Breaking news this morning. There is an active manhunt going on in the area between West 21st to 26th streets and from Greengarden to Brown Avenues (area north of Topps Grocery market). There were gunshots reported this morning and a home set on fire in that area. People living in the area are asked to stay in their homes and drivers avoid the area until police secure the neighborhood. The Erie School District is not sending buses into that area and Blessed Sacrament is closed.  At the center of this area is the Priscaro housing projects.

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State Street and Glenwood Park Avenue near 26th Street will remain closed until at least Wednesday as crews continue to repair damage from a water main break that occured on Dec. 24. We’d recommend avoiding the area if possible.

United States Representative Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) of Erie will take the oath of office today at 12 p.m. Dahlkemper, who represents the PA-3 Congressional District, will be sworn in during the opening ceremony of the 111 th Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol. Dahlkemper will be joined on the House floor by her husband Dan and their children Aron and his wife Stephanie, Gretchen, Linden, Tricia and Nathan. Dahlkemper’s father Carl Steenberge also will accompany Dahlkemper.

Larry Bossolt has been named the new director of the Erie Redevelopment Authority. Good luck, Larry. This is a tough time to try to build new development, encourage businesses to move here and procure local, state and federal monies.

Girard Township supervisors awarded a bid to demolish the Gudgeonville Bridge yesterday with certain portions of the bridge to be taken and stored off-site.  Schwartz Construction of Conneaut, Ohio will tear down the bridge for $33,620.  We suggest the preservation effort include the foundation since the masonry might have come from the old Erie Extension Canal that once ran through the area in the mid-1800′s.

Jose Marrero, 40, has had his death sentence changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was convicted in 1994 for the murder of Elizabeth Smith, who was 64. Lawyers have argued over the last several years that Marrero is mentally retarded, and in 2002, the US Supreme Court ruled that executing mentally retarded prisoners was cruel and unusual punishment. The Baltimore Evening Sun gets a rap on the knuckles for their offensive headline about the story which lacks class and sophication for a national paper.

The Erie General Electric FCU is hosting a video contest beginning this January and ending in March. Participants are asked to tell why you are passionate about a non-profit organization that’s dear to your heart. The grand prize winner will win $1000 and $1000 for the non-profit of your choice. Submit a video via YouTube or go to any Credit Union branch location to have your video filmed for you. For more information visit the EGEFCU website.

ICT Group, which specializes in outsourced customer relations management services, closed its Erie call center last week blaming the economy. Despite having a drop of only 5% compared to last year’s figures, it was enough to justify putting 100 employees out of a job with no notice.  The economy looks more like an excuse to ship jobs overseas.  ICT opened a 500-seat call center facility in the Philippines, November of last year. ICT Group is based out of Newtown, Pa. and has more than 40 operations centers throughout Central and North America, Europe, Australia, India and the Philippines.

Attendance at Presque Isle State Park was down about 300,000 people in 2008 compared to ’07. A rainy July kept some people away, and for the year, the park saw 3,700,817 visitors. Still, pretty impressive numbers and a huge revenue generator.

A big fail stamp for the driver who rolled his tractor-trailer on I-90 Saturday night. Turns out he was trying to save a number on his cell phone and lost control of the truck, spilling his cargo of meat, cheese and milk. Might we recommend Jott, where you can call a number and leave yourself a message, which is then stored as text or even emailed to you (you can even update your Twitter with it). Jay Winger, the driver, will face traffic charges.

The Millcreek Health System, including Millcreek Community Hospital and LECOM, has banned smoking on both campuses, joining Hamot and St. Vincent in being smoke-free. Millcreek Health System will not allow smoking in personal vehicles parked in any of their lots and will not allow employees to smoke during their shifts at all.

Good news, PNC Bank Customers. You can now use all National City ATMs with no fees or charges.

For you Kiran Chetry fans out there, yesterday on the television show American Morning , Richard Simmons creepily kissed her foot.  Film at 11.

Sports

Junior captain Meghan Agosta and freshman Hillary Pattenden of the No. 4 Mercyhurst College women’s hockey team were named College Hockey America Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week for the selection period of Dec. 12 – Jan. 4.

Russia beat Slovakia 5-2 as skill trumped desire in the battle for third place on Monday afternoon in the World Junion Hocket Championships held in Ottawa, Ontario. It was Russia’s second straight World Junior bronze and fifth consecutive medal since 2005. For the surprising Slovaks, featuring Erie Otters goaltender Jaroslav Janus, a fourth-place finish marks their second-best result of all time after the 1999 bronze medal in Winnipeg.

The Erie Otters play the London Knights tomorrow night at the Tullio. Game begins at 7 p.m. and you can purchase tickets here.

The Erie BayHawks play the Tulsa 66′ers tonight and the Albuquerque Thunderbirds tomorrow night.  Both games will be played in Orem, Utah.

Events

The Evelyn Lincoln Institute for Ethics and Society at Mercyhurst College continues its lecture series in January, when Steven A. Levy, MD, speaks on “Health Care in the U.S.: Fiduciary Relationships vs. Capitalistic Impulses.” Levy, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, will discuss how capitalism might conflict with the professional obligations of doctors in determining how to distribute the “goods” of health care. The talk is on Thursday, Jan. 8, from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m. in Mercyhurst’s Mercy Heritage Room. It is free and open to the public.

Gannon University on Wednesday, Jan. 14 will host the second of four financial aid workshops. The workshops are designed to help high school students and their parents better navigate the sometimes complex financial aid process. All sessions are free and open to the public and will be held in room 1200 of the University’s Palumbo Academic Center, 824 Peach St. For more information, contact Gannon’s Financial Aid Office at 814-871-7337 or 1-800-GANNON-U, or visit www.gannon.edu/admiss/undergrad/finaid/default.asp.

The festivities surrounding the inauguration of Barack Obama extend to two days at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, where Jabari Asim, author of the new book What Obama Means: …for Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future, will speak the evening following the president-elect’s historic inauguration. Asim appears as part of the annual Speaker Series. “An Evening with Jabari Asim” will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 21, in the McGarvey Commons of the Reed Union Building. His presentation is free and open to the public.

View this past Sunday’s comprehensive events list to see a list of events for the week and months ahead. If you would like your event posted here, please contact us via our online form.