Latest Pennsylvania news, sports, business and entertainment

SECOND MILE-SANDUSKY

Sandusky charity to shut down, transfer programs

PHILADELPHIA (AP) The charity for troubled youths started by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky more than three decades ago is seeking court approval to shut down.

The Second Mile says it has been financially crippled by the child-sex abuse scandal involving its founder and onetime public face and has no other option but to close.

The charity is asking a judge to allow it to transfer programs and millions of dollars in assets to a Texas-based youth ministry that serves abused and neglected children.

Prosecutors say Sandusky found his victims through The Second Mile. He has pleaded innocent to more than 50 counts of sexual abuse involving 10 alleged victims. He awaits a June trial.

SENATOR CHARGED

Special election to fill Orie's seat to be Aug. 7

PITTSBURGH (AP) The special election to fill the rest of the term of former Pittsburgh-area Republican state Senator Jane will be held August 7.

Lieutenant Governor James Cawley announced the date.

Orie resigned effective Monday because she's been convicted and will be sentenced June 4. She was convicted in March of 14 charges including several counts each of conflict of interest, theft of services and forgery for using her former state-funded staff to do political campaign and fundraising work.

Orie won the seat in a special election in March 2001, when fellow Republican Melissa Hart resigned after winning a seat in Congress. Hart is said to be interested in running again for her old seat, though she declined comment when asked by The Associated Press earlier this week.

UNDERGROUND FIRE-50 YEARS

50 years on, fire still burns underneath Pa. town

CENTRALIA, Pa. (AP) It's an anniversary the few remaining souls who live in Centralia won't be celebrating.

Fifty years ago on Sunday, a fire began at the town dump that ultimately spread to a network of coal mines underneath hundreds of homes and businesses in the northeastern Pennsylvania borough, resulting in the demolition of nearly every building.

All these decades later, the Centralia mine fire continues its grip on the popular imagination, drawing visitors from around the world. It's a macabre story that has long provided fodder for books, movies and plays, the latest one debuting in March at a theater in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Yet to the handful of residents who still occupy Centralia, their town is no sideshow attraction. It's home, and they'd like to keep it that way

GAS DRILLING-RESEARCHER

Critics question shale gas researcher, schools

PITTSBURGH (AP) A well-known expert on the natural gas boom is again facing criticism over his ties to industry and lack of transparency in how he presents work to the public, fueling debates over research that's been published by major universities.

Critics say a report issued by the University at Buffalo last week has serious flaws and raises questions about the school's independence.

Some experts say the school and the researcher could have easily avoided some of the controversy with more transparency about funding and the publication process.

MUSICIAN-FATAL SHOOTING

Scuffle follows hearing in Pa. musician's killing

(Information in the following story is from: Bucks County Courier Times, http://www.phillyburbs.com )

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) The alleged gunman in the botched robbery killing of a suburban Philadelphia musician scuffled with a sheriff's deputy escorting him from the courtroom where he and two other men were ordered held for trial.

Breon Powell had to be wrestled to the ground following the brief brawl after yesterday's hearing in a Bucks County courtroom.

The 20-year-old Powell and four others are charged in connection with the December 28 killing of Levittown musician Danny DeGennaro.

The Bucks County Courier Times reports 19-year-old Jermaine Jackson and 18-year-old Kazair Gist were also ordered to stand trial after the court heard testimony from a fourth person who allegedly drove the men the night DeGennaro was killed.

Eighteen-year-old Danasia Bakr wants her case transferred to juvenile court. A second woman is also charged.

TODDLER TWINS DEAD

Pa. mom questioned in death of toddler twins

PHILADELPHIA (AP) A Philadelphia woman is being questioned by police who say she suffocated her 18-month-old twins, named Adam and Eve, in the family home.

Authorities say a 4-year-old girl at the home also was given some kind of medication before the mother cut her own wrists Thursday.

The older girl was hospitalized. The toddlers' bodies were carried from the home, wrapped in white cloth.

A police spokesman says the woman told officers she had harmed her children.

Investigators are not identifying the woman because no charges have been filed.

EX-TEACHER-SEX ABUSE

Former W. Pa. teacher guilty of abusing non-pupil

EBENSBURG, Pa. (AP) A former western Pennsylvania school teacher has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a child under the age of 13, who was not one of his students.

Thirty-six-year-old Jason LoBoi, formerly of Geistown, now has to register as an offender under the state's Megan's law and faces up to 20 years in prison when he returns for sentencing by a Cambria County judge on August 22.

LoBoi lost his job as a Greater Johnstown Middle School teacher after his arrest last May. That's when Geistown police charged him with molesting the child over a two-year period.

