News category, Page 1666
Football victory a salve for devastated California town
PARADISE, Calif. — It’s hard to recognize Paradise. It is heaps of melted metal. It is scorched pine trees. It is a place where things used to be, before a fire destroyed nearly 19,000 structures and killed 86 people last November. But on Friday night, Paradise looked like home again....
Virginia marks 400th anniversary of slave ship arrival
HAMPTON, Va. — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Saturday a new state commission to review educational standards for teaching black history in the state, as officials observed the arrival of enslaved Africans to what is now Virginia 400 years ago. Northam, who noted “we are a state that for too...
WPXI’s Damany Lewis moving on to Charlotte
After almost five years in Pittsburgh, WPXI reporter Damany Lewis is headed south. The veteran news man posted the announcement on Facebook on Saturday morning stating that he will become a Monday through Friday anchor for WSOC, an ABC affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. It wasn’t immediately clear when his last...
‘Red flag laws’ offer tool for preventing some gun violence
After a white supremacist discussed plans on Facebook for a mass shooting at a synagogue, police in Washington used a new law to quickly seize his 12 firearms, long before he was convicted of any crime. But when a Tennessee father became alarmed about his son after receiving a suicidal...
Tourist may have brought measles to Southern California
SANTA ANA, Calif. — A New Zealand teenager who visited Disneyland and other Southern California tourist spots last week brought along more than just her luggage. She brought measles. Public health officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties issued a warning Friday that people may have been exposed to the...
Florida man convicted in parking lot shooting of black man
A white Florida man who told detectives he had a “pet peeve” about illegal parking in handicapped spots was convicted late Friday of manslaughter for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man outside a convenience store. Six jurors deliberated for six hours before convicting Michael Drejka for the July...
Matriarch of The Driftwood made it the place to be in Ligonier Township
Growing up with Eliza Bacher as one’s mother was a little like growing up with one’s boss. Mrs. Bacher owned and operated The Driftwood in Ligonier Township with her husband, Fred, for more than 60 years. Together, they attracted a following of faithful local customers, as well as travelers on...
Penn State’s new weather data collection system to gather localized information
When it comes to Western Pennsylvania’s recent weather woes, forewarned is forearmed. Those warnings might get a little more accurate and timely with a new Penn State project to install a series of mini weather stations across the state. The Pennsylvania Mesonet — short for mesoscale network — will eventually...
Report finds Pennsylvania entry-level teachers fare well
That first day of school may have been rough, but chances are new teachers are doing comparatively better in Pennsylvania than just about anywhere else in the nation. A study by business.org that looked at average teacher starting salaries across the nation and then calculated the pay gap between that...
Schools look to novel strategies to fill substitute teacher needs
Low pay, an economy approaching full employment and dramatic decreases in enrollment in teacher education programs at colleges have produced something few ever thought they’d see in Pennsylvania: a teacher shortage, specifically a shortage of substitute teachers. Mark DiRocco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, said the...
More than 40 wild burros slaughtered in the Southern California desert
LOS ANGELES — More than 40 wild burros have been found shot and killed along the Interstate 15 near the California-Nevada border, federal officials said on Friday, and they’ve offered a reward of up to $18,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. It is one...
Former Houston police officer charged with murder over raid
HOUSTON — A former Houston police officer has been charged with murder in connection with the deadly January drug raid of a home that killed a couple who lived there and injured five officers, prosecutors announced Friday. Former Officer Gerald Goines, who was shot in the ensuing gunfight during the...
Kansas hiking group overwhelmed in Arizona heat
APACHE JUNCTION, Ariz. — A group of fitness coordinators from Kansas became overwhelmed while climbing a mountain trail near metro Phoenix in sweltering temperatures and two members had to be airlifted to safety, authorities said Friday. The two who were flown by helicopter Thursday off the trail near Apache Junction...
Lawyer calls ex-Peruvian president’s US detention ‘inhumane’
SAN FRANCISCO — Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo has been kept in solitary confinement and only allowed to go outdoors once in the month he has been in U.S. custody while fighting extradition to his native country, his defense attorney said. Federal Public Defender Graham Archer argued in court papers...
Flax Scutching Festival attracts new generation of families
Carrie Hood will be at the Flax Scutching Festival again this year, just like she has been since she was 6 years old. Hood grew up at this event selling hayride tickets and watching generations before her commit to making it a fun and educational experience. And she wants to...
Putin orders Russia to respond after U.S. missile test
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military on Friday to work out a quid pro quo response after the test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty. In Sunday’s test, a modified ground-launched version of a U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its...
Former Tic Toc waitress from Jeannette loved travel, family
Joan Silvis worked as a waitress in the Tic Toc Restaurant in Kaufmann’s at the Westmoreland Mall from the day it opened until the day it closed, and when she was working, she was all business. That is, until the day her longtime friend, Jackie Chandler of Greensburg, sent a...
Pennsylvania House wins appeal in atheist prayer-policy suit
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal appeals court is reversing a lower court decision and ruling that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ policy barring atheists from delivering invocations doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution. Friday’s decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the House’s policy of limiting prayers at...
Supreme Court: Ginsburg treated for tumor on pancreas
WASHINGTON — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has completed radiation therapy for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas and there is no evidence of the disease remaining, the Supreme Court said Friday. It is the fourth time that the 86-year-old justice has announced that she has been treated for cancer and...
Boy takes mom’s car for German autobahn joyride — again
An 8-year-old boy got a stern talking-to earlier this week when he took his mom’s Volkswagen for a joyride on the German autobahn, but after pulling the stunt again — hitting speeds of 112 m.p.h. — he’s been put into psychological counselling. Dortmund police said Friday the grade-schooler stole the...
Illinois patient’s death may be first in U.S. tied to vaping
Illinois health officials said Friday that a patient who contracted a serious lung disease after vaping has died, which could make it the first death in the United States linked to the smoking alternative that has become popular with teens and young adults. The Illinois Department of Public Health said...
Billionaire David Koch dies at age 79
WASHINGTON — David H. Koch, executive vice president of KochIndustries Inc. and a long-time philanthropist, has died at age 79. His older brother, Charles, announced the death on Friday, saying, “It is with a heavy heart that I now must inform you of David’s death.” David Koch, a billionaire who...
West Virginia man accused of aiming airsoft gun at officer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Police say a West Virginia man who pointed a realistic-looking airsoft gun at a police officer has been charged with threatening a terroristic act. The Charleston Police Department says Charles Norman Miller was arrested Thursday after officers received a report of an armed man outside a house...
Lawsuit: Ex-Citadel staffer drugged, sexually abused cadet
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A lawsuit has accused a former Citadel instructor of entrapping a student at the South Carolina school in “quid pro quo” sexual abuse. The State newspaper reports Lt. Col. Kenneth Boes was accused Wednesday in federal court of sexually abusing a cadet over a six-month span. The...
Moscow court extends arrest for American charged with spying
MOSCOW — A Moscow court has ruled to keep an American man suspected of spying in prison for two more months. The court ruled on Friday to keep Paul Whelan behind bars at least until late October. Whelan, who is reportedly kept in cramped conditions at a Moscow detention facility,...
