Today's News-Thursday, July 19th

The County Commissioners were asked during their workshop meeting Wednesday to approve a contract for professional services to assist in a County Planning and Zoning Office project. Urban Resource and Development Corporation, Bethlehem would be paid $97-thousand-600 dollars to provide assistance for the preparation of a comprehensive revision to the County Zoning Ordinance and maps. The County has received a state grant which provides for 50% of the total project costs. In other business, the Commissioners were asked to approve a fee for service and program funded contract with Schuylkill Community Action of Pottsville, for Bridge Housing, Emergency Shelter, Outreach Case Management and Project Care Services at a cost of more than $292-thousand-dollars. Pottsville's Goodwill Fire Company #4 will be honored at next weeks board meeting with a proclamation recognizing the Company on it 125th anniversary.

The County Commissioners have been asked to approve adding just over 176 acres of farmland to the county's land preservation program. County Conservation District Director Craig Morgan attended Wednesday's Commissioners work session to ask for approval to purchase agricultural easements for three properties, two in Wayne Township and one in Eldred Township for just over $176-thousand-dollars. The program is designed to preserve the most productive farmland by purchasing perpetual agricultural conservation easements. The easements prevent future development on the land. The County pays farmland owners $1,000 per acre for the easements but Morgan said consideration should to given to increase that amount. Commissioner Chairman Frank Staudenmeier said the county provides a 50-50 match for funds from the State's Growing Greener Program and has between $250 to $300-thousand-dollars left in county funds for the program. He said the county will be applying for more Growing Greener funds to continue purchasing easements. Morgan said almost 8-thousand-acres of land is now under the county program.

Two Schuylkill Haven residents had their bank account defrauded by a Hamburg teenager.
Carl Boger and Michelle Melcher contacted state police about unauthorized withdrawals from their checking account for just about $45 dollars. Further investigation determined that the teen recently bought a car from the victims. There was information inside of the car about their bank account, and the teen used that information to make purchases on the internet, at his home in Upper Bern Township. The teen will be charged with various fraud and identity theft charges. They will be processed through the Berks County Juvenile Justice System.

With the 2007-2008 school year drawing nearer, the Pottsville Area School District continues to make preparations for the start of school. At Wednesday night's board meeting, members presented topics such as newly hired positions, salaries and facility requests. Positions for professional positions such as nurses, psychologists and therapists were filled. The board approved bids for fall sports equipment and supplies. The board also discussed that various opportunities that kids have during the summer, including splash parties and hoopfests at the JFK complex. The Majestic Theatre also opened their doors to children with kids movie nights.
The Pottsville School Board acknowledged the 5 percent increase in basic subsidy funding from the state under the new budget signed earlier this week by Governor Ed Rendell. The funding amounts to just over $11-point-1 million dollars.

Five people had minor injuries in a crash yesterday afternoon in Mahanoy Township. Frackville state police report that William Alonis of Frackville was driving on the Frackville-Morea Road when he traveled into the intersection of Route 54 and into the path of a car driven by Andrew Leibenguth of Tamaqua. Alonis was taken to the hospital for treatment. Leibenguth and his three passengers all chose to seek medical attention on their own.

The County Prison Board Wednesday approved the hiring of three new correctional officers to replace three who are retiring. The three new officers are Timothy Doyle and Michael Galavage of Pottsville and Robert Selgrade of Shenandoah. The three retiring officers are Merle Wertman, William Laudeman and Howard Pollman. Prison Warden Eugene Berdanier said the three new Officers will begin their duties after the normal hiring process is completed.

A Pottsville man is charged with trespass following several instances of sneaking into a city home to find shelter. Pottsville police say that 18-year-old Kevin Smith had reportedly entered the home of Deborah Mullins on Hornung Street several times to find shelter. He was warned that if he was found there again, he would be arrested. Smith is charged with a felony and misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass. He was taken to Schuylkill County Prison, being unable to post the $15-thousand-dollars, percentage bail.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of Congress have one private meeting and one public one today on Iraq. They're getting a classified briefing from a top commander and the U-S ambassador. Ambassador Ryan Crocker also gives a progress report to a Senate committee.
He's expected to urge senators to give the troop surge more time.

BAGHDAD (AP) - Two American soldiers in Iraq have been accused of murder. They're charged in the death an Iraqi last month in Kirkuk. A lieutenant colonel has been relieved of his command in connection with the investigation.

