June 9, 2025 5:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s new ban on travel to the United States by citizens from 12 mainly African and Middle Eastern countries is now in effect. The ban took effect on Monday and comes as tensions escalate over the president’s campaign of immigration enforcement. Trump signed the new proclamation last week. It applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the U.S. and don’t hold a valid visa.
June 9, 2025 5:10 am
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces have seized a Gaza-bound aid boat and detained Greta Thunberg and other activists on board, enforcing a longstanding blockade of the Palestinian territory that has been tightened during the war with Hamas. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which had organized the voyage to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and protest Israel’s blockade and wartime conduct, said the activists had been “kidnapped by Israeli forces.” Israel said the passengers would return to their home countries and the aid would be delivered to Gaza through established channels.
June 9, 2025 5:08 am
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines. He is pledging to replace them with his own picks. The 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had been in a state of flux since Kennedy took over. He recently took the unusual step of changing COVID-19 recommendations without first consulting the panel. Kennedy says the committee members had too many conflicts of interest.
June 9, 2025 5:05 am
The man accused in a Rostraver murder in April was set to face a judge Monday in Westmoreland County. Dorian Jeri-Greene appeared for a preliminary hearing in Washington County last week. He was charged in a Donora incident in February and was arrested in Florida last month on those charges. According to court documents, Jeri-Greene broke into his ex-girlfriend’s Donora home by destroying a door frame. Police said he strangled the woman before running out of the home with a hatchet. The victim told the judge she no longer wanted to move forward with the prosecution and refused to testify. Charges were then dropped but Westmoreland County Deputies picked him up from the Washington County Jail and brought him to the Westmoreland County Prison. Jeri-Greene is accused of killing Jennah Seibert in her Rostraver home in April. Police said he walked nearly three miles from Monongahela, hid behind a shed on Seibert’s property, and waited for her fiancé, Bryan Murray, to leave for work. Police said Jeri-Greene pulled the electric meter from the home, knocking out the power to the security system and the house. Police said he shot Seibert in her bed, stole jewelry, and left. They tracked him to a home in Florida after searching pawn shops across several states, and finding the stolen jewelry at a pawn shop in Tampa.
June 9, 2025 5:04 am
President Donald Trump is defending his decision to send Another 2,000 National Guard troops along with 700 Marines to Los Angeles, escalating a military presence local officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom don’t want and the police chief says creates logistical challenges for safely handling protests. Additional protests against immigration raids are expected to continue in other cities Tuesday.
June 9, 2025 4:57 am
North Franklin Township will host a public hearing Tuesday at 5 p.m. to consider a zoning change requested by developers seeking to buy the Crown Center Mall and turn it into a mix use of retail, light industrial and other uses. Supervisors Chairman Bob Sabot says “the new prospective owners are to announce their plans for the property and Supervisors are expected to vote on the planned sale. The mall is currently owned by New York based Kohan Group and Sabot says the Township has repeatedly fined them “for failing to upkeep the mall and Supervisors have publically encouraged the sell of the mall which Kohan has owned for ten years”. According to Sabot, the mall “is struggling on the inside with just a few retail outlets” but is doing well on the outside with an auto dealership, Marshalls, Rural King, and Ollie’s. The original Franklin Mall opened in 1963 with Sears as its main anchor.
June 9, 2025 4:54 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – A man is facing several charges after Pennsylvania State Police say he lit a commercial firework at Rivers Casino, causing an explosion that hurt a casino employee. A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson says the incident began when Jeremy Allen Hartman was taken into custody by casino security around 5:40 a.m. after reportedly being found trespassing in a closed restaurant, trying to steal bottles of alcohol worth up to $4,000. While being escorted to a secure holding area, PSP says Hartmas asked to go to the bathroom and was allowed to use an employee restroom. That’s where he’s accused of lighting a commercial-grade firework and putting it in a toilet. The subsequent explosion caused a minor injury to an employee who was also in the restroom. That employee was treated and released by medics at the casino. When authorities later executed a search warrant on Hartman’s vehicle in the casino parking garage, PSP says they found additional commercial-grade fireworks. The Pittsburgh Police Bomb Squad and K-9 unit searched the vehicle and casino, confirming both were free of explosive devices. Hartman is facing several charges, including arson, risking a catastrophe, theft and criminal mischief. The investigation into the incident is ongoing and PSP says there’s no immediate threat to the public. In a statement, a Rivers Casino spokesperson says they are cooperating fully with the authorities.
June 9, 2025 1:21 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Sly Stone, an electrifying musician, songwriter and showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and ’70s, has died. He was 82. His time on top was brief, from roughly 1969 to 1971, but his influence on music and culture lasted for decades after. No band better captured the gravity-defying euphoria of the Woodstock era or more bravely addressed the crash. From early hits as rousing as their titles —“I Want To Take You Higher,” “Stand!” — to the sober aftermath of “Family Affair” and “Runnin’ Away,” Sly and the Family Stone spoke for a generation whether or not it wanted to hear the message. (Photo: AP)
June 8, 2025 8:10 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected a Republican appeal and left in place a Pennsylvania court decision allowing people to cast provisional ballots when their mail-in votes are rejected for not following technical procedures in state law. The court released the decision Friday, after an “apparent software malfunction” sent out early notifications about orders that had been slated to be released Monday. A technological error also resulted in an opinion being posted early last year. The justices acted in an appeal filed by the Republican National Committee, the state GOP and the Republican-majority election board in Butler County. Pennsylvania’s top court ruled last year that the county must count provisional ballots that were cast by two voters after they learned their mail-in ballots were voided because they arrived without mandatory secrecy envelopes. Pennsylvania Democrats had urged the court to stay out of the case. (Photo: AP)
June 8, 2025 7:59 am
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — This year’s Boulder Jewish Festival is being reimagined to focus on community healing. That comes after an attack during a weekly gathering of a group that has been calling for Hamas to release Israeli hostages. The cultural celebration kicks off Sunday morning at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall — the same location where police say a man yelled “Free Palestine” and threw Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators. The man, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been charged with attempted murder and other crimes in a Colorado court. The festival will center the demonstrators’ cause — raising awareness of the 58 people believed to still be in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
