(File Photo of Police Lights)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Greene Township, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a man from Hookstown was arrested on Friday for a terroristic threat on McCleary Road. At 5:47 p.m., a fifty-three-year-old man from Hookstown threatened both a thirty-one-year-old male and a fifty-four-year-old female, both of Hookstown. The identities of both the arrestee and the two victims were withheld. Troopers took the suspect to the Beaver County Jail following the incident. 

File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – In this photo taken with a drone, portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed the previous night in East Palestine, Ohio, remain on fire at mid-day, Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

(AP) A lawsuit alleging for the first time that people died because of the disastrous 2023 East Palestine train derailment has been filed ahead of Monday’s second anniversary of the toxic crash near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border amid a flurry of new litigation.

On Monday, Vice President JD Vance is also expected to visit the small community near the crash site that he used to represent as a senator, along with President Donald Trump’s newly confirmed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin.

The new lawsuit that will be made public later on Monday contains the first seven wrongful death claims filed against Norfolk Southern railroad — including the death of a 1-week-old baby. It also alleges the railroad and its contractors botched the cleanup while officials at the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on it and failed to warn residents about the health risks. Many of the other parties in the lawsuit cite lingering, unexplained health problems along with concerns something more serious could develop.

“Our clients want truth. They want transparency,” attorney Kristina Baehr said about the roughly 750 people she represents. “They want to know what they were exposed to, which has been hidden from them. They want to know what happened and why it happened. And they want accountability.”

The lawsuit provides some examples of the lingering effects on families, but it doesn’t include details about the deaths.

At least nine other lawsuits were filed over the past week by individuals and businesses that argue the railroad’s greed is to blame for the derailment and the $600 million class-action settlement doesn’t offer nearly enough compensation nor sanction the railroad enough to spur them to prevent future derailments. The dollar amount represents only a small fraction of the $12.1 billion in revenue the railroad generated in each of the past two years.

Dozens of rail cars careened off the tracks on Feb. 3, 2023, after an overheating bearing failed. Several of the cars carrying hazardous materials ruptured and spilled their cargo that caught fire. But the disaster was made worse three days later when officials blew open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride and burned that toxic plastic ingredient because they feared it would explode.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board determined the controversial vent and burn operation never needed to be done because there was evidence the railroad ignored that the tank cars were actually starting to cool off and wouldn’t explode. The state and local officials who ultimately made the decision to release and burn the vinyl chloride — generating a towering plume of thick, black smoke that spread over the town and region — have said they never heard anything suggesting the tank cars wouldn’t explode.

“The EPA had rules to follow and chose not to follow their own rules. The EPA was too busy trying to get the train back on track to protect the people,” Baehr said.

Officials didn’t immediately respond to questions about the new lawsuit and separate federal claims that were filed against the EPA and CDC. But in the past the EPA has defended the agency’s role in the vent and burn operation by saying they were only there to advise on the potential consequences and measure the resulting contamination.

Baehr said the EPA and CDC’s approach to the derailment followed a similar pattern she’s seen in other environmental disasters she’s been involved with like the Navy’s toxic spill of jet fuel that contaminated water in Hawaii. She said the agencies tend to downplay the health risks people face. Residents have expressed frustration with the data the EPA discloses and the refusal of the class-action attorneys to reveal what their own testing expert found.

A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern railroad said she couldn’t comment on the pending litigation. The railroad has agreed to the $600 million class-action settlement with residents who lived or worked within 20 miles of the derailment and a separate settlement with the federal government where Norfolk Southern pledged to pay for the entire cleanup and set up funds to pay for medical exams and drinking water monitoring. But the railroad did not admit any wrongdoing in either settlement.

Some people who lived near the derailment have started to receive payments for personal injuries as part of the class-action settlement, but nearly half of the settlement remains on hold as some residents appeal for higher compensation and more information about the contamination.

So the main payments of up to $70,000 per household won’t go out until the appeal is settled.

The nine other new lawsuits included claims by a pipe manufacturer, dog kennels and a winery that the derailment harmed their businesses in various ways, from staffing shortages to having to shut down or move because of customers’ concerns.

One business about a quarter of a mile (0.4 kilometers) from the derailment alleged cleanup work created “smoke, debris and odors” that reached their property and led to routine flooding. The dog breeder who owned a business in neighboring Pennsylvania blamed the toxic chemicals for causing the deaths of at least 116 puppies and three adult dogs.

File Photo: Source for Photo: First responders work the scene after what witnesses say was a plane crash in Philadelphia, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Three people injured on the ground when a jet crashed in a busy Philadelphia neighborhood, killing seven people, remain in critical condition, Mayor Cherelle Parker said Sunday.

