A Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were killed in a mass shooting last year is inviting young people worldwide to submit artwork to cover the fencing that surrounds the still-shuttered building. Organizers say that Tree of Life synagogue is looking for “original, uplifting images and graphics” to be printed on windscreens that will cover the temporary perimeter fencing. The project is open to artists ages 13 to 17.
State police say the mayor of a small Pennsylvania town was charged with pointing a gun at several minors in a park over the weekend after an apparent fistfight involving his son. The Tribune-Review reports that Derry Mayor Kevin Gross is accused of pointing the weapon at a 15-year-old Sunday night and ordering him to the ground and three girls to put their cellphones down. A message was left seeking comment at his number Monday.
The Supreme Court is declining to take the case of a Pennsylvania rapper who was convicted of threatening police officers in one of his songs. The high court declined on Monday to take the case of Jamal Knox, known as Mayhem Mal. Knox argued the song was protected by the First Amendment, but he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to one to three years in prison and Pennsylvania’s highest court upheld his convictions.
The National Weather Service says high winds in Pennsylvania that may have been tornadoes flattened a house and several barns and blew out windows. Severe storms moving across the state overnight have knocked out power to tens of thousands of customers. Nearly 38,000 customers of the state’s major utilities are without power Monday morning. PPL was hardest hit, reporting outages throughout its coverage area in central and eastern Pennsylvania. High winds and falling temperatures are forecast for Monday.
PennDOT District 11 is advising motorists that line painting operations on various roadways in Beaver County will occur Monday through Friday, April 15-19, weather permitting. Work to repaint lines will occur from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day in the following locations:
PennDOT advises motorists to exercise caution and patience, and suggests allowing at least 250 feet (13 car lengths) behind line painting equipment to avoid damage. Motorists should avoid passing the paint vehicles unless directed by a paint crew member or flag person to do so. Passing too quickly can cause damage to fresh paint lines and may result in paint on the motorist’s vehicle. Line painting vehicles normally pull over every two and one-half miles or when safety permits. Recent technological advancements on the mix of formulas have produced fast dry paints that are dry to the touch within 2 to 3 minutes. It is crucial to stay off these lines during the curing period.
Motorists who accidentally get paint on their vehicles should immediately wash the paint off with a high-pressure water stream and detergent. Dried paint can be removed with de-natured alcohol and a soft cloth. Generally, PennDOT is not responsible for paint on vehicles.
Roadway line painting is an important part of PennDOT’s highway safety initiatives. Paint lines provide direction, delineation, and guidance to motorists.
Glass beads applied on top of wet paint during the painting process provide retro reflectivity. These small, spherical beads reflect light during dark hours and periods of low visibility. As the glass beads become worn or wet, the reflectivity becomes greatly diminished resulting in reduced visibility during dark and wet hours.
Lines need repainting each year because of normal wear, tear, and weather. Winter maintenance activities such as plowing, spreading anti-skid materials, and studded tires are very abrasive to paint lines and can cause fading. Normal weathering caused by snow, rain, and ice also contribute to line reflectivity reduction.
State roads with the highest traffic volumes and safety needs are painted first. These include interstates and the National Highway System followed by secondary roadways.
PennDOT establishes painting schedules to minimize delays to motorist. On days before holidays and on Fridays, crews will focus on secondary routes to minimize inconvenience for motorists.
Motorists should use caution and be aware of changing traffic patterns when driving through the area.
WEATHER FORECAST FOR MONDAY, APRIL 15TH, 2019
TODAY – WINDY. RAIN SHOWERS THIS MORNING, WITH
OVERCAST SKIES DURING THE AFTERNOON
HOURS. HIGH NEAR 50.
TONIGHT – CLEAR SKIES. LOW – 36.
TUESDAY – CLOUDY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF A RAIN SHOWER.
HIGH – 64.
Pirates RHP Archer drops appeal, begins serving suspension
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Chris Archer dropped his appeal and began serving a five-game suspension Sunday for setting off a benches-clearing altercation on April 7.
The impact of Archer’s suspension will be minimal. He ended his appeal a day after allowing one run in seven innings against Washington, getting a no-decision in Pittsburgh’s loss. The Pirates have two days off this week, and Archer will make his next start April 21 against San Francisco.
He was suspended for throwing a fastball behind Cincinnati’s Derek Dietrich, who had stood and watched a long home run in his previous at-bat. Archer was not among the five players ejected from the game.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a reduction in suspension games, so it’s just time to move on,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said Sunday.
Archer, who is 1-0 with a 2.00 ERA in three starts, said he was told the reason for the suspension was that it instigated the benches to clear.
“If the benches wouldn’t have cleared, then it might be a different verdict,” Archer said. “It’s what they came up with. They’re not going to budge, so there’s no reason to delay.”
