IN THE LAST WEEK

Those growing waistlines you may see when you look in the mirror and at your neighbors and co-workers are not an illusion. They’re growing in more ways than one. The Allegheny County Health

Department conducted its largest survey ever of local residents in 2016, interviewing 9,000 of them, and it confirmed that the number of obese and otherwise overweight Pittsburghers is on the rise.

A full 70 percent of adult males in the county are overweight or obese, as are 59 percent of females. In both cases, those are 2 percentage points higher than in the previous such survey, conducted in 2010. County health director Karen

Hacker found it the most disappointing information in last year’s survey, though hardly unique to Allegheny County. “I’ve been in this field long enough to know that it is one of the areas that is hardest to make a dent in,” she said.

Another thing that will be increasing in the county is the number of Pittsburgh police officers living in the suburbs. That’s a certainty after the

state Supreme Court ruled in favor of an arbitrator’s decision that the city could no longer restrict police to living within Pittsburgh’s borders. Officers interested in moving

have said they value a wider choice of newly constructed housing, quality schools and other options “I just don’t think anyone should

tell me where I have to live,” said Sgt. Jim Glick, the local police union vice president.

The court decision certainly won’t help the city’s stagnant population numbers. The U.S. Census Bureau released estimates showing that, just like the county and wider region of southwestern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh appeared to suffer a small population loss from 2015 to 2016, while the rest of the nation continued growing.

A small number of county residents — 18, to be exact — will be moving soon to suburban Philadelphia, but only for a few weeks. They’re the jurors chosen for the upcoming sex assault trial in Montgomery County of comedian Bill

Cosby. The jurors had to be chosen here because extensive pre-trial publicity in the Philadelphia media would have hindered selecting an unbiased panel.

And drownings, both new and old, were in the news last week. A pair of young women kayaking

on the Ohio River in what seemed routine outdoor recreation last weekend unintentionally went over the dam at the Dashields Locks and Dam near Sewickley and died. And Point Park University track and field star Tyler Deshon Carter drowned in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday while in Alabama for a national title meet.

An official cause of death was finally provided for Dakota James, a Duquesne University graduate student whose body was found in the Ohio River March 6 after a lengthy disappearance. The county medical examiner ruled his death came from accidental drowning, though his parents said they still believe that he was a victim of foul play.