WJPA News

Be prepared for the dangerously cold weather because it’s here to stay for at least this week and perhaps, beyond.  A Cold Weather Advisory is in effect through eleven o’clock Wednesday morning.  Temperatures will rise to the teens in the afternoon, but wind chill will stay below zero much of the day. Make sure to stay safe in the extreme cold. If you can’t stay indoors, limit your time outside, make sure to dress in warm layers and wear waterproof clothing. Cover exposed skin; wear a hat, mask and gloves. Keep pets indoors. Make sure to protect indoor pipes.  Many communities have declared states of emergency, including the city of Washington, Charleroi and South Strabane Township. The City of Washington has also announced that there will be no trash pick-up this week because of snow covered roads and alley condition.  Services will resume Monday.  On the plus side, Washington Mayor JoJo Burgess says their Emergency Declaration has enabled them to hire an outside contractor to remove all of the snow that is piled up around the city.  He says it will be taken and dumped in a specially cleared area of Washington Park.  For those in need, Washington County has opened nearly two dozen warming centers.  For a complete listing, Click Here.

For the first time since 1963, Peters Township residents will have ambulance service from someone that is not VFW Post 764. In 2025, the VFW Ambulance Service notified the township that it is no longer able to provide service. That left the township with two options, absorb the current service into its realm of services or contract with an outside provider. Cost and staffing prevented the township from absorbing the service. Council awarded a five year contract to AHN Canonsburg to provide ambulance service. In December council directed staff to negotiate with UPMC Ambulance and Chair and AHN Canonsburg. According to Township Manager Paul Lauer, the decision tilted on contract terms. AHN Canonsburg said that they would provide two staffed ambulances, seven days a week 24 hours a day for the duration of the contract. UPMC Ambulance and Chair said they would provide the same for six months and then review the contract going forward. A second condition was positioning of ambulances. If both ambulances were out on calls, Ambulance and Chair said they would strive to position a third ambulance in the township. AHN Canonsburg said that they shall post a third ambulance in the township. The vote to approve AHN Canonsburg was 6-1 with councilman Gary Stiegel voting against. He is concerned that AHN seems to be losing customer areas and Ambulance and Chair is gaining customer areas. He says that maybe the township is missing something that the other municipalities are seeing. AHN Canonsburg will begin servicing Peters Township effective April 20, 2026.

Another drop in gas prices.  AAA says they are five-cents lower this week here in Western Pennsylvania.  The average now stands at $3.12 according to their East Central Gas Price Report.  Here in Washington our average is a penny lower at $3.11 per gallon.  As winter weather grips much of the nation, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded has gone up six cents over the past week with the average at $2.88.  Even though the national average is higher this week, prices are still 24 cents cheaper than they were one year ago.

(AP) – A new influx of arctic air is expected to spur freezing temperatures in parts of the South already covered in snow and ice. Many people have fled to warming shelters, and crews worked Tuesday to restore power knocked out by a massive weekend winter storm. At least 35 deaths have been reported in states afflicted with severe cold.  A county sheriff in Texas said Tuesday that three brothers, all under 10 years old, died after falling through ice on a pond the previous day.  Other deaths included two people run over by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio, fatal sledding accidents that killed teenagers in Arkansas and Texas, and a woman whose body was found covered in snow in Kansas. In New York City, officials said eight people were found dead outdoors over the frigid weekend.  The National Weather Service says more widespread record cold temperatures are forecast for Tuesday, with eastern Texas through western Pennsylvania under extreme cold warnings.  (Photo:  AP) 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A daylong hearing was held that should make clear what caused a midair aircraft collision that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C. The National Transportation Safety Board will recommend steps to prevent similar tragedies. An American Airlines jet flying from Kansas and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided and plummeted into the Potomac River a year ago. The Federal Aviation Administration has taken steps to ensure helicopters and planes no longer share the same crowded airspace around the nation’s capital. A NTSB investigator says air traffic control had a big workload around the time of the crash.

(AP) – Authorities in Arizona say one person was shot and in critical condition Tuesday in a shooting involving the Border Patrol near the U.S.- Mexico border. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said it was working with the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in response to the shooting in Arivaca, Arizona, a community about 10 miles from the border. The FBI said it was “investigating an alleged assault on a federal officer” and that the subject was in custody. The area is a common path for drug smugglers and migrants who illegally cross the border, so agents regularly patrol there.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (AP) — The chief federal judge in Minnesota says the Trump administration has failed to comply with orders to hold hearings for detained immigrants and has ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear before him Friday to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt. In an order dated Monday, Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, must appear personally in court. Schlitz took the administration to task over its handling of bond hearings for immigrants it has detained. The order says Schlitz recognizes that ordering the head of a federal agency to appear personally is extraordinary, but that the “extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary.”

Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon. Pretti was the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis. His death produced no clear shifts in U.S. gun politics or policies, even as President Donald Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarized immigration crackdown. But important voices in Trump’s coalition have been criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans’ Second Amendment stances since the killing.