The American Red Cross says blood donations are critically short this time of year and three blood drives are scheduled this week in Beaver County. The first blood drive is scheduled from 11 am to 4:30 pm today at Heritage Valley Beaver Education Center, 1000 Dutch Ridge Road in Brighton Township. Tomorrow there will be a blood drive from 1:30 to 7 pm at the Monaca Turners, 1700 Old Brodhead Road in Center Township. Thursday’s blood drive will be from 1 to 6:30 pm at Christian Assembly Church, 6241 Tuscarawas Road in Ohioville. Blood donors can make an appointment by visiting redcross.org or calling 1-800-Red-Cross.

A limited number of tickets for the Steelers’ first playoff game will go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Date of the game will not be determined until Sunday. The Steelers will play either the Kansas City Chiefs or Miami Dolphins. Tickets can be purchased online at ticketmaster.com or by calling ticketmaster at 1-800-745-3000.

This holiday season, fights have broken out at shopping malls around the country, sending post holiday shoppers scrambling for the exits. No one was seriously injured in the mall melees Monday night. Police in neighboring Ohio say a disturbance at an upscale mall just outside of Cleveland appears to have been loosely organized on social media. Similar fights were reported in malls in New York, Texas, Colorado and elsewhere. No reports on any problems at Beaver Valley Mall.

A pioneering astronomer who helped find powerful evidence of dark matter has died. Vera Rubin was 88. Allan Rubin said yesterday his mother died of natural causes on Sunday night. He said the Philadelphia native had been living in the Princeton, New Jersey area.

Today is the day after Christmas, and a holiday. Government offices are closed. The Beaver County Courthouse will be closed today and tomorrow. Banks are closed and so is the post office. There will be no mail delivery today.

Governor Tom Wolf will head into 2017 with perhaps even bigger challenges than his first two years in office. Wolf, of course, is a Democrat. He will face Pennsylvania’s largest Republican majorities in decades in his re-election year. The state government’s deficit looks as bad as even and there is talk of another drawn-out budget stalemate. For now, the governor is changing strategy. For the first time, Wolf says he’ll give lawmakers a budget proposal that doesn’t include a major tax increase.

Near Pittsburgh, a Homestead woman has been arrested in a stabbing that critically injured a man on Christmas morning. Allegheny County public safety officials said police and emergency medical responders were called to a Homestead residence just before 10 o’clock Sunday morning. They found a 55-year-old man with a stab wound to the chest. He was taken to a Pittsburgh hospital in critical condition. A 56-year-old woman is accused of having stabbed the victim during an argument. Police say she will face charges of aggravated assault and evidence tampering.

In McKees Rocks, police say a five month old boy, his grandmother and uncle died in a fire on Christmas Eve. The fire was reported shortly after 6 o’clock Saturday morning in a two story home in Stowe Township. Allegheny County medical examiner’s office identified the victims as 50-year-old Linda Tschudi, 29-year-old Michael Tschudi Jr. and five month old Gabriel Gilkis. Fire Marshal Martin Jacobs said the child was found on the second floor while the adults were found at the bottom of the stairs.

The Steelers are the AFC North champ;ions by defeating the Baltimore Ravens 31-27 Sunday. Quarterback Ben Rothlisberger threw a four yard scoring pass to Antonio Brown with nine seconds left to secure the win. The Steelers close out the regular season Sunday against the Cleveland Browns.