(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – Chester County, Pa., election workers process mail-in and absentee ballots at West Chester University in West Chester, Pa., Nov. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) May 4th is the last day you can register for the 2026 primary election in Pennsylvania, which is May 19th. You can visit vote.pa.gov by clicking here to register for it. According to a release from the Pennsylvania Department of State, here is some more information about this election:

Pennsylvanians are encouraged to use the Department’s online voter registration site, which can be found by clicking here, which is fast, secure, and convenient. Current registered voters can also use that site to update their name, address, or party affiliation.

Because Pennsylvania has a closed primary, only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote for their party’s nominees in the primary election. However, all voters can vote on any local ballot questions, as well as in any special elections that run simultaneously to the primary. For example, all voters in York County’s 196th House District can participate in the May 19 special election to fill the vacant seat for their state representative.

In the primary, eligible Democratic and Republican voters will have the opportunity to cast a ballot for their parties’ nominees for U.S. House of Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, even-numbered state Senate districts, and all state House districts, as well as Democratic and Republican State Committee. The Department’s candidate database, which can be accessed by clicking here, lists candidates who are running for office.

To be eligible to register to vote in the May 19 primary, a person must be:

·   a citizen of the United States for at least one month before the primary,

·   a resident of the election district in which the person plans to register for at least 30 days before the primary, and

·   at least 18 years old on or before May 19.

In addition to registering online, Pennsylvanians can receive an application to register to vote at:

• their county voter registration office,
• county assistance offices,
• Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offices,
• Armed Forces recruitment centers,
• county clerk of orphans’ courts or marriage license offices,
• area agencies on aging,
• county mental health and intellectual disabilities offices,
• student disability services offices of the State System of Higher Education, and
• Americans with Disabilities Act-mandated complementary paratransit providers.

In 2023, PennDOT driver and photo license centers began offering automatic voter registration, which you can learn more about by clicking here, which provides eligible Pennsylvanians with a convenient way to apply to register to vote when they obtain a new driver’s license or ID card or when they renew their existing identification. The Shapiro Administration launched the initiative as part of its continued commitment to ensuring free, fair, and secure elections.

Regardless of which method eligible Pennsylvanians use to register, county election offices must receive their voter registration application by close of business May 4th.

Registered voters can request a mail ballot by clicking here and vote from the convenience of their home or their county elections office, which you can find by clicking here, or they can vote at the polls on Election Day, Schmidt said.

Mail ballot applications must be received by county elections offices by 5 p.m. on May 12. The deadline for county elections offices to receive completed mail ballots is 8 p.m. on Primary Election Day, May 19. Mail ballots received after that time will not be counted.

Pennsylvanians who prefer to vote in person can find their polling place, which you can find by clicking here, at vote.pa.gov, by clicking here. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and any voter in line by 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

The Department’s voter information website, vote.pa.gov, which you can access by clicking here, is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese and offers a polling place locator, which you can access by clicking here, and contact information for county elections offices, which you can learn about by clicking here. It also includes tips for first-time voters (click here for information), mail-in and absentee voters (click here for information), elderly and disabled voters, (click here for information), and members of the military (click here for information).

(File Photo of the AARP Logo)

Reported by Danielle Smith of Keystone News Service

(Harrisburg, PA) Fraud targeting everyday people is hitting close to home for thousands of Pennsylvania families and new data show the problem is worsening, especially with cryptocurrency scams. An A-A-R-P study ranks Pennsylvania sixth in the nation for fraud reports, with more than 31 thousand cases, with losses topping 537 million dollars. Teresa Osborne with A-A-R-P Pennsylvania says nearly four in ten adults have experienced fraud, including more than one in three people over 50. She notes many cases go unreported, as scams continue shifting online. She says that’s because those transactions are hard to trace and almost impossible to reverse. Osborne adds A-A-R-P pushes for stronger consumer protections and better fraud reporting systems, because education alone isn’t enough. She recommends reporting any fraud or scams to local law enforcement or contact A-A-R-P’s Fraud Watch Network Helpline.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Spirit Airlines planes are grounded at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after flights were cancelled on Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Spirit Airlines, an impish upstart that shook the industry with its irreverent ads and deep discount fares, announced Saturday that it has gone out of business after 34 years.

