Story by Curtis Walsh – Beaver County Radio. Published August 12, 2026 9:21 A.M.

(Freedom, Pa) The Freedom Area School District announced they are looking for applicants to fill a vacancy on the Board of School Directors resulting from a resignation.

The person appointed will serve the remainder of the current unexpired term through December 2029.

Eligible candidates must be at least 18 years old and have been a resident of the district for a minimum of one year.

Applications are bring accepted through Thursday, August 20, 2026 at 3:00 PM.

Interested individuals must submit a letter of interest and resume to Dr. Jeff Beltz, Superintendent of the Freedom Area School District.

Applications can be mailed to the district, or delivered in person to the District Administrative Office during business hours.

Pittsburgh, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is announcing inspection work on the Beaver-Rochester Bridge which carries Route 51 over the Beaver River in Rochester and Bridgewater boroughs, Beaver County will occur Thursday, August 13 weather permitting.

There will be a traffic shift and shoulder closure on the Beaver-Rochester Bridge ramp to southbound Route 51/65 from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Thursday. Crews from Mackin Engineering and the Sofis Rigging Company will conduct bridge inspection activities.

FILE -Toyota dealership, April 30, 2026, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

CHICAGO (AP) — Toyota is recalling about 655,000 of its Camry vehicles globally, the automaker confirmed Tuesday, due to a display error that may deactivate safety indicators like turn signals and hazard lights during startup.

Most of the now-recalled cars were sold in the U.S. — where more than 508,000 model year 2025-2026 Camry Hybrids are affected.

According to documents published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, these vehicles are equipped with a 7-inch (17.8 centimeters) display combination meter that can become blank at startup. And beyond turn signals and hazard lights, certain warnings like seat belt reminders and “key left in ignition” buzzers may also not function as a result.

These display failures increase crash risks — both for drivers who may not be able to see telltale indicators and “the ability of other road users to recognize the driver’s intent to change direction or indicate a vehicle hazard,” the NHTSA warns.

Texas-based Toyota Motor North America — a subsidiary of the larger Japanese automaker — says it will notify all known owners of the affected Camrys to bring their vehicles into a certified dealer. To remedy the issue, those dealers will later provide a software update free of charge.

Owner letters are set to be mailed starting Sept. 21 in the U.S., and Toyota expects to complete those notifications by early October. In the meantime, customers can check the NHTSA’s and Toyota’s online recall lookups to see if their car is affected.

Toyota confirmed to The Associated Press via email Tuesday that its recall affects markets in North America, the Middle East, Asia and some countries in other regions. The company said the 655,000 vehicles impacted globally were produced between December 2023 and July 2026 — across three plants located in the U.S., Japan and Thailand.

For more information, customers can visit Toyota’s website or contact customer support at 1-800-331-4331.

FILE – A portion of the Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel plant, is seen Aug. 11, 2025 in Clairton, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

A federal safety agency recommended the development of written policies and procedures for flushing gas valves a year after a blast at a U.S. Steel plant near Pittsburgh killed two workers.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board issued a final report into the August 2025 blast at Clairton Coke Works, which also injured 11 others, including contractors.

U.S. Steel has said the explosion happened when workers were flushing a gas valve with pressurized water in preparation for routine planned maintenance at the sprawling riverside industrial facility, the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The valve ruptured under intense pressure and released combustible coke oven gas.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration previously fined the company a total of $118,214 and issued 10 citations. OSHA had said that U.S. Steel’s written procedures, practices and training to safely maintain equipment and flush the gas valve were incomplete, outdated or inadequate.

The Chemical Safety Board report recommended that U.S. Steel develop a written procedure for washing valves with pressurized water in order to minimize the operation’s hazards. It also recommended that an industrial cleaning contractor which used a pump truck to apply pressurized water to the valve develop written policies and procedures for cleaning piping systems containing flammable or toxic gas, and train its workers in such operations.

The Chemical Safety Board report found that when a valve would not close fully, U.S. Steel had a practice of injecting steam or high-pressure water into the cleanout port in an attempt to remove residue.

“U.S. Steel had no procedure for how to safely conduct this operation, but for at least three years before the incident, U.S. Steel employees had utilized pressurized water to clean valve seats on an ad hoc basis despite the lack of a formal procedure prescribing it,” according to the report’s executive summary.

Chemical Safety Board member Sylvia Johnson said the blast “was the result of workers routinely performing a task incorrectly over a period of years until it ultimately led to a catastrophic explosion.”

The valve that failed was more than 70 years old and made from cast iron, which the report said is widely recognized as a brittle material. Numerous safety publications either ban or warn against using cast iron equipment in certain hazardous applications, including for flammable substances such as coke oven gas.

The report also said the two workers who died and two of the five seriously injured workers were located around buildings directly above the coke oven gas piping. If these buildings were located in a different area of the facility away from coke ovens, “this incident could have been far less severe,” said Drew Sahli, the Chemical Safety Board investigator in charge.

Before the blast, Clairton Coke Works had a history of accidents and explosions, and some current and former workers there say poor management and underinvestment have exacerbated air pollution and undermined workplace safety, Pittsburgh’s Public Source and The Associated Press have found.

The blast came on top of a string of other accidents at the Clairton plant over time, as well as a long history of legal battles between U.S. Steel and Allegheny County regulators, who regularly accuse the company of flouting environmental rules at the facility.

The report noted that a similar gas oven explosion occurred at the Clairton plant in July 2010, injuring 14 U.S. Steel employees and six contractors. The report criticized U.S. Steel for failing to conduct a subsequent facility siting evaluation after that incident.

Pittsburgh, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is announcing inspection work on Route 68 (Midland-Beaver Road) in Industry Borough and Vanport Township, Beaver County will occur Wednesday, August 12 weather permitting.

There will be single-lane alternating traffic restrictions controlled by flaggers on Midland-Beaver Road between Barclay Hill Road and Sebring Road from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Wednesday. Crews from Mackin Engineering and the Sofis Rigging Company will conduct bridge inspection activities on the structure over Norfolk Southern rail lines.