Texas officials told legislators Wednesday that they’re investigating the possible sexual abuse of some young boys taken from a polygamist sect’s ranch, as well as broken bones among other children.  

In written and oral testimony provided to lawmakers Wednesday, officials with the state Department of Family and Protective Services said interviews and journal entries suggested that boys may have been sexually abused.

Earlier, the department’s commissioner, Carey Cockerell, told lawmakers that at least 41 children, some of them “very young,” have evidence of broken bones.

The state has custody of 464 children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Texas.

The state has been criticized for taking all the children from the ranch, including infants and boys, on the theory that the girls may be abused when they are teens.

State authorities raided the ranch in search of evidence of underage girls being forced into polygamous marriages. Since then, the state won temporary custody of the children, now scattered around the state in group foster-care facilities.

The Fed action, announced Wednesday after a two-day regular meeting, pushed the federal funds rate down to 2 percent, its lowest level since late 2004. It marked the seventh consecutive rate cut by the central bank since it began easing credit conditions last September to combat the growing threat of a recession brought on by a deep housing slump and credit crisis.

The rate cut will mean lower borrowing costs throughout the economy as banks reduce their prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of consumer and business loans.

A Butler County couple and their twin daughters escaped a fire that destroyed their garage and part of their home last night on Swain Hill Road in Jackson, police said.

William and Ann Schlichtkrull and their 6-year-old daughters were not injured.

The family had been asleep when a neighbor noticed their garage on fire and awakened them around 11:15 p.m.

The garage and three of the four vehicles parked inside were destroyed, Jackson police Chief Len Keller said.

The home, which has been in the family for generations, sustained at least $500,000 in damage, Chief Keller said.

Automated calls from political candidates could be outlawed in Pennsylvania in time for the fall general election.The Senate today approved a bill preventing candidates and campaign committees from making so-called “robo-calls” to residents who join a do-not-call list.

Candidates and campaign committees would still be allowed to contact voters as long as “there is a real person making the calls,” he said. The bill prevents only recorded messages.

The bill, which would take effect Oct. 15, passed 48-1 with Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, opposing. It now heads to the House.

A  resident in a Corry Pennsylvania neighborhood serving federal probation for possessing child pornography has been charged with having sex with a minor girl in 2003 and 2004, after walking in to a Police station in Corry and confessing.

The defendant, George Eberle, 29, of the 300 block of East Main Street, was arraigned Tuesday and jailed in the Erie County Prison on $100,000 bond. He is accused of aggravated indecent assault and other counts.

The statement was taken on the 15th of April and the girl is now 15. He will get at a minimum 3 years in jail.

A Butler man is charged with disorderly conduct, after allegedly swearing at a
9-1-1 dispatcher, during a call Monday night.

Butler Township Police tell The Mercer News that T.B. Paul Joseph, who is 35, also threatened to blow up the country during that call.

Officers report that Joseph called the emergency dispatch center, because he was upset that he had missed a bus and cab ride, from Butler Commons. He did however get  ride from the police and some nice parting gifts such as a ticket and a air of matching hand cuffs.

The search for a new chancellor of the fourteen state-owned universities, including Slippery Rock, IUP and Clarion, is now down to three finalists.

The successful candidate will replace Chancellor Judy Hample, who is leaving to take a new job in July as President of the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

The three finalists are Jack Warner, commissioner of the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education; Richard Wells, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor; and John Cavanaugh, President of the University of West Florida.

The candidates underwent interviews by the system’s board of governors yesterday, and the interviews will wrap up today. A spokesperson for the State System of Higher Education says they’re not sure when a final decision will be made.

In a strange local case, that garnished so much attention the hearing had to move to a bigger courtroom, and adelay is pending as they seek the use of the court room, that Linda Bruno, 45, of Frazer Township, is charged with hundreds of summary and misdemeanor animal cruelty offenses, will have to wait for her day in court.

The orignal case dismissed, the charges were refiled with specific evidence on each charge.

At one point the Judge had enough of the photos, but the lawyer for the defendant insisted on the case going forward as Bruno pleaded not guilty, and her attorney, Ron Valasek, argued unsuccessfully for dismissal of the most serious charges.

McDonald, a humane agent testified that she found some medication, but no evidence indicating that any cats had been treated.

On a recorded statement played in court from a March 13 raid by law enforcement and humane agents, Bruno estimated that she took in 1,500 cats in 2007 and adopted out several hundred, most to qualified horse farms. McDonald said she found no records that any cats went to horse farms.

