A federal judge has thrown a monkey wrench into the prosecution of more than 500 Capitol riot defendants by denying the Justice Department’s request to share grand jury materials with a contractor hired to organize the massive amounts of video, social media, email and other evidence in the cases.
The ruling Friday could complicate and drag out the prosecutions by requiring government personnel to be more involved in aspects of the process of sharing evidence with defense attorneys.
MCKEESPORT, Pa. —An auto body shop caught fire after a powerline fell on it in McKeesport Friday.
Flames and smoke billowed from the McKeesport Auto Body on Rebecca Avenue.
“Half the building, you can see the flames behind the smoke. It’s noticeably above the building, so it had to be something serious,” said witness Justin Bowers.
At least one person was sent to the hospital for a medical emergency.
Fire crews from across the Mon Valley assisted McKeesport. There were several water tanks at the scene.
The McKeesport emergency management coordinator said initially there was no water pressure and high tension wires fell on the building.
The owners of a New Jersey-based company that sells septic tank cleaning products will pay more than $1.6 million to settle charges that the firm and its telemarketer made illegal robocalls to consumers across the country, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
TheFTC’s complaint alleged that Environmental Safety International (ESI) of Ridgefield and Fairview made more than 45 million illegal calls, including 31 million to people who had signed up for the Do Not Call Registry.
Motorists will encounter a detour and lane restrictions in Youngwood and additional restrictions on Route 30 in Hempfield beginning Monday, as work proceeds on PennDOT road projects.
In Youngwood, beginning at 6 a.m. Monday, a section of Depot Street, between northbound Route 119 (Third Street) and South Second Street, will be closed, and northbound and southbound lane restrictions will be in place on Route 119, between Hillis Street and the New Stanton Borough line.
The lane restrictions, for paving, are expected to continue through 7 p.m. on Thursday.
There will be no access between Route 119 and Burton Avenue during the paving. The intersections of Route 119 with Helman, Academy, Wilson and Fifth streets will be closed as needed.
The Depot Street closure is slated to remain in place until 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Motorists will be detoured along Route 119 and Trolley Line Avenue.
PennDOT contractor Golden Triangle is in the midst of a $24.1 million project to reconstruct Route 119 in Youngwood and adjacent areas of New Stanton and Hempfield.
Three men were found dead inside a travel trailer Saturday at a country music festival in southern Michigan in what police believe is a case of carbon monoxide exposure, officials said.
Two other men inside the trailer were taken to a hospital after first responders found them unresponsive and performed CPR at the scene, the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The pair were in critical condition and being treated for acute carbon monoxide poisoning, police said.
Emergency officials responded to the trailer after receiving a call around 1:27 pm Saturday regarding unresponsive people at a campground in Woodstock Township during the Faster Horses Festival, a multi-day country music festival.
“The caller was a friend of the five males and became concerned when he had not heard from them,” police said.
Police are investigating the “tragic incident” as suspected exposure to carbon monoxide from a generator that was located near the travel trailer.
“First responders stress the importance of keeping generators away from camping areas, tents, travel trailers, etc. as well as exhaust fumes from running vehicles,” police said.
In the midst of a Washington Nationals game against the San Diego Padres, gunfire erupted outside the stadium causing pandemonium amongst fans inside.
Fans run on the field for cover after what was believed to be shots were heard during a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on July 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
A shooting outside Nationals Park in Washington caused pandemonium in the park, with fans scrambling for the exits and players grabbing loved ones from the stands.
After a delay, the game was postponed.
At around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night, shots could be heard from inside the stadium, leading people to flee for shelter amid the unknown chaos.According to police, two people were injured after being struck outside the Third Base Gate. One of the victims was treated inside the stadium by medical personnel.
A mass shooting in downtown Portland, shortly before last call on Saturday morning, killed an 18-year-old woman and injured six others near a line of food carts in what police described as “an extremely chaotic scene.”
Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said the killing, along with another fatal shooting four hours later in the Parkrose neighborhood, in deep Northeast Portland, marked the city’s 50th and 51st homicides of the year. Portland saw 55 homicides in 2020, a 26-year record but one on pace to be broken by the end of July.
In the past 36 hours, Lovell said, Portland had 11 shooting incidents, killing two people and injuring at least 11.
In a press conference this afternoon, Lovell and Mayor Ted Wheeler described the Police Bureau as unprepared and outmatched by a wave of gunfire across the city.
“What we need is a plan,” Wheeler said. “The plan has to acknowledge that the public safety needs of this city are charging and they are changing rapidly. It’s clear to me that we do not have the adequate resources deployed on our streets in a proactive way.”
Lovell blamed a wave of officers leaving the force—125 in the last year, he said—leaving police incapable of patrolling all the neighborhoods hit by gunfire.
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — At least five people are facing federal charges for their involvement in a large cocaine ring that distributed drugs throughout the region, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
According to a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court, Mikal Davis, James Dotson, Azheem Ellis, Dwight Logan and Timothy Mollet have been charged with conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 280 grams or more of cocaine.
Agents with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security were assisted by state and local law enforcement as they executed warrants at several locations throughout the city Thursday morning, according to WJAC.
Investigators say the quintet distributed the drugs in the Johnstown and Monroeville areas and beyond.
According to the complaint, agents and Task Force Officers used multiple confidential informants throughout the investigation.
The complaint says investigators recorded phone calls and made controlled buys from the defendants between June 3, 2019 and March 31, 2021.
Davis is described by the FBI as the co-leader of the organization, Dotson is described as the lieutenant and Ellis, Logan and Mollet are described as distributors.
Authorities say Hector Concepcion is also facing federal charges for distributing cocaine and heroin between August 12, 2019 and December 23, 2020.
“I don’t want to divide anybody,” said independent candidate Will Parker. “I think, sometimes, there’s partisan between Democrats and the Republicans. I’m in the middle. I think we can come together, see the best of both worlds in both parties, bring that together and unite the city.”
Parker, an independent from Garfield, filed nominating petitions in June. He is the nephew of Willie Stargel. Parker’s main focus is technology, saying only three percent of funding goes to African Americans.
“We need someone who is going to address that tech disparity throughout the city,” he said.
PITTSBURGH — A man was listed in critical condition after being shot in the neck and chest in the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh early Saturday morning.
The incident occurred in the 1200 block of Bingham Street just before 2 a.m.
Police responded to a ShotSpotter alert and 911 calls for shots fired and found the man, who was taken to the hospital.
The investigation is ongoing and no further information was released.
Police said several cars were broken into in a Bethel Park neighborhood. One car was stolen. Police are trying to track down who is responsible.
Kathy Petchel said her Bethel Park community has shown her support after her Volkswagon was stolen on Pine Ridge Drive. Police said someone broke into several cars, between midnight and 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning. The thefts happened in the area of Thornwood Drive, Maplevue Drive and Forest Road. Police said similar break-ins happened about nine months ago.
They the car that was stolen was a 2012 silver Volkswagon Tiguan with the Pennsylvania license plate GBH-9972.
Petchel says even in her quiet neighborhood, people should lock their doors and stay alert.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis cracked down Friday on the spread of the old Latin Mass, reversing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s signature decisions in a major challenge to traditionalist Catholics who immediately decried it as an attack on them and the ancient liturgy.
Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass that Benedict relaxed in 2007, and went further to limit its use. The pontiff said he was taking action because Benedict’s reform had become a source of division in the church and been exploited by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church and its liturgy.
Critics said they had never before witnessed a pope so thoroughly reversing his predecessor. That the reversal concerned something so fundamental as the liturgy, while Benedict is still alive and living in the Vatican as a retired pope, only amplified the extraordinary nature of Francis’ move, which will surely result in more right-wing hostility directed at him.
