11:09 p.m. -Ravenstahl reappears. He's speaking with reporters from KDKA TV.

10:59 p.m. - The mayor appears to have left the building. People gathered in the Hofbrauhaus are singing "Sweet Caroline."

Ravenstahl, who walked in to rock band The Who's "Teenage Wasteland," thanked his family, the worker's in his office, his campaign managers and those who voted for him. He even thanked his opposition, former police sergeant Carmen Robinson."
"I give her a tremendous amount of praise for entering this campaign. She talked about the issues," he said of the Robinson, whom he beat by about 21,000 votes.
He made no mention of the other Democratic candidate, City Councilman Patrick Dowd, who earned 2,337 votes. Ravenstahl told his supporters he was excited to begin work on his 11-step plan for the city "as early as tomorrow morning."
His plan puts an emphasis on strengthening the health care and education industries, continuing development along the riverfront and merging with Allegheny County, among other initiatives
"I can't wait to take this suit coat off and roll up my sleeves as each of you do when you go to work," said Ravenstahl, who joked that he ran for office more times than members of Congress. This was his third round of election in two years.

10:28 p.m. - Ravenstahl walks in, pumping his fists.

10:25 p.m. Crowd begins to hustle-and-buslte. Supporters hold up black-and-gold "Ravenstahl: Getting it done signs." "Stand up," organizers scream. "Four more years. Four more years," they scream.

10:02 p.m. - Mayor Ravenstahl wins the Democratic mayoral primary, beating Dowd 25,422 to 11,879 votes, with 98 percent of precincts reporting.

9:57 p.m. - City Councilman Patrick Dowd, who is at the Church Brew Works on Liberty Avenue, is conceding the race.

9:33 p.m. - Rumor has it Ravenstahl, who is leading Councilman Patrick Dowd 15,021 to 7,627 votes, should be arriving at the Hofbrauhause around 10:15 p.m., one hour after the party began.

9:10 p.m. - Mayor Ravenstahl leads City Councilman Patrick Dowd and former police sergeant Carmen Robinson 8,209 votes to 4,732 and 1,776 votes respectlively, with 36 percent of precincts reporting. Watch www.pittnews.com <http://www.pittnews.com/> for updates every 15 minutes.

9:00 p.m. - Two men in lederhausen walk on the stage in the Hofrbrauhause. One's holding a guitar, the other an accordian. "Raise your glasses. Toast to friendship," the man with the accordian says before he begins singing.

Live from Mayor Ravenstahl's result-watching party

8: 46 p.m .- Mayor Luke Ravenstahl plans to gather in the Hofrabrauhaus in the South Side in 15 minutes. Event attendees can eat and drink as they watch the results from today's primaries come in. Right now, the tan-walled restaurant is full mostly of representatives from news organizations like WTAE TV and the Tribune-Review. Check back for more information throughout the night.

Times are a'changing

We've published our last issue of the school year (pick up a Finals Week edition at any drop on campus for the next two weeks!), and this year's staff has served our tenure.

Here's who's leading the paper from here on out:


The Pitt News Staff for Summer '09

Editorial Board
Drew Singer, Editor in Chief
editor@pittnews.com

Erik Hinton, Managing Editor
manager@pittnews.com

Liz Navratil, News Editor
news@pittnews.com

Keith Gillogly, Opinions Editor
letters@pittnews.com

Kieran Layton, A&E Editor
aande@pittnews.com

Jay Huerbin, Sports Editor
sports@pittnews.com

Molly Green, Copy Chief
copy@pittnews.com

Shannon McCurdy, Layout Editor
layout@pittnews.com

Vaughn Wallace, Photo Editor
photo@pittnews.com

Noah Levinson, Multimedia Editor
multimedia@pittnews.com

Victor Powell, Online Editor
web@pittnews.com


Editorial Staff
Lindsay Carroll, Assistant News Editor
Estelle Tran, Assistant News Editor
Dave Beitzel, Assistant Opinions Editor
Kelsey Shea , Assistant A&E Editor
Adam Littman, Assistant Sports Editor
Julie Percha, Assistant Copy Chief
Jenna Palmer, Assistant Layout Editor
Colleen Garvin, Assistant Photo Editor
Sarah Vinski, Assistant Photo Editor
Sierra Starks, Assistant Online Editor

Board of Managers

Justin Matase, Business Manager
business@pittnews.com


Louis Raven, Sales Manager
sales@pittnews.com

Leah Klaiber, Inside Sales Manager
advertising@pittnews.com


Business Staff
Colton Neff, Account Executive
Steven Kaczynski, Account Executive
Ashlyn Zellenfrow, Inside Sales
Mike Haley, Account Manager
Teni Jenner, Ad Designer

Thousands gather in Oakland to honor fallen officers

From the top of De Soto Street in Oakland, it was impossible to distinguish exactly how many police cars, trucks and motorcycles were climbing the hill leading to the Petersen Events Center. The silent parade of red and blue lights deliberately ascended the hill as thousands of onlookers watched in silence and awe.

