Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1693
Cops: Ligonier drug bust leads to second arrest for burglaries
Undercover police officers watching a Ligonier apartment after complaints of suspected drug activity not only arrested a resident for allegedly selling Suboxone, but also solved two weekend break-ins. The resident, Hunter M. Fitchko, 26, was arrested inside his apartment on the 200 block of East Church Street by Ligonier Valley...
Pennsylvania agrees to upgrade inmates’ death row conditions
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s prison agency agreed to improve death row conditions under a settlement announced Monday of a federal lawsuit that called the inmates’ living standards degrading and inhumane. Lawyers for the inmates who sued said the agreement provides people on death row with at least 42½ hours a week...
AP report: U.S. officials knew of Ukraine’s Trump anxiety
WASHINGTON — Despite his denials, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was feeling pressure from the Trump Administration to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden before his July phone call with President Donald Trump that has led to impeachment hearings. In early May, staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, including then-Ambassador...
Trump suggests he may give written testimony in House probeVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump suggested Monday he might be willing to offer written testimony in the House impeachment inquiry over whether he pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden and his son as he withheld aid to the country. In a pair of tweets, Trump says he will “strongly...
Voting open for PennDOT ‘Paint the Plow’ contest
Voting opened Monday for the best student-created design on PennDOT snowplow blades this winter. Eight finalists from high schools in the department’s four-county District 12 area are vying for votes in the Paint the Plow contest. The theme this year is “Don’t Rush in Ice and Slush.” Students from the...
‘SNL’ taps Steelers-Browns helmet controversyVideo
For Pittsburgh Steelers fans, there was nothing funny about Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett smashing quarterback Mason Rudolph on the head with a helmet at the end of Thursday night’s game. But NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” attempted to mine a few laughs from it. Well, “attempted” anyway. The cold...
Labriola’s Italian Store has kept family heritage alive for 90 yearsVideo
A Pittsburgh Italian favorite is celebrating its 90th year in business. Leonard Labriola’s Italian Store, with four locations in Aspinwall, Monroeville, Penn Hills and Warrendale, offers an extensive selection of gourmet Italian groceries and freshly prepared Italian specialties passed down from generations of Labriola family recipes. Owner Leonard Labriola, 80,...
Fact check: Trump’s attack on diplomat, impeachment myths
WASHINGTON — Truth was lost in the first round of historic impeachment hearings as President Donald Trump launched a tweet attack on a senior U.S. diplomat that distorted reality and Republicans cried foul, claiming improper stifling of questioning that wasn’t so. Over two days, the hearings by the House Intelligence...
U.S. draws fewer new foreign students for 3rd straight year
The number of foreign students coming to U.S. colleges and universities continued to fall last year, according to a new report, but the Trump administration says the drop should be blamed on high tuition costs and not students’ concerns over the nation’s political atmosphere. An annual report from the Institute...
Tim Benz: Defending Browns’ Myles Garrett by blaming Steelers’ Mason Rudolph is insanity
When disagreeing with someone’s opinion, there are two important rules to follow in the sports talk radio and sports columnist business. 1. No name calling. 2. Don’t make any broad generalizations about a group of people. With those rules made clear, anyone who thinks Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph is to...
Pedestrian in critical condition after hit and run crash in Homewood
A man was taken to the hospital in critical condition after being struck by a vehicle in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood, according to police. The driver fled the scene, police said. The crash happened around 4:40 a.m. on the corner of Fifth and Frankstown avenues. Medics found the man unconscious in...
2 injured after police chase in Duquesne
A driver was fleeing from police when he crashed into an SUV on Duquesne Boulevard on Friday night, according to Allegheny County police. Daniel Disiero, 39, and an unidentified 45-year-old victim were taken to the hospital after the crash. Disiero is a registered sex offender in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, wanted...
4 dead, 6 wounded in California football party shooting
FRESNO, Calif. — Four people were killed and six more wounded when “unknown suspects” sneaked into a backyard filled with people at a party in central California and fired into the crowd, police said. The shooting took place about 6 p.m. on the Fresno’s southeast side, where people were gathered...
