Searchable News & Info From Reliable Online Sources.
- An Ohio Valley 100,000-Watt FM Signal Is Severed in Broad Daylight
The severed transmission line leading up WDGG(FM)’s antenna tower in Boyd County, Ky. Credit: Mike Kirtner Evan Adkins, director of engineering, called Mike Kirtner, the president of Kindred Communications, last Thursday just prior to lunchtime. “Are you sitting down?” Adkins asked Kirtner after he answered the phone. Kirtner, 75, has seen a lot in his time as a broadcast owner in the tri-state area of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio along the Ohio River. One of his AM station’s copper radials once fell victim to a copper thief cutting its wires. But an FM transmission line being snapped and cleared in broad daylight? He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. The alleged perpetrator — Paul Crisp of Catlettsburg, according to WSAZ(TV)’s reporting — had severed the main transmission line leading up to the broadcast tower of 93.7 WDGG(FM), a 100,000-watt country-formatted FM station licensed to Ashland, Ky., which goes by the moniker “The Dawg.” Kirtner isn’t sure how the suspect is still alive. “He was lucky in that he didn’t die, he was unlucky that he got caught,” Kirtner said. The cable crosses a bridge from the transmitter building and then runs up the tower located on Musser Lane in Catlettsburg, and Kirtner said the thief cut all of it. Crisp, according to Kirtner, allegedly dragged the heavy line down to his house, only a few hundred yards over a hill from the tower site, and had already cut it into smaller sections, presumably in an attempt to scrap the copper out of the wire. Kirtner suspected the perpetrator must have scoped out the theft in advance — including by disabling the site’s video surveillance system prior to cutting the lines. WSAZ reported there was also a copper theft at the same site on May 23. “It was definitely well-thought out,” he said. The Boyd County, Ky., Sheriff’s Office later obtained a search warrant, discovered the cut-up transmission line in his yard and obtained a warrant for Crisp’s arrest. WSAZ said Crisp was apprehended after a short pursuit by deputies and charged with second-degree fleeing or evading police, among other offenses. WDGG was left with its Class C1 FM signal off the air. Kirtner said the station is currently operating at heavily reduced power — around 10 watts — utilizing both a backup transmitter and an auxiliary antenna. Recovery effort WDGG’s damaged transmission line itself, Kirtner noted, is of… [TheTopNews] Read More.10 mins ago - Scott Pelley’s Embarrassing Tantrum Proves Bari Weiss’s Point
LEFT: Bari Weiss (Photo by Alberto E. Tamargo/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) RIGHT: Scott Pelley (Photo by Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) When a child throws a tantrum, they’re punished. When a journalist throws a tantrum, they wait to be called stunning and brave. On Monday, 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley reportedly flipped his sippy cup during a show-wide meeting, excoriating both his immediate (newly-installed executive producer Nick Bilton) and big boss (CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss). “She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” raged Pelley about the latter, per The Guardian‘s Jeremy Barr. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.” According to Puck’s Dylan Byers, the former suffered the insult of being lectured about his “slender qualifications,” and then the indignity of having Pelley shoot down Bilton’s suggestion that they continue the conversation privately. Just how many Americans would keep their job after such an unprofessional outburst? At issue is CBS’s direction since the Ellison family took the reins at the network’s parent company and tapped Weiss to lead its newsroom. The Ellisons enjoy a close relationship with President Donald Trump, and Weiss is a moderate with conventionally conservative views on some topics and conventionally liberal ones on others. Quelle horreur. The months since Weiss took over have seen no shortage of pseudo-events breathlessly reported on by the media industry’s resident navel-gazers. There was the time she chose Tony Dokoupil, the MSNBC alum who once had the temerity to ask a tough question or two of the sainted Ta-Nehisi Coates, to helm CBS Evening News. And the time she briefly held a story from Sharyn Alfonsi — the ex-60 Minutes correspondent who once embarrassed her colleagues with a clumsy, botched hit on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) — in the hope that she might want to better it. And there was, of course, the garment-rending over the departures of beloved Democratic-operatives-in-disguise like Scott McFarlane, who fled for the bluer waters of MeidasTouch. But while the moral panic over CBS transforming into some Newsmax-OANN Frankenstein continues apace, so too does the network’s critical coverage of the Trump and the right more generally. In just the last eight months, 60 Minutes has seen segments about the president’s attacks on the judicial branch, the consequences of his One Big Beautiful Bill’s cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the maleffects of his sweeping imposition of tariffs,… [TheTopNews] Read More.54 mins ago - Fox Reporter Notes ‘No Sitting President’ Has Ever Spoken With Hezbollah —...
Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow spoke to Fox News foreign correspondent Lucas Tomlinson on Monday, following President Donald Trump’s claim he spoke to Hezbollah leaders and convinced both them and Israel to stop exchanging fire across the Israel-Lebanon border. “The president putting it on Truth Social that he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then through intermediaries, leaders of Hezbollah, the president posting, quote: ‘I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, and there will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back. Likewise, through very highly placed representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop, that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel,’” began Tomlinson, adding: Late last night, U.S. Central Command says American forces shot down two Iranian ballistic missiles heading to a base in Kuwait housing U.S. troops. It’s the second attack on Kuwait in recent days, Larry. The latest missile attack took place one day after U.S. forces disabled another ship trying to run the blockade and sail to an Iranian port. Iranian forces also shot down an American Predator drone over the weekend, drawing a counterattack by U.S. forces. Now, many have said these types of attacks over the weekend are proof, Larry, that the ceasefire is not holding — perhaps your next guest agrees. Of course, President Trump speaking to leaders of Hezbollah through intermediaries is very rare. Of course, no sitting president has ever spoken directly with the leaders of Hezbollah since they took power. But these attacks — some people would like to see a more muscular response, Larry. For every ship attacked going through the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military would then attack an oil refinery in a tit-for-tat, Larry. So we’ll see. Kudlow added, “Lucas, thank you for that wrap-up. It sounds like — you know, and I try to listen to you and I’m reading what I can read — it just sounds like we’re… there’s no deadline right now. They’re talking, they’re not talking, the red lines aren’t changing. And we can go on like this with an economic blockade standing behind it. The embargo continues, you know, drilling their economy into the ground. I mean, that seems like the state of play… [TheTopNews] Read More.59 mins ago - ‘They Don’t Understand’: New Details Emerge from Stunning Closed Door ’6...
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) Veteran anchor Scott Pelley’s diatribe against new management at a 60 Minutes staff meeting spread like wildfire Monday, after recordings of the event were obtained by multiple news outlets. New 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton’s first meeting with staff had only just begun, when Pelley, the former anchor of CBS Evening News and longtime correspondent at 60 Minutes, interrupted the proceedings. Bilton, reading from prepared notes, had just claimed that CBS editor Bari Weiss “loves 60 Minutes.” “She’s murdering ’60 Minutes.’ She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she’s doing exactly that,” interjected Pelley — according to multiple reports. “She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?” A source with knowledge of the situation told Mediaite that one of the reasons new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton lost the room was due to his boast that he had multiple story ideas he wanted to run with — a move which deviated from standard practice at the newsmagazine dating back to the show’s original executive producer Don Hewitt. 60 Minutes isn’t a top down organization, the source told Mediaite. Hewitt didn’t give story ideas ahead of time. A team does that, meaning that Bilton’s assertion signaled a fundamental misunderstanding of the show’s structure. The claim triggered gasps from the room. The source likened the dynamic to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — as though someone walked into the factory and told Willy Wonka they knew how to make chocolate. The source did tell Mediaite they do believe it’s Bilton and Weiss’s intention to “save” 60 Minutes, but noted they didn’t offer much indication that they have the ability to do it. “They’re going try to save it,” the source told Mediaite. “But if you’re going to try to save it you have to know whats good about it and they [60 Minutes staff] don’t think they understand what’s good about it and that’s storytelling.” While networks or daily news might be, as Bilton characterized it in the meeting, “an ice cube that is melting,” storytelling and those who tell stories are not. The feeling in the room was of an outsider invading the 60 Minutes space and tearing it apart, while all the… [TheTopNews] Read More.1 hour ago - Nancy Mace Stuck in 5th Place in Governor’s Race After Trump Snubs Her On Endo...
