May 2, 2022 4:18 am
NEW YORK (AP) – A lawyer for an NFL coach who sued the league over alleged racist hiring practices has told a judge that arbitration is the wrong way to resolve the lawsuit in part because NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would be the arbitrator. Attorney Douglas Wigdor said in Manhattan federal court Monday that the league wanted to force “behind closed doors” the claims of Brian Flores and two other Black coaches. It was the first court hearing for a lawsuit Flores filed in February, when he claimed the league was “rife with racism” even as the NFL publicly condemns it. NFL attorney Loretta Lynch said all claims belong in arbitration. Flores was fired in January as head coach by the Miami Dolphins but has since been hired as assistant for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
May 2, 2022 4:14 am
SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) – A suspended western Pennsylvania prosecutor has been ordered confined on house arrest as he awaits trial in separate sexual assault and assault cases. A Somerset County judge on Friday revoked bond for 36-year-old Jeffrey Thomas, the county’s elected district attorney, and ordered him to stay at a relative’s home with an electronic ankle monitor. Authorities alleged last week that Thomas was seen on a video call punching a woman as the two rode in a vehicle in May 2021. He was already facing sexual assault and other charges in an alleged attack on a woman in September. A defense attorney says he maintains that he is innocent of all charges.
May 2, 2022 4:12 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – Runners, organizers, and spectators braved some soggy weather on Sunday morning to celebrate the return of the Pittsburgh Marathon. “[The runners] have trained in tougher weather this year. They’ve trained in snow and sleet and hail,” said race director Troy Schooley. “This has got to be the hardest race I’ve done and from 5Ks to marathons, I’ve probably done a hundred,” added Thomas Rule. Rule is a runner from Johnson City, Tennessee, who completed the half marathon in what was his first visit to Pittsburgh. “I loved it,” he said. “[There was] a lot of enthusiasm, the people were great cheering you on, there was bands, some of the signs that I saw were hilarious. It was just a lot of fun.” Dominican runner Alvaro Abreu took home the crown, completing the full 26.2-mile marathon in 2 hours and 16 minutes. He was among an accomplished field of competitors. “Former Boston Marathon champion, we have three Olympians in town. It was just a great elite field,” said Schooley. This was the first in-person Pittsburgh Marathon since 2019. In total, 30,000 runners competed across all the races this weekend. They represented all 50 states and 12 countries — and brought a big boost to tourism. Next year’s race is scheduled again for the first Sunday of May.
May 2, 2022 2:54 am
Authorities say a California man has been jailed on multiple charges, including attempted homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault and burglary, following a SWAT standoff Sunday afternoon. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh tells WJPA News that 32-year-old Donte Valentino was taken into custody, following a more than two hour standoff at an apartment in the six-hundred block of American Street. Police say Valentino went to the apartment of a neighbor, Thomas Debreucq and reached through his door, grabbed him by the collar and tried multiple times, to stab him with a butcher’s knife. There was no word on what injuries, if any, Debreucq suffered.
May 2, 2022 2:19 am
The Washington Health System has addressed so-called ‘chatter’ on various social media outlets with a Facebook post of their own. The post is in regards to the Obstetrics Unit at Washington Hospital and the potential ‘abduction of an infant’. The health system says its Police Department and Risk Management Department conducted ‘a several day investigation’ and determined that no immediate threat could be found. Washington Health System is not providing any other specifics and refused any additional comment to WJPA News. The Facebook post says they want to assure the public that the unit is ‘safe and secure’. It also mentions the hospital’s ‘multi-layered, state of the art security system’ that is regularly tested to ‘ensure its effectiveness in a constantly changing environment’.
May 1, 2022 8:14 am
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese police arrested a building owner and eight other people Sunday, two days after the structure collapsed, leaving dozens trapped or missing, police and state media said. The official Xinhua News Agency said the building owner was among the arrested. Police in the city of Changsha said they had also arrested three people in charge of design and construction and five others for what they said was a false safety assessment for a guest house on the fourth to sixth floors. A woman was rescued, taken to a hospital and is in stable condition, state broadcaster CCTV said Sunday, bringing the total rescued to six. About 20 remained trapped, and another 39 had not been accounted for as of late Saturday. In photos the building appeared to have pancaked down to about the second floor, leaving rubble strewn on the sidewalk. It had stood in a row of buildings about six stories tall in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. Xinhua said the building had eight floors, including a restaurant on the second floor, a cafe on the third floor and residences on the top two floors. Other media reports said it was a six-story building. Tenants had made structural modifications to the building, but the cause of the collapse remained under investigation, Xinhua said.
May 1, 2022 8:13 am
PARIS (AP) — Citizens and trade unions in cities around Europe were taking to the streets on Sunday for May Day marches, and put out protest messages to their governments, notably in France where the holiday to honor workers was being used as a rallying cry against newly reelected President Emmanuel Macron. In Italy, after a two-year pandemic lull, an outdoor mega-concert was set for Rome with rallies and protests in cities across the country. Besides work, peace was an underlying theme with calls for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Italy’s three main labor unions were focusing their main rally in the hilltop town of Assisi, a frequent destination for peace protests. This year’s slogan is “Working for peace.” “It’s a May Day of social and civil commitment for peace and labor,” said the head of Italy’s CISL union, Daniela Fumarola. Protests were planned far and wide in Europe, including in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where students and others planned to rally in support of Ukraine as Communists, anarchists and anti-European Union groups held their own gatherings.
May 1, 2022 8:12 am
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — The United Nations labored Sunday to get civilians out of the bombed-out ruins of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, while U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed she visited Ukraine’s president to show American support for the country’s defense against Russian aggression. Russia’s high-stakes offensive in coastal southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern industrial heartland has Ukrainian forces fighting village by village and more civilians fleeing airstrikes and artillery shelling as the war draws near their doorsteps. As many as 100,000 people are believed to still be in blockaded Maripol, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath a sprawling Soviet-era steel plant that is the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians. Pelosi, who is second in line to succeed the president, is the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since the war erupted. Her Saturday trip with a congressional delegation was a sign of unflinching U.S. support and came just days after Russia launched rockets at the capital during a visit by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.
May 1, 2022 8:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House press corps’ annual gala returned Saturday night along with the roasting of Washington, the journalists who cover it and the man at the helm: President Joe Biden. The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, sidelined by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, featured Biden as the first president in six years to accept an invitation. Donald Trump shunned the event while in office. The president took the opportunity to test out his comedic chops, making light of the criticism he has faced in his 15 months in office while taking aim at his predecessor, the Republican Party and the members of the press. Biden also made light of the “Let’s Go Brandon” slogan, which has become the right’s stand-in for swearing at the president. In addition to speeches from Biden and comedian Trevor Noah, the hourslong event had taped skits from talk-show host James Corden, comedian Bill Eichner and even Biden himself.
May 1, 2022 8:07 am
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A former Pennsylvania attorney general who served jail time for leaking grand jury material and lying about it has been taken into custody on an alleged probation violation. A spokesperson for Montgomery County said Friday that 55-year-old Kathleen Kane is behind bars at the county jail. Kane was charged with drunken driving following a crash in Scranton last month. A Montgomery County judge then issued a bench warrant for her arrest. Kane was on probation from her 2016 conviction for perjury, obstruction and other counts for leaking secret investigative files to embarrass a rival prosecutor.
