Gas prices are three cents lower in Western Pennsylvania this week at $3.713 per gallon, according to AAA East Central’s Gas Price Report.

This week’s average prices: Western Pennsylvania Average                         $3.713
Average price during the week of July 29, 2024                                               $3.742
Average price during the week of August 7, 2023                                            $3.909

The average price of unleaded self-serve gasoline in various areas:      

$3.537      Altoona
$3.805      Beaver
$3.854      Bradford
$3.466      Brookville
$3.618      Butler
$3.616      Clarion
$3.676      DuBois
$3.640      Erie
$3.715      Greensburg
$3.784      Indiana
$3.727      Jeannette
$3.834      Kittanning
$3.821      Latrobe
$3.687      Meadville
$3.822      Mercer
$3.669      New Castle
$3.544      New Kensington
$3.833      Oil City
$3.743      Pittsburgh
$3.686      Sharon
$3.773      Uniontown
$3.843      Warren
$3.698      Washington

Trend Analysis:
The national average for a gallon of gas dipped three cents since last week to $3.47.  The drop comes as Hurricane Debby has made landfall today in Florida but so far, has had no significant impact on oil production. Today’s national average is four cents less than a month ago and 36 cents less than a year ago.

According to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), gas demand slid from 9.45 million barrels per day to 9.25 last week. Meanwhile, total domestic gasoline stocks fell from 227.4 to 223.8 million barrels. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 10.0 million barrels per day.

At the close of Wednesday’s formal trading session, West Texas Intermediate rose by $3.18 cents to settle at $77.91 a barrel. The EIA reports that crude oil inventories decreased by 3.4 million barrels from the previous week. At 433.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 4% below the five-year average for this time of year.

FILE – The icon for the video sharing TikTok app is seen on a smartphone, on Feb. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

The Justice Department sued TikTok on Friday, accusing the company of violating children’s online privacy law and running afoul of a settlement it had reached with another federal agency.

The complaint, filed together with the Federal Trade Commission in a California federal court, comes as the U.S. and the prominent social media company are embroiled in yet another legal battle that will determine if – or how – TikTok will continue to operate in the country.

The latest lawsuit focuses on allegations that TikTok, a trend-setting platform popular among young users, and its China-based parent company ByteDance violated a federal law that requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parental consent before collecting personal information of children under 13. It also says the companies failed to honor requests from parents who wanted their children’s accounts deleted, and chose not to delete accounts even when the firms knew they belonged to kids under 13.

“This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children’s private information without any parental consent or control,” Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement.

TikTok said it disagreed with the allegations, “many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.”

“We offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors,” the company said in a statement.

The U.S. decided to file the lawsuit following an investigation by the FTC that looked into whether the companies were complying with a previous settlement involving TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly.

In 2019, the federal government sued Musical.ly, alleging it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, by failing to notify parents about its collection and use of personal information for kids under 13.

That same year, Musical.ly — acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and merged with TikTok — agreed to pay $5.7 million to resolve those allegations. The two companies were also subject to a court order requiring them to comply with COPPA, which the government says hasn’t happened.

In the complaint, the Justice Department and the FTC allege TikTok has knowingly allowed children to create accounts and retained their personal information without notifying their parents. This practice extends to accounts created in “Kids Mode,” a version of TikTok for children under 13. The feature allows users to view videos but bars them from uploading content.

The two agencies allege the information collected included activities on the app and other identifiers used to build user profiles. They also accuse TikTok of sharing the data with other companies – such as Meta’s Facebook and an analytics company called AppsFlyer – to persuade “Kids Mode” users to be on the platform more, a practice TikTok called “re-targeting less active users.”

The complaint says TikTok also allowed children to create accounts without having to provide their age, or obtain parental approval, by using credentials from third-party services. It classified these as “age unknown” accounts, which the agencies say have grown into millions.

After parents discovered some of their children’s accounts and asked for them to be deleted, federal officials said TikTok asked them to go through a convoluted process to deactivate them and frequently did not honor their requests.

Overall, the government said TikTok employed deficient policies that were unable to prevent children’s accounts from proliferating on its app and suggested the company was not taking the issue seriously. In at least some periods since 2019, the complaint said TikTok’s human moderators spent an average of five to seven seconds reviewing accounts flagged as potentially belonging to a child. It also said TikTok and ByteDance have technology they can use to identify and remove children’s accounts, but do not use them for that reason.

The alleged violations have resulted in millions of children under 13 using the regular TikTok app, allowing them to interact with adults and access adult content, the complaint said.

