Top Stories category, Page 1130
Alle-Kiski Valley residents find many reasons to celebrate on Fourth of July
Alle-Kiski Valley residents found all sorts of reasons to get together and celebrate on Sunday, whether for the Independence Day holiday, birthdays, relief from the covid pandemic — or just to enjoy the day. For the small congregation of Vermont Baptist Church in New Kensington, morning services under a pavilion...
Delta’s rapid spread clouds summer with fear of covid revival
The fast-spreading delta variant is clouding Americans’ hopes for a carefree summer — and casting a shadow of doubt over plans to get back to business as usual in the fall. The shift in sentiment marks a reversal from the spring, when it looked like the U.S. immunization campaign would...
Cuba evacuates 180,000 as Tropical Storm Elsa approachesVideo
HAVANA — Cuba evacuated 180,000 people amid fears Sunday that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. The Cuban government had opened shelters and moved to protect sugarcane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm. Most of those evacuated went...
Redistricting reform in Pa. is dead for now, advocates say. So what’s next?
This article is part of a yearlong reporting project focused on redistricting and gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. It is made possible by the support of Spotlight PA members and Votebeat, a project focused on election integrity and voting access. HARRISBURG — Redistricting reform supporters in Pennsylvania are having a moment of...
North Apollo woman hopes to inspire others through her weight loss
The display on the scale read “379.” “I cried when I saw that number,” said Debbie Gerardi of North Apollo, who was in the hospital for back surgery in February of 2018. “I thought to myself, ‘How did I get here?’ I was so big that the nurses had trouble...
Biden: U.S. ‘coming back together,’ but covid not yet finished
WASHINGTON — Calling a vaccination “the most patriotic thing you can do,” President Joe Biden on Sunday mixed the nation’s birthday party with a celebration of freedom from the worst of the pandemic. He tempered the strides against covid-19 with a warning that the fight against the virus wasn’t over....
Hundreds turn out for inaugural 5K in memory of late state Rep. Mike ReeseVideo
Never underestimate the motivating power of a whole smoked hog. The smell of smoked meat wafted through Mammoth Park on Sunday morning, teasing the taste buds of participants in the inaugural Mike Reese Memorial 5K Roast, Run & Family Fun event, organized in memory of former state Rep. Mike Reese,...
People along the U.S.-Canadian border await word of reopening
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — In a normal, pre-covid-19 summer, scores of pleasure boats are anchored in Lake Champlain off the Burlington waterfront by July 4, with most of them from Canada. But the anchorage is nearly empty this year because of the ongoing border closure. People who rely on those...
Pope Francis hospitalized for planned intestinal surgery
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis went to a Rome hospital on Sunday for scheduled surgery on his large intestine, the Vatican said. The news came just three hours after Francis had cheerfully greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square and told them he will go to Hungary and Slovakia in...
Summer swelter trend: West gets hotter days, East hot nights
As outlandish as the killer heat wave that struck the Pacific Northwest was, it fits into a decades-long pattern of uneven summer warming across the United States. The West is getting roasted by hotter summer days while the East Coast is getting swamped by hotter and stickier summer nights, an...
Widow wants Harrison to allow dog daycare in business district
Six years after buying a building for her business in Harrison, Kim Ringer can’t use it for the main reason she bought it. Ringer said township zoning officials assured her and her late husband, Bruce, more than once before buying the former home goods store-turned-car dealership at 3041 Freeport Road...
Nurse shortage is crippling hospitals, centers that provide care in Western Pa.
A long-predicted shortage across the continuum of nursing and direct care workers has come home to roost in the coronavirus pandemic. Shortages are rippling across the country, fueled in part, experts say, by pandemic trauma and burnout. The issue is critical in Western Pennsylvania. In a region characterized by a...
Used car prices jump as new car production dropsVideo
Those looking to buy a late-model car, truck or sport utility vehicle may suffer from sticker shock when they see the price of used vehicles, which the U.S. government’s consumer price index calculates have risen by about 30% since May 2020. “It’s all about the inventory. There’s a high demand...
