Story by Curtis Walsh – Beaver County Radio. Published October 31, 2025 5:31 P.M.

(Beaver Falls, Pa) A yearly community free Christmas dinner will not be returning for 2025. Care Ministries, who hosts the annual event, made the announcement Friday on Facebook.

Organizers Stephen and Rebecca Ficca Salopek stated ongoing health issues as the reason for discontinuing the dinner. They added that “it has been a heart-wrenching decision” and thanked everybody for their support over the years.

The dinner was hosted annually for the last 31 years at the Beaver Falls High School.

(File Photo of a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Car)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Potter Township, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver reported via release today that twenty-three-year-old Giovanni Hupp-Thompson of Beaver was charged for careless driving after causing a single-vehicle crash in Potter Township on the morning of October 13th, 2025. Hupp-Thompson was driving on I-376 West at 4:48 a.m. and hit a metal barrier off to the right side of the road, which caused his vehicle to flip multiple times. Hupp-Thompson was transported because of his injuries, which are unknown at this time, but police suspect them to be serious. The vehicle of Hupp-Thompson sustained damage on its drivers side panels, passenger side panels, hood and roof.

(File Photo of Police Siren Lights)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) According to Pittsburgh Public Safety officials recently, a seventy-one-year-old man died on Wednesday afternoon after he was hit by a car in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh the previous day. Officers were dispatched to the Forbes and Oakland Avenue intersection on Tuesday at around 4:45 a.m. First responders discovered a man with a head injury lying in the road and he was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The man who passed away the afternoon of the following day has not been unidentified yet. The driver who hit him remained on the scene and it is unknown if that driver will be facing any charges at this time. Police confirm that the investigation remains ongoing and active.

(File Photo of the American Flag)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Beaver County, PA) Veterans Day in 2025 is on Tuesday, November 11th, when Beaver County and the United States of America will thank military veterans for their service. According to the Beaver County Times, here are a few of the events around Beaver County for Veterans Day:

• The Beaver County Veterans Day parade begins at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 11 at the Beaver County Courthouse along Third Street in Beaver. The parade is organized by the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 862.
• The third annual Veteran Appreciation Day is 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 8 at the B.F. Jones Memorial Library, 663 Franklin Avenue, Aliquippa. Free event for veterans features food, coffee, live music, free activities for kids, storytime, resources for veterans and giveaways.
• Our Lady of the Valley Parish confirmation class will host a Veterans Day breakfast for veterans and a guest from 10-11:30 a.m. Nov. 9 at the Holy Family Catholic Church social hall, 521 7th St. in New Brighton. Reservations are due by Nov. 5; email jconnelly@olotv.org or call 724-775-4111 Ext. 222.
• Findlay Township is hosting a light lunch and entertainment for local veterans and their families at 11 a.m. Nov. 10 at the Findlay Township activity center, 310 Main St., Imperial. Reservations are required by calling 724-695-0500 Ext. 241.

Veterans Day is also a federal holiday, so both the Beaver County Courthouse and other government offices will be closed. There will also be no mail delivery in the United States on Veterans Day and many banks locally will also be closed.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – The YouTube app is displayed on an iPad in Baltimore on March 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

(AP) YouTube TV viewers can no longer see Disney channels including ABC and ESPN after the two sides failed to agree on a new content distribution deal.

Other channels that vanished from Google’s pay TV platform include the Disney Channel, FX and Nat Geo.

Google’s pay TV platform said in a blog post late Thursday that Disney had followed through on a threat to suspend its content amid the negotiations.

The breakdown could impact coverage of some college football games on Saturday, as well as NBA, NFL and NHL games.

YouTube is the largest internet TV provider in the U.S. with more than 9 million subscribers. Hulu, owned by Disney, is next, with about half that many subscribers.

Viewers have become aware of the dispute in recent weeks because of warnings being scrolled across their screens.

YouTube said Disney used the threat of a blackout as a negotiating tactic that would have resulted in higher prices for its subscribers. Disney’s move to take down its content also benefits its own streaming products Hulu + Live TV and Fubo, YouTube said.

“We know this is a frustrating and disappointing outcome for our subscribers and we continue to urge Disney to work with us constructively to reach a fair agreement that restores their networks to YouTube TV,” it said.

YouTube said it would give subscribers a $20 credit if Disney content unavailable “for an extended period of time.” YouTube TV’s base subscription plan costs $82.99 per month.

