Today's News-Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
Jobs lost in distribution center closing
More than 150 people are slated to lose their jobs next year when HanesBrands closes two distribution centers at Tidewood Industrial Park in eastern Schuylkill County. The North Carolina based company is consolidating the centers into existing facilities in the southern United States. A company press release cites they will offer severance packages and career assistance to the workers losing their jobs.
Road work commences today
Road paving on a major artery in Pottsville will get underway today. Paving on East Norwegian Street was scheduled to begin yesterday. However, due to a problem at the asphalt plant, the work has been pushed back till today, according to Tom Palamar, City Adminstrator. Line and curb painting was being done throughout the downtown yesterday. Liquid fuels funds from the state are funding the roadwork.
PPL chooses route for massive power line
PPL Electric Utilities have chosen the route for a massive power line to help meet the demand for electricity. The Allentown-based company announced yesterday that the 500 kilovolt transmission line will take an existing path from the nuclear plant in Berwick, Luzerne County, through Lackawanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe counties. Officials had contemplated several other routes, including one through eastern Schuylkill County. The state Public Utility Commission must approve the plan.
Wiconisco man charged with terroristic threats
A Wisconisco man is charged with making terroristic threats against his wife. State police at Lykens say that Glenn and Sylvia Barder got into an argument outside of her workplace yesterday in Elizabethville. Glenn Barder reportedly kicked her, and threatened to kill her. In addition to the threats charge, Barder faces charges of harrassment.
Pottsville man to serve jail time for drug charges
A Pottsville man will serve time in state prison after pleading guilty to possessing methamphetamines. 23-year-old Bradley Bowers was sentenced yesterday by Judge D. Michael Stine to serve 3 to 6 years in state prison. He was found to have drugs in his possession by Pottsville police in December, 2006, and also gave alcohol to a minor in 2007. He pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year.
June project underway in city
More than 150 people are slated to lose their jobs next year when HanesBrands closes two distribution centers at Tidewood Industrial Park in eastern Schuylkill County. The North Carolina based company is consolidating the centers into existing facilities in the southern United States. A company press release cites they will offer severance packages and career assistance to the workers losing their jobs.
Road work commences today
Road paving on a major artery in Pottsville will get underway today. Paving on East Norwegian Street was scheduled to begin yesterday. However, due to a problem at the asphalt plant, the work has been pushed back till today, according to Tom Palamar, City Adminstrator. Line and curb painting was being done throughout the downtown yesterday. Liquid fuels funds from the state are funding the roadwork.
PPL chooses route for massive power line
PPL Electric Utilities have chosen the route for a massive power line to help meet the demand for electricity. The Allentown-based company announced yesterday that the 500 kilovolt transmission line will take an existing path from the nuclear plant in Berwick, Luzerne County, through Lackawanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe counties. Officials had contemplated several other routes, including one through eastern Schuylkill County. The state Public Utility Commission must approve the plan.
Wiconisco man charged with terroristic threats
A Wisconisco man is charged with making terroristic threats against his wife. State police at Lykens say that Glenn and Sylvia Barder got into an argument outside of her workplace yesterday in Elizabethville. Glenn Barder reportedly kicked her, and threatened to kill her. In addition to the threats charge, Barder faces charges of harrassment.
Pottsville man to serve jail time for drug charges
A Pottsville man will serve time in state prison after pleading guilty to possessing methamphetamines. 23-year-old Bradley Bowers was sentenced yesterday by Judge D. Michael Stine to serve 3 to 6 years in state prison. He was found to have drugs in his possession by Pottsville police in December, 2006, and also gave alcohol to a minor in 2007. He pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year.
June project underway in city
"June Project" crew working at North Centre Street site.
Take a group of 100 teenagers from the New Dover Methodist Church in New Jersey who just want to make a difference, give them tools and let them go to work to beautify the Elm Street corridor in Pottsville. The June Project kids are "Marooned" in the city this week to help improve open spaces on North Centre Street. Each teen pays $200 dollars to come and work here, and the results after just 3 hours are impressive. Libby Caine, a project leader, says their purpose here is simple:
CAINE
16-year-old Rich Dugan, who has worked here in Pottsville before, says that they are meant to serve:
DUGAN
Elm Street Manager Mike McGeever indicates that donations of drinks, snacks and other supplies would certainly be appreciated to supply the work crews. If you would like to help, call Schuylkill Community Action at 622-1995.
CAINE
16-year-old Rich Dugan, who has worked here in Pottsville before, says that they are meant to serve:
DUGAN
Elm Street Manager Mike McGeever indicates that donations of drinks, snacks and other supplies would certainly be appreciated to supply the work crews. If you would like to help, call Schuylkill Community Action at 622-1995.
