June 27, 2023 5:07 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Jurors who convicted the gunman in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history are hearing arguments on whether he should be put to death. The sentencing phase of Robert Bowers’ trial is expected to last at least four weeks. Bowers killed 11 worshippers and injured others in the 2018 attack at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. Prosecutors are trying to show there are aggravating factors that make Bowers deserving of death. The defense is trying to persuade jurors to spare his life. A defense lawyer told the jury on Monday that Bowers had psychotic, delusional and paranoid symptoms that made him unable to make appropriate decisions.
June 27, 2023 5:05 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Spurred on by train derailments, some states crisscrossed by busy freight railroads aren’t waiting for federal action to improve safety. Instead, they’re pursuing their own remedies amid questions about whether states even have that authority. The Feb. 3 derailment along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border of a train carrying toxic chemicals has prompted new legislation and revived long-stalled efforts as backers voice skepticism that the federal government can help. Legislatures in at least a dozen states have advanced measures in recent weeks. Some of the new requirements include provisions long resisted by the railroad industry. It says it’s capable of making improvements and that its growing efficiency is not compromising safety.
June 27, 2023 5:04 am
PITTSBURGH — Gas prices have dipped in western Pennsylvania ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend. According to AAA, the average price in the region is $3.642, which is down more than $1 from this time last year. Last week, the average price was $3.655. On June 27, 2022, the average price was $4.979. Here in Washington the average is a little lower at 3.60 per gallon
June 27, 2023 4:59 am
Peters Township School directors have unanimously approved a new, more-than $80 million budget. It does include a 0.3 mill tax increase but Business Manager Brad Rau say it could have been more. According to Rau , the approved increase was only half of the base index allowable by the state. He says that base index was 4.1% but the approved increase was just two-percent. The millage rate in the district will increase to 15.37 mills.
June 27, 2023 1:47 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania state court has rejected the latest Republican effort to throw out the presidential battleground state’s broad mail-in voting law. Tuesday’s decision is the latest of several refusals by a state court to invalidate Pennsylvania’s 2019 mail-in voting law. In the lawsuit filed last year, 14 Republican state lawmakers contended that two different court decisions triggered a clause in the law requiring it to be rendered void. But the Commonwealth Court unanimously found that the court decisions did not trigger the provision. Greg Teufel, the lawyer for the 14 Republican lawmakers, said he expects to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
June 26, 2023 5:19 am
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The person who killed five people and pleaded guilty in a 2022 mass shooting at a LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs has been sentenced to life in prison. Authorities said Anderson Lee Aldrich walked into Club Q just before midnight on Nov. 19 and began indiscriminately firing an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle. The attack came a year after Aldrich, who is nonbinary and uses they and them pronouns, had been arrested for threatening their grandparents and vowing to become “the next mass killer.” Charges were ultimately dropped in that case. Victims in last year’s attack called Aldrich a “monster” who hunted down LGBTQ+ patrons. Aldrich pleaded guilty during a Monday court hearing.
June 26, 2023 5:17 am
Losing significant amounts of weight may soon be as easy as taking a daily pill. New research released Sunday shows high-dose oral versions of the medication in the blockbuster drugs Ozepmic and Wegovy may work as well as the popular injections — even in hard-to-treat people with diabetes. Drugmaker Novo Nordisk said it intends to seek approval for a weight-loss pill in the U.S. later this year. The company didn’t say how much the new pills would cost or how widely available they’ll be.
June 26, 2023 5:17 am
SEATTLE (AP) — The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine that can shrink tumors and stop cancer from coming back. Among the targets for the experimental shots: melanoma, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer. The research has reached a turning point, scientists say, with many predicting new cancer vaccine approvals within five years. These are vaccines to treat existing disease but preventing cancer before it starts is another line of vaccine research. Patient volunteers say they are taking part in hopes of shrinking their tumors, but also to help future cancer patients.
June 26, 2023 5:15 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is getting ready to decide some of its biggest cases of the term. The high court has just 10 opinions left to release over the next week before the justices begin their summer break. As is typical, the last opinions to be released cover some of the most contentious issues the court has wrestled with this term including affirmative action, student loans and gay rights.
June 26, 2023 5:13 am
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made his first public appearance Monday since a mercenary uprising demanded his ouster. He was shown inspecting troops in Ukraine in images aimed at projecting a sense of order after a weekend that saw armed rebels seize a Russian city and march seemingly unopposed on the capital. Shoigu is one of three powerful Russian leaders whose diverging interests led to the Wagner Group rebellion. He is the first to be seen since then. The mutiny marked the biggest challenge to President Vladimir Putin in more than 20 years of rule. Neither Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin nor General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov has been seen or heard in public since the weekend.
