High school scores, summaries and schedules for March 17, 2026
High schools Baseball Tuesday’s results Nonsection Bethel Park 8, Providence Country Day 7 Franklin Regional 17, Glenelg (MD) 2 Franklin Regional 7, Bradford 3 Putnam Science Academy 16, Mt. Pleasant 8 St. Petersburg 8, Mars 7 Apollo-Ridge at Moniteau, ppd. Armstrong at Freeport, ppd. Avella at Steel Valley, ppd. Blackhawk...
High school roundup for March 17, 2026: Obama Academy becomes 1st City League team to reach state finals since 2016
Eric James scored 23 points, including the go-ahead baseline jumper in the final seconds, to lead Obama Academy to a 52-51 victory over Carver Engineering & Science in the PIAA Class 4A boys basketball semifinals Tuesday night. Obama Academy (20-9) became the first City League team to reach the state...
Pa. House Republicans hold on to key seats in special elections
Pennsylvania Republicans held on to two state House seats, critical to keeping them within striking range of majority control, in special elections Tuesday. Preliminary counts showed Catherine Wallen of York Springs had prevailed over Todd Crawley in the 193rd House District, covering parts of Adams and Cumberland counties. In Blair...
Trump’s next decision: Whether to retrieve Iran’s nuclear fuel, whatever the risk
WASHINGTON — Repeatedly over the past two days, President Donald Trump returned to his central argument for his decision to attack Iran, and to do it at this moment in history. Tehran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, the president insists, and would use it first on...
Central Dauphin outslugs Upper St. Clair to reach PIAA Class 6A championship game
ALTOONA – Upper St. Clair and Central Dauphin made their PIAA Class 6A boys basketball semifinal feel like a heavyweight fight Tuesday night. Both teams traded big quarters with the Rams taking charge in the second and the Panthers answering back in the third. Central Dauphin, though, landed the knockout...
‘Quite an honor’: Connellsville hockey to vie for national title in Minnesota
The Connellsville hockey team set some lofty goals this winter. Winning a PIHL Division 2 championship was high on the list of priorities, but those hopes were derailed in early March when the Falcons were ousted by Burrell in the postseason. Going after a national championship was incorporated into the...
Pa. Senate passes bill to protect children, others by mandating safeguards for AI ‘friend’ bots
The state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would require AI chatbot operators to implement guardrails against self-harm and sexually explicit material, putting near-unanimous bipartisan support behind an idea that has also been endorsed by Gov. Josh Shapiro. The bill comes as polls show a growing public pushback to...
Pittsburgh budget woes vindicate Controller Rachael Heisler, who issued early warnings
For two years, Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler raised one red flag after another about the city’s precarious finances. She wrote letters, held press conferences and mercilessly skewered former Mayor Ed Gainey’s final budget proposal as “not an honest document.” Few took her alerts to heart. Public officials, from the former...
Farrah Hassen: ICE’s warehouse scheme draws bipartisan protests
Warehouses are for storing goods. ICE wants to use them to store people. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramps up arrests, the Trump administration is seeking to spend $38 billion to expand its detention capacity to 92,600 people, according to agency documents. At least 73,000 people — a record...
Riverhounds-Steel City U.S. Open Cup match postponed
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC and Steel City FC will have to wait a week before playing in their Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup first-round match. Tuesday’s scheduled contest — the first all-Pittsburgh Open Cup match in 69 years — was postponed because of wintry weather conditions that involved additional snowfall and...
West Virginia to play Stanford in College Basketball Crown tournament
The West Virginia men’s basketball team will extend its season as part of the second annual College Basketball Crown tournament. The Mountaineers (18-4) will play Stanford (20-12) at 8 p.m. April 2 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Other teams competing include Baylor, Colorado, Creighton, Minnesota, Oklahoma and...
Elizabeth Soltan: After decades of trying, Pa. needs to pass a state False Claims Act
Gov. Josh Shapiro urged Pennsylvania to pass a state False Claims Act (FCA) in his 2026 budget address. There is bipartisan support for House Bill 1697, which would create a state FCA modeled after the federal FCA, one of the government’s best fraud-fighting tools. The FCA encourages whistleblowers to come...
