Anthropic's threat report and the AI-agent swarm that breached 395 PaperCut users put machine-run intrusions at the center of the day, while GitLab, JFrog Artifactory, and ScreenConnect flaws drew exploitation within hours of disclosure.
Emerging Trends and Key Updates
- Trend Anthropic's Generative Threat Groups report, the PaperCut agent swarm, and weaponized Claude Artifacts all show attackers handing routine intrusion labor and malware delivery to commercial models.
- Trend Exploitation now trails disclosure by hours, with CISA cataloging GitLab's 10.0-rated CVE-2026-85706 and two JFrog Artifactory bugs in a single September 11 morning.
- Update · new ShinyHunters opened Florida's DAVID driver database using credentials a police department employee had stored on a personal device, another intrusion that turned on people rather than software.
- Trend Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline, the Houthis took Bab al-Mandeb, the IEA wrote off Hormuz, and record $6 diesel fed August CPI's 3.4%.
- Update · new Pennsylvania now leads the country with 676 measles cases, WTAE upgraded Saturday to a flood watch, and Carnegie Mellon claimed the right to repaint the Fence.
- Update · new Joey Porter Jr. expects no contract before Sunday's opener, while SNR Drive and Merril Hoge closed out Steelers-Falcons predictions and Atlanta film study.
Security
1. Criminals Point Claude at Malware Evasion
Latest developments: Anthropic published the full threat report behind yesterday's disclosure, naming the clusters Generative Threat Groups and covering December 2025 through August 2026: GTG-20006, which aligns with the Russian state-sponsored group Midnight Blizzard, used Claude to rebuild malware each time defenders detected it and ran the campaign against more than 20 government, intelligence, diplomatic, and defense organizations; another group pointed Claude at 1.8 million Android applications and pulled hardcoded secrets out of them; other groups used the models for weapons design, propaganda, and mass surveillance; and Anthropic separately disrupted industrial-scale distillation attacks from seven China-based labs, among them Alibaba, Moonshot, DeepSeek, Z.ai, and MiniMax, that pumped its models to extract capabilities into their own. Dark Reading documented a fraud crew that generated 1 million personalized scam emails in three days, ending the old trade-off between volume and credibility.
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Attackers now fold commercial models into ordinary espionage and criminal work, using them to mutate malware past detection engines and to write convincing executive impersonations, and they treat the model vendors themselves as targets worth breaching. Finance teams should confirm every payment-detail change through a channel separate from email.
Sources: The Hacker News · The Hacker News · BleepingComputer · Dark Reading · ↑ top
2. PaperCut Ships Maintenance Releases After AI-Agent Campaign
Latest developments: PaperCut released maintenance releases 26.0.5, 25.0.13, and 24.1.10 that replace every emergency patch the company had pushed for the two actively exploited flaws, and GreyNoise detailed the attacker's method: a private lab holding a vulnerable copy of PaperCut NG/MF and an Active Directory domain, where the suspected Russian-speaking operator built and tested the exploit before handing the break-ins to AI agents that reached at least 440 instances at 395 organizations in 48 countries; Dark Reading traced the agents through the whole kill chain, from staging the lab to reconnaissance, lateral movement, and exfiltration.
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PaperCut NG/MF runs print management for schools, universities, and enterprises worldwide, and the exploited pair chains an authentication bypass with remote code execution. Administrators should move straight to 26.0.5, 25.0.13, or 24.1.10 and hunt for unfamiliar accounts and outbound connections to 45.142.193.132.
Sources: The Hacker News · Help Net Security · BleepingComputer · Dark Reading · ↑ top
3. GitLab and Check Point Ship Critical Patches
Latest developments: CISA added CVE-2026-85706 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on September 11, 2026, the 10.0-rated path traversal bug in GitLab's repository commits API that lets an unauthenticated user read any file on the server and that drew in-the-wild probes within hours of the September 10 disclosure; Check Point assigned CVE-2026-85102 and CVE-2026-85103 to the two critical VPN certificate handling flaws in its Security Gateways and Security Management products that yield remote code execution.
