NEW SALEM — A Butler County firm won a $38 million contract to build a 2.4-mile section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway between Brownsville and Uniontown.

Mashuda Corp. of Cranberry Township won the first of five contracts that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will award for a section of the toll road that will extend nine more miles from Route 51 near Uniontown to U.S. Route 40 near Brownsville.

The Uniontown-to-Brownsville link is one of four sections of the entire expressway project. When it is all completed, there will be 70 miles of toll road connecting Interstate 68 west of Morgantown, West Virginia to Interstate 376 in Monroeville and Pittsburgh.

SPRINGDALE — PPG Industries Inc. cut 27 chemist and technical support jobs at its plant in Springdale.About 500 production and research-and-development employees are still working at the plant that makes coatings and resins. The plant opened in 1947.The company said last year that it planned to cut some jobs in the first quarter of 2006. The job cuts were caused by "rising costs of raw materials and energy," company spokesman Jeff Worden said.

McKEESPORT — Nurses at UPMC McKeesport Hospital have voted to accept a three-year contract that will increase the hospital's pension contributions by 25 percent and increase wages by up to 9 percent.The contract also makes the hospital more competitive with large Pittsburgh hospitals, the union said. The contract will cover more than 200 registered and licensed practical nurses.

MONROEVILLE — Federated Department Stores expects to cut 318 jobs when it closes Kaufmann's in Monroeville.The Cincinnati-based company, which is merging its Macy's and Kaufmann's store chains, will close the Monroeville Mall store by early April.The development follows announcements by Federated that it would trim 185 jobs with the closing of a Macy's at the Ross Park Mall and 368 with the closing of a Kaufmann's at South Hills Village.Clearance sales at the three locations are set to start on Sunday.