(File Photo: Source for Photo: Arthur Smith, offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is pictured before a preseason NFL football game against the Houston Texans, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/ Gene J. Puskar, File)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) A source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Saturday that Ohio State University is finalizing
(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – President Barack Obama awards the Medal of Freedom to Dr. William Foege, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped lead the effort to eradicate smallpox, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
ATLANTA (AP) — Dr. William Foege, a leader of one of humanity’s greatest public health victories — the global eradication of smallpox — has died.
Foege died Saturday in Atlanta at the age of 89, according to the Task Force for Global Health, which he co-founded.
The 6-foot-7 inch Foege literally stood out in the field of public health. A whip-smart medical doctor with a calm demeanor, he had a canny knack for beating back infectious diseases.
He was director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later held other key leadership roles in campaigns against international health problems.
But his greatest achievement came before all that, with his work on smallpox, one of the most lethal diseases in human history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pus-filled lesions.
Smallpox vaccination campaigns were well established by the time Foege was a young doctor. Indeed, it was no longer seen in the United States. But infections were still occurring elsewhere, and efforts to stamp them out were stalling.
Working as a medical missionary in Nigeria in the 1960s, Foege and his colleagues developed a “ring containment” strategy, in which a smallpox outbreak was contained by identifying each smallpox case and vaccinating everyone who the patients might come into contact with.
The method relied heavily on quick detective work and was born out of necessity. There simply wasn’t enough vaccine available to immunize everyone, Foege wrote in “House on Fire,” his 2011 book about the smallpox eradication effort.
It worked, and became pivotal in helping rid the world of smallpox for good. The last naturally occurring case was seen in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated from the Earth.
“If you look at the simple metric of who has saved the most lives, he is right up there with the pantheon. Smallpox eradication has prevented hundreds of millions of deaths,” said former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, who consulted with Foege regularly.
Foege was born March 12, 1936. His father was a Lutheran minister, but he became interested in medicine at 13 while working at a drugstore in Colville, Washington.
He got his medical degree from the University of Washington in 1961 and a master’s in public health from Harvard in 1965.
He was director of the Atlanta-based CDC from 1977 to 1983, then held other international public health leadership roles, including stints as executive director at The Carter Center and senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2012, President Barack Obama presented Foege with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In 2016, while awarding Foege an honorary degree, Duke University President President Richard Brodhead called him “the Father of Global Health.”
“Bill Foege had an unflagging commitment to improving the health of people across the world, through powerful, purpose-driven coalitions applying the best science available,” Task Force for Global Health CEO Dr. Patrick O’Carroll said in a statement. “We try to honor that commitment in every one of our programs, every day.”
(Photo of the Moon Township Police Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Moon Township, PA) The Moon Township Volunteer Fire Company issued an announcement on Facebook yesterday that both the Moon Township Police and the Moon Township Department of Public Works are asking for the assistance of the public during this extended and hazardous snowstorm by restricting travel unless absolutely necessary. The Moon Township Department of Public Works is actively plowing and treating the roads. However, the rate of snow accumulation will continue to create hazardous conditions until the winter storm ends. Residents of Moon Township are also advised not to park their vehicles or discharge snow into the street.
(Photo Courtesy of Gavin Thunberg)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Freedom, PA) Fern Freedom Volunteer Fire Department and their automatic mutual aid responded yesterday to a fire alarm at the George Werner Apartments on 8th Street in Freedom shortly before 2 p.m. The incident was upgraded to a structure fire enroute after smoke was reported inside. The issue was isolated to a heating element after an investigation was held and crews returned to service shortly after.
(File Photo of a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Car)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Frankfort Springs Borough, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver reported via release on Friday that they are leading the investigation into a retail theft occurred at the Dollar General on State Route 18 in Beaver County that afternoon. At 2:24 p.m., the suspect removed and concealed several items from the store located in Frankfort Springs Borough.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: Pittsburgh Penguins’ Benjamin Kindel celebrates after his goal against the Vancouver Canucks during second-period NHL hockey game action in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Rookie Ben Kindel scored twice in the second period to lead the Penguins to a 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday and a sweep of Pittsburgh’s four-game western Canada trip.