Parker said 22 people were injured and five of them remain hospitalized. At least 11 homes were significantly damaged, along with some businesses.

“Our city continues to mourn their loss and they are in our thoughts and prayers,” Parker said of the deceased.

A Mexico-bound air ambulance plunged to the ground Friday evening, less than a minute after takeoff from Northeast Philadelphia Airport with six people on board, including a girl who had spent months being treated at a city hospital.

One of the dead was killed inside a car as debris from the Learjet 55 crash exploded into the neighborhood, damaging nearby homes.

The investigation into the crash remained ongoing, Parker said, adding that officials were going door to door to seek information from neighborhood residents.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday that investigators recovered the jet’s cockpit voice recorder at the impact site at a depth of about 8 feet (2.4 meters). Also recovered was the aircraft’s ground proximity warning system, which could also contain flight data, the agency said on social media.

The crash came just two days after the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a generation, when an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided in midair in Washington, D.C., with an Army helicopter carrying three soldiers. There were no survivors.

A busy thoroughfare near the Philadelphia crash site remained closed Sunday, but police said Roosevelt Boulevard would reopen by rush hour Monday morning.

The neighborhood known as Castor Gardens is a working-class area of dense row homes, said state Rep. Jared Solomon, who grew up there. It’s a busy commercial and residential area crisscrossed by heavy traffic.

“These are just people who want to help others,” Solomon said Sunday. “They’re nurses, they’re construction workers, they are first responders. In a community that is always poised to help others in and around our city; now we sort of are able to turn inward and all unite together.”

The plane, bound for Tijuana with a scheduled stop in Missouri, had reached about 1,500 feet (457 meters) before it plummeted to the ground. National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy called it a “high-impact crash” that left the plane “highly fragmented.” She said NTSB staff would be working to collect debris from the wreckage, a process that could take weeks.

The child had recently completed treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia hospital for a condition not easily treated in Mexico, hospital officials said. Her mother and four crew members also died. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said all six victims on the plane were from her country.

Philadelphia officials and plane owner Jet Rescue Air Ambulance have not disclosed the identities of the dead, but XE Médica Ambulancias, a Mexican emergency service, identified one of the victims as Dr. Raúl Meza of the State of Mexico near Mexico City, the air ambulance company’s chief of neonatology. Relatives of Josué Juárez of Veracruz said he was the aircraft’s co-pilot.

Parker said names of all of the deceased victims from Mexico will not be made public until Mexican consulate officials deem it appropriate.

But in Mexico, the Ensenada municipal government confirmed that two of the victims were from that coastal city in Baja California state and identified them as Valentina Guzmán Murillo and her mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna.

Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, which operated the Mexico-registered airplane that crashed in Philadelphia, is based in Mexico and also has operations in Miami. In 2023 five crew members working for Jet Rescue were killed when their plane overran a runway in the central Mexican state of Morelos and crashed into a hillside.

Audio recorded by LiveATC captured an air traffic controller at Northeast Philadelphia Airport telling “Medevac Medservice 056” to turn right when departing. About 30 seconds later, the controller repeats the request before asking, “You on frequency?” Minutes later the controller says, “We have a lost aircraft. We’re not exactly sure what happened, so we’re trying to figure it out. For now the field is going to be closed.”

File Photo: Source for Photo: Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 139th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) — Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Sunday and predicted six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers announced to a raucus, record-sized crowd at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania.

Phil was welcomed with chants of “Phil, Phil, Phil,” and pulled from a hatch on his tree stump shortly after sunrise before a member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club read from a scroll in which he boasted: “Only I know — you can’t trust A.I.”

The woodchuck’s weather forecast is an annual ritual that goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania, with far older roots in European folklore, but it took Bill Murray’s 1993 “Groundhog Day” movie to transform the event into what it is today, with tens of thousands of revelers at the scene and imitators scattered around the United States and beyond.

When Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that is said to usher in an early spring. When he does see it, there will be six more weeks of winter.

The crowd was treated to a fireworks show, confetti and live music that ranged from the Ramones to “Pennsylvania Polka” as they awaited sunrise and Phil’s emergence. Gov. Josh Shapiro, local and state elected officials and a pair of pageant winners were among the dignitaries at the scene.

Self-employed New York gingerbread artist Jon Lovitch has attended the event for 33 years.

“I like the cold, you know, and this is probably the best and biggest midwinter party in the entire world,” Lovitch said in Punxsutawney. “And it’s just a really good time.”

