January 8, 2023 1:41 am
Joe Hardy, the legendary businessman who grew 84 Lumber into a billion-dollar home improvement empire, passed away Saturday at the age of 100. Hardy’s family said he died on his birthday. “It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Joseph A. Hardy, III. The Hardy family lost their patriarch and all-around great man,” his family said in a statement Saturday. “Joe proved that nothing is impossible by willing himself to his 100th birthday. His family is beyond proud of him for making this final accomplishment.” He began construction on the first 84 Lumber facility in North Strabane in 1957. Hardy also developed Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa in 1987.
January 7, 2023 4:28 am
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) – Police in the Virginia city of Newport News say a 6-year-old student shot and wounded a teacher at his school during an altercation inside a first-grade classroom. No students were injured during Friday’s shooting at Richneck Elementary School. Steve Drew, the city’s police chief, said this was not “a situation where someone was going around the school shooting.” One frightened parent said her “heart stopped” when she got a text message from the school saying one person was shot and another was in custody. Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its U.S. Navy shipyard.
January 7, 2023 4:26 am
A preliminary hearing for a Chartiers Township man and two Michigan men facing drug possession and delivery charges that were under seal was held Thursday. Christopher Lacks of Chartiers Township was arrested after The Pennsylvania State Police Vice and Narcotics Unit, using a confidential informant, arranged for Lacks to sell them cocaine on December 5, 2022. Earlier information to police from the confidential informant related that a large drug delivery would take place on that day. Lacks arrived to complete the transaction at the BP gas station on Racetrack Road in a leased Chevrolet Yukon with two additional unidentified men. Once the transaction was completed, other state police surveillance units followed the Yukon to Lacks’ home and then followed the Yukon once Lacks got out. The driver of the Yukon, Dmarco Marberry and his passenger Justin Gailliard, both of Michigan were stopped for traffic violations on Rt. 980 at its intersection with Rt. 50. The trooper detected a strong odor of marijuana and was granted permission to search the vehicle. The search revealed 4 cell phones, a laptop computer, marijuana blunts and a backpack containing a sum of money estimated to be in the area of $17,000. All charges for all three men were held for court. Marberry and Gailliard face felony possession and conspiracy possession charges along with a knowledge of proceeds from and illegal act charge. Lacks faces felony possession and conspiracy possession charges with a criminal use of a communications device charge. Marberry and Gailliard remain in the Washington County Jail. Lacks is free after posting bond. No formal arraignment date has been set.
January 7, 2023 4:25 am
BEIJING (AP) – China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s policies on the COVID-19 outbreak, as the country moves to further open up. The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts. The ruling Communist Party has largely relied on the medical community to justify its harsh lockdowns, quarantine measures and mass testing, almost all of which it abruptly abandoned last month, leading to a further surge in cases that have stretched medical resources to the limit. The party allows no direct criticism and imposes strict limits on free speech.
January 6, 2023 4:21 am
MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico’s capture of a son of the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman thrust Sinaloa’s state capital into a day of terror unlike any its residents had experienced since October 2019 – the last time authorities tried to capture Ovidio Guzmán. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has railed against his predecessors’ aggressive efforts to capture drug lords, but his administration bagged the high-profile cartel figure just days before hosting U.S. President Joe Biden. At least in the short term, locals were paying the price. The arrest came in a pre-dawn military operation Thursday outside Culiacan, a stronghold of the Sinaloa drug cartel in western Mexico.
January 6, 2023 4:19 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – America’s employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in December, evidence that the economy remains healthy yet also a sign that the Federal Reserve may still have to raise interest rates aggressively to slow growth and cool inflation. áThe December job growth, though a decent gain, amounted to the lowest monthly increase in two years. The unemployment rate remained fell to 3.5%, matching a 53-year low. áLast month’s job growth capped a second straight year of robust hiring. Yet the rapid hiring and the hefty pay raises that accompanied it likely contributed to a spike in prices that catapulted inflation to its highest level in 40 years.
January 6, 2023 4:19 am
(AP) – Authorities say a key piece of evidence in the case of four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in November turned out to be surveillance footage showing a white sedan driving past the victims’ home. According to a police affidavit unsealed Thursday, the car drove past three times before the stabbings early on Nov. 13 and was recorded speeding away afterwards. Investigators said they later tracked the car – and eventually, DNA evidence – to Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old graduate student in criminology at Washington State University, just across the state border. Kohberger made an initial appearance in an Idaho courtroom Thursday after being extradited from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week.
January 6, 2023 4:17 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his armed forces to observe a 36-hour unilateral cease-fire in Ukraine this weekend for the Orthodox Christmas holiday. Kyiv indicates it won’t follow suit. Putin does not appear to make his cease-fire order conditional on a Ukrainian acceptance. It isn’t clear whether hostilities would actually halt. Ukrainian officials have previously dismissed Russian peace moves as playing for time to regroup their forces. At various points in the war that started Feb. 24, Putin has ordered limited and local truces to allow evacuations of civilians or other humanitarian purposes. Thursday’s order was the first time Putin directed his troops to cease fire throughout Ukraine.
January 6, 2023 4:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House leader Kevin McCarthy is getting closer to victory in the grueling, hard-fought struggle to become speaker of the new Congress. On the fourth day of voting, 15 of the 20 conservative holdouts switched to him on the 12th and 13th rounds of balloting. But he was still short of the majority he needs to win. McCarthy told reporters as he arrived at the Capitol, “We’re going to shock you.” The new effort is taking place against the backdrop of the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Republicans voted to adjourn, resuming at 10 p.m.
January 6, 2023 4:12 am
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) – Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s agent says the player is breathing on his own and able to talk after having his breathing tube removed. It comes four days after he went into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated on the field. Hamlin also joined the team’s morning meeting by videoconference and told them “love you guys.” The 24-year-old Hamlin was listed Thursday in critical condition in the intensive care unit of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
