UPMC is planning a $900 million capital budget for 2018, which will be partly financed by a $750 million tax-exempt bond issue, a UPMC lawyer said Thursday at a hearing in Harrisburg. Among the capital projects planned is a 90-bed hospital in South Fayette, which will get $35 million from this bond issue, UPMC treasury attorney Simon L. Goehring said. He did not provide a breakdown for other projects, but UPMC budgeted $400 million in bond money for construction, according to documents filed...

UPMC has dropped its plan to build a 90-bed hospital in South Fayette and will start over in its search for a place to build an acute care hospital in the South Hills. UPMC spokeswoman Gloria Kreps said Thursday that the health system had withdrawn plans to build the $211.2 million hospital in South Fayette, a plan that township commissioners approved in August. The change comes after UPMC had earlier abandoned plans to build a hospital in Pleasant Hills. UPMC now is evaluating several other...

Even as businesses in Pittsburgh (PA) compete to commercialize artificial intelligence and give machines the human quality of “learning,” just a three-hour drive away people struggle with dial-up connections — if there are internet connections at all. More than 24 million Americans — 800,000 in Pennsylvania and mostly in rural areas — lack an internet connection that meets a federal minimum standard for speed. The result is a yawning divide in commerce, education and medicine that’s splitting...

In a $4.275 billion deal, Pittsburgh natural gas company Peoples has agreed to be acquired by a Bryn Mawr water utility. Aqua America Inc. announced the deal Tuesday morning, saying the all-cash transaction includes the assumption of $1.3 billion in debt. Peoples, which is based on the North Shore, includes Peoples Natural Gas Co., Peoples Gas Co. and Delta Natural Gas Co. Inc., according to the announcement. Aqua’s release stated the deal to acquire Peoples would create a new infrastructure...