Second vigil planned for slain immigrant
A second vigil calling for racial unity is being planned in the small Pennsylvania coal town where a a Mexican immigrant was beaten to death. The pastor at the First United Methodist Church is planning a Reconnecting Healing Service for Sunday at 3 p.m. The Rev. Bruni Martinez says the service is to bring the people of Shenandoah together after 25-year-old Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala died July 14, two days after being beaten. Three teenagers were charged last Friday in the death of the farmhand and factory worker.
New plan would allow about 70 percent of passenger cars avoid paying tolls on I-80
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is expected on Wednesday to announce 20 possible locations along Interstate 80 for cashless toll collection devices. The tolling gantries are to be located 35 or 40 miles apart and will collect tolls electronically through E-ZPass or by reading license plates and billing the vehicle owner. The commission will decide exactly where to put them sometime this fall. Planners say they want to let passenger cars on I-80 pass through one toll booth for free. The idea is to reduce the number of local drivers who have to pay tolls and divert less traffic onto other local roads. Planners say that would just about double the number of passenger vehicles that don't have to pay for driving on the northern Pennsylvania interstate. The Legislature approved tolls on I-80 last year as a way to generate income to fix roads and bridges and subsidize mass transit needs. Federal approval is still required, however, and Gov. Ed Rendell is pushing a long-term lease of the Pennsylvania Turnpike as an alternative.
Anti-drink tax group wants Allegheny referendum
PITTSBURGH (AP) - A group against Allegheny County's 10-percent drink tax has submitted more than 46,000 signatures to get a referendum to cut the tax on the November ballot. Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation want to let voters choose whether to cut the tax to 0.5 percent. County Council has already passed a measure that will let voters choose between keeping the 10-percent drink tax or having their property taxes go up. Both groups are threatening to challenge each other's referendum in court. But before that happens, county elections officials must verify FACT's signatures. If slightly more than 23,000 are genuine, that group's referendum can appear on the ballot. The drink tax is used to fund the county's $30 million transit subsidy.
Gun-control groups fear top activist was NRA spy
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Could a woman who spent more than a decade working as a gun-control activist have been a spy for the National Rifle Association? That's the allegation made about Mary Lou McFate, filed in a deposition as part of a contract dispute involving a security firm. Two anti-violence groups are now in the process of expelling McFate and sweeping their offices for bugs. McFate was an unpaid board member of CeaseFirePA and an organization called States United to Prevent Gun Violence. She's a former flight attendant and sex counselor. And she's not new to the world of informants. A medical supply business has acknowledged that she infiltrated an animal-rights group in the late 1980s and befriended an activist later convicted in a pipe bomb attack. The magazine Mother Jones first reported the story last week. No comment yet from McFate or the NRA. Pa. warehouse slaying defendant due in court Wed.
BRISTOL, Pa. (AP) - A preliminary hearing is scheduled Wednesday for a suburban Philadelphia man accused of killing two men at his former workplace. Thirty-two-year-old Robert Diamond, of Bristol, is charged with two counts of murder, including one in the first degree, and several lesser offenses. Authorities say he went to the Simon & Schuster warehouse about 20 miles north of Philadelphia during a shift change Friday and shot 46-year-old temporary worker Angel Guadalupe and 52-year-old forklift operator Reginald Woodson.
Jury to visit scene of shooting death of Pa. police officer
READING, Pa. (AP) - Jurors in the capital murder trial over the shooting death of a plainclothes Reading police officer are expected to visit the crime scene Wednesday - the second anniversary of the officer's death. Forty-year-old Officer Scott Wertz was shot and killed near City Hall in August 2006. Prosecutors say he was chasing 26-year-old Cletus Rivera, of Reading, when he was shot in the chest. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Rivera. Defense attorney Jay Nigrini says his client didn't know that Wertz was a police officer and acted in self defense. The jury was brought in from Northampton County because of extensive media coverage of the case in the Reading area.
Secrecy shrouds case of Pa. casino owner
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Attorneys for a casino owner say they will probably file a motion to unseal an opinion by a judge who is supposed to recommend whether a special prosecutor should investigate alleged leaks in a grand jury probe. Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover filed an opinion in the case with the state Supreme Court on Monday, but it is still sealed. Attorneys for Louis DeNaples, the owner of the Mount Airy Resort Casino in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, say they probably will seek to unseal the opinion. The wealthy Scranton-area businessman is charged with four counts of perjury stemming from the grand jury investigation. He is accused of lying to investigators for the state Gaming Control Board about his relationships with two reputed mobsters and others to win a $50 million slot-machine gambling license. While his criminal case is pending, DeNaples is barred from exercising any control over his casino. The $412 million facility, which opened last fall, is being run by a state-appointed trustee.
