Top Stories category, Page 1303
PNC to buy U.S. unit of Spain’s BBVA bank for $11.6 billionVideo
NEW YORK — PNC Financial Services Group Inc. said Monday it is buying the U.S. subsidiary of Spain’s BBVA bank for $11.6 billion in cash. BBVA’s U.S. operations, which are based in Houston, Texas, have $104 billion in assets and operate 637 branches, mainly in the south and southwest of...
Trump campaign drops key request in Pennsylvania lawsuit
HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump’s campaign is withdrawing a central request in its lawsuit seeking to stop the certification of the election results in Pennsylvania, where Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump to capture the state and help win the White House. Ahead of a Tuesday hearing in the case, Trump’s...
Moderna coronavirus vaccine appears 95% effective in early U.S. tests
For the second time this month, there’s promising news from a covid-19 vaccine candidate: Moderna said Monday its shots provide strong protection, a dash of hope against the grim backdrop of coronavirus surges in the U.S. and around the world. Moderna said its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, according...
Power still out for many after winds sweep through the region, toppling trees and utility lines
Service has been restored for all but a handful of the nearly 3,500 Duquesne Light customers who lost power on Sunday when high winds swept through Southwestern Pennsylvania, toppling trees and downing power lines. But a majority of the more than 10,600 local customers of West Penn Power who lost...
Pittsburgh police seek suspect in fatal shooting in Carrick on Sunday
A man who was shot by an assailant in Pittsburgh’s Carrick neighborhood late Sunday night died after being transported to a hospital for treatment, according to city police. Officers and emergency medical services responding to a 911 call for two people shot in the 2000 block of Brownsville Road at...
State seeks to add Pittsburgh-to-New York City Amtrak train
Amtrak’s proposal to add another Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg daily round-trip train in about three years is good news to Sharon Calloway of Uniontown, a frequent traveler on the Pennsylvanian train from Greensburg to New York City, where she works. “It would be nice to have more than one option,” said Calloway, who...
Michigan halts high school classes, indoor restaurant diningVideo
LANSING, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration on Sunday ordered high schools and colleges to stop in-person classes, closed restaurants to indoor dining and stopped organized sports — including the football playoffs — in a bid to curb Michigan’s spiking coronavirus cases. The restrictions will begin Wednesday and last three...
Allegheny County reports ‘beyond concerning’ record 527 new coronavirus cases
Allegheny County added a record 527 new coronavirus cases to its total on Sunday, shattering the previous high by more than 100. The new cases bring the county’s total to 20,026, becoming the second county in the state with more than 20,000. (Philadelphia has the most with 48,817 and surpassed...
Delayed start to transition of power hurts coronavirus-fighting effort, Biden team saysVideo
WASHINGTON — With President Trump still balking at conceding electoral defeat and public health experts forecasting a horrific new phase of the covid-19 pandemic, calls intensified Sunday for the start of a formal transition to the administration of President-elect Joe Biden. The nationwide virus caseload last week touched unprecedented heights...
Iron City Beer ad returns to Mt. Washington billboard for 1st time in 66 years
Old is new again. At least when it comes to the billboard atop Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington. For the first time in roughly 66 years, an ad for Iron City Beer is being displayed on the Lamar Advertising Co.-managed billboard that overlooks the city. The ad went up Saturday and will...
Trump urges judge to preserve suit over Pennsylvania ballots
The Trump campaign urged a judge to preserve its bid to block Pennsylvania from certifying President-elect Joe Biden as the winner, claiming there’s evidence that voters in Democratic-leaning counties were improperly allowed to fix errors with their ballots. In a filing Sunday in federal court, the campaign said a half-dozen...
New cases prompt Penn-Trafford to close Penn Middle School through Wednesday
Penn Middle School will be closed Monday through Wednesday because of an increase in covid-19 cases. Penn-Trafford School District officials notified parents in a letter emailed Sunday from Superintendent Matthew Harris. There are five active covid-19 cases at the school, two of which were added over the weekend. Four of...
