Free Republic

Eleven months after a catastrophic collapse into a Frick Park ravine, a new Fern Hollow Bridge was celebrated Wednesday as a model of unprecedented intergovernmental cooperation and an engineering marvel, completed in the fraction of the time needed for similar projects. Final railing installation work continued as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and other elected officials gathered in the cold sunshine for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at the four-lane Forbes Avenue span, which links Regent Square and surrounding neighborhoods to Squirrel Hill. The bridge could be open for traffic as early as Thursday, but the completion date PennDOT...

Line painting and other finishing touches continued Tuesday at the new Fern Hollow Bridge in the city’s East End, with a dedication ceremony planned Wednesday and completion of bridge reconstruction work anticipated Thursday, officials said. A date for reopening the bridge to traffic has not been set, according to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Cowan, but it was anticipated it would be within a week. The busy, 500-foot Forbes Avenue bridge, which connected Squirrel Hill to Point Breeze and Park Place, collapsed onto a popular hiking trail about 100 feet below the road in Frick Park in January. Ten...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — After the announcement Pittsburgh may be one of several cities where the 2024 Republican National Convention could be held, local Democratic politicians are speaking out. On Sunday, both District 9 City Councilman Rev. Ricky V. Burgess and Congressional candidate Jerry Dickinson publicly stated that they are opposed to the idea of the city hosting the convention. Burgess wrote a letter to VisitPITTSBURGH, which he says is encouraging the RNC to happen in the city, and asked them to withdraw their interest: “As disturbing as it is to learn that the Republican National Committee is considering Pittsburgh for...

Democrat Ed Gainey became the first Black mayor of Pittsburgh on Tuesday. “Look at the image we are showing our children,” Gainey said to the crowd at the downtown Benedum Center for the Performing Arts. “I want our children to see a city for all of them,” The Associated Press reported. He had consistently made his campaign about equality for Black and poor residents, and accused Peduto of failing to ensure equity in policing, housing and other areas. At one point, he called Pittsburgh “a tale of two cities,” according to The Associated Press.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto conceded defeat to state Rep. Ed Gainey in a four-way Democratic primary race for mayor, positioning Gainey to become the first Black mayor in the city’s history.With 393 of the city’s 402 voting precincts reporting results around 1:15 a.m., Gainey had received about 46.2% of the votes counted, while Peduto collected 39.3%, retired Pittsburgh police officer Tony Moreno had 13.1% and math tutor and ride-hailing-service driver Michael Thompson had 1.2%, the tallies showed.Peduto had taken to Twitter about an hour earlier to congratulate Gainey.“I just called (Gainey) and congratulated him on earning the Democratic endorsement for...

Democratic state legislators urged Pittsburghers on Thursday to support a bill that would ban the use of some military-style rifles by everyone except service members and law enforcement personnel. The lawmakers also said hunters in Pennsylvania don’t need the added firepower of semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15-type weapons, even though the Legislature passed a law in 2017 allowing that. The weapons increasingly are being used in mass killings that are “traumatizing today’s children,” said state Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, at a gathering sponsored by House Democrats at the Carnegie Library in Homewood. He and others called for support of a bill...

On Tuesday, in a bipartisan vote, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a ban on D&E abortion, also known as dismemberment abortion. In a D&E abortion, a preborn child is literally ripped by a metal instrument, limb from limb. Former abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino, describes D&E abortion in the animated video below: **VIDEO ON LINK** Men and women who commit abortion procedures of all kinds are on record describing the violence and brutality of each of them. One of these abortionists, Leroy Carhart, gave his testimony on D&E (dismemberment) abortion to the U.S. Supreme Court. D&E abortion is the most common second...