Maryann Fisher, left, of Alexandria, blocks the photographer’s camera as her husband, former pastor David Fisher, second from right, 64, leaves the Huntingdon County Courthouse after pleading no contest to a felony charge of endangering the welfare of a child in failure to report sexual abuse on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019, in Huntingdon. Echoes of abuse coverups ring throughout Plain churches across the country in a culture that has historically emphasized a separation from the outside world.
Steam rises from the stacks at U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Works beyond a snowy line of houses on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018 in Braddock.
Recovery director of the ARK Allegheny Recover Krew Gus DiRenna, 59, of Whitehall, leads a prayer with his crew of workers as they start an afternoon of work in the former drug house that he is turning into a home for people in recovery from drugs on Thursday, June 28, 2018, in Carrick. (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)
Kim Bowles at her Pittsburgh, Pa. home in July 2018. (Stephanie Strasburg for Cosmopolitan)
Bloomfield Laundromat. Sept. 20, 2015.
Bingo Queen at Guyasuta Days. Sharpsburg, PA.
Deer hang in a freezer in line for the butcher’s block at Rome’s Meat and Deli in Butler, Penn. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013. Rome’s is one of a handful of processors across the state that are processing sites for the organization Hunters Sharing the Harvest, which delivers an average of 100,000 pounds of venison to Pennsylvania food banks, soup kitchens, and pantries to feed insecure people and families.
Models represented by Pittsburgh Video Vixens pose for a video shot outside Highmark Stadium before modeling in the Pittsburgh Fashion Week Designer Showcase in Pittsburgh, Penn. on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014.
T.J. Ashbaugh, 26, fastens the hair of his stepdaughter Emily, 3, as he puts her to bed at their home in North Vandergrift, Pa. Above on the top bunk, his eight-year-old daughter Keeley talks to them as she waits her turn. Keeley has settled into a life of more structure after the unpredictability that came with both of her birth parents’ heroin use.
While her father’s recovery means he is staying home and taking care of four little girls, two cats, a dog, and a rent-to-own home, Keeley has only seen her birth mother several times since Christmas 2015. T.J. doesn’t sugarcoat the reason why he now carries his brother’s ashes around on a chain around his neck. He wants his kids to understand what killed their uncle — the same disease that gripped his mother, upended his own life, & turned his ex into a missing person.
Children like Keeley have endured trauma and instability, and likely have inherited a vulnerability to addiction, putting them at risk. Child welfare systems, meanwhile, are straining to meet the needs of kids whose parents havenÕt recovered. Keeley is surrounded by people who know the opioid threat intimately, and are determined to keep it away from her. But thereÕs only so much they can control. She doesnÕt realize that she represents the next front in the battle against the overdose epidemic, and is a living experiment in how we care for children who are genetically predisposed to addiction, and for the adults in recovery who raise them.
Jerry Robinson (left), 10, blocks Brandon Turner (center), 4, while Shalen Burton, 8, chases after as they play football in the streets of their neighborhood of McKees Rocks on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014. The boys say they all aspire to grow up and play football for their high school. “Football is the last hope they have to learn the ideals they need in life,” says Sto-Rox assistant coach Tony Ruscitto, 73, who coaches the high school football team with his son Jason. “This town, what else do they have besides football?”
Lights illuminate skates for sale in the pro-room window as people make their way around the floor at Neville Roller Drome on Neville Island on Saturday, July 23, 2016. “We were kind of territorial of this place as kids,” said Melissa Scalise, 38, of Freedom, who grew up in the on Neville Island and came often to the rink. “‘The Island Kids,’ they called us… Now we’re bringing our kids.”
Micah Jeffries, 19, dances during the “Mystical Magical Mardi Gras” celebration marking the end of a school year at Don’t Worry Child Care Center in McKeesport, Penn. on Friday night, August 23, 2013. Several students from the class from across the river in Clairton will graduate from the program and choose to come to school again in McKeesport. Clairton’s school scores are so low that there is funding available so students can go to school elsewhere in the surrounding area.
A crowd gathers at the Healthy Village Learning Institute in the former St. Pius School in McKeesport, Penn. on April 18, 2015. The center offers non-violence training and programs ranging from manhood and womanhood development to health and wellness workshops to leadership, job, and entrepreneurial skills.
Barry Highberger, 61, walks along the path of an interstate shale pipeline that runs through his farm in Sewickley Township, Penn. on May 23, 2013. Berger and his neighbors in Sewickley fought to stop Sunoco Logistics Partners LP from buying rights of way on their land or using eminent domain to take them, citing frustration from other pipeline projects that are still scarring their land, concerns over private property rights and value, and safety risks.
Alicia Airs, 40, a long-time sufferer of Rheumatoid Arthritis, poses for portraits at her house on Friday, May 26, 2017 in Youngstown, Ohio. Airs had an adverse reaction to the new RA drug Actemra she is trying to manage her symptoms, which caused her heart to race and other side effects. From STAT’s investigative piece by Charles Piller: “The Food and Drug Administration has received reports on 1,128 people who died after taking Actemra, and has reviewed its safety several times since it was approved. But the agency doesnÕt have sophisticated tools to determine whether the drug was a culprit or a bystander in those deaths.
Though the agency is charged with monitoring the safety of prescription drugs, it doesnÕt verify the side-effect reports it receives. The documents often lack crucial information, and they donÕt prove that Actemra was the cause. Still, they can be telling.” Read more at STAT here.
Justin Sevacko, Jr., 2, of Imperial, stands with his aunt’s 6-week-old puppy, Ace, as they hang out on Tuesday, July 4, 2017 in McKees Rocks.
Emily Kuzma, 20, of Downtown, stands with her rental skates by the skate room window at Neville Roller Drome on Neville Island on Sunday, April 24, 2016. “We’re trying to rebuild the skate community here in Pittsburgh,” said rink owner/operator Jim Park, 53, of West View, a lifelong skater himself. This marks the fifth year under Park’s ownership for Neville Roller Drome, the rink where his father first took him to learn to skate as a six-year-old.
Freshman Noah Hamlin (left) and sophomore Harrison Dreher rest on air mattresses in the stadium locker rooms during before the Clairton Bears’ Friday night game in Clairton on September 20, 2013. The Clairton Bears have evolved into a brilliant symbol for struggling town that is home to above-average poverty and crime rates in the wake of the collapse of the steel industry.
Actors wait in the wings for the musical number “Kiss the Girl” during the dress rehearsal for Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s (PMT) production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid on Wednesday, March 14, 2018, at the Byham Theater in Downtown. (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)
