July 29, 2020 |
By Kristen Keleschenyi | Posted in: North Versailles Twp. News
East Allegheny School District will begin the 2020-21 academic year remotely.
At a special meeting held virtually on Monday, Superintendent Alan Johnson said that with Allegheny County still experiencing new COVID-19 cases — close to 200 per day — and with more young people being diagnosed, the district has decided to shift to a remote opening plan.
“We just do not believe we are in a position to safely operate any kind of on-site class within the school district for the first nine weeks,” Johnson said.
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July 24, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Announcements
A 412 Food Rescue volunteer picks up fresh food for distribution to needy families. (Submitted photo)
Volunteers are needed to help with a free food distribution Saturday (July 25) at McKeesport Area High School.
Sara Swaney, senior director of advancement of 412 Food Rescue, said about 30 people are needed to help load boxes into cars during the event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the high school campus, 1960 Eden Park Boulevard.
Both produce and dairy products will be distributed, Swaney said, and social-distancing rules will be in place.
“We’ve been trying to focus these drive-up and walk-up distributions in communities where we know there are barriers” to transportation, she said, “and be more accessible to the people in that community and the surrounding area where we know they need the food.”
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July 24, 2020 |
By Emily Pidgeon | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Workers seal the roof on the Executive Building, Downtown, in June. New owner Jonathan Stark says the building is structurally sound and is hoping to attract new tenants. (Submitted photo via Facebook)
McKeesport’s Executive Building may not look like much these days, but with a little work and vision, new owner Jonathan Stark hopes to breathe some new life into the old building and bring commerce back to the Downtown area.
Right now, construction fence surrounds the main entrance of the building at 332 Fifth Ave. and adds to the feeling of abandonment. The Executive Building once housed Dollar Bank, a child-care facility, doctors’ offices, hair and nail salons and many other businesses.
But by 2017, the last remaining tenants had left the building, and it was condemned in January 2018 after pillars of brick began falling off the exterior wall.
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July 24, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
Allegheny County police allege that Master Thornton, 18, of McKeesport is one of the two men shown here in surveillance video taken from the Family Dollar store on Versailles Avenue. The second has not yet been identified. (Photo courtesy Allegheny County police)
A McKeesport teen-ager is being held without bail in the Allegheny County Jail in connection with a 2019 robbery and murder at the Family Dollar store on Versailles Avenue.
Master W. Thornton, 18, is charged by Allegheny County police with homicide, robbery, possession of a firearm by a minor and criminal conspiracy in the death of Dwayne Fuller, 24, of Homestead.
Police allege that Thornton and another man got into an altercation with Fuller inside the store last Oct. 17.
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July 24, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
A 31-year-old man died at UPMC McKeesport hospital after a shooting late Wednesday night on Soles Street.
Niko Dawson was pronounced dead in the emergency room early Thursday morning, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said. He had been shot multiple times.
McKeesport police were dispatched to the 1200 block of Soles Street just before midnight for a report of “shots fired.”
According to Allegheny County police, when officers arrived, they found a 24-year-old woman had been injured by a grazing gunshot wound to the leg.
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July 23, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
A McKeesport woman wanted in connection with a fatal shooting was arrested Wednesday in Chicago.
Gabrielle Parker, 33, was taken into custody without incident, said Michael Baughman of the U.S. Marshals Service in Pittsburgh.
Parker is charged by Allegheny County police with criminal homicide and carrying a firearm without a license in connection with the June 18 shooting death of Ericka J. Stevens, 29, of Pittsburgh, formerly of West Mifflin.
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July 22, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Crime and Police News
• Arrest records published here were provided by the McKeesport Police Department.
• Not all arrest records are published.
• An arrest does not mean the person identified has been convicted of a crime.
• All people arrested are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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July 22, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Updated: Tube City Almanac added comments from Amie Downs, Allegheny County spokeswoman, and Timothy McNulty, spokesman for Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.
By Liz Essley Whyte and Alex Ellerbeck
The Center for Public Integrity
Dr. Deborah Birx, shown in a 2018 file photo, warned Pittsburgh and 10 other cities on Wednesday that they must be more aggressive in stopping the spread of COVID-19. But Pittsburgh and Allegheny County officials said they were not invited to participate in the nationwide phone call. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services photo)
Pittsburgh is one of 11 cities being told by federal authorities to take more “aggressive” steps to slow the spread of COVID-19.
In a private phone call Wednesday to state and local leaders, Dr. Deborah Birx, a leader of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned that 11 major cities are seeing increases in the percentage of tests coming back positive.
Birx told hundreds of emergency managers and other state and local leaders that they should act quickly to stem the outbreaks.
Pittsburgh does not have its own health department. But Amie M. Downs, Allegheny County spokeswoman, told Tube City Almanac on Wednesday night that neither Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, nor anyone else from the county administration “was on any such call or has received any such communication.”
Timothy McNulty, spokesman for Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, told the Almanac via email, “no one from (Pittsburgh) was on this call.”
Birx’s call was not made public, but a recording was obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, which reported details in an exclusive story on Wednesday.
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July 21, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Announcements
Bob Full’s turnout gear and helmet were displayed at the entrance to the Forest Hills Volunteer Fire Department in tribute to the former chief of Allegheny County Emergency Services, who died Friday at 65. (Bob Janis photo/special to Tube City Almanac)
Friends and colleagues are remembering a longtime firefighter and emergency responder who helped create Allegheny County’s 9-1-1 emergency dispatch center.
Bob Full died Friday at age 65.
A life member of the Forest Hills volunteer fire department, Full served as Allegheny County fire marshal from 1998 to 2011 and chief deputy director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency from 2011 to 2015, and was a familiar, calming presence at disaster and emergency scenes.
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July 21, 2020 |
By Kristen Keleschenyi | Posted in: North Versailles Twp. News
North Versailles Twp. will consider an ordinance that would allow residents to keep chickens on their own property.
At the July meeting, Solicitor Greg Evashavik presented a draft of the ordinance to commissioners for their consideration. The ordinance, expected to be put to a vote at the Aug. 20 meeting, is available for review at the municipal building.
Raising backyard chickens as a hobby has become increasingly popular in recent years and is permitted in many Mon-Yough municipalities.
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