In March, a person with the matter had told the AP the FTC’s investigation was also looking into whether TikTok violated a portion of federal law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business practices by denying that individuals in China had access to U.S. user data.

Those allegations were not included in the complaint, which is asking the court to fine the companies and enter a preliminary injunction to prevent future violations.

Other social media companies have also come under fire for how they’ve handled children’s data.

In 2019, Google and YouTube agreed to pay a $170 million fine to settle allegations that the popular video site had illegally collected personal information on children without their parents’ consent.

And last fall, dozens of U.S. states sued Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram, for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. A lawsuit filed by 33 states claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of COPPA. Nine attorneys general are also filing lawsuits in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 41 plus Washington, D.C.

Harrisburg, PA — Following his work to expand the Property Tax/Rent Rebate (PTRR) program for the first time in nearly 20 years, Governor Josh Shapiro today announced that more than 100,000 first-time filers of the program have already submitted their rebate applications this year. That means that a sizable group of older Pennsylvanians and residents with disabilities will be receiving critical relief from the PTRR program for the very first time thanks to the bipartisan expansion passed last year.

In total, as of today, the Department of Revenue has received more than 515,000 rebate applications applying for relief on property taxes and rent paid in the prior year. That represents a 22 percent increase in applications from the same time period last year — and nearly 94 percent of rebates received to date have already been approved for payment.

“After hearing from seniors across the Commonwealth that they were struggling with rising costs, we took action in my first year in office to expand the Property Tax Rent Rebate program to ensure that it continues to serve as a lifeline for older Pennsylvanians. We are now seeing the impact of that important work — more than 100,000 Pennsylvanians who missed out on this benefit in the past have submitted their rebate applications this year,” said Governor Josh Shapiro. “At the same time, there are many more Pennsylvanians who are eligible for a rebate but have not yet submitted an application. I want everyone to know that they can go to pa.gov/PTRR today to check their eligibility and learn how to apply for a rebate. You still have plenty of time before the December 31 deadline.”

“Our agency has administered the PTRR program for more than 50 years, so we know firsthand how important these rebates are to older Pennsylvanians and residents with disabilities. We are thrilled to see that Governor Shapiro’s work to expand the program is making a significant difference and opening the door to so many new applicants,” said Secretary of Revenue Pat Browne. “Our employees have been working extremely hard throughout the first seven months of the year to ensure that we’re providing as much customer support as we can to the people who benefit from this program. We are going to keep that up through the remainder of the year so that we can help as many eligible Pennsylvanians as possible.”

Eligibility/How to File

The PTRR program benefits eligible Pennsylvanians age 65 and older; widows and widowers age 50 and older; and people with disabilities age 18 and older. The table below shows how much homeowners and renters who fit this criteria are eligible for, depending on their income:

Submitting your application online through myPATH — in English or Spanish — is easy and does not require you to sign up for an account. Filing online gives you instant confirmation that your claim has been successfully filed. Applicants also will have access to automatic calculators and other helpful features that are not available through the paper application.

It’s free to apply for a rebate and assistance is available at hundreds of locations across the state: Department of Revenue district offices, local Area Agencies on Aging, and state legislators’ offices. You must reapply for a rebate every year as they are based on annual income and property taxes or rent paid during the prior year.

The easiest way to check the status of your rebate is to use the Where’s My Rebate? tool on myPATH. To check on the status of your claim, you will need your Social Security number, claim year, and date of birth.

About the Property Tax/Rent Rebate program

Governor Josh Shapiro signed into law a historic expansion of the Property Tax/Rent Rebate (PTRR) program, which means more Pennsylvanians now qualify — and at the same time — the vast majority who qualified in prior years will see their rebates increase. This was the first time the program has been expanded since 2006. The expansion:

• Increases the maximum standard rebate to $1,000.

• Increases the income cap for both homeowners and renters to $45,000.

• Increases the income cap to grow with inflation each year moving forward.

To raise awareness of the expanded program and help eligible Pennsylvanians complete their rebate applications, the Department of Revenue held nearly 300 events at senior/community centers to provide in-person filing assistance. This is in addition to the support that is available at Revenue district offices and other locations.

Since its inception in 1971, the PTRR program has delivered more than $8 billion in property tax and rent relief to some of Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable residents. The PTRR program is supported by the Pennsylvania Lottery and receives funding from gaming.

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – A resident of Youngstown, Ohio, has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges  of distributing fentanyl resulting in death and conspiring to distribute large quantities of fentanyl,  fluorofentanyl, and cocaine, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today. 

