June 11, 2024 4:44 am
The Washington School Board met Monday and passed their 2024-2025 general fund budget. The vote to approve was unanimous. The budget is balanced and comes in at $33,511,980. It also contains a tax increase of .5172 mills. According to Superintendent George Lammay, that tax increase would be in the neighborhood of $20 annually for most residents, increased funds from casino gambling was able to offset most of the tax increase. Lammay said that insurance has increased nearly 30% over the last three years, and increases in salaries, benefits and other contract costs were drivers in the tax increase. Lammay also said that the district will pay out approximately $2.2 million to support cyber schools. He mentioned pending legislation to help greatly reduce that burden in all school districts in Pennsylvania. Lammy applauded the progress of the reading program instituted last year. He says early returns are showing positive results.
June 11, 2024 4:48 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Democratic-sponsored proposal to boost public school funding by billions in the coming years and impose stricter rules on cyber-charter schools is on its way to the Pennsylvania Senate after passage in the state House. Five Republicans joined all Democrats in approving the bill on Monday. The measure passed 107 to 94. The bill is a response to a report issued in January that said Pennsylvania underfunds public school districts by more than $5 billion annually. The proposed legislation would set up a new formula to distribute state education aid but does not include an appropriation of the money to fund it.
June 11, 2024 1:48 am
Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh announced on Monday that warrants have been issued for the arrest of two individuals from Wellsburg, West Virginia, in connection with the robbery on Wednesday, of the First National Bank on Route Nineteen in North Strabane Township. Walsh says the warrants are out for Kayla Pruett and Brandon Scerri. Authorities say they believe Scerri was the one who entered the bank and demanded money. They say the two were identified using their tattoos and driver’s license photos, along with the description of their car, a blue-colored Ford Focus. Walsh says Scerri got away with more than seventy-four-hundred-dollars in the robbery. Walsh stressed that these warrants are for the First National Bank robbery and not the one at Washington Financial in Washington two days earlier. He says though, there are similarities and the investigation is continuing. (PHOTO; North Strabane Twp Police)
June 11, 2024 2:21 am
A Washington woman charged in an August 2023 accident on Interstate 79 that took the life of a New York man faced her preliminary hearing on Monday. Rachel Phillips, 35 is accused of killing 58 year old Gary Reinhardt of Lancaster, New York. Witness testimony from Mindy Burgess recalled how Phillps passed her on I-79 North going faster than the 65 miles per hour that she was travelling. She stated that Phillips’ SUV drifted into the right shoulder of the road and dramatically swerved left and crossed two lanes of traffic and the median before striking Reinhardt’s vehicle, killing him and causing the wreckage of two other vehicles. First responder testimony reported the odor of alcohol inside Phillips’ car while they extricated her and the presence of several unopened cans containing alcohol. After being flown to a Pittsburgh hospital, Phillips’ had a blood draw that showed no alcohol but did show marijuana and cocaine in her system. All charges were held for court, Phillips is facing homicide by vehicle and reckless endangerment charges among others. Phillips is free on $175,000 bond.
June 10, 2024 2:09 am
A driver at the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in North Strabane Township was injured Saturday, during a harness race and flown to a Pittsburgh area hospital. According to reports, the driver Mike Wilder was hurt after three horses got tangled up during the race. One of the horses started falling back and the injured horse and driver were thrown onto the track. Wilder, according to his wife, did not suffer life-threatening injuries and is recovering. The horse had to be euthanized.
June 10, 2024 4:49 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman was treated at a hospital for a bruised shoulder after a car accident Sunday morning, according to a statement from his Senate office. He was released from the hospital Sunday afternoon. The statement said that Fetterman and his wife Gisele were involved in a car accident with another driver. They were both evaluated at a local hospital and discharged within hours. The senator returned to his home in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and is expected to be back in the Senate for votes this week. A spokeswoman for Fetterman said that the senator was driving the car and the accident was on Interstate 70 in Maryland.
June 11, 2024 5:01 am
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has approved its first resolution endorsing a cease-fire plan aimed at ending the eight-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The vote on Monday on the U.S.-sponsored resolution was 14-0, with Russia abstaining. The resolution welcomes a proposal announced by President Joe Biden that the United States says Israel has accepted. It calls on the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which initially said it viewed the proposal “positively,” to accept the three-phase plan. It urges Israel and Hamas “to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.” Hamas later responded by saying in a statement it welcomed the resolution and was ready to work with mediators in indirect negotiations with Israel to implement it.
June 11, 2024 5:02 am
Hamas said that one of its commanders in the occupied West Bank was killed in a clash with Israeli forces. In a statement released late Monday, Hamas said Mohammed Jaber Abdo was killed along with three other fighters in a village near Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered. A joint statement by the Israeli army and police earlier on Monday said undercover forces had tracked down a suspect wanted in an attack on a nearby Jewish settlement. Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, which was ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.
June 11, 2024 5:04 am
ATLANTA (AP) — Gun-control advocates and many Democrats see additional openings created by hardline positions of the gun lobby. President Joe Biden’s campaign says gun control could be a motivating issue for suburban college-educated women who may be decisive in several key battlegrounds this fall. The campaign and its allies have already circulated clips of former President Donald Trump saying after an Iowa school shooting in January that “we have to get over it.” Trump has also promised that he would impose no new restrictions on guns if elected again. About 7 in 10 college-educated women who voted in the 2022 midterm elections supported stricter gun control laws.
June 11, 2024 5:06 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — After Federal Reserve officials meet this week, a statement they will issue may suggest that they’ve seen meaningful progress on inflation this year — a prelude to eventual interest rate cuts. Yet it’s hard to say, because the officials themselves may not know for sure until they begin their meeting. That’s because the government’s latest snapshot of U.S. inflation will be released Wednesday morning, just before the Fed begins the second day of its policy discussions. At a news conference, though, Chair Jerome Powell will likely reiterate that Fed officials need further confidence that inflation is returning to 2% before they would consider rate cuts.
