Pennsylvania
Nippon Steel fight points to industry's uncertain future in Pennsylvania
Photo: Rebecca DROKE / AFP
Source: AFP
Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of United States Steel has been a source of unease in Pittsburgh, where the metal once dominated the economy and still looms large in the collective psyche.
Critics such as the United Steelworkers (USW) see the transaction as the latest threat to come along in a years-long struggle to keep the industry alive after plant closures in 1970s and 1980s battered the American rustbelt.
“There’s just so much history here and a lot of pride that comes with that,” said the USW’s Bernie Hall, a 4th generation metals worker. “It wouldn’t be western Pennsylvania without steel.”
In December, US Steel sealed a $14.9 billion deal to sell itself to Japan’s Nippon Steel, which has promised investments to keep Pennsylvania factories competitive with foreign producers and newer “mini mills” in the American South that are less taxing on the environment.
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Photo: Rebecca DROKE / AFP
Source: AFP
But Hall, head of the Pennsylvania chapter for the USW, said the Japanese company had been evasive about specific plans for Pittsburgh-region plants in an area called the Mon Valley, the earliest of which dates to 1875.
Both President Joe Biden and challenger Donald Trump have vowed to annul the deal as the two compete for blue-collar votes, putting the transaction into limbo, probably until after the November election at least.
At stake are the Pittsburgh region’s last remaining steel factories, located just outside the city.
City transformed
For most Americans, Pittsburgh remains virtually synonymous with steel, partly owing to the prominence of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football team.
Photo: Rebecca DROKE / AFP
Source: AFP
But the complexion of a metropolis once known as the Smoky City changed fundamentally after the last plants shuttered in the 1980s.
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Steel “is still part of our identity, but we’re disconnected from that identity,” said former steelworker Edward Stankowski Jr., whose memoir “Memory of Steel” details his exit from the industry with thousands of others in the early 1980s.
Stankowski, whose childhood Pittsburgh home looked out onto steel plants, started in the industry out of high school in the 1970s when many young men viewed the job as a ticket to the middle class, trading hard labor in a hazardous setting for good wages and a solid retirement.
The land where Stankowski’s factory once stood in Pittsburgh’s South Side has been repurposed and now includes apartments named “Hot Metal Flats” and a Cheesecake Factory restaurant.
“I do not miss it,” said Stankowski, who went to university after leaving steel and is now a professor at La Roche University. “I like having clean air. I like having clean water.”
Steel was well suited to western Pennsylvania, a region with waterways and an abundant supply of coal, but “there’s been a fundamental, almost tectonic shift in the geography of steel,” said regional economist Chris Briem of the University of Pittsburgh.
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The Mon Valley plants “have been around a long time,” Briem said. “If they don’t get a lot of new reinvestment, they probably won’t be competitive much longer.”
Locals see symbolism in the renaming of US Steel tower downtown as the UPMC building after the region’s biggest employer, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Long-term commitment?
Once owned by Andrew Carnegie, the Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock is one of three western Pennsylvania factories that US Steel manages together with a fourth plant in eastern Pennsylvania in an operation known as “Mon Valley Works.”
Nippon has promised to keep the plants open and invest $1.4 billion in USW-represented facilities through 2026 when the current labor contract expires. The company has also vowed to keep US Steel’s 1,000-worker office in downtown Pittsburgh.
“You cannot tell the story of US Steel without Pennsylvania playing a leading role, and Nippon Steel will keep it that way,” Nippon vice chairman Takahiro Mori wrote in a June 9 op ed in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
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Nippon has hinted that odds for US approval could improve after November. Backers of the transaction argue that US Steel could be broken up if the deal dies, adding more uncertainty to US Steel’s 3,000 hourly workers in Pennsylvania.
But the USW says Nippon’s plans are vague and give the company an out in a downturn.
“They’re saying they’re going to invest in the plants,” Hall said. “What does that mean?”
Photo: Rebecca DROKE / AFP
Source: AFP
Workers want a sign that whoever runs Mon Valley “is interested in running these mills for the long-term and really investing in this community,” Hall said. “That’s exactly what they’re not hearing from either Nippon or US Steel.”
Some Mon Valley workers interviewed by AFP slammed the deal as a money grab by US Steel management, expressing fear about their jobs. But others are open to it.
Alex Barna, a machinist at the West Mifflin plan, described himself as “on the fence” as he weighs his hopes and worries, saying of Nippon, “they might be in it for the long haul.”
Source: AFP
A Pennsylvania principal whose antisemitic tirade about “Jew money” was inadvertently recorded has been fired.
Lower Gwynedd Elementary School Principal Phillip Leddy was axed Tuesday by the Wissahickon School Board.
Leddy, 45, was returning a call from a parent when he got the dad’s voicemail and left a message, but then apparently failed to end the call, Philadelphia’s ABC 7 reported.
Leddy allegedly accused the parent of having “Jew money” and could be heard muttering “they control the banks,” according to recording, which was posted by the advocacy group StopAntisemitism.
”They go to Jew camp… everyone at the camp hates that family… ” he was also caught saying, according to the group’s recording.
