Top Stories category, Page 329
The Home Stretch: Here’s the election news for Nov. 5, Election Day
Today is the day! Right now we’re the calm before the storm, but as we wait with bated breath for tonight, we’re the ones who have work to do. Here’s what’s in the news today — but most importantly, go out and vote! Where is everyone? After a final day...
Pittsburgh man guilty of killing 3 in Homewood
The evidence, the judge said, was “compelling and uncontradicted.” Video, blood and ballistics put Ronald Steave inside the Hamilton Avenue home early on the morning of Dec. 31, 2021. And then, when he fled, the judge continued, there was more evidence of “flight, concealment and elimination.” “While not elaborate and...
Western Pa. voters cast their ballots amid expected record voter turnout
Polling places are closed for in-person voting across Pennsylvania, a swing state that will play a pivotal role in determining who will be the next president. Officials expected a record turnout of voters Tuesday amid a National Weather Service forecast of sunny skies with a high in the low 80s....
Harris and Trump make final pushes in Pittsburgh stops
The next American president rallied Pittsburgh-area voters Monday as a contentious campaign comes to a close. Both candidates — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic heir to President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump, who has transformed the Republican Party with his bombastic, populist rhetoric — visited the region...
Editorial: It’s your turn to change the world
OK. That’s it. The 2024 election cycle might be the longest and the shortest ever. In some ways, it feels like it’s been going on since Donald Trump announced his Republican candidacy in 2015. In some sense, it might be dated to 2021, when the former president suggested he would...
Controversial Mt. Pleasant Halloween parade entry not a hate crime, officials say
An entry in Mt. Pleasant’s annual Halloween parade that disturbed many people with an apparent depiction of Democratic Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris handcuffed and tethered to a golf cart did not rise to the legal definition of a hate crime, according to borough officials. Borough Solicitor Leslie...
Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely
Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his demands that the winner of the presidential race be declared shortly after polls close Tuesday, well before all the votes are counted. Trump set the pattern in 2020, when he declared that he had won during the early morning hours after Election...
Pennsylvania election officials weighing in on challenges to 4,300 mail ballot applications
HARRISBURG — More than 4,000 mail ballot applications have been challenged across 14 Pennsylvania counties, leaving election officials to decide voter eligibility during hearings that will extend well past Election Day. State elections officials say the “mass challenges” focused on two separate groups — people who may have forwarded their...
Arnold man pleads guilty to killing pedestrian with car in North Braddock
An Arnold man will serve two to four years in state prison after pleading guilty Monday to homicide by vehicle in a crash that killed a 75-year-old Braddock man. Tyrell Jimmie Knight, 37, was charged in the Nov. 9, 2023 death of Harry Harold King. According to Allegheny County Police,...
McKeesport man gets 15 to 30 years for shaking infant son to death
A McKeesport man who pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for fatally shaking his infant son will serve at least 15 years in prison. Michael Barber, 31, pleaded guilty on Aug. 5 before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer Satler. On Monday, she ordered him to serve 15 to 30 years...
National Weather Service warns against outdoor burning, game commission prohibits camp fires as dry conditions linger
Exceptionally dry weather and wind gusts have created an increased brush fire danger, the National Weather Service warned in a special weather statement. It has been nearly a month since the Pittsburgh region has seen a “wetting” rain of at least one-tenth of an inch, meteorologist Bill Modzelewski said. The...
Judge mulls verdict in Homewood triple homicide after closing arguments
In the hours before prosecutors said Ronald Steave killed two women and a 12-year-old boy, videos showed the three adults having sex together. During Steave’s nonjury homicide trial Monday, the prosecution presented still images and video from late Dec. 30, 2021, into early New Year’s Eve that showed Nandi Fitzgerald...
Pennsylvania faculty union joins national AFT
The union representing more than 5,000 faculty and coaches across Pennsylvania’s 10 state-owned universities is the latest to affiliate with AFT, a nationwide union of education and other workers. Members of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties approved the affiliation in a three-day election last week. It...