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GitLab holds the source code and continuous integration pipelines of the companies that run it, and Check Point gateways terminate corporate VPN traffic, so both sit where one flaw opens everything behind it. Administrators should apply each vendor's fix immediately.
Sources: The Hacker News · BleepingComputer · CISA Advisories · SecurityWeek · ↑ top
4. Intruders Backdoor Unpatched JFrog Artifactory Servers
Latest developments: CISA added the two Artifactory flaws behind the campaign, the incorrect authorization bug CVE-2026-42016 and the improper authentication bug CVE-2026-42018, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on September 11, 2026, alongside CVE-2026-84869, a ConnectWise ScreenConnect privilege management flaw that attackers also exploit; BleepingComputer identified the payload the intruders plant on self-hosted Artifactory servers as a Rust backdoor, and Wiz dated the attacks from August 15 through September 8, 2026 and found they reached only the servers whose operators had skipped JFrog's earlier fixes.
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Artifactory holds the packages that software build pipelines pull from, so a backdoor there reaches every application a company ships. Operators of self-hosted Artifactory should apply JFrog's fixes, audit administrator accounts, and inspect stored artifacts for tampering.
Sources: The Hacker News · BleepingComputer · CISA Advisories · CISA Advisories · ↑ top
5. Surfshark Test Server and Trezor Phishing Fallout
Latest developments: Surfshark disclosed that a configuration error left one of its internal test servers facing the internet and hackers reached the engineering material, internal configurations, and proxy servers on it; Trezor put numbers on the phishing that followed the breach at its email provider Brevo, counting 347,000 addresses targeted and 2,500 customers who clicked the malicious link, and SecurityWeek reported that the same Brevo access also pushed phishing to users of BitBox and CoinTracking; IDScan confirmed that hackers reached customer data in its cloud platform.
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IDScan, the Louisiana identity verification firm that runs ID checks for car rental companies, retailers, and cannabis dispensaries, posted its acknowledgment on September 4, 2026 without naming a victim count, days after researchers tied it to a dark-web trove of 153 million driver's license scans. Trezor customers should treat any email asking for a recovery seed as theft in progress.
Sources: SecurityWeek · SecurityWeek · BleepingComputer · Help Net Security · ↑ top
6. Conti Sentence and Treasury's Scam Reporting Push
Latest developments: Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko, the Ukrainian national whom Irish authorities arrested in 2023, drew four years in a U.S. prison for developing Conti ransomware, an operation that hit more than 1,000 victims worldwide before shutting down in 2022; the U.S. Department of the Treasury urged banks to file more reports on cyber-enabled scams, tallying nearly $13 billion in losses since 2023 as scam compounds expand worldwide; and CISA joined a new government advisory pressing organizations toward plainer breach notification and incident response practices as outages mount.
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Treasury wants banks to feed it more detail on what happens to defrauded customers, the raw material for sanctions and seizures against the Southeast Asian and African compounds. Banks should route scam cases into suspicious activity reports rather than closing them as ordinary fraud.
Sources: SecurityWeek · The Record · The Record · Dark Reading · ↑ top
7. Cisco Firewall Flaws Deliver Qilin Ransomware
Latest developments: Sophos identified the malware riding one of the intrusion clusters as Cyclops Blink, the modular implant Russia's Sandworm group deployed against network devices years ago, now rebuilt with new capabilities and aimed at Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center appliances; Cisco Talos had already named the payoff behind the three clusters exploiting CVE-2026-20079, the 10.0-rated authentication bypass in the Secure Firewall Management Center web interface, and CVE-2026-20316, which steal credentials and then deploy Qilin ransomware.
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Secure Firewall Management Center sets policy for Cisco firewalls, so an unauthenticated bypass there hands an attacker the perimeter and the credentials the appliance holds. CISA gave federal civilian agencies until September 12, 2026 to patch; every other operator should install Cisco's fixes and rotate stored credentials now.
