Megan Guza stories, Page 40

One new coronavirus case in Westmoreland County has pushed the total to 418, while the statewide case count surpassed 57,000 on Monday. The 543 new cases reported statewide between 12 a.m. Sunday and 12 a.m. Monday bring the running tally to 57,154. State health officials reported 24 new deaths for...

State health officials reported hundreds of new coronavirus cases on Monday, pushing the state’s running case count above 57,000. The 543 new cases were reported between 12 a.m. Sunday and 12 a.m. Monday, and they bring the statewide total to 57,154 since the first cases were identified on March 6....

Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday had strong words for politicians and business owners who choose to defy the state’s coronavirus restrictions, threatening funding and business licenses as some counties move to the yellow phase of reopening while others remain in the most restrictive phase. Wolf said funding to help counties...

Beaver County officials blasted Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday for his decision to keep their county under the most restrictive pandemic-related guidelines, while the county’s district attorney declared he wouldn’t prosecute business owners who choose to flout the continued restrictions. Commissioners and lawmakers got ahead of Wolf’s 2 p.m. announcement...

Allegheny and Westmoreland are among the counties Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday can begin the first phase of a gradual reopening and easing of coronavirus-related restrictions. A majority of the Southwest and South-Central counties will proceed to the yellow phase of the tiered reopening plan on May 15. That includes...

Authorities seized hundreds of suspected marijuana plants during a raid on the home of a 66-year-old Penn Hills man, according to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office. Kenneth Creekmore will face charges of drug possession and possession with intent to deliver, District Attorney spokesman Mike Manko said. Police from numerous...

Pennsylvania added 200 more coronavirus deaths to its toll on Friday along with more than 1,300 new cases of the virus, state health officials said. The new numbers bring the statewide death toll to 3,616. Of those deaths, 2,458 — 68% — have been in long-term care facilities. The total...

A 13th resident died from coronavirus at Kane Community Living Center’s Glen Hazel location, according to data from Allegheny County. At least 110 residents at the long-term care facility have been tested for covid-19, and 71 have tested positive. Four tests are pending. A total of 174 people reside in...

UPMC’s top emergency medicine expert said Thursday that people can go out and “safely” partake in small Mother’s Day visits, maintaining his suggestion is not in conflict with the stay-at-home order that will remain in effect for Allegheny and 42 other counties this weekend. “I think having a visit with...

Continued work by the state Department of Health to catch up with coronavirus numbers from all 67 counties has resulted in another jump in deaths on Thursday, this one by more than 300. The 310 new deaths, which occurred over the course of several weeks rather than one day, brings...

Nearly $4 million will go toward victims and survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday. The money from the Office for Victims of Crime — just under $3.9 million — comes from a grant from...

Pennsylvania will hire civilians to bolster contact tracing across the state in an effort to better contain and mitigate the coronavirus, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Wednesday. The group, called the Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps, “will reduce our unemployment rate while making a lasting health and economic contribution to our Commonwealth,”...

Health officials reported four new cases of the coronavirus in Westmoreland County on Wednesday as the state’s death tally continued to catch up with the coroner’s count. The new cases bring the countywide total to 409, according to the state data. County Coroner Ken Bacha was reporting 31 covid-19 deaths...

Another 94 Pennsylvanians have died from the coronavirus, state health officials said Wednesday, pushing the statewide death toll above 3,100. The state also added 888 new cases of covid-19 between 12 a.m. Tuesday to 12 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. The running state total is now 51,845 cases since the first...

Four years after the state Auditor General’s Office found that more than 3,000 untested rape kits were sitting idly in police departments across Pennsylvania, that number has dropped to fewer than 100, the office announced Tuesday. “While important progress is being made, I’m concerned that nearly 100 victims of sexual...

State officials on Tuesday said coronavirus case numbers in care facilities and prisons will continue to be a part of a county’s total case count despite some calls for those numbers to excluded. Both Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said those cases are an important...

Gov. Tom Wolf on a call with reporters Tuesday remained tight-lipped as to when he might announce which Pennsylvania counties will be next to see pandemic-related restrictions eased. “There is no schedule,” Wolf said of when he will announce more counties. “That would be arbitrary.” The governor reiterated what has...

Health officials reported two new coronavirus cases in Westmoreland County on Tuesday as Pennsylvania neared 51,000 cases of the virus. The two new cases bring the county’s running total to 405 since the first patient tested positive on April 5. Of the county’s cases, 129 are residents of eight long-term...

Coronavirus deaths in Pennsylvania surpassed 3,000 on Tuesday as the Department of Health works to catch up with information coming from individual counties through a number of platforms, state officials said. The jump in deaths is “a result of our continued work to reconcile data from various sources,” health officials...

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...

Counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania are not among those that will see coronavirus-related restrictions eased next week, Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday, and there is little indication as to when more counties can begin the reopening process. Two dozen counties in the Northwest and North-Central parts of the state will move...

Westmoreland County added two new coronavirus cases to the county’s running tally, state health officials said Friday. Those two cases bring the total to 393, according to the state data. Those cases were reported between 12 a.m. Thursday and 12 a.m. Friday. County coroner Ken Bacha has reported no new...

The state Department of Health on Friday added 62 more deaths to Pennsylvania’s coronavirus death toll along with another 1,208 positive cases. The new deaths bring the state’s total to 2,354. Five of those deaths were in Allegheny County, where the total now stands at 99. The 1,208 new covid-19...

Three more Allegheny County Jail inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing its total number of cases to 27, according to county data. Of those 27, four have recovered or been released. Court and jail officials have been working since March to identify nonviolent inmates who could be released...

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale will audit how the state managed the waiver process used to give businesses exemptions to Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown order. “Some business owners complained that the department’s waiver process was too slow and not transparent enough,” DePasquale said. The announcement came a day after Senate...