August 1, 2019 4:11 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Harold Prince, a Broadway director and producer who pushed the boundaries of musical theater with such groundbreaking shows as “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cabaret,” “Company” and “Sweeney Todd” and won a staggering 21 Tony Awards, has died. Prince was 91. Prince’s publicist Rick Miramontez says Prince died Wednesday after a brief illness in Reykjavik, Iceland. Prince was known for his fluid, cinematic director’s touch and was unpredictable and uncompromising in his choice of stage material. He often picked challenging, offbeat subjects to musicalize, such as a murderous, knifing-wielding barber who baked his victims in pies or the 19th-century opening of Japan to the West.
August 1, 2019 4:10 am
CHINA LAKE, Calif. (AP) – Authorities say seven people on the ground have been injured in the crash of a Navy jet in California’s Mojave Desert. Death Valley National Park spokesman Patrick Taylor say the seven were park visitors and have only minor injuries. There’s no word yet on what happened to the pilot of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, which went down during a training mission Wednesday morning. The crash occurred near a park area nicknamed Star Wars Canyon where fighter jets practice low-flying maneuvers and tourists often gather to watch. The crash area is about 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) north of the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake. The aircraft was from strike fighter squadron VFA-151 stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California’s Central Valley.
August 1, 2019 4:10 am
CINCINNATI (AP) – President Donald Trump’s latest rally will be a test for both candidate and crowd. The Cincinnati gathering Thursday night will be Trump’s first since his audience chanted “Send her back!” about a Somali-born congresswoman during a July rally in North Carolina, raising the prospect of a 2020 presidential campaign increasingly fought along racial lines. The chant about Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota by a roaring Greenville crowd rattled Republicans. Trump let the chant roll at the rally. Since then, he has issued incendiary tweets and a series of attacks on a veteran African-American congressman and his predominantly black district in Baltimore. Heightening the drama, Trump’s rally will come on the heels of two Democratic debates and will take place against a backdrop of simmering racial tension in Cincinnati.
August 1, 2019 4:09 am
DETROIT (AP) – Democratic presidential candidates are closing their second primary debate by focusing on President Donald Trump. After taking on each other for more than two hours, all 10 candidates have mentioned the Republican president as the real opponent. Former Vice President Joe Biden says the 2020 election is “a battle for the soul of America.” Sen. Kamala Harris calls the president a “predator” and a “coward” and says she’s the ideal nominee to debate him next fall. Sen. Cory Booker says the nation’s “crisis is Donald Trump, but not only Donald Trump.” Booker says beating Trump “is the floor, not the ceiling.”
August 1, 2019 4:06 am
TRAFFORD, Pa. (AP) – Authorities say a man died after a tree at least 75 feet tall fell onto his western Pennsylvania home, trapping him in his bed. Emergency responders in Westmoreland County managed to free the victim from the Trafford home more than an hour after the tree struck shortly after 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. The Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said 71-year-old Jay Zelezniak died shortly after 6 a.m. Wednesday at Forbes Hospital. An autopsy concluded that he died of blunt force trauma of the pelvis and lower extremities. The death was ruled accidental.
Penn Township deputy emergency director Jeremy Dixon said the tree smashed into the roof above the second-floor bedroom and that floor crashed down into the first floor. A woman was able to get out of the home unaided.
August 1, 2019 4:05 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvanians who prefer not to be identified as neither male nor female will soon have a gender-neutral option on their state-issued driver’s licenses. The state joins more than 10 others that have rolled out plans to give residents options. The Daily Item of Sunbury reports Pennsylvania Department of Transportation expects to have the new procedure in place by the middle of next year. It will let motorists use “X” as a third option to indicate gender. A department spokeswoman says the agency is able to make the change on its own and doesn’t need authorization from the Republican-controlled Legislature. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday that the department made the decision but it’s consistent with his opinions about equity and fairness.
July 31, 2019 2:55 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – Harold Prince, a Broadway director and producer who pushed the boundaries of musical theater with such groundbreaking shows as “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cabaret,” “Company” and “Sweeney Todd” and won a staggering 21 Tony Awards, has died. Prince was 91. Prince’s publicist Rick Miramontez says Prince died Wednesday after a brief illness in Reykjavik, Iceland. Prince was known for his fluid, cinematic director’s touch and was unpredictable and uncompromising in his choice of stage material. He often picked challenging, offbeat subjects to musicalize, such as a murderous, knifing-wielding barber who baked his victims in pies or the 19th-century opening of Japan to the West. (Photo: broadway.com)
July 31, 2019 1:38 pm
(WPXI) – Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Merril Hoge is suing the company that makes Roundup. According to the complaint, Hoge was first exposed to Monsanto’s weed killer back in 1977. He claims his exposure to the chemical led to him developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Hundreds of similar lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto. The popular weed-killer company is already paying $2 billion to a California couple for a similar case. The couple claims they used Roundup for 30 years and it caused both of them to be diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The company that makes Roundup says the EPA considers the product to be safe.
July 31, 2019 12:43 pm
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvanians who prefer not to be identified as male or female will soon have a gender-neutral option on their state-issued driver’s licenses. The Daily Item of Sunbury reported PennDOT expects to have the new procedure in place by the middle of next year. It will let motorists use “X” as a third option to indicate gender. A PennDOT spokeswoman says the agency is able to make the change on its own and doesn’t need authorization from the Republican-controlled Legislature. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf says PennDOT made the decision but it’s consistent with his opinions about equity and fairness.
July 31, 2019 12:42 pm
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A western Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to 21 to 42 years in the death of his 4-month-old daughter. Thirty-one-year-old Joseph Gazzam of Mount Lebanon was convicted of third-degree murder in a degree-of-guilt hearing that followed his guilty plea to a general count of homicide. Allegheny County Judge Randal Todd sentenced him Wednesday to 20 to 40 years in on the murder count and a consecutive one to two years on a child endangerment count. Prosecutors said his daughter, Victoria, was repeatedly struck in November 2017. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that during the degree-of-guilt hearing the judge said the defendant knew his daughter was born premature and was fragile, so his actions were more than mere negligence, but there was little evidence that his actions were premeditated or malicious.
