Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1355
Drive-up food distribution event at Pittsburgh Mills mall continues to help people in needVideo
Woody Main started crying when asked how he felt about a drive-up food distribution event held Tuesday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Mills mall in Frazer. The 50-year-old from Elizabeth was at the distribution to pick up food for his two sister-in-laws. He goes to food banks for them because one...
Western Pa. officials, businesses brace for possible covid restrictions
Western Pennsylvania officials and businesses expect an announcement from the state soon, detailing new pandemic restrictions for businesses and gatherings. “I think we’re moving in that direction,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Tuesday. “The numbers indicate that’s the proper strategy to employ. … I do anticipate, if not tomorrow...
‘We cannot turn our back on it’: Opioid crisis rages alongside covid pandemic in Pa.
Amid a global pandemic killing thousands across the state, country and world, health officials in Pennsylvania warned that the opioid epidemic continues to leave thousands dead in its wake as well. “We know that with the holidays of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and various others approaching, it can be a difficult...
High court rejects GOP bid to halt Biden’s Pennsylvania win
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Republicans’ last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the electoral battleground. The court without comment refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf already has certified Biden’s victory and the state’s 20...
14 Fort Hood soldiers fired, suspended over violence at baseVideo
WASHINGTON — The Army on Tuesday said it has fired or suspended 14 officers and enlisted soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, and ordered policy changes to address chronic failures of leadership that contributed to a widespread pattern of violence, including murder, sexual assault and harassment. In a sweeping condemnation of...
Some residents seek 50% cut to Pittsburgh police budget; city council members say that’s illegal
Pittsburgh City Council members listened for about two hours Tuesday as some three dozen speakers criticized the city’s 2021 budget proposal, asked for a 50% cut in the police department’s budget and wanted to see increased spending on social service programs. Most of the 45 people who signed up to...
Rare Babe Ruth card found by Altoona-area woman sells for $342,000
A collection of very old baseball cards turned out to be a treasure trove for an Altoona-area woman who works on the front lines of the pandemic. The woman, who did not want to be identified, was going through her late grandfather’s belongings when she found a rare 1916 Babe...
U.S. Supreme Court denies Republican injunction request in Pa. mail-in ballot challenge
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon denied an attempt by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly and other Republicans to challenge Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting system. The denial likely puts an end to the Trump campaign’s efforts to throw out the state’s election results that declared President-elect Joe Biden the winner. The...
Allegheny County reports 693 new covid cases, 6 deaths
Allegheny County reported 693 new covid-19 cases Tuesday, according to the county Health Department. There were six new coronavirus-related deaths also reported. Total cases and total deaths now stand at 34,814 and 585, respectively. The seven-day new case average is now 830 and seven-day case total is 5,807, both records....
FDA posts early positive review of Pfizer data
WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators say in their initial review that the vaccine from Pfizer is 95% protective against covid-19. The review posted online Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration offers the world the first detailed look at the evidence behind the shot, which was co-developed with BioNTech. The...
UPMC expects to receive covid vaccine soon, distribute to health care workers after authorization
Pending emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, UPMC hopes to have the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine distributed to all of its front-line workers by the end of January, leaders in the hospital system said Tuesday. The system anticipates arrival of its first allocation of Pfizer vaccine doses in...
Pennsylvania reports 10,170 new covid cases, 169 new deaths
Pennsylvania reported 10,170 new covid cases and 169 new deaths Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health. Total cases and total deaths in the state now stand at 436,614 and 11,542, respectively. Thus far in December, the state has reported 75,150 covid cases and 1,159 deaths. The seven-day average...
Westmoreland County reaches 250 covid deaths; 80% have come since September
With new covid-19 deaths reported, Westmoreland County reached a milestone Tuesday. The eight new coronavirus-related deaths reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health bring the county’s total to 250 deaths. To put deaths in Westmoreland County in perspective, it took from March 19 (when the county’s first cases were reported)...
