Top Stories category, Page 26

NEW YORK — UnitedHealth said it will stop offering Medicare Advantage plans in 16 U.S. counties in 2026, impacting 180,000 members, as the company balances higher costs with reimbursement pressure in the insurance program. “The combination of (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) funding cuts, rising healthcare costs and increased utilization...

Allegheny County Housing Authority police Chief Mike Vogel recently paid $1,800 for his bulletproof vest. Through a federally funded grant program enacted by Congress in 1998, he should get a 50% reimbursement. But instead of $900, he received $450. “The bill hasn’t been written for 20-some years. We’re still using...

Passengers flying on bankrupt Spirit Airlines out of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport near Latrobe will lose the twice-weekly service to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in November but will gain two flights a week to Orlando, the airport’s chief officer said. The cutting and adding of service from Arnold Palmer Regional by...

Ross police are investigating a gunfight that took place in a parking lot at the Ross Park Mall on Tuesday evening. Emergency calls for the incident came in shortly before 8 p.m. The incident occurred near the Dick’s Sporting Goods and Nordstrom store, according to news partners WTAE. Ross Township...

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration on Tuesday proposed a penny-pinching budget that avoids a tax increase for 2026. Gainey’s $680 million operating budget — which funds basic city functions, like employee salaries, programming and utility bills — would increase spending from the roughly $666 million budgeted this year. That’s an...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government shut down much of its operations on Wednesday as deep partisan divisions prevented Congress and the White House from reaching a funding deal, setting off what could be a long, grueling standoff that could lead to the loss of thousands of federal jobs. There was...

With a government shutdown on the horizon, a series of polls released a day before the lights are set to go dark offer a divided picture of how Americans are viewing the crisis — and who they think is most to blame. In two national surveys released Tuesday, Americans were...

The federal government has entered a shutdown. TribLive has put together a collection of some of the federal government’s most recent shutdowns over the past 35 years. 2018-2019 The last shutdown happened during President Donald Trump’s first term when he insisted he would not sign any spending bill that did...

CHICAGO — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to bolster the use of artificial intelligence and provide an additional $50 million in research grants aimed at finding cures for childhood cancers, according to a White House official. The order builds on the National Cancer Institute’s Childhood...

UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s former chief radiologist was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison on child pornography charges. Ashok Panigrahy, 54, of Pittsburgh, pleaded guilty in March to charges of transporting and attempted transportation of materials depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of material depicting...

Route 28 coming out of Pittsburgh is jammed because of a crash. The crash happened around 4 p.m., closing the northbound lanes between the Millvale and Etna interchanges, a PennDOT spokesman said. The crash was cleared and the road began reopening around 4:40 p.m., but traffic remained congested from the...

The owner of popular Monroeville-area eatery D’Imperio’s who was known as much for his hospitable nature as his restaurant was for its authentic Italian food has died. Restaurant owner, Vietnam veteran and first-generation Italian immigrant Anthony “Tony” D’Imperio died on Sept. 6 at age 81. No cause of death was...

The accused stood nervously in front of an Allegheny County jury and pledged to prove he didn’t kill his mother and her friend in Homestead last year. Defendant John Malcolm Smith V, 26, of McKeesport was acting as his own lawyer Tuesday, the start of his double homicide trial. He’s...

A man whose blood-alcohol level was more than triple the legal limit when he drove the wrong way on the Parkway East earlier this year and killed two women will spend up to six years in state prison. Pedro Olan Morales, 57, of Charlotte, N.C., pleaded guilty on Tuesday to...

Last year, after Sean Black pointed a gun at his ex-girlfriend’s face, her grandmother called him. He assured her he wouldn’t have shot Courtney Smith and said he would give the guns to his mother. He didn’t. Instead, a month later, Black took his guns and walked into the Blawnox...

Republican leaders in the state Senate said Tuesday they plan to introduce legislation to forgive the interest payments on Treasury loans designed to help county governments and Head Start providers weather Pennsylvania’s budget impasse. “They should not be penalized because of what is happening here in Harrisburg,” state Senate President...

Pittsburgh landlords can no longer turn down potential tenants because they are or have been homeless. City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure that bars housing discrimination based on homelessness and a variety of other types of housing status, including lack of rental history and having previously lived in...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Pfizer will cut the price of all prescription drugs in the Medicaid program for low-income Americans and sell new prescription drugs at a “most favored nation” price in exchange for tariff relief. Trump also said he expects other drugmakers to follow suit....

Meijer, the Michigan-based grocery chain known for its sprawling supercenters, is coming to Western Pennsylvania. Fresh off its expansion in Northeast Ohio, Meijer is pushing across the state line and acquiring properties in Western Pennsylvania, spokeswoman Erin Cataldo confirmed Tuesday to TribLive. The stores do not have opening dates. “Our...

A judge on Monday pushed pause on Pittsburgh’s plans to eliminate a lane of traffic on a bustling stretch of Penn Avenue through the Strip District. Judge Alan Hertzberg granted an injunction for the Strip District Business Association, a group that sued the city earlier this month over the proposed...

Lisa Sprague does what she can on her own, but nerve damage caused by multiple sclerosis means she needs help getting out of bed, bathing and completing other daily tasks. The state pays for 13 hours of care every day at her Harmar home, a bungalow retrofitted with a wheelchair...

A Fayette County woman who pleaded no contest to murdering her daughter and spent a decade in prison is now free after serious questions were raised about the prosecution’s key evidence. The Fayette County District Attorney’s Office last week withdrew a homicide charge against Andrea Dusha, who was accused of...

The failure of Pennsylvania lawmakers to pass a budget for the fiscal year that began nearly three months ago is inspiring several pieces of legislation aimed at preventing such impasses in the future. In the House, a bill from state Rep. Jill Cooper, R-Murrysville, would suspend paychecks for the governor,...