National and State News-Thursday, March 15th

NEW YORK (AP) - An armed man went on a rampage along a strip of trendy restaurants and bars in New York City last night. He killed two unarmed volunteer police officers and a pizzeria employee before regular police officers shot and killed him. Police say the pizza employee was shot 15 times.

WASHINGTON (AP) - He planned it top to bottom. The Pentagon says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to the Nine-Eleven attacks, along with a host of other terrorist
mischief. The confession came at a closed-door military hearing before a U-S tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

BAGHDAD (AP) - In Iraq today, a parked car with a bomb inside blasted apart a bus packed with workers in a city south of Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding 24. The bombing comes a day after gunmen attacked a mosque in the same city.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Legislation to withdraw U-S troops from Iraq has cleared its first Senate hurdle, but Republicans predict they'll soon defeat it. Democrats in the House and Senate are
advancing different bills calling for the withdrawal of troops. President Bush promises a veto if either plan passes.

STAFFORDSVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Kentucky is being overrun with thousands of unwanted horses. Less demand for horse meat overseas is causing the glut, and horse rescue organizations are running out of room. Some say the market will force less breeding, solving the problem.


HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will meet today as they look for a way to make it easier to work for the state's slot-machine casinos. Officials from Philadelphia Park Casino and Harrah's Chester Casino and Racetrack have complained that the gaming board's long and complicated clearance process makes it difficult to fill some jobs.
The jobs in question mostly deal with low-wage positions that are not part of the casino operation, such as restaurant staff, valets or cleaning crew.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - House Democratic leaders are promoting an extensive list of legislative priorities. At the same time, they're warning that worsening state-government finances may force some unpleasant choices. The Democrats outlined an agenda led by health-care, transportation and education issues yesterday. It was a day after the House voted to change its procedures and widen public disclosure of its business. Party leaders say they're committed to lawmaking that leans heavily on committee chairmen, not top party leaders. Democrats are in the majority by one seat. House Republicans say their priorities include welfare reform, fighting drugs and taking a close look at state borrowing.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - An aide to Governor Ed Rendell returned to his job this week, more than two months after being suspended following the crash of his state-issued vehicle.
Norman Bristol-Colon is the executive director of the Governor's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs. He served the paid suspension from January 5th until Monday for allowing someone else to drive the vehicle. It was damaged in a December 20th crash. Only state employees can drive state cars. A Rendell spokesman says Bristol-Colon has to pay for the damage and may no longer drive a state car.

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) - A day after being questioned by a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta should face some friendlier quiestions today.
Yesterday, the A-C-L-U lawyer portrayed the mayor as a political opportunist with a thin grasp of the facts. Barletta acknowledged that he had no idea how many illegal immigrants are in his city. Today, he's to be questioned by a lawyer defending the city's immigration crackdown law.
Among other things, the law requires tenants to register at City Hall and show they're in the country legally. The A-C-L-U says it's unconstitutional. The current trial is the first federal trial on local efforts to curb illegal immigration.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) - A verdict is expected this morning in the non-jury trial of 24-year-old Kyion Ball. The Philadelphia man is accused of gunning down 19-year-old Michael Riley in Flanigan Park in Williamsport last March. As court proceedings began yesterday, Public Defender William Miele immediately requested a mistrial, saying that Judge Dudley
Anderson's comments to the prosecution's witness on Tuesday were "inappropriate." The motion was denied. Locke, who has given conflicting testimony, took the stand again
yesterday and denied that he ever spoke to a Williamsport police officer about threats to his family. In closing statements, District Attorney Mike Dinges blamed media attention for Locke's reluctance to testify, but later said Locke will more than likely face perjury charges. If convicted, Ball faces life in prison.