Comcast sweetens its online menu with Daily Candy
NEW YORK (AP) - Comcast Corp. is expanding its online menu with the acquisition of Daily Candy, an electronic newsletter catering to women looking for tips on fashion, food and fun things to do in big cities. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The Wall Street Journal reported the sales price at about $125 million, citing people familiar with the matter whom it did not name. Daily Candy has about 2.5 million readers who receive daily newsletters in their e-mail. It produces different daily editions for London and 11 U.S. cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. Like most Web sites, New York-based Daily Candy makes its money from advertising. Philadelphia-based Comcast hopes to expand Daily Candy's audience by promoting some features on its other Internet properties.
Penguins to break ground on new arena Aug. 14
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Pittsburgh Penguins will break ground on their new $290 million arena next week. Gov. Ed Rendell will be among the dignitaries in attendance. The new arena will be built across the street from 47-year-old Mellon Arena, the oldest and one of the smallest arenas in the NHL. The Penguins hope the arena will be complete by the start of the 2010-2011 season. The owner of the city's planned slot machine casino is expected to contribute $7.5 million a year for 30 years toward the cost of the arena.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - On the same day he arrives in Beijing for the Olympics, President Bush will press the communist government in China to allow greater freedom for its citizens. Bush plans to say in a speech in Thailand that he has "deep concerns" about the state of human rights in China.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is poised to declare the 2001 anthrax case solved. The main suspect killed himself last week, but his lawyer and some friends and co-workers say they doubt Army scientist Bruce Ivins would have unleashed the deadly spores. The FBI begins briefing victims and their families today.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A memorial with nine tombstones in a circle will be dedicated today in Utah's Crandall Canyon. It's for the six men trapped underground by a massive mine collapse one year ago, and the three rescuers who perished in an unsuccessful attempt to save them.
DETROIT (AP) - The mother of Detroit's embattled mayor has won her Democratic primary election. Michigan Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick defeated two challengers. In Kansas, former Olympian Jim Ryun was defeated in a bid to regain the Republican congressional seat he lost in 2006.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A beer maker who tangled with federal regulators over bottle caps has won out. Authorities said the slogan "Try Legal Weed" on the caps was an illegal drug
reference. But the brewer says it's just a play on the name of the town where he brews the stuff -- Weed, California. Regulators backed off.
A second vigil calling for racial unity is being planned in the small Pennsylvania coal town where a a Mexican immigrant was beaten to death. The pastor at the First United Methodist Church is planning a Reconnecting Healing Service for Sunday at 3 p.m. The Rev. Bruni Martinez says the service is to bring the people of Shenandoah together after 25-year-old Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala died July 14, two days after being beaten. Three teenagers were charged last Friday in the death of the farmhand and factory worker.
New plan would allow about 70 percent of passenger cars avoid paying tolls on I-80
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is expected on Wednesday to announce 20 possible locations along Interstate 80 for cashless toll collection devices. The tolling gantries are to be located 35 or 40 miles apart and will collect tolls electronically through E-ZPass or by reading license plates and billing the vehicle owner. The commission will decide exactly where to put them sometime this fall. Planners say they want to let passenger cars on I-80 pass through one toll booth for free. The idea is to reduce the number of local drivers who have to pay tolls and divert less traffic onto other local roads. Planners say that would just about double the number of passenger vehicles that don't have to pay for driving on the northern Pennsylvania interstate. The Legislature approved tolls on I-80 last year as a way to generate income to fix roads and bridges and subsidize mass transit needs. Federal approval is still required, however, and Gov. Ed Rendell is pushing a long-term lease of the Pennsylvania Turnpike as an alternative.
Anti-drink tax group wants Allegheny referendum
PITTSBURGH (AP) - A group against Allegheny County's 10-percent drink tax has submitted more than 46,000 signatures to get a referendum to cut the tax on the November ballot. Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation want to let voters choose whether to cut the tax to 0.5 percent. County Council has already passed a measure that will let voters choose between keeping the 10-percent drink tax or having their property taxes go up. Both groups are threatening to challenge each other's referendum in court. But before that happens, county elections officials must verify FACT's signatures. If slightly more than 23,000 are genuine, that group's referendum can appear on the ballot. The drink tax is used to fund the county's $30 million transit subsidy.
Gun-control groups fear top activist was NRA spy
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Could a woman who spent more than a decade working as a gun-control activist have been a spy for the National Rifle Association? That's the allegation made about Mary Lou McFate, filed in a deposition as part of a contract dispute involving a security firm. Two anti-violence groups are now in the process of expelling McFate and sweeping their offices for bugs. McFate was an unpaid board member of CeaseFirePA and an organization called States United to Prevent Gun Violence. She's a former flight attendant and sex counselor. And she's not new to the world of informants. A medical supply business has acknowledged that she infiltrated an animal-rights group in the late 1980s and befriended an activist later convicted in a pipe bomb attack. The magazine Mother Jones first reported the story last week. No comment yet from McFate or the NRA. Pa. warehouse slaying defendant due in court Wed.
