Top Local and National News Stories category, Page 1277
UPMC expects to receive covid vaccine soon, distribute to health care workers after authorization
Pending emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, UPMC hopes to have the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine distributed to all of its front-line workers by the end of January, leaders in the hospital system said Tuesday. The system anticipates arrival of its first allocation of Pfizer vaccine doses in...
Pennsylvania reports 10,170 new covid cases, 169 new deaths
Pennsylvania reported 10,170 new covid cases and 169 new deaths Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health. Total cases and total deaths in the state now stand at 436,614 and 11,542, respectively. Thus far in December, the state has reported 75,150 covid cases and 1,159 deaths. The seven-day average...
Westmoreland County reaches 250 covid deaths; 80% have come since September
With new covid-19 deaths reported, Westmoreland County reached a milestone Tuesday. The eight new coronavirus-related deaths reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health bring the county’s total to 250 deaths. To put deaths in Westmoreland County in perspective, it took from March 19 (when the county’s first cases were reported)...
Greensburg man cited after outburst in store over mask, social distancing
A Greensburg man who became enraged after being told to leave a store for failing to wear a mask and social distance is accused by city police of making threats against employees and knocking over merchandise as he departed. Police on Tuesday charged Derek P. Hart Jr., 21, with multiple...
Dozens of Allegheny County Jail inmates, employees test positive for covid-19
A covid-19 outbreak in the Allegheny County Jail is now affecting more employees along with dozens of those housed in the jail awaiting trial or serving sentences, officials said Tuesday. Two weeks after Warden Orlando Harper announced that 10 ACJ employees had tested positive for the virus, the number of...
Westmoreland County Commissioner Sean Kertes, Clerk of Courts Bryan Kline test positive for coronavirus
Two Westmoreland County elected officials said Tuesday they tested positive for coronavirus. Sean Kertes, chairman of the county commissioners, and Clerk of Courts Bryan Kline both said they are experiencing symptoms of the virus and both are at their respective homes in isolation. “I had a 100-, 101-degree temperature and,...
Levin to buy back 5 stores from Michigan firm, rebuild furniture chain
Robert Levin is getting closer to rebuilding his family’s namesake furniture chain, which nearly fell to ruin after a century in business following a sale and the tumult of a messy bankruptcy proceeding. “I feel this is like a Christmas gift for all of us, customers and employees,” Levin said...
Families, friends mourn Port Authority drivers who died of covid
Patrick Hazlett and Marlon J. Lucas had a combined three decades of service with the Port Authority of Allegheny County, and they both leave behind wives and children and a union family grieving its first losses to covid-19. Hazlett, a 34-year-old bus driver who’d worked for eight years with the...
Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Reese tests positive for coronavirus
State Rep. Mike Reese, who represents parts of Westmoreland and Somerset counties, is the latest Pennsylvania lawmaker to announce a positive coronavirus test. “I recently learned I have tested positive for covid-19,” Reese said in a statement. “I have been quarantining for the last week awaiting my test results, and...
Some Pittsburgh-area restaurant owners have outdoor dining covered amid pandemic
With the colder weather here to stay, many Downtown Pittsburgh restaurants have decided to cover outdoor spaces for continued dining to help accommodate state-mandated capacity requirements. Some outdoor dining structures resemble mini-greenhouses. Others look like plastic domes. Bakersfield Pittsburgh has tents, heaters and picnic-bench seating on Penn Avenue. At Bourbon...
‘Turning point’: UK giving 1st doses of covid-19 vaccine
LONDON — British health authorities rolled out the first doses of a widely tested and independently reviewed covid-19 vaccine Tuesday, starting a global immunization program that is expected to gain momentum as more serums win approval. The first shot was given to Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, at...
Uber turns over self-driving car project to company with Pittsburgh ties
Uber is getting out of the self-driving car business, turning over its operation to a San Francisco startup with Pittsburgh ties. Aurora, which has offices in San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Dallas, announced the acquisition of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Monday. Uber will invest $400 million in Aurora and get a...
Cops: Victim of apparent hit-and-run in Pittsburgh had gunshot wound in leg
Pittsburgh medics responding to an apparent hit-and-run found the victim had been shot in the leg, according to the city Department of Public Safety. First responders were called to the corner of Gearing Avenue and Chalfont Street in the Beltzhoover neighborhood around 2:45 a.m., finding a man lying in the...
Chuck Yeager, first pilot to break sound barrier, dies at 97
After test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, he confessed to the highly un-Yeager-like emotion of fear. “I was scared,” he wrote in a memoir, “knowing that many of my colleagues thought I was doomed to be blasted to pieces by an invisible brick...
Trump questions Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler on electoral votes
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is continuing his futile appeal to battleground state lawmakers to subvert the votes of their constituents. The president has reached out twice to Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican, to see what might be possible for Trump to do about the state’s presidential vote....
Biden to name retired Gen. Lloyd Austin as defense secretary
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon. Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate,...
Trump administration passed up chance to lock in more Pfizer vaccine dosesVideo
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration opted last summer not to lock in a chance to buy millions of additional doses of one of the leading coronavirus vaccine contenders, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until manufacturer Pfizer fulfills other international contracts. The revelation,...
Pearl Harbor dead remembered in ceremony shrunk by pandemicVideo
HONOLULU — U.S. servicemen and women and National Park Service officials gathered at Pearl Harbor on Monday to remember those killed in the attack — but elderly survivors stayed home to pay their respects from afar to avoid health risks from the coronavirus pandemic. The USS Arizona battleship bell rang...
East Huntingdon woman seeks dismissal of 1st-degree murder charge
An East Huntingdon woman in jail since September on charges of fatally shooting a former boyfriend claimed in court documents filed Monday there is no evidence she intended to kill her victim. Adam Gorzelsky, the lawyer for Meghan West, 24, asked a Westmoreland County judge to dismiss a first-degree murder...
Lawmakers who met with Rudy Giuliani scramble after covid newsVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was “doing very well” after being hospitalized with the coronavirus as lawmakers in battleground states that Giuliani visited last week scrambled to make sure they did not contract the virus. The 76-year-old former New York mayor, hospitalized in...
Speakers call for Pittsburgh Public Schools to cut police, security spending
The 30 people who provided testimony Monday during a virtual budget hearing focused on eliminating police, safety and security items from the 2021 Pittsburgh Public Schools budget. The district spends just over 1% of its budget on school safety measures like police and security guards. In 2021, the school safety...
Trump campaign appeals another ballot case in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump’s campaign continues to press lawsuits over Pennsylvania’s election, appealing another case it lost to the state Supreme Court, this time over fewer than 2,000 ballots in a suburban Philadelphia county. The appeal, filed Friday, is one of at least four pending cases in which Trump...
Excela to add more covid-19 beds at its hospitals as cases continue to rise
Officials at Excela Health plan to add beds for coronavirus patients, possibly as early as Tuesday, at one of its Westmoreland County facilities as hospitalizations continue to increase. Dr. Carol Fox, Excela’s chief medical officer, said Monday the move to convert a procedure room into one for inpatients will add...
No new covid restrictions for Pa., but possibility looms
Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday issued his most dire warning yet as covid-19 mitigation efforts fail to stem the rising tide of cases, and he hinted that more drastic, targeted measures could be on the horizon if the situation remains grim. He pointed to the warning he and Secretary of...
Pittsburgh doctor: ‘Covid vaccines are lights at the end of the tunnel, but we’re still in the tunnel’Video
Coronavirus vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are likely to be released later this month. The announcements bring excitement for what could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. But some people have concerns about the safety of the vaccines. Just how safe are vaccines? How do they...