Disney said that YouTube TV is refusing to pay fair rates for its channels and has chosen to “deny their subscribers the content they value most,” pointing out the number of Top 25 teams playing this weekend.

“With a $3 trillion market cap, Google is using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor,” Disney said. The company said that it was committed to reaching a resolution as quickly as possible.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: A soldier patrols in courtyard of the Louvre museum, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

PARIS (AP) — The dragnet tightened around the Louvre thieves on Thursday. Five more people were seized in the crown-jewels heist — including a suspect tied by DNA — the Paris prosecutor said, widening the sweep across the capital and its suburbs.

Authorities said three of the four alleged members of the “commando” team, as French media have dubbed the robbers, are now in custody.

The late-night operations in Paris and nearby Seine-Saint-Denis lift the total arrested to seven. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau told RTL that one detainee is suspected of belonging to the brazen quartet that burst into the Apollo Gallery in broad daylight on Oct. 19; others held “may be able to inform us about how the events unfolded.”

Beccuau called the response an “exceptional mobilization” — about 100 investigators, seven days a week, with roughly 150 forensic samples analyzed and 189 items sealed as evidence.

Even so, she said the latest arrests did not uncover the loot — a trove valued around $102 million that includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise as a wedding gift, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.

Only one relic has surfaced so far — Eugénie’s crown, damaged but salvageable, dropped in the escape.

Beccuau renewed her appeal: “These jewels are now, of course, unsellable… There’s still time to give them back.”

Experts warn the gold could be melted and the stones re-cut to erase their past.

From Louvres to the Louvre: Planning a 4-minute crime

Key planning details have snapped into focus. Nine days before the raid, a mover who owns a truck-mounted lift — the kind movers use to hoist furniture through Parisian windows — was mysteriously booked for a “moving job” on the French classifieds site Leboncoin, a site similar to Craigslist, Beccuau said Wednesday.

When he arrived in the town of Louvres, north of Paris, around 10 a.m. on Oct. 10, two men ambushed him and stole the lift truck.

On the day of the heist itself, that same vehicle idled beneath the Paris museum’s riverside façade.

Online observers have noted a remarkable coincidence: How a plot that began in Louvres ended at the Louvre.

At 9:30 a.m. the basket lift rose to the Apollo Gallery window; at 9:34 the glass gave way; by 9:38 the crew was gone — a four-minute strike. Only the “near-simultaneous” arrival of police and museum security stopped the thieves from torching the lift and preserved crucial traces, the prosecutor said.

Security footage shows at least four men forcing a window, cutting into two display cases with power tools and fleeing on two scooters toward eastern Paris. Investigators say there is no sign of insider help for now, though they are not ruling out a wider network beyond the four on camera.

The reckoning over security

French police have acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defenses, turning an audacious theft — carried out as visitors walked the corridors — into a national reckoning over how France protects its treasures.

Paris police chief Patrice Faure told senators the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s security systems but from a cyclist outside who dialed the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift. He acknowledged that aging, partly analog cameras and slow fixes left seams; $93 million of CCTV cabling work won’t finish before 2029–30, and the Louvre’s camera authorization even lapsed in July. Officers arrived fast, he said, but the delay came earlier in the chain.

Speaking to AP, former bank robber David Desclos characterized the heist as textbook and said he had warned the Louvre of glaring vulnerabilities in the layout of the Apollo Gallery. The Louvre has not responded to the claim.

Who’s charged already

Two earlier suspects, men aged 34 and 39 from Aubervilliers, north of Paris, were charged Wednesday with theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy after nearly 96 hours in custody. Beccuau said both gave “minimalist” statements and “partially admitted” their involvement.

One was stopped at Charles-de-Gaulle Airport with a one-way ticket to Algeria; his DNA matched a scooter used in the getaway.

French law normally keeps active investigations under a shroud of secrecy to protect police work and victims’ privacy. Only the prosecutor may speak publicly, though in high-profile cases police unions have occasionally shared partial details.

The brazen smash-and-grab inside the world’s most-visited museum stunned the heritage world. Four men, a lift truck and a stopwatch turned the Apollo Gallery’s blaze of gold and light into a crime scene — and a test of how France guards what it holds most dear.

