Pennsylvania’s sales tax is the focus of budget negotiators as they try to end the five-month-old state budget impasse. House Majority Leader Dave Reed says lawmakers are considering broadening the sales tax to more goods and services.
Several Beaver County police departments have been recognized by AAA for traffic safety efforts, several of which received platinum awards. AAA East Central Safety Adviser J.J. Miller tells Beaver County Radio’s Pat Septak that the local departments receiving the platinum award are: Beaver, New Brighton Area, New Sewickley Township, Moon Township and Cranberry Township. The Rochester police department received a gold award from AAA. Silver award recipients are: Aliquippa, Beaver Falls, Conway and Hopewell Township police departments.
Some Beaver Falls businesses and residents were without power for a short time Monday after a tree that someone was cutting down along 15th street fell onto some power lines. Duquesne Light crews worked during the early afternoon hours to repair the problem. The WBVP and WMBA studios were among those affected by the outage, knocking both stations off the air, which delayed the Noonday Report by an hour. The very popular Yankee Trader show was cancelled for the day.
State police say a medical helicopter was called to an accident involving a utility truck and a deer Monday on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Lawrence County. The accident was reported shortly before 2:00 yesterday afternoon near mile marker 4.5 in Homewood, between the Gateway Toll Plaza and the New Castle interchange. Police say a witness reported that the deer went through the windshield, hitting a person inside the truck. The victim’s name and condition have not been released.
15 people died in car crashes investigated statewide by the Pennsylvania state police over the long Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. State police say they responded to slightly more than 1,000 crashes in which 272 people were injured during the five-day holiday weekend that stretched from Nov. 25 through Nov. 29. Police say 91 of those crashes involved alcohol, seven of which were fatal.
Weekdays from 9am to noon
Police are investigating a fatal crash in Franklin Township. According to officials, an ATV rider was killed Friday afternoon when he went off a trail and into a pond that was several feet deep. It happened around 4 p.m. in an old strip mining area. He was apparently trapped under the ATV until a bystander found him and pulled him out, but it was too late. The victim was later identified as 60-year-old Robert Wright of Claysville. A passenger was also hurt and flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. Authorities are investigating whether others were in a group riding with Wright, and whether they left the scene after the crash.
An ailing 8-year-old girl from Ellwood City who underwent a rare multi-organ transplant continues her long road to recovery. Doctors say Kyree Beachem received a liver, pancreas, and small and large intestines on Wednesday. The surgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh took about 10 hours. Kyree has been waiting more than five years for new organs.
Today is also Cyber Monday. More than 183 million Americans could log onto their computers today to search for the best deals of the holiday shopping season. Some experts believe today could be the biggest shopping day of the Thanksgiving shopping weekend.
Pennsylvania’s Game Commission estimate about 750,000 hunters with rifles are expected to pursue white-tailed deer. The rifle season opened just before sunrise today and continues through December 12th.