Deb Erdley stories, Page 36
Teacher contract talks continue in Mt. Pleasant
Contract negotiations are set to resume Monday between the Mt. Pleasant Area School District and its teachers and other staff who have worked without a contract since Aug. 31. Spokesmen for the school board and the Mt. Pleasant Area Education Association — the union representing 143 teaches, counselors, nurses and...
Temple University offers free vaccine as mumps criss-cross campus
Plagued by an outbreak of mumps that has criss-crossed its Philadelphia campus, Temple University is holding free vaccine clinics on campus and will now require incoming students to verify they have had two doses of the MMR vaccine. The Temple outbreak, which includes 15 confirmed and 59 probable cases of...
Westmoreland County Community College to host open house
Westmoreland County Community College will host an open house next month for perspective students. The event will be held from 3-7 p.m. April 3 at its new Science Innovation Center that opened last fall at the Youngwood campus. College officials will be on hand with information on WCCC’s programs that...
Family and friends remember young mother’s death to childbirth complications
Jamie Cordial Hall was picking up a few things for her 5-week-old son Cody’s baptism the morning of May 15, 2018, when she began to hemorrhage. Hall — a healthy, vibrant, 38-year-old middle-class mother of two from Greensburg — was the last woman friends and family would have thought to...
PA Turnpike Commission ‘on the path to bankruptcy,’ auditor general says
The Pennsylvania Turnpike is headed down the “road to ruin,” state officials warn. Turnpike Commission CEO Mark Compton stood stony-faced Thursday next to Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, said the cross-state toll road is “on the path to bankruptcy” absent legislative action. It’s not corruption or mismanagement, but rather Act 44...
Anti-vaxxers attacked Western Pa. pediatricians. Study shows how they fought back.
When Dr. Todd Wolynn published a YouTube video on his Kids Plus Pediatrics Facebook page touting the HPV vaccine as a cancer prevention tool, he had no idea he was opening the floodgates to a world of anti-vaccine internet warriors. Wolynn, a pediatrician and the CEO of the practice with...
Cal U readies for annual robotics competition
The robots are coming, again. More than 1,000 high school students, representing 52 robotics teams, will gather at California University of Pennsylvania later this week for Destination: Deep Space, the annual Greater Pittsburgh Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. The competition on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that challenges students to build and...
Cheyney trustees fined for missing financial disclosures and back dated filings
The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission on Monday announced it has fined a pair of Cheyney University of Pennsylvania trustees $500 each for failing to file financial disclosure forms for years and then back dating current forms to make it appear they had complied with the law in prior years. Authorities discovered...
Former IUP dean fined for ethics violation received $290,000 discrimination settlement from university
The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission last week fined a former Indiana University of Pennsylvania administrator $3,000 for repeatedly hiring her son’s firm for university business and neglecting to file accurate financial disclosure statements, actions deemed technical violations of the state Ethics Act. But former IUP Associate Dean of Student Affairs Carolyn...
Federal tax refunds up, despite early reports to the contrary
With tax day looming a month away, the Washington Post has a good news-bad news report about tax refunds. First the good news. Although early reports suggested tax refunds were down anywhere from 8 to 16.8 percent in the first year of the new tax system, more recent reports show...
Tragic deaths of Jonny Gammage and Antwon Rose twice put Pittsburgh in the spotlight
Western Pennsylvania over the span of nearly a quarter century has twice found itself at center stage of national outrage involving the deaths of black men at the hands of white police officers. The 1995 death of Jonny Gammage in the era of Rodney King and the L.A. riots focused...
Rosfeld’s lawyer Patrick Thomassey boasts long history of tackling the tough cases
Sporting a thick mane now more salt than pepper and an impeccably tailored suit, Patrick Thomassey cuts a confident figure in the courtroom. It’s a confidence borne of razor-sharp legal skills the 71-year-old Monroeville lawyer has honed in more than four decades in court. But friends and colleagues say the...
