PITTSBURGH (AP) — Coming off a pair of draining, tight losses and facing an early deficit against perhaps the best team in baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates could have bailed.

It’s August. They’re essentially out of the playoff mix following a scorching start. Their focus over the final third of the season is essentially trying to see how far along the young core they’ve been cultivating has come.

That core provided a pretty emphatic answer on Thursday, rallying past Atlanta 7-5 to earn a four-game split against a team that has long been where the Pirates are trying to go.

“We gave (the Braves) all they wanted this series,” Pittsburgh outfielder Bryan Reynolds said. “It was good to get this one and even it out.”

Ke’Bryan Hayes drove in three runs for the third straight game for Pittsburgh. Liover Peguero knocked in two and newly acquired reliever Thomas Hatch picked up his first win in nearly three years as Pittsburgh finished off an eight-game stretch against division leaders Atlanta and Milwaukee a respectable 4-4.

“That’s what winning teams do,” Hatch said. “I think for them to do it at this age shows what is on the horizon.”

Hatch, claimed off waivers from Toronto on Sunday, worked four scoreless innings in relief of Bailey Falter. Colin Holderman worked around an RBI single by Ronald Acuña Jr. in the ninth to earn the second save of his career.

“I like where we are right now as far as playing hard, doing the little things,” Hayes said. “That’s what it’s going to take to win ball games, compete with the good teams.”

Matt Olson hit his 40th home run of the season for Atlanta to move into a tie with Shohei Ohtani for the major-league lead but struck out looking as the tying run in the ninth to end it.

Orlando Arcia also homered for the Braves. Austin Riley added three hits, but Bryce Elder (8-4) couldn’t protect an early 4-0 lead.

The Braves are comfortably atop the East as they chase a sixth straight division title but their starting pitching has hit a rough spot. Elder (8-4) gave up five runs and six hits with two walks and five strikeouts in five innings. Atlanta’s starters have posted an ERA of 10.59 over the club’s past six games.

The bullpen did enough to help the Braves pull out taut wins late on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Not this time around.

Pittsburgh took the lead in the sixth off Atlanta reliever Joe Jimenez and pulled away in the seventh. Reynolds led off the seventh with a single and Hayes followed with a triple to the gap in right-center field to become the first Pirate to drive in three runs in three consecutive games since outfielder Jason Bay did it from May 24-27, 2006.

Hayes, all of 26, suddenly finds himself one of the elder statesmen on a team that includes Peguero, catcher/outfielder Henry Davis, outfielder Jack Suwinski and injured shortstop Oneil Cruz.

While not everyone will stick, the vibe — particularly since the trade deadline — has shifted. The future in Pittsburgh is edging closer. They’re hoping what they’ve shown of late is a glimpse of what’s to come.

“It’s very easy against really good teams when you get in deficit games when you have a young club, and even more so on a day game when you’re getting beat it’s easy to not continue to grind through your at-bats,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “That’s why I’m so proud of them.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration says it could soon launch a formal evaluation of risks posed by vinyl chloride, the cancer-causing chemical that burned in a towering plume of toxic black smoke following the fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

The Environmental Protection Agency is set to review risks posed by a handful of chemicals later this year, and is considering chemicals used for plastic production as a key benchmark. Vinyl chloride is among a range of chemicals eligible for review, and “EPA could begin a risk evaluation on vinyl chloride in the near future,” the agency said in a statement to The Associated Press.

If selected, EPA would study vinyl chloride to determine whether it poses an “unreasonable risk to human health or the environment,” a process that would take at least three years.

Environmental and public health activists cheered the development, saying EPA should have banned vinyl chloride years ago.

“If one positive thing can come out of the toxic train derailment in East Palestine — and I would argue nothing positive has come out of it so far — it is for the Biden administration to use their existing legal authority to start the process to ban vinyl chloride,″ said Judith Enck, a former regional EPA administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, an advocacy group that seeks to end plastic pollution.

“That accident was a chilling warning that we must act now to ban petrochemicals like vinyl chloride, and keep communities safe from known carcinogens,” added Heather McTeer Toney, another former regional EPA administrator who leads a separate group called Beyond Petrochemicals.

Vinyl chloride is a flammable gas used to make polyvinyl chloride plastic, better known as PVC. The chemical is found in plastic PVC pipes, as well as vinyl siding, packaging and a range of consumer goods, including furniture, car parts, shower curtains and toys used by children and pets.

