Top Stories category, Page 1374
Only Native American on federal death row executed
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The only Native American on federal death row was put to death Wednesday, despite objections from many Navajo leaders who had urged President Donald Trump to halt the execution on the grounds it would violate tribal culture and sovereignty. With the execution of Lezmond Mitchell for...
Hockey players, parents urge Pa. to change indoor sports regulations
Hockey parents and players gathered at Center Ice Arena in Delmont on Wednesday evening to call for changes to the state government mandate limiting indoor athletic events. This summer, the office of Gov. Tom Wolf released a series of safety guidelines for a return for all amateur sports, from youth...
Pittsburgh’s school board reappoints superintendent for 4-year term
Superintendent Anthony Hamlet will stay on with Pittsburgh Public Schools until June 2025, the school board voted Wednesday. In a meeting that lasted well over two hours and at times grew contentious, the majority of members spoke out in support of Hamlet. Initially hired at a salary of $210,000, Hamlet’s...
County fairs, similar events have been canceled, but food vendors still set up shop
A piece of the Westmoreland County Fair is living on through food vendors who have set up shop in the Westmoreland Mall parking lot this week. John the Greek Food Concessions and Seivers Pit Stop Grill are scheduled to serve food through Sunday, located in the parking lot near JCPenney....
Pittsburgh police seek help finding man missing since early July
Pittsburgh police seek public help finding a man missing for more than a month. Authorities said Bryan Kisiel, 41, was last scene in Squirrel Hill North on July 6. He’s described as a white man standing 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighing around 180 pounds with brown hair and brown...
Pittsburgh police looking for driver of a Ford Mustang that hit pregnant pedestrian
A pregnant pedestrian was struck by a car along East End Avenue in Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon, according to police. Public Safety spokeswoman Cara Cruz said the woman was walking on the sidewalk around 4:20 p.m. and was waiting to cross the street at a crosswalk at Tuscarora Street when...
Union members join industry groups to rally against state caps on power plant emissions
Union workers — seeking a voice at the table in fossil fuel policies at the state and national level — rallied Wednesday at the coal-fired Cheswick Generating Station. Organized by the Power PA Jobs Alliance, a coalition of labor and business groups spanning Southwestern Pennsylvania, the event targeted the negative...
UPMC tops $11B in revenue in 1st half of 2020
UPMC took in $11.1 billion in revenue in the first half of 2020 — nearly $1 billion more than the same time period last year — despite grappling with hospital losses during the pandemic-spurred lockdown, the nonprofit health system reported Wednesday. By July, as patient volume picked up following a...
Pa. leaders loosen childcare restrictions as families balance work, online learning
Most children across the state are returning to school in partially online , and Pennsylvania leaders say they are adding more flexibility to childcare options as parents work to balance their jobs with their children now learning from home. That flexibility includes temporarily suspending some regulations in order to create...
Judge Tranquilli suspended without pay for alleged misconduct; trial in October
The Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline on Wednesday suspended Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark V. Tranquilli without pay effective immediately and has scheduled his trial on allegations of judicial misconduct to begin on Oct. 5. Tranquilli apologized in a letter to colleagues that was circulated this week. In an...
CDC, Pa. health department ease up on covid-19 travel guidelines
Federal and state officials have eased up on some of their guidelines for coronavirus-related travel restrictions. On Monday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health removed Arizona from its list of travel restrictions originally announced on July 2. No new states were added. The states that remain on Pennsylvania’s travel restriction list...
Woman accused of stealing pickup truck, nearly colliding with state trooper on Route 30 in Hempfield
A woman on probation for illegally driving on to the airfield of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in 2018 was arrested again late Tuesday for driving the wrong way on Route 30 in Hempfield, narrowly missing a state trooper. Police say Dakota J. Jones, 26, of Greensburg, was arrested in a...
Fayette County priest charged with sexually assaulting 11-year-old boy
A 65-year-old priest who worked in Fayette County is charged with the sexual assault of an 11-year-old altar boy in the early 2000s. Father Andrew M. Kawecki of Scottdale faces two counts of indecent assault and one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse in connection with a series of incidents...
