WJPA News

[WPXI]– It’s being called a vicious, targeted attack. That’s what West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey said to our news partners at Channel 11. Two members of the National Guard were ambushed outside of the White House on Wednesday. Twenty-year-old Sarah Beckstrom died from her injuries on Thanksgiving Day and 24-year old Andrew Wolfe remains in the hospital, fighting for his life. Both Guardsmen were in DC as part of President Donald Trump’s “Safe and Beautiful” mission to reduce crime in the nation’s capital. Morrisey had been criticized for erroneously saying that both Guardsmen had passed away following the shooting. He said “You try to get the most accurate information from the most credible sources. We do that, and we take great pride in that. Sometimes you find that information is wrong or it changes.” The alleged shooter is an Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the war in Afghanistan. He now faces murder and other charges.

A small but vocal crowd gathered in front of U-S Representative of the 14th District Guy Reschenthaler’s office on Friday. They held a “Where’s Guy” rally drawing attention to his absence in the district. Rally participant Patrick Herford simply wants to meet with Reschenthaler in a Town Hall gathering. Rally organizer Sharon Laffey says that in the six years that Reschenthaler has represented the 14th district, he has never held a Town Hall meeting. Washington County Democratic Committee Chairperson Christina Proctor calls Reschenthaler an absentee congressman. WJPA reached out to Representative Reschenthaler’s office by phone and email and have not had a response.

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — Pope Leo XIV visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on Saturday but didn’t stop to pray, as he opened an intense day of meetings and liturgies with Turkey’s religious leaders and a Mass for the country’s tiny Catholic community.

The head of Turkey’s Diyanet religious affairs directorate showed Leo the soaring tiled domes of the 17th-century mosque and the Arabic inscriptions on its columns, as Leo nodded in understanding.

The Vatican had said Leo would observe a “brief minute of silent prayer” there, but it didn’t appear that he had. The imam of the mosque, Asgin Tunca, said he had invited Leo to pray, since the mosque was “Allah’s house,” but the pope declined.

Speaking to reporters after the visit, Tunca said he had told the pope: “It’s not my house, not your house, (it’s the) house of Allah,” he said. He said he told Leo: “’If you want, you can worship here,’ I said. But he said, ‘That’s OK.’”

“He wanted to see the mosque, wanted to feel (the) atmosphere of the mosque, I think. And was very pleased,” he said.

Later, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said: “The pope experienced his visit to the mosque in silence, in a spirit of contemplation and listening, with deep respect for the place and the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”

Leo, history’s first American pope, was following in the footsteps of his recent predecessors, who all made high-profile visits to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, as it is officially known, in a gesture of respect to Turkey’s Muslim majority. Leo removed his shoes and walked through the carpeted mosque in his white socks.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Airlines around the world canceled and delayed flights heading into the weekend to fix software on a widely used commercial aircraft after an analysis found the computer code may have contributed to a sudden drop in the altitude of a JetBlue plane last month.

Airbus said Friday that an examination of the JetBlue incident revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls on the A320 family of aircraft.

The FAA joined the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in requiring airlines to address the issue with a new software update. More than 500 U.S.-registered aircraft will be impacted.

The EU safety agency said it may cause “short-term disruption” to flight schedules. The problem was introduced by a software update to the plane’s onboard computers, according to the agency.

In Japan, All Nippon Airways, which operates more than 30 planes, canceled 65 domestic flights for Saturday. Additional cancellations on Sunday were possible, it said.

The software change comes as U.S. passengers were beginning to head home from the Thanksgiving holiday, which is the busiest travel time in the country.

American Airlines has about 480 planes from the A320 family, of which 209 are affected. The fix should take about two hours for many aircraft and updates should be completed for the overwhelming majority on Friday, the airline said. A handful will be finished Saturday.

American expected some delays but it said it was focused on limiting cancellations. It said safety would be its overriding priority.