February 18, 2022 4:15 am
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) – Hundreds of truckers clogging Canada’s capital stood their ground and defiantly blasted their horns Thursday, even as police arrested two protest leaders and threatened to break up the nearly three-week protest against the country’s COVID-19 restriction The faceoff in Ottawa seems to be escalating as busloads of officers arrived Thursday near Parliament Hill. The city’s interim police chief says action is imminent. Protesters have besieged Ottawa for nearly three weeks in a demonstration that shaken Canada’s reputation for civility and rule-following. Police arrested two of the organizers, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, but officers were not moving in force on the demonstrators.
February 18, 2022 4:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign who was charged by special counsel John Durham with lying to the FBI during a 2016 meeting has asked a judge to dismiss the indictment, calling it a case of “extraordinary prosecutorial overreach.” Lawyers for Michael Sussmann say that if the indictment is allowed to proceed, it would “risk criminalizing ordinary conduct, raise First Amendment concerns, dissuade honest citizens from coming forward with tips, and chill the advocacy of lawyers who interact with the government.” Durham is investigating potential government misconduct during the early days of the investigation into potential coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
February 18, 2022 4:12 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – The U.S. has issued some of its starkest, most detailed warnings yet about how a Russian invasion of Ukraine might unfold. Its Western allies are on high alert for any attempts by the Kremlin to create a false pretext for a new war in Europe. U.S. President Joe Biden sounded unusually dire Thursday. He warned that Washington saw no signs of a promised Russian withdrawal – but instead saw more troops moving toward the border with Ukraine. He said Moscow could invade within days. Western fears focus on an estimated 150,000 Russian troops posted around Ukraine’s borders. The Kremlin insists it has no plans to invade, but it has long considered Ukraine part of its sphere of influence.
February 18, 2022 4:08 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – A man is in custody for the death of a woman who was driving for Uber when she went missing and was found shot to death. According to investigators, Calvin Crew, 22, of Penn Hills, is believed to be the one responsible for the death of Christina Spicuzza. He was charged with criminal homicide, robbery and tampering with evidence. Spicuzza’s body was found dumped along a wooded hillside off of Rosecrest Drive in Monroeville days after she was reported missing. Investigators said she was driving for Uber when she was last heard from. Her Nissan Sentra was found Saturday morning in Pitcairn without the dash cam. She was found with a single gunshot wound. The criminal complaint for Crew states how investigators used cell phones, license plate readers and traffic cameras to track the movements of Spicuzza, her car and Crew. Additionally, detectives eventually were able to track down the dash cam. It showed Crew putting a gun to her head and ordering her to drive. She told him she had a family and children, but Crew allegedly kept the gun pointed at her neck. The document states Crew eventually reached up and grabbed the camera before the video ended.
February 18, 2022 4:04 am
Washington County Commissioners met Thursday and the first order of new business was to pass a resolution that states they are against one of more than a dozen proposed redistricting maps that are currently under review. Commissioner Chairwoman Diana Irey-Vaughan states that the map they oppose connects Washington County with the city of Pittsburgh by a slim sliver of districts to join the two cities. Irey-Vaughan states that the commissioners feel that Washington does not share the same characteristics or values of Pittsburgh and that is why they passed the resolution. Commissioners were thanked by several residents during the public comment section for their meeting earlier in the day with Dr. Douglas Frank. Frank is the mathematician that says he can prove that the 2020 General Election was rigged using his polynomial equation. Irey-Vaughan stated that Frank was unable to provide commissioners with the information and documentation showing his concerns about election integrity in Washington County because of a lack of time to prepare. Frank was scheduled to do a presentation to Washington County citizens later on Wednesday evening showing his concerns about election integrity in Washington County. Commissioner Irey-Vaughan went on to state that Frank did believe that Washington County does not have an issue with election fraud, but that Dr. Frank believes we are working with corrupted data through no fault of our own and Washington County has agreed to review any data which he provides.
February 18, 2022 3:34 am
Charges have been filed against a Washington County man who was involved in a fatal wrong-way hit and run crash on Interstate 70 in South Strabane Township early Thursday morning. State Police say 48-year-old Leandre Woods, of Eighty-Four, turned himself in at the state police barracks in Washington County, admitting he was the driver of a pick-up truck that was traveling west in the eastbound lanes, around two-thirty, near the I-79 Interchange. The driver of the vehicle he hit, 32-year-old Joscelyn Vith, also of Eighty-Four, who was driving a Jaguar, was seriously injured and taken to Washington Hospital and later transferred to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, where she died. Police say Woods was injured in the crash as well, and went to a local hospital to get checked out. Troopers say he was taken to the Washington County Jail. He faces multiple charges, including homicide by vehicle and drunk driving.
February 17, 2022 12:57 pm
(AP) – This winter’s omicron wave in the U.S. also bolstered our defenses, leaving enough protection against the coronavirus that future spikes will likely require much less disruption to society. Millions of individual Americans’ immune systems now recognize the virus and are primed to fight it off if they encounter omicron, or even another variant. One influential model looks at vaccinations, recent infections and other factors to estimate that 73% of Americans are, for now, immune to omicron, and that could rise to 80% by mid-March. Still, while the population is better protected, tens of millions of individuals are not because they are unvaccinated or have never been infected.
February 17, 2022 8:49 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – More Americans applied for employment benefits last week following three straight weeks of declines. Jobless claims rose by 23,000 to 248,000 last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Claims were revised up to 225,000 the previous week. The four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, fell by 10,5000 to 243,250. It was the second straight week of declines after rising for five straight weeks as the omicron variant of the coronavirus spread, disrupting business in many parts of the U.S. Fewer than 1.6 million Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 5.
February 17, 2022 4:20 am
The leader of the Federal Aviation Administration, Stephen Dickson, says he will resign at the end of March. Dickson said Wednesday that he wants to spend more time with his family. Dickson took over at the FAA in August 2019, when the agency was already under fire for what critics consider ineffective oversight of airplane maker Boeing. The FAA approved the Boeing 737 Max and didn’t ground the plane until it suffered two deadly crashes. Both happened before Dickson became administrator. More recently, the FAA has been swept up in a controversy over whether new high-speed wireless service causes radio interference with planes.
February 17, 2022 4:18 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden is hoping to use his upcoming State of the Union address as a chance to nudge the pandemic into the nation’s rear-view mirror. But there are risks the event could turn out to be yet another disruptive display of national tensions and frustration over how to move past COVID-19. Biden’s March 1 address to Congress will play out in one of the most significantly disrupted workplaces in the country – something of a ground zero for the culture war over lingering pandemic restrictions. It comes as federal officials are racing to develop looser national guidance that Biden aims to highlight as part of a return to normalcy in his address.
