November 17, 2024 3:57 am
Washington County Commissioners released a statement on Friday indicating that there will be no tax increase in the county for the 2025. The proposed budget is a balanced budget and comes in at $132,362,650. The statement says that commissioners have been monitoring the growth of government and has been limiting department budget increases. Evaluations of jobs and the necessity of filling vacant positions has been closely studied. Additionally, out of state travel for county employees has been banned as a cost savings measure. The county has seen $215 million in new property assessments. Chief among those assessments is the addition of 2500 new residential units. The budget will see a 4% increase in the Human Services department. According to commissioners, the increase is a result of the expansion and increased access to the Human Services department. Capital improvements that will be in progress this year will be the county 9-1-1 emergency radio system and a new public safety building. The final budget will be approved in December.
November 16, 2024 4:28 am
LIMA, Peru (AP) — President Joe Biden is expected to use his final meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping to urge him to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its backing of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Saturday’s talks on the sidelines of an international summit come with about two months to go before Biden leaves office. Biden met with the leaders of South Korea and Japan and expressed alarm with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send thousands of troops to help Moscow battle Ukrainian troops. Biden administration officials believe Beijing could be doing more to urge Pyongyang against involving itself in Russia’s war.
November 16, 2024 4:24 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department, will also head a newly created National Energy Council that will seek to establish U.S. “energy dominance” around the world. Trump said Burgum will oversee a panel that crosses all executive-branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation. Earlier Friday, Trump said Steven Cheung will serve as his White House communications director and Sergio Gor will run the personnel office. Both positions could be influential in the new administration.
November 16, 2024 4:22 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo on his bicep that’s associated with white supremacist groups. Hegseth has said he was pulled by his National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration, saying he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest. This week, however, a fellow Guard member shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo reading “Deus Vult” that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”
November 16, 2024 4:19 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — After one of the most chaotic and least productive U.S. House sessions in modern history, voters made a surprising choice in elections — they overwhelmingly stuck with the status quo. Republicans will hold onto a thin majority in the House. While the chamber’s exact partisan divide is still coming into focus as votes are tallied in a handful of remaining races, the results of 435 House races nationwide produced hardly any change to the makeup of the chamber. In fact, the election results so far have ended in a stalemate. Republicans and Democrats have each flipped seven seats. Just eight incumbents nationwide have lost their races.
November 16, 2024 4:16 am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Two men are accused of helping illegally smuggle Indian nationals across the U.S.-Canada border and into Minnesota, including four members of an Indian family who froze to death in 2022. Their federal trial is set to start Monday. Prosecutors say the two, who have both pleaded not guilty, were well aware of the brutal cold that winter and the dangers migrants could face. The men are accused of being part of a sophisticated human smuggling operation feeding a fast-growing population of Indians living illegally in the U.S.
November 16, 2024 3:42 am
Firefighters were called to a structure fire in Hickory Friday night. According to County 9-1-1 dispatchers, an Amazon delivery driver reported an ongoing fire inside a home where he was to make a delivery. The fire occurred at 142 Main Street at about 8:00 PM. Several fire companies responded to the fire. Everyone inside the house escaped without injury.
November 16, 2024 1:50 am
Washington County 911 dispatchers tell WJPA News that emergency crews were called out to a fire at the Allenport steel mill on Wheeling-Pittsburgh Drive Friday morning just before noon. Photos from the scene showed smoke billowing from the site, which officials say is in the process of being torn down. Dispatchers say one firefighter was transported from the scene with minor, non-life threatening injuries. They say the cause of the fire isn’t known at this time, but it appears that the State Police Fire Marshal has not been called in to investigate. According to dispatchers, crews were on the scene for several hours, wrapping up shortly before four o’cock. (Photo: WPXI)
November 15, 2024 4:28 pm
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Hundreds of Las Vegas hotel workers have gone on strike at a casino near the Strip. It’s the first open-ended strike in 22 years for the Culinary Workers Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers across Nevada. That includes the 700 who went on strike Friday morning at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. The strike comes after a bitter and highly publicized fight for a new contract that started over a year ago. Housekeepers, cocktail waitresses, porters, bellmen and more were on the picket line Friday. The union says it’s trying to win the same pay raises and benefits that it’s gotten for the rest of its Las Vegas members since last November.
November 15, 2024 4:27 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department, will also head a newly created National Energy Council that will seek to establish U.S. “energy dominance” around the world. Trump said Burgum will oversee a panel that crosses all executive-branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation. Earlier Friday, Trump said Steven Cheung will serve as his White House communications director and Sergio Gor will run the personnel office. Both positions could be influential in the new administration.