Irwin man pleads guilty but mentally ill to killing girlfriend at Monroeville hotel
An Irwin man pleaded guilty but mentally ill on Monday for killing his girlfriend at a Monroeville hotel nearly three years ago. Matthew Gribschaw, 40, will be sentenced on one count of third-degree murder by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Susan Evashavik DiLucente on Jan. 30. Police say Gribschaw killed...
Witness ID, cellphone left at crime scene lead to charges in Stowe homicide
A cellphone left near the scene of a fatal shooting in Stowe this weekend, along with a witness, helped lead police to the Pittsburgh man they charged with pulling the trigger. Curtis Horne-Baker, 34, of Pittsburgh’s Sheraden neighborhood, remained Monday in the Allegheny County Jail in connection with the shooting...
Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes can proceed, a Pennsylvania judge says
PHILADELPHIA — The $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes that Elon Musk ‘s political action committee is hosting in swing states can continue through Tuesday’s presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday. Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta — ruling after Musk’s lawyers said the winners are not chosen by chance —...
Burrell teen gets scholarship for a sport she’s never played
Lilly Householder figured the email she got from the Eastern Michigan University rowing team was a mistake. The Burrell High School girls soccer captain had created an online recruiting account to play soccer at the collegiate level, fulfilling a lifelong dream. She grew up playing soccer with her older sister,...
Pittsburgh police Acting Chief Ragland orders ‘all hands on deck’ for election week
While there’s no indication the final hours of the presidential race will spur unrest in Pittsburgh, city police are prepared for any problems, Acting Chief Christopher Ragland said Monday morning. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police intelligence unit has not seen evidence of any specific, election-related threats, Ragland said during a...
Democrats, once supreme in Pittsburgh region, now overtaken by GOP
The Southwestern Pennsylvania pendulum has shifted. Democrats once held an iron grip on the eight-county Greater Pittsburgh region during the heyday of steel, but that clutch loosened once the mills collapsed, allowing Republicans increasingly to win over more yinzers as the decades passed. Lew Irwin, a 59-year-old political science professor...
Hikers, bikers travel twisty new North Huntingdon trail
About 40 people went back and forth Sunday afternoon along a trail up a steep hillside in North Huntingdon’s Braddock’s Trail Park. Hikers and mountain bikers were following the painted orange trail blazed from across the parking lot of the park on Robbins Station Road and up the 1¼-mile Switchboard...
High anxiety: 2024 election takes heavy toll on stressed-out voters
World War III. A crippled economy. Unbridled immigration. Civil war, with American democracy in the crosshairs. These are the apocalyptic scenarios preoccupying supporters of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. As election season enters its final hours of the 2024 race for the American presidency, Pennsylvanians find themselves balanced on a...
Republican member of FCC claims Harris’ ‘Saturday Night Live’ appearance could violate equal time rules
A Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission voiced concerns that Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend may have violated a rule that requires networks to provide equal airtime to both candidates. “The purpose of the rule is to avoid exactly this type of biased...
Oklahoma storms injure at least 11, leave thousands without powerVideo
OKLAHOMA CITY — Severe storms and tornadoes battered Oklahoma early Sunday, tossing cars and ripping roofs off buildings in the middle of the night and leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power. Among numerous injuries, 11 people required hospitalization, authorities said. Much of the damage was reported...
Trump talks about reporters being shot and says he shouldn’t have left White House after 2020 lossVideo
LITITZ, Pa. — Donald Trump delivered a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before Tuesday’s presidential election, talking about reporters being shot and suggesting he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. In remarks Sunday that bore little resemblance to the speech he’s...
The Home Stretch: Here’s the election news for Nov. 3
We’re on the 48-hour countdown to Election Day. While everyone’s day may be jam-packed with errands, football and family dinners, the candidates are still criss-crossing the battleground states in a last-ditch effort to reach every swing voter. Here’s what’s going on today. Where is everyone? Republican presidential nominee former President...
