May 6, 2024 4:59 am
NORTH BRADDOCK, Pa. — A man is dead after a shooting in North Braddock. Allegheny County dispatchers say police were called to the 500 block of Stokes Avenue at 8:15 p.m. on Sunday. When police arrived they found a man who had been shot dead inside a house. He was later identified as Derek Polite, 56, by the medical examiner’s office. Police say witnesses told them that Bernard Junior Polite lives in the house with a family member. Polite was taken into custody Sunday afternoon after state police say he tried to shoot a pastor during a sermon in North Braddock. Anyone with information is asked to call the Allegheny County Tip Line at 1-833-ALL-TIPS.
May 7, 2024 5:06 am
CAIRO (AP) — An Israeli tank brigade has seized control of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, moving ahead with an offensive in the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge. The development on Tuesday comes after hours of whiplash in the Israel-Hamas war. The militant group on Monday said it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari mediated cease-fire proposal. Israel, meanwhile, insisted the deal did not meet its core demands. The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
May 7, 2024 5:08 am
NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology retook a barricaded encampment, those at the Rhode Island School of Design occupied a building, and Columbia University said its university-wide commencement ceremony will not happen following weeks of protests. At MIT, protesters were given an afternoon deadline in which to voluntarily leave the protest site or face suspension. An MIT spokesperson said many left but protesters breached fencing after the arrival of demonstrators from outside the university. Officials at Columbia said it will focus on smaller school-level graduation ceremonies. Campus protests have sprung up across the U.S. in recent weeks stemming from the conflict that started when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel in October.
May 7, 2024 1:15 pm
(AP) – TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance are suing the U.S. federal government over a law that would ban the popular video-sharing app unless it’s sold to another company. The lawsuit filed on Tuesday may be setting up what could be a protracted legal fight over its future in the United States. The popular social video company alleged the law, which President Joe Biden signed as part of a larger $95 billion foreign aid package, is so “obviously unconstitutional” that the sponsors of The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act are trying to portray the law not as a ban, but as a regulation of TikTok’s ownership. (Photo: AP)
May 6, 2024 5:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden share a bond that was forged through a hard-fought Democratic presidential primary in 2020 and fortified through policy achievements over the last three years. Now, Sanders will be Biden’s most powerful emissary to progressives and to younger voters this election year. The 82-year-old senator is determined to do what he can to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the Oval Office even as he bluntly warns that the crisis in Gaza could be Biden’s “Vietnam” and criticizes the president for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
May 7, 2024 5:07 am
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Powerful storms have erupted in the central United States, bringing tornadoes to rural Oklahoma and large hail in parts of Kansas. Forecasters are warning that the storms could stretch into the early hours of Tuesday. Tornadoes were spotted skirting northern Oklahoma, including one that caused extensive damage north of Tulsa in the small town of Barnsdall. The Osage County sheriff says there are no confirmed deaths. Homes were destroyed and trees and power lines were toppled by the tornado. In Kansas, some areas were pelted by apple-sized hail. The severe weather follows heavy rainfall in Houston, where floodwaters began to recede Monday.
May 7, 2024 5:04 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – At a time when new COVID-19 infections are considered low, new variations, called FLiRT variants are now starting to spread. Doctor Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert with Johns Hopkins, who is based out of Pittsburgh, says they evolved from Omicron. “The most recent variants that are becoming dominant are called FLiRT variants. The word FLiRT has to do with technical ways of describing the mutations that are present in it,” Adalja explained. “The virus that causes COVID-19 is going to continue to mutate in perpetuity, forever. That’s what viruses do, so there’s always going to be a new variant, whether that’s today, tomorrow, thirty years from now, there’s always going to be one variant rising, one variant falling, that’s how evolution occurs,” Adalja said. According to Adalja, FLiRT will have similar symptoms to all previous versions of COVID-19 — cough, cold-like-symptoms, muscle aches and pains, fevers, headaches, and sore throat — but most people will have some level of protection from vaccines and/or previous infections. For the general public, Adalja says new variants do not pose too much concern but he warns high-risk people need to take them very seriously. When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, Adalja says they will continue to evolve to handle new strains of the virus. He says talks are happening now about what should be included in the next version of the vaccine.
May 6, 2024 2:56 pm
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Hamas militant group says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal to halt the seven-month war with Israel. An official familiar with Israeli thinking says Israeli officials are examining the cease-fire proposal approved by Hamas. But the official warns that the plan “is not the framework Israel proposed.” It remained uncertain whether a deal would be sealed to bring a halt to the war and avert an Israeli attack on Rafah. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signaling that an attack was imminent.
May 6, 2024 5:10 am
NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial has fined him $1,000 for violating his gag order and has sternly warned the former president that additional violation could result in jail time. The fine Monday marks the second sanction for Trump for inflammatory comments about witnesses since the start of the trial last month. Trump was fined $9,000 last week for nine violations. Judge Juan M. Merchan warned Monday that additional gag order violations could potentially result in jail time, though he said that was “the last thing” he wants to do. Trump denies any wrongdoing related to the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
May 6, 2024 4:59 am
NORTH BRADDOCK, Pa. — (WPXI) – A man is facing charges after Pennsylvania State Police say he tried to shoot a pastor who was giving a sermon at a church in North Braddock. Video taken at the church shows Pastor Glenn Germany preaching at the Jesus’ Dwelling Place Church on Lobinger Avenue at 1:09 p.m. on Sunday. A man then walks up and points a handgun directly at him. Police say the man tried to fire the gun but it did not go off. Pennsylvania State Police say the gunman was Bernard Junior Polite, 26, from Braddock. The small congregation had about 25 parishioners, including Germany’s daughter, when police say Polite walked from the back of the church to the front pew. The pastor quickly dives behind the pulpit and the gunman walks after him. That’s when Deacon Clarence McCallister, 63, quickly took Polite, who was still holding the gun, to the ground. McCallister was behind the camera taping the service a few feet away. Polite reportedly told the pastor voices in his head told him to shoot him. Polite is facing attempted homicide charges. County Police confirmed to Channel 11 that Polite lived with his uncle less than half a mile away from the church on Stokes Avenue. Detectives were called to the home at 8:15 p.m. for the shooting death of a man. The identity of that man hs not been released at this time.
