(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

The Fourth of July is mostly known as a driving holiday, but many drivers across the northeast United States, including hundreds in Western Pennsylvania, spent yesterday fueling up.

Following the late Monday announcement that participating Sheetz locations were setting the prices of all gasoline to $1.77 and 6 tenths of a cent in honor of the Independence Day holiday, many of its locations throughout Beaver and neighboring counties caused traffic jams and long lines on Tuesday. Some lines extended into active traffic, where cars were forced to move around the eager consumers.

The patriotic price dip was nearly two full dollars less than the latest averages reported by AAA East Central, including an average of $3.72 in Beaver County.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pinch-hitter Josh Palacios came through with a tiebreaking two-run double in a three-run ninth inning that rallied the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 9-7 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night to snap a three-game skid.

“July Fourth baseball is always lit, and to have a comeback like that with the boys and be able to finish it off is a blessing,” Palacios said. “It just shows the boys if you keep working hard, you keep trusting in your processes, you keep grinding and keep staying resilient, good things happen.”

Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips struck out Carlos Santana, then issued consecutive walks to Jack Suwinski and Nick Gonzales. Suwinski scored on Jared Triolo’s single off Phillips that tied it at 7.

“If a player says he feels good, then you’ve got to trust him and quite honestly we didn’t have anyone else,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was the right spot for him, he was ready to go and it didn’t work out.”

Triolo had struck out three times in his first four at-bats.

“You’ll never know if he’s having an 0-for-5 or a 5-for-5 day,” Gonzales said. “When he comes up for that sixth at-bat, he’ll be ready.”

Palacios batted for Rodolfo Castro and doubled into left field, scoring Gonzales and Triolo for a 9-7 lead.

The Pirates bounced back after pinch-hitter Jonny Deluca’s solo homer in the eighth gave the Dodgers a 7-6 lead.

David Bednar (3-0) got five outs for the win after being added to the NL All-Star roster earlier in the day as an injury replacement.

The Pirates rallied three times to tie the game.

“That was one of our most intense,” Suwinski said. “A lot of fight in there, good comeback win for the guys. Just shows that we can do it — we can play in these type of environments.”

James Outman slugged a pair of two-run homers, both times giving Los Angeles the lead, and Mookie Betts added his 23rd homer for the Dodgers. Jason Heyward went 2 for 3 and scored twice.

Deluca batted for Heyward and went deep to left field off Angel Perdomo for his first major league homer. The 24-year-old outfielder from Thousand Oaks in Ventura County took a curtain call in front of 51,487 cheering fans.

The Pirates tied the game at 6 in the sixth. Henry Davis singled to left off Gavin Stone, and David Peralta’s throw kicked off the glove of catcher Will Smith as Austin Hedges made a headfirst slide home. The throw put runners at second and third before Stone walked Santana to load the bases.

Suwinski took a called third strike. Gonzales grounded into a fielder’s choice to shortstop and Santana was out at second to end the inning.

Suwinski went deep for the Pirates leading off the fourth — his 442-shot was the longest of the game — and Hedges’ bases-loaded sacrifice fly tied it at 4. Bryan Reynolds’ RBI single off Caleb Ferguson put the Pirates ahead 5-4.

The Dodgers rallied to take a 6-5 lead in the bottom of the inning on Outman’s 407-foot shot that scored Heyward, who singled leading off against starter Luis Ortiz.

Outman’s first homer in the second traveled 436 feet to right-center and scored Heyman, who singled. Two batters later, Betts homered for a 4-1 lead.

Will Smith’s sacrifice fly in the first scored Betts and left the Dodgers trailing 2-1.

Dodgers rookie Emmet Sheehan had a shaky 37-pitch first. After he loaded the bases on three consecutive two-out walks, Gonzales hit a ground-rule double to left, scoring Davis and Santana for a 2-0 lead.

Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has declared a Code Orange Air Quality Action Day for ozone for July 5, 2023, in the Philadelphia Area, which includes the counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Pittsburgh Area, which includes the counties of Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland.

Partly to mostly sunny skies along with residual smoke, increasing weekday emissions, light winds, and temperatures of 90 degrees of higher will combine to produce ozone concentrations in the code will likely contribute to 8-hour average concentrations of ozone in the Code Orange range on Wednesday. Residents are encouraged to check www.airnow.gov for current conditions in their area.

Ozone is formed when airborne chemicals such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (called “precursors”) react with sunlight. High ozone levels are most common during summer months when there are long days with plentiful sunshine and high levels of ozone precursors combine. Although ozone precursors are most often generated by car exhaust and industrial air emissions, wildfire smoke can provide additional precursors. Ozone pollution is most common in densely populated areas with higher amounts of car exhaust and industrial air emissions.

On a Code Orange Air Quality Action Day, young children, the elderly, and those with respiratory problems, such as asthma, emphysema, and bronchitis, are especially vulnerable to the effects of air pollution and should limit outdoor activities.