Sources: The Hacker News · BleepingComputer · Sophos News · ↑ top
8. ShinyHunters Opens Florida's DAVID Driver Database
Latest developments: The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles confirmed that attackers breached DAVID, the driver and vehicle information database that Florida law enforcement queries, using credentials a police department employee had stored on a personal device, and the cybercrime group ShinyHunters claims the theft; Microsoft reported the same day that ShinyHunters, Helix, and other extortion crews now run passkey and single sign-on themed social engineering to take over corporate Microsoft accounts and pull data out of Microsoft 365.
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DAVID holds Florida driver photographs, addresses, and license records, and one officer's saved password opened it. Agencies that grant employees access to state record systems should require phishing-resistant authentication and bar credential storage on personal phones and laptops.
Sources: The Record · BleepingComputer · BleepingComputer · ↑ top
9. Attackers Turn AI Platforms Into Delivery Infrastructure
Latest developments: Huntress documented criminals hosting malware lures inside weaponized Claude Artifacts, shared AI chat transcripts, and sponsored search results, poisoning search results for people looking for AI tools and pushing ClickFix-style prompts; the SANS Internet Storm Center traced an attacker running a semi-autonomous coding agent that hunts poorly secured large language model resale gateways, farms accounts and exploits ordinary web flaws to take API access, validates the capacity, and aggregates the stolen inference behind a gateway of their own; and Ars Technica reported ClickFix infections spreading on both Windows and macOS.
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ClickFix tells a victim to paste a command into a terminal or Run dialog to fix a fake error, and the lure now arrives dressed as legitimate AI content on platforms users already trust. Tell staff to treat any web page that asks them to paste a command as an attack, and check whether your own LLM gateways demand authentication.
Sources: BleepingComputer · Ars Technica Security · SANS Internet Storm Center · ↑ top
10. UNC3569 Rides Sogou Input Method to GRAYRABBIT
Latest developments: Gen Digital published research on September 10, 2026 showing that the China-linked group UNC3569 exploited a flaw in Sogou Input Method, the Tencent-owned tool that ranks among the most widely used ways to type Chinese characters on Windows, starting each intrusion with a crafted link and finishing with a backdoor called GRAYRABBIT that carries the logged-in user's full rights.
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Sogou Input Method sits on millions of Windows desktops and loads into every application that accepts typing, which makes it an unusually quiet foothold. Organizations with Chinese-language users should inventory Sogou installations and update them.
Sources: The Hacker News · ↑ top
Business and Politics
Saudi Arabia Shuts the Hormuz Bypass
Latest developments: Saudi Arabia shut down its East-West pipeline Friday, September 11, saying drones fired from Iraq damaged the line that carries crude from the kingdom's eastern fields to the Red Sea.
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The East-West pipeline moves as much as 7 million barrels a day to Yanbu and has served as the principal route around the closed Strait of Hormuz. Its shutdown strips Saudi exports of their remaining workaround just as the Houthis tighten their grip on the Bab al-Mandeb at the other end of the Red Sea, and crude ended the week sharply higher.
Sources: WSJ World News · FT Home · ↑ top
August CPI Holds at 3.4%
Latest developments: U.S. consumer prices rose 3.4% over the year in August, the Labor Department said Friday morning, September 11, and by the close traders had all but settled on a Federal Reserve rate increase at the September 16 meeting, which would be the first in years.
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High fuel costs hold the headline rate well above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, with crude above $100 a barrel and retail diesel at a record $6 a gallon. U.S. stocks snapped a four-session losing streak on the print, reading a rate increase as a check on inflation, government bond yields steadied near multiyear highs, and the WSJ Dollar Index finished the week at 95.12.