Phil has predicted a longer winter far more often than an early spring, and one effort to track his accuracy concluded he was right less than half the time. What six more weeks of winter means is subjective.

Tom Dunkel, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, says there are two types of people who make the trek to Gobbler’s Knob: the faithful seeking to validate their beliefs and the doubters who want to confirm their skepticism.

Phil communicated his forecast to Dunkel through “Groundhog-ese” with the help of a special cane that Dunkel has inherited as the club’s leader. It’s not as if he speaks in English words.

“He’ll like wink, he’ll purr, he’ll chatter, he’ll — you know — nod,” Dunkel said.

Attendance is free but it cost $5 to take a bus and avoid a 1 mile (1.6 kilometer) trek from the middle of town to the stage where the prediction was made, some 80 miles (123 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh. The need for so many buses is why the local schools, where the sports mascot is the Chucks, close when Groundhog Day falls on a weekday.

Keith Post, his wife and a friend have watched the “Groundhog Day” movie in each of the past five years and decided this was the time to make the trip from Ohio to witness the event.

“We booked rooms almost a year in advance and we’re here,” Post said. “We’re doing it.”

A new welcome center opened four years ago and the club is working on an elaborate second living space for Phil and family so they can split time between Gobbler’s Knob and Phil’s longtime home at the town library. The club also put up large video screens and more powerful speakers this year to help attendees in the back of the crowd follow the proceedings.

“It’s a holiday where you don’t really owe anyone anything,” said A.J. Dereume, who among the club’s 15-member inner circle serves as Phil’s handler and held him up to loud cheers on Sunday. “You’re grasping onto the belief, you know, in something that’s just fun to believe in.”

Jackie Handley agreed a year ago to visit Punxsutawney for the first time to help a friend check off an item on their bucket list. They were ready for the subfreezing temperatures.

“It’s once in a lifetime — we’re probably not going to come back. And we have tons of warm clothes,” said Handley, who lives in Falls Church, Virginia.

After the forecast was made, club members and Phil posed for photos with people from the crowd.

Phil has a wife, Punxsutawney Phyllis, and two pups born this spring, Shadow and Sunny, although his family did not join him on stage for the big event. The groundhog family eats fruits and vegetables, get daily visits from Dereume and sees a veterinarian at least once a year.

The club’s lore is that Phil is the same woodchuck who has been issuing weather forecasts for the past century, thanks to an “elixir of life” that keeps him immortal.

“There’s only one Phil, and it’s not something that can be handed down,” Dunkel said. “Just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, there’s only one.”

There have been Groundhog Day events in at least 28 U.S. states and Canadian provinces. In Pennsylvania, groundhogs predicted more winter Sunday in Mount Joy, Dover, York, Lebanon County and Lancaster County’s Manheim Township. But at the Slumbering Groundhog Lodge in Quarryville, Octoraro Orphie was said to predict spring is on the way.

In Georgia, about 50 miles (81 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta in Jackson, a groundhog named “General Beauregard Lee” saw his shadow, his handlers declared, meaning six more weeks of winter. It was said that Shubenacadie Sam at a wildlife park in Nova Scotia, Canada, also saw her shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.

(File Photo)

(Racoon Twp., Pa.) Aliquippa Fire Chief Timothy Firich reported via the Fire Departments Facebook Page on Sunday morning that at 10:30 Saturday night, crews from the City of Aliquippa Fire Bureau were dispatched to assist  Racoon Township with a residential structure fire on Route 18.  The Chief said that Engine 91, staffed with four career firefighters responded immediately and arrived to the scene in just 10 minutes.  Upon arrival, Engine 91 crews were assigned as the interior fire attack crews and quickly brought the fire under control. Aliquippa Fire assisted on scene for approximately two hours. There was no report to the extent of the fire or the cause.

(File Photo)

(FREEDOM, Pa.) — Beaver County Emergency dispatchers reported Saturday evening that police and first responders were all to the intersection  of 3RD Avenue and 9TH street at 5:53PM for a reports of a  teen on a motorized bike who was hit by a vehicle.

The teen was taken to a local hospital for unknown injuries.

No further information was available as police continue to investigate what happened.

(ap photo)
By TASSANEE VEJPONGSA and MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) — Punxsutawney Phil’s team of top-hatted associates says he has seen his shadow and is predicting six more weeks of wintry weather. The prognosticating woodchuck made his forecast as the sun rose Sunday in western Pennsylvania. The annual ritual goes back more than a century and has far older roots in European agricultural life. The event’s date of Feb. 2 doesn’t just divide the calendar between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s also a time of year that figures in the Celtic calendar and the Christian holiday of Candlemas.

