The Big K Morning Show
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In other words, this extension, three months beyond the election, gives everyone a breathing room to try to figure out is this a dead deal or is there a way to get it done? Right. So they gave them extra time to refile their application so they can look at it sometime in December, getting it past the election. Correct. And maybe getting a chance to see if maybe the way the paperwork was filed before, the way it's filed now, if it removes whatever the concerns that were stated before by some of the regulators about national security. And I think one of the inspirations for the pause is our own governor, Josh Shapiro, saying just wait a minute, don't let politics ruin this. And the only thing that the candidates agree on, apparently, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris is neither of them. And they've spoken out publicly, don't want the deal done, including President Joe Biden. So someone might say, well, how is it possible they get it done? Well, if they move beyond the election and they get enough support to keep the business, in our case here, a billion dollars spent in the Mon Valley and the headquarters for U.S. Steel remains in Pittsburgh, maybe there's a way to find a deal. And as far as foreign investment, there's a lot of foreign investment in this country. Sure. A lot in Japan has been a tremendous ally since World War II. Sure. So, but I understand, you know, U.S. Steel, people wanted to remain U.S. Steel, but is there a way? So now we push that, kick the can down the road, so to speak. Yeah. And of course, there have been so many people speaking out in favor of the deal, people from the Allegheny Conference of Economic Development, for example, saying, you know, there is no plan B. So we have to support plan A if we want to try to keep these jobs here. What is plan B? A mayoral proposal to spend $1 million in taxpayer money to support the 2026 NFL draft is a cause for concern for some city council members. Are Tamayra Rush reported yesterday afternoon that the city plans on utilizing a million dollars to help visit Pittsburgh with the NFL draft because it is a huge economic draw. So some kickback already saying, well, if you're in financial stress as a city, how can you give somebody a million dollars for that? So some people arguing that this is not a loss, this is an investment because they will get the money back in tax revenue, potentially depending on how they roll out and they utilize the money. Right. Well, you saw what happened in Detroit. I mean, they had a huge success this April with the NFL draft in their city. Well, of course, you know, that's visit Pittsburgh's job to help promote events and so on to the city. And I'm not quite aware of there being controversy other than a few years ago when there were, you know, plans to maybe try to bring the Republican National Convention to Pittsburgh and some people objected to that. But it struck me as being somewhat odd to hear complaints or concerns being raised about this because a million dollars at the end of the day in terms of government funding doesn't sound like it's an awful lot of money. But we'll see. Yeah. In terms of utilization of the money, I mean, I guess, you know, they'd certainly have a right to follow closely how they use it. But the fact is, uh, if it, if it makes money for the city, then it's worth the investment. So we'll, we'll let the bean counters and experts decide if that works. And David, I think a lot of people, you know, locally excited about the Steelers being two and O coming home against the Chargers to open the season here at Acryshire Stadium Sunday at one and yesterday at noon, uh, Mike Tomlin, Steelers coach had his weekly press conference. Our own Jeff Hathorne was there and coach talks about Justin Fields because it looks like as it sits today, he'll start on Sunday is good to get to know some of these guys. And Justin is included in that the development of, of our relationship with me getting to know and understand him and him getting to understand me, but just grows in in game environments. At some point in the game, I went up to him, I told him to a challenges unit in terms of cleaning up their place so we could get out of the stadium and end the game. And I asked him to do it in his own voice and his own words. But those are some of the things that you ask a quarterback to do. So as it sits today, Russell Wilson still dealing with the calf issue, but I guess, uh, as coach Tomlin likes to say, he'll let the week reveal itself or find out, he was starting to get feisty though, but when they asked him about the quarterbacks, he, he was getting uh, a little irritated. Oh, Justin, it's, does he still view this as a chance to earn a starting slot right now? You'd have to ask him that. I don't want to speak for him. Is this the competition still in your mind? I've stated where we are. At the beginning of week one, I said it was debatable and so we were staying status quo and Russ was in pole position. My position regarding the pecking order and the depth chart has not changed guys and it won't until the other guy gets healthy and then we'll give it real consideration. Until the end, I won't speculate. I don't know how many ways I can tell you guys that. Yeah. Take that. That sounded like our last meeting, Aaron. Our team meeting. All right. That's what people are talking about on the big K morning show. By the way, next hour, Rich Fitzgerald will join us and it looks like Pittsburgh's going to have another first when it comes to EV technology, electric vehicle