DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Federal authorities say the last of the escaped monkeys from a Pennsylvania highway crash of a truck towing a trailer load of the animals has been accounted for. State police said several of the 100 cynomolgus macaque monkeys escaped after Friday’s collision between the pickup truck and a dump truck, prompting a search for the missing monkeys. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday evening that all 100 monkeys have now been accounted for but three had to be euthanized. It didn’t elaborate. A CDC email said the monkeys were en route to a quarantine facility after arriving in the U.S. from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation.

Pennsylvania payrolls grew in December amid labor shortage
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s payrolls are continuing to grow, but a persistent worker shortage is still keeping labor markets tight. The state Department of Labor and Industry said Friday that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of a percentage point to 5.4% in December. The national rate was 3.9% in December. In a survey of households, the labor force shrank for the seventh straight month, reflecting a worker shortage that some economists attribute partly to an increase in people who have recently gone to work for themselves. In a separate survey of employers, payrolls in Pennsylvania grew in December by more than 14,000, driven primarily by hiring in trucking and warehousing.

Pennsylvania set state record for gambling revenue in 2021
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania has set another annual record for gambling revenue in the era of online gambling and sports betting. State regulators say casinos and other operators won more than $4.7 billion from gamblers in calendar year 2021 in one of the nation’s largest commercial casino states. The rebound continues after pandemic-related shutdowns sapped casino revenue in 2020. The more than $4.7 billion came from 16 operating casinos, including three new mini-casinos in 2021, as well as fantasy sports operators and truck stops. That beat the $3.9 billion recorded in fiscal year 2021, as well as the previous calendar year high of $3.4 billion, two years ago.

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By LYNN ELBER AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Louie Anderson, whose four-decade career as a comedian and actor included his unlikely and Emmy-winning performance as mom to twin adult sons in the TV series “Baskets,” has died at age 68. Anderson’s publicist Glenn Schwartz says the comedian died Friday in Las Vegas. The publicist had said earlier this week that Anderson was hospitalized for a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He’d been a familiar face elsewhere on TV, including as host of a revival of the game show “Family Feud” from 1999 to 2002, and on comedy specials and in frequent late-night talk show appearances.

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By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Three new U.S. studies offer more evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines are standing up to the omicron variant, at least among people who have gotten booster shots. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the studies Friday. The results echo previous research — including studies in Germany, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. They found available vaccines are less effective against omicron than they were against earlier versions of the coronavirus. One of the papers found that two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines offered no significant protection against omicron. Several studies have concluded a booster can significantly improve protection.