August 16, 2022 4:09 am
PETERS TOWNSHIP, Pa. — (WPXI) – The Peters Township school board voted Monday to hire three additional full-time school resource officers. Our news partners at Channel-11 News talked to parents who are glad that more police officers will be inside their children’s schools. “I have a kindergartner. That’s all you need to say,” said Kristina Rossin. Rossin has a daughter that will start kindergarten on Aug. 24. She tells Channel 11 that after a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas, she contacted the Peters Township School District. “We regularly review all of this. Those crises bring a lot of attention, but this is something that we do everyday,” said Shelly Belcher, communications coordinator for the school district. Belcher says they walked the school buildings in the district this summer with Peters Township police and found areas that needed more security. They already have two full-time school resource officers, and the school board just voted to hire three more. The district and Peters Township will share the costs for the new officers.
August 16, 2022 4:04 am
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum held a “topping off ceremony” to celebrate the last piece of structural steel being laid in place at its New Welcome and Education Center. Local officials and county officials along with invited guests were asked to sign the final beam before it was put in its final position. Scott Becker, Executive Director and CEO of the museum says the new center will be much more than just a museum. The center has a class room and multi-purpose room so groups may hold meetings or celebrations. Interactive exhibits designed by the Carnegie Science Center will be available. Becker said that visitors will be able to have their own “Menu Experience” where they will be able to choose the types of tours and rides that they would like to take. Becker stated that they hope to have the 21,000 square foot center completed in the summer of 2023.
August 15, 2022 1:39 pm
A section of Interstate 70 northbound, near the Laboratory Exit in South Strabane Township was closed for about two hours Monday morning, following a multi-vehicle accident. According to Washington County 911, the accident happened just after ten o’clock and shut down the interstate near the fly-over ramp until just after noon. There’s been no word on the cause of the crash, but we do know that it involved at least three vehicles and one person was flown by medical helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital. Another individual was taken to a hospital by ambulance. There’s been no word on the extent of their injuries.
August 15, 2022 12:41 pm
(WPXI) — The Allegheny County Courthouse was evacuated “out of an abundance of caution” after a bomb threat Monday, Allegheny County Communications Director Amie Downs told our news partners at Channel 11. Downs said an anonymous call came in Monday morning that there was a bomb inside the courthouse. About 250 people were forced to evacuate. Allegheny County Sheriff Kevin Kraus said about half a dozen bomb-sniffing K9s were brought in to inspect the building. They did not find anything and after about 90 minutes investigating, authorities deemed the building safe. Employees were then allowed to file back inside followed by community members with appointments and scheduled court appearances. Sheriffs office detectives are now trying to figure out who called in the bomb threat. When they do, they say that person will face charges.
August 15, 2022 4:45 am
Facebook failed to detect election-related misinformation in ads ahead of Brazil’s 2022 election, a new report from Global Witness has found. The group said the company’s persisting pattern of not catching material that violates its policies is “alarming.” The advertisements contained false information about the country’s upcoming election, such as promoting the wrong date for the vote and questioning the integrity of the election, including Brazil’s electronic voting system. It is the fourth such test of Facebook’s moderation system that the human rights group has conducted over the past few months – and the fourth one Facebook has flubbed.
August 15, 2022 4:43 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Americans are less concerned now about how climate change might impact them personally – and about how their personal choices affect the climate than they were three years ago. That’s according to a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows a wide majority still believe climate change is happening. Many climate scientists told the Associated Press that those shifts are concerning but not surprising given that individuals are feeling overwhelmed by a range of issues, which now include an economy plagued by inflation after more than two years of a pandemic. In addition to being outpaced by other issues, climate change or the environment are mentioned as priorities by fewer Americans now than just a few years ago, according to the poll.
August 15, 2022 4:41 am
BERWICK, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania state police say a man drove into a crowd at a fundraiser for victims of a recent deadly house fire. One person was killed and 17 others were injured Saturday. He then returned home and beat his mother to death. Police said 24-year-old Adrian Oswaldo Sura Reyes was arraigned early Sunday on two counts of criminal homicide. They allege that he told them he was upset about an argument with his mother, saw the crowd in Berwick and drove through it. Court documents don’t list an attorney for him. State police say Sura Reyes is not currently a suspect in the fire, which killed seven adults and three children.
August 15, 2022 4:23 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Actor Anne Heche has died, nine days after she was injured in a fiery car crash. She was 53. Spokeswoman Holly Baird said Sunday night that Heche “been peacefully taken off life support.” She had been on life support after suffering burns and a major brain injury when her car crashed into a home. Heche first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” in the late 1980s before becoming one of the hottest stars in Hollywood in the late 1990s. She was a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films opposite actors including Johnny Depp and Harrison Ford.
August 15, 2022 4:22 am
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney hail from their states’ most prominent Republican families. They’re also among the GOP’s sharpest critics of former President Donald Trump, and both supported his impeachment. But their political fortunes could diverge after Tuesday’s primaries. Cheney faces daunting prospects in her effort to fend off Trump-supported challenger Harriet Hageman, while Murkowski is expected to advance from her primary. Boosting Murkowski’s prospects is a nonpartisan primary in which the four candidates who get the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.
August 15, 2022 4:20 am
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – An Iranian government official is denying that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie. The remarks were the country’s first public comments on the attack. Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a briefing to journalists on Monday. He said that Iran does “not consider that anyone deserves blame and accusations except him and his supporters,” speaking of Rushdie. The spokesman also said that “nobody has right to accuse Iran in this regard.” Iran has denied carrying out other operations abroad targeting dissidents in the years since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite prosecutors and Western governments attributing such attacks back to Tehran.
