Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1144
Pittsburgh council supports $500 monthly payments to 200 residents
Pittsburgh City Council members support a program to provide a no-strings-attached $500 monthly payment to 200 low-income residents as part of an experiment being done by dozens of cities across the country to measure the impacts of guaranteed basic income. “This is the right thing to do at the right...
Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit reveals Pittsburgh location, new dates
Organizers build anticipation for the traveling Original Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit by withholding location information for each city it visits until the opening date approaches. It was announced in March that it would travel to Pittsburgh — now it’s been revealed that the location is Lighthouse Artspace Pittsburgh, a former...
AP source: Biden requiring federal workers to get covid shot
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday is toughening covid-19 vaccine requirements for federal workers and contractors, according to a person familiar with the plans, as he aims to boost vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant that is killing thousands each week and jeopardizing the nation’s economic recovery. Just...
From election to covid, 9/11 conspiracies cast a long shadow
Korey Rowe served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned to the U.S. in 2004 traumatized and disillusioned. His experiences overseas and nagging questions about Sept. 11, 2001 convinced him America’s leaders were lying about what happened that day and the wars that followed. The result was “Loose Change,” a...
Woman dies in Lower Burrell house fire
A woman was killed in a house fire late Wednesday in Lower Burrell. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the woman Thursday morning as Kimberly George, 50. George had been taken to Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison, where she died shortly after midnight. A neighbor reported the fire about...
Greensburg Salem postpones meeting after audience members defy mask requirement
The Greensburg Salem School Board meeting this week ended before it began. The board postponed its voting meeting until Sept. 15 after several people attending Wednesday refused to don required masks. Board President Ron Mellinger Jr. told the crowd of about 40 gathered in the middle school auditorium that the...
Fourth Pittsburgh police ‘blitz’ on abandoned vehicles results in 12 tows
The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police completed its fourth “blitz” to remove abandoned vehicles from city streets in the Brookline, Beechview, Elliot and Sheraden neighborhoods, the department announced Wednesday. Motorcycle units and abandoned vehicle officers addressed 43 complaints on Tuesday. Of the 43 vehicles, a dozen were towed away while the...
Wounded man walks into hospital as Pittsburgh police investigate Larimer shooting
A man walked into a Pittsburgh hospital with a gunshot wound Wednesday, police said. According to Pittsburgh Public Safety, police and medics responded to a shooting around 1:40 p.m. at Auburn and Lowell streets in the city’s Larimer neighborhood. Officers found evidence a shooting had happened, but no victims. Police...
Gov. Wolf, teachers say kids are cool with masks: ‘It feels like an adult problem’Video
PHILADELPHIA — Wearing masks all day isn’t a big deal for Brooke Vaught’s 375 students. They compliment each other on their cool choices — bright colors, Batman, funky designs — they put them on, and get down to the business of learning. “We haven’t had any issues,” said Vaught, principal...
The day the school shook: 20 years later, former Shanksville area students recall 9/11Video
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, started out like any other for those in the Shanksville-Stonycreek School District. The yellow building in Stonycreek Township bustled with the start of a new school year as elementary and high school students went about their lessons in the combined building, completed art projects...
Teachers rely on Flight 93 Memorial, personal experiences to teach about 9/11
For those who were alive on Sept. 11, 2001, the memories are often vivid. Many remember where they were when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Most remember watching the news, learning of the attacks as they happened. But today’s students weren’t alive to witness the events as...
Health director: Children 12 and under made up 12% of Allegheny County’s covid cases last month
Covid-19 cases among children too young to be vaccinated continued to rise last month in Allegheny County, officials said Wednesday. Doctors have long feared a rise in pediatric covid cases in conjunction with the start of school. That prompted the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American...
Police planning to reinstall Capitol fence ahead of rallyVideo
WASHINGTON — Law enforcement concerned by the prospect for violence at a rally in the nation’s capital next week are planning to reinstall protective fencing that surrounded the U.S. Capitol for months after the Jan. 6 insurrection there, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Though no specific measures...
