Latest news with #CommunityCollegeofAlleghenyCounty
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Report gives new details on Trump assassination attempt suspect's 'descent into madness'
The 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer experienced a "descent into madness" leading up to the incident, during which he was "having conversations with someone that wasn't there," a new report says. The New York Times, citing thousands of pages of school assignments, internet activity logs and interviews with dozens of people who knew Thomas Matthew Crooks and the investigation surrounding him, among other documents, reported this week that "he went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation from a meek engineering student critical of political polarization to a focused killer who tried to build bombs." "There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks's descent into madness," Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., who served on a Congressional task force that investigated the July 13, 2024 shooting, told the newspaper. He was "having conversations with someone that wasn't there," Higgins added, after learning information about Crooks' mental health during a trip to Pennsylvania to investigate the assassination attempt. Texts Reveal Officers Were Aware Of Thomas Crooks 90 Minutes Before Shooting Prior to the shooting targeting Trump, the only time Crooks got into trouble was receiving lunch detention in middle school for chewing gum, according to the New York Times. Read On The Fox News App The newspaper reported that Crooks scored 1530 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT and graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County, where he spent several semesters on the dean's list while earning an engineering degree. He was preparing to transfer to Robert Morris University located outside of Pittsburgh, telling classmates he wanted to have a career in aerospace or robotics, the newspaper added. However, Crooks' father noticed his son's mental health taking a turn in the year before the shooting and especially after the May 2024 graduation, telling investigators he had seen Thomas talking to himself and dancing around in his bedroom late at night, the newspaper said. The alleged behavior coincided with a history of mental health and addiction struggles in Crooks' family, the New York Times reported, citing portions of a report from the Pennsylvania State Police. A classmate said to the newspaper that during high school, Crooks enjoyed talking about the economy and cryptocurrencies. At community college, he reportedly designed a chess board for the visually impaired, such as his mother, the New York Times added. "He seemed like a really intelligent kid – I thought he would be able to do whatever he wanted," Trish Thompson, who taught Crooks' engineering at the Community College of Allegheny County, told the newspaper. About a year before graduation, in April 2023, Crooks reportedly wrote an essay in favor of ranked-choice voting in American politics, arguing against "divisive and incendiary campaigns which are pulling the country apart." "As we move closer to the 2024 elections we should consider carefully the means by which we elect our officials," Crooks was quoted by the New York Times as saying. "We need an election system that promotes kindness and cooperation instead of division and anger." Attempted Trump Assassin Seen Walking Around Pennsylvania Rally Hours Before Opening Fire Around that same time, the FBI said, Crooks made more than 25 different firearm-related purchases from online vendors using an alias. One purchase that Crooks made with an encrypted email address was gallons of nitromethane, a fuel additive that can be used to build explosives, according to the New York Times. He reportedly listed his home address for the delivery. In the summer of 2023, Crooks joined a local gun club, the New York Times reported. The newspaper added that Crooks visited news and gun websites, as well as the Trump administration's archives, before narrowing his online searches in the days leading up to the attack to queries such as 'How far was Oswald from Kennedy?'" Searches also included "major depressive disorder" and "depression crisis," the Times said. He also reportedly continued to show up for his job as a dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the weeks leading up to the Trump assassination attempt. On the night of the shooting, ATF agents visited Crooks' home in Bethel Park but had to evacuate after one spotted an ammunition can "with a white wire coming out" and a gallon jug labeled "nitromethane" in his closet, according to the New York Times. Outside the property, agents then interviewed Crooks' parents, with them saying he liked building things and visiting the gun range, and his father also reportedly claiming that he did not "know anything" about his article source: Report gives new details on Trump assassination attempt suspect's 'descent into madness'
Gulf Today
4 days ago
- Business
- Gulf Today
Culinary grads learn how to cook up a business
