Today's News-Thursday, December 13th

A mixed bag of frozen precipitation is falling across the region right now, and travel is getting treacherous. A Winter Weather Advisory through 10pm, for a mix of snow and sleet is making roads slick, and bring accumulations of 2 to 4 inches of mixed weather. Higher amounts of snow in the northern portions of our listening area are possible. Schools in our area decide to close for the day. A weather watch is in effect…stay tuned to WPPA for more weather and road updates.

A Carbon County man is dead following a crash yesterday morning in West Penn Township. Police indicated that Augustine Swelensky was driving his truck at the intersection of Route 443 and Spring Road, when it swerved left, crossed the road and entered a parking lot at a home.
The truck crashed into a parked vehicle, continued down a steep bank and hit a tree head-on.
Swelensky was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife had to be freed from the wreckage and was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital for treatment. Thursday morning's crash happened around 9:30am.

Four people were hurt in a head-on collision yesterday afternoon in Landingville. Schuylkill Haven state police report that Elmer Steinbrunn of Port Clinton was driving at a high rate of speed on Main Street in the borough and lost control on a right curve. His car crashed head-on into a car driven by Kathleen Kline of Schuylkill Haven, then spun out across the highway.
Steinbrunn, and two passengers, Glenn Widel of Orwigsburg and Samuel Aregood of Landingville, were all flown from the scene for medical treatment. Kline was taken to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. Their conditions are unknown at this time.

Disaster preparedness for businesses was the topic of discussion during the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce's Second-Wednesday breakfast meeting held at the Pottsville Club. Guest speakers were Art Kaplan, County Emergency Management Coordinator and chairperson of the 7- county East Central Pennsylvania Counter Terrorism Task Force, and Jan Kaskey, chairperson of the Task Force’s business industry infrastructure sub-committee. Kaplan said help is available to businesses to better prepare them in the event of a disaster….

Kaplan

Kaskey said opportunities are available for private & public partnering…….

Kaskey

The East Central Pennsylvania County Terrorism Task Force is a cooperative effort of Berks, Columbia, Luzerne, Montour, Northumberland, Wyoming and Schuylkill counties. Schuylkill County is the lead county for the group.

The County Commissioners made reappointments to several boards during Wednesday's meeting, but tabled action on an appointment to fill an unexpired term. Three members of the Schuylkill County Industrial Authority board were reappointed to five years terms and five members of the Sweet Arrow Lake Park Commission were reappointed to four year terms. Also, Bruce Schneck of Tower City was appointed to the Park Commission to fill the unexpired term vacated by David Schmit, which ends December 31, 2009. The resignation of Clayton Ost from the Schuylkill County Municipal Authority was accepted, but the resignation of Roy Heim from his original appointment on the same authority and his reappointment to fill the unexpired of Ost were tabled. Reappointments to several county boards were put off last month when it was determined by the Solicitor's office that those appointments if made prior to January 1st, would not be legal. The boards in question include the Municipal Authority, Zoning Hearing Board and Planning Commission. In other Business, the Commissioners adopted a proclamation recognizing Jonathan Olmes to the rank of Eagle Scout. During the presentation it was announced that he had received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Blue Mountain High School Senior will be a member of the Academy’s class of 2012.

A Pine Grove couple are homeless after fire gutted their home yesterday evening. Walter Dressel and his girlfriend lived in the home at 343 Sweet Arrow Lake Road, where fire broke out, and moved quickly through the residence. The Republican and Herald reports that a cause is not yet known. The couple got out safely, but two family pets perished.

Governor Ed Rendell has announced more grant funding for small businesses to improve energy efficiency and reduce pollution, including a Schuylkill County company. The Governor today said 48 small businesses across the state will receive $300,000 in Small Business Advantage Grants. Rendell said that the state’s 264-thousand small businesses employ nearly 2 million people and annually pay more than $19 million in salaries, so its important to help them find more efficient ways to use energy. The Small Business Advantage Grants program provides a 50-percent match of up to $7,500 for equipment or processes that reduce energy consumption, promote pollution prevention, and increase profitability. Lumber Jack and Jill Tree Service was awarded a $75-hundred dollar grant for high-efficiency HVAC equipment to reduce energy costs through conservation.

ATLANTA (AP) - More than a million doses of a common vaccine given to babies as young as two months are being recalled because of contamination risks, but a top U.S. health official says it's not a health threat. Drug maker Merck is recalling 1.2 million doses of the vaccine for Hib, which protects against meningitis, pneumonia and other serious infections, and a combination vaccine for Hib and hepatitis B. Doctor Julie Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, says it's not a health threat in the short run. Merck announced the recall after testing showed a sterility problem in its West Point, Pennsylvania factory. The company said the potential for contamination is low. But if the vaccine is contaminated, health officials believe most children will experience, at worst, a skin irritation around the vaccination site. Problems could be worse for children with compromised immune systems.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia City Council members say Gov. Ed Rendell is stepping in to help resolve a labor dispute that could stall the $700 million expansion of the Pennsylvania
Convention Center. The council will hold off on a planned vote today on a proposal to allow nonunion contractors to work on the project. Backers say the proposal reflected frustration when unions would not verify meeting minority-hiring goals. But now council members say they expect to vote next week on a deal that Rendell, city officials, black legislative leaders and the Convention Center authority will try to work out. Councilman Brian O'Neill says the first negotiation session will be Monday at the governor's center city Philadelphia office.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia Mayor-elect Michael Nutter has ambitious goals ranging from improved transit to better homeless shelters. Public safety and the often-criticized business-privilege tax are other issues Nutter discussed at a Wednesday meeting of the
Central Philadelphia Development Corp. Nutter demands that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority improve its regional transportation services. He says if SEPTA fares are among the nation's highest its service should also rank among the best. And Nutter calls some of the city's homeless shelters inhumane. He says the city can't pursue zero tolerance of outdoor sleeping and other behavior by the homeless if they don't have places to go.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia's incoming mayor says a professional administrator will be the city's next managing director. Mayor-elect Michael Nutter says 57-year-old Camille Barnett will be the one to handle the day-to-day running of the city. Nutter says he met Barnett when she spoke at a National League of Cities meeting, and was impressed with the way she answered his questions. Barnett has been involved in municipal management as a consultant or directly in senior management posts in Dallas, Houston and Austin, Texas; Washington, D.C., and other communities in California and Michigan. She says one big qualification for the job is that she is "really good at running things."

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - The Interstate 99 extension is finally opening in Blair and Centre counties. State transportation officials say the northbound lanes between Bald Eagle and Skytop and the southbound lanes between Port Matilda and Bald Eagle are scheduled to open today. PennDOT has been building the road for years, but work has been hampered by environmental concerns about acid-producing rock unearthed during construction just south of State College. PennDOT hopes to finish the full 18-mile stretch of highway by the end of 2008, about a year behind schedule.

SWARTHMORE, Pa. (AP) - Swarthmore College will eliminate student loans in its financial aid packages and replace them with scholarships starting next academic year. The new policy will affect an estimated 740 new and continuing students, roughly half of Swarthmore's total enrollment. The college said the monetary awards will give students the freedom to explore all types of careers without worrying about how to repay their loans. Swarthmore is an elite liberal arts college just outside Philadelphia. It costs approximately $45,700 per year for tuition
and room and board to attend the college. On Monday, Harvard University said it would replace all loans with grants, and spend up to $22 million more annually on aid, mostly targeting middle- and upper-middle class students.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A new design for the memorial marking the spot in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president will be unveiled today. Project officials say the memorial will be modified to allow visitors to see archaeological remnants of the home where Washington lived with several slaves. The original design assumed nothing remained of the house, which was demolished in the 1830s. But an archaeological dig that preceded construction revealed the slave passageway and other vestiges. The new design for the President's House shows a glass structure over an excavated part of the site, which also shows the outline of a bow window that some consider the architectural precursor to the Oval Office. Washington and John Adams each lived at the President's House when Philadelphia was the nation's capital between 1790 and 1800.

NEW YORK (AP) - Major League Baseball is about to get some dirt kicked in its face. An independent probe requested by the commissioner concludes baseball has a "serious drug culture" problem, "from top to bottom." As many as 80 players will be specifically named in the report today.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - It could be another week and a-half before all the power knocked out by an ice storm is back on. The storm hammered the nation's midsection before heading East, cutting off service to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Oklahoma alone. It's blamed in at least 33 deaths.

BALI, Indonesia (AP) - The nations of Europe are threatening to boycott climate-change talks in the U.S. next month unless Washington accepts specific standards for cutting emissions.
Disagreement over those cuts is jeopardizing international talks in Bali, Indonesia, due to wrap up tomorrow.

PHOENIX (AP) - Police in Phoenix say a man who shot and killed his wife outside a church preschool yesterday has been found dead, an apparent suicide victim. The wife was gunned down in front of the couple's four-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. Dozens
of children inside the preschool were not told what had happened.

DENVER (AP) - Six-thousand members of Colorado's New Life Church held a memorial service last night for two teens gunned down in a shooting rampage at the church Sunday. The minister asked for compassion for the family of the gunman, who took his own life. He
had earlier killed two people at a missionary training center.