Four former Lackawanna County employees who claimed they were fired for political reasons in 2004 have received a total of $350,000 in a lawsuit settlement. The county s former insurance carrier, Scottsdale Insurance Co., settled the case with Linda Poplawski, Brian Wrightson, Sharon Wrightson and Ryan Spinello.
County Commissioner Robert C. Cordaro said the insurance company made a business decision to agree to the settlement. The former workers filed suit in U.
S. District Court soon after they were fired. When Mr.
Cordaro and A.J. Munchak took office, they eliminated jobs and downsized departments because they said the county s budget had a deficit in excess of $9 million.
Six people, including three children, were left homeless when a fire destroyed a mobile home along Route 374 in Susquehanna County. According to Tiffany Vangorder, who lived in the home, the fire started in the bathroom and spread quickly. After seeing the flames, she hurried the kids out of the home, taking them to a neighbor s house.
With firefighters already on the way, Ms. Vangorder grabbed a hose and tried to douse the flames, which were shooting 20 feet into the air, according to witnesses. About 50 firefighters from Susquehanna, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties responded.
Three nearby trailers sustained minor damages. No one was injured. Businesses may soon be barred from erecting billboards and other outdoor advertising signs within 660 feet of the edge of Route 92 from Susquehanna County to Route 6 in Tunkhannock Township.
Tunkhannock, Nicholson and Lemon townships and Nicholson Borough governments are scheduled to vote on an ordinance to ban future billboards as another step toward having Route 92 designated a Scenic Byway. The ban would only apply after the ordinance is adopted. Signs already in place would not be affected.
In 2005, the state gave scenic designation to a three-mile stretch of the Route 6 Bypass through Tunkhannock Borough and Tunkhannock Township. The state now has 14 scenic byways, including one on Route 92 in Susquehanna County. An alert neighbor helped city police nab a man they say broke into a South Hyde Park Avenue apartment and almost got away with the tenant s jewelry.
Authorities allege Anthony Pauline used a butter knife to break into the apartment about 2:20 a.m. No one was home at the time.
The building s owner told police she heard a loud crashing sound and called 911. The woman told police the tenant was out of town. Police searched the apartment and found Mr.
Pauline in a bedroom closet. He was arraigned on burglary, theft, criminal trespass and other charges. Eight juveniles were arrested after a brawl that involved about 50 people.
Police from Moosic, Old Forge and Taylor responded to the incident, which occurred in the Kmart parking lot on Birney Avenue. A Moosic police officer said he believes the fight was between two local gangs, the JRBs and the Heights Bad Boys. People remaining in the parking lot said the brawl began over a racial epithet at an area high school.
One of those involved was found to have a knife. No one was seriously injured. A judge ordered a new trial for a man convicted in the 1991 beating death of a 5-month-old boy after his lawyer argued that a previous lawyer had been ineffective.
Brian Smith, 37, will get a new trial for the murder of Ryan Leahy. Mr. Smith was the live-in boyfriend of the baby s mother.
He was baby-sitting when he repeatedly hit the infant to get him to stop crying. Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas said his staff would have to research what to do next since the judge issued the one-page order without any comment or opinion. In Butler, a man shot and killed his girlfriend and her teenage son before shooting himself dead.
Police said that Joel E. Bodley called 911 moments before the shootings. He apparently killed Debby Chuda and her son, Andrew S.
Chuda, before killing himself. The woman s body was found in a second-floor bedroom and the son s body was found in the basement. Police recovered a .
25-caliber semiautomatic handgun, which they believe was used in the three shootings. Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon s scandal- shattered administration as the 38th president and the only man ever to reach the White House without being elected to national office, died Tuesday.
A statement released by his wife, Betty, didn t list a cause of death but Mr. Ford had battled pneumonia and underwent two heart treatments earlier in the year. He was the longest-living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at age 93.
Mr. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, 130 miles east of Los Angeles. James Brown, 73, the undeniable Godfather of Soul, died Christmas morning of heart failure in a hospital in Atlanta.
Friends said that the music legend, whose classics include Papa s Got a Brand New Bag and I Got You (I Feel Good), had participated in his annual toy giveaway three days before in Augusta, Ga., and he was looking forward to his New Year s Eve show. The entertainer had battled diabetes and prostate cancer.
He was one of the first artists to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry. John Edwards announced that he will run for president in 2008 and said he has new ideas that make him a very different candidate the second time around. In 2004, Mr.
Edwards was the moderate, southern senator who promoted middle-class tax cuts and tried to position himself as the best general election alternative to President Bush. One person was shot to death and three gunmen were arrested at a crowded mall on Christmas Eve, prompting police to evacuate the building in search of more suspects. Police said they think the victim was targeted by the suspects at the Boynton Beach Mall, north of Miami.
No other injuries were reported. A mall spokesman said the shooting was outside of a store inside the mall. The U.
N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, increasing international pressure on the government to prove that it is not trying to make nuclear weapons. Iran immediately rejected the resolution.
The result of two months of tough negotiations, the resolution orders all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs. It also freezes assets of 10 key Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs. Ethiopian jets bombed Somalia s two main airports while ground troops captured three villages and a strategic border town.
Jets swept over the capital, dropping two bombs on Mogadishu International Airport, part of a major escalation in the week-old fighting. The leader of the Islamic militia, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, flew into the airport shortly after the attack; it was not clear if he was an intended target. Airstrikes also hit Baledogle Airport outside Mogadishu.
On Saturday night, thousands of Somali and Ethiopian troops closed in on the last remaining stronghold of a militant Islamic movement in southern Somalia, as the prime minister called for talks to avoid further bloodshed.
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