technology. He'll share his insights in our next hour. The recipient of a art Rooney award last night, along with Marty's wife, Christine and Ken Gormley, Dr. Ken Gormley, president of Duquesne University, Diana Hap, who is the CEO of Children's Hospital. And we'll talk about that too. Download the free Odyssey app and you can reach us and take us with you actually wherever you want to go. A U D A C Y. It's a great resource of a lot of things, including our coverage of Friday nightlights. Looking forward to football this weekend, Trinity and Bethel Park will battle it out. And you can check out Katie K radio's high school football game of the week powered by Bowser Chevrolet. Our coverage starts at six on Friday with the sport out financial kickoff show. Aaron, do you have a passport? I do. Is it current? It is current. Good for you. Mine expired. And I got good news for everybody who's dealing with passports. So the days of lining up for hours to renew your passport are history, starting today. You can get a new one online. They've been testing it out for two months. So far, there hasn't been any major hiccups. There are a few exceptions, though, if you have a expired passport of more than five years, you still need to renew in person and you have to apply in the U S. So you have to be here to apply, but that doesn't matter because if your passport is expired while you can renew it, you can be somewhere else, but you got to be in the U S to apply online. Yep. Well, this this morning, it's a big deal standing in line for passports has been an issue for many. Yeah, absolutely, because the federal government during COVID and well beyond has had these remote people and they haven't had the personnel to process them as quickly. And it's been a major issue for a lot of people. So today, you can apply to renew your passport online through the U S government and you'd get the details. Just go to us dot gov. Search it. Find out. Yeah, figure it out. It reminds me of the conversation you had yesterday with the liquor control board, Sean Kelly. And he said, we had all of those applications processed by like 4 p.m. And maybe we're coming out of the post apocalyptic. I mean, post COVID times seemed like that in some ways and New Yorkers get a bad rap for not being nice. And as you know, Pittsburgh is one of the friendliest cities. The list of the rudest cities came out yesterday on a big apple, by the way, isn't even in the top 10 Miami makes the top spot as the rudest city in America. And then it's followed by Philadelphia. The city of not so brotherly love apparently, then Tampa, New York City came in 21st. We're way, way down the list, but we should be the friendliest. The least rooted city is Omaha, Minneapolis and San Diego. Hmm. You ever been to any of those places? Well, I've been to the places that rank pretty high on the mean list. I've been to Miami. I've been to lots of part, you know, most of Florida, I've been to Philly. And I'd actually have to agree, Philly, definitely not the most lovable place, unfortunately. But San Diego makes sense that they're happy there. There's no humidity. What is it about Philadelphia? I don't know. That, you know, a stereotype is the people there have an edge. Yes. They're a little rough around the edges. Right. And then we're the diametrically opposed opposite here, right? Where people go out of their way to be friendly to strangers. Hey, hold the door. Right. What do you need to go? What do you need? And if you do that in Philly, it's, it's just a different vibe. And I'm not sure why that is. Right. Anyway, Miami is the rudest city, apparently. That's unbelievable. You're down there to South Beach in your thawing. Be careful. They're going to be nice to you. Presidents get shot at. When I say something like that, you have countries saying this guy, but what can you do? You have to do what you have to do, right? You have to. We have to be brave. Otherwise, we're not going to have a country left. Former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail in his first public appearance since Sunday's apparent assassination attempt at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. So he's back on the campaign trail and Kamala Harris will be to and they're running mates with details. CBS is Jared Hill speaking of protection around Trump. His running mate is calling for the former president's level of security to be elevated to be the same as the current president. But his campaign isn't slowing down with less than two months until election day. Thank you very much. Former President Donald Trump back on the campaign trail in Michigan, days after a second suspected assassination attempt at his golf club in West Palm Beach. This guy was all set. He was all set to do his number. The former president courted auto workers at a town hall pledging to put a 200 percent tariff on cars built in China and Mexico. You have countries stealing your business. We are winning this campaign. Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris hit the trail in Philadelphia, sitting down with the National Association of Black Journalists. The same group Trump appeared before back in July when he made controversial statements about her racial identity. Is she Indian or is she black? Harris said she spoke to Trump on the phone about Sunday's incident after he publicly blamed her and President Joe Biden. For incendiary rhetoric, he says led to the assassination attempts against him. I checked on to see if he was okay. And I told him what I have said publicly, there is no place for political violence in our country. Harris also criticized Trump's false claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. It's a crying shame spewing lies that are grounded in tropes that are age old. Ohio's Republican governor has sent additional state troopers to schools in Springfield after the city received more than 30 bomb threats last week. He says the misinformation needs to stop. Today, Harris is in DC speaking to an event for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus while former president Trump will hold a rally in Union Dale, New York, CBS is Jared Hill. And we've also found out that Donald Trump intends to visit Indiana University of Pennsylvania. So he also has said he will come back to Butler County in October still a firm date or place or have not been announced yet. But at some point, we expect that to happen too. Also the fact that he will be scheduled and is mentioned as Jared Hill and Union Dale, New York. And so the campaign continues with the one day shy of seven weeks till the campaign. But in two weeks here in the state of Pennsylvania, mail-in balloting will already begin. So if you have, and some people have been confused by getting a application for a ballot in the mail, Aaron, did you receive an application here? Here's where the confusion. And actually Rich Fitzgerald who's joining us in the next hour with us every Wednesday on our seven o'clock hour explained that groups can send you information to apply to get a mail-in ballot. That's not a ballot itself. I think some people were confused by that. Yeah, that was great clarification when he did say that because I think just as we're getting closer to the day, there's so much information out there that him just saying it clean like that was really helpful. Right. Because it's confusing to some people because we heard somebody called into one of our talk shows and say suggesting they were getting all these ballots that they could fill out. That's true. Right. He kind of chuckled. He's like, no, no. It's not what you think. The Pennsylvania ballots for November's general election have been finalized by the state and voters in Allegheny County can expect mail-in ballots, start arriving the week of September 30th. So here we are. I mean, it's September 18th, so it's coming. And then you will have up until 8 p.m. on election night to get your ballot in. Most people, though, if you're mailing it in, mail it in. Right. Don't wait. So Allegheny County has received 160,000 mail-in ballot applications so far and they expect that to increase more than 172,000 applications in 2022. So it used to be that you couldn't get a mail-in ballot unless there were extenuating circumstances. Right. But that changed during the pandemic, so pandemic changed so much. And if you're confused and you want to make sure your votes counted, no matter who you're voting for, ask, just ask. Coming up in our next hour, Rich Fitzgerald, the executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, lots to talk about, including another first for the Pittsburgh area when it comes to electric vehicle technology. And right now, we are welcoming Bethany Casagrande, who is the chair of the Allegheny Health Network Imaging Institute. Good morning, Bethany. Good morning, Larry. How are you today? I'm good. This may sound like a remedial question, but what is an imaging institute? Right. I think it's what most people are used to being called the radiology department where you go and get your X-rays and your CT scans, MRIs, sometimes within a hospital and then sometimes in an outpatient facility. So I understand you have renovated that area. So what's new? Right. So what we did two weeks ago cut the ribbon on a $12 million expansion in renovation, specifically at Allegheny Valley Hospital. It is now an 8,000 square foot imaging center that brings, like you said, state-of-the-art imaging technologies and diagnostic capabilities to specifically new machines in the fields of ultrasound, mammography and breast care, CT scanning, MRI, regular x-ray, DEXA scanning, and then we even installed a mobile imaging pad for the hospital, which supports rotating MRI and pet CT capability to take care of our cancer patients in the valley. So the purpose of so many of these renovations that AHN and High Mark Health have invested in radiology and Greater Western Pennsylvania has been to keep people in their communities to allow that to continue to be a threat of their community, like, you know, so many churches and schools and hospitals are. So very excited about the new stuff in the valley. And what makes this so important, Bethany, I would imagine is that early detection with better imaging technology, which, you know, we can't keep up with technology as it is. So in your world, that can save lives because early detection can help treat all forms of cancer, including, and especially breast cancer imaging. Absolutely. State-of-the-art breast cancer imaging in all of our sites is one of our missions. We want to make sure that all people have access to early detection with lung cancer screening, breast cancer screening. And the reason to your point, Larry, that it's so important is not everybody has the same access to transportation or lives across from West Penn Hospital or Allegheny General Hospital. So for us, it's important to take that care to people. And we feel that all people deserve the same level of care. Get more information at AHN.org, 412 Doctors, always a great resource. Bethany, Bethany, thank you. Appreciate that. Taking time. And good luck. Absolutely. Thanks, Larry. Bethany Casagrandes, the chair of Allegheny Health Network's Imaging Institute.