Project grant

Project grant

YOUNGSTOWN

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, on Wednesday announced a $187,000 project grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to Youngstown State University’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Equipment Project.

This project will equip a lab at YSU with state-of-the-art equipment to demonstrate and teach advanced techniques for using flexible automation to assist both traditional board-level electronics manufacturers as well as the integration of electronics into both conventional and hybrid 3-D printed structures. About 50 students will use the lab each semester.

Assessment finished

WARREN

A mental-health assessment has been completed on Jacob Larosa, 17, who is charged in the murder of an elderly neighbor, but none of the parties in the case are saying what it showed.

The results won’t be public until later, attorneys for the prosecution and defense said after a hearing Wednesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Defense attorney Matt Pentz of the Ohio Public Defender’s Office asked he be provided with the data collected by a psychiatrist at the Northeast Ohio Forensic Center in Austintown during the evaluation.

After reviewing it, he will let the court know at the next hearing, at 1:30 p.m. May 24, whether he would like a second evaluation to be conducted, he said.

Larosa was 15 when he was charged with the murder of his neighbor, Marie Belcastro, 94, in her Cherry Street home March 31, 2015.

Volunteers lunch

YOUNGSTOWN

Senior Corps volunteers from Mahoning and Trumbull counties in the Foster Grandparents Program and Retired and Senior Volunteer Program will be recognized at a luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at First Presbyterian Church, 201 Wick Ave.

Rev. Rebecca Anne Kahnt of First Presbyterian will offer an invocation. Featured speakers are Mayor John A. McNally; Sarah J. Lowry, Northeast Ohio Regional Representative for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland; and Josh Prest, Northeast Ohio Regional Representative for U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati.

Music will be performed by Jason Fair. Selah Restaurant in Struthers is catering the event.

Suspect brought back to Warren

WARREN

Shawn Johnson, 49, who was indicted Tuesday on aggravated murder and other charges, was brought back to Warren on Wednesday and booked into the Trumbull County jail at 3:31 p.m.

He is expected to be arraigned at 9 a.m. today by Judge Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Johnson, also known as Shawn Hope, is charged in the Dec. 2 shooting death of John P. Kellar, 41, of Niles, and kidnapping two women, all in a house on Stephens Avenue Northwest.

Johnson was arrested March 30 in Detroit, where he has been convicted of crimes, including carrying concealed weapons, receiving stolen property and fleeing from police.

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