April 24, 2021 4:16 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Ghislaine Maxwell has faced a judge in person for the first time as lawyers squabble over exactly when she should be tried on sex trafficking charges alleging that she procured teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse at his posh residences. Maxwell pleaded not guilty Friday to sex trafficking conspiracy and a sex trafficking charge that were added in a rewritten indictment filed last month in Manhattan federal court. Her lawyers maintain they need months of additional preparation because of the new charges, making it impossible to keep a July 12 trial date.
April 24, 2021 4:14 am
(AP) – A U.S. health panel says it’s time to resume use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, despite a very rare risk of blood clots. Out of nearly 8 million people vaccinated before the U.S. suspended J&J’s shot, health officials uncovered 15 cases of a highly unusual kind of blood clot, three of them fatal. All were women, most younger than 50. But advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the vaccine’s benefits outweigh that serious but small risk — especially against a virus that’s still infecting tens of thousands of Americans every day. The government will rapidly weigh that recommendation in deciding next steps.
April 24, 2021 1:47 am
Washington County’s COVID-19 death toll is now up to 288, with the addition of two new deaths over the past twenty-four-hours. Washington County also added 52 new COVID infections. Allegheny County’s death toll rose by three along with 350 new coronavirus cases. In Greene County, where infections seem to be leveling off, there were just two new COVID cases and no new deaths. Statewide, there were more than forty-one-hundred new cases of COVID along with 59 new deaths. On a more positive note, state health officials say vaccinations continue to increase, with more than three-million residents now fully vaccinated and over seven-point-seven-million people having received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
April 24, 2021 1:46 am
A Pagan Motorcycle Club member who is serving a 20-40 year sentence in state prison dismissed his attorney to represent himself against additional charges. Matthew Vasquez is facing conspiracy to defraud creditors and defrauding of creditors charges. Vasquez tried to hide two motorcycles and avoid payment on them while he is in jail. Judge Valarie Costanzo granted Vasquez’s request to represent himself. Three other co-conspirators in the plot pleaded guilty last year. Vasquez was convicted on aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault charges in 2020 for his role in the beating of a rival motorcycle club member at the Charleroi Slovak Club in 2019. He is currently serving his sentence at SCI-Albion.
April 23, 2021 5:22 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – Japanese automaker Honda plans to phase out all gasoline-powered vehicles in North America by 2040. The announcement Friday makes Honda the latest major automaker with a goal of becoming carbon neutral. It came as leaders of the major global economies are meeting for President Joe Biden’s climate summit. Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the company expects that 40% of all vehicle sales will be battery or fuel-cell powered by 2030, and 80% of all vehicles sold will be electric or fuel-cell powered by 2035.
April 23, 2021 4:19 am
SAN DIEGO (AP) – Police say a man in downtown San Diego shot and killed one person and then walked another block and opened fire again, wounding four people before police subdued him with a Taser. Homicide Lt. Andra Brown says a suspect was taken into custody Thursday night in the city’s Gaslamp Quarter dining and nightlife district. Brown says three victims were taken to hospitals and one was treated at the scene, but that none of the wounds were believed to be life-threatening. The violence began outside a hotel where a man was shot to death. The gunman then walked up the street, got into a confrontation with a group of men and opened fire. He was tackled by bystanders before police detained him.
April 23, 2021 4:13 am
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – SpaceX has launched its third crew in under a year for NASA, this time using a recycled rocket and capsule. A Falcon rocket carrying four astronauts blasted into orbit early Friday morning from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The Dragon capsule should reach the International Space Station on Saturday. It’s the same capsule that carried up the first SpaceX crew last May. And the rocket hoisted the second crew in November. SpaceX founder Elon Musk met briefly with the U.S., French and Japanese astronauts before they headed to the launch pad.
April 23, 2021 4:11 am
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) – A Pennsylvania coroner says a young Amish woman whose remains were found this week had been strangled and stabbed in the neck. The Lancaster County coroner used dental records to positively identify the body of 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos. The coroner said following an autopsy Friday that the cause of death was asphyxia from strangulation, along with suffocation. He says the stab wound was a contributing factor in her death. Stoltzfoos was last seen walking home from church in the Bird-in-Hand area on June 21, 2020. Her remains were found in a grave along railroad tracks behind a business where the man charged in her death had worked.
April 23, 2021 4:10 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A Pittsburgh suburb is honoring pro wrestler Bruno Sammartino by renaming a park in the longtime resident’s honor. Relatives and friends on Friday will be on hand as Sangree Park in Ross Township becomes Sammartino Park. Sammartino lived in the community for more than 50 years. Sammartino appeared in the ring between 1963 and 1987. He was the longest reigning champion in World Wrestling Entertainment history and was a member of its Hall of Fame. Sammartino was born in Italy and his family joined his father in Pittsburgh in 1950. Sammartino died in 2018 at age 82.
April 23, 2021 4:08 am
MEHOOPANY, Pa. (AP) – A helicopter crashed in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, killing one, authorities said Friday. The wreckage of a privately owned Robinson R44 copter was found in a remote area of Wyoming County on Thursday night after the agency had issued an alert about a missing aircraft, the Federal Aviation Administration said. According to the FAA, the flight had departed Allentown Queen Municipal Airport in Allentown and was headed to Bradford County Airport in Towanda when it went down. The crash sparked a fire. One person was killed, state police said, but that person’s name has not been released. The Robinson R44 is a four-seat light helicopter that has been in production since 1992. The National Transportation Safety Board will be in charge of the investigation.
