ALIQUIPPA’S MAYOR IS ATTENDING TODAY’S JOINT SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO HAS MORE…

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s forthcoming budget plan will rely on improving tax collections and a Marcellus Shale natural gas tax to put more money into education, opioid-addiction prevention and social services. Wolf is scheduled to deliver his election-year budget and speak to a joint legislative session this morning. It comes after three years dominated by protracted stalemates with the Republican-controlled Legislature.

WEATHER FORECAST FOR TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6TH, 2018

* WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 6 PM EST WEDNESDAY… MIXED PRECIPITATION EXPECTED. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 5 INCHES…THE ICE WILL RESULT IN DIFFICULT TRAVEL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING DURING THE MORNING COMMUTE ON WEDNESDAY. BE PREPARED FOR REDUCED VISIBILITIES AT TIMES. A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW, SLEET OR FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES, AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING. *

TODAY – MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH SNOW SHOWERS AROUND
THIS MORNING. HIGH AROUND 30.

TONIGHT – SNOW LIKELY LATE TONIGHT. SNOW
ACCUMULATING 1 TO 3 INCHES. LOW – 21.

WEDNESDAY – SNOW DURING THE MORNING WILL TAPER
OFF AND GIVE WAY TO CLOUDY SKIES
DURING THE AFTERNOON. SOME SLEET MAY
MIX IN. 3 TO 5 INCHES OF SNOW EXPECTED.
HIGH AROUND 30.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the budget battle in Congress (all times local):
8:25 p.m.
House Republican leaders have unveiled a plan to keep the government open for another six weeks while Washington grapples with a potential follow-up budget pact and, perhaps, immigration legislation.
GOP leaders have announced they would seek to pass the stopgap spending bill by marrying it with a full-year, $659 billion Pentagon spending bill that’s a top priority of the party’s legion of defense hawks.
The measure would keep the government running through March 23 and reauthorize funding for community health centers that enjoy widespread bipartisan support.
The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, says that plan won’t fly in the Senate. But aides and lawmakers suggest the Senate might respond with a long-awaited spending pact to give whopping increases to the Pentagon and domestic programs.

By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Mahoney, who as the cranky, blue-collar dad in “Frasier” played counterpoint to pompous sons Frasier and Niles, has died. Mahoney was 77.
The actor died Sunday in Chicago after a brief hospitalization, Paul Martino, his manager for more than 30 years, said Monday. The cause of death was not immediately provided.
In “Frasier,” the hit “Cheers” spinoff that aired from 1993 to 2004, Mahoney played Martin Crane, a disabled ex-policeman who parked himself in a battered old armchair in Frasier’s chic Seattle living room.
Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier and David Hyde Pierce’s Niles, both psychiatrists with lofty views of their own intellect, squabbled constantly with their dad but, when needed, the family closed ranks.
Martin’s beloved dog, Eddie, also took up residence to annoy the fussy Frasier.
Mahoney, a British native who made Chicago his home town, was a two-time Emmy nominee for “Frasier,” won a 1986 Tony Award for “The House of Blue Leaves,” and worked steadily in movies.
John Cusack, who appeared with Mahoney is the 1989 film “Say Anything,” tweeted that he was a great actor and a “lovely kind human — any time you saw him you left feeling better.”
Mahoney’s recent TV credits included a recurring role as Betty White’s love interest on “Hot in Cleveland” and a 2015 guest appearance on “Foyle’s War.” On the big screen, he was in “The American President,” ”Eight Men Out” and “Tin Men,” with 2007’s “Dan in Real Life” starring Steve Carell among his last movie credits.
The actor was born in 1940 in Blackpool, England, during World War II. That’s where his pregnant mother had been evacuated for safety from Nazi attacks, but the family soon returned to its home in Manchester.
In a 2015 interview with The Associated Press, Mahoney recounted memories of huddling in an air raid shelter and playing among bombed-out houses. The accounts his four older sisters shared with him, he said, included tucking him into a baby carriage outfitted with a shield against feared gas attacks.
One sister, who moved to the Midwest after marrying a U.S. sailor, was responsible for Mahoney’s decision to make his life in America. He visited Chicago as a college student and fell in love with it.
“The lake, the skyline, the museums, the symphony, the lyric opera,” he said in extolling the city in 2015. Add in reliably friendly Midwesterners, Mahoney said, and it’s “my favorite place in the world.”
“I give up nothing (professionally) by being in Chicago,” said Mahoney, who at the time was preparing to begin rehearsal on a Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of “The Herd.”
The theater canceled Monday’s scheduled performance in honor of Mahoney, according to an outgoing phone message that said he had been an ensemble member since 1979.
“John’s impact on this institution, on Chicago theater and the world of arts and entertainment are great and will endure,” the theater said.

