☂️ So many aurora photos!

The Next Phase in Pittsburgh Deer

A new study found the city’s bowhunting program is more likely to maintain the current deer population than reduce it. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh said the city should add sharpshooters to more effectively address overpopulation – something Mt. Lebanon and Fox Chapel have done. Though it’s hard to know exactly how many deer live in Pittsburgh, researchers estimate the number of deer carcasses collected by the city increased four fold over the last couple decades. [90.5 WESA]

PA to Ban Cell Phones While Driving

Gov. Josh Shapiro is poised to sign a new law that (mostly) bars drivers from using cell phones while behind the wheel. Right now, it’s only illegal to text and drive; under the new bill, police will be able to ticket drivers who are using their cell phones for almost any reason, including while they’re sitting in traffic or stopped at red lights. Drivers can still use their phones for things like making calls and listening to music if they use hands-free technology like Bluetooth. The ban will take effect a year after Shapiro signs it into law. [Associated Press]

Shake Shack Coming to Pgh!

The cult-status burger chain from NYC will set up shop in Pittsburgh on May 20 at The Terminal in the Strip District. Love, Pittsburgh is co-hosting an opening event with custom totes, stickers, and postcards. [TribLIVE]

• Beef steps in, chicken bows out. A Popeye’s in Robinson has been ordered to close after the health department found several violations, including repeatedly failing to properly sanitize pans and dishes. [WTAE]

Jane Grey Swisshelm was a pioneering figure in journalism, abolitionism, and women's rights in the Steel City, and much of her work took shape as Pittsburgh took on that industrial reputation.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1815, she began her career as a journalist here in the late 1840s when she wrote a series of letters to the editor of the Pittsburgh Commercial Journal about how husbands assumed legal authority over their wives’ assets. She wrote, “All they both have and all they can acquire are his, and only his, to dispense as he sees fit.” She eventually became one of the first female newspaper editors in the United States and said journalism was “as good a living as a man can get.”

Swisshelm was also an outspoken advocate for the abolition of slavery, using her platform to promote anti-slavery sentiments. She reportedly worked briefly for the Underground Railroad while living in Kentucky.

She started her first abolitionist paper, The Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter, in 1848, and her last, The Reconstructionist, in 1861. In 1850, while working for the New York Tribune, she became the first woman to enter the press gallery of the U.S. Senate.

Swisshelm moved across the nation many times, living in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, as well as Minnesota, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. But she always returned to Pittsburgh, where she wrote about and advocated for property rights, inheritance, divorce, custody of children, and the right to vote.

Today the Swissvale and Swisshelm Park neighborhoods bear the name of her farm and family, respectively.

Learn more about Swisshelm and more groundbreaking Western Pa. women in the Heinz History Center exhibition, A Woman’s Place: How Women Shaped Pittsburgh.

How Can Pittsburgh End Traffic Deaths?

Earlier this year, city officials committed to a plan called Vision Zero, a promise to completely eliminate traffic deaths. Just a few weeks later, a cyclist died after being hit Downtown. So what will it take to make Pittsburgh safer for people on our roads? City Cast Pittsburgh’s Mallory Falk and I are pulling from a bunch of past episodes — and our own experiences — to explain why it’s so hard to catalog a road injury, how using 311 could help, and what city planners hope to do about new and known problems all over town.