Western PA Local News category, Page 2926
Plum youth soccer tournament to kick off despite waterlogged grounds
Plum Area Youth Soccer Club’s massive Kick-Off Classic soccer tournament is expected to go on as planned despite several storms flooding the fields. This year marks its 22nd annual installment with 210 teams from across Western Pennsylvania and parts of West Virginia registered to play Aug. 23-25. The main fields...
Steel City Con celebrates 30 years in MonroevilleVideo
Mike Devine has seen a lot of costumes, celebrities and shenanigans through the years at Steel City Con. The exclusive pop culture convention of the Monroeville Convention Center recently wrapped up its 30th anniversary celebration. Devine, 60, of Lawrenceville attended many as a fan and helped coordinate and host its...
Buffalo Township Christian school closes, citing declining enrollment
Evangel Heights Christian Academy in Buffalo Township has closed its doors for good. Daniel Corfield, pastor and CEO of Evangel Heights, cited a consistently declining enrollment and low finances as primary reasons for closing the Christian school attached to Evangel Heights Church at 120 Beale Road. The school opened in...
Tarentum fires public works laborer facing strangulation charge
Tarentum Council fired a public works laborer who is accused of attacking and threatening to kill a 17-year-old summer worker. At a special meeting Tuesday, council voted 6-1 to fire Timothy Dzugan effective immediately. Councilman Tim Cornuet cast the only vote against firing Dzugan. He declined to comment on his...
Trump claims credit for Beaver County cracker plant, reviving economy during Western Pa. visit
President Trump boasted Tuesday afternoon about his administration’s efforts to “revive” the nation’s energy and manufacturing sectors during a visit to Royal Dutch Shell’s ethane cracker plant construction site in Beaver County. Trump also took credit for the multibillion-dollar project’s existence. “It was the Trump administration that made it possible,...
Historical Society program examines Latrobe’s claims to pro football fame
“Latrobe: Home of Professional Football… or are we?” is the question considered in a themed slide show of images from local gridiron history that will be screened Friday and Saturday by the Latrobe Area Historical Society. Doors open at 9 a.m. each day, and the show begins at 9:30 a.m.,...
Historic military convoy greeted in Ligonier; part of ‘3,000-mile-long July 4 parade’Video
Watching military vehicles rumble through the Diamond in Ligonier on Tuesday brought back a flood of memories for 91-year-old Albert Lambert, who served in the U.S. Army’s occupation forces in post-World War II Japan. “I enjoyed seeing those vehicles,” said Lambert, a Ligonier resident who served in the Army from...
Greensburg to establish vacant property registry, fines for absentee owners
Greensburg will create a registry of the city’s vacant properties at the expense of absentee property owners, according to Mayor Robert Bell. “There’s all these vacant properties around town, and we just want to have some kind of regulation,” Bell said. Under the ordinance passed this week by city council,...
Pittsburgh lobbyist charged with bilking $100K from clients
An Upper St. Clair man who ran a Pittsburgh-based lobbying firm is accused by the state Attorney General’s office of stealing more than $100,000 from small businesses in the area. Joseph Kuklis, 48, operated the consulting firm Wellington Strategies based in Station Square. The firm’s website was taken down after...
Highlands gets no offers for Fawn school property
Highlands School District didn’t get any offers to buy the district’s former elementary school in Fawn. School board President Debbie Beale said the district will try again to find a buyer for the 15-acre property at 5591 Ridge Road. In the meantime, the building could be used for storage, Beale...
Springdale officials say tap water should clear soon
Springdale officials say residents who have been experiencing discolored water during the borough’s water improvement project can expect things to clear up after new filters are installed this week. “We are in the process of installing new filters,” said Springdale Councilman David Spirk, chairman of the water committee. “The filters...
Defense to file new evidence in New Kensington cop-killing case
Defense attorneys for the man awaiting trial for the 2017 shooting death of New Kensington police Officer Brian Shaw will have four weeks to disclose potential evidence that could be used to convince jurors to save his life, a judge said Tuesday. During a pretrial conference, lawyers for Rahmael Sal...
