TODAY'S VINDICATOR HEADLINES | WEDNESDAY

A Mexican restaurant is expected to open by February at the former Commonwealth Land Title Agency of Youngstown Inc. building on North Phelps Street, downtown. Rodney Freel, one of the owners, said they are investing about $200,000 in the building, which will be called to be called Gringos Tacos and Tequila. That block of Phelps Street, between West Commerce and West Federal streets, will be closed to vehicular traffic by late spring 2020.

For the third year in a row, Youngstown men and women from several organizations clapped and cheered students on at Eaast and Chaney high schools to welcome them back after summer break. The initiative aims to provide positive role models to greet students as they arrive to start the school year on a positive note. Some of the students stopped to shake their hands and give those they recognized hugs. Mac McGee, a member of ACTION who was at East, said, “We should show that this first day is an important day,” McGee said. “This is about men stepping up to the plate and supporting our young people.”

Clean Energy Future announced Tuesday that it is canceling plans to build a third gas-fired power plant in Lordstown. “This decision is based on the July 2019 passage” by the Ohio General Assembly of House Bill 6, Clean Energy Future President Bill Siderewicz said in a news release. No third plant means the loss of 1,100 new local union construction jobs, 2.6 million man hours of union construction labor over 34 months, and $150 million in water purchases from Youngstown, Siderewicz said. He said a third plant would have produced additional full-time jobs, local supplies and services, and would have generated $300 million in local property, salary and income taxes. Over its 50-year life, it would have produced $29 billion of economic benefit, he said.

20-year-old James P. Reardon Jr., who is accused of threatening a mass shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Youngstown, will stay locked up while being considered for federal charges. Reardon was arrested Saturday for the threats, which were discovered on the internet. He is accused of posting a video to Instagram on July 11 in which he appears to be firing an automatic weapon, accompanied by the sounds of sirens and screams and a caption reading: “Police identify shooter of Youngstown Jewish Family Center as local white nationalist Seamus O’Rearedon.” Police searched Reardon’s New Middletown home and found several weapons, including two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles and a submachine gun.

The U.S. Attorney's office also has filed a federal charge against 18-year-old Justin Olsen of Boardman. Olsen was arrested Aug. 7 after a months-long FBI investigation into his alleged online threat against federal officers. His activity on a meme website suggests he advocated shooting federal agents and supports armed resistance as a "viable method of political change." Officers who searched his home found he had access to nearly two dozen firearms, including at least five assault weapons and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition owned by his father. He is being held without bond.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation kicked off a $750,000 multi-home rehabilitation campaign Tuesday morning at an event on Miltonia Avenue in the East Side Sharonline neighborhood. Twenty homes owned by individuals with low income in the first, second and sixth wards will receive upgrades and repairs through the YNDC and its partnership with PNC Bank and The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. Tiffany Sokol, the housing director at YNDC, said those wards consistently have the highest number of individuals applying for assistance, so the program will focus on those wards initially, but is open to engaging outside of those bounds.

A Youngstown man charged with trying to rob a Liberty bank while armed is being held in the county jail in lieu of $1 million bond, and a man charged with four counts of rape is being held on $250,000 bond after arraignments Tuesday. Both men pleaded not guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. Dabraylin Hawkins, 24, was shot by a police officer before he could take any money or harm any customers last month at Home Savings Bank. Daniel A. Gould, 32, was living in Mahoning County when prosecutors say he raped a 16-year-old disabled girl in Warren over two days, and also failed to register his sex offender status with the sheriff’s office after being convicted twice in Pennsylvania on sex offenses involving minors.

The Mahoning County coroner has ruled the death of 6-week-old Xavier Richardson in March a homicide, caused by blunt force injuries to the head. The ruling is significant because murder charges were dropped against the baby’s father, 20-year-old Xavier Richardson Sr.,of Youngstown, but were expected to be refiled when the coroner’s report was completed. The baby was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital by his father and later died. Hospital personnel found bite marks on the baby and injuries to his brain, police said.

Poland Village Council finally got its hands on EnviroScience’s report regarding Poland Municipal Forest, and some stakeholders find it shortsighted. The Stow-based environmental consulting firm’s report, which was funded by the Poland Forest Foundation, proposed stream restoration projects that aim to preserve forest infrastructure and improve aquatic habitat, water quality and the beauty of the forest and could cost up to $1.6 million. But Councilwoman Martha Morgan said the report proposed "treatment of the symptom, rather than an attempt to deal with the cause," which is increased flooding. She suggested partnering with nearby communities to address watershed and flooding issues.