Deb Erdley stories, Page 30
Millions of records sealed in Pennsylvania criminal justice reform effort
In an experiment being watched across the country, Pennsylvania court officials began scrubbing more than 3 million old, nonviolent criminal charges from the public docket over the weekend. They are scheduled to repeat that feat every month for the next year under the provisions of the state’s Clean Slate law....
States looking to tackle college indebtedness in K-12 curricula
As student debt approaches $1.6 trillion nationally, presidential candidates are test-driving a raft of proposals to deal with what many consider a major problem. Everything from tuition-free public college to debt forgiveness was on the agenda when 20 Democratic presidential contenders took the debate stage last week. They aren’t alone...
Joe Sestak relishes long-shot bid among Democratic presidential hopefuls
While the top 20 Democratic presidential contenders prepared for last week’s debates, retired Navy admiral and former two-term Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak traveled the road less taken as a long-shot presidential hopeful. This time, it was a series of meet-and-greet events in Iowa. It’s not the first time the maverick...
Pitt names Thomas E. Richards board chair-elect
The University of Pittsburgh Board of Trustees named a new chair-elect Friday, who will take over next year after the fifth and final term of incumbent Chair Eva Tansky Blum, who board members reelected Friday. A Pitt spokesman said Thomas E. Richards, a long-serving Pitt trustee and executive chair of...
Excela Health eliminates 15 jobs
Officials at Excela Health said they eliminated 15 positions at its three hospitals this week as part of a fiscal year-end assessment that scrutinized workplace efficiency and duplication of resources. “The result is a modest change in staffing in non-clinical areas,” Excela spokeswoman Robin Jennings said. The health system, which...
Report: Pa. students would have to do triple time to work their way through college
Once again, Pennsylvania is ranked No. 1 — only of a list no one wants to top: college costs. The state’s public universities are among the priciest in the nation and landed Pennsylvania at the top of a list that calculated how many hours a week a student would have...
Richard King Mellon, R.K. Mellon Family foundations tap heir as new leader
Richard A. Mellon, a grandson of Richard King Mellon, has been named to lead the foundations that bear his grandfather’s name. He was unanimously appointed as chairman and CEO by the boards of both the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the R.K. Mellon Family Foundation, marking the beginning of the...
Owners of banned fraternity house sue Penn State
More than two years after the February 2017 death of Timothy Piazza, a Penn State student who died of injuries he sustained during an alcohol-fueled fraternity pledge event, the lawsuits just keep coming. The Associated Press is reporting the fraternity corporation that owns the shuttered Beta Theta Pi fraternity house...
Excela Health reports more financial losses, predicts return to profitability in 2020
John Sphon, acting CEO of Excela Health, said the Westmoreland County health system is poised to reach profitability in fiscal 2020, following two years of multimillion- dollar operating losses. “We look at this coming year as a year of transition,” Sphon said Monday at Excela’s annual meeting at Saint Vincent...
Music keeps Hempfield bass player swinging
At 84, Dale Yates can still swing with the best of them. The Hempfield retiree never takes to the dance floor. Instead, he’s on stage with the band, providing a deep resonant tone on the upright bass he has been playing since 1953. “It keeps getting heavier every year, but...
General Carbide CEO Mona Pappafava-Ray named regional Entrepreneur of the Year
Mona Pappafava-Ray, president and CEO of Hempfield-based General Carbide Corp., is a finalist for the national Entrepreneur of the Year Award after being named East Central Entrepreneur of the Year last week. Now in its 33rd year, the competition recognizes entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies who excel in areas...
Saint Vincent College appoints new president
Officials at Saint Vincent College said there was little question who should lead the Benedictine college into the future when Br. Norman W. Hipps announced his pending retirement as president this year. J. Christopher Donahue, chairman of the Saint Vincent board of directors and president and CEO of Federated Investors...
