Michele Ferrero, patriarch of the international company that bears his name and makes Tic-Tac candies and Nutella hazelnut spread, died in Monte Carlo on Valentine’s Day, according to published reports. His family’s company has its United States’ headquarters on Cottontail Lane in Somerset.

The township’s payroll could grow by eight more positions this year, based on requests made at the Township Council’s second budget hearing on Feb. 12. Department heads presenting their budgets to the council also made requests for trucks, technology and other capital items during the four-hour hearing.

First Bank branches – including the branch at DeMott Lane and New Brunswick Road in Somerset – donated a record amount of time and money in 2014 to the communities that they serve, according to findings released today from the company’s corporate citizenship program. First Bank tracks “corporate giving” to ensure that its philanthropy grows along with its assets, according to …

Township Councilman Ted Chase, (D-Ward 1) and the Middlesex County Sheriff were honored Feb. 11 by the Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School on the occasion of Edison’s 168th birthday. Edison’s legacy is celebrated by the school each year on his birthday, according to a press release on the event. The school hosts local and statewide leaders to discuss innovations and technology …

One person was seriously injured Feb. 10 in a head-on crash on Franklin Boulevard that shut part of the road down for two hours during the afternoon commute. Police said that Ryan J. Shaughnessy, no age or hometown given, was transported to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick after the accident, which occurred at about 4:28 p.m.

  Requests for a new bus for senior citizens and a new pickup truck for the township’s Fire Prevention department were made Feb. 9 during the Township Council’s first hearing on the proposed 2015 budget.

A Somerset man already serving a jail sentence for sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania faces additional charges after police allegedly found in his home nearly 500 surreptitiously recorded video clips of children using a bathroom and shower at a rental cabin.

More than $1.8 million was earmarked for a number of suppliers for purchases for 2015 by the Township Council at its Feb. 3 meeting. Items approved were:

[wpgmappity id=”18″]   The Township Council wants to sell two Churchill Avenue parcels to Raritan Valley Habitat for Humanity.