Party leaders convene to select nominees for 41st Senate district vacancy
Democratic and Republican committee members from a four-county area will meet this weekend to select candidates to run in a special election to fill the remaining term of former state Sen. Don White. White, R-Indiana, resigned from the seat he has held since 2001 at the end of February, leaving...
Harm reduction movement pushes addiction advocacy, needle exchange in Westmoreland County
The Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Coalition wants to spark a conversation and continued commitment to action around addiction and substance abuse in Westmoreland County. Among its goals: expand access to Naloxone and medication-assisted recovery programs and establish sterile needle exchanges for intravenous drug users. The Philadelphia-based coalition on Saturday will hold...
Robert Morris University to host open house for former Art Institute students
In a single week, students from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, who were locked out of their classrooms when the school abruptly closed, have found themselves being courted by the Community College of Allegheny County and Robert Morris University. A fixture in Pittsburgh higher education since 1921, the Art Institute...
Pitt disputes claims of union suppression
University of Pittsburgh officials are denying student claims that their choice of locations for a union election for graduate student workers was an attempt to suppress the voting turnout. Graduate teaching and research assistants at Pitt won a right to hold a union election last week when the Pennsylvania Labor...
CCAC to open its doors to former Art Institute students
Students left in the cold by the sudden shuttering of the storied Art Institute of Pittsburgh last week may be able to transfer to the Community College of Allegheny County. CCAC officials said they will hold two informational sessions for former Art Institute students at the CCAC Allegheny Campus from...
Pitt graduate workers blast university for union suppression tactics
Graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh say school officials are trying to suppress voter turnout for an upcoming union election by insisting it be held at two locations removed from the center of the Oakland campus. Last week, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ruled against the university’s attempts...
PennDOT releases $500.7 million in liquid fuel taxes for local road and bridge work
Let the pothole patching crews roll. Officials at PennDOT said the state has forwarded liquid fuels taxes totaling $38.57 million to municipalities in Allegheny County and another $15 million to Westmoreland County communities as part of the March 1 distribution of $500.7 million statewide for road and bridge maintenance and...
Pennsylvania offers grants for fighting wildfires
As the spring wildfire season ramps up, volunteer fire departments in small or rural communities can look to the state for grants to help offset the high cost of fighting wildfires. State officials said fire departments in rural areas or communities with fewer than 10,000 residents can qualify for up...
State lawmakers weigh ranking university performance
Pennsylvania’s public universities would have to compete for state subsidies should a proposal circulating in the state Senate gain traction. PennLIVE reported that state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh County, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and state Rep. Ryan Aument, R-Lancaster Coounty, chairman of the House Education Committee, are working...
Greensburg Council retroactively OKs firing of planning director
Greensburg Council Monday unanimously ratified its decision last month to fire longtime Planning Director Barbara Ciampini. Though Mayor Robert Bell and city Solicitor Bernard McArdle declined to comment on the retroactive vote, it was seen as a “cure” for what could be a violation of the state’s Sunshine Act, since...
Casey, Toomey launch federal judicial candidate search
With three pending nominees to vacancies in Western Pennsylvania’s federal court, U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, and Bob Casey, D-Scranton, on Monday began soliciting applications from those interested in filling additional federal judicial vacancies in the district. The announcement came a week after President Trump nominated Robert Colville and...
California Clean Slate Law follows Pennsylvania’s lead
California may soon follow Pennsylvania’s lead in sealing criminal records for nonviolent offenders who did the crime and paid their time. The New York Times reported that California lawmakers are weighing a proposal similar to Pennsylvania’s law — and may take it one step further. While the Pennsylvania law kicks...
Experts to gather at Saint Vincent College to explore hate crimes
Robin Valeri wasn’t surprised to learn that Robert Bowers, the man accused of gunning down 11 worshippers in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last fall, was active in online communities where hatred flowed freely. Valeri, a psychology professor at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York, began studying cyber hate...