Francis, 84, issued a new law requiring individual bishops to approve celebrations of the old Mass, also called the Tridentine Mass, and requiring newly ordained priests to receive explicit permission to celebrate it from their bishops, in consultation with the Vatican.
Under the new law, bishops must also determine if the current groups of faithful attached to the old Mass accept Vatican II, which allowed for Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin. These groups cannot use regular churches; instead, bishops must find alternate locations for them without creating new parishes.
In addition, Francis said bishops are no longer allowed to authorize the formation of any new pro-Latin Mass groups in their dioceses.
Francis said he was taking action to promote unity and heal divisions within the church that had grown since Benedict’s 2007 document, Summorum Pontificum. He said he based his decision on a 2020 Vatican survey of all the world’s bishops, whose “responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene.”
The pope’s rollback immediately created an uproar among traditionalists already opposed to Francis’ more progressive bent and nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrinaire papacy.
“This is an extremely disappointing document which entirely undoes the legal provisions,” of Benedict’s 2007 document, said Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.
A major project in Etna could bring up to 150 jobs to the area.
The AM Group, based out of New York, is leading the charge to transform a former steel pipe manufacturing building into an 88,600 square foot state of the art tech facility. The plan is to use for things like robotics, artificial intelligence and other tech-related projects.
Right now, there’s two companies reportedly eyeing the space.
The Greater Pittsburgh Food Truck Festival is back!
The Greater Pittsburgh Food Truck Festival is back in 2021 – and it’s happening this weekend!
The annual event is located at the Meadows Racetrack & Casino in Washington, Pennsylvania (about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh), and will feature more than 30 food trucks and concessions.
“Inside Edition” tested the much-discussed tuna used in Subway sandwiches, salads and wraps and found, for the second time in five months, that the fast food chain does in fact use real tuna in its offerings.
This follows a June 19 New York Times report that it had purchased more than 5-feet of Subway tuna sandwiches to be tested at an undisclosed lab in California that failed to find “amplifiable tuna DNA” in the samples it examined, citing a couple possible reasons — either it’s so heavily processed no tuna could be detected or “there’s just nothing there that’s tuna.”
Subway didn’t initially comment on that testing, but has since pushed back arguing that by the time tuna reaches Subway customers, it’s been so heavily processed and “denatured” that its DNA wouldn’t be recognizable.
This follows a New York Times report that didn’t detect DNA, which Subway said is to be expected when fish is ‘denatured’
A Utah company has stopped selling a kit that encases Glock handguns in Lego blocks, amid uproar and after the Danish toymaker demanded it cease and desist.
Marketing the “Block19” as a “a childhood dream come to life”, Culper Precision introduced it on Instagram, saying: “We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution.”
Red, yellow and blue blocks made the original weapon barely visible, disguising it as a child’s toy.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is facing backlash after he said that undocumented immigrants are to blame for rising COVID-19 cases in South Texas.
Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined fellow Republicans on Wednesday to call on the Biden administration to address the record surge of illegal crossings along the Texas-Mexico border that began in the spring.
Cruz called the rise in crossings a humanitarian, national security and public health crisis and urged the Biden administration to preserve Title 42, a rule put in place by former President Donald Trump that refuses asylum-seekers entry on the basis of public health.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told “America Reports” Thursday that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization has “shaken down multiple U.S. corporations to the tune of millions of dollars.” Rubio made these comments after BLM put out a statement saying they “condemn the U.S. federal government’s inhumane treatment of Cubans.”
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: The only reason why I even addressed the Black Lives Matter – that’s an organization that put that out there — the only reason I even addressed it is because they have shaken down multiple U.S. corporations to the tune of millions and millions of dollars…They use for their leader, by the way, a trained Marxist, as she called herself, to go out and spend a bunch of money in a spa resort…[she] actually bought herself a multimillion-dollar home.
They are charlatans. They are a Ponzi scheme. They are a fraud. So that’s the only reason I care about them is because they’ve shaken down and continue to shake down corporations.
