York County

It is a project worthy of This Old House. The Vice President's official residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington was something of a mess when the project manager and crew of Ivan C. Dutterer Millwork Inc. first saw it in March. "It really did need repair," said Nevin Raubenstine, 61, general manager and vice president of Dutterer. His 40-year-old company has developed a reputation in the Middle Atlantic states for fine-quality architectural millwork for commercial and residential buildings, many of them historic.

Police are still trying to determine who killed a former West Chester resident whose body was found this week in a creek in York County. Lauren Eileen Mau-Stewart, 27, was found dead Tuesday under a bridge at Mill Creek in Springettsbury, just north of York. Autopsy results show she died of strangulation, said York County Coroner Barry Bloss. The coroner would not say if there was evidence of a struggle. There is no indication that Mau-Stewart had been sexually assaulted, but authorities will have to wait for test results before they can positively rule out such an assault, Bloss said.

Methacton students are taken from bus on stretchers after a collision with a pickup truck at Route 23 and Coventryville Road in Chester County yesterday. The truck driver was killed and a passenger hurt. Five of the 40 students, enroute to York County, were hospitalized.

Israel Ramos' life ended as it had been lived - in confusion. The 19-year-old New York native, after bouncing from one foster home to another, from drugs to mental institutions, was killed by police in York, Pa., on Wednesday. Police at first said they shot Ramos once in the stomach when he threatened to kill his girlfriend, but television pictures showed Ramos - after pointing what turned out to be a toy rifle at the girl's head for three hours - was unarmed and had just shouted, "I'm coming out," when he was shot.

The U.S. agriculture secretary came to a farm in this northern York County community yesterday to promise swift action for drought-stricken farmers, but he left without ever seeing a parched stalk of corn. He had to rely on Polaroid snapshots instead. Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng, Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. William F. Goodling showed up at a farm in Yocumtown, where five inches of rain fell over the weekend. But they did hear from a dozen or so farmers from southern York County, where drought conditions continue to devastate one of the state's richest agricultural areas.

A senior judge from Bucks County who once served as the state's top prosecutor will decide whether it is too late to try nine suspects in the 1969 race-riot murder of a black woman in York. Judge Edward G. Biester Jr., a former Republican congressman and state attorney general, was appointed last week by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule on that narrow issue. Whether Biester will take on a broader role in the case was unclear yesterday. Nine men, including York Mayor Charles H. Robertson, are charged in the July 1969 shotgun slaying of Lillie Belle Allen.

Some people know Gerry Treadway as a teacher who imparted woodworking skills at Unionville High School for 35 years. Others know him as the character who dresses up as Uncle Sam and marches in parades on patriotic holidays. Still others know him as the unofficial historian and one-man historical society of Parkesburg, a quiet village in western Chester County. But to folks who are passionate about old bottles, especially those with local ties, Treadway is the dean of this peculiar pastime and an astute collector whose authority is based on decades of diligent research.

YORK, Pa. - Pennsylvania environmental officials say about 1,400 gallons of milk from a storage tank leaked into a central Pennsylvania creek. Department of Environmental Protection officials say the milk leaked from a storage tank at Rutter's Dairy in Manchester Township, York County, into a nearby stream on Monday. Department spokesman John Repetz said that no aquatic organisms were found dead in the waterway and that the milk dispersed by natural means. Repetz said a weld split open on a 30,000-gallon storage tank, and about 14,000 gallons got through foam insulation around the tank.

Robert McLellan has his own leading economic indicator, and it's not pointing toward a recession. McLellan, the chief operating officer of Accurate Lift Truck Inc., of West Berlin, said he watched the company's fleet of forklifts available for short-term rentals. If Accurate's customers - warehouses, trucking companies and others - are busy moving goods, the economy is perking right along and his short-term rental fleet of forklifts "is flying out the door," McLellan said.

When I asked 10 people, most of whom had lived in Philadelphia for decades, whether they'd ever been to York, Pa., they all said no. "What's in York?" they said. I didn't have much of an answer for them, either. I'd lived in the Philadelphia area all my life and I'd never been to York. But that's the reason I needed to go there. York was there. So I went to York for an overnight visit last week, and checked out its attractions, so you don't have to. Really, you don't.

In a study in which Philadelphia's ethical objections forced local researchers to do their work in York County, scientists have found that an easier way to stop out-of-control seizures in an emergency worked at least as well as the more difficult recommended approach. Researchers at 17 institutions, including the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Hospital, compared giving antiseizure drugs either intravenously or intramuscularly to patients having prolonged seizures before they got to the hospital.

