Top Stories category, Page 1289
Pennsylvania seeks money from 11,000 who received jobless aid
Pennsylvania wants about 11,000 residents to repay money officials say they never should have received — either by an honest mistake or fraud — through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. About 88% of the claims that have been processed for identity through the IDME verification system for PUA funding...
Nurses wanted: Swamped hospitals scramble for pandemic helpVideo
OMAHA, Neb. — U.S. hospitals slammed with covid-19 patients are trying to lure nurses and doctors out of retirement, recruiting students and new graduates who have yet to earn their licenses and offering eye-popping salaries in a desperate bid to ease staffing shortages. With the virus surging from coast to...
ATI to invest up to $85M in Vandergrift facility, phase out production of standard stainless steel
ATI said Wednesday it will phase out production of standard stainless steel sheet products and end finishing operations at its Brackenridge plant in Harrison as it shifts its focus to specialty rolled products. While finishing operations will end at the massive Brackenridge works, the $1.1 billion Hot Rolling & Processing...
Pittsburgh council tweaking covid-related sick leave legislation before final voteVideo
People who work in Pittsburgh and need to take time off because they test positive for covid-19 or are asked to quarantine would be given paid sick leave under legislation Pittsburgh City Council will consider for adoption next week. Mayor Bill Peduto spearheaded the proposal, which was introduced last week...
Trump supporters plan rally from Unity to Greensburg Saturday
President Trump’s supporters are gathering again Saturday outside the Westmoreland County Courthouse in Greensburg to protest the results of the election. The rally, which will feature speakers, starts at 2 p.m., said co-organizer Tony Naples. But the day will begin at the Trump House in Unity at 1 p.m. with...
Rep. Mike Kelly, Sean Parnell continue to pursue legal challenge to Pa. election results
A congressman and the challenger to Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb on Wednesday asked Pennsylvania’s highest court to stay its own order from last week as they wait to hear if the U.S. Supreme Court will take their case challenging the state’s mail-in voting law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court,...
Baby girl overdoses on heroin in East Deer while woman caring for her slept, police say
A 9-month-old girl overdosed on heroin Tuesday after police said she ingested the drug while the East Deer woman who was supposed to be caring for her slept. Paramedics who responded to the incident injected the baby with 2 milligrams of Narcan before rushing her to UPMC Children’s Hospital in...
10% of City of Pittsburgh’s employees are in covid quarantine, officials say
About 10% of the City of Pittsburgh’s workforce is off work because they are quarantining for possible covid-19 exposure, the city announced Wednesday. That amounts to about 330 of the city’s 3,300-person workforce. A smaller but unspecified number of workers are off because they’ve tested positive for covid. The workers...
Lawsuit: Allegheny County Jail staff beat, restrained women inmates
Three women formerly incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the facility and several officers alleging that they were “brutally assaulted” by a sergeant, who beat them, and improperly used a restraint chair and pepper spray on them. The purpose of the lawsuit, filed by...
Pennsylvania reports 2nd most new covid-19 cases, most new deaths since May
Pennsylvania reported 8,291 new covid-19 cases Wednesday, per the state Department of Health. The new cases represent the second-highest amount of new daily cases reported. To this point, the most new cases came Nov. 26 when 8,425 were reported. For the second consecutive day, the state also reported the highest...
Westmoreland County sets record for new covid-19 deaths
A day after Westmoreland County reached 200 covid-19 deaths, a new daily record was set. The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported Wednesday the county has 15 new coronavirus-related deaths, a single-day record. It brings the total deaths to 219. The seven-day death total (Nov. 26 through Wednesday) reached 47 deaths,...
Allegheny County nears another covid-19 milestone with new cases
Allegheny County reported 508 new covid-19 cases Wednesday, according to the county Health Department. Ages of new cases range from 3 months to 100 years old, with a median age of 47 years old. Dates of positive tests are from Nov. 14 through Tuesday, with only 14 positive tests being...