(File Photo of Road Work Ahead Sign)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) PennDOT District 11 announced that on Monday, November 3rd through Friday, November 7th, weather permitting, overnight closures of the southbound Route 65 ramp to the southbound Fort Duquesne Bridge (I-279) in the City of Pittsburgh will occur. From 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. each of those nights, bridge deck and barrier repair work requiring the ramp that carries southbound Route 65 approach to the southbound Fort Duquesne Bridge will close to traffic nightly. During those overnights, the Allegheny Avenue/Ridge Avenue/Reedsdale Street ramps to the Fort Duquesne Bridge will close. Traffic will be detoured, and according to a release from PennDOT District 11, here are the detour routes for this work and more information about it:

Posted Detours

Southbound Route 65 to the Fort Duquesne Bridge

·       From southbound Route 65, take the ramp to South 19/51 toward the West End Bridge

·       Cross the West End Bridge

·       Continue straight onto southbound Route 19/51 (Saw Mill Run Boulevard)

·       Take the ramp to West 376/South 19 toward Carnegie/Pittsburgh International Airport

·       Bear left toward South Truck 19/51 Uniontown

·       Stay left to East 376/South 51

·       Merge onto eastbound (inbound) I-376 (Parkway West)

·       Continue through the Fort Pitt Tunnel

·       End detour

Allegheny Avenue/Ridge Avenue to the Fort Duquesne Bridge

·       Take Ridge Avenue westbound

·       Ridge Avenue becomes Fulton Street

·       Turn left onto Western Avenue

·       Bear left toward South 19/51/North 65 West End Bridge/Ohio River Boulevard

·       Continue straight onto the West End Bridge

·       Cross the West End Bridge

·       Continue straight onto southbound Route 19/51 (Saw Mill Run Boulevard)

·       Take the ramp to West 376/South 19 toward Carnegie/Pittsburgh International Airport

·       Bear left toward South Truck 19/51 Uniontown

·       Stay left to East 376/South 51

·       Merge onto eastbound (inbound) I-376 (Parkway West)

·       Continue through the Fort Pitt Tunnel

·       End detour

Reedsdale Street to the Fort Duquesne Bridge

·       Follow Reedsdale Street to Allegheny Avenue

·       Turn right onto Allegheny Avenue

·       Turn left onto Ridge Avenue

·       Ridge Avenue becomes Fulton Street

·       Turn left onto Western Avenue

·       Bear left toward South 19/51/North 65 West End Bridge/Ohio River Boulevard

·       Continue straight onto the West End Bridge

·       Cross the West End Bridge

·       Continue straight onto southbound Route 19/51 (Saw Mill Run Boulevard)

·       Take the ramp to West 376/South 19 toward Carnegie/Pittsburgh International Airport

·       Bear left toward South Truck 19/51 Uniontown

·       Stay left to East 376/South 51

·       Merge onto eastbound (inbound) I-376 (Parkway West)

·       Continue through the Fort Pitt Tunnel

·       End detour

From 7 A.M. to 3 P.M. through late December, single-lane restrictions will also occur each day, as needed, on the following City of Pittsburgh roadways:

·       West General Robinson Street between Chuck Noll Way and Mazeroski Way

·       Reedsdale Street between Art Rooney Avenue and Tony Dorsett Drive

·       Tony Dorsett Drive between Reedsdale Street and North Shore Drive

·       North Shore Drive between Chuck Noll Way and Mazeroski Way

(Photo Provided with Release Courtesy of the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a release from The Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, they are taking applications for its 20th annual $5,000 Bob Fryer Memorial Scholarship as well as the $2,500 Press Club of Western Pennsylvania Scholarship awarded to aspiring journalists. Candidates need to be current sophomores or juniors enrolled in an accredited university or college and they must be able to demonstrate why they should receive the award. Their primary residence also must be in one of Western Pennsylvania’s 29 counties. The aforementioned counties are as follows: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Bedford, Blair, Butler, Cambria , Cameron,
Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Fayette, Forest, Greene, Huntingdon,
Indiana, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Mercer, Potter, Somerset, Venango, Warren,
Washington and Westmoreland. You can get an application by either contacting 412-281-7778 or pressclubwpa@gmail.com or by downloading one from www.westernpapressclub.org. You can also receive further information, you can contact scholarship committee chairman Rick Monti at
rick.monti@gmail.com or by calling him at 412-600-0606.