Two Sharpsville bars burglarized, cash stolen

SHARPSVILLE — Someone broke into Sharpsville’s American Legion and High Street Pub & Grill over the weekend and made out with hundreds of dollars in cash, police Chief Keith Falasco said Monday.

Rear doors were pried open at both places after hours, similar to the rash of other burglaries reported by Shenango Valley churches and businesses over the past few weeks, he said. Police are trying to determine if the crimes are related. A bartender at American Legion Post 162, 617 Main St., returned to the club at 2:49 a.m. Saturday to get his jacket and found $460 taken from the bar area, Falasco said.

A patrolman doing routine business checks around 3 a.m. Monday found the back door damaged at the High Street bar, 103 E. High St., and employees determined $624 was missing, he said.

Pa. to begin 7th straight year without a budget

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s state government is poised to begin a seventh straight year under Gov. Ed Rendell without a spending plan in place, a reality that many have come to grudgingly accept.

When the new budget year begins Wednesday, the state will have a curtailed authority to spend money, and both chambers of the Legislature will be in session, rather than on the two-month break from Harrisburg that had been traditional before Rendell took office.

This year’s stalemate, however, may be the most entrenched of Rendell’s six-plus years in office, as the recession-wracked economy caused a $3 billion budget deficit. The governor was meeting with senior lawmakers to review the budget at his residence late Monday, hoping for a breakthrough in budget talks.

Democratic leaders in the General Assembly back Rendell, but they and the leaders of the GOP-controlled Senate are billions of dollars apart on their budget proposals and are squaring off over Rendell’s request for a three-year income tax increase of 16.3 percent. The increase would mean a Pennsylvania resident making $40,000 a year would pay an extra $200 in income taxes.

Pair of handgun novices wounded in SW Pa.

CECIL, Pa. — Police say a man and woman have been wounded while trying to figure out how to use their new handgun in their home near Pittsburgh.

Police in Cecil Township aren’t identifying the couple wounded Sunday evening. The township is about 10 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.

Police say the gun fired while the couple were handling it, wounding the man in the hand and the woman in her hand and biceps. Both were being treated at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Police say the couple simply didn’t know how to operate the gun properly.

Staff and wire reports