New Kensington shot-and-a-beer bar transformed into foodie havenVideo
Three self-described foodies have created a new dining and drinking experience in New Kensington. Friends and business partners Dante Cicconi, Corey Pistininzi and Sean Watson have opened botL, which Watson describes as “a restaurant with a bar.” The menu features 19 wines and 14 beers. Pistininzi makes a signature Old-Fashioned...
Editorial: Keeping hospitals from being swamped is a collective responsibility
The great fear with any disease is always death. We worry about how many people it will steal. But with a pandemic — a rising tide of illness that isn’t confined to one school district, one town or even one country — there is another concern that can be a...
U.K. authorizes Pfizer coronavirus vaccine for emergency use
British officials authorized a covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on Wednesday, greenlighting the world’s first shot against the virus that’s backed by rigorous science and taking a major step toward eventually ending the pandemic. The go-ahead for the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech comes as the...
Day-long snow total tops forecast, falls shy of record
The Pittsburgh area got a bit more snow than had been expected on Tuesday, but no records were broken, according to the National Weather Service. Nearly 7 inches, 6.8 to be precise, was measured at the National Weather Service office in Moon, where the official reading is taken, meteorologist Mike...
Tarentum Night Market organizers cancel December event, citing covid stay-home advisory
Organizers of the Tarentum Night Market have canceled the scheduled December event, citing Allegheny County’s advisory for residents to stay home unless going out for essential reasons because of the covid-19 pandemic. Allegheny County Health Department Director Debra Bogen issued the advisory Nov. 18. The last Night Market, for which...
Olives & Peppers opening at historic Greensburg train station
It’s been more than three years, but the long-awaited Olives & Peppers restaurant finally is set to open Thursday in the historic Greensburg train station. “It did take us a little longer than we had hoped, but we are really excited to open,” said Emily Williams, part of the family...
DuBois man killed when trucks collide on icy Indiana County road
A motorist from DuBois was killed when a tri-axle truck slid into his pickup truck Tuesday afternoon on Route 56 in Indiana County, police said Joel Edward Bundy, 58, died at the scene near the United School District campus in East Wheatfield Township, according to Indiana County Coroner Jerry Overman...
Motorist injured as car goes over hillside in Jefferson Hills
At least one person was injured when a car fell about 100 feet over a hillside in Jefferson Hills Tuesday night. Allegheny County officials said the crash took place around 10:45 p.m. along the 1400 block of Route 885. A portion of the state road has been closed. The crash...
‘This has got to stop’: Republican Georgia election official calls out Trump, GOP
A Georgia elections official has had it with threats against himself and fellow elections workers in that battleground state that was awarded to Joe Biden during last month’s presidential election. Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Voting Systems Implementation Manager, who is Republican, said emphatically in a Tuesday press conference that it has...
Pittsburgh Promise gives 10,000th scholarship
Vanessa Thompson remembers feeling stunned as she sat with her mother when they received that first college tuition bill in the fall of 2008. Thompson was attending Chatham University, the first in her family to go to college. “We’re both crying like ‘how are we going to pay this bill?’”...
Beloved Jeannette football coach Joe Mucci dies of coronavirus at age 86
Joseph G. Mucci was a legendary football coach in Westmoreland County. But he was much more than that, according to his former assistant coaches, players and people in the community. The beloved coach and administrator at Jeannette and Greensburg Central Catholic influenced a lot of people whose lives he touched....
Justice Department probing potential bribery, lobbying scheme for pardonVideo
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating whether there was a secret scheme to lobby White House officials for a pardon as well as a related plot to offer a hefty political contribution in exchange for clemency, according to a court document unsealed Tuesday. Most of the information in the...
Pa. to administer free covid tests in counties without health departments
Pennsylvania health officials announced Tuesday the state will begin administering free covid-19 testing in counties that do not have their own health departments. Only six Pennsylvania counties have their own health departments, including Allegheny and Erie counties in Western Pennsylvania. Other counties are Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester and Bucks. “Our goal...
