Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1552
Pa. among 6 states joining N.Y. to buy vital coronavirus gear in bulk
NEW YORK — New York is banding together with six nearby states, including Pennsylvania, to purchase equipment and supplies that sometimes have been hard to come by during the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is praising residents for mostly adhering...
Westmoreland County adds 5 new covid-19 cases
Westmoreland County’s covid-19 cases increased by five from Saturday to Sunday, bringing the total number of people who have tested positive for the virus to 401, state officials said. Nursing homes and other senior care facilities are linked to about 40% of the county’s cases. The state health department reported...
Pennsylvania reports 26 more covid-19 deaths as total cases top 49K
Pennsylvania health officials on Sunday reported 962 new cases of covid-19 and 26 more deaths, bringing the statewide death total to 2,444. As of Sunday, 49,267 Pennsylvanians had tested positive for covid-19, and 191,374 residents had tested negative, state officials said. All 67 counties in the state have cases of...
Allegheny County covid-19 cases rise by 12; no new deaths reported
There were no new deaths in Allegheny County from covid-19 since Saturday, but there were 12 additional cases, the Allegheny County Health Department reported Sunday morning. The number of people who have died from covid-19 remains at 102, the county health department said Sunday. Of that number, 92 are listed...
Sidelined by pandemic, Trump campaign turns to digital shows
WASHINGTON — The streaming video began and, within minutes, the president’s eldest son was musing that Osama bin Laden had endorsed Joe Biden. Subtle, it was not. Welcome to the Trump campaign, digital edition. Seven nights a week, President Donald Trump’s reelection team is airing live programming online to replace...
In a time of covid-19, ‘Obamacare’ still part of the action
WASHINGTON — Covid-19 could have stamped a person “uninsurable” if not for the Affordable Care Act. The ban on insurers using preexisting conditions to deny coverage is a key part of the Obama-era law that the Trump administration still seeks to overturn. Without the law, people who recovered from covid-19...
Going from red pandemic stage to yellow won’t help hairdressers, barbers
David Wien’s customers are stalking him these days. Wien owns John’s Barbershop, a small-town institution his father-in-law, John Krautbauer, opened 56 years ago across the street from the post office in Delmont. The shop closed in March when Gov. Tom Wolf issued a stay-at-home order designed to limit the spread...
Pandemic cancels some National Nurses Week events, celebration takes new forms
The coronavirus pandemic and related social distancing rules have prompted Western Pennsylvania hospitals to cancel a slew of activities scheduled to begin this week to recognize nurses. Plans are still in the works, however, to celebrate the region’s thousands of nurses working on the front lines, hospital officials say. “This...
S. Korea says troops exchange fire along N. Korean border
SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korean troops exchanged fire along their tense border on Sunday, the South’s military said, the first such incident since the rivals took unprecedented steps to lower frontline animosities in late 2018. Violent confrontations have occasionally occurred along the border, the world’s most heavily...
The day ‘all hell broke loose’; local lives lost, forever changed in Kent State shootingVideo
“What if you knew her // And found her dead on the ground // How can you run when you know?” “Ohio” (1970) • Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young The search for justice thrust upon a young Laurel Krause has now reached a half century. On May 4, 1970, a...
No commencement? How about a parade, Deer Lakes community says
West Deer police and fire trucks led about 50 cars filled with graduating Deer Lakes High School seniors in a parade through the residential streets surrounding the high school on Saturday, May 2, 2020. Parents and community members decorated yards, held signs and cheered them as they drove past. The...
Police say 2 fatal shootings in Ross Township are likely to be related
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified one of the two men shot to death Saturday in Ross as Bing Liu, 37, of Ross. Both men were found dead at the The Mews of Town North, an apartment complex near McKnight Road, according to Ross Police Detective Brian Kohlhepp. The...
Giant Eagle limits sale of ground meat; local grocer bucks national trend
Giant Eagle announced it is temporarily limiting the purchase of ground beef and on-sale meat items to two of each per transaction. The supermarket chain had limited some meat purchases before, early in the pandemic in March, according to Dick Roberts, a Giant Eagle spokesman. Meat isn’t disappearing from supermarket...
