June 1, 2022 1:14 pm
PIGEON KEY, Fla. (AP) – The U.S. Coast Guard says a woman from Illinois was killed and two young children injured when a sudden storm prompted a boat captain to cut loose their parasail in the Florida Keys. The inflated parasail then dragged the three tourists across the ocean and slammed them into a bridge. The trio was airborne and tethered to a speedboat when a sudden storm blew in. The winds were so strong that the boat below was being dragged, so the captain cut the line. They hit the water but the inflated parasail dragged them across the surface until they slammed into Old Seven Mile Bridge. A fishing guide raced to rescue them, but the 33-year-old woman from Schaumburg, Illinois was dead by the time they reached the dock. Her 10-year-old son and 9-year-old nephew were taken to hospitals.
June 1, 2022 4:21 am
UNDATED (AP) – The school district police chief who served as on-site commander during last week’s deadly shooting in Uvalde, Texas, says he’s talking daily with investigators, contradicting claims from state law enforcement that he’s stopped cooperating. Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo told CNN in a brief interview Wednesday that he’s speaking regularly with Texas Department of Public Safety investigators. Nineteen children and two teachers died in the attack at Robb Elementary School, the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade. Also Wednesday, the district announced that students and staff would not be returning to the Robb Elementary campus. Plans are still being finalized on where students will attend classes in the fall. (Photo: Linkedin)
June 1, 2022 4:19 am
SAN ISIDRO DEL PALMAR, Mexico (AP) – Mexican authorities say Hurricane Agatha caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 11 people and left 20 missing. The governor of the southern state of Oaxaca said Tuesday that rivers overflowed their banks and swept away people in homes, while other victims were buried under mud and rocks. Agatha made history as the strongest hurricane ever to come ashore in May in the eastern Pacific. It made landfall Monday afternoon on a sparsely populated stretch of small beach towns and fishing villages. It was a strong Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, but it quickly lost power while moving inland.
June 1, 2022 4:17 am
ATLANTA (AP) – The nation’s leading cybersecurity agency says electronic voting machines from a leading vendor used in at least 16 states have software vulnerabilities. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency says the vulnerabilities can leave the machines susceptible to hacking if the flaws go unaddressed. The information is contained in an advisory that CISA sent to state election officials. It is based on testing by a prominent computer scientist and expert witness in a long-running lawsuit. CISA says there’s no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results. In a statement Tuesday, Dominion defended the machines as “accurate and secure.”
June 1, 2022 4:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal judge in Washington is set to preside over an important hearing for the man who shot President Ronald Reagan more than 40 years ago. John Hinckley is set to be released from restrictive conditions he has lived under since he shot Reagan and several others in 1981. U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman said in September that he would free Hinckley from all the remaining restrictions on June 15 as long as Hinckley continued to do well. Officials say Hinckley has, and Wednesday’s hearing, which Hinckley will not attend, is not expected to alter those plans.
June 1, 2022 4:13 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration is sending Ukraine a small number of high-tech, medium-range rocket systems. Ukrainian leaders have been begging for the critical weapons as they struggle to stall Russian progress in the Donbas region. The U.S. plan tries to strike a balance between the desire to help Ukraine battle ferocious Russian artillery barrages while not providing arms that could allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia. In an essay for The New York Times, President Joe Biden says the administration is not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. The rocket systems are part of a new $700 million tranche of security assistance from the U.S.
June 1, 2022 4:10 am
North Strabane Township Supervisors approved two items that will make use of two separate grants from Harrisburg. The first grant is from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for $38,000. It will partially fund a study conducted by a consultant to develop a master plan for the North Strabane Park. One of the requirements of that grant is to appoint a committee to act as a point of contact between the consultant and the community. Supervisors approved a nine person committee that includes a township supervisor, the current parks and recreation director and two members of the parks and recreation board and five other members of the community at large. The total cost of the study is $76,000. The township received an additional $15,000 grant from the Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency making the township responsible for only $23,000 of the total bill. A second $1 million grant was received from the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program. According to Township Manager Andrew Walz that grant will be used to offset costs associated with the recently completed fire station in Eighty Four and the ongoing construction of the Public Safety building now under construction at the former fire station on Rt. 19.Walz credited State Senator Camera Bartolotta and State Representative Tim O’Neal for their work on delivering that grant.
June 1, 2022 4:09 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court is temporarily blocking the counting of some mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. The order Tuesday could affect the tight Republican Senate primary between former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz. The order from Justice Samuel Alito pauses a lower-court ruling in a lawsuit over a disputed 2021 local court election that would have allowed the counting of mail-in ballots that lack a handwritten date. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia had ruled that the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outside of return envelopes was “immaterial” and no reason to throw out such ballots.
June 1, 2022 2:53 am
The Superintendent of the Monessen School District has been charged with indecent exposure. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh says 55-year-old Dr. Leanne Spazak of Charleroi and 61-year-old Robert Cappelli of Confluence were discovered in a pickup truck parked at the Nathan Goff Apartments in North Charleroi just after eleven o’clock on the night of May 22nd. Walsh says the pair were found in a state of undress and allegedly involved in a sex act. Both Spazak and Cappelli are facing charges of indecent exposure, open lewdness and public drunkenness. Spazak has been the superintendent of Monessen City School District since 2014. WJPA’s calls to Spazak’s attorney and the solicitor for the school district have not been returned. The School Board, however, did post a statement on the district’s website which read:
The Board of School Directors has been made aware of the charges filed against Dr. Leanne Spazak, and by all accounts known at this time, Dr. Spazak has not been charged with any offense involving her presence on school grounds or in connection with the performance of her duties as superintendent. Therefore, neither the Board of School Directors nor District Administration can comment on this matter at this time. Appropriate action to address this particular situation will be considered and taken as more information becomes available and this matter proceeds through the proper legal channels.
June 1, 2022 2:19 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Eleven months after he was freed from prison, 85-year-old Bill Cosby will again be the defendant in a sexual assault proceeding. This time it’s for a civil case in California. Judy Huth, who is now 64, alleges that in 1975 when she was 16, Cosby sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion. Cosby’s lawyers say Huth was not a minor when they went to the mansion, and no assault took place. Cosby will not testify or attend the trial. The case is one of the few remaining legal actions against Cosby after his criminal conviction was thrown out, and his insurer settled many other lawsuits. (Photo: AP)
