Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1855
U.S. warns airliners flying in Persian Gulf amid Iran tensions; ExxonMobil begins evacuations
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. diplomats warned Saturday that commercial airliners flying over the wider Persian Gulf faced a risk of being “misidentified” amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The warning relayed by U.S. diplomatic posts from the Federal Aviation Administration underlined the risks the current tensions...
Peters Township School District investigating racist post on board member’s Facebook
McMURRAY — Peters Township School District says it’s investigating a racist Facebook post that appeared to have been published on a school board member’s personal page. Screenshots have been circulating of the since-removed post which looked like it was been made by Peters Township School Board member William Merrell. Merrell...
‘Hoss’ the Ohio hair ball is 125 pounds and counting
CAMBRIDGE, Ohio — What’s 4 feet tall, 125 pounds and is covered in hair? No, it’s not Cousin Itt of the Addams Family. It’s Hoss, the giant ball of human hair. Hoss, named after Dan Blocker’s character from “Bonanza,” is an oblong shape and is, well, hairy. Hundreds of people...
Low voter turnout expected in Tuesday’s primary despite key local races
Between 75% and 80% of the region’s registered voters aren’t expected to cast a ballot in Tuesday’s primary, according to elections officials. The primary features county, municipal and school board races for Republican and Democratic party nominations to run in November’s general election. Local taxes are traditionally one of the...
Garth Brooks Heinz Field concert to bring in millions to Pittsburgh economy
Garth Brooks is bringing more than just his legendary sound to Pittsburgh on Saturday night. Hotels, bars, restaurants, merchants and laborers will hear the ring of cash registers all weekend. “We had a special meeting about this concert,” said Bob Page, director of sales and marketing for the Omni William...
Car with 4 occupants goes into creek in Plum
Four people were injured when a car went into a creek in Plum Borough Friday night. A Plum police spokesman said the occupants were “injured but stable.” The accident was reported near the intersection of Kerr Road and Dinwiddie Drive at 7:07 p.m., an Allegheny County Department of Public Safety...
AG: Pimp, prostitute got 14-year-old girl involved in prostitution, drugs
A Pittsburgh woman and a Turtle Creek man are accused of getting a 14-year-old girl involved with prostitution, including encounters in the Alle-Kiski Valley, and giving her drugs and alcohol. A criminal complaint filed by the state Attorney General’s Office identified Davon Allen Fuqua, 32, as a pimp and Shannon...
Garth Brooks never tires of old hits because fans do all the work
Garth Brooks never tires of performing old hits like “Friends in Low Places,” because he lets the fans do all the work. Brooks, who will play Heinz Field Saturday night, said he’s often asked if there is a song he wished he never had to sing again. “What they don’t...
Rep. Frankel, Pittsburgh Jewish lawmaker, outraged with pro-life group using Holocaust images
An anti-abortion group went too far this week when it sent state Rep. Dan Frankel said an email loaded with black and white photos of Holocaust death camp victims to protest his vote on an abortion bill, the Squirrel Hill lawmaker said. Frankel, who is Jewish, represents the district that...
Greensburg boys get surprise reunion with Air National Guard father
It was all tears and shock when brothers Liam and Connor Gallagher turned around Friday at Aquinas Academy in Greensburg and saw their father. Patrick Gallagher, a master sergeant in the Air National Guard, walked out of the school kitchen. Gallagher had been deployed for six of the last nine...
Pittsburgh-based Yodel Labs wins AlphaLab Gear Hardware Cup
Have you ever had a hard time finding an item you needed in a densely packed supermarket? “Where in the world is the aisle that has my eye drops?” you may have asked yourself. Well, now there’s an app for that, thanks to Yodel Labs, a Pittsburgh-based company and Carnegie...
Mac Miller Fund announces recipients of its initial grantsVideo
Many former students of Hope Academy of Music and the Arts in East Liberty knew Mac Miller. “His music was a part of their environment,” Linda Addlespurger, director of Hope Academy of Music and the Arts, said at a Friday news conference. “His death impacted them significantly. Many of them...
