NEW CASTLE — The fired treasurer of a Western Pennsylvania township has waived his right to a preliminary hearing on charges he stole nearly $800,000 from taxpayers during his 14 years in office.

Forty-nine-year-old Brian Tanner of New Castle surrendered last week when Lawrence County District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa announced more than 500 counts of forgery and theft-related crimes against Tanner.

Defense attorney David Acker has said Tanner was cooperating with authorities before he waived his hearing Wednesday.

Tanner was fired from his $57,000-a-year job as secretary/treasurer in July. That's when auditors determined he wrote more than 200 checks worth more than $453,000 to himself and a township auditor — who has also been fired — from 2011 to 2013.

Subsequent audits found $1.2 million in questionable expenditures, some $800,000 of which the DA said are flatly illegal.

PITTSBURGH — A developer has knocked over the iconic Westinghouse atom smasher east of Pittsburgh, but says he plans to preserve the structure no matter what happens to the property it was on.Gary Silversmith, of Washington, D.C. says the brick building on the same site was in too much disrepair to save. But he plans to save and repaint the five-story, lightbulb-shaped atom smasher even if he winds up building apartments or rental storage units on the tract in Forest Hills.Westinghouse built the atom smasher in 1937 as the nation's first industrial nuclear generator.Silversmith's investment company bought the property from Westinghouse parent, CBS Corp., in 2013.The Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh named the atom smasher one of its top 10 projects that year.