Eliot Gentry, 27, pleaded guilty before Senior United States District Judge Arthur J. Schwab to distributing fentanyl resulting in the death of an individual in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, on  January 23, 2022, and conspiring to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl, 100 grams or more of  fluorofentanyl, and five kilograms or more of cocaine from May 2021 to October 2022.  

Judge Schwab scheduled sentencing for December 4, 2024. The law provides for a maximum  total sentence of not less than 20 years and up to life in prison, a fine of up to $1 million, or both.  Under the federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed is based upon the seriousness  of the offenses and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendant. 

Assistant United States Attorney Craig W. Haller is prosecuting this case on behalf of the  United States. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, United States  Postal Inspection Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Lawrence County  Drug Task Force, Mercer County Drug Task Force, New Castle Police Department, Sharon Police  Department, and Pennsylvania State Police conducted the investigation leading to the prosecution of  Gentry. 

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published August 7, 2024 11:52 A.M.

(Beaver, Pa) Jason Dick, 35, of Beaver died from blunt force trauma to the head, neck, trunk, and extremities, according to Coroner David J. Gabauer. The man along with 2 friends were crossing the train bridge that runs from Monaca to Beaver when a train struck the victim just after midnight Tuesday.

Pittsburgh, PA – PennDOT District 11 is announcing overnight paving operations in both directions on Interstate 79 in Franklin Park Borough and Marshall Township, Allegheny County will occur Wednesday and Thursday nights, August 7-8 weather permitting.

Crews will conduct milling and paving operations to patch potholes requiring single-lane restrictions on Interstate 79 from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. each night according to the following schedule:

• Wednesday night, August 7 – northbound I-79 from approximately one half-mile south of the Route 910/Wexford (Exit 73) exit continuing to the northbound off-ramp
• Thursday night, August 8 – southbound I-79 from approximately one half-mile north of the Route 910/Wexford (Exit 73) exit continuing to the southbound off-ramp

Ramp access will be maintained. Please use caution when traveling through the area.

FILE – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks to the media, Nov. 9, 2022, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate on Tuesday, choosing an affable longtime politician who Democrats hope can keep newfound party unity alive in a campaign barreling toward Election Day.

Harris said in a post on social media that Walz has “delivered for working families” as a governor, coach, teacher and veteran. Walz called it “the honor of a lifetime” to be Harris’ vice presidential pick. The two will appear together in Philadelphia at an evening rally.

In choosing the 60-year-old Walz, she is turning to a Midwestern governor, military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.

“It’s great to have him on the team,” Harris wrote on X. “Now let’s get to work.”

He is joining Harris during one of the most turbulent periods in modern American politics, promising an unpredictable campaign ahead. Republicans have rallied around former President Donald Trump after his attempted assassination in July. Just weeks later, President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, forcing Harris to unify Democrats and consider potential running mates over a breakneck two-week stretch.

Harris hopes to shore up her campaign’s standing across the upper Midwest, a critical region in presidential politics that often serves as a buffer for Democrats seeking the White House. The party remains haunted by Trump’s wins in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016. Trump lost those states in 2020 but has zeroed in on them as he aims to return to the presidency this year and is expanding his focus to Minnesota.

Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Walz are set to appear together for an evening rally in Philadelphia, recalling a joint 2020 appearance by Biden and Harris in Wilmington, Delaware.

After Tuesday’s trip to Pennsylvania, they will spend the next five days flying thousands of miles around the country touring critical battleground states. They’ll visit Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Detroit on Wednesday and Phoenix and Las Vegas later in the week.

Planned stops in Savannah, Georgia, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, were postponed because of Tropical Storm Debby ’s effects.

A team of lawyers and political operatives led by former Attorney General Eric Holder pored over documents and conducted interviews with potential selections, and Harris herself met with her three finalists on Sunday. She mulled the decision over on Monday with top aides at the vice president’s residence in Washington and finalized it Tuesday morning, the people said.

Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to lead a major party ticket, initially considered nearly a dozen candidates before zeroing in on a handful of serious contenders, all of whom were white men. In landing on Walz, she sided with a low-key partner who has proved himself as a champion for Democratic causes.

“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary. “Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”

Walz has been a strong public advocate for Harris in her campaign against Trump and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, labeling the Republicans “just weird” in an interview last month. Democrats have seized on the message and amplified it since then.

During a fundraiser for Harris on Monday in Minneapolis, Walz said: “It wasn’t a slur to call these guys weird. It was an observation.”

