May 9, 2024 8:23 am
A Freedom Transit bus crashed Thursday morning in Charleroi. Washington County 9-1-1 dispatchers say two people were transported by ambulance to Penn Highlands Mon Valley Hospital. We have no word on the severity of their injuries. It happened just before 7 a.m. at 11th Street and upper Crest Avenue. Charleroi Fire Chief Robert Whiten says there were ten people on the bus at the time. He says the bus was coming down Upper Crest Avenue and crossing 11th Street when it went into the storage building. He says the bus may have lost its brakes or something was happening on the bus that caused the crash. Freedom Transit Executive Director Sheila Gombita tells WJPA News that the bus was “operated by Freedom Transit’s contractor Tri County Access.” She says an investigation into the accident is ongoing.
May 9, 2024 4:52 am
Cecil Township Supervisors heard another three hours of public comment from a standing room only crowd on Wednesday on updates to their oil and gas ordinance. The first meeting held in April brought some of the suggestions made by residents to life. Supervisors worked hard studying ordinances from many areas looking to find something that added restrictions but also held up to court challenges from the fracking industry. The ordinance that they are currently patterning their ordinance around comes from Murrysville, PA. Supervisor Cindy Fisher stated that their ordinance has had court challenges and survived. Supervisors are working with engineers to develop a map that uses increasingly restrictive criteria to determine the best places available for future drilling. Supervisors also hired an engineer to study the noise and vibration aspects of the ordinance. The engineer stated that fracking operations were in compliance with the current ordinance but used loopholes to get around low frequency noise and vibrations not typically heard in the normal range of hearing. He offered suggestions to tighten up those loopholes. Public comment centered on having supervisors implement stricter air, water and noise protections. Over two dozen residents spoke and the vast majority spoke of well pad set back limits of 2500 feet or more from any adjacent structures. An attorney speaking on behalf of the Traditions of America development suggested that supervisors look less to current surface operations like well pads and consider sub surface operations that will accomplish the same goal. In other words, instead of granting new well pad applications, have existing operations drill under areas from existing pads to gain the natural gas desired. Questions of conflict of interest arose. Supervisor Darlene Barni admitted to the group that she has gas leases on land she owns. Residents did not fault her for taking advantage of the opportunity that those leases provide. They demanded that she recuse herself from any vote taken regarding oil and gas regulation. Supervisor Chairman Tom Casciola said that the question would be forwarded to an ethics commission. Another public hearing is scheduled for June 5.
May 9, 2024 4:58 am
SOUTH STRABANE TOWNSHIP, Pa. — (WPXI) – A man was arrested after an alleged domestic abuse kidnapping attempted at the Giant Eagle in South Strabane Township. Witnesses say the incident happened just before 10 a.m. on Monday when they heard a woman screaming for help. Police say Jose Zaragoza was attempting to pull a woman from her vehicle, choking her and covering her nose and mouth with his hands. Witnesses told police he approached her vehicle with a roll of duct tape in his hands, which was later seen on top of the vehicle. Multiple people tried to intervene and Zaragoza ran away. He was caught at a traffic stop hours later and arrested. “It’s not just scary to be in an abusive situation, it’s scary to intervene,” said Alexandra Brooks, of the Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern PA, which offers free services to women. Brooks gave advice to anyone who finds themself a bystander to a domestic violence situation. “Being direct is anything from stepping in saying, ‘Is everything okay here?’ A lot of time that at least gets the violence to deescalate, and the person who is being violent a lot of times will leave the situation.”
May 8, 2024 2:35 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives is backing legislation aimed at regulating how online social media platforms interact with children. However, its provisions are similar to those in state laws being blocked in federal courts. The bill passed Wednesday nearly along party lines, 105-95, with most Democrats for it and most Republicans against it. It faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled state Senate, and the nation’s highest court may soon decide whether such state-level provisions can be enforced. The bill would require social media platforms to respond to reports of threats or bullying, require users under 18 to get parental consent and bar the platforms from “data mining” users under 18.
May 9, 2024 2:51 am
(WPXI) – A confirmed tornado touched down in Allegheny County during Wednesday’s early morning storms. The tornado hit near the Marriott at Pittsburgh International Airport in Findlay Township. The National Weather Service said most of the damage was along Aten Road. The tornado was rated an EF1 and had 105 miles per hour winds that snapped at least fifteen to twenty trees as the tornado traveled .2 miles southeast. A nearby building lost a metal roof;, with a portion of it falling on the interstate.. This is the third confirmed tornado that hit the Pittsburgh area during Wednesday’s morning storm system. A tornado that was at least an EF2 hit Hancock County in West Virginia and an EF1 tornado touched down in Ligonier Township in Westmoreland County. Washington County 911 tells WJPA there were no weather-related damages or injuries in the county. (Photo: Hancock County, W.Va.)
May 9, 2024 12:36 pm
Reggie is a four and a half-year-old Springer Spaniel owned by Judy and Dennis Krivacek of North Strabane Township and on Sunday night he made his television debut on American’s Funniest Home Videos. Dennis Krivacek tells WJPA that Reggie became infatuated with a stair-lift chair in their home and would jump on the seat, waiting for a ride up or down the stairs. Dennis says it was cute and funny at first, as they would send him up or down the stairs for a ride, but after a while, he said it was like, enough is enough, no more rides. That wasn’t good enough for Reggie, who wanted more rides. So, somehow, Reggie learned how to operate the stair-life chair himself and they found him putting the seat down on the device and using his nose to get it moving – so he can enjoy a ride whenever he feels like it. Dennis tells us his wife suggested filming Reggie’s rides and sending it to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Much to their surprise, he says they were contacted and told that Reggie had made it into the final three and was in line to win several thousand dollars, depending on the final outcome. The episode – called, “Doggy Don’t Do Stairs,” was the grand prize winner and Reggie (the Krivacek’s) won the grand prize of twenty-thousand-dollars.
May 9, 2024 5:05 am
COLUMBIA, Tenn. (AP) — Severe storms are tearing through the southeast U.S., spawning damaging tornadoes, producing massive hail, and killing two people in Tennessee and another in North Carolina. Forecasters warn that the wave of storms could march toward parts of the South early Thursday. The storms continue an outbreak of torrential rain and tornadoes that have cut across the country this week, from the Plains to the Midwest and now the southeastern U.S. Officials say at least four people have died in storms since Monday.
May 9, 2024 5:08 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says he will not supply offensive weapons that Israel can use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there. Biden, in an interview Wednesday with CNN, says the U.S. is still committed to Israel’s defense and will supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms. But he says that if Israel goes into Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used.” The interview marked Biden’s toughest public comments yet about the potential Israeli military operation and followed his decision to pause a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel last week.
May 9, 2024 5:07 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has tried and failed to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson. But the resounding rejection by Democrats and Republicans does not end the political chaos. One of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, Greene stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest, and Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise quickly countered by calling for a vote to table Greene’s motion. An overwhelming majority, 359-43, kept Johnson in his job, for now. But any lawmaker can try to remove the speaker, and Trump said at some point there “may very well be” another bid to do so.
May 8, 2024 5:08 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Stormy Daniels will return to the witness stand in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, as the defense tries to undermine the credibility of the porn actor’s salacious testimony about an alleged sexual encounter and the money she got to keep quiet. Defense attorneys will get another chance on Thursday to question Daniels, whose account is central to the prosecutors’ case accusing Trump of scheming to illegally influence the 2016 presidential campaign by burying unflattering stories. Trump looked on in the courtroom as Daniels for hours on Tuesday described an unexpected sexual encounter she says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. Trump denies they ever had sex.