Residents and businesses within the Air Quality Action Day areas are strongly encouraged to voluntarily help reduce ozone air pollution by:

• Driving less by carpooling or using public transportation;
• Combining errands to reduce vehicle trips;
• Limiting engine idling;
• Refueling cars and trucks after dusk; and
• Conserving electricity by setting air conditioning to a higher temperature and turning off lights that are not in use.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Air Quality Index (AQI) provides standardized color codes for forecasting and reporting daily air quality. Green signifies good air quality; Yellow means moderate air quality; Orange represents unhealthy pollution levels for sensitive groups of people; and Red warns of unhealthy pollution levels for all. An Air Quality Action Day is declared when the AQI is forecasted to be Code Orange or higher.

For more information, visit DEP at www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/AQPartnersWeb, EPA’s AirNow at www.airnow.gov, Allegheny County Health Department at www.alleghenycounty.us/airquality. Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s Air Quality Partnership at www.airqualitypartnership.org, Southwestern Pennsylvania Air Quality Partnership at www.spaqp.org.

Story by Curtis Walsh – Beaver County Radio News Director. Published July 4, 2023 6:19 P.M.

(Midland, PA) Midland hosted their annual 4th of July celebration Tuesday. The day started with a heavily attended parade that stretched through town and all around. The parade featured numerous local organizations, businesses, first responders, and more.  An all day festival took place in the park behind Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School which featured carnival rides, food and drinks, live music, and other various vendors. Musical acts included Fistful of Ballers, and Casanova, among others. Straight Outta Midland cookbooks were also being sold. Beaver County Radio’s Mike Romigh and Curtis Walsh had the prize caddy and personality prize wheel in the park, giving lucky winners a variety of prizes. The yearly event leads up to the grand finale of the night, the fireworks show. The celebration in Midland is a sure sign that it’s summertime in Beaver County.
Photos and videos from the event can be viewed below: 

Philadelphia police stand at the intersection of 56th Street and Kingsessing Avenue after multiple people were shot in Southwest Philadelphia, late Monday, July 3, 2023. (Yong Kim/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 40-year-old man with a rifle, a pistol, a bulletproof vest, extra magazines and a police scanner fatally shot four men on the streets of a Philadelphia neighborhood and chased and killed a fifth man inside a home, police say. Two boys, ages 2 and 13, were also wounded in the Monday night shooting spree that made the city the site of the nation’s worst violence around the July 4 holiday. The gunman fired at police as they chased him for blocks. When they caught up, he surrendered in an alley, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw says. The shooter had no prior connection to the victims, she says.

Marni Larsen and her son, Damon Rasmussen of Holladay, Utah, wait their turn in line hoping to snag her son’s passport outside the Los Angeles Passport Agency at the Federal Building in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Larsen applied for her son’s passport two months earlier and spent weeks checking for updates online or through a frustrating call system. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A much-feared backup of U.S. passport applications has snarled summer plans for would-be travelers around the world. Somewhere around March, people who thought they were renewing or applying for new passports in plenty of time for their summer trips flooded what the State Department says is a system still short-staffed from cuts during the pandemic. Some 500,000 applications are submitted a week, setting the process up to issue more than the 22 million passports issued last year. That’s created a mini-nation of people with family dreams and big money at stake holding the phone, refreshing the screen, queuing up, spending more money and fuming online — before any of them set foot near an airport.

HOMER CITY, Pa. (AP) — Two men were fatally shot by law enforcement officers in Pennsylvania over the weekend. Authorities said a state police trooper shot and killed a driver following a chase that began late Sunday night in Indiana County. That person’s name hasn’t been released. In Westmoreland County, regional police shot and killed a man armed with machete at a home in Ligonier Township on Sunday afternoon. Both shootings are being investigated.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published July 4, 2023 6:59 P.M.

(Center Township, PA) Detective Sergeant Aldo Legge was promoted as the new police chief at the township’s work session Monday night.

FILE – President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, at the Old Post Office in Chicago. Biden has long struggled to neatly summarize his sprawling economic vision. On Wednesday, the president gave a speech on “Bidenomics” in the hopes that the term will lodge in voters’ brains ahead of the 2024 elections. But what is Bidenomics? Let’s just say the White House definition is different from the Republican one — evidence that catchphrases can be double-edged. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has long struggled to neatly summarize his sprawling economic vision. It’s been hard for voters to digest the mix of infrastructure spending, tax hikes on companies, tax credits for parents, tax breaks for renewable energy, grants to build computer chip factories, insulin price caps and slogans like “Build Back Better.” Last week, the president gave a speech on “Bidenomics” in hopes that the term will lodge in voters’ brains ahead of the 2024 elections. That term joins Nixonomics, Carternomics, Reaganomics and other similar phrases meant to link policies with the man in the Oval Office.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty is looking to expand its efforts to elect school board candidates in 2024 and beyond, as well as get involved in other education races. The group’s co-founder said during its annual summit in Philadelphia that Moms for Liberty will use its political action committee to engage in school board races, state board of education races and elected superintendent races. These efforts will face opposition from teachers’ unions and others on the left who view the group as a toxic presence in public education. Even with a presidential race in 2024, school board elections will remain some of the most contentious political fights next year.