Deb Erdley stories, Page 32
George Romero’s archives headed to University of Pittsburgh
“Oh, the horror,” many students cramming for finals at the University of Pittsburgh undoubtedly have uttered under their breaths. Now it’s true. Officials at Pitt on Thursday announced the University Library System has acquired the archives of the late iconic horror filmmaker George A. Romero. Many consider Romero, a Pittsburgh...
Facial recognition software under fire; PennDOT’s been using it for years
You may not know whether you have a double in Pennsylvania. But if you’re applying for a driver’s license or a state photo identification, PennDOT will let you know. The agency uses facial recognition software, as do dozens of other agencies across the nation. Images of each of the 10.1...
Officials approve phased retirement for state university professors
State officials and faculty members at Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities have approved a voluntary phased-retirement program. The agreement, ratified by the oversight board of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, comes as the faculty union and the State System gear up for contract talks and state officials continue work...
State offers student loan repayment for opioid treatment specialists
Healthcare practitioners who treat opioid addiction in 30 highly affected Western Pennsylvania counties — including Allegheny and Westmoreland — may be eligible for student loan aid under a new $5 million program designed to boost treatment options in the region. Those eligible to participate in the new program through the...
Pittsburgh 2nd best U.S. city to launch your career
There’s something to be said for being second best. That’s where Pittsburgh landed in a new study of the nation’s best cities for graduates preparing to launch a career. That’s right, the city that gained national headlines when it was profiled in Forbes as the worst place for young singles...
Seton Hill honors Steele Eckenrode for community service
A 22 year-old Mt. Lebanon man has been named Seton Hill University’s 2019 winner of the school’s Presidential Award for Service. Seton Hill University President Mary C. Finger presented the award to Steele Eckenrode, a senior Business Administration – Entrepreneurial Studies major, during Honors Convocation on Friday. The award recognizes...
Labor Relations Board to hear objections in Pitt graduate workers union election
The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing Tuesday to weigh unfair labor practice charges and objections the United Steelworkers filed in conjunction with a union election last month among University of Pittsburgh graduate student workers. Graduate student organizers charged that Pitt officials acted illegally to influence the outcome...
Westmoreland Family Court CASA program welcomes new advocates
A volunteer program that matches trained adult advocates with abused and neglected children under the supervision of the Westmoreland County courts is growing. Officials with the Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children program, or CASA, said Common Pleas Court Judge Christopher Feliciani recently swore in 12 new volunteers to the...
Roman numerals, anyone? Poll suggests bias against Arabic numerals
Who knows exactly what a new poll says about mathematics in America, but the reactions to a recent poll on the topic are a little alarming. When CivicScience, a Pittsburgh-based market research firm, polled more than 3,200 Americans on the issue of mathematics instruction last week, 56% of the respondents...
Greensburg lawyer remembered for his dry wit and loving heart
George Conti needed help. It was 1973. His Greensburg law practice was growing, and then he learned his secretary needed a vacation. When he mentioned he was going to be shorthanded, a friend suggested he knew someone who might be willing to help for a week or two. Kate Bauer,...
Monessen woman, 96, honored on Mother’s Day with high school diploma from 1941
Ethel Safo Peshok always encouraged her children to pursue education. On Sunday, her friends and family joined to honor the lessons the 96-year-old Monessen woman imparted to them. As a special Mother’s Day surprise, they arranged for her to receive the high school diploma she sacrificed 78 years earlier when...
Off-duty police officer injured in West Homestead crash and shootoutVideo
An off-duty police officer was injured Saturday evening in a vehicle crash during a shootout in West Homestead as he was driving home from work. Allegheny County Police said authorities found the 27-year-old officer shortly after 7 p.m. at the scene of the crash along the 1000 block of Forest...
Shelocta man dead in Indiana County crash
A Shelocta man was pronounced dead Saturday evening at the scene of a one-car crash in Indiana County. State police in Indiana said Mason Robert McCauley, 18, was traveling on McIntyre Road in Young Township shortly before 6:30 p.m. when the vehicle he was driving veered off the side of...
