June 2, 2022 4:10 am
A Donora woman facing homicide and possession felony charges pleaded guilty on Wednesday. Kisiah Thomas, 25 avoided conviction on the homicide charge and was sentenced on possession with intent to deliver and conspiracy possession felony charges. She and her roommate Bryan Harris were involved in the shooting of Brandon Harrison at their front door in December of 2020. Harris, earlier this year, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and possession felonies and is serving 4-8 years in state prison. Thomas received a sentence of 11 ½ months to 23 months on the drug charges. She was released from the Washington County jail and sentenced to parole for the remainder of her sentence. She will also serve two years probation.
June 2, 2022 2:39 am
The recount has begun in Washington County in the GOP race for an open U.S. Senate Seat in Pennsylvania. As of Friday, in the too-close-to-call Republican primary contest, there were barely 900 votes separating Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick. Washington County Elections Director Melanie Ostrander says this isn’t exactly an ordinary recount. She says they will be separting the Democrat and Republican ballots and will only be counting Republican ballots. That includes absentee and mail-in ballots as well. For less populated counties, the process could take a day. More heavily populated counties say they will need several days. As for Washington County, Ostrander is ballparking two days to finish. Counties have until June 7th to finish a recount and another day to report results to the state.
June 1, 2022 2:55 pm
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – A grand jury has charged the white 18-year-old accused of fatally shooting 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket with domestic terrorism motivated by hate and 10 counts of first-degree murder. Payton Gendron, who has been in custody since the May 14 shooting, is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Erie County Court. Gendron had previously been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting, which also injured three people. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors told a judge May 20 the grand jury had voted to indict Gendron but was continuing its investigation.
June 1, 2022 2:53 pm
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) – A jury has ruled in favor of Johnny Depp in his libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard, vindicating his stance that Heard fabricated claims that she was abused by Heard before and during their brief marriage. The jury also found in favor of Heard, who said she was defamed by Depp’s lawyer when he called her abuse allegations a hoax. Jury members found Depp should be awarded $15 million in damages, while Heard should receive $2 million. Depp sued Heard for libel in Virginia over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers said he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
June 1, 2022 2:50 pm
WESTMORELAND, Pa. (AP) – A man has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to criminal homicide and other charges in a three-day crime spree in western Pennsylvania that included the ambush and murder of a couple in their driveway. The Tribune-Review reports that 54-year-old Victor Steban of North Huntingdon pleaded guilty Wednesday in Westmoreland County to more than 30 criminal charges in seven separate cases including the May 2021 deaths of 40-year-old Jacob Erdeljac and 27-year-old Mara Casale in Penn Township. Prosecutors dropped plans to seek the death penalty in exchange for the pleas. The Tribune-Review reports that Steban was sentenced to two life terms and concurrent sentences totaling 46 to 96 years.
June 1, 2022 1:22 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration foresees unnecessary deaths if lawmakers don’t approve billions of dollars more to brace for the pandemic’s next wave. Yet the push to provide the money is in limbo in Congress. It’s the latest victim of election-year gridlock that’s already stalled or killed a host of Democratic priorities. President Joe Biden’s request for funds for vaccines, testing and treatments has run into opposition from Republicans. And the GOP has complicated the election-year fight by fusing it with the politically precarious issue of immigration. If the issue isn’t resolved soon, the next best chance of handling it may not come until the fall.
June 1, 2022 1:14 pm
PIGEON KEY, Fla. (AP) – The U.S. Coast Guard says a woman from Illinois was killed and two young children injured when a sudden storm prompted a boat captain to cut loose their parasail in the Florida Keys. The inflated parasail then dragged the three tourists across the ocean and slammed them into a bridge. The trio was airborne and tethered to a speedboat when a sudden storm blew in. The winds were so strong that the boat below was being dragged, so the captain cut the line. They hit the water but the inflated parasail dragged them across the surface until they slammed into Old Seven Mile Bridge. A fishing guide raced to rescue them, but the 33-year-old woman from Schaumburg, Illinois was dead by the time they reached the dock. Her 10-year-old son and 9-year-old nephew were taken to hospitals.
June 1, 2022 4:21 am
UNDATED (AP) – The school district police chief who served as on-site commander during last week’s deadly shooting in Uvalde, Texas, says he’s talking daily with investigators, contradicting claims from state law enforcement that he’s stopped cooperating. Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo told CNN in a brief interview Wednesday that he’s speaking regularly with Texas Department of Public Safety investigators. Nineteen children and two teachers died in the attack at Robb Elementary School, the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade. Also Wednesday, the district announced that students and staff would not be returning to the Robb Elementary campus. Plans are still being finalized on where students will attend classes in the fall. (Photo: Linkedin)
June 1, 2022 4:19 am
SAN ISIDRO DEL PALMAR, Mexico (AP) – Mexican authorities say Hurricane Agatha caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 11 people and left 20 missing. The governor of the southern state of Oaxaca said Tuesday that rivers overflowed their banks and swept away people in homes, while other victims were buried under mud and rocks. Agatha made history as the strongest hurricane ever to come ashore in May in the eastern Pacific. It made landfall Monday afternoon on a sparsely populated stretch of small beach towns and fishing villages. It was a strong Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, but it quickly lost power while moving inland.
June 1, 2022 4:17 am
ATLANTA (AP) – The nation’s leading cybersecurity agency says electronic voting machines from a leading vendor used in at least 16 states have software vulnerabilities. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency says the vulnerabilities can leave the machines susceptible to hacking if the flaws go unaddressed. The information is contained in an advisory that CISA sent to state election officials. It is based on testing by a prominent computer scientist and expert witness in a long-running lawsuit. CISA says there’s no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results. In a statement Tuesday, Dominion defended the machines as “accurate and secure.”
