A Duquesne man accused of shooting a city police officer is headed to court.
At a preliminary hearing Thursday morning before Magisterial District Judge Richard D. Olasz Jr. in West Mifflin, Shyhiem Cortez Berry, 28, was ordered held for court on charges of attempted murder of a law-enforcement officer, aggravated assault, making terroristic threats and criminal trespass.
Berry is charged by Allegheny County police in connection with an incident in Duquesne early on the morning of Feb. 22. According to the criminal complaint, police were called to the area of Catherine and Ferndale streets at 12:11 a.m. for reports of a rideshare driver being threatened with a gun.
Photo: Ma’s Pantry volunteers Debbie Griffith (treasurer), Karen Kane, Louise Beswick (secretary), Paula Greenwald, Nikesh Datta, John Hall and Alan Eichler (president) with their certificate from State Senator Jim Brewster’s office. (Kristen Keleschenyi photo for Tube City Almanac)
A local food pantry is celebrating 40 years of helping their neighbors in need.
Ma’s Pantry was created in 1983 by the Ministerial Association of North Versailles and East McKeesport.
The association was made up of five churches including Broadway Alliance, First United Methodist, Linway Presbyterian, Saint John’s Evangelical Lutheran and Saint Robert Bellarmine Roman Catholic Church. This multi-denominational effort was unprecedented at the time but the need in the community went beyond religious affiliations.
“They did not think it would last 40 years,” says Karen Kane, who has been volunteering with the pantry since 2004. “They thought it would meet the immediate need of the mills shutting down, but the whole country has been economically challenged.”
New traffic lights installed at the entrance to the former Eastland Mall aren’t configured correctly, residents of Maryland Avenue told North Versailles Twp. commissioners this month.
At the township commission’s March meeting, residents said the signals at the intersection of Maryland Avenue and East Pittsburgh-McKeesport Boulevard were installed in anticipation of a new Amazon distribution center opening at the property, but the job isn’t finished.
That said that motorists who turn left from Maryland onto the boulevard are immediately confronted with a red light. This configuration causes confusion about whether you should stop immediately after making the left turn or continue.
Auditions will be held this week at McKeesport Little Theater for the group’s upcoming presentation of “Dearly Departed” by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones.
Acting auditions will be open on Friday and Saturday, and musical auditions will be open Sunday. To sign-up, visit the website. MLT is located at 1614 Coursin St.
The show, set in a small-town in the Southern United States, debuted off-Broadway in 1991 and has become a community theater favorite since then. The story revolves around the Turpin siblings, who have difficulty pulling themselves together and preparing a funeral for their deceased father.
Two student-journalists from Penn State’s campus in McKeesport have received Student Keystone Media Awards from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association.
Yousuf Ibrahim and Carlin Whalen, both students at Greater Allegheny Campus, will be honored during an awards luncheon April 26 in Harrisburg. Both write for the campus newspaper, the GA-Zette.
Whalen received an honorable mention in the category of “Ongoing News Coverage” for his series of campus updates on the transition process after former Greater Allegheny Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer Jacqueline Edmondson stepped down. Whalen meets regularly with Megan Nagel, interim chancellor and chief academic officer, to keep readers informed of campus initiatives.
The Allegheny County elections division has released the list of candidates who have filed nominating petitions to run in the May 16 primary election.
Pennsylvania is a closed-primary state, meaning that only registered voters who have chosen one of the major political parties may vote for candidates in a primary election.
Winners of each party’s primary will face off in the general election Nov. 7.
Voters in many municipalities will be choosing members of their borough councils or township commissions as well as members of their school boards, while others will be choosing mayors and magisterial district judges.
School board and judicial elections are considered non-partisan, so candidates may choose to file in both parties’ primaries, or in just one.
The last day to register to vote in the primary is May 1. To register or to verify your voter registration, visit the state’s voter services website.
Pittsburgh and surrounding neighborhoods continue to be desirable locations to shoot films of all genres and budgets.
The region “has a little bit of everything,” said film producer and writer Mark Cantu. “You can be in a very urban environment one minute and then drive 20 minutes away and be in a very rural farming community.”
Cantu recently completed his upcoming horror-comedy, “Wolf Hollow,” filmed in and around McKeesport and North Versailles Twp.
The movie, which will premiere April 1 at Dormont’s Hollywood Theater, follows a group of filmmakers as they journey to the fictional location of “Wolf Hollow,” searching for an area to shoot a new film only to discover that they are surrounded by a family of werewolves and must fight for their survival.
A fugitive wanted in connection with murder in South Carolina was arrested during an early-morning raid in the city.
Travis Robert Burton, 24, of St. Helena Island, S.C., was found by McKeesport police and the U.S. Marshal’s Service hiding in the basement of a house in the 600 block of Romine Avenue.
Court records showed no obvious link between Burton and the Mon Valley. It was unclear why he was hiding out in the city.
Andrew Knapp of the Charleston County, S.C., sheriff’s office told Tube City Almanac that Burton was wanted in connection with the Jan. 14 slaying of Jarnaro Middleton, 65, of Johns Island, S.C., in the backyard of a home there.
East Allegheny School Board has approved the public sale and auction of the former Green Valley School, located at 3290 Crestview Drive in North Versailles Twp.
Built in 1951, Green Valley School formerly educated kindergarteners through third graders. When the school closed in 2016, those students were combined with those at Logan Middle School, making Logan a K-6 facility.
The sale was authorized by 9-0 vote at this month’s meeting.
The district is asking for a minimum bid of $499,900 for the school and the successful bidder must get final approval from the board on the intended use of the building.
East Allegheny School Board will add its voices to those of other school districts asking the Pennsylvania General Assembly to reform its charter-school funding formula.
The school board by 9-0 vote this week approved a resolution to be sent to the state legislature. School directors said they regard as unfair the method used to calculate how much districts must pay for charter school tuition.
At a committee meeting earlier this month, school directors said the current formulas require school districts to send more money to charter schools than they need to operate their programs, significantly burdening each district’s resources and taxpayers.
