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 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 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 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 10, 2024 5:59 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Rev. James Lawson Jr., has died. He was 95. His family said Monday that Lawson died peacefully on Sunday. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called Lawson “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Lawson and King were both 28 years old when they bonded over the ideas of Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi. Lawson schooled civil rights activists to withstand brutal treatment from white authorities. He shaped the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to organize the sit-in movement, and he organized the sanitation workers strike that brought King to Memphis. Lawson said a lifetime after King’s assassination that he was still anxious and frustrated, because their work remains unfinished.
June 10, 2024 5:00 pm
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Jurors have begun deliberating to decide whether Hunter Biden is guilty of federal firearms charges over a gun the president’s son bought when prosecutors say he was in the throes of a crack cocaine addiction. President Joe Biden’s son faces three felony charges stemming from the purchase of the revolver in 2018. Prosecutors say Hunter Biden lied on a gun purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs. Defense lawyers argue prosecutors failed to prove Hunter Biden was using drugs in the 11 days he possessed the gun.
June 10, 2024 4:58 pm
(WPXI) – Sen. John Fetterman and his wife Gisele were involved in a car crash on Sunday morning. The crash happened at the Interstate 70 and Interstate 68 interchange in Maryland. Fetterman was evaluated at a local hospital and was treated for a bruised shoulder. He and his wife were discharged from the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
June 10, 2024 5:06 am
Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference on Monday is expected to herald the company’s move into generative artificial intelligence, marking its late arrival to a technological frontier that’s expected to be as revolutionary as the invention of the iPhone. The widely anticipated display of AI to be embedded on the iPhone a will be the marquee moment at an event that previews the next version of software that powers the company’s hardware lineup. And Apple’s next generation of software is expected to be packed with an array of AI designed spruce up its virtual assistant Siri and make many other tasks a more satisfying and perhaps even revelatory experience.
June 10, 2024 5:05 am
BRUSSELS (AP) — Far-right parties rattled the traditional powers in the European Union with major gains in parliamentary seats, dealing an especially humiliating defeat to French President Emmanuel Macron, who called snap legislative elections. Some ballots in the vote for the European Parliament were still being counted Monday, but the outcome showed the 27-nation bloc’s parliament membership has clearly shifted to the right. The Christian Democrats of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen remained by far the biggest group and de facto brokers of the ever-expanding powers of the legislature. But the surge by nationalist and populist parties will make it much harder for the assembly to approve legislation on issues ranging from climate change to agriculture policy.
June 10, 2024 5:03 am
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Jurors have started their second day of deliberations in the criminal case against Hunter Biden over a gun President Joe Biden’s son bought in 2018 when prosecutors say he was in the throes of a crack cocaine addiction. Jurors deliberated for less than an hour Monday before leaving the federal courthouse in Delaware. They resumed deliberations Tuesday. Jurors are weighing whether Hunter Biden is guilty of three felonies in the case pitting him against his father’s Justice Department in the middle of the Democratic president’s reelection campaign. Hunter Biden’s lawyers have argued he did not consider himself an “addict” when he bought the gun.