Sources: FT Home · WSJ Markets · WSJ Markets · WSJ Markets · WSJ Markets · ↑ top
Houthis Take the Bab al-Mandeb
Latest developments: The Iran-backed Houthis seized Red Sea islands and a coastal town in a lightning offensive against Saudi-backed forces, giving them effective control of the Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint as of Friday, September 11, a step beyond the seizure of the Red Sea port of Mocha reported a day earlier.
read more
Bab al-Mandeb carries traffic between the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal and serves as the main alternative for cargo that can no longer transit the Strait of Hormuz. The militants now hold ground on both approaches, and oil finished the week sharply higher as traders marked up the risk to Middle East crude exports.
Sources: WSJ World News · FT Home · WSJ World News · ↑ top
Diesel Hits $6 and the IEA Writes Off Hormuz
Latest developments: The International Energy Agency said Friday, September 11, that the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen this year and cut its 2026 global oil demand outlook by 2.5 million barrels a day, hours after U.S. retail diesel set a record at $6 a gallon.
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Crude trades above $100 a barrel and posted a 10% weekly gain after the U.S.-Iran escalation and Houthi attacks on shipping and Saudi energy sites. Diesel prices set the pace for American farming, trucking, and industrial costs, and they land on households already squeezed on affordability, while Iran and the Gulf states prepare to meet on a temporary Iran-Oman shipping arrangement that regional governments hope opens a path to reopening the strait.
Sources: FT World · FT Home · WSJ US Business · FT Home · ↑ top
Pittsburgh
Weather
Tonight: Mostly Cloudy, low 65F.
Saturday: Slight Chance Showers And Thunderstorms, high 84F.
Saturday Night: Showers And Thunderstorms, low 67F.
Business
State Police Will Seize Skill Games October 14
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette reported Friday evening, September 11, that the Pennsylvania State Police will start seizing skill games machines on October 14, treating them as illegal gambling devices.
read more
Skill games terminals sit in bars, convenience stores, and fraternal clubs across Pennsylvania, and the operators who place them split the proceeds with the businesses that host them. The October 14 date gives those owners a month to pull the machines or lose them to troopers.
Sources: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
A New Operator for the Convention Center
Latest developments: The Sports and Exhibition Authority voted unanimously Friday, September 11, to approve a new contract for managing and operating the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
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The authority owns the convention center in downtown Pittsburgh, the building that anchors the city's trade show and convention business, and the board's vote hands day-to-day management and operations to a new contractor.
New Kensington Zoners Push Out a Boxing Club
Latest developments: TribLive reported Friday, September 11, that the New Kensington zoning hearing board denied Sanctuary Boxing Club's request for a special exception for business use, leaving the club less than three months to find a new location.
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Sanctuary Boxing Club trains in New Kensington, Westmoreland County, and the zoning board's refusal to permit business use at its current address forces the gym to move or close.
Diesel Tops $6 a Gallon
Latest developments: WTAE and the Post-Gazette reported Friday, September 11, that diesel passed $6 a gallon for the first time, and the August inflation report put gasoline up 3.9% and fuel oil up 10.1% for the month.
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Trucks, trains, and farm equipment burn diesel, so the record price works into the delivered cost of nearly everything Western Pennsylvania households buy, and it follows the disruption of crude supply from the Iran conflict that has also pushed regional gasoline well above last year's levels.
Sources: WTAE · Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · WTAE · Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
The North Shore Braces for a Season Without Baseball
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette reported Friday, September 11, on what a Major League Baseball work stoppage would cost the businesses around PNC Park if the Pirates play no games next season.
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Restaurants, bars, and parking operators on Pittsburgh's North Shore build their year around 81 Pirates home dates at PNC Park, and owners there now weigh staffing and revenue against the chance that the 2027 season never opens.
Sources: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
Ranking Pittsburgh's Rankings
Latest developments: Pittsburgh City Paper's Affordable-ish Housing column on Friday, September 11, went through the ranked lists the city keeps landing on and graded the lists themselves.
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Pittsburgh turns up on national rankings for everything from best place to live without a car to best city for good neighbors, and the column weighs which of those lists carry any weight for people deciding where to rent or buy here.
