Westmoreland category, Page 529
Positive coronavirus cases reported at Westmoreland jail, courthouse
The coronavirus has returned to the Westmoreland County Prison and courthouse. Warden Bryan Kline said 42 inmates have tested positive this month and are in quarantine at the Hempfield lockup. The first positive tests came on March 10 after the virus was cleared from the jail in January. Judge Rita...
New Greensburg shop promises decadent milkshakes, retro candy
The five Nickischer kids of Hempfield have been living out a dream, acting as taste-testers for the milkshakes their parents will serve in a new downtown Greensburg shop. Nicole and Greg Nickischer are looking for an early May opening for Main Street Sweets, in the lower level of the building...
Former Tokyo Massage in Murrysville will become new home for dental practice
“Have you ever seen so much pink?” Rick Rivardo asked during a tour of the former Tokyo Massage parlor. Rivardo and his wife, Lisa, are moving his dental practice from Golden Mile Highway in Monroeville to the top of Route 22 in eastern Murrysville, off Buena Vista Drive. Lisa Rivardo...
2 Westmoreland County Prison inmates facing charges in unrelated incidents
Two inmates at the Westmoreland County Prison were arraigned Friday in unrelated cases filed by county detectives. Gerald Demond Johnson, 21, is charged with aggravated assault and simple assault. Police said guards at the Hempfield jail ordered a random search on two units March 12 and found deplorable conditions in...
Pennsylvania closing in on 1 million covid cases as numbers continue to creep upward
New cases of the coronavirus continue to see a week-over-week increase at state and county levels in Pennsylvania, according to numbers released Monday by the Department of Health. There were 3,920 new cases of covid-19 recorded in the state over the past two days, the Department of Health reported Monday....
Local AmeriCorps members help land conservation, educationVideo
On a brisk Saturday morning, an AmeriCorps member with the Westmoreland Land Trust was overseeing the installation of three interpretative tablets by land trust members in the 58-acre nature reserve in the western section of North Huntingdon, just south of Brush Creek. The tablets, attached to wooden posts buried 30...
Westmoreland airshow tickets can be reserved at Shop ‘n Save supermarkets
Those planning to attend the 2021 Shop ‘n Save Westmoreland Airshow can reserve their tickets at area Shop ‘n Save supermarkets. To comply with social distancing guidelines during the covid-19 pandemic, regular admission tickets for this year’s show at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport will be sold at $100 per vehicle,...
Youngwood man loses $3,100 in truck-buying scam
A 55-year-old Youngwood man lost $3,100 recently in a truck-buying scam over Craigslist when he reimbursed a Long Island, N.Y., buyer who had “overpaid” him with a worthless check, state police at Greensburg said. The victim intended to sell his truck for $2,500 on Feb. 26 to a buyer identified...
Arona officials seek information on local veterans as they prepare to dedicate memorial
Arona officials plan to dedicate a new memorial later this year but first want to find more information about local veterans. Several years in the planning stages, the borough’s updated monument to veterans was installed on Veterans Day. A dedication ceremony was postponed because of concerns about gatherings during the...
Westmoreland history tucked away in archives
The oldest documents kept by Westmoreland County show its burgeoning creation as well as its dark history. There are pieces missing from a tattered 1773 document, but the gist of it still gets through — Lt. Gov. Richard Penn appointed Arthur St. Clair recorder of deeds of the county. The...
PennDOT to close 86-mile stretch of Turnpike overnight Saturday
An 86-mile stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike will be closed in both directions late Saturday night into early Sunday morning, because of construction. Between 11 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday, construction crews will be working to remove the Country Ridge Road bridge, which carries traffic over the turnpike in...
Owner of fire-damaged apartment house in Greensburg hopes to rebuild
The owner of a Greensburg rental property damaged by a fire Friday afternoon said he is awaiting an insurance adjuster’s report to determine his next step. Standing outside his three-story house at 34 Grant St. on Saturday, John Toth said that insurance adjuster and a city inspector were at the...
