Joe Napsha stories, Page 3
Fire damages Irwin home undergoing renovations
An Irwin house was extensively damaged by fire Thursday afternoon. Multiple firefighters departments responded to the fire at the two-story house at the corner of Sixth and Warden streets. The fire was reported at 1:15 p.m. The owner was not home at the time of the fire, and no injuries...
IU to borrow $2 million; layoffs coming if there’s no state budget by the new year
Westmoreland Intermediate Unit employees and the special needs students they serve got a bit of good news Tuesday, along with potentially bad news. The good news for them is that the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit 7 board approved a $2 million revenue anticipation note that will hold off any layoffs or...
Haunted Path in Irwin: Fascination with Halloween helps feed the needy
An Irwin man, whose lifelong fascination with Halloween started when he was a youngster, spent two months and thousands of dollars to create a haunted audiovisual experience in his backyard. The creator of the unique experience, called the Haunted Path, is Jesse Vargo, 38, who worked with his husband, Nick...
Run, then eat: Greensburg Turkey Trot returns
The tradition of running in a race in Greensburg on Thanksgiving morning to burn off calories before gobbling down a big meal returns this year with the 34th Greensburg Turkey Trot on Nov. 27. The race begins and ends at the Westmoreland County Courthouse on Main Street. It attracts thousands...
Westmoreland Intermediate Unit looks to borrow millions, warns of possible layoffs during budget impasses
The Westmoreland Intermediate Unit wants to borrow $2 million to keep services and programs operating during the ongoing state budget crisis, the organization’s leader said. If the Intermediate Unit board of directors approves borrowing the money through a revenue anticipation loan, it can avoid disruptions through the remainder of the...
Change of fortune: Charleroi sees drop in Haitians; deportation fears, job loss
As Jim Alexandre looks out the window of his Haitian Resource Center office in downtown Charleroi, he wonders how his community will handle its latest challenge — the closure of a food processing plant that will eliminate 250 jobs by the end of October. “In general, it’s the newest problem,”...
Irwin to hold Halloween parade Saturday
Youngsters in Irwin Borough will have a chance to don their Halloween costumes and go to businesses in downtown Irwin for a trick-or-treat from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, followed by a parade along Main Street. Registration for the parade will be held 1 to 3 p.m. at the S&T...
Norwin stadium demo project set to begin in early November
The long-awaited $25.4 million demolition and rebuilding of the Norwin Knights stadium is scheduled to begin early next month, as long as the fall sports teams are no longer using the field, school officials said Monday. Norwin Superintendent Natalie McCracken said following the school board meeting that the contractors can...
‘Sky’s the limit’ for workers at New Stanton’s Amazon warehouse
Inside Amazon’s massive 1.1 million-square-foot New Stanton warehouse, a constant hum of moving parts and people fills the air as packages travel along a seemingly endless matrix of metal rollers. The decidedly modern facility, with a nonstop flow of packages, has an equally large appetite for workers. TribLive received an...
North Huntingdon zoning board rejects request for gun shop at banquet center
A North Huntingdon man’s attempt to sell guns in the family’s banquet facility was rejected by a zoning panel. The North Huntingdon Zoning Hearing Board last week rejected an appeal from James Stratigos, owner of JGS Arms LLC, for an occupancy permit for a gun shop in a section of...
Charleroi food processing plant to close; 252 jobs lost
A financially troubled Charleroi-area food processing company plans to close at the end of the month, eliminating 252 jobs in that mid-Mon Valley area where the economy is reeling from the recent losses of a glass-producing plant and a pasta-making plant. Fourth Street Barbecue Inc. started laying off workers at...
Wind Phone to comfort those grieving loved ones proposed for Irwin Park
Michele Rubin of Murrysville still talks to her son every day, though he died in April 2017. Paul E. Lucas was 21 when he died of a fentanyl-laced drug overdose April 13, 2017, after what his family explained in his obituary was “a long battle with substance addiction disorder.” Rubin,...
North Belle Vernon mine subsidence damages house, owners say
Dawn and Scott Wilson can’t figure out why a state mining engineer decided the cracks in the basement of a home they own in North Belle Vernon were caused by dry soil rather than mine subsidence. They also were told the cracks existed before they purchased mine subsidence insurance, thus...
