media, flew to California and persuaded her to sneak out of her house around 2 a.m. Monday. Larson was taken into custody and the girl was rescued by a Denver police officer who stopped the pair during their layover in Colorado, Mims said.

  • New antidepressants can lift depression and suicidal thoughts fast, but don’t expect magic cures

    Depression is the most common cause of disability in the world. Chances are high that you or someone you know will experience a period when depression gets in the way of work, social life or family life. Nearly two in three people with depression will experience severe effects.As a psychiatrist specializing in behavioral neuroscience, I help patients who suffer from mood disorders. Many have “treatment-resistant” depression and are on a nearly constant search for relief. There have been some exciting developments in treating depression recently, particularly new rapid-acting antidepressants. But it’s important to understand that these medications aren’t cure-alls.The new treatments for depression promise to relieve distressing symptoms, including suicidal thinking, faster than any previous treatment. They include ketamine, an anesthetic that is also abused as a street drug, and a derivative of ketamine called esketamine. These drugs have been shown to help relieve symptoms of depression within hours, but each dose only works for a few days. They also carry risks, including the potential for drug abuse.With the coronavirus pandemic taking a toll on mental health, patients are looking for fast relief. Medication can help, but to effectively treat depression long term, with its mix of biological, psychological, social and cultural components, requires more than just drugs. Depression medications have evolvedThe early history of depression treatments focused on the psychological components of illness. The goal in the early 20th century was for a patient to understand unconscious urges established during childhood. Biological treatments at the time seem frightening today. They included insulin coma therapy and primitive, frequently misused versions of a modern lifesaving procedure – electroconvulsive therapy.In the middle of the 20th century, medicines that affected behavior were discovered. The first medicines were sedatives and antipsychotic medicines. Chlorpromazine, marketed as “Thorazine,” led the way in the 1950s. In 1951, imipramine was discovered and would become one of the first antidepressants. The “blockbuster” antidepressant Prozac, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI, was approved in 1987. It’s been over 30 years since we’ve seen a novel class of antidepressant medicine. That’s one reason rapid-acting antidepressants are exciting. What depression looks like inside the brainMedical treatments for depression affect certain processing cells in the brain area above your eyes and under your forehead. This area, called the prefrontal cortex, processes complex information including emotional expressions and social behavior. Brain cells called neurons are chemically controlled by two opposing messenger molecules, glutamate and gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA). Glutamate works like a gas pedal and GABA is the brake. They tell the neurons to speed up or slow down.Rapid-acting medicines for depression decrease the action of glutamate, the gas pedal. Other treatments have been developed to rebalance GABA. A neurosteroid called allopregnanolone affects GABA and applies the brake. Both allopregnanolone and esketamine have federal approval for treatment of depression, allopregnanolone for postpartum depression and esketamine for major depressive disorder and suicidal thinking. Not so fastAround 2016-2017, young psychiatrists like myself were rushing to implement these novel antidepressant treatments. Our training supervisors said, “not so fast.” They explained why we should wait to see how studies of the new drugs turn out.Several years before, the medical community experienced similar excitement over Vivitrol to treat opioid addiction. Vivitrol is a monthly injected form of naltrexone, an opioid-blocking medicine. Clinical trials are executed in a highly controlled and clean environment, while the real world can be highly uncontrolled and very messy. Without risk reduction, education and psychosocial treatment, the potential risks of medications like Vivitrol can be magnified. Vivitrol can help reduce relapses, but isn’t a panacea on its own. The National Institute on Drug Abuse recommends integrated treatment for addiction. Treating depression may be similar. Medication and psychological support together work better than either on its own. The risksIn depression, the more treatments a person tries that don’t work, the less likely that person is to have success with the next treatment option. This was a main message of the largest clinical trial studying depression medications, the National Institutes of Health-directed STAR-D study, completed in 2006.Providing a more effective option for patients who don’t respond to a first or second antidepressant may turn that STAR-D message on its head. However, when dealing with an illness that is affected by external stress like trauma and loss, treatment is more likely to succeed with both medication and psychological support. A real-world treatment approach called the biopsychosocial paradigm accounts for the wide range of relevant biological, psychological and social components of mental illnesses. The patient and physician work together to process the patient’s problematic experiences, thoughts and feelings. A hyperfocus on novel drugs may overlook the importance of addressing and monitoring all those components, which could mean problems surface in the future. Medications like opiates or other substances that provide rapid relief of physical or psychological pain can also be physically and psychologically addictive, and novel rapid-acting antidepressants can have the same risks.Rapid-acting antidepressants can be powerful tools for treating major depression when used with other forms of therapy, but are they the answer? Not so fast.[Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Nicholas Mischel, Wayne State University.Read more: * COVID-19 could lead to an epidemic of clinical depression, and the health care system isn’t ready for that, either * Black men face high discrimination and depression, even as their education and incomes riseNicholas Mischel receives or has received funding from the American Heart Association, National Institutes of Health, and Wayne State University. He is employed by Wayne State University and member of the American Psychiatric Association, Society of Biological Psychiatry, North American Neuromodulation Society, the Clinical TMS Society, and the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners.

  • A Silicon Valley startup founder moved to Austin to flee San Francisco's high housing costs and said 'FOMO' will prompt more in the 'hive-minded' Bay to move to newer tech hubs

    Ben Rahnema moved out of a cramped San Francisco apartment and into a 3-bedroom Austin home in November, as more tech talent leaves Silicon Valley.