South Korean firm restarts steel pipe plant in The Waterfront
A South Korean company restarted the former Ascent Industries steel pipe and tube manufacturing plant in The Waterfront development last week after nearly three years offline. Nexteel has brought the massive, bright blue warehouse in Munhall back to life, according to a LinkedIn post from its American division that offered...
Pittsburgh Regional Transit eyes more limited changes after scrapping bus network overhaul
Pittsburgh Regional Transit is almost done planning its “Bus Line Refresh,” a series of adjustments to the network that would eliminate 14 routes, add nine and change stops along dozens more. Ridership plummeted at the start of the covid-19 pandemic and has not fully recovered. Recognizing this, Pittsburgh Regional Transit...
Duquesne Light asks feds to lower costs customers pay to power plants
Duquesne Light is making the case that power plants are paid too much for the promise of providing electricity, a cost set through auctions run by grid operator PJM Interconnection — and shouldered entirely by
consumers. PJM’s process allows power plants to bid on contracts to supply electricity if called...
General Electric spinoff GE Vernova spends $70M on Rostraver warehouse
GE Vernova, formerly a part of General Electric, spent $70 million to buy a distribution center in Rostraver last month, adding to the Massachusetts-based power generation equipment manufacturer’s strong Pennsylvania presence. Westmoreland County property records show GE Vernova subsidiary GE Renewables Grid LLC purchased the more than 700,000-square-foot property from...
1 killed, 2 injured by wrong-way crash along Route 40 in Washington County
A wrong-way crash Saturday in Donegal Township left one man dead and two people seriously injured. The Washington County Coroner’s Office says Daniel Pasqualucci, 41, of Donegal Township died after his sedan collided head-on with an SUV near the intersection of Route 40 and Lake Road. Pasqualucci was driving east...
Immigrant rights activist sets off on 8-day march to ICE detention center
With the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Pittsburgh’s South Side as a backdrop, immigrant rights advocate Jaime Martinez implored community members Sunday morning to see the humanity in their foreign-born neighbors. “Dignity is not conditional,” said Martinez, who founded activist group Frontline Dignity last year. “It is not...
ICE says 13 arrested at PennDOT drivers’ license center in Armstrong County
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 13 people Friday at a PennDOT driver’s license center near Kittanning, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Jason Koontz, a DHS spokesman, said ICE was called by East Franklin police after “concerned citizens reported an abnormally large amount of individuals” outside the...
Here are the planned stops for immigrant rights activist’s 8-day walk to ICE detention center
Jaime Martinez’s eight-day walk from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Pittsburgh’s South Side to the agency’s detention center in Clearfield County will take him through Monroeville, Apollo and Indiana. The march envisioned by Martinez, executive director of immigrant advocacy group Frontline Dignity, will start about 8 a.m....
Kids make quick work of Easter egg hunt at Delmont’s Newhouse Park
Hundreds of kids took part in what resembled a feeding frenzy as much as an Easter egg hunt Saturday at Delmont’s Newhouse Park. Easter-themed crafts started at 11:30 a.m. followed by a hunt at noon in the warm spring weather. The Delmont Recreation Committee puts on the event each year,...
Pittsburgh man gets 15 years in prison for distributing child porn
A Pittsburgh man convicted on child pornography charges has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Justin Hughes, 45, pleaded guilty in November to one count of distributing child pornography. As part of the plea agreement, federal prosecutors dropped three additional counts related to sexual depictions of minors. In...
Astrobotic’s latest lunar lander on track for 2026 launch
Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic is closing in on the launch of its Griffin-1 lander, a 15-footwide spacecraft that will deliver two state-of-the-art rovers to the moon. CEO John Thornton said Wednesday the lander is nearing completion and should be ready for takeoff on a SpaceX rocket by the end of the year....
Pittsburgh biotech company Lipella Pharmaceuticals files for bankruptcy protection
Lipella Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood, filed for bankruptcy protection Monday following more than two decades of developing medications that never made it to market. The drugmaker is winding down operations just 10 months after being delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange, which choked off access to...
Aurora looks to Congress to override some states’ more restrictive laws on autonomous trucks
Autonomous big rigs could be close to mass adoption, and the U.S. doesn’t have a law on the books specifically governing them. The least productive Congress in more than a half-century seems like an unlikely bet to finally deliver legislation on driverless trucks. Aurora Innovation, a Pittsburgh-based firm with pole...