Fort Ligonier Days parade: ‘Family tradition’ for generations
Ligonier native Debbie Castellan was watching the Fort Ligonier Days parade Saturday with her daughter, granddaughter and great-grandson, while reminiscing what the parade was like growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. “It was, like, 15 minutes long. We’d walk down the street and come back home,” said Castellan, a...
Man killed in crash on Darlington Road, Ligonier Township
A man was killed in a Saturday morning crash on Darlington Road in Ligonier Township. Westmoreland County Coroner Tim Carson identified the man as Mark Maley, 65. The crash was reported around 11 a.m., a Westmoreland County Public Safety supervisor said. According to Darlington fire Chief Kurt Rose, Maley was...
Woman arrested after Pittsburgh carjacking, police chase and crash into a Downtown hotel
A woman who allegedly carjacked a vehicle in Pittsburgh’s North Side was arrested Friday after fleeing from Pittsburgh police in the stolen vehicle, traveling across the Allegheny River and hitting the exterior of the Omni William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, police said. The incident began when police received a...
Pittsburgh Public Schools implements temporary hiring freeze, halts non-essential purchases
Pittsburgh Public Schools will halt hiring for all vacant positions except teachers and paraprofessionals because of the ongoing state budget crisis that has delayed the release of Pennsylvania’s education funding. Superintendent Wayne N. Walters said Thursday the temporary fiscal safeguards are designed to preserve classroom operations and protect staff payroll...
Westmoreland man, woman killed in crash near Washington, D.C.
A Westmoreland County couple who loved music were coming home after attending a concert in Washington, D.C., when they were killed Sunday in an accident near the nation’s capital. Alyssa Samantha-Dee Caldarelli, 22, of Adamsburg, and Ryan Dean, 26, of Murrysville were fatally injured in a crash along the George...
Greensburg official: Focus is on increasing residential housing options
Boosting Greensburg’s residential population within the city’s 4-square-mile boundary likely will have to come from building conversions in the downtown business district, a city official said this week. “Housing is our main focus right now. The only residential growth will be by developing residences” in the downtown area, said Alex...
Norwin Art League exhibits 100 pieces of artwork
The Norwin Art League has more than 100 pieces of artwork on display at its its 49th Annual Art Exhibition from noon to 5 p.m. Fridayat the social hall of the First Presbyterian Church of Irwin, 617 Main St., Irwin. The art exhibit features oils, watercolor, acrylic, drawings, mixed media,...
PSU Fayette seeks new home for ‘family history’ of artifacts at coal and coke center
In the basement of the library at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus a few miles north of Uniontown, sits one of the largest collection of artifacts of the region’s bituminous coal and coke-producing industries. The fate of the 48-year-old Coal and Coke Heritage Center and its 8,000 artifacts and...
Flying out of Latrobe? Spirit Airlines swaps Fort Lauderdale for Orlando flights
Passengers flying on bankrupt Spirit Airlines out of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport near Latrobe will lose the twice-weekly service to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in November but will gain two flights a week to Orlando, the airport’s chief officer said. The cutting and adding of service from Arnold Palmer Regional by...
Norwin library to host pet care program
Tips on taking care of your pets will be offered during a pet care program at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at the Norwin Public Library, Caruthers Lane, Irwin. Representatives from St. Francis Animal Hospital in North Huntingdon will provide pet lovers with information on what to do during an emergency,...
Irwin council members debate electronic sign
A proposal to replace the 4-foot-by-8-foot message board on the “Irwin Inc. 1864” welcome sign with a new electronic version sparked a heated debate among Irwin Council members, with one member calling the proposed sign a “total eyesore.” At a recent council meeting, Councilman Tyler Baum was the sole dissenter...
Ex-federal judge and ex-governor: attacking judiciary poses danger and threat to democracy
An ex-Pennsylvania governor and former U.S. District Court judge Wednesday warned against politicians’ increasing verbal attacks against the independent judiciary, which they say have threatened democracy and led to threats on the lives of judges. “This is the closest we’ve come to a constitutional crisis,” said former Gov. Tom Corbett,...
