Look up! Mars will be closer to Earth tonight than it has been in over a decade.

It appeared the brightest from July 27 to July 30, but will be closest to Earth reaching its highest point around midnight Tuesday night. It will be visible for most of the night.

On average, Mars is about 140 million miles away from Earth, but on Tuesday, 35.8 million miles will separate the two.

Mars made its closet approach to earth in nearly 60,000 years in 2003 and won’t be that close again until 2287, according to NASA.

A woman and her son were rescued from a house fire in Port Vue last week. Faith Noll passed away on Sunday from injuries sustained in that fire while her son, Nathan, was still recovering in the hospital as of Tuesday morning.
When flames broke out inside the home on Elmwood Street early Thursday morning neighbors tried to reach the the pair before firefighters arrived, but thick smoke and flames kept them out of the house.

69 new counts have been filed against a Johnstown pediatrician alleging he sexually abused children. In some cases their unaware parents were in the same room while others voiced heated complaints.

Johnnie Wilson Barto’s license was suspended by the state Board of Medicine after his first arrest in January.

The 70-year-old Barto is in Cambria County Prison.

He’s accused of indecent assault, child endangerment and a count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

$36,000 worth of belongings were taken from an Ambridge business: S&S Flooring, over a period of 3 years. An employee, 43 year old Wesley Jacobs was accepted into a special plea program for first time offenders called the Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition program. Successfully completing the program can allow offenders to petition the court to have their records expunged.

Officers spoke with an Ambridge man after a 15 year old girl told them he had touched her inappropriately and assaulted her in November 2016. 35 year old Willie Glover made a no-contest plea to indecent assault and corruption of minors and has entered the Intermediate Punishment Program, an alternative to jail that can include electronic monitoring

A man and several children would have had to pass warning buoys to get to the spot where they were walking & fishing on the apron in front of the Allegheny Lock and Dam 9 in Armstrong County… just feet from rushing water.

Jeff Hawk of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said, “That’s a very dangerous situation. We were, quite frankly, horrified and dismayed when we saw that,” .
“No fish, I don’t care how big, is worth your life,” Hawk said.

In the meantime, they remind boaters to take safe boating classes, always wear a life jacket and pay attention to buoys and markers when you’re on the river.

There’s a warning for people in Butler County about a new round of phone scams.

Scammers are trying to trick people out of hundreds of dollars by posing as power company workers.

Electric companies such as Central Electric Cooperative and West Penn Power are warning customers that they will never cold call them or threaten to turn off their power unless you pay.

51 year old Scot Lewis of Hanover Twp. was initially charged with arson, making terroristic threats, simple assault and harassment. Police responded to a reported assault on June 11th where they found a woman bleeding from her nose. She said Lewis had hit her multiple times, threatened to kill her with a knife, and said he would burn down the house. The charges have been reduced to a harassment citation.