Biden team to meet with pharma companies soon on coronavirus fight
President-elect Joe Biden’s team will begin meeting with Pfizer Inc. and other pharmaceutical companies within days as they continue the transition to a new administration amid the escalating coronavirus pandemic, his chief of staff said Sunday. “We’re going to have meetings between our top scientific advisers and the officials of...
Thanksgiving turkey questions? Experts offer up advice
Your role for Thanksgiving dinner might be different this year. “I suspect we will have a lot of first-time turkey makers,” said Carol Miller, one of 50 Turkey Talk-Line experts for Butterball, a turkey brand and the largest producer of turkey products in the U.S. “With so many people staying...
SpaceX launches 2nd crew, regular station crew flights begin
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company. The Falcon rocket thundered into the night from Kennedy Space Center with three Americans and one Japanese, the second crew to be launched...
High winds, power outages hit region as storms blow through Western Pa.
More than 13,000 customers of West Penn Power Co. and Duquesne Light were without power Sunday afternoon as a result of high winds that swept through Southwestern Pennsylvania, toppling trees and down power lines, the utility companies and emergency dispatching centers reported. Wind gusts of 50-to-60 mph were widespread, National...
Time to discuss potentially unpleasant side effects of covid-19 shots? Scientists say yes
Drugmaker Pfizer is expected to seek federal permission to release its covid-19 vaccine by the end of November, a move that holds promise for quelling the pandemic, but also sets up a tight time frame for making sure consumers understand what it will mean to actually get the shots. This...
Poll workers contract virus, but Election Day link unclear
Despite painstaking efforts to keep election sites safe, some poll workers who came in contact with voters on Election Day have tested positive for the coronavirus, including more than two dozen in Missouri and cases in New York, Iowa, Indiana and Virginia. The infections cannot be tied definitively to polling...
Man in stable condition after shooting in Pittsburgh’s North Side
A man shot in the arm Saturday night in Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood was hospitalized in stable condition, city police said Sunday. Police said they received a report that a man, who was not identified, was shot about 7:25 p.m. in the 3500 block of Brighton Road. Officers applied a...
Trump seems to acknowledge Biden win, but he won’t concede
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to acknowledge for the first time that Joe Biden won the White House, but made clear he would not concede and would keep trying to overturn the election result. Trump’s statements came in tweets that included several baseless claims about the Nov....
James Buchanan not a tough act to follow for Biden as 2nd president from Pennsylvania
Some say he was the worst president in U.S. history. Pennsylvania’s James Buchanan served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 until 1861. Historians consistently rank him at or near the bottom of the list of presidents. His failure to deal with the secession movement is considered,...
Biden likely to break barriers, pick woman to lead Pentagon
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a historic step and select a woman to head the Pentagon for the first time, shattering one of the few remaining barriers to women in the department and the presidential Cabinet. Michele Flournoy, a politically moderate Pentagon veteran, is regarded by...
Thousands rally behind Trump, insisting he won race he lost; violent clashes break out
WASHINGTON — After several thousand supporters of President Donald Trump protested the election results and marched to the Supreme Court, nighttime clashes with counterdemonstrators led to fistfights, at least one stabbing and more than 20 arrests. Several other cities on Saturday also saw gatherings of Trump supporters unwilling to accept...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Now it’s time to come back together
Gloating is not our most attractive trait, but it is a natural human response. Republicans gloated plenty in 2016 when Donald Trump beat odds-on favorite Hillary Clinton for president. They kept it up for four years, celebrating Trump’s moves more if they aggravated Democrats more. And now Joe Biden has...
Woman dies in Washington County motorcycle crash
A woman died in a motorcycle crash in Washington County Saturday afternoon, according to the Washington County Coroner. The coroner’s office said the crash happened around 2:30 p.m. on Old Steubenville Pike in Robinson Township. According to the coroner, Kristine Irvine, 48, was a passenger on a motorcycle traveling west...