House panel votes to release Democratic memo on Russia probe
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and CATHERINE LUCEY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House intelligence committee voted unanimously Monday night to release a Democratic rebuttal to the GOP’s memo on the Russia investigation that President Donald Trump declassified last week.
The document now goes to Trump, who has five days to decide whether to declassify it.
The Democratic document aims to counter the Republican memo, which accuses the FBI and Justice Department of abusing their authority in monitoring a onetime Trump campaign associate.
A White House spokesman said Trump would “consider” the Democratic memo’s release just as he had the Republican document.
Earlier Monday, Trump traded insults with the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
Trump resorted to his occasional name-calling on Twitter, labeling Schiff “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington.” He added that Schiff “must be stopped.”
Schiff quickly shot back: “Instead of tweeting false smears, the American people would appreciate it if you turned off the TV and helped solve the funding crisis, protected Dreamers or … really anything else.”
White House spokesman Raj Shah took a more measured approach, saying consideration of a release would “allow for a legal review, national security review led by the White House counsel’s office.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he supports the release of the Democrats’ memo, if sensitive intelligence information is removed.
The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, urged Trump to back the public release and said refusing to do so would show the president’s intent to undermine the Russia investigation.
On Sunday, Republicans as well as Democrats said Trump was wrong to assert that the GOP-produced memo cleared him in the Russia investigation. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating possible collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia as well as whether there have been efforts to obstruct the investigation.
Trump tweeted over the weekend that the memo “totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe” even as “the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.” But that statement found no echo from four committee Republicans who appeared on the Sunday talk shows. Lawmakers also said the memo should not impede Mueller.
“I think it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest that the special counsel shouldn’t complete his work. I support his work. I want him to finish it. I hope he finishes it as quickly as possible,” said Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah.
Schiff has branded the GOP memo “a political hit job” and has questioned whether House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had coordinated with the White House in drafting the document seized on by the president to vent his grievances against the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies.
“The goal here is to undermine the FBI, discredit the FBI, discredit the Mueller investigation, do the president’s bidding,” Schiff said. “I think it’s very possible his staff worked with the White House.”
Nunes was asked during a Jan. 29 committee meeting whether he had coordinated the memo with the White House. “As far as I know, no,” he responded, then refused to answer when asked whether his congressional staff members had communicated with the White House. He had previously apologized for sharing with the White House secret intelligence intercepts related to an investigation of Russian election interference before talking to committee members.
Trump also praised Nunes in a separate tweet Monday, calling him “a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!”
The memo released Friday alleges misconduct on the part of the FBI and the Justice Department in obtaining a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page and his ties to Russia. Specifically, it takes aim at the FBI’s use of information from former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier containing allegations of ties between Trump, his associates and Russia.
The underlying materials that served as the basis for the warrant application were not made public in the GOP memo. Even as Democrats described it as inaccurate, some Republicans quickly cited the memo — released over the objections of the FBI and Justice Department — in their arguments that Mueller’s investigation is politically tainted.
The memo’s central allegation is that agents and prosecutors, in applying in October 2016 to monitor Page’s communications, failed to tell a judge that the opposition research that provided grounds for the FBI’s suspicion received funding from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Page had stopped advising the campaign sometime around the end of that summer.
Steele’s research, according to the memo, “formed an essential part” of the warrant application. But it’s unclear how much or what information Steele collected made it into the application, or how much has been corroborated.
Republicans say a judge should have known that “political actors” were involved in allegations that led the Justice Department to believe Page might be an agent of a foreign power — an accusation he has consistently denied.

