Mount Nittany Medical Center lawsuit, Pine Grove Mills fatal crash and more top stories
Top Centre County headlines on June 15 included a major hospital lawsuit, a fatal crash and community arts and education news. Here’s a quick look at the top stories from the region.
What to know:
- Mount Nittany Medical Center filed a lawsuit Friday against federal health officials over the revocation of its sole community hospital Medicare designation, a change the hospital estimates will cost roughly $9 million annually. The designation was stripped after the July 2024 opening of Penn Highlands State College about four miles away, which the government deemed a “like hospital” despite Mount Nittany’s argument that the smaller facility accounts for only 5.5% of its volume and lacks comparable specialized services, per the lawsuit filing.
- A 78-year-old Ohio woman died after her vehicle failed to navigate a sharp turn on Pine Grove Mountain Friday night and traveled 150 feet into a drainage ditch in the 200 block of Water Street in Pine Grove Mills, Ferguson Township police said. The Ferguson Township Police Department and the Centre County Crash Reconstruction Team continue to investigate the crash, which marks the second fatal accident near State College in the past week.
- Ridgelines Language Arts is displaying “A Poem in Our Eyes” at Schlow Library through June, an annual project pairing photographs by State High students with poems written by Centre Care memory loss patients. The nonprofit lost government grants and faces funding challenges, with an annual budget of around $60,000 that disqualifies it from many grant programs requiring $100,000 or more.
- Penn State Extension is offering its hybrid Venison 101 course in August to prep hunters and home processors on safe processing, with the in-person session set for 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 7 at the Penn State Butcher Block on the University Park campus. The course is particularly timely as the Pennsylvania Game Commission approved Sunday hunting, creating more opportunities for hunters to harvest deer. Registration costs $350 and closes July 27.
The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The source reporting referenced above was written and edited entirely by journalists.