Learn financial peace

December 28, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

AUSTINTOWN — Austintown Community Church, 249 S. Canfield-Niles Road, will sponsor Financial Peace University, a 13-week program taught by Dave Ramsey.

Sessions will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Mondays, Jan. 5-March 30. Registration is required by Dec. 31. Contact Brad Bloomster at the church, (330) 799-4214, or through e-mail at bbloomster@youracc.org for more information or to register.

The program teaches families and individuals how to handle their money through common-sense principles and small-group accountability. FPU is available for churches, companies, military bases, financial literacy programs, Spanish-speaking organizations and community groups.

Budget meetings

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — City council has scheduled several special sessions for Tuesday to discuss and act on a spending plan for next year.

Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. for a budget workshop and at 7 p.m. to vote on the proposed 2009 budget and accompanying ordinances.

The sessions will be conducted in council chambers at the city building, 230 N. Jefferson St.

Housing program

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — City council has agreed to participate in a countywide neighborhood stabilization program.

As part of the program, Lawrence County Social Services plans to submit an application for $4 million to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Other municipalities in Lawrence County also have the option to participate in the program.

For its participation in the program, the city will be able to acquire and rehabilitate foreclosed properties and clear blighted properties, officials said.

Learn to identify birds

SANDY LAKE, Pa. — Do you wish you knew more about the birds at your feeder? Join Tony Piccolin, field director for the bird survey at Maurice K. Goddard State Park, as he teaches how to identify birds, 8 to 11 a.m. Jan. 17 at McKeever Environment Learning Center, 55 McKeever Lane.

Sitting in the center’s library, visitors can learn how to identify birds. Immediately outside the large picture windows of the library are a series of feeders.

If you have field guides and binoculars, bring them. McKeever does have binoculars and field guides for participants to use on a first-come-first-served basis.

Later in the morning when the birds are not as active, participants will identify slides of birds using their field guides. The program is free and open to the public. For more information, call the center at (724) 376-1000 or e-mail at info@mckeever.org.

Armed robbery probed

WARREN — Police are investigating an armed robbery at Fastway Drive Thru, 1432 Parkman Road, N.W., at 8:34 p.m. Friday.

A clerk said two men entered the store, which is near Niblock Avenue, and took cash. One man had a gun. They then walked off on foot in the direction of Tod Avenue to the east.

Terroristic threats

NEW WILMINGTON, PA. — A 19-year-old New Castle man has been charged with making terroristic threats, disorderly conduct, harassment and resisting arrest in a Dec. 21 altercation at a home in New Wilmington.

Police said Paul E. McConahy, of 411 Reynolds St., threatened to kill an 18-year-old man at a home on East Neshannock Avenue and threatened his mother, the homeowner, with a knife.

The altercation involved a woman McConahy once dated and a child McConahy fathered who was in the home at the time, police said.

McConahy posted $1,000 bond set by Magisterial District Judge Scott McGrath in New Castle. McConahy is set for a pretrial hearing Jan. 6 in Lawrence County Central Court.