Specials
‘We were given nothing’: Relatives of North Side shootout victims feel robbed of justice
Bridgette Mehalic settled wearily into the wooden chair of a Downtown Pittsburgh courtroom in January expecting justice. Instead, she got heartache. Mehalic was sure jurors would convict the man charged with killing her daughter Jacquelyn, 33, at a North Side bus stop during a wild shootout more than three years...
May 08, 2026
Digital gold rush: With data center boom heading to Western Pa., Virginia offers roadmap — and warnings
This is the first in an ongoing series on data center development in Western Pennsylvania and the impact it has on surrounding businesses and residents. Western Pennsylvania appears poised for what could be its biggest infrastructure boom since the end of the steel era. A new industry, one forged in...
March 27, 2026
The Marc Fogel Story: Finding a new normal, and working through guilt; ‘We will be thankful for generations’
On Aug. 13, 2021, Marc and Jane Fogel pulled away from their white colonial-style home in Oakmont to drive to New York City. There, they boarded a plane to Moscow to begin their final year teaching at the Anglo-American School, an elite institution built for the children of western diplomats....
February 10, 2026
An unexplained departure and a triumphant return to the U.S.Video
On Aug. 13, 2021, Marc and Jane Fogel pulled away from their white colonial-style home in Oakmont to drive to New York City. There, they boarded a plane to Moscow to begin their final year teaching at the Anglo-American School, an elite institution built for the children of western diplomats....
February 09, 2026
A life in prison: Fogel spends days reading, praying and grappling with unpredictable conditionsVideo
On Aug. 13, 2021, Marc and Jane Fogel pulled away from their white colonial-style home in Oakmont to drive to New York City. There, they boarded a plane to Moscow to begin their final year teaching at the Anglo-American School, an elite institution built for the children of Western diplomats....
February 08, 2026
‘Injustice system’: Fogel maps legal strategy for court, and ultimately feels Russian wrathVideo
On Aug. 13, 2021, Marc and Jane Fogel pulled away from their white colonial-style home in Oakmont to drive to New York City. There, they boarded a plane to Moscow to begin their final year teaching at the Anglo-American School, an elite institution built for the children of western diplomats....
February 07, 2026
From Darkness to Light: Marc Fogel’s journey to freedom
On Aug. 13, 2021, Marc and Jane Fogel pulled away from their white colonial-style home in Oakmont to drive to New York City. There, they boarded a plane to Moscow to begin their final year teaching at the Anglo-American School, an elite institution built for the children of western diplomats....
February 06, 2026
Impact of property tax relief from gambling revenue clouded by outdated formula
Before casino floors across Pennsylvania were filled with the clatter of slot machines and the flashing lights of jackpots, supporters of legalized gambling promised the expected revenue would be a sure bet to reduce property taxes. Today, state gambling officials and creators of Act 1, known as the Taxpayer Relief...
October 25, 2025
Carson Street comeback: South Side works to spiff up tarnished image
Pittsburgh’s best-known bar and nightlife district has been attracting attention lately for all the wrong reasons. This summer, a spike in trouble on South Side drew a heavy police response to control unruly crowds. Malcontents threw fireworks at officers, leading the head of the police union to label the neighborhood...
September 13, 2025
Rolling Rock Town Fair debuted at Westmoreland Fairgrounds 25 years ago todayVideo
If you grew up in Western Pennsylvania during the rise of alternative and grunge rock in the ’90s and early 2000s, there’s a good chance you recall hearing radio commercials for the annual Rolling Rock Town Fair. For a handful of years, some of the biggest names in modern rock...
August 05, 2025
Rooney family connection with Saint Vincent College spans generations, runs deeper than Steelers football
No matter where you look on the Saint Vincent College campus, it’s hard not to find the influence of the Rooney family. From Rooney Hall and Chuck Noll Field to Verostko Center for the Arts and the under-construction Dunlap Family Athletic and Recreation Center, the Rooneys — and by extension...
August 02, 2025
Route 30 crash hot spots a concern for motorists, property owners, police, PennDOT
A note left on the door of their new Hempfield home 21 years ago was the first sign of trouble for Kristie Harvey’s family. It was from a young driver, admitting to having hit a perimeter wall on Harvey’s lot just off the Cedar Street exit of Route 30. It...
