August 28, 2024 5:07 am
JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian officials say Israel is carrying out raids across the occupied West Bank, where its forces killed at least nine Palestinians and sealed off the volatile city of Jenin. Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there. Over 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began over 10 months ago. That’s according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have died during such raids, which often trigger gunbattles with militants. Israel says the operations are required to dismantle Hamas and other militant groups and to prevent attacks on Israelis.
August 28, 2024 5:03 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior FBI official says the gunman in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump searched online for events of both Trump and President Joe Biden and saw the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity.” Kevin Rojek is the FBI’s top agent in Pittsburgh. He said Wednesday that Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot at Trump before being killed by the Secret Service at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, did extensive research for an attack before the shooting and had looked at any number of events or targets. FBI officials say they had yet to uncover a motive despite conducting nearly 1,000 interviews in their investigation.
August 28, 2024 5:00 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — A defense official says Donald Trump’s campaign was warned about not taking photographs before an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery during a wreath-laying ceremony earlier this week to honor service members killed in the Afghanistan War withdrawal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter concerning Monday’s events. It came a day after NPR reported that two Trump campaign staff members “verbally abused and pushed” aside a cemetery official who tried to stop them from filming and photographing in Section 60, the burial site for military personnel killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump’s campaign contends he was granted access to a photographer and disputes a physical altercation.
August 28, 2024 4:59 am
North Strabane Township Supervisors approved a contract to pave McDowell Lane. According to Township Manager Andrew Walz, this is a project that they have been working on for several years. The contract, awarded to Morgan Excavating, comes in at $958,931.50 and will be paid from township funds. There are amenities that will be included that include walking paths to take advantage of Canonsburg Lake as a recreational destination. Those non-traffic upgrades will be paid for by grants from the Pennsylvania Local Share Account and from the Pennsylvania Multimodal Transportation Fund. The project is expected to be completed this year. In other business, supervisors authorized a takeover agreement with Berkley Insurance, to restart construction on the public safety building. In July, the previous contractor, Spartan Construction Services, pulled out of the general contractor and plumbing agreement to construct the building. The bonding company will now acquire a new contractor. According to Walz, a plumbing contract has been finalized. There is no estimated date of completion.
August 28, 2024 4:58 am
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin as his campaign efforts in a handful of battleground states ramp up heading into the Labor Day turn toward the fall election. His visit to Michigan will be his third in the past seven days after he visited last week for a rally outside Detroit and on Monday spoke at the National Guard Association in Detroit. The Wisconsin visit will be his first since he attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Michigan and Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania, make up a crucial set of swing states known as the “blue wall” that Trump won in 2017 but that President Joe Biden flipped on his way to the White House in 2020.
August 28, 2024 4:56 am
City officials were back to the drawing board for the proposed sale of the Crossroads Parking Garage on North Franklin Street in Washington. City leaders and representatives from the Washington School Board met Tuesday evening to figure out next steps in the ongoing proposed sale of the structure to the county. The closed door executive session netted little public progress, but Washington Mayor – JoJo Burgess says the meeting was needed to get on the same page. Burgess says they will continue to discuss options and work to figure out what is best for the city. The building was completed in 2007 for about 14 million dollars and subsidized by grants for about half that amount.
August 28, 2024 4:53 am
PITTSBURGH — Thirty-seven Pittsburgh Public Schools without air conditioning will operate on a half-day schedule on Wednesday due to high temperatures in the forecast. A spokesperson for PPS made the announcement on Monday night. Typically on days with extreme heat, students of schools without AC learn remotely. The change this week is to “address the demands of the new school year,” according to a news release. “Ensuring the health and safety of our students and staff is our top priority,” said Dr. Wayne Walters, Superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools. “By adjusting our schedule, we’re taking proactive steps to manage the heat and maintain a conducive learning environment that supports our students and families during the back-to-school transition.”
August 28, 2024 2:50 am
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt met Wednesday with the staff and director of the Washington County Department of Elections to hear “firsthand about the challenges they face when running elections.” Schmidt is planning to visit the election offices of all sixty-seven Pennsylvania counties. He also planned to visit the Greene County Elections Office as well. During his visit, Schmidt stopped in the WJPA Newsroom to talk about some current election issues such as ballot curing and the redesign of mail-in ballots. The Washington County Board of Elections was recently taken to court over its decision to not allow ballot-curing in the county in the recent primary election, and last week, Judge Brandon Neuman ordered the board of elections to notify people with deficiencies on their ballot to contact them about such errors. During the primary, 259 voters had their ballots cast aside due to minor clerical issues such as lack of signature or dates. Neuman also ruled the voters will be able to cast a provisional ballot in the event of such errors. Washington County Commission Chairman Nick Sherman, also a member of the elections board, had insisted they were following the letter of the law in not allowing errors on mail-in ballots to be fixed, however, Schmidt says there is no law that specifically states ballot-curing is not allowed. He says the decision is really up to the discretion of each county. Schmidt says many counties throughout the commonwealth allow minor mistakes to be corrected and they are not breaking any laws. Schmidt also addressed the revamp of ballots. He says the state did some research to see where the most mistakes were being made and then redesigned them in hopes of ensuring the process is more easily understood. Schmidt says his trips to county elections departments are not only to learn of the local challenges faced but to hear what the directors and staff feel the state department can do to solve those challenges and to help the process go smoothly and fairly. (Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania)
August 28, 2024 2:20 am
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Pittsburgh next week. Biden and Harris will make a stop in the Steel City on Sept. 2, Labor Day, for Harris’ campaign, according to the White House. An exact location or time has not yet been announced.
August 27, 2024 5:16 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump after it was dismissed by a judge last month. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon threw out the case, one of four prosecutions of Trump, after concluding that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional. Smith’s team then appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal is the latest salvo in a prosecution that many legal experts consider a straightforward criminal case but has been derailed by delays, months of hearings before Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge, and ultimately a dismissal order that brought the proceedings to at least a temporary halt. (Photo: AP)
