MONACA — Unions representing teachers and support staff at a still-merging school district are threatening to strike in the fall.

The Monaca School District began merging July 1 with the Center Area School District to form Central Valley, Pennsylvania's first merged district in at least 20 years. The districts are about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

The districts combined elementary schools for this year, but middle and high schools will merge this fall.

But union officials said they have been unable to negotiate combined contracts for teachers and support staff in both districts and will strike if a Sept. 1 deadline isn't met.

District superintendent Dan Matsook said he's surprised by the threat because talks are ongoing.

PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh man will spend six years in federal prison for robbing a bank while dressed as a woman the day after he escaped from a halfway house where he was finishing up a sentence for five 2001 bank robberies.Christopher Hoffman, 32, was sentenced Thursday. Federal prosecutors had sought a much longer sentence arguing he was a violent career criminal.Hoffman's defense attorney said mental problems partly explain why Hoffman stole $2,800 from the Fifth Third Bank downtown on Aug. 29, 2006. Hoffman was wearing a woman's wig and clothes, and carrying a hammer in his purse.Prosecutors argued for a longer sentence in court papers saying Hoffman's personality disorders "obstruct fruitful living but do not excuse asinine behavior."

PITTSBURGH — The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a dementia patient who died after wandering onto the roof of a Pittsburgh hospital in subfreezing temperatures.Attorney Robert Peirce III announced the settlement Thursday on behalf of the family of 89-year-old Rose Lee Diggs. UPMC spokesman Paul Wood confirmed the settlement, but neither he or Peirce would discuss details citing a confidentiality agreement.Diggs died of hypothermia Dec. 3, 2008, after wandering from her 12th floor room through a fire door, up some steps and through a door to the roof wearing only a gown and slippers. Diggs was found on the roof about 8 a.m., about 15 hours after she was last seen in her room.