INSIDE DIGEST

LOCAL

Sterling House program

SALEM — Sterling House Assisted Living, 1916 S. Lincoln Ave., is having an open house Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. to showcase its new Innovative Senior Care in-house therapy program.

Health-care professionals and therapists will be available to talk about the comprehensive therapy and wellness program and to give tours.

There will be door prizes and refreshments.

School supplies sought

BOARDMAN —The United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley will be collecting donations of school supplies from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Boardman YMCA on McClurg Road. There will be a bus in the parking lot.

The following school supplies are needed: book bags, notebooks, pens and pencils, crayons, highlighters, erasers, rulers, glue sticks and folders. Monetary donations also will be accepted.

The school supplies will be packed into book bags as part of the annual United Way Day of Caring on Sept. 11. The book bags will be distributed to needy children helped by organizations funded by the United Way.

For more information, call Tara Mady at (330) 746-8494 or visit www.ymvunitedway.org.

Strickland at WRHS

BERLIN CENTER — Gov. Ted Strickland will have a town hall meeting at 3:30 p.m. Friday at Western Reserve High School, 13850 Akron-Canfield Road (U.S. Route 224).

Charles Swindler, superintendent of Western Reserve School District, said the governor will talk about the recently passed two-year state budget and other matters for about an hour.

Sebring water warning

SEBRING — The 2,500 customers of Sebring’s water plan have been notified of a water-contamination issue at the facility.

Mayor John Smith said the water is the same quality it has always been — the difference is that the Environmental Protection Agency has changed the standards for certain contaminants.

Specifically, levels of the compound trihalomethane and halocylic acid (listed as possible cancer-causing agents) in water coming out of the plant are higher than the new EPA standards in two consecutive tests, the mayor said. It’s an EPA violation and must be reported to the plant customers in Sebring, Beloit and Smith Township, he said.

The two chemicals are formed when chlorine used to treat the water interacts with organic material such as leaves and tree limbs found in the water, Smith said, noting that Sebring draws its water from the Mahoning River.

Sebring won a state award in 2002 for the best water in Ohio, the major said, adding that the quality hasn’t changed.

The municipality is looking at a $1 million project to add a treatment system, he said.

Campbell house fire

CAMPBELL — Fire of suspicious origin did $25,000 damage to a vacant house at 485 Robinson Road.

Firefighters said the call came in at 12:53 a.m. Tuesday, and the first firefighter on the scene reported that the back of the house was ablaze.

Coitsville firefighters assisted at the scene.

Officials said the house has been vacant for several months, and there was no utility service to the structure.

OHIO

Swine-flu death

CINCINNATI — A 26-year-old southeastern Indiana woman hospitalized with swine flu has died three weeks after her younger brother died of the disease.

Mindy McIntosh of Dillsboro, Ind., died Monday at University Hospital in Cincinnati.

Staff/wire reports