A FORMER ALIQUIPPA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT IS EXPECTED TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED THIS MORNING…IN AN ALIQUIPPA DOUBLE-HOMICIDE TRIAL. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO HAS BEEN FOLLOWING THE TRIAL AT THE COUNTY COURTHOUSE. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s two reports…

PART 1

PART 2

A Mars man has been sentenced for his role in an alleged fraud scheme at a Beaver County-based pharmacy chain.  48 year old Gino Cordisco has been sentenced to serve one year and one day after his conviction on one count of conspiracy. Cordisco was the Vice President of Store Operations for Med-Fast Pharmacy. The company is accused of defrauding Medicare and Pennsylvania Medicaid programs by intentionally mislabeling and re-using old medication from nursing homes.

Investigators say yesterday morning’s Rochester crash was part of a man’s week-long crime spree. We have new information on that crash this morning: Ambridge police say a man they confronted for stealing a ladder from a work site Tuesday led police on a pursuit in a stolen car that ended in the crash. The man escaped on foot. Investigators think the man is connected to several crimes in nearby communities. Police say the suspect is already wanted on state parole violations and they are working to track the man down.

WEATHER FORECAST FOR WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18TH, 2018

TODAY – PARTLY CLOUDY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF A RAIN
SHOWER. HIGH – 54.

TONIGHT – OCCASIONAL RAIN. LOW – 34.

THURSDAY – SNOW SHOWERS, ACCUMULATING LESS THAN
ONE INCH. SNOW WILL TAPER OFF AND END
DURING THE MORNING BUT SKIES WILL
REMAIN CLOUDY DURING THE AFTERNOON.
HIGH – 42.

Dick’s destroying all the guns it pulled from its shelvesç
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Dick’s Sporting Goods is destroying all the guns and accessories that it stopped selling earlier this year after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
The retailer said Tuesday that it is in the process of destroying all the firearms it pulled from its shelves, rather than trying to return them to their manufacturers.
Dicks made headlines in February when, in the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, it banned the sale of assault-style rifles and the sale of all guns to anyone under 21. Other retailers followed suit, including Walmart, which also raised its minimum-age rules for firearms.
Dick’s is based in the Pittsburgh area. The company’s decision to destroy the guns was first reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Former first lady Barbara Bush dies at age 92
HOUSTON (AP) — Former first lady Barbara Bush has died. She was 92.
A family spokesman says she died Tuesday.
The snowy-haired Mrs. Bush was one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.
Mrs. Bush’s plainspoken manner and utter lack of pretense made her more popular at times than her husband. She brought a grandmotherly style to buttoned-down Washington, often appearing in her trademark fake pearl chokers and displaying no vanity about her white hair and wrinkles.
She married George H.W. Bush in 1945. They had six children and were married longer than any presidential couple in American history.

The Latest: Taxpayers get 1-day extension due to IRS glitch
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the outage of the IRS payment website (all times local):
7:40 p.m.
The IRS is giving all taxpayers an extra day to file after its website went down on deadline day.
The agency announced that individuals and businesses with a filing or payment that was due Tuesday now have until midnight Wednesday.
It said no additional paperwork is needed to get the extension.
The agency’s website for making payments and gaining access to other key services crashed amid the filing flood. The website appeared to be back to normal late Tuesday.
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4:30 p.m.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says Americans who have been unable to pay their taxes Tuesday because the IRS payment website is down will receive an extension when the site is working again.
The website has been down most of the day and wasn’t operational as of 4:30 p.m. EDT.
Mnuchin commented on the outage when asked by reporters after an event in Derry, New Hampshire, where he promoted the Trump tax overhaul along with Ivanka Trump.
Mnuchin described the problem as a “high-volume technical issue” that the IRS is attempting to resolve.
Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.
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4:10 p.m.
The IRS website where people can pay their taxes and access other key services has been down for most the day, frustrating last-minute tax filers.
A message on the website about the outage indicates the agency still expects Americans to pay their taxes on time.
The IRS did not give an immediate explanation for the failure but said in a statement that “certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties.”
The agency also said that taxpayers should filing their tax returns as they normally would. The problem is, electronic filing is the most popular way to file.
Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.

House OKs work mandate for able-bodied Medicaid recipients
By MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania House wants able-bodied adults who are enrolled in Medicaid to work at least 20 hours a week, look for a job or participate in job training.
The Republican-controlled House voted 115-to-80 Tuesday for a bill to require state officials to seek federal approval for a work requirement.
The list of exceptions includes people enrolled in high school full-time or receiving long-term disability benefits, those under age 19 or older than 64, pregnant women, prisoners and residents of mental health institutions.
Backers argue that work is a path out of poverty, while opponents say many recipients are already working and the bill would set up a costly bureaucracy that could be difficult to navigate.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed a bill last fall that contained a similar requirement.

