Congressman Chris Deluzio joins the Congressional Croatian Caucus

(File Photo of Congressman Chris Deluzio)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Carnegie, PA) Congressman Chris Deluzio recently joined the Congressional Croatian Caucus. This group is made up of some lawmakers who are bipartisan that want a strong partnership between the United States and Croatia to be maintained. June 25th, 2025 was also Croatian Independence Day for those in Beaver County that have an ancestry from Croatia. Deluzio adds this caucus to the other ones he is part of in Washington, D.C. 

Trump gets ‘golden share’ power in US Steel buyout. US agencies will get it under future presidents

(File Photo: Source for Photo: President Donald Trump speaks at U.S. Steel Corporation’s Mon Valley Works-Irvin plant, Friday, May 30, 2025, in West Mifflin, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump will control the so-called “golden share” that’s part of the national security agreement under which he allowed Japan-based Nippon Steel to buy out iconic American steelmaker U.S. Steel, according to disclosures with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The provision gives the president the power to appoint a board member and have a say in company decisions that affect domestic steel production and competition with overseas producers.

Under the provision, Trump — or someone he designates — controls that decision-making power while he is president. However, control over those powers reverts to the Treasury Department and the Commerce Department when anyone else is president, according to the filings.

The White House responded in a statement that the share is “not granted to Trump specifically, but to whoever the president is” when asked why Trump will directly control the decision-making and why it goes to the Treasury and Commerce departments under future presidents.

Still, the wording of the provision is specific to Trump.

It lists what decisions cannot be made “without, … at any time when Donald J. Trump is serving as President of the United States of America, the written consent of Donald J. Trump or President Trump’s Designee” or “at any other time, the written consent of the CMAs,” a contractual term for the Treasury and Commerce departments.

Nippon Steel’s nearly $15 billion buyout of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel became final last week, making U.S. Steel a wholly owned subsidiary.

Trump has sought to characterize the acquisition as a “partnership” between the two companies after he at first vowed to block the deal — as former President Joe Biden did on his way out of the White House — before changing his mind after he became president.

The national security agreement became effective June 13 and is between Nippon Steel, as well as its American subsidiary, and the federal government, represented by the departments of Commerce and Treasury, according to the disclosures.

The complete national security agreement hasn’t been published publicly, although aspects of it have been outlined in statements and securities filings made by the companies, U.S. Steel said Wednesday.

The pursuit by Nippon Steel dragged on for a year and-a-half, weighed down by national security concerns, opposition by the United Steelworkers and presidential politics in the premier battleground state of Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is headquartered.

The combined company will become the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker in an industry dominated by Chinese companies, and bring what analysts say is Nippon Steel’s top-notch technology to U.S. Steel’s antiquated steelmaking processes, plus a commitment to invest $11 billion to upgrade U.S. Steel facilities.

The potential that the deal could be permanently blocked forced Nippon Steel to sweeten the deal.

That included upping its capital commitments in U.S. Steel facilities and adding the golden share provision, giving Trump the right to appoint an independent director and veto power on specific matters.

Those matters include reductions in Nippon Steel’s capital commitments in the national security agreement; changing U.S. Steel’s name and headquarters; closing or idling U.S. Steel’s plants; transferring production or jobs outside of the U.S.; buying competing businesses in the U.S.; and certain decisions on trade, labor and sourcing outside the U.S.

President Donald Trump says United States and Iranian officials will talk next week as ceasefire holds

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Workers clear rubble of a damaged building, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, after an Israeli strike on early Tuesday. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel and Iran seemed to honor the fragile ceasefire between them for a second day Wednesday and U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that American and Iranian officials will talk next week, giving rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace.

Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold Tuesday on the 12th day of the war, told reporters at a NATO summit that he was not particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, insisting that U.S. strikes had destroyed its nuclear program. Earlier in the day, an Iranian official questioned whether the United States could be trusted after its weekend attack.

“We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said. “The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done.”

Iran has not acknowledged any talks taking place next week, though U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff has said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries. A sixth round of U.S.-Iran negotiations was scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was canceled after Israel attacked Iran.

Earlier, Trump said the ceasefire was going “very well,” and added that Iran was “not going to have a bomb, and they’re not going to enrich.”

Iran has insisted that it will not give up its nuclear program. In a vote underscoring the tough path ahead, its parliament agreed to fast-track a proposal that would effectively stop the country’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. watchdog that has monitored the program for years.

