Eckerd offers stores for holiday drive
The Eckerd Corp. has offered to let The Salvation Army use 100 Eckerd stores in western Pennsylvania as sites for its annual holiday kettle fund-raising drive.
The invitation will help the organization make up for kettle sites it lost with the closing of Ames Department Stores, according to Lt. Colonel Joseph DeMichael, Salvation Army western Pennsylvania divisional commander.
"We were deeply humbled when Eckerd called and made this very generous offer. They have already supported us in so many other ways," DeMichael said Tuesday in a prepared statement.
Christmas kettles are responsible for 15 percent to 20 percent of all Salvation Army fund-raising. In the past, kettles at Ames stores generated about $60,000 annually, Salvation Army officials said. In August, Ames Department Stores Inc. announced the closing of its remaining 327 stores in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwest, including 22 stores in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Homestead
A fingerprint left behind at the scene of a home-invasion robbery last month led Allegheny County detectives and Homestead police to arrest a teenager for the crime on Tuesday.
Eric Haynes, 17, of Sylvan Avenue, Homestead, was jailed yesterday on charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, burglary and robbery in connection with the Oct. 26 robbery.
Kenneth Tunie, 74, told police that a man knocked on the front door of his West 15th Avenue home that night and then barged in. The assailant grabbed Tunie's cane and struck him with it before stealing $20 and a set of keys, police reported.
Investigators found the keys on the front lawn and submitted a gold medallion on the key chain to the county Coroner's forensic lab. A latent print on the medallion was matched to Haynes, who was already in the county jail on charges connected to the robbery of a pizza delivery driver in Homestead earlier this month.
Region
The trial for a Beaver County man facing federal arson and mail fraud charges will resume Tuesday.
Zev Meir Siegel, 73, of Ambridge, was admitted to UPMC Presbyterian on Monday after developing chest pains during the morning session of his trial. A hospital spokeswoman would not comment on Siegel's condition.
The trial before Senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond began Nov. 18. Jurors did not see Siegel become ill and have been advised not to discuss the case with anyone or follow news accounts of the trial.
Prosecutors claim Siegel torched the offices of his New Alliance College and Alliance Adoption Service in February 1997 to collect fire insurance.
Siegel denies the charges.
Westmoreland County
A Westmoreland County man who was arrested during an anti-abortion protest when he held up photos of discarded fetuses along the route of the city's annual Christmas parade sued the city and several police officers.
Keith Tucci of Ligonier said his free speech rights were violated when officers arrested him under a Pennsylvania statute that says it is illegal to disrupt or impede a public meeting or procession.
On Nov. 25, 2000, Tucci was picketing in front of the Women's Health Center located Downtown on Fifth Avenue. Tucci and others were standing on the sidewalk holding signs that encouraged an end to abortion and other placards that showed pictures of aborted fetuses. Two city officers asked them to remove their signs, the lawsuit said.
When Tucci refused, he was arrested, the lawsuit said.
Homewood
A Homewood man was held for court Tuesday on a criminal homicide charge after a coroner's hearing in the shooting death of an acquaintance in April 2001.
Deputy Coroner Timothy Uhrich ordered Charles Perry, 23, of Felicia Way, to await court action in the death of Edward Hood, 24, of the 7300 block of Hamilton Avenue, Homewood.
Uhrich heard the testimony of one witness, Mary Beth Flewellen, who testified that she heard two shots about 4:40 a.m. April 12 and saw Perry standing over Hood's body at the rear door of a building where she lived in the 7300 block of Hamilton.
An autopsy determined that Hood died from gunshot wounds to the head and back.
At the preliminary hearing stage, Uhrich said he is compelled to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, and ordered Perry held.
Pittsburgh
The shutdown of the inbound Fort Pitt Tunnel scheduled to occur Tuesday has been rescheduled for Dec. 3.
Last night's closing did not occur because of adverse weather. The Dec. 3 shutdown will occur between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Trumbull Corp. is preparing for the five-month closing that will begin on March 29. PennDOT hired the company for $84.2 million to overhaul the Fort Pitt Bridge and Tunnel.