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Sanders pitches a tougher line than Trump on GM closures
By MARC LEVY Associated Press
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday accused President Donald Trump of betraying the working people who put him in office and challenged him to deny federal contracts to General Motors until the company reopens shuttered plants.
“The biggest lie was that he was going to stand up for working families and take on the establishment,” the Democratic presidential contender told a Pittsburgh rally in his first visit of 2019 to the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. “That was a monstrous lie.”
Earlier in Lordstown, Ohio, and again in Pittsburgh, Sanders pressed Trump to put action behind his words on GM plant closings. Trump has assailed the company for shutting its small-car factory in Lordstown, in a politically important state, complaining about the company’s leadership and a local union leader while seldom mentioning the other U.S. factories that GM plans to close.
That’s not enough, Sanders said.
His message to GM and other multinationals: “If you want a federal contract paid for by taxpayers, treat your workers with respect and dignity. No more paying your workers inadequate wages while you provide CEO’s with multimillion-dollar parachutes, no more taking away health care benefits, no more denying workers the right to form a union.
“And if you are not a good and responsible corporate citizen, do not think that you will get federal contracts.”
Several union organizers spoke before Sanders at the Pittsburgh rally, part of Sanders’ four-day, five-state swing through states that are part of the Democratic strategy to rebuild the “blue wall” in 2020. Sanders attracted an estimated 4,500 on the warm, breezy late afternoon to a grassy plaza near the campuses of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Democrats are putting a heavy emphasis on winning back three states Trump narrowly captured in 2016: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Dubbed the “blue wall” before they unexpectedly tipped to Trump, they may have supplanted Florida and Ohio as the nation’s premier presidential battlegrounds.
Sanders had a good showing in the industrial belt in 2016’s Democratic primary, winning Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. But Hillary Clinton pounded him in Pennsylvania, 56% to 44%.
Some of Sanders’ supporters from 2016 are still with him, and some are new. Stephanie Hosbach, a day-care worker who voted for Clinton in 2016’s primary, drove an hour to see Sanders on Sunday and said her mind is made up to vote for him.
“I work two jobs,” Hosbach, 34, said. “I feel like the minimum wage needs to be higher. We all struggle and you know Bernie’s for those type of people.”
Some of Sanders’ supporters from 2016 have a taken a step back to study the big Democratic primary crowd.
One rallygoer, Fred Johnston, 45, said he backed Sanders in 2016’s primary, but isn’t certain who he will support in the 2020 primary.
“The election isn’t until next year and there’s a lot of choices,” Johnston said. “I want to keep an open mind and hear them out. Right now Bernie’s my first choice. … I don’t want to calcify my vote this early.”
Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania made him the first Republican to win it since 1988. Trump also knows the Midwest is vital to his re-election bid and is looking to repeat in states he won in 2016 and expand his territory.
The Sanders campaign said in a memo prepared in advance of the trip that the pathway to victory runs through the Midwest.
The memo said that Sanders has received donations from more than 8,000 people in Wisconsin, 14,000 in Michigan and 18,000 in Pennsylvania. Sanders was leading all Democratic candidates in fundraising.
Study finds diabetes drug may prevent, slow kidney disease
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE AP Chief Medical Writer
A drug that’s used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes has now been shown to help prevent or slow kidney disease, which causes millions of deaths each year and requires hundreds of thousands of people to use dialysis to stay alive.
Doctors say it’s hard to overstate the importance of this study, and what it means for curbing this problem, which is growing because of the obesity epidemic.
The study tested Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ drug Invokana. Results were discussed Sunday at a medical meeting in Australia and published by the New England Journal of Medicine.
About 30 million Americans and more than 420 million people worldwide have diabetes , and most cases are Type 2, the kind tied to obesity. It occurs when the body can’t make enough or properly use insulin, which turns food into energy.
This can damage the kidneys over time, causing disease and ultimately, failure. In the U.S., it’s responsible for nearly half a million people needing dialysis, and for thousands of kidney transplants each year.
Some blood pressure drugs lower this risk but they’re only partially effective. The new study tested Invokana, a daily pill sold now to help control blood sugar, to see if it also could help prevent kidney disease when added to standard treatments.
For the study, about 13,000 people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease from around the world were to be given Invokana or dummy pills. Independent monitors stopped the study early, after 4,400 people had been treated for about 2.5 years on average, when it was clear the drug was helping.
Those on the drug had a 30% lower risk of one of these problems — kidney failure, need for dialysis, need for a kidney transplant, death from kidney- or heart-related causes, or other signs that kidneys were failing.
For every 1,000 people taking the drug for 2.5 years, there would be 47 fewer cases of one of these problems, researchers estimate.
Rates of serious side effects were similar in the drug and placebo groups including leg, foot or toe amputations, a concern raised by a previous study of Invokana. One side effect, when the body can’t produce enough insulin, was more frequent among those on Invokana but rare overall.
