(File Photo of a Welcome to Monaca Sign)
(Reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano)
(Monaca, PA) There is a waterline break in Monaca. According to a recent Facebook post, all water in the area of 15th and 16th Streets have been shut off. The Monaca Water Authority is currently working on the waterline break.
(File Photo of the PennDOT logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Harrisburg, PA) According to a release from PennDOT, PennDOT and several other companies in the state came together on Wednesday to support summer travel. They were the Pennsylvania State Police, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the Pennsylvania Traffic Injury Prevention Project. PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll reminded residents of Pennsylvania to buckle their seatbelts, put their phones down, and keep their attention fully on the road when they are driving.
(File Photo of the Allegheny Health Network Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a release from Allegheny Health Network, Allegheny Health Network Wexford was recognized as one of the quietest hospitals in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a recent survey in which 72% of patients answered “yes” to the question, “Is the area around your room always quiet at night?” 24% more of patients in the survey said AHN Wexford was “usually” quiet, and 96% confirm nighttime quietness there.
(File Photo of a Gavel)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Cranberry Township, PA) A day care worker from Cranberry got charged with assaulting a three-year-old boy during his naptime. According to court paperwork, 26-year-old Joshua Branstetter was charged with endangering the welfare of children and simple assault. Police confirmed the boy was injured at Allie Alligator Learning Center, LLC in Cranberry Township. Investigators found that on May 22nd, 2025, the boy hit a bedframe after Branstetter pushed him on the back forcefully. The boy was injured in the face.
(File Photo of the Beaver County Humane Society)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Hopewell Township, PA) Last week, a puppy that suffered from heatstroke was rescued in Hopewell Township. Hopewell Township police rescued Atlas, a six-month old Doberman. According to humane officers, Atlas was “dangerously” dehydrated, weak and trembling at the Beaver County Humane Society after being locked in a car for about thirty minutes. Altas is still recovering. The Aliquippa animal shelter recommends giving pets water that is cool, clean and fresh and limiting their time outside.
(File Photo of a Police Light)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Raccoon Township, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a male teenager from Hookstown was charged after causing a single-vehicle crash in Raccoon Township on Tuesday. An unidentified seventeen-year-old teenager was going very fast on Frankfort Road and did not have control of his vehicle when he spotted a deer. He then crashed on the east side of the road and hit an embankment. The teenager was charged by police for the incident despite sustaining no injuries and his vehicle getting towed.
(File Photo of the Pittsburgh International Airport Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Carnegie, PA) According to a release from Congressman Chris Deluzio’s office, $10.5 million in new federal grant funding was recently awarded to the Allegheny County Airport Authority. This assists the construction of the new terminal at the Pittsburgh International Airport. The project is $1.5 billion and features a sustainable design, security that is improved, and operations for passengers that are more efficient. The project is almost done, and by the end of 2025, it will be open.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – Chinese students wait outside the U.S. Embassy for their visa application interviews, in Beijing on May 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it is restarting the suspended process for foreigners applying for student visas but all applicants will now be required to unlock their social media accounts for government review.
The department said consular officers will be on the lookout for posts and messages that could be deemed hostile to the United States, its government, culture, institutions or founding principles.
In a notice made public Wednesday, the department said it had rescinded its May suspension of student visa processing but said new applicants who refuse to set their social media accounts to “public” and allow them to be reviewed may be rejected. It said a refusal to do so could be a sign they are trying to evade the requirement or hide their online activity.
The Trump administration last month temporarily halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students hoping to study in the U.S. while preparing to expand the screening of their activity on social media, officials said.
Students around the world have been waiting anxiously for U.S. consulates to reopen appointments for visa interviews, as the window left to book their travel and make housing arrangements narrows ahead of the start of the school year.
On Wednesday afternoon, a 27-year-old Ph.D. student in Toronto was able to secure an appointment for a visa interview next week. The student, a Chinese national, hopes to travel to the U.S. for a research internship that would start in late July. “I’m really relieved,” said the student, who spoke on condition of being identified only by his surname, Chen, because he was concerned about being targeted. “I’ve been refreshing the website couple of times every day.”
Students from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines have posted on social media sites that they have been monitoring visa booking websites and closely watching press briefings of the State Department to get any indication of when appointment scheduling might resume.
In reopening the visa process, the State Department also told consulates to prioritize students hoping to enroll at colleges where foreigners make up less than 15% of the student body, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail information that has not been made public.
Foreign students make up more than 15% of the total student body at almost 200 U.S. universities, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal education data from 2023. Most are private universities, including all eight Ivy League schools. But that criteria also includes 26 public universities, including the University of Illinois and Pennsylvania State University. Looking only at undergraduate students, foreign students make up more than 15% of the population at about 100 universities, almost all of them private.
International students in the U.S. have been facing increased scrutiny on several fronts. In the spring, the Trump administration revoked permission to study in the U.S. for thousands of students, including some involved only in traffic offenses, before abruptly reversing course. The government also expanded the grounds on which foreign students can have their legal status terminated.
As part of a pressure campaign targeting Harvard University, the Trump administration has moved to block foreign students from attending the Ivy League school, which counts on international students for tuition dollars and a quarter of its enrollment. Trump has said Harvard should cap its foreign enrollment at 15%.