Sources: Pittsburgh City Paper · ↑ top
Around Town
Pennsylvania Leads the Nation in Measles
Latest developments: State health officials counted 676 measles cases in Pennsylvania on Friday, September 11, about 100 of them added in the past week, putting the state first in the country for confirmed cases this year.
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The outbreak has now reached four people who had received the vaccine, and health leaders across the region are pressing families to get shots as the highly contagious virus spreads. Two infants died of measles-related causes in the state last month.
Sources: TribLive · KDKA · KDKA · ↑ top
CMU Claims a Right to Repaint the Fence
Latest developments: PublicSource reported Friday, September 11, that Carnegie Mellon University's new guidelines let administrators repaint the Fence themselves in an emergency to head off "physical harm," the concrete step behind the policy move the university began a day earlier.
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Students have governed the Fence on CMU's Oakland campus for decades, painting it overnight and guarding it until the next group takes it, and the administration has left the tradition alone. A year of disputes over what students paint there prompted the university to assert a right to intervene.
Sources: PublicSource · ↑ top
Cyclospora Outbreak Declared Over
Latest developments: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration declared the record-setting cyclosporiasis outbreak over Friday, September 11, saying all iceberg lettuce tied to it has left the market.
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Contaminated iceberg lettuce carried the parasite that causes cyclosporiasis through multiple states this summer, and federal health officials now say no further illness risk remains from that supply.
Wildwood Road Floods Again in Hampton
Latest developments: KDKA's Jessica Riley reported Friday, September 11, that residents along Wildwood Road in Hampton Township have grown frustrated with flooding that keeps returning after a week of heavy storms and an exceptionally wet summer.
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Water is reaching parts of Allegheny County that rarely see it, and the Wildwood Road corridor in Hampton Township, north of Pittsburgh, has taken repeated hits as the storms continue.
Rain Returns for the Weekend
Latest developments: WTAE upgraded Saturday, September 12, to a flood watch and an Impact Day Friday evening, September 11, with afternoon rain and thunderstorms heavy enough to flood, and scattered rain lingering into Sunday.
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Western Pennsylvania dried out under sunshine Friday after a week of storms, and KDKA meteorologist Ron Smiley keeps scattered rain around through Sunday, September 13, when the Steelers host the Atlanta Falcons at Acrisure Stadium.
Rosh Hashanah Begins at Sundown
Latest developments: Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown Friday, September 11, and runs until sunset Sunday, September 13, opening the Jewish high holidays.
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TribLive's editorial board marked the new year Friday, September 11, and the Post-Gazette published the story of a 1952 Rosh Hashana service at Tree of Life, recorded voices sealed in a time capsule that carry the Squirrel Hill congregation's history. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh expanded security across regional Jewish institutions ahead of the holiday.
Sources: TribLive · Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
Flight 93 Marks 25 Years
Latest developments: Several thousand people filled the Memorial Plaza in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, on Friday, September 11, to read the names of the 40 passengers and crew, while President Trump marked the anniversary at a Pentagon ceremony.
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United Airlines Flight 93 came down in a field in Somerset County on September 11, 2001, after the passengers and crew fought back. TribLive followed Gordon Felt, who has made remembering the flight his mission; WPXI spoke with Jack Grandcolas, who lost his wife and their unborn child aboard; students from Gateway High School in Monroeville walked the memorial; and volunteers at Acrisure Stadium packed more than 200,000 meals on the national day of service.
Sources: KDKA · WTAE · WPXI · PublicSource · TribLive · TribLive · ↑ top
One Superintendent for Rochester and New Brighton
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette reported Friday, September 11, on the single superintendent now running both the Rochester and New Brighton school districts in Beaver County.
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Two small Beaver County districts share one chief administrator, an arrangement that spreads a single salary across both payrolls and doubles the school boards, budgets, and buildings one person answers for.
Sources: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette · ↑ top
Bradford Woods Sets a Meeting on Its Future
Latest developments: TribLive reported Friday, September 11, that Bradford Woods will present the results of this year's community survey at a public meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday, October 1, at the Bradford Woods Volunteer Fire Company.