Halfway through their two-year terms, three Philadelphia legislators are giving up their seats in the state House in early January to take positions in the city - newly elected City Council members Dennis O'Brien and Kenyatta Johnson and the new sheriff in town, Jewell Williams. All three seats will be filled in special elections, on dates still to be designated by House Speaker Sam Smith, the second most famous resident of Punxsutawney. Curiously, however, Philadelphia voters will be deciding only two of the replacements, for Johnson and Williams.

YORK, Pa. - A York County Court judge collapsed outside the courthouse and died Monday afternoon, the coroner's office said. Clarence N. "Chuck" Patterson Jr., 62, of York, had been on the bench since January 2010, assigned to the family division, after 22 years as a prosecutor in the county District Attorney's Office. He was the county's first black judge. The coroner's office called it a sudden cardiac death. "Judge Patterson was an excellent judge and a wonderful person," President Judge Stephen Linebaugh said.

VOLNEY, N.Y. - Sunoco Inc. is producing a new brew at a former Miller Brewing Co. plant. Last month, the Philadelphia refiner began distilling corn ethanol at a massive converted brewery just outside the Fulton city limits in central New York, making its first foray into the biofuels business. The Fulton Ethanol Facility, which Sunoco says is the largest biofuels plant in the Northeastern United States, will supply up to 20 percent of the company's needs for grain-alcohol fuel, which is blended into gasoline under a federal mandate to reduce reliance on petroleum.

YORK, Pa. - Pennsylvania environmental officials say about 1,400 gallons of milk from a storage tank leaked into a central Pennsylvania creek. Department of Environmental Protection officials say the milk leaked from a storage tank at Rutter's Dairy in Manchester Township, York County, into a nearby stream on Monday. Department spokesman John Repetz said that no aquatic organisms were found dead in the waterway and that the milk dispersed by natural means. Repetz said a weld split open on a 30,000-gallon storage tank, and about 14,000 gallons got through foam insulation around the tank.

William D. Shaffer, 92, of Lansdale, a retired educator and volunteer at Independence National Historical Park, died of pneumonia Monday at Abington Health Lansdale Hospital. Mr. Shaffer taught at Gillespie Junior High School, Simon Gratz High School, Roxborough High School, and Germantown High School, where he headed the math department, before becoming vice principal at Overbrook High School in 1969. He retired from Overbrook in 1983. Two years later he became a volunteer at the Liberty Bell Pavilion and at the Second Bank building at the national park.

Some people know Gerry Treadway as a teacher who imparted woodworking skills at Unionville High School for 35 years. Others know him as the character who dresses up as Uncle Sam and marches in parades on patriotic holidays. Still others know him as the unofficial historian and one-man historical society of Parkesburg, a quiet village in western Chester County. But to folks who are passionate about old bottles, especially those with local ties, Treadway is the dean of this peculiar pastime and an astute collector whose authority is based on decades of diligent research.

Some people know Gerry Treadway as a teacher who imparted woodworking skills at Unionville High School for 35 years. Others know him as the character who dresses up as Uncle Sam and marches in parades on patriotic holidays. Still others know him as the unofficial historian and one-man historical society of Parkesburg, a quiet village in western Chester County. But to folks who are passionate about old bottles, especially those with local ties, Treadway is the dean of this peculiar pastime and an astute collector whose authority is based on decades of diligent research.

Robert McLellan has his own leading economic indicator, and it's not pointing toward a recession. McLellan, the chief operating officer of Accurate Lift Truck Inc., of West Berlin, said he watched the company's fleet of forklifts available for short-term rentals. If Accurate's customers - warehouses, trucking companies and others - are busy moving goods, the economy is perking right along and his short-term rental fleet of forklifts "is flying out the door," McLellan said.

A federal grand jury yesterday charged the former chairman of a Center City bond underwriting firm with defrauding four suburban school districts by selling them high-risk securities related to a golf-course project. Robert J. Bradbury of West Chester, who was chief executive officer of Dolphin & Bradbury Inc., invested money from 1998 to 2004 for school districts in Perkiomen Valley and North Penn in Montgomery County, Boyertown in Berks County, and Red Lion in York County. Authorities say the golf-course project, in Franklin County, was an inappropriately risky investment for school districts and ultimately cost them $10 million in total losses.