(File Photo of Cranberry Township logo)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Cranberry Township, PA) Graham Park in Cranberry Township hosted the Miracle Legue of Southwestern Pennsylvania on Saturday, which is a baseball league for those with disabilities, for their 2025 season. According to its official website, the league has been dedicated to “providing the opportunity for children and adults with physical and mental disabilities to play organized baseball.” The seventeenth season of the league is being recognized this month. The league began back in 2007.

(File Photo of Open for Business Sign)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(New Castle, PA) Several Big Lots stores in Pennsylvania will reopen on June 5th, 2025. According to TribLive, eleven stores are on the list and one of them is the Rochester location in Beaver County. On Thursday, the Big Lots store in New Castle and nine other Big Lots stores in Pennsylvania reopened. Once the re–openings are finished, there will be a total of twenty-four Big Lots stores in Pennsylvania. In September, Big Lots filed for bankruptcy protection. 

(File Photo of Police Lights)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Aliquippa, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that an unidentified man from Aliquippa was arrested for driving under the influence in Aliquippa on April 16th, 2025. An unidentified thirty-seven-year-old man committed a vehicle code violation that day and was stopped by police. The incident occurred on Franklin Avenue and according to police, the man was arrested for driving under the influence of a controlled substance and his charges are pending.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – A sign with the company’s logo stands outside a Rite Aid store in Salem, N.H., on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Camp Hill, PA) According to an announcement from Rite-Aid, 115 of their stores are ready to close after Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings started this month for the company. These Rite-Aid stores are located in Pennsylvania and nine other states and fifty-two of those stores that are closing are in Pennsylvania. The drug store chain presently has 1,240 stores in operation in fifteen states while 10% of those stores are ready to be closed.

(File Photo of Gavel)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are trying to put more regulations on the industry of cremation for pets. This comes after an owner of a Pittsburgh funeral home got accusations of taking over $650,000 and giving the wrong ashes to customers. Patrick Vereb allegedly threw away the bodies of pets from 2021 to 2024. A change that lawmakers are working on is accountability for those working with cremations and possible penalties like removing their licenses.

(File Photo of the United States flag)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(New Brighton, PA) The New Brighton Memorial Day Association issued information in a Facebook post that today, the third graders of New Brighton Elementary School will be placing flags at two cemeteries. They will be going to both Grove Cemetery and Holy Family Cemetery and will be headed on a walk around New Brighton. The New Brighton Memorial Day Association also noted in that same post that drivers must be both patient and cautious during this Memorial Day tribute. 

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Hadi Matar walks in to the Chautauqua County court in Mayville, N.Y., Friday, May. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — A man who attacked Salman Rushdie with a knife in front of a stunned audience in 2022, leaving the prizewinning author blind in one eye, was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison.

Hadi Matar, 27, stood quietly as the judge pronounced the sentence. He did not deny attacking Rushdie, and when he was invited to address the court before being sentenced, Matar got in a few last insults at the writer. He said he believed in freedom of speech but called Rushdie “a hypocrite.”

“Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” said Matar, clad in white-striped jail clothing and wearing handcuffs. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”

Rushdie, 77, did not return to western New York for the sentencing but submitted a victim impact statement in which he said he has nightmares about what happened, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said. The statement was not made public. Rushdie, through his agent, declined to comment after the sentencing.

During the trial, the author described how he believed he was dying when a masked attacker plunged a knife into his head and body more than a dozen times as he was being introduced at the Chautauqua Institution to speak about writer safety.

Video of the assault, captured by the venue’s cameras and played at trial, show Matar approaching the seated Rushdie from behind and reaching around him to stab at his torso with a knife. As the audience gasps and screams, Rushdie is seen raising his arms and rising from his seat, walking and stumbling for a few steps with Matar hanging on, swinging and stabbing until they both fall and are surrounded by onlookers who rush in to separate them.

A jury found Matar guilty of attempted murder and assault in February after deliberating for less than two hours.

Judge David Foley told Matar that he thought it was notable he had chosen to try and kill Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution, a summer retreat that prides itself on the free exchange of ideas.

“We all have the right to have our own ideals; we all have the right to carry them,” Foley said. “But when you interfere with someone else’s ability to do that by committing a violent act, in the United States of America, that has to be an answerable crime.”