Kindel, from nearby Coquitlam, British Columbia, had a large contingent of supporters on hand for his second multi-goal game. The 18-year-old had gone 20 games without a goal after scoring eight in his first 28 and has 10 goals and 12 assists in 48 games.
Evgeni Malkin also scored for the Penguins (26-14-11), and Stuart Skinner stopped 19 shots and won for the seventh time in eight games.
Jake DeBrusk and Teddy Blueger scored in the third period for the Canucks (17-30-5), who failed to complete their comeback try and dropped their second straight. Kevin Lankinen stopped 21 shots.
Malkin and Kindel made it 2-0 with goals 3:17 apart in the second period. Malkin opened the scoring by taking a pass from Thomas Novak that went over a Canuck defender’s stick, then beat Lankinen. Kindel made it a two-goal lead by directing in a shot from defenseman Ryan Shea. Kindel gave Pittsburgh a 3-0 lead at 17:22 by beating Lankinen on a shot from the faceoff circle.
Pittsburgh opened its trip with a 6-3 win over Seattle on Monday, beat Calgary 4-1 on Wednesday, then defeated Edmonton 6-2 on Thursday.
Veteran Kris Letang returned to the Pittsburgh lineup after missing two games with an upper-body injury.
The Canucks have just one win in their last 14 games (1-11-2). Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko missed his eighth game with a lower-body injury.
Penguins: Host the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.
Canucks: Host the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday in the sixth game of an eight-game homestand.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – Former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy waves during halftime of an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke, File)
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Mike McCarthy is coming home.
The Pittsburgh Steelers announced Saturday the club has reached a verbal agreement with McCarthy to replace Mike Tomlin as head coach.
McCarthy grew up in the Greenfield neighborhood, just a couple of miles away from the team’s practice facility on the city’s South Side.
The 62-year-old McCarthy is 185–123–2 (playoffs included) across 18 seasons, 13 with Green Bay — which beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl following the 2010 season — and five with Dallas.
His potential hire is just the fourth by the Steelers since 1969 and a marked departure from his predecessors, Tomlin and Hall of Famers Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher.
All three were largely unknown assistants/coordinators. McCarthy is hardly that.
McCarthy would replace Tomlin, who stepped down earlier this month after his 19th season ended with a seventh straight playoff loss, this one at home to the Houston Texans. Tomlin’s surprise departure came as he was under contract for 2026 with a club option for 2027.
The Steelers took a methodical approach, interviewing nearly a dozen candidates that spanned a wide spectrum of experience, from Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (who spent 2022 as a defensive assistant on Tomlin’s staff) to Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who was hired by the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday to replace John Harbaugh.
They ultimately landed on McCarthy, who takes over a team that has been stuck in a purgatory of sorts for going on a decade.
Tomlin’s nearly two-decade tenure included 193 regular-season victories — tied with Noll for the most in franchise history — and the team’s sixth Super Bowl. Perhaps most remarkably, Pittsburgh didn’t have a losing season with Tomlin on the sideline.
That startling consistency, however, did not always translate to postseason success. Pittsburgh has been one-and-done in each of its last six playoff appearances, all of them double-digit losses.
In some ways, the Steelers have been victims of their own success. They have frequently been drafting in the high teens and low-20s, not exactly a prime position to find a franchise quarterback. It didn’t help that they chose not to draft Ben Roethlisberger’s replacement in his final seasons, then whiffed badly on Kenny Pickett, who flamed out in less than two years after being taken in the first round of the 2022 draft.
It’s led to a revolving door at the most important position on the field. If Aaron Rodgers, who will be a free agent in March, doesn’t return for a 22nd season, the Steelers will have their sixth different Week 1 quarterback in six years. McCarthy’s arrival, however, would seemingly open the door for the 42-year-old Rodgers to come back.
