National and State News-Thursday, June 7th

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) - A Kansas man is to be charged this morning in the abduction and death of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith, who disappeared from a department store parking lot four days ago. Prosecutors plan to charge Edwin Hall with charges of premeditated
first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping.

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (AP)- President Bush says he hopes to ease Russia's fears about a proposed U-S missile defense system in Europe. He says Russia's President Putin has nothing "to be hyperventilating about." The leaders meet today as the G-Eight summit gets under way in Germany.

BAGHDAD (AP) - At least six Iraqi police officers are dead after suicide bombers targeted police positions in northern and western Iraq. Eight others are wounded. The blasts came within an hour of each other.

CHICAGO (AP) - The National Safety Council reports an upturn in the rate of accidental deaths in the U-S. The group says rises in accidental drug overdoses and falls among elderly people are
contributing to the increase.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Bob Barker says he's going to travel, exercise and work with his animal charity now that he has officially retired as host of "The Price Is Right." The 83-year-old T-V icon taped his last show yesterday in Los Angeles.

WHITE HAVEN, Pa. (AP) - A Girl Scout camp in Luzerne County is banning tent camping for the next two weekends. Campers will be limited to lodges because a bear tried to pull a Girl Scout out of her tent last weekend at Camp Mosey Wood. Eleven-year-old Celeste Tietz of Franklin Township, New Jersey, says she managed to grab a tent pole. That allowed her to slide out of her sleeping bag as the bear was tugging at it early Sunday morning. She and the other girls in the tent began screaming for help. Adults loaded the girls, about 15 of them, into a van and took them to the camp's mess hall. The chief executive of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania says for the next two weekends, everybody will sleep in cabins and
there won't be any outdoor cooking.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The company that owns The Philadelphia Inquirer is interested in joining in a bid to buy Dow Jones and Company - publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
The Inquirer reports today that Philadelphia Media Holdings, which also owns the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly-dot-com, would participate with other investors in making such a bid.
That's according to Philadelphia Media Holdings Chief Executive Officer Brian Tierney. The Wall Street Journal reported Tierney's interest yesterday. Dow Jones is already the object of a five (B) billion dollar takeover bid by News Corporation owner Rupert Murdoch, an offer
Tierney says he doesn't consider excessive. Others reported to be interested include billionaire investor Ron Burkle, who is working with a union representing workers at Dow Jones to exploring alternatives to the Murdoch bid.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Wyomissing-based Penn National Gaming says shareholders have defeated two proposals designed to give stock options to employees and directors. The idea was to make the options long-term incentives for better performance at the racetrack and casino company. Shareholders' success in blocking proposals is relatively rare. Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory firm, says 16 stock plan proposals failed to pass among the companies making up the Russell 3000 Index last year. I-S-S had recommended voting against Penn National's employee stock plan because the program didn't disclose performance goals. It also didn't like the director stock plan because it didn't disclose whether there were any holding period guidelines.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - U-S Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan's meeting in Washington, D-C with House Judiciary Committee investigators looking into the firings of some of her colleagues has been postponed. Buchanan's attorney, Roscoe C. Howard Junior -- himself a former U-S Attorney, says Buchanan will now meet with investigators on June 15th. She was to meet privately with them tomorrow. Howard says the postponement likely was due to a scheduling
conflict. Howard says it would be premature to speculate about what investigators might ask Buchanan. In addition to her duties in Pittsburgh, Buchanan directed the Justice Department's Executive Office for United States Attorneys from June 2004 through June 2005. That office is believed to have played a role in the firings, which some allege were done for political reasons.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Widener University says its official in charge of financial aid has retired.
Walter Cathie has been on leave ever since New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo accused him of taking kickbacks from a lender to direct business there. Cuomo's office said Cathie was paid 80-thousand dollars by Student Loan Xpress since 2005. Investigators said they believed Cathie had an agreement with the company to market its services to
graduate schools, receiving fees based on loan volume. Cuomo spoke to Congress today, saying rampant abuses by lenders have followed a boom in higher-priced college loans not guaranteed
by the government. And he says lax federal oversight has made the situation worse.

EVERETT, Pa. (AP) - A former Bedford County public defender accused of sexually molesting a girl says prosecutors have the wrong man. A bail hearing is scheduled today for 31-year-old
Bradley Bingaman of Salfordville, but Bingaman says it's a case of mistaken identity.
Prosecutors accuse Bingaman of sexually molesting the victim, from the time she was seven until she was eleven. She is now 13. Bingaman served as his own attorney at a preliminary hearing yesterday. He suggests someone else might have molested the girl. The girl's mother testified that Bingaman confirmed in April what her daughter told her in March about being abused. Bingaman has been ordered to stand trial on more than 300 charges, including rape, statutory sexual assault and other charges.

ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Police in Florida have a suspect in the hit-and-run death of a blind Philadelphia athlete. Twenty-six-year-old Semaj Massey of Jacksonville, Florida, is
being held on 200-thousand dollars bail. Police say Massey's sport utility vehicle was found in a motel parking lot near the location where 24-year-old Darryl Green of Philadelphia was struck about 1:20 a-m Sunday. That was shortly after Green's team lost the championship game in a national "goalball" tournament. Goalball is a game for the blind in which a three-member team
tries to roll a ball filled with bells into a 30-foot goal.

MERCER, Pa. (AP) - A Slippery Rock man has admitted to beating his wife to death with a hammer at her parents' home in Grove City and then setting fire to the building to cover up the crime. Twenty-eight-year-old Scott Dunn pleaded guilty today to voluntary manslaughter, arson and abuse of a corpse in the January 14th, 2006, death of his 22-year-old wife Brandi.
Scott Dunn had been charged with first- and third-degree murder. He initially told investigators an intruder killed his wife and set fire to the home. Defense attorney Stephen Misko says his client hit Brandi Dunn with a hammer, then poured gasoline in the house and on her body and started the fire. The Dunns were house-sitting for Brandi Dunn's parents.
Dunn is scheduled to be sentenced in August.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A man who punched the bride's uncle at a wedding reception, leading to his death two days later, is facing 20 to 60 months in state prison. He is Mark Wells, who was 26 at the time of last year's brawl at a Fogelsville hotel bar. Wells pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in April. His punch killed 49-year-old James Schickling, a Philadelphia postal worker who had been standing nearby when a fight broke out. Wells acknowledged that Schickling did nothing to provoke the attack. Defense lawyer John Waldron says the judge took his client's history into account when sentencing him today, concluding that
Wells had a problem with drinking and violence. Although Wells had no prior convictions, he had been arrested on an aggravated assault charge before.