Mary Ann Thomas stories, Page 33

They won’t bite you, but crane flies — which look like large mosquitos — are out in full force, reportedly covering a putting green at a Pittsburgh area golf course and maybe cavorting in your backyard. Yes, cavorting. With only two weeks to live as adults on the wing, some...

Transportation Security Administration agents caught a Texas man with a handgun at Pittsburgh International Airport on Saturday, which was the third gun found on passengers in five days. Last Tuesday, TSA agents stopped two passengers with guns at an airport checkpoint. “What would make someone think they could bring a...

Lower Burrell Council has suspended rentals of Burrell Lake’s Fisher Hall for October, and possibly longer, because of covid-19 restrictions. The closure is part of a string of shutterings of some venues across the country for weddings, showers and other events. While a number of facilities remain open, shifting state...

Lower Burrell officials want help from a Westmoreland Cares Municipal Grant to pay for covid-19 expenses. Municipalities in Westmoreland County are eligible for the grant, which covers unbudgeted, covid-19-related expenses from March 1 to Oct. 1. The grants are paid for from relief monies from state and federal government agencies....

PixCams, an educational organization in Murrysville, installed two new and improved cameras for its live elk webcam at the Elk County Visitor Center in Benezette. Elk watching continues to grow in popularity as does public interest in the webcams. The PixCams webcam is one of two live public webcams devoted...

Residents along Dewey Drive in Upper Burrell don’t want a proposed Dollar General store at Route 780 and Dewey, although supervisors told upset residents Wednesday night there’s little they can do. The land proposed for the store is in a C-1 district known as a commercial neighborhood service zone, which...

That light “thud” you keep hearing outside is no doubt a falling acorn from an oak tree, likely a red oak, which will continue to unleash acorns in large numbers for the next two weeks, according to regional experts. The bountiful amount of acorns is indicative of a “very good...

As the pandemic rushed in only a few months ahead of farm market season, Lower Burrell farm market organizers knew it wouldn’t be the same. No more picnic tables for the public to eat homemade pie bought by the slice, all with live music nearby. Bud Myers, a member of...

With anything flavored with pumpkin popular in autumn, a local dairy is now offering pumpkin pie flavored milk. Whitehall-based Schneider’s Dairy is selling the flavored milk for a limited time as similar milk products gain in popularity. Sales of flavored whole milk jumped 36% from 2015 to the end of...

Erin Klems could not visit her mother, Mary Lou Flavin-Stumpf, before she died alone of an infection on April 28 in a Pittsburgh-area hospital. At that time, covid-19 restrictions prevented any visitation by the public to local hospitals. Many other people died alone. Then, the survivors mourned alone. But no...

Consumer confidence in Southwestern Pennsylvania is still down but continues to rise from its lowest point during the pandemic in July. The most pessimistic group is young people, according to an analysis released Friday by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. The report gauges sentiments toward the overall economy and...

The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania is offering free trees, shrubs and native plants to residents of the Buffalo Creek watershed, particularly those who live along a creek or stream. Considered to be one of the wildest, untouched natural areas in the Pittsburgh region, the Buffalo Creek watershed covers about...

The Lower Burrell Police Department will be among the first in the region to take a new seminar at Indiana University of Pennsylvania Police Academy focusing on the concept of police legitimacy. The concept deals with the degree to which the public is willing to support and cooperate with police...

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection expanded its drought watch Wednesday from 13 to 29 counties, including Armstrong and Butler counties. Two counties, Clinton and McKean, were moved to the more severe classification of a drought warning, joining Potter County. The agency is asking residents in those counties with drought...

A South Buffalo man who has volunteered as a firefighter in Allegheny Township is accused of intentionally starting seven brush fires from mid-April through last week. Allegheny Township police filed seven felony counts of arson and other charges against Anthony Hazlett, 30, in connection with the fires. The charges were...

Allegheny Township police charged a Kiski Township man with assaulting a woman while she held a child and was pregnant. Nathaniel Dean Beer, 22, of Kiski Township is charged with aggravated assault, strangulation and endangering the welfare of children, which included the victim’s child and an her unborn child. He...

Bird banders in Cook Township banded a one-in-a million bird — a rose-breasted grosbeak with half its body looking like a male and the other half, a female. The bird was banded on Sept. 24 at Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve bird banding station in Westmoreland County....

Kiski Township is looking for members for its new sewage authority, which will preside over an $8 million first phase of a sewage project in the township’s Orchard Hill neighborhood. Since most of the township does not have public sewage, the new project caused the township to recently establish a...

As Pennsylvania is still ranked third in the nation for the number of deer and other animal collisions with cars, a group from Philadelphia is trying to raise money for wildlife rehabilitation centers across the state. Wildlife Works in Youngwood, Westmoreland County, and Wild Bird Recovery in Butler County are...

If you live in Lower Burrell and have to go to a dollar discount store, you won’t have to go far: The fifth discount store in the city, a Family Dollar, is moving into the former Walgreen’s store at 108 Greensburg Road near Parnassus. There are two Dollar Trees, two...

Not only are some Upper Burrell residents resistant to paying a proposed 2-mill fire tax, but they have wanted, and just got, the township to pay an auditor to review the fire company’s finances. Supervisors rolled out a proposal for a 3-mill fire tax in August, then reduced the proposed...

Carnegie Mellon University students, professors and a spin-off company have cleared their first major hurdle in developing a small robotic rover called MoonRanger for NASA set to search for water and ice on the south pole of the moon in 2022. “We’re going to the moon. Who gets to do...