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on developments in financial markets (All times local):
3:08 p.m.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged as much as 1,500 points, erasing its gain for the year, as the market extends a slump that began Friday.
The Dow’s point loss would be its biggest of all time, though in percentage terms, its 5.6 percent decline wasn’t as big as its worst drop during the financial crisis.
The slide Monday brought the Dow back below 24,000 points.
The market’s slump began on Friday as investors worried that creeping signs of higher inflation and interest rates could derail the market’s record-setting rally.
The Dow skidded as much as 1,500 points, before recovering some of its losses. It was down 872, or 3.4 percent, to 24,651.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 74 points, or 2.7 percent, to 2,686
___
2:28 p.m.
Stocks are extending their slide on Wall Street, bringing the Dow Jones industrial average down 500 points.
The slide Monday brought the Dow back just below 25,000 points, a level it first crossed a month ago.
The market’s slump began on Friday as investors worried that creeping signs of higher inflation and interest rates could derail the market’s record-setting rally.
Banks are taking some of the biggest losses.
Wells Fargo plunged 8 percent after the Federal Reserve hit the bank with new sanctions over a scandal that involved opening millions of phony consumer accounts.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 51 points, or 1.9 percent, to 2,711.
The Dow was down 530 points, or 2 percent, to 24,999.
Bond yields slipped after moving sharply higher Friday.
___
11:45 a.m.
U.S. stocks are lower at midday as banks fall following more punitive action against Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo dropped 8 percent Monday after the Federal Reserve hit the bank with new sanctions over a scandal that involved opening millions of phony consumer accounts.
Energy companies were also moving lower as the price of crude oil slipped. Exxon Mobil fell 3.5 percent.
The market is coming off its worst week in two years. Stocks fell sharply on Friday as traders worried about inflation and rising interest rates.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 14 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,748.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 159 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,364. The Nasdaq composite lost 14 points, or 0.2 percent, to 7,225.
___
9:35 a.m.
Stocks stumbled in early trading on Wall Street as banks fell following punitive action against Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo plunged 8 percent in the first few minutes of trading Monday after the Federal Reserve hit the bank with new sanctions in response to its opening of phony accounts for several million consumers.
Other banks also fell. Industrial companies were also falling. Boeing lost 2 percent and Caterpillar was down 1 percent.
The market is coming off its worst week in two years. Stocks fell sharply on Friday as traders worried about inflation and rising interest rates.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 20 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,741.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 233 points, or 0.9 percent, to 25,295. The Nasdaq composite lost 52 points, or 0.7 percent, to 7,189.

Cities, states ban bump stocks after push stalls in Congress
By LISA MARIE PANE, Associated Press
In the immediate aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, there was a fevered pitch to ban bump stocks, the device that allowed the shooter’s semi-automatic rifles to mimic the rapid fire of machine guns.
With that push stalled at the federal level, a handful of states and some cities are moving ahead with bans of their own.
Massachusetts and New Jersey — two states led by Republican governors — as well as the cities of Denver and Columbia, South Carolina, have enacted laws prohibiting the sale and possession of the devices, which were attached to a half-dozen of the long guns found in the hotel room of the Las Vegas shooter who in October killed 58 people and injured hundreds more attending a nearby outdoor concert. A little over a dozen other states are also considering bans on bump stocks.
Gun-control advocates say the push fits a pattern in gun politics: inaction in Washington that forces states to take the lead. Gun-rights advocates call it a knee-jerk reaction that will do little to stop bad guys from killing, and vow a legal challenge.
For Zach Elmore, the issue is deeply personal. His sister among those wounded in the Las Vegas attack. He finds hope in the statewide and local efforts to ban bump stocks.
“Hopefully it’s the start of a big movement versus just a flash in the pan,” Elmore said. “Obviously you cannot legislate (against) evil, but you can legislate the things with which bad people will use to perpetrate evil.”
The devices were originally intended to help people with disabilities and were little known and little sold until the Las Vegas shooting. They fit over the stock and pistol grip of a semi-automatic rifle and allow the weapon to fire rapidly, some 400 to 800 rounds per minute, mimicking a fully automatic firearm.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reviewed the devices and approved them in 2010, ruling they did not amount to machine guns that are regulated under the National Firearms Act that dates to the 1930s.
Richard Vasquez was assistant chief of the ATF’s technology bureau and led the review of bump stocks. He stands by the agency’s 2010 ruling, which relied on a key difference between semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms: While semi-automatic firearms require a separate and independent pull of the trigger to fire a bullet, fully automatic firearms can fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull. ATF determined bump stocks didn’t convert a semi-automatic firearm into one that is fully auto.
“It’s a proper determination. Everybody wants to jump the gun and say that ATF made a mistake,” said Vasquez, who left the agency in 2014. “ATF didn’t make a mistake.”
The federal agency is reviewing its ruling, something Vasquez and others caution is a dangerous move without Congress first changing the law to specifically make such devices illegal.
“If ATF is allowed to write a regulation to change the definition of this device, instead of a law, it’s going to give all government agencies authority to change their regulations, which could affect us in a wide variety of ways,” Vasquez warned.
Legislation in Congress has remained in limbo despite early signs from a bipartisan mix of lawmakers and advocates who voiced alarm that such a device was deemed legal and on the market. Even the National Rifle Association sounded open to great regulation of bump stocks.
Joyce Malcolm, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, said the bans likely would withstand a legal challenge, but she wonders about more practical matters: How might they be enforced?
“I don’t see a real constitutional issue. I just wonder about actually getting these devices out of circulation for people who already have them,” she said.
It’s not known how many of the devices are in circulation. At the time of the Las Vegas shooting, gun dealers said they rarely had customers wanting to buy one — but then couldn’t keep up with the demand in the days and months afterward. The leading manufacturer of bump stocks, Texas-based Slide Fire Solutions, briefly stopped selling them, posting a notice on its website that it had suspended sales to keep up with demand. It has since resumed sales.
Massachusetts, which has some of the nation’s strictest gun laws, enacted its ban a month after the Las Vegas shooting, pushed through a Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed into law by a Republican lieutenant governor. New Jersey followed suit last month with a measure signed into law by outgoing Republican Gov. Chris Christie. About a dozen other states are considering similar bills.
“This is a very familiar story. The Congress cowers in the face of the NRA, and the states act,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for tougher gun laws.
Connecticut, home to some of the world’s most legendary gun makers, is among the other states considering bans.
Rep. William Tong, a Democrat and House chairman of the Connecticut Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, called it a commonsense measure that puts public safety first.
“The federal government has demonstrated that, given the composition of the Congress right now, it’s not possible to pass commonsense gun laws,” he said. “Connecticut can’t wait.”
Gun-rights advocates say the efforts undermine the Second Amendment and will do little to stop criminals.
“Anti-gun Democrats love to ban things. That is their answer,” said Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, who added bump stocks have rarely, if ever, been used in a crime before the Las Vegas shooting. “This is their chance to say, ‘Hey, we’re doing something. Look at us. We’re doing something.’ It’s not going to do anything.”
___
Follow Lisa Marie Pane at http://twitter.com/lisamariepane