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The borough of Bradford Woods, in northern Allegheny County, surveyed residents earlier this year about what they want from the community and will use the October meeting to walk through the answers and take comment.
Events
Taco Festival Fills the Stacks Saturday
Latest developments: KDKA's Pittsburgh Today Live previewed the Original Pittsburgh Taco Festival on Friday, September 11, a day before it opens.
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The Original Pittsburgh Taco Festival runs Saturday, September 12, at The Stacks at 3 Crossings in the Strip District, with more than 25 food trucks and live Latin music.
Pittsburgh County Fair on the North Side
Latest developments: KDKA previewed the Pittsburgh County Fair on Friday, September 11, ahead of Saturday's event.
read more
The Pittsburgh County Fair takes place Saturday, September 12, at Allegheny Commons Park West on the North Side, a celebration of urban agriculture and handmade and homemade goods from around the city.
Turkey Fund Kickoff Show Sells Tickets
Latest developments: KDKA said Friday, September 11, that tickets are on sale now for the Pittsburgh Today Live Turkey Fund Kickoff Show, one week out.
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The PTL Turkey Fund Kickoff Show runs Friday, September 18, at the Pittsburgh Playhouse downtown, the annual benefit that opens KDKA's holiday food drive.
Five Things to Do in Westmoreland County
Latest developments: TribLive published its Westmoreland County weekend list Friday, September 11, covering Friday, September 11, through Sunday, September 13.
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The guide lays out five events across Westmoreland County for the weekend, offered as a way to fill the hours before the Steelers open the regular season Sunday.
'The Lion King' Opens the Broadway Season
Latest developments: TribLive reviewed "Disney's The Lion King" on Friday, September 11, calling it a majestic opening to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's 2026-27 PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh Series at the Benedum Center downtown.
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The show has grossed more than $2 billion in almost 30 years on Broadway, the highest total any Broadway musical has reached, and its puppetry and staging carry the visual weight that opens the Cultural Trust's season at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh's Cultural District.
Sketch Lab Report Returns to Arcade Comedy
Latest developments: Pittsburgh City Paper previewed the third volume of Sketch Lab Report on Friday, September 11.
read more
Sketch Lab Report at Arcade Comedy Theater downtown showcases new sketch writing from the theater's writing program, and City Paper describes this round as subversive and inventive humor built by local writers.
Sources: Pittsburgh City Paper · ↑ top
Three Tours of Houses, Gardens, and a Campus
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette laid out three fall tours Friday, September 11, covering old houses and gardens in the Mexican War Streets on the North Side and in Shadyside, and the historic campus and church at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe.
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The Mexican War Streets and Shadyside tours open private houses and gardens to visitors, and the Saint Vincent College tour walks the Benedictine campus and its church in Unity Township, Westmoreland County.
Sources: Post-Gazette Arts & Entertainment · ↑ top
Sports
Pirates (74-74)
Thu Sep 10 · Pirates 2 · White Sox 0 · Final
Fri Sep 11 · Pirates 2 · Cubs 12 · Final
Up Next · Pirates @ Cubs · Sat Sep 12, 2:20 PM
Steelers (0-0, T-1st in AFC North)
Up Next · Falcons @ Steelers · Sun Sep 13, 1:00 PM
Around the Teams
Porter Expects No Deal Before Kickoff
Latest developments: Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. said Friday, September 11, that he is "not really" optimistic he will sign a new contract before the Steelers open the season Sunday.
read more
Porter and the Steelers have gone through the summer without closing on an extension, and he told the Post-Gazette he expects to line up against the Atlanta Falcons with the matter open. Cam Heyward, who fought his own contract battles with the club, said earlier this week he understands where Porter stands.
