March 2, 2020 10:30 am
A new battle seems to be forming over Washington County’s Local Share Account grant process and a local State Representative. 49th Legislative representative, Republican Bud Cook says he is trying to ensure the process is ‘open and fair’. He announced Monday that the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records granted his appeal to obtain records of LSA project grant recipients. Cook submitted several requests to the Washington County Redevelopment Authority seeking records on the recipients. Cook says the Authority denied those requests and he appealed. In a release, Cook said “the continued denials for public information speaks volumes….what are they trying to hide?” The Redevelopment Authority has 30 days to appeal to Commonwealth Court and Executive Director Bill McGowen tells WJPA News they will appeal. According to McGowen, Cook “has been given full access” to the records. The Authority says the issue here is that Cook wants copies of this information. Janel Yamber, the Authority’s Open Records officer, says there are more than 400 projects and it would take thousands of man-hours to go through and make copies of all of those records. She says Cook has “never been denied access to those records” and the amount of work that staff would have to complete to respond back to him would be “voluminous”.
March 2, 2020 4:29 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Pete Buttigieg has ended his campaign for president with a call for unity. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, fared poorly in South Carolina’s primary and said Sunday night that the path had narrowed to a close for his candidacy. Buttigieg told cheering supporters that at this point in the race for the Democratic nomination, the best way to keep faith with his campaign’s goals and ideals is to step aside and help bring the party and the country together. Buttigieg rose from a political unknown to a top-tier contender and was the first openly gay candidate to seriously compete for the presidency.
March 2, 2020 4:27 am
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles as it resumed weapons demonstrations following a months-long hiatus. The launches came two days after North Korea’s state media said leader Kim Jong Un supervised an artillery drill aimed at testing combat readiness. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff couldn’t immediately confirm how far the projectiles flew or whether the weapons were ballistic or rocket artillery. In late December, Kim expressed deep frustration over deadlocked diplomacy with the United States and said he would no longer be bound by a self-imposed weapons test moratorium that coincided with his diplomacy with Trump.
March 2, 2020 4:26 am
NEW YORK (AP) – James Lipton, longtime host of “Inside the Actors Studio,” has died. His wife Kedakai Lipton tells the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter that he died Monday in his New York home from bladder cancer. He was 93. Lipton interviewed hundreds of master actors and Hollywood luminaries for nearly 25 years on Bravo’s “Inside the Actors Studio,” including Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro and Glenn Close. The Detroit-born actor-turned-academic became an unlikely talk show host and celebrity when he began the show that also served as a class for his Actors Studio students. (Photo: CNN)
March 2, 2020 4:25 am
SEATTLE (AP) – An increase in testing for the coronavirus is shedding light on its spread in the United States, including among nursing home residents in one Washington state facility. U.S. health officials on Monday updated the nation’s count of coronavirus cases to 91 people in 10 states. Seattle officials announced four more deaths, bringing the total in the U.S. to six. Vice President Mike Pence met with the nation’s governors and pledged to update them on a weekly basis. The nursing home cases especially troubled health care experts because of the vulnerability of sick, elderly people to COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
March 2, 2020 4:18 am
(WPXI) – The man who was charged with kidnapping a Bethel Park woman and killing her in the desert outside Las Vegas has been ordered to be sent to Nevada where he is facing life in prison if convicted. John Chapman was in federal court Monday where the ruling was handed down. Chapman, 39, confessed to driving Jaime Feden into the desert last September, according to police, suffocating her and leaving her die. Police said he convinced Feden to drive into the desert for a photo shoot. He faces federal charges, including kidnapping resulting in death among others. FBI agents found a fake CIA credential with Chapman’s name and picture on it along with three backpacks, one of which they called a “kill kit,” when they searched Feden’s apartment. Court papers said investigators believed Chapman had been living there after killing her.
March 2, 2020 4:16 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Prosecutors have withdrawn charges against five men charged in a shooting at a neighborhood vigil in Pittsburgh 4 1/2 years ago that wounded three people, two of them children. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the action by the Allegheny County district attorney’s office Friday came 10 days before jury selection was scheduled in the case. A prosecutor cited “the murder of a commonwealth witness, subsequent lack of cooperation of witness and other evidentiary issues.” The September 2015 gunfire occurred at a vigil in the Homewood neighborhood to mark the two-year anniversary of a young man’s shooting death nearby.
March 2, 2020 4:15 am
MCKEESPORT, Pa. — A 19-year-old man was rushed to the hospital after being shot multiple times in McKeesport on Sunday afternoon. Allegheny County police said they were notified of the shooting at the intersection of Jenny Lind and Fremont streets around 2:34 p.m. Police said the victim’s gray Ford Taurus was being driven by a 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old child was in the back seat. The driver turned the car into Irwin Alley off of Fremont Street, where they encountered a man in dark clothing, according to police. The man then began firing shots into the victims’ car as it was driven through the alley. A witness told our news partners at Channel 11 she was inside her house on Jenny Lind Street when she heard gunshots coming from behind her house. She said when she made it to the front porch, she saw a gray car speeding down her street before coming to an abrupt stop. She said a man got out of the car yelling for help, and she said she called 911 immediately. The man who was shot was taken to a hospital and was reported to be in critical condition. Police are investigating two separate crime scenes in the area.
March 2, 2020 4:14 am
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — (WPXI) – Two men have been arrested in connection with a shooting near the WVU campus in Morgantown, according to police. This comes less than a day after a WVU student was shot and killed at a campus housing complex. Officers said Edward Kolleh, 29, and Ethan Horseman, 20, were the suspects. Kolleh was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery. Horseman was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, among other charges. According to police, shortly after 1 a.m., officers were called to an apartment on College Avenue for a report of gunshots. Kolleh and Horseman were were at the scene and told police two men had tried to steal their marijuana. That’s when a gunfight started. Shortly after talking with Kolleh and Horseman, police said a shooting victim arrived at a Morgantown hospital. The victim and another person were invited to the apartment to buy marijuana, investigators said. Kolleh and Horseman had already planned to rob them by having the victim and other person sit in a specific spot with their backs to a closet. Kolleh was hiding inside and Horseman had a code word, at which the two pulled out guns and demanded the victims empty their pockets. A fight started and there were multiple gunshots fired.
The shooting victim and other person were able to run out of the apartment. Police said they are still investigating.
March 1, 2020 8:31 am
KASTANIES, Greece (AP) — Syria’s official news agency said two of its warplane were shot down by Turkish forces inside northwest Syria, amid a military escalation there that’s led to growing direct clashes between Turkish and Syrian forces. SANA says the jets were targeted over the Idlib region, and that the four pilots ejected with parachutes and landed safely. Turkey’s Defense Ministry said it had shot down two SU-24 aircraft and destroyed air defense systems after one of its aerial drones was downed. Earlier, Syrian military-run media said it had downed a drone inside northwest Syria, and was closing its airspace for any flights or drones across the country’s northwestern region. It said any aircraft that penetrates Syrian airspace will be treated as hostile and shot down.
