Glenn Camp, the president and assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 29 in Pittsburgh, stated in court documents that Shell Chemicals is “actively pursuing” employees at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station who are looking to leave their jobs amid uncertainty surrounding the future of the power plant.

Morale at the plant is low, Camp said, because FirstEnergy has implemented a program that pays bonuses to managers, supervisors and other non-union employees, as an incentive to keep those workers at the company’s power plants.

The retention bonuses do not apply to any of the 380 IBEW union members at Beaver Valley. At least 20 members of his union are already scheduled for job interviews with Shell for potential employment at the cracker plant.

Camp also said in the court documents that he’s fearful about safety at the plant if his workers leave en masse in the coming months.

“Without retention payments for (union) employees, (FirstEnergy) may not have enough qualified employees to safely staff the Beaver Valley plant,”

WEATHER Tuesday July 17, 2018

TODAY:
Widely scattered showers or a thunderstorm
this morning. Then partly cloudy. High 83F.

TOIGHT:
Mostly clear. Low 58F.

WEDNESDAY:
Mostly sunny skies. High 79F.

Petitions to offer online gambling in Pennsylvania roll in
By MARC LEVY, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Applications to operate casino-style gambling online in Pennsylvania were rolling in ahead of Monday’s deadline for the state’s casino owners to get a license at a discounted rate of $10 million.
The deadline arrived as Pennsylvania is in the midst of an aggressive gambling expansion as the state scrounges for cash to shore up its treasury.
Under a law signed late last year by Gov. Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania became the fourth state to legalize online casino gambling, joining Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board said Monday it had thus far received three applications for online gambling.
Those applications came from the owners of Parx Casino in suburban Philadelphia, Mount Airy Casino Resort in northeastern Pennsylvania and Live! Hotel and Casino, which is under construction in south Philadelphia’s stadium district.
After Monday’s deadline, owners of Pennsylvania’s 13 casino licenses have another 30 days to apply, but they will pay a premium of $12 million to operate all three forms of online casino games — slot machines, table games and poker — or $4 million for an individual form.
Ultimately, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board could open up the licenses to other out-of-state operators if the state’s casino licensees don’t apply for them.
Pennsylvania’s casinos rake in more gross revenues than any other state’s except Nevada’s, American Gaming Association figures show, while Pennsylvania is the No. 1 state in tax revenue from the casino industry, netting $1.4 billion in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
Lawmakers and Wolf last year approved legislation authorizing an aggressive gambling expansion that would make Pennsylvania the first state to offer both casino gambling and lottery gambling online.
In recent weeks, Pennsylvania began offering its Lottery games online and began regulating and taxing online fantasy sports games. The state also is in the process of awarding five new mini-casino licenses and writing regulations so that sports betting can begin, potentially before the National Football League’s fall season begins on Sept. 5.

Man sentenced to life in shooting death of 17-year-old girl
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man has been sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without possibility of parole in the death of a teenage girl shot on a Pittsburgh street in what authorities called a drug deal gone wrong.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that 20-year-old Douglas Lockett Jr. was sentenced Monday on second-degree murder and robbery convictions in the death of 17-year-old Daija McCall.
Allegheny County prosecutors said she was meeting three men for a purported drug sale in the city’s Homewood section in September 2016, but they planned to rob her. Tests later concluded the substance she was carrying didn’t contain drugs.
Police said she was armed and fired three shots while two other guns fired eight shots. Defense attorney Randall McKinney denied that his client planned a robbery.
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Information from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, http://www.post-gazette.com

