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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Cleanup is underway throughout the Pittsburgh area as several communities were hit with suspected tornado damage on Wednesday evening. At least three tornadoes have been confirmed in the Pittsburgh area so far. We have confirmed three tornadoes so far. The areas highlighted indicate where NWS Storm Surveys or Doppler Radar Tornado Debris Signatures have validated the tornado damage. pic.twitter.com/lWRD8NXROW — NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) June 27, 2024 An EF-2 with winds up to 115 mph touched down south of Route 22 in Westmoreland County, tearing a path from Delmont to Shieldsburg to New Alexandria.

An individual who is believed to have purposely butchered the national anthem at a Pittsburgh Pirates game has been taking heat after controversially changing the words to the patriotic song. The performer altered the words of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ before the game, changing “and the rocket’s red glare” to “And the rocket’s blue glare.” Needless to say, Pittsburgh Pirates fans were not best pleased. “At the :50 mark. This is totally embarrassing and self-important. This guy — Bethany Hallam’s boyfriend — sang the anthem last night at the Pirates game and changed the lyrics to “…and the rockets’...

Life in the Inflated Apple got you down? According to a new study, the most affordable city in the country is barely a half day’s drive away — hours closer to home comforts than the current hotspots popular with fleeing New Yorkers. Say hello — and maybe move to — Pittsburgh. Currently boasting a median house price of $274,900, the mostly-former steel town remains comfortable with its blue collar roots, while also leaning into a uniquely quirky, artsy heritage — this is the birthplace of Andy Warhol and a training ground for a young Keith Haring, home of Fred “Mister”...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A heat wave is coming to Pittsburgh, and almost all of the city's 200 public water fountains have yet to be turned on. But now a Pittsburgh City Council member is crafting a plan to get the water flowing after the Pittsburgh Department of Public Works director said this week that he didn't have the means to get the fountains working anytime soon. "I have one plumber working for the city," Pittsburgh Department of Public Works Director Chris Hornstein said. "We have over 200 drinking fountains."

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Grand Rapids Police closed a 45-year-old cold case Monday. It was all thanks to one woman. Tommie Lee Hill was convicted of a string of sex crimes in Michigan and Indiana, and detectives spoke with other victims in Pennsylvania. Officials said his crimes include raping his young stepdaughters, assault with intent to murder, burglary, firearms and counterfeiting. He was on the run for 37 years. Joe Garrett, a Grand Rapids Police officer and U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force member, first began investigating Hill's case in 2017. The FBI had handled it previously. In the 1960s,...

A homeless woman is charged with aggravated assault after police said she attacked a woman in Downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon, breaking her nose. Shurontaya Festa, 27, is being held in the Allegheny County Jail pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. According to the criminal complaint, Festa walked up behind a woman in the 600 block of Smithfield Street just after 3 p.m. Wednesday and struck her in the back of the head.

One of the people allegedly connected to multiple incidents of harassment and ethnic intimidation on the North Side is a former Pittsburgh employee who has been receiving payments from the city that may violate city policy and could potentially violate the state ethics act, according to internal correspondence between city leaders obtained by the Post-Gazette. Mario Ashkar, 36, of Perry South, was arrested last week on multiple charges of ethnic intimidation, criminal mischief, theft by unlawful taking and disorderly conduct regarding an alleged antisemitic incident in April in the Mexican War Streets. Ashkar indicated during interviews with other media that...

Authorities in Pittsburgh closed McKees Rocks Bridge as a precaution after several barges broke loose on the Ohio River late Friday. There is a risk that the barges could come into contact with the “substructure” of the bridge, the McKees Rocks Police Department said in a statement early Saturday confirming the closure. The department said it closed the bridge because it was “not willing to take the risk.” The bridge opened in 1931 and stretches more than 1 mile across the Ohio River. As part of the Blue Belt, the innermost of several roads that loop around Pittsburgh, the bridge...

PITTSBURGH — An employee at a Sunoco gas station is facing charges after an altercation inside the store Monday night. Pittsburgh police were called to the 100 block of North Craig Street for reports of a fight. The fight started when a man threw a banana at employees and they threw it back. Court documents say several bananas were thrown back and forth between the man and the employees. The man punched one of the employees in the face. One of the employees, Yubaraj Budhathoki, allegedly chased the man into the parking lot and hit him in the head repeatedly...

The Meltdown of Commercial Real EstateIn case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of US banks.Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.The note, by Senior Editor James Crombie, walks us through the festering hellscape that is commercial real estate.To set the mood, a new study predicts that nearly half of downtown Pittsburgh office space could be vacant in 4 years. Major cities like San Francisco are already sporting zombie-apocalypse downtowns, with abandoned office buildings baking in the sun.So what happened? The Fed’s yo-yo interest...

