Vindicator file photo / December 23, 1989 | Yuri Melnick, 9, lights candles on a menorah to commemorate Hanukkah at a party at Heritage Manor 33 years ago. Yuri, the son of Fedor and Mariana Melnick, arrived in Youngstown with his family a week earlier from the Soviet Union.
 
December 24
 
1997: U.S. Rep. James A.  Traficant Jr. says United Parcel Service, which is seeking a site for a new air cargo facility, has discussed the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport as a possibility. 
 
Newt Gingrich, Republican speaker of the House, spends the holidays in Leetonia with the family of his wife, Marianne. 
 
Jim Loboy, HOT-101 radio personality, takes a chilly plunge into Lake Hamilton in Struthers as part of a campaign to raise toys and money for the Salvation Army. 
 
1982: Atty. William Houser closes the book on 14 years as a Boardman Township trustee with high praise for his successor, Atty. Joseph D. Betras. Houser was elected to the Mahoning County Common Pleas bench. 
 
Robert and Ann Cammack are celebrating Christmas at their Struthers home with triplets Holly, Noel, and Monica, born Dec. 14 at St. Elizabeth Hospital.  
 
Paul H. Cress, 75, an outspoken Youngstown police chief for six years and later head of security at Youngstown State University, dies in South Side Hospital after a long illness. 
 
1972: The former St. Edmund the Martyr Episcopalian Church is purchased by the Mercer County Historical Society and moved from Venango Street in Mercer to East Pitt Street, adjacent to the society offices.
 
With a week remaining in 1972, Trumbull County is headed for a dramatic decrease in traffic fatalities, with only 44, compared to 74 in 1971.
 
Mahoning County had its first $1 million election, according to campaign reports filed with the Board of Elections. The total expended was $1,001,290, or about $7.50 for each of the 132,578 ballots cast in the Nov. 7 elections. 
 
1947: Some 1,500 families will have Christmas dinner through the generosity of Youngstown people, says Mrs. Dahl Sterling, executive secretary of the Family Service Society. 
 
A week before leaving office, Youngstown Mayor Ralph O'Neill appointed four new police officers and promoted two others. The new patrolmen are Frank J. Essany, William Campanizzi, James R. Keffer, and J.A. Amicarelli. The two new detectives are George F. Krispli and Michael P. Carney.
 
Youngstown patrolmen Frank DeMain and Clyde Reid drag a drunken youth from the Erie Railroad tracks where he had passed out. Three minutes later, a speeding train came through while the youth was being loaded into a cruiser and taken to the city jail for being drunk and disorderly.