Greensburg man cited after outburst in store over mask, social distancing
A Greensburg man who became enraged after being told to leave a store for failing to wear a mask and social distance is accused by city police of making threats against employees and knocking over merchandise as he departed. Police on Tuesday charged Derek P. Hart Jr., 21, with multiple...
Dozens of Allegheny County Jail inmates, employees test positive for covid-19
A covid-19 outbreak in the Allegheny County Jail is now affecting more employees along with dozens of those housed in the jail awaiting trial or serving sentences, officials said Tuesday. Two weeks after Warden Orlando Harper announced that 10 ACJ employees had tested positive for the virus, the number of...
Westmoreland County Commissioner Sean Kertes, Clerk of Courts Bryan Kline test positive for coronavirus
Two Westmoreland County elected officials said Tuesday they tested positive for coronavirus. Sean Kertes, chairman of the county commissioners, and Clerk of Courts Bryan Kline both said they are experiencing symptoms of the virus and both are at their respective homes in isolation. “I had a 100-, 101-degree temperature and,...
Levin to buy back 5 stores from Michigan firm, rebuild furniture chain
Robert Levin is getting closer to rebuilding his family’s namesake furniture chain, which nearly fell to ruin after a century in business following a sale and the tumult of a messy bankruptcy proceeding. “I feel this is like a Christmas gift for all of us, customers and employees,” Levin said...
Families, friends mourn Port Authority drivers who died of covid
Patrick Hazlett and Marlon J. Lucas had a combined three decades of service with the Port Authority of Allegheny County, and they both leave behind wives and children and a union family grieving its first losses to covid-19. Hazlett, a 34-year-old bus driver who’d worked for eight years with the...
Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Reese tests positive for coronavirus
State Rep. Mike Reese, who represents parts of Westmoreland and Somerset counties, is the latest Pennsylvania lawmaker to announce a positive coronavirus test. “I recently learned I have tested positive for covid-19,” Reese said in a statement. “I have been quarantining for the last week awaiting my test results, and...
Some Pittsburgh-area restaurant owners have outdoor dining covered amid pandemic
With the colder weather here to stay, many Downtown Pittsburgh restaurants have decided to cover outdoor spaces for continued dining to help accommodate state-mandated capacity requirements. Some outdoor dining structures resemble mini-greenhouses. Others look like plastic domes. Bakersfield Pittsburgh has tents, heaters and picnic-bench seating on Penn Avenue. At Bourbon...
‘Turning point’: UK giving 1st doses of covid-19 vaccine
LONDON — British health authorities rolled out the first doses of a widely tested and independently reviewed covid-19 vaccine Tuesday, starting a global immunization program that is expected to gain momentum as more serums win approval. The first shot was given to Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, at...
Uber turns over self-driving car project to company with Pittsburgh ties
Uber is getting out of the self-driving car business, turning over its operation to a San Francisco startup with Pittsburgh ties. Aurora, which has offices in San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Dallas, announced the acquisition of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Monday. Uber will invest $400 million in Aurora and get a...
Cops: Victim of apparent hit-and-run in Pittsburgh had gunshot wound in leg
Pittsburgh medics responding to an apparent hit-and-run found the victim had been shot in the leg, according to the city Department of Public Safety. First responders were called to the corner of Gearing Avenue and Chalfont Street in the Beltzhoover neighborhood around 2:45 a.m., finding a man lying in the...
Chuck Yeager, first pilot to break sound barrier, dies at 97
After test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, he confessed to the highly un-Yeager-like emotion of fear. “I was scared,” he wrote in a memoir, “knowing that many of my colleagues thought I was doomed to be blasted to pieces by an invisible brick...
Trump questions Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler on electoral votes
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is continuing his futile appeal to battleground state lawmakers to subvert the votes of their constituents. The president has reached out twice to Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican, to see what might be possible for Trump to do about the state’s presidential vote....
