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Local leaders are expressing concern and support for Penn State University’s campus in McKeesport following an announcement that 12 of the regional or “Commonwealth” branches could be shuttered.
On Tuesday, University President Neeli Bendapudi said that declining enrollment, increasing costs and demographic trends — including the declining population in the western part of Pennsylvania — are forcing the state-related institution to consider the future of its smaller campuses.
In addition to its main campus in Centre County, Penn State has 19 regional or Commonwealth campuses around the state. Campuses in Western Pennsylvania include McKeesport (Greater Allegheny), as well as New Kensington, Beaver County and Fayette County.
“We cannot continue with business as usual,” Bendapudi said. “The challenges we face — declining enrollments, demographic shifts and financial pressures — are not unique to Penn State, but they require us to make difficult choices. Across higher education, institutions are grappling with similar headwinds, and we have reached a moment where doing nothing is no longer an option.”
Immigration policy changes under the Trump administration are instilling fear in Pennsylvania schools, as educators and advocates warn of their effects on students and families.
Over 62,000 children born outside of the U.S. are residents in the Keystone State.
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and chief executive officer of MomsRising, said children are living in fear of family separation and a terrified child in a classroom full of fearful children can’t learn or thrive.
“We’re hearing from people that many children are terrified that if they go to school, their parents won’t be there when they come home,” she said. “That’s no way to learn. We’re hearing from people that many students, indeed, whole classrooms, are terrified that their close friends who are students won’t be at their desks tomorrow. None of this is okay.”
State Rep. Matt Gergely has been hospitalized for what was described as a “medical emergency” by a spokesperson for the state House Democratic Caucus. Few other details were released.
The McKeesport Democrat won a special election in 2023 to fill the 35th District seat, which was left vacant when former state Rep. Austin Davis of McKeesport was elected lieutenant governor.
In November, Gergely was elected to a full two-year term. His illness was first reported Friday by Pittsburgh public radio station WESA-FM.
As President-elect Donald Trump takes office, federal safety net programs such as Medicaid, CHIP and SNAP, which support 85 million low-income Americans, may face cuts to reduce inflation and debt.
Carolyn Myers, communications director for Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, said Medicaid has been instrumental in reducing the child uninsured rate. Cuts to the program will threaten coverage and benefits to the 1.2 million children currently enrolled in Pennsylvania.
In January, low-wage workers in Pennsylvania will be missing out on pay hikes seen in 23 other states.
Neighboring states such as Ohio are starting the new year with higher minimum wages.
Gillian Kratzer, deputy director of the advocacy group Better Pennsylvania, said the state’s minimum wage has stayed the same as the federal minimum wage, $7.25, since 2009. Her group argues that a better economy requires people to have money to spend.
“When you are living not just at minimum wage but even within some distance above it, you do not have money to spend, you are living paycheck to paycheck,” Kratzer said.
Craig White, an engineer working on the extension of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, points to construction areas on an aerial photo. (Photo courtesy Mon Yough Area Chamber of Commerce via Facebook)
The next portion of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, a roughly six-mile-long segment stretching from Route 51 to near the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin, could be open as soon as fall of 2026.
But the highway’s entrance into the Dravosburg and Duquesne areas will have to wait a little bit longer, representatives of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission told members of the Mon Yough Area Chamber of Commerce at a meeting on Wednesday morning. About 40 people attended.
The commission is still attempting to secure remaining pieces of right-of-way near Kennywood Park in West Mifflin, said Craig White, senior associate with Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson Inc., one of the engineering firms overseeing work on the project to extend the toll road otherwise known as Route 43.
One thing that won’t hold up further construction is a lack of funding. State Rep. Nick Pisciottano of West Mifflin said that a dedicated funding stream has been developed in Pennsylvania’s budget to complete the highway.
“There should never again be a point where the project just completely stops,” Pisciottano said.
Children play at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s Family Services Center in Wilmerding. AIU officials said the center will be forced to close without continued funding from Allegheny County. (Photo courtesy Allegheny Intermediate Unit)
Mon-Yough area social services organizations are sounding the alarm over Allegheny County’s budget impasse, warning that programs that parents and seniors have come to rely upon could be eliminated.
Allegheny County Council is scheduled to meet Tuesday to consider a $1.2 billion budget proposal from County Executive Sara Innamorato that includes a 2.2-mill property tax increase.
Members of council have told reporters they consider her budget “dead on arrival” and that it lacks the necessary approval of 10 council members in order to pass. A council committee last week recommended a proposal that includes an increase of slightly more than half of what the executive has said is needed to avoid drastic and severe across-the-board cutbacks.
Council must approve a budget by Friday.
Wendy Smith, director of early childhood, family, and community services for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, said that its 10 family centers — including in McKeesport, Duquesne, Wilmerding, Clairton and Homestead — will close without county funding.
“About half of the budget for these centers comes directly from Allegheny County, and the other half comes from the state through Allegheny County,” she said.
Without funding for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, Smith said, “they will be gone.”
Gayla and Guy Norelli of Glassport, Vince Klinkner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Jim Harrold of Seven Springs at an award ceremony celebrating Harrold’s rescue. (Submitted photo courtesy Guy Norelli)
“I just assumed I was going to drown.”
Jim Harrold of Seven Springs was fishing in the Youghiogheny River in Confluence, Somerset County, when the current pulled him under.
“As I was going down towards the bottom of the pool, which was about 20 feet, there was a light,” Harrold said recently. That's just about where Glassport resident Guy Norelli pulled Harrold out of the Youghiogheny River Lake outflow on Sept. 2, 2022.
Last month, Guy Norelli and his wife Gayla, who spotted the drowning man, were honored with a Public Service Commendation Medal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Allegheny County elections officials have issued this video explaining how absentee and mail-in ballots are counted. (Courtesy Allegheny County via YouTube)
Ahead of Tuesday’s election, Pennsylvania has become ground-zero for election conspiracy theories, experts warned this week, and they are cautioning the public not to be fooled.
Officials with the Allegheny County Elections Bureau have already attempted to debunk social media rumors after a video circulated of an absentee ballot drop-off location in South Park.
County officials said no illegal activity occured at the South Park drop-off facility, located at the county-owned ice rink on Corrigan Drive. The county elections bureau has opened temporary satellite offices at nine locations, including in Duquesne, Squirrel Hill and six other neighborhoods, where voters may deliver their own absentee ballots to elections workers.
More than four out of 10 Pennsylvanians told pollsters they’d support an outright ban on fracking.
Sean O'Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the poll was conducted to assess voters’ attitudes toward the fracking industry. Multiple questions were asked about what could be done to minimize or reduce some of the impacts of fracking.
“And what we found was that, across the board, across a variety of different measures,” said O'Leary, “more than 90 percent of all Pennsylvanians supported increased efforts in those regards.”
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