January 4, 2024 5:04 am
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Officials say South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has been released from prison on parole after serving nearly nine years in prison for killing his girlfriend. The Department of Corrections gave no more details of Pistorius’ release. The announcement came around 8:30 a.m., indicating that officials released the world-famous double-amputee Olympic runner early in the morning. Pistorius has served nearly nine years of his almost 13-and-a-half-year murder sentence for killing model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. He was approved for parole in November. Serious offenders in South Africa are eligible for parole after serving at least half their sentence.
January 4, 2024 5:03 am
NEW YORK (AP) — A winter weather system moving through the U.S. is expected to wallop the East Coast this weekend with a mix of snow and freezing rain. But forecasters say it’s too soon to say which areas will get snow and which will get rain and how much. The Pacific system is moving through Western and Southern states before moving up the East Coast this weekend. Major U.S. cities accustomed to white winters didn’t receive much snow last year due to a lack of cold air. The National Weather Service in New York City said this week that 2023 would go down as the city’s “least snowiness” year, with just 2.3 inches measured in Central Park.
January 4, 2024 5:01 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is spending the third anniversary of a mob of his supporters overrunning the U.S. Capitol by campaigning to win back the White House. He has two events in Iowa and repeats lies that seek to reframe how the country remembers the deadly insurrection. President Joe Biden is marking the same milestone on Friday in Philadelphia, where he’ll brand Trump and top supporters of his “Make America Great Again” movement as dire threats to American democracy. Both are talking about the same events in very different ways — with each offering framing they believe gives them a political advantage.
January 4, 2024 4:59 am
NEW YORK (AP) — The unsealing of dozens of documents describing financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of teenage girls provide a reminder of how he leveraged connections to the rich, powerful and famous to cover up his crimes. The more than 40 documents released late Wednesday were sprinkled with names familiar to anyone who has followed the scandal closely, including the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and chief recruiter of young, vulnerable females. Among those in Epstein’s orbit before he was exposed as a sexual predator were former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, singer Michael Jackson and magician David Copperfield, according to accounts of his victims and other witnesses quoted in the documents. None of them were accused of wrongdoing.
January 4, 2024 4:58 am
Starting this month, some new personal computers that run Microsoft’s Windows operating system will have a special “Copilot key” that launches the software giant’s AI chatbot. Getting third-party computer manufacturers to add an AI button to laptops is the latest move by Microsoft to capitalize on its close partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and make itself a gateway for applications of generative AI technology.
January 4, 2024 4:52 am
South Strabane Township Fire Chief Jordan Cramer is frustrated with interstate highway drivers who do not slow down when emergency response vehicles are at work. On New Years Day, emergency responders were called to the Interstate 79 flyover for an accident. According to Cramer, when crews arrived, they found three wrecked cars because of ice that formed during the snow/rain mix and freezing temperatures that occurred that morning. Cramer says the bridge was a sheet of ice and PennDot crews had not salted the roads yet. Cramer says that shortly after his crew set up a blocking vehicle to assist in traffic control, a driver speeding on the highway skidded and struck one of his engines. That is the second time inside of 9 months that a fire truck from South Strabane has been struck during an accident assist. Cramer is calling for additional funding from Harrisburg and from PennDot so that appropriate equipment may be purchased to avoid accidents such as these. Cramer says that despite traffic laws that require drivers to exit the adjacent lane to the incident or if they can’t exit, slow down to 10 miles per hour less than the speed limit, drivers still fly by at speeds above the posted speed limit, regardless of weather conditions. They do not pay attention to emergency response teams. Cramer wants to plead with drivers to put down the phone, obey speed limits and look in front of you for adverse traffic conditions. He says that negative repercussions above law enforcement penalties, is the injury or death to a driver or first responder. Slow down, stay safe.
January 4, 2024 4:50 am
Prior to the November election, several residents in South Strabane Township had been critical of the 2022 purchase of a $1.3 million ladder truck for the South Strabane Fire Department. Residents were subjected to a .75 mill fire tax in 2023, to help fund the purchase of the truck. South Strabane Township Fire Chief Jordan Cramer says that a portion of the financing comes from a 2% loan from the Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner The ladder truck is equipped with a 107 foot aerial that is 37 feet more than the current ladder truck, according to Cramer. He says that the extra height would equate to an additional 3-4 stories of rescue capability. Cramer indicates that South Strabane Township has quite a few multi-level residential buildings such as apartments and senior living residences, its commercial district is large and diverse in size also. Cramer pointed out that height is not the only consideration for the 107 foot aerial capability. He states that many houses in the township are set back 50 feet or more from the roadway. That 107 foot length is useful in a transverse crossing of yards to fight fires. Questions of need arose because of mutual aid agreements with neighboring fire companies. Cramer says that no mutual aid agreement exists to provide South Strabane a ladder truck. He says that more often, South Strabane provides neighbors its ladder truck and they receive fire engine support when needed. Cramer states that it is only a matter of time for when the next fire occurs when a large ladder truck is needed. He points to the Thomas Campbell Apartment fire that claimed the life of a resident on December 23, 2022.
January 4, 2024 2:37 am
Charges were dropped Wednesday, during a hearing for North Franklin Township Supervisor Chairman Bob Sabot, who was charged with one misdemeanor count of theft by unlawful taking of movable property. Sabot’s wife, Sandy, a Democrat, ran unsuccessfully in the November General Election, for Washington County Prothonotary. She lost to incumbent Republican Laura Hough. Sabot was out collecting his wife’s signs after the election, when he also removed a sign for Hough. Hough witnessed him removing one of her signs in Centerville Borough and filed a complaint with Centerville Police. She also recorded a cellphone video showing Sabot picking up her sign, but giving it back to her when she asked for it. Sabot has maintained that he was just clearing up litter and was planning to return it to her, as he did with other candidates signs. Hough told authorities her sign was valued at seven-dollars. Sabot says he is considering taking further action, given that he feels he has been defamed.
January 3, 2024 5:26 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have found a way to help Alzheimer’s drugs seep inside the brain faster — using sound waves to jiggle a temporary opening in its protective shield. Some new drugs modestly slow Alzheimer’s worsening by attacking brain-clogging amyloid plaque, with doses every few weeks for well over a year. In a novel experiment, West Virginia University researchers added the ultrasound tool to three patients’ drug doses for six months. In spots in the brain where that shield was opened, more plaque was cleared. The findings were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
January 3, 2024 1:00 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — Social media has been rife in recent weeks with posts speculating that a judge is about to release a list of clients or co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The truth is less scandalous: There is no such list. Some previously sealed court records are going to be made public, but the great majority of the people whose names appear in those documents aren’t accused of any wrongdoing. The judge unsealing the records said she was doing so partly because much of the information within them is already public. A court official says parties in the case are expected to begin posting the sealed documents on Wednesday.
