(Story reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano, Published on October 18th, 2024 at 9:58 A.M.)
Beginning today, Friday, October 18th 2024, the in-ramp on Route 51 coming into the city of Aliquippa will be closed. The closure is necessary so 5 buildings can be demolished on Sheffield Avenue, city officials reported this morning. The closure began Thursday and the ramp is closed until the demolition is complete.
(Findlay Township, PA) Transportation Security Administration officers at Pittsburgh International Airport intercepted two guns in two days. On Monday, a .38 caliber handgun was found in a carry-on bag and was confiscated from a man from Washington, Pennsylvania. A loaded gun with a 9 mm firearm with 12 bullets, one in the chamber, was also discovered in a carry-on bag on Wednesday and according to a news release, the gun belonged to a woman from Munhall, Pennsylvania. The total number of guns that the Pittsburgh International Airport have intercepted this year has now increased to thirty-six.
(Beaver County, PA) As those in Beaver County get ready for Halloween, PennDOT is giving tips for kids and adults to stay safe on October 31st. PennDOT advises drivers to be extra cautious in residential neighborhoods during trick-or-treating and if you are going to a Halloween party, plan ahead to get home on time. PennDOT also provides that parents should remind their children to be careful and look both ways before they cross the street, to always walk on sidewalks, cross at street corners, pay attention instead of looking at electronic devices, and to not dart across the road or cross between parked cars. For costumes, PennDOT considers adding reflective tape to costumes, carrying a flashlight, wearing glow sticks, and using face paint instead of masks, which obstructs vision. Pedestrians also need to make sure they are visible to drivers.
(Unity Township, PA) Former President Donald Trump will be having a rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe on Saturday. The doors will open at 2 p.m. and the Republican Presidential Nominee will speak starting at 6 p.m. The Trump campaign has capped tickets on a first-come, first served basis for two tickets a person, but other tickets for the Latrobe rally are free. This is the first rally for Former President Trump since he returned to Butler on October 5th, the same location where an assassination attempt on the presidential candidate was attempted.
Source for Photo: Republican presidential candidate and former president, Donald Trump, speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
(Aliquippa, PA) A man was convicted by a Beaver County jury for killing a transgender woman in her Aliquippa apartment in 2021. On Wednesday, Darese Raines was found guilty of murdering Brandon Murray, known as B, inside a Linmar Terrace apartment. According to police, Murray identified as a woman. Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible claimed that there was not a clear motive that was proven. According to Pennsylvania State Police, video evidence was found outside Murray’s apartment. Raines’ sentencing date has not yet been determined.
(Story reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano, Published on October 18, 2024, at 5:56 A.M.)
(Aliquippa, PA) The Boys and Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania are hosting their 50th anniversary concert. According to a news release from David Tobiczyk, the Vice President of Advancement for the Boys and Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania, on November 16, the club will host a concert in honor of the classic hit “Could It Be I’m Fallin in Love” written by Pittsburgh-are natives Mervin and Melvin Steals. The concert will be staged at the Moon Area High School Auditorium in Moon Township at 7 p.m. and will feature performances from the Tramps, Earl Young, the Bill Henry band, with headliner Russell Thompkins, Jr., who is the Stylistic’s lead singer. Emceeing the concert is three-time Super Bowl Champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers J.T. Thomas. Tobiczyk also confirms that all proceeds will support the mission of the Boys and Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania to advance the potential of greater Aliquippa local youth and these proceeds will also benefit BGCWPA’s Aliquippa Clubhouse. Tickets for the concert are now available at bgcwpa@aliquippaclubhouse.ludus.com.
(Beaver County, PA) The WPIAL boys soccer playoffs begin on Saturday. The WPIAL boys soccer championship game will take place at Highmark Stadium.
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President Joe Biden attends a church service at Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ, Sunday, July 7, 2024, in Philadelphia (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A student loan cancellation program for public workers has granted relief to more than 1 million Americans — up from just 7,000 who were approved before it was updated by the Biden administration two years ago.
President Joe Biden announced the milestone on Thursday, saying his administration restored a promise to America’s teachers, firefighters, nurses and other public servants. He celebrated it even as his broader student loan plans remain halted by courts following legal challenges by Republican-led states.
“For too long, the government failed to live up to its commitments,” Biden said in a statement. “We vowed to fix that, and because of actions from our administration, now over 1 million public service workers have gotten the relief they are entitled to under the law.”
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was created in 2007, promising college graduates that the remainder of their federal student loans would be zeroed out after 10 years working in government or nonprofit jobs. But starting in 2017, the vast majority of applicants were rejected because of complicated and little-known eligibility rules.
A 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office found that 99% of applicants were denied, often because they weren’t in the right loan repayment plan or because their payments had temporarily been paused through deferment or forbearance — periods that weren’t counted toward the 10 years of public work.
The GAO faulted the Education Department for failing to make the rules clear.
The program was the subject of legal and political battles, with Democrats in Congress calling on the Trump administration to loosen the rules and uphold the spirit of the program. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary at the time, countered that she was faithfully following the rules passed by Congress.
Declaring that the program was “broken,” the Biden administration in 2021 offered a temporary waiver allowing borrowers to get credit for past periods of deferment or forbearance, among other changes. A year later, the Education Department updated the rules to expand eligibility more permanently.
Since then, waves of borrowers have been approved for cancellation as they reach the 10-year finish line. On Thursday, 60,000 more hit the mark, pushing the total past 1 million. When Biden took office, just 7,000 borrowers had been granted relief over the previous four years.
In all, the program has erased $74 billion in loans for public workers.
