October 19, 2024 4:17 am
CHARLEROI, Pa. — Senator Bob Casey is urging federal officials to block the closure of a Washington County glass plant. Casey sent a letter to the head of the Federal Trade Commission on Friday calling for an investigation into the private equity firm that owns the Anchor Hocking Glass Plant in Charleroi. This is a continued effort from Casey to prevent the plant from closing. He sent a similar letter last month calling for an investigation. “Private equity crushing Charleroi’s generational legacy of glass manufacturing is yet another example of Wall Street screwing over Pennsylvania workers. The plant’s closure is a slap in the face to workers, their community, and the people of Pennsylvania,” said Senator Casey. “I am working every day to protect union jobs and hold Wall Street executives accountable for the havoc they’ve wreaked in our Commonwealth.” Casey published a report he said proves how private equity firm Centre Lane Partners is guilty of questionable financial engineering and shady business deals that caused the decision for the plant to close. If the plant does close nearly 300 people will be out of work. The first round of layoffs is expected to start in December.
October 19, 2024 1:40 am
The recent merger of Washington Health System and UPMC was center stage Friday morning at the Washington County monthly Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Briefing. Dr. Donald Yealey – Chief Medical Officer of UPMC addressed the more than 100 people in attendance discussing the vision and ideas of the combined companies moving forward. Dr. Yealey said UPMC is focusing on learning the needs of the Washington and Greene County communities and their goal is to make health care better for the area. Services will be expanded and enhanced for women’s care, cardiovascular, thoracic, and gastrointestinal surgeries. UPMC will also be taking over the daily operations of the MedExpress company in the region. Yealey says all current employees in the Washington Health System will remain in place with continued competitive pay and educational advancement. With 42 hospitals in the Commonwealth, UPMC is the largest employer in Pennsylvania, falling only to Walmart for a few weeks out of the year during the Christmas holiday.
October 18, 2024 4:47 pm
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s electrical grid has gone offline after one of the island’s major power plants failed and as a massive blackout swept across the Caribbean island. Cuba’s energy ministry said that the grid had gone down hours after it said the Antonio Guiteras plant had ceased operations, at about 11 a.m. local time. Authorities said at the time it was only offline temporarily. Hours earlier, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero had sought to assuage concerned citizens about the outage that began Thursday evening. Millions of Cubans were left without power, prompting the government Friday to implement emergency measures to slash demand, including suspending classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling non-essential services.
October 18, 2024 4:04 pm
(WPXI) – The search for Pitt’s new athletic director is over. Allen Greene has been named the director of athletics at the University of Pittsburgh, the school announced Friday. “Pitt Athletics is the front porch of the University of Pittsburgh, serving as a crucial access point for so many across our campus, our region, our nation and the world,” said Chancellor Joan Gabel. “In Allen Greene, we have a proven national leader who exemplifies the Pitt way, and who has all of the experience and intangibles to elevate our athletics program in competition and in the classroom. In my conversations with Allen and with many others who know him well, it is clear that he will lead us successfully into the new world of intercollegiate athletics.” Greene will split his time between Pitt and Knoxville starting on Nov. 1 so he can fulfill outstanding responsibilities as the University of Tennessee senior deputy athletics director. Greene was formerly the Athletic Director at the University of Buffalo and Auburn University.
October 18, 2024 5:05 am
This year has seen President Vladimir Putin repeatedly brandish the nuclear sword, reminding everyone that Russia has the world’s largest atomic arsenal in order to deter the West from ramping up support for Ukraine. He ordered his military to hold drills involving battlefield nuclear weapons with ally Belarus. He announced Russia will start producing ground-based intermediate range missiles that were outlawed by a now-defunct U.S.-Soviet treaty in 1987. And last month, he lowered the threshold for using that arsenal by revising the country’s nuclear doctrine. Putin is relying on those thousands of warheads and hundreds of missiles that carry them as an enormous doomsday machine to discourage what he sees as threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
October 18, 2024 5:03 am
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s killing of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ top leader and the mastermind of the group’s Oct. 7 2023, attack, is a dramatic turning point in the brutal yearlong war that it touched off. Sinwar’s killing on Thursday decapitates the Palestinian militant group that has already been reeling from months of assassinations up and down its ranks. And it is a potent symbolic achievement for Israel in its battle to destroy Hamas. The killing could set the stage for how the remainder of the war plays out, or even prompt its conclusion — depending on how Israel and Hamas choose to proceed.
October 18, 2024 5:01 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a trend that has surprised many: Why, despite being squeezed by high prices, have Americans kept spending at retail stores and restaurants at a robust pace? One key reason is a relatively simple one: Wealthier consumers, boosted by strong gains in income, home equity and stock market wealth, have increasingly driven the spending. That trend represents something of a shift from the pre-pandemic period. And it suggests that consumer spending, the primary driver of the U.S. economy, could help sustain healthy growth this year and next. Lower-income consumers, by contrast, have been disproportionately squeezed by higher-priced rent, groceries and other necessities, leaving them less able to spend on discretionary items than they were before the pandemic.
October 18, 2024 4:59 am
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will both be scouring for votes in Michigan on Friday as they try to lock down support in this key political battleground. Harris is scheduled to begin her day in Grand Rapids before holding events in Lansing and Oakland County, which is northwest of Detroit. Trump has his own event in Oakland County in the afternoon before holding a rally in Detroit in the evening. Michigan is one of three “blue wall” states that, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will help decide the election.
October 18, 2024 4:58 am
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court has halted the scheduled execution of a man who would have become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. The late-night ruling to spare for now the life of Robert Roberson capped a flurry of last-ditch legal maneuvers and weeks of public pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say he is innocent and was convicted based on flawed evidence. Roberson was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002.
October 18, 2024 4:56 am
NEW YORK — (AP) — PPG Industries plans to lay off about 1,800 employees amid efforts to cut costs, with the paints and coatings maker also inking a deal to sell a sizeable chunk of its architectural business. Pittsburgh-based PPG said Thursday that the job cuts would primarily impact positions in the U.S. and Europe. The timing of the layoffs was not immediately disclosed, but the company said the cuts were part of a larger multiyear program aimed at reducing structural worldwide — noting that this will also include “various facility closures,” without specifying further. “While these decisions are difficult, they are necessary to adjust our fixed cost base and to right-size our company,” Tim Knavish, PPG chairman and CEO, said in a prepared statement — pointing to two recently-announced business divestitures. PPG also announced that it had agreed to sell all of its U.S. and Canadian architectural coatings business — which houses brands like Liquid Nails, Glidden and Olympic and made up $2 billion in net sales for PPG last year — to private equity firm American Industrial Partners. The sale, expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025, is valued at $550 million.