Reem Helou was listening attentively. It was the last day of her menu planning class in the Community College of Allegheny County's (CCAC) culinary programme. Her professor, Charles Wallander, an adjunct instructor and advisor at the school, was going over the final assignment, which was due before the stroke of midnight that night. 'If you're going to be, at some point in time, an owner, a director, a general manager, a chef, anybody who's in charge of menu items, you've got to know how to price out and how to create menus,' he said. 'A menu is also a business plan,' said Wallander, who has held numerous positions in the hospitality industry. The information you use to plan a menu, he explained to his class, is information you could take to a bank to get a loan, for example. Baked into what some might think is a simple sheet of paper is the restaurant concept, target market, price point, location, a demographic study of the location (how busy it is, age groups, marital status of the local population, income, ethnicity) and a feasibility study (including costs and consideration of how a specific concept will work in a specific neighbourhood). For Helou, the menu planning assignment was 'probably one of the hardest projects I've ever had to do in my life. ... Very hard, but very good.' Originally from Homs, Syria, she was driven to emigrate, with her family, by the civil war in her home country. Now 30, she left Syria at 17, and moved to Detroit to live with her sister. (Her parents moved to Ohio.) When her sister and her sister's husband moved to Pittsburgh, she moved with them. Upon arrival, she was not even sure if her family would be staying in the US. Once settled in Pittsburgh, she had a few false starts in her studies. Initially, she earned a CCAC degree in early childhood education, then studied creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She decided to pursue an associate's degree in culinary arts because she had been working at a local restaurant as a server and then had been promoted to manager. 'That's when I was like, OK, I want to learn more about the industry,' she said. But as part of the program, she had to learn cooking skills as well as management skills — and she realised she loved cooking. That changed her career path from front-of-the-house manager to chef. She currently is a pastry chef at the Argentinian restaurant Balvanera in the Strip District, where she works under head pastry chef Ginger Baldwin. The opportunity to learn baking and pastry with chefs at CCAC has been 'great,' she said, and her experience at Balvanera 'amazing.' Before continuing on her career, though, she had to finish her project. For the final project, besides concepting, analyses and so on, students had to price out a recipe and indicate how they arrived at the figure. They had to research ingredients and prices of preparing dishes, including easily forgotten ingredients like spices, and consider the 'free' items that go with certain plates — like rolls, butter, sides. Although not difficult, there was a lot of math involved. Students had to explain how they would accommodate dietary restrictions, and consider the typography of the menu, the placement of items on the menu (high-profit items are given the top right corner) and the organisation of dishes into categories (appetizers, soups, salads, entrees, sides). Then there's the psychological, marketing aspect that goes into menu writing. Wallander offered up a succulent-sounding example: 'A six-ounce Black Angus filet mignon char-grilled to perfection, drizzled with a savory chanterelle mushroom sauce.' 'When you read a good menu description, you can almost taste it,' he said. Included in the project was also a one-page training document to explain to servers how to market the menu, how to upsell and steer customers to high-value items. 'You should really love your menu,' Wallander said. 'It's the most important thing in the house.' The following week, the projects had been submitted and amid the strains of 'Pomp and Circumstance' at universities and schools all around town, CCAC culinary students were also graduating. Tribune News Service
International Business Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- International Business Times
Thomas Matthew Crooks: Chilling New Emails Reveal Gunman Who Tried to Assassinate Trump at Pennsylvania Was Making a Bomb