FILE – Mail-in and absentee ballots are seen at the elections warehouse in Pittsburgh, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

FILE – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference in Philadelphia, Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
By MARC LEVY Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will deliver his third budget proposal to lawmakers next week, a plan that’s expected to seek substantially more aid for the poorest public schools, emphasize frugality and press the politically fraught topics of bailing out public transit and legalizing marijuana.
The plan to be unveiled Tuesday also is expected to carry aid for rural hospitals, boost pay for workers who care for older adults and disabled people and introduce taxes on skill games that are seen as competitors to casinos and lottery contests.
It comes at a time when Pennsylvania has an enormous surplus. It’s projected to have $10.5 billion in reserve when the fiscal year ends June 30.
But the state also faces growing deficits, a slow-growing economy, a fast-growing retirement-age population that is costly to care for and cost pressures from a range of human services.
Passage will require approval from Pennsylvania’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate.
Here’s what to watch for:
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SPENDING
Lawmakers approved a $47.6 billion spending plan for the current fiscal year. That represented a 6% increase over the prior year’s approved budget and held the line on sales and income tax rates, the state’s two major revenue sources.
Big increases went toward public schools, nursing homes and services for the intellectually disabled. However, it required about $3 billion of surplus cash to balance, eliciting warnings from Republicans that the state must slow the pace of spending or risk depleting its surplus within several years.
The state is expected to bring in $46 billion in tax collections this fiscal year — likely well below what Shapiro will propose in spending.
Lawmakers say they expect Shapiro’s forthcoming plan to emphasize cost savings and scraping up unused cash in program accounts to help offset spending increases elsewhere.
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PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Public schools are expected to be a top priority again.
Shapiro is under pressure from education allies and Democratic lawmakers to marshal billions more for schools in response to a court decision that found that Pennsylvania’s system of public school funding violates the constitutional rights of students in the poorest districts.
Lawyers for the schools that sued the state are asking for a $1 billion increase in “adequacy” money for schools that have been disadvantaged by the funding system, plus another $325 million for instruction and special education to help all districts keep pace with rising costs. That’s almost 13% more.
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PUBLIC TRANSIT
Shapiro has been adamant about preventing cutbacks by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the Philadelphia region’s public transit agency, which hasn’t regained ridership lost during the pandemic.
Republican lawmakers have insisted on finding a new revenue source and packaging transit aid with more cash for highway projects in their districts.
Last year, Shapiro proposed a $150 million tax on the skill games that are popular in bars, convenience stores, pizzerias and standalone parlors around the state. Lawmakers are again eyeing it as a way to raise the money.
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HUMAN SERVICES
Organizations that provide home care for older adults and people with disabilities are seeking increases in Medicaid reimbursement rates.
Direct care workers’ pay rates have fallen far behind, and it’s getting harder to find workers, making the services harder to get for people who need them, said Mia Haney of the Pennsylvania Homecare Association.
The association is seeking about $550 million in rate increases, about 22% more. Pennsylvania has among the lowest in reimbursement rates among its neighbors and comparable states, it says.
Separately, nursing home operators want at least $139 million more, or about 7%, to help keep beds open, and a $20 million increase, or about 10% more, for day programs that help older adults get medical, nutrition, rehab and other needs met.
Gary Pezzano of LeadingAge PA said nursing home operators are taking beds offline because they can’t affording staffing costs, and that’s causing emergency rooms to get backed up because there’s a lack of beds to accept people in need of rehab or nursing care.
Counties are seeking another $100 million for the mental health services they administer — about a 33% increase — and say the network that serves its social services and criminal justice system is on the verge of collapse.
Shapiro, meanwhile, has said he’ll propose more money to support health care in rural Pennsylvania.
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ENERGY
Shapiro wants to fast-track the construction of big power plants and offer hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks amid an energy crunch that threatens to raise electricity bills across Pennsylvania.
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LEGALIZING MARIJUANA
Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, said he believes passage of forthcoming legislation he’ll sponsor to legalize marijuana is possible by July 1, although getting enough Senate Republicans on board has been a challenge. Shapiro supports legalizing marijuana.
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VIOLENCE PREVENTION
The anti-gun violence group CeaseFirePA said it found big drops in gun violence — a 42% drop in victims and a 38% drop in deaths since 2022. It urged lawmakers to “double down” on $56.5 million it budgeted this year for violence prevention.
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This story has been corrected to show the Pennsylvania Homecare Association is seeking $550 million, not $500 million, and that the percentage increase is 22%, not 7%.
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Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter