WBVP-WMBA intern Malik Garrett has the story

Police diverted traffic as Protesters blocked Grant Street at the Boulevard of the Allies in downtown Pittsburgh during the Monday evening rush hour.

After a man’s car was circled by protesters The driver told police he was assaulted.
“The type of demonstrations that we’re doing are dangerous but it’s more dangerous to not do something,” said one of the protest leaders, Nicky Jo Dawson.

Members of the crowd were protesting the June shooting death of 17-year-old Antwon Rose Jr. by an East Pittsburgh police officer who has been charged with homicide

One protester is seen punching the hood of the truck multiple times. The doors of the truck were flung open.

Police in tactical gear helped an ambulance with its lights on to cross through the blocked off intersection on its way to UPMC Mercy hospital.

No arrests were made Monday according to Pittsburgh Bureau of Police spokesman Chris Togneri.

Stabbing in Aliquippa

According to a police report, 51 yr old Carl Zedak said he had been intoxicated for 3 straight days, got into a fight about a woman, then stabbed her boyfriend in the back four times.

Zedak was charged by Aliquippa police with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, attempted assault, reckless endangerment and simple assault.

A fire, believed to be electrical in nature, broke out in the production room of Milk House Meats on Sunday afternoon, destroying most of the equipment. North Sewickley Township Assistant Fire Chief Randy Syphrit said the metal building with a metal interior and the hot day magnified the temperatures for firefighters. The metal walls had to be removed to get to the fire. A firefighter from Franklin was treated for heat exhaustion.
Milk House Meats was started about three years ago by 2013 Riverside High School graduate Freddie Pflugh,a fourth-generation meat cutter, in a former milk house on his family’s farm.

Nationally, 92 million Americans eligible to vote did not do so in 2016 and the left-leaning Center for American Progress, based in Washington, D.C., said Pennsylvania could have 323,000 more voters “just by implementing automatic voter registration” and 116,000 additional voters by offering early voting.

Of the eight benchmarks used to measure states’ performance on voter turnout efforts, Pennsylvania met just two: online voter registration and restoration of voting rights after incarceration. Earlier this year, Gov. Tom Wolf unveiled his 21st century voting reform plan, which includes proposals for same-day voter registration, automatic voter registration and no-excuse absentee ballots.
Only 2% of those who didn’t vote cited registration problems as the reason.

Allegheny County Police were called in Wilkinsburg shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Monday to the area of South Dell Way near Penn Avenue, a roadway generally untraveled by vehicles, for a person bleeding and lying on the ground.

Officers and paramedics found a 15-year-old boy shot to death.

The Allegheny County Police Homicide Unit is investigating. Anyone with information is asked to call the Allegheny County Police Tip Line at 1-833-255-8477.

55-year-old Bruce Kirkpatrick was arrested in Michigan and is facing three counts of criminal sexual conduct for his alleged involvement in connection with the disappearance of a Westmoreland County teenager.

The 16-year-old girl was found safe in Michigan on Friday.

The teen was last seen around 4 p.m. on June 26.
Her mother Stephanie Grantham said it was a frightening time. Grantham offered this advice for parents: Try to have good communication with your kids and that if you see something is off, talk to them

Glenn Camp, the president and assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 29 in Pittsburgh, stated in court documents that Shell Chemicals is “actively pursuing” employees at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station who are looking to leave their jobs amid uncertainty surrounding the future of the power plant.

Morale at the plant is low, Camp said, because FirstEnergy has implemented a program that pays bonuses to managers, supervisors and other non-union employees, as an incentive to keep those workers at the company’s power plants.

The retention bonuses do not apply to any of the 380 IBEW union members at Beaver Valley. At least 20 members of his union are already scheduled for job interviews with Shell for potential employment at the cracker plant.

Camp also said in the court documents that he’s fearful about safety at the plant if his workers leave en masse in the coming months.

“Without retention payments for (union) employees, (FirstEnergy) may not have enough qualified employees to safely staff the Beaver Valley plant,”

WEATHER Tuesday July 17, 2018

TODAY:
Widely scattered showers or a thunderstorm
this morning. Then partly cloudy. High 83F.

TOIGHT:
Mostly clear. Low 58F.

WEDNESDAY:
Mostly sunny skies. High 79F.

Petitions to offer online gambling in Pennsylvania roll in
By MARC LEVY, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Applications to operate casino-style gambling online in Pennsylvania were rolling in ahead of Monday’s deadline for the state’s casino owners to get a license at a discounted rate of $10 million.
The deadline arrived as Pennsylvania is in the midst of an aggressive gambling expansion as the state scrounges for cash to shore up its treasury.
Under a law signed late last year by Gov. Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania became the fourth state to legalize online casino gambling, joining Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board said Monday it had thus far received three applications for online gambling.
Those applications came from the owners of Parx Casino in suburban Philadelphia, Mount Airy Casino Resort in northeastern Pennsylvania and Live! Hotel and Casino, which is under construction in south Philadelphia’s stadium district.
After Monday’s deadline, owners of Pennsylvania’s 13 casino licenses have another 30 days to apply, but they will pay a premium of $12 million to operate all three forms of online casino games — slot machines, table games and poker — or $4 million for an individual form.
Ultimately, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board could open up the licenses to other out-of-state operators if the state’s casino licensees don’t apply for them.
Pennsylvania’s casinos rake in more gross revenues than any other state’s except Nevada’s, American Gaming Association figures show, while Pennsylvania is the No. 1 state in tax revenue from the casino industry, netting $1.4 billion in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
Lawmakers and Wolf last year approved legislation authorizing an aggressive gambling expansion that would make Pennsylvania the first state to offer both casino gambling and lottery gambling online.
In recent weeks, Pennsylvania began offering its Lottery games online and began regulating and taxing online fantasy sports games. The state also is in the process of awarding five new mini-casino licenses and writing regulations so that sports betting can begin, potentially before the National Football League’s fall season begins on Sept. 5.