Inhalation of vinyl chloride has been linked to liver cancer and other health problems, according to the National Cancer Institute, and its use has long been banned in cosmetics, hair spray and other personal products. PVC plastic is not a known or suspected carcinogen, the agency said.

The Vinyl Institute, a trade group that represents manufacturers, called the effort to ban vinyl chloride misguided.

A July 27 news conference at EPA headquarters, attended by Enck, Toney and other activists, was little more than a “publicity stunt that irresponsibly ignores decades of credible science” showing that vinyl chloride is “safely and responsibly manufactured in the United States,” Ned Monroe, president and CEO of the Vinyl Institute, said in a statement.

“Regrettably, Beyond Plastics has chosen to use the tragic events of East Palestine to advance deceptive and disproven claims about our industry that only serve to mislead the public,” Monroe added.

Vinyl chloride monomer is an intermediary chemical found in PVC products used every day, Monroe said, “including PVC pipes that deliver clean drinking water, vinyl windows, siding for energy-efficient homes and lifesaving medical products like IV blood bags.”

Debate over vinyl chloride has simmered for years, but gained a new urgency after the Feb. 3 derailment of a 50-car Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine. Three days later, emergency crews released toxic vinyl chloride from five tank cars and burned it to keep them from exploding.

That sent a billowing plume of black smoke over the town near the Pennsylvania border and prompted the evacuation of about half of its 5,000 residents. Months later, residents are concerned about lingering impacts on health, even though state and federal officials say tests show the town’s air and water are safe.

Since an evacuation order was lifted near the derailment site, vinyl chloride has not been found in the community at or above an intermediate screening level, the EPA said. The intermediate level represents an estimate of exposure to a contaminant that is not expected to cause non‐cancer health effects over a period of at least 15 days.

Jessica Conard, an East Palestine resident who lives near the crash site, called the Ohio train derailment “a very grim warning.” The crash demonstrates that the rail industry “values profit over human lives and the environment,” while state and federal regulators “failed to keep the industry in check,” she said.

Conard faulted what she called “an insatiable demand” by Americans for plastic products that has “driven the need for increased transport of these hazardous substances, placing communities like mine at risk every single day.”

Conard and other activists delivered more than 27,500 signatures to the EPA urging a ban on vinyl chloride.

“We’re here today for one reason and one reason only: to tell the EPA that it’s time now. We can’t wait to ban vinyl chloride. We can’t slow-walk this,” said Daniel Winston, co-executive director of River Valley Organizing, a community group in eastern Ohio.

Winston, who lives 17 miles from the derailment site, said the controlled burn, conducted just three days after the derailment, allowed Norfolk Southern to quickly reopen the tracks “so they could get their profits back up. And now a community and the surrounding area is affected by this in a way that people are still getting sick today.”

The Feb. 6 burn sparked worries that it could have formed dioxins, a known carcinogen created from burning chlorinated carbon materials.

“Vinyl chloride is bad, dioxins are worse as carcinogens and that comes from burning,” said Neil Donahue, a chemistry professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dioxins are a group of persistent environmental pollutants that last in the ground and body for years and have been one of the major environmental problems and controversies in the United States.

EPA ordered testing for the highly toxic compounds after the derailment and said results so far suggest there’s a low chance that dioxins were released following the derailment.

Dr. Stephanie Laggini Fiore, Associate Vice Provost and Sr. Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, hosts a faculty teaching circle on artificial intelligence on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, at Temple University in Philadelphia. Educators say they want to embrace the technology’s potential to teach and learn in new ways, but when it comes to assessing students, they see a need to “ChatGPT-proof” test questions and assignments. (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti)

ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots have become the go-to source for cheating in college. Now, educators are rethinking how they’ll teach courses this fall from Writing 101 to computer science. Educators say they want to embrace the technology’s potential to teach and learn in new ways, but when it comes to assessing students, they see a need to “ChatGPT-proof” test questions and assignments. For some instructors that means a return to paper exams, after years of digital-only tests. Some professors will be requiring students to show editing history and drafts to prove their thought process.