Payments to clergy sexual abuse survivors in Philadelphia, Scranton top $20 million
The meter is ticking as administrators for compensation funds in Catholic dioceses across the state process payments to survivors who experienced child sexual abuse at the hands of trusted priests. Church officials have released interim statements showing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of Scranton have paid nearly $21.8...
Trustees raise tuition for Community College of Allegheny County students
Students at the Community College of Allegheny County will have to dig a little deeper this fall to cover tuition and fees after CCAC trustees voted to increase full time, in-county tuition from $1,695 to $1,740 a semester. County residents attending part time will be charged $116 per credit hour....
Democrat Tay Waltenbaugh announces state Senate run in Jeannette
On a sunny June afternoon, a group of about 60 people gathered in the 300 block of Sixth Street in Jeannette amid two dozen tidy, new two-story homes that occupy a street once dominated by crumbling row houses. They came to celebrate the resurrection of a neighborhood of homeowners. They...
Pennsylvania court ruling may open door for future clergy sex abuse suits
Lawyers for clergy sexual abuse survivors say a Pennsylvania Superior Court ruling handed down Tuesday could open a path for many old claims previously timed out to go to a jury. Writing in a 38-page opinion, a three-judge panel overturned a Blair County judge’s decision to dismiss a clergy sexual...
Retired human services executive Tay Waltenbaugh to challenge Kim Ward for state Senate
In a move that could foreshadow a hotly contested legislative race in 2020, Democrat Tay Waltenbaugh — who recently retired after 29 years at the helm of Westmoreland Community Action — on Wednesday plans to formally announce that he is running for election in the state Senate’s 39th District. The...
CCAC inks agreement with Ohio University’s bachelor of science program in nursing
Students who graduate with an associate’s degree in nursing from the Community College of Allegheny County will have a new online option to pursue a bachelor of science degree in the future. CCAC officials and administrators from Ohio University are scheduled to sign an articulation agreement Thursday that would formalize...
Section of Route 30 to become the J. Edward ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson Memorial Bypass
Look for the signs soon. A pair of signs designating a portion of Route 30 from North Greengate Road to East Pittsburgh Street as the J. Edward “Hutch” Hutchinson Memorial Bypass should be going up no later than this fall. State Sen. Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, said the bill she introduced creating...
PHEAA offers low-cost, no-fee private student loans
The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency is reinventing itself as a private lender to fill in the gaps for students who have maxed out on grants and federal loans this year, but still can’t cover the cost of college or approved trade schools. Officials at PHEAA, the embattled agency that...
Ross woman embarks on journey to heal and help Catholic women who have been abusedVideo
Kathy Coll beamed as she displayed the stone cross a friend carved for her. Coll, 68, of Ross said she will carry it every step of the way when she embarks on a 250-mile trek on the Camino de Santiago on June 21. The trail that winds through the Spanish...
Pennsylvania ranked 20th in nation for nursing home complaints
Pennsylvania ranked 20th in the nation for complaints per nursing home last year, according to a new study that analyzed federal data for all 50 states. The report by The Senior List found nursing homes in Pennsylvania averaged 8.42 deficiency complaints per facility last year. Washington state topped the list...
Pittsburgh lawsuit details allegations of church negligence in vetting Nigerian priest accused of rape
Kathy Coll still has trouble processing how the Catholic Church responded two years ago when she reported she had been raped in 2016 by a Nigerian priest who was studying at Duquesne University and assisting in her North Hills parish. Coll, a retired high school English teacher and Eucharistic minister...
Federal government will update list of troubled nursing homes monthly
The federal government will release an updated list of the nation’s most troubled nursing homes monthly, officials with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said. CMS previously kept a list of about 400 of nursing homes with serious patterns of poor care under wraps from the public, even...
5 Western Pennsylvania nursing homes among the nation’s most troubled
What regulators called a “persistent record of poor care” landed two Westmoreland County nursing homes and a third in Allegheny County on a waiting list as candidates for special government oversight reserved for the nation’s worst skilled care centers. The Special Focus Facility program, which scrutinizes some of the nation’s...
