Dec 24, 2011
GIL SMART, Associate Editor
The letter was threatening. It mentioned Dave Kratzer's 2-year-old daughter by name.The reason for the angry note: Penn Township officials were proposing to hike real estate taxes for the first time in 14 years. Kratzer is the township manager who prepared the budget, which supervisors...
Nov 19, 2011
SUZANNE CASSIDY
As the Penn State University child sexual-abuse scandal unfolded, Millersville University President Francine G. McNairy sent out a missive across her own campus.Children visiting Millersville's campus need to be protected from abuse, she wrote. Anyone who hears about or knows about pos...
Nov 19, 2011
KAREN CARNABUCCI
Almost just yesterday, students were strolling the peaceful campus of Penn State, with nothing more on their minds than the grades of their next exam.Now their world has been rocked, and so has ours as news continues to emerge about the ugly sexual abuse that has taken place on their v...
Nov 19, 2011
ERIC G. STARK
In the world of journalism, Brittany Horn hit the jackpot.The 2010 Lampeter-Strasburg graduate is a reporter for The Daily Collegian, the college newspaper for Penn State University. She's working at the epicenter of a story — a child sexual abuse scandal — that's rec...
Nov 05, 2011
WIRE SERVICES
Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, once viewed as a favorite to succeed Joe Paterno as head coach, has been charged with sexually abusing eight boys, and the university's athletic director and another university official have been charged with perjury related to the investigat...
Nov 05, 2011
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Pennsylvania Attorney General issued the follow press release Saturday morning:
Attorney General Linda Kelly and Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan today announced that criminal charges have been filed against three Centre County men as the result of an extensive and w...
Jun 05, 2011
BRETTE KEELEY and TIM MEKEEL
Brittany Critchlow, a sophomore at Hempfield High School, learned about more than math and science this year.She also learned about persistence.Brittany applied for 30 summer jobs before finally getting hired at Musser's Market in Mountville."I started applying back in January," Britta...
Oct 31, 2010
GIL SMART, Associate Editor
When Alison Kibler's daughter stopped bringing home homework, the Lancaster Township mom began to worry.Her daughter was a sixth-grade honors student at Wheatland Middle School in the School District of Lancaster last year. The rigorous curriculum was supposed to challenge academically...
Sep 05, 2010
STAFF and WIRE REPORTS
State police charged a member of a prominent Chester County family with sexually abusing three teenage boys.John Charles Ware, 45, of Oxford, who works at his family's philanthropic Oxford Foundation, surrendered Aug. 18 and was committed to Chester County Prison on 200 related counts involving the ...
Jul 18, 2010
GIL SMART, Associate Editor
The way state Rep. Thomas Caltagirone sees it, less could be more.Pennsylvania's fragmented system of local government boasts some 2,566 municipalities. It would, the Berks County Democrat said, be difficult to imagine a system less efficient and more costly.And so earlier this year Caltagirone ...
Apr 18, 2010
SUZANNE CASSIDY
One night in January 2008, Mary was settling down to watch a favorite TV show with her younger daughter when the girl asked her an unsettling question.The 13-year-old wanted to know if two of her friends were planning to tell the police about the "creepy behavior" of another friend's f...
Apr 18, 2010
SUZANNE CASSIDY
A persistent myth about child sexual abuse investigations holds that there must be DNA evidence, or some other form of physical evidence, for abuse to be proven.The truth is that "it's normal to be normal," said Dr. Cathy Hoshauer, a pediatrician who conducts forensic medical evaluations at the Lanc...
Apr 18, 2010
SUZANNE CASSIDY
Looking back, the mother said, "There were so many stinking red flags."Mary's young daughter was indecently touched by a family friend years before she told anyone it happened. Experts say children often are slow to disclose that they have been sexually abused.Mary, who asked that her full name be w...
Apr 18, 2010
SUZANNE CASSIDY
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all children who have been sexually abused be evaluated by a mental health professional to assess whether therapy is needed.In the view of Deb Francis Werner, director of counseling services at the YWCA of Lancaster Sexual Assault Prevention and Cou...
Feb 28, 2010
BARRY and JOAN DECKER, Correspondents
The Solanco Republicans fried up some bacon smothered in a big helping of optimism at their 24th annual breakfast Saturday at the Hoffman Building in Quarryville.More than 125 people attended the event that honored East Drumore Township Supervisor Chairman V. Merril Carter for 18 years of service to...
Feb 21, 2010
JANET KELLEY
A 54-year-old Lancaster city man has been arrested on charges of raping and assaulting an Ephrata woman last weekend.Brett M. Peters, of West Vine Street, was charged last week with rape, sexual assault, stalking and simple assault by Ephrata police.Detective Graeme Quinn said the charges stemmed fr...
Feb 18, 2010
CASEY KREIDER
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Jan 24, 2010
STAFF
An 18-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., teenager and a 16-year-old Lancaster boy were arrested and charged with three robberies committed within two hours Friday in the city.Taken into custody along with the 16-year-old was Spencer Alexander Bryant, 18, a New York man police said was staying at a residence i...
Jan 17, 2010
STAFF
Lancaster police are investigating the brutal beating and sexual assault of a 25-year-old Lancaster woman which happened just after 3 a.m. Saturday in an alley in the 300 block of West Walnut Street.The woman was admitted to a local hospital for traumatic injuries to her head and body and was ...
Dec 13, 2009
SUZANNE CASSIDY
Parents who want to know when the right time is to have "the talk" with their kids probably are asking the wrong question, health experts say.They may also be asking it too late.When it comes to the birds and the bees, "it shouldn't just be one discussion — THE discussion,&q...
