Top Stories category, Page 989
Biden on Russia’s Putin: ‘This man cannot remain in power’
WARSAW, Poland — President Joe Biden said Saturday that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” dramatically escalating the rhetoric against the Russian leader after his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Even as Biden’s words rocketed around the world, the White House attempted to clarify soon after Biden finished speaking in Poland...
77 townhouses headed to Penn Township in final phases of Blackthorne Estates
More housing is headed to Penn Township. Township commissioners have approved Blackthorne Estates’ phases VI-B and VII, which will add 77 townhouses to the luxury golf course community more than 25 years in the making. The townhouses, to be built by Ryan Homes, will feature three bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms, two-car...
Somerset DA Thomas’ defense attorney calls sex assault case ‘political’
SOMERSET — Describing the sexual assault case against Somerset County’s suspended district attorney as “political,” Jeffrey Thomas’ defense attorney suggested on Friday that he might raise issues about whether the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General should be prosecuting the case. Following a pretrial hearing, defense attorney Ryan Tutera offered hints...
Third eaglet hatches in Hays nest, keeping mom and dad busy finding food
With the arrival of the third and final chick Friday, the Pittsburgh Hays bald eagles are busy feeding their brood. The harried couple feeds the hatchlings up to 17 times a day, according to statistics from last year’s breeding season from PixCams. The Murrysville company partners with the Audubon Society...
Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins dead at 50
LOS ANGELES — Taylor Hawkins, for 25 years the drummer for Foo Fighters and best friend of frontman Dave Grohl, has died during a South American tour with the rock band. He was 50. There were no immediate details on how Hawkins died, although the band said in a statement...
Former Carrick couple sentenced for violent physical, sexual abuse of children
It has been more than 10 years since Seth and Trista Price harmed their two children. Since they beat them. Since they sexually abused them. In the intervening years, the boy and girl were adopted by new, loving families. They assumed new last names. They endured intensive therapy and hospitalizations....
TV Talk: Pam Surano exits KDKA-TV for job with Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh
KDKA-TV freelance reporter Pam Surano has left the station and joined the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh where she’s now working as producer/assignment editor for another former KDKA mainstay: Jennifer Antkowiak, who is the diocese’s executive director of communications and community relations. Surano said Antkowiak, who Surano had met previously...
Disabled former state trooper gets nearly $2M in lawsuit against agency
A federal judge awarded a former Pennsylvania state trooper nearly $2 million on Thursday after a jury found he was forced to retire because of a disability. Robert Newton, of Butler County, worked as a procurement and supply officer on permanent limited duty status because of a disability in his...
Pitt professor in Ukraine tells U.S. ‘send money and weapons’Video
During a week when President Biden visited Europe and promised the U.S. would provide $1 billion to deal with the surge in Ukrainian refugees from the attack by Russia, a University of Pittsburgh economics professor living in Ukraine was asked what his country really needs from the United States. “Weapons,”...
Pittsburgh metro area loses population, leads nation in natural population decline
The Pittsburgh metropolitan area lost 13,755 residents between July 2020 and July 2021, according to U.S. Census estimates. The biggest factor of that loss was the region’s natural decline, which is when an area experiences more deaths than births. The Pittsburgh metro area’s natural decline of 10,383 was the largest...
‘It’s been too long’: Family of slain Wilkinsburg mother pleads for answersVideo
Latoya Gathers said her 7-year-old granddaughter sometimes cries and calls out for her mother during the night. The girl was at home in Wilkinsburg last year when two men came in, demanded money and then shot her mother, Zaviawna Gathers. Gathers, 26, was pronounced dead in a second-floor bedroom at...
Ice shelf collapses in previously stable East Antarctica
An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday. The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had...
Feds charge 2 men with hate crimes in Beaver County care-home abuse case
Two men already charged in Beaver County now face federal hate-crime counts, with prosecutors accusing them of abusing physically and intellectually disabled residents at a care home where they worked. An indictment against the men said they punched and kicked residents in the face, choked them and sprayed and rubbed...
Police ID man who ripped state flag from pole at Hempfield gas station, charges expectedVideo
State troopers on Friday identified a man who ripped the Pennsylvania state flag from a pole outside a Sheetz convenience store in Hempfield. The flag was flying at half-staff in honor of two troopers who were killed in the line of duty this week. Trooper Steve Limani said tips from...
Stained-glass windows from former Mt. Pleasant parish rescued by historical society
A last-minute rescue this month resulted in several pieces of century-old Mt. Pleasant history being returned to Western Pennsylvania after spending almost two decades of being stored inside a warehouse near Columbus, Ohio. Nine stained-glass windows, weighing between 700 and 900 pounds each, that adorned the former Transfiguration Roman Catholic...
Fire marshal: Stove may have caused fatal New Kensington fire
A stove being used to heat a New Kensington home may have caused a fire in which a woman died this month, a state police fire marshal said Thursday. Angel A. Gray, 49, died in the March 6 fire in a duplex at 554 Fourth Ave. Her husband, Bob Gray,...
Medal of Honor Day focuses on service members awarded for valor in battle
The Medal of Honor is the United States’ highest award for military valor, and American presidents have presented more than 3,500 of them since the medal was established in 1862. In 1990, Congress designated March 25 as National Medal of Honor Day to recognize the medal recipients, many of whom...
Nebraska U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry found guilty in campaign probe
LOS ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska was convicted Thursday of charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser. A federal jury in California found the nine-term Republican guilty of one...
Wilkinsburg man and woman arrested for Edgewood stabbing
Allegheny County Police have arrested two people allegedly responsible for the March 20 stabbing of a woman in Edgewood. Chazadee Miller, 24, and Shayron Coleman, 27, face felony and misdemeanor charges for the assault, according to court documents. At 3:25 a.m. on Sunday, the woman was stabbed in the shoulder...
Pennsylvania to raise tip threshold for tipped minimum wage
HARRISBURG — Tipped employees in Pennsylvania will soon have to make more than four times as much money in tips to be paid below the state’s minimum wage, under a new regulation that adjusts for 45 years of inflation. The unanimous vote this week by the five-member Independent Regulatory Review...
Report: Justice Thomas’ wife ‘Ginni’ urged overturning 2020 electionVideo
WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according...
Man wanted in New Year’s Eve triple homicide arrested in McKeesport
A man wanted in the New Year’s Eve slaying of three people — including his ex-girlfriend and her 12-year-old son — was arrested Thursday in McKeesport, about 10 miles from the scene of the Homewood homicides. Ronald Steave, 29, has been on the run since the Dec. 31 when police...
Pittsburgh man found guilty of 3rd-degree murder of man in Arnold
A Westmoreland County jury spared a Pittsburgh man from a mandatory life sentence Thursday by acquitting him of first-degree murder in a 2019 fatal shooting in Arnold. Jurors found Shawden L. Ross, 35, guilty of third-degree murder in the killing of Lamont Simmons, 27, of Arnold on April 5, 2019,...
U.S. Steel hit with $4.5M fine for alleged emissions violations
Allegheny County Health Department leveled a $4.5 million fine against U.S. Steel, alleging more than 800 emissions violations at the Clairton Coke Plant over more than two years. The health department said the fines are related to what it called uncontrolled push violations. In the coke production process, pushing is...
Idlewild sets earlier park opening day, boosts pay for seasonal work
Officials at Ligonier Township’s Idlewild and SoakZone have some good news for fans of the family amusement park as well as those interested in working at the attraction. Responding in part to heightened public interest in picnic reservations, the park will open May 7 — two weekends earlier than previously...
