Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 86
Gunman in St. Clair woman’s slaying testifies ‘a light switch flipped inside me’, saying others convinced him to kill
Robert Jack was standing in the driveway of a St. Clair home when he was asked to kill the woman who lived inside. The request from friend Matthew Bates caught Jack, 20, by surprise, he testified Thursday. Jack thought he was at the Furnace Lane home to hang out with...
Fire tears through home in Plum’s Logans Ferry HeightsVideo
About a dozen fire companies rushed to the scene of a fire that gutted a home in Plum on Thursday afternoon. The blaze was reported just after 3:15 p.m. on the 200 block of Dombroski Avenue in the borough’s Logans Ferry Heights neighborhood. It was about a half-mile away from...
Allegheny County Council members concerned about employees working with ICE
Allegheny County Council members during a Thursday meeting raised concerns that some county employees may be cooperating with U.S. Customs and Immigration enforcement. Six council members last month sponsored a bill that would prohibit the county from cooperating with ICE. The bill comes amid an uptick in ICE actions and...
Game commission releases ‘bonus’ pheasants across southwestern PennsylvaniaVideo
Five minutes after the Pennsylvania Game Commission released a couple hundred pheasants into the wild near Loyalhanna Creek on Thursday morning, the crack of the first gunshot echoed across the meadow. Each year, commission staff release “bonus” pheasants, left over from their annual breeding program. In anticipation of losing pheasants...
Westmoreland commissioner calls sheriff’s partnership with ICE invalid
An agreement signed last year by Sheriff James Albert that allows his deputies to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is invalid and cannot be enforced, a Westmoreland County commissioner said Thursday. “Did the sheriff have the authority to do this unilaterally? The (answer) is unequivocally no. He did...
Multifamily housing could sprout from a 13-story former office building in Downtown Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority is seeking a new buyer to take over its former Downtown office building. The URA moved out of 200 Ross St. about five years ago. The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh and several city departments who used the building have since left, too, all...
Casa San Jose to move into new building in Beechview
Casa San Jose is working virtually amid an uptick in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions — but when they return to in-person programming, they’ll have a new facility. The nonprofit immigrant advocacy organization is buying a building on Broadway Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighborhood — which has a significant...
Homeland Security shutdown seems certain as funding talks between White House and Democrats stall
WASHINGTON — A shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security appeared certain Thursday as lawmakers in the House and Senate were set to leave Washington for a 10-day break and negotiations with the White House over Democrats’ demands for new restrictions had stalled. Democrats and the White House have traded...
U.S. Steel fined $118K for safety lapses in Clairton Coke Works fatal explosion
U.S. Steel is facing 10 violations and $118,000 in fines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration related to last year’s deadly explosion at the Clairton Coke Works. The Pittsburgh-based company was cited nine times for inadequate safety procedures, employee training and equipment to isolate machines from energy sources. The...
Man killed in fall from building in Downtown Pittsburgh
A man died after falling from a building in Downtown Pittsburgh Thursday morning, public safety officials said. The fatal fall was reported around 11 a.m. Medics pronounced the man dead at the scene. He landed on scaffolding from an unknown height, police said. Officials did not immediately identify the man....
New effort aims to clean, maintain Pittsburgh’s riverfronts
Pittsburgh’s three rivers are often the first image that comes to mind when people think of the city. They welcome visitors emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel and dominate the skyline shots shown on television whenever Pittsburgh is in the spotlight, Mayor Corey O’Connor said. A new partnership between the...
Border czar hails a ‘safer’ Minnesota as he says the state’s immigration crackdown is over
MINNEAPOLIS — The Trump administration is ending the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, border czar Tom Homan said Thursday of the two-month operation that led to thousands of arrests, angry mass protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens. The operation, which the Department of Homeland Security called its “...
After deadly explosion, safety and environmental lapses at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works now rest with NipponVideo
For Don Furko, Aug. 11, 2025, was a normal shift. Until it became the shift he would never forget. At 10:47 a.m., U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works outside Pittsburgh — a sprawling riverside industrial facility and the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere — erupted in an ear-piercing...