This latest move to vet students’ social media, the State Department said Wednesday, “will ensure we are properly screening every single person attempting to visit our country.”
In internal guidance sent to consular officers, the department said they should be looking for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.”
Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the new policy evokes the ideological vetting of the Cold War, when prominent artists and intellectuals were excluded from the U.S.
“This policy makes a censor of every consular officer, and it will inevitably chill legitimate political speech both inside and outside the United States,” Jaffer said.
The Trump administration also has called for 36 countries to commit to improving vetting of travelers or face a ban on their citizens visiting the United States. A weekend diplomatic cable sent by the State Department says the countries have 60 days to address U.S. concerns or risk being added to a travel ban that now includes 12 nations.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – President Donald Trump talks to workers as he tours U.S. Steel Corporation’s Mon Valley Works-Irvin plant, Friday, May 30, 2025, in West Mifflin, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel said Wednesday they have finalized their “historic partnership,” a deal that gives the U.S. government a say in some matters and comes a year-and-a-half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $15 billion buyout of the iconic American steelmaker.
The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh-based company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, dragging out the transaction for more than a year after U.S. Steel shareholders approved it.
It also forced Nippon Steel to expand the deal, including adding a so-called “golden share” provision that gives the federal government the power to appoint a board member and a say in company decisions that affect domestic steel production and competition with overseas producers.
“Together, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel will be a world-leading steelmaker, with best-in-class technologies and manufacturing capabilities,” the companies said.
The combined company will become the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker in an industry dominated by the Chinese, 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.
In exchange, Nippon Steel gets access to a robust U.S. steel market, strengthened in recent years by tariffs under President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden, analysts say.
Anthony Rapa, a Blank Rome lawyer in Washington who advises firms on trade, operations and investments, said the government’s intervention in the Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel deal is another sign of a trend that the U.S. is increasingly equating economic security with national security.
He doesn’t see the government’s intervention as chilling foreign investment and said a “golden share” mechanism — to the extent it’s used again by the U.S. to ease national security concerns — is likely to emerge only in sensitive and complex cases.
Still, the episode could cause investors to be more strategic in how they approach transactions, Rapa said.
Anil Khurana, executive director of the Baratta Center for Global Business at Georgetown University, said the U.S. government’s interest in the deal is a sign of the growing importance it places on economic competition with China.
“Clearly the definition of what is national security has expanded to included national economic security, which is where I think this comes in,” Khurana said.
Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel did not release a copy of the national security agreement struck with Trump’s administration.
But in a statement Wednesday, the companies said the federal government will have the right to appoint an independent director and get “consent rights” on specific matters.
Those 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.
Nippon Steel announced in December 2023 that it planned to buy the steel producer for $14.9 billion in cash and debt, and committed to keep the U.S. Steel name and Pittsburgh headquarters.
The United Steelworkers union, which represents some U.S. Steel employees, opposed the deal, and Biden and Trump both vowed from the campaign trail to block it.
Biden used his authority to block Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel on his way out of the White House after a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
After he was elected, Trump changed course, expressing openness to working out an arrangement and ordering another review by the committee.
That’s when the idea of the “golden share” emerged as a way to resolve national security concerns and protect American interests in domestic steel production.
As it sought to win over American officials, Nippon Steel began adding commitments. Those included putting U.S. Steel under a board made up of a majority of Americans and a management team of Americans.
It pledged not to conduct layoffs or plant closings as a result of the transaction or to import steel slabs to compete with U.S. Steel’s blast furnaces in Braddock, Pennsylvania and Gary, Indiana.
In the final agreement, it pledged to produce and supply U.S. Steel from domestic sources — such as mining operations in Minnesota — and to allow U. S. Steel to pursue trade actions under U.S. law.
It also made a series of bigger capital commitments in U.S. Steel facilities, tallying $11 billion through 2028, it said.
Nippon Steel said its annual crude steel production capacity is expected to reach 86 million tons, closer to its goal of 100 million tons.
The United Steelworkers on Wednesday noted that its current labor agreement with U.S. Steel expires in 2026.
“Rest assured, if our job security, pensions, retiree health care or other hard-earned benefits are threatened, we are ready to respond with the full strength and solidarity of our membership,” its international president, David McCall, said in a statement.
(File Photo taken by Frank Sparks)
Story by Beaver County Radio Staff.
(New Brighton, Pa.) New Brighton Mayor Valerie McElvy is reporting that the Borough will be hosting their second annual Juneteenth celebration today, Thursday, June 19 from 1 PM to 7 PM. It will be held on 11th Street from 5th to 3rd Avenue. There will be a variety of different vendors and more from the tri-state area. There will be custom clothing, tumblers, jewelry, self-care, resources, and of course, food, in fact Mayor McElvy said that several different food trucks and food vendors will be there along with much more. There will be performers from all over with a variety of singing and spoken word. Merrick Art Gallery will be open for free tours. The event is for everyone no matter your ethnicity and Mayor McElvy wants the county to come out and celebrate this historic Day. You won’t be disappointed. Mayor McElvy wanted to thank all of the sponsors including We’re at your service, Chozen Pieces, and SJO Cares.