Unattended laundry spontaneously combusts in Etna laundromat fire
Unattended laundry started a dryer fire that firefighters quickly knocked down Wednesday afternoon at the Wash and Wear Laundromat at the corner of Dewey Street and Crescent Avenue in Etna. Firefighters were on their way to another scene when the dryer fire was called in by a patron of the...
Pitt bars 8 students from campus for violating covid-19 guidelines
University of Pittsburgh officials barred eight students on Wednesday for flouting the university’s rules and guidelines meant to mitigate the spread of covid-19 among students, a spokesperson for the school said. “We must do better,” Dean of Students Kenyon Bonner wrote in an email to students Wednesday afternoon. The eight...
Allegheny County officials consider easing coronavirus restrictions
Weeks after Allegheny County and then the state Department of Health re-implemented restrictions on bars, indoor dining and gatherings, county health officials on Wednesday said those efforts are working and there are signs the virus is relenting. Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, said she is...
Police suspect medical issue behind fatal Harmar crash at Route 28 exit
A medical condition is suspected in a crash that killed one man and seriously injured another in Harmar on Tuesday night, according to township police. Robert Burkardt, 68, of Penn Hills was the driver in the crash on Route 910 at the southbound Route 28 exit that was reported to...
Justice Department seeks data about covid-19 nursing home deaths from Pa., 3 other states
The Justice Department is seeking data about “orders which may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents,” sending letters Wednesday to the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Officials say Wednesday that the Justice Department’s civil rights division is evaluating whether to...
Get aht, yinz! Rankings indicate Pittsburgh accent among ‘ugliest in all of America’
Don’t tell the locals in the crowd dahn Carson Street on a non-pandemic Saturday night, but the way Pittsburghers talk isn’t sexy. “The Western Pennsylvania English accent is often considered the ugliest in all of America, so Pittsburgh locals can feel lucky that they’ve escaped last place this time around,”...
Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers hatch new plan to undermine Wolf’s emergency powers
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 — Thwarted by court rulings and vetoes, Republicans in the legislature unhappy with Gov. Tom Wolf’s response to the...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh-filmed series ‘Manhunt: Deadly Games’ premiering on CBS
The series “Manhunt: Deadly Games,” which filmed in Pittsburgh from June to October 2019, will finally be available for local viewers to watch when it advances to its second window of distribution, premiering at 10 p.m. Sept. 21 on CBS’s KDKA-TV. “Manhunt: Deadly Games” was produced for Spectrum Originals, which...
All polling places to be open Election Day across Westmoreland County; crush of mail-in ballots expected
All 307 polling locations across Westmoreland County will be open for in-person voting in the November general election, county commissioners said. “We want to give people the option to use our new machines. They are still brand new, and we’re still paying for them,” said Commissioner Sean Kertes. Commissioners were...
Pittsburgh to cover the cost of infertility treatments for its employees
Next year, Pittsburgh will offer free fertility coverage to its employees, the city announced Wednesday. “City officials heard from employees that they would like the coverage,” said Tim McNulty, Mayor Bill Peduto’s spokesman. “The city is always seeking ways to support its workers, including watching best practices used by other...
In documentary, Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger reveals he had option to retire after injuryVideo
Ben Roethlisberger made the choice to have surgery over opting to retire in the wake of his injury early last season, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback revealed during the first part of a documentary released Wednesday. During a 15-minute professionally-produced video published to YouTube, Roethlisberger said in the wake of the...
Pennsylvania reports 501 new coronavirus cases, 19 new deaths
Pennsylvania on Wednesday reported 501 additional cases of coronavirus to bring the state’s total to 130,536. Of the total cases, 126,835 are confirmed and 3,701 are considered probable. There have been 1,457,642 negative tests, according to the Department of Health. The daily positivity rate is 3.86%. Pa. coronavirus by dayInfogram...
