BEACON JOURNAL
Call center holiday hours
AKRON: Holiday hours for the Beacon Journal Customer Service Call Center will be 7-10 a.m. Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The phone number is 330-996-3600 or 800-777-2442.
Regular business hours of 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. will resume Tuesday.
The Public Service Counter inside the Beacon Journal at 44 E. Exchange St., Akron, will be closed Monday. Regular business hours of 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. will resume Tuesday.
AKRON
Holiday trash pickup
AKRON: The city will have no trash service Monday and Jan. 2, the days following Christmas and New Year’s.
There will be a one-day delay in curb service in the weeks following the holidays, with pickups from Tuesday to Dec. 31 and Jan. 3 to 7.
Akron will allow residents to place extra trash — wrapping paper and boxes — alongside their garbage carts Jan. 3-7. The city also will collect residents’ Christmas trees. Trees can be placed beside trash carts on normal collection days.
Residents who want to put out a larger amount of household trash — not just wrapping paper and boxes — may call the city’s call center at 311 from any residential phone or 330-375-2311 from any other phone to schedule one of three special pickups allowed per household annually.
RITTMAN
Police to buy Tasers
RITTMAN: City police are getting 10 new Tasers thanks to a $4,000 gift from the Wayne County Community Foundation‑Andrew Berkey Fund.
The grant will allow each full-time officer to receive a Taser with a full warranty. Officers now share Tasers and the current weapons are outdated and unable to be repaired, the city said.
“Some officers purchased their own Tasers at a substantial cost because the department issued ones had become obsolete,” police Chief Ray Arcuri said in a release. “Often the batteries and/or control units would fail. Officers need a reliable piece of equipment for an emergency.”
The grant will be used to pay the first two years of payments, with the city making the remaining payments of about $8,000 over three years.
SUGAR CREEK TOWNSHIP
Fatal U.S. Route 30 crash
SUGAR CREEK TWP.: An Ashtabula man died following an accident involving two trucks at 4:12 p.m. Wednesday on U.S. Route 30 just east of state Route 94 in Wayne County.
Richard M. Thompson Jr., 46, was taken to Affinity Hospital where he later died, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.
Thompson was traveling westbound in a 2015 Freightliner when he drove across the grassy median and collided head-on with an eastbound 2005 Western Star driven by Paul E. Cline of South Charleston, Ohio, the patrol said. Cline was taken to Aultman Hospital in Canton for his injuries.
Route 30 eastbound was closed for about three and a half hours.
The crash remains under investigation.
PENNSYLVANIA
Man in I-80 rock case in jail
LEWISBURG: A Pennsylvania man is in jail two months after he was paroled for his role in a rock-throwing on Interstate 80 that left a Stark County teacher critically injured.
Authorities accused 21-year-old Brett Lahr of a parole violation after state police alleged he was driving under the influence when he fell asleep behind the wheel and hit a utility pole last Friday night in Dauphin County in east-central Pennsylvania.
Lahr was paroled Oct. 3 after serving 18 months for criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated assault stemming from the 2014 incident. Three others also were sentenced.
Lake Township resident Sharon Budd, who taught middle school language arts for Perry Local Schools in Stark County, was severely injured when a 4½-pound rock was thrown from an I-80 overpass and crashed through the windshield of her vehicle. Her husband, Randy, committed suicide in August.