By JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ordered California to stop collecting the names and addresses of top donors to charities. The justices voted 6-3 along ideological lines to side with two nonprofit groups, including one with links to billionaire Charles Koch, that argued California’s policy violates the First Amendment. The nonprofits had drawn strong support from groups across the political spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. California requires all charities that collect money from state residents to give the state an IRS form identifying their largest contributors. The information is not supposed to be disclosed publicly.

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has upheld voting restrictions in Arizona in a decision that could make it harder to challenge other state limits put in place by Republican lawmakers following last year’s elections. The court reversed a lower court ruling in deciding that Arizona’s limits on who can return early ballots for another person and the state’s refusal to count ballots cast in the wrong precinct are not racially discriminatory. The federal appeals court in San Francisco had held that the measures disproportionately affected Black, Hispanic and Native American voters in violation of the landmark Voting Rights Act.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press
The Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer has surrendered to authorities ahead of an expected court appearance on the first criminal indictment in a two-year investigation into business practices at Donald Trump’s company. Allen Weisselberg was photographed walking into the the complex that houses criminal courts and the Manhattan district attorney’s office at around 6:20 a.m. Thursday. New York prosecutors were expected to announce an indictment accusing Weisselberg and the company of tax crimes related to fringe benefits for employees. The Trump Organization issued a statement defending Weisselberg, saying prosecutors were using him as “a pawn in a scorched-earth attempt to harm the former president.”

By ALAN FRAM and MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has named Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and seven Democrats to a new select committee to investigate the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, will lead the panel. The new committee will investigate what went wrong when hundreds of supporters of then-President Donald Trump broke into the Capitol, hunted for lawmakers and interrupted the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory. Cheney is a Wyoming congresswoman and she says she’s “honored” to serve on the committee and that “Congress is obligated to conduct a full investigation of the most serious attack on our Capitol since 1814.”

By ALEXANDRA JAFFE and JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press
SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) — President Joe Biden is offering comfort to the grieving and federal support for the efforts to search for the missing and rebuild after last week’s collapse of a high-rise condo building along the Florida coastline. Biden was to survey the devastation Thursday and meet with first responders hunting for survivors among the rubble in Surfside. But underscoring the dangers still present in the search, work was halted before Biden arrived due to concerns about the stability of the section still standing. Biden and his wife Jill arrived in Florida a week after the collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South beachfront condominium killed at least 18 people and left 145 missing.

By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Republican-crafted bill to ban so-called COVID-19 “vaccine passports” and restrict the health secretary’s actions during health emergencies is dead after a veto by Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor. The measure that split both legislative chambers along party lines last month was vetoed Thursday by Gov. Tom Wolf. Legislative Republicans had sought to prevent what they view as a violation of health privacy through stigmatizing policies requiring proof of vaccination. The bill would have kept colleges and universities that receive state money from mandating proof of COVID-19 vaccination to undertake any activity. It also would have kept the health secretary from ordering closures or directing people to engage in disease mitigation efforts.

By KEN MORITSUGU Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned that anyone who tries to bully China “will face broken heads and bloodshed.” That came Thursday in a defiant speech hailing the country’s rise that elicited loud cheers from a carefully chosen crowd at a celebration of the centenary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party. Xi appeared to be hitting back at the U.S. and others that have criticized the rising power’s trade and technology polices, military expansion and human rights record. The unusually forceful language also seemed aimed at revving up and playing to a domestic audience. The rally in some ways recalled the mass events held by Mao Zedong, communist China’s founding leader.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty in the deaths of two men has been sentenced to 26 to 52 years in prison. The bodies were found after a fire in western Pennsylvania more than three years ago. Sixty-one-year-old Vincent Smith was sentenced Wednesday in Allegheny County Court on earlier guilty pleas to voluntary manslaughter and arson endangering persons in the February 2018 blaze in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood. Authorities alleged that Smith was fighting with 71-year-old homeowner Steven Pariser and 54-year-old John Robert Van Dyke over marijuana when he beat them and threw them down the basement steps, hiding their bodies with trash bags and clothes before starting the fire.

Story by Beaver County Radio Correspondent, Sandy Giordano

(Aliquippa, PA) – Qualified police officers have until Friday, July 9, 2021 at 4 p.m. to apply for full time police officer positions in the City of Aliquippa. Minorities and females are urged to apply.

Story by Beaver County Radio Correspondent, Sandy Giordano

(Aliquippa, PA) – Aliquippa City Council approved a motion to hold a public hearing on Wednesday, August 4 at 7 p.m. to receive public comment on a proposed comprehensive revision to the city’s zoning ordinance and the zoning district map of the city’s code of ordinances. Council approved a recommendation by the city planning commission for a proposed subdivision submitted by the Beaver County Corporation for Economic Development for property on Woodlawn Road.