Pittsburg, PA
Starbucks workers at Pittsburgh's Sixth Street store vote for a union – Pittsburgh Union Progress
Shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Starbucks workers and organizers in Pittsburgh began celebrating. During a phone conversation, you could hear their excited voices in the background. Moments earlier, they’d stood in the Downtown Sixth Street Starbucks cafe while an agent from the National Labor Relations Board counted ballots that would determine whether the store’s baristas would unionize.
The finally tally proved unanimous: Nine votes in favor of joining Starbucks Workers United. It was a committed crew. One worker, a high school student, skipped classes to cast a vote.
“Everyone is so happy,” said Tori Tambellini, a Starbucks worker and union organizer. She’d stepped outside to spread the news by phone. “I think the store manager may have teared up a bit. He’s not as happy as we are.”
The Sixth Street store is the 400th in the U.S. to organize. The Starbucks United campaign began in late 2021.
The past several days have been exhilarating for Pittsburgh’s unionized baristas. Last week, the coffee company announced it would work with the union toward reaching a contract for its organized employees — a sharp reversal in what had been a hardline company stance against the union. And on Monday, a crowd of United Steelworkers from around the U.S. and Canada, in town for a convention, filled the sidewalks on Sixth Street to rally and offer support ahead of the vote.
“We’re really stoked,” said Eric Shorthouse, 28, a worker at the Sixth Street store. “This is huge. It’s not something I really ever thought would happen.”
Both Shorthouse and fellow employee Harper Blackstock, 22, said they felt as though they were “standing on the shoulders of giants,” meaning organizers and workers who paved the way for the Sixth Street effort. That includes workers who initiated the national Starbucks organizing effort in Buffalo, as well as those at the cafe in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood, which became the first to organize in Pennsylvania.
One issue for workers at the Sixth Street store is that managers have been cutting baristas’ hours. This results in smaller paychecks and too few workers performing too much work.
”A lot of times it feels like our position there is not taken seriously as a job and a livelihood,” Blackstock said, “and that goes for scheduling, for pay, and for the amount of work that any individual person is made to do.”
Another issue is safety. Baristas at the store sometimes must deal with unruly customers – there have been occasions in which customers have thrown items at workers, Blackstock said. Workers want the company to take those incidents more seriously.
“There have been times in the past when safety measures were subpar at best,” Blackstone said. “And that’s disheartening.”
Steve is a photojournalist and writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he is currently on strike and working as a Union Progress co-editor. Reach him at smellon@unionprogress.com.
Pittsburgh ranks among the top 25 best places to live, work and visit in the U.S., according to a new report.
The 2026 “America’s Best Cities” report from Resonance, an international business consulting company, ranks the top 100 U.S. metro areas overall based on factors such as economic data, quality of living and public perception. Pittsburgh scored in the top quarter of cities nationwide.
Here’s a breakdown of how Pittsburgh ranks.
Pittsburgh ranks among top U.S. cities
Overall, Pittsburgh scored at No. 25 among U.S. cities.
Top-scoring cities almost all “made the visitor and resident experience a strategic priority,” according to the report. Rankings were also further broken down based on each key scoring components.
Pittsburgh has put a focus on its cultural amenities and food scene, as well as in revitalizing its neighborhoods, the report noted. While other similarly sized cities in the ranking have fallen, Pittsburgh climbed by five spots in 2026.
Pittsburgh among best cities for livability
Pittsburgh scored at No. 24 among U.S. cities for its livability.
The report’s livability scores were ranked in accordance to the quality of daily life in a city based on factors such as walkability, transit access, air quality, climate risk, green space, housing costs relative to income, broadband connectivity, healthcare access and life expectancy, as well as if the location is somewhere people would want to live.
Pittsburgh ranks in top 30 cities for lovability, prosperity
Pittsburgh ranked among the top 30 U.S. cities for both its lovability and its prosperity, scoring at No. 26 for lovability and No. 28 for prosperity.
