National and State News-Wednesday, May 2nd

WASHINGTON (AP) - It's back to the drawing board for an Iraq war spending bill, after President Bush vetoed the one Congress sent up to him. Bush said he could not agree to a requirement that U-S troops begin leaving in October. Democrats are now eyeing benchmarks for progress.

SHANNON, Ireland (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Iraq's neighbors have "everything at stake " if Iraq fails. She spoke en route to Egypt for two days of international meetings on Iraq. The conference is aimed at increasing economic and diplomatic support for the young democracy.

CHICAGO (AP) - They weren't as big as last year, but immigrants turned out nationwide for a day of protests yesterday. One woman in Chicago tried to make a point about stepped up raids on illegal immigrants. A sign on a stroller she was pushing read, "Bush, think about the moms. Stop the raids."

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A couple of fans said she lip synched, but it was Britney Spears on stage last night at the House of Blues in San Diego. It's believed to be Spears' first concert appearance since 2004. A brunette wig covered her bald head, and a spangly pink bra top and short white skirt covered her body.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - An Australian lawmaker has apologized for saying that women shouldn't be political leaders if they don't have children. Bill Heffernan had said they need to understand the community, and that means understanding how families work. The deputy leader of the opposition party, to whom he was referring, said he's "stuck in the past."

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Campus security at Pennsylvania's colleges and universities is the focus of a Senate Education Committee hearing today in Harrisburg. Committee chairman James Rhoades says he wants to allow school officials to testify about their campus security systems and listent to any suggestions they have for improvements. The hearing comes more than two weeks after a gunman killed 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty, then turned the gun on himself. Representatives of community colleges and public and private colleges and universities are scheduled to testify.

MEDIA, Pa. (AP) - All five campuses of Delaware County Community College are to reopen today under heavy security. It's still unknown who sent the e-mail message last week
threatening to "kill everyone" at the school. The text of the message was released yesterday. It had said the attack would be Monday or yesterday on the Exton and Downingtown campuses.
Thursday and Friday of this week had been set aside as study days for students before next week's final exams. Those days will be used for makeup classes and finals will be next week as
scheduled.

READING, Pa. (AP) - Students at Reading High School should be wearing identification badges today. Officially, the badges were already required. But high school senior Matthew Hayes says the rule hadn't been enforced for three years. The purpose of the badges is to let school officials know that the teenagers on the school grounds really are students at Reading High.

YORK, Pa. (AP) - Police and bomb-sniffing dogs searched Central York Middle School following a bomb threat yesterday. Students and faculty members had to wait it out in the Central York High School gymnasium. The students -- about 900 seventh and eighth-graders -- were
bused to the high school gym about 9 a-m Tuesday when administrators received threats of a bomb inside the school. Springettsbury Township Police requested help in the search from
four bomb-detection dogs from Newberry Township, plus officers from the state police, State Capitol Police and Conrail. District spokeswoman Julie Randall Romig says the faculty and
students returned to the school about 10:30 a-m.

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, Pa. (AP) - A Crawford County school was evacuated yesterday after authorities say a parent brought a suspected pipe bomb to school to report its discovery.
Police say the school did the right thing in alerting them and cautioned anyone who finds a suspected device to leave it alone and call authorities. Police say a Cambridge Springs Elementary student found the device near his home. The student's father then drove to the
elementary school by himself with the device in his truck. The device was not taken into the school. School officials called authorities and then moved more than one-thousand students to a gymnasium before sending them home early while authorities searched buildings. Authorities blew up the device and say it will be tested to determine if it contained explosives.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Chatham College is now Chatham University. The school says the Pennsylvania Department of Education approved its request to operate and rename the Pittsburgh school as Chatham University. S. Murray Rust the Third, the chairman of the university's board of trustee, says its been like a university for a long time. Chatham has about 17-hundred students and offers 41 bachelor's degrees, 23 master's degrees and four doctoral degrees. Though founded as a women's college in 1869, Chatham began offering graduate degrees to men in 1994. Chatham now comprises Chatham College for Women, the College for
Graduate Studies, and the College for Continuing and Professional Studies.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Governor Ed Rendell might appeal an Ethics Commission ruling on some of his administration's grants. The ruling involves restrictions on Cabinet members' approving grants to groups to which they have family ties. The Ethics Commission says two of Rendell's cabinet members will violate ethics laws if they continue to approve grants from their
agencies to groups that employ their spouses. Administration officials wouldn't say last evening whether they will appeal the ruling. They said they were still reading through the Ethics Commission's written opinion, which came out yesterday.

SUNBURY, Pa. (AP) - A 27-year-old Northumberland County man is heading to a cell on death row. Brentt Sherwood was convicted of first-degree murder on Monday in the beating death of his four-year-old stepdaughter, Marlee Reed, in December 2004. During his seven-day trial, Sherwood admitted kicking and hitting the child but said he was high on drugs and didn't know
what he was doing. He showed no emotion as a jury announced its decision last night
to sentence him to death. Sherwood's former wife, Heather Goodeliunas, and the girl's
mother, is free on 100-thousand dollars bail on charges of endangering the welfare of a child. She allegedly failed to take steps to protect her daughter. She testified against Sherwood.
Under Pennsylvania law, Sherwood's sentence will automatically be reviewed by the State Supreme Court. Marlee Reed would have celebrated her seventh birthday on Friday.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Strong storms carrying rain, wind and hail rolled through western Pennsylvania last night, downing trees and cutting power. Golfball-sized hail was reported near Franklin and New Wilmington. The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for
Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Crawford and Venango counties and severe weather advisories, watches or warnings for much of western Pennsylvania. All warnings are now lifted.
While the Weather Service received some reports of funnel clouds, none are believed to have touched down. Crews plan to check today, though, to confirm that. The Weather Service also had reports of downed trees across the region and damage to mobile homes in Mercer County, but there were no reports of injuries.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Scientists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh want to know what's under the wrappings of a child mummy that has been displayed there for 17 years. They plan a C-T scan today at -- where else? -- Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with experts at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The examination will not be open to the public. Museum officials say the child lived sometime between 380 B-C
and 250 B-C. Previous X-rays have showed the child had an unusually large head.
Researchers hope the scan will reveal the cause of the problem, as well as the child's sex.