Brian C. Rittmeyer stories, Page 98

A 2019 Highlands High School graduate is continuing a toy drive she started while a student in the district. Marissa Callender is organizing her “Holiday 365” toy drive for a third consecutive year. Callender, 18, is a freshman at Allegheny College in Meadville, where she is studying biochemistry. She plans...

New Kensington is focusing on tearing down residential buildings this year because asbestos testing on a couple of commercial properties is taking longer than expected, according to city officials. The commercial properties removed from this year’s demolition list include the former Funzi’s Cafe at 1301 Taylor Ave. and the former...

An advisory for dense fog is in effect until 10 a.m. Tuesday. The dense fog could result in visibility being reduced to a quarter-mile or less in many areas, according to the National Weather Service in Moon. The fog is widespread across the entire region, including most of southwestern Pennsylvania...

A company that wants to put a billboard at Tarentum’s end of the Tarentum Bridge is arguing in court that the borough’s zoning ordinance does not allow them anywhere in the borough. The borough says this isn’t true, claiming where billboards are permitted is clearly identified despite errors in its...

Volunteers are being sought to help plant trees in Harrison on Saturday, Nov. 9. About 75 volunteers will be needed that morning to plant 54 trees, obtained with an award from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and TreeVitalize, township Commissioner Chuck Dizard said. “Not many communities outside of the city of...

The average price of gasoline is down in Pittsburgh despite a slight increase in the national average, according to GasBuddy price tracking. Pittsburgh gas prices have fallen 2.3 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $2.86, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 731 stations. That’s 9.2 cents per gallon...

Commuters should watch for standing water on roads as they head to work Monday, National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Leonardi said. It’s been raining steadily since 10 p.m. Sunday night, with three-quarters to 1.5 inches of rain falling across Allegheny County by around 4 a.m., Leonardi said. Moisture from the...

A man inside a Forward Township house was able to get out when it caught fire early Sunday morning. The fire at 606 Munger Lane was reported around 5:30 a.m. The house was destroyed. Two neighboring homes were damaged, the Trib’s news partner, WPXI-TV, reported. Crews on the scene of...

Police charged a South Hills couple with endangering the welfare of children after authorities allegedly discovered injuries to their 2-month-old son consistent with child abuse. Scott Township Police charged Michael Charles Koban, 34, and Ashley Koban, 32, on Thursday, a month after they and medics went to their Bower Hill...

A man driving erratically on the North Side on Saturday afternoon had been shot, Pittsburgh police said. According to police, a police detective saw the vehicle on Western Avenue near Galveston Avenue shortly before 3 p.m. The detective pulled the vehicle over. The driver complied and then got out of...

State regulators have approved a rate increase for Peoples Natural Gas, but lower than the utility had requested. The settlement with the Public Utility Commission combines the rates of the company’s Peoples and Equitable divisions. Peoples acquired competitor Equitable Gas Co. from EQT Corp. in 2013. Under the settlement, the...

Pittsburgh police have made an arrest in a Friday afternoon shooting in Homewood that left a man in critical condition. Police charged Langston Nelms, 19, of Braddock with two counts of attempted homicide, four counts of aggravated assault, carrying a firearm with a license, terroristic threats, reckless endangerment and tampering...

A 44-year-old Evans City man died in a crash in Butler County on Friday morning, state police said. According to state police, the crash happened shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Marburger Road, just south of Watters Station Road in Forward Township. Police said Robert J. Hauserman, 44, was driving a...

Tarentum’s recreation board revamped the borough’s annual “Boo Fest” last year, and it turned out to be a delight for the hundreds who turned out for the event at Riverview Memorial Park. Instead of kids trick-or-treating from station to station in the park, or in the borough building in years...

Homemade soups, an Abraham Lincoln impersonator and alpacas are among the features of the annual Harvest Festival coming up at the Burtner House in Harrison. The one-day festival will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 12 at the nearly 200-year-old stone house just off Exit 15 of Route...

Wednesday morning’s low temperature of 69 degrees was expected to break a 135-year-old record for the highest low temperature ever recorded on an Oct. 2, according to the National Weather Service. National Weather Service meteorologist Lee Hendricks said the temperature was unlikely to dip below the 69 degrees recorded around...

The memory of young Tiffany Miller will remain strong. In just a week, enough money was raised to make sure New Kensington’s newest park will have a memorial to Tiffany, who was 5 when she was murdered 40 years ago. “I was surprised it only took a week,” said Aaron...

Hundreds of Pennsylvania scratch-off lottery tickets with a face value of several thousand dollars were taken in the burglary of a Lawrence County restaurant, according to state police. State police said Ryder’s Restaurant on Route 18 in Wilmington Township was burglarized between 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 6 a.m. Monday. In...

Tarentum may hire multiple contractors for the first phase of a building demolition project this year. The borough will begin seeking bids Tuesday for the demolition of up to 26 properties, Borough Manager Michael Nestico said. Bids are due by 2 p.m. Oct. 18, when they’ll be publicly opened. The...

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday recommended not filing charges against anyone involved in a fight where two men stabbed each other. The fight at the Valley Motel on Freeport Road in Harmar was reported shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to Allegheny County Police. None of the...

A 24-year-old Plum man died early Saturday after a crash on Unity Center Road. Allegheny County Police said Brandon Hugh Patton was on a motorcycle that slid across the road into a Nissan SUV driven by a 25-year-old woman, who was not identified, in the 1000 block of Unity Center...

Gasoline prices are down in Pittsburgh and across the nation in the past week, with the exception of California, according to GasBuddy. “Oil prices have cooled back off after Saudi Arabia brought a significant portion of oil production and processing back online, helping the national average to begin moving lower...

New Kensington and Arnold both approved an agreement giving New Kensington complete control of code and zoning matters at Schreiber Industrial Park, which spans both cities. New Kensington’s Redevelopment Authority bought the park for about $8 million in 2018. It stretches for more than a mile along the Allegheny River....

Harrison commissioners will not entertain a request from its police officers union to enhance their pensions under the existing contract. Teamsters Local 249, which represents the township’s 12 rank-and-file officers, asked the township to consider enhancements to their pensions as they had for police Chief Mike Klein, said Keith Frank,...