April 13, 2021 7:37 am
Washington City Councilman Matt Staniszewski has been resentenced and will be released from the Washington County jail to spend 30-days at an inpatient treatment facility in Monroeville. The 44 year old councilman was jailed in February after a probation violation when State Police in Bedford County say his vehicle was found blocking a lane along the turnpike. Police say his blood-alcohol level was more than three-times the legal limit. Probation officers then went to Staniszewski’s father’s home the next day and say they found him intoxicated. The probation violation was in connection with his DUI arrest here in the city back in the summer of 2019. Staniszewski’s attorney Sean Logue tells WJPA news that he has yet to hear from police in connection with the Bedford County incident. A preliminary hearing on those charges has not been set. Logue says his client is eager to get the help he needs and to get back to work on city council. Logue says Staniszewski has no intention to resign from that position.
April 13, 2021 6:33 am
Peters Township Council deliberated several upcoming construction projects that are ongoing or will be taking place over the next year. Council approved a road paving project that will cost $1.4 million dollars. Six contractors supplied bids and A. Liberoni, Inc. was awarded the contract. Council also authorized a $250,000 design contract to EPM Architecture for the design of a new fire department substation in the Venetia area of the township. The township will also be seeking bids for the design of the new aquatic center in Rolling Hills Park. In addition to seeking bids for the aquatic center, Council also authorized a change order for $691,500 for grading work to be done for the yet approved aquatic center. Township Manager Paul Lauer explained to Council that this is the most economical and logistical means to get the grading work for the pool done. He stressed that whether the pool is done this year or in ten years this work is necessary and will avoid future disruption in the park if the pool project is delayed into the future. He also stated that if the pool is never built, the graded area could easily be repurposed. Lauer also updated council on the success of the Covid-19 Vaccination Program being run by Washington Health System in the Recreation Center. He states that now wait times for vaccinations have decreased significantly and appointments are now being met in days and not weeks.
April 13, 2021 4:20 am
Authorities say a student at a Tennessee high school fired at officers and was killed by police. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David B. Rausch said at a news conference Monday that police responded to a report of a possible gunman at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville. He says the officers found him in a bathroom and ordered him to come out, but he wouldn’t comply. Rausch says that’s when the student reportedly opened fire, and police fired back. The student died at the school, and an officer was shot in the leg and taken into surgery.
April 13, 2021 4:19 am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The defense for a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death started presenting its case on Tuesday. It follows 11 days of a prosecution narrative that combined wrenching video with clinical analysis by medical and use-of-force experts to condemn Derek Chauvin’s actions. Prosecutors called their final witnesses Monday, leaving only some administrative matters before they rested their case. Now that the defense has taken over, Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson has brought his own experts in to testify that it was Floyd’s drug use and bad heart, not Chauvin’s actions, that killed him. A use-of-force expert says the former officer was justified in pinning George Floyd to the ground because of his frantic resistance. The witness, Barry Brodd, testified for the defense, contradicting a parade of authorities from both inside and outside the Minneapolis police force.
April 13, 2021 4:18 am
DETROIT (AP) – The U.S. government’s highway safety agency is investigating complaints that the airbags may not inflate in a crash on thousands of General Motors vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the probe covers nearly 750,000 Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC vehicles from 2020 and 2021. Most are full-size pickup trucks and SUVs. The agency says it has 15 complaints of airbag malfunctions, including six crashes with eight reported injuries. It says that GM issued a service bulletin to dealers about the problem in March, but there hasn’t been a recall. The agency says it opened the investigation to figure out how large the problem is and to assess safety issues
April 13, 2021 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden wants Congress to know he’s sincere about cutting a deal on infrastructure. But Republican lawmakers have deep-seated doubts about the scope of his proposed package, its tax hikes and Biden’s premise that this is an inflection point for the U.S. as a world power. Biden met Monday afternoon with a bipartisan group of lawmakers and insisted the Oval Office gathering was not “window dressing.” One of the core disputes is over what counts as infrastructure in his $2.3 trillion proposal. And a fundamental disagreement has emerged about whether the United States is losing its status atop the global economy because of its deteriorating infrastructure.
April 13, 2021 4:14 am
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (AP) – A white Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb and the city’s chief of police resigned Tuesday. Officer Kim Potter and Police Chief Tim Gannon both resigned two days after the death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center. Potter was a 26-year veteran. She had been on administrative leave following Sunday’s shooting. Gannon has said he believed Potter mistakenly grabbed her gun when she was going for her Taser. She can be heard on her body camera video shouting “Taser! Taser!”
April 12, 2021 5:18 pm
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Authorities say a confrontation in a Tennessee high school that involved police officers responding to a report of a possible armed man left one person dead and the officer wounded. Police say no other people were killed or wounded in Monday afternoon’s shooting and that the scene has been secured at at the Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville. Knoxville Police posted on Facebook that officers responded to reports of a male subject who was possibly armed at the school. They said shots rang out as officers approached the person. The school was the subject of media reports in February after three students were shot to death over a three-week span. (Photo: CNN)
April 12, 2021 3:30 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. government’s budget deficit surged to an all-time high of $1.7 trillion for the first six months of this budget year. That’s nearly double the previous record, as another round of economic-support checks added billions of dollars to spending last month. In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit for the first half of the budget year – from October through March – was up from a deficit of $743.5 billion for the same period a year ago. The budget report showed that the deficit for just March totaled $659.6 billion, the third-highest monthly deficit.
April 12, 2021 9:47 am
VILLA RICA, Ga. (AP) – Georgia authorities say three officers were injured when the passenger of a car shot them during a police chase that ended with one suspect killed and the other arrested. The Carroll County sheriff said it began when a Georgia Highway Patrol trooper stopped a car for speeding along Interstate 20. Authorities said the vehicle sped away again and the passenger fired a weapon that stopped the patrol vehicle. Local police officers then joined the chase, which ended with officers wounded, one suspect dead and the other in custody.
