State News - Saturday, Feb. 17

YORK, Pa. (AP) - Negotiators for Harley-Davidson and the striking union representing workers at its largest factory are nearing a contract agreement in York today. The York Daily Record is quoting spokesmen for both sides as saying they've made serious progress and expect to firm up a tentative deal tonight. Union official Tom Boger told the newspaper that picketing outside the York facility is expect to wind down tomorrow. The nearly 28-hundred striking union members will get a chance to vote on the pact Thursday.

CORNWALL, Pa. (AP) - Traffic began to flow in both directions on the Pennsylvania Turnpike late yesterday afternoon, more than six hours after a tanker truck carrying a highly flammable liquid overturned. The accident occurred about six miles east of the Lebanon-Lancaster interchange, and sent drivers on lengthy detours as workers cleaned up the wreck. Turnpike officials say ice from a westbound tractor-trailer apparently flew into the windshield of the eastbound tanker, injuring the driver. The tanker was carrying hundreds of gallons of xylene but didn't leak. Nearly all the xylene was loaded into another tanker before the damaged vehicle was removed.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A law enforcement source is telling The Associated Press that federal authorities have figured out how an Erie-area pizza deliveryman wound up in the middle of a bizarre bank robbery scheme that ended with a bomb around his neck exploding. The source is speaking anonymously because U-S Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan is planning to announce those findings at 3:30 this afternoon. Forty-six-year-old Brian Wells robbed a suburban Erie bank on August 28, 2003, with the bomb attached to his neck and then was killed when it exploded as he sat handcuffed in a parking lot while police waited for a bomb squad. No one was charged as authorities struggled to determine who was behind the plot and whether Wells was an innocent victim or willing participant. But the source says indictments are expected, likely by next month. The law enforcement official tells the A-P that Buchanan will not disclose what the investigators concluded, but would say that the government is confident they know how and why Wells died, and who was involved.