State News - Saturday Jan. 20

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Police say a man was arrested yesterday in the August 2004 murder of a 15-year-old Kensington girl who was found on a lot in her neighborhood. Officer Raul Malveiro says Brian McDonald was charged with murder, rape, kidnapping and unlawful restraint in the death of Nicole Reilly. He said the 28-year-old McDonald was already in custody in connection with another case. A man walking his dog in the Fishtown neighborhood found Reilly's body in weeds two blocks from her home on August 24th, 2004, hours after she had been reported missing. McDonald remained in custody and it was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The U-S Department of Agriculture says ugly is O-K when it comes to tomatoes. Last week, the Department of Agriculture granted Philadelphia-based Procacci Brothers a waiver from the rule that says tomatoes grown in Florida during the winter must besufficiently round and smooth. That means consumers clamoring for juicy UglyRipe tomatoes should find more of the weirdly bulbous fruit on store shelves. The UglyRipe has to be picked and packed by hand. It typically sells for three to four dollars per pound, but can go as high as seven dollars in some grocers.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The surgeon of a teenager who was critically injured by an out-of-control school bus last week is improving and doctors hope to bring her out of a medically induced coma in the coming days. Ashley Zauflik and 13 other students were hurt when a parked bus suddenly accelerated into a crowd outside Pennsbury High School on January 12th. Three more students were hurt when the driver, who said he couldn't stop the bus, drove it into a retaining wall. Dr. Jose Pascual is the trauma surgeon who is treating Zauflikat the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He says the 17-year-old remained deeply sedated yesterday after a life-threatening bacterial infection forced doctors to amputate her left leg above the knee. Zauflik, who also had to undergo abdominal surgery, remains in critical condition.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Comcast is making a big bet on golf and hoping to transform its little-watched Golf Channel network into a household name. The Golf Channel is exclusively carrying every round of the first three P-G-A Tour events of 2007. So, for the first time in four decades, this week's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic will not be shown on network television. The coverage is part of the Golf Channel's unprecedented 15-year partnership with the Tour. The deal gives the channel early-round coverage of every regular Tour event, and every round at 13 P-G-Atournaments. N-B-C and C-B-S pick up the weekend coverage for 31 tournaments. The contract boosts the channel's golf programming and gives considerable heft to a network co-founded by Arnold Palmer 12 years ago. But it's also likely to generate big losses in the early years for parent company Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator.

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A former Norristown man has been convicted of murder and may face the death penalty in the slaying of a 19-year-old North Penn High School graduate. Montgomery County Judge Paul Tressler Thursday convicted Patrick McCarthy, a 25-year-old Jamaican national, of first-degree murderin the 2004 stabbing of Anna Fowler. Police say Fowler was found dead in a King of Prussia motel room on the morning of October sixth, 2004. She was bound, gagged,blindfolded and wrapped in a blanket. Police said it appeared that she had been sexually assaulted, stabbed multiple times in the chest and torso and slashed in the neck. A hearing will be scheduled in February or March to determine whether McCarthy will face the death penalty or life in prison.