The men and women salute in honor of their country at the Punxsutawney Community Center Wednesday morning. The same group will soon put their lives on the line. They’re the 665 Engineer Utilities Detachment and they will be deployed to Iraq
The army reserve soldiers will be overseas for about a year, completing construction related missions.
“It is a bittersweet moment because the soldiers are going and but yet they’re going to do something that’s worthy,” says the 665th Detachment Commander, CPT John Kennelly.
A battle to take down a statue of President William McKinley in the small Northern California city of Arcata reflects a growing debate around the country on monuments that honor those who helped bring about the deaths of Native peoples.
No other city has taken down a monument to a president for his misdeeds. But Arcata is poised to do just that. The target is an 8½-foot bronze likeness of William McKinley, who was president at the turn of the last century and stands accused of directing the slaughter of Native peoples in the U.S. and abroad.
Steven Bochco, who wrote and produced some of the most memorable shows in television history, died Sunday after a lengthy battle with leukemia.
Though best-known for his cop dramas, Bochco was also behind the more comic “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and the high-profile flop “Cop Rock,” which attempted to marry gritty police work with Broadway show tunes.
The activist, Wanda Cleveland, 61, was there to remember the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of Sacramento police officers. But during the vigil for Stephon Clark, she was struck by a Sacramento County Sheriff Department vehicle.
The collision occurred on Saturday night. One video shared on Twitter shows people carrying signs of protest around sheriff vehicles. A voice on a megaphone says, “Back away from my vehicle” four times. Another voice can be heard saying, “Back away from my car” before the activist is knocked down to the curb.
Severe Weather Team 11 is finalizing the changing forecast, for Channel 11 Morning News starting at 4:30 a.m.
Despite it being the start of April, a quick-moving snowstorm will race eastward from the Ohio Valley through the mid-Atlantic and southern New England into Monday morning.
To the north of the storm’s track, a narrow swath of snow is expected. The band of accumulating snow will be no more than 100-150 miles wide, so a 25-mile north-to-south distance could mean the difference between a coating of snow and up to a half a foot.
“This snow event will last 8 hours or less in any one community, but that will be enough time to whiten the ground with some areas also facing slick travel,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski said.
Most communities along the path of the storm will receive 3-6 inches, but there can be localized amounts up to 8 or 9 inches in parts of central Pennsylvania.
Below are some questions and answers about the station, its re-entry and the past and future of China’s ambitious space program
No one knows for sure. However, on Friday, before updating the latest time window, the Aerospace Corp. said the debris would most likely descend into the Pacific Ocean.
When the space station’s fall was forecast for noon EDT on Sunday (Aerospace has since moved its forecast back four and a half hours), an expert told Space.com that Tiangong 1 would likely begin its re-entry over Malaysia, and rain debris into the Pacific Ocean.
Earlier, the Aerospace Corp. also said it could land along a strip of the U.S. that includes the southern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. That prompted Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to activate the state’s Emergency Operations Center to monitor the station.
Capt. Chris A. Kelenske, Michigan’s deputy director of emergency management and homeland security, said “the chances are slim that any of the debris will land in Michigan, but the state is monitoring the situation and is prepared to respond quickly if it does.”
What will happen and how great is the danger?
China’s chief space laboratory designer Zhu Zongpeng has denied Tiangong was out of control, but hasn’t provided specifics on what, if anything, China is doing to guide the craft’s re-entry.
Based on Tiangong 1’s orbit, it will come to Earth somewhere between latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, or roughly somewhere over most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America. Out of range are Russia, Canada and northern Europe.
Based on its size, only about 10 percent of the spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of anyone person on Earth being hit by debris is considered less than one in a trillion.
“This is a big thing the size of a school bus. Most of the stuff in it will just burn up in the atmosphere,” Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, told CBS New York.
Ren Guoqiang, China’s defense ministry spokesman, told reporters Thursday that Beijing has been briefing the United Nations and the international community about Tiangong 1’s re-entry through multiple channels.
How common is man-made space debris?
Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.
Most famously, America’s 77-ton Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwestern Australia city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.
