Top Stories category, Page 559

The Democrats handily won in all three state House special elections Tuesday night, which will give them a majority in the House for the first time since 2010. The margin of representation would be 102 Democrats to 101 Republicans. According to unofficial returns from the Allegheny County Elections Division, the...

The Allegheny County Police Department is sending officers into Downtown Pittsburgh to assist an understaffed Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. Officials with the county police and Pittsburgh’s public safety department confirmed that county police began assisting in the Downtown area Monday. Allegheny County uniformed police officers in marked cars will be...

HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania judge ruled Tuesday that the state’s system of funding public schools falls woefully short and violates students’ constitutional rights, siding with poorer districts in a lawsuit launched nearly a decade ago in pursuit of billions of dollars in additional annual aid. Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn...

Fallen McKeesport police Officer Sean Sluganski was remembered Tuesday for his passion and personality as the community mourned what Mayor Michael Cherepko described as “an extremely tragic loss.” “You could see (Sluganski’s) passion, you could see his personality,” Cherepko said during a news conference outside McKeesport City Hall. “He was...

NEW YORK — Two major conservative groups have signaled they are open to supporting someone other than Donald Trump in the 2024 race for the White House, the latest sign from an increasingly vocal segment of the Republican Party that it’s time to move on from the former president. David...

On top of the fallout Penn State University experienced after a tumultuous Proud Boys appearance on campus last fall, now an individual rights group is labeling the university weak on free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) placed Penn State on its latest national “10 Worst Colleges...

Pittsburgh’s schools and youth athletic teams will have first dibs on the city’s athletic fields under legislation approved Tuesday by City Council. The legislation creates a priority list to determine who gets to use the city’s athletic fields first. Council members acknowledged that there are often various groups vying for...

The State of the Union speech is a tradition that surrounds the presidency, but members of the House and Senate participate in their own traditions. Members of Congress can bring a guest to the State of the Union speech. Local representatives from Southwestern Pennsylvania are bringing guests to Tuesday’s speech,...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is ready to offer a reassuring assessment of the nation’s condition rather than roll out flashy policy proposals as he delivers his second State of the Union address on Tuesday night, seeking to overcome pessimism in the country and concerns about his own leadership. His...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is set to deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The annual speech, delivered before a joint session of Congress, typically provides a president with his single largest audience of the year, usually in the tens of millions. An estimated 38.2...

HARRISBURG — The federal government’s pandemic-era prohibition against kicking people off Medicaid is ending, meaning that hundreds of thousands of people in Pennsylvania face losing the free health insurance in the coming year. Many people who stand to lose Medicaid coverage don’t know the changes are coming, say officials at...

AUBURN, Wash. — A single winning ticket for a $754.6 million Powerball jackpot was sold at a department store in a Seattle suburb, Washington state lottery officials said Tuesday. The winning numbers drawn Monday night were 5, 11, 22, 23, 69 and the Powerball 7. The winning ticket was bought...

Greensburg officials aren’t yet ready to comment on their plan for moving the police department forward nearly two weeks after the force’s former chief, Shawn Denning, was arrested on federal drug charges. The city launched its own internal probe after an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration resulted in Denning’s...

Kings Family Restaurants, an iconic Western Pennsylvania chain that once boasted 30 locations and created a darker counter-confection to its rival’s Smiley Cookie, has been whittled down to just five sites. Patrons who went to the Kings at 315 Hyde Park Road in Allegheny Township on Sunday learned the eatery...

The man accused of killing a McKeesport police officer and wounding another Monday afternoon was said to be experiencing PTSD and told witnesses just moments before the shooting that the police were trying to kill him and asked them to record his interaction with them, according to court documents. The...

A Pittsburgh group is working to raise money for relief efforts after Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated areas of Turkey and Syria. Benjamin Aysan, community outreach coordinator at the Turkish Cultural Center Pittsburgh, said the community organization is directing those who want to help victims of the earthquake to...

A man was rushed into surgery after being stabbed Monday night at a home in Pittsburgh’s Sheraden neighborhood, according to police. Police said officers responded around 7:18 p.m. to a report of a man stabbed in the 2900 block of Zephyr Avenue. The man had stab wounds to his chest...

Monday’s fatal shooting of a McKeesport police officer marks two line-of-duty deaths already this year for law enforcement in Western Pennsylvania after more than a five-year gap since an officer was last shot.. The McKeesport officer, Sean Sluganski, was killed while responding to a request to perform a check on...

A Hempfield mother of five has a set an ambitious goal of hiking at least one state park a week for the rest of the year. “I really discovered my love of hiking in 2022. I started thinking about it (setting the goal) at the end of the year,” said...