Rodgers said earlier this month he believes he would have at least a couple of options if he chose to run it back one more time, and his long partnership with McCarthy in Green Bay included a Super Bowl victory over Tomlin and the Steelers. Pittsburgh will have the 21st pick when a draft that appears to be thin in quality options at quarterback descends on the Steel City in late April.
There’s a very real chance the Steelers, who currently only have veteran backup Mason Rudolph and 2025 sixth-round pick Will Howard under contract for next season, will kick the can down the road again and address a handful of other positions of need in the draft, namely wide receiver and cornerback.
Regardless, president Art Rooney II brushed off the idea of the Steelers rebuilding.
“I don’t like that word that much,” Rooney said the day after Tomlin resigned. “We’ll try to compete day one if we can.”
McCarthy’s potential arrival would indicate that’s still the plan.
His hire would also give McCarthy a chance to burnish a resume that stalled a bit after guiding the Packers from a wild-card berth to the franchise’s fifth Super Bowl in 2010.
McCarthy is just 6-9 in the playoffs since the confetti fell at AT&T Stadium. That includes a 1-2 mark with the Cowboys, where he posted three straight 12-win seasons from 2021-23 before being fired after Dallas tumbled to 7-10 in 2024 thanks in large part to an injury to quarterback Dak Prescott that limited him to just eight games.
The one thing McCarthy — who early in his career was a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh (which now shares a building with the Steelers) — has consistently done is put together offenses that can move the ball.
McCarthy-coached teams have finished in the top 10 in yards in 12 of his 18 seasons, though his first years in both Green Bay in 2006 and Dallas in 2020 were sluggish.
The Steelers have been stuck in a transition period on offense for a solid half-decade. That transition may soon move to an expensive and aging defense that has potential Hall of Famers at every level (defensive tackle Cam Heyward, linebacker T.J. Watt and defensive back Jalen Ramsey), all in their 30s.
McCarthy would be the first Steelers hire with previous NFL head coaching experience since Mike Nixon in 1965. Nixon lasted just one season in Pittsburgh and was fired after going 2-12. Nixon was replaced by Bill Austin, who made it three years before Pittsburgh hired Noll, a decision that transformed the franchise from a laughingstock into one of the league’s most successful and stable teams.
Noll and his four Super Bowls set a standard of excellence that Cowher and Tomlin maintained in their own unique ways.
That standard, however, had slipped of late. McCarthy’s mandate will be returning some of the luster to a team that hasn’t won a playoff game since the final days of the Barack Obama administration.
It will also provide a test of sorts for the hometown boy who made good, who now gets to find out whether you can truly go home again.
Irene (Lenda) Rosenberger, 82, of Monaca, passed away peacefully on January 22nd, 2026, due to heart-related complications. She was a daughter of the late Leo and Bertha Lenda. In addition to her parents, Irene was preceded in death by her brother, Robert “Bobo” Lenda; her sister, Phyllis Chidester, and her husband, William and her brother-in-law, Carl Rosenberger. She shared a beautiful life with her beloved husband, Thomas Rosenberger, with whom she celebrated 60 years of marriage: a union defined by steadfast devotion, love, and partnership. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her children, Todd Rosenberger (Denise Trehar) and Lea Rosenberger, her cherished pet, Mia and her step- grandson, Andrew Coplin. She is also survived by her sister-in-law, Norma Rosenberger, her brother-in-law, Jerry (Anna Marie) Rosenberger, her sister-in-law, Roberta Monos, seven nieces, five nephews, ten great-nieces, eight great-nephews, three great-great-nephews, one great great niece, six godchildren, many dear friends, and an extended family in Poland who mourn her loss across the miles.
