PITTSBURGH — Authorities say a wheelchair-bound woman was severely injured when she was struck by a car in East Liberty.

Public Safety Department spokesman Emily Schaffer said the accident occurred around 5:45 p.m. Thursday at the corner of Baum Boulevard and South Beatty Street.

Schaffer said the woman was in a designated crosswalk when a vehicle ran a stop sign and hit her, sending her and the wheelchair airborne.

The woman, who police haven't identified, was in serious condition at UPMC Presbyterian. An 8-year-old child walking with the victim was uninjured.

Police told KDKA-TV 38-year-old Clint Edelman was charged with leaving the scene of an accident and running a stop sign. Police said Edelman fled the scene but returned by the time officers arrived.

APOLLO — Crews were working remove spray-painted X's and other graffiti from headstones that were defaced at a Western Pennsylvania cemetery.Riverview Cemetery in Kiskiminetas Township was vandalized last weekend. Rome Monument of Rochester is restoring the 199 defaced headstones, some of which date to 1908, at no cost. The vandals used red spray paint.Rome's owner, John Dioguardi, feared crews were going to have to clean each headstone twice — once to remove the graffiti, and a second time so that age-old grime would be washed away to match the newly cleaned areas.But he said a patented product called Elephant Snot — of all things — has been removing the paint without discoloring the stones.

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court has denied former Penn State University President Graham Spanier's request to travel to Saudi Arabia.The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Spanier, who is awaiting trial on perjury and conspiracy charges stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, requested permission to go to the Middle Eastern country to meet with higher education officials.The court cited the lack of an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia in its ruling. Spanier has been required to receive approval from the court or attorney general to leave the country since August 2013.Spanier resigned in November 2011 amid allegations he conspired with other university administrators to cover up Sandusky's abuse to protect Penn State's reputation.No trial date has been set for Spanier since charges were first filed in 2012.

PITTSBURGH — Allegheny County's top prosecutor is slamming a defense lawyer's suggestion that a female high-school student initiated sexual contact that led to criminal charges against his client, a teacher.Thursday's out-of-court dispute involves 29-year-old Michael Cinefra, a former substitute teacher at Plum High School in suburban Pittsburgh. He's one of three teachers at the school who are charged with having sex with female students.Cinefra's lawyer, Patrick Thomassey, told reporters after a court proceeding Wednesday that the victim initiated the relationship and claimed Cinefra didn't know she was only 15 at the time.County District Attorney Stephen Zappala responded Thursday by calling Thomassey's comments “incredibly callous.” Zappala says Thomassey's remarks don't amount to a defense and could be seen as attempts to intimidate the witness.