Sources: Post-Gazette Steelers · ↑ top
SNR Drive and Hoge Call the Falcons Game
Latest developments: Matt Williamson and Wes Uhler gave their final Steelers-Falcons predictions with sideline reporter Missi Matthews on SNR Drive Friday, September 11, and Merril Hoge broke down Atlanta film on Playbook the same day.
read more
Both shows run on the Steelers' own channel. Hoge went through the Falcons' tape position by position, and SNR Drive opened with 25 years since September 11, 2001, before turning to Sunday's 1 p.m. kickoff against Atlanta at Acrisure Stadium on FOX.
Sources: Pittsburgh Steelers (YouTube) · Pittsburgh Steelers (YouTube) · ↑ top
O'Hearn Comes Off the Injured List
Latest developments: The Pirates activated Ryan O'Hearn from the injured list Friday, September 11, restoring the lineup to full strength.
read more
The Post-Gazette reported the move as the Pirates play out the season's final weeks with their regular batting order intact for the first time in weeks, days after the club put All-Star right-hander Braxton Ashcraft on the 15-day injured list with right arm discomfort.
Sources: Post-Gazette Pirates · ↑ top
Murf Gray, Third Baseman of the Future
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette profiled Murf Gray on Friday, September 11, a top-100 prospect the Pirates see as their third baseman of the future.
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Gray ranks among baseball's top 100 prospects and plays a position the Pirates have struggled to settle, and the piece traces his path through the organization toward Pittsburgh.
Sources: Post-Gazette Pirates · ↑ top
Steelers Live Sizes Up the Falcons
Latest developments: Rob King, Missi Matthews, and Matt Williamson broke down the Steelers-Falcons matchups on Steelers Live The Match Up, posted Friday, September 11.
read more
The Steelers-produced show walked through the individual matchups two days before Pittsburgh hosts the Atlanta Falcons at 1 p.m. Sunday, September 13, on FOX, and the team also hosted a 9/11 National Day of Service meal packing event at Acrisure Stadium on Friday.
Sources: Pittsburgh Steelers (YouTube) · Pittsburgh Steelers (YouTube) · ↑ top
Fittipaldo and McCarthy Close Out Week 1 Prep
Latest developments: Post-Gazette beat writer Ray Fittipaldo posted his Steelers chat transcript Thursday, September 10, and head coach Mike McCarthy met the media the same day before practice.
read more
Fittipaldo took reader questions on the Week 1 roster and the Atlanta matchup, and McCarthy spoke on the Steelers' own channel three days before kickoff. The Steelers host the Falcons at 1 p.m. Sunday, September 13, on FOX.
Sources: Post-Gazette Steelers · Pittsburgh Steelers (YouTube) · ↑ top
Hiles Puts the Standard on McCarthy
Latest developments: Post-Gazette columnist Noah Hiles wrote Friday, September 11, that setting a new Steelers standard ranks as head coach Mike McCarthy's top priority in his first season.
read more
McCarthy takes over a franchise that has gone years without a playoff win, and Hiles argues the measure of 2026 lies in the habits and expectations McCarthy installs rather than the win total, starting with Sunday's opener against the Atlanta Falcons at Acrisure Stadium.
Sources: Post-Gazette Steelers · ↑ top
Rodgers Savors a Last Season
Latest developments: The Post-Gazette reported Thursday, September 10, that quarterback Aaron Rodgers plans to savor what he calls a special season in Pittsburgh as his career winds down.
read more
Rodgers, who opens his second year with the Steelers on Sunday, September 13, against the Atlanta Falcons, has told teammates and reporters he treats this run as the end of the line, and he spoke with the media at practice Wednesday, September 9, alongside DK Metcalf, Alex Highsmith, and Eli Heidenreich a day later.
Sources: Post-Gazette Steelers · Pittsburgh Steelers (YouTube) · ↑ top
Team USA
Lawson's Message Carries the U.S. Into the Semifinals
Latest developments: ESPN reported Friday, September 11, that the United States women believe coach Kara Lawson's demands have them peaking as they enter the FIBA World Cup semifinals in Germany.
read more
The Americans reached the semifinals by routing Hungary 108-56 in Thursday's quarterfinal, their 34th straight World Cup win, and Lawson has pushed the team to improve round by round after a 55-52 escape against Italy in pool play.
