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...
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...
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...
Breakthrough treatments offer some sickle cell sufferers a cure, but barriers remain
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...
Wilkinsburg rising: Scrappy suburb sports signs of long-sought revival
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...
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...
A year later, families of teens killed in North Park crash remain overcome with grief while fighting to move on
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
‘We’re not going down without a fight:’ 1 year into Pittsburgh police patrol, tide is turning on South Side
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...
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...
Student art heats up at Hazelwood’s Industrial Arts Workshop youth welding program
In the cavernous, noisy workspace of the Industrial Arts Workshop, tucked away on Herbert Way in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, sparks are flying. Almost every afternoon the room fills with high-school-age students, who pull on protective gear and hurry back to their personal projects. Metal sculptures — a phoenix, flowers, a...
Mounted police units offer tradition, spectacle and service in modern law enforcement
On Monday, the Allegheny County Mounted Police Unit will add a touch of tradition and spectacle to the South Hills Memorial Day Parade. While officers on horseback are a rarer sight than those in cars or on motorcycles, “They definitely create a presence,” said Sgt. Jason Donaldson of the Allegheny...
League of their own: Norwin girls wrestlers relish special moments during PIAA’s inaugural season
Avalin Barry sat in the black-and-gold bleachers of North Allegheny High School’s gymnasium, her Sasquatch-patterned sweatpants tucked into a gray medical boot on her right leg and a brown cowboy boot on the left. The Norwin freshman and first-year wrestler wasn’t able to compete in the first WPIAL...
‘This is what money smells like:’ $2.2M fine is latest entry in Clairton’s air pollution history
Melanie Meade monitors plumes of pollution. Her hilltop home overlooks Clairton Coke Works, the largest coke-manufacturing facility in North America — and Allegheny County’s top source of air pollution. From that tree-dotted perch, Meade uses her iPhone almost daily to photograph emissions spewing from the 123-year-old plant’s coke ovens. Then...
‘Frightening rate’ of children dying due to parents’ drug abuse
Four days after Christmas 2020, Hannah Moore felt horror like no other when she awoke to find her 2-month-old daughter’s cold, lifeless body nestled next to her in bed, inches away from her other two children. Traces of blood trickled from Avery Davis’ mouth and nose as Moore frantically dialed...
Staffing shortages leave nursing homes overwhelmed, patients vulnerable, experts say
Mary Ellen Cross lived some of the best days of her life each December when she spent hour upon hour baking cookies and wrapping gifts, carefully crafting what she hoped would be the perfect, magical Christmas for her family. The baking began weeks in advance, sometimes with her eclectic playlist...
New Kensington’s Willie Thrower cast the mold for the modern NFL quarterback 70 years ago
Willie Thrower didn’t talk much about his place in NFL history. Not even with his family. His son, Melvin, was in junior high before he learned about his father’s watershed moment. On Super Bowl Sunday in 1988, Melvin Thrower sat with his father in their New Kensington home and watched...
Black lung: Advocates eye new federal silica-dust standard to stem resurgence among coal miners
Mark Rankin left the coal mines, but the coal mines haven’t left Mark Rankin. Stocky and broad shouldered, the retired Uniontown-area coal miner trekked to a Washington County health clinic to see if recent coughing and tightness in his chest could be black lung. Rankin worked for years stripping coal...
‘Oppenheimer’ hype brings lesser-known aspects of atomic age in Pittsburgh to fore
J. Robert Oppenheimer’s brilliant mind belonged to the atom, his loyalty to the United States, his passion to the New Mexico desert. But the beating heart of the American Prometheus belonged to a woman who grew up in Aspinwall. Yes, Aspinwall, childhood home of the great physicist’s wife, Katherine “Kitty”...
‘Our hair is beautiful’: A profile of hair in the Black community
The latest in a decades-old movement among those in the Black community to embrace natural hair reached the halls of state government last month when the House of Representatives passed its version of the CROWN Act. The proposed law — CROWN stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for...
Personalities of Pittsburgh: Everyday people who make our region what it is
Pittsburgh is a melting pot of personalities and possibilities. Politicians and professional athletes might often be front and center, but it’s the everyday citizen who makes the region what it is. From the North Shore to the South Side, from an operating room to an operating budget, myriad individuals converge...