Former Minnesota FBI agent pleads guilty to leaking to media
By STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A former Minnesota FBI counterterrorism agent who was caught in a Trump administration crackdown pleaded guilty Tuesday to leaking classified documents to a national media organization, saying he knew it was illegal but felt FBI investigations treated minority communities with “suspicion” and “disrespect.”
Terry J. Albury, 39, appeared in federal court in St. Paul on one count of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information. Under his plea agreement, Albury faces a likely sentence of between 37 and 57 months but the decision will be up to U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright, who did not set a sentencing date.
The Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have made prosecuting government employees who leak sensitive information to the media a high priority. Sessions pledged to clamp down on leaks last year, saying the Justice Department had more than tripled the number of active leak investigations since President Barack Obama left office and that the FBI had created a new counterintelligence unit to focus on such cases.
Albury, who was the only African-American field agent in the Minnesota office, was accused of sharing documents with an unnamed online news organization sometime between February 2016 and Jan. 31, 2017. He was accused of sharing a document, dated Aug. 17, 2011 and classified as “secret,” that related to how the FBI assesses confidential informants, and an undated document “relating to threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country.”
The second count charged him with having unauthorized possession of a document “relating to the use of an online platform for recruitment by a specific terrorist group” and that he failed to deliver it to an unspecified federal employee entitled to receive it.
The charging documents filed last month and a search warrant application didn’t name the news organization or any reporters. But the date on the classified document and its subject matter corresponded with a story posted by The Intercept on Jan. 31 of 2017 that deals with assessing informants and recruiting them by identifying their “motivations and vulnerabilities.” The story references a secret document dated Aug. 17, 2011.
The search warrant application says Albury began working for the FBI as an intern in 2000 and became a special agent in 2005. He was most recently assigned to the Minneapolis field office where he worked as a liaison at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in counterterrorism and other matters, it says.
The sworn statement by an FBI counterintelligence agent says Albury accessed at least two-thirds of the 27 classified documents that the news organization posted online. Some of those documents had been photographed from a computer screen, it said, adding that Albury was caught on surveillance video at his airport office photographing his computer screen on three dates last year.
After the hearing, Albury’s attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, issued a statement saying Albury acted out of “conscience.” He believed the FBI predominantly reflected a white male culture and was troubled by racism in the agency.
“The situation became even more acute for him when, having previously served a tour for the FBI in Iraq, he was assigned to the counterterrorism squad and was required first-hand to implement FBI investigation directives that profiled and intimidated minority communities in Minnesota and other locations in which Terry served.”
Many of the FBI’s counterterrorism investigations in Minnesota have focused primarily on the states’ large Somali-American community.

IRS payment site fails on tax day, but you still have to pay
By SARAH SKIDMORE SELL, AP Personal Finance Writer
Last-minute filers got a rude surprise on tax day: The IRS website to make payments and access other key services is down. But the agency still expects Americans to pay their taxes on time.
The IRS did not give an immediate explanation for the failures but said in a statement that “certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties.”
The agency also said that taxpayers “should continue filing their tax returns as they normally would.” The problem is, electronic filing is the most popular way to file. And the IRS offered no immediate solution.
Pages on the IRS website (www.irs.gov) used to view account information, make a direct payment or set up a payment plan were all not functioning most of the day Tuesday.
It’s unclear when and why the failure occurred. But it appears, based on a message on the site, that the online payment system became unavailable at 2:50 A.M. ET that morning.
Visitors to the IRS payment site saw one of two messages: One that says the website is unavailable. And another that the outage was due to planned maintenance scheduled to end on Sept. 22, 2016.
Both messages said, “Note that your tax payment is due although IRS Direct Pay may not be available.”
The IRS snafu also caused problems for popular third-party tax preparers such as Turbo Tax and H&R Block. Both said that they will hold onto customer tax returns and file them as soon as the IRS system reopens.
Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.
IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter testified during a House Oversight Hearing Tuesday that a number of systems are down at the moment and that the agency is working to resolve the issue.
Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow offered a deadpan reaction when asked about the failure.
“The IRS is crashing? Sounds horrible. Really bad,” he said during a briefing with reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida. “I hope it gets fixed.”
Kudlow said he wasn’t aware of the nature of the issue, but said: “The IRS’ll straighten it out.”
The IRS typically recommends that taxpayers use electronic filing to avoid common mistakes. Online filing is quicker than dropping something in the mail — when the site works, of course.
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Jill Colvin in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.