State News-Wednesday, Feb. 14th

UNDATED (AP) - The National Weather Service says the part of Pennsylvania north of Interstate 80 is expected to get the most snow -- possibly more than a foot. Meanwhile, ice has coated parts of southeastern Pennsylvania and rain has moved into the area. Weather Service forecaster Bill Gartner says the storm should
move to New England by tonight, but travel right now is treacherous at best. In Harrisburg, a special House panel reviewing changes in the way the Legislature operates met for a couple of hours yesterday but canceled today's meeting. One of the panel's co-chairmen said he didn't want members getting stranded at the Capitol.

YORK, Pa. (AP) - Talks are scheduled today between Harley-Davidson officials and union leaders representing 28-hundred striking workers at its factory in York. The strike began February Second. It has had a ripple effect with hundreds of workers in parts factories being laid off. Union members overwhelmingly rejected the company's three-year contract proposal January 31st. It offered annual raises of four percent. But it would have reduced pay rates for new hires, required employees to begin paying part of their health insurance
premiums and forced pension concessions.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia police say an angry investor who killed three people and himself at a marketing company was upset about losing money in a failed real-estate venture. Authorities say Vincent Dortch took two guns to the Monday night investors meeting he organized at the offices of Zigzag Net
Incorporated. Minutes after the meeting started, according to police, he told the group: "You have a minute or two to say your prayers." He then opened fire. Another man who was shot during the attack is in
critical condition. He is 31-year-old Patrick Sweeney of Maple Shade, New Jersey. Police say Dortch and two other men at the meeting had lost money on the failed deal, perhaps as much as half a (m) million
dollars combined.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Some state senators don't like the idea of closing state police outposts to the public on nights and weekends. The goal is to save money, but it got a cool reception at a state Senate hearing yesterday. A pilot program began at the busy Skippack station in Montgomery County in mid-December. It requires after-hours visitors to use a phone to speak with state police at a Philadelphia call center. But state senators say they're concerned about closing what, for some state residents, is the only nearby police agency manned in the middle of the night. The troopers union calls it a change that would jeopardize troopers' ability to do their jobs and could put them in danger.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania's chief insurance regulator for nearly a decade has handed in her resignation. Diane Koken says she expects to be elected to the board of an insurance company in April. She's leaving on Monday to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Koken plans to stay on as a senior adviser to Governor Ed Rendell through mid-March. The governor tapped one of Koken's deputies, Randolph Rohrbaugh, to serve as acting commissioner while the administration searches for her permanent successor.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A Pittsburgh native has been named commander of a crew that will travel to the International Space Station next year. NASA announced that 39-year-old Air Force Lieutenant Colonel
E. Michael Fincke will command Expedition 18, which is slated to travel to the space station in the fall of 2008. Fincke is a NASA astronaut and space station veteran from the Pittsburgh suburb of Emsworth. The crew is one of three that will live and work aboard the International Space Station during the next two years. It includes flight engineers from the United States, Russia and Japan.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - NASA's two Mars rovers are getting smarter, thanks to Carnegie Mellon University. New navigation software developed by C-M-U researchers and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab will allow the Mars rovers to better explore the Red Planet. The software was developed by Carnegie Mellon research professor
Tony Stentz and student David Ferguson, now with Intel. The software helps the rovers maneuver their way through mazes and out of rocky culs-de-sac. It also allows the rovers to remember terrain and create maps of obstacles to make their escape. Officials say the first live test of the software last week was successful. The Mars rovers landed in January 2004 and have sent 200-thousand images back to earth.