Arts, Sports & Culture

On Thursday evening, more than 60 people gathered at the Union Project in Highland Park to learn how to safely intervene in incidents of bullying or harassment. The event was organized by the local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and Jewish social justice group Bend the Arc.

Five local football players have been chosen for the All-American National Team, which is playing against the American Team this weekend as part of the Women’s Football Alliance Championship.

All the players are members of the Pittsburgh Passion football team, which is celebrating 15 years as a league. The All-American players were voted on as the best of the WFA’s 65 teams.

After a three-year search, the board of the August Wilson Center For African American Culture named its new president and CEO Thursday. Janis Burley Wilson, who is not related to the center’s namesake, has overseen programming at the center since the Cultural Trust took over temporary operation two years ago.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said Burley Wilson’s hire means the conversation is no longer about saving the center, named after Pittsburgh Playwright August Wilson. 

George Romero, whose classic "Night of the Living Dead" and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, has died. He was 77.

Drivers will take to the streets of Pittsburgh this weekend for the city’s 35th annual vintage grand prix races, which will start on Saturday in Schenley Park. The 10-day event includes car shows, parades and the main event, vintage car races through the park.

Take a walk through downtown or  the North Shore and it seems everything, from Pirates caps to government buildings to Heinz Field, radiates black and gold. The colors are synonymous with Pittsburgh sports and culture.

A chandelier full of high heels and beads hangs above a cheetah print rug and gold wallpaper, which now adorn the window of Future Tenant on Penn Avenue. Throughout the gallery hang various mirrored balls and pictures. It’s all part of an exhibition opening examining the influence of disco on modern culture.

New York-based curator and Hampton Township native Emily Colucci said disco is generally seen as superficial, but she contends there is value to exploring disco’s aesthetic and cultural impact.

As an Oscar- and Tony Award-winner and one of the leading Shakespearean actors of his day, Mark Rylance knows a great story when he hears one.

He's captivated these days by the story of the historic 1892 Homestead Strike, when thousands of steel workers and townspeople clashed with Pinkerton guards hired by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and industrialist Henry Clay Frick to end a labor dispute that turned deadly.

Penn State University is suing former assistant football coach Bob Shoop for breach of contract, alleging he owes the university nearly $900,000.

According to the lawsuit filed in June, Shoop was required by contract to pay the university half his base salary for any remaining term if he decided to leave early. He was contracted through February 2018, but Shoop resigned in January 2016 to become defensive coordinator at the University of Tennessee.

Penn State is seeking $891,000 with additional interest and court costs.

"Wild," the first solo exhibition of photography by Michael "Nick" Nichols features photographs of gorillas, tigers, lions and elephants in their natural habitat - serenity, ferocity, and curiosity.

For decades, Nichols has been on the run as a National Geographic photographer, traveling to remote parts of the world hauling robots, infrared gear, computer monitors, drones - whatever it took to get as close as possible to an animal on its own turf.

Law enforcement responded to a fire this weekend at one of West Virginia’s most recognizable landmarks.

Officials said guests at the Seneca Rocks area of the Monongahela National Forest set off fireworks that sparked a blaze around the Lower Slabs climbing area at around 10 p.m. Saturday. The fire and its plume were still visible through the wee hours Monday morning.

Massive and intimidating, the craggy, knife-edge landscape of Seneca Rocks draws serious rock climbers from southwestern Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, to its fiercely vertical routes.

Even before Pittsburgh was topping “most livable” listicles and getting attention as the “next Brooklyn,” it attracted travelers from around the country.

Long before cell phones held all of our photos and stored calendars for meetings, there was a primitive, but equally as personal object: the carved powder horn. 

For the 12th year, furries have descended on Pittsburgh for the annual Anthrocon at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

This year’s theme is: “Take me out to the Ballgame” and runs through Sunday.

It’s considered one of the largest furry conventions in the world and organizers estimated that about 8,000 people are taking part this year. 

All weekend, Pittsburghers can expect to see colorful anthropomorphic suits adorning its sidewalks, as well as locals posing for pictures and photographs.

John Tumpane can't explain why he approached the woman as she hopped over the railing of the Roberto Clemente Bridge on Wednesday afternoon.

The woman told Tumpane she just wanted to get a better view of the Allegheny River below. The look on her face and the tone of her voice suggested otherwise to Tumpane, a major league baseball umpire in town to work the series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Tampa Bay Rays.

So the 34-year-old Tumpane reached for the woman even as she urged him to let her go.

After 52 hours of tense deliberations, two holdouts in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial refused to convict the 79-year-old comedian, a juror told ABC News.

The juror, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 10 of the 12 jurors agreed that Cosby was guilty on the first and third felony counts. And only one of the jurors thought he was guilty on the second count.

The two holdouts were "not moving, no matter what," the juror told the network.

Jurors initially voted overwhelmingly to acquit Cosby on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault, the juror said.

Bill Cosby is thanking his fans and supporters as a jury considers sexual assault charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Cosby tweeted the message on Friday shortly after jurors asked to review his lurid testimony about giving quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. 

Jurors considering the fate of Cosby at his sexual assault trial returned for a fifth day of deliberations on Friday, a day after telling the judge they were deadlocked on all charges.

An immersive theater production will take visitors to places normally off-limits at the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. 

As deliberations in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial continue into a fourth day Thursday, nerves are frayed, patience is shot and no one is certain when it will all end.

Some jurors appeared angry, the judge sounded exasperated and accuser Andrea Constand's mother broke down in tears Wednesday.

The sequestered jury has been at it for more than 27 hours since getting the case Monday, pausing a half-dozen times to revisit key evidence, including Cosby's decade-old admissions that he fondled Constand after giving her pills.

Jurors in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial reviewed portions of his accuser's testimony Wednesday as they deliberated for a third day over whether the 79-year-old star drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia estate.

Jurors made the request to have portions of Andrea Constand's testimony read back to them after deliberating about 21 hours without reaching a verdict in a case that has already helped demolish Cosby's nice-guy reputation.

Constand, 44, who spent seven hours on the stand last week, was in the gallery as the jury scrutinized her story.

The Pittsburgh Penguins' Stanley Cup victory parade and rally drew an estimated 650,000 people downtown. Not bad for a city that, officially, has only 305,000 residents.