Top Stories category, Page 153
AI-powered heart scans transform care at Allegheny Valley Hospital
Cardiovascular analysis that used to take hours can now be done with the click of a button at Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison. As artificial intelligence seeps into almost every aspect of life, the technology is helping to revolutionize medical care at the Allegheny Health Network community hospital. “When you...
Fireflies are making a noticeable return to Western Pa.
The flickering fields of summer nights are back. Fireflies, it seems, are abundant again. Throughout the region, people are noticing more of the largely nocturnal, flashing insects. Once a staple of summer evenings, lightning bugs had seemed to become scarce over the past few years thanks to a loss of...
Dick’s Diner in Murrysville to be featured as 1 of ‘America’s Best Restaurants’
Jim Fox III remembers sitting down to a table at Dick’s Diner as a child with his father, even though his dad was the founder of the popular Fox’s Pizza chain. The family recognized the appeal of a small-town diner like Dick’s. Today, Fox owns the restaurant, which will be...
Judge orders Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops, arrests in California
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven California counties, including Los Angeles. Immigrant advocacy groups filed the lawsuit last week accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California during its ongoing...
Fallout over Epstein files cascades, roiling relations between AG Pam Bondi and FBI’s Dan Bongino
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and FBI are struggling to contain the fallout and appease the demands of far-right conservative personalities and influential members of President Donald Trump’s base after the administration’s decision this week to withhold records from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. The move, which included the...
West Nile virus found in mosquito samples from multiple Allegheny County neighborhoods
Allegheny County Health Department officials announced mosquitoes collected in certain parts of the county this month tested positive for West Nile virus. Samples found to have the virus were taken July 8 from Wilkinsburg, Schenley Park, Mt. Washington, Beltzhoover, Mt. Oliver and Hazelwood. West Nile virus is the leading cause...
Jeannette grad Pryor, Franklin Regional grad Lee make MaxPreps top 100 list
Two WPIAL Hall of Fame members who played at Westmoreland County high schools were named to MaxPreps’ top 100 high school athletes of the 21st century. The high school sports website recognized top athletes from 2001 to present, with staff members each presenting a list if more than 200 candidates....
Families clash at Downtown Pittsburgh DMV, person flashes gun
Pittsburgh police responded to a fight Friday afternoon at the PennDOT Driver & Vehicle Services on Smithfield Street. Emily Bourne, a city public safety spokeswoman, said the fight broke out around 2:30 p.m. between two separate families who were in line at the DMV. Bourne could not identify how many...
Monessen man appeals life prison term for rape, child murders
A judge abused his discretion by reimposing a life prison sentence for a Monessen man convicted of raping of a young mother and murdering her children in 1973, his attorney claims in court papers. Defense attorney Mark Shire argued in an appeal filed Friday that his client, John Veltre Jr.,...
Kraft Heinz to split, report says
Kraft Heinz may be headed for a breakup. The packaged food conglomerate is planning to spin off a large chunk of its grocery business, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, effectively undoing a 2015 merger that’s now widely regarded as a strategic blunder. Anonymous sources told the newspaper the new...
911 service restored in Pennsylvania; state official says investigation underway
911 service has been restored in Pennsylvania. Late Friday, 911 calls resumed routing as normal across the state and an investigation into what caused an hours long outage was ongoing, according to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. In a post on social media just before midnight, the agency reported 911...
VA insists veterans services remain robust in Pittsburgh despite staff departures nationwide
Pittsburgh-area veterans won’t see any interruption to their care or benefits, the Department of Veterans Affairs claims, even as thousands of its employees head for the exits nationwide. The department is on pace to lose nearly 30,000 employees, or about 6% of its workforce, by the end of September. Already,...
Allegheny County creates new way for workers to report threats to union rights
Allegheny County launched a web page Thursday for workers to report violations or threats to their union organizing rights. The move comes at a time of local labor flare-ups and gridlock at the National Labor Relations Board. This new, confidential Right to Organize Incident Report Form asks for information about...
Pitt approves tuition and fee increases for fall term, lifts hiring freeze
Tuition for students at the University of Pittsburgh will increase again. The $3.2 billion budget, approved Friday by the Board of Trustees, includes a 2% tuition increase for in-state undergraduate and gradate students attending the Oakland campus, a 4% hike for out-of-state students and a 1% increase for students attending...
Appeals court throws out plea deal for alleged mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks
WASHINGTON — A divided federal appeals court on Friday threw out an agreement that would have allowed accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty in a deal that would have spared him the risk of execution for al-Qaida’s 2001 attacks. The decision by a panel of the...
Pittsburgh housing authority pares voucher programs over fears of 2026 federal budget cuts
The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh intends to scale back some programs benefiting low-income residents, landlords and developers amid fears of massive federal budget cuts next year. The government is proposing to slash nearly $27 billion for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Any such cuts...
Lane closures at Squirrel Hill tunnel begin Sunday
Motorists planning on taking the Squirrel Hill Tunnel should prepare to alter their routes, because starting Sunday night the tunnel will be down to one lane. The single-lane closures will begin at 10 p.m. and last through 5 a.m. Friday morning, while inspections take place, according to a Pennsylvania Department...
Pennsylvania man who posted video of father’s severed head online is found guilty of murder
DOYLESTOWN — A Pennsylvania man who posted a video of his father’s severed head on YouTube was convicted of murder Friday and sentenced to life without parole. Bucks County Judge Stephen A. Corr found Justin D. Mohn, 33, guilty in the January 2024 shooting death of his father at their...
Safe to splash? State parks, watershed associations monitor rivers for E. coli contamination
When it rains, it pours E. coli. That’s what water quality testers across Western Pennsylvania might tell you right now. Every week during the summer months, volunteers and employees monitor the region’s public waterways for E. coli, which can flow into lakes and streams from agricultural and sewer systems overwhelmed...
Trump plans to hike tariffs on Canadian goods to 35%
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in a Thursday letter that he will raise taxes on imported goods from Canada to 35%, deepening a rift between two North American countries that have suffered a debilitating blow to their decades-old alliance. The letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is an...
Trump praises Fetterman for saying calls to abolish ICE are ‘inappropriate and outrageous’
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D.-Braddock, is still tweeting about ICE after earning President Donald Trump’s praise Wednesday for slamming calls to abolish Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Fetterman said “ICE performs an important job for our country” in the first of a pair of posts uploaded to X on Thursday. “Any...
Judge halts demolition of Homer City plant over contract dispute
Demolition at the site of a planned $10 billion project with a 4.5-gigawatt natural gas-fired plant near Homer City that would power a data processing center has been halted. Frontier Industrial Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., was granted a preliminary injunction by Allegheny County Judge Philip A. Ignelzi. It prevents Homer...
Time’s up for lengthy public comments at Westmoreland commissioners meetings
The Westmoreland County commissioners have no time for excessive talk. Responding to what they said was a growing level of belligerency in political speech, the county commissioners, before the start of Thursday’s public meeting, announced a heightened enforcement of time constraints placed on public comments. Commissioners Chairman Sean Kertes told...
Brazil vows retaliatory tariffs against U.S. if Trump follows through on 50% import taxes
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Thursday that he will impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States if President Donald Trump follows through on a pledge to boost import taxes by 50% over the South American country’s criminal trial against his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro....
Secret Service still reforming after Trump assassination attempt in Butler
After the Secret Service announced the suspension of six staffers over failures that led to the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump last year in Butler, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly commended the Secret Service’s new leaders for working to reform the agency. “I applaud Director (Sean) Curran and Deputy Director...