The breakup on re-entry of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003 killed all seven astronauts and sent more than 80,000 pieces of debris raining down on a large swath of the Southern United States. No one on the ground was injured.
In 2011, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was considered to pose a slight risk to the public when it came down to Earth 20 years after its launching. Debris from the 6-ton satellite ended up falling into the Pacific Ocean, causing no damage.
China’s own space program raised major concerns after it used a missile to destroy an out-of-service Chinese satellite in 2007, creating a large and potentially dangerous cloud of debris.
What is Tiangong 1 and what was it used for?
Launched in 2011, Tiangong 1 was China’s first space station, serving as an experimental platform for bigger projects such as the Tiangong 2 launched in September 2016 and a future permanent Chinese space station.
The station, whose name translates as “Heavenly Palace,” played host to two crewed missions that included China’s first female astronauts and served as a test platform for perfecting docking procedures and other operations. Its last crew departed in 2013 and contact with it was cut in 2016. Since then it has been orbiting gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.
The station had two modules, one for its solar panels and engines, and one for a pair of astronauts to live in and conduct experiments. A third astronaut slept in the Shenzhou spaceships that docked with the station, which also contained facilities for personal hygiene and food preparation.
How advanced is China’s space program?
Since China conducted its first crewed mission in 2003 – becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so – it has taken on increasingly ambitious projects, including staging a spacewalk and landing its Jade Rabbit rover on the moon.
China now operates the Tiangong 2 precursor space station facility, while the permanent station’s 20-ton core module is due to be launched this year. The completed 60-ton station is set to come into full service in 2022 and operate for at least a decade.
China was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station mainly due to U.S. legislation barring such cooperation and concerns over the Chinese space program’s strong military connections. China’s space program remains highly secretive and some experts have complained that a lack of information about Tiangong 1’s design has made it harder to predict what might happen upon its re-entry.
A mission to land another rover on Mars and bring back samples is set to launch in 2020. China also plans to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the far side of the moon.
Visitors sit beside a model of China’s Tiangong-1 space station in 2010, at the 8th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai in southern China’s Guangdong Province. As forecast, China’s defunct Tiangong 1 space station re-entered Earth’s atmosphere Sunday. Kin Cheung/AP
Patric Hornqvist picked up his 200th career goal and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins clinched their 12th straight playoff berth with a 5-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.
BY WILL GRAVESAP Sports Writer
March 31, 2018 11:17 PM
Updated March 31, 2018 11:18 PM
PITTSBURGH
Mike Sullivan knew the Stanley Cup hangover was coming. Even if the Pittsburgh Penguins coach danced around the phrase whenever the subject came up during the opening three months of the season as the two-time defending champions alternated between sizzling and sleepy.
“The first part of the year was a bit of a struggle,” Sullivan said. “It wasn’t anything we didn’t anticipate as a coaching staff going into it.”
Sullivan didn’t panic — to be fair, he never really does — and instead offered a reminder to his team that nothing was inevitable.
Maybe not. It just sort of feels that way in Pittsburgh when Sidney Crosby and the Penguins are involved.
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The proof came on Saturday night, when a pair of third-period goals by the NHL’s best power play pushed Pittsburgh to a 5-2 victory over Montreal to clinch a franchise-record 12th straight postseason berth.
CONNELLSVILLE (KDKA) — A man who police know as the “ham-burglar” had to be rescued after his arrest Saturday when he tried to make a break for it by jumping into a river.
Shawn Prince, 21, gave everyone, including himself, quite a scare Saturday morning after reportedly jumping in the Youghiogheny River.
He was trying to get away from police, who had handcuffed Prince for bench warrants out against him.
The drama is out of the NCAA tournament, and that’s OK. Because on Monday night, two teams that should be playing for the national title are playing for the national title.
Andrea AdelsonESPN Staff Writer
SAN ANTONIO — It had been that kind of NCAA tournament — a little bit wild, a lot unexpected. Then afternoon turned to evening, and the Final Four fell back toward normalcy, in a basketball purists’ sense, anyway. UMBC, then Loyola-Chicago and Sister Jean, had allowed us to revel in the underdogs, in the idea that anybody could truly beat anybody no matter the resource divide.
