October 5, 2023 4:47 am
The North Strabane Township Zoning Hearing Board met Wednesday to entertain requests for variances submitted by Giant Eagle Incorporated. Those variances were centered on the lot that currently contains the Kings Restaurant at the corner of Rt. 19 and McClelland Road. Giant Eagle would like to build a Get Go convenience store and gas station. A variance requested were for building size. The current zoning ordinance limits the square footage to 4000 square feet. Giant Eagle is proposing a building more than 2800 square feet bigger. They also requested variances pertaining to parking lot setbacks, minimum required loading zones and other setback encroachments. Before a roll call vote on each of the individual variances, board member Michael Proctor offered a motion to deny all variances applied for. A roll call vote narrowly approved the blanket denial 3-2 with board chairman Matt Adams and Vice Chairman Robert Shader agreeing with Proctor. Proctor indicated that the hardships that Giant Eagle was seeking relief from were all hardships created by them and therefore there was no basis to grant relief from any of their hardships. Some two dozen residents that showed up at the meeting were pleased with the decision. Representatives from Giant Eagle did not wish to comment. If Giant Eagle were to adjust their plans, the project could be approved at a later date.
October 5, 2023 1:53 am
A Washington man accused of robbing the then BP convenience store on Murtland Avenue in 2017 pleaded guilty on Tuesday. Darnell Brown II, 23 pleaded guilty to felony robbery and firearms possession charges and a misdemeanor receiving stolen property charge. Brown entered the convenience store in November of 2017 wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and pointed a gun at an attendant, robbing her of $269. It took until September of 2021 for DNA tests on the mask to determine that Brown was the culprit. Brown will spend the next 3½ to 7 years in state prison. Because of the structure of the plea deal he will spend two years on probation after his release. Brown will also pay $269 in restitution.
October 4, 2023 5:15 am
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge has imposed a limited gag order with a stern warning after Donald Trump disparaged a key court staffer during his civil business fraud trial. Judge Arthur Engoron issued the order Tuesday. The order, pertaining to all court staff, came after Trump recirculated a social media post assailing Engoron’s principal law clerk. Trump deleted the post after the judge called him and all the lawyers into a closed-door session.
October 4, 2023 5:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been voted out of the job in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history. The 216-210 vote was forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and throws the House and its Republican leadership into chaos. It’s the end of the political line for McCarthy, who has said repeatedly that he never gives up, but now has almost no options remaining. Neither the right-flank Republicans who engineered his ouster nor the Democrats who piled on seem open to negotiating. McCarthy told lawmakers Tuesday evening he would not run again for speaker. There is no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority.
October 4, 2023 5:11 am
BALTIMORE (AP) — Officials say at least five people have been wounded, none critically, in a shooting at Morgan State University in Baltimore that happened as students were headed to a homecoming week campus ball. A shelter-in-place order was lifted around 12:30 a.m. Police Commissioner Richard Worley said the five victims, four men and one woman, are between the ages of 18 and 22, but police released no information on suspects and said they did not know how many shooters were involved. Morgan State University President David Wilson said he had canceled Wednesday’s classes, and would hold an emergency meeting Wednesday morning to decide whether to hold other homecoming week events.
October 4, 2023 5:09 am
HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa. — (WPXI) – Three students at Hempfield Area High School are facing charges after two gun buys happened on campus Monday. According to state police, all of the students charged are 15-year-old boys. State police announced the charges Tuesday evening. All of the students are charged with firearms not to be carried without a license, receiving stolen property and causing or risking a catastrophe. These are all felony offenses. The three students are charged as juveniles. State police said several students came forward on Monday and reported “observing transactions” between students involving guns. Two firearms were recovered in two students’ backpacks by school resources offices. At this time, investigators have no reason to believe the three students were planning any sort of attack.
October 4, 2023 4:56 am
A Cokeburg Couple accused of aggravated assault of a minor are moving their cases through the courts. On Tuesday Matthew Mance, 34 and Shalee Schnore, 28 faced hearings about their present cases and previous cases. Mance had a probation revocation hearing continued as the district attorney recently presented a plea offer on that case. Mance pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and vehicular aggravated assault in 2019 and received 5 years probation. His current charges of aggravated assault of a minor violated that probation. His cases were continued November 1 to evaluate the plea offer. His co-defendant Shalee Schnore, was sentenced on an open plea to time served to 23 months for apprehension hindrance as it relates to her current case. She faces the exact same charges as Mance in the child assault case. At her hearing for that case Schnore requested a December jury trial. The couple is accused of beating a six year old child that was in their care in their home in 2022. Schnore is now free on parole, Mance remains in the Washington County Jail.
October 4, 2023 2:50 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Most Pennsylvania lawmakers want to move their state’s presidential primary election up from late April. But disagreements arose in the House on Tuesday over whether to embrace a Senate-backed plan that would shift the election to mid-March. A House committee first rejected, but later passed, a bipartisan Senate bill that seeks to hold the election on March 19. That second vote came hours after the committee approved its own bill to move the primary to April 2. Most lawmakers are motivated to move the primary from April 23 to avoid a conflict with the Jewish holiday of Passover and to make it earlier in the primary calendar.
October 4, 2023 1:24 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — If your cellphone was on at 2:20 p.m. Eastern time you should have heard a loud noise and seen a message flash across your screen. That’s when the U.S. government on Wednesday conducted its once-every-three-years nationwide test of the emergency alert system. Alerts also went out on radio and television. The cellphone alerts went off at the White House during press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s briefing. Ahead of the test, organizations that work with abuse survivors who have secret phones recommended they turn them off so as to not have the blaring noise tip off their abusers. The last nationwide test was Aug. 11, 2021.
October 4, 2023 1:17 am
HOLLSOPPLE, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a mining company employee was crushed to death in an accident involving a shuttle car in a western Pennsylvania mine. LCT Energy said in a statement that the man became trapped between the car and an interior wall of the company’s Maple Springs mine near Hollsopple on Monday. The Somerset Count coroner, Cullen Swank, identified him as 37-year-old Brandon Frederick of Johnstown and said he sustained multiple blunt force injuries. The death was ruled accidental. The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered the operators of the Conemaugh Township mine to temporarily cease operations in the affected section.
