Agency closing
The Warren-Forest Counties Economic Opportunity Council will be closed on Monday, January 2, 2012, for the New Year's Day Holiday.
Killed changing tire
GRINDSTONE, Pa. (AP) - A man is jailed on charges he was driving drunk when he struck and killed a southwestern Pennsylvania woman and injured her husband as the couple changed a tire.
Online court records don't list an attorney for 40-year-old Donald Lowther, of Merrittstown.
He's charged with homicide by vehicle while driving drunk and other crimes. Redstone Township police say Lowther ran into 21-year-old Kelly Branson, of Uniontown, and her husband, Adam, as they were changing a tire along U.S. Route 40, about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh.
The Fayette County coroner says Kelly Branson died at the scene. Her husband was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital where he was reported in serious condition Friday.
Police say Branson was wearing a fluorescent safety vest and the couple's car, which was partially on the narrow road, had its hazard lights on.
Valuable parking
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh residents are up in arms over a new countywide reassessment that has seen some property values triple or quadruple for tax purposes, but real estate attorney Richard Milesky Jr. thinks he can top them all.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Friday that his 18-by-10-foot parking space in his condominium complex has been valued at $5,000 in past years, but now it's supposedly worth $287,800. For the record, Milesky's condo is being assessed at just $228,700 - despite a $55,000 increase from the last assessment.
Milesky plans to appeal the parking spot reassessment he assumes is a simple mistake.
Graves threatened
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania coroner may decide soon whether to move dozens of graves threatened by a sinkhole.
Lehigh County Deputy Coroner Paul Hoffman tells The Morning Call of Allentown that Coroner Scott Grim may decide Friday whether to move the graves in Allentown. Fire officials say 54 graves are threatened by the approaching water.
Hoffman says the coroner's office asked the Union and West End Cemetery Association for documents related to the cemetery. Association officials say families own each individual plot and they aren't sure where the graves could be moved.
Five homes have been declared structurally unsafe because of the sinkhole, which formed Thursday morning when authorities discovered a water main break. Officials aren't sure which happened first, the water main break or the sinkhole.
No injuries were reported.
Mystery tombstones
POTTSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - State police in Schuylkill County are trying to determine the origin of 13 large tombstones found dumped by the side of a road.
Authorities say the stones were discovered Wednesday and only six have been transcribed so far. Cpl Kevin Brennan tells the Republican-Herald of Pottsville that police are still trying to track down where the stones came from.
WNEP-TV reports the tombstones were discovered by a hiker earlier this week on land owned by a coal company. The coal company then contacted state police.
Health system merger
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Auditors say the West Penn Allegheny Health System lost $51.8 million in the most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30.
West Penn Allegheny says in a release Friday that auditor KPMG has expressed doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.
Health insurer Highmark plans to acquire West Penn Allegheny and contribute $475 million to improvements, but the KPMG report says there's no guarantee those plans can be effectively implemented.
West Penn Allegheny also says it will delay the opening of a Temple University medical school campus at the health system until the deal with Highmark is approved by regulators.