National and State News-Friday, April 6th

BAGHDAD (AP) - Two police officers are among 20 people killed today when a suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint in Iraq. As many as 30 people are hurt in Anbar province, a former Sunni insurgent stronghold that has recently seen changes in political allegiance.

PENTAGON (AP) - An official says a number of National Guard brigades will soon be told they'll return to Iraq around January. They would replace forces in the regular troop rotation and would not be considered part of a recent security buildup.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The chairman of an international global warming conference says members have approved a report on climate change. But some scientists, accusing governments of watering down the final draft, say they'll never attend another conference.

READINGTON, N.J. (AP) - Authorities say an F-B-I agent killed in New Jersey yesterday may have been accidentally shot by another agent. A team of agents confronted three robbery suspects but an agent-in-charge says the suspects never fired their weapons. Two were captured.

SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines (AP) - A commercial sign maker has been nailed to a cross in the Philippines on Good Friday for the 21st time. He's one of seven penitents in the Lenten ritual which draws tourists and spectators annually.

WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) - The widow of Greene County Commissioner John Gardner will serve the final nine months of his term. Judy Gardner was sworn in at the county office building yesterday. Two county judges appointed Gardner to fill the seat left vacant when her husband died March 27th. Gardner will continue as the county's Republican minority commissioner.
The judges picked her saying she will provide continuity to county government because she was familiar with her husband's work and goals. Before he died, John Gardner was seeking the Republican nomination for a fifth four-year term in office. A former school teacher, Judy Gardner says she doesn't intend to run for office after filling her husband's term.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A battle between Philadelphia and Pennsylvania over slot-machine gambling is landing in state Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is asking justices to declare it to be the sole authority over casino placement, and settle legal questions between it and Philadelphia City Council. In addition, the board asked the court yesterday to declare that City Council did not have the power to authorize a question to go before voters in May on casinos. In December, the gaming board awarded licenses to SugarHouse Casino and Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia to build on separate sites along the Delaware River. City Council last month approved a ballot question that, if passed, would prevent slots parlors within
15-hundred feet of a school, home or place of worship.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A grand jury is calling for a dramatic strengthening of Pennsylvania's state's right-to-know law, recommending charges yesterday against a suburban township
supervisor accused of trying to bribe a developer. The grand jury found that public officials in Haverford Township failed to keep the public, as well as other elected officials, informed about certain efforts to develop the site of the former Haverford State Hospital from 2002 to 2004.
The panel also accused supervisor Fred Moran of asking a developer to give 500-thousand dollars to the township in exchange for Moran's guarantee that the project got zoning approval.
Moran is charged with bribery, theft and obstruction of justice.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Federal prosecutors say the law firm representing indicted state Senator Vincent Fumo has what the prosecutors call an ethical tangle with the senator and should be removed as Fumo's attorneys. Prosecutors filed court papers Thursday saying the law firm collected more than one-point-three (m) million dollars in legal fees from the three alleged victims in the case. Fumo is a Philadelphia Democrat. He is charged with misusing one
(m) million dollars in state resources and more than one (m) million dollars from the Independence Seaport Museum and nonprofit Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a South Philadelphia community group run by Fumo's former aides. Prosecutors said in a motion that the Sprague firm received well over one (m) million dollars in legal fees from the state Senate for work on the Fumo probe, more than 270-thousand dollars from Citizens Alliance and more than 25-thousand dollars from the museum.

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) - Physicians, business leaders and politicians say a new medical school in northeastern Pennsylvania will help alleviate a doctor shortage in that part of the state and
pump (m) millions of dollars into the regional economy. The group gathered Thursday to announce the proposed school's first dean and president, Doctor Robert D'Alessandri.
The 61-year-old D'Alessandri will resign from West Virginia University to lead the Medical College of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The new school plans to begin enrolling students in
2009. It would be only the second new M-D-granting school launched in the United States since 1982. D'Alessandri called the school the most important enterprise initiated northeastern Pennsylvania in a generation. His immediate plans include hiring a staff, settling on a location for the school, designing a curriculum, raising money and beginning the lengthy and exhaustive process of accreditation.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - A study says a little exercise might go a long way in helping women feel better while going through menopause. A Penn State study says women involved in a regular exercise program reported better quality of life during menopause compared with those who did not exercise. Results of the four-month study that included 164 volunteers and
was conducted by professor Steriani Elavsky were published in a recent issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Doctor Charles Castle is a Lancaster-based gynecologist and a
member of the board of trustees for the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He says the study is a nice reaffirmation that exercise is beneficial for lots of different things.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - Police and university officials say they have interviewed members of the Penn State football team in connection with a confrontation at an off-campus apartment whose residents later received an anonymous letter asking them not to press charges. Police Chief Thomas King says no charges have been filed in the early Sunday morning incident but an investigation is continuing. According to police, about ten men were reported to have pushed their way into the apartment and assaulted several men attending a party. That fight followed a street confrontation about an hour earlier. One person was treated at a hospital and released. A university official said two days later, residents of the apartment received a typed letter asking that charges be dropped.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - An elderly grandmother who robbed a bank with an unloaded pistol to help her financially strapped son has pleaded guilty after prosecutors agreed not to pursue a mandatory five- to ten-year prison sentence. Seventy-six-year-old Marilyn Devine of Baldwin could still get a prison term when she is sentenced June 27th, but her relatives and attorney hope she receives probation. Relative Susan McDade says Devine isn't a threat to society and
doesn't belong in jail. Allegheny County prosecutors say Devine held up a National City
Bank branch inside a West Mifflin supermarket on March Sixth, 2006, and took nearly six-thousand dollars. Her attorney Noah Geary says Devine was suffering from depression and anxiety and her youngest son then called saying he was in dire financial straits and was going to harm himself.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A prosecutor says a 17-year-old youth yesterday admitted his role in an assault on a Philadelphia high school teacher who was attacked after he took an iPod from a
student. Assistant District Attorney Leslie Gomez says the youth had been scheduled to go to trial but entered an admission to a felony aggravated assault charge in juvenile court. She said the boy did not have to plead to a conspiracy count and prosecutors withdrew other charges.
The youth and a 15-year-old, who entered a similar admission last month in juvenile court to aggravated assault and other charges, will be sentenced April 26th in a combined hearing.
Germantown High School math teacher Frank Burd is recovering from a broken neck and brain injury in the February 23rd assault.

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) - The prison chaplain at the Monroe County Correctional Facility has been dismissed because of what officials say it uncertainty over his immigration status.
Jerry Ingravalle of Mountainhome is a Canadian national who was born and raised in Italy. He says his visa apparently expired while an application for permanent status was pending.
He says the Labor Department and Office of Homeland Security has told his attorney the problem will be straightened out by September and he is free to stay until then. However, county attorney John Dunn says the county would violate federal law and risk incurring
liability if it continued to employ Ingravalle. Ingravalle is on medical leave following shoulder surgery. He says he will be unable to continue medical insurance that pays for his physical therapy. He says he and his wife will sell their home but they hope to remain until June when son Jonathan is scheduled to graduate from Pocono Mountain Charter School in Tobyhanna.

EDINBORO, Pa. (AP) - Traffic is moving again today on Interstate 79 in Erie and Crawford counties. Whiteout conditions caused numerous accidents and closed the road for hours yesterday. Police and PennDOT say northbound lanes between the Edinboro and Meadville exits were closed shortly after noon and reopened about 2 p-m. Southbound lanes between the Edinboro and Saegertown exits did not reopen until nearly 6:30 p-m. No serious injuries were immediately reported.