(Win McNamee/Pool Photo via AP) Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is stuck in fifth place out of a field of seven Republican hopefuls in South Carolina’s governor race after failing to secure President Donald Trump’s endorsement. A new primary tracking poll by the Trafalgar Group conducted between May 29 and 31 showed Mace with 14.8% of the vote for the June 9 Republican primary. She trails Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who has 26.3%; businessman Rom Reddy, who has 17.2%; Attorney General Alan Wilson, who has 16.9%; and Rep. Ralph Norman, who has 16.1% of the vote. The only candidates Mace leads are Jacqueline Dubose, who was disqualified for not paying the election filing fee, and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who has 1.9% of the vote. Undecided voters are at 4% just over a week before the primary. BREAKING: @trafalgar_group SC GOP 2026 Governor Primary Tracking Poll (05/29-05/31) SC GOP Gov: 26.3% @PamelaEvette17.2% @RomReddySC16.9% @AGAlanWilson16.1% @RalphNorman14.8% @NancyMace2.4% Jacqueline Dubose1.9% @JoshKimbrellSC4.4% Und pic.twitter.com/9zHS3z2Mz6 — Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) June 1, 2026 Despite not receiving Trump’s endorsement, Mace has continued to post photos of herself with Trump on X, declaring herself “MAGA MACE,” and writing, “I’m the only candidate running for Governor who worked for President Trump and helped get him elected in South Carolina in 2016 – the very first time he ran.” The post earned Mace a community note from readers saying, “Trump endorsed Pam Evette, not Nancy Mace, for South Carolina governor.” And in her campaign bio, Mace included, “ENDORSED BY TRUMP IN 2024.” I’m the only candidate running for Governor who worked for President Trump and helped get him elected in South Carolina in 2016 – the very first time he ran. pic.twitter.com/e4IcA3nhK9 — Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) June 1, 2026 Trump announced last week on Truth Social that he was throwing his support behind Evette, calling her “highly respected” and “very popular.” “Pam Evette is an America First Patriot who has been with me from the very beginning,” Trump wrote, adding that she “never wavered, never let me down” and was the first South Carolina gubernatorial candidate to endorse his White House bid. Despite Trump’s very public endorsement, however, Mace posted last Friday, “Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP. Do not believe her LIES.” Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP. Do not believe her LIES. pic.twitter.com/2vP1E3T5M8 —… [TheTopNews] Read More.1 hour ago - Dan Rather and Slew of CBS Alumni Call for David Ellison to Uphold ‘Independen...
(Photos via: Ronen Tivony and Richard Shotwell) Former CBS star anchor Dan Rather was among 130 signees who called for Paramount Skydance boss David Ellison to “uphold the principle of editorial independence” at 60 Minutes and railed against sweeping changes at the program in an open letter sent on Monday. The letter was signed by dozens of former CBS and 60 Minutes reporters and producers, including longtime correspondent Steve Kroft, as well as actress Glenn Close, The New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright, and documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney. It comes less than a week after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss named Nick Bilton the show’s new executive producer, with Bilton replacing Tanya Simon. Several correspondents were also fired in the shakeup, which led to swift complaints from many in the journalism world and from veteran anchor Scott Pelley. The signees complained that the changes not only threatened the future of the top-rated news program but also the future of journalism in the USA. “Modernizing the show for new audiences and new delivery approaches is important — but not at the cost of editorial integrity,” the letter said. “The wholesale dismissal of editorial management, without a public pledge to maintain the values, standards, and traditions of this program, put the legacy of 60 Minutes in jeopardy.” “We urge you to send a clear message to your staff, your viewers, and the broader public that you respect and value editorial independence and press freedom,” the letter continued. “What is at stake is not just the future of the most important and enduring television journalism program in this country, but the future of free and independent press in America.” The New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin posted the full letter to X: NEW: A slew of well-known journalists, including Dan Rather, Lowell Bergman and Alex Gibney, have released a letter to David Ellison asking him to affirm his commitment to editorial independence at “60 Minutes.” pic.twitter.com/6dumz7hpqL — Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) June 1, 2026 Earlier in the day, Status CEO Oliver Darcy reported Pelley fumed that Weiss was “murdering” 60 Minutes. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she’s doing exactly that,” Pelley said. “She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
The Searchable USWebDaily.com and TheTopNews NewsBank Helps You Be Better Informed, Faster! Spread The Word.
