Today's News-Thursday, November 29th

A contract change that could save the county thousands of dollars a year in health care service costs at the county prison was approved by the Commissioners Wednesday. The Commissioners, acting on a request by County Administrator Darlene Dolzani, approved an addendum to a contract with Prime Care Medical of Harrisburg that could save thousands of dollars a year in nursing wages. Dolzani said that under the original contract, Prime Care's charge for nursing wages was capped at $185-thousand-dollars with the county responsible for any hours worked after that. Dolzani said Prime Care didn't realize the county prison lacked an inmate filing system and believed the $185-thousand-dollars it estimated would be enough to cover the salaries of the five nurses. When they went over the cap, the county had to reimburse Prime Care $51-thousand-dollars.. By removing the cap, Prime Care is responsible for all nursing wages at the prison. Prime Care receives over $573-thousand-dollars a year to provide medical and dental care for 240 prisoners. When the county exceeds that number, the county must pay Prime Care $4.83 per prisoner per day. Often, the prison population reaches close to 300 inmates.

A Reading man was arrested Tuesday on two outstanding drug warrants by Pottsville police drug investigators. Authorities say that 34-year-old Lamont Johnson is charged with delivery and possession charges, and other related offenses, after an investigation in conjunction with Reading Police vice officers. They say that Johnson’s source of cocaine came from Reading.
During his arrest, police found 23 packets of crack cocaine concealed in his mouth. The drugs had a street value of $1-thousand-dollars. Johnson was arraigned and taken to Schuylkill County Prison.

A double home in Gilberton was damaged by fire yesterday. The blaze apparently broke out at 132 Long Row, and spread to the adjoining property at 134 during the afternoon, causing damage to first floor rooms at 132, and smoke damage at the other property. The Republican and Herald indicates that fire officials believe that an electric space heater in the home owned by Dennis Bennett sparked the blazed, and is deemed to be accidental. Bennett's mother, sister and her family live in the other half of the double. The homeowner stated that he did not have insurance on the property. Fire companies from Gilberton and adjoining communities battled the fire for more than an hour.

About 100 teens from seven area high schools met yesterday to talk about the dangers of smoking and using tobacco products, and how to pass the word to others. The 10th annual Teens against Tobacco Conference was held at Minersville Jr./Sr. High School Wednesday. Angela Morgan, Director of Youth and Community Programs for Clinical Outcomes Group, tells us about the event:

MORGAN

In addition to important information about how to educate and inform kids and the community about tobacco use, participants took part in team building exercises. Katie Shreck of North Schuylkill High School explains what she got out of the event:

SHRECK

Kelly Kalovack of Minersville High School had some wise advice for kids who deal with the peer pressure of using tobacco:

KALOVACK

The event was organized by Clinical Outcomes, with support from area businesses.

A Tremont man is in the Schuykill County jail after threatening several others with a loaded gun Thanksgiving Day. That happened around 3:30 a.m. at a home in Pine Grove Township.
State police now say that 46-year-old Frederick Colbert was drunk when an argument broke out between another man and a woman. Troopers indicate that during the argument, Colbert got a loaded shotgun from a bedroom and threatened the others. A struggle broke out and the shotgun was fired twice inside the home but no one was hurt. Colbert was arrested and is now locked up on $30-thousand dollars bail.

Officials are looking for more tenants for a vacated spot and adjoining land at Highridge Business Park. Sears Holdings Corporation, who operated the logistics services facility, pulled out of the site earlier this month, according to the Republican and Herald. The company reportedly wanted a facility that they could operate themselves. A site manager, ProLogis, handles those duties at the spot. Seventy people were employed at the site, and they were offered jobs at another Sears facility in Lackawanna County. ProLogis is actively seeking new tenants for the site, and additional square footage at the Highridge location. The company also purchased a 35 acre section of land for expansion. They did not identify any of the potential tenants.

