National and State News-Tuesday, April 10th

NEW YORK (AP) - The Rutgers female basketball players will react for the first time today to being called "nappy-headed hos" by radio's Don Imus. Imus has been taken off the air for two weeks because of his remarks. He has apologized but several black leaders have called for his firing.

BAGHDAD (AP) - More death and despair today in Iraq. A woman blew herself up in a crowd of police recruits northeast of Baghdad. Authorities say at least 14 people were killed. And the U-S
military has announced the deaths of four more U-S troops.

PENTAGON (AP) - As many as 15-thousand troops in Iraq could see their tours extended. A Pentagon official says General David Petraeus believes the recent troop buildup is having a positive effect and he wants to maintain higher troop levels into the fall.

WHITE HOUSE (AP) - With the Senate back in session today, President Bush will be turning up the heat on his demand for an Iraq War funding bill he can sign. The president will use a speech
to an American Legion post in Virginia to renew his vow to veto any funding bill that includes a timetable for withdrawing U-S troops from Iraq.

ASHBURN, Ga. (AP) - After decades of segregated proms, a Georgia high school is going to hold just one dance this year. Black and white, every junior and senior at Turner County High School in Ashburn is invited to the April 21st prom. The school already paved the way by electing just one homecoming queen for the first time.

WASHINGTON (AP) - In what could be a step toward national educational standards, nine states are cooperating in a first-time effort to develop a common high school math test.
State standards, and tests based on them, vary wildly for subjects as basic as math, English and science. Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island have decided to share a test and standards for Algebra Two. They say a subject like that shouldn't vary across state lines. Students typically take Algebra Two in high school after taking a basic algebra course and geometry. Research has shown that
students who complete Algebra Two are much more likely to go on to earn a college degree.
That has prompted more and more states to require the course for graduation.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senator Bob Casey says he will oppose a bill that would clear the way for government financing of new embryonic stem cell research. Legislation coming up for debate in the Senate today would lift President Bush's 2001 ban on taxpayer-funded research of embryonic stem cells developed after that time. A similar bill passed Congress last year, but Bush vetoed it. Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has been lobbied by those trying to get the two-thirds Senate support needed to override a presidential veto. A spokesman says Casey backs an alternative bill coming up this week. It would call for guidelines for stem cell research on embryos that have naturally lost the ability to develop into humans.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will move its headquarters from the city's Oakland section to downtown. The health care organization will consolidate its corporate and administrative duties in the U-S Steel Tower. A formal announcement is expected this morning. U-P-M-C employs more than 40-thousand people in southwestern
Pennsylvania and has continued to grow. A pending merger with Pittsburgh Mercy Health System would give it access to more than half the hospital market in Allegheny County.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh police detectives are headed to Cleveland. They want to interview a man suspected of abducted a woman from the parking lot of a shopping mall over the weekend. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard says police have a warrant to arrest 30-year-old Jimmy Lee Tayse of Johnstown. He's accused of forcing the woman to drive to an Ohio motel and raping her there. Richard says she can't specify what charges police have filed at this point. The woman says Tayse got in the back seat of her car with a knife and forced her to drive to Akron, Ohio, with her toddler also in the vehicle. The 30-year-old man is jailed on several traffic violations. Richard says Tayse will likely face an extradition hearing on
Wednesday.

NEWTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A school district in Bucks County that had three students die in less than three weeks is planning forum for parents tonight. Two teenage boys from the Council Rock School District died from suicide and an 18-year-old man died in a car crash. The public forum on grief and bereavement begins at 7 p-m at Council Rock High School-South.

GROTON, Conn. (AP)- A Pennsylvania congressman who has some say in military spending says more should be spent on building submarines in southeastern Connecticut. Congressman John Murtha made his comments after a visit to the Electric Boat shipyard yesterday. Murtha is chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He says the spending bill coming out of his committee will include a doubling of the production rate to two Virginia-class submarines a year. Murtha says Navy budgets have been losing out because of the expense of Iraq war. The Navy's shipbuilding plan calls for building one fast-attack submarine per year, split between Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Newport News in Virginia. The plan now is to increase to two a year in 2012.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A proposed merger of Pennsylvania's two largest health insurers faces regulatory hurdles at both the state and federal levels. Philadelphia-based Independence Blue Cross and Pittsburgh-based Highmark announced plans to merge last week. Right after that, the state Senate unanimously passed a bill giving the state Department of Insurance authority over this sort of merger. Governor Ed Rendell said at a hearing yesterday that he will sign that
bill. Lawmakers, hospitals, doctors and consumer advocates voiced concerns at the hearing that the merger would reduce competition. They fear that would lead to higher premiums and lower
reimbursement rates to providers. Executives of the two nonprofit insurers say they'd be able to be more efficient through merged operations.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A state judge has turned down a challenge to the Supreme Court candidacy of Republican Mike Krancer. The Commonwealth Court judge concluded that Krancer followed the law in disclosing his financial interests. A retired Philadelphia Family Court employee had sought to have Krancer thrown off the May 15th primary ballot on the grounds that he had failed to report all his sources of income. The employee contended Krancer's family couldn't afford to live in the upscale Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr solely on his state
income of 127-thousand dollars a year. Property taxes on his home exceed 42-thouand dollars.
The judge says the state Ethics Act doesn't require reporting "every aspect of a candidate's financial affairs."