The judge also gave Matar a seven-year term for wounding a man who was on stage with Rushdie, though that time will run concurrently to the other sentence.

After the attack, Rushdie spent 17 days at a Pennsylvania hospital and more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center. The author of “Midnight’s Children,” “The Moor’s Last Sigh” and “Victory City” detailed his recovery in his 2024 memoir, “Knife.”

Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, had asked the judge for a sentence of around 12 years, citing his lack of a previous criminal record.

Schmidt, the prosecutor, said Matar deserved the maximum sentence of 25 years, saying Matar “designed this attack so that he could inflict the most amount of damage, not just upon Mr. Rushdie, but upon this community, upon the 1,400 people who were there to watch it.”

Matar next faces a federal trial on terrorism-related charges. While the first trial focused mostly on the details of the knife attack itself, the next one is expected to delve into the more complicated issue of motive. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted of the federal charges, Matar faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Authorities said Matar, a U.S. citizen, was attempting to carry out a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death when he traveled from his home in Fairview, New Jersey, to target Rushdie at the summer retreat about 70 miles (110 kilometers) southwest of Buffalo.

Matar believed the fatwa, first issued in 1989, was backed by the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and endorsed in a 2006 speech by the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, according to federal prosecutors.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa after publication of Rushdie’s novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Rushdie spent years in hiding, but after Iran announced it would not enforce the decree he traveled freely over the past quarter century.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE -A sign is seen outside of Seminole Hospital District offering measles testing, Feb. 21, 2025, in Seminole, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez), File)

(AP) Texas’ measles outbreak shows signs of slowing, with fewer than 10 newly reported cases in the last week, but experts say it’s not fully over.

“This outbreak does appear to be leveling off, but the affected states remain hypervigilant, and that’s because it’s travel season,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention incident manager Dr. Manisha Patel said Thursday of the southwestern outbreak, which also affects New Mexico and Oklahoma. “There is a lot of global measles activity right now.”

Across the U.S., there are 1,024 confirmed measles cases as of Friday — an increase of 23 in a week. Texas still accounts for the vast majority of cases.

There are three other major outbreaks in North America. One in Ontario, Canada, has resulted in 1,622 cases from mid-October through May 13, which rose by 182 cases in a week. Another in Alberta, Canada, has sickened 409 as of Thursday. And the Mexican state of Chihuahua had 1,306 measles cases and one death as of Friday, according to data from the state health ministry.

Since the outbreak in the Southwest U.S. began, two elementary school-aged children in the epicenter in West Texas and an adult in New Mexico have died of measles. All were unvaccinated.

Other states with active outbreaks — which the CDC defines as three or more related cases — include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000. Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.

How many measles cases are there in Texas?

There are a total of 718 cases across 32 counties, most of them in West Texas, state health officials said Friday. The state confirmed only one more case since its update Tuesday.

Hospitalizations were steady at 93 throughout the outbreak.

State health officials estimated about 1% of cases — fewer than 10 — are actively infectious. Fifty-seven percent of Texas’ cases are in Gaines County, population 22,892, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has had 406 cases since late January — just over 1.7% of the county’s residents.

The April 3 death in Texas was an 8-year-old child, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Local health officials said the child did not have underlying health conditions and died of “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure.” A unvaccinated child with no underlying conditions died of measles in Texas in late February; Kennedy said the child was 6.

How many measles cases are there in New Mexico?

New Mexico added two new measles cases Thursday for a total of 73. They are the first cases in Sandoval County, north of Albuquerque.

Seven people have been hospitalized since the outbreak started. Most of the state’s cases are in Lea County. Three are in Eddy County, two in Doña Ana County and Chaves and Curry counties have one each.

An unvaccinated adult died of measles-related illness March 6. The person did not seek medical care.

How many cases are there in Oklahoma?

Oklahoma held steady with a total of 14 confirmed and three probable cases on Friday.

The state health department is not releasing which counties have cases, but Cleveland, Oklahoma and Sequoyah counties have had public exposures in the past couple of months.

How many cases are there in Kansas?

Kansas has a total of 56 cases across 10 counties in the southwestern part of the state, with two hospitalizations. All but two of the cases are connected, and most of the cases are in Gray County.

How many cases are there in Indiana?

Indiana has eight cases, all of them in Allen County in the northeast part of the state. The cases have no known link to other outbreaks, the Allen County Department of Health has said.