JOHNSTOWN — Joe Burkhart is busy working at his job as a maintenance manager at a processor here in Cambria County. Like many people who have spent their career working with their hands, he knows that unexpected layoffs and companies who have been around for decades suddenly shuttering their doors is part of today’s technological revolution.Like many people around here born in the 1960’s, Burkhart says he was born and raised a Democrat. “Everyone in my family was a Democrat, its just what you did,” he said, adding when he first started looking for work as an adult being a...

The NAACP is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the death of Jim Rogers, a 54-year-old Black man who died in an October 2021 incident with a Pittsburgh police officer. Rogers died the day after police officer Keith Edmonds repeatedly shocked him with a taser. “Jim Rogers deserved better, and Black America deserves better,” Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the NAACP, said in a statement. “But the sad reality is, our communities continue to endure pain and suffering at the hands of those tasked with serving and protecting us. We have seen the photographs, watched the videos,...

The CRE implosion is picking up steam. Check out the grim stats on Pittsburgh.Unions are also a problem in Pittsburgh as they are in Illinois and California.Downtown Pittsburgh ImplosionThe Post Gazette reports nearly half of Downtown Pittsburgh office space could be empty in 4 years.Confidential real estate information obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette estimates that 17 buildings are in “significant distress” and another nine are in “pending distress,” meaning they are either approaching foreclosure or at risk of foreclosure. Those properties represent 63% of the Downtown office stock and account for $30.5 million in real estate taxes, according to the...

Pittsburgh’s Bureau of Police is responding to staffing shortages by foregoing any officer presence in dispatch offices 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. daily. The Daily Mail reported that the cut was announced last month by Pittsburgh police chief Larry Scirotto, who noted, “Data said that from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m that we had 8% of our call volume, yet we had 33% of our personnel working during those periods of time.” Scirotto’s decision comes as the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has dwindled to just 740 officers. In late February, Breitbart News pointed out Scirotto also made clear officers would...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Andy Russell, the standout linebacker who was an integral part of the Pittsburgh Steelers' evolution from perennial losers to champions, has died. He was 82. The team confirmed Russell's death on Saturday. There was no immediate word on the cause or place of death

PITTSBURGH — Starting Monday, the city of Pittsburgh says it will no longer respond to 911 calls that are not related to "in progress emergencies."According to a press release titled "Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Makes Operational Changes to Better Serve Pittsburgh," the city will create a "Telephone Reporting Unit" (TRU) to dispatch calls that do not require an in-person response by officers."TRU will NOT be assigned to any 'In Progress' call where a suspect may be on scene, any crime where a person may need medical aid, any domestic dispute, calls with evidence, or where the Mobile Crime Unit will...

Beginning Monday, Pittsburgh police won’t respond to any calls that aren’t in progress emergencies. Chief Larry Scirotto wants to cut their call volume from approximately 200,000 calls per year down to about 50,000. That essentially means that calls for criminal mischief, theft, harassment and burglary alarms, just to name a few, will all be handled by the telephone reporting unit or online reporting.

Congressional candidate Bhavini Patel’s campaign said a planned Feb. 7 appearance at the University of Pittsburgh was called off the night before because of concerns about “disruption." Patel, who is a Pitt alumna, had been slated to speak Wednesday evening as part of an alumni speaker series hosted by Pitt's Frederick Honors College. But she said in social media postings that Pitt had “canceled my speaking engagement citing concerns of disruption and my safety." The university has asked Patel to reschedule the event for later in the year. But she said Wednesday night that, "It saddens me that I couldn’t...

A Pittsburgh Public Schools student is facing criminal charges after police say he assaulted at least four teachers or staff members at his school. Qvawn Rembert-Leonard, 18, was charged Tuesday with four felony counts of aggravated assault after allegedly going on a violent rampage against the staff inside his school, Oliver Citywide Academy Satellite at Greenway in Crafton Heights. According to the criminal complaint, Rembert-Leonard was talking on the phone in school about cocaine and fentanyl on Jan. 30. When a female staff member asked him to stop, the complaint states, “He turned in rage, grabbed and threw [her] across...

Pittsburgh Allegheny County dispatchers say police and medics were called to the Worship and Community Service Center on Broadhead Fording Road at 6:15 p.m. on Saturday. Pittsburgh police say the call to dispatchers reported 6 to 7 gunshots inside the building where the baby shower was taking place. Authorities say the shooting happened in the men’s restroom of the building. One man was found dead inside and another was taken to a hospital in critical condition.