Regional category, Page 178

Radar confirmed that three tornadoes touched down in the region Thursday evening and National Weather Service surveyors will spend the next couple days gathering information about them and other potential twisters, according to meteorologist Jason Frazier. Those tornadoes were near Mt. Nebo and Hampton in Allegheny County and Buffalo Township...

A group of parents and guardians from across Western Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the acting secretaries of the state health and education departments, as well as UPMC, alleging that their children are being illegally denied medical exemptions from the school mask mandate. Ten plaintiffs from Kittanning, New...

The Allegheny Land Trust has conserved a 120-acre tract of woodlands and rolling meadows at the headwaters of Glade Run Lake in southern Butler County. The preservation is a collaborative effort between the trust, the Glade Run Lake Conservancy and longtime Middlesex Township landowner Joan Goswell. The land will be...

The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine for its role in an incident last month that killed about 1,500 fish in Dunbar Creek, Fayette County. A water line break on Sept. 11 near Connellsville triggered the incident. The authority sells water to more than...

A team of surgeons in New York reached a milestone last month in transplant medicine: A kidney from a pig attached to a human patient wasn’t immediately rejected — and the organ appeared to function normally. Announced this week, the procedure was performed at New York University’s Langone Transplant Institute....

The University of Pittsburgh is poised to join other colleges and universities that have mandated the covid-19 vaccination for students and staff. The school is weighing a policy change and expects to announce its decision soon, a Pitt spokesman confirmed. Pitt opted against requiring students, faculty and staff be vaccinated...

An Indiana County man is in the county jail on $100,000 bond after his arrest for robbing a bank in rural Plumville Tuesday afternoon. Brian Richard Potts, 33, of Marion Center, was arrested by state police after the InFirst Bank at 224 Main Street was held up at 12:31 p.m.,...

State prosecutors dropped a rape charge against an elected district attorney in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday but added new felony charges of sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault. Somerset County District Attorney Jeffrey Lynn Thomas waived a preliminary hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. Thomas, 36, is accused of...

Faculty members across the University of Pittsburgh celebrated the end of a five-year organizing drive Tuesday with the announcement that they had won a vote to become members of the United Steelworkers union. Officials said preliminary vote results indicated 71% of the eligible faculty members who cast ballots in the...

Pennsylvania casinos generated more than $415.6 million in September, a 46% increase compared to revenues generated during the same period last year, state regulators said. In all, casinos saw $130 million more in revenues last month than in September 2020, when they generated $285.5 million, according to a report from...

A Westmoreland County Children’s Bureau caseworker is charged with illegally accessing privileged information from the state’s anonymous child abuse hotline and providing the identity of a tipster to one of her relatives in Indiana County. County Detective Ray Dupilka on Tuesday obtained an arrest warrant for the worker Rebecca D....

A man from Johnstown and a woman from Tyrone were killed when the vehicles they were driving collided head-on early Tuesday in Indiana County, according to authorities. Dorian Caton, 22, of Johnstown, and Cassandra Lee Jones, 33, of Tyrone, each died of blunt force trauma in the crash that happened...

A Cambria County man was killed after the tractor trailer he was hauling rolled over multiple times in a crash early Sunday morning in Cherryhill Township. Lynn Farabaugh, 64, of Loretto, died of injuries sustained when the truck he was using to haul soybeans began to roll as it approached...

Parents have been at the forefront of urging school administrators to take a stand against the state’s September mandate requiring mask-wearing in K-12 schools. Meanwhile, objections from students have been rare. And school administrators responsible for enforcing mask-wearing have reported little to no issues from students. After the state Department...

The Fayette County coroner was called to the scene of a multi-vehicle crash in German Township Monday night, a Fayette 911 dispatcher said. Crews responded around 4 p.m. to 1865 McClellandtown Road for reports of the crash involving four vehicles. Information regarding any additional injuries was not immediately available. The...

Here’s a selection of images that caught our eye in the past week from Tribune-Review photographers. Previous weeks Week in pictures: Oct. 4-Oct. 10, 2021 Week in pictures: Sept. 28-Oct. 3, 2021...

Two tornadoes and straight line winds left behind damage in Beaver and Butler counties during heavy storms Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service in Moon. The tornadoes struck in Shippingport, Monaca and Freedom in Beaver County just after 6 a.m. The first one in Shippingport was rated EF0...

Misinformation and denial about covid-19 and its vaccine have left Dr. Heather Walker and her colleagues in the emergency department at Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital feeling defeated. “No matter what you do, it’s not enough,” she said. “It’s exhausting for everyone.” It’s also perplexing for doctors. How can a patient...

During National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, one doctor is pushing for broader access to support and resources for families experiencing pregnancy or infant loss. It’s something Dr. Marta Kolthoff emphasizes through AHN’s Perinatal Palliative Care Program. Kolthoff leads the program, which supports grieving families by providing palliative, hospice,...

As federal regulators move closer to approving booster shots of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson covid-19 vaccines, UPMC doctors remain focused on the unvaccinated — those they called most vulnerable people. “I want to make sure we do not put the cart in front of the horse,” said Dr....

Local foresters, outdoors enthusiasts, biologists and motorcycle riders all have their favorite places to see the fall panorama of leaves. Mountains, hillsides and river valleys are among the best places to view the fall leaf spectacle not just because of the volume of trees, but the variety. “The diversity of...

There wasn’t much peeping going on for the long-planned and sold-out Gateway Clipper fall leaf-peeping tour last weekend on the Allegheny River in Armstrong County. Although the boat ride was spectacular in its own right, “it was disappointing we could not control Mother Nature,” said Chris Ziegler, president of the...

There’s a chance for severe weather in the Pittsburgh area Friday as temperatures fall to seasonal norms, according to the National Weather Service. Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop throughout the day as a cold front approaches, and a few storms could become severe in the afternoon and...

The great wait is over for stakeholders at California, Clarion and Edinboro universities. Officials with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education made it official Thursday: the merged university that will include the three campuses will be known as Pennsylvania Western University, or PennWest for short, beginning July 2022. As...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Utility regulators have approved a request by two American Electric Power subsidiaries to keep three West Virginia power plants operational until at least 2040. The request granted Tuesday by the state Public Service Commission involves three coal-fired power plants operated by Appalachian Power Co. and Wheeling Power...