Today's News- Wednesday, December 12th

'Tis the season for giving. For the Salvation Army, Christmas is the season of miracles. An unknown man made a huge contribution in one of their Christmas Kettles. Captain Adam Hench, leader of the Pottsville Salvation Army, told WPPA/T102 News what happened on Monday at the Schuylkill Mall:

HENCH

18-year-old Andrew Hunt of Pottsville was the volunteer ringer at the entrance to K-Mart, and reportedly noticed the man making a donation, but did not know his identity. Hench said that it's the single largest donation ever in a kettle in our area. The donation will really help the Army’s efforts to help those in need at Christmas. The Salvation Army Red Kettle campaign remains in operation until Christmas.

The road to the 2008 Summer Olympics will come thorough Pennsylvania next year. Yesterday, Pottsville had a visit from a Gold Medal gymnast from the 1996 team. Kerri Strug captured the heart of the United States and the world at the 1996 Atlanta games when she stuck a landing on a vault that clinched a gold medal for the US women's gymnastics team. She made a stop at the Pottsville Gymnastics Training Center yesterday to promote the 2008 Olympic Team Trials at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia next June. Strug, who now does government work in Washington DC, maintains a busy schedule, but always has time for the kids. She told the enthusiastic group of gymnasts that their hard work can pay off, but there are sacrifices:

STRUG

Strug is the third Olympian to visit the gymnastic center in recent years, along with gold medalists Shannon Miller and Carly Patterson.

Quick thinking bank employees thwarted a forged document from being cashed as a check in northern Dauphin County yesterday. An unidentified woman entered the Gratz National Bank on Market Street with a check for more than $4-thousand-dollars, attempting to cash it. Bank employees found the document to be fraudulent. State police at Lykens were called in to investigate, and found that the woman answered an ad for a “Shadow Shopper” from a Canadian-based company. The check was to be cashed, and then send the money back to the company. She was to be paid $800 dollars for doing it. Police also said the woman was charged for her membership fee to the program, which was debited from her account. State police remind everyone that if something seems to be too good to be true, it usually is. If you’re in doubt of the validity of an advertisement, contact authorities.

A deer crossing the highway caused a crash last night in Washington Township. Joseph Witherow of Pine Grove was driving north on Hetzel's Church Road around 10:45pm when he swerved his car to avoid hitting a deer. The car traveled down an embankment and overturned. Witherow, nor his passenger, Matthew Witherow, were injured. Both were wearing their seatbelts.


CLAYSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Police say a multi-vehicle pileup has damaged a bridge, caused a fire and hazardous materials spill and injured at least three people on Interstate 70 in Washington
County. The eastbound lanes of I-70 have been closed since shortly after 1 a.m. Officials are detouring eastbound traffic onto parallel U.S. 40 at the Elk Grove exit in Ohio County, West Virginia, and back onto I-70 at Claysville in Washington County. Officials say medical helicopters have airlifted three people from the accident site in Donegal Township, and wrecker and hazardous materials crews are working at the scene.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Lawmakers in the state House of Representatives are slated to begin debate today on open-records legislation. The House bill under consideration would provide greater access to records of the Legislature, but prevent disclosure of birth dates and phone numbers in public records. It also would ban agencies from charging for research, redaction
and copying time. But Pennsylvanians will likely have to wait until next month for a new Right-to-Know law to be enacted. The Senate also needs time to consider legislation. And lawmakers are slated to take a one-month holiday break. For those reasons, legislative leaders say
no bill will be sent to Governor Ed Rendell's desk until at least January.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Philadelphia's city council is nearing a vote on the 700 million dollar Pennsylvania Convention Center expansion and whether nonunion workers will be hired.
Council members have been told they must approve an operating agreement between the city, state and Convention Center by Thursday or risk losing convention business for 2011. An amendment last week would allow nonunion contractors. Backers said they couldn't ensure meeting minority hiring goals when a Building and Trades Council official declined to give
statistics on minority workers in 42 local unions. Business Manager Patrick Gillespie calls the amendment "death language" to unions.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A committee of the University of Pittsburgh trustees has approved construction and renovation projects totaling nearly 67 million dollars. The plans include a 20 million-dollar renovation of the former University Club into a faculty club, fitness center, conference center and banquet facility. The university also plans to build a 2.3 million-dollar
financial analysis lab, renovate a former library into nanoscience research labs, and add a 16.8 million-dollar expansion to the Swanson School of Engineering. The university says the projects are expected to create 359 construction jobs and 144 support jobs.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - An anti-hunger group says Pennsylvania still lags behind most other states in providing school breakfasts to needy children. The group says that's because the state does not mandate a morning meal in schools where one is most needed. The national Food Research and Action Center says the state ranks 41st in the percentage of children from low-income families who participate in the federally funded school breakfast program. Governor Ed Rendell earlier this year had proposed requiring breakfast in schools where low-income tudents account for at least 20 percent of total enrollment. But state lawmakers decided to keep
the program optional. Lindsay Briggs of the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center says her
group is disappointed that lawmakers didn't support Rendell's proposal.

EASTON, Pa. (AP) - Easton Hospital will keep a full-time chaplain, reversing an earlier cost-cutting move. Hospital President Angela Marchi tells employees in an e-mail the Reverend Rebecca Burt will stay in the position full-time. Burt operates a one-person pastoral care department, counseling patients, families and staff members and training employees in
ministering to the sick and dying. Marchi's predecessor had proposed closing the department along with about a dozen other layoffs to cut costs. Burt says she hopes the decision to keep the department is final.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) - The name of Marion Jones is being erased from the Olympic record books. She's being formally stripped of her five Olympic medals, after her admission that she was a drug cheat. The U.S. track star had already handed back the three gold medals and two bronze that she won at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

CAPITOL HILL (AP) - CIA Director Michael Hayden is back on Capitol Hill today to meet with House lawmakers on the destruction of videotapes that showed harsh interrogation of terror suspects. After appearing before a Senate panel yesterday, Hayden told reporters he can't answer all of the questions because many decisions were made before he arrived at the agency.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The massive storm that's blanketed parts of the Midwest with sleet and freezing rain has moved out of the region just as another system is expected to develop. Forecasters predict the system over Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas won't bring as much wintry mix to the Plains. The earlier storm has left almost a million people without power.

BAGHDAD (AP) - Three sychronized car bombs have killed at least 27 and injured more than 150 in a city market district in southern Iraq. Authorities say the blasts went off about five minutes apart in Amarah. The city is in a Shiite region that has mostly escaped the country's sectarian violence. The city's police chief has been fired following the attack.

JERUSALEM (AP) - No details are being released about the first peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in almost seven years. The two sides met for about an hour and a half in Jerusalem today. The negotiations went ahead despite new violence in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants fired more than a dozen homemade rockets toward Israel today after an Israeli military operation in Gaza yesterday.