Chilling new emails reveal that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, was also working on building a bomb. Crooks, 20, shot dead one person, wounded two others, and grazed the then-Republican presidential candidate's ear during the attack in Butler on July 13, 2024. The ongoing FBI investigation into Crooks—whom senior officials have confirmed was not tied to any foreign conspiracy—has shed further light on the would-be assassin's plans and preparations. At the time of his failed attempt to assassinate Trump, Crooks was in the process of applying for a four-year engineering program while enrolled at a community college. Dangerous Plans of a Would-Be Assassin Meanwhile, he used an encrypted email account to purchase more than two gallons of nitromethane from a company called Hyperfuels. Twelve days after placing the order, Crooks sent a follow-up message asking about the delay. "Hello, my name is Thomas. I placed an order on your website on January 19. "I have not received any updates of the order shipping out yet and I was wondering if you still have it and when I can expect it to come," he wrote on January 31 at 7.44am. Federal investigators were able to access the email because it was sent from an account tied to the Community College of Allegheny County, where he was a student. Much attention has been given to Crooks' political views, especially since he was reportedly a registered Republican who had also made a donation to Joe Biden. The emails reveal a young man highly critical of the federal government, including one essay, where he blamed NASA for the 1986 Challenger explosion, and in another, he praised a George Orwell piece warning against imperialism. Trump is mentioned only once in the documents in an essay that supports nuclear energy and criticizes Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term. Crooks also briefly mentioned Biden while analyzing a 2021 Washington Post op-ed that opposed the then-president's proposal to offer free community college tuition. Bigger Massacre Avoided Wally Zimolong, who obtained the records on behalf of America First Legal, an organization led by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, said, "A year later, we still don't know enough" about Crooks. "I think it raises a lot of important questions. Were they investigating anyone else? Are they still investigating?" Zimolong asked. Of the hundreds of emails reviewed from Crooks' college account, few provide insight into the shooting itself, but they do offer a glimpse into his everyday life. In one message, he wrote to a professor asking if it would be acceptable to bring only two or three adults to a presentation that originally required him to bring five. "I do not have access to any other adults" besides his parents and his sister, he wrote. Overall, Crooks is portrayed as an A-level student who expressed his fondness for the fall season and stayed in regular contact with his professors. "It's sad that he had so much promise and he chose to do this. It's just very difficult to understand where it came from," Patricia Thompson, one of his professors, said. On the day of the rally, Crooks positioned himself on a nearby rooftop just a few hundred feet from where Trump was speaking, armed with an AR-15 rifle and hid in a crouched stance. From a distance of less than 150 yards, he managed to fire eight shots in Trump's direction, one of which struck the former president in the right ear.
Technical.ly
14-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
A Pittsburgh community college leans into ‘mechatronics' to upskill for debt-free careers
A federally funded mechatronics lab in Pittsburgh is helping students land tech jobs quickly without taking on student debt. In Pittsburgh's shifting landscape, regional manufacturers say demand for skilled workers in the field is growing fast, but companies are struggling to fill roles, according to Justin Starr, an endowed professor of advanced technology at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC). His program aims to change that by preparing students with the skills needed to step into modern manufacturing careers, without putting them thousands of dollars in the hole. 'The story that sometimes gets lost is that manufacturing is different than it used to be,' Starr told CCAC launched a new lab for mechatronics, which is the study of mechanical, electrical and computer systems used to operate and automate modern manufacturing machines, in 2023. Backed by $1.8 million from the federal Build Back Better (BBB) Regional Challenge grant, the space is outfitted with cutting-edge robotics equipment commonly used in today's manufacturing facilities. Mechatronics students at CCAC have a graduation and job placement rate of over 90%, according to Starr, and students are walking away without debt because of the program's low cost, something that's increasingly uncommon in today's education system. 'What we do is teach students to be able to effectively operate advanced manufacturing lines so they can go out there and be the people who are building the equipment of today and tomorrow,' Starr said. Christofer Main, 21, is one of them. As a plastic extrusion technician at VEKA, a window systems manufacturer in Beaver County, Main is completing a two-year apprenticeship that allows him to work and earn a salary while studying at CCAC. Main said the program was a clear choice, especially now, when he has a baby on the way. 'With college, my wife, for example, she's $40,000 in debt,' Main said. 