Saint Vincent grads hear from decorated veteran, Pro Bowl Steeler Alejandro Villanueva
They came from far and near. Parents, grandparents, friends and siblings in a variety of family sedans, hybrids, mini-vans and luxury vehicles began to arrive at Saint Vincent College just outside of Latrobe on Saturday morning in a line of traffic that snaked slowly through the leafy college campus with...
Fire guts popular Greensburg restaurant
Fire gutted a popular Greensburg restaurant early Saturday morning. Dispatchers said volunteer firefighters were called to Bean & Baguette at 248 West Otterman St. at 4:16 a.m. Saturday for a fire in progress. Owner Alexis Bevan said firefighters told her an electrical fire sparked the blaze that tore through the...
WCCC honors grad who directed police response at Parkland school shooting
It was Valentine’s Day, and Clyde Parry was sitting in his police chief’s office in Coral Springs, Fla. An officer breathlessly announced he’d heard an active shooter was at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Suddenly, phone lines blew up at the department as desperate calls went out for help. Within...
Congress weighs bankruptcy relief for student loan debt
More than 40 years after Congress began tightening restrictions against discharging student loan debt in bankruptcy, federal lawmakers Thursday introduced a bill to provide bankruptcy relief for struggling borrowers. The Student Borrower Bankruptcy Relief Act of 2019 would remove the 2005 section of the bankruptcy code that made all private...
Westmoreland County schools score nearly $1.4 million in state security grants
Pennsylvania awarded $40 million in new school safety grants, with 10 Westmoreland County school districts, two Career and Technical Centers and the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit among 234 recipients sharing in the largesse. State lawmakers established the competitive grant program in the wake of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting...
Hempfield boy takes honors in Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest
Hempfield fifth-grader Joseph F. Bonomo IV is headed to Washington, D.C., with his parents to pick up honors as the Pennsylvania State Society Daughters of the American Revolution’s American History Essay Contest winner for his grade. The son of Keira and Joseph F. Bonomo III, Joseph attends Aquinas Academy in...
Point Park University launches $20K mission to ease losses in small-town journalism
Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation in Pittsburgh is launching a $20,000 fellowship designed to tackle the growing dearth of investigative journalism in communities that no longer host a daily newspaper, officials announced Wednesday. A three-year grant from the Allegheny Foundation underwrote the creation of the Annual Doris O’Donnell...
Project Day caps school days for Greensburg Salem seniorsVideo
As the school year was wrapping up last spring, teachers at Greensburg Salem Senior High School distributed more than 200 three ring binders — one to each member of the outgoing junior class. The students would have the summer to consider the senior projects that they are required to document...
Graduate student union organizers file unfair labor charges against Pitt
Organizers who sought to unionize graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh said the university’s hardball tactics during a union election last month prevented “free and fair” balloting. In a complaint filed Wednesday, the United Steelworkers alleged Pitt engaged in unfair labor practices and asked the Pennsylvania Labor Relations...
Westmoreland County schools score nearly $1.4 million in state security grants
Pennsylvania awarded $40 million in new school safety grants, with 10 Westmoreland County school districts, two Career and Technical Centers and the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit among 234 recipients sharing in the largesse. State lawmakers established the competitive grant program in the wake of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting...
Florida university administrator named president of Pitt-Greensburg
Robert G. Gregerson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and senior advisor to the provost at Florida Gulf Coast University, will become the fifth president of the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, effective July 1, 2019, Pitt officials said Wednesday. Pitt officials launched a search for a new...
Ruling on Spanier conviction could open the door to renewed defamation suit against Louis Freeh
A federal judge’s order dismissing a child endangerment conviction against former Penn State President Graham Spanier if it stands could open the door to another civil suit in the long-running legal imbroglio stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal. Spanier, 70, was scheduled to report to jail this...
