Today's News-Monday, October 22nd

A Shoemakersville man was arrested for driving drunk over the weekend. State police, making a traffic stop on Saturday night around 8:30pm on Route 61 in West Brunswick Township, found that Glen Sayer was driving under the influence. He was charged with DUI and other traffic citations.

Two men escaped injury in a crash on Route 61 last night. 56-year-old Joseph McDemus of Schuylkill Haven was attempting to turn left onto Manheim Road. Thomas Smith of Pottsville was traveling south on Route 61, and the cars collided head-on. Both drivers were wearing their seatbelts. The investigation is continuing. The crash happened after 6pm Sunday night.

Criminal mischief is being investigated by state police at a work site in East Union Township.
Frackville state police have just reported the incident at the Green Mountain South Abandoned Mine Reclamation site, off of Schoolhouse Road. Sometime between October 13th and 16th, an unknown person put sand in the fuel tank of a bulldozer on the site. Troopers are continuing the investigation.

A Mahanoy City man crashed his vehicle into two parked cars early Saturday in New Boston.
20-year-old Edward Bubnis was attempting to pull out of a driveway onto Roosevelt Drive. He reportedly struck two parked cars, doing minor damage. State police say that Bubnis was intoxicated. He was taken to Pottsville Hospital for a blood test. Charges are pending the results. The incident happened just after midnight Saturday night.

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) - Firefighters are straining to keep up with all the wildfires blazing across Southern California. At least a dozen fires have burned more than 35,000 acres from the high desert to the Pacific Ocean. One person has died near San Diego. Thousands are on evacuation alert.

BAGHDAD (AP) - At least seven people are dead and two-dozen others are wounded after several Shiite areas in Baghdad were struck by bombs. Meanwhile, police say an adviser to a prominent Sunni politician has been gunned down in a western section of the Iraqi capital.

WHITE HOUSE (AP) - A Navy SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan will be awarded the Medal of Honor today at the White House. President Bush will present the nation's highest military honor to the family of Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who gave his life to make a radio call for help for his comrades in 2005.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Air traffic controllers are retiring in higher numbers than the government expected. The Associated Press has learned that the Federal Aviation Administration recently considered offering cash bonuses to top-rated veteran controllers
who delay retirement two years.

BOSTON (AP) - Boston will host Colorado when the World Series opens Wednesday night. The Red Sox beat Cleveland 11-2 last night to win the American League pennant, touching off a celebration in the streets around Fenway Park.

MOUNT POCONO, Pa. (AP) - The Poconos' newest attraction - casino gambling - is poised to make its debut today with the opening of Pennsylvania's first freestanding slots parlor.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board yesterday gave the 412 million dollar Mount Airy Casino Resort permission to open after two successful dry runs over the weekend.
Mount Airy spokesman Kevin Feeley says officials can't wait to let people see the new resort. It is built on the site of the storied Mount Airy Lodge, a resort that had its heyday in the 1960s
and 1970s but later fell on hard times. The casino plans a grand opening ceremony at 11 a.m. The first patrons will be allowed in at noon to try the 25-hundred slot machines and four restaurants. A 188-room hotel is scheduled to open next month and a nightclub and spa by the end of the year.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Thousands of black men are answering the call to patrol Philadelphia's streets and work with community groups to help reduce violence in their communities.
The men lined up for several blocks to register at yesterday's kickoff rally at Temple University. Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and music producer Kenny Gamble spoke along with other black community leaders. The "Call to Action: 10,000 Men, It's a New Day" campaign comes as Philadelphia endures a reputation as one of America's deadliest cities.
Organizers had announced plans for the 10,000 volunteers to patrol Philadelphia streets. But they now say that some will help out established community groups, such as youth organizations. Johnson, the police commissioner, says that volunteers can do more to curb crime than hiring more police to lock people up.

BALTIMORE (AP) - A fundamentalist church that protests at soldiers' funerals faces its first lawsuit today in Baltimore from the Pennsylvania family of a fallen serviceman. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church face an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit filed by the father of a fallen Marine. Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania, says the church interrupted his grieving process at the funeral for his son, who was killed in Iraq last year. Church members say they were only exercising their free speech rights. The lawsuit is the first in the nation to be filed against the
church by a grieving relative. The church believes war deaths are God's retribution for America's tolerance of homosexuality, and their protests have inspired almost two dozen states to put new limits on protests at funerals. Last week, a judge threw out defamation claims against the church, but Snyder's lawsuit is proceeding on invasion-of-privacy grounds. He also seeks damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A newspaper says retired Pennsylvania lawmaker Brett Feese is now the highest-paid legislative employee in the state. The former Appropriations Committee chairman left office in December and started a new job as the chief counsel to House Republicans. His salary was listed as 155,000 dollars. But The Philadelphia Inquirer says its review of a House discretionary account says Fees is earning another 95,000 dollars a
year as the in-house litigator for the minority caucus. That's a combined salary of 255,000 dollars. By comparison, Governor Ed Rendell makes 164,400 dollars and the state's chief justice makes 180,300 dollars. Feese, a Lycoming County Republican, downplays the distinction
and says his current position was "not, by far" his highest offer. He says he chose government work for the chance to argue before the state's top judges.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The University of Pennsylvania has launched a 3.5 billion-dollar fundraising drive. The campaign is well short of Stanford University's record 4.3 billion-dollar drive. But it dwarfs Penn's previous formal campaign that brought in 1.5 billion dollars and ended in 1994. The money from the five-year campaign will help pay for increased financial aid and 18 new professorships that bridge disciplines within the university, as well as new buildings and green space. Penn president Amy Gutmann says the university has already raised 43 percent of its goal during two years of quiet campaigning.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Fire officials say a blaze that killed an elderly man and woman in Philadelphia's Yorktown section was started by a basement freezer. The fire started at about 7 a-m in the home on the 1100 block of West Thompson Street. The bodies of the man and woman were found in the kitchen. Fire commissioner Lloyd Ayers says the house had no working smoke detectors. The couple tried to escape, but were blocked by an illegal security door that was locked from two sides. Officials have not released the names of the victims.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The largest Lutheran denomination in southwestern Pennsylvania has a new bishop. Bishop Kurt Kusserow was officially installed Saturday during a ceremony attended by more than 700 people at Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church. The church was chosen because no Lutheran church in the city was considered large enough. The 44-year-old bishop is expected lead the more than 200 congregations of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with deep faith and a down-to-earth touch. The ceremony was attended by other area church leaders, including Bishop David Zubik of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Bishop Lawrence Brandt of the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg and Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A World War II veteran's name has been added to a monument 60 years after it was omitted due to a misunderstanding. Eighty-five-year-old Frank S. Pistella of Verona watched with his family yesterday as his name was added to an honor roll listing
those from Pittsburgh's Garfield neighborhood who served. A new plaque with Pistella's name appeared beneath the name of his late brother, Lewis. There were supposed to be two plaques bearing the name Frank Pistella, the other belonging to a cousin who also served. But the
company that engraved the plaques believed one of them was an unintentional duplicate, even though the names had different middle initials.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Director Kevin Smith plans to shoot a new film in Pittsburgh beginning in January. Smith wrote on the Internet blog viewaskew.com that filming of "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" will take about 40 days. He says he may announce the cast in the next two weeks.
Smith's career kicked off with 1994's "Clerks." He directed the movie "Dogma" in Pittsburgh in 1998.