BRISTOL, Pa. (AP) - A preliminary hearing is scheduled Wednesday for a suburban Philadelphia man accused of killing two men at his former workplace. Thirty-two-year-old Robert Diamond, of Bristol, is charged with two counts of murder, including one in the first degree, and several lesser offenses. Authorities say he went to the Simon & Schuster warehouse about 20 miles north of Philadelphia during a shift change Friday and shot 46-year-old temporary worker Angel Guadalupe and 52-year-old forklift operator Reginald Woodson.
Jury to visit scene of shooting death of Pa. police officer
READING, Pa. (AP) - Jurors in the capital murder trial over the shooting death of a plainclothes Reading police officer are expected to visit the crime scene Wednesday - the second anniversary of the officer's death. Forty-year-old Officer Scott Wertz was shot and killed near City Hall in August 2006. Prosecutors say he was chasing 26-year-old Cletus Rivera, of Reading, when he was shot in the chest. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Rivera. Defense attorney Jay Nigrini says his client didn't know that Wertz was a police officer and acted in self defense. The jury was brought in from Northampton County because of extensive media coverage of the case in the Reading area.
Secrecy shrouds case of Pa. casino owner
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Attorneys for a casino owner say they will probably file a motion to unseal an opinion by a judge who is supposed to recommend whether a special prosecutor should investigate alleged leaks in a grand jury probe. Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover filed an opinion in the case with the state Supreme Court on Monday, but it is still sealed. Attorneys for Louis DeNaples, the owner of the Mount Airy Resort Casino in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, say they probably will seek to unseal the opinion. The wealthy Scranton-area businessman is charged with four counts of perjury stemming from the grand jury investigation. He is accused of lying to investigators for the state Gaming Control Board about his relationships with two reputed mobsters and others to win a $50 million slot-machine gambling license. While his criminal case is pending, DeNaples is barred from exercising any control over his casino. The $412 million facility, which opened last fall, is being run by a state-appointed trustee.
Comcast sweetens its online menu with Daily Candy
NEW YORK (AP) - Comcast Corp. is expanding its online menu with the acquisition of Daily Candy, an electronic newsletter catering to women looking for tips on fashion, food and fun things to do in big cities. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The Wall Street Journal reported the sales price at about $125 million, citing people familiar with the matter whom it did not name. Daily Candy has about 2.5 million readers who receive daily newsletters in their e-mail. It produces different daily editions for London and 11 U.S. cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. Like most Web sites, New York-based Daily Candy makes its money from advertising. Philadelphia-based Comcast hopes to expand Daily Candy's audience by promoting some features on its other Internet properties.
Penguins to break ground on new arena Aug. 14
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Pittsburgh Penguins will break ground on their new $290 million arena next week. Gov. Ed Rendell will be among the dignitaries in attendance. The new arena will be built across the street from 47-year-old Mellon Arena, the oldest and one of the smallest arenas in the NHL. The Penguins hope the arena will be complete by the start of the 2010-2011 season. The owner of the city's planned slot machine casino is expected to contribute $7.5 million a year for 30 years toward the cost of the arena.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - On the same day he arrives in Beijing for the Olympics, President Bush will press the communist government in China to allow greater freedom for its citizens. Bush plans to say in a speech in Thailand that he has "deep concerns" about the state of human rights in China.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is poised to declare the 2001 anthrax case solved. The main suspect killed himself last week, but his lawyer and some friends and co-workers say they doubt Army scientist Bruce Ivins would have unleashed the deadly spores. The FBI begins briefing victims and their families today.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A memorial with nine tombstones in a circle will be dedicated today in Utah's Crandall Canyon. It's for the six men trapped underground by a massive mine collapse one year ago, and the three rescuers who perished in an unsuccessful attempt to save them.
DETROIT (AP) - The mother of Detroit's embattled mayor has won her Democratic primary election. Michigan Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick defeated two challengers. In Kansas, former Olympian Jim Ryun was defeated in a bid to regain the Republican congressional seat he lost in 2006.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A beer maker who tangled with federal regulators over bottle caps has won out. Authorities said the slogan "Try Legal Weed" on the caps was an illegal drug
reference. But the brewer says it's just a play on the name of the town where he brews the stuff -- Weed, California. Regulators backed off.
posted by PBC Radio (WAVT & WPPA) @ 5:26 AM
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