The cruise will take passengers on a trip lasting 132 nights. Prices range up to $199,999. The strong interest may be a positive sign for the cruise industry as it tries to rebound from the pandemic.
Regent Seven Seas Cruises released the fares for sale at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday. By 11 a.m., all the spots had been snapped up by people eager to spend more than four months on a cruise ship. The strong interest may be a positive sign for the cruise industry as it tries to rebound from the pandemic.
The voyage, which will span 34,500 nautical miles, includes 66 ports of call, as the Seven Seas Mariner will visit 31 countries and four continents. Passengers will also see 61 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
A Russian Antonov An-28 passenger plane carrying 18 people made a hard landing after disappearing from radars Friday while flying over the Siberian region of Tomsk, according to reports.
The twin-engine Antonov An-28 turboprop was flying from the town of Kedrovy to the regional capital of Tomsk when communication with it was lost, said local Gov. Sergei Zhvachkin’s office, according to Agence France-Presse.
Fears had swirled over the fate of the plane, its passengers and three crew members when it disappeared from radar.
Rescuers who rushed to the area where contact was lost eventually located the survivors in a wooded section near the badly damaged plane, which was found upside down, Reuters reported.
One Texas law enforcement officer was killed and three others were wounded Thursday in what became an hours-long standoff with a barricaded suspect in Levelland, about 30 miles west of Lubbock, authorities said.
The suspect, identified as Omar Soto-Chavira, 22, was eventually taken into custody late Thursday night and was to be hospitalized for unspecified injuries, according to KCBD-TV in Lubbock.
PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh mother and a man are facing charges after doctors found cocaine in the system of a 6-week-old baby.
Lindsey Satterfield, 38, took her baby to a doctor’s appointment because he kept vomiting. The doctor determined he was a pound underweight from his last appointment.
Police searched the home of Satterfield and Matthew Bell, 43, along Woodbourne Avenue in Brookline.
Inside the home, police found loose pills, stamp bags of heroin, syringes, used crack pipes and scales, according to court documents.
During an interview with police, Bell said that while he and Satterfield used crack cocaine last week, the baby was sitting in his baby swing in the living room.
You can now customize your WPXI News App to receive Allegheny County news alerts. CLICK HERE to find out how.
He said both he and Satterfield touched the baby after touching the crack cocaine and the crack pipe, according to the criminal complaint.
Bell further said he assumed that is how the baby tested positive for cocaine. Both Satterfield and Bell were taken to the Allegheny County Jail. Both are facing several charges, including endangering the welfare of children and aggravated assault.
The baby was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent tests to determine the cause. It was during a regular urinalysis that cocaine was discovered in his system. The baby was admitted to the hospital.
Shortly before the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, told aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” because Donald Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer”, according to an eagerly awaited book about Trump’s last year in office.
Milley’s invocation of Germany under the Third Reich follows a report in another book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election, by Michael C Bender, that Trump told his chief of staff, John Kelly, “Hitler did a lot of good things”.
Trump denies having made the remark.
Leonnig and Rucker report that Milley spoke to an “old friend”, who warned the general that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government” in response to Joe Biden’s election victory, which Trump falsely maintains was the result of electoral fraud.
Milley is reported to have said: “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
Reportedly calling Trump supporters “Brownshirts”, a reference to paramilitaries who served Hitler in Germany in the 1930s, Milley is reported to have believed long before the Capitol attack that “Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military”.
Milley notoriously appeared with Trump in Lafayette Square in Washington in June 2020, after anti-racism protesters had been aggressively cleared and as Trump walked to a church to stage a photo op with a Bible.
The general apologised for that incident. It has been widely reported that he resisted Trump’s efforts then to invoke the Insurrection Act and crack down on the protests.
Milley’s “Reichstag moment” remark refers to a fire at the German parliament which the Nazis used to consolidate their authoritarian rule in 1933.
Trump’s supporters attacked Congress on 6 January, the day the electoral college results were certified . Five people died.
Leonnig and Rucker report that Milley called the attackers “Nazis” and, in reference to two far-right groups, said “they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys”.
