Deb Erdley stories, Page 28

College leaders across the country took a deep breath as they opened their email Monday, looking for something to brag about in the new 2020 America’s Best Colleges by U.S. News & World Report. The much anticipated annual report that covers about 1,900 colleges and universities purports to identify the...

State Sen. Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, has been appointed to the Advisory Council for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Veterans’ Center in Pittsburgh. Ward, in her third term, was elected to the state Senate in 2008. She said she is anxious to learn more about the center and will tour the facility in...

Federal regulators Thursday slapped Michigan State University with a $4.5 million fine stemming from the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. The fine is the largest on record against a university charged with failure to protect students from sexual abuse. The largest fine prior to this was $2.4 million the U.S....

Pennsylvania, which has shuttered state prisons in Hempfield, Pittsburgh and Cresson over the last six years, may be on the verge of closing yet another massive state lock-up. Faced with a $140 million budget deficit and declining prison population, Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel has proposed closing the State...

Eula Tintori was a woman ahead of her time. Her daughter said the Traverse City, Mich., native became the first female X-ray technician in her hometown hospital when officials there realized the young woman they had hired to assist in the X-ray lab showed great promise. At the time mammography...

Keeping this promise will require stamina. Even veteran athlete Mark Mhley, who has completed multiple Ironman triathlons, worries that pedaling 198 miles over steep winding country roads that cross the mountains between Washington, D.C., and the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Somerset County, will be a stretch. Mhley, 44,...

With more and more states legalizing medical and recreational marijuana, sooner or later some bright scientist had to invent a marijuana breathalyzer. Now it appears researchers at the University of Pittsburgh may have just walked to the head of the class. A Pitt spokesman said a team from the university’s...

The University of Pittsburgh has suspended a language program sponsored by the Chinese government in the wake of visa issues for 15 Chinese scholars previously scheduled to oversee the program. The school suspended its Confucius Institute language programs after the U.S. State Department issued “unwelcome and unexpected” guidance regarding the...

“It’s not about the money.” In another time and place, Jack (not his real name) said he’d take the $41,990 offered through the Greensburg Catholic Diocese’s compensation fund for clergy sex abuse survivors and toss it back. Nothing will ever erase what he says the Rev. John J. Nyeste, a...

That first day of school may have been rough, but chances are new teachers are doing comparatively better in Pennsylvania than just about anywhere else in the nation. A study by business.org that looked at average teacher starting salaries across the nation and then calculated the pay gap between that...

Low pay, an economy approaching full employment and dramatic decreases in enrollment in teacher education programs at colleges have produced something few ever thought they’d see in Pennsylvania: a teacher shortage, specifically a shortage of substitute teachers. Mark DiRocco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, said the...

The University of Pittsburgh has joined a growing list of American universities that have shuttered a Chinese language and culture program sponsored by the Chinese government. Ariel Armony, Pitt’s vice provost for global affairs and director of the University Center for International Studies, said the university closed its Confucius Institute...

Whenever anyone at the Westmoreland County Blind Association’s workshop needed a voice or a hand, Ken Gulisek was there. Mr. Gulisek, whose son, Brett, was born with sight impairments and intellectual challenges, was committed to the workshop. He was grateful to the organization that provided his adult son with a...

Two Indiana University of Pennsylvania students were awarded U.S. State Department Benjamin A. Gilman scholarships for study abroad, IUP officials announced Thursday. Kailyn Provitt, a 2016 Gateway High School graduate, and Adama Kouyate of Reading were selected from a pool of more than 3,400 students nationwide. The scholarships support international...

A year to the day after a statewide grand jury report disclosed seven decades of sexual abuse allegations against 301 Catholic priests, the Pennsylvania Superior Court Wednesday cleared what may be a path for some old claims to go to a jury. An order issued Wednesday by the court upheld...

Seven of the 31 Pennsylvania counties that purchased new voting machines opted for a system that cost nearly twice as much as one ranked more secure, according to a new report from the University of Pittsburgh and Citizens for Better Elections. Counties across the state are rushing to buy new...

Excela Health’s finances are not on life support, despite the potential that hundreds of patient refund checks recently bounced. A data entry error this month had people across the Westmoreland County-based health system wondering what happened when banks began issuing bad check charges for refund checks issued on behalf of...

Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday vowed to level the playing field between Pennsylvania’s traditional public schools and charter and cyber charter schools. He said the latter lack accountability and transparency and are draining millions of dollars from struggling school districts. Calling the state’s 22-year-old public charter school law flawed and...

Mt. Pleasant Area School District teachers who have been working without a contract for the last year issued a strike notice this week after failing to reach an agreement during their 15th negotiating session. The Mt. Pleasant Area Education Association, which represents 143 teachers, counselors, nurses and school psychologists, said...

Retired steelworker Arthur Flowers of Derry Township is among thousands of Pennsylvanians who have a license to carry a concealed handgun. But he’s also among nearly two-thirds of registered voters in a recent statewide poll who said they favor some type of additional laws regulating gun ownership. A Franklin &...

Three days after a pair of mass shootings rocked the nation, a bipartisan coalition of U.S. senators is promoting legislation that would standardize procedures for gun license denials across the country. Pennsylvania is among 13 states that operate their own background checks on individuals attempting to purchase firearms using the...

The Westmoreland Diversity Coalition is joining Saint Vincent College, the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County, Adelphoi and the YWCA to sponsor a keynote speech this month by former white supremacist Arno Michaelis. Michaelis, author of “My Life After Hate,” will speak on his experience at 9:15 a.m. Aug. 29 at...