Ahead of the vote, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf criticized the IAEA for refusing “to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities” that the U.S. carried out Sunday.

“For this reason, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will suspend cooperation with the IAEA until security of nuclear facilities is ensured, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear program will move forward at a faster pace,” Qalibaf told lawmakers.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said he wrote to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of their nuclear facilities. Among other things, Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the U.S. strikes, and Grossi said his inspectors need to reassess the country’s stockpiles.

“We need to return,” he said. “We need to engage.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said he hoped Tehran would come back to the table. France was part of the 2015 deal with Iran that restricted its nuclear program, but the agreement began unraveling after Trump pulled the U.S. out in his first term. Macron spoke multiple times to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the war.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi said Wednesday that Iran must quickly resume cooperation with international inspectors, telling French broadcaster France 2 that the IAEA had lost visibility over sensitive nuclear materials since the onset of hostilities.

Grossi said Iran is legally obligated to cooperate with the IAEA under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“During a war, inspections are not possible. But now that hostilities have ceased, and given the sensitivity of this material, I believe it is in everyone’s interest that we resume our activities as soon as possible,” he said.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.

Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.

Questions over effectiveness of the US strikes

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said its assessment was that the U.S. and Israeli strikes have “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” It did not give evidence to back up its claim.

The U.S. strikes hit three Iranian nuclear sites, which Trump said “completely and fully obliterated” the country’s nuclear program. When asked about a U.S. intelligence report that found Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months, Trump scoffed and said it would at least take years to rebuild.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed that the strikes by American B-2 bombers using bunker-buster bombs had caused significant damage.

“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he told Al Jazeera on Wednesday, refusing to go into detail.

He seemed to suggest Iran might not shut out IAEA inspectors for good, noting that the bill before parliament only talks of suspending work with the agency, not ending it. He also insisted Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear energy program.

“Iran is determined to preserve that right under any circumstances,” he said.

Witkoff said late Tuesday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that Israel and the U.S. had achieved their objective with “the total destruction of the enrichment capacity” in Iran, and Iran’s prerequisite for talks — that Israel end its campaign — had been fulfilled.

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “No one’s shooting at each other. It’s over.”

Hopes for a long-term peace agreement

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the ceasefire agreement with Iran amounted to “quiet for quiet,” with no further understandings about Iran’s nuclear program going ahead.

Witkoff told Fox News that Trump is now looking to land “a comprehensive peace agreement that goes beyond even the ceasefire.”

“We’re already talking to each other, not just directly, but also through interlocutors,” Witkoff said, adding that the conversations were promising.

However, Baghaei, the Iranian spokesman, said Washington had “torpedoed diplomacy” with its attacks on nuclear sites, and that while Iran in principle was always open to talks, national security was the priority.

“We have to make sure whether the other parties are really serious when they’re talking about diplomacy, or is it again part of their tactics to make more problems for the region and for my country,” he said.

Grossi said Iran and the international community should seize the opportunity of the ceasefire for a long-term diplomatic solution.

“Out of the … bad things that military conflict brings, there’s also now a possibility, an opening,” he said. “We shouldn’t miss that opportunity.”

A rare video by Mossad

Israel revealed details of the intelligence and covert operations that it said allowed the country to effectively target Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and key facilities.

In a rare video released by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, chief David Barnea thanked the CIA for being a key partner, and his own agents for work over years to achieve what was “unimaginable at first.”

“Thanks to accurate intelligence, advanced technologies and operational capabilities beyond imagination, we helped the air force strike the Iranian nuclear project, establish aerial superiority in Iranian skies and reduce the missile threat,” the agency said in a Facebook post alongside the video.

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the military chief of staff, asserted that commandos had operated secretly “deep inside enemy territory” during the war.

Tehran on Tuesday put the death toll in Iran at 606, with 5,332 people wounded. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group released figures Wednesday suggesting Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least 1,054 and wounded 4,476.

The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, said 417 of those killed were civilians and 318 were security forces.

At least 28 people were killed in Israel and more than 1,000 wounded, according to officials.

In the past two weeks, Iran has executed six prisoners accused of spying for Israel, including three on Wednesday.

Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute hosting its monthly cancer screening clinic in July at Allegheny General Hospital

(Photo Provided with Release from Allegheny Health Network)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a release from Allegheny Health Network, AHN Cancer Institute will host its monthly Saturday cancer screening clinic on Saturday, July 19th. This will occur at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. Registration is now open for non-patients or patients at the hospital either with or without insurance. They can also receive up to seven at one place by calling 412-359-6665. The screenings may include eight types of cancer. According to that same release from Allegheny Health Network, the options for screenings may include: 

  • Breast cancer (ages 40-74)
  • Cervical cancer (ages 21-65)
  • Colorectal cancer (ages 45-75)
  • Head and neck cancers (ages 18+)
  • Lung cancer (ages 50-80 with a history of cigarette smoking)
  • Prostate cancer (ages 45-75)
  • Skin cancer (ages 18+)

Jefferson Hospital and Forbes Hospital are the places you can make a comprehensive cancer screening appointment if you can not be there for a Saturday clinic and the phone number to contact is 412-359-6665. There are also more screening events for later this year. The Wexford Health + Wellness Pavilion will have a screening event on August 16th, Saint Vincent Hospital in Erie will have a screening event on September 13th and AHN Grove City will have a screening event on October 11th.

 

Karen E. Porter (Passed on June 23rd, 2025)

Karen E. Porter, age 64 of Independence Township, passed away on June 23rd, 2025, at Good Samaritan Hospice House, after her long, courageous five-year battle with breast cancer. She was a daughter of the late Joseph and Irene (Kohar) Debiec. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her daughter, Rochelle Catherine Porter, a sister, Rochelle Debiec, and numerous aunts and uncles. She is survived by her husband, Jack Porter, with whom she celebrated her 29th wedding anniversary on June 7th of this year, her loving son John Joseph (J.J.) Porter, with whom she resided, a step son, Brian (Kathy) Hans of Hookstown, her brother and sister in law, Joseph and Janelle Debiec of Chippewa, a niece, Jessie Debeic-Sargent and her husband Ryan of Patterson Township, a nephew, Joey Debiec and his wife Megan of Chippewa, four great nieces, an uncle, Edward (Marie) Kohar Sr. of Baden, a cousin and also Karen’s lifelong friend, Patricia Kohar of Sewickley, who cared for her during her illness in so many ways right until her death, her caregiver and a loving friend, Becky Dixon with whom she resided, numerous other cousins, her second family, the Sisters of St. Joseph Baden, six cats and a loving dog, Troy. Karen was a devout Christian of the Catholic faith who attended St. Titus grade school in Aliquippa and graduated from Quigley Catholic High School in 1979. She graduated from Marquette University in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing and Political Science. While at Marquette University, she interned for Senator William Proxmire in his Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. offices. After graduating, she was the director of Weight Loss Clinics of America. Karen then started her own nursing home care agency (Alternative Home Care), and later on expanded to hospice care, serving the greater Milwaukee area. She was a member of Divine Redeemer Parish and St. James Catholic Church in Sewickley. She served on the board of LTV Steel Credit Union in  Aliquippa. Karen lived out one of her many passions in life within the confines of her kitchen, which contains three ovens and a stove to bake and cook simultaneously. Her culinary creations, which were passed down to her from Grandma Kohar and her mother Irene, were unsurpassed. Not only did she spend countless hours preparing the best homemade meals for her family and friends, she also loved the holidays and made them very special, whether it was a dinner or a holiday feast. Everyone left with styrofoam takeout containers filled to the top and carefully packed full of leftovers. She would not let anyone near her Weber Charcoal Grill, where she was the grill master of steak, shrimp, hot dogs, and chicken that was done to perfection every single time. She began baking her Christmas cookies shortly after Thanksgiving and bought a separate freezer to hold them all. Karen loved the beach and enjoyed her family vacations to Destin, Florida, and would never miss a good Tom Petty concert, rain or shine. Friends will be received from 3-7 P.M. on Thursday, June 26th in the John Syka Funeral Home, Inc., 833 Kennedy Drive, Ambridge, who was in charge of her arrangements and where prayers will be offered Friday, June 27th at 10 A.M., followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 A.M. at St. James Catholic Church, 200 Walnut Street, Sewickley. Interment will follow in Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Hopewell Township. Her family would like to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff at Alleghney General Hospital, oncologist, Dr. Robert Schillo and his entire staff at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, radiologist, Dr. Rosenstein and staff for their dedication towards Karen’s pain management, Concordia Visiting Nurses of Baden, Good Samaritan Hospice and Good Samaritan Hospice House, Wexford, for their wonderful and compassionate care in her last few days, In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions are suggested in Karens memory to the American Cancer Society.

