Metro digest

Traficant interview airs tonight on FOX

YOUNGSTOWN — James A. Traficant Jr. will appear at 9 p.m. today on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Traficant was to be a guest Monday on Hannity’s TV show, but was bumped by a special program on national health care, said Dennis Malloy, the ex-congressman’s director of communications.

Hannity interviewed Traficant on Monday, but the talk won’t be shown till today. Hannity had Traficant on his syndicated talk radio show Monday.

Traficant has already appeared on three national television shows since he got out of prison Sept. 2. Traficant served seven years and a month after he was convicted in 2002 of 10 felonies, including racketeering, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax evasion.

Race to close park roads

YOUNGSTOWN — The running of the 35th annual Peace Race Sunday will force the closure of several drives within the Mill Creek MetroParks.

The following MetroParks drives between Canfield Road and Mahoning Avenue will close for the duration of the race, which is to run from 9 a.m. to about 1 p.m.: Old Mill Drive, East Park Drive, Valley Drive, West Cohasset Drive, West Park Drive and West Glacier Drive.

Price Road, between Lake Glacier Boathouse and Irving Place, will be closed, and Youngstown police officers will interrupt traffic on U.S. Route 62 and Old Furnace Road to allow runners safe crossings.

For more information, contact the MetroParks at (330) 702-3000.

YSU lecture series

YOUNGSTOWN — “Studying the Jewish and Islamic Traditions,” a lecture series by Helene Sinnreich, director of the Youngstown State University Center for Judaic and Holocaust Studies, and Mustansir Mir, director of the YSU Center for Islamic Studies, kicks off its fifth year at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The lecture will be in the gallery in YSU’s Kilcawley Center.

2nd Ward Block Watch

STRUTHERS — The 2nd Ward might soon be a safer place if a Block Watch program gets going there. Sixteen people showed up at a meeting Saturday morning at the city building to learn more about establishing the program, said Robert Stouffer, 2nd Ward councilman.

Saturday’s meeting was prompted by “quite a few” calls on car break-ins from people in the area of the ward close to Midlothian Boulevard, Stouffer said. He said the next step is for people who attended the meeting to gather names of neighbors who are interested in being part of the program.

Work on Kaluza home

YOUNGSTOWN — Crews plan to break ground at 8 a.m. Wednesday on a new house for former KFC manager Joe Kaluza.

The handicapped-accessible house will be built by volunteers on Ivanhoe Avenue, near where the Kaluza family lives.

Kaluza, the father of two, was left a quadriplegic when he was shot in March 2008 during a robbery as he was making the restaurant’s bank deposit.

Money for the house was raised through the Kaluza Project with donations collected at the Canfield Fair and contractors volunteering their services.