The ultralow cost airline that once operated hundreds of daily flights on its bright yellow planes and employed about 17,000 people said it had “started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately.”

Although Spirit had gone bankrupt twice before, the company said high oil prices, which have been rising because of the war with Iran, made it impossible to stay aloft.

The airline said on its website that all flights have been canceled and customer service is no longer available. Some passengers arrived Saturday for flights and were stunned to find them canceled, while workers learned overnight they were out of jobs.

“We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our guests for many years to come,” Spirit’s announcement said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday that Spirit had a reserve fund set up for customers who bought directly from the airline to get refunds. People who bought from third-party vendors like travel agents would have to seek refunds from them.

Duffy said United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest were offering $200 one-way flights for people who had Spirit confirmation numbers and proof of purchase for a limited time. Other airlines would also help Spirit employees who might be stranded, as well as offering them a preferential application process as they look for work.

Spirit said in a statement it was working to get more than 1,300 crew to their home bases and that the final Spirit flight landed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport from Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The company advised customers that they could expect refunds but there would be no help in booking travel on other airlines.

The Trump administration had considered a government bailout for the cash-strapped business to keep it from going under, but a deal was not reached. Of the potential bailout, Duffy said Saturday “we often times don’t have half a billion dollars laying around.”

President Donald Trump had floated the idea of a bailout last week after the airline found itself in bankruptcy proceedings for the second time in less than two years with jet fuel prices soaring because of the Iran war.

‘They got you there’

Five Spirit flights were still showing as “on time” on Saturday morning on the departure board in Atlanta. A trickle of passengers who hadn’t heard the news were still showing up.

“What!?” exclaimed Taylor Nantang as she, her husband and four children arrived for a Saturday afternoon Spirit flight from Atlanta to Miami for a spur-of-the-moment vacation. The family had driven down from Tennessee to the Atlanta airport.

“So the whole airline at every airport is out of business?” asked Nantang. “Oh my, that’s crazy.”

Other passengers wondered whether the airline would still answer its customer service phone, or when the refunds for canceled flights might arrive on their credit cards.

Joshua Sigler, who had bought a ticket Friday for a flight Saturday to Miami, said he would just return home after learning of the cancellation, rather than try to take advantage of deals other airlines were offering to stranded Spirit passengers.

He said he had gotten no communication from Spirit, which he had flown multiple times in the past. “They get you there,” he said of past flights. “It was cheap.”

‘Boo-hoo crying’

Former Spirit flight attendant Freddy Peterson was on a Spirit flight from Detroit that arrived in Newark around 11 p.m. Friday. He said that despite rumors flying on social media Friday, things seemed kind of normal, with more than 200 passengers on the plane.

“All our aircraft were packed,” he said.

Peterson, 60, said he set his alarm clock for 3 a.m. Saturday to check the company website at the hour of the rumored shutdown and learned all Spirit flights were canceled. He said Delta Air Lines brought him and another flight attendant back to Atlanta on Saturday morning, with Peterson leaving from there to drive to his home in Shellman in southwest Georgia.

“I’ll probably do the boo-hoo crying and all that other stuff once I get in my car.”

Peterson said he had been a flight attendant with Spirit for 10 years and the company has “done wonders for me.” He said the airline’s reputation for bargain basement chaos was largely undeserved, but he did fault management for not communicating with the employees in the closing days, saying a promised employee town hall was canceled.

Bailout fizzles

As late as Friday afternoon, Trump had said his administration was looking at a bailout for Spirit and had given the budget carrier a “final proposal” for a taxpayer-funded takeover.

Spirit proudly disrupted the penny-pinching portion of the airlines industry with its no-frills, low-cost flights and provocative ads like its “Check Out the Oil on Our Beaches” campaign after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, referencing suntan oil, but alluding to the crude spilled on the Gulf Coast.

