METRO DIGEST || Tractor kills Pa. man

Tractor kills Pa. man

ELLWOOD city, pa.

A 73-year-old man was killed when a tractor overturned onto him, state police said.

Berislav Fec was pronounced dead at 12:30 p.m. Thursday after the accident at his Dutch Ridge Road, Wayne Township home.

Fec was on a steep hill behind his home excavating brush and was standing on the downhill side of the tractor, police said. The tractor became unstable and rolled onto him. The roll bar hit him and pinned him to the ground. He suffered severe injuries to his back and chest.

Home ec class updated in Weathersfield schools

MINERAL RIDGE

The high-school curriculum for the former home-economics class will get an update to a consumer- science class for the 2012-’13 school year.

Weathersfield school board approved the change this week, and Superintendent Damon Dohar explained the class will be modeled after one at Trumbull County Career and Technical Center.

The class will modernize its methods in cooking, managing the health of family members, being physically ready, and teaching various types and styles of cooking, Dohar added.

The board accepted a donation of $1,000 from Fred McCandless and Todd Murdoch for the annual McCandless-Murdock scholarship.

The district continues to work on plans for a new $24 million building, demolition and renovation project, meeting with architects and the Ohio School Facilities Commission, Dohar said. The state will pay for $15.6 million of the project. A local bond issue will pay for the other $8.4 million.

Social media & protests

Youngstown

The Youngstown State University Black Faculty and Staff Association, Students for Social Justice, and the Northeast Ohio Automated Computing Machinery are sponsoring a panel discussion, “Using Social Media for Political Protests: Helpful or Harmful?”

The utility of social media will be addressed by the panel of scholars and activists from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday in DeBartolo Hall Auditorium at YSU.

Panelists are Alyssa Lenhoff, YSU director of journalism; Tom Oder, physics professor and Ugandan activist; David Porter, political science professor and contributor to the book “International Science and Technology Philosophy, Theory and Policy”; and Rebecca Schueller, social media and the Arab Spring researcher, and graduate of the University of Jordan. Other panelists are Jenny Jacobs, YSU student and animal and environmentalist activist, and Gary Davenport, president of the Wick Park Neighborhood Association. Both are avid users of social media.

Fire at Amish business

NEW WILMINGTON

Emergency crews say an Amish woodworking business has burned down in western Pennsylvania.

Lawrence County 911 dispatchers say the fire was reported at about 4 a.m. Friday at the Amish Neighbors Wood Shop in New Wilmington in Lawrence County. News crews captured images of flames engulfing the business. Crews cleared the scene about four hours later.

No injuries were reported and The Associated Press was not immediately able to identify or located the owners for comment.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS