State News-Monday, Feb. 5th

UNDATED (AP) - People are shivering from the upper Midwest to the East Coast. Temperatures across northern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota are still in the 20-below zero range. There's a wind chill warning in the Chicago area, where the combination of temperature and wind feels like minus-35. It's bitterly cold in Michigan, too, and several inches of snow is in the forecast. Forecasters say highs won't reach the 20s anywhere in Michigan until Wednesday. Crews in Detroit have been fixing dozens of water main breaks blamed on the harsh winter weather. Amtrak has suspended passenger rail service in upstate New York
west of Albany because of severe cold and heavy snow.

BRADDOCK, Pa. (AP) - An autopsy is planned today on the body of a 23-month-old girl found in an abandoned playground near Pittsburgh. Sunday afternoon's discovery of the body of Nyia Miangel Page came on the second day of a search in freezing temperatures. The body was found in Rankin, just blocks for the girl's home in Braddock.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Unions representing teachers, secretaries and cafeteria workers in Beaver County's Rochester Area School District plan to go on strike today. Rochester Area pupils have been asked not to report to school. School officials say they will decide on a day-to-day basis how long to keep the school closed. A union spokesman says the employees had been working without a contract since last summer and have been unhappy with the lack of progress in negotiations. The strike is being carried out by three unions that represent 84 teachers, 25 secretaries and aides, and 29 cafeteria and maintenance employees.

WASHINGTON, Pa. (AP) - One fireman was killed and another was injured as they battled a garage fire in Washington on Sunday morning. Authorities say 27-year-old Jeremy LaBella died after the roof of a former motorcycle shop at the rear of a house collapsed. That caused a canopy over a nearby sidewalk to fall on LaBella and another firefighter, George McMillen. McMillen was being treated at Washington Hospital for smoke inhalation and a leg injury. LaBella is the first city firefighter to die on the job since 1955. The state police fire marshal was investigating the cause of the blaze.

LEBANON, Pa. (AP) - Authorities have charged a second man in the beating death of a Dauphin County native more than six years ago. Vincent Andrew Cascardo of Palmyra was charged last week with criminal homicide and related counts in the killing of 29-year-old Daniel Hoffner of San Jose, California. Cascardo had moved to California about a year before his death. Rodney Gerber of Fayetteville, Adams County, is awaiting trial in the case. He has been held at Lebanon County prison since his arrest. District Attorney David Arnold says there could be additional arrests. Authorities allege that the defendants beat Hoffner to death with a baseball bat in September of 2000. Hoffner's body was found in the trunk of his rental car six days later in an Appalachian Trail parking lot in Union Township, Lebanon County.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - About 50 human bone fragments unearthed in December by crews renovating Pittsburgh's Point State Park show no signs of trauma and belonged to at least three individuals. That's according to a forensic anthropologist who's preparing a report that the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office is expected to review this week. The fragments are believed to be between 50 and 500 years old and include almost complete shin bones and pieces of skull. They were found with wood and a nail, suggesting they were buried in coffins. But the expert says they appear to have been moved from their original burial sites for unknown reasons. And the manner in which the people died remains unknown, though there were no indications of battle wounds.

POTTSTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Flooding from storms has been encroaching on the archaeological site at Valley Forge Park. Park officials say it's sending historical artifacts tumbling away in the creek. Standing on the banks of Valley Creek near its confluence with the Schuylkill River, it's possible to see several stone fences and a pipe. They were part of the grist mill that used to stand next to George Washington's headquarters. Park official Deirdre Gibson says workers used laser technology to record the buried ruins while documenting the former village. The park has also lost a footbridge and regularly has to use sandbags to keep water out of Washington's headquarters. Gibson says if people living upstream plant trees it will be a
big help.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The sole survivor of a racially motivated shooting spree more than six years ago has died. Sandip Patel had been paralyzed from the neck down as a result of the attack that left five others dead. He died Saturday of complications from pneumonia at U-P-M-C Passavant hospital. He was 32. Patel was the only survivor of a shooting rampage by Richard Baumhammers, an unemployed attorney, on April 28th, 2000. Baumhammers, who was then 37, was living with his parents when he left their Mount Lebanon home and shot his Jewish neighbor, two Indian men -- including Patel -- two men of Asian descent and a black man.
Patel was praised by officials for speaking out against intolerance and was awarded the city's inaugural Voice of Tolerance Award in 2002.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - When British royalty recently came to Philadelphia, they made a special stop to visit a little girl in the rough-and-tumble Mantua neighborhood. Actually, the girl is not so little: She's about three stories tall. Painted on the side of a building, she's one of 27-hundred murals created by the city's Mural Arts Program. Now in its 23rd year, the program has populated Philadelphia with a cast of characters including Frank Rizzo, Frank Sinatra and Frankie Avalon. Program director Jane Golden says people see murals as a sign that things can change, that someone cares. Supporters hope that the recent visit from Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, will give the mural program a higher profile and enable it to expand.