Today's News-Thursday, January 3rd

A fire damaged three vacant houses in Shenandoah yesterday morning, and arson is suspected.
Fire officials in Shenandoah report that the call came in to 23, 25 and 27 Grant Street after 1am, while crews were on the scene of a malfunctioning oil furnace at Sands Restaurant on Centre Street. The Republican and Herald indicates that State Police Fire Marshal John Burns and borough investigators suspect that the fire, which started at 23 Grant Street, was deliberately set. They are continuing to probe the blaze further.

A Pottsville woman has been arrested for deceiving the Pottsville Housing Authority about her income while living in subsidized housing. A joint investigation between Pottsville police, the Housing Authority and HUD's Inspector General resulted in the apprehension of 51-year-old Karen DiCello of 23rd Street. She is alleged to have failed to report income from two jobs from November, 2006 to November, 2007, while living in federally subsidized housing. Authorities say that had she reported the income, she would not have been eligible to be in the program.

A judge in Schuylkill County has sentenced a missing defendant convicted of raping two boys and a girl to 42 to 84 years in state prison. Fifty-one-year-old Russell Rehrig, of Allentown, has failed to appear for his trial in September or sentencing on Wednesday. He was freed after paying $1,500 to have a $15,000 bond posted. President Judge William Baldwin says Rehrig forfeits his right to appeal if he does not file within 30 days. He cannot appeal if he is a fugitive.
Public defender Christopher Riedlinger says he does not plan to file an appeal on his own, and does not know what Rehrig would decide if he is found. The judge says Rehrig is required to submit a DNA sample. And if he were ever paroled he would be required to report his location, job status and other information to police for life as a sexually violent predator under
Megans Law.

The state Superior Court issued a ruling in the case of a former priest possessing child pornography. Reverend Ronald Yarrosh, who was sentenced to 4 to 10 years on the charges, had his sentence upheld by the panel, according to the Republican and Herald. The former priest was sentenced in November, 2006 on the charges, and violated his probation by continuing to obtain child porn and visited a young girl out of state during that time. The Superior Court ruled that the sentences should stand. Yarrosh is serving time at the State Correctional Institution at Albion.

Eight people were killed in crashes investigated by state police during the New Year’s travel period, December 28th through January 1st. State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller reported those statistics yesterday. Six of the people who died were not wearing their seatbelts. In addition to the fatalities, 334 people were injured in the 12-hundred-50 crashes which state police across the state responded to. One-hundred-eight of the crashes, including two fatals, were alcohol-related. During the 2007 holiday driving period, three people died and 245 others were injured. The stats relate to those accidents to which state troopers responded to.

The fire-protection capability in the borough of Tamaqua has been upgraded, according to officials there. Tamaqua Fire Chief Thomas Schlorf said that the rating was stepped from a Class 5 to a Class 4, by the Insurance Services Office Incorporated, which evaluates community fire-suppression capabilities based on department equipment, staffing, training and other factors. The review assigns ratings that are used by nearly all property insurance companies as a factor for setting homeowners' and commercial property insurance rates. Chief Schlorf said that the fire department's ability to improve the fire-protection to Class 4 was positively influenced by the fire department’s personnel and equipment, the purchase of a new aerial truck and improvements to the borough’s water system. He went on to say that residents should contact their insurance agents to find out if the improvement would have an impact on the premiums they now pay.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - One of the biggest road construction projects in Pittsburgh this year is about to get under way. PennDOT will start tearing down the Boulevard of the Allies
bridge over Forbes Avenue tonight. The 29 million dollar bridge replacement project will delay
about 50,000 motorists who use the road each day. The bridge carries traffic into Oakland, a Pittsburgh neighborhood that is home to several colleges and universities, including Pitt and Carnegie Mellon. The reconstructed bridge is expected to open in November.

SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) - Pennsylvania has joined California in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency. It's for denying the Golden State's first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs. Last month EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson denied California a waiver that it needs under the federal Clean Air Act to move
forward with regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks. Pennsylvania and 12 other states have adopted the California emissions standards. Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell says his state will do whatever it takes to overturn the EPA decision.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A government audit says Senator Arlen Specter's campaign committee received more than one million dollars in excessive contributions during his 2004 race.
The audit released by the Federal Election Commission says the Pennsylvania Republican's campaign committee has taken corrective action for much of the funds. But it says excessive contributions of more than $100,000 remain unresolved. Specter's campaign treasurer says the audit didn't find the errors to be willful, nor had the problems affected the outcome.
Specter spent more than 20 million dollars in the 2004 race. He squeaked out a win in the Republican primary against Pat Toomey. Then he beat Joe Hoeffel in the general election with 53 percent of the vote.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Diocese of Scranton says the arrest of a priest is a "deeply distressing development." A spokesman says the diocese has granted a leave of absence to
The Reverend Joseph Sica at his request. He's charged with perjury, accused of lying about his mob ties. The diocese also says Sica won't celebrate Mass in public while he attends to his legal problems. Sica was arrested outside the Scranton church rectory where he lives. He was taken to a court in Harrisburg, where unsecured bail was set. Sica is an adviser to Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples, who is the subject of a grand jury investigation. The main focus of the probe whether DeNaples misled gambling regulators when he said he had no mob ties.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Researchers in Philadephia are preparing for clinical trials examining whether high doses of vitamin C can slow the spread of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center, along with the National Institutes of Health, plan to begin enrollment within the next few weeks. They're looking for
20 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients who have failed standard therapy. Each study participant will be given varied intravenous doses of vitamin C three times a week during the study, expected to last from four to six months.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Members of the stagehands' union have ratified a three-year agreement with the company that supplies labor at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. A tentative agreement was reached at about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday between Elliott-Lewis Corp. and leaders of Local 8 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Members of the union ratified it Wednesday afternoon. The old contract ended as soon as the new year began, but the union agreed not to walk out until Tuesday's Mummers performance at the Convention Center was done. The agreement allows convention exhibitors to set up simple equipment on their own, such as connecting laptop computers to projectors. A union leader says that had been allowed informally in the past but will now be codified.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Historic Review Commission of Pittsburgh has voted to save two buildings from demolition by recommending that they be given historical designations. The city's planning commission will take up the fate of the former National Negro Opera Company and the Workingman's Savings Bank buildings in February. City Council has the final say whether the buildings get historic landmark status, saving them from demolition. A developer has proposed building a retail center at the former bank site.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Point Park University has bought two more properties near its campus in downtown Pittsburgh. The university paid $4.3 million for the office buildings across the street from the school's new dance studios. Point Park now has 18 properties under its control. It is the second largest property owner in downtown Pittsburgh. Officials say Point Park won't decide what do to with the buildings until it completes a master space planning process in the
spring. The tenants in the buildings that were recently purchased will remain for the time being.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A Lancaster County woman is the new state director of the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement. Susan West was tapped for the Department of Agriculture post by
Gov. Ed Rendell. She starts her new job Jan. 22 and will oversee 59 state dog wardens.
West replaces Mary Bender, who transferred to a new farmland-conservation job within the department in September. West is also former president of the Humane League of Lancaster
County and has been a member of the state Dog Law Advisory Board since 2006.
Rendell says Lancaster County is home to about a tenth of Pennsylvania's kennels.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Billionaire newspaper publisher Richard Mellon Scaife was a longtime foe of Bill Clinton's. Scaife spent some two million dollars funding investigations into Clinton to be published in his Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. But he says in an interview in Vanity Fair magazine that he had a long private lunch over the summer with Clinton and found the
ex-president to be charismatic. And he says philandering is something he and Clinton share.
Scaife says he later sent $100,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative, which funds efforts to fight poverty, religious and ethnic conflict, energy and climate change, and public health. The magazine says the interview was Scaife's first in eight years. It largely details his troublesome divorce from Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Civic leader Luis Ramos has died in a car crash. Ramos was driving on Interstate 80 in Luzerne County Tuesday evening when his car swerved off the road and hit a tree. The 57-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. Ramos was a longtime corporate spokesman, working for PPL Corporation fo rmore than 30 years. In 2004 he moved from the Lehigh Valley to Shickshinny to serve as spokesman for PPL's Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Ramos was a fixture among civic and business groups. He served on the state Board of Education, as a trustee for DeSales University, and as a founding member of the Hispanic Business Council. He helped draft a plan to boost academic performance in
the Allentown School District.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Democrats are getting in their final pitches before Iowans head to the caucuses tomorrow. Most surveys show Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards in a close and fluid three-way contest. Two former governors, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, are vying for first on the Republican side.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says Scotland Yard will help local authorities investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. In a nationally televised address, Musharraf blamed Bhutto's death on terrorists.

VICTORIA, Texas (AP) - Authorities say they are investigating whether driver fatigue led to a charter bus crash in Texas. One passenger was killed and dozens more were injured when the bus veered off a highway and flipped on its side early this morning.

NEW YORK (AP) - A weaker-than-expected reading on the manufacturing sector has sent stocks tumbling on Wall Street. The Institute for Supply Management's report that manufacturing contracted in December is causing worries the economy could be
slowing more quickly than analysts thought.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - It appears there's no place free of presidential politics in Iowa. For a state being bombarded with political ads and candidate events, the Outdoor Advertising
Association of Iowa says it is linking 10 digital billboards to give real-time updates of caucus results to drivers in four cities.