Janssen, which is part of Johnson & Johnson, sponsored the study and many authors work or consult for the company. The drug costs about $500 a month in the U.S. Out-of-pocket costs for patients may be different, depending on insurance.
The importance of this large and well-done study “cannot be overstated,” Drs. Julie Ingelfinger and Clifford Rosen, editors at the medical journal, wrote in an accompanying article.
In recent years, several studies have found that Invokana and some similar drugs can lower heart risks. The new results, showing that Invokana also may stall or prevent kidney failure, expand the potential benefits of the drug.
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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
‘Mayor Pete’ joins 2020 Dem race as face of new generation
By SARA BURNETT Associated Press
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Pete Buttigieg, the little-known Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, made his official campaign entrance Sunday by claiming the mantle of a youthful generation ready to reshape the country.
“I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor,” he said to cheers of “Pete, Pete, Pete” from an audience assembled in a former Studebaker auto plant. “More than a little bold, at age 37, to seek the highest office in the land.” In the hours after his announcement, more than $1 million in donations poured in, said Lis Smith, speaking for the campaign.
The South Bend mayor, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan War veteran who has been essentially campaigning since January, has joined a dozen-plus rivals vying to take on President Donald Trump.
“The forces of change in our country today are tectonic,” he said. “Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That’s why, this time, it’s not just about winning an election — it’s about winning an era.”
Financial support from the LGBT community has helped Buttigieg defy expectations by raking in more than $7 million in just over two months. The money has come from grassroots supporters like Burrell and big-dollar Hollywood donors who hope Buttigieg will make history — or at least the summer debate stage.
Buttigieg will return this week to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation’s first nominating contests, to campaign as a full-fledged candidate now being taken more seriously.
Over the past few months, Buttigieg has appeared frequently on national TV news and talk shows and developed a strong social media following with his message that the country needs “a new generation of leadership.”
Buttigieg’s poll numbers have climbed. Some polls put him behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the party’s nomination in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet said he’s running.
Buttigieg’s campaign has raised more than $7 million in the first three months of this year, a total eclipsed by Sanders’ leading $18 million but more than Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
“Right now, it’s pretty fun,” Buttigieg told The Associated Press last month while visiting South Carolina , where he was met by larger-than-expected crowds.
His challenge is finding a way to sustain the momentum over the long term and avoiding becoming a “flavor-of-the-month” candidate. Scrutiny of his leadership in South Bend has increased, as has his criticism of Vice President Mike Pence , who was Indiana’s governor when Buttigieg was in his first term as mayor.
Buttigieg would be the first openly gay nominee of a major presidential party; he married his husband, Chasten, last year. He would be the first mayor to go directly to the White House. And he would be the youngest person to become president, turning 39 the day before the next inauguration, on Jan. 20, 2021. Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he took office, while John F. Kennedy was 43 and Bill Clinton 46.
The campaign kickoff speech echoed themes that have resonated with voters during Buttigieg’s exploratory phase.
He talks often about how political decisions shape people’s lives, including his own — from serving as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve in 2014, to being able to marry his husband and to not having to worry about how to pay for his father’s hospital bills after his father’s death this year.
Buttigieg also says the best way for Democrats to defeat Trump may be to nominate a mayor experienced in helping to revive a Midwestern city once described as “dying,” rather than a politician who has spent years “marinating” in Washington.
He has criticized Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” saying the way to move the country forward is not to look backward or cling to an old way of life.
“There’s a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back,” he said in the kickoff speak. “It comes from people who think the only way to reach communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with.”
South Bend, which neighbors the University of Notre Dame, was hit hard by the decline of manufacturing, dating to the 1963 closing of the Studebaker auto plant that costs thousands of residents their jobs.
The hulking, dilapidated factory loomed over the city for much of the past 60 years as what Buttigieg called a daily reminder of South Bend’s city’s past. Partially remodeled, it’s now a mixed-use mixed-use technology center outside downtown — and the setting for Bettigieg’s announcement.
The South Bend fire marshal’s office said the rally drew over 4,500 inside and 1,500 outside. A steady stream of raindrops fell on speakers on the stage through the leaky roof.
“I like that he’s young,” said Tom Lacy, a 62-year-old retiree who came from Peoria, Illinois, for the event with his wife, Candy, on their 35th wedding anniversary. “He’s so relatable. He doesn’t seem like a politician to me.” Lacy said: “The contrast between him and our current president is unbelievable.”
Nausher Ahmad Sial, a 68-year-old developer from South Bend, said “we need to try new blood.”
Sial, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan 35 years ago, said he has worked with Buttigieg on development projects in the city and described the mayor as a “very honest, very fair guy.”
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This story has been corrected to reflect that Tom Lacy is 62, not 52.