“I want to send a message to college students across America that pursuing a career in public service is not only a noble calling but a reliable pathway to becoming debt-free within a decade,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
After facing legal challenges to Biden’s own student loan plans, his administration has increasingly shifted attention to the record sums of loan cancellation granted through existing programs.
In total, the administration says it has now canceled $175 billion for about 5 million borrowers. Public Service Loan Forgiveness accounts for the largest share of that relief, while others have had their loans canceled through income-driven payment plans and through a 1994 rule offering relief to students who were cheated by their schools.
Biden campaigned on a promise of widespread student loan cancellation, but last year the Supreme Court blocked his proposal to cancel up to $20,000 for 40 million Americans. Biden ordered his Education Department to try again using a different legal justification, but a judge in Missouri temporarily halted the plan after several Republican states challenged it.
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Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, listens as U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign event in Pennsylvania, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, July 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent panel investigating the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally says the Secret Services needs fundamental reform” and that “another Butler can and will happen again” without major changes in how candidates are protected.
The review faulted the Secret Service for poor communications that day and failing to secure the building where the gunman took his shots. It also found more systemic issues at the agency such as a failure to understand the unique risks facing Trump and a culture of doing “more with less.”
The 52-page report issued Thursday took the Secret Service to task for specific problems leading up to the July 13 rally in Butler as a well as deeper one within the agency’s culture. It recommended bringing in new, outside leadership and refocusing on its protective mission.
“The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission,” the authors wrote Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Homeland Security Department, the Secret Service’s parent agency, in a letter accompanying their report. “Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again.”
One rallygoer was killed and two others wounded when Thomas Michael Crooks climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and opened fire as Trump spoke. The former president was wounded in the ear before being rushed off the stage by Secret Service agents. That shooting, along with another incident in Florida when Trump was golfing — a gunman there never got a line of site on the president or fired a shot — has led to a crisis in confidence in the agency.
The report by a panel of four former law enforcement officials from national and state government follows investigations by members of Congress, the agency’s own investigators and by Homeland Security’s oversight body.
A look at the report’s key findings and recommendations:
The panel echoed previous reports that have zeroed in on the failure to secure the building near the rally that had a clear line of site to where Trump was speaking and the multiple communications problems that hindered the ability of the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement to talk to each other.
“The failure to secure a complex of buildings, portions of which were within approximately 130 yards of the protectee and containing numerous positions carrying high-angle line of sight risk, represents a critical security failure,” the report said.
The panel faulted the planning between Secret Service and the local law enforcement, and said the Secret Service failed to ask about what was being done to secure the building: “Relying on a general understanding that ‘the locals have that area covered’ is simply not good enough and, in fact, at Butler this attitude contributed to the security failure.”
The panel also cited the fact that there were two separated command posts at the Butler rally: one with various local law enforcement and another with the Secret Service: “This created, at the highest level, a structural divide in the flow of communications.”
There were other communications problems.
The Secret Service had to switch radio channels because radio traffic of agents protecting first lady Jill Biden at an event in Pittsburgh was popping up on the channels of agents covering the Butler rally.
The panel also noted that all the law enforcement personnel on the ground were using a “chaotic mixture” of radio, cell phone, text, and e-mail throughout the day to communicate.
Also the panel said it was unclear who had ultimate command that day.
The report delved into the agency’s culture and painted a picture of an agency struggling to think critically about how it carries out its mission, especially when it comes to protecting Trump.
The panel said agency personnel operated under the assumption that they effectively had to “do more with less.” The report said the additional security measures taken to protect Trump after the Butler shooting should have been taken before.
“To be clear, the Panel did not identify any nefarious or malicious intent behind this phenomenon, but rather an overreliance on assigning personnel based on categories (former, candidate, nominee) instead of an individualized assessment of risk,” the panel wrote.
The panel also noted the “back-and-forth” between the Trump security detail and Secret Service headquarters regarding how many people were needed to protect him.
The panel also faulted some of the senior-level staff who were involved in the rally for what they called a “lack of ownership.” In one example, the panel said a senior agent on site who was tasked with coordinating communications didn’t walk around the rally site ahead of timen and did not brief the state police counterpart before the rally about how communications would be managed.
It cited the relative inexperience of two specific agents who played a role in security for the July 13 rally. One was the site agent from Trump’s detail whose job it was to coordinate with the Pittsburgh field office on security planning for the rally. The panel said the agent graduated from the Secret Service academy in 2020, and had only been on the Trump detail since 2023. Before the Butler rally the agent had only done “minimal previous site advance work or site security planning.”
Another agent assigned to operate a drone detection system had only used the technology at two prior events.
Having a unified command post at all large events where Secret Service and other law enforcement representatives are all physically in the same place; overhead surveillance for all outdoor events; security plans must include a way to mitigate line of site concerns out to 1,000 yards and who’s in charge at the event; and more training on how to get protectees out of dangerous scenarios.
The panel said the agency also needs new, outside leadership and a renewed focus on its core protective mission while expressing skepticism that the agency should continue with the investigations it currently conducts. While the Secret Service is well known for what it does to protect presidents and other dignitaries, it also investigates financial crimes.
“In the Panel’s opinion, it is simply unacceptable for the Service to have anything less than a paramount focus on its protective mission, particularly while that protective mission function is presently suboptimal,” the report said.
The panel members were Mark Filip, deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush; David Mitchell, who served in numerous state and local law enforcement roles in Maryland and Delaware; Janet Napolitano, homeland security secretary under President Barack Obama; and Frances Fragos Townsend, Bush’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.