National and State News-Thursday, April 5th

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A British navy crew held in Iran for nearly two weeks is almost home. The 15 sailors and marines left Tehran early this morning on a flight to London. Iran's official news agency says the former captives were given sweets and souvenirs before they jetted away.

BAGHDAD (AP) - The area dubbed the "Triangle of Death" appears to have claimed another U-S helicopter. An Iraqi official says the helicopter went down south of Baghdad after coming under hostile fire today. No word on the fate of the crew.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Parts of New Hampshire will be a winter wonderland today, even though the calendar says April. A storm that's sending temperatures plunging from the Great Lakes to the East Coast could dump more than a foot of snow in the northern part of the Granite State.

MEDIA, Pa. (AP) - A lawyer accused of hiding money from his ex-wife marks the 12th anniversary of his imprisonment on a civil contempt charge today. H. Beatty Chadwick, who's now 70, has been jailed since April fifth, 1995. That's almost as long as his marriage to Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick lasted -- from 1977 to 1992. Chadwick is accused of transferring two and a half (m) million dollars from marital assets out of the United States in February
1993. He maintains that he doesn't have the money because he lost it in an investment.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Census Bureau says except for areas hit by Hurricane Katrina, the Pittsburgh region had the biggest population drop from 2000 to 2006. The Census Bureau defines the Pittsburgh metropolitan area as Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties. Figures released today show the region losing about 60-thousand people over those six years. Chris Briem is a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research. He says the Pittsburgh area is the only big-city area that has more deaths than births -- largely a result of the older population.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Governor Ed Rendell has enlisted the voice of the Bush administration for his plan to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Rendell appeared with U-S Transportation Secretary Mary Peters to promote the idea of leasing the turnpike. Rendell hopes it will provide nearly one (b) billion dollars a year for the state's crumbling highway network. Peters says a sound transportation network is crucial to prosperity. She cited Texas's loss of a Dell computer project to Tennessee eight years ago because of traffic congestion.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - House Republicans say Governor Ed Rendell's education budget would devote too much money to new programs benefiting relatively few school districts, so they're offering their own alternatives. A primary criticism deals with Rendell's proposed expansion of a three-year-old accountability block grant program. It calls for spending 100 (m) million dollars more on preschool and full-day kindergarten. School districts can spend the 250 (m) million dollars in existing grant money on a wider variety of strategies to improve math and reading scores. House Minority Leader Sam Smith says not all schools have the same needs. Smith is proposing a 25 (m) million "Tools of the Trade" grant program. He says the money could be used for textbooks, computers, or other classroom materials.

LEWISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - U-S Route 322 is open this morning through the Lewistown Narrows.
A tractor-trailer struck a barrier there about 3:30 Wednesday morning. The rig slid more than 200 feet and came to rest blocking both lanes of the two-lane highway. The road remained closed for most of the day while crews cleaned up the wreckage. The truck was carrying dry cement. Some of it spilled, and rain complicated the cleanup. PennDOT officials say the highway reopened about ten o'clock last night. Police say the driver of the truck that crashed, Michael Sager of Bellefonte, was able to climb out of the wreck and was treated for moderate injuries at Lewistown Hospital.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh City Council is spending nearly 600-thousand dollars to create an evacuation plan for downtown. Michael Baker Junior Incorporated will develop the plan over the next year. Vice president Herbert Higginbotham says the plan is intended prevent the kind of confusion and gridlock that occurred after the September Eleventh terrorist attack.
The company will also study when not to evacuate. Higginbotham says at times, sheltering people may be better. Funding comes from the federal Department of Homeland Security.

WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) - Some 12-hundred miners remain on strike today at three Foundation Coal Holdings mines in Pennsylvania and Illinois. More than 900 of the miners are from the Cumberland and Emerald mines near Waynesburg. The rest are from the Wabash Mine in Keensburg, Illinois. Foundation Coal has argued that workers at the three mines
shouldn't be covered by a national contract the company worked out with the United Mine Workers in December. A company spokesman says the three mines have different logistical needs that an across-the-board agreement wouldn't address.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - Cable, Internet and phone service provider R-C-N Corporation says it will cut nearly half the work force at its office near Wilkes-Barre. The company says it will eliminate 291 jobs over a five-month period, leaving more than 300 workers at the office in Plains Township. Herndon, Virginia-based R-C-N lost 11-point-nine (m) million dollars in 2006, that's narrowed from a loss of more than 136 (m) million dollars in 2005.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A suburban Pittsburgh grandmother goes on trial in Allegheny County this morning for bank robbery. Defense attorney Noah Geary says 75-year-old Marilyn Devine was trying to get money to help a son with financial problems. Geary says Devine will testify. He says the case is going to trial because the defense rejected the prosecution's offer of five
to ten years in prison. Police say Devine, who lives in Baldwin, wore a scarf around her face and brandished an unloaded pistol when she demanded money from a National City Bank branch last month. Devine is facing armed robbery and other charges.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A Pittsburgh woman who served on a federal grand jury has told a judge she broke the law by lying to her employer about when the jury met. Twenty-five-year-old Chimere Carter altered federal juror attendance forms to tell her employer she was off serving grand jury duty when she actually was taking days off from her job as a nurse's aide at Covenant at South Hills. Carter has pleaded guilty to a count of misuse of names, words,
emblems or insignia for telling Covenant she was serving on the jury for seven dates in October.
Prosecutors say Carter also acknowledges responsibility for three other counts which accuse her of falsifying service on a grand jury in August and September to take eleven days off work.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The April Fool's issue of the student newspaper at a Roman Catholic university in Philadelphia has gotten plenty of people angry. Student journalists at Saint Joseph's University apologized Wednesday for the material. The issue had a satirical article in which the archbishop of Philadelphia purportedly announced that he was gay. It also
featured phony ad in which the university's president, who's a priest, was shown endorsing a brand of condom. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't sanction homosexuality or birth control.
Four students wrote a letter to the paper calling the satire "a disgrace." But not everyone agrees. English professor Tom Brennan, who's a priest, says he laughed his head off.

UNDATED (AP) - Ratings in Men's Health Magazine say the safest drivers in the U-S are in Des Moines, Iowa, and the worst are in Columbia, South Carolina. The rankings take into consideration fatal accident rates, deaths caused by speeding, and seat belt use.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - Arnold Palmer hits the opening tee shot this morning as the honorary starter at the Masters golf tournament. Defending champ Phil Mickelson tees off just before eleven a-m Eastern. And for the first time, international players will outnumber Americans at the Masters.