December 18, 2024 5:10 am
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas official who’s an informal adviser to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team on immigration issues doesn’t expect mass deportations to prompt arrests of migrants at sensitive locations such as schools and churches. But Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach does expect Trump to take action that will spark a legal challenge over the citizenship status of children born in the U.S. to immigrants living in the country illegally. He also expects Trump to encourage local and state law enforcement officers to help with efforts to arrest and detain migrants. Kobach said Wednesday during an Associated Press interview that he’s in regular contact with Trump’s team.
December 19, 2024 5:05 am
Workers at seven Amazon facilities are on strike. The union said that the workers are joining the picket line Thursday after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union set for contract negotiations. The workers had authorized strikes in the past few days. It will take place in New York, California, Illinois and Georgia. Amazon says it doesn’t expect an impact on its operations. The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at ten Amazon facilities. Amazon employs 1.5 million people in its warehouses and corporate offices.
December 18, 2024 5:48 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has abruptly rejected a bipartisan plan to prevent a Christmastime government shutdown. Instead, he’s telling House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans to essentially renegotiate — days before a deadline when federal funding runs out. Trump’s sudden decision on Wednesday to make new demands sent Congress spiraling as lawmakers are trying to wrap up work and head home for the holidays. It leaves Johnson scrambling to salvage a new plan, days before Friday’s deadline to keep government open. “Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH,” Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a statement.
December 18, 2024 5:06 am
Washington County Commissioners are expected to vote Thursday on a new policy that will determine how to respond to any future cyber attack. It comes after a ransomware attack crippled County government back in January. Russian hackers got into the county’s network and Commissioners then approved a payment of some $400,000 in February to allow the county to restore its computer system. At Tuesday’s agenda meeting, County Solicitor Gary Sweat asked Commissioner’s to consider a ‘Business Continuity and Disaster Contingency Plan’. No details were released. Commissioners meet Thursday morning at ten in the public meeting room at the Crossroads Building.
December 18, 2024 2:17 am
North Strabane Township Supervisors unanimously voted to adopt their budget for 2025. The good news for residents is that there will be no tax increase associated with the spending plan. The last tax increase came in 2021 to better fund the fire department and parks and recreation. The $22.9 million spending plan is balanced. Some of the bigger spending items will be the completion of the public safety building and the renovation of the former Lighthouse Electric building to become the township’s new municipal building. In other business, a measure to advertise changes to the township’s zoning ordinance that defines a personal warehouse failed due to a 2-2 tie. Supervisors Marcus Staley and Emily Holmes were in favor of the changes, Bob Ross and Neil Kelly were against them. Harold Close was absent from the meeting. A motion to table the item did pass unanimously. At issue were changes in parking restrictions suggested by the applicant CC Realty Advisors. The matter will be addressed again in January.
December 17, 2024 2:45 am
(WPXI) – Transportation Security Administration officers at Pittsburgh International Airport stopped a .25 caliber handgun at the security checkpoint on Monday. The handgun, which was loaded with six bullets, was in a Washington County man’s backpack. Police confiscated the gun after the bag was removed from the X-ray machine. Monday marked the 41st firearm that TSA officers have intercepted at Pittsburgh so far this year.
December 18, 2024 5:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point — its third cut this year — but also signaled that it expects to reduce rates more slowly next year than it previously envisioned, mostly because of still-elevated inflation. The Fed’s policymakers projected that they will cut their benchmark rate by a quarter-point just twice in 2025, down from their estimate in September of four rate cuts. Their new projections suggest that consumers may not enjoy much lower rates next year for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards. The Fed’s expectation of just two rate cuts in 2025 rattled Wall Street, sending stock prices plummeting in the worst day for the market in four months.
December 18, 2024 5:13 am
NEW YORK (AP) — The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO is charged with murder as an act of terrorism. Prosecutors disclosed the indictment Tuesday as they worked to bring Luigi Mangione to New York from a Pennsylvania jail. The 26-year-old already had been charged with murder in the Dec. 4 killing of Brian Thompson. But the terror allegation is new. New York law allows prosecutors to bring such a charge when an alleged crime is “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.” Mangione’s New York lawyer declined to comment.
December 18, 2024 5:14 am
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Community members in Wisconsin are continuing to wrestle with grief and calling for change in the aftermath of a school shooting that killed a teacher and a student and wounded six others. Investigators are trying to determine a motive. The police chief says it appears to be a “combination of factors.” He’s urging anyone who knew the 15-year-old shooter’s feelings to reach out. The shooting occurred Monday at Abundant Life Christian School. The shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Barnes said police are talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who are cooperating.
December 18, 2024 4:54 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal appeals court is reversing lower court decisions that had blocked Pennsylvania from siphoning cash from a state-chartered medical malpractice insurer of last resort. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday against the Pennsylvania Professional Liability Joint Underwriting Association. It says state government created the insurer and holds the only interest in it. The decision came seven years after the underwriting association first sued the state. For three years, from 2017 to 2019, state lawmakers and then-Gov. Tom Wolf had sought at least $200 million from the association to help plug a deficit in the state’s operating budget. The association can appeal.