Highland Park reservoir walk to close until spring
Highland Park’s popular reservoir walk is closing this month and will remain closed until next spring for repair work and a security upgrade planned by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. PWSA spokesman Will Pickering said the authority would start before month’s end on a $7 million project that includes...
Mt. Lebanon business owner saves life thanks to Narcan training
Last Sunday, Shannon Rugh was taking a leisurely drive through a small town in northern Virginia when she decided to stop for a cup of coffee. For Rugh, 42, of Mt. Lebanon, it ended up being a fateful decision. Though she had visited the town before, she took a wrong...
South Hills couple gets engaged at Kennywood
Brashear High School sweethearts are engaged to be married following a proposal at Kennywood. Jake Jones, 20, got on one knee and popped the question to his girlfriend, Camille Nichols, 20, after the couple rode Kennywood’s Skycoaster – a ride that hoists people up 180 feet in the air until...
Police seek pickup driver in Belvedere Hotel fire investigation
State police want to find the driver of a pickup seen in the area of the Belvedere Hotel in Oklahoma Borough before it was destroyed by fire July 23. State police said on Twitter that a Dodge Ram made between 1999 and 2002 was seen in the area shortly before...
Federal jury convicts East Pittsburgh man of gun, drug offenses
A federal jury at Pittsburgh spent three hours in deliberations before finding a former East Pittsburgh man guilty of gun and drug violations. The jury of seven men and five women late Monday convicted Douglas Tyrone Williams, Jr., also known as “Chrome,” 39, in front of U.S. District Judge Mark...
Rivers Casino to begin construction of $60 million hotel on North ShoreVideo
Rivers Casino announced Tuesday the start of construction on its long anticipated Landing Hotel that will connect to the casino on the city’s North Shore. The casino is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and officials lamented delays that pushed the hotel construction back. Greg Carlin, CEO of Rivers and...
Vandergrift woman rejects plea deal in cousin’s murder case
The attorney for a Vandergrift woman accused of killing her cousin said his client rejected a deal to plead guilty to a lesser charge. Defense attorney Pat Thomassey said Ashley Croft would rather go to trial than accept a deal to plead to third-degree murder and serve 30 to 60...
Court upholds New Kensington woman’s prison sentence for aiding accused cop killer
A state appellate court upheld the prison sentence for a New Kensington woman who helped a man accused of fatally shooting city police Officer Brian Shaw in 2017. Lakita Caine, 41, pleaded guilty in May 2018 to hindering the apprehension of Rahmael Sol Holt, who is accused of shooting and...
Police: Hempfield man assaulted 2 state troopers, threatened 10-year-old boy
A 42-year-old Hempfield man was ordered held in the Westmoreland County Prison on $40,000 bail Tuesday after allegedly assaulting two state troopers who were called to his home to quell a reported domestic disturbance. State police charged Timothy M. Nelson with two counts each of aggravated assault, endangering the welfare...
Flooding repairs to close road through Boyce Park in Plum
A road that bisects a section of Boyce Park in Plum will be closed for three weeks for “emergency drainage repairs,” Allegheny County Department of Public Works said Tuesday. Spring Miller Road will close from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays between Pierson Run and Old Frankstown roads. Traffic is...
Cops: Beaver woman kept $3,000 in adoption fees from Hempfield animal rescue
A Beaver County woman is accused of keeping $3,255 in pet adoption fees from a Hempfield-based animal rescue for which she volunteered as a foster home. Jenessa R. Tolejko, 33, of Brighton Township, is charged with forgery, theft and access device fraud. State police said in court papers that Tolejko...
DA: Couple dead in Pa. cinema parking lot in murder-suicide
Authorities say a man shot and killed his estranged wife and then himself in a Pennsylvania movie theater parking lot. Dauphin County officials said police were called to the Regal Cinemas in Susquehanna Township at about 8:45 p.m. Monday and found a man and woman dead on the ground from...
Mt. Pleasant teachers issue strike notice
Mt. Pleasant Area School District teachers who have been working without a contract for the last year issued a strike notice this week after failing to reach an agreement during their 15th negotiating session. The Mt. Pleasant Area Education Association, which represents 143 teachers, counselors, nurses and school psychologists, said...
