August 14, 2025 4:51 am
CLAIRTON, Pa. — Hospital officials confirm seven of the 10 people injured in Monday’s deadly explosion at the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works have been released. An Allegheny Health Network spokesperson tells our news partners at Channel 11 that all seven patients in AHN’s care have been discharged. A UPMC spokesperson says three patients are still being treated at UPMC Mercy. There was no update on their condition. In addition to those injured, the explosion at the plant killed two people. One of those was Timothy Quinn, and the other has not been identified. An unknown number of people were treated at the scene. United Steelworkers Local 1557 has set up a GoFundMe campaign to support the families of those who died or were injured. The explosion happened in Batteries 13 and 14, where routine maintenance had been scheduled. An investigation into the explosion is underway, and several batteries remain shut down in the meantime.
August 14, 2025 5:00 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Residents in one Washington, D.C., neighborhood lined up to protest the increased police presence after the White House said the number of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital would ramp up and federal officers would be on the streets around the clock. After law enforcement set up a vehicle checkpoint Wednesday along the busy 14th Street Northwest corridor, hecklers shouted, “Go home, fascists” and “Get off our streets.” Some protesters stood at the intersection before the checkpoint and urged drivers to turn away from it. The action intensified a few days after President Donald Trump’s unprecedented announcement that his administration would take over the city’s police department for at least a month.
August 14, 2025 5:02 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s meeting in Alaska with Vladimir Putin could be a decisive moment in the war in Ukraine and in the U.S. leader’s anomalous relationship with his Russian counterpart. Trump has long boasted that he’s always gotten along well with Putin and spoken admiringly of him, even praising him as “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine. But in recent months, he’s expressed open frustrations with Putin and called him “CRAZY” while threatening to impose sanctions on Russia. Still, Trump’s self-imposed deadline for sanctions came and went without any announced penalties or explanation from the White House and the Republican president, tempering expectations for their Friday summit.
August 14, 2025 5:03 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has put a personal touch on this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. Trump announced the honorees himself, naming George Strait, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, Kiss and Michael Crawford. Trump is now chair of the Kennedy Center and revealed the names during a Wednesday press conference at the Washington cultural institution. Unlike in Trump’s first term, when he didn’t attend an honors ceremony, this year he plans to host the awards himself. Trump says he was “98% involved” in choosing the nominees. At least some of this year’s winners have a history of backing Trump, though one member of Kiss, Paul Stanley, has often criticized the president. The ceremony is Dec. 7.
August 14, 2025 5:04 am
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Rhode Island man accused of faking his death and fleeing the United States to evade rape charges has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in his first of two Utah trials. A jury in Salt Lake County found Nicholas Rossi guilty of a 2008 rape after a three-day trial. He is to be sentenced on Oct. 20. An obituary published online claimed Rossi had died on Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead. He was arrested in Scotland the following year and extradited to Utah in January 2024.
August 13, 2025 5:00 am
CLAIRTON, Pa. (AP) — Workers were heating coal and preparing for routine maintenance when an explosion rocked a U.S. Steel plant outside Pittsburgh. That’s according to a company executive who spoke to reporters Tuesday, a day after the blast killed two workers. The explosion was powerful enough to shake nearby homes. It also injured more than 10 other steelworkers, including one who spent hours trapped in rubble. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and plant executives vowed to investigate and do whatever is necessary to prevent such an accident from happening again. The cause remains under investigation.
August 13, 2025 4:47 am
Washington County Commissioners were informed at their agenda meeting that their request for more detail in how the Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency spends their money has been denied. According to Agency President Jeff Kotula, the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records determined that the agency is a private, non-profit corporation, independent of county governmental control. That determination does not sit well with Washington County Commissioner Chairman Nick Sherman who maintains that because the county allocates about $2.5 million per year to the agency, they deserve more transparency on how funds are spent. The Agency previously shared spending records with the county before the open records request was made. Sherman maintains that 80% of the money spent by the Agency is on administrative costs. Kotula says the reimbursement figure related to the tourism program is just over $700,000 and includes not only salaries and benefits, but operational costs like rent, insurance, telephones and copiers. He says that other peer counties spend in the neighborhood of $1.2 million on salaries alone. Sherman counters by saying that money could be better spent by adding additional events to attract tourism and have those tourists spend their money in county hotels, the casino and local businesses. He would like to see a sports complex and convention center developed. Sherman stated that the ruling will now be appealed to the common pleas court.
August 13, 2025 1:06 am
North Franklin Township Supervisors were greeted by a crowd of approximately 50 residents for their meeting on Tuesday. Scheduled speakers included Ridgewood Road resident George Leasure who spoke for the whole street. He employed a power point presentation to describe back yard flooding that occurred on June 14 and July 26. Some of that flooding affected people’s basements. He showed how a cross drain needs maintenance to clear out silt that holds water and limits the flow of the pipe during heavy rains. He also called into question the maintenance of a pond in Walnut Ridge. His presentation prompted more than a dozen other complaints from residents in other areas of the township, particularly from Cario Drive and Holiday Hills residents. Supervisor Bob Sabot sympathized with residents as he described his own dealings with flood waters. He pledged to work to get infrastructure failures addressed either temporarily or as in the case of Ridgewood Drive, totally next year during the road paving season. Sabot made an interesting comment about development. He said the board is concentrating on supporting the Washington Crown Center Mall redevelopment and addressing current infrastructure deficiencies before approving more housing to add to the existing problems with water and adding more cars to create traffic problems.
August 13, 2025 4:52 am
In the late 1970s, 9-year-old Kimberly Sever of Brookline was caught up in the Pittsburgh pride sparked by Myron Cope’s “Terrible Towel.” Though not a football fan, she noticed how Steelers mania transformed the city, with black-and-gold “terrible” versions of everything. She thought a “Terrible Trolley” would be very cool and, encouraged by her grandmother, wrote Mayor Caliguri with her idea. The mayor replied that he would pass the suggestion to the Port Authority, which ran Pittsburgh’s trolleys. Decades later, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum contacted Sever to tell her she had inspired the original Terrible Trolley, streetcar 1713, which ran from Pittsburgh to Charleroi starting in 1949. The trolley’s restoration took just over two years, one of the fastest projects in the museum’s history. Restoration manager Michael Buchta said the car was in rough shape with rust, corrosion, and chipping paint. Prime Collision Center donated paintwork using PPG Paints from ATI, helping raise over $90,000, with more funds still needed. Now part of the museum’s operating fleet, the Terrible Trolley will run regularly or be on display for visitors.
August 13, 2025 5:04 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of the 800 National Guard members deployed by the Trump administration to assist with law enforcement have begun arriving in Washington, D.C. The city’s police and federal officials took the first steps Tuesday in an uneasy partnership to reduce crime in what President Donald Trump called — without substantiation — a lawless city. Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to work alongside the federal officials Trump has tasked with overseeing the capital city’s law enforcement. Bowser insists the police chief remains in charge of the department and its officers. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said about 850 officers and agents fanned out across Washington on Monday and arrested 23 people overnight.