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (AP) - There's a report in Japan today that regulators have discovered another radioactive leak at a nuclear power plant damaged in this week's earthquake. Inspectors say the leak was a small one and poses no hazard to the public.

NEW YORK (AP) - Some people who heard the steam pipe explosion in midtown Manhattan during the evening rush hour say they were sure it was a terror attack. But New York's mayor says it was a failure of the city's infrastructure. Streets near the site remain closed but some subway lines are running again.

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland (AP) - It's cold and raining in Carnoustie (kar-NOO'-stee), Scotland, where Tiger Woods has teed off in search of a British Open three-peat. K.J. Choi, who's won twice on the P-G-A tour this year, birdied four of the first six holes to take an early lead.

READING, Pa. (AP) - A woman shot while working at a McDonald's drive-through in Reading has died. Forty-year-old Shawnee Koch died Wednesday evening at Reading Hospital, hours after being shot in the head. There were several other people inside the restaurant at the
time Koch was shot, but no one else was hurt. This is the same McDonald's drive-through where a 20-year-old customer was surrounded by five men and shot repeatedly in 2004.
Police said they believed Jason Stief was targeted because he'd given a statement to police that helped them arrest a suspect in the shooting death of his neighbor eleven days earlier.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Authorities have broken up an extensive gun trafficking network in which guns were stolen from homes in the Philadelphia suburbs and then sold illegally in Philadelphia and Norristown. Police charged seven suspects in connection with more than 40
burglaries in Montgomery, Chester and Berks counties. One of them is from Philadelphia, while the rest are from the suburbs. Authorities say the gang stole cash, jewelry, electronics and
more than 50 guns over an eight-month period, then sold them on the streets. Some of the guns have been confiscated from a house in Philadelphia, but prosecutors say there are still more than 30 guns out there. Police learned about the break-in after one of the suspects
bragged to friends he was part of a burglary ring.

WASHINGTON (AP) - About two-thousand I-R-S employees in Philadelphia are to lose their jobs in September. It's because the paper processing they do is being taken over by
electronic filing. Now Senator Bob Casey is trying to force the I-R-S to hire the workers for jobs in debt-collecting positions done by private contractors. Casey says private collectors return four-dollars for every dollar spent, while I-R-S employees collect 15-dollars for every
dollar spent. Paper processing work is also scheduled to end in 2009 at an I-R-S center in Andover, Massachusetts. Both of that state's senators are joining in Casey's effort.
A Philadelphia-based I-R-S spokesman, declined to comment on the senators' effort. But he says the agency has been working to find new jobs for affected employees.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Verizon Communications says it hopes to deliver television programming over its fiber-optic network to several Pittsburgh-area municipalities by year's end. The company has announced it is close to reaching franchise agreements with 19 municipalities in Pittsburgh's northern and southern suburbs. Those agreements are necessary before Verizon can begin offering the service. A Verizon spokesman says the company expects to offer its Fi-OS T-V service to more than one hundred thousand households in the Pittsburgh area. The move is expected to intensify competition between Verizon and local cable providers, especially Philadelphia-based Comcast.

ERIE, Pa. (AP) - An Erie-based plastics company is shutting down, eliminating 150 jobs in an already economically depressed part of the state. O-E-M-Erie is a plastics industry leader that specializes in parts for the auto industry. The company has transferred its work to Plastech Engineered Products in Detroit. Patricia Birch, O-E-M's director of human resources, says some
of the Erie workers have been offered a chance to transfer, but all the positions in the city are being eliminated. She says O-E-M has implemented cost-cutting measures and other
policies in the past year to try and save the company, but failed.

COUDERSPORT, Pa. (AP) - Empereon Marketing will open a customer contact center in Coudersport, near the New York State border, bringing at least 450 jobs to the area over the next three years. Empereon Marketing is a telemarketing company that does outsourcing for cable television operators and other big companies. Hiring will begin next month. Travis Bowley, Empereon's chief executive officer, says the company was attracted to Coudersport because of the area's pool of skilled customer service employees. Governor Ed Rendell says the state lured the firm with a 450-thousand dollar grant and a series of low-interest loans.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of the U-S House Judiciary Committee are seeking more details about the prosecution of Doctor Cyril Wecht. Wecht resigned as Allegheny County coroner last year after being indicted on charges of theft, mail fraud and wire fraud. The case
has not yet gone to trial. Four Democratic committee members sent a letter to Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales requesting more information about the case. They say they want to know if the Wecht case and two others are "part of a pattern of selective, political prosecutions."
Wecht is well known for his private consulting work that includes such celebrity deaths as Elvis Presley and JonBenet Ramsey.

