August 14, 2021 3:30 am
ARMSTRONG COUNTY, Pa. (WPXI) – First responders from multiple departments in Armstrong County spent several hours Friday searching the Allegheny River for a missing 3-year-old boy. Officials said the boy’s family was at a former campsite in South Buffalo Township, when he disappeared. The search was called off around 8 p.m. due to storms that moved through western Pennsylvania. Dive teams are expected to return to the Allegheny River on Saturday.
August 14, 2021 3:26 am
Another round of storms Friday night left their mark. West Penn Power reports almost 200 customers throughout Washington County are without power. Most of those outages are in Morris and Independence Townships. A large number had been in Peters, as well as the Centerville and East Bethlehem Township areas, but they have been restored as of this morning. West Penn Power expects all service to be restored by 3:00pm today.
August 13, 2021 1:21 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – A military base in the nation’s capital was locked down for about an hour and a half Friday, after an armed man ran onto the grounds following a report of gunfire on local streets surrounding the base. Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling posted a note on its Facebook page saying the person was spotted on the south side of the base. Officials say the individual was detained and will be transferred to the Metropolitan Police Department. The naval support facility at the north end of the base is used by Marine Helicopter Squadron One, the fleet of green helicopters that carry the president and vice president.
August 13, 2021 4:19 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The first forces of a Marine battalion have arrived in Kabul to stand guard as the U.S. speeds up evacuation flights for some American diplomats and thousands of Afghans, spurred by a lightning Taliban offensive that increasingly is isolating Afghanistan’s capital. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby says “elements” of a battalion are now in Kabul. They are the vanguard of three Marine and Army battalions that the U.S. is sending to the city by the end of the weekend for temporary deployment. The Taliban, emboldened by the imminent end of the U.S. combat mission in the country, took four more provincial capitals Friday, heightening fears they would move soon on the capital, which is home to millions of Afghans.
August 13, 2021 4:14 am
LAME DEER, Mont. (AP) – Wildfires in Montana and California are threatening rural towns and ranchland while the West sees a continuing bout of dangerously hot, dry weather. In Montana, firefighters are scrambling to save hundreds of homes near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. The Richard Spring Fire there has prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people and is also threatening grasslands that are crucial for cattle ranchers. In California, the Dixie Fire that virtually destroyed the Sierra Nevada town of Greenville is less than a third surrounded. Fire officials say Northern California will see dangerous fire weather Friday, including a chance of lightning storms.
August 13, 2021 4:13 am
HAVANA (AP) – Forecasters say tropical depression Fred is slowly strengthening and could regain tropical storm status Friday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says the system is moving along the northern coast of Cuba on a forecast track toward Florida. Maximum sustained winds are around 35 mph with higher gusts. A tropical storm watch has been issued for parts of Cuba, the Florida Keys and the southwest coast of Florida. Fred became a tropical storm on Tuesday but weakened to a depression as it spun over Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it knocked out power to some 400,000 customers and caused flooding.
August 13, 2021 4:11 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – The former branch manager of a western Pennsylvania credit union is accused of stealing $340,000 and then setting the bank safe on fire to throw off investigators. A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted 63-year-old Patty Lynn Mavrakis of Belle Vernon on charges of embezzlement, wire fraud and using a fire to commit a federal felony. Authorities say Mavrakis was working at the Valley 1st Community Federal Union in September 2016 when the alleged theft occurred. She’s accused of starting the fire and then claiming the blaze had destroyed the missing money.
August 13, 2021 4:09 am
(AP) – Philadelphia and its suburbs have continued to attract new residents, and south-central Pennsylvania also grew at a healthy clip. But most of the rest of the state’s 67 counties lost people over the past decade. That’s according to new population data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Pennsylvania as a whole added about 300,000 residents to surpass 13 million, but its anemic 2.4% growth rate cost the state another U.S. House seat. The detailed Census data released Thursday will be used to redraw the boundaries of Pennsylvania’s state legislative and congressional districts.
August 13, 2021 3:47 am
The death of a Donora man is under investigation after he was found in his home at Highland Terrace. The Washington County Coroner’s Office says 60-year-old Peter Jankowski died in a house fire that broke out around eleven-thirty Thursday morning. Several fire departments were called to the scene, including Donora and Carroll Township firefighters. The coroner’s office says the cause and manner of Jankowski’s death is pending an autopsy. There was no word on what caused the fire.
August 13, 2021 2:34 am
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – A federal lawsuit says Policies that allow West Virginia officials to refuse to change a transgender person’s gender on their birth certificates should be declared unconstitutional. The Exponent Telegram reports the American Civil Liberties Union and the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic on Thursday sued the Department of Health and Human Resources on behalf of two transgender men born in West Virginia. Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic Director Alexander Chen said West Virginia is among the last states where gender can’t be changed. The Department of Health and Human Resources says it is unable to comment on pending litigation.