Walz, who grew up in the small town of West Point, Nebraska, was a social studies teacher, football coach and union member at Mankato West High School in Minnesota before he got into politics.

He won the first of six terms in Congress in 2006 from a mostly rural southern Minnesota district, and used the office to champion veterans issues. Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, rising to command sergeant major, one of the highest enlisted ranks in the military.

He ran for governor in 2018 on the theme of “One Minnesota” and won by more than 11 points.

As governor, Walz had to find ways to work in his first term with a legislature that was split between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-led Senate. Minnesota has a history of divided government, though, and the arrangement was surprisingly productive in his first year. But the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota early in his second year, and bipartisan cooperation soon frayed.

Walz relied on emergency powers to lead the state’s response. Republicans chafed under restrictions that included lockdowns, closing schools and shuttering businesses. They retaliated by firing or forcing out some of his agency heads. But Minnesotans who were stuck at home also got to know Walz better through his frequent afternoon briefings in the early days of the crisis, which were broadcast and streamed statewide.

Walz won reelection in 2022 by nearly 8 points over his GOP challenger, Dr. Scott Jensen, a physician and vaccine skeptic. Democrats also kept control of the House and flipped the Senate to win the “trifecta” of full control of both chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in eight years. A big reason was the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which held that the Constitution doesn’t include a right to abortion. That hurt Minnesota Republicans, especially among suburban women.

“Tim has been in the news because the country and the world is seeing the guy we love so much,” U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Monday.

Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota-Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party said young people he spoke to on the campaign trail were “Walz pilled.”

Walz and other Democrats went into the 2023 legislative session with an ambitious agenda — and a whopping $17.6 billion budget surplus to help fund it. Their proudest accomplishments included sweeping protections for abortion rights that included the elimination of nearly all restrictions Republicans had enacted in prior years, including a 24-hour waiting period and parental consent requirements. They also enacted new protections for trans rights, making the state a refuge for families coming from out of state for treatment for trans children.

Their other major accomplishments included tax credits for families with children that were aimed at slashing childhood poverty, as well as universal free school breakfasts and lunches for all students, regardless of family income. They also enacted a paid family and medical leave program, legalized recreational marijuana for adults and made it easier to vote.

Republicans complained that Walz and his fellow Democrats squandered a surplus that would have been better spent on permanent tax relief for everyone. And they’ve faulted the governor and his administration for lax oversight of pandemic programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Federal prosecutors charged 70 people with defrauding federal food programs that funded meals for kids during the pandemic out of $250 million on Walz’s watch. Known as the Feeding Our Future scandal, it’s one of the country’s largest pandemic aid fraud cases. The Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan watchdog, delivered a scathing report in June that said Walz’s Department of Education “failed to act on warning signs,” did not effectively exercise its authority and was ill-prepared to respond.

Republicans still criticize Walz for his response to the sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, which included the torching of a police station.

During a May fundraiser in St. Paul, Trump repeated his false claim that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard to quell the violence. “The entire city was burning down. … If you didn’t have me as president, you wouldn’t have Minneapolis today,” Trump said.

It was actually Walz who gave the order, which he issued in response to requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. But within Minnesota, GOP legislators said both Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were too slow to act. And there was finger-pointing between Frey and Walz on who was responsible for not activating the Guard faster.

Walz has served often as a Biden-Harris surrogate and has made increasingly frequent appearances on national television. They included an interview on Fox News that irritated Trump so much that he posted on Truth Social, “They make me fight battles I shouldn’t have to fight.” Walz is also co-chair of the rules committee for the Democratic National Convention. And he led a White House meeting of Democratic governors with Biden following the president’s disastrous performance in his debate with Trump.

Putting Walz on the ticket could help Democrats hold the state’s 10 electoral votes and bolster the party more broadly in the Midwest. No Republican has won a statewide race in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty was reelected governor in 2006, but GOP candidates for attorney general and state auditor came close in 2022.

Trump finished just 1.5 percentage points behind Democrat Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016. While Biden carried Minnesota by more than 7 points in 2020, Trump has taken to falsely claiming that he won the state last time and can do it again.

Minnesota has produced two vice presidents, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published August 6, 2024 11:39 A.M.

(Hopewell Township, Pa) Hopewell Park has been reopened following issues due to heavy rain last week. Brad Batchelor, Park and Recreation Director for Hopewell Township reported on Sunday that the park was cleaned up quickly from the flooding last week. He says the only thing left is to get rid of a downed tree.