December 2, 2025 5:42 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is citing the “fog of war” in defending a follow-up strike on an alleged drug-carrying boat in the Caribbean Sea in early September. During Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting at the White House, Hegseth said he did not see any survivors in the water, saying the boat “exploded in fire.” Hegseth also said he “didn’t stick around” for the remainder of the mission following the initial strike, and said the admiral in charge “made the right call” in ordering it, which he “had complete authority to do.” Lawmakers have opened investigations following a Washington Post report that Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everybody” on the boat.
December 2, 2025 9:55 am
The storm system that rolled through the region early Tuesday morning resulted in plenty of problems throughout Washington County. Washington County 9-1-1 dispatchers were busy all morning with numerous calls for accidents and disabled vehicles. PennDot reduced the speed limit along Interstates 70 and 79 but that didn’t prevent countless crashed. Dispatchers told WJPA News there were no major accidents but there were several jack-knifed tractor trailers and vehicles off of the roadway into the median or jersey barriers. Washington City Police closed Murtland Avenue between Locust and Ridge because vehicles became stuck. The weather system led most area schools to switch to remote instruction while a couple did cancel classes for the day.
December 1, 2025 2:58 am
Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh says a seventeen-year-old from Washington has been arrested in connection with a shooting and robbery at the Food Mart on West Chestnut Street Sunday night. Police say a woman who was shot and was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital where she is listed in stable condition. Walsh says Julian Asbury was taken into custody Monday and is facing multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a minor and firearms not to be carried without a license by the City of Washington Police Department. Police say officers were called to the scene just after ten and when they arrived they found the woman with multiple gunshot wounds. Police say she was playing the games of chance machines inside the store when three armed subjects entered and attempted to rob the establishment. The victim then tried to defend herself by drawing a legally concealed firearm and was shot. Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact them. There is an anonymous tip line at 724-223-4108 or you can email information to; tips@washingtonpa.us.
December 2, 2025 2:55 am
Washington County’s lone Democratic commissioner is calling for the creation of an Opioid Settlement Distribution committee. Maggi says he wants stronger oversight of the distribution of millions of dollars in Opioid Settlement funds. He says that there are currently only three employees deciding where that money goes, and he’s concerned that none of it, to date, has gone to the county’s drug and alcohol program. Maggi says the county has distributed more than four-point-seven-million-dollars over the past year and a half, from a national class-action lawsuit filed against major drug companies. Washington County’s money, according to Maggi, was intended solely to combat the opioid epidemic. Maggi says there are several gaps in the process and he wants accountability. He says there is no publicly available applications for entities seeking funding; no written guidelines detailing eligibility or evaluation criteria; no published timelines or instructions for how and when to apply and no formal follow-up or auditing process to ensure that awarded funds are being used effectively and appropriately. Maggi is also requesting a full audit and review of past awards to confirm that the funds were distributed and used in a legal, accountable and effective manner. Commissioners Chairman Nick Sherman questioned Maggi’s proposal. Sherman says the County has a board that oversees awarding such funds and recently held a meeting to discuss expanding it. Sherman also says Opioid funds were also the subject of a meeting just last week at the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania meeting in which they laid out procedures for handling those funds. Sherman says Maggi was absent from that meeting.
December 1, 2025 2:18 am
A FedEx driver found themselves not up a creek – but – in a creek – after their truck fell off a bridge and landed in a creek in the 1500 block of Henderson Avenue in Canton Township around one o’clock Monday afternoon. Washington County 911 said the truck landed on its passenger side in the water. There were no reported injuries and the driver was able to climb out of the driver’s side window.
December 1, 2025 4:42 am
President Donald Trump called his Cabinet to meet Tuesday morning as the administration insists that it was lawful for the U.S. military to launch a secondary air strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea in September. Experts in the military code say this was clearly illegal, but The White House said Monday that Navy Vice Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley ordered the second strike and was “within his authority and the law.” The military operation has come under bipartisan scrutiny, with lawmakers citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for a second strike that killed survivors on the boat.
December 2, 2025 10:58 am
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — The wife of former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández says he has been released from prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has confirmed his release from a penitentiary in West Virginia on Monday. Hernández was sentenced last year to 45 years for aiding drug traffickers. His wife thanked Trump for the pardon, saying it ends nearly four years of hardship. Hernández was arrested in 2022 at U.S. request and convicted in New York. Trump, speaking Sunday on Air Force One, said he believed Hernández was set up and that Hondurans had asked for his release.
December 1, 2025 4:42 am
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Alina Habba has been disqualified from serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor. A federal appeals court said Monday the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep Habba in the role were contrary to federal laws governing appointments. A panel of judges from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia sided with a lower-court judge’s ruling after hearing oral arguments at which Habba was present Oct. 20. The ruling comes amid the push by Trump’s Republican administration to keep Habba as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law. Habba’s staff hasn’t returned messages seeking comment. The White House has no comment.
December 2, 2025 4:47 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — A faith-based pregnancy center will come before the Supreme Court to challenge an investigation into whether it misled people to discourage abortions. Arguments are being heard Tuesday. The facilities often known as “crisis pregnancy centers” have been on the rise in the U.S., especially since the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned abortion as a nationwide right in 2022. In New Jersey, the Democratic attorney general sent a subpoena for donor information as it investigated whether centers there had misled people into thinking they offered abortions. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers pushed back, eventually asking the Supreme Court to let it challenge the subpoena before a federal judge.
December 2, 2025 4:44 am
Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving programs listed nationwide by the government may be forced to close if they lose their students after a review by the federal Transportation Department found they may not be complying with government requirements. Separately, the Department of Homeland Security is auditing trucking firms owned by immigrants to verify their drivers are qualified to hold a commercial license. The Transportation Department says it plans to revoke the certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply within the next 30 days. Another 4,500 schools are being warned they could face similar action.
