House votes to decriminalize marijuana at federal level

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Bishop Bambera gives green light to early Mass day before Christmas

WILKES-BARRE &mdash; Wilkes-Barre Area School District Superintendent Brian Costello sent out a notice Friday announcing the district will not return to in-person lessons until January, at the earliest.
				Costello cited data provided by the state&rsquo;s &ldquo;COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard,&rdquo; updated each Friday. This week the data showed Luzerne County remains in the &ldquo;substantial&rdquo; risk category for transmission of the virus, a status determined by the number of cases in the last seven days and the percent of tests coming back positive.
				Luzerne County had a positivity rate of 16.4%, and the state requires a county to drop below 10% to be considered &ldquo;moderate.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;Based on this continued level of a substantial transmission rate within Luzerne County,&rdquo; Costello wrote, the state departments of education and health both recommend &ldquo;full remote learning until the community transmission rates return to moderate.
				&ldquo;Therefore, we will continue to follow PDE & DOH recommendations and all classes will continue to be &lsquo;live streamed&rsquo;. In-person classes will not resume during the month of December. We will provide an update during the last week of December with a tentative in-person start date.&rdquo;
				The district had hoped to return to a hybrid learning system by now, with one group of students in class while another group learned online live at home, but the surge in cases locally has prompted Wilkes-Barre Area and other districts to delay a return to in-person learning.
				&ldquo;We understand how important it is to have in-person classes resume,&rdquo; Costello wrote. &ldquo;I specifically want to thank our students and our staff for always wearing appropriate face coverings, social distancing, and following our district guidelines. This allowed us and will continue to allow us to resume in person instruction when we are back to the moderate category level based on Luzerne County&rsquo;s transmission rate.
				&ldquo;The guidelines above are in place as part of our civic duty to help mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. Please continue to do your part outside of the school day by always wearing a face covering and following social distancing guidelines.&rdquo;

W-B Area Superintendent: No in-person classes until January