Michael Sallah

4 days ago | post-gazette.com | Michael Sallah |Mike Wereschagin

The firm that poured millions of dollars into a massive steel factory in the heart of Appalachia had no office, no phone, no website, nor any employees. To nearly everyone, Veroni Alloys LLC, was a mystery. In an elaborate scheme, the company moved the money through a network of more than a dozen bank accounts to finance the purchase of the bustling facility that had employed generations of steelworkers, records show.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Michael Sallah |Mike Wereschagin |Jimmy Cloutier

President Donald Trump last week issued executive orders designed to revive the use of coal in power plants, a practice that has been steadily declining for more than a decade. But the effort is likely to fail, energy experts said, because the fossil fuel faces some hurdles. The power that coal plants produce typically can't compete with cheaper, cleaner alternatives. And many plants that burn coal are simply too old and would need extensive and expensive upgrades to continue running.

2 weeks ago | post-gazette.com | Mike Wereschagin |Anya Litvak |Michael Sallah

Amanda Lawson’s 45th birthday gift to herself was a new tattoo. Her right forearm now bears a coal miner’s helmet shining a light with the words: “When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”For Ms. Lawson, a black lung benefits counselor in West Virginia, the quote from former President Ronald Reagan represents the battle she has been fighting for the past seven years: helping miners with the disease get critical benefits and protections.

3 weeks ago | post-gazette.com | Michael Sallah |Michael Korsh |Madaleine Rubin

Philips Respironics will lay off 14 workers at a Westmoreland County facility after it eliminated a shift. The company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act “WARN” notice announcing the layoffs at its facility at 174 Tech Center Drive in Mount Pleasant. “It is anticipated that these will be permanent terminations and that employee separations will commence on May 23, 2025,” the company wrote in the WARN notice in late March.

3 weeks ago | post-gazette.com | Michael Sallah |Mike Wereschagin |Jimmy Cloutier

For federal safety inspectors, the urgent call to their sprawling mining office near Pittsburgh was bleak: Man crushed in the rubble of an aging mine in the heart of coal country. Agents from the Mount Pleasant office arrived at the scene shortly after the body of Joseph Guzzo Jr. had been pulled from under the massive chunk of earth that collapsed in the mine tunnel four years ago.