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - State gambling regulators say they will open a new application period for two licenses that will allow 500 slot machines at each of two resorts. The licenses went unawarded last year after the only two applicants both dropped out for different reasons.
The new application period will run April 20th to June 20th. The Pennsyvlania Gaming Control Board is authorized by the 2004 law that legalized slot machines to award 14 licenses to operate
slots parlors. Twelve of the licenses cost 50 (M) million dollars and allow up to five-thousand slot machines. The two other licenses cost five (m) million dollars each. They are limited to resorts with at least 275 guest rooms.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Investigators say a student loan company paid consulting fees to financial aid officials at two colleges, including Widener University in Chester (Pennsylvania). Walter Cathie is the dean of financial aid at Widener. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office says a consulting company run by Cathie was paid 80-thousand dollars by Student Loan Xpress since 2005. A spokesman for Widener says the university had received a letter from Cuomo's office and it looking into it. Cuomo is investigating allegations of possible kickbacks to
school officials for steering students to certain lenders. His investigators say they have found numerous arrangements that benefited schools and lenders at the expense of students.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Arrest warrants have been issued for 14 Philadelphians accused of illegally buying guns for felons. Prosecutors say the warrants for "straw purchases" were issued
through the efforts of a gun violence task force formed in December. The warrants are part of an effort to round up those buying guns for felons, who are prohibited from owning firearms. Typically, felons hire the straw purchasers, who then report the guns as stolen in an attempt to avoid liability if the weapons are used in a crime. The accused gun buyers face felony charges including making false statements in connection with a firearm, transfer of a firearm to an ineligible person, and other counts.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - A Washington County (Pennsylvania) man has been sentenced to ten years in federal prison for molesting a 14-year-old Connecticut girl. Forty-one-year-old Stephen Letavec of Elrama must serve ten years of supervised release once he's freed from prison. Letavec met the girl through the social networking Web site MySpace. The F-B-I says the girl signed onto MySpace as an 18-year-old, but told Letavec she was 14 before he visited her. MySpace has tighter controls on younger users but relies on users to specify their age.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Police say a suburban Pittsburgh man intentionally set fire to his unit of an assisted living high rise apartment. Nearly 100 residents at General Braddock Towers had to be evacuated Monday and eight people were treated for smoke inhalation. Charles McNeil, who is from North Braddock, is charged with arson and related charges. Police say he set fire to a mattress at the apartment building run by the Allegheny County Housing Authority. Mike Vogel, the housing authority's police chief, says McNeil is also being investigated for a fire on Saturday. McNeil is being held in the Allegheny County Jail. It's not known if he has an
attorney.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Federal agents have arrested 61 illegal aliens as part of a four-day sting conducted across Pennsylvania. U-S Immigration and Customs Enforcement says its teams began the operation April Second and made arrests in the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Reading areas. Eleven of those arrested have criminal records, and agents found drugs and weapons at one location. The arrests were the latest under a Department of Homeland Security effort aimed at identifying and removing illegal aliens from the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The remains of ten U-S airmen from World War Two have been identified. The men -- three of them from Pennsylvania -- had been missing in action since a mission over New Guinea. The Pentagon says the remains will be returned to their families for burial. The Pennsylvania servicmen are Second Lieutenant Donald Grady of Harrisburg, Technical Sergeant Richard Sargent of North Girard and Staff Sergeant Blair Smith of Nu Mine .
Wreckage of their plane was found in 2001.

WILLIAMSPORT(AP) - A professor from Illinois Wesleyan University has been named provost and dean of Lycoming College. Thomas Griffiths begins his new job at the college in Williamsport on July First. Griffiths taught natural science at Illinois Wesleyan since 1998. He succeeds John Piper Junior, who is retiring after 38 years as a history professor and 15 years as dean.