17 indicted in suspected Western Pennsylvania cocaine ring
Seventeen members of a drug ring spanning four states have been indicted on 34 counts involving a scheme to deliver cocaine to the Pittsburgh area and other states, U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said Friday. “This is one of the largest cocaine distribution rings in Western Pennsylvania,” Brady said in a...
Greensburg husband, wife died 5 days apart, remembered as ‘classic American couple’
Howard and Frances Loflin were the “classic American couple,” according to daughter Stephanie Mulligan. “All of our friends tell me that my parents showed them what true love and marriage was like when they grew up in homes that didn’t have love,” Mulligan said. Meeting in kindergarten in Oberlin, Ohio,...
Whitehall, PennDOT at odds over Baptist Road repairs
Tom Stefano fought back tears as he stood at the top of his Baptist Road driveway in Whitehall Borough. The gravel on the driveway is gone in some parts, shifted in others, due to water from heavy rains that swells up from underneath. There are drainage issues along the street....
Editorial: Gov. Tom Wolf staff salary increases set tone, raise eyebrows
Everybody loves getting a raise. You might wait all year, have your review, get a gold star and be told, yes, you are valuable. You are worth another 3% in your paycheck. After Gov. Tom Wolf was re-elected, some of his staff got a taste of that experience. About a...
Florida governor warns his state can’t handle an influx of immigrants
MIAMI — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday the state isn’t prepared to handle vague Trump administration plans to send some 1,000 undocumented immigrants a month from the southern border to South Florida. “We cannot accommodate in Florida the dumping of unlawful migrants into our state,” DeSantis said during a...
5 things to do in Pittsburgh this weekend: May 17-19
If you aren’t one of the 70,000-plus fans going to the Garth Brooks concert on Saturday, here are some other options for what to do this weekend Spanish celebration ENIX Brewing in Homestead is hosting Feria, a festival from the south of Spain from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Guests...
United Airlines to lay off 100 in Houston, outsource jobs
HOUSTON — United Airlines says it will cut about 100 accounting jobs in Houston in July and shift the work to a contractor. The airline reported the layoffs in a letter this week to the Texas Workforce Commission. It did not identify the contractor that will handle accounting of revenue...
Report: Ex-Ohio State team doctor sexually abused 177 students over decades
A former Ohio State team doctor sexually abused at least 177 male students from 1979-96, according to an investigative report released Friday. The abuse included athletes from at least 16 school sports teams and also encompassed other students who saw Dr. Richard Strauss at the school’s student health center and...
Police: Southwest Greensburg man held gun to mom’s head for drug money
Three days after Mother’s Day, a 32-year-old Southwest Greensburg man was arrested after being accused of robbing his mom with a pellet gun, according to court documents. Nicholas S. Aaron was arraigned Thursday on multiple charges of aggravated assault, robbery, simple assault, making terroristic threats and harassment filed by Southwest...
Penn State fencing assistant fired over groping allegation
STATE COLLEGE — A woman says she told Penn State University’s head fencing coach that one of his assistants had groped her on a plane, but the coach failed to report her accusation to the school as required. Jennifer Oldham, a North Carolina fencing coach, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that...
Tickets, traffic and tailgating: What to know about Garth Brooks’ Heinz Field show
Garth Brooks will play in front of the largest Heinz Field crowd ever Saturday night when the county music superstar brings his tour to Pittsburgh’s North Shore. Ticket sales for the concert could top 75,000 and police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel are preparing for huge crowds of tailgaters and...
New Kensington man charged with assaulting girlfriend at her Plum home
A New Kensington man is facing charges after police say he assaulted his “on and off again” girlfriend when she refused to answer her front door as he pounded on it one night in March. David E. Saunders IV, 20, of New Kensington was charged with harassment and two counts...
No home birth: Harry and Meghan’s Archie born in a hospital
The birth certificate for the son of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, reveals that Archie was born in a private hospital in London. The certificate filed Friday makes clear that Meghan did not give birth to the child in the couple’s Frogmore Cottage home, as had been...
