(Photo Provided with Release from Visit PA)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a release from VisitPA in Philadelphia, Governor Josh Shapiro and Visit PA, in partnership with Philadelphia Soccer 2026: the 501(c)(3) nonprofit local host committee planning and executing FIFA World Cup 2026™ matches in Philadelphia, announced yesterday the official locations of three “Pennsylvania World Cup Fan Zones,” which will bring the electricity of the world’s biggest sporting event to communities across the Commonwealth. These fan zones, which are championed by Governor Josh Shapiro to ensure that every Pennsylvanian can experience the wonder of FIFA World Cup 2026™, will be located in Pittsburgh, Reading, and Scranton to bring free, world-class public viewing events to tens of thousands of fans.

The Fan Zones locations, dates and hours of operation are as follows:

• Pittsburgh — Acrisure Stadium, the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers
• Reading — Reading Arena, which is a downtown multi-purpose arena
• Scranton — Lackawanna County Courthouse Square, which is an iconic outdoor park in the heart of downtown Scranton

HOURS OF OPERATION:
PITTSBURGH FAN ZONE
Pittsburgh Football Stadium (Acrisure Stadium)
100 Art Rooney Avenue
Fan Zone Events
Saturday, July 4th, 11 a.m.– 6 p.m.
1 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
5 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
Sunday, July 5th, 2 p.m. – 9 p.m.
4 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match

8 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
Thursday, July 9th, 2 p.m. – 7 p.m.
4 p.m.: Quarterfinal Match
Sunday, July 19th, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
3 p.m.: World Cup Final

READING FAN ZONE
Reading Arena (Santander Arena)
700 Penn Street, Reading
Fan Zone Events
Friday, July 3rd, noon – 11:30 p.m.
2 p.m.: Round of 32 Knockout Match
6 p.m.: Round of 32 Knockout Match
9:30 p.m.: Round of 32 Knockout Match
Saturday, July 4th, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
1 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
5 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
Saturday, July 18th, 3 p.m. – 8 p.m.
5 p.m.: World Cup Bronze Final
Sunday, July 19th, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
3 p.m.: World Cup Final

SCRANTON FAN ZONE
Lackawanna County Courthouse Square
North Washington Avenue & Linden Street, Scranton
Fan Zone Events
Saturday, July 4th, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
1 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match

5 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
Sunday, July 5, 2 p.m. – 9 p.m.
4 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
8 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
Monday, July 6th, 1 pm – 11 pm
3 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
8 p.m.: Round of 16 Knockout Match
Saturday, July 18th, 3 p.m. – 8 p.m.
5 p.m.: World Cup Bronze Final
Sunday, July 19th, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
3 p.m.: World Cup Final

(Credit for Photo: Photo Courtesy of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Milwaukee, WI) The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin recently unveiled an officially licensed, limited-edition Penn State Nittany Lions’ 2026 Wrestling National Champions Bobblehead that commemorates the team’s national title that was won on Saturday. The bobblehead features Nittany Lion, Penn State’s mascot, standing on the official 2026 Wrestling National Championship logo and flexing after receiving yet another title. You can buy this bobblehead by clicking here.This special edition bobblehead is available exclusively from the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which is an official licensee of Penn State University. You can also buy the Penn State Nittany Lions Wrestling Championship Counter Bobblehead by clicking here. These bobbleheads are $40 each and the price includes an $8 flat-rate shipping charge per order.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: The crowd cheers and jeers as Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes (30) exits the field after he was relieved in the first inning of an opening-day baseball game against the New York Mets, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul Skenes thought he could get out of a jam in the first inning on opening day.

He never got the chance.

After giving up five runs and getting only two outs Thursday in an 11-7 loss at the New York Mets, the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner got the hook from manager Don Kelly after throwing just 37 pitches. It was by far the shortest of his 56 major league starts.

“I’m not as upset about this for me, personally, as people would probably think,” Skenes said. “Because they did a really good job. It was an abnormal outing.”

