Top Stories category, Page 1090
Students, parents protest state school mask mandateVideo
Students at several area school districts walked out of classes Tuesday in protest of the state’s mask mandate. In the Derry Area School District, students reported for school, then left the high school, carrying signs voicing their displeasure at being forced to wear masks. Police and school officials moved the...
Munhall man killed in ATV crash
A 22-year-old man was killed in an ATV crash Sunday in South Park, according to authorities. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Officer said Kyle Stramaski of Munhall was pronounced dead just before 6 p.m. The crash happened in the 4000 block of Piney Fork Road. Further information was not immediately...
Highlands Middle School to move to remote learning this week because of covid
Highlands Middle School students will be learning remotely for at least Tuesday through Friday because of a “high number of covid cases,” according to correspondence from the school district to middle school families. “During this time, our buildings and grounds staff will be cleaning classrooms, sanitizing and preparing to welcome...
Stepping up: 9/11 served as a call to military service for many Western Pennsylvania residentsVideo
When terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, shockwaves rippled through the nation and changed the course of history. For those who watched the World Trade Center towers fall 20 years ago and took it as a call to serve in the armed forces, it changed the course...
Actor Michael K. Williams, Omar on ‘The Wire,’ dead at 54Video
NEW YORK — Actor Michael K. Williams, who as the rogue robber of drug dealers Omar Little on “The Wire” created one of the most popular characters in television in recent decades, died Monday. Williams was found dead Monday afternoon by family members in his Brooklyn penthouse apartment, New York...
Overwhelmed morgues belie U.S. illusion of a defanged pandemicVideo
The fast-spreading delta variant has flooded hospitals across the South. It’s killed more people in Florida and Louisiana than the darkest days of the pandemic winter, and left so many covid-19 patients gasping for breath that some places face shortages of medical oxygen. This harsh reality, likely fueled by a...
The coming crisis in dementia care and why Pa. is woefully unprepared
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. Pat Loughney was sleep-deprived and panicked as he dug a partially eaten bar of medicated soap from his wife’s mouth in...
Greater Latrobe, Derry Area students plan walkouts to protest mask mandate
Some students at Greater Latrobe and Derry Area high schools are planning walkouts Tuesday morning to protest the statewide mandate requiring students, staff and teachers in K-12 schools to wear masks. Greater Latrobe organizer Spencer Bowman, a 17-year-old senior, said he hopes the school board will vote to buck the...
Burtner House marks 200th anniversary with free community celebration
Philip Burtner laid the cornerstone for his family homestead in 1818. James Monroe was president. It would be at least two decades before indoor plumbing was invented, and decades more would pass before homes had electricity. The three-story Burtner House in Harrison was completed in 1821 and life continued there...
First responders nationwide resist covid vaccine mandates
March 11, 2021. It was supposed to be a turning point in the coronavirus pandemic for Erin Tokley, a longtime Philadelphia police officer, Baptist minister and 47-year-old father of three. It was supposed to be the day of his vaccine appointment. Instead it was the date of his funeral. Tokley...
Ex-Marine held without bond in shooting of Florida family
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A former Marine sharpshooter who told authorities he was high on methamphetamines when he invaded a home in Florida and fatally shot a mother, her 3-month-old baby and two others was ordered held without bond during his first court appearance on Monday. Bryan Riley, 33, also...
After unrelenting summer, Biden looks to get agenda on track
WASHINGTON — The collapse of the Afghan government, a surge of covid-19 cases caused by the delta variant, devastating weather events, a disappointing jobs report. What next? After a torrent of crises, President Joe Biden is hoping to turn the page on an unrelenting summer and refocus his presidency this...
Hurricane Ida shows need for big infrastructure spending, White House adviser says
The devastation caused by Hurricane Ida shows the need for President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plans, a top White House aide said on Sunday. The sweeping $3.5 trillion infrastructure package being finalized by Democratic lawmakers will make critical investments in building resilience, shoring up the nation’s power grid and battling...
After covid hiatus in 2020, Labor United returns to Northmoreland ParkVideo
The skies were gray and the ground was a bit muddy on Sunday, but the Labor United Celebration is back. After being canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic, the two-day Labor Day festival got underway Sunday at Northmoreland Park in Allegheny Township. It concludes today. The festival features food,...
48 people shot over 37 hours in Chicago
CHICAGO — At least 10 children and teenagers were among the 48 shot in Chicago over the weekend through Sunday morning, according to information provided by police. The youngest child shot was a 4-year-old boy who was in critical condition after gunfire from outside went through the window of his...
Western Pa. business owners lament: Where have all the workers gone?Video
Rod Darby has a great location for The Trailside Pub & Restaurant, overlooking the Youghiogheny River in West Newton. Diners can sit on the deck watching hikers, bikers and runners travel the Great Allegheny Passage, the popular trail connecting Pittsburgh with Washington, D.C. Attracting customers to his business has not...
Fauci says covid-19 boosters likely to start with Pfizer shot only
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser said U.S. booster shots against covid-19 are likely to start only with the vaccine by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, while the Moderna Inc. shot may be delayed. “The bottom line is very likely at least part of the plan will be...
Hospitals in crisis in least vaccinated state: Mississippi
JACKSON, Miss. — As patients stream into Mississippi hospitals one after another, doctors and nurses have become all too accustomed to the rampant denial and misinformation about covid-19 in the nation’s least vaccinated state. People in denial about the severity of their own illness or the virus itself, with visitors...
Blind woman, 90, from Fawn receives Communion wearing the white dress she never had as a child
As Margaret “Peggy” Muriel Drinkwater Clink tried on the dress, she asked her daughter what color it was. “It’s white,” said Kim Griffith. “We want you to wear the white Communion dress you never had.” Clink inquired about the hue because she is blind. “My daughter said, ‘Mom, try this...
Demolition begins in downtown GreensburgVideo
With the push and pull of a 25-foot claw attached to heavy equipment stationed on South Pennsylvania Avenue in Greensburg, workers started the laborious task of bringing down a dilapidated former restaurant building Sunday morning. The three-story building that once housed the former Derby’s Delicatessen but has been vacant for...
2 anchors of covid safety net ending, affecting millions
WASHINGTON — Mary Taboniar went 15 months without a paycheck, thanks to the covid pandemic. A housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort in Honolulu, the single mother of two saw her income completely vanish as the virus devastated the hospitality industry. For more than a year, Taboniar depended entirely...
Police: Wrong-way crash in Fort Pitt Tunnel critically injures 1
A 36-year-old man was in critical condition after state police said his vehicle was hit head-on by another traveling the wrong way through the Fort Pitt tunnel. State police said Maraye Ann Alexander, 21, was driving a Toyota Camry when she entered eastbound I-376 from an unknown location and began...
Origin story of the Texas law that could upend Roe v. Wade
The road to a Texas law that bans most abortions in the state, sidestepping for now the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, began in a town called Waskom, population 1,600. The Supreme Court’s decision this past week not to interfere with the state’s strict abortion law, provoked...
Do we need humans for that job? Automation booms after covid
Ask for a roast beef sandwich at an Arby’s drive-thru east of Los Angeles and you may be talking to Tori — an artificially intelligent voice assistant that will take your order and send it to the line cooks. “It doesn’t call sick,” says Amir Siddiqi, whose family installed the...
Biden to mark 20th anniversary of 9/11 at 3 memorial sites
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will visit all three 9/11 memorial sites to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and pay his respects to the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. Biden will visit ground zero in New York City, the Pentagon and the memorial outside Shanksville,...
