Times Leader
First Posted:
Local tie to Hotshots ceremony
A former Dupont man participated in the honor guard for one of the Arizona firefighters killed last month while battling a wildfire.
Len Lojewski said his son, Eric, 37, a San Bernardino County forest firefighter, drove a vehicle in the procession Wednesday carrying Christopher MacKenzie to Hemet, Calif., where he grew up. Lojewski said his son sent a text message to inform him about his involvement in the ceremony.
Lojewski, of Dupont, said his son had worked with 30-year-old MacKenzie who was one of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots killed on June 30 battling the Yarnell Hill fire.
Tuition going up once again
Tuition is going up this fall at the state’s 14 public universities.
Officials said it will cost $194 more per year to attend schools in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. That’s up 3 percent from last year.
The annual cost of tuition for in-state residents now totals $6,622. Rates are also going up for non-resident and graduate students.
About 115,000 students attend the schools, and about 90 percent are from Pennsylvania. The system is receiving nearly $413 million in state aid, the same amount as last year. Officials say that covers about one-quarter of the institutions’ operating costs.
New law funds anti-gang unit
A bipartisan group of senators highlighted the inclusion of $2.5 million in the state budget to create a new Mobile Street Crimes Unit in the Attorney General’s Office to fight gang activity across Pennsylvania.
The five senators – Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, and Sens. John Rafferty, Ted Erickson, Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, and John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township – collaborated to pass legislation, now Act 200 of 2012, making it a crime to recruit criminal gang members and toughening sentences for various crimes committed by street gangs.
Act 200 added Pennsylvania to a list of more than two dozen states which have anti-gang recruitment laws. The senators said funding the new Mobile Street Crimes Unit is part of an ongoing effort to crack down on gang activity in Pennsylvania.
“Our job as state legislators is to make sure that law enforcement has the tools and resources needed to fight the scourge of gang activity across the commonwealth,” Baker said. “Gangs are often on the move, so the Mobile Street Crimes Unit allows them to strike back wherever the need arises, providing an indispensable weapon for protecting our communities.”
WILKES-BARRE
Private hearing for murder suspects
Attorneys for two half-brothers charged in the shooting deaths of three people in Plymouth last summer appeared in Luzerne County Court Wednesday for a private hearing with a judge regarding expert fees and associated costs in their clients case.
Attorneys for Sawud Davis, 16, and Shawn Hamilton, 19, both of Nanticoke and formerly of Philadelphia, had requested an in camera hearing — a private hearing held with defense attorneys and a judge — to discuss the costs.
According to prosecutors, Davis was in a Plymouth apartment during an alleged drug transaction and pulled out a .40-caliber pistol. He fired multiple rounds, said prosecutors, killing Bradley Swartwood, 21, Nicholas Maldonado, 17, both of Plymouth, and Lisa Abaunza, 15, of Duryea, and injuring 19-year-old Daniel Maldonado.
At a preliminary hearing in October, Hamilton said he was the lone gunman, not his half-brother. Both Hamilton and Davis are formerly of Philadelphia and had been residing on East Ridge Street in Nanticoke. Davis’ attorney has made a request to have his case transferred to juvenile court and Hamilton face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
