Story and photo by Frank Sparks, Beaver County Radio 

(Beaver Falls, Pa.) On Saturday, June 17, 2023 Beaver County Radio moved from our 7th Avenue in Beaver Falls location to all new studios on on Dutch Ridge Road in Brighton Township. St. Barnabas Broadcasting wanted to thank Beaver Falls for the 75 years that WBVP broadcasted from the city. On Friday morning a sign was installed on the former studio building saying “Beaver Falls, Pa.” with “Go Tigers” underneath of it.

Beaver County Radio General Manager Frank Sparks said that “St. Barnabas Broadcasting wanted to thank the City of Beaver Falls for the last 75 years and felt this was the appropriate way to do it.” “While we enjoy our new state of the art facility in Brighton Township we will truly miss Beaver Falls.”

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Pubslished October 5, 2023 10:36 A.M.

(Aliquippa, Pa) Rayetta Lee announced at Wednesday night’s council meeting that an organization, DeeWalk Promise Hands, is an organization that wants to help homeless women. The focus is getting funding to open the former Hunter Personal Care Home at 1916 Main Street in the city.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 5, 2023 10:31 A.M.

Story by Curtis Walsh – Beaver County Radio News Director. Published October 5, 2023 10:23 A.M.

(Gibsonia, Pa) The St. Barnabas Nursing Center in Gibsonia has been recognized in a recent study published by Newsweek. The center was ranked one of the top 30 in Pennsylvania on the list of America’s best nursing homes, coming in at 13th. The nursing homes were ranked based on multiple data sources, including performance data, peer recommendations, and resident satisfaction. The St. Barnabas Nursing Center in Gibsonia houses over 150 beds and provides 24/7 care to residents.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 4, 2023 1:50 P.M.

(Midland, Pa) Midland Fire Chief Joe D’Itri reported Wednesday morning that a 2 story brick duplex home was destroyed  by fire early Tuesday morning. Firefighters  were dispatched at 1 a.m. and were assisted by Industry, Ohioville, Shippingport and Vanport Fire Departments.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 4, 2023 1:45 P.M.

(Conway, Pa) Beaver County Regional Police reported Wednesday morning that an accident Tuesday on Route 65 in the area of Crow’s Run Road is still under investigation. A police official will notify Beaver County Radio when the investigation is complete.

WASHINGTON (AP) — “THIS IS A TEST”: If you have a cellphone or are watching television Wednesday, that message will flash across your screen as the federal government tests its emergency alert system used to tell people about emergencies.

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System sends out messages via the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts.

The Emergency Alert System is a national public warning system that’s designed to allow the president to speak to the American people within 10 minutes during a national emergency via specific outlets such as radio and television. And Wireless Emergency Alerts are short messages — 360 characters or less — that go to mobile phones to alert their owner to important information.

While these types of alerts are frequently used in targeted areas to alert people in the area to thing like tornadoes, Wednesday’s test is being done across the country.

The test is slated to start at 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday. Wireless phone customers in the United States whose phones are on will get a message saying: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” The incoming message will also make a noise and the phone should vibrate.

Customers whose phones are set to the Spanish language will get the message in Spanish.

The test will be conducted over a 30-minute window started at 2:20 p.m., although mobile phone owners would only get the message once. If their phones are turned off at 2:20 p.m. and then turned on in the next 30 minutes, they’ll get the message when they turn their phones back on. If they turn their phones on after the 30 minutes have expired they will not get the message.

People watching broadcast or cable television or listening to the radio will hear and see a message lasting one minute that says: “This is a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public.”

Federal law requires the systems be tested at least once every three years. The last nationwide test was Aug. 11, 2021.

The test has spurred falsehoods on social media that it’s part of a plot to send a signal to cellphones nationwide in order to activate nanoparticles such as graphene oxide that have been introduced into people’s bodies. Experts and FEMA officials have dismissed those claims but some social media say they’ll shut off their cellphones Wednesday.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Solitary confinement conditions in a Pennsylvania state prison are unconstitutional, worsening and creating mental illness in those held there, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday on behalf of five inmates who say they have spent long periods in “torturous conditions.”

With limited mental health resources, some of the plaintiffs inside the Department of Corrections’ State Correctional Institution at Fayette have attempted suicide, flooded their cells with dirty toilet water, punched walls and written in their own blood, their lawyers said.

The lawsuit accuses prison officials of placing inmates into confinement based on secret evidence, leaving them unable to challenge their placement. Those practices violate the constitutional rights of those incarcerated to due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, their lawyers said.

A number of lawsuits nationally have targeted the conditions of solitary confinement, saying that the treatment of incarcerated people there has led to psychiatric episodes of self-mutilation and death due to lack of adequate care.

The lawsuit asks the court to end the use of secret evidence and solitary confinement for mental health patients. It also seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections declined comment, saying the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit said that a majority of the 30 to 50 men held in solitary confinement in the prison are Black and Latino and that the five plaintiffs have spent at least 11 months in solitary confinement.

According to the lawsuit, the men are placed in solitary confinement if they’re identified as posing possible threats to the security, safety and operation of the facility.

Those incarcerated are placed in small rooms, about 80 square feet (7.4 square meters), for 22 hours a day. The rooms have minimal furniture, no windows facing outside and lights are on at all times, the lawsuit said.

