WJPA News

The pedestrian who was killed earlier this morning has been identified by police. 21-year-old Phillip Frye of Meadowlands, PA, was identified by the County coroner’s office today at 10:50am. Frye was struck by a vehicle heading soundbound on Pike Street in Chartiers Township. The incident was reported at 2:05Am, according to Washington County 911, and the driver of the vehicle remained at the scene, though has not yet been identified.

Washington County officials were assisted by Canonsburg Ambulance, the Chartiers Township Fire Department and the Pennsylvania State Police Crash Reconstruction Unit.

DUNBAR TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A man was electrocuted in Fayette County on Friday.  The Fayette County Coroner’s Office says it was called to Laurel Hill Road in Dunbar Township for a deceased person.  Aaron Cottrell, 32, was pronounced dead due to an accidental electrocution.  The coroner’s office says Cottrell was not on the property “in an employment capacity by the church or any commercial business.”  According to Pennsylvania State Police, Cottrell was found with a pole saw and a backpack. He’d apparently been trying to take wire from electrical lines when he was electrocuted.

The new Washington County Public Safety building is getting ready to be built, as the demolition crew starts to prepare the site by removing the bottom part of the parking garage and the rubble of the old Courthouse Square building. Commissioners Chairman Nick Sherman says that they are on schedule and should be ready by the July meeting. Sherman says that they are excited for the new building and that during that July meeting, they look to have a planning report for the bid on the project and discuss who will be constructing the building. The Public Safety building will occupy the County 911 operators and the sheriff’s office for the first and second floor, but are still looking at their options for what will be on the third floor. The building as well is energy efficient and will save taxpayers money to heat and cool the building. The demolition for this project began on March 2, and looks to be done by the end of June.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Justice is acknowledging it’s removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The department says the information about the prosecutions is “partisan propaganda.” The purge of news releases documenting criminal charges, convictions and sentencings is the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the Capitol assault. On that day more than five years ago, hundreds of supporters of Republican President Donald Trump stormed the building in an effort to halt the congressional certification of his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

GARDEN GROVE, CALIFORNIA (AP) — About 40,000 people are under evacuation orders and schools have shut down in Southern California due to a hazardous chemical leak. Officials say a storage tank began leaking methyl methacrylate, a chemical used in making plastic parts. The tank overheated Thursday at an aerospace plastics facility in Garden Grove, where evacuations were initially ordered. Officials expanded evacuation orders Friday to include parts of Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster after failing to stop the leak overnight. The tank was holding between 6,000 and 7,000 gallons of the chemical at the GKN Aerospace facility, which makes parts for commercial and military aircraft.

RUSSIA (AP) — A Ukrainian drone attack has caused a fire at a Russian oil terminal, according to officials in Russia’s Krasnodar region. The incident occurred overnight in Novorossiysk, where falling drone debris sparked the fire, injuring two people. Russia’s Astra news outlet reported that Ukrainian drones struck the Sheskharis oil terminal, a key site for Russian state-controlled pipelines. Ukraine has not commented on the attack. Meanwhile, the death toll from a Ukrainian drone strike on a college dormitory in Starobilsk has risen to 12. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the attack and called for military retaliation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, saying she needed to step away as her husband battles cancer. She is the fourth Cabinet official to depart during Trump’s second term. In her resignation letter, which she posted on social media, Gabbard said she told Trump of her decision to leave office on June 30. She said her husband had recently been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months.” Trump posted that her principal deputy, Aaron Lukas, will serve as acting director of national intelligence.  (Photo:  AP)