April 2, 2024 6:30 am
Firefighters battled a blaze at an apartment building in Cokeburg early Tuesday morning. Washington County 9-1-1 says it broke out just after 3:30 a.m. along Washington Street. Dispatchers say the fire was brought under control about an hour later. There were no initial reports of any injuries and our news partners at Channel 11 are reporting that the building was vacant and scheduled for demolition. There is no word on the cause of the fire.
April 2, 2024 4:54 am
Washington City Council was informed at their agenda meeting of lagging revenues from property tax collection. City Administrator Donn Henderson says that property taxes are about three weeks behind of where they historically have been. He blamed it mostly on the recent cyber attack that the county suffered. He said information was late from the county putting the city’s information dissemination behind. That translates to roughly $400,000. Henderson encourages property owners to pay as soon as they can so that the city does not need to take out a loan and spend tax money on interest payments on an additional loan. City residents were also encouraged to apply to the Citywide Development Corporation for their “Block by Block Home Repair Program”. Residents that qualify for the program are eligible for funding to make repairs to their homes to keep them in compliance with city ordinances. Residents of the 7th and 8th Wards will receive priority for funding. Also available are grants through the Community Development Block Grant program administered through the Redevelopment Authority of the County of Washington. Applications for both programs are available at City Hall.
April 2, 2024 5:18 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – A federal lawsuit is questioning weapons-scanning technology in place at popular parks and event centers like PNC Park, Acrisure Stadium and Kennywood Park. The technology was already in place at Kennywood in September 2022 when three people were shot. There is no evidence though that a gun entered the park through a secure entrance that day. The park is among a list of Pittsburgh staples that have made investments in new technology in the last several years, specifically buying scanners created by Evolv Technology, based out of Massachusetts. The company’s Evolv Express is a touchless security screening system that utilizes artificial intelligence. It is designed to detect guns, knives and explosives while learning to ignore other metal items like cellphones. The technology is marketed as an upgrade to traditional metal detectors. The scanners allow multiple people to walk through at once, without stopping or emptying their pockets. Evolv shareholders filed a federal class action lawsuit against the company last week, stating it lied about how reliable its weapons-detection technologies are. Further, the Company had taken significant action to make it appear that its products were effective, including manipulating test results.” According to the lawsuit, the SEC launched an investigation into the company in February.
April 2, 2024 5:01 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – A bicyclist who was involved in a crash with a semi-truck in Downtown Pittsburgh has died. Police say the man died from his injuries at a local hospital Saturday night at 1:25 a.m. The accident happened at the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Stanwix Street at 10:30 a.m. on March 26. Charges are not expected to be filed at this time.
April 2, 2024 4:58 am
(AP) – Inspectors consider nearly 7% of the nation’s bridges to be in poor condition — around 42,400 — according to federal data from 2023. Deterioration, specifically problems affecting the piers and beams that keep a bridge upright, requires repairs that can cost millions of dollars and result in closures that affect commuters and small businesses. Bridges fulfill a vital function that often goes overlooked until lives are lost or disrupted by a closure or collapse, like that of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore early last Tuesday. That bridge crumpled when struck by a cargo ship, not because of poor maintenance. But thousands of others stand in worse shape. The majority of bridges that were found to be in poor condition suffer from issues with the legs holding them up (the substructure) or arms supporting their load (the superstructure), according to the National Bridge Inventory. While nearly 16,000 of those bridges also were rated poor ten years ago, the overall percentage of bridges in poor condition has decreased about 22% over the last ten years. But federal transportation officials say a lot of work remains. President Joe Biden’s 2021 infrastructure law provided the largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system began nearly 70 years ago. But the $40 billion allocated for bridges is only a fraction of the $319 billion needed to make repairs nationwide, according to estimates from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
April 2, 2024 5:13 am
The owner and manager of a cargo ship that rammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge before it collapsed are seeking to limit their legal liability for the deadly disaster. The two Singapore-based companies filed what’s known as a “limitation of liability” petition Monday. The filing is a routine but important procedure for cases litigated under U.S. maritime law. Grace Ocean Private Ltd. owns the Dali, the vessel that lost power before it slammed into the bridge last Tuesday. Synergy Marine Pte Ltd. is the ship’s manager. Their joint filing seeks to cap the companies’ liability at under $44 million.
April 2, 2024 5:11 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump has posted a $175 million bond in his New York civil fraud case, halting collection of the more than $454 million he owes and preventing the state from seizing his assets to satisfy the debt while he appeals. That’s according to a court filing made public Monday. A New York appellate court had given the former president 10 days to put up the money after a panel of judges agreed last month to slash the amount needed to stop the clock on enforcement. One of Trump’s lawyers says, “He looks forward to vindicating his rights on appeal and overturning this unjust verdict.”
April 2, 2024 5:10 am
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The World Central Kitchen aid group says an apparent Israeli airstrike killed six of its international workers and their Palestinian driver. They were delivering food from the charity’s latest sea shipment to Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been pushed to the brink of famine by Israel’s offensive against Hamas. Those killed include three British nationals, an Australian, a Polish national and an American-Canadian dual citizen. The source of fire late Monday could not be independently confirmed. The Israeli military said it was conducting a review “to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.” The food charity, founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, said it was immediately suspending operations in the region.
April 2, 2024 4:22 pm
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Tropicana Las Vegas has been a familiar landmark in a city known for constant reinvention since its grand opening in April 1957. Now it’s a jewel of Sin City’s past. The Strip’s third-oldest casino closed its doors for good on Tuesday. And demolition is slated for October to make room for a $1.5 billion Major League Baseball stadium. The decades that followed the Tropicana’s debut 67 years ago this week were filled with colorful events. Even in its sleepier years amid the boom in Las Vegas Strip megaresorts, it remained a landmark for its vintage Vegas lore, showing up as a pop culture reference in movies and TV shows. (Photo: AP)
April 2, 2024 5:04 am
No April Fools’ joke — there is still no winner in the Powerball. No one picked all of the numbers in Monday night’s drawing, sending Wednesday’s jackpot — now the fourth largest in the promotion’s history — to $1.09 billion. The winning numbers for the grand prize worth $1 billion were 19-24-40-42-56 and the Powerball was 23. The Power Play was 2X. If a player wins the jackpot in Wednesday’s drawing, they can choose between an annuitized prize worth an estimated $975 million or a lump sum payment estimated at $527.3 million.