Coal-heavy Nippon could undo U.S. Steel’s limited environmental progress, green group warns
Nippon Steel lags behind at going green, according to a new report from environmental group SteelWatch, highlighting concerns the Japanese firm could be a bad influence on subsidiary U.S. Steel. Nippon’s progress toward ultra-low-emission steelmaking ranked 17th out of 18 companies given a “corporate scorecard” Monday by SteelWatch, a global...
Peoples Gas proposes raising average monthly bill by $16
Peoples Gas wants to raise rates for the average residential customer by just over $16 a month, according to a request filed Friday with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. The hike would amount to another $163 million in annual revenue for the gas utility, which serves more than 700,000 homes...
Multibillion-dollar Nvidia deal brings quiet Saxonburg-based manufacturer Coherent into the spotlight
Coherent executive Steve Rummel offered a peek under the hood Friday at the Saxonburg-based manufacturer’s multibillion-dollar deal with Nvidia, a stock market darling and driving force behind much of the artificial intelligence industry. The agreement was announced March 2 and continues some 20 years of collaboration between the companies. Over...
The AI doctor is in: Survey suggests nearly one-third of Americans rely on chatbots for medical advice
An estimated one-third of U.S. adults are asking artificial intelligence to play doctor, according to a survey released Wednesday by KFF. The health policy nonprofit recently collected answers from more than 1,300 Americans as part of wider poll on how people sought medical information over the past year. The results...
O’Connor sees NFL Draft spotlight as chance to shed steel-town perceptions
Appearances are a top priority for Pittsburgh officials ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft. Just this week, Pittsburgh police started a citywide sweep of abandoned vehicles. City public works crews are also putting in overtime to clean up Downtown Pittsburgh ahead of the event, which runs from April 23-25 and...
Highmark lost $175M in 2025, battered by high insurance claims
Highmark took a $175 million net loss last year as rising health insurance usage battered the Pittsburgh-based company. Financial results released Tuesday also showed a $674 million operating loss for Highmark, even as revenue rose year-over-year to $32 billion from $29 billion. Highmark Health Plans, the organization’s insurance division, was...
Nothing fake about Southwestern Pa.’s golf simulator boom
OnPar Now’s golf simulators fill up every other Friday during the winter with women of various skill levels. Some have steady swings, others swing and miss. The score isn’t the point for this virtual golf league built on real-world connection. “We have drinks and network and have a good time,”...
Combating youth suicide tilts increasingly toward early intervention
A suicidal child or teenager may never talk of taking their life. Parents, peers and teachers might not even know they’re living with mental illness. Despite younger generations showing greater openness to discussing mental health struggles, fears of punishment or social exclusion remain, experts say. Even at medical appointments, minors...
March Madness vasectomy surge turns Western Pa. into SnipsburghVideo
It’s been almost 20 years since a marketing master stroke by the Oregon Urology Institute established March Madness as one of the most popular times to book a vasectomy. The pitch went something like this: For men looking to park themselves on the couch during the tournament’s jam-packed early rounds,...
UPMC warns embattled data exchange Health Gorilla may have improperly pulled patient records
UPMC says its medical records may have been improperly accessed by Health Gorilla, a patient data gatekeeper accused in federal court of mismanaging sensitive information. Health Gorilla requested data “under the pretext of providing treatment to shared UPMC patients and claimed it had permission to do so,” according to a...
Canonsburg’s Coen Markets eyes sale to U.K.-based convenience store giant
Canonsburg-based Coen Markets could soon be part of a convenience store empire. Coen’s 50-plus stores in and around Southwestern Pennsylvania are being acquired by United Kingdom-
based EG Group, the companies announced Thursday. EG Group owns more than 1,500 U.S. convenience stores across 10 brands, including Turkey Hill, Minit Mart and...
WVU Medicine goes all in on AI medical transcription software Abridge
West Virginia University Medicine is accelerating its rollout of an artificial intelligence transcription software developed by Pittsburgh-based startup Abridge. A small pilot program started last May has grown to more than 1,200 doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants adopting Abridge to fill out charts while they talk to patients, WVU...
