Today's News-Wednesday, April 16th

A second former executive at Schuylkill Products faces up to eight years in prison after pleading guilty in a scheme to defraud the government's minority set-aside program. Fifty-eight-year-old Timothy Hubler was a vice president of CDS Engineers Inc., a subsidiary of the Cressona-based concrete beam fabricator. Prosecutors say that Schuylkill Products and CDS Engineers used a minority-owned firm in Connecticut as a front to get $121 million worth of federally funded highway work in Pennsylvania. The fraud took place between 1992 and 2007. Hubler pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy to defraud the United States and filing a false income tax return. Dennis Campbell, a former Schuylkill Products vice president, had previously pleaded guilty for his role in the scheme.
(AP)

Firefighters battled a series of brush fires Tuesday. The largest was in North Manheim Township, near Cressona Mall during the afternoon according to the Republican and Herald. That fire scorched about 20 acres of trees, grass and vehicles in a junk yard. Fire officials from Schuylkill Haven suspect arson. Other fires were reported in Union and Butler Townships, the boroughs of Port Carbon and Auburn and Girardville.

A Pine Grove man was arrested on a host of traffic offenses over the weekend. Pine Grove borough police have just reported that 20-year-old Dwayne Wetzel was driving an ATV on a borough street Saturday. He failed to stop for and eluded police. Wetzel was caught a short time later and charged with reckless endangerment, fleeing and eluding police and other counts. He was placed in Schuylkill County Prison after arraignment, on $1-thousand-dollars bail.

A man living in Wayne Township is accused of two counts of indecent assault. Charges against 63-year-old Ronald Mock, Osterburg, were bound over for court at a preliminary hearing yesterday. Osterburg was being assisted with a shower at the Bear Creek Road home by an employee of Covenant Home Care in February. During the shower, Mock grabbed the aide's hand and forced her to touch his genitals. The woman broke free from his grasp, but Mock then touched the woman's breast. Charges of indecent assault were filed by Schuylkill Haven state police.

Four illegal aliens were detained in the borough of Tamaqua. Three were arrested Friday night when borough police pulled their vehicle over because it did not have an inspection sticker. The group had no identification and couldn't speak English. They were incarcerated in Schuylkill County Prison on a detainer from immigration officials. The fourth person, Salvador Gomez, was picked up early Tuesday morning. Apparently, he ran out of money while on his way to Canada, and was dropped off in the borough. Gomez requested to be returned to Mexico, and police sent him to county jail to await further processing.

A Zion Grove man escaped injury in a DUI related crash in North Union Township early Tuesday. 30-year-old Nathan Thompson was traveling north on State Rout 1005, and failed to negotiate a left hand curve. His Jeep Cherokee rolled onto the passenger's side. Frackville state police detected alcohol on his breath. Thompson refused to take a field sobriety test and was taken to Pottsville Hospital for a blood test. Charges are pending the results of those tests. He was released to his parents custody. The incident happened around 2am Tuesday.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton face off in a nationally televised debate in Philadelphia tonight. The 8 p.m. debate at the National Constitution Center will be shown on ABC. On the eve of the debate, Obama and Clinton exchanged ads aimed at each other. The former first lady has labeled Obama an elitist for remarks he made at a San Francisco fundraiser that blue-collar voters "cling to guns or religion" because of bitterness about their economic lot. The first-term Illinois senator has countered with charges that Clinton was pandering by drinking a shot of whiskey in front of TV cameras and with stories of learning to shoot a gun at her father's knee. Clinton's new ad pulled together a string of sound bites from Pennsylvania voters who chastised Obama for his remarks. Obama's ad shows Clinton being briefly heckled as she criticized Obama and accuses her of playing the "politics of division and distraction."

Sen. Arlen Specter diagnosed again with cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter vows to continue his normal duties and his 2010 re-election campaign despite the return of his cancer. The five-term Republican senator says he was diagnosed with an early recurrence of Hodgkin's disease, which is a cancer of the lymph system. Seventy-eight-year-old Specter underwent treatment for the same type of cancer in 2005 and was later given a clean bill of health. His office says in a statement that the cancer was revealed in a medical scan but that he has no symptoms. Specter says he was surprised by the PET scan findings because he has been feeling good. He calls it "just another bump on the road to a successful recovery." In his recent book, "Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate," Specter credited hard work with getting him through the cancer treatments that left him bald.