Helen Ruth (Capenos) Pedaline (1930-2025)

Helen Ruth (Capenos) Pedaline, 95, formally of Rochester, passed away on June 23, 2025, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She was born on March 23rd, 1930, a daughter of the late George and Vella (Barnes) Capenos. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Frank Pedaline and her siblings, Blane Capenos, Marie Gutch, Ethel Beatley and Augusta Nieman. She is survived by her daughters, Frances Pedaline, Bonnie (Bill) Isley and Penny (Joe) Froehlich. She is survived by five grandchildren: William (Ana Chen) Isley III, Danielle (Nicholas) Tamburrino, Kaitlyn (Owen) Sandoval, Renee Froehlich and Anna Froehlich; as well as three great-grandchildren, Evelyn and Winston Isley and Liam Tamburrino.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations in Helen’s name to Windber Hospice, 600 Somerset Avenue, Windber, PA 15963.

Family and friends will be received on Sunday, June 29th from 3–7 p.m. in the Huntsman Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Inc. of Rochester, 502 Adams Street, Rochester, where a funeral service will be held on Monday, June 30th at 10 a.m. Private interment will be held at Sylvania Hills Memorial Park, 273 PA-68.

Joan Watson (1937-2025)

Joan Watson, 88, passed away peacefully at Good Samaritan Hospice in Wexford on June 23rd, 2025.
She was born in Ambridge on June 16th, 1937, a daughter of the late John and Anelia Halaico and the beloved wife of the late William Watson. In addition to her parents and husband, she was preceded in death by her two sisters, Helen Burnell and Genevieve Mutz. She is survived by her daughter, Becky Sperduti (Ron), her stepson, Bill Watson (Judy), several nieces and nephews and her precious granddog, Gabby.
Joan was an excellent cook and baker who loved making delicious food for family, friends and church events. Beyond her cooking skills, she was also an excellent seamstress. She loved reading mystery books and doing crossword puzzles in her spare time.
Her family extends their eternal gratitude to the exceptional team at Good Samaritan Hospice in Wexford. Their compassion, dedication, and unwavering support during Joan’s final journey were a true blessing. Her family is also deeply grateful for the professionalism and kindness of Economy Ambulance who assisted Joan on many occasions.
Her family respects Joan’s wishes that no service or gathering take place. Instead, they encourage loved ones to remember and celebrate the cherished moments. Services are private and arrangements have been entrusted to Alvarez-Hahn Funeral Services and Cremation, LLC, 547 8th Street, Ambridge.

Tammy J. Miller (1960-2025)

Tammy J. Miller, 65, formerly of Northwood, North Dakota, passed away on June 22nd, 2025 at her residence in Monaca.

She was born in Northwood, North Dakota, on June 8th, 1960, a daughter of the late Medard and Gladys (Olson) Schultz. Tammy is survived by her fiancé of 24 years, Robert Mizenko, a daughter, Barbra J. (Laura) Miller, a grandchild, Seth (Mia Scalamogna) Ellefson, her sisters: Thersa (Steve) Walker, Virginia Breeden, Janice Oswalt, Brenda (George) Robbie, Carol Sather and Jacky Jurasko; as well as numerous nieces, nephews, and friends.

Friends will be received on Wednesday, June 25th from 1 P.M. until the time of services at 4 P.M. in the GABAUER FUNERAL HOME & CREMATION SERVICES, Inc., 1133 Penn Avenue, New Brighton. Pastor Sonny Blucher will officiate.

Central Pennsylvania man gets federal charges for allegedly posting social media threats to assassinate former Vice President Kamala Harris

(File Photo of a Gavel)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Washington, D.C.) A central Pennsylvania man recently got federal charges for allegedly posting social media threats to assassinate former Vice President Kamala Harris. Thirty-seven-year-old Steven A. Hartford acted during the 2024 presidential campaign and allegedly threatened her on some TikTok videos from the Daily Mail, which is a British news outlet. According to the indictment, Hartford, as “thealex13one13,” responded to a July 21st, 2024 video by commenting, “I will assassinate her if she runs for pres,” and he responded to another video as “thealex13one13” by posting “I will assassinate her.”  According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, Hartford could face up to ten years in prison in connection with the charges.