Top Stories category, Page 1795
Workers at Hempfield Rita’s donating tips to woman injured in deadly weekend crash
Employees at the Hempfield location of Rita’s Italian Ice & Frozen Custard are raising money for a woman who survived a Sunday car crash that claimed the lives of two people. According to a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, Cait Tracy is fighting for her life after the crash...
House panel votes AG William Barr in contempt, escalating probe disputeVideo
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress, escalating the Democrats’ extraordinary legal battle with the Trump administration over access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report. The vote capped a day of ever-deepening dispute between congressional Democrats and President...
Gov. Tom Wolf started 2nd term with hefty raises to senior aides
HARRISBURG — About a dozen of Gov. Tom Wolf’s senior aides are starting his second term with pay raises that ranged from $25,000 to $33,000. The recipients include members of the Democratic governor’s public relations staff and deputy chiefs of staff who coordinate between the governor’s office and various executive...
3 firefighters injured in 7-alarm fire in EtnaVideo
Three firefighters were sent to hospitals with minor injuries suffered battling a seven-alarm blaze at a large commercial building in Etna. The first call came in at 2:18 p.m. Wednesday to the building in the 400 block of Butler Street, near Route 28. An Etna firefighter said the building houses...
Monroeville Mall shooting suspects identified, DA says
Police have identified suspects in last month’s shooting at the Monroeville Mall and arrests are imminent, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said Wednesday. Zappala said investigators used surveillance cameras and license plate recognition software to identify the suspects in the April 12 shooting at a first-floor entrance...
Suspect in disappearance of Whitehall woman had her cellphone, DA says
A McKeesport man suspected in the disappearance of a Whitehall woman who is presumed to be dead had the woman’s cellphone and used it to send a text message, according to Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. Zappala said Elizabeth Wiesenfeld, 67, who has been missing since April...
Allegheny Land Trust eyeing former Churchill Valley Club site
A nonprofit wants to preserve the land on which the defunct Churchill Valley Country Club once sat. Representatives of Allegheny Land Trust said May 8 they are working to raise the money needed to buy the 148-acre property along Beulah Road in Penn Hills and Churchill in order to preserve...
Pittsburgh grand jury indicts 2 Israelis in alleged Darknet conspiracy
Two Israeli citizens are accused of facilitating online sales of illicit drugs and guns in exchange for nearly $15.5 million worth of Bitcoin kickbacks. U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady described the case Wednesday as “the single most significant law enforcement disruption of the Darknet to date.” “This case represents the...
How risky are ticks in Pennsylvania? Survey hopes to find out
Jesy Murcko spent Saturday clearing brush from a hillside at her family’s camp in the Allegheny National Forest, so she wasn’t surprised to find a tick on her. She wasn’t crazy, however, about finding two ticks on her 2-year-old son Wade, who was playing in short grass near the woods...
Uber and Lyft drivers strike for pay transparency
SAN FRANCISCO – Uber and Lyft drivers in multiple cities nationwide launched strikes and demonstrations Wednesday to lobby for better pay and transparency. The demonstrations, which could prove disruptive to riders and raise the profile of movements to secure better driver pay and benefits, highlight a contradiction: Technology has long...
Trucker charged in crash that killed couple en route to Pittsburgh weddingVideo
HAMBURG — A truck driver has been charged with vehicular homicide in a fiery crash last fall that killed a couple driving to their wedding in Pittsburgh. State police say 24-year-old Jaspreet Singh Chahal, of Frenso, Calif., is also charged with reckless endangering and misdemeanors in the Nov. 14 crash...
Pittsburgh employees rescue 10 ducklings from West End storm drain
A group effort by Pittsburgh paramedics, police and Public Works employees helped save 10 ducklings from a West End storm drain Wednesday morning. Paramedics were driving on South Main Street at about 6:30 a.m. when a woman flagged them down and alerted them to the trapped ducklings, said Public Safety...
