Brown to speak

Brown to speak

WASHINGTON

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Avon, will have a news conference at noon today to announce his opposition to a proposed plan in the U.S. House of Representatives that would result in Ohio receiving a far smaller portion of home-heating assistance funds than it would under a Senate proposal.

Bills in the House and Senate both contain similar funding levels for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, but the proposed House plan makes allocation changes that would result in Ohio and other colder-weather states, like Michigan and Wisconsin, receiving a smaller fraction of the funds.

Brown said the Senate plan has already cleared the Appropriations Committee and relies on a formula that has been used since 1980 to emphasize the needs of colder-weather states such as Ohio. Under the Senate proposal, Ohio would receive nearly $173 million in LIHEAP funds. However, under the House plan, Ohio would receive about $157.4 million, or some $15 million less in home heating assistance funds.

New police officers

YOUNGSTOWN

Mayor Charles P. Sammarone will swear in six new officers to the Youngstown Police Department at 9 a.m. Monday in city council chambers at city hall. These officers will be sworn in: Nicholas Bailey, Eric Ruschak. Michael Medvec, Nick Menichini, Jose A. Morales and Jimmy Hughes Jr.

Benefit planned

NILES

An evening of wine tasting, fashions, specials and raffles to benefit the Animal Welfare League will be 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at The Ski Chalet, 1041 Youngstown Road.

Coffee shop to open

YOUNGSTOWN

Joe Maxx Coffee will open Nov. 11 on the ground floor of the Realty Tower Apartments at 47 Central Federal St.

The specialty coffee shop will fill the space that used to house the Bean Counter at the downtown apartment complex.

Joe Maxx will take up about 1,200 square feet of space on the first floor, selling coffee, muffins, bagels and sandwiches.

The space has been vacant since the Bean Counter went out of business in November 2007.

Guilty plea entered

WARREN

Daniel P. Hoolihan Jr., 21, one of three people charged in the robbery of the Howland Dunkin’ Donuts store in Howland, has pleaded guilty to charges that could land him in prison for 27 years.

Hoolihan, of Edgewood Drive, pleaded guilty to the Dunkin’ Donuts robbery, plus another robbery, a burglary and theft of a firearm.

He entered the pleas Tuesday before Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. He will be sentenced in about five weeks, after the Trumbull County Adult Probation conducts a presentence investigation.

Hoolihan’s involvement in the Dunkin’ Donuts on May 4 was followed by burglary at Niles residence June 24, a July 7 robbery of a cellphone from a person in the parking lot outside of the Niles Giant Eagle and the July 7 theft of a handgun from a house in Warren.

Police say Hoolihan was one of two men who forced former Dunkin’ Donuts employee Samantha Phillips into the restaurant at gunpoint while she was taking out the trash and forced her to give them money from the safe.

Phillips was later charged as an accomplice to the crime.

Trial date set

warren

A trial date of March 5 has been set for Donald P. Williams Jr., 47, of Austintown, charged with aggravated-vehicular homicide and aggravated-vehicular assault in the March 31, 2010, crash that killed three Marine Corps recruits.

A pretrial hearing will be held Jan. 10. Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court is hearing the case.

Pizza-eating contest

BOARDMAN

Bruno Bros. Pizza, 8381 Market St., (Adamas Square Plaza) will have a pizza-eating contest Sunday to benefit the Potential Development Program, which serves children with autism and other special needs. Walk-ins are welcome.

The entry fee is $5 per person for students under age 16 and $10 per person for people 17 and older.

Prizes will be awarded in each age category.

Boy, 16, arrested

WARREN

Police charged a 16-year-old boy at Harding High School with trying to hand marijuana to another student in the parking lot. The arrest took place at 8:30 a.m. Friday.

Dante Capers, Harding principal, told a Warren police officer he saw a boy holding a $10 bill out of a bus window and observed the suspect trying to hand him something.

Capers asked the suspect what was in his hand, then found a small lump of marijuana there.

School officials also found a knife on the ground that a witness said the suspect had been holding. The suspect admitted he had the knife and said he had found it on the ground that morning on the way to school.

Free flu shots

PITTSBURGH

MedExpress Urgent Care is offering free flu shots to children age 4-18 at all of its locations through Nov. 14.

MedExpress Urgent Care centers, which are open 12 hours per day, seven days per week, with a physician on duty, are in a number of Pennsylvania communities including Hermitage and Meadville. For more information, visit www.medexpress.com.