PITTSBURGH — The estranged wife of billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh banking heir turned media mogul, was awarded $725,000 a month in temporary support during their acrimonious divorce, a Pittsburgh newspaper reported Sunday.

Scaife, 75, and his second wife, Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife, are battling on several fronts, from how to assess and divide his wealth to custody of a yellow Labrador retriever named Beauregard, the newspaper said.

A judge may also have to decide whether the $20 million to $30 million a year she claims he spends to support the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review constitutes a business loss, as he contends, or spending on a hobby, as she sees it. Scaife owns the newspaper along with the Tribune-Review of Greensburg and several smaller dailies and weeklies.

Forbes magazine this year estimated Scaife's wealth at $1.2 billion, ranking him No. 799 on its list of the world's billionaires. The divorce papers, though sealed, were available online for several days last month on Allegheny County court's Web site.

"Wife cannot possibly expend the guideline amount of support no matter how lavishly she chooses to live," Scaife's lawyers wrote in court papers seeking to have the award reduced.

Margaret Scaife's lawyers, Gary Gentile and William Pietragallo II, put his monthly income from earnings on nine trusts at $3.9 million.

Records filed in the case suggest Scaife has spent $140 million to $244 million, depending on whom you believe, to subsidize the Tribune-Review since its inception in 1992.