PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh-area record collector who hoped to sell his vintage vinyl for at least $1 a record has instead, bitterly, closed up shop.

Paul Mawhinney locked up his Record-Rama Sound Archives for good on Thursday, saying he's been squeezed out of business by the recording industry and big-box retailers who can sell compact discs for about two dollars less than his wholesale cost.

Mawhinney stopped buying CDs in 2002 and sold off his 300,000-disc collection in recent weeks. But efforts to sell more than a half-million albums, a million more 45 rpm singles, and thousands of tapes foundered. One buyer went bankrupt while another on eBay turned out to be bogus.

The 68-year-old started collecting records in 1951 when he bought a Frankie Laine single called "Jezebel."

IRWIN — An eight-mile stretch of the eastbound Pennsylvania Turnpike in Western Pennsylvania will be closing for six hours so crews can install concrete beams for a new overpass.The lanes will close between the Irwin and New Stanton exchanges in Westmoreland County at midnight Friday and remain closed until 6 a.m. Saturday.Traffic will be detoured onto Route 30 and toll Route 66 to bypass the closed section of road.The westbound lanes of the road were closed last Saturday as part of the same project. The new overpass is part of a larger plan to widen that stretch of the turnpike, which is the site of frequent accidents.

PITTSBURGH — It could be the cheaper, vegetarian alternative to road paving.The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's Pittsburgh region believes a liquid soy product it is testing on a local street could be a cheaper alternative to petroleum-based asphalt for road paving.PennDOT Pittsburgh-area materials engineer Mike McCart says while most alternative materials are unsuccessful, the new soy product is promising.He says everything is working out well so far for the new bean byproduct road, but he does not say where in the Pittsburgh region the newly paved soy street is located.

LIGONIER — Seven Springs Mountain Resort has plans to reopen the dormant Laurel Mountain Ski Resort in southwestern Pennsylvania if the state will kick in $6.5 million for improvements.Although the state owns the 63-acre site, Somerset Trust owns the resort's buildings and equipment. The trust company foreclosed on the resort in 2004 when its former owners could not repay more than $5 million in loans.The funding is in the state's 2008-09 capital projects budget.Seven Springs managed the troubled Laurel Mountain resort during the 2004-05 season and lost $220,000 in the process. Seven Springs must negotiate a long-term lease with the state.

PITTSBURGH — A union official says the 14,000 union steelworkers employed by Pittsburgh-based United States Steel are getting a record-setting share of the steelmaker's second-quarter profits.United Steelworkers spokesman Wayne Ranick says each steelworker will get $4,464 for their share of the profits. In July, U.S. Steel reported record net income of $668 million for the second quarter.The profit-sharing for workers is based on a formula spelled out in their contract with the steelmaker.In 2007, the same steelworkers received $2,137 each in second-quarter profit sharing.