April 16, 2021 4:56 am
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa. — (WPXI) – The former fire chief of the Cecil Volunteer Fire Company #2 in Muse and his mother, the former treasurer, are both accused of stealing nearly $50,000 from the department. Toni and Alan Zombeck are facing felony charges in connection with the incident. Investigators said they used the money to buy things at stores, restaurants and gas stations, and that they got cash-back withdrawals and more. The investigation began last fall when the fire company’s president noticed dry wall tools were charged to the department’s account at the same time Alan Zombeck was renovating his home. Police said he and his mother both had access to the departments bank account at Washington Financial Bank, and they also shared a personal bank account. Court papers said Toni Zombeck wrote more than $7,000 in checks payable to herself, made $4,000 in cash-back purchases, and paid roughly $15,000 of personal bills from the department’s funds. Those bills included car payments, gas and electric bills and more for her home.
April 16, 2021 4:35 am
Washington City Police have issued an alert for residents about a ‘game’ that they have been made aware of that is taking place in the area. Police say kids have been playing a game called ‘Assassin’. They are driving around town with b-b guns and shooting each other. Police say these guns look like real guns. Officers did stop one vehicle in which a group of males were waving a gun out of a moving vehicle. That gun was recovered. Police want kids and parents to know that this is a very dangerous situation and they are asking that they not play this game.
April 16, 2021 4:13 am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Former Officer Derek Chauvin’s trial in George Floyd’s death will be in a jury’s hands by early next week. Chauvin’s brief defense wrapped up Thursday with Chauvin passing on a chance to take the stand and tell the public for the first time what he was thinking when he pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck. The fired officer’s defense took only two days of testimony compared to the prosecution’s two weeks. Chauvin informed the court Thursday that he will not testify, saying he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to take the stand. Closing arguments are set for Monday, after which the racially diverse jury will begin deliberating in a city on edge.
April 16, 2021 4:11 am
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (AP) – Daunte Wright’s family joined community leaders in demanding more severe charges against the white former police officer who fatally shot the young Black man in the Minneapolis suburb, where hundreds of protesters again filled the streets in front of the police station. The protesters – shouting obscenities, shaking the police station’s security fence and occasionally lobbing water bottles – began thinning out as the 10 p.m. curfew approached. Earlier, former officer Kim Potter, made her first court appearance. She appeared alongside her attorney at a brief initial appearance over Zoom. She posted $100,000 bond after being arrested Wednesday. She’s charged with second-degree manslaughter in what her chief said appeared to be a case of confusing her Taser with her handgun.
April 16, 2021 4:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. is expelling 10 Russian diplomats and ordering sanctions against dozens of other people and companies. The retaliatory actions, announced Thursday by President Joe Biden, are to hold the Kremlin accountable for interference in last year’s presidential election and the hacking of federal government agencies. They are the first moves against the Kremlin for the hack, familiarly known as the SolarWinds breach. Russia swiftly denounced the actions and warned of retaliation. The U.S. measures signal a harder line against Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom President Donald Trump was reluctant to criticize even as his administration pursued its own sanctions.
April 16, 2021 3:52 am
(WPXI) – The lawyer for two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald said Friday that accusations his client assaulted a man at a Pittsburgh after-hours club are not true. Instead, Attorney Casey White said Donald tried to stop a fight — and that there’s surveillance video to prove it. De’Vincent Spriggs’ attorney, Todd Hollis, claimed on Wednesday that Spriggs was attacked by Donald over the weekend after bumping into him at the Boom Boom Room on East Carson Street in the city’s South Side. “He apologized and he thought it would escalate the matter and it didn’t,” Hollis said. Hollis said Spriggs suffered a concussion, broken nose, broken orbital bone and possibly a broken arm during the incident. Donald graduated from Penn Hills High School and went on to play at the University of Pittsburgh. He was an All-American while playing at Pitt and was drafted in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams. He was the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and is widely considered one of the greatest defensive players of all time.
April 16, 2021 2:14 am
More than forty-one-percent of Pennsylvania’s population has now received at least the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but, even as vaccinations ramp up, so do cases of COVID. Washington County added one new COVID related death, bringing the countywide death toll to 284. Washington County also added 71 new coronavirus cases. Allegheny County reported 491 new infections and three new deaths while Greene County had nine 12 new cases and no new deaths. State health officials reported more than five-thousand-six-hundred new COVID cases overnight along with 56 new deaths.
April 16, 2021 2:14 am
Police in Washington say two people were shot outside of the 50 Yard line Sports Pub early Friday morning. Authorities say the incident happened around one o’clock after a fight broke out inside the bar and the customers were asked to leave. Police say the fight continued outside and eventually escalated into gunfire resulting in two people getting shot. Neither individual has been identified and police say they have not yet identified a suspect. According to authorities, one of the victims is a female who was shot in the foot. She was taken to a Pittsburgh hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The other victim was a resident of Allison Avenue who was inside his house when a stray bullet hit him in the side. Police say they believe he was not the intended victim. They say his injuries were superficial and he drove himself to the hospital. As for the suspect, police say those who were in the bar at the time, are not cooperating with police and the only lead they have at this time is that a “Black male wearing dark clothing” was involved.
April 15, 2021 3:38 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The top watchdog for the U.S. Capitol Police will testify to Congress for the first time about the department’s broad failures before and during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Among them was missed intelligence and old weapons that officers didn’t feel comfortable using. The Capitol Police inspector general, Michael A. Bolton, has investigated in the months since hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters broke into the building and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives. In a report obtained by The Associated Press ahead of his House appearance Thursday, Bolton paints a dire picture of his agency’s ability to respond to future threats.
