National and State News-Friday, June 8th

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (AP) - President Bush will resume his normal schedule at the G-Eight summit in Germany after a queasy stomach caused him to miss a morning session. Bush did meet privately with the new French president and invited him to the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says President Bush is "disappointed" by a setback to the compromise immigration bill. Senate Democrats have set aside the measure for now after failing to cut off debate. A senior White House official thinks there's still "a good chance" the bill could advance.

BAGHDAD (AP) - Violence has torn apart the family of the police chief of Baqouba, Iraq. Police say gunmen killed his wife, two of his brothers and eleven guards, and abducted several of his
children. Violence also has touched southern Iraq. An explosion at a bus terminal killed at least 16 people in a town 225 miles south of Baghdad.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - One Vitamin D researcher calls a new study "a breakthrough of great medical and public health importance." Vitamin D cut the risk of several types of cancer by 60 percent overall for older women. Calcium helps, too.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - If you want the best beach vacation, head to North Carolina's Ocracoke Island. It's tops on this year's list of best beaches compiled by a Florida International University
professor. At the southern end of the Outer Banks, Ocracoke features 14 miles of unspoiled, undisturbed barrier beach.

ERIE, Pa. (AP) - An Erie woman is to be sentenced this afternoon for swinging her four-week-old son like a bat to hit her boyfriend, fracturing the infant's skull. In March, 27-year-old Chytoria Graham pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child in a plea agreement with prosecutors. Charges of reckless endangerment and simple assault were dropped under the agreement. Graham faces a mandatory minimum sentence of at least five years in prison. The baby made a full recovery. He and Graham's four other children are in the custody of her parents.

HOUSTON, Pa. (AP) - Washington County's new slots parlor is to run for six hours tonight (Friday) to benefit charity. Only specially invited guests will be allowed to play the slots
at the test run to allow regulators to make sure Meadows Racetrack and Casino is operating properly. Proceeds go to the Greater Washington County Food Bank. A second test, for eight hours on Sunday, will benefit The Washington Hospital. The slots parlor opens to the public on Monday.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Las Vegas-based Shuffle Master says it is leasing 26 of its electronic table games to Pennsylvania slots parlors. The machines feature a variety of video dealers and allow five players to play at the same time. For now, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has approved just the blackjack program. All four of Pennsylvania's operating slots parlors have either installed the games or said they intend to install them. Pennsylvania bans traditional table games like poker and blackjack that are run by a human dealer. But a machine that offers
card games can be legal if the odds are random and one player's decisions do not affect another player's odds.

EBENSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Unionized employees at two Gamesa plants in Pennsylvania say they have signed their first contract with the wind turbine manufacturer. The agreement is Spain-based Gamesa's first union contract in the United States. The three-year deal covers employees at plants near Ebensburg and in the Philadelphia suburb of Fairless Hills. Specifics of the contract were not announced. The employees joined the United Steelworkers Union in November.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - An Indiana University of Pennsylvania student is accusing a professor of sabotaging his dissertation after spurning her alleged sexual advances. Thirty-four-year-old Shane Sandridge filed a federal lawsuit this week in Pittsburgh. Sandridge claims criminology professor Jennifer Gossett began making romantic advances shortly after he started the doctoral program in 2001. Gossett heads Sandridge's dissertation committee. And she has
written several articles about consensual relationships between faculty and students.
Sandridge claims after he told Gossett he was not interested in a romantic relationship, she began derailing his progress on his dissertation. Gossett's office answering machine has been turned off.

DETROIT (AP) - Former U-S Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham says he's bought part of the company that owns two Pittsburgh Pirates farm teams. Abraham says he is the new part owner of the double-A Altoona Curve and the Single-A State College Spikes. The former Michigan Republican Party chairman spent a single term in the U-S Senate, from 1995 to 2001.
Abraham was Energy Secretary during President Bush's first term.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A former Mellon Bank supervisor has admitted her role in destroying thousands of federal tax returns, pleading guilty to one count of theft of government property.
Fifty-two-year-old Denise Philpott of Shaler Township is scheduled for sentencing October fifth following yesterday's plea. Philpott worked for Mellon in April 2001 when it had a contract
with the Internal Revenue Service to process income tax returns and tax-payment checks.
Federal prosecutors say Mellon employees, unable to meet contract-imposed deadlines, destroyed 77-thousand returns and checks totaling one-point-three (B) billion dollars at a company service center in Pittsburgh. Prosecutors say Philpott conveyed the directive to destroy the documents. A total of eight bank employees were indicted - all later fired.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal appeals court in Philadelphia says a man who used to download child porn can't be banned from using computers for life. The court calls that the equivalent of banning someone who bought child-porn magazines from ever possessing any books or magazines. A judge in Pittsburgh gave the man lifetime probation as part of
his sentence, including a total ban on computer use. The defendant was a respritory therapist who argued that computers are essential to maintain patient records and perform other job tasks. Prosecutors argued that the probation office lacks sufficient funding to monitor how someone is using a computer. The appeals panel ruled that other judges have crafted less costly
alternatives, such as periodic inspections of hard drives.