(File Photo of the Aliquippa School District sign)
(Reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano)
(Aliquippa, PA) According to Dr. Phillip K. Woods, Superintendent of Schools for the Aliquippa School District, the district received $45,000 in funding. This money comes from the FCC Cybersecurity Pilot Program. Woods stated in a release Thursday that data, equipment and network protection will be what the Aliquippa School District uses the money for in the future.
(File Photo of House of Prayer Lutheran Church in Aliquippa)
(Reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano)
(Aliquippa, PA) The Little Free Pantry Food Drive will take place at House of Prayer Lutheran Church in Aliquippa. On Saturday, January 25th from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., volunteers will accept donations of canned goods and non-perishable food items. People that are in need in the area will receive replenished supplies and donations from this food drive.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: A truck drives past a highway sign Monday, Feb. 15, 2021, in Houston. A frigid blast of winter weather across the U.S. plunged Texas into an unusually icy emergency Monday that knocked out power to more than 2 million people and shut down grocery stores and dangerously snowy roads. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
(Reported by Danielle Smith of Keystone News Service)
(Harrisburg, PA) Just like overindulging in salt is bad for your health, so too is the excessive use of road salt on the environment. Since 2020, PennDOT reports applying nearly 600-thousand tons of salt to icy roads. Harry Campbell with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says research by the U-S Geological Survey has found streams throughout the nation are getting saltier, by almost 40-percent. Campbell says that salty runoff is harming freshwater aquatic creatures – and points out that a single teaspoon of rock salt can pollute five gallons of fresh water. Campbell highlights Winter Salt Awareness Week – which starts January 27th – as a national effort to educate people about the environmental impacts of using road salt and promote safer alternatives. He says it’s a chance for Pennsylvanians to learn better techniques for deicing roads, bridges, sidewalks and parking lots.
(File Photo of the Transportation Security Administration logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) After forty-two guns were intercepted at the Pittsburgh International Airport last year, the TSA now has a new federal security director for both Pennsylvania and Delaware. Jerry Spero got appointed to the new position after being in federal service for thirty-five years. As Spero starts his new job, he is reminding passengers that guns are not allowed in carry-on bags, even if someone has a concealed carry permit.
(File Photo of Allegheny Health Netwrok logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Wexford, PA) Press Ganey gave Allegheny Helaht Network Wexford Hospital the 2024 Human Experience Guardian of Excellence Award in the category of ‘patient experience.’ Press Ganey gave the hospital recognition for the third year in a row, and for the second year in a row, the inpatient care at the hospital was recognized. The same award was also given in the category of patient experience in the emergency department to Allegheny Health Network Harmar Neighborhood Hospital.
Source for Photo: FILE – The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)
(AP) What’s in a name change, after all?
The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.
But Trump’s territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump’s lead.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”
Map lines are inherently political. After all, they’re representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world where multiple nations often share the same maps.
There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.
“Denali” is the mountain’s preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley” is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”
Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Trump’s executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”
But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?
“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it.”
As of Thursday afternooon, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.
A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it “strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.
The Associated Press, which disseminates news around the world to multiple audiences, will refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its original name while acknowledging the name Gulf of America. AP will, however, use the name Mount McKinley instead of Denali; the area lies solely in the United States and as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.
And at the Interior Department, a spokesman said Thursday that staff are working to comply with the president’s executive order quickly.
In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it’s still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania’s capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.
“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.
“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”
Wrote another user: “I’ll call it the Gulf of America when I’m forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”
(File Photo: Source for Photo: Pittsburgh Steelers fans cheer during the first round of the NFL football draft, Thursday, April 27, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) Both the NFL and VisitPittsburgh announced that the 2026 NFL Draft will occur from April 23rd to 25th, 2026 in the city of Pittsburgh. The NFL also made an announcement that the North Shore will host the event while both Acrisure Stadium and Point State Park will have elements of the city during the draft. The expected attendance for the event could make it the biggest event in the history of Pittsburgh for its visitors.
(File Photo of Pennsylvania State Police Tropper Badge)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Chippewa Township, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a single vehicle crash occurred on I-376 East on Thursday. At 7:20 a.m., forty-six-year-old Valerie McCracken of Beaver Falls was driving her 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander before the Brighton Township exit from the left lane to a medial covered with grass and snow. McCracken hit some guide rails on the left lane of the north side of the road. McCracken was charged by police for “driving on roadways that were laned for traffic.”
(File Photo of Center Township Police Car)
Beaver County Radio News
(Center Township, PA) The Center Township Police Department is trying to determine the identity of a woman that was shopping in the Target in Center Township. The woman that the department is looking for was there between 5 and 5:30 p.m. on January 18th. An incident occurred involving another customer in the store and the woman reported it to police but did not say her name. Please call the Center Township Police Department at 724-774-3329 if you have any information regarding this incident. Investigation regarding this incident is being headed by the the Center Township Police Department.
(File Photo of Police Lights)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News (Updated on 1/24/25 at 8:19 a.m.)
(St. Clair Township, Ohio) A shooting in St. Clair Township, Ohio Wednesday afternoon left both a four-year-old girl and the suspect dead as well as a police officer injured. A man, later identified as thirty-year-old Joseph Como, called police about a possible mental health issue and tried to shoot police after talking with them. Police fired shots back at him on a street close to both St. Clair Avenue and Foulks Drive and Como died as a result of the shooting. Four-year-old Rosalie Martin was shot at a nearby dentist’s office and died shortly after the incident. Detective Dakota Wetzel is now in stable condition in Pittsburgh’s UPMC Presbyterian Hospital’s intensive care unit. A vigil was held on Thursday for both Martin and Wetzel.