National and State News-Wednesday, May 9th

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Vice President Cheney says there's a lot going on and a lot to discuss in Iraq. He made an unannounced stop there today, at the start of a Middle East trip. He's to meet with government leaders and heads of various Iraqi factions.

BAGHDAD (AP) - At least 19 people are dead, some 80 hurt, after a suicide truck bomb destroyed Iraq's Interior Ministry building in the Kurdish city of Irbil. Local officials blame al-Qaida-linked insurgents. The attack came just as Vice President Cheney arrived in the capital.

FORT DIX, N.J. (AP) - The F-B-I calls a New Jersey store clerk an "unsung hero" for reporting that customers asked him to copy a video to D-V-D. It showed them firing weapons and calling for jihad. As a result, six foreign-born Muslims are under arrest for allegedly planning to assault Fort Dix and kill scores of American soldiers.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Intense work by firefighting crews has officials hoping they can control a wildfire in the hills above Hollywood today. It roared through a park yesterday, prompting
hundreds of evacuations.

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict is on his way to Brazil to open a once-in-a-decade meeting of Latin American bishops. The Vatican says, among other things, the pontiff will issue a strong message on poverty, drug trafficking and violence.

FORT DIX, N.J. (AP) - Six men from Philadelphia and its suburbs accused of plotting an attack on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey are being held without bail for a hearing Friday.
Authorities say a tip led to the arrest yesterday of six foreign-born Muslims on charges of plotting an armed attack on Fort Dix with the objective of killing "as many American soldiers as
possible." Federal investigators say the six men, four of them ethnic Albanians born in the former Yugoslavia, planned a mass killing at the base. Ironically, Fort Dix housed more than 4,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo in 1999. The FBI says the plot was foiled when the accused took a video of themselves firing assault weapons in the Poconos, brought it to
a video store to have it transferred to a D-V-D, and a clerk tipped off police. The plot was foiled after the men asked a store clerk to copy a video of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad. Five are charged with conspiracy to kill U-S military personnel. The other is charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigrants in obtaining weapons.

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (AP) - A spokesman for Seven-Eleven says the Philadelphia man accused of being part of a plot to massacre soldiers at Fort Dix seemed normal to co-workers.
Spokesman Jim Dale says employees of the store on the Temple University campus describe 23-year-old Serdar Tatar as a friendly person. Dale says he doesn't know how long Tatar worked there. Tatar had previously delievered pizzas for a restaruant near Fort Dix. He had regularly gone onto the base and prosecutors say he planned to use his knowledge of the base to make the attack more effective.

GOULDSBORO, Pa. (AP) - The owner of a house in the Poconos where suspects in the Fort Dix plot stayed says they damaged the house with paintball pellets. Cassy Herman says suspect Eljvir Duka paid cash to rent her four-bedroom house in the Big Bass Lake development in February. She says he was very polite. But before the weekend was over, the community association's security department had called her to complain. She says she was later fined by the homeowners' association for the paintball shooting.

NEW YORK (AP) - Support appears to be growing for a coalition that aims to push affordable, quality health care as a top priority for politicians. The coalition called Better Health Care Together has gotten approval from Governors Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Arnold
Schwarzenegger of California. They spoke of their own plans to bring about universal health care coverage in their states. Rendell hopes to get a health care plan passed ensuring access to quality health care to Pennsylvania's 900-thousand uninsured citizens while containing costs.
The coalition was started by an unlikely pair -- Wal-Mart Stores and the Service Employees International Union. Some of Wal-Mart's detractors protested outside the New York hotel were the coalition held a forum yesterday.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Four bills that each propose a constitutional amendment are headed to the full Senate. They each received approval Tuesday from the Senate's State Government
Committee. The first bill would reduce the size of the Legislature from 253 to 201. A similar Senate bill died in the legislative session that ended last year. Another bill would prohibit legislative votes in the so-called "lame-duck" period after the November general election in
even-numbered years. Another would change the process of succession in the lieutenant
governor's office, allowing the governor to appoint someone to the post if it becomes vacant.
The last bill would give a five-member commission, and not the state Legislature, the power to draw new boundaries every ten years for congressional districts.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Starting today, 30 Pittsburgh police officers will be assigned to contact business owners, document activities and conduct regular follow-ups. It's part of a plan to try to curb rising violence. The city also plans to install surveillance cameras in high-crime areas and use an anonymous tip line. In addition, the city will promote its "Citizen Observer" Web-based alert system. That allows police to quickly enter information about crimes or
incidents and send it to the community. Another initiative is a plan to have church communities adopt and patrol areas around their places of worship.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two retired Army major generals with experience in Iraq will appear in television commercials critical of President Bush's handling of the war. The spots are targeted at
Congressman Phil English of Pennsylvania and other key Republican lawmakers. The ads will feature retired Major General John Batiste and Paul Eaton. Both of them have publicly criticized the Pentagon's civilian leadership in the past. The commercials are beginning today. They're timed to coincide with congressional debate over the withdrawal of U-S troops from Iraq.
The ads represent the first time former military commanders in Iraq have appeared in commercials to criticize the conduct of the war.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Federal investigators issue their report today on the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia that killed 12 coal miners. People familiar with the report have told The Associated Press that the Mine Safety and Health Administration will say lightning ignited a pocket of methane gas. Several previous reports also have identified lightning as the cause although the United Mine Workers union disagrees. The brother of one of the miners who died says he thinks the report will fail to explain the path the electricity followed
underground. He doesn't think there's any evidence inside the mine to prove that theory.
Federal officials will give an advance briefing to the victims' families and the only miner to survive the explosion. Randal McCloy Junior was rescued after being trapped underground for more than 40 hours. A spokeswoman says his family is hoping for answers.

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Comcast is dazzling a cable industry group in Las Vegas with new technology that will offer a super-fast Internet connection. Philadelphia-based Comcast calls it "channel bonding." The company says it has a download speed of 150 megabits per second,
which is about 25 times faster than current cable modems. And Comcast C-E-O Brian Roberts says the cost of the new modems for it won't be much different from modems now in use.
The cable giant hopes to have it available within a couple of years. And it will compete with a service Verizon is selling over a new fiber-optic network. As part of Comcast's demonstration, it downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary in under four minutes. A standard modem would take more than three hours.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The S-S United States may be reborn. The head of the cruise line that owns the ship says the once-grand ocean liner will be refurbished and carry passengers again -- and at top fares. Right now, the ship sits at a pier on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, its paint flaking and its engines silent since 1969. But Colin Veitch, the chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Lines, says he is not giving up on the 55-year-old vessel. He says he has drafts of plans to add one or two decks and other amenities, and he thinks renovating the United States would be "a fantastic project." Rebuilding the gutted ship would cost about 500 (m) million dollars -- more than the cost of new ship. But the nearly 41 mile per hour average speed the ship posted on its maiden voyage in 1952 still stands as the trans-Atlantic speed record. Veitch says the ship would sail worldwide and command premium fares because of its history.