'I don't have $40,000 just laying around. Monthly payments are crazy. This way, I still get paid to come to school and I don't have to worry about that debt.' Fast, reliable access to a skillset that pays The program's associate degree graduation rates have fallen in recent years, but Starr said that's actually a sign of success. Students are getting the skills they need to be productive with employers after just one semester or one year. '[Students] will go get a job, and they might not stick around for a full two years,' Starr said, 'because they're making $35 an hour and they're 18 years old.' Ethan Miller, 18, another VEKA apprentice studying at CCAC, is currently making around $40,000, plus free schooling, straight out of high school. 'You can't go to college and get paid for it unless you're a football player,' Miller said. 'I can get paid to go to school, and school is free, no debt. That beats college.' For some, CCAC's program is also a path to stability in a new country. Nahid Khajazada came to Pittsburgh in 2021 after the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. She's currently living in the city alone while her family remains overseas. After a year in CCAC's mechatronics program, she landed an internship with local startup RealBotics. Khajazada said she hopes to transfer to a four-year university and eventually start her own company. 'Here, I've learned a lot of things,' she said. 'I'm more confident with how to work with this kind of stuff.' 'Mechatronics' over 'advanced manufacturing' hooks more people Funding for CCAC's mechatronics lab comes from the New Economy Collaborative (NEC) of Southwestern Pennsylvania, which is administering $62.7 million of the BBB Regional Challenge grant. That $62.7 million is part of a broader $1 billion BBB initiative, launched in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan to spur post-pandemic economic recovery and revitalize communities impacted by decades of industrial decline. The NEC is deploying the funds through five projects across 11 counties in the region, including Pittsburgh. CCAC's mechatronics lab is part of Project Three, which focuses on upskilling workers and expanding career pathways into sectors like advanced manufacturing, a major industry in the Pittsburgh region that's driving real economic mobility, Starr said. There are over 90,000 people employed by over 2,800 manufacturing companies in the Pittsburgh region, according to data from the nonprofit organization Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. However, stigma around manufacturing remains, according to Starr. 'We have a lot of students whose parents maybe did manufacturing in the 70s and 80s, and they think it's dirty,' Starr said. 'They think it's a field where their son or daughter could get laid off if they go into it.' To get around this, CCAC uses the term mechatronics to convey that the skills it's teaching are high tech and part of the advanced manufacturing industry. The field blends traditional manufacturing skills, like wiring and mechanical drives, with advanced technologies such as programmable controllers and collaborative robots. 'Technology changes constantly,' Starr said, 'and if we're going to fill a need in the region, we need to train our students to use the equipment that either industry is using today, or that industry is going to be using tomorrow.'
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Free classes at CCAC now available to Allegheny County employees
Allegheny County employees can now take classes at a local community college. On Friday, County Executive Sara Innamorato announced that tuition at the Community College of Allegheny County will be free for county employees interested in developing their careers. The new deal is part of Innamorato's first executive order. She said it is an important step in improving conditions for the local workforce. 'On my first day in office, I intentionally decided to set a tone for my administration about workforce and announced increased pay for workers at the bottom of our salary scale, increase vacation days, remove barriers to entry and improve other benefits. But that was just the beginning. If we want to deliver world-class service to the people of Allegheny County, we need a comprehensive approach to improving and strengthening our workforce,' said County Executive Innamorato. 'We surveyed our workers and heard from thousands of them in the process about what is working and what could be improved at the County. In response, I'm signing my first Executive Order today and ordering several measures to attract, strengthen, and retain talent.' CCAC is reducing the cost of tuition by 50% and Allegheny County pays the other half. 'The Community College of Allegheny County is excited to partner with Allegheny County to offer its employees access to more than 130 programs of study across nine career paths. We are dedicated to working closely with Allegheny County employees to provide the educational resources they need to achieve their career goals and we are grateful to County Executive Innamorato for the county's continued support and investment in CCAC,' said CCAC President Dr. Quintin Bullock. The announcement was made on Employee Appreciation Day. The county manager will provide details on how to take these classes to Allegheny County employees ahead of the 2025 Summer Academic Term. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
