Brian C. Rittmeyer stories, Page 17

Milene Mazeroski, wife of legendary Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski, has died. Milene, 85, died early Sunday morning in Lansdale, Pa., according to the Pirates. Milene was born in Braddock. She was married to Bill, 87, for 64 years. They met while she worked in the Pirates front office...

Here are some of the latest news items from this morning, Monday, May 20: A rollover crash was slowing traffic on inbound Route 28. The crash happened near the 31st Street Bridge shortly before 5 a.m. By 6 a.m., the crash had been cleared but there was a considerable traffic...

A foundation created to remember a teen from Plum has awarded its first scholarship to a junior firefighter graduating from the borough’s school district. Jennifer Martinez created The Mark Matesic Memorial Foundation shortly after her 16-year-old son died by suicide in March 2022. Fascinated with trucks, especially firetrucks, since he...

A man was arrested when, police say, he tried to mail about 2 pounds of cocaine to California from the New Kensington post office. Jonathan Ray Booher, 33, was arraigned Friday before New Kensington District Judge Frank J. Pallone Jr. on charges filed by the Office of Attorney General of...

The lone “pony” in the stable at the Northern Westmoreland Career & Technology Center had some visitors Friday morning. Members of the Greater Pittsburgh Mustang Club brought about a dozen of their Ford Mustang “pony cars” to put on a car show for students at the New Kensington school. They...

A woman crashed her car into a house while fleeing from police early Thursday in New Kensington, police said in a criminal complaint. Her young son was in the back seat of the car, which caught fire after the crash. The boy, whose age was not given, suffered a bloody...

Plum School District’s 2024 commencement ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. May 29 at the athletic stadium at Plum High School. The district has 309 graduates this year. The outstanding senior award recipients are Isabella Surace and Austin J. Kim. Patrick Baughman became high school principal in October. He called...

Plum School Board’s president called for fellow board member Ronald Sakolsky’s resignation late Tuesday following a vote to censure him. The resolution to censure Sakolsky, approved in a 7-2 vote, accused him of publicly sharing confidential or false information about the school district and its superintendent. “Time that should have...

What Peter Troxell remembers most about the August day when a house exploded in Plum’s Rustic Ridge neighborhood is that it was hot. As a fire police officer with the Holiday Park Volunteer Fire Department, it was Troxell’s job to make sure the first responders who needed to get to...

A former Rite Aid in New Kensington is becoming a year-round fireworks store. Phantom Fireworks plans to open its store in the former pharmacy at 700 Stevenson Blvd. by mid-June in time for this year’s Fourth of July season, said Michael Podolsky, deputy general counsel for the Youngstown, Ohio-based company....

A sports training facility in Plum is growing again. Joe Fischetti hopes to move his family business, GAMA Sports Training, into a 27,000-square-foot home in September. The new building would be at the end of Sheena Drive, a dead-end road off Davidson Road, where GAMA currently is housed in a...

A Clairton man accused of shooting a person during a drug deal in Mount Oliver in April was arrested Wednesday night in Plum. Plum police arrested Dorian Randell Ingram, 29, after an anonymous woman said she saw him at a residence in the 100 block of Unity Center Road. The...

The Plum School District is preparing to bid farewell to nearly two dozen employees with more than 550 years of combined service to the district. The district plans to honor its 22 retirees with a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. May 28 at the high school library. It will be...

A small property tax increase will help to keep the New Kensington-Arnold School District moving in the right direction, according to board President Tim Beckes. The school board voted 8-0 Tuesday night to approve the district’s $46.2 million proposed final budget for 2024-25. Board member Terry Schrock was absent. It...

Pepsi Gamble fears alcohol sales at the Valero gas station in New Kensington could lead to trouble. Speaking during a public hearing Monday on a liquor license transfer for the store at Seventh Street and Constitution Boulevard, Gamble cited “the amount of not civil society” she sees in the area...

Each of the items for sale in Meredith Hedeen’s New Kensington gift shop has a story behind it. They come from all over the world: hand-painted ceramics made in home studios in San Juan de Oriente, a town in Nicaragua; hand-sewn goods made by a seamstress at a cooperative workshop...

Rafal Kolankowski and his family have felt the full embrace of the Plum community since August — some of it in the form of bracelets, lemonade and yard signs. The Kolankowskis are among about a dozen families whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged when a nearby house exploded in...

Residents of a Plum community are hopeful the cleanup outside a hoarded house Thursday is the start of getting the woman who lives there the help they say she needs. Residents of Plum’s Edgemeade neighborhood say it was about two years ago that the hoard inside retired school teacher Janice...

Promotions and giveaways drew large crowds to the new Sheetz store that opened in Plum on Wednesday, May 1. The convenience store is on Golden Mile Highway at Presque Isle Drive, where a Kings restaurant was torn down after closing in September 2022. Part of the adjacent Presque Isle Plaza...

Nan Belli has four photos entered in the New Kensington Camera Club’s Spring Floral Photography & Art Show this year. But after seeing the other 100-plus entries, she isn’t sure hers will place among the top three when they are voted upon by the public. “I would have a hard...

Firefighters from Plum’s four volunteer departments will be using the former borough building for training exercises beginning this week and running into early June, Holiday Park fire Chief James Sims said. The first sessions at the vacant building on New Texas Road will be held from 6:30 to 10 p.m....

Electronic witnesses could catch drivers illegally passing stopped school buses in Plum. The Plum School District has equipped about one-third of its vehicles with external cameras and is working toward having cameras on all of them, according to Assistant Superintendent Ashley Boyers. The district placed multiple cameras on 23 buses...

A New Kensington man is accused of raping a girl just over a year ago when he was 18 and she was 14. New Kensington police charged Nasai Minan Parker-Hill, now 19, of New Kensington on Thursday with rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion, sexual assault, indecent...

An early part of redeveloping New Kensington’s downtown has focused on attracting new businesses in an effort to draw more people to the area. The next step in revitalizing the city’s downtown will be getting more people to live there, officials say. Mike Malcanas, owner of Olde Towne Overhaul, said...

New Kensington police charged one of two men they say tried to shoot three people outside the Valley Royal Court apartment complex last week. Police charged Amarion Anthony Michael Michaux, 18, of Arnold with three counts of attempted homicide, three counts of aggravated assault and one count of illegally possessing...