Prosecutors say the victim is doing well and has very strong family support.

LoBoi pleaded guilty to a single county of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse on Thursday and remains free on bond.

FATAL CRASH-POLICE THREAT

Pa. police received threat after sisters' crash

(Information in the following story is from: Valley News Dispatch, http://www.valleynewsdispatch.com )

VANDERGRIFT, Pa. (AP) State police say western Pennsylvania township police have been threatened if they charge anyone in connection with a fatal crash in which a woman died in a car driven by her sister.

State police haven't charged anyone with sending the letter to the Parks Township police and say whoever sent it must also not be aware that state troopers not the township police are still investigating the March 18 crash that killed 26-year-old Nicole Dibler, of Vandergrift.

Police say Dibler was returning from a bachelorette party with her 23-year-old sister, Michelle, who lost control of the car, which rolled into the Kiski River. That happened about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Troopers tell the Valley News Dispatch the anonymous letter threatening to harm Parks Township police was sent March 26.

FIRED UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

Fired Pa. president gets more time to clear office

CALIFORNIA, Pa. (AP) A judge has canceled a hearing to determine whether California University of Pennsylvania president Angelo Armenti can remove his personal property from his former office, because state officials have given him more time to do so.

Armenti was forced out last week by the State System of Higher Education Board of Governors, which oversees state universities, then barred from his office Tuesday afternoon. Armenti says he didn't have time to pack up all of his belongings, so he got a Washington County judge on Wednesday to order his office sealed until she could rule Friday whether to allow him back in to continue packing.

The settlement with state education officials has made that hearing unnecessary.

State officials have said an audit shows the school had various financial problems under Armenti's 20-year tenure.

DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY-UNION

Pa. Duquesne's adjunct faculty to hold union vote

PITTSBURGH (AP) Part-time faculty member at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University plan to vote on whether to unionize.

The United Steelworkers union says that adjunct faculty at the university's McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts will vote for two weeks beginning June 22. The votes will be submitted by mail and counted on July 9.

The union praised the university for "working cooperatively" in allowing the election to go forward.

The union says a majority of Duquesne's 124 adjunct professors want to unionize.

The Adjuncts Association filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board after the university declined to voluntarily recognize the group as a bargaining unit.

VATICAN SCAM

Anne Hathaway's ex-boyfriend freed from Pa. prison

LORETTO, Pa. (AP) An Italian ex-boyfriend of actress Anne Hathaway has been released from a Pennsylvania federal prison following a real-estate scam.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke says Raffaello Follieri was released this morning from a prison in Loretto, 80 miles east of Pittsburgh. He says non-residents are usually transferred to immigration authorities.

Follieri pleaded guilty to cheating investors by falsely claiming he had Vatican connections that enabled him to buy church property at a discount. He was sentenced in 2008 to 4 1/2 years in prison.

Follieri agrees he owes more than $3.6 million to those he ripped off. The proceeds supported a playboy lifestyle that included a $37,000-a-month New York City apartment and lavish vacations with the star of "The Princess Diaries."

They dated for four years.

CALUMET-IND EXPANSION

Calumet Specialty Products plans Indy expansion

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) A company that makes oils, gels and other substances for use in food, lubricants and personal care products plans to expand its Indianapolis headquarters, creating up to 48 new jobs by 2015.

Calumet Specialty Products Partners announced the project today.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation says it offered Calumet up to $400,000 in tax credits conditioned on the new jobs and up to $137,500 in training grants. The city will consider granting property tax abatement.

The company already has 75 full-time Indiana employees and says it has already begun hiring new management, accounting, sales, human resources and information technology employees.

Calumet began operations in 1990 and has five additional plants in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and Missouri.

PRESIDENT BUSH-GOLF

Former president Bush golfs at SW Pa. resort

(Information in the following story is from: Altoona Mirror, http://www.altoonamirror.com )

BEDFORD, Pa. (AP) Former president George W. Bush was spotted playing a round of golf at a southwestern Pennsylvania resort, where he chatted briefly with neighbors and posed for a few pictures with resort guests.

The Altoona Mirror reports that Bush took a private jet from Texas to the Bedford County Airport before U.S. Secret Service agents escorted him to the Omni Bedford Springs Resort yesterday, about 90 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Bush, the nation's 43rd president, is the 10th president to visit since the resort opened.

The hotel is famed for its mineral springs and for being the summer White House of President James Buchanan in the 1800s. The hotel fell into disrepair and closed in 1990 before reopening after a $120 million renovation and expansion project in May 2007.