Armstrong coroner: Butler man dies when motorcycle hits flat bed truck on Route 422
A Butler man was killed Saturday afternoon when the motorcycle he was riding collided with a truck on Route 422 in Armstrong County. Coroner Brian K. Myers identified the victim as Kenneth Robert Shaffer, 60, of Butler. According to Myers, Shaffer was traveling east on Route 422 and a Ford...
VFD: Firefighter injured during vacant house blaze in Monessen ‘in good spirits’
A Charleroi firefighter was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital Saturday after falling through the floor of a burning house in Monessen, officials said. The fire at 418 Parkway Ave. was reported about 2:45 p.m., said municipal Fire Chief Delmar Hepple. Although the house is vacant, Hepple said firefighters were told...
Harmar eaglets take first flights; young Crescent Township eagle collides with car
A Fox Chapel photographer documented the first flights of the two young bald eagles from a nest above Route 28 in Harmar this week. The bald eagle couple, which is in its eighth year of nesting on the same hillside, has produced 13 young birds in total that have successfully...
Steelworkers union says it achieved its goals in proposed pact with ATI
The United Steelworkers union is scheduling meetings to explain a tentative, four-year contract agreement with Allegheny Technologies, Inc. to its members and for them to vote on ratifying it. ATI and the union announced Friday that they had reached the tentative agreement. If approved, it would end a strike that...
Hundreds of motorcyclists join 2nd Patriot Thunder/Back the Blue ride in LatrobeVideo
Anyone who slept in late Saturday morning in Latrobe was likely awakened to the sound of a couple hundred motorcycles rumbling through town. And that’s exactly what city resident Zeke Barr was hoping for. “That’s the whole idea: Patriot Thunder — a whole lot of noise,” said Barr, who serves...
Failure by Pa. officials to clarify rules around medical marijuana, addiction treatment had serious consequences
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. BENSALEM — Tyler Cordeiro slept on a couch outside his mother’s Bucks County home, suffering from opioid withdrawal. His sister took a photo of his mother, Susan...
Plans advance for 20-story apartment complex in Downtown Pittsburgh atop YWCA building
A proposed 20-story tower with 300 apartments atop an existing Downtown Pittsburgh building was approved for a zoning variance on Thursday. The developer, City Club Apartments, LLC, is seeking to purchase and build upon the YWCA of Pittsburgh building at 305 Wood Street, near Point Park University. The three members...
‘So sweet’: Farms anticipate abundant corn season
After a challenging growing season in 2020, local farms are returning to normal levels of success with this year’s weather to produce much-anticipated sweet corn. Greg Forejt Jr. of Windy Heights Farm Market in East Huntingdon said last season was too dry, resulting in the loss of about half of...
Lottery spokesperson: Cluster of major area scratch-off prizes likely ‘pure luck’
Pennsylvania’s second-most-famous groundhog urges lottery players to “keep on scratchin’.” That advice resulted in some major scratch for Indiana County resident Randy Lytle. He won $3 million on a Monopoly 100X scratch-off ticket he purchased on Memorial Day at the Giant Eagle supermarket in Ligonier. He cashed in by risking...
Harrison family displaced by fire; kids’ fears of trapped mom unfoundedVideo
As fire engulfed their Fourth Street house Friday, Antoine and Alyssa McDaniel of Harrison thought their mother was trapped in her bedroom. “We were freaking out and screaming,” said Alyssa McDaniel, 20. “But we couldn’t go in her bedroom. It was all in flames.” It turns out their mother, Dana...
ATI, Steelworkers reach tentative pact
Specialty steelmaker Allegheny Technologies Inc. reached a tentative contract Friday with its striking steelworkers, which could end a walkout that began March 30, if ratified by those on strike. The tentative contract with the United Steelworkers and the 1,300 ATI employees at nine plants was reached after three days of...
Florida condo building deemed unsafe, evacuation ordered
NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — The city of North Miami Beach ordered the evacuation of a condominium building Friday after a review found unsafe conditions about 5 miles from the site of last week’s deadly collapse in South Florida. An audit prompted by the collapse of Champlain Towers South in...
