August 28, 2022 2:29 am
A Canonsburg man pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of conspiracy fraud, conspiracy money laundering and tax fraud on August 23. Jonathan Weston, and his personal secretary identified as VP, embezzled $6.8 million from Hillandale Farms from October of 2005 through January of 2019. They then went on to launder money from businesses that they set up using the embezzled funds. Weston owned several car washes and Katie’s Kandy stores. They used that money to purchase cars, boats and a condominium. Weston also failed to file or filed false income tax returns from 2013 through 2018 owing the IRS $1.2 million in taxes. Weston will be sentenced in January. He could face 58 years in prison and more than $2.5 million in fines. Weston’s personal secretary VP died in 2019.
August 27, 2022 9:40 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate early this year contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence. That’s according to an FBI affidavit released Friday explaining the justification for this month’s search of the property. The affidavit, even in its redacted form, offers the most detailed description to date of the government records being stored at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property long after he left the White House. It also reveals the gravity of the government’s concerns that the documents were there illegally.
August 27, 2022 9:32 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian officials say Russian rocket and artillery strikes have hit areas across the Dnieper River from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, as fears persist that fighting in the vicinity could damage the plant and cause a radiation leak. Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant soon after the war began and hold adjacent territory along the left bank of the wide river. Ukraine controls the right bank, including the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets, each of them about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the plant. Heavy firing during the night left parts of Nikopol without electricity, the governor said. Rocket strikes damaged about a dozen residences in Marhanets.
August 27, 2022 9:28 am
ATLANTA (AP) – The prosecutor investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election in Georgia is seeking information about a breach of voting equipment in a county roughly 200 miles south of her Atlanta office. The widening of the probe highlights the latest case in which unauthorized people appear to have gained access to voting equipment since the 2020 election, primarily in battleground states lost by Trump. Election experts have raised concerns that sensitive information shared online about the equipment may have exposed vulnerabilities that could be exploited by people intent on disrupting future elections.
August 27, 2022 2:15 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s highest court is reversing its own two-decade-old rule that required medical malpractice cases to be filed in the county where the alleged harm occurred. The rule change announced Thursday is a win for civil plaintiffs and the lawyers who represent them, but medical providers are worried it will cost them dearly. The decision by the state Supreme Court means the number of such lawsuits is likely to increase in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where jurors are considered to be more sympathetic to patients and more likely to produce larger verdicts.
August 27, 2022 2:12 am
CONNELLSVILLE, Pa. — (WPXI) – Investigators describe the images found on a convicted sex offender’s phone as graphic and horrific. Jason Meals was charged by Connellsville police Thursday with 1,000 counts of child pornography after he was arrested in December. Meals came into contact with police when he drove three hours from Erie and showed up at Connellsville Middle School in December and tried to pick up a 13-year-old girl. “He pretended that he was a family member of the victim and attempted to gain custody of her through the school,” police Cpl. Bryan Kendi said. School officials foiled his plan. Meals has since pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping, but when police searched his phone, they made a disturbing discovery. “Upon that analysis, we learned there was — give or take — 1,000 images of child pornography on the phone,” Kendi said. That led to Meals facing 1,000 counts of child pornography charges. In just under a year, Connellsville police have arrested two alleged predators trying to meet up with underage girls. Police are telling parents to monitor your kids on social media, limit their exposure by tracking the use of their apps, or get rid of it all together. Meals has been in jail since that December incident, and that is where he will remain indefinitely.
August 27, 2022 2:07 am
A Wheeling, West Virginia woman accused of multiple reckless endangerment, flight and aggravated assault charges waived her hearing to court on Thursday. According to the criminal complaint, Manasha Bradley, 28 destroyed several traffic delineators and collided with several vehicles as she was departing a concert from The Pavilion at Star Lake late on August, 6. The complaint states that a witness broke Bradley’s passenger window in an effort to get her to stop after hitting his car. Multiple attempts by police were ignored by Bradley. Ultimately she got her vehicle stuck in swampy grass before being arrested by police. A bottle of alcohol was found on the front seat. In what initially was going to be a hearing with 13 additional charges being added to the original 13, the district attorney and defense attorney agreed to have two felony aggravated assault charges dismissed and the 24 other charges waived to court. Bradley will be arraigned in Washington County Court on September 29th
August 26, 2022 8:49 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Inflation eased last month as energy prices tumbled, according to a report closely watched by the Federal Reserve. The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer prices were up 6.3% in July from a year earlier after posting an annual increase of 6.8% in June, biggest jump since 1982. Energy prices made the difference in July: They dropped last month after surging in June. So-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 4.6% last month from a year earlier, Commerce said. Inflation started rising sharply in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with surprising speed from the short but devastating coronavirus recession a year earlier
August 26, 2022 4:25 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to replenish his military by ordering a 13% increase in the country’s troop strength. Russian forces have suffered heavy losses in six months of war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian official says the death toll from a Russian rocket attack on a train station and the surrounding area on Ukraine’s Independence Day has risen to 25. Russia says it targeted a military train and claims to have killed more than 200 Ukrainian reservists. At the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a transmission line was damaged, and the plant was temporarily cut off from the power grid. The incident heightened fears of a nuclear disaster.
August 26, 2022 4:24 am
BORDEAUX, France (AP) – Climate change is encroaching on the prestigious vineyards of Bordeaux. The harvest that once started in mid-September is now happening earlier than ever in one of France’s most celebrated wine regions and other parts of Europe. Vintners started picking grapes in mid-August as a result of severe drought and the wine industry’s adaptation to the unpredictable effects of climate change. Paradoxically, the season of heat waves and wildfires produced excellent grapes, despite lower yields. But achieving such a harvest required creative changes in growing techniques. And producers across Europe who have seen first-hand the effects of global warming are worried about what more is to come.