State police at Schuylkill Haven are looking for a purse thief who robbed a Pottsville woman yesterday. Cynthia McGrath was shopping at Weis Markets in the Pottsville Park Plaza, when a white female with bleached blonde hair took her purse, which was in a shopping cart. The bag contained cash and credit cards. The suspect left the store, and is being sought by state police. Contact them at 593-2000.

The harvest of black bear in Pennsylvania is down from last year, according to figures from the Pennsylvanian Game Commission. The three day season completed last week recorded 2-thousand-four-bear were harvested, and 23 were taken during the two-day archery season. An extended season in some areas is expected to cause the totals to rise. Last year, 3,122 bear were harvested during the three seasons. In Schuylkill County, 14 bear were taken, the same as last season. A 628-pound male black bear was taken by Robert Heckman of Quakake on November 20th. The largest bear processed statewide was 712-pounds, in Potter County on November 19th.

FUEL TANK FEE
Rendell yanks penny-per-gallon charge on gas sales

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Governor Ed Rendell says his administration will withdraw a request that would have added a penny onto the cost of a gallon of gas in Pennsylvania. The idea
was to pay to clean up damage from leaking underground fuel tanks. The state Department of Insurance sought regulatory approval for the higher fee. That came after the board of the Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund voted for it as a way to keep the
fund solvent. But Rendell says in a letter provided to The Associated Press that he had just learned about the proposed fee increase from news accounts. The governor says the price of gas is high enough right now.

MORTGAGE MESS
Mortgage firm owner pleads guilty to fraud charge

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The owner of a shuttered mortgage business has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of mail fraud. The plea by 71-year-old Wesley Snyder came two months after
hundreds of his customers first learned that they owe substantially more than they thought.
The owner of Reading-based Personal Financial Management and Image Masters entered his plea in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg. He faces as much as 30 years in prison when Judge
Yvette Kane sentences him in March. Prosecutors say Snyder engaged in a massive Ponzi scheme in which he defrauded about 800 victims out of 29 million dollars.

TOXIC REPORTS
States sue EPA over public data on toxins

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Twelve states are suing the Bush administration to force greater disclosure of public data on toxic chemicals in communities. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says the states oppose the Environmental Protection Agency's new rules that will allow thousands of companies to limit information they disclose to the public about toxic chemicals that they store, use and release into the environment. An EPA spokesman says the agency has no immediate comment. The other states suing the EPA are Arizona, California,
Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.

MISSING WOMAN FOUND
Missing woman accomplice sentenced

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A suburban Pittsburgh beautician who helped a teenage girl change her looks so she could run away and live with a man 25 years her senior has been sentenced to six to 23 months in jail. Judith Sokol, of Duquesne, had previously pleaded no contest to
statutory sexual assault and related offenses, and was taken in handcuffs after her sentencing in Allegheny County on Wednesday. Prosecutors say Sokol helped then-14-year-old Tanya Kach
change her looks by cutting and dyeing her hair in February 1996. Prosecutors say that helped Kach live undetected with Thomas Hose, a former school security guard. Hose is serving a five- to 15-year prison sentence for statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and related offenses.

OPEN RECORDS
Senate approves open records bill

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A bill to expand the public's access to government records is through the state Senate with flying colors. However, a clash could be looming with a competing House bill that some open records advocates consider to be stronger. The Senate bill's sponsor, Republican Dominic Pileggi of Delaware County, rejected criticism that the bill does not go far
enough. He says it compares favorably with the strongest laws in other states and upholds the spirit of making government more open. The Senate approved the bill, 48-to-1. It now goes to the House, where legislators are considering a similar, competing bill.

ESCAPED MURDERER
Prison escapee apparently made fast exit from garbage can hideout

ALBION, Pa. (AP) - A farmer who gets food scraps for his hogs at a state prison in Erie County says he found a trash can completely empty on Sunday. That's apparently how a man serving a life sentence for murder escaped from the Albion state prison. Police say 53-year-old Malcolm Kysor remains at large. The farmer told the Erie Times-News that police came to his home
looking for Kysor shortly after he emptied the other garbage cans outside the prison. State corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton won't say whether investigators confirmed the can on the surveillance tape was the same one the farmer found empty.