How Natrona Heights photographer John Filo captured the horror of Kent State killings
John Filo couldn’t get out of Ohio fast enough. It was early afternoon on May 4, 1970, and he was driving with rolls of film he had hidden in his red Volkswagen Beetle. The film contained photos Filo had just taken — images of the killings of unarmed students protesting...
Search at McConnells Mill resumes Sunday for man who fell into creek
A search is resuming Sunday morning for a man who fell from a hiking path in McConnells Mill State Park into Slippery Rock Creek on Saturday, a state park official. Park ranger Supervisor Bryan Moore said early Sunday morning that emergency personnel gathered at the park to resume the search...
Pennsylvania reports 64 more covid-19 deaths, total cases top 48K; nursing home cases approach 10K
Pennsylvania health officials reported 1,334 new cases of covid-19 and 64 more deaths as of Saturday morning, bringing the statewide coronavirus death toll to 2,418. Hospitals now are treating 2,673 patients with the disease, and 555 people are on ventilators — six fewer patients than were on ventilators as of...
Allegheny County reports 3 new coronavirus deaths; 10 new cases
The Allegheny County Health Department reported three more deaths and 10 additional cases of the coronavirus Saturday, increasing the county’s total deaths to 102. The new count brings the total number cases to 1,329 since the first case was reported in the county on March 14. Of that total, 1,284...
Wilkinsburg man suspected of pulling knife on Family Dollar employee in Pittsburgh’s South Side
A Wilkinsburg man was arrested Friday afternoon in connection to an incident at the Family Dollar store in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood, officials said. An Allegheny County Sheriff’s deputy spotted Laberne Martin, 53, on foot near 20th and Jane streets shortly before 3 p.m., Chief Deputy Kevin Kraus said. According...
13th Port Authority employee tests positive for coronavirus, 11th at West Mifflin garage
Port Authority officials announced that a 13th employee has tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. All but two of the confirmed cases have come out of the bus service’s West Mifflin maintenance garage, officials said. Nine of the cases at the garage involved a maintenance...
Fitzgerald ‘optimistic’ Allegheny County ‘close’ to having some restrictions lifted
Allegheny County could be allowed to start reopening by May 15, as long as the number of new covid-19 cases reported daily remains low, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Friday. The county was not among the 24 counties state officials said could start lifting restrictions put in place to...
White House blocking Fauci testimony, panel spokesman says
WASHINGTON — A spokesman for a key House panel said Friday that the White House has blocked Dr. Anthony Fauci from testifying next week at a hearing on the coronavirus outbreak. House Appropriations Committee spokesman Evan Hollander said the panel sought Fauci — the highly respected director of the National...
Editorial: U.S. Steel layoffs sign of bigger issue?
Maybe 2,700 doesn’t seem like that big a number right now. There are 30 million people who have filed for unemployment benefits in the United States in the six weeks since the coronavirus pandemic closed businesses and sent workers home. Last week alone, there were 3.8 million laid-off Americans filing...
Why your hair appointments will have to wait even in the yellow phase
Hair, nail and massage appointments will have to wait even after a Pennsylvania county moves into the yellow phase in which coronavirus-related restrictions will begin to ease. “Those facilities — such as hair salons, barbershops, nail salons, massage parlors — are not opening because it is impossible to practice social...
PLCB to open more stores for curbside sales, ups limit on liquor orders
Pennsylvanians now can buy up to 12 bottles of booze at a time at the state’s Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores, and the Liquor Control Board announced it is opening more stores for curbside pickup, including locations in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. The PLCB on Friday doubled the limit...
Pitt researchers developing a nasal spray that could prevent covid-19
University of Pittsburgh researchers are beginning to develop a nasal spray aimed toward individuals at high risk of contracting covid-19. The spray could be a preventive measure for the disease. Pitt is partnering with researchers from the University of Louisville to create a molecule called Q-griffithsin, combining an antiviral protein...
