The North American League of Slobs was not much interested in the Penn Hills School District's new $58 million senior high school, which opened for classes Wednesday. They were there to talk about the past.

The district opened the new and old schools to the public Friday and held a closing ceremony for the old school, built in 1959. That afternoon, the league -- four 1976 Penn Hills graduates -- arrived at the old building to re-create a photo from their high school newspaper, Penn Points, taken 38 years ago.

The four men, Mike Forbeck of Verona; Gary Free of Philadelphia; Jim Fornof of Ashburn, Va.; and Dan O'Connor of Battle Creek, Mich., described the North American League of Slobs -- NALOS, for short -- as a sort of anti-establishment club. All four worked for the student newspaper: Mr. Forbeck and Mr. Fornof were photographers, Mr. O'Connor was a movie critic, and Mr. Free was a cartoonist who often worked the NALOS logo into the cartoons he drew for the paper.

As they walked toward the lobby, the four men engaged in some friendly bickering over the 1976 class theme. One said it was "Taking Care of Business." Another said it was "Holding on to Yesterday." No, no. Surely it was something bicentennial-themed, insisted another. They never came to an agreement.

One day in February 1976, the four men put on NALOS T-shirts, gathered around a smooth, granite wall with square holes in the lobby of the school, and mugged for a photo. Mr. Forbeck and Mr. Free both wriggled into the T-shirts on Friday, though they didn't fit quite like they did nearly four decades ago.

In the original photo, Mr. O'Connor's head, arms and torso are through one of the square holes. Last week, he put one arm through the square and peered through the hole from the other side of the wall.

"I weighed 95 pounds then," he said.

As a senior in high school, Mr. Free had no trouble lacing one leg through a square and pressing his back against the wall. He got a leg through the square Friday and held a similar pose while the photo was taken.

While NALOS and other alumni reminisced in the halls of the old school, others strolled through the new school, which looks futuristic compared with the brick-and-gray, small-windowed old school. The new building has high ceilings, natural light from skylights, gleaming floors, fresh paint and state-of-the-art technology.

The main gymnasium seats 1,900 and was designed to be divided into three courts. Standing on the sidelines of the gym, the red-and-yellow bleachers are unremarkable, but when looking at the bleachers from the center court, the red seats spell "PHHS" on one side of the stands and "BIG RED" on the other. The auditorium seats 1,000 and is equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems.

Construction began in December 2010. After the district's 1,415 high school students move into the new building, the old one will be demolished to make way for a new parking area and athletic fields. Money for the new high school comes from a $130 million bond issue floated in 2009 for that project and a new central elementary to replace the district's three elementary schools.

District spokeswoman Teresita Kolenchak said the new elementary school is scheduled to be completed in summer 2014 and will be open for the 2014-15 school year. She said the new school is slated to cost $40 million.

The new high school was designed by Architectural Innovations, which used Native American culture and art as its design concept. The district's mascot is an Indian.

The design of the building separates the academic wings from the large assembly areas so the academic wings can be secured on nights and weekends when the assembly areas will be used for community and school activities. The cafeteria is large enough to accommodate the students in three lunch periods. The school's new HVAC system is expected to save 30 percent in energy costs.

First Published January 3, 2013, 2:45pm

TEL AVIV, Israel — Two ships traveling in Middle East waters were attacked by suspected Yemen Houthi rebel drones early on Tuesday, authorities said, the latest assaults in the Iranian-backed fighters' campaign of targeting vessels over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The first attack happened in the southern part of the Red Sea, west of the Yemeni port of Hodeida, with the projectile causing “slight damage” to the vessel's windows on the bridge, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. A small vessel had been nearby the ship before the attack, it added.

The private security firm Ambrey identified the vessel as a Barbados-flagged, United Kingdom-owned cargo ship. No one was hurt onboard the vessel, which suffered “minor damage,” the firm said.

A second ship came under attack later Tuesday off Yemen's southern port city of Aden, the UKMTO reported. Ambrey identified it as a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned vessel coming from the U.S. heading to India.

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“The vessel reported an explosion 50 meters off its starboard side,” Ambrey said. “No injuries or damage were reported.”

Later, a military spokesman of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, claimed in a statement that the rebel forces attacked two separate vessels, one American and one British, in the Red Sea. He provided no evidence to support the claim.

The Houthis made no claim about the attack off the coast of Aden.

One of the ships the Houthis claimed they attacked — the Morning Tide — matched details provided by Ambrey. Tracking data showed it to be in the Red Sea near the reported attack.

The Morning Tide’s owner, British firm Furadino Shipping, told The Associated Press no one was hurt in the attack and the ship was continuing onward to Singapore.

Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea over Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for trade among Asia, the Mideast and Europe.

In recent weeks, the United States and the United Kingdom, backed by other allies, have launched airstrikes targeting Houthi missile arsenals and launch sites for its attacks.

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The U.S. and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday. An air assault Friday in Iraq and Syria targeted other Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for a drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan.

The U.S. military’s Central Command also acknowledged an attack Monday on the Houthis, in which they attacked what they described as two Houthi drone boats loaded with explosives.

American forces “determined they presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region,” the military said. “These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy vessels and merchant vessels.”

Separately, the White House on Tuesday walked back an earlier statement that it had alerted the Iraqi government prior to carrying out Friday's Iraq and Syria strikes. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters shortly after the strikes that Iraqi official were given advance warning about the U.S.-led operation. He said the assertion was based on information that was provided to him by U.S. officials.

“Turns out that information was incorrect,” said Mr. Kirby. He added that he regretted the error.

Mr. Kirby’s initial comments generated controversy in Iraq and vehement denials by officials in Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has sought to walk a delicate line between the United States and Iran-backed armed groups in his country, many of which have associated political parties in the coalition that brought his government to power.

Mr. Sudani has condemned attacks on U.S. troops, but has also pushed back against U.S. retaliatory strikes. Some of those strikes have hit facilities connected to the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of mostly Shiite, Iran-backed militias that was officially made part of the Iraqi military after joining the fight against the Islamic State in 2014 — although in practice, the militias continue to operate largely outside of state control.

Mr. Sudani has also called for an end to a U.S. led coalition formed to fight IS. Some 2,500 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq as part of the mission. In late January, Iraqi and U.S. military officials launched a series of formal discussions on winding down the coalition’s presence. The talks were then suspended after the Jan. 28 strike in Jordan that killed three U.S. troops but are expected to resume again in the coming weeks.

Iraq’s representative to the U.N. Abbas Kadhim Obaid, speaking as the U.N. Security Council met Tuesday, condemned the U.S. strikes, as well as recent strikes launched by Turkey and Iran on Iraqi turf, as a breach of the country’s sovereignty.

Also on Tuesday, Turkey’s defense minister visited Baghdad to discuss regional security issues. The meeting between Iraqi officials and Turkey’s top diplomat comes amid ongoing military operations by Ankara against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish separatist group that has launched periodic attacks in Turkey, in the border areas between the two countries

First Published February 6, 2024, 11:30pm