WJPA News

Washington County Commissioners unanimously approved their Opioid Settlement Review Committee. The seven member board is made up of addiction experts, law enforcement, education professionals and others. The committee was formed at the suggestion of the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse And Abatement Trust after they flagged 17 programs as non-compliant or needing further review. Commissioner Chairman Nick Sherman says that all three commissioners worked on the formation of the committee. Commissioner Larry Maggi says that the committee is a step in the right direction to be more transparent with the nomination process. Both hope that it will avoid the upheaval of last year when those programs came under question. The County provided an update to the programs under question. The department of Human Services has submitted additional information to the review committee for the 9 programs deemed under further review. The county has also appealed 7 of the 8 programs deemed non-compliant. A hearing on those 7 programs will be held March 13.

State Police in Summerhill  Township, Cambria County have charged  a McDonald woman with theft by deception and financial exploitation after they say she led her mother to believe she was being held against her will and needed the money to be released.  Troopers say 42 year old Erica Bardell later admitted that she was not in danger and was “just trying to get money”.  According to the criminal complaint, Bardell received $1,400 through electronic transfers from her 70 year old mother who lives in Portage, Pa.

No injuries are reported after a crash knock down several poles and wires in Canton Township early Thursday morning.  It happened around 12:30 a.m. at Jefferson Avenue and Brush Run Road.   Crews from West Penn Power were called in to make repairs and the crash reportedly did knock out power to some customers.  West Penn Power’s Outage map showed more than one-hundred customers without service in Canton Township as well as 82 in Buffalo Township and 28 in Blaine Township.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM) has been voted the Best Small Town Museum in the USA Today 10 Best Readers Choice Awards.  After weeks of voting, readers have selected the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum as the Best Small Town Museum in America.  Proudly representing the transportation museum community, PTM has garnered national attention by their inclusion in the Best Small Town Museum category.  “We are deeply honored to receive this national recognition along with so many other prestigious, small town museums,” said Jeanine DeBor, Executive Director/CEO. “This distinction acknowledges the importance of transportation history in our country, specifically the important mission of preserving the Trolley Era. We are thankful to everyone who voted for us.”   This national award recognizes excellence in small town museums and the nomination highlights PTM’s commitment to preserving streetcars and their impact on our communities for generations to come. Winners were announced on February 18, 2026. This is the first year PTM was selected for inclusion in this list.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has announced at the inaugural Board of Peace meeting that nine members have agreed to pledge $7 billion toward a Gaza relief package. The president said at Thursday’s meeting that five countries have also agreed to deploy troops as part of an international stabilization force for the war-battered Palestinian territory. Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have pledged to send troops for a Gaza stabilization force, while Egypt and Jordan have committed to train police. Troops will initially be deployed to Rafah, a major population center where the U.S. administration hopes to first focus reconstruction efforts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remain at historically low levels. The number of Americans filing for jobless aid for the week ending Feb. 14 fell by 23,000 to 206,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s significantly fewer than the 225,000 new applications that analysts had forecast. Filings for unemployment benefits are viewed as representative of U.S. layoffs. The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Feb. 7 increased to 1.87 million, up 17,000 from the previous week, the government said.

LONDON (AP) — U.K. police have arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office. On Thursday, Thames Valley Police said they opened an investigation after assessing reports about his alleged contact with Jeffrey Epstein. Police did not name him. That follows U.K. practice, but they confirmed they arrested a man in his 60s. Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein. He is the former Prince Andrew.

TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say the bodies of eight backcountry skiers have been found and one remains missing after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe in California. Search and rescue crews were dispatched to the Castle Peak area of the Sierra Nevada after a 911 call reporting an avalanche Tuesday morning. Six others were found alive. Heavy snow and the threat of additional avalanches slowed the rescue effort in the mountains near Castle Peak, northwest of Lake Tahoe. Authorities have told the families the mission has moved from rescue to recovery. They say the eight victims were found fairly close together, and that three of them were discovered by the skiers who survived.

Experts say a weeks-long “snow drought” in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada helped set the stage for Tuesday’s deadly avalanche, after several feet of new snow fell on an earlier layer that had hardened. The new snow didn’t bond to the earlier layer before the avalanche near Lake Tahoe killed at least eight back country skiers, said San Jose State University meteorology professor Craig Clements. Six skiers survived and rescuers were searching for another who was still missing. The group was on a three-day back country trek when they were trapped by the avalanche as a winter storm pummeled the West Coast.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Governors are arriving in Washington for an annual gathering that has traditionally been a show of bipartisanship. But President Donald Trump has disrupted norms by not inviting all governors to meetings at the White House. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, joined Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, both Republicans, in opening this year’s National Governors Association on a panel where they emphasized bipartisanship regardless of Trump’s actions. The break with tradition reflects Trump’s broader approach in his second term. He has taken a confrontational stance toward some state leaders, withholding federal funds from states that draw his ire and deploying federal troops to cities over the objections of local officials.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s top economist on Wednesday urged that Federal Reserve economists be punished for research last week that showed American companies and consumers paying for nearly all the new tariffs imposed by the White House last year. Hassett’s comments represent the latest attack from the Trump administration on the Fed, which has traditionally been independent of day-to-day politics. It also suggests the White House remains sensitive to concerns about rising costs for groceries, housing, and big-ticket items such as furniture and cars, as surveys show Americans remain disgruntled about the economy.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mark Zuckerberg and opposing lawyers dueled in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday, where the Meta CEO answered questions about young people’s use of Instagram, his congressional testimony and internal advice he’s received to be “authentic” and not “robotic.” The plaintiff, a now 20-year-old woman, is seeking to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Meta and YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap settled.