Parents in the district have accused the school board of attempting to paper over their longstanding issues with antisemitism by hanging Leddy out to dry.
“It was an easy one for them because it was old school anti-semitism versus more modern, like anti-Zionism antisemitism,” Beth Ages, who has two kids in the district, told The Post.
They point to a mural in Wissahickon Middle School, which depicts Linda Sarsour — who was forced to step down from the Women’s March amid an antisemitism scandal and later apologized — and Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama, who once praised 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden.
“I’m glad that you are curious why I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire,” she said in a 2003 interview.
“Jewish families are leaving in droves,” said Lynn Simon, who has two kids in the district.
Leddy and the Wissahickon school district did not respond to a request for comment.
Portions of Pennsylvania are under an ice storm warning on Friday night going into Saturday morning as the National Weather Service (NWS) warns of possible “slick and hazardous” conditions.
Newsweek reached out to the NWS via email for comment Friday night.
Why It Matters
Severe winter weather is presenting significant hazards across Pennsylvania, as the NWS issues multiple ice storm warnings and advisories for the region.
Residents, travelers, and utility providers face potentially elevated risks of power outages, hazardous road conditions, and vehicle restrictions in counties identified as most at risk. Understanding where these warnings are in effect is crucial as post-holiday travel collides with potentially hazardous ice accumulations and freezing precipitation.
What To Know
According to the NWS, portions of central and western Pennsylvania are under the warning until 7 a.m. ET Saturday.
“Significant icing” along with “Additional sleet accumulations up to a coating and ice accumulations between one tenth and one quarter of an inch,” are possible in the cities of DuBois, Somerset, Warren, St. Marys, Bradford, Clearfield, Johnstown, Ridgway, Tionesta, Franklin, Punxsutawney, Oil City, Ford City, Brookville, Indiana, Armagh, Kittanning, and Clarion, the NWS says.
Below are maps of the regions impacted by the warning:
Paired with these ice warnings, Winter Weather Advisories remain in effect for Harrisburg, Lancaster, Gettysburg, York and Altoona through Saturday morning. The NWS forecasts additional snow and ice potential across the region, with potential accumulations up to an inch possible in some locations.
“Roads, and especially bridges and overpasses, will likely become slick and hazardous. Power outages and tree damage are likely due to the ice. Travel could be nearly impossible,” the NWS says in the ice storm warning.
What People Are Saying
NWS Pittsburgh on X on Friday: “If you’re safely able, send us those ice measurements. Ice can be measured radially around branches as described below in steps 1-3, or on top of flat surfaces. Let us know which you measured!”
Meteorologist Cody Barnhart on X on Friday: “Our ice storm continues across PA and anything that’s been exposed is a sheet of ice. Major accidents state wide. Greencastle coming in slick @NWSStateCollege @mikestanislaw @MatthewCappucci @tornadopaigeyy @TOMRUSSELLCBS21”
What Happens Next
The NWS expects conditions to improve from west to east across Pennsylvania by Saturday afternoon.
Pennsylvania
Winter Storm Warnings in effect for New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, U.S.
Multiple Winter Storm Warnings are in effect across the Northeast U.S. from the afternoon of December 26 through the late morning or early afternoon of December 27.
Warnings cover much of the region from northeastern Pennsylvania through northern New Jersey, southeastern New York, and southern Connecticut.
The warning is in effect from 16:00 EST on December 26 until 13:00 EST on December 27 for New York City’s five boroughs, Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, and Fairfield, Westchester, Rockland, and Bergen Counties.
For northern and southern New Haven Counties, Connecticut, the warning begins slightly later, from 19:00 EST on December 26 to 13:00 EST on December 27.
In northeastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey, including Monroe, Warren, Sussex, and Morris Counties, warnings remain in effect from 13:00 EST on December 26 until 10:00 EST on December 27. These areas may experience a combination of snow and sleet, with local ice accumulations in elevated terrain.
Farther north, in the Catskills, mid-Hudson Valley, and Litchfield County, Connecticut, are under warnings from 16:00 EST on December 26 until 13:00 EST on December 27.
Snow will begin spreading from southwest to northeast during the afternoon and intensify through the evening. Peak snowfall rates may reach 2.5–5 cm (1–2 inches) per hour at times.
Snowfall totals of 13–23 cm (5–9 inches) are forecast across the New York City area, Long Island, southern New York, and southern Connecticut.
Meanwhile, Albany, Ulster, Greene, Dutchess, and Litchfield Counties are forecast to receive around 13–25 cm (5–10 inches) of snowfall.
Snow totals are forecast to reach 10–20 cm (4–8 inches) in northern New Jersey, and northeastern Pennsylvania, with localized totals of over 20 cm (8 inches) being possible for higher elevation areas.
The heavy snow and winter weather will create dangerous travel conditions across major routes, including Interstates 80,87,95, and 287, through the warning period.
The snowfall is expected to begin tapering off by the morning of December 27 as the storm moves out into the Atlantic.
References:
1 Winter Storm Warning – NWS – December 26, 2025
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