November 20, 2024 2:00 am
North Strabane Township Supervisors gave residents a first look at the budget for 2025 at their agenda meeting. The spending plan comes in at $22,921,777. It is a balanced budget and no tax increase is proposed for 2025. Other business that supervisors could consider is an ordinance that will amend their zoning ordinance to create a definition and regulations for a personal warehouse as a conditional use within the C-1 zoning district. Supervisors will vote to approve the preliminary budget at their meeting on November 26th.
November 19, 2024 5:22 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — New York prosecutors oppose any effort to dismiss Trump’s hush money conviction, but say they are open to delaying sentencing until after his second term. In a court filing Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it’s OK with a sentencing delay while Trump’s lawyers try to get the case tossed out in light of his election. Judge Juan M. Merchan has not set a timetable for his decision. Trump’s spokesperson characterized prosecutors Tuesday filing as “a total and definitive victory” for Trump. Sentencing had been scheduled for Nov. 26. The president-elect was convicted in May of falsifying business records. The case alleges that he covered up a scheme to influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to squelch a story of extramarital sex. Trump denies the allegations.
November 19, 2024 5:19 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he is nominating Dr. Mehmet Oz, who hosted a long-running television talk show, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz, who ran a failed bid to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate, has been an outspoken supporter of Trump and in recent days expressed support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for the nation’s top health agency, Health and Human Services. Trump has also chosen Howard Lutnick, head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, as his nominee for commerce secretary. Lutnick is a co-chair of Trump’s transition operation helping to find the team that will work in the next administration. (Photo: AP)
November 19, 2024 5:01 am
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Big money to respond to climate change is key to the United Nations talks underway in Azerbaijan. Vulnerable nations say they need as much as $1.3 trillion to cope with damage they’ve already suffered from extreme weather events, and to adapt to a warming planet. Wealthy nations haven’t been willing to pay nearly that much. One way they’re talking about bridging the big gap is through leverage. That’s the idea that big loans can attract other loans and private spending to add up quickly. Smaller nations are skeptical of any plan that depends heavily on loans. Many are already drowning in debt and fear even more.
November 19, 2024 4:57 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President-elect Donald Trump says he wants Sean Duffy to be his transportation secretary. That would position Duffy to oversee a complex system of pipelines, railroads, cars, trucks, airlines and mass transit systems, as well as funding for highways. Duffy is a former member of Congress who represented a Wisconsin district for nine years. He is the second Fox-affiliated TV host to be tapped by Trump. Duffy also has a background in reality TV, like Trump. A former contestant on MTV’s “Road Rules,” Duffy was featured on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997. He met his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, during “Road Rules: All Stars” in 1998. Duffy later was a co-host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business until he left the network Monday. He declined to run for governor of Wisconsin in 2022, despite Trump’s urging, and is a former lumberjack athlete. (Photo: AP)
November 19, 2024 4:56 am
BEIRUT (AP) — A United States envoy has returned to Beirut, where Lebanese officials have tentatively welcomed a proposal for an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire. There was no such optimism in the Gaza Strip, where the mass looting of aid trucks by armed men worsened an already severe food crisis. Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s pointman on Israel and Lebanon, arrived Tuesday as Hezbollah’s allies in the Lebanese government said it had responded positively to the proposal. It’s unclear how close they are to clinching an agreement, which would likely entail both the militants and Israeli ground forces withdrawing from a U.N. buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Israel has requested a stronger enforcement mechanism.
November 19, 2024 4:55 am
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a revised nuclear doctrine declaring that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country. Putin’s endorsement of the new nuclear deterrent policy on Tuesday comes on the 1,000th day after he sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. It follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles. The signing of the doctrine, which says that any massive aerial attack on Russia could trigger a nuclear response, reflects Putin’s readiness to threaten use of the country’s nuclear arsenal to force the West to back down as Moscow presses a slow-moving offensive in Ukraine.
November 19, 2024 4:52 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The recount underway in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race marks the end of a chaotic post-election period that has become the latest example of how disputed election rules can expose weak points in a core function of American democracy. The ballot-counting process in the race has become a spectacle of hours-long election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials are openly flouting the law. A big part of the dispute has centered around the envelopes that contain mail ballots, including whether they should be counted if the voter didn’t write the correct date. It evokes the battles that have erupted in other states over the role of local election boards in certifying results.
November 19, 2024 4:46 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court is weighing in on a flashpoint amid ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick. On Monday, it ordered counties not to count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope. It’s a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount. The Associated Press called the race for McCormick, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead. As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted.
November 19, 2024 2:45 am
Attorney General Michelle Henry announced that a former certified registered nurse practitioner from western Pennsylvania was sentenced Thursday to 11.5 to 23 months followed by 8 years of probation for writing fraudulent prescriptions for thousands of Oxycodone pills. Joseph G. Sapp, 56, previously pleaded guilty to possession with intent to deliver, Medicaid fraud, forgery, and related charges. A collaborative investigation led by the Office of Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigations and Medicaid Fraud Control Unit revealed Sapp wrote prescriptions to be filled at pharmacies in Westmoreland, Allegheny, Fayette, and Washington counties. Sapp wrote the prescriptions for himself and for others, in exchange for money, defrauding Medicaid in the process. “The defendant had a professional responsibility to prescribe medications for people in need, and instead, betrayed his duties by contributing to the opioid epidemic and expanding access to Oxycodone,” Attorney General Henry said. “Those who administer these powerful medications will be held to the highest standard, and remain accountable when they break the law.” During an interview, Sapp admitted to using Medicaid fraudulently to submit false claims for prescriptions that were not medically necessary, and to illegally picking up prescriptions under false identities. He also confessed to forging prescriptions and providing drugs to others in exchange for money.
