Editor's Picks category, Page 216

Bats dwelling in limestone caves in northern Laos were found to carry coronaviruses that share a key feature with SARS-CoV-2, moving scientists closer to pinpointing the cause of covid-19. Researchers at France’s Pasteur Institute and the University of Laos looked for viruses similar to the one that causes covid-19 among...

It was a bet that was out of this world. On Thursday, billionaire Jared Isaacman placed the first sports bet from space to Las Vegas. In all, he wagered $4,000 on the Washington Football Team and New York Giants game and another $4,000 on if the Philadelphia Eagles would be...

THREE RIVERS, Calif. — California wildfires have burned into at least four groves of gigantic ancient sequoias in national parks and forests, though cooler weather on Friday helped crews trying to keep the flames away from a famous cluster containing the world’s largest tree. The fires lapped into the groves...

After being diagnosed with a rare disease that ultimately left him using a wheelchair, Mark Christman called himself lucky. He was lucky to have gotten a proper diagnosis for his disease, which often is misdiagnosed. He was lucky that, as an attorney, he could enjoy a successful career when some...

Hello, it’s the weekend. Here are some ways to spend it. Jazz it up with Chaka Khan The 11th annual Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival is Sept. 17-19 at the Benedum Center, Downtown, and Highmark Stadium on the South Side. Grammy-award winning singer Chaka Khan will perform at 8 p.m. Friday...

LOS ANGELES — Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, operatic-voiced star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and danced with Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding,” has died. She was 92. Powell died Thursday at her Wilton, Connecticut, home, longtime friend Susan Granger...

NEW YORK — Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings will split “Jeopardy!” hosting duties for the remainder of 2021. Sony Pictures Television announced the plan Thursday, the same week that episodes filmed by ousted host Mike Richards are airing. Richards, who also lost his role as “Jeopardy!” executive producer, was initially...

Drivers who routinely pass the Garden Theater on North Avenue probably didn’t think they’d ever see anything like what happened on Wednesday night. After years of darkness, the Garden Theater marquee lit up the North Side block the theater has inhabited since 1915. A larger rooftop sign also lit up...

AMSTERDAM — A drawing newly attributed to Vincent van Gogh that has never been displayed publicly before is going on show at the Amsterdam museum that bears the Dutch master’s name. The “new” Van Gogh, “Study for ‘Worn Out,’” from November 1882, is part of a Dutch private collection and...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism. It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew — no professional astronauts....

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Cabbage Patch Kids, the rosy-cheeked dolls that left store shelves picked clean during the first big holiday toy craze, are up for a spot in the National Toy Hall of Fame, part of a finalist group announced Wednesday that also includes garden-variety sand and the toy fire...

Because of a TikTok challenge, school bathrooms are being destroyed at an alarming rate nationwide, and Pennsylvania has not been spared. Boyertown Area School District Superintendent Marybeth Torchia told her school board in Berks County on Monday that is exactly what is happening there — vandalism is on the rise...

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Former WTAE-TV news anchor Jackie Cain has left her Minneapolis station. Does she end up back in Pittsburgh? And at what station? — Jodi via...

Norm Macdonald, a “Saturday Night Live” cast member best known as the host of Weekend Update, died Tuesday. He was 61. Macdonald succumbed to a nine-year cancer battle that he kept private, his management team told Deadline. “He was most proud of his comedy,” producing partner Lori Jo Hoekstra told...

Sequoia National Park was shut down and its namesake gigantic trees were potentially threatened Tuesday as two forest fires burned in steep and dangerous terrain in California’s Sierra Nevada. Both fires were projected to advance in the direction of Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias including the...

Once again, USA Today readers have confirmed what Western Pennsylvanians have always known — the Laurel Highlands is one of the country’s best places for viewing fall foliage. For the second year in a row, the Laurel Highlands is a Readers’ Choice Winner in the Best Destination for Fall Foliage...

Chaka Khan will perform at the 11th annual Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival this weekend. The 10-time Grammy-award winning singer will take the stage at 8 p.m. Friday at the Benedum Center, Downtown. Khan’s musical repertoire encompasses rhythm and blues, pop, rock, gospel, country, world music and classical. She has released...

For years, North Huntingdon resident Radah Ghasah dreamed of opening a restaurant. On Monday, that dream became a reality when she oversaw the soft opening of her downtown Greensburg restaurant, Sittay’s Mediterranean Kitchen. “Opening my own business, it was a long-life dream,” said Ghasah, who immigrated from Syria in 2000....

Gabbie Kim, a mother of two and birth doula from Greenfield, will compete on Monday’s 38th season premiere of “Jeopardy!” (7 p.m., WPXI-TV). And what a week to appear on the show. Not only is she up against Matt Amodio — who’s on an 18-episode winning streak that netted him...

Vibrant fall foliage — even overachieving colors — can be expected this year in Pennsylvania, although the peak of the leaf-peeping season could be a week later than normal, according to the annual fall forecast from Accuweather. In Pennsylvania, the northern mid-Atlantic, southern New England and the Ohio Valley, “rainfall...