Some were taking pictures, many were crying, but everyone was silent.

The memorial service at the Petersen Events Center today virtually shut down Oakland this morning because of the miles-long procession from the City-County building, where the caskets had been on display yesterday for mourners to pay their respects. The service began at 2:30 this afternoon.

The service is honoring city police officers Paul J. Sciullo II, Eric Kelly and Stephen J. Mayhle, who were killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday in Stanton Heights, near Lawrenceville.

"It was eerie to have so many people and for it to be so quiet, " Pitt student Cathryn Vasunda said. "It's surreal."

City police spokeswoman Diane Richard estimated that 15,000 to 20,000 people are in attendance at the ceremony.

Patty Mandia watched the procession red-eyed as she grasped an American flag.
Mandia's husband is a lieutenant for Zone 5, the same police bureau that lost the three officers honored today.

Mandia left her job at UPMC Presbyterian's Intensive Care Unit to wait in front of the center for hours, so she could get a good view of the procession.

She said it left her speechless.

"It's just very, very sad," she added.

Kim Shuttleworth, who works with Mandia at UPMC, stood with her into the early afternoon. Shuttleworth's husband is also a Zone 5 police officer.

"It's amazing, their brotherhood," she said. "You hope you never have to tell someone what it's like being here."

Police Sgt. David Ellis felt that brotherhood from as far away as his hometown of Lansing, Mi.

"We're members of an honor guard," he said. "We came to pay tribute to others who sacrificed everything for their city."

Ellis arrived in Pittsburgh at about 1 a.m. Thursday.

Richard Poplawski, 22, is charged with three counts of homicide in the shooting deaths of the officers.

-By Drew Singer, News Editor

Preparations for Thursday

The University and Port Authority are bracing for thousands of mourners visiting Oakland Thursday for the memorial service for three slain city police officers.
The procession from Downtown to Oakland and the 1 p.m. service at the Petersen Events Center will shut down Fifth Avenue beginning at 11 a.m.
The street will be closed between Bellefield Street and Craft avenue until about 4:30 p.m., said the Port Authority.
Outbound buses usually running on Fifth Avenue will use Forbes Avenue. Inbound buses will turn right off Fifth Avenue onto Bellefield Street, then turn down Bayard Street and onto Bigelow Boulevard. Buses will stop for passengers at Bigelow and Fifth by Soldiers & Sailors Memorial.
They then will cross Fifth and Forbes avenues and proceed through Schenley Park, onto the Boulevard of the Allies and into Downtown.
The University will continue to operate normally Thursday, said Renny Clark, Pitt’s vice chancellor of community initiatives.
“We’re asking everyone on campus to be in a spirit of compassion and citizenship and to reach out to the greater community in this time of sorrow,” said Clark.
The Department of Health and Physical Activity has canceled aerobics and fitness classes held at the Petersen before 6 p.m. on Thursday.
The Baierl Recreation Center also will be closed until 6 in the evening that day.
Sodexo, which operates dining services in the Petersen, will not be altering hours of operation, though heavy traffic is expected in the building.
The memorial will honor city police officers Paul J. Sciullo II, Eric Kelly and Stephen J. Mayhle, who were killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday in Stanton Heights, near Lawrenceville.
Richard Poplawski, 22, is charged with three counts of homicide in the shooting deaths of the officers.
More details on street closings, bus routes and restricted parking lots may be found at www.pitt.edu/memorial.

Nordy joins Twitter

Look what we just found! Remarkable!

http://twitter.com/Nordenburgh

Pitt News gets journalism accolades

It's awards season for college newspapers, and the results are in for the contests The Pitt News entered this spring.

There's the state-wide Keystone Press Awards, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. To view the full list of winners, click the Collegiate tab under the Student Division listing.

We also enter the Columbia Scholastic Press Association's Gold Circle Awards, which is a national contest.

Both contests asked for submissions from the 2008 calendar year.