How many cases are there in Michigan?

Michigan has eight confirmed cases of measles, with an outbreak of four connected cases in Montcalm County in the western part of the state that health officials say is tied to the Ontario outbreak.

State health officials said Wednesday that what they thought was a ninth case wasn’t after further testing; a child had an unrelated illness but initially tested positive for measles because they recently got the vaccine.

Vaccination does not cause measles and people who are recently vaccinated are not contagious. The measles vaccine contains a weakened form of the live virus that can trigger an immune system response that shows up on early tests.

How many cases are there in Montana?

Montana has eight measles cases as of May 5. The state’s outbreak started in mid-April in southwestern Gallatin County — Montana’s first measles cases in 35 years.

Health officials said there is no known local spread of measles, but did note the outbreaks in neighboring North Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

How many cases are there in North Dakota?

North Dakota, which hadn’t seen measles since 2011, is up to 12 cases as of Thursday.

There are two cases in Cass County on the eastern side of the state. The rest are in Williams County in western North Dakota on the Montana border and are not linked to Cass County.

The state health department says three of the confirmed cases in Williams County are linked to the first case — an unvaccinated child who health officials believe got it from an out-of-state visitor.

The other five cases were people who were not vaccinated and did not have contact with the other cases, causing concern about community transmission. The state health department said four people diagnosed with measles attended classes while infectious at a Williston elementary school, middle school and high school.

How many cases are there in Ohio?

Ohio remained steady Thursday at 34 measles cases and one hospitalization, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That count includes only Ohio residents.

The state has two outbreaks: Ashtabula County near Cleveland has 16 cases, and Knox County in east-central Ohio has 20 — 14 among Ohio residents and the rest among visitors.

Allen, Cuyahoga, Holmes and Defiance counties have one case each.

How many cases are there in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania has 15 cases overall in 2025 as of Friday, including international travel-related cases in Montgomery County and one in Philadelphia.

There outbreak of eight measles cases in Erie County in far northwest Pennsylvania has remained steady since it began in mid-April.

How many cases are there in Tennessee?

Tennessee has six measles cases as of early May. Health department spokesman Bill Christian said all cases are the middle part of the state, and that “at least three of these cases are linked to each other” but declined to specify further. The state also did not say whether the cases were linked to other outbreaks or when Tennessee’s outbreak started.

Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?

Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

Cases and outbreaks in the U.S. are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. The CDC says more than twice as many measles have come from outside of the U.S. compared to May of last year, and most of those are in unvaccinated Americans returning home. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.

What do you need to know about the MMR vaccine?

The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.

Getting another MMR shot as an adult is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says. People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said.

People who have documentation that they had measles are immune, and those born before 1957 generally don’t need the shots because so many children got measles back then that they have “presumptive immunity.”

Measles has a harder time spreading through communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — due to “herd immunity.” But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.

What are the symptoms of measles?

Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.

The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.

Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.

How can you treat measles?

There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner speaks at the rally in front of U.S. Federal Courthouse as immigrant rights groups rally outside the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to defend the N.J. state ban on immigration-detention contracts, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Philadelphia. (Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pennsylvania’s two largest cities will hold primaries Tuesday for high-profile municipal offices, while voters across the commonwealth will choose nominees for statewide appellate court judgeships.

The election is a prelude to November, when voters could scramble partisan control of the state Supreme Court. The primaries in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will have added significance because the eventual Democratic nominees will be heavily favored in the general election.

In Philadelphia, Democrat Larry Krasner seeks a third term as district attorney against former Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge Pat Dugan. Dugan stepped down in December midway through his third term to challenge Krasner for the Democratic nomination. He’s running as a moderate alternative to Krasner and has far outraised the incumbent.

Republicans have not fielded a candidate for the general election.

Krasner won reelection in 2021 by a wide margin, but the Republican-controlled state House impeached him a year later over his progressive policies. Senate Republicans had prepared to hold an impeachment trial to try to remove Krasner from office, but the state Supreme Court ruled that the trial needed to be held before the end of the 2022 legislative session. Democrats took control of the state House in 2023, making a new impeachment effort all but impossible.

Krasner won the 2021 primary with 67% of the vote. His opponent that year was Carlos Vega, a former prosecutor who sued the city over his 2018 firing by Krasner. Vega also ran as a more moderate alternative to Krasner and carried most of the wards in Northeast Philadelphia and two wards in South Philadelphia. Krasner swept the rest of the city.