Bolstered by Westmoreland County players, Saint Vincent hockey returns to ACHA National Tournament
The formula for building a championship-winning roster is simple for the Saint Vincent men’s hockey team. Scout every team playing in Westmoreland County and a few neighboring districts, target a few players, find out who their hockey-playing friends are and recruit them, too. That strategy has turned SVC into a...
Trump’s next target: ‘Taking Cuba’
NEWS ANALYSIS “I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “Taking Cuba in some form, yeah,” he added when a reporter asked for clarification. “Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it — I...
Leonard Greene: Thousands dead over war in Iran — biggest casualty is compassion
War is ugly. So is hubris. The next time President Donald Trump tells you how well the war is going, remember that U.S. missile strikes have killed more than 1,400 people in Iran, including 168 children who perished at an elementary school. Remember, too, that the average price of gas...
Trump officials weigh new $1 billion deal to stop offshore wind farms
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering a new strategy for throttling the country’s offshore wind industry, after federal judges blocked its five previous attempts to stop wind farms under construction off the East Coast. Senior administration officials are drafting settlement agreements that would pay nearly $1 billion to TotalEnergies,...
Letter to the editor: Nonprofits need to step up to help Pittsburgh
There are several nonprofits that have not stepped up to donate to the city of Pittsburgh emergency vehicles (“UPMC gives $10M to Pittsburgh for ambulances, freeing up money for snowplows,” Jan. 29, TribLive). Examples would be new protective gear and tools for the fire department. The Public Works department, I...
Can you prevent or reverse gray hair?Video
For something universal, graying remains oddly mysterious. Each strand of hair starts out nearly translucent, and its color is determined by melanin, essentially pigment dust. If it’s packed densely, you get dark hair. Leave only a few black and brown specks, and it appears blond. Over time, the pigment-producing cells...
Sewickley area student news for the week of March 17, 2026
Ensign Connor Mangan serves the U.S. Navy at Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC) Rota, Spain. Mangan attended Quaker Valley High School and graduated in 2017. Additionally, he graduated from The College of Wooster in 2021. Currently, Mangan is attending the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and...
In choosing ‘Epic Fury,’ Trump names a war and defines his presidency
WASHINGTON — By his own account, President Donald Trump was asked to personally pick the name of the military operation against Iran and was bored by all the choices presented to him. “They gave me, like, 20 names, and I’m like, falling asleep,” he said last week. “I didn’t like...
Letter to the editor: Questionable church values
I am wondering why protesters would storm the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn. I’m sure most of us would agree that a place of worship is not the time or place to hold a protest. There is a statement on this church’s website that says: “We are a community...
Editorial: The cure for congressional pork
Ham is pork cured in a brine of water, salt and sugar. The process was meant to preserve the meat and make it last longer. But it also made it taste better. What about a different kind of pork? “Pork barrel” spending takes its name from those same preserved provisions....
The Stroller, March 17, 2026: Events in the Alle-Kiski Valley
Publicize your non-profit’s community events, fundraisers and club meetings for free in The Stroller. Send information at least two weeks in advance to vndnews@triblive.com or The Stroller, 210 Wood St., Tarentum PA 15084. Please include a daytime telephone number. Follow the Stroller on X at @VNDStroller. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!...
Shaler Area 1 of 6 schools in nation selected for Japanese Language Education Assistant Program
Editor’s note: The following story was submitted for the Shaler Area Student Section, a collaboration between TribLive and The Oracle, the student newspaper of Shaler Area High School. First conceptualized following several meetings between former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and former U.S. President Barack Obama, the J-LEAP program has...
Letter to the editor: Albert right to cooperate with ICE
Regarding the article “Westmoreland commissioner calls sheriff’s partnership with ICE invalid” (Feb. 12, TribLive): Five minutes of personal checking clearly identifies there is no question Sheriff James Albert is fully within his purview to set his department’s policies and sign a letter of agreement with ICE. As an elected official...
