Patrick Varine stories, Page 131

An employee at a Sheetz location in Ohio Township has tested positive for covid-19, company officials announced Wednesday night. An employee from the store at 1910 Mt. Nebo Road tested positive. The employee has not worked at the store since June 17, according to Sheetz spokesman Nick Ruffner. “According to...

While mile-long lines of cars outside the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank are not the norm these days, the need to provide food to struggling families in Southwestern Pennsylvania remains. “We’ve been in response mode to the crisis for the last three months, and we continue to see a higher...

Members from the nonprofit group Feeding the Spirit are used to sitting down with nearly 100 people each week for their annual free meal at Otterbein United Methodist Church in Greensburg. Since the covid-19 pandemic began, that hasn’t been an option — but it didn’t stop the nonprofit’s members, who...

While organizers will skip the festival that usually accompanies it, the annual “Fireworks Over Fayette” display will take place on June 28. Fayette Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Muriel Nuttall said chamber officials had concerns about going ahead with the event. “Our show costs upwards of $10,000 each year and...

Carnegie Museum is scheduled to reopen next week, with museum officials requiring all visitors over age 2 to wear masks and instituting a timed ticketing system to ensure the building does not exceed 25% of its capacity. The museum, which reopens June 29, will have directional signs for visitors and...

The Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra’s Academy of Music announced a slate of one-hour online summer courses. Classes will include the academy’s annual exploration of the various periods of classical music, along with technique courses and a “Life in Music” series: • “Classical Chatters” explores the four basic periods of classical music...

Murrysville council awarded a $78,000 bid last week for maintenance repairs to three bridges in the municipality. Plum-based Pugliano Construction will perform maintenance work on the Heather Highlands, Cal-Ken Court and Logan Ferry Road bridges, which were identified for repairs as part of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s bi-annual inspections....

After a soft reopening last week, the Greensburg YMCA closed again Friday afternoon and will remain shut down until at least Monday to allow time to sanitize after a person who used the facility tested positive for covid-19, YMCA officials said. The YMCA closed when the state Department of Health...

A Delmont councilman is continuing the work of the borough’s former fire chief, securing grant funding to supply all Westmoreland County firefighters with face-shield filters to protect against coronavirus. Delmont Fire Chief Rich Balik, who died in late May, was working with the R.K. Mellon Foundation to secure a $10,000...

Pennsylvania’s Department of Health is pursuing a $301 million federal grant to strengthen its ability to respond to the covid-19 pandemic, and will earmark $100 million for local health departments if the grant is awarded. “This funding is essential to our future response to the covid-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania,” Secretary...

Murrysville and Republic Services will sponsor a pop-up glass recycling event from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The collection will be in the parking lot at Veterans Field, 4200 Sardis Road. All colors of glass bottles, jars and jugs will be accepted. Caps, lids and labels are acceptable. All...

The public will get a closer look at how Delmont and Salem Township plan to address longstanding sewage and stormwater issues in early July. The Delmont Volunteer Fire Department will host a July 2 meeting that is to include officials from both towns, and the public is invited to see...

The house in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood where an ATF agent was shot Thursday morning belongs to one of a dozen people charged with drug trafficking in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. A dozen defendants from Allegheny, Westmoreland and Lawrence counties have been charged with drug trafficking following a lengthy wiretap...

PNC Financial Services officials on Thursday announced a $1 billion commitment to programs and efforts that would “end systemic racism and support economic empowerment of African Americans and low- and moderate-income communities.” The commitment includes $50 million in charitable support for local and national work promoting social justice, expanding financial...

With Westmoreland County in the green phase of Gov. Tom Wolf’s covid-19 reopening plan, youth athletic associations in Delmont and Murrysville have been given the go-ahead to start their seasons. “We’re ready to go,” said Erin Salas, who serves as softball vice president for both the Delmont Area and Franklin...

PennDOT has announced the closure of Hankey Church Road and upcoming closure of Old Greensburg Road for bridge replacement work on Route 366 in northern Murrysville. Work crews will be replacing the small bridge that carries Greensburg Road (Route 366) over Pucketa Creek between the roads that will be closed....

Murrysville officials have reopened the “destination playground” at Murrysville Community Park, and are hoping that it will remain a viable destination this summer through proper health and safety precautions. Council members began working through the logistics of reopening recreation sites at their June 3 meeting, just two days before Westmoreland...

On some maps showing how the covid-19 pandemic has affected the U.S., dots are used to represent a case or a certain number of cases in a particular area. But as the country’s covid-19 death toll passes 116,000, the creators of the Mourning America website want people to know that...

The Franklin Regional school board will hold a special meeting in July to lay out plans for how education will work in the 2020-21 school year. That meeting date has not been set yet, but members of the district’s back-to-school task force updated the board Monday night on their work....

Preliminary data is showing that Pennsylvania is on track for its third year of declining incidents of Lyme disease, but an estimated 8,500 cases in 2019 still puts the state among the top five nationwide. As tick season ramps up to its peak in July, state health officials urge residents...

Franklin Regional school directors voted 6-3 Monday to adopt a 2020-21 budget with a 2.54-mill tax increase. Despite expenditure reductions related to special education funding, fewer commissions on tax collections and no change in insurance premiums, which were expected to rise, the $61.6 million budget stands with the tax hike....

Franklin Regional School District will have several new administrators in the 2020-21 school year, including a new assistant superintendent. The school board hired Robin Pynos on Monday. Pynos, a Duquesne University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania alum, comes to Franklin Regional from the Greater Latrobe School District, where she served...

Franklin Regional Superintendent Gennaro Piraino decided in early June that he’d had enough of school board members arguing and talking over one another in public meetings. “Maybe I’m overstepping my bounds, but I’m a member of this team of 10,” Piraino said. “Right now, what is happening week after week...