ERIE, Pa. (AP) - Court papers allege that the man killed in the suburban Erie collar-bombing had his neck measured for the device. The search warrant unveiled yesterday (Wedenesday) says pizza deliveryman Brian Wells also met with the people charged in the case at least a month before he died. Wells was killed after robbing a P-N-C Bank in Summit Township
in 2003, when a bomb fastened around his neck blew up. He told police before it exploded that he was an unwilling participant. He said the collar was placed on him against his will when he was accosted while delivering pizza. Authorities now say Wells worked with 58-year-old Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and 53-year-old Kenneth Barnes. Wells' family insists he didn't know the suspects.

AKRON, Ohio (AP) - Donna Moonda is getting life without parole -- not the death penalty -- for the murder-for-hire of her husband. The Hermitage (Pennsylvania) woman got her lover to kill her wealthy husband by promising him half of the multi-(m)-million-dollar estate. Her lover, Damian Bradford, was the star witness against her and got 17-and-a-half years. The jury's decision came yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon after jurors asked the judge if there were any other options besides death or life without parole. The judge told jurors that those were
the only choices.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Two Moldovan teenagers brought to Philadelphia to testify against a man accused of "sex tourism" faltered on the stand. One was unable to identify the defendant in the crowded courtroom yesterday (Wednesday). The other said he couldn't remember if a second encounter with 44-year-old Anthony Mark Bianchi occurred before his 16th birthday. That's relevant because prosecutors say 16 is the age of consent in child-sex cases --
although the defense argues that it's 15. Earlier, two other teens testified that Bianchi invited them to his room in a boarding house on separate occasions and caressed them. One said Bianchi performed oral sex on him and gave him about 16 dollars' worth of local currency the next day.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Newly released F-B-I documents tell a story of a plot allegedly discussed by mobsters in the Lewisburg (Pennsylvania) federal penitentiary in 1979.
The documents describe mobsters planning to kill Warren Burger, then the chief justice of the U-S Supreme Court. It was unclear if it was anything more than idle chitchat, but the inmates were big names in two of New York City's Mafia families and a Montreal don. That made the plot plausible enough that F-B-I headquarters in Washington approved going to mobsters in seven U-S cities, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The idea was to warn them off doing anything rash that they might come to regret. The plot was first reported by a Montreal newspaper, The Gazette. It remains unclear why Burger might have been targeted.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Former President Bush has presented his World War Two service revolver to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Bush had given the gun to a lieutenant 60 years ago after a submarine rescued him. He had been piloting a fighter plane that
was shot down. The late lieutenant's son returned the .38-caliber Smith-and-Wesson to the former president yesterday (Wednesday). Bush in turn presented it to the Constitution Center, where it will permanently be on display. The Constitution Center is a nonprofit organization founded in 2003 dedicated to increasing public understanding of the Constitution. Bush serves as the chairman of the board of trustees for the center, and has been involved with it since its creation.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Merchants at a Philadelphia farmers' market are planning a rally in support of a cheesesteak stand. Rick's Steaks is being forced out of the Reading Terminal Market in favor of another cheesesteak shop. The Reading Terminal Market Merchants Association is designating Saturday as "Save Rick's, Save the Market Day," as it tries to
keep Rick's Steaks from having to leave by July 31st. Last month, market management refused to renew Rick Olivieri's lease. Olivieri says they're retaliating against him because he
often clashed with management as president of the merchants association. Market management denies this, saying it wants a "premier" cheesestak shop in. Olivieri is the grandson of Pat Olivieri, who founded the first cheesesteak shop with his brother in 1933.

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - The U-S Postal Service says it will offer another Flight 93 pictorial postmark honoring the 40 passengers and crew. The postmark will be available for 30 days only at the Shanksville post office, starting on the sixth anniversary of the September Eleventh, 2001, terror attacks. The postmark will bear the image of the Thunder Bell, located at
the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel near the crash site. It would be the fifth Flight 93 pictorial postmark offered at the post office. The postmark can be obtained by mail or in person.
Last year, the post office got seven thousand requests for the postmark bearing the image of the Flight 93 crew monument, also located at the chapel.