In the race for mayor of Pittsburgh, Democratic incumbent Ed Gainey faces a primary challenge from Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, a former member of the Pittsburgh City Council and son of the late Mayor Bob O’Connor.

The two began the year on roughly even footing in terms of campaign funding, but O’Connor had far outraised and outspent Gainey by the end of March.

Gainey is a former state representative who ousted Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto in the 2021 primary on his way to becoming the city’s first Black mayor. He received about 46% of the primary vote, compared with about 39% for Peduto. Gainey carried most of the districts north of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers, excluding the downtown Golden Triangle area and some neighborhoods in the East and the Northwest.

Running for the Republican nomination are Thomas West and 2021 nominee Tony Moreno.

On the statewide ballot, Republicans will hold contested primaries for vacant seats on the state Superior Court and Commonwealth Court. These are the two statewide appellate courts a step below the state Supreme Court. The Democratic candidates for these seats are uncontested in their primaries.

There are no primaries Tuesday for state Supreme Court, but three Democratic justices will face yes-or-no votes in the November general election to serve additional 10-year terms. The court has a 5-2 Democratic majority, and Democrats are concerned that Republicans will mount a campaign to oust the justices who are up for retention this year. If voters decide not to retain a justice for another term, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would appoint a temporary replacement, subject to confirmation by the Republican-controlled state Senate. An election to fill the seat for a full 10-year term would be held in 2027.

Philadelphia, the state’s most populous city, plays a big role in statewide general elections but takes a back seat in statewide Republican primaries, since most voters there are registered Democrats. In the 2023 state Supreme Court primaries, Philadelphia cast more votes than any other county in the Democratic primary, but it didn’t crack the top 10 in the Republican primary. The counties with the most total votes cast in the GOP race were Allegheny, Montgomery, Bucks, Lancaster, Delaware, Chester, York, Westmoreland, Berks and Cumberland. All but York, Berks and Cumberland also made the list of top 10 counties in the Democratic primary in terms of most votes cast.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Pennsylvania requires an automatic recount for statewide races with a vote margin of 0.5 percentage points or less. For non-statewide races, voters may petition an individual county board of elections or the courts to order a recount. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here’s a look at what to expect Tuesday:

Primary day

Pennsylvania’s state primary will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in primaries for state Superior Court, Commonwealth Court, Pittsburgh mayor and Philadelphia district attorney. Retention elections for state Supreme Court will be held in November.

Who gets to vote?

Pennsylvania has a closed primary system, which means that registered voters may vote only in their own party’s primary.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of Monday, there were about 3.8 million Democrats and 3.6 million Republicans registered in Pennsylvania. Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, has almost a 2-1 ratio Democratic registration advantage. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Philadelphia County by a nearly 6-1 ratio.

More than 57,000 people voted in the 2021 Democratic primary for Pittsburgh mayor, which was about 34% of registered voters at the time. Mail ballots made up about 37% of votes cast. Roughly 224,000 people voted in the Philadelphia municipal primary that year, or about 21% of registered voters. About 28% of the vote was from mail ballots.

Turnout in 2023 state Supreme Court primaries was 12% of registered voters in the Democratic primary and 10% in the Republican primary. About 42% of votes in the Democratic primary were mail ballots cast before primary day, compared with about 15% in the Republican primary.

As of Thursday, nearly 390,000 of the 798,000 absentee ballots requested statewide had already been cast.

In Philadelphia, more than 14,000 absentee ballots for the Democratic primary had been cast out of the approximately 64,000 requested. In Pittsburgh, about one-third of the 22,000 Democratic absentee ballots requested had already been cast. About 30% of the roughly 1,900 Republican primary ballots requested in Pittsburgh had been cast.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2024 general election, the AP first reported results just as polls closed at 8 p.m. ET. Vote tabulation paused at 5:49 a.m. ET for roughly 90 minutes with about 96% of the statewide vote counted.

The first results in Allegheny County were available just after 8 p.m. ET and in Philadelphia County at 8:08 p.m. ET. The election night tabulation in Allegheny ended at 12:08 a.m. ET with about 98% of total votes counted and in Philadelphia County at 1:56 a.m. ET with about 93% of total votes counted.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 168 days until Pennsylvania’s 2025 general election in November.