Top Stories category, Page 1318

Currying favor with Pennsylvania voters such as Laura Galvas, Alexandra Stehman and Flora Cruceta could prove crucial in the battle to claim Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes this fall. Like the other participants in ABC’s Philadelphia Town Hall — where they had an opportunity to question President Trump last week...

Police who fatally shot a man wielding a shotgun in New Kensington in March were justified in the killing, Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck ruled Friday. Marc Morgan, 62, of Upper Burrell, threatened to shoot Black people March 13 and refused to put down the shotgun, lobbing expletives at...

The updated guidance for high school sports and spectators promised by Gov. Tom Wolf was a no-show Friday. Instead, the state Department of Education released an afternoon statement encouraging schools “to voluntarily enforce the 25-person indoor and 250-person outdoor gathering limitations while all of us wait for the court to...

The Pittsburgh Art Commission held a special hearing Thursday to gather public comment on the future of the 62-year-old Christopher Columbus statue in Schenley Park. The statue has been the subject of debate as the city determines whether to remove or replace it. An online petition has garnered more than...

Let’s squarely face an ugly possibility: President Trump could get elected a second time without winning the popular vote. Indeed, according to most experts, that’s the only way he could be reelected. This would surely prompt another chorus of calls to scrap the Electoral College. I think that would be...

For the third time since April, state troopers on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Westmoreland County stopped a driver for traffic violations and ended up seizing more than 100 pounds of marijuana. Chui Jiang of Oklahoma City and Guangzhang Ye of San Antonio, both 41, were charged with manufacture, delivery and...

A Brentwood restaurant that continues to violate the state’s covid-19 mitigation orders — and whose owner spoke at a Harrisburg rally bragging about it — is facing action in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court as the health department attempts to prohibit it from operating. The Crack’d Egg, at 4131 Brownsville...

Pennsylvania on Friday reported 760 new coronavirus cases to raise the state’s total to 148,683 since March. There were 11,530 new negative cases reported, making the daily positivity rate 6.18%. The state’s seven-day average of new cases is 828. There were 172,682 tests administered in the past seven days with...

Famed Boston-based pizza reviewer Dave Portnoy descended upon Pittsburgh recently to review three pizza places, Beto’s Pizza and Fiori’s Pizzaria in Pittsburgh and Juliano’s in Robinson. He came away impressed by all three. Portnoy is well known as the celebrity founder of the sports and pop culture website Barstool Sports...

The future is uncertain for the popular Springdale eatery Ladles. The storefront on busy Pittsburgh Street still looks inviting, but the restaurant is closed. And while a sign on the front door reads, “We plan on reopening very soon,” Ladles’ future actually remains very much in doubt. “The future is...

When Michelle Kenney read Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey’s Instagram post in which he indicated he would remove her son’s name from his football helmet, she initially was offended and disappointed. “But when I read to the bottom of it,” said Kenney, the mother of Antwon Rose Jr., “I was...

More than a dozen people were displaced from their McKees Rocks home following a fire Thursday afternoon, according to the American Red Cross Greater Pennsylvania. Eight families, totaling 15 people, and a dog were forced to evacuate an apartment building in the 100 block of George Street. When crews arrived...

New Kensington-Arnold School District will be forced to go to a full hybrid schedule if too many students now learning from home choose to come back to school next month, Acting Superintendent Jon Banko said. Under a hybrid schedule, students would be in school only two days a week, Banko...

The Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline on Thursday denied a request from an Allegheny County judge charged with misconduct to be paid during the pendency of his suspension. In a one-sentence order, the petition by Judge Mark V. Tranquilli was denied. Tranquilli was suspended without pay on Aug. 26, two...

Allegheny County voters now have more options to vote early and submit ballots without relying on the mail or visiting a polling place on Election Day, officials announced Thursday. Concerns raised about voting during the covid-19 pandemic prompted the county’s Board of Elections to unanimously approve a proposal to open...

Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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 weekly newsletter. HARRISBURG — A federal judge sent a shockwave through Pennsylvania politics this week when he ruled that several actions taken...

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s leadership is accusing the news organization’s unions of violating bargaining rules as the newsroom prepares for a possible strike. The P-G’s Tennessee-based legal team filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against five unions representing about 200 employees, including reporters, photographers, copy editors, pressmen and...

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC are collaborating to develop a new antibody test — which they say is one of the fastest antibody tests in existence. The test uses a small drop of blood from a fingertip to search for the presence of two...

An elderly pedestrian died shortly after she was struck by a shuttle bus Thursday afternoon in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, officials said. The incident happened near the 3400 block of Terrace Street at about 3:30 p.m., Pittsburgh Public Safety officials report. Mary Flaherty, 76, of Monroeville was identified by the Allegheny...