A Pittsburgh Grocery Icon Finds a New Home: Kroger’s $1.65 Billion Giant Eagle Acquisition — And Why It Matters Beyond the Price Tag

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On the morning of July 1, 2026, two grocery chains whose histories are intertwined with the city of Pittsburgh in ways almost no one expected to see resolved in a single morning press release jointly announced a definitive agreement: The Kroger Co., the Cincinnati-based national supermarket giant, will acquire Giant Eagle Inc., the family-owned, Cranberry … Read more

America’s Student Loan System in Crisis: Three Court Battles, Two Blocked Rules, and One Week That Reshaped Who Can Borrow What for Graduate School

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The Week That Changed Graduate Student Borrowing The week of June 25 through July 1, 2026 has produced what higher education policy analysts are describing as the most consequential series of federal court rulings on student loan policy in years — three distinct but interlocking legal battles that have simultaneously blocked the Trump administration’s overhaul … Read more

The Skywalkers Conquer the Empire State Building: A Proposal 1,454 Feet in the Air, a Pro-Peace Banner, Eight Criminal Charges, and the Audacious Stunt That Stopped New York City in Its Tracks

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Angela Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Kuznetsov, 32 — the Netflix documentary couple who previously scaled the world’s second-tallest building — evaded security, climbed the Empire State Building’s live transmission spire, got engaged, posted it all to Instagram, and were arrested. Here is the complete story of how it happened, who they are, what they said, … Read more