Irene was of proud Polish heritage, a lineage she cherished deeply. She was a 1961 graduate of Ambridge High School and dedicated many years to her professional career as a meticulous and dependable Payroll Administrator. Her strong work ethic and attention to detail left a lasting impression at several organizations, including Wyckoff Steel, Temporaid Services/Action Personnel, Allegheny Plastics Inc., and KMA Manufacturing, LLC, from which she retired. She was also a woman of deep and unwavering faith who was a devoted member of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Monaca. In keeping with her lifelong spirit of generosity and compassion, her final act of kindness was serving as an organ donor.
Friends and family will be received on Wednesday, January 28th from 2-4 P.M. and 6-8 P.M. at Simpson Funeral & Cremation Services, 1119 Washington Avenue, Monaca, who was in charge of her arrangements, and where a prayer service will be held on Thursday, January 29th, at 9:30 A.M., followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 A.M. at St. John the Baptist Church, 1409 Pennsylvania Ave, Monaca. Burial will follow. The family extends their heartfelt gratitude to the compassionate and dedicated staff of the Critical Care Unit at Heritage Valley Hospital for the care and kindness shown to Irene. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests that memorial donations be made in Irene’s honor to St. Vincent de Paul of Monaca, Pennsylvania, continuing her legacy of faith, generosity, and helping those in need.
Wade A. Wright, 46, of Economy, passed away on January 15th, 2026. He was born on August 13th, 1980, the beloved son of Galen and Barbara Wright. In addition to his parents, he is survived by his wife, Cheryl Wright, his daughter, Angelina Darcy, his aunts, Susie (Tom) Scornavacca, Sandy (“Tuss”) Shoop, and Patti Fleck, his uncles, Monte (Barbara) Wright and Larry Irvin, as well as many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends. He was preceded in death by his brother, Todd Wright, his uncle, Randy Wright and his aunt, Linda Irvin.
Wade graduated from Huntingdon High School. He spent many years working in construction and most recently devoted himself to his love of animals while working at Champion Canine Kennel in Ambridge. He cherished time spent with his wife, enjoyed listening to music of all kinds—especially the music of Chris Cornell—and had a deep appreciation for nature and the outdoors.
A Celebration of Life will be held from 4-6 P.M. on Wednesday, January 28th, at Alvarez-Hahn Funeral Services and Cremation, LLC, 547 8th Street, Ambridge, who was in charge of his arrangements.
Jeffrey Craig Hughes, 47, of Harmony Township, passed away on January 24th, 2026. He was born on June 22nd, 1978, a son of Rick and Gerry Hughes. In addition to his parents, he is survived by his brother, Kevin (Katie) Hughes, his nieces, Blake and Tess Hughes, his aunts and uncles, Raymond and Sheila Karolak and Wayne “George” and Joanne Gelston, along with numerous other aunts, uncles, cousins, and his second family at McGuire Memorial. He was preceded in death by his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Betty Karolak, his paternal grandparents, Howard and Hazel Hughes; his cousin, Ben Gelston; and his special friend, Rich.
Jeffrey was an avid Pittsburgh sports fan who enjoyed all kinds of junk food, especially Police Station Pizza. He was known for his sharp sense of style and he loved dressing well. He often completed his look with a tie. He loved to socialize and truly never met a stranger. His warm personality and friendly spirit will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him.
A visitation will be held on Thursday, January 29th from 2–4 P.M. and 5–7 P.M. at Alvarez-Hahn Funeral Services and Cremation, LLC, 547 8th Street, Ambridge, who was in charge of his arrangements, and where departing prayers will take place at 9:30 A.M. on Friday, January 30th followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 A.M. at Good Samaritan Catholic Church, 725 Glenwood Avenue, Ambridge. Burial will follow at Good Samaritan Cemetery, 808 Big Sewickley Creek Road, Bell Acres.
His family would like to extend their sincere gratitude to the ICU staff at UPMC McCandless for their dedication and compassionate care of Jeffrey.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to McGuire Memorial, 2119 Mercer Road, New Brighton, PA 15066 in Jeffrey’s memory.