Pennsylvania will be a major swing state that former President Donald Trump will target for campaigning at the end of this week.

It’s part of an excursion through three key locales he needs to win the election.

On Thursday, Trump will stump for his election again in Michigan and Wisconsin. On Friday, he’ll descend on Johnstown in Southwest Pennsylvania, holding a rally in a hall there.

A news release issued by the Trump campaign said the former president plans to hit Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris hard on the issue of natural resources.

“Since Harris and (President Joe) Biden took office, Kamala Harris has turned her back on everyday Pennsylvanians and broken one promise after another. In 2019, Kamala said that there’s ‘no question I’m in favor’ of banning fracking; in 2020, after becoming Biden’s VP nominee, she flip-flopped to say she wouldn’t ban fracking,” the Team Trump news release said. “And as soon as she took power, the Harris-Biden administration reverted back to Kamala’s 2019 position and cracked down on fracking and American energy, wrecking Pennsylvania’s energy workers and driving up the price of a gallon of gas to record high.”

Johnstown is critical to natural resource production south of Pittsburgh. Trump will campaign in the city to argue that Harris would destroy more regional jobs.

“President Trump knows that Pennsylvania cannot take another four years of a dangerously incompetent and dangerously liberal Kamala Harris. A Trump-(JD) Vance administration will Make America Great Again by unleashing American drilling to halve energy costs, halting the migrant invasion on our southern border, and restoring America’s rightful standing and respect on the world stage,” the Trump campaign news release said.

The Pennsylvania stump speech on Friday afternoon will come after two campaign stops on Thursday in Potterville, Michigan, at a factory during that afternoon, and a town hall meeting Trump will hold in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Thursday night.

Trump is increasing the tour through those three Rust-belt states as they are critical to winning enough Electoral College votes to clinch the presidency. Trump lost all three in 2020 on his way to losing the election that year to Biden. But Trump won all three, which some call the “Blue Wall” for its traditional Democratic-leaning voting bloc backed up by heavy labor unions and the blue-collar workforce.

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Three Canton-area residents who are accused of robbing a bank in Pennsylvania last week are believed to have been involved in robbing the Citizens Bank last month in North Canton, North Canton police said Saturday.

North Canton police listed the suspects as Matthew D. Smith, 32; Christopher Lucius, 36 and Latoya Young, 43, all with Canton addresses.

Police did not disclose what evidence they had linking the three to the July 18 bank robbery.

The department said a man wearing a dark medical mask and wearing a hooded sweatshirt showed a gun at the Citizens Bank at 1000 N. Main St. on July 18. He took an undisclosed amount of money and fled as a passenger in a stolen Honda Civic, according to witnesses.

Police: Masked, armed man robs Citizens Bank in North Canton

Canton trio accused of bank robbery in Pennsylvania

At 12:40 p.m. Wednesday, Center Township police in Beaver County along with officers from the nearby police departments in Aliquippa and Monaca, Pennsylvania, responded to a report of a bank robbery. The heist took place at the First Commonwealth Bank branch at 80 Wagner Road, Center Township Police Chief Aldo Legge told Beaver County Radio.

The bank is a roughly 96-minute drive from North Canton.

The three Canton residents were arrested after the robbery. Legge told Beaver County Radio that $80,000 was stolen from the bank.

According to Beaver County online court records, the three, were arraigned in Magisterial District Court on Wednesday night. They are being held in the Beaver County Jail each on $1 million bond. They have a preliminary court hearing scheduled for Sept. 11. The three have been charged with felonies of robbery with the threat of immediate serious harm; robbery with the demand of money from a financial institution; and conspiracy to commit robbery with the threat of immediate serious harm. Lucius and Young have also been charged with conspiracy to commit robbery with the demand of money from a financial institution.

The North Canton police’s statement said officers expect the U.S. Attorney’s Office will file federal charges against the defendants “along with other local cases.”

North Canton police said it worked with the FBI to locate the suspects and that investigators had the three under surveillance Wednesday. And its statement said the FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police were involved in taking the three into custody.

As of Saturday, no federal charges against the three had appeared in the federal court docket, and no local charges related to bank robberies could be found on any Stark County online court docket.

Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com. X formerly Twitter: @rwangREP.

Harrisburg – Committed to providing financial support to reduce underage and dangerous alcohol consumption, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) today announced it will award more than $3.3 million to 86 schools, community organizations, municipalities, law enforcement organizations, nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, and institutions of higher education through the 2024-26 Alcohol Education Grant Program.

This year, of 102 grant applications received, 86 organizations from 41 counties across Pennsylvania were awarded a total of $3,312,205 in grants. The maximum award for each two-year grant is $50,000.

Of the grants awarded:

• 23 will fund community law-enforcement efforts for targeted underage patrols, training, community outreach, and equipment.
• 23 will be used to support community and nonprofit organizations by funding initiatives such as MADD’s Power of Parents®, and Parents Who Host Lose the Most®, public service announcements, and enforcement efforts.
• Eight will go to primary and secondary schools to fund various programs aimed at reaching students, such as social norms media campaigns, guest speakers, and impaired driving simulation activities.
• 31 college and university grants will help schools develop strategies to reduce underage and dangerous alcohol use through surveys and assessments, enforcement efforts, attendance at alcohol education conferences, training for resident assistants, peer education programs, and evidence-informed programs like EVERFI AlcoholEdu® and Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO.
• One will go to a for-profit organization aimed at peer-to-peer outreach and public service announcements.

The complete list of grant recipients and projects is available at lcb.pa.gov.

In addition to the provision of millions of dollars in alcohol education grants to communities, educational institutions, and law enforcement agencies, the PLCB works to educate the public about the dangers of underage and dangerous drinking through a variety of other avenues, including a free annual alcohol educational conference, an award-winning prevention campaign – Know When. Know How.^SM – targeted to underage drinking, the creation and distribution of a wide range of educational materials, Responsible Alcohol Management Program training and resources for licensees, and training and technical assistance for organizations working to address the issues related to irresponsible consumption.

The PLCB regulates the distribution of beverage alcohol in Pennsylvania, operates about 600 wine and spirits stores statewide, and licenses 20,000 alcohol producers, retailers, and handlers. The PLCB also works to reduce and prevent dangerous and underage drinking through partnerships with schools, community groups, and licensees. Taxes and store profits – totaling nearly $20.3 billion since the agency’s inception – are returned to Pennsylvania’s General Fund, which finances Pennsylvania’s schools, health and human services programs, law enforcement, and public safety initiatives, among other important public services. The PLCB also provides financial support for the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, other state agencies, and local municipalities across the state. For more information about the PLCB, visit lcb.pa.gov.