Cumberland County, PA – Today, Governor Josh Shapiro visited the West Shore Senior Center in New Cumberland to ceremonially sign HB1100, which expands the Property Tax/Rent Rebate (PTRR) program to nearly 175,000 more Pennsylvania seniors and doubles rebates for many of the 400,000 Pennsylvanians who already qualify. Last week, Governor Shapiro signed the expansion into law, delivering the largest targeted tax break in nearly two decades for Pennsylvania seniors.

 

Governor Shapiro proposed the expansion of the PTRR program during his campaign and in his first budget address to provide support for Pennsylvania renters and homeowners who need it most – and he visited the West Shore Senior Center in May to share the details of his proposal. Today’s return to the West Shore Senior Center highlighted that more than 2,300 Cumberland County residents will be eligible for the PTRR program as a result of the expansion.

 

“While I was campaigning, I heard from seniors all across the Commonwealth that they needed more support to keep up rising costs of living. I made a promise to them during my campaign and in my budget address that my Administration would be there for them – and we delivered with the largest targeted tax cut for our seniors in two decades,” said Governor Josh Shapiro. “Starting next year, for applications filed beginning January 1^st, we will put more money in older adults’ pockets. This expansion provides a much-needed update to PTRR and 173,000 more Pennsylvanians will qualify – including more than 2,000 seniors in Cumberland County alone.”

 

Providing a lifeline for Pennsylvania renters and homeowners who need it most and helping seniors across the Commonwealth stay in their homes is a priority of the Shapiro-Davis Administration – and the PTRR expansion passed the House and Senate with near-unanimous bipartisan support to increase income limits, provide larger rebates for those who qualify, and include a cost-of-living adjustment so the program keeps up with rising prices.

 

“Pennsylvania seniors deserve relief from the rising costs of inflation as grocery and heating bills continue to go up. They deserve to live in dignity, and they deserve a government that delivers real results for them and their families. That’s exactly what we’ve done with the Property Tax/Rent Rebate expansion,” said Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis. “This bill passed with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate. It’s truly an example of what happens when leaders come together to get things done here in the Commonwealth – and there’s more to come. We’ve got our first budget done, and we’re continuing to work on commonsense solutions to the most pressing problems that our Commonwealth faces.”

 

An estimated additional 2,300 Cumberland County residents are now eligible for under the expanded Property Tax/Rent Rebate program. In 2021, 5,972 residents in the county received rebates.

 

“I’m hopeful in the fact that we are seeing bipartisan legislation – and I see it in the House, I see it in the Senate, and, of course, in the Governor’s office. This is a man who understands politics is the art of compromise, and he has a way of communicating with people,” said West Shore Senior Center member Diane Salerno. “He doesn’t simply hear you – he listens. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this inspired and hopeful for Pennsylvania.”

 

East Palestine Train Derailment (Curtis Walsh)

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Regulators say Norfolk Southern has made improvements since a fiery Ohio derailment but still falls well short of being the “gold standard for safety” it is striving to be. Instead, the railroad is too often only willing to meet minimum safety requirements. The Federal Railroad Administration released a report on the railroad’s safety culture Wednesday. The agency has been working on the report for months in the wake of the Ohio derailment. The report also says poor communication and mistrust between employees and managers are hindering efforts to improve safety. The railroad’s CEO says the report will help Norfolk Southern make more progress.

NEPTUNE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A single lottery ticket sold in Florida has won a $1.58 billion Mega Millions jackpot. The Florida Lottery says a Publix grocery store in Neptune Beach sold the ticket. No one had won the Mega Millions jackpot since April 18, enabling the prize to grow to the third-largest in U.S. history. The $1.58 billion payout is for a sole winner who opts for an annuity doled out over 30 years, although most winners usually prefer a lump sum option. For Tuesday’s jackpot, the lump sum was an estimated $783.3 million. The prize is nearly identical in size to the second-largest jackpot of $1.586 billion in 2016.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state police say five people died when a recreational vehicle blew a tire on an interstate highway, crossed the median and collided head-on with a tractor-trailer. The crash occurred Wednesday on northbound Interstate 81 near Chambersburg. The RV was heading south and towing a trailer. It crossed a grassy median after the tire blew and struck the truck. Four people in the RV and the truck driver were all pronounced dead at the scene. The victims in the RV were from Middletown, Pennsylvania. The truck driver was from Martinsburg, West Virginia. No other injuries were reported.