State News-Friday, Sept. 22nd

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Peco Energy expects all power to be back on this morning in downtown Philadelphia after a smoky underground electrical fire forced several thousand office workers to evacuate two buildings yesterday. Peco Energy Company spokesman Michael Wood says the fire started after an underground electrical cable became overloaded and started smoking severely. That happened after a customer incorrectly tried to reroute power after another cable had failed. Several manhole covers blew off. Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayres says an estimated five thousand people left two buildings and have now been sent home. The fire also caused major traffic snarls. Ayers says one man was taken to a hospital, but his injuries appear to be minor.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) - Manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region tipped unexpectedly into negative territory during September. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia says its business conditions index fell from 18-point-five in August to minus-point-four. The move in the index, a gauge of the health of the region's manufacturing sectors, surprised economists, who'd expected it to hit 15. Meanwhile, hiring at Philadelphia factory operators improved,
with the employment index at ten-point-seven, versus the August reading of eight-point-two.

PENTAGON (AP) - A Pentagon report rejects allegations that intelligence gathered by a secret military unit could have been used to stop the Nine-Eleven terrorist hijackings. The Pentagon inspector general's office says its review of the records from the unit code named Able Danger didn't find any evidence that the military could have identified any of the terrorists involved in the plot. The report was ordered following the assertion last year that the unit had identified four of the 19 hijackers in 2000. Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon has said the unit used data mining to link the plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other hijackers to al-Qaida more than a year before the attacks. The report also rejected Weldon's assertion that the intelligence unit wanted the information given to the F-B-I but Pentagon lawyers would not allow it.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Two statewide polls show the front-runners in Pennsylvania's election races for U.S. Senate and governor maintained their leads in September, despite increased T-V advertising by the candidates. The Keystone and IssuesP-A/Pew polls show Democratic Senate candidate Bob Casey and Democratic Governor Ed Rendell have comfortable margins among registered voters. But the IssuesP-A/Pew survey gives them much wider leads than other polls have indicated. State treasuer Casey leads Republican Senator Rick Santorum 45 percent to 38 percent among registered voters in the Keystone Poll. Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli is supported by five percent and 12 percent are undecided. The IssuesPA/Pew poll shows Casey leading Santorum 47 percent to 28 percent. The poll by New Jersey-based Princeton Survey Research Associates International, has 22 percent of the respondents undecided and three percent favoring Romanelli. The Keystone Poll shows Rendell leading Republican Lynn Swann 52 percent to 34 percent with 14 percent undecided. The IssuesP-A/Pew survey shows Rendell crushing Swann, 58 to 30 percent, and eleven
percent undecided.