November 1, 2023 4:54 am
Big changes are coming to the City Mission of Washington. After 15 years as President and CEO, Dean Gartland will become President Emeritus effective March 1, 2023 and then plans a full retirement at the end of September next year. As of March 1, longtime Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey-Vaughan will become the new President/CEO. First elected Commissioner in 1995, she is currently serving a seventh term which is the longest ever in the county. She is also the first and only woman to hold the position. Gartland has been with the City Mission since 2008. He became President/CEO in 2010. During that time, the City Mission increased available beds from 96 to 175 and saw its annual budget increase from $2.5 million to $8 million.
November 1, 2023 2:54 am
Energy company Equitrans is facing charges after the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office said it failed to fix a natural gas leak that caused a Greene County house to explode in 2018. On Oct. 31st, the house at 161 Bowser Road in Clarksville exploded and caught fire when Cody White turned the stove on, causing White, his girlfriend and their four-year-old son to suffer severe burns. According to the attorney general’s office, Equitrans owned and operated a natural gas storage field directly underneath the home. A storage well near the house was deteriorating and leaking gas for years, resulting in methane contamination in the home’s water supply. Officials said Equitrans had previously acknowledged that the field was losing gas and that wells inside the field were leaking gas before the explosion. After the explosion, the attorney general’s office says Equitrans was required by law to initiate and conduct its own investigation to find the cause of the leak, which it didn’t do. The 51st Statewide Investigating Grand Jury recommended charges under Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law regarding failures to properly maintain a storage well, and for not conducting an investigation after the explosion. (Photo: WPXI)
November 1, 2023 2:40 am
A federal civil law suit has been filed against District Attorney Jason Walsh and President Judge John DiSalle. Washington attorney Noah Geary filed the lawsuit claiming that his client Elijah White had his civil rights violated when he was held in contempt of court after a hearing that was held on January 29, 2022. Walsh called White as a witness in a preliminary hearing for Keandre Crews and Marissa Spencer. They were allegedly involved in the shooting and body dump of Jaisen Irwin outside of Bob’s Tavern in Finleyville in October of 2022. During the preliminary hearing, White, on advice of his lawyer, invoked his fifth amendment rights to not answer questions on multiple occasions. Geary maintains that DiSalle did not have jurisdiction in holding the hearing and the hearing should have been held in front of the judge scheduled to handle criminal cases. Geary claims comments made by Walsh during the preliminary hearing demonstrated that he did not care about White’s civil rights. A statement provided by DiSalle declined comment. Walsh characterized the suit as frivolous and an election ploy. White has an appeal of the contempt conviction pending in Pennsylvania Superior Court.
October 31, 2023 10:43 am
A Washington man and Uber driver is facing criminal charges in connection with a ride he provided for a 16 year old girl Monday night. Police in Penn Hills sought a warrant for 22 year old Patrick Phipps Jr. on charges of corruption of minors and dissemination to minors. According to the criminal complaint, Phipps was driving her home from work and began asking inappropriate questions and pressured her for her phone number. During the ride, the girl claims Phipps showed her a nude photo of himself on his cellphone. The girl informed her mother of the incident when she got home and called police.
October 31, 2023 5:07 am
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Otis shredded Acapulco, Mexico, last week and tore apart the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. It damaged nearly all of Acapulco’s homes, left bodies bobbing along the coastline and much of the city foraging for food. While authorities have been hard at work restoring order in Acapulco’s tourist center — cutting through trees in front of high-rise hotels and restoring power — the city’s poorest say they feel abandoned. Many of its 1 million people lived two hours of terror last week, and now face years of work to repair their already precarious lives.
October 31, 2023 5:05 am
DENVER (AP) — Lawyers on day two of a hearing in Colorado will argue whether the infamous events of Jan. 6, 2021 constitute an insurrection under a clause of the U.S. Constitution that they are trying to use to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot. The hearing in Colorado is one of two this week — with the second before the Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday — that could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never before ruled on the Civil War-era provision in the 14th Amendment. Tuesday’s witnesses are expected to include an expert in right-wing violence and an expert on Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which has only been used a handful of times since it was adopted in 1868.
October 31, 2023 5:01 am
HONOLULU (AP) — Maui police held a news conference to show 16 minutes of body camera footage taken the day a wildfire tore through Lahaina town in August. The video includes shots of officers rescuing 15 people from a coffee shop and taking a severely burned man to a hospital. Chief John Pelletier says his department faced a deadline to release 20 hours of body camera footage in response to an open records request and wanted to provide some context for what people would see before the video came out. The Associated Press has requested the video but has not yet received it. Maui County provided the AP with 911 call recordings earlier this month.
October 31, 2023 5:00 am
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Maine’s authorities are trying to piece together the events that led to the worst mass shooting in the state’s history. A sheriff’s office reported Monday that the shooter’s family had expressed concerns about his deteriorating mental health five months before the rampage. The Sagadohoc County Sheriff’s Office reached out to officials of Robert Card’s Army Reserve unit, which assured deputies that they would speak to Card and make sure he got medical attention. The gunman shot 18 people and wounded 13 others at a bowling alley and then a bar in Lewiston on Oct. 25.
October 31, 2023 4:59 am
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli ground forces are attacking Hamas militants and infrastructure in northern Gaza. The military said Tuesday that some 800,000 people have fled south since the war began more than three weeks ago, even as warplanes continue to strike all across the sealed-off territory. Buoyed by the first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire and again vowed to crush the militant group’s ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its bloody Oct. 7 rampage, which ignited the war. More than half the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, as supplies of food, medicine, water and fuel run low.
October 31, 2023 4:57 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – A Georgia man was kicked out of Sunday’s Steelers game after hitting fans with a towel, according to police. Richard Bryant, 33, of Fairburn, Georgia, is charged with defiant trespassing, according to court documents. Police said at 1:40 p.m. Sunday, security services informed them of a disorderly person who needed to be ejected, later identified as Bryant, sitting in section 133. Bryant was reportedly swinging a towel and hitting people seated around him with the towel. Police escorted Bryant from the stadium, and he was given an official notice of ejection and told not to return. At 3:21 p.m., police were called back to the section after Bryant allegedly reentered the stadium. Bryant was removed again and taken to the Allegheny County Jail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9.