The 23-year-old allowed four hits and issued two walks, including one to leadoff hitter Francisco Lindor. Skenes also hit a batter with a pitch, and Kelly wondered if the right-hander’s fastball command wasn’t up to his usual standards.

The five runs Skenes allowed matched his career high. The two-time All-Star also gave up five in six innings on April 8, 2025, against St. Louis.

Skenes said Kelly told him something along the lines of it’s too early in the season to push it.

“He wants to stay out there and pitch,” Kelly said. “It’s a really tough thing going to get him in the first inning right there. The bottom of it is Paul’s health. You’re getting close to 40 pitches, yeah 37 pitches and Lindor had a seven-pitch at-bat that first at-bat. If he runs another 7-10, you’re into dangerous territory with the starting pitcher in one inning, so we had to make the move.”

It was not all on Skenes, who was hurt by shoddy defense from Oneil Cruz in center field.

Handed a 2-0 lead on Brandon Lowe’s two-run homer, Skenes walked Lindor in the bottom of the first. Juan Soto followed with a soft single, and Bo Bichette lofted a sacrifice fly.

Jorge Polanco nubbed an infield single, and Skenes walked Luis Robert Jr. on 10 pitches. After pitching coach Bill Murphy visited the mound, Cruz misplayed Brett Baty’s line drive into a bases-loaded triple, coming in a couple of steps before letting the ball sail over his head.

“(It) was one of those low line drives that it takes a little bit more time for me to read it, and they’re really tough balls to read because you don’t know if you’re going to have to come in or go back,” Cruz said through an interpreter. “It got in the sun a little bit at the end, but those are the ones that I will get better at, for sure.”

Marcus Semien then popped up to shallow center, but Cruz lost the ball in the sun and it dropped beside him for an RBI double that gave New York a 5-2 lead. Cruz is a converted shortstop who began playing center field in 2024 before becoming a full-time outfielder last year.

“That ball straight at him, he came in, got a bad read,” Kelly said. “He’s been working hard out there. He just needs to continue to get better. Then the one in the sun. He just lost it in the sun.”

Carson Benge struck out on three fastballs clocked 96-98 mph in his first big league plate appearance, but Skenes grazed No. 9 batter Francisco Alvarez with an 0-1 sinker and that was the end of his afternoon.

Mets fans roared as Skenes walked slowly off the mound toward the dugout.

“I felt good, but (we were) being precautionary,” Skenes said. “The pitch count wasn’t going to be super, super high today anyway.”

Skenes was coming off two starts for the U.S. at the World Baseball Classic. Kelly brushed off Skenes participating in that event as anything contributing to this outing.

Yohan Ramírez relieved and prevented further damage by retiring Lindor on a flyball with runners at second and third. Ramírez was the first of six Pirates relievers.

“Obviously not ideal to have a bullpen game on opening day,” Skenes said.

Skenes made his second opening-day start as he begins his third major league season. He became the eighth starting pitcher since at least 1906 to allow five or more runs in less than an inning in a season opener.

“It’s nice to get it out of the way,” Skenes said. “Just flush it.”

(File Photo: Source for Photo: New York Mets center fielder Carson Benge (3) bats at his debut MLB game during the fifth inning of an opening-day baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

NEW YORK (AP) — In his fourth major league plate appearance, Carson Benge connected.

And when he saw the ball sail over the right-field fence, the 23-year-old New York Mets rookie couldn’t help but shout and jump for joy as he rounded first base.

“I kind of blacked out running around the bases. I don’t really remember too much,” Benge said. “I know I got it good off the bat.”

Benge homered in his big league debut for his first career hit and was one of several Mets newcomers who played pivotal roles as New York pounded the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-7 in its season opener.

After winning the right-field job at the end of spring training, Benge also walked twice and stole a base Thursday. He said he had 22 family members and friends in the sellout crowd of 41,449 at Citi Field, including his parents and girlfriend.

“Definitely anxious to get out there, ready to start playing,” Benge said, describing his emotions before the game. “Definitely everything I thought it was going to be.”