ATTORNEY-TAX EVASION
Feds: Pa. tax activist helped clients evade millions in taxes

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A suburban Philadelphia anti-tax activist is accused of hiding millions of dollars in income for himself and clients. Prosecutors say 58-year-old Bernard Bagdis of Norristown did so through an elaborate web of shell companies. The lawyer and tax preparer was arrested after a six-year investigation. It also netted two doctors, an engineer, several
business executives and an older woman with a small cleaning service. U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan says Bagdis even bragged on an undercover Internal Revenue Service agent that he would write a book called "Federal Tax Fraud: The User's Guide." Bagdis runs a small law office in Blue Bell, a Philadelphia suburb. But prosecutors say he hasn't filed an individual tax
return since 1990.

STRAWBRIDGE PORN CHARGE
Strawbridge sentenced to prison

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A member of a famed department store family has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison on a federal child pornography charge. FBI agents say 64-year-old Steven Strawbridge Senior was deleting images from his computer when they arrived at his house in Gladwyne in 2005. The agents still found more than 100 sexually explicit images. Strawbridge was sentenced today to 57 months in prison. He is to report on January 2nd. More than 100 of Strawbridge's friends crammed into a Philadelphia courtroom today. Some asked the judge to show leniency because of the family's contributions to the city and its cultural
institutions. The judge says Strawbridge knew he was doing something wrong and should have sought professional help.

BODY IN COOLER
Sordid details emerge in wrongful death starvation case

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Court papers in a wrongful-death lawsuit over a 4-year-old Armstrong County girl say caseworkers doctored or destroyed records. The starved body of Kristen Tatar was was found stuffed into a picnic cooler in 2003. The court papers described in a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story accuse caseworkers from two neighboring counties and a state agency
of altering the records. Her parents, James Tatar and Janet Crawford, are serving life
sentences for first-degree murder in her starvation death. Criminal investigators determined her parents grossly underfed and abused the girl. More details are expected to emerge when the civil suit goes to trial in federal court in April.

TEACHER SEX ABUSE
Appeals panel sides with school district in sex abuse lawsuit

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal appeals panel won't allow a girl who was sexually abused by a teacher to sue over it. The panel says there's no merit to her claims because officials from the Hamburg Area School District in Berks County didn't know about the abuse. The former teacher, Troy Mansfield, is serving up to 31 years in prison for the abuse. The girl's lawyer argued that the school district failed to protect the girl from being abused. He says he doesn't know if he'll appeal the ruling by a three-judge panel to the full 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Associated Press highlighted the case last month. An AP investigation found more than 2,500 educators were disciplined over five years following allegations of sexual misconduct.

NEW YORK (AP) - The president of Broadway's stagehands union says the people of the Great White Way are looking forward to going back to work. Stagehands are ending a nearly three-week-long strike after reaching a tentative deal with producers last night. Most of
the shows shut down by the strike are reopening today.

EL DORADO, Kan. (AP) - A missing Kansas college student apparently led a double life as an Internet porn star, and authorities are wondering if that had anything to do with her
disappearance last Friday. Police suspect foul play in the case. They're now looking for a man she was last seen with leaving a bar.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A government official in the
Philippines says he hopes a curfew for Manila and the surrounding
area only needs to be enforced for one night. The curfew comes
after troops and SWAT teams quashed the latest attempt by dissident
military officers to stage a coup. It was led by officers who were
on trial for another coup attempt four years ago.

CINCINNATI (AP) - The lawyer for an alleged World War II Nazi
death-camp guard says it could be his last attempt to fight
deportation. John Demjanjuk's challenge goes before a federal
appeals court in Cincinnati today. The 87-year-old retired autoworker
from Cleveland could be sent back to his native Ukraine.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Nearly an entire village in
Malaysia has burned down after a man set his own house on fire
during a drunken rage. Police says more than 300 people are now
homeless. Police say he told them he was drunk and argued with his
wife.