McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) — Nearly 1,000 flights have been canceled in Florida on Labor Day as Hurricane Dorian barrels toward the U.S. East Coast. The flight tracking site FlightAware on Monday listed 990 cancellations into or out of airports in Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Beach.
UNDATED (AP) — Dorian is a powerful but small hurricane and forecasters say that makes predicting its path delicate and difficult. The director of the National Hurricane Center, Ken Graham, is telling people not to bet on safety just because his forecasters have the storm just a bit offshore. Graham says that it’s “more touch-and-go” with every new forecast. Meteorologists say just a few miles west or east can make the difference between devastation and bad but not horrible damage.
Baierl Toyota in Cranberry presented a check Friday for $22,181.47 to the Ellwood City Area School District to pay off the debt.The past-due amount in Ellwood City covers about 11,000 meals that weren’t paid for. The money comes from Toyota’s corporate grassroots fund that supplies money for dealers to support their communities. In another act of charity, Baierl also donated $20,000 to New Brighton Area School District for its Weekend Backpack Program that will provide needy students with a backpack loaded with food to ensure they can eat over the weekend.
WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — A neighbor sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole in the shooting death of a Republican official outside Philadelphia continued to complain of harassment and assert self-defense while the victim was remembered as a kind and caring family man. Fifty-three-year-old Clayton Carter III of West Goshen Township was convicted of first-degree murder in the August 2017 death of 51-year-old Brooks Jennings during an argument outside their homes.
OHIOPYLE, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a man on a whitewater rafting trip was thrown into a western Pennsylvania river and died after his foot apparently became trapped under a rock. Ohiopyle State Park operations manager Ken Bisbee told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the man was part of an eight-member group that had rented two rafts from White Water Adventurers. Bisbee said the county 911 emergency center contacted the park at about 1 p.m. Saturday about an overturned raft on the Youghiogheny River.
PENN HILLS, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a woman and a vehicle being sought in a reported child abduction in western Pennsylvania have been located, but the girl remains missing. Allegheny County police say Penn Hills officers were called to a home at about 5 p.m. Saturday where the biological father of the child said she had been taken by a woman. An Amber Alert was issued and investigators said the car was spotted about a half-hour later in Monroeville.
UNDATED (AP) — Many police agencies have chosen not to name the shooter after a mass shooting. The police chief in Odessa, Texas, would only mention the name of Saturday’s shooter on Facebook, and not during a news conference. FBI special agent Christopher Combs, who previously worked on mass shootings, says studies have shown that when attention is drawn to the shooter, troubled people believe “this is how I can show the wrongdoings that have been done to me.”
ODESSA, Texas (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered at a local university in Odessa, Texas, Sunday evening for a prayer vigil for the seven people killed and 22 injured when a man pulled over in a police traffic stop Saturday went on a shooting rampage. Authorities say 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas. Authorities have not said where Ator got the “AR style” weapon he used.
Hurricane Dorian’s top sustained winds have decreased slightly to 165 mph, but the Category 5 storm is still pounding the northern Bahamas. Forecasters say Dorian is crawling along Grand Bahama island at 1 mph in what they say is likely to be a daylong assault. There’s little information from the affected islands, though officials expect that many residents have been left homeless. The east-central coast of Florida may experience a “brief tornado” Monday afternoon or evening.
The ReClaim Project, based in Beaver Falls, aims to equip former inmates with vocational skills including carpentry, plumbing and HVAC with the help of a virtual reality curriculum while they’re still incarcerated. They would then apply those skills by working on projects throughout the community. For more information about the ReClaim Project, visit www.whatisreclaim.com.