Benge is rated the organization’s second-best prospect and No. 16 in baseball by MLB Pipeline. He was selected 19th overall by New York in the 2024 amateur draft from Oklahoma State, where he and Mets pitcher Nolan McLean were both two-way players.

“Who he is is super consistent,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of Benge. “I’m not surprised by it because of the personality there. Opening day, first big league game for him, packed house and he just goes out there and plays his game.”

His first time up, Benge struck out swinging on three pitches from reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes — all fastballs clocked 96-98 mph.

“Just calm down,” Benge said he told himself. “Just like, deep breath, calm down. Great atmosphere, great fans, just trying to bring myself back down so I can compete.”

Benge whiffed again in the third inning, but then walked and scored in the fifth. With one out in the sixth, he took a rip at the first pitch he saw from reliever Justin Lawrence and drove an 82 mph sweeper to right, joining Kaz Matsui in April 2004 at Atlanta as the only Mets players to homer in their major league debut on opening day.

“It was awesome,” teammate Bo Bichette said. “He let it out rounding first, too.”

After circling the bases, Benge high-fived teammates and popped out of the dugout for a curtain call.

“I kind of saw everyone just like standing, and I just didn’t know what to do,” he said. “So, it worked out.”

Benge was later presented with the souvenir ball and said he’ll give it to his parents so it doesn’t get lost.

Francisco Alvarez followed with a long shot that reached the second deck in left, giving New York back-to-back homers from the bottom two batters in the order.

“It was amazing. The crowd was the loudest I’ve ever heard, times five. So being able to hear that was pretty sick,” Benge said.

He wasn’t the only Mets newbie who made a significant contribution, either.

Freddy Peralta, a two-time All-Star acquired from Milwaukee in January, won his New York debut on the mound with seven strikeouts and no walks in five innings.

Tobias Myers, obtained from the Brewers in the same trade, followed with three innings of one-run ball.

Bichette lofted an early sacrifice fly as the Mets chased Skenes in the first inning and later grinded through a 13-pitch at-bat before finally striking out. Luis Robert Jr. provided a pair of RBI singles, Jorge Polanco reached base safely three times and Marcus Semien had two hits.

It wasn’t always smooth, but Bichette at third base and Polanco at first made all their plays at new positions as New York played errorless ball and didn’t issue any walks.

“It’s awesome. I mean, everybody’s trying to get their feet wet,” Bichette said. “It was really cool. It’s an exciting team. We have the potential to win a lot of games, and we’ll just try to build off this and learn each other, build camaraderie, all that kind of stuff.”

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby (87) comes to congratulate teammate Erik Karlsson, left, on his goal with Rickard Rakell, right, during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby left Thursday night’s game at Ottawa early in the second period with a lower-body injury, barely a week after he returned from a lower-body injury sustained at the Olympics with Team Canada.

Crosby took a 38-second opening shift in the second period, before heading through the tunnel toward the locker room. The Penguins later announced he would not return to the game, and coach Dan Muse said afterward he had no update on Crosby’s condition.

Crosby had also headed through the tunnel following his last shift of the first period after appearing to get his left leg tangled up in a collision. He finished with one shot on goal in nine shifts in Pittsburgh’s 4-3 shootout win over the Senators.

The 38-year-old center missed 11 games for the Penguins after he was injured in an Olympic quarterfinal game on Feb. 18. Crosby returned to action at Carolina on March 18 with a goal and an assist, and he had an assist in each of Pittsburgh’s last three games. He leads the team with 28 goals and 64 points in 61 games.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – IOC President Kirsty Coventry speaks during the Olympic opening ceremony at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (Yves Herman/Pool Photo via AP, File)

GENEVA (AP) — Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,” the International Olympic Committee said, to be determined by a mandatory gene test once in an athlete’s career.

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.

The eligibility policy that will apply from the LA Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said.

“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.

After an executive board meeting, the International Olympic Committee published a 10-page policy document which also restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.

