February 26, 2022 4:00 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian troops are storming toward Ukraine’s capital, and street fighting is breaking out. The soldiers advanced Saturday as city officials urged residents to take shelter. Amid the violence, the country’s president refused an American offer to evacuate, insisting that he would stay. As dawn broke in Kyiv, it was not immediately clear how far the soldiers had advanced. Skirmishes reported on the edge of the city suggested that small Russian units were probing Ukrainian defenses to clear a path for the main forces. The street clashes followed fighting that pummeled bridges, schools and apartment buildings, and resulted in hundreds of casualties. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on Ukrainians to “stand firm” in a fight for the future of their country. U.S. defense officials believe the Russian offensive has encountered considerable resistance and is proceeding slower than Moscow had envisioned, though that could change quickly. Ukraine shot down two Russian transport planes, at least one with paratroopers on board.
February 26, 2022 3:53 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden has introduced federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. In selecting Jackson, Biden on Friday delivered on a campaign promise, moving to further diversify a court that was made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries. Jackson is an attorney who possesses the type of elite legal background found in other high court justices, but who’s worked as a public defender. If confirmed, she will fill the seat on the nine-member court that will be vacated by liberal Justice Stephen Breyer. So the ideological balance of the 6-3 majority court won’t change.
February 26, 2022 3:32 am
The woman accused of driving the wrong way on Interstate 79 last October faced her preliminary hearing on Friday. Kristina Coyne, 27 of Washington waived her case to Common pleas Court, and is facing three homicide charges and three misdemeanor charges for her alleged role in the accident that killed 56 year old Holly Ann Davis, of Canonsburg. Coyne is accused of driving for more than 5 miles the wrong way on Interstate 79 at speeds of around 70 miles per hour before running head on into Davis’ vehicle. Coyne was injured in the accident and a blood alcohol count done at a hospital revealed a blood alcohol content of 0.2%. Coyne’s attorney pointed to a “mountain of video evidence” that needs to before he could set the best case to defend Coyne. No trial date has been set.
February 25, 2022 4:15 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sally Kellerman, the Oscar nominated actor who played Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in director Robert Altman’s 1970 film “MASH,” has died. Kellerman’s publicist says she died Thursday of heart failure in Los Angeles. She was 84. Kellerman had a career of more than 60 years in film and television. She appeared in the 1986 comedy “Back to School” with Rodney Dangerfield. She was nominated for an Emmy for a role on “The Young and the Restless.” But she would always be best known for playing straitlaced army nurse Major Houlihan. She was nominated for an Oscar for the role.
February 25, 2022 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – TikTok videos, propagandized headlines and tweets being shared on smartphones and screens around the globe are confusing millions about the reality of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unfolding on the ground. Russian state media is making misleading claims on its social media channels and in broadcasts that its invasion was necessary, saying, without evidence, that Ukraine was threatening its own people. Other social media users around the world are also circulating old footage and photos, claiming they show images from the Ukraine conflict. Videos and photos like this have been viewed millions of times already online.
February 25, 2022 4:10 am
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – Invading Russian forces are closing in on Ukraine’s capital, in an apparent encircling movement after a barrage of airstrikes on cities and military bases around the country. Hopes for a negotiated end to the conflict faded on Friday after a tentative deal to discuss Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to designate Ukraine a non-aligned country that wouldn’t join NATO appeared to break down. U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO partners agreed Friday to send thousands of troops to help protect allies along Europe’s eastern edge. And the EU unanimously agreed to freeze the assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.
February 25, 2022 4:08 am
UNDATED (AP) – U.S. officials say most Americans live in places where healthy people can safely take a break from wearing masks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday outlined a new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip. They focus less on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals. More than 70% of the U.S. population lives in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks for now. The agency is still advising that people, including schoolchildren, wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high. The new recommendations don’t change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation. (Photo: AP)
February 25, 2022 2:51 am
A contempt of court hearing for Washington County’s Clerk of Courts has been delayed again. Attorney’s for Brenda Davis filed the application to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition and request for an emergency stay earlier this week. The hearing had been scheduled for Monday. Davis has been facing a contempt of court hearing since shortly after Thanksgiving of last year when she was detained by Washington County Sheriff’s Deputies for allegedly refusing to allow the transfer of juvenile court records from her office to another office. The first hearing was delayed when she appealed to Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. Those appeals were rejected. There is no timeline on when the state supreme court will rule on the appeal, the high court is expected to make a decision in about two weeks.
February 25, 2022 2:29 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Friday is the first day for candidates for statewide office in Pennsylvania, including governor and U.S. Senate, and Congress to start gathering signatures from voters to get on ballots for the May 17 primary election. There are huge fields of candidates for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat and governor’s office, and the boundaries of the state’s new congressional districts are just two days old, sending would-be candidates scrambling to decide where to run. Candidates can circulate petitions through March 15, under a two-day-old court order by the state Supreme Court.
February 25, 2022 2:00 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Wolf administration is asking the state Supreme Court to keep the state’s mail-in voting law in place while the justices consider a lower-court ruling throwing it out. Lawyers for the Department of State in a Thursday filing argued the court should overturn a Commonwealth Court ruling that means the popular voting law may no longer be in effect as of March 15. That’s a week after the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral argument in the case. The state lawyers argue that eliminating mail-in voting ahead of the spring primary season “would, if anything, only exacerbate voter confusion and the danger of disenfranchisement.”