Sources: ESPN Olympics · ESPN Olympics · ↑ top
Pulisic Chafes on the Milan Bench
Latest developments: AC Milan coach Ruben Amorim said Friday, September 11, that Christian Pulisic is upset about sitting out so far this season, and hinted the American will play this weekend.
read more
Pulisic, the United States men's national team forward, has yet to feature for Milan in the new Serie A season, and Amorim addressed the situation publicly before the club's next match.
Sources: ESPN Soccer · ↑ top
The Next Wave of U.S. Men's Players
Latest developments: ESPN surveyed Friday, September 11, the American men who missed this year's World Cup squad and now aim at the 2030 tournament.
read more
Diego Luna and Yunus Musah lead a group of five United States players in their twenties whom ESPN identifies as candidates for a larger national team role in the next World Cup cycle.
Sources: ESPN Soccer · ↑ top
Reading
- Ed Zitron — Premium: The Hater's Guide To Broadcom. Zitron turns his hater's guide format on Broadcom and Chief Executive Hock Tan, opening with the coffee chat Tan held for VMware employees after the acquisition and the management style he brought to the sprawling Palo Alto campus.
- Cal Newport — Superintelligence is a Fairy Tale. But Chasing It Can Still Cause Harm.. Newport answers Anthropic employees who said publicly that the systems they build could kill billions, arguing that superintelligence remains a story people tell themselves. He holds that the race toward it still does real damage, in the resources it consumes and the harms it creates along the way.
- Stratechery — The iPhone Duo, The Intelligent Personal Hub, Apple Watch Audio Intelligence. Ben Thompson reads Apple's latest launch as another demonstration of what integrating hardware and software buys the company. He names Apple's belief in the primacy of apps as its largest blind spot in an AI era that favors an intelligent personal hub.
Markets
S&P 500 7,655.43 ▼ -0.4% Dow 52,643.67 ▼ -1.1% Nasdaq 26,319.30 ▼ -0.1% WTI crude 94.87 ▲ +9.3% EUR/USD 1.1620 ▲ +0.1% GBP/USD 1.3536 ▲ +0.1% USD/JPY 153.79 ▼ -2.8%
Feed Health
Security: 24 of 24 feeds loaded, 62 items in the 24-hour window. No recent items: Krebs on Security, Securelist (Kaspersky), Unit 42 (Palo Alto), Google Online Security Blog, Cisco Talos, Graham Cluley, Microsoft Security Blog, Google Project Zero, The DFIR Report, Kim Zetter (Zero Day), Frank on Fraud.
Pittsburgh: 9 of 9 feeds loaded, 60 items in the 48-hour window. No recent items: NEXTpittsburgh.
Business and Politics: 8 of 8 feeds loaded, 60 items in the 36-hour window.
Events: 4 of 4 feeds loaded, 9 items in the 120-hour window. No recent items: NEXTpittsburgh Events, NEXTpittsburgh Arts & Entertainment.
Sports media: 6 of 6 feeds loaded, 30 items in the 96-hour window.
Team USA: 3 of 3 feeds loaded, 32 items in the 72-hour window. No recent items: Guardian Olympics.
Reading: 3 of 3 feeds loaded, 12 items in the 336-hour window.
Markets (Yahoo Finance): 7 of 7 rows
Weather (NWS): 3 forecast periods
Scores (ESPN, plaintextsports): 2 teams via plaintextsports; mlb: ESPN failed (mlb: HTTP 403 (server: AkamaiGHost)); used plaintextsports; nfl: ESPN failed (nfl: HTTP 403 (server: AkamaiGHost)); used plaintextsports; nhl: ESPN failed (nhl: HTTP 403 (server: AkamaiGHost)); used plaintextsports
Summaries: 3 model call(s) served by claude-opus-5 (428s of model time; $2.31 at API list price).