Pittsburgh police used unauthorized device to improperly issue 650 speeding
tickets

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh's chief of police says officers have been using a prohibited device to issue some speeding tickets - and those who paid resulting fines will be reimbursed. Chief Nate Harper says about 650 of 11,000 tickets were issued using only the Light Detection and Ranging - or LIDAR - system to measure speed. A department spokeswoman says state law prohibits local police from using the technology to nab speeders, although other technology can be used. Harper says the department got two LIDAR units in October for testing and evaluation, but they were to be used along with other approved speed timing devices. Harper says he will notify district judges that tickets marked with LIDAR as the sole speed detection device are invalid. And he says drivers who paid their fines will be reimbursed. Pa. court weighs Philly waterfront casino license

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A dispute now before the state Supreme Court could determine whether the owners of the $600 million SugarHouse Casino can build on the Philadelphia waterfront. New Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter has revoked the casino's permit issued in the waning days of former mayor John Street. But city lawyers and state lawmakers say the city erred in granting a permit for riparian rights, which involve the right to build on submerged land. They say that since 1978, the state has had sole power to grant such rights. SugarHouse won a state casino license for a site north of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in late 2006. The company says it has spent large sums of money on the project and it's too late to revoke the city permit. Police in Pa. reopen investigation into 1977 murder case

BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) - State police have reopened an investigation into the murder of a waitress who was raped and thrown from a highway bridge in central Pennsylvania three decades ago. Emerson McCauley is serving a life sentence in the 1977 killing of 21-year-old Devera Frink. The Boalsburg man, who is now 48, was convicted of second-degree murder in 1989. He has always maintained that two other men were involved, police said. A court on Monday unsealed a search warrant for DNA for a man who was implicated by McCauley, but not charged by police. McCauley told police in 1983 that he was with two other men when they picked up Frink. A state police lab last year found two DNA profiles from semen stains on Frink's clothing, but the Centre Daily Times says neither matched McCauley's DNA. Journal Register, saddled with debt, is being delisted

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Shares of Journal Register Co. are being suspended from trading on the New York Stock Exchange today. Eventually, officials say, the stock will be delisted. Journal Register says it will not appeal the suspension. Journal Register is struggling under debt from numerous acquisitions. Moody's Investors Service downgraded the company's rating deeper into junk status last week. It cited falling revenue and a "heightened probability of default stemming from eroding liquidity." The Yardley, Pa.-based company owns more than 300 publications in Michigan and along the East Coast. They include the flagship New Haven Register in Connecticut among 22 daily newspapers. Journal Register shares closed at 32 cents yesterday, cheaper than the newsstand price of a weekday paper. The stock traded as high as $23.875 a decade ago.

EPA urges Great Lakes residents to drop off old meds

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Federal officials are asking people who live in the Great Lakes region to dispose of unused or expired medications in a different way. The region has more than 30 million people, and every day an untold number of them flush the unwanted pharmaceuticals down the toilet. And trace amounts of the materials are showing up in the planet's largest source of fresh drinking water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging consumers around Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes to drop off leftover and expired medicines at collection centers being set up, to keep the drugs out of waterways.
The EPA has set a goal of collecting 1 million pills during an Earth Day initiative this month.

VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP) - Rarely does John McCain not have an answer. But two questions, about race and drinking, caught him off guard today during his stop on MSNBC's "Hardball College Tour" at Villanova University. One student questioner raised Democrat Barack Obama's comment about his grandmother being "a typical white person" and asked McCain whether he would call himself that. An amused McCain paused and praised Obama's recent "excellent" speech on race, but declined to answer the question. A second student raised Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's weekend visit to an Indiana bar, where she knocked back a shot of whiskey, and asked McCain if he'd stay for a shot after the appearance. The audience hooted and hollared, and McCain laughed, too. He said those were two of the toughest questions he'd ever had.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - State officials say most homeowners in Pennsylvania could get an average $169 reduction on their next school property tax bill as the state begins to distribute its take from slot-machine gambling in casinos. That would be an average cut of 10 percent off school property taxes for eligible home and farm owners outside Philadelphia in the 2008-09 school year. In Philadelphia, residents will see a 5.7 percent reduction in the city's wage tax rate in 2009. Suburbanites who work in the city will see a 5 percent drop in the wage tax rate they pay. Slot machines were legalized in 2004 on the promise of tax cuts, and revenues helped expand a property tax and rent rebate program last year for low-income seniors. The tax cuts will be the first after much anticipation by homeowners, as well as gambling opponents and proponents.

WHITE HOUSE (AP) - President Bush greets Pope Benedict at the White House this morning, telling him how glad the country is that he's visiting. And Bush will tell Americans they should listen to the pope's words. The president and the pope are likely to discuss immigration and religious tolerance but Iraq won't be a main topic.

JERUSALEM (AP) - Three Israeli soldiers and four Hamas fighters have been killed in the latest clashes in Gaza. Today's bloodshed comes amid Egyptian efforts to work out a cease-fire.

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - Some of the families of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre say they can't bear to attend today's ceremonies marking one year since the shootings that claimed 33 lives. Many of the observances today will be low-key, including a tree-planting ceremony to honor two of the victims.

CHICAGO (AP) - Officials plan to reopen St. Xavier University in Chicago today, days after closing the college because of threatening graffiti scrawled in a bathroom. Police haven't said whether they think the threat was a hoax. But they're confident the campus is safe.

ORDWAY, Colo. (AP) - Colorado's governor has declared a state of emergency because of wildfires that have scorched thousands of acres and killed three people. More than 1,000 people have been told to leave their homes.