June 28, 2025
For American Gold Star Mothers, Mother’s Day holds extra meaning
Kathleen Hanley sits on a red folding chair among the rows of headstones that stand in perfectly aligned rows at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Cecil. She doesn’t notice the sounds of cars rushing by on the highway or the funeral processions driving through. She is focused on...
May 10, 2025
5 years after covid struck, Pennsylvanians assess the pandemic’s impact
Five years ago this month, Pennsylvania’s chief executive scrambled to manage a global health crisis for which no one in the world was prepared. As leader of the nation’s fifth most-populous state, then-Gov. Tom Wolf found himself winging it like everyone else. He had no playbook for covid-19. “It looked...
March 08, 2025
Breakthrough treatments offer some sickle cell sufferers a cure, but barriers remainVideo
Esther Nkemakolam runs her fingers through kinetic sand and sings a “Moana” song as UPMC Children’s Hospital nurse Taylor Brennan gets to work drawing blood. Esther is back for her monthly blood transfusion. It’s a frigid February morning, but the routine is familiar for Esther, a bubbly 7-year-old first grader...
March 01, 2025
Wilkinsburg rising: Scrappy suburb sports signs of long-sought revivalVideo
One late January morning, Dontae Comans pushed his two youngsters in a shopping cart down the tidy aisles of Wilkinsburg’s new Aldi supermarket, the latest success story in the tattered borough’s ongoing revival. Moments earlier, Comans, Wilkinsburg’s first-term mayor, had presided over a grand-opening ceremony before joining scores of his...
February 22, 2025
From brownfield to crown jewel: Piatt’s $740M Esplanade project aims to spur Ohio River revival
When drivers emerge from the Fort Pitt Tunnel, they’re greeted by a majestic view of Pittsburgh’s dazzling rivers, the iconic Point State Park fountain and the city’s soaring skyline. And when Lucas Piatt glances left as he drives along the Fort Pitt Bridge, he can already envision the massive Ferris...
February 16, 2025
A year later, families of teens killed in North Park crash remain overcome with grief while fighting to move onVideo
Twice a week, Ellie Tourney eats lunch on a stone bench near her son’s grave. She doesn’t want her youngest boy to feel like he has been forgotten. Nearly a year has passed since Jonathan Tourney and Taylor Orlowski were killed on Christmas weekend when the speeding SUV they were...
November 30, 2024
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...
November 03, 2024
How Namdar Realty profits from Pittsburgh Mills and other ‘dying’ malls
The owner of Pittsburgh Mills mall has built a real estate empire by buying dying malls and letting them deteriorate before selling off property and walking away, leaving helpless communities in its wake, according to officials where Namdar Realty Group owns assets. New York-based Namdar boasts a portfolio of nearly...
October 19, 2024
Urban oasis: Farms sprout in Pittsburgh’s food deserts
Ebony Lunsford-Evans would like nothing more than to spend all day tending her crops and chickens. “I spend a lot of my time out here,” the woman known to some as Farmer Girl Eb said on a recent August morning, gesturing at the farm she runs in Pittsburgh’s Sheraden neighborhood....
September 28, 2024
Young voters in Western Pa. talk issues, candidates ahead of presidential election
The economy. A woman’s right to choose. A divided America. These are issues weighing on the minds of young voters as they ready themselves for the November presidential election between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump. More than half of young voters between 18 and 29 plan...
September 21, 2024
Plum community to observe Rustic Ridge anniversary 1 year later with no answers
As a Plum community pauses to remember those who died in a fatal house explosion a year ago, questions about the cause remain unresolved, and a mayor is demanding answers. Six residents of the Rustic Ridge neighborhood died as a result of the massive Aug. 12 explosion, which sent shock...
August 10, 2024
‘We’re not going down without a fight:’ 1 year into Pittsburgh police patrol, tide is turning on South SideVideo
While walking down East Carson Street at 12:52 a.m. June 8 in Pittsburgh’s South Side, city police Sgt. Andrew Robinson spotted a man standing outside a shuttered pizza shop, sifting marijuana into brown rolling papers. As Robinson approached, the man quickly ditched the drugs on a window ledge. The two...
June 29, 2024
Lawmakers, leaders call for release of Marc Fogel
Marc Fogel of Oakmont has been an international teacher since he was a student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In August 2021, he was arrested at the airport in Moscow for possession of 17 grams of marijuana, legally prescribed in Pennsylvania for a well-documented history of back and knee pain...
June 22, 2024