July 28, 2024 7:38 am
FOREST RANCH, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of firefighters battling a wildfire in northern California are getting some help from the weather just hours after the blaze exploded in size, scorching an area larger than Los Angeles. Officials said Saturday that cooler temperatures and an increase in humidity could help slow the Park Fire, the largest this year in California. Its intensity and dramatic spread led officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Paradise fire in 2018, which killed 85 people and torched 11,000 homes. Paradise again is near the danger zone. The entire town was under an evacuation warning, one of several communities in Butte County.
July 28, 2024 7:34 am
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Middle East is bracing for a potential flare-up in violence after Israeli authorities said a rocket from Lebanon struck a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. It killed 12 children and teens in what the Israeli military said was the deadliest attack on civilians since Oct. 7. The strike raised fears of a broader regional war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has denied a role in the attack. Saturday’s attack comes at a sensitive time, as Israel and Hamas are negotiating a cease-fire proposal to end the nearly 10-month war in Gaza and free the roughly 110 hostages who remain captive there.
July 28, 2024 7:27 am
(WPXI) – Neighbors are still shaken after police say a man went on a violent rampage throughout their Versailles neighborhood on Thursday night. Investigators say Robert Kail stabbed Vinny Bazzone to death before randomly attacking his next-door neighbor and putting his wife in a headlock. Bazzone’s employer, FamilyLinks, said he was a valued member of their team. “He had just gotten home with his dinner in his hand, next thing you know… it’s horrible. It’s very scary,” said neighbor Debbie Segady. Segady lives right door and saw Kail come home. “He got out of his car stood by the steps over here where the owner of the home is, made a phone call, then the next thing I know he disappeared,” Segady said. After police say Kail killed Bazzone, the violence continued. According to police, Kail first went into this home and attacked the man in there, killing him. Then police say he went next door and then attacked the couple there just randomly. When investigators asked why he did it, they said that he told them, “I did what I had to do. Kail allegedly stabbed the neighbor next door in the hand and put his wife in a headlock. He left the home after they threatened him with a gun. Police eventually found Kail in McKeesport — and when he was in custody at the department, investigators say he attacked an officer and started choking a police dog.
July 28, 2024 7:30 am
(WPXI) – A boil water advisory has been issued for part of Greene County. According to the East Dunkard Water Authority, people who live in the Davistown Area should boil their water before using it. Officials say a power failure caused the Donley water tank to drain which caused water pressure to decrease. A loss of positive pressure can allow contaminants to enter the water. The East Dunkard Water Authority is currently working to refill the Donley tank and restore pressure. After this is done, they will test the water for bacteria. Anyone who needs water can go to a portable water tanker that has been set up at the intersection of Township Building Road, Bunner Hill Road and Pigeon Hill Road. Those people are asked to bring their own containers
July 28, 2024 7:00 am
BUTLER, Pa. — Nearly two weeks after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the FBI has confirmed he was struck in the ear by a bullet. Gunman Thomas Crooks fired shots at Trump during his rally at Butler Farm Show on July 13.A former firefighter, Corey Comperatore, was killed. Two other men were injured in the shooting.Crooks was shot and killed by law enforcement. The FBI confirmed in a statement Friday: “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.” Friday afternoon, Trump announced he would return to Butler and host a rally in honor of the shooting victims. (Photo: AP)
July 27, 2024 6:47 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation measure remained low last month, bolstering evidence that price pressures are steadily cooling and setting the stage for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates in September. Prices rose just 0.1% from May to June, up from the previous month’s unchanged reading. Compared with a year earlier, inflation declined to 2.5% from 2.6%. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose 0.2% from May to June, up from the previous month’s 0.1%. Measured from one year earlier, core prices increased 2.6%, unchanged from June. Taken as a whole, Friday’s figures suggest that the worst streak of inflation in four decades, which peaked two years ago, is nearing an end.
July 27, 2024 6:43 am
PITTSBURGH — The wheels of progress are turning as Pittsburgh Regional Transit takes the first step toward replacing its entire fleet of T light rail cars. “We have to start somewhere and this is the first step in a marathon,” said PRT Deputy Chief Communications Officer Adam Brandolph. Brandolph says the transportation agency’s board signed off on a plan on Friday to begin seeking $390 million in federal grant funding to design and purchase brand new rail cars for the T system. The project is expected to take around 12 years to complete and cost around $750 million. “The beauty of this program is that we won’t have to start paying that off until we actually start getting those rail cars in,” Brandolph said. All 60-plus existing rail cars will be replaced across the entire PRT light rail system. Brandolph says this is necessary because the average age of each car in the fleet is currently 33 years old. “By the time we take acceptance of these new rail cars, they’ll be 45 years old. They’re expected last about 30 years, so we are just about approaching the end of their useful life,” Brandolph said. It will still be some time before the new cars hit the tracks and designs are far from being finalized. Until then, Brandolph says PRT will be doing the best it can to make its current cars last. “They don’t make replacement parts for the rail cars that we currently have. A lot of the parts that we have are manufactured in house, so that is basically going to have to happen more frequently over the next dozen or so years,” Brandolph said. PRT says it expects to begin testing prototype cars in the next four to five years. A design will then be finalized and the new cars will be custom built and delivered a few at a time to the company over the course of a couple years.
July 27, 2024 4:44 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key question is looming for Vice President Kamala Harris as she edges closer to gaining the Democratic presidential nomination: Can she turn the Biden-Harris economic record into a political advantage in a way that President Joe Biden failed to do? In some ways, her task would seem straightforward: The administration oversaw a vigorous rebound from the pandemic recession, one that shrank the U.S. unemployment rate to a half-century low of 3.4% in early 2023. Yet the cumulative jump in average prices over the past three years — roughly 20%, only partly offset by higher paychecks — has contributed to a general unease about the country’s direction.
July 27, 2024 4:42 am
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military has ordered the evacuation of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it’s planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis. Saturday’s evacuation order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It’s the second evacuation issued this week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign. The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
July 27, 2024 4:40 am
California’s largest active fire has exploded in size, growing rapidly amid bone-dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters scramble to meet the danger. The Park Fire’s intensity and rapid spread Friday evening led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Camp Fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes. More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more remain threatened. Communities elsewhere in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege Friday, from a fast-moving blaze in rural Idaho to a new blaze that was causing evacuations in eastern Washington.