Search for Nancy Guthrie now seeks nearby security videos from the month before she vanishedVideo
TUCSON, Ariz. — Investigators in Arizona want residents near Nancy Guthrie ‘s home to share surveillance camera footage of suspicious cars or people they may have noticed in the month before she disappeared. The alert went across a 2-mile radius in neighborhoods close to where the mother of “Today” show...
California man accused of sexually extorting Pitt student
A California man is accused of using a University of Pittsburgh student’s intimate photos as blackmail in a monthslong pattern of coercion. Michael Vaca, 19, was charged Wednesday with 55 counts of sexual extortion, terroristic threats, stalking, harassment and other crimes. Police say he obtained these images last summer while...
Pa. schools must teach cursive writing under bill signed by ShapiroVideo
Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday signed a bill that will require a cursive handwriting curriculum in all Pennsylvania public schools. “I’m definitely rusty, but I think my penmanship was OK!” Shapiro said in his Wednesday announcement. The bipartisan legislation, House Bill 17, was sponsored by Rep. Dane Watro (R-Luzerne and...
Officials quiet after Springdale man detained by ICE
Springdale and federal officials remained mostly mum Wednesday after the arrest of a borough resident by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Tuesday. Randy Cordova-Flores, 36, remains in custody at Northern Regional Correctional Facility and Jail near Moundsville, W.Va., according to ICE records. Originally from Peru, Cordova- Flores was detained after Springdale...
House GOP pushes strict proof-of-citizenship requirement for voters ahead of midterm elections
WASHINGTON — House Republicans rushed to approve legislation on Wednesday that would impose strict new proof-of-citizenship requirements ahead of the midterm elections, a long shot Trump administration priority that faces sharp blowback in the Senate. The bill, called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, would require Americans...
Ex-boyfriend testifies New Florence woman ‘despised’ her mother, discussed wanting to kill her
Melissa Fox-Beacom regularly brought up her hatred for her mother in conversations with her daughter’s ex-boyfriend, he testified Wednesday. She never referred to Alice Robson as mom. “ ‘My mother’ — she’d say it with an attitude,” Ace Vavrek remembered. “ ‘My mother.’ It’s like she despised her.” Even so,...
House votes to overturn Trump’s tariffs on Canada in rare bipartisan rebuke of White House agenda
WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to slap back President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare if largely symbolic rebuke of the White House agenda as Republicans joined Democrats over the objections of GOP leadership. The tally, 219-211, was among the first times the House, controlled by Republicans, has...
Imperial man pleads guilty to federal weapons charges
An Imperial man pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to weapons charges related to a pistol that was converted into a fully automatic handgun. Prosecutors said Ja’Shon Spencer, 22, was in possession of a machine-gun conversion device attached to a Glock semi-automatic pistol on June 16, 2025, otherwise known...
Deluzio says Trump administration abused its power in probe of ‘illegal orders’ video
Lawmakers targeted by the Justice Department after releasing a video telling servicemembers they have an obligation to refuse illegal orders said Wednesday they haven’t ruled out taking action against the Trump administration for “weaponizing the government” against them. “I’m not going to litigate and share our legal strategy here,” U.S....
Compromise sought to salvage controversial $6M Pittsburgh master plan
A Pittsburgh councilman has offered a compromise that could pave the way for consultants to finish a costly, controversial master plan for the city. Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, previously pushed for clawing back about $2 million that had not yet been spent on the $6 million effort. On Wednesday, he...
Verdict: Thomas Stanko guilty in murder of Cassandra GrossVideo
Kathe Gross let out a fist pump and a cheer in a Westmoreland County courtroom Wednesday as a jury convicted Thomas G. Stanko of first-degree murder in the 2018 disappearance of her daughter, Cassandra Gross. The verdict, delivered after four hours of deliberation, concludes a nearly eight-year legal saga for...
Pittsburgh push to regulate Airbnb, other short-term rentals, draws mixed reviews
Depending on who’s talking, short-term rentals are either depleting Pittsburgh’s housing stock and destroying local communities or helping the local economy and providing visitors with options beyond hotels. The dueling opinions were presented Wednesday to Pittsburgh City Council members, who are contemplating regulating short-term rentals like those through Airbnb and...