Beaver County man pleads to misdemeanor count in Capitol riot case
A Beaver County man charged with participating in the Capitol riot in January pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single misdemeanor. Russell James Peterson, of Rochester, will be sentenced Dec. 1 by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. The...
Greensburg YMCA sued over attorney’s death in sauna
The family of a Greensburg attorney who died last year after remaining overnight in the sauna of the Greensburg YMCA is suing the organization and its former executive director, claiming negligence. The two-count wrongful death lawsuit filed in Westmoreland County Court by Colleen Robinson and her four sons claims her...
Highmark grows insurance rolls by 355K with newly inked acquisition of Gateway Health
Pennsylvania regulators have approved Highmark Health’s deal to become the sole owner of Gateway Health, instantly expanding Highmark’s insurance rolls by more than 350,000 members. “This acquisition will help us further our mission and better serve current and future Medicaid and Medicare members across Pennsylvania,” Deborah Rice-Johnson, president of Highmark...
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet resigns
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet is resigning, effective Oct. 1, district officials said Wednesday. The move comes after the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission found Hamlet violated the state’s Ethics Act with regard to travel expenses, accepting cash for speeches and failing to make required disclosures of financial interests between 2016...
TV Talk: WPXI ends its annual holiday parade tradition
WPXI-TV announced it will no longer stage and broadcast its annual holiday parade in Downtown Pittsburgh, a 40-year tradition. A post to the WPXI Holiday Parade Facebook page says while the station was proud to broadcast the seasonal special, “At this time we cannot continue to produce and broadcast the...
UPMC study: Monoclonal antibody treatment reduces covid-19 hospitalization, death
Real-time studies involving UPMC’s covid-19 patients have shown that monoclonal antibody treatments “significantly decrease” hospitalization and death, researchers said Wednesday. Experts said they are studying whether such treatments are effective against more contagious variants, like the fast-spreading delta variant. The study results were published in medRxiv, a preprint journal for...
Franklin Regional parents protest mask mandateVideo
A group of about 45 parents protested the state’s mask mandate outside Franklin Regional high and middle schools Wednesday morning. Many said they were looking to regain control of the decision from state officials, who announced last week that all schools and daycare centers must require masks for everyone while...
Dying brother-in-law donates kidney to former Lower Burrell Mayor Rich Callender
Ken Hulst wanted to give one of his kidneys to his brother-in-law, former Lower Burrell Mayor Rich Callender, who needed a kidney for long-term survival. Hulst, a former Lower Burrell resident, died of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS — on Aug. 28. Within 24 hours, Callender received one...
In New York after Ida, Biden calls climate ‘everybody’s crisis’Video
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden declared climate change has become “everybody’s crisis” on Tuesday as he toured neighborhoods flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, warning it’s time for America to get serious about the “code red” danger or face ever worse loss of life and property. Biden spoke...
Body found in Allegheny River in Plum ID’d as Washington Township man
The man who was pulled from the Allegheny River in Plum on Sept. 1 has been identified. Shawn Ferraccio, 46, of Washington Township, was found dead in the river shortly before 10:30 a.m. along the 100 block of Coxcomb Hill Road. Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified Ferraccio on Tuesday....
Armyworms wreak havoc on lawns, crops in ‘unprecedented’ outbreak
Ben McGraw, an associate professor of turfgrass science at Pennsylvania State University, surveyed dead turf on a Pennsylvania golf course Friday. The turf recently had been attacked by fall armyworms. The moth larvae, which are known for destroying grass, turf and an array of crops, have been wreaking havoc during...
Seven Springs Mountain Resort hopes to hire 1,000 for upcoming ski season
Seven Springs Mountain Resort’s goal of hiring 1,000 employees for the upcoming ski season at its three resorts in Western Pennsylvania will kick off this week with its “Walk-In Wednesday” event. The resort, headquartered at Seven Springs in Champion, Somerset County, is seeking seasonal, part-time and full-time help for Seven...
