January 26, 2023 9:29 am
BETHEL PARK, Pa. — (WPXI) – Bethel Park police caught a Brentwood man suspected in multiple indecent exposure cases at the South Hills Village Mall. Investigators say 29-year-old Cesar Kirschner admitted to exposing himself to female workers at Macy’s and Target. Kirschner is charged with open lewdness, harassment and indecent exposure. Police were called to Macy’s on Dec. 30 for a report of a man who had just exposed himself to a female employee. The woman told police the man asked for a dressing room and called for help, saying he needed assistance putting pants on before exposing himself. The suspect got away that day but was spotted two weeks later outside the Starbucks in the mall. Police detained him and say he confessed to a similar incident earlier that day at Target. Kirschner allegedly told police he removed his underwear and exposed himself in the dressing room. He went on to say he goes to South Hills Village Mall to meet girls. He said he felt compelled to satisfy his urges in fitting rooms throughout the mall.
January 26, 2023 8:46 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Fewer Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the labor market remains tight, even as the Federal Reserve has tried to cool the economy and inflation by raising interest rates. Applications for jobless aid in the U.S. for the week ending Jan. 21 fell by 6,000 last week to 186,000, from 192,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It’s the first time in nine months that number has been below 200,000 in back-to-back weeks. The four-week moving average of claims, which flattens out some of the week-to-week volatility, declined by 9,250 to 197,500. It’s the first time that number has been below 200,000 since May of last year.
January 26, 2023 8:45 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.9% annual pace from October through December, ending 2022 with momentum despite the pressure of high interest rates and widespread fears of a looming recession. Thursday’s estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product – the broadest gauge of economic output – decelerated last quarter from the 3.2% annual growth rate it had posted from July through September. Most economists think the economy will slow further in the current quarter and slide into at least a mild recession by midyear. The housing market, which is especially vulnerable to higher loan rates, has already been badly bruised.
January 26, 2023 6:10 am
The Canon McMillan School District is challenging a State Auditor General’s audit and claims that districts are playing a “shell game” and using state law “to their advantage so they could always raise property taxes”. Auditor General Timothy DeFoor, on Wednesday,released an audit of 12 school districts from across the Commonwealth. It evaluated whether each district appropriately used the referendum exception method to raise local taxes as well as whether they ensured that General Fund balances were properly designated. DeFoor says “some startling trends began to appear to our auditors, like moving money around to make sure the district would always meet the threshold to raise taxes” DeFoor also says “they applied for a referendum exception as a regular budgeting tool, rather than an extreme measure as the law intends”. He has outlined recommendations to the General Assembly to help school districts fund education and protect taxpayers. WJPA News reached out to the Canon McMillan School District for comment and we received a two-and-a-half page response. In it, the district first claims that it should not have even been included in such an audit. They say “on one occasion, during the 2019-20 school year, the District applied to the Department for approval of the budgeting exceptions”. However, the district says they “did not accept or utilize the approved tax increases over the Act 1 index.” The district says they were “fully in compliance with all laws and regulations” and that the report contains “inaccurate and misleading information and statements regarding the district’s budgeting process”.
January 26, 2023 4:14 am
Facebook parent Meta says it will restore former President Donald Trump’s personal account in the coming weeks, ending a two-year suspension it imposed in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The company said in a blog post Wednesday it is adding “new guardrails” to ensure there are no “repeat offenders” who violate its rules. Trump was suspended on Jan. 7, a day after the deadly 2021 insurrection. Other social media companies also kicked him off their platforms, though he was recently reinstated on Twitter after Elon Musk took over the company. Responding to the news, Trump blasted Facebook’s original decision to suspend his account and praised Truth Social, the site he created after being blocked from Twitter.
January 26, 2023 4:12 am
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (AP) – Authorities say the 72-year-old gunman who sprayed bullets into a Southern California ballroom dance hall, killing 11 people, had no known connection with the victims and investigators are still trying to determine a motive for the massacre. The Los Angeles County sheriff says Huu Can Tran fired 42 shots into the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park on Saturday night using an unregistered gun he bought in 1999. Sheriff Robert Luna says Tran used another registered handgun to kill himself in a van as police closed in. A rifle also was found at his home in Hemet. Authorities say Tran, a Hong Kong immigrant, had not been to the ballroom in at least five years and did not have any connection with his victims.
January 26, 2023 4:10 am
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians during an arrest raid in a flashpoint area of the occupied West Bank. That’s according Palestinian health officials. Thursday’s violence was one of the deadliest days in months of unrest between Israel and the Palestinians. It occurred in what Palestinian health officials described as a fierce operation in the Jenin refugee camp, a militant stronghold of the West Bank that has been a focus of nearly a year of Israeli arrest raids. Israel has been staging nightly arrest raids in the West Bank, saying they are meant to dismantle militant networks. The Palestinians see them as further entrenchment of Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for a future state.
January 26, 2023 4:09 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian officials say Russia has launched a wave of missile and self-exploding drone attacks on the country. Air raid sirens wailed nationwide Thursday morning, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or of the missiles and drones striking targets. The head of the Kyiv city administration said that 15 cruise missiles were shot down. Serhii Popko said the missiles were fired “in the direction of Kyiv” but did not clarify if the capital itself was a target. The attacks came after Germany and the United States announced Wednesday that they will send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine as the Russian invasion enters its 12th month
January 26, 2023 4:08 am
Were you a winner? The numbers for Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot have been drawn. Wednesday’s jackpot was set at an estimated $526 million, with a lump-sum cash value of $284 million, according to lottery officials. The winning numbers for Wednesday were 9, 17, 20, 38 and 40, and the Powerball was 18, according to the Powerball website. The drawing’s Power Play multiplier was 2X. One ticket in Monday’s drawing matched all five numbers but not the Powerball and was worth $1 million. The odds of a single ticket winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292 million. The next drawing is Saturday night.
January 26, 2023 4:04 am
FAYETTE COUNTY, Pa. — (WPXI) – Neighbors along Connellsville Road in Lemont Furnace dealt with wind damage Wednesday. Emergency officials tell Channel 11 they dealt with hundreds of wind-related calls within a two-hour span late Wednesday morning into the afternoon. It was so strong, it blew a carport over houses and across the street before settling in Laura Yauger’s yard. “The fire department alerted one of our neighbors and told us to message them because the carport was headed towards our house,” she said. There’s no clear timetable for when it can be returned to its rightful owner. “We tied it down as much as we could and we’re hoping that it just doesn’t go anywhere,” she said. Two houses away, it was more of the same. “My neighbor called while I was at work and told me my front screen door was ripped off and my front door was wide open,” Nicole Fisher said. The high winds knocked down a nearby power pole, taken the power with it. Electricity was restored around 8:30 p.m. It was also restored at G.C. Elementary School. A tree fell on the school’s HVAC unit causing kids to be evacuated to Laurel Highlands High School. No one was hurt. School will be back in session Thursday.
