State News-Monday, Feb. 12th

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Family members have identified the Philadelphia woman killed with her four children in a house fire. She was 25-year-old Cornellrey Robinson. She died yesterday along with her six-year-old daugher and three preschool-age sons. Robinson was living in a West Philadelphia house that neighbors
thought was vacant. Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers says the house had an illegal electric hookup. Officials say there was a hodgepodge of electric and kerosene heaters to provide heat. But there's no official word on the cause of the fire.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Bucks County jury begins considering today whether a man convicted in the slashing death of an artist deserves the death penalty. Jurors took less than two hours Friday to convict 44-year-old Richard Laird of Bristol Township. Prosecutors say Laird and another man met Anthony Milano at a
bar in 1987, harassed him and forced him to drive them home. Milano's body was found near his burning car with his throat slashed. Friday's conviction was from a retrial. A federal judge overturned Laird's previous first-degree murder conviction and death sentence. The judge said evidence of childhood sexual abuse,
head injuries, and alcoholism should have been presented.

KITTANNING, Pa. (AP) - Trial begins today for the Armstrong County woman accused of trying to cut a fetus from her neighbor's womb. Although a judge threw out Peggy Jo Conner's alleged confession, prosecutors have plenty of evidence, including a razor and a crowbar. The victim, Valerie Oskin, survived the 2005 attack, as did her baby. Oskin put the baby up for adoption, as she had already planned to do.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh authorities say a woman who plunged from a bridge into the frigid Allegheny River yesterday survived because she got stuck in the ice. The woman was eventually pulled from the ice and taken to Allegheny General Hospital with broken bones.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia police have released details of Saturday's fatal shooting. Police say 27-year-old Raheem Pridgen was sitting inside a running vehicle parked the wrong way on a one-way street in the city's Elmwood section. Police say he ran toward a friend's house on the block, with the officers in pursuit.
A police spokesman says Pridgen pulled a gun from his waistband while struggling with an officer. The spokesman says officers ordered him to drop the gun, but he didn't, and both officers shot him. He was pronounced dead about a half-hour later at a hospital.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato has made it official - he is seeking re-election in November. The 45-year-old Democrat from Pittsburgh became the county's second elected executive in 2004, defeating Republican Jim Roddey. Onorato was a Pittsburgh City Councilman from 1992 to 2000, when he became the county controller. Onorato says he brought development near Pittsburgh International Airport, cleaned up 750 acres of industrial wastelands and brought several low-cost airlines to Pittsburgh to
make up for U-S Airways' diminished presence. He says he wants to continue his redevelopment plans and boost housing in downtown Pittsburgh.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Some admirers call power-wielding state Senator Vince Fumo "the Prince of Philadelphia." But a 267-page indictment issued last week paints him as a would-be emperor. Fumo's e-mail messages show a relentless boss who turned to his Senate staff to meet his every whim. Court documents say that loyal underlings spied on his ex-lovers, readied yachts for his arrival, moved cars to his vacation homes and cleaned horse stalls at his farm. The indictment also says they chauffeured friends and relatives and brought shirts to be laundered. Prosecutors say the high-ranking Democrat, who took office in 1978, rewarded staff for their fealty with bloated salaries and friends with little- or no-work state contracts.
Fumo's lawyers say his staff worked hard because they revered the boss.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the country. Scientists at Penn State, the University of Montana and the U-S Department of Agriculture are among a quickly growing group of researchers and industry officials trying to solve the mystery. It's threatening the livelihood of commercial beekeepers and sending researchers scrambling to find answers.
The ailment is called Colony Collapse Disorder. It could affect domestic honey production in the United States and put a strain on fruit growers and other farmers who rely on bees to pollinate their crops.
Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard University has named historian Drew Gilpin Faust as its president. Faust attended Bryn Mawr College and the University of Pennsylvania, where she was also professor of history.
In addition to being the first woman to be president of the 371-year-old university, Faust is notable for not having a Harvard degree. The Harvard president who didn't earn a degree there was Charles Chauncy, who died in office in 1672. He was an alumnus of Cambridge University in England. When Faust takes office, half of the eight Ivy League schools will have women as presidents.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - At just under a thousand feet, the Comcast Center in downtown Philadelphia will be the highest skyscraper between New York and Chicago when construction is completed early next year.
Within its walls, the tower will contain safety features that reflect the lessons of September 11th and that are making their way into new skyscrapers nationwide. Still visible is the upper portion of the huge concrete core that will rise to the top of the 975-foot tower. Comcast Center will also have a pressurization system to keep smoke on any one floor from traveling to other floors. Steps in the tower's stairwells will be ten inches wider than what building codes require, so more people can evacuate at once.