Today's News-Thursday, August 2nd, 2007

An Adamsdale man was injured when a massive construction dump truck ran over his pickup at a site in East Norwegian Township yesterday. Emergency responders rushed to the Wolf Creek mine reclamation project around 1pm, where 65-year-old James Freeman of Adamsdale was driving a pickup truck, and apparently pulled in front of the Caterpillar dump truck driven by William Zack of Mahanoy Plane. The huge truck ran over the pickup, turning it upside down, pinning Freeman inside. Rescue workers needed more than two hours to free Freeman from the wreckage. Zack was not hurt. Freeman was taken to Lehigh Valley Medical Center for treatment.

A Cass Township woman is charged with arson. State Police Fire Marshal John Burns said that 43-year Stephanie Miller set the fire at 51 Thomaston Road, owned by the estate of Michael Campion of Schuylkill Haven. Tuesday night around 11pm, fire crews were called to the home. Miller reportedly assaulted a firefighter at the scene. Two others were injured battling the blaze. Burns determined that the fire started in multiple locations at the Cass Township home. There was extensive damage to the living room and kitchen areas. The remainder of the home had smoke, heat and water damage. Total cost of the damages exceeds $50-thousand-dollars.
Miller is charged with arson and aggravated assault of a firefighter. She was arraigned and is lodged in Schuylkill County Prison.

Schuylkill County may soon increase the price paid to farmers to keep their land development-free. County Conservation District Manager Craig Morgan attended Wednesday's Commissioners work session to ask the county to boost the price from $1,000 per acre to $2,500 per acre, beginning with the next two year spending cycle. Morgan said the County is losing out because the price is too low. He said more people would like to join in preserving their land to prevent it from some day being developed but can’t afford too because of the low price.
Morgan said some nearby counties pay double or more, than what the county offers.
He said the county's waiting list of potential easements on farms is declining. He said over the last 17-years the waiting list dropped from 75 to 80 farms down to only 20 in recent years. He said that last year, only two applications were received and that’s not enough to sustain the program. He is confident that with the increase in the purchase price more farm land owners will apply. Morgan said over 9,000 acres of land us now under the county land preservation program.

A former training camp for Muhammad Ali in Schuylkill County sold for $4.3 million yesterday, about a half million dollars short of an eBay record. Bidding for the five-acre, 18-building mountainside complex in Deer Lake ended shortly after 1 p.m. However, unlike other items, real estate sales aren't final when the auction ends because legal details need to be wrapped up. The winning bidder was only identified as "boratt18". The highest price ever paid on eBay is $4.9 million, for a private business jet in 2001. The camp is being sold by George Dillman, a Reading-area karate entrepreneur and former Ali sparring partner who bought the camp
from the champ ten years ago.

Pennsylvania’s Do Not Call law is 5 years old. Now its time to re-register. Five years ago, the Pennsylvania Do Not Call law went into effect and allowed consumers, for the first time, to significantly reduce the unsolicited and unwanted telemarketing calls they received at home. One million Pennsylvanians registered for the list in the first two weeks alone, and now it is time to re-register. Attorney General Tom Corbett explained that registration on the Do Not Call list is only valid for five years from the date of initial registration. Consumers who were among the first group to register in 2002 must re-register by Sept. 15, 2007, or their number will be dropped from the Do Not Call registry on Nov. 1, 2007. Attorney General Corbett explains how to register: CORBETT On the web, consumers can do so online at attorneygeneral.com, by calling the toll-free hotline at 1-888-777-3406, or by mail. Consumers who are on the Do Not Call list and feel that they have received a telemarketing call that is not exempt can file a complaint with the Attorney General's Bureau of Consumer Protection, using the same contact numbers.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota's governor tells N-B-C there's "no question" the number of fatalities from the Minneapolis bridge collapse will go up. At least seven are known dead as the searching resumes this morning. Officials doubt they'll find any more survivors.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Red Cross has set up an information center at a Minneapolis hotel, where at least 20 families of missing people gathered overnight. Officials say it appears a
structural collapse caused a Minneapolis bridge to break into huge sections, killing at least seven people. Federal investigators are heading to the scene.

CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago can't be sued over a deadly porch collapse four years ago. A three-judge panel ruled municipalities shouldn't be held liable when people are injured on private
property that's not up to code. City officials say the porch where 13 people died did not meet regulations and was built without construction permits.

LONDON (AP) - An inquiry into the death of a Brazilian electrician says a senior British police officer knew within hours that marksmen mistook the man for a terrorist. But the report says
the official deliberately withheld the information from his superiors and misled the public. The victim was killed in a subway following London's transit bombings in 2005.

DOVER, N.H. (AP) - Word from New Hampshire of the death of a beloved Irish singer, songwriter and storyteller. Tommy Makem was 74 and had been battling cancer. Makem's best known songs were The Green Fields of France, Gentle Annie and Red is the Rose.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A bail hearing is set today for a 13-year-old Allegheny County girl accused of killing her father with a shotgun. The girl's lawyer, Patrick Nightingale, says she endured "a six-year history of molestation and repeated rapes." Monday's shooting killed 34-year-old Matthew Booth of Elizabeth Township.

MILLERSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - A Lancaster County forensic pathologist says a five-month-old girl died of injuries "consistent with shaking an infant." That's the result of an autopsy that led to
criminal homicide charges against 36-year-old Joey Douglas of Washington Borough. He's accused of shaking the girl Saturday afternoon at the family's Manor Township home.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Pentagon says a 20-year-old Philadelphia soldier died in Iraq last week. Specialist Camy Florexil was wounded when a roadside bomb blew up near his vehicle during combat in Baghdad on July 23rd. He died the next day, also in Baghdad. His relatives in Philadelphia declined to comment.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) - The military judge hearing the case of a New York Army National Guard soldier accused of killing two superior officers in Iraq has declined to disqualify the
prosecutors. One of the victims was from Pennsylvania: 34-year-old First Lieutenant Louis Allen of Milford. The other was 30-year-old Captain Phillip Esposito of Suffern, New York.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Health Department says a 56-year-old Clearfield County man has become the state's first confirmed case of West Nile virus this year. The department says the man, who was not identified, is recovering and has been discharged from a hospital.