Covid cases spiking rapidly in Pennsylvania and Allegheny, Westmoreland counties
The latest covid-19 spike that health officials have been warning about appears to have arrived in Pennsylvania. On Saturday, the state posted 4,213 new covid cases, the highest single-day tally since Feb. 7 (4,717). Over the past week, the seven-day average of new cases (2,888) has risen more than 16%....
Murrysville officials battle misperceptions about earned-income tax discussion
Murrysville officials are fighting a battle of perception — or in many cases, they say, misperception — regarding consideration of raising their share of the earned-income tax, a 1% levy split between the municipality and the Franklin Regional School District. The first misperception is that the school district and municipality...
Ellen Keefe to retire as head of Westmoreland Cleanways and Recycling
Ellen Keefe is preparing to retire as executive director of Westmoreland Cleanways and Recycling after 23 years of service with the nonprofit. Now that the organization has settled into its new recycling center near Pleasant Unity, in Unity Township, Keefe said, “It’s the right time for me to do it,...
In a battle to preserve history dating to 1770s, Westmoreland County running out of space
From British rule to the coronavirus, Westmoreland County government stores millions of paper records spanning more than two centuries of local history. Rows of boxes stacked to the ceiling hold government and court records dating to the time of King George III. They occupy thousands of square feet of warehouse...
Westmoreland Transit Authority gets free bus in need of a paint job
The Westmoreland Transit Authority got a free bus to add to its fleet — the only question is what kind of paint job it should have. The 30-foot diesel bus originally belonged to the Crawford Area Transportation Authority, where it was going unused. Crawford Area donated the bus to Westmoreland...
Murrysville native recruits fellow MIT students, others to battle social isolation among seniorsVideo
Bhav Jain, 19, of Murrysville knows how he felt during the early stages of covid, forced to return home from his freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to learn from home. But even now, back in Boston to finish up his sophomore year, Jain is still thinking the...
No injuries in Greensburg apartment fire on Grant StreetVideo
Multiple fire departments from central Westmoreland County responded to a fire that damaged four apartments Friday afternoon in Greensburg, according to 911 dispatchers. “We had a lot of damage,” Greensburg Fire Chief Tom Bell said. “The homeowners are both alive and we got two cats out as well.” The call...
12 Westmoreland polling places moving, including longtime one in Wyano home
Editor’s note: This story was amended March 20, 2021 to reflect the correct municipality where the one remaining residential polling place is located. Twelve polling places are being moved to new locations in Westmoreland County for the May primary, including one that has been in a Wyano home since the...
Ruffs Dale bassoonist, 17, earns Friday Evening Music Club’s Gardner Scholarship
Until Walter Vinoski was 11, he couldn’t have told you what a bassoon even was. Now the 17-year-old Yough senior is the Friday Evening Music Club’s 2021 Mildred Gardner Scholarship Competition winner, earning $1,000 through this year’s virtual competition. He is a member of the Westmoreland Youth Symphony Orchestra and...
Westmoreland discount tire recycling event meant to help curb West Nile virus
Westmoreland Cleanways and Recycling is teaming with the Westmoreland Conservation District’s West Nile virus program to offer a discount on tire recycling. The program is meant to help clear away scrap tires before they collect water and become a potential warm-weather breeding ground for mosquitoes that can transmit the virus....
Ex-Greensburg attorney disbarred by Pennsylvania Supreme Court
A Greensburg attorney who admitted in 2019 to stealing nearly $50,000 from a fraternal organization has been disbarred by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The state’s highest court this week issued a two-sentence order barring Donald Blake Moreman, 60, who lives in Bullskin, Fayette County, from practicing law in the state....
Covid cases jump in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania
More covid cases were reported Friday in Allegheny County than at any point in the past 10 days, according to the most recent health department data. An additional 346 cases were announced Friday, bumping the county’s seven-day average up to 262. That’s the highest level for that metric since March...
2 people escape Southwest Greensburg house fire
Two Southwest Greensburg residents escaped injury early Friday after a smoke detector alerted them to a fire in a bedroom and they fled their house, according to firefighters. Multiple area departments responded to the fire on the 400 block of Oakland Avenue at 3:35 a.m., according to Southwest Greensburg fire...