However, Spirit has struggled financially since the COVID-19 pandemic, weighed down by rising operating costs and growing debt. By the time it filed for Chapter 11 protection in November 2024, Spirit had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

The budget carrier sought bankruptcy protection again in August 2025, when it reported having $8.1 billion in debts and $8.6 billion in assets, according to court filings.

White House blames Biden

The White House had blamed President Joe Biden’s administration for Spirit’s tenuous financial situation. Biden, a Democrat, opposed a proposed merger between Spirit and JetBlue in 2023. On Saturday, Trump administration officials took to social media to amplify voices of conservative critics who faulted Biden for Spirit’s demise.

On Saturday, Duffy blamed Biden as well as his predecessor Pete Buttigieg.

“Many at the time said that this was a disaster. This merger should have been allowed,” he said.

Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the Trump administration also bears responsibility, arguing that the airline’s current crisis reflects a chain reaction of policy missteps rather than a single decision. He pointed specifically to Trump’s decision to strike Iran as “bad foreign policy,” saying the conflict drove up jet fuel prices and Spirit’s operating costs.

“They were already in trouble,” DeHaven said, describing the situation as “a compounding effect in terms of policy.”

Supporters of a rescue including labor unions representing Spirit’s pilots, flight attendants and ramp workers said a collapse would put thousands of Americans out of work and hurt consumers by reducing airline competition and increasing airfares. About 17,000 jobs could be impacted, according to Spirit lawyer Marshall Huebner.

Budget-conscious and leisure travelers would likely feel Spirit’s absence the most, especially in places where the airline has a big footprint such as Las Vegas and the Florida cities of Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.

The carrier flew about 1.7 million domestic passengers in February, roughly half a million fewer than during the same month a year earlier, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Spirit also has sharply reduced its capacity, with about half as many seats available this month than in May 2024.

(Credit for Photo: Photo Courtesy of Commonwealth Media Services)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) Governor Josh Shapiro ordered U.S. and Pennsylvania flags at all commonwealth facilities and public buildings to be flown at half-staff May 3 to honor firefighters who died in the line of duty. 

The order coincided with the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service during National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend. 

Shapiro also joined Pittsburgh Fire Fighters for the dedication of a memorial honoring fallen Pennsylvania firefighters. 

(File Photo of the Allegheny Health Network Logo)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) Allegheny Health Network’s Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Institute has relocated to a new space on Pittsburgh’s North Side. 

The institute moved from Four Allegheny Center to the third floor of the Federal North building. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Friday to mark the move. 

The new space includes an upgraded Austin’s Playroom for children, funded by the Mario Lemieux Foundation, with additional activities for young visitors. 

The facility is scheduled to begin seeing patients May 11. 

(File Photo of State Representative Rob Matzie Speaking)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) As National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month begins, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has recognized May 5 as World Asthma Day in Pennsylvania through a resolution introduced by Rob Matzie. 

Matzie said he introduced House Resolution 405, which the chamber adopted, to raise awareness and improve asthma care. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 million adults and 300,000 children in Pennsylvania have asthma. Nationwide, more than 21 million adults and 4.2 million children are affected. 

(File Photo of a Police Siren Light)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Darlington Borough, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver County are investigating a burglary reported March 29 in Darlington Borough. 

Troopers said the incident occurred around 12:16 a.m. at a residence in the 700 block of Market Street. 

(File Photo of a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Car)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Aliquippa, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver County reported that a 29-year-old Beaver Falls man was arrested on suspicion of DUI in Aliquippa on March 20, 2026. 

Police identified the man as Kamau Ashton. Troopers stopped him around 8:38 p.m. in the 1400 block of Kennedy Boulevard for a vehicle violation. 

He was subsequently arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of a controlled substance and resisting arrest.

(File Photo of a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Car)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Fallston Borough, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver County reported that a 23-year-old Aliquippa man was arrested on suspicion of DUI of an alcoholic substance on March 25, 2026. 

Police identified the driver as Bradley Delon. Troopers stopped him around 11:57 p.m. at Beaver Street and Constitution Boulevard, where he was taken into custody. 

Charges are pending.