Trump: Putin made ‘incredible offer’ in Russian hacking case
By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin privately made an “incredible offer” to help American investigators in their prosecution of 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking crimes during the 2016 presidential election.
“He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people,” Trump told reporters during a news conference in Helsinki following his joint summit with Putin. “I think that’s an incredible offer, OK?”
The special counsel investigating potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin on Friday charged a dozen Russian military intelligence officers with hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign and then releasing the stolen communications online as part of a sweeping conspiracy to meddle in the election.
Putin noted that Russia would expect the U.S. to return the favor and cooperate in the Russian probe against William Browder, a British investor charged in financial crimes in Russia. Browder was a driving force behind a U.S. law targeting Russian officials over human rights abuses.
It was not clear from Trump’s statement what sort of help Putin was offering. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, making it uncertain that the indicted Russian officers — who are not currently in custody — will ever be prosecuted in an American courtroom.
And the detailed allegations in the 29-page indictment make clear that the FBI and Mueller’s team believe they were able, through their own investigation, to pinpoint the hackers by name and establish how the cyberattacks unfolded.
Putin has long insisted that the Kremlin had nothing to do with the hacking, and Trump said the Russian leader repeated his denials during their private meeting Monday. U.S. intelligence officials have said they’re confident that the Kremlin was behind the effort to help Trump defeat Clinton, and Mueller’s indictment alleged that the culprits are part of a Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU.
“So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller declined to comment on Trump’s comments or on Putin’s purported offers for assistance.
Despite Trump’s assertion that Putin has offered a hand, Mueller’s office has suggested that the Kremlin has been less than forthcoming in another criminal case brought against Russia.
Prosecutors in February charged 13 Russians with participating in a social media effort to sway public opinion during the election by concocting bogus Facebook ads in the names of Americans.
Mueller’s office has tried to serve summonses on the defendants demanding that they appear in court, but prosecutors say the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia declined to accept the summonses. The U.S. government also sought Russian government effort through a mutual legal assistance treaty, but according to a court filing this month, “no further steps have been taken within Russia to effectuate service.”
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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Chicago activist demands all footage from police shooting
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — A community activist who has pushed for more police transparency said Monday that he’s asked Chicago police for the body camera footage from all the officers at the scene where one of them fatally shot a black man over the weekend.
William Calloway said a brief video released by police showing the view from one officer’s body camera does not answer crucial questions, starting with the reasons the officers approached 37-year-old Harith Augustus on Saturday afternoon just before he was shot. Calloway also said that a police spokesman’s explanation that the Augustus was “exhibiting characteristics of an armed person” does justify stopping someone in a city and state where it is legal to carry a concealed weapon.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Sunday that detectives have found no documentation that Augustus had a concealed carry permit, but Calloway said there is no way officers at the scene could have known that when they approached him.
The video released by police did not include sound so it is impossible to hear what was said by either Augustus or any of the four officers at the scene. It shows one of the officers trying to grab the arm of Augustus, who spins and runs away with a clearly visible holstered gun on his hip.
“He was having a civil conversation with the black cop at first so we need to know what he and that officer were saying,” he said. “There needs to be (footage) from four police officers with audio.”
The police department did not immediately return a call for comment about Calloway’s request.
At a news conference on Sunday to announce the release of the 51-second video, Johnson said the way the technology works is that there is a “30-second buffer period” in which there is no audio before the sound is activated. It is unclear why there is no sound throughout the entire video.
Calloway was instrumental in a legal battle that ultimately led a judge in 2015 to order the release of dashcam video showing the 2014 shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald. The release of that video of Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting the teen 16 times, sparked massive protests, cost then-Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy his job and prompted various federal and local investigations. Van Dyke is awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges.
Calloway said he wants to give the police department a chance to release the rest of the videos — complete with audio — but if they refuse he will the city to force its release.
Johnson said on Sunday that release of the video one day after the shooting was the quickest he had ever ordered such a disclosure. He said that he did so to avoid a repeat of the clashes between angry residents and police that took place Saturday night. Protesters threw rocks and bottles — some filled with urine — at police and officers responded by hitting some demonstrators with their batons.
After release of the video, protests on Sunday evening were peaceful. But the community remains tense and a “demonstration against the police murder of Harith Augustus” organized by a group called the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression was scheduled for Monday evening at the scene of the shooting.

State Representative Aaron Bernstine will be hosting a document-shredding event taking place at Geneva College later this month. Matt Drzik has further details on that:

The event organized by the Beaver County Community and Law Enforcement Coalition was held on Saturday as a way to build camaraderie between the community and local law enforcement.  Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano has the story.

Pittsburgh —
Hundreds of teachers from across the country took to the streets of Pittsburgh in a march for better funding.

The group took aim at the Trump administration saying that there’s a plan to cut funding for public education, while putting more focus on school choice for students.

“People understand the stakes, that we need to actually use the ballot box to make sure workers have a pathway to a better life”, says Randi Weingarten, AFT Union President.

Union leaders also talked about the need to keep guns out of school.

HOLLSOPPLE, Pa —
Somerset County Tactical Search team recovered the body of 18-year-old Joseph Dubics from the Quemahoning Dam Reservoir on Saturday afternoon.

Dubics disappeared while paddleboarding on Monday. Two young women who were with him told emergency dispatchers that he went underwater and never surfaced.

Officials do not suspect foul play or suspicious circumstances are related to the incident.

The Quemahoning Family Recreation Area will remain closed until 10 a.m on Monday.