Here are our winners in the Keystones:

1st Places
Hayley Grgurich – Feature Story (“Welcome to Iron Mountain”)
Elham Khatami – Column (“Trip to Israel”)
Hannah Pilling – Graphic Illustration (“Election covers”)
Pete Madia – Sports Photo (“March Madness”)

2nd Places
Pat Mitsch – Sports Story (“Successful recruiting takes endless effort”)
Tom VanBuren – Review (“Roscoe redefines waste of time”)
Ben Filio and Victor Powell – Photo story (“Pitt vs. Iowa”)

Honorable Mentions
Justin Jacobs – Personality Profile (“Girl Talk”)

And the Gold Circles:

Certificates of Mention
Holden Slattery – General feature ("K-9 squad sniffs out trouble")
Jake Brett – Editorial cartoon ("The Newest American Addiction")
Jake Brett - Cartoon Portfolio of work ("Jake Brett's Portfolio")
Ben Filio - Single feature photograph color ("Breaking Bread in Tower B")






Braque Hershberger – Single subject news or feature package, two pages, double-truck or special section: Tabloid format color ("You'll need Safe Rider")

LOST "La Fleur" Live Blog

See TPN Media for a live blog of LOST's "La Fleur" http://tpnmedia.blogspot.com

Name-dropped

Bryan Murley, the fantastic multimedia adviser at East Illinois and the leader of the Center for College Media Innovation blog detailed the college media organizations using Twitter, and how they're doing so in his post How college media uses Twitter.



The Pitt News got a nice mention about using Twitter for breaking news and sports game coverage (Note: Check out twitter.com/ThePittNews to see our complete tweets covering the pedestrian/bus accident this morning), but there's a lot more we can do to improve. Stay tuned. And follow us!

Twitter's taking over

As you might have noticed on pittnews.com or on page two of our print edition, The Pitt News has been getting into Twitter lately.

You might have heard about it: Twitter, a free social networking service that links people together through frequent mini-blog posts, is the next big trend online. And we're using it to reach our readers.

We've been building our Twitter page, twitter.com/thepittnews, and we send out breaking news alerts, headlines with links to stories and sports scores through Twitter.

The alerts get sent to our "followers:" other Twitter users who've chosen to be part of our network and receive our alerts. On the flip side, we follow a bunch of Twitterers, including some of the major news outlets -- the New York Times and CNN are just two examples of sending out news updates many times a day.

Typical Twitter users can send out their statuses throughout the day, a la Facebook, or they can respond to other Tweets they see. Many of our staffers, including me, have started their own accounts. Let me just say, if you like Facebook, this is absolutely the way to go.

It's like constantly being plugged in to the people and news you want to know, and being able to get to that information easily or join the conversation.

It takes the best of the Web developments you've grown up with and rolled them into one: chat rooms, instant messaging, text messaging, Facebook newsfeeds, blogs and RSS feeds -- Twitter hearkens back to them all.

The best thing about Twitter is it's versatility -- the trick to Twitter is learning how to use it without going to the actual Twitter Web pages. Instead, users can follow or Tweet through text messaging, widgets downloaded for their PC desktops, plug-ins on cell phones or through a number of other social networking sites.

Because many of Pitt's classrooms -- especially the Nationality Rooms -- aren't conducive to many students bringing laptops and viewing The Pitt News online, we wanted to give students the option to follow us when they don't have a print issue or computer around. Following The Pitt News on Twitter will give you instant access, via Twitter or a text message sent to your phone or any other creative Internet plug-in you find, to breaking news, including instant updates of Pitt basketball game scores.

To get started, just visit Twitter.com. Remember to follow us @ThePittNews.

If you have a cell phone with Internet access, you can get hooked into Twitter using a handy plug-in like TwitterBerry for Blackberries or Twitter for iPhone.

Even though Twitter started as a small site more than three years ago, it's quickly growing and pushing into the mainstream. Seriously, it's the next Facebook.

Here's the Post-Gazette story on Twitter, which ran on their front page today.

Plouffe in Pittsburgh tonight

If you're one of the few hundred lucky folks seeing Obama campaign genius David Plouffe lecture tonight in the Union, you might want to read up on the him prior to.

Here's a profile of Plouffe that Esquire ran during the post-election, pre-Inauguration glow (h/t JJ Abbott):


The Man who Made Obama

See you at the event tonight, and be sure to read The Pitt News Tuesday for complete PPC/Plouffe coverage!