State News-Thursday, Nov. 2nd

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Republican Senator Rick Santorum says it's wrong to make fun of the troops or support those who do. And he says his Democratic opponent, Bob Casey, doesn't understand that. Speaking in Philadelphia yesterday, Casey said Santorum is merely showing he's desperate to seize on anything. Two new polls released Wednesday showed Casey well ahead of Santorum among likely voters. Kerry drew anger after saying Monday that those who do poorly in school would likely "get stuck in Iraq." Kerry says he wasn't trying to say anything negative about service members and he apologizes to those who were offended.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) - Republican Lynn Swann says voters are eager for change in the governor's mansion, despite public-opinion polls suggesting otherwise. Campaigning in Williamsport, Swann said state government needs to return to the hands of the people. A Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday indicated that Swann was trailing Democratic Governor Ed Rendell by 23 percentage points among likely voters. The Keystone Poll from Franklin and Marshall College showed a 25-point margin. Swann says he desn't pay attention to the polls and will continue crisscrossing the state for votes. Rendell is downplaying the polls, too. He's telling his supporters that they shouldn't get overconfident.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A newspaper reports that the Walt Disney Company is close to striking new deals with two of the country's largest cable T-V operators. The Los Angeles Times cites unidentified sources in saying the deals are with Philadelphia-based Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The report says Comcast could buy Disney's 39.5 percent stake in E! Entertainment. Also, Disney could collect billions of dollars to supply content, including its popular E-S-P-N sports cable channel, to Comcast and Time Warner. The only one of the three companies to comment on the report is Time Warner -- where a spokesman only says his company is in active negotiations with Disney. He declined to elaborate.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Today is the second day of jury deliberations in the Philadelphia pier collapse trial. The panel
began its work late Wednesday morning after being given instructions by the judge. Pier 34 collapsed into the Delaware River on the evening of May 18th, 2000, killing three women. Forty-three other people were injured.
Pier owner Michael Asbell of Merion and Heat nightclub operator Eli Karetny of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, are charged with risking a catastrophe, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and other offenses. The prosecutor said the defendants only authorized cheap, cosmetic repairs despite dire warnings. Defense lawyers say their
clients were never warned and are being used as scapegoats.

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Today is the second day of a trial for a man accused of killing an inkeeper in the Poconos in 1982. Frederick John Davis has maintained his innocence and is acting as his own lawyer. Monroe County prosecutors say he was charged so long after the crime because they were able to use D-N-A evidence to identify hairs found on the victim's pajamas as Davis's. Davis was living in Las Vegas at the time of his arrest in May
of last year. He told a judge after he was extradited that he would have showed up on his own if Monroe County authorities had just asked him to appear. He says he didn't kill Gladys Steffenhagen and he doesn't know who did.

MANSFIELD, Pa. (AP) - The last two of nine people suspected of participating in a Mansfield University drug ring are expected to surrender to police today. The attorney general's office says two students from Philadelphia ran the ring, supplying as much as a half-kilogram of cocaine and five pounds of marijuana a month. In addition to cocaine and marijuana, authorities say the ring dealt in the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Seven suspects were arrested yesterday.

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) - Lancaster County's chief of human services says the county has arranged for care of five boys and two mentally handicapped women rescued from a basement. The two women are in the care of a mental health agency. The boys, three of them also mentally handicapped, are in foster care. Lancaster city police sergeant says it's unclear if those held in the basement were tied up or if the door was just locked. Police say a couple living in the home had adopted the boys, ages five to 14, in another county. The same couple had been caring for the women, who are in their 50s.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Governor Ed Rendell has set the state on course to borrow more money than at any point in at least 45 years. That's according to an Associated Press analysis of post-1960 figures provided by the Democratic governor's budget office. The state expects to issue nearly four billion dollars in taxpayer-supported debt by the end of the four fiscal years whose budgets were set by Rendell. But analysts from credit-rating agencies say it is not surprising that Rendell's borrowing would surpass that of previous governors, because the cost of construction is continually increasing. Those analysts view Pennsylvania's borrowing as affordable, and
when adjusted for inflation, Rendell's borrowing is actually less than some of his predecessors. Rendell also defends the borrowing as essential to stimulating the economy and improving the quality of life across the state.