State News-Monday, Dec. 11th

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - Workplace-safety investigators are expected to arrived today at a demoltion side in Wilkes-Barre where a worker was critically injured. The building on Public Square, Wilkes-Barre's town center, collapsed yesterday afternoon. Firefighters tossed aside bricks and beams to get to the man, who was pinned under debris. Workers at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital said he was in critical but stable condition hours after the collapse. The building was once part of Pomeroy's Department Store. It also once housed the Studio Cafe. Demolition work began December Fourth.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Labor negotiations at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News are expected to resume today. The publisher wants to stop contributing to the pension fund. He also wants management to take complete control over how the money is invested. The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia wants to continue having a comittee of labor and management decide on investments together. The publisher says he needs control because his company is on the hook if the fund doesn't have enough money to pay retired workers. The Guild says the existing method has produced good results for decades. Also, the Guild is leery of giving control to what it calls "an employer with such a brief history and such heavy debt."

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia has recorded four more homicides this weekend, making 2006 the deadliest year in the city in nearly a decade. As of last (Sunday) night, 384 people had been slain this year. With three weeks to go in the year, the city is well over the 380 homicides recorded in 2005. But it's far from the 500 killed in 1990 during the crack epidemic. Experts say this year's shootings don't follow a simple pattern -- except that people are settling many disputes with guns.

LAKE HARMONY, Pa. (AP) - With two western Pennsylvania contenders for resort slot machine licenses no longer interested, Split Rock Resort and Country Club is once again planning to seek a license. Split Rock is at Lake Harmony in Carbon County. Split Rock President and C-E-O Jack Kalins says he had his lawyers stop working on the application shortly before the December 2005 deadline. That's because he thought Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington and Seven Springs in Champion were sure to get the two available licenses. But those two have dropped out this year. The Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau says there are only three other resorts in the Poconos, besides Split Rock, that fit the state's criteria for a resort slots license. Officials from all three say they don't plan to apply.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A company founded by a University of Pennsylvania professor is offering environmentalists a way to avoid feeling guilty for driving. San Francisco-based TerraPass invests in wind power and reducing farm pollution. People pay TerraPass when they drive or fly to make up for the carbon emissions they generate. The company started by Penn professor Karl Ulrich is not alone. As anxiety over global climate change rises, a growing number of companies and nonprofit groups are offering eco-conscious consumers similar plans. One nonprofit will plant trees on unproductive farmland to make up for driving or flying.

FARMINGTON, Pa. (AP) - A private zoo in Fayette County will hold a naming ceremony for a rare white buffalo born at the facility last month. The animals are considered to be sacred by many American Indian tribes as omens of good fortune and peace. Some American Indians have already started submitting names for the calf, which was born on November 12th at the Woodland Zoo. Experts say one in ten million buffaloes is born white. The animals are not considered albinos. They are the result of a rare recessive gene that both parents must possess. The naming ceremony has been scheduled for December 23rd.