During the raid, investigators removed 380 live cats, of which 263 were being housed in a Clarion County animal shelter, McDonald said. The rest died or had to be euthanized.

Officials found 108 dead cats on the property during the raid - 107 in a freezer and one dead in a litter box, according to McDonald and Detective Richard Manning.

In her recorded statement, Bruno said 70 to 80 percent of the cats were in “perfectly good health.” She also said she had 292 live cats and perhaps 40 to 50 cats awaiting burial.

The D.A. says “It was a living hell for those animals who were starving, and in some cases left for dead, it’s the sickest thing Ihave seen animal wise in my life.” 

The state Senate is poised to consider a bill that would allow local governments to place legal notices in free community papers and end a monopoly long enjoyed by the established newspaper industry.Advocates say the bill would save tax dollars by offering a cheaper alternative to newspaper ad rates for such announcements as proposed zoning changes, bid contracts, and future public meetings.

But critics, namely daily newspapers and their lobbying arm, argue that allowing legal notices in so-called shoppers, which they say few people read or want, would shortchange the public in the end.

The issue has produced rhetoric on both sides, with newspaper representatives calling free papers “junk mail” and a consultant for free papers labeling dailies as a “cartel” bent on protecting a coveted revenue source.

Two Senate committees have endorsed the proposal, Senate Bill 428, without opposition, and the full chamber could vote on it as early as next week.

The requirement to place legal notices in newspapers dates to the 1800s, and newspapers are framing the debate as one of public access.

“The idea was that people have a right to know what their government is up to,” said Deborah Musselman, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and the point person opposing the bill.

Allowing notices in free papers, she said, would “make it a lot harder to know what your government is up to because you wouldn’t know where to look to find the information.”

Local governments now must place legal notices in a “newspaper of general circulation” in a county. The bill would expand that to include “community papers of mass dissemination” that are distributed free through the mail or delivered by carrier to all households in a political subdivision.

“Right now, the legal-advertising law grants an exclusive monopoly that doesn’t recognize that there are other bona fide options out there,” said Jim Haigh, a consultant to the Mid-Atlantic Community Papers Association, which represents 300 free papers in seven states, about half of them in Pennsylvania. “We are just looking for fair competition.”

Haigh argues that community papers would do a better job of getting the word out. They are sent free to every household in a community, while newspapers require a paid subscription that not everyone has.

The bill has the support of associations representing municipalities and schools, which long for cheaper ad rates.

“We are always looking for ways to get the message out to more individuals, but at the same time to save money,” said Holly M. Fishel, research director at the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Robert C. Wonderling (R., Montgomery), downplayed the controversy, saying the bill would merely provide another option for municipal leaders.

Local officials, not Harrisburg, know how to best serve their constituents, he said, and they could still choose newspapers for legal notices.

“All this legislation does is provide local governments another option to publicize information,” Wonderling said, adding that he supported letting “the free market of content availability drive the decisions.”

The City of Philadelphia spent more than $3 million on legal ads in newspapers in 2007, records show. But it’s unclear exactly how much is at stake statewide.

Haigh said local governments in Pennsylvania spent $26 million a year on legal notices and could save up to half that by advertising in free papers. The newspaper association questions those figures, insisting that no accurate study has been done.

Regardless of the amount, the legislation could deal another blow to Pennsylvania’s newspaper industry, which, like that in the rest of the nation, has suffered from declining ad revenue and profits, forcing layoffs.

Musselman acknowledged that legislation would hurt the industry financially. And that, she said, would harm everyone.

“If you hurt our revenue, you are hurting our ability to do our job under the First Amendment,” Musselman said. “It sounds corny, but that is what we believe.”

The industry is also trying to fend off what it views as even more troublesome legislation - a bill that would allow governments to post legal notices on the Internet, avoiding print altogether.

That measure isn’t as far along. It is awaiting action in the Communications and Technology Committee, chaired by Wonderling, and he said this week that he had no immediate plans to consider it.

An autopsy will be performed tomorrow on Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, a 39-year-old comedian who died Thursday after contracting pneumonia at the Delaware County jail, where he was awaiting trial.Since 2005, at least eight people have died at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, the state’s only privately run jail. Several of those deaths resulted in lawsuits by family members who say the facility did not provide adequate medical care or proper supervision for inmates.

Kallenbach suffered from cystic fibrosis, an inherited chronic disease. He had been housed at the jail since mid-March, when he was arrested on a charge of attempted child abduction. He was taken to Riddle Memorial Hospital April 21, where he died.