Paul Guggenheimer stories, Page 39

As 99-year-old Martha Platt waited in the New Kensington Rite Aid on Saturday for her turn to get the covid-19 vaccine, her mind flashed back over almost a century’s worth of memories from her busy and, at times, trying life. She remembers being sent away to live with her grandmother...

Down through American history, photographers have documented both good times and bad. Some of the most striking images have come from wars and economic turmoil such as the Great Depression. With Americans now living with the covid-19 crisis, Pennsylvania’s first lady Frances Wolf has announced the launch of a statewide...

Not long after Jonny Gammage died at the hands of police in October 1995, Tim Stevens told Gammage’s parents “never believe that your son’s death was in vain.” Stevens, chairman and CEO of Pittsburgh’s Black Political Empowerment Project, has helped make sure of that. For the last 23 years he...

Plenty of Americans are still trying to make sense of the attack on the Capitol, six days into a new year preceded by a year of racial tension and political uncertainty. They are in good company. As part of a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, a panel of...

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pittsburgh is being honored for the way its faith community responded to the deadly 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue. It is being inducted into the inaugural class of the Museum of the Courageous. The announcement was made Monday along with billboard...

Cheswick Council has passed a budget of nearly $1.7 million for this year that has no property tax hike. Passed with a 6-0 vote, the budget keeps the tax rate at 5.85 mills. The total includes 5.60 mills with an additional 0.25 of a mill to pay for maintenance at...

Sam Weinreb, a Holocaust survivor who raised his family in McKeesport, passed away peacefully Friday at Hebrew Senior Life Rehabilitation Center in Roslindale, Mass. He was 94. While he was only in his mid-teens, Weinreb somehow managed to live through some of the worst mental and physical abuse the Nazis...

Allegheny Valley School Board voted unanimously this week to have students return to hybrid instruction starting Tuesday. Under the plan, students in grades K-12 will be divided into two groups — with one group attending in-person classes on Mondays and Thursdays and a second group attending in-person on Tuesdays and...

The Springdale Township Commissioners adopted a budget of nearly $1.5 million for this year that includes no increase in property taxes. The budget, which passed 5-0, keeps the tax rate at 6.5 mills. At that rate, the owner of a property assessed at $75,000, the township’s average property value, will...

When Rose Rymarz was about to go on the air for the first time in her professional radio career, the program director at WKPA-AM/WYDD-FM in New Kensington had a suggestion. He decided she should use only her first name because he thought her last name, Rymarz, was too ethnic-sounding for...

With the pandemic making it difficult to hold a proper celebration of the Negro Leagues Centennial Anniversary, the Josh Gibson Foundation is holding a series of webinars this year featuring a lineup of all-star speakers. The series, “Negro Leagues Matter: A Centennial Celebration,” will debut on Saturday, Jan. 23 and...

The Pennsylvania State Police said Tuesday the department has embarked on a data collection program designed to identify patterns of racial/ethnic disparities in policing. Troopers statewide have begun documenting additional information during traffic stops, regardless of whether the encounter results in a citation or written warning. The contact data includes...

A multinational team including three Carnegie Museum of Natural History researchers announced a first for the world of paleontology: a dinosaur preserved sitting atop a nest of its own eggs that include fossilized babies inside. The fossil consists of an incomplete skeleton of a large, adult oviraptorid crouched in a...

Highmark Health has named Robert James its new Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. James has been with Highmark since 2015 when he was hired as supplier diversity director. In his new position, he will inform and implement Highmark Health’s diversity, equity and inclusion strategy said Larry Kleinman, Highmark Health Chief...

Out of work Pennsylvanians will begin receiving an extra $300 a week in unemployment payments starting this week. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry made the announcement Friday. The extension of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program is part of the federal stimulus that Congress passed last month....

Check out my Triblive story on the greatest playoff comeback in Steelers history. It just happened to be against the Browns. pic.twitter.com/3EGJCMgUpX— Paul Guggenheimer (@PGuggenheimer) January 10, 2021 The play was called “Green 40.” On Jan. 5, 2003, the Pittsburgh Steelers were trailing the visiting Cleveland Browns by five points...

Alan Faneca isn’t the only person associated with the Steelers who is a Hall of Fame finalist this year. Justin Laveing, a 25-year-old Beaver Falls native, has been named one of six nominees for the Ford Hall of Fans, a program that recognizes some of the most passionate NFL fans...

Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh has named Gretchen Baker the new Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Baker takes over for Stephen Tonsor, who had been serving as interim director. She is currently the managing director for museum experience at the Lucas Museum...

It’s the final step in certifying Joe Biden as the next president of the United States, the constitutionally required Jan. 6 Electoral College vote count being held Wednesday as part of a joint session of Congress. But some Republican lawmakers will use the occasion to make one last attempt to...

Shulamit Bastacky, a child survivor of the Holocaust who spent her adult life in Pittsburgh, died Friday after a brief battle with cancer. She was 79. Bastacky spent her first three years of life being hidden from the Nazis in a nun’s cellar in her native Lithuania. She was miraculously...

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced Monday that PPG will display its logo on all players’ helmets for the 2021 season. It makes PPG the first sponsor to have its logo appear on Penguins game equipment. As part of PPG’s naming rights sponsorship with the Penguins, all players’ helmets will bear the...

Before Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Joel Osteen, Archbishop Fulton Sheen and famous radio evangelists such as Father Charles Coughlin and Aimee Semple McPherson, there was Edwin Van Etten. It was the Rev. Edwin Van Etten, far from a household name, who helped popularize the live radio sermon....