Spirit adds flights from Palmer airport

LATROBE — Spirit Airlines plans to add daily flights between Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in southwestern Pennsylvania and Chicago starting May 7.

The flights to and from O’Hare International Airport are expected to begin May 7.

The airline already offers seasonal and daily service to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando and Tampa in Florida and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and plans to add direct flights to Las Vegas April 16.

Passengers who take the flights to Chicago will be able to connect on other Spirit flights to Dallas, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis as well as Las Vegas.

Airport officials planned to announce details of the new service Wednesday.

Senate vote short of overriding veto

WASHINGTON — The Senate Wednesday failed to override President Barack Obama’s veto of a bill to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, the first of many confrontations between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House this year over energy policy.

The 62-37 vote is expected to be one of many veto showdowns between Republicans and Obama in his final term. Already, the White House has issued more than a dozen veto threats on legislation.

Proponents of the Keystone bill have said since its introduction that they didn’t have the two-thirds of the Senate vote needed to override Obama’s veto. They fell four votes short. But they’ve already been discussing other ways to force the pipeline’s approval, either by attaching it onto must-pass spending bills or other, broader, energy legislation.

PNC to scale back mining financing

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group says it will further scale back financing of companies that cut off mountaintops to mine coal.

PNC had previously refused to finance companies that produced most of their coal with mountaintop mining, but will now cut off financing to any company that gets more than 25 percent of their coal that way. PNC also already had a policy of not financing individual mountaintop mining projects.

Spokesman Fred Solomon says the move is a way “to continue serving our clients in the region while contributing to a better environment for everyone.”

McDonald’s chicken gets new standard

NEW YORK — McDonald’s says it plans to require chicken suppliers to stop using antibiotics important to human medicine within two years.

The company says its suppliers will still be able to use a type of antibiotic called ionophores that keeps chickens healthy and isn’t used in humans. Later this year, McDonald’s also said it will no longer serve milk from cows treated with a particular artificial growth hormone.

By The Associated Press