In blow to GOP, Supreme Court won’t block PA redistricting
By MARK SCOLFORO and MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let a court-ordered redrawing of congressional districts in Pennsylvania proceed, denying a plea from Republicans legislative leaders to block it.
Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals from Pennsylvania, rejected the request from the GOP leaders and voters that the court put on hold an order from the state Supreme Court that could now produce new congressional districts in the coming two weeks.
The Pennsylvania high court ruled last month that the map of 18 districts violated the state constitution because it unfairly benefited Republicans.
The U.S. Supreme Court typically does not review state court decisions based on a state’s constitution, but the Republicans asked the high court to make an exception.
The decision comes just four days before the Republican-controlled Legislature’s deadline for submitting a replacement map for Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf to consider.
The Democratic-majority state Supreme Court has ruled that if lawmakers and the governor can’t agree to a plan, the court will quickly move to adopt one.
Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation has been 13-5 in favor of Republicans during the three election cycles since the GOP-drawn 2011 map took effect. Democrats have about 800,000 more registered voters than Republicans and hold all three statewide row offices, but Republicans hold solid majorities in both chambers of the Legislature.
Under the process laid out two weeks ago by four of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices, all Democrats, the Legislature has until Friday to pass a new map, after which Wolf will have until Thursday, Feb. 15, to decide whether to endorse it and submit it to the justices.
The state Supreme Court said it expected new districts to be in place by Feb. 19, and the new map will be in play for the May 15 congressional primaries.
Republican leaders successfully defended the 2011 plan against a separate lawsuit in federal court and have complained that the state court order did not provide sufficient guidance for them to draw a new map.
A group of voters persuaded all five Democrats on the state’s seven-justice high court that the map violated the state constitution. The Jan. 22 majority order said new districts should be compact and contiguous and only split counties, cities, towns, boroughs, townships or wards when needed to ensure population equality.
The quick turn-around the majority ordered last month caused one of the Democrats on the court, Justice Max Baer, to state he was “concerned that the procedure detailed by the court may not provide the parties with due process moving forward.”
Late last week the two highest-ranking Republican leaders in the General Assembly, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and House Speaker Mike Turzai, sought recusal of one of the Democratic justices, David Wecht. They argued Wecht had made statements critical of gerrymandering during his successful 2015 campaign that they viewed as evidence of bias.
On Monday, Republican Justice Sallie Mundy filed a notice that she had received a $25,000 campaign donation from Scarnati but was confident she could rule fairly in the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month delayed a lower-court order that would have produced new congressional districts in North Carolina. The justices are currently considering challenges to Wisconsin’s state legislative districts and a congressional district in Maryland.
___
Sherman reported from Washington.

THIS AFERNOON BEAVER FALLS FIRE OFFICIALS WILL BEGIN THE PROCESS OF DETERMINING THE CAUSE OF A FIRE THAT TOTALLY DESTROYED A HOME ON 9TH AVENUE YESTERDAY MORNING. FIRE CHIEF MARK STOWE GAVE OUR NEWSMAN PAT SEPTAK AN UPDATE MOMENTS AGO…

….BEAVER FALLS FIRE CHIEF MARK STOWE.