This is what makes college basketball more egalitarian than its football counterpart: Loyola-Chicago can live in this world and be loved in this world. In the end, though, it has a hard time winning it all in this world.
So the two favorites won their Final Four games, and now Michigan and Villanova will play in the championship game, two recognizable basketball brands with tradition and history and three national titles between them.
President Donald Trump spent his Easter Sunday morning railing against existing U.S. immigration policy and arguing that the nation’s “dumb laws” are leading to “big flows of people” trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border.
“Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming.”
The president has harangued Democrats for failing to agree to a compromise to protect so-called Dreamers, whose status in the country was covered by an Obama-era program that Trump decided to end last year.
The two sides reportedly differed on just how many undocumented immigrants would be covered by an agreement. DACA technically came to an end March 5, but federal court rulings have allowed parts of the program to remain in place while the legal fight continues.
He added: “These big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!”
At Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg, parishioners prepared for Easter Sunday services by decorating the altar with lilies, daisies and other Easter flowers.
On Saturday kids scrambled on the slopes of St. Clair Park at the annual Greensburg Easter egg hunt hosted by the City of Greensburg and Keystone Church.
Shane Dunlap is a Tribune-Review staff photographer. Reach him at rdunlap@tribweb.com.
European Space Agency releases new information about the spacecraft that is plunging toward Earth
Tiangong 1, China’s defunct and reportedly out-of-control space station, is about to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and on Saturday the European Space Agencyreleased new tracking information on the falling spacecraft. ESA officials are now targeting 7:25 p.m. EDT (2325 GMT) Sunday as the likely time for re-rentry.
Meanwhile, the Aerospace Corp. is now forecasting a 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) crash on Sunday, give or take eight hours.
The tumbling spacecraft poses only a slight risk to people and property on the ground, since most of the 8.5-ton vehicle is expected to burn up on re-entry, although space agencies don’t know exactly where that will happen.
Below are some questions and answers about the station, its re-entry and the past and future of China’s ambitious space program.
SANTA PAULA, Calif. (KABC) — Two people on board a homebuilt plane were killed Saturday afternoon when the aircraft crashed into a storage container in the Santa Paula area, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.The incident was reported at 2:11 p.m. on a property in a wooded area in the 17800 block of S. Mountain Road, just outside the city limits of Santa Paula, Ventura County fire officials said.Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, said the single-engine, homebuilt Vans RV6A crashed under unknown circumstances and caught fire after crashing.The deceased, two males, were not immediately identified. No one on the ground was injured, officials said.
Gun rights activists were handing out high-capacity magazines at a rally outside the Vermont State House on Saturday to protest new legislation that would restrict them and increase gun control in the state.
Hundreds of protesters gathered to urge Republican Gov. Phil Scott not to sign a new bill that would ban high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, expand background checks for private gun sales and raise the legal age for gun purchases.
The measure was approved by the State House earlier this week and then again by the Senate on Friday in a 17-13 vote.
Protesters were handed nearly 1,200 high-capacity magazines, which hold 30 rounds of ammunition. A standard-capacity magazine holds around 10 rounds, according toCongressionalsportsmen.org, though this can vary.
Winning $521 million Mega Millions ticket sold in New Jersey
One very lucky person who bought a Mega Millions ticket in New Jersey is now a multi-millionaire — he or she is the single winner of the $521 million jackpot.
Two Florida teenagers were busted last week after trying to steal a Domino’s pizza delivery car but could not figure out how to drive stick.
Two Florida boys attempted to take their food to go last week but didn’t get very far.
Rojelio Sebastian, 14, and Miguel Garcia, 12, were busted last week after attempting to steal a Domino’s delivery man’s car but their plan foiled upon learning the car was a stick shift, the Miami Herald reported.
The boys attempted their plan last Friday after a Domino’s delivery driver, Issac Javier Ortez, was bringing a pie to Garcia’s neighbor.
Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison this week after she voted in the 2016 election while on parole, according to Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA. Mason was on parole after serving time for a federal tax crime, her lawyer said.
“She had a good faith belief she could vote legally and she did so,” Mason’s attorney Warrent St. John told WFAA.