The men are granted one hour of recreation time, in a cage outside, but many refuse it, due to declining mental health, the lawsuit said.

In a statement, Angel Maldonado, one of the plaintiffs, called the confinement “draconian.”

“I’m a strong person, but it broke me down, I felt like I was trapped,” Maldonado said. “I had brothers in there swallowing batteries, razors, tying nooses. We organized this lawsuit because we felt it was a time to make change, we felt like if we didn’t do something positive or take a stand the DOC were going to keep doing this.”

The lawsuit says Maldonado had come to the prison with no history of psychiatric treatment. But mental health treatment in the prison is “grossly inadequate” and Maldonado’s time in solitary confinement caused insomnia, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, his lawyers said.

Mental health staff speak to the men through a food slot in the steel doors, or a crack between the cell door and frame, the inmates said.

The visits, which are often brief, are called “drive-bys,” according to the lawsuit.

In Maldonado’s case, the lawsuit said a psychiatrist visited briefly, speaking to him through the door. Maldonado was prescribed an antidepressant, but was also taunted as being weak by others in solitary confinement, who can hear visits from mental health staff. The taunting went on for 10 hours, and worsened his condition, the lawsuit said.

Other plaintiffs who had documented mental health conditions saw insufficient support.

Once in solitary confinement, inmates can progress through phases to access more privileges — such as in-person non-contact visits, reading materials, tablets or TV — but the lawsuit said that “vague, arbitrary criteria” can keep the men from advancing.

Those held at the lowest tier can’t access phones, reading materials, radios, TV or commissary food; they can have only one non-contact visit per month.

At all levels, the men are not allowed to receive alcohol and drug addiction rehabilitation services or anti-violence and behavioral therapy, the lawsuit said. Often, participation in programs like that is necessary for parole, it said.

“No one should be forced to endure these conditions,” said Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz, deputy director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which is one of the law firms representing the plaintiffs. “It is time for the DOC to eliminate practices long recognized as inhumane and unconstitutional, including the unlawful placement of disabled individuals in circumstances that cause life-threatening harm.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Most Pennsylvania lawmakers want to move their state’s presidential primary election up from late April, but disagreements arose in the House on Tuesday over whether to embrace a Senate-backed plan that would shift the election to mid-March.

A House committee first rejected, but later passed, a bipartisan Senate bill that seeks to hold the election on March 19. That second vote came hours after the committee approved its own bill to move the primary to April 2.

Most lawmakers are motivated to move the primary from April 23 — where it is set by state law — to avoid a conflict with the Jewish holiday of Passover and to make it earlier in the primary calendar, thereby giving voters in the battleground state more of a say in deciding presidential nominees.

“I think at its core, people recognize that Pennsylvania is frankly the center of the political universe,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia. “If you want to win a national election in the United States of America, you have to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

House Democrats supported the bill to move the date to April 2. The bill passed narrowly, 13-12, and goes to the full House for a floor vote. Democrats, on a second vote, advanced the Senate bill to the floor, with a 13-12 vote.

It gives the chamber more flexibility, and two mechanisms, to shift the date, said the committee’s chairman, Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre.

“Things were fluid this morning as it was going through,” he said. “Some members had some reservations about the bill the way it was written.”

After negotiation, he said, they passed it.

Still, the votes by the committee earlier on Tuesday raised questions about whether an agreement on a new date is possible any time soon.

House Republicans opposed both the Senate and House bills.

April 2 would be just two days after Easter next year. Lawmakers aired concerns about polling equipment being in place in churches around the Holy Week, and whether poll workers would be away for the holiday.

Republicans emphasized the impact it would have to schools’ calendars, the work it would put on counties to abbreviate their own and potential changes to voters’ habits as reasons to not move the primary at all, at this point.

Voters observing Passover could vote by absentee ballot, said Rep. Brad Roae, R-Crawford.

“Well, with all the different religions that we all have — Christianity, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist — there’s so many different religions,” he said. “Probably almost every day is a holiday for somebody.”

The move could also open the state to scrutiny, said Rep. Lou Schmitt, R-Blair.

“This election, whether we change the primary date or not, will not be perfect,” he said. “However, by changing the primary date, we hand a stick to these people who thrive on chaos in elections to beat our poll workers and our directors of elections over the head.”

Democrats dismissed that concern.

“I think we have very, very good folks around the Commonwealth, not only at the Department of State, but in our counties, who I have a lot of faith in their ability,” said Rep. Ben Waxman, D-Philadelphia. “You know, if they can handle 2020, they can handle this.”

Pennsylvania is a premier battleground in presidential elections, but state law sets its primary date on the fourth Tuesday in April, relatively late in the presidential primary calendar. It hasn’t hosted a competitive presidential primary since 2008, when Hillary Clinton pulled off a win to stay alive against Barack Obama, the leader in delegates and eventual winner of that year’s Democratic nomination.

The House committee’s proposed date would put Pennsylvania alongside Delaware, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, as well as New York where Gov. Kathy Hochul recently signed a bill that sets that state’s presidential primary for April 2.

The March 19 date would send Pennsylvanians to the polls on the same day as Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Arizona.

Both dates still come after primaries in other big delegate states, including California, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts and Tennessee.