State News-Monday, Oct. 9th

NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) - Curiosity seekers from as far away as Texas and Canada have descended on Nickel Mines. They drove slowly and left potted chrysanthemums and poignant messages of sympathy near the one-room Amish schoolhouse where a gunman shot ten girls a week ago. Visitors strolled up to the freshly dug grave of 32-year-old gunman Charles Carl Roberts the Fourth, who was buried on Saturday in his wife's family plot a few miles from the school. They rode past the house of his widow, Marie Roberts, and their three children. Along the road leading to the school, authorities posted dozens of "No parking or standing" signs to encourage people to keep moving. Many cars have out-of-state license plates.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania is trying to convince the nation's top financial services companies to establish backup operations in the state -- so that markets can recover quickly in the event of another terror strike on New York. Governor Ed Rendell has pledged more than 30 million dollars to the so-called "Wall Street West" initiative. The goal is to build millions of square feet of office space, improve infrastructure and install hundreds of miles of fiber-optic cable in as many as nine Pennsylvania counties. Executives from more than 20 leading Wall Street firms are scheduled to take a 30-minute helicopter ride from Manhattan to the Pocono Mountains on Tuesday to listen to the state's sales pitch.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia is known for its cheesesteaks, soft pretzels and water ice. But an influx of Hispanics to the city adds another food to the list -- tacos. Jesus Mozo opened his Taqueria La Veracruzana in the heart ofthe Italian Market in South Philly -- the city's cheesesteak stronghold -- nearly five years ago. He says the dozen or so taquerias that have popped up since LaVeracruzana's opening are signs of a community that is beginning to establish itself. Monica Orozco, of the Mexican Cultural Center, estimates thereare about 18-thousand Mexican immigrants in South Philadelphia. She says a new wave of taquerias has sprung up in recent months, showing that people who have been working hard for years are accumulating enough money to open their own businesses.

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) - The government board that's planning a permanent Flight 93 memorial will hold meetings outside Pennsylvania next year in an effort to engage people from other parts of the country. The Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown says that the Flight 93 Federal Advisory Commission has voted to hold quarterly conferences in San Francisco on April 28th and in New York on October 27th. That's in addition to January 27th and July 28th at the usual location of Somerset. A permanent memorial is being planned for a 17-hundred-acre site for the victims of Flight 93, which was flying from Newark, NewJersey, to San Francisco when it was hijacked and crashed into a field near Shanksville on September 11th 2001. A temporary memorial has been erected near the crash site, which is not open to the public.

DRUMS, Pa. (AP) - Screen legend Jack Palance is auctioning off the contents of his Luzerne County home -- more than three-thousand items collected from around the world. The 87-year-old actor, the son of a coal miner and a native of nearby Lattimer Mines, is parting with more than 14-hundred books, posters from his movies, his high school championship football banners and memorabilia, movie props, his saddle, boots and vest. The 150-acre Holly-Brooke Farm, named for his daughters, was a retreat for the actor and his family. It is not known what will happen to the site, about 85 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The three-day, onsite auction starts Thursday.