“These are the same people we fought in [the second world war],” he reportedly said.
According to New York magazine, the authors also report that Milley, who made headlines and stoked rightwing ire last month by defending teaching about historic racism in army educational establishments, met former first lady Michelle Obama at the Capitol on 20 January, the day Biden was inaugurated.
“No one has a bigger smile today than I do,” Milley reportedly said. “You can’t see it under my mask but I do.”
Increasing economic and cultural exchange with the United States is the clearest path to reform, and is something Washington can clearly make a reality.
Protests have erupted against the communist regime in Cuba. As a result, there have been calls from the politically influential Cuban-American community to stand with the demonstrators. On Wednesday, pop star Pitbull released a video in which he expressed frustration about not being able to help his people achieve freedom and called for global business to step up. Pitbull was joined by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to enlist American business in providing internet access to Cuba.
American corporations have often been a vehicle for social and political change, both at home and abroad. Unfortunately, policy towards Cuba has worked to reduce U.S. economic and cultural influence since the Eisenhower administration.
Record rainfall in Europe caused severe flooding in Germany that has reportedly killed 60 people, with dozens more still missing as the region struggles to handle the disaster.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The child tax credit had always been an empty gesture to millions of parents like Tamika Daniel.
That changed Thursday when the first payment of $1,000 hit Daniel’s bank account — and dollars started flowing to the pockets of more than 35 million families around the country. Daniel, a 35-year-old mother of four, didn’t even know the tax credit existed until President Joe Biden expanded it for one year as part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that passed in March.
Previously, only people who earned enough money to owe income taxes could qualify for the credit. Daniel went nearly a decade without a job because her eldest son is autistic and needed her. So she got by on Social Security payments. And she had to live at Fairfield Courts, a public housing project that dead-ends at Interstate 64 as the highway cuts through the Virginia capital of Richmond.
But the extra $1,000 a month for the next year could be a life-changer for Daniel, who now works as a community organizer for a Richmond nonprofit. It will help provide a security deposit on a new apartment.
“It’s actually coming right on time,” she said. “We have a lot going on. This definitely helps to take a load off.”
Biden has held out the new monthly payments, which will average $423 per family, as the key to halving child poverty rates. But he is also setting up a broader philosophical battle about the role of government and the responsibilities of parents.
Democrats see this as a landmark program along the same lines as Social Security, saying it will lead to better outcomes in adulthood that will help economic growth. But many Republicans warn that the payments will discourage parents from working and ultimately feed into long-term poverty.
Some 15 million households will now receive the full credit. The monthly payments amount to $300 for each child who is 5 and younger and $250 for those between 5 and 17. The payments are set to lapse after a year, but Biden is pushing to extend them through at least 2025.
The president ultimately would like to make the payments permanent — and that makes this first round of payments a test as to whether the government can improve the lives of families.
Biden invited beneficiaries to the White House to mark the first round of payments, saying in a Thursday speech that the day carried a historic resonance because of the boost it will give families across the nation.
“This would be the largest ever one-year decrease in child poverty in the history of the United States of America,” the president said. “Millions of children and their families, starting today, their lives are about to change for the better. And our country would be better off for it as well.”
CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) — A Cambria County man is in custody after allegedly pulling a gun on a Patton Borough police officer, Tuesday, July 13.
Austin Yanella, 24, of Hastings was pulled over on Magee Avenue after making a left turn through a red light. After being pulled over, Yanella exited the vehicle and refused to get back in even though he was ordered to do so. Yanella then began yelling and walking away from the scene until the officer pulled out a taser and pointed it at him, according to the criminal complaint.
Then, Yanella pointed a .22 caliber handgun at the officer. The officer fired the taser which dropped Yanella to the ground, according to the criminal complaint.
Yanella was arrested and placed into Cambria County prison on felony count charges of aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited firearm and firearms not be carried without a license. And, misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and recklessly endangering another person.
