May 14, 2024 5:04 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s defense attorneys have grilled prosecutors’ star witness in his hush money trial, portraying former attorney Michael Cohen as a media-obsessed liar who’s determined to see the former president behind bars. Cohen on Tuesday endured intense questioning by Trump’s legal team after providing pivotal testimony tying the presumptive Republican presidential nominee directly to the hush money scheme at the heart of the case. Cohen will return to the witness stand Thursday for more cross-examination before prosecutors rest their case. Trump denies any wrongdoing in the case, which he has portrayed as an effort to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign.
May 14, 2024 5:00 am
FINLEYVILLE, Pa. — (WPXI) – Joyce and Gene Abel were throwing a birthday party for their 4-year-old granddaughter, Thea, on Saturday and said they didn’t see or hear it coming. “Wind started to pick up a little bit, I was leaning on the railing, that tornado appeared right there – right in front of my face,” Abel recalled. Gene was outside with his son and said the tornado was roaring and he couldn’t hear anyone yelling for him to get inside. “I literally had to hold onto that railing, it was pulling my feet out from under me,” Abel said. “It couldn’t have lasted any more than 30 seconds.” Abel says the kids made it safely into the basement just before the roof of the home was sucked up into the air. His massive, 200-year-old oak trees were twisted and snapped. Insulation and debris are now tangled in the limbs. Dead birds were found all over his front yard. You can see the path the tornado took, tearing through town from Abel’s house to Crossroads Ministries on Walter Long Road. Nearly 100 people were inside the church during Saturday evening mass when the tornado hit. The windows of the church were blown out and the glass cut a couple of people inside as it swirled in the wind. They were not seriously hurt. The Abels don’t yet know if their home is a total loss but they’re preparing to be in a hotel for the next eight months.
May 14, 2024 2:14 am
(WPXI) – A West Virginia man was stopped with a loaded gun at Pittsburgh International Airport on Monday, May 13, a day after a Pennsylvania man who was also carrying a loaded gun was stopped. Transportation Security Administration agents found a .380 caliber handgun loaded with six bullets on Monday. The catch brings the total number of guns caught at the airport’s checkpoints to 14 so far this year. All of the guns were loaded.
May 14, 2024 1:51 am
A world-renowned forensic pathologist who served Allegheny County for two decades has died. A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts confirmed Cyril Wecht died on Monday. He was 93. During his time as the Allegheny County coroner, Wecht performed about 21,000 autopsies and reviewed or been consulted on 42,000 additional postmortem exams, according to a biography on Duquesne University. Some of the high-profile cases he was involved in include O.J. Simpson, Kurt Cobain, the Menendez Brothers, Scott Peterson, Chandra Levy, Elvis Presley and Jeffrey Epstein. He likewise investigated the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He detailed his career and personal life, including his professional pitfalls and public corruption trial, in a memoir titled “The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht: Memoirs of America’s Most Controversial Forensic Pathologist.” Wecht held faculty positions at several Pittsburgh area schools, including the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University and Carlow University.
May 13, 2024 5:28 pm
BALTIMORE (AP) — Crews have conducted a controlled demolition to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. The demolition Monday marks a major step in freeing the grounded Dali container ship. The span landed on the ship’s bow after the Dali lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s support columns shortly after leaving Baltimore on March 26. Since then, the ship has been stuck amid the wreckage and Baltimore’s busy port has been closed to most maritime traffic. The controlled demolition will allow the Dali to be refloated and restore traffic through the port.
May 13, 2024 4:25 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. airlines are trying to kill a new rule requiring them to disclose fees more quickly when consumers shop for flights. The airlines asked a federal appeals court to block the rule, which the Transportation Department issued last month. The rule requires better disclosure of fees on baggage and changing or canceling a reservation. The airlines say the new rule will confuse consumers by giving them too much information during the ticket-buying process. The Transportation Department said Monday it will defend the rule to crack down on what it calls “hidden junk fees.”
May 13, 2024 4:19 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, is directly implicating the former president in a hush money scheme. He told jurors during highly anticipated testimony Monday that his celebrity client approved hefty payouts to stifle stories about sex that he feared could be harmful to his 2016 White House campaign. Cohen quoted Trump as telling him to “handle it” after learning that a doorman had come forward with a claim that he had fathered a child out-of-wedlock. The Trump Tower doorman was paid $30,000 to keep the story “off the market” even though the claim was ultimately deemed unfounded. A similar episode occurred after Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model alleged that she and Trump had had an extramarital affair. (Photo: AP)
May 13, 2024 8:49 am
LIVONIA, Mich. (AP) — A tiny, low-priced electric vehicle called the Seagull has American automakers and politicians trembling. The car, launched last year by Chinese automaker BYD, sells for around $12,000 in China. But it drives well and is put together with craftsmanship that rivals U.S.-made electric vehicles that cost three times as much. Tariffs on imported Chinese vehicles probably will keep the Seagull away from America’s shores for now. But the rapid emergence of low-priced EVs from China could shake up the global auto industry in ways not seen since Japanese makers arrived during the oil crises of the 1970s.
May 13, 2024 8:20 am
UNIONTOWN, Pa. — (WPXI) – One person was killed and two others injured in a late-night shooting Sunday in Uniontown, following what police said was an argument that quickly escalated. The shooting took place around 10 p.m. at the Something Different restaurant along Austin Street, according to police documents. “The information that we gathered was there was an argument that started inside the restaurant,” Lt. Tom Kolencik of the Uniontown Police Department told Channel 11. “The owner told them to leave. It was three people. Witness accounts say once outside, Andrew Howard brandished a firearm and fired multiple shots.” First responders found a woman with a gunshot wound to her torso. She was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later. Police later identified her as Shaquisa Sims. Another woman and Howard arrived at a local hospital with gunshot wounds. Howard was taken to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown for further treatment, police said. The condition of the other woman was not immediately known. He is charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment and gun violations.
May 13, 2024 5:15 am
Despite pro-Palestinian protests roiling some U.S. college campuses this spring, graduation ceremonies are going off largely peacefully so far. Only about 30 students at Duke University stood up against comedian and pro-Israel entertainer Jerry Seinfeld, who received an honorary doctorate Sunday. The vast majority of the 7,000 students there took no overt action as the crowd let out a mix of cheers and boos. At Emerson College in Boston, some students took off their graduation robes and left them on stage. A few dozen pro-Palestinian protesters tried to block access to Sunday evening’s commencement for Southern California’s Pomona College.
