Free Republic

For the first time in more than a quarter century, Westmoreland County will have a new top prosecutor. With 100% of the county’s 307 precincts reporting Wednesday morning, Republican Nicole Ziccarelli erased an early lead held by six-term Democratic incumbent John Peck and claimed the race for district attorney. Peck moved out to an early 6,000-vote lead by virtue of first 12,700 mail-in ballots reported by county election officials. Totals from votes cast in person on Election Day saw Ziccarelli steadily narrow the gap and with more than a third of the vote counted moved into the lead.

The visitor logs are huge, hundreds of pages in big loose-leaf binders, each page filled with signatures front and back. When Leslie Rossi first created the Trump House, she had no idea it would become what one local political leader called a "mecca for the silent majority" — a destination for 1,000 visitors a day, people who want to pick up a free Trump hat, or shirt, or flag, and who want to pose in front of the 14-foot high cutout of President Trump in the front yard. More importantly, she had no idea it would become a center for people...

A Southwest Pennsylvania sheriff has defected to the Republican Party from the Democrats, saying he feels out of place in his former party. “It was a really difficult decision and I’ve thought long and hard about it, but I feel I stand for the ideals of the Republican Party platform more than the Democrats today,” Westmoreland County Sheriff James Albert stated, according to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but a conservative Democrat at that,” he added. “I’m pro-life, a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, a lifetime member of the NRA (National Rifle Association) and, today, I...

WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pennsylvania -- The ad shows a drive-by of a rural, post-industrial unnamed town in this western Pennsylvania county. The woman in the ad says her name is Janie. She is a fisher who caught two legal Northern pike the day her daughter was born, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and now believes the choice was wrong because of his attempt to try to cut Medicaid. The most important bit of information in the ad is her age. She is 82 years old, and strategists and experts agree she and her peers may be the most important voting...

Tuesday’s special election to fill the vacant 58th District state House seat is expected to be held as scheduled, despite widespread cancellations and shutdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic. The health scare has resulted in two polling locations, one in Rostraver and another in South Huntingdon, to be moved at the last minute while replacements are being sought for dozens of poll workers who withdrew from service over the last few days, said Beth Lechman, director of Westmoreland County’s Elections Bureau. Polls will open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the 66 precincts that make up the 58th District,...

PITTSBURGH -- Darrin Kelly, president of the powerful Allegheny-Fayette County Central Labor Council, says that not one of the Democratic candidates running for president has reached out to him to ask about or listen to what union families in western Pennsylvania are looking for in a nominee to challenge President Donald Trump in November. "Not one," he says abruptly. That omission is obvious in just about every proclamation about the energy sector coming from the mouths of most Democratic candidates, whether it is Sens. Bernie Sanders' and Elizabeth Warren's pledging to ban fracking, or former Vice President Joe Biden's recent...

A Philadelphia man’s freedom from the Westmoreland County Prison on Tuesday was short-lived. Moments after Thomas Lee Williams, 36, was released from the Hempfield jail at about 6:15 p.m., police said he attacked a West Leechburg woman in the parking lot, took her sport-utility vehicle and fled with her 1-year-old grandson in the back seat. Williams crashed 2 miles away in Youngwood about 15 minutes later, ran into a wooded area and was eventually apprehended, according to county Park Police Chief Kirk Nolan. Williams was back behind bars Wednesday on $250,000 bail. Investigators will be examining surveillance video from outside...

Democrat Mayor Karen Peconi is facing public backlash after a series of messages in which she reportedly called for “rioters to be destroyed by a water cannon.” On Facebook, the Arnold, Westmoreland County, mayor reportedly said that she was “posting this so the authorities everywhere sees this … bring the hoses.” Then, “they don’t care about jobs for PGH … none of them work now. That’s how they can do this at 7 a.m. Very sad.” Another post references a 1963 protest photo in which a large water cannon is taking aim at protesters demanding equal rights, saying, “we need...

A special election will be held March 15 to fill the remainder of the term of former state Rep. Tim Krieger. Krieger, a four-term Republican from Delmont resigned last month after being sworn in as a Westmoreland County judge. His terms runs to the end of the year. Krieger's 57th District seat includes Greensburg, South Greensburg, Southwest Greensburg, Youngwood, part of Hempfield and Salem townships and Delmont. Officials from Westmoreland County's Democratic and a Republican committees will nominate candidates to run in the special election. Voters will return to polls on April 26 for a primary election when candidates will...

Several people were stabbed Wednesday morning at a high school near Pittsburgh, and a suspect was taken into custody, an emergency official said. Dan Stevens, the spokesman for Westmoreland County emergency management, said five or six people were reported stabbed at about 7:20 a.m. at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, about 15 miles east of Pittsburgh. It wasn't immediately clear if the suspect and the victims are students, adults or a mix of both. It doesn't appear that any of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries, Stevens said, though several helicopters were seen flying people from the scene to area...

Swingers By Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Sunday, October 16, 2005 What motivates people to leave a lifelong relationship? How can they fracture a bond that began right out of high school and had the approval of parents and grandparents alike? How can they cross that dangerous line -- essentially becoming a swinger? The answer is easy: principles. Yes, principles. When the party they've been married to in name only changed its principles, they became swingers. Swing voters, that is. Since the upset U.S. Senate win of Rick Santorum in 1994, Westmoreland County has trended Republican. After years of traditional Democrat...

President George W. Bush toured western Pennsylvania's flood-ravaged areas by helicopter Wednesday before speaking at a lively campaign rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport near Latrobe. Bush flew over the region to see first-hand the destruction caused by heavy rains and flooding from Hurricane Ivan last week. He made a brief stop in Allegheny County to survey the damage on the ground. Later, when his Marine One helicopter touched down in Westmoreland County, the scene at the airport was more like a concert than a campaign stop. Under sunny skies, vendors hawked T-shirts, caps, campaign buttons, water, food and soft...