Cops: Mt. Pleasant fugitive found hiding under bed at mother’s home
A Mt. Pleasant area man wanted for skipping several court hearings following recent drug arrests was discovered by Westmoreland County sheriff deputies Tuesday hiding under a bed in his mother’s house with several baggies and a jar of crystal methamphetamine nearby, according to court documents. Members of the sheriff’s department...
Idlewild offering free admission for veterans, service members
Military veterans and service members will get free admission to Idlewild & SoakZone on May 25 through Veteran X, a peer-support program in Westmoreland County. Three immediate family members of the veteran or service member also will get into the Ligonier Township amusement park for free. A free lunch will...
Trump: GM to sell Lordstown, Ohio, plant to electric truck company
DETROIT — General Motors plans to sell its shuttered factory in Lordstown, Ohio, to a company that builds electric trucks. President Donald Trump announced the deal with a company named Workhorse on Twitter Wednesday morning. He also wrote that GM plans to spend $700 million at three locations in Ohio...
Walmart raises minimum age to buy tobacco to 21
NEW YORK — Walmart said Wednesday that it will raise the minimum age to buy tobaccoproducts and e-cigarettes at its U.S. stores to 21 amid growing pressure from regulators to cut tobacco sales and use among minors. The world’s largest retailer also said it will also stop selling fruit and...
Lidia’s in the Strip District gets a health department consumer alert
Lidia’s Pittsburgh, an Italian restaurant in the Strip District, received a consumer alert Tuesday from the Allegheny County Health Department. The health department said the restaurant’s prep coolers were not working and not maintaining safe temperatures for cold food. The restaurant also kept “potentially hazardous food” past the use-by date,...
Orphaned bear cub rescued behind Rite-Aid in Pottsville
Pennsylvania Game Commission wardens received a call last month about a lone bear cub behind a Rite-Aid drugstore in Pottsville, Schuylkill County. Sure enough, Game Warden James Macunas and state police found the small cub without a mom in sight on April 28, according to a game commission account on...
Ed Asner discusses Holocaust play in Pittsburgh, Tree of Life, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’Video
Actor and activist Ed Asner has been in Pittsburgh this week playing a Nazi concentration camp survivor in the stage play “The Soap Myth.” Asner’s character Milton Saltzman swears that he is a witness to the Nazis manufacturing of soap made from the corpses of murdered Jews. Not everyone believes...
Police: Missing Kentucky teen found in Glassport man’s apartment
A Glassport man is in jail after police found a missing Kentucky teenager naked inside his apartment, police said. The 16-year-old girl from Paducah, Ky., allegedly told police that she was going to marry the man and he’d protect her. Rory Shelton, 56, is charged with interfering with the custody...
1 killed, 4 injured when motorcycle hits Amish buggy in Ohio
MIDDLEFIELD, Ohio — Authorities say a motorcycle has struck an Amish buggy in Ohio, killing the man driving the motorcycle and injuring all four people in the horse-drawn vehicle. A State Highway Patrol release says 26-year-old Brandon Lee, of Middlefield, died at the scene of the crash that occurred around...
Gov. Wolf to honor Fred Rogers with ‘143 Day’ in Pennsylvania
If you don’t already know why the number 143 was so significant to Fred Rogers, then May 23 will be your day to learn. To get you up to speed, the beloved children’s show host loved the number because it was a sort of code for “I love you” —...
Trump invokes ‘privilege,’ aims to block full release of Robert Mueller’s report
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is invoking executive privilege, reserving the right to block the full release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia probe, escalating President Donald Trump’s battle with Congress. The administration’s decision was announced just as the House Judiciary Committee was gaveling in to...
At least 2 handguns used in Denver-area school shooting that killed 1
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — Two high school students used at least two handguns in the shooting at a charter school that killed one of their classmates and injured eight others in a Colorado community that just weeks ago marked the 20th anniversary of one of the nation’s worst school shootings,...
Three Mile Island nuclear plant to proceed with closure
HARRISBURG — The owner of Three Mile Island, site of the United States’ worst commercial nuclear power accident, says it now appears certain it will not get a financial rescue from Pennsylvania and said it will go ahead with a planned shutdown starting June 1. Exelon Corp.’s Wednesday statement comes...
