October 24, 2024 4:57 am

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina officials say the catastrophic flooding and destruction from Hurricane Helene likely caused at least $53 billion in damages and recovery needs in the state. Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration generated the preliminary figure in a report released Wednesday that also includes Cooper’s request to the General Assembly for $3.9 billion. The request was disclosed the day before the legislature planned to meet for a one-day session to advance additional Helene recovery legislation. Cooper says the previous record for storm damage in North Carolina was $17 billion after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
October 24, 2024 4:55 am

A food poisoning outbreak tied to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders was caused by a common type of E. coli bacteria that can cause serious illness and death. Particularly vulnerable are young children, older people or those with weakened immune systems. About 50 people have fallen ill in the outbreak, and one has died. Their ages range from 13 to 88. The bacteria are common in the environment, including water, food and in the intestines of animals and humans. Symptoms typically occur within two days of eating tainted food and include fever, vomiting and diarrhea.
October 24, 2024 4:53 am
SEATTLE (AP) — Boeing factory workers have voted against the company’s latest contract offer and will remain on the picket lines six weeks into a strike that has stopped production of the aerospace giant’s bestselling jetliners. Local union leaders in Seattle say 64% of the members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted against the proposal Wednesday. The offer included pay raises of 35% over four years. Boeing workers told Associated Press reporters the company’s refusal to restore a traditional pension plan that was frozen a decade ago is a sticking point. A spokesperson for Boeing said officials didn’t have a comment on the vote.
October 24, 2024 4:53 am

DULUTH, Ga. (AP) — Republican Donald Trump is pushing supporters in Georgia to get out and vote for him in a state that could be crucial in the presidential election. He spoke Wednesday before a rollicking rally that was filled to capacity and organized by Charlie Kirk, a conservative provocateur. Kirk is using his online presence and the organization he founded, Turning Point Action, to make himself one of the nation’s most recognizable conservatives. He is launching get-out-the-vote operations in key battleground states. Trump has put a particular emphasis on winning support from younger men as he tries to reach them through podcasts, social media and influencers such as Kirk.
October 24, 2024 4:50 am

ASTON, Pa. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris says she believes Donald Trump “is a fascist” after his longest-serving chief of staff said the former president praised Adolf Hitler while in office and put personal loyalty above the Constitution. In interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic, John Kelly warned that the Republican nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office he suggested that the Nazi leader “did some good things.” At a CNN town hall Wednesday, Harris was asked if she believed that Trump is a fascist. She replied twice, “Yes, I do.” Kelly is the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019.
October 24, 2024 4:40 am

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s highest court has ruled people whose mail ballots are rejected for not following technical procedures in state law can cast provisional ballots. That decision Wednesday is sure to affect some of the thousands of mail-in votes experts say are likely to be rejected this fall for not following all of the mail-in voting procedures Pennsylvania requires. The state’s status as the swing state with the most electoral votes in the close presidential election, now in its final two weeks, puts the court decision under heightened public scrutiny as the parties scrape for votes.
October 24, 2024 2:49 am
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa. — The parents of a Charleroi toddler who died in Washington County in 2023 are being charged for the death. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh has announced the charges against Brooke Whitehead, 32, and Ryan Whitehead, 32. Brooke is charged with criminal homicide, among other charges, and Ryan is charged with endangering the welfare of a child. A criminal complaint alleges Charleroi police were sent to the couple’s home on Prospect Avenue on Oct. 24, 2023, for a 14-month-old child who wasn’t breathing. The child was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The complaint states officers who first responded to the home were informed of “markings” on the child, which were documented as multiple bruises on the child’s face, neck and chest. Through an autopsy, it was determined that the child died from blunt force trauma to the head, torso and extremities. The autopsy also found recent skull fractures and long bone fractures in various states of healing. The complaint states Brooke was the only adult home on the day of her child’s death, but the child would have also been in Ryan’s custody when some of the other injuries happened. Walsh tells WJPA News that the pair were located Tuesday night in Bellefonte, Pa. and were housed in the Center County Jail before being returned to Washington County.
October 24, 2024 2:31 am

WASHINGTON, Pa. —(WPXI)- Three Washington County men pleaded guilty in county court to killing nearly two dozen deer illegally. The Pennsylvania Game Commission said Ezra McClelland, 20; Julian Marth, 21; and Grant Bamberger, 20, all of Washington, poached 21 deer in Dec. 2023. Nine deer were reported to have been shot and left laying on Dec. 9. On Dec. 17 another call was made to the Game Commission that reported similar activity in the same area; this time 12 deer were found dead. The actors did not attempt to retrieve those deer either. Six of the shot deer were antlered bucks. The Game Commission said the three men pleaded guilty. They will lose their hunting licenses for life, serve seven days in county jail, and pay $6,300 in fines. The rifles used in the poaching spree were seized and will not be returned. Anyone who sees poaching or other wildlife crimes is asked to contact the Pennsylvania Game Commission by calling the agency’s 24-hour dispatch center at 1-833-PGC-HUNT or 1-833-PGC-WILD, or call the Operation Game Thief toll-free hotline at 1-888-PGC-8001.
October 24, 2024 1:30 am

North Strabane Township Police are looking for 38 year old Adam Logan in connection with an armed robbery at the Coen Market along Hill Church Houston Road Sunday night. An arrest warrant has been issued for him and police are asking the public not to approach him as he is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information is asked to call 9-1-1. Logan’s last known location was in Washington. He faces charges that include; robbery with threat of serious bodily injury, burglary, terroristic threats and simple assault by menacing.
October 23, 2024 5:06 am

A federal judge has ordered Rudy Giuliani to turn over his New York City apartment and various other assets to two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him. Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan issued the ruling Tuesday. The former New York City mayor must hand over his Manhattan apartment, more than two dozen watches, sports memorabilia and a 1980 Mercedes to Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. They won a lawsuit over Giuliani’s false ballot fraud claims against them during the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani’s lawyers say they’re confident he will win his appeal of the defamation verdict and get his property back.