BRADFORD, Pa. (AP) - A Bradford, Pennsylvania man will appear in front of a federal magistrate today on charges that he traveled to New York to have sex with a 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet. Forty-five-year-old Timothy Dean Peterson remains in federal
custody. Bradford police and the F-B-I arrested him on Tuesday. The case was first investigated by New York state police, who say the girl told a police office at her school Cattaraugus County, New York, about having sex with Peterson last month. New York authorities contacted Peterson over the Internet, arranged another meeting, and charged him locally when he allegedly showed up to meet the girl again on March second. The feds took
over the case and the F-B-I says Peterson confessed to meeting the girl over the Internet and crossing state lines to have sex with her.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A Beaver County cocaine dealer will spend more than 27 years in federal prison, a stiff sentence handed down partly because the judge took into account his record of allegedly attacking jail guards. Twenty-eight-year-old Anthony Tusweet Smith of Aliquippa was sentenced yesterday by a federal judge in Pittsburgh, who found him guilty in December of heading a cocaine that brought at least 120 pounds of cocaine into the county from 1999 through 2003. U-S District Court Judge Thomas Hardiman noted that Smith -- who
has four pending assault cases against various jail guards -- has no regard for the law. The judge says Smith has a "depraved mind and a depraved heart." Smith's sentence will run consecutive to any he receives in the alleged assaults.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Jerome Marzoch says he always knew who shot and killed his brother Raymond in a Pittsburgh parking garage in February 1986. Now, prosecutors say they have enough evidence to bring Raymond Marzoch's then-wife, Diana Rader, to trial for homicide.
A grand jury recommended last week that Rader, now 62 years old, be charged. She's being held in the Allegheny County Jail and faces a preliminary hearing tomorrow. Authorities haven't explained the delay in charges. Her current husband and attorney declined comment.
Jerome Marzoch admits he'd even given up hope that Rader would ever be prosecuted.
But he says he's glad the case was reopened, although many people close to Raymond have died since his death.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Police want people to know there is no such thing as an Allegheny County water department. Police issued the warning because they say a man posing as a county "water department" worker stole thousands of dollars of jewels from a home owner in Reserve Township yesterday. Police say a man told the home owner he needed to enter his home
to check the basement water pressure because the "water department" was replacing pressure valves. Police say the man had an official-looking identification pin on his shirt and was talking to another man on a portable radio. While the first man and the homeowner were in the basement, the second man went upstairs and stole several diamond rings and a tennis
bracelet.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - An Allegheny County Jail guard fired for allegedly fraternizing with a prisoner already has her job back -- and now a state appeals court says she is owed back pay.
Mary Wilson-Clark sued after she was fired in 2004. A Common Pleas judge last year found she was wrongly fired and ordered her back to work, but declined to award her back pay. But today the Commonwealth Court says Wilson-Clark should receive the back pay, too. Wilson-Clark was asked by an inmate's attorney to get his clothes ready for a court appearance. She let other jail guards search the clothes before she delivered them to the inmate, and also deposited ten dollars of her own money into his inmate account. Jail officials found those actions violated the fraternization policy, but the courts disagreed with her firing.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pennsylvania has become the latest state to offer a guide to judges on public health that they can use to quickly make decisions during pandemics or other health
emergencies. The Public Health Law Benchbook was developed by a center at the
University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in conjunction with the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. Judges need the guides if they will be called on to order quarantines or other actions. Bench books are guides on various subjects that include
information on federal and state laws, jurisdictional issues and local statutes. Judges can use the books to get more information on certain areas of the law that they may be called on to interpret. Bench books on public health were first developed in 2005 in Indiana and 2006 in Kentucky with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Several other states now have them.

NEW YORK (AP) - A Canadian philosopher who says the world's problems can only be solved by considering both their secular and spiritual roots, has been named the recipient of a religion award billed as the world's richest annual prize. Charles Taylor, a professor of law and philosophy at Northwestern University, has won this year's Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. The award is worth more than one and a half (m) million dollars. In a career spanning more than four decades, Taylor has
investigated a wide range of issues. They include how it is that the search for meaning and spiritual direction can end in violence. He contends that relying only on secular analyses of human behavior leads to faulty conclusions. The Templeton Foundation of West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, sponsors various projects on science and religion.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Representative Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania is one of five members of Congress seeking help for an endangered religious minority in Iraq. Mandaeanism, which treats John the Baptist as a great teacher, has survived for two millennia. But the war in its major homeland of Iraq now threatens its existence. The Mandaean Society of America says many have fled amid targeted killings, rapes, forced conversions, and property confiscation by Islamic extremists. The lawmakers seek resettlement programs for Mandaean refugees that have fled to Jordan, Syria, Yemen and Indonesia. Community members there say there is still persecution. The lawmakers also want a refugee resettlement program in the United States to be expanded to include Mandaeans.