Local category, Page 1073

Ross Township officials broke with the long-standing tradition of promoting their most senior police officer to chief when an opening comes up. With help from a consultant who developed a plan to restructure the police department, the township announced during a news conference Jan. 17 that it has hired its...

A man awaiting trial on a rape charge may no longer represent himself in court after he used recording equipment inside Allegheny County Jail to make multiple videos — including a sample opening statement — and posted them on YouTube. James Taric Byrd, 44, has been incarcerated while awaiting trial...

Debbie Sarault, owner of clothing store Betsy’s of Ligonier, has a secret. But she’s not letting the proverbial cat out of the bag until Saturday, when the 32nd annual Ligonier Ice Fest begins. As a shop owner for 33 years, Sarault prides herself on having never missed the event. She...

Eloisa Creighton has read the flood of online comments and social media posts about her grandson, Aceyn Ausbrook, who was shot and killed last weekend outside a Monroeville birthday party. Now, she said she wants to add her voice to the chorus. “People say it all the time, but he...

A South Fayette man on Tuesday pleaded guilty to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Jorden Mink, 29, will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss on April 11 on two counts including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon and theft of...

Pennsylvania was home to a half-billion pieces of litter in 2020, and that was just along the roads, according to a survey commissioned by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and PennDOT. That’s disheartening news to Pennsylvania Resource Council Executive Director Darren Spielman, especially since the council’s annual Gene Capaldi...

Looking to add greenery to your land this spring? The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s annual seedling sale is officially underway. For $12.50 to $16.25 per unit, residents can buy surplus tree and shrub seedlings that weren’t planted on state game lands this season. Each unit includes 25 seedlings, and those who...

The man who authorities said died by suicide during a police standoff Monday in a Hempfield mobile home park was accused of threatening a woman with a gun two days earlier and firing two shots into the ceiling, according to court papers. Gerald A. Long Jr., 54, was charged Sunday...

A 15-year-old boy is charged as an adult after state police said he attacked a worker at Outside In School of Experiential Education in Fairfield. Anthony Jenkins is being held on $200,000 bail on charges of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, strangulation and related offenses. Troopers were called to the facility...

Food Truck a Palooza brought families from across Western Pennsylvania to the Monroeville Convention Center for some fun under the Big Top. The sixth annual installment of one of the nation’s largest indoor food truck festivala featured a circus theme complete with clowns, stilt walkers, puppeteers, face painting and much...

Each year, the Bridgeville nonprofit One Music Fest Inc. presents an Unsung Community Service Award. The 2023 recipient is Tim Anderson, director of the Bridgeville Community Food Bank, who received his honor during One Music Fest’s fifth annual Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., held Jan. 16 at Bethany Presbyterian...

A popular Duquesne University professor and his wife died Tuesday morning in Wilkins in what Allegheny County Police described as a murder-suicide. Emergency dispatchers received a third-party call just before 10 a.m. requesting a police check on a couple engaged in a violent domestic incident inside their home on Thorncrest...

Pittsburgh Regional Transit shut down parts of its light rail service for about an hour Tuesday as a small fire started on the ground underneath Pittsburgh’s Panhandle Bridge. Spokesman Adam Brandolph said the fire originated from the ground on the South Side side below the bridge, which stretches over the...

A $1.3 billion expansion project of the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Mon-Fayette Expressway between Route 51 and Interstate 376 is expected to get underway soon, according to the Turnpike Commission. The 8-mile extension will expand the Mon-Fayette Expressway, which now stretches 54 miles from Jefferson Hills to Morgantown, W.Va. When complete, the...

Friends are recalling former longtime Blawnox Mayor Tom Smith as the ultimate figurehead for the small Allegheny River town. He founded the Thomas M. Smith Funeral Home in 1966 and later delved into local politics as a way to spur community revitalization. “My family knew him all our life, and...

For more than half a century, students in most American classrooms have learned at least a little something about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. They may have memorized it as occurring in 1963 before a quarter of a million people in the nation’s capital, and that...

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s office said Tuesday that the mayor does not support a proposal to ramp up enforcement of the city’s curfew for minors. City Council President Theresa Kail-Smith on Monday said she is planning to introduce legislation this week that aims to enforce the city’s curfew for juveniles...

A popular fast-food chain specializing in chicken fingers could be coming to Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers is looking to open a restaurant at Fifth Avenue and Atwood Street in a building that formerly housed the restaurant and bar Thirsty Scholar, according to plans presented to Pittsburgh’s Planning...

That escalated quickly. A race for an at-large seat on Allegheny County Council had barely gotten underway this month when attacks started flying. Many of them came from observers of the race on social media, particularly Twitter, and almost immediately put the race’s two candidates on the defensive. Joanna Doven...

Longvue Acres Garden Club Longvue Acres Garden Club’s January will present “The History of North Park,” an overview from prehistoric times to the present by Allegheny County Interpretive Park Ranger, Deaglan McManus on Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Northmont United Presbyterian Church, 8169 Perry Highway, McCandless. The club’s programs...

Bank of New York Mellon is planning to lay off 3% of its workforce, or about 1,500 jobs. The New York-based financial firm that employs thousands in the Pittsburgh region, did not specify where those jobs would be located or what categories would be impacted. “We continue to optimize our...

When Derry Area High School senior Cydney Wierzbowski was called down to the school guidance office early Tuesday morning, for a moment, she thought she might be in trouble. “I was in math class, and I was pulled out to go to guidance for I did not know what,” Wierzbowski...

The New Kensington- Arnold School District hopes to have new classroom furniture in all of its schools by September, Superintendent Chris Sefcheck said. The school board voted last week to buy classroom seating and furniture from P.E.M. Co., an educational furniture dealership in the South Hills that was founded in...

A downtown New Kensington business is among the first three to be designated as “sustainable workplaces” by Sustainable Pittsburgh. Trademark Threads, an embroidery and printing business at 1007 Fifth Ave., earned a silver level designation. The nonprofit Sustainable Pittsburgh says its program recognizes any business, nonprofit or other organization that...

PNC is closing two more bank branches in the Pittsburgh region. The branches at 100 Grant Ave. in Vandergrift and at Duquesne University are scheduled to close at 3 p.m. March 17. An ATM will remain open at the Vandergrift location but not at Duquesne, according to PNC spokeswoman Olivia...