November 22, 2019 12:59 pm
Washington City Councilman Matt Staniszewski attended his preliminary hearing Friday morning over DUI charges from an incident on August 26th. District Justice Ethan Ward continued the hearing at the district attorney’s request and issued a $25,000 straight cash bond to Staniszewski. Defense Attorney Sean Logue says he was disappointed in the bond. He stated that it is Justice Ward’s blanket policy to issue that bond for multiple DUI offenses. Logue argued that technically it is Staniszewski’s first offense since the last DUI occurred over 10 years ago. Staniszewski was led away in handcuffs. Logue stated that Staniszewski and his father were immediately posting bond at the end of the hearing. Logue went on to explain that the District Attorney’s office asked for a continuance to the case because they wanted to review all that Staniszewski has been doing since he enrolled in a rehabilitation program immediately after his arrest. Staniszewski’ s next hearing is scheduled for December 6.
November 22, 2019 9:54 am
BETHEL PARK, Pa. (AP) – Authorities have confirmed a body found last month in a Nevada desert is a Pennsylvania woman who disappeared in September. Officials in Nevada on Thursday announced dental records were used to identify 33-year-old Jamie Feden. Police in Pennsylvania have charged her boyfriend, 39-year-old John Chapman of Oakland, Maryland, with kidnapping.
Authorities say Chapman told police the couple drove to Nevada and he took Fredon into the desert about 170 miles north of Las Vegas. Police say he told them he bound her to a sign post and placed duct tape over her nose and mouth until she suffocated. Her body was found Oct. 5. Chapman remains held in the Allegheny County Jail pending extradition to Nevada, where he faces a murder charge.
November 22, 2019 9:44 am
The State Health Department has authorized a $3-million study into whether shale gas operations have raised the risk of rare, childhood cancers within the Canon-MacMillan School District and throughout the region. According to reports, the grant specifically will fund a ‘case control study of childhood cancers, including ewing sarcoma, in light of the concerns raised about the number of rare cancers in the area’. The study will use data from the State Cancer Registry and Cancer Referral Centers and will try to determine if there is an elevated cancer prevalence in areas affected by shale gas development. The announcement also says that a second study will focus on ‘acute conditions’ like asthma and birth outcomes that have previously shown some relations to certain industries. An academic research center will perform the studies but one has not yet been identified.
November 22, 2019 4:23 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A former FBI lawyer is being investigated for allegedly altering a document related to surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser in 2016. That’s according to a person familiar with the case and published news reports. The Associated Press confirmed reports by CNN and The Washington Post that the finding will be in a report Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases Dec. 9 on early stages of the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling. The news reports cited unidentified individuals. The conduct of the FBI employee, who was forced out, didn’t alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance application of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had a proper legal and factual basis, an official told the Post. An FBI spokesman declined comment Friday. An inspector general spokesman didn’t return a message seeking comment
November 22, 2019 4:22 am
NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. health officials are telling people to avoid romaine lettuce grown in Salinas, California, as they investigate a food poisoning outbreak. They also say not to eat the leafy green if the label doesn’t say where it was grown. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 40 people in more than a dozen states. Romaine has been tied to repeated food poisoning outbreaks, including one right before Thanksgiving last year. It’s not clear exactly why romaine keeps sickening people, but food safety experts note the difficulty of eliminating risk for produce grown in open fields and eaten raw. The FDA says its inquiry has led investigators to farms in Salinas and that they are looking for the contamination source.
November 22, 2019 4:21 am
LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Michigan has temporarily halted the sale of marijuana products intended for vaping so that they can be tested for a compound linked to lung illnesses. The emergency rules issued today prohibit licensed medical and recreational marijuana businesses from selling existing products intended for e-cigarette use unless they are re-tested and do not have vitamin E acetate. Newly made vaping products cannot have the compound, either. Vitamin E acetate has only recently been used as a thickener in vaping fluid, particularly in black market cartridges.
November 22, 2019 4:20 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump says he does not expect to be impeached, claiming Democrats have “absolutely nothing” incriminating, despite days of public testimony by witnesses who said Trump withheld aid from Ukraine to press the country to investigate his political rivals. Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Friday, “I think it’s very hard to impeach you when they have absolutely nothing.” Trump said if the House did vote to impeach him, he would welcome a trial in the Senate. Witnesses including State Department officials, current and former U.S. ambassadors and a former White House Russia analyst provided evidence in the House impeachment public hearings. Testimony indicated Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani (joo-lee-AH’-nee) on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington’s help to fend off Russian aggression. But Trump says he was only holding back aid to root out corruption in Ukraine.
November 22, 2019 4:15 am
BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) – Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been given the same penalty at his re-sentencing as before: 30 to 60 years in prison. Centre County Judge Maureen Skerda sentenced the 75-year-old Sandusky on Friday. Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse in 2012. An appeals court said mandatory minimum sentences had been improperly applied against him.
November 22, 2019 4:14 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania is moving to join 18 other states and ban the purchase of cigarettes and other tobacco products by people under 21, although it’s maintaining an exception for military veterans or service members who are at least 18. Gov. Tom Wolf’s office said he’d sign legislation that passed both chambers of the state Legislature on Thursday. Under it, the legal age to buy tobacco products will rise from 18 to 21 in Pennsylvania, unless a person meets the military service exception. The higher age takes effect next July 1. Tobacco products include electronic cigarettes and natural and synthetic nicotine products. The American Lung Association says 50% of the United States’ population already lives in a state or community that has passed a law raising the age to buy tobacco products to 21.
November 22, 2019 2:33 am
State Police have filed charges against Washington County’s Clerk of Courts. Following a months-long investigation into the discovery of more than 96-thousand-dollars that was missing from his office, the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation has filed multiple charges, including theft, against Frank Scandale of Canonsburg. The 51-year-old is charged with a felony count of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received, seven misdemeanor counts of theft and one count of misapplication of entrusted property, court records show. The missing money was discovered during an audit in July. County commissioners immediately turned the investigation over to State Police. Scandale was arraigned on the charges Thursday afternoon and was released on one-hundred-thousand-dollars unsecured bond. District Judge Robert Redlinger also ordered him to surrender his passport, if he has one, to the county district attorney’s office. Scandale, a Democrat who ran for re-election in November, lost to Republican Brenda Davis, a former mayor of Washington.