The IOC and its president, Kirsty Coventry, have wanted a clear policy instead of continuing to advise sports’ governing bodies who previously have drafted their own rules.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, said in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

She set up a review of “protecting the female category” as one of her first big decisions last June as the first woman to lead the Olympic body in its 132-year history.

Female eligibility was a strong theme in a seven-candidate IOC election last year — held after a furor around women’s boxing in Paris — when Coventry’s main rivals pledged a stronger policy to leading on the issue.

Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, three top-tier sports — track and field, swimming and cycling — excluded transgender women who had been through male puberty. Semenya, who was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has high natural testosterone levels, won a European Court of Human Rights judgment in her years-long legal challenge to track and field’s rules which did not overturn them.

The IOC document details its research that being born male gives physical advantages that a working group of experts believes are retained.

“Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: In utero, in mini-puberty of infancy and beginning in adolescent puberty through adulthood,” the document said.

It added this gives males “individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance.”

The IOC said its expert group agreed the current gene test is “the most accurate and least intrusive method currently available.” It screened for “the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes/testicles.”

Still, the mandatory gender screening — already conducted by the governing bodies of track and field, skiing and boxing — is likely to be criticized by human rights experts and activist groups.

One of the two women’s boxing gold medalists at the center of the gender controversy in Paris, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, has passed her gene test and can return to competition, the World Boxing governing body said last week.

In the U.S., President Trump signed the executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in February last year, and pledged to deny visas to some athletes attempting to compete at the L.A Olympics. The order also threatened to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allowed transgender athletes to take part in women’s sports.

Within months the U.S. Olympic body updated its guidance to national sports bodies citing an obligation to comply with the White House.

(Photos and Headline Photo Provided with Release Courtesy of VisitPittsburgh)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) As Pittsburgh prepares to host the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light from April 23rd–25th, the Pittsburgh Organizing Committee, alongside Allegheny County, the City of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT), and regional partners unveiled a comprehensive, multi-modal transportation plan yesterday that is designed to support both southwestern Pennsylvania residents and visitors while ensuring safe, efficient access to the event. The plan reflects a coordinated, multi-year effort to manage increased demand while maintaining reliable access to and through the city for those who live and work here with hundreds of thousands of fans expected across the three-day celebration. According to a release from VisitPittsburgh, here is some more information:

• Saturday-level service systemwide (April 23–25)
• Weekday-level service on high-ridership corridors, including:
  • P1-East Busway
  • G2-West Busway
  • 54-North Side – Oakland – South Side
• Four limited-stop Draft bus routes operating from the north, south, east, and west
• Increased light rail service to Downtown and the North Shore
• Additional service on the 28X-Airport Flyer

(Credit for Photo: Courtesy of CBS Sports and the NFL)

(AP) The NFL competition committee released its proposed rule changes for next season on Tuesday. The committee proposed allowing the officiating center in New York to eject players for committing a flagrant or non-football act on the field even it wasn’t called for a penalty. Under the old rules, the replay center could only intervene in those cases when the on-field officials had called a penalty. This proposal comes after Pittsburgh receiver DK Metcalf wasn’t ejected from a game at Detroit last season when he got into an altercation with a heckling fan. Because the on-field officials didn’t see the play when Metcalf swiped at the fan and throw a flag, the replay center was unable to eject Metcalf. The league did suspend him for two games, but he was able to remain in the game at the time. The owners also could vote on two proposals made last week by teams, including one by Pittsburgh to allow teams to have up to five video or phone calls with potential free agents during the negotiating window before the start of the league year. That was allowed on a trial basis this year and the Steelers are proposing for the rule to be permanent.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: Pittsburgh Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin (71) skates during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Buffalo Sabres in Pittsburgh, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) The Pittsburgh Penguins announced today that center Evgeni Malkin is out with a day-to-day injury after he suffered one to his upper-body. He will not play in tonight’s game when the Penguins take on the Colorado Avalanche at PPG Paints Arena. The Penguins also made another announcement today that even though Malkin is injured, forward Ville Koivunen has been recalled from their AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins.