Category: Business
Charter schools raise question of cost
By Brian Reed Point Park News Service Referring to statewide controversy involving charter school funding formulas, public school lobbyist Ron Cowell likes to point to disparities in educational costs that, in some cases, have resulted in a difference of over $12,000 per year in spending on a single child. That issue and others caused former [...]
Social media reshapes the courts
By Marina Weis Point Park News Service Eleven minutes before the Boston marathon explosions, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, can be seen from security camera footage carrying large backpacks. Footage from another security camera as well as photographs show them walking toward the finish line, according to a criminal complaint. Within three days, [...]
PNC: green groundbreaker, the financial giant creates the world’s greenest building
By Veronica Kropf The Pioneer In 1998, when Rebecca Flora heard on the radio that PNC Financial Services Inc. was beginning construction on what became its Firstside Center in downtown Pittsburgh, she decided to make a chance phone call to see if the company would consider employing sustainable business practices. “I just thought this would [...]
Green & Gold: Pens strike it rich in energy efficiency
By Alexandra Perry The Pioneer Before the Pittsburgh Penguins had a serious discussion about turning the all-new CONSOL Energy Center green, most of their intentions were built around cost consciousness, not sustainability. That all changed when the $321 million project’s managers, including LEED certified partners Chris Cieslak and Michael Bernard, deliberately showed Pens officials that [...]
Church Brew Works turns into an environmentally conscious restaurant
By Audrey Prisk The Pioneer Since day one of The Church Brew Work’s transformation from St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church to restaurant and brewery, owner Sean Casey committed to reusing and repurposing nearly everything in the building. Sixteen years into business, the restaurant feeds local farmer’s livestock with fresh vegetables, recycles spent grain and [...]
Edible Gardens: Communities taking root through common ground
By Rebecca Lessner The Pioneer Last spring Manchester Elementary School on the North Side started a vegetable garden with Green Up Pittsburgh, and soon the entire neighborhood was stepping in, growing it into something much more than tomato and pepper plants. With the help of Pittsburgh’s Green Team and Chelsea Peluso, the project quickly grew [...]
Electric conversion jolts Carnegie Mellon
By Kimberly Smith The Pioneer When Electric Vehicles—or EVs—first became available for sale in 2001, Illah Nourbakhsh did whatever he had to do to buy one, even if it meant driving to California to get it. Nourbakhsh, a Robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon and a director of the University’s CreateLab, trucked across the country and came home with a Toyota [...]
Meme definition debated
By Marina Weis Point Park News Service What do a famous pop culture painting of a Campbell soup can by Andy Warhol and an online image of Hillary Clinton texting with the words “running the world” have in common? They both follow the trend of recontextualization, extracting an original idea or image and changing its [...]
Lawrenceville’s favorite chocolate shop moving
By Alexandra Perry For The Pioneer When Christopher George Weck started his Lawrenceville chocolate shop Sinful Sweets in August of 2011, his goal was to give the community deliciously creative homemade treats. While his business quickly flourished in the up and coming neighborhood, a lease issue caused him to move after only a year after [...]
CMU grads build computer education company
By Lisa Tomblin The Pioneer While a child used to stack blocks to learn shapes, new inventions adds digital elements to allow them to watch work on an iPad. Instead of Lego’s and robotics toys, DREAM-TABLETOP says its new computer program can enable kids to build things. In short, this group of Carnegie Mellon University [...]
