State News-Wednesday, Nov. 15th

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The last of five applicants competing for two slots licenses in Philadelphia is to make its case today. The applicants are testifying in Harrisburg before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - The chairman of the Mohegan Indian tribal council says he's "blown away" by the turnout at Pennsylvania's first legal slots parlor. The tribe bought the Pocono Downs racetrack in 2004 and built a casino with eleven-hundred slot machines that opened yesterday. It plans to break ground next year on a larger casino that will double the number of slot machines and add retail shops, a nightclub and other amenities.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The U-S attorney's office says ten men have been arrested on charges they operated a drug ring in western Pennsylvania that may have been responsible for distributing deadly fentanyl-laced heroin. U-S Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan says investigators were still collecting evidence to determine whether the men were linked to more than a dozen deaths in the Pittsburgh area from fentanyl and fentanyl-linked heroin earlier this year.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) - A 21-year-old Marine Corps reservist from Pennsylvania has pleaded guilty to negligent homicide. Lance Corporal Michael Fulcher made the plea in the death of a comrade shot with a rifle that wasn't supposed to be loaded. Fulcher is a member of a reserve unit based in Lehigh County. He entered the plea during a court-martial at Camp Lejeune over the death of Lance Corporal Adam Fales.

MEYERSDALE, Pa. (AP) - A Meyersdale man accused of putting six hours-old puppies in a garbage bag and ditching them in a trash bin has had the animals returned to him. Police say the puppies haven't been weaned and are too young to be taken from their mother who is owned by 27-year-old William Fike.