National and State News-Monday, March 12th

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - There will be an extradition hearing in Clovis, New Mexico, today for a 21-year-old woman who is accused of kidnapping a newborn from a hospital in Lubbock, Texas. The four-day-old was found safe a day later. A neighbor of suspect Rayshaun Parson says he was suspicious when she turned up this
weekend with a baby stroller.

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AP) - President Bush's visit to Guatemala will be a study in sharp contrasts. He'll meet with vegetable farmers that benefited from a free trade deal that he had trouble selling to Congress. He also will speak out against injustices against Guatemala's indigenous citizens of Mayan ancestry, although they have protested his visit.

GENEVA (AP) - A U-N human rights team says the world has an urgent obligation to protect the people of Darfur. The team says Sudan's government has failed to protect civilians from war crimes and has participated in crimes against humanity.

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) - Opponents of a crackdown on illegal immigration in Hazleton, Pennsylvania get their day in court today. They say laws that target landlords and employers are unconstitutional. But the city says illegal immigrants commit a lot of crime and drive up costs for education and health care.

HANEA, Hawaii (AP) - There's been another deadly crash of a tour helicopter on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. One person was killed yesterday and three others seriously injured. Four people were killed in a crash on Kauai last Thursday.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The next big test for reformers in the state House of Representatives comes today.
The full House is scheduled to take up the proposal the Speaker's Commission on Legislative Reform. It will also consider 42 amendments filed by state representatives last week. The commission's package of proposals would, most notably, increase the rank-and-file's power at the expense of party leaders.
The proposals would also improve public disclosure about House spending and reduce some legislative perks. The public would have more notice about what is about to occur, and more information about testimony and votes that have already taken place.

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) - State police at Somerset plan to give more information today about a motel guest who allegedly killed a man -- then drove the body to a remote location in Maryland. Police say in court papers that 38-year-old William Jerome Cornell the Second acknowledged killing 51-year-old Vincent Ross
Spadaro, but maintained it was self-defense. Cornell told police that Spadaro had come at him with a knife. But police say they doubt that story because he cleaned up the scene and moved the body about eight miles.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Three people are dead from separate weekend house fires in the Philadelphia area. One was in Bensalem Township, Bucks County. Another was in Ridley Park, Delaware County. The third was in North Philadelphia. Thirty-nine-year-old Emmanual Wilkinson Junior died in a fire that broke out Saturday night at the Bensalem Township home where he lived with his parents. Bensalem police said rescuers were
driven back by heavy smoke and fire. A man whose name was not immediately released died yesterday in
a fire at a home in Ridley Park, Delaware County. A woman in her 40s died in a fire that broke out at a North
Philadelphia boardinghouse Sunday.

YORK, Pa. (AP) - An explosion in York reduced three rowhouses to rubble and damaged three others.
Officials say five people suffered only minor injuries as the three-story homes collapsed around them.
Authorities suspect natural gas may have caused the Saturday night blast, but they have not yet determined where it started. The injured range in age from an infant to a woman in her 80s. Deputy Chief Steve Buffington of the York Fire Department says all five have been treated and released. At the scene, the roof of the rowhouses sits atop a pile of rubble about 15 feet high. Buffington says the block was evacuated and eleven people sought shelter with the Red Cross.

FOUNTAIN HILL, Pa. (AP) - Authorities say a five-year-old Lehigh County boy died at a hospital Saturday night after being found face down in a bathtub at his home. Caspian Steinmetz would have turned six in July.
Jennifer Garza, the girlfriend of the child's father, Eric Steinmetz, says she last saw the boy playing in the bath. She says she returned about ten minutes later and found him under the water. Garza says the coroner's office thinks Caspian had a seizure. Chief Deputy Coroner Paul Zondlo says an autopsy was performed Sunday but additional tests are needed to determine the cause and manner of death.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - An Allegheny County man was killed when a car he was working on fell and crushed him.
Authorities say 27-year-old Zebulan Auld of Etna died while working on the vehicle at his father's residence in Shaler Township, near Pittsburgh. The victim was found underneath the vehicle Sunday, with the undercarriage pressed against him. Detectives have ruled the death accidental.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia-based Comcast is one of several cable companies putting its brand on cell phone service. Comcast rolled out the service in Boston and Portland, Oregon, and is expanding it this year. Cable companies but do their own marketing and customer service, including billing, but the phone service is handled by an existing cell phone carrier. But it may be an uphill battle to get consumers to think of cable companies as cell phone providers. That's partly because they still don't have the depth of offerings available from other wireless carriers. Cable also has to overcome a reputation for higher annual price increases than the phone companies.

MEADVILLE, Pa. (AP) - A teenager is accused of stealing a state police cruiser while the trooper offered assistance to the teen's friends. Police say Trooper Wesley McClimans was patrolling Interstate 79
Friday night when he pulled over near Meadville to offer help two men in a stopped vehicle. The men told McClimans they were looking for 19-year-old Ricky Anthony of Cochranton. Police say while they were talking, Anthony appeared, jumped into the trooper's patrol car and sped away. Police found the car parked a short distance away and arrested Anthony after a short foot chase. He faces charges of theft of a motor vehicle, resisting arrest and drunken driving.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Video cameras will soon be installed on 20 bridges that span the Delaware River. It's part of an effort to beef up security, watch drivers and monitor river currents on the flood-prone waterway.
Officials from the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission say tolls are not expected to rise from the 26 (m) million dollar program. Installation of surveillance equipment could start this summer and should be finished by late 2008. The footage will be monitored around the clock by state police from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It will be stored for a brief period in case review is needed.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Temple University student has spent a week living among Philadelphia's homeless.
Steve Wood is features editor of the university's school newspaper, Temple News. He says he did so to gather material for a series of articles he hopes will "put a face to the homeless." Wood told The Philadelphia Inquirer things went differently then he planned. He says the cold was harder to deal with than he
thought. He says it made him resent people who walk by carrying coffee. But he says he also lost patience with some of the homeless, saying they had a sense of entitlement -- that the city owed them something.
The first article about Wood's experience is scheduled to be published Tuesday.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) - A historic Bethlehem hotel is trying to market itself with reports that it's haunted.
The Hotel Bethlehem is located on a site that dates back to the city's founding in 1741. Staff and guests have been saying for years that the place is haunted. Officials say two guests have asked to leave because they
believed they saw "someone" in their rooms. Also, a night engineer no longer wants to enter the subbasement. That's reportedly a center for the unexplained incidents. The hotel is embracing the spooky past with a "Rooms with a Boo" event next month. The April weekend event will feature ghost tours, lectures by
paranormal researchers -- and a complimentary Bloody Mary at midnight.