Lovability was scored based on factors like the quality and quantity of venues such as restaurants, arts and entertainment sites, museums, outdoor experiences and nightlife. Digital data such as search trends, social media activity and other user-generated content was also considered.
Prosperity rankings were based on factors such as gross domestic product per capita, labor force participation, innovation capital intensity, educational attainment, unemployment and poverty rates, the presence of major corporate headquarters, university quality and the number of direct air connections.
Philadelphia ranked just a few spots above Pittsburgh at No. 20 overall.
Top 10 cities in 2026 ‘Best Cities’ ranking
The top 10 cities in the ranking are:
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Miami, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Seattle, WA
- Las Vegas, NV
- Dallas, TX
- Houston, TX
- Boston, MA
Finch Walker is the Pittsburgh Connect Reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Contact Walker at FWalker@usatodayco.com. Instagram: @finchwalker_. X: @_finchwalker.
Pittsburg, PA
Delta-8 is unregulated and untested. Here’s what to know about the synthetic cannabis.
Delta-8 is unregulated and untested, and more and more users are paying the price.
Health experts say the drug often contains chemicals and toxins, resulting in psychotic episodes and, in some cases, long-term damage.
Should Delta-8 be banned?
Walk into any of the now-hundreds of vape shops in the Pittsburgh region and just about any gas station, and it’s yours for the asking: Delta-8.
It’s an unregulated, quasi-legal form of synthetic cannabis. It’s supposed to be less potent than regular marijuana, but with some users, it’s resulted in psychotic episodes involving hallucinations, hospital admissions or even violence.
“You have no idea where it’s made, what it’s made with, what’s actually in it,” addiction psychiatrist Elizabeth McCord said.
Three years ago, a then-21-year-old University of Pittsburgh student took Delta-8 and went on a rampage. He stabbed Al Carlson, a random stranger in the city’s Shadyside neighborhood, seven times, leaving him for dead.
After his arrest, Jasper Hilliard told police he had been in an altered state, hearing voices. And in court, both the defense and prosecution experts said Hilliard acted in a “substance-induced state of psychosis.”
Still, Judge Edward Borkowski found him guilty last week of attempted homicide, saying even under the influence, Hilliard could still form intent to kill. Carlson agreed, but Hilliard’s father said his son wouldn’t have attacked but for the drug.
“My son was peaceful and non-violent for his entire life up to the day the crime happened, and it only happened because, like thousands of people in Pittsburgh, he took Delta-8,” Jasper’s father, Thomas Hilliard, said on June 16.
Delta-8 adverse reactions
The Food and Drug Administration has tracked 104 reports of adverse reactions from Delta-8, involving hallucinations, confusion, vomiting and loss of consciousness and has issued a public warning. The FDA points to the unregulated, untested nature of the drug and the unmonitored use of chemicals and potential toxins in the synthesis process.
McCord says every dose of Delta-8 is a crapshoot.
“It’s manufactured through chemical conversion rather than grown naturally, so you are exposing yourself to harmful chemicals,” McCord said. “It’s so unregulated that you’re also ingesting toxins.”
But since it’s so readily available, people assume it’s safe — especially in the ingestible form as gummies — which McCord says is an invitation to young people who may be susceptible to long-term brain damage.
“You go to a gas station or head shop, and you see Delta-8,” McCord said. “It looks like candy, and that’s predatory marketing toward young individuals.”
Delta-8 in Pennsylvania
But even though 22 states have now banned or severely restricted the sale of Delta-8, Pennsylvania is not one of them. A federal ban is scheduled to go into effect in November. And under proposed legislation to legalize recreational marijuana, synthetic cannabis would be subject to testing, and only authorized dealers could sell it.
This would take it out of vape shops and gas stations, but too late to prevent the tragedy involving Carlson and Tom Hilliard’s son.
“I’m surprised the state of Pennsylvania hasn’t done something already,” Tom Hilliard said.
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