North Shore
The state Department of Transportation and the Western Alliance Team DUI task force will begin roving DUI patrols at 10 o'clock tonight in Parking Lot 2 adjacent to Heinz Field on the North Shore.
The patrols, which will continue until 4 a.m. Thursday, will be conducted by state police officers, nine DUI task forces from five counties and members of 20 area police departments.
The effort is intended to curb drinking and driving over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Region
United Way of Allegheny County announced Tuesday that it is more than halfway toward its annual fund-raising goal of $39 million, but the slow economy is putting a damper on corporate contributions.
Corporate and foundation gifts are down an average of 8 percent from the 2001 campaign.
United Way also anticipates losses of $1.91 million compared to 2001 from businesses that either closed or are being adversely impacted by the economy. However, 41 companies have undertaken United Way Campaigns for the first time this year. So far, more than $23 million has been raised.
Cranberry
A tractor-trailer and Ford Explorer collided Tuesday morning in Cranberry, sending the 35-year-old female driver of the sport utility vehicle to UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland by helicopter.
The accident occurred at 9:06 a.m. at the intersection of Freedom and Haine School roads. Cranberry police still are investigating the cause of the accident.
Donald Vandermeer, 44, of Caledonia, Mich., who was driving the truck, was not injured.
Police said the tractor-trailer was going east on Freedom Road from a warehouse in New Sewickley. The sport utility vehicle driver was going north on LaPorte Drive and attempting to cross Freedom Road to get onto Haine School Road.
The name of the female driver was not released, and information on her condition was not available Tuesday evening.
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact the Cranberry police at (724) 282-1221.
North Versailles
North Versailles Police and FBI agents are looking for a gunman who held up a SkyBank branch Tuesday morning.
FBI Special Agent Marti Evelsizer said the bank, in the Great Valley shopping center on Route 30 in North Versailles, was robbed about 9:45 a.m. by a man who brandished a weapon. The amount taken was not disclosed.
"There were no injuries and no shots fired," she said
The suspect is described as black, 5 feet 10, with a thin build and wearing dark clothing and a mask. He fled in a red sport utility vehicle, which was later found a short distance from the bank, police said.
Evelsizer was not sure what type of weapon the robber carried.
Avalon
Allegheny County homicide detectives are investigating the death of a 16-year-old from Avalon who may have been playing with a gun when it discharged Tuesday afternoon.
Josh Storey, 16, was with some friends in the living room of his home about 2 p.m. yesterday when he apparently shot himself in the head while showing them a gun, investigators said. Storey was taken to Allegheny General Hospital, North Side, where he died at 6:35 p.m.
Lawrence County
Investigators will meet with prosecutors today to determine if charges are warranted in the death of a newborn baby whose body was found in a home in New Castle over the weekend, Lawrence County District Attorney Matthew Mangino said Tuesday.
An autopsy on the decomposed remains failed to indicate if the infant was born alive or how it died, investigators said. There was no obvious signs of trauma.
The family of a 32-year-old woman called police early Sunday morning after she told them she delivered the stillborn child at her home in September. She said she became frightened and put the remains in a plastic bag inside a shoe box, investigators said.
Penn Hills
The Penn Hills fire marshal is investigating a suspicious fire Tuesday afternoon in an abandoned house on Frankstown Road near the East Hills section of Pittsburgh.
It took firefighters from three volunteer companies about 15 minutes to knock down the flames that appeared to have started in a couch in the basement, then burned through the floor beams to the living room, said Assistant Chief Pete Cullen with the Thad Stevens Volunteer Company.
The two-story, single-family home in the 8500 block of Frankstown Road had been vacant since at least the early summer, said municipal Fire Marshal Jack Mason, who was still conducting his investigation of the fire scene shortly after the blaze had been put out by 3 p.m. yesterday.
The fire was confined to the basement and the living room.
