March 24, 2025 5:06 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mass layoffs and resignations at the federal government are prompting concerns that a disgruntled former employee may seek to sell secrets to a foreign power. National security experts say that while the overwhelming majority of federal workers are conscientious patriots who would never sell out their country, it would only take one or two informants to cause a significant national security crisis. Counterespionage is a concern even when the federal workforce is stable. But in recent weeks President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have slashed thousands of jobs. National security and intelligence experts say Russia, China and other adversaries will seek to take advantage of the opportunity.
March 24, 2025 5:46 pm
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Lawyers hired by the Venezuelan government have filed a legal action in El Salvador aimed at freeing 238 Venezuelans deported by the United States. They are being held in a Salvadoran maximum-security prison. Jaime Ortega, who says he represents 30 of the imprisoned Venezuelans, says they filed the habeas corpus petition with the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber. He said that by extension they requested that it be applied to all Venezuelans detained in El Salvador. The maneuver essentially compels the government to prove someone’s detention was justified. The Salvadoran government has been silent about the status of the Venezuelan prisoners.
March 24, 2025 2:28 am
SOUTH STRABANE, Pa. — Power has been restored to all customers in South Strabane Township after a crash early Sunday morning. South Strabane Fire Chief Jordan Cramer says it happened around 3 a.m. when a vehicle crashed into a utility pole, an unoccupied vehicle and the porch of a home. The damaged power lines also caused a minor fire in a tree. West Penn Power worked to restore service to some 40 customers along Locust Avenue and Country Club Road. Cramer said the home was to be evaluated on Sunday, but he doesn’t believe there’s any major structural damage. The occupants of the home were unharmed in the crash. An investigation into the crash continues. A short time after the crash, crews were called to the 16-hundred block of North Main Street were a vehicle struck a home. No significant injuries were reported in that crash. (PHOTO; South Stabane Fire Department Facebook)
March 24, 2025 4:46 am
SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa. — (WPXI) – A teen is dead after a motorcycle crash in Fayette County. The crash happened on Jim Mountain Road at 4:17 p.m. on Sunday. Coroner Dr. Bob Barker said Nicholas Herman, 17, of Springfield Township, was pronounced dead at the scene. The motorcycle was the only vehicle involved in the crash.
March 24, 2025 5:01 am
An animal shelter is warning the Westmoreland County community about a scam. Ninth Life Rescue Center said a scammer is sending requests for payment using their name. The shelter shared a photo of Venmo requests coming from an account reading “NinthLife RescueCenter.” They said this was not from them. The scam comes when the shelter is in need of help after rescuing 40 cats from a house in Ligonier. Ninth Life Rescue Center said it will never ask for money directly or target people for payments. “It’s a total shame that people are using our rescue animals to try to scam potential donors into sending them money,” Ninth Life Animal Rescue said.
March 24, 2025 5:02 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. and Russian negotiators are holding talks in Saudi Arabia on a partial ceasefire in Ukraine, hours after a round of negotiations between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations. The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies said the negotiations began in Riyadh Monday. The separate meetings are set to discuss details of a pause in long-range attacks against energy facilities and civilian infrastructure and a halt on attacks in the Black Sea to ensure safe commercial shipping. Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders, but the parties have offered different views of what targets would be off-limits to attack.
March 24, 2025 5:49 pm
(AP) – Firefighters in North and South Carolina are battling multiple wind-driven wildfires. The fires are burning in rugged terrain that is complicating efforts to contain them. North Carolina State University forestry professor Robert Scheller says millions of trees knocked down by Hurricane Helene last fall have dried out and are helping fuel the blazes. Burn bans remain in effect in both Carolinas and mandatory evacuations continue in parts of North Carolina’s Polk County. Hundreds of miles north in New Jersey, the state Forest Fire Service says a wildfire in the Pinelands region was 100% contained on Monday morning.
March 23, 2025 5:05 am
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo has been reinstated as the acting president as the Constitutional Court overturned his impeachment. Han, South Korea’s No. 2 official, had become acting leader after President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached over his imposition of martial law in December. Han thanked the court after Monday’s ruling and said he would attend to the most urgent matters. He also called for national unity. The court ruled 7-1 that Parliament didn’t have a a quorum to pass the impeachment motion, that the accusations against Han weren’t against the law or that they weren’t serious enough to remove him from office. Many experts said the ruling on Han didn’t signal how the court would rule on Yoon’s impeachment.
March 23, 2025 7:13 am
The Taliban say the U.S. has lifted bounties on three senior Taliban figures, including the interior minister who also heads a powerful network blamed for bloody attacks against Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government. Sirajuddin Haqqani no longer appears on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website, although the FBI website on Sunday still featured a wanted poster for him. Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the U.S. government had revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani. Other Taliban officials hailed the developments as the beginning of normalization.
March 23, 2025 7:10 am
Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation in one North Carolina county as emergency crews fought separate fires in an area of the state still recovering from Hurricane Helene, while South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety issued a mandatory evacuation Saturday night for parts of Polk County in western North Carolina. The agency warns residents could be trapped, injured, or killed if they remain in the impacted areas. In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster has declared a state of emergency as part of an effort to stop a blaze in Pickens County called the Table Rock Fire that started Friday in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