80 units in cluster homes planned for South Pike Road in Buffalo Township
An 80-unit residential development planned along South Pike Road (Route 356) in Buffalo Township is moving forward. The housing plan, to be known as Heritage Crossing, would be on a 25-acre site across from the Rosebrook assisted living center. The plan will be built by Weaver Homes. The company hopes...
Pittsburgh ‘Jeopardy!’ champ shares behind-the-scenes details from Tournament of Champions
One Final Jeopardy! clue stood between a chance at the $250,000 grand prize and getting knocked out of the game show’s Tournament of Champions. And Lindsey Shultz didn’t know the answer. “In a 1644 letter he wrote, ‘We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean air,’ which is what...
Steve Blass remembers Vera Clemente for her charity work, continued love for Pittsburgh
When Steve Blass was pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he had a vision of what teammate Roberto Clemente would do following his playing days. “I always thought Roberto would become the governor of Puerto Rico, and that Vera would make a great first lady,” Blass said. “He was that popular...
Nancy Pelosi says Trump has chance to testify to impeachment panelVideo
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump can make his case directly to the Intelligence Committee, but she vowed to protect the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the impeachment inquiry of the president’s actions with Ukraine. “The president could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the...
2 people reported injured in head-on collision in Ligonier Township
Two people were reported injured in a head-on collision Sunday at the intersection of Routes 711 and 271 in Ligonier Township, according to a Westmoreland County dispatch supervisor. The accident occurred about 3:15 p.m. in the village of Waterford, the dispatcher said. The two people injured were expected to be...
John Steigerwald: Steelers QB Mason Rudolph shouldn’t get off so easily in Myles Garrett fight
Has everybody calmed down? Let’s try to take a nonhysterical look at what happened Thursday night in Cleveland. Myles Garrett of the Browns hit Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph on his helmetless head with his own helmet. And now Garrett is suspended indefinitely, for the rest of this season at...
Impeachment rules the day, but Pennsylvania lawmakers push bipartisan initiatives
Impeachment proceedings continue to divide much of the country and seemingly the whole of Congress, with predictable partisan stances sounding loudly in the overarching narrative. Firmly in President Trump’s corner has been U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, a first-term Republican from Peters, Washington County, who has repeatedly dismissed the process as...
13 prison employees suspended in Pennsylvania inmate death
HARRISBURG — Thirteen employees at a Pennsylvania state prison have been suspended without pay while the agency investigates the death of an inmate last week. Tyrone Briggs, 29, died Nov. 11 after an inmate-on-inmate assault that day inside the State Correctional Institution-Mahanoy in Frackville, Schuylkill County, the Corrections Department said...
Political signs waning in mid-November
From Labor Day through early November, most busy roadsides and intersections are awash in political campaign signs. The small placards emblazoned with a candidate’s name appear by the thousands as office seekers fight for name recognition and public awareness of their campaign efforts for the hundreds of political offices up...
Russia providing mood music for House impeachment drama
WASHINGTON— For all the talk about Ukraine in the House impeachment inquiry, there’s a character standing just off-stage with a dominant role in this tale of international intrigue: Russia. As has so often been the case since President Donald Trump took office, Moscow provides the mood music for the unfolding...
White House urgently ramps up push for drug cost legislation
WASHINGTON — The White House is ramping up its push to get a bill through Congress that curbs prescription drug costs, feeling a new urgency as the impeachment investigation advances amid the 2020 election campaign. The effort has progressed beyond anything seen in years, says President Donald Trump’s top domestic...
Police: Man arrested in fatal Wilkinsburg shooting, victim ID’d
A 32-year-old man was in the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh awaiting arraignment on homicide charges after shooting and killing a 46-year-old man during an argument in Wilkinsburg late Saturday, according to county police. County homicide detectives reported Dilon Bartifay, formerly of North Versailles, was arrested shortly after the 10:25...
