GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Officials with the National Park Service say the Confederate monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania will not be removed from the battlefield. Katie Lawhon, senior adviser for the park service’s Gettysburg battlefield office, tells the Reading Eagle the site-specific memorials are important, and the park service’s job is to historically and objectively tell the stories the monuments commemorate.
The battlefield has more than 1,300 monuments that tell the story of the deadliest engagement in the Civil War. Only 30 are dedicated to Confederate states, military units and individuals. More than 46,000 soldiers died in the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1 to July 3, 1863. A nonprofit that promotes tourism in the county says about 3.7 million tourists visit the area each year.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf will nominate his insurance commissioner, Teresa Miller, to lead Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services while he waits to see whether lawmakers will approve its merger with the Department of Health. Wolf made the announcement in an email to employees Thursday, and said the change in duties takes effect Monday. Wolf’s current human services secretary, Ted Dallas, is on medical leave. Wolf’s office says Dallas will take an advisory role to the governor when he returns to work.
Wolf had proposed merging three other agencies with the Department of Human Services and tapped Miller to lead it, should lawmakers approve it. However, lawmakers are instead considering the two-agency merger. Wolf will nominate Miller’s chief of staff, 29-year-old Jessica Altman, to head the Department of Insurance.
HUNTINGDON, Pa. (AP) — The oldest known living person in the United States is celebrating her 114th birthday in Pennsylvania. The state Aging Department says Delphine Gibson hit the milestone Thursday, getting a personal greeting from the governor. Gibson was born in South Carolina in 1903 and moved to Pennsylvania after marrying Taylor Gibson in 1928.
She’s been a resident of AristaCare in Huntingdon Park for the past 15 years. Aging Secretary Teresa Osborne says Gibson attributes her long life to a faith in God. She’s a member of Mount Hope Missionary Baptist Church. Gibson’s status as the nation’s oldest person is according to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks people older than 110 worldwide.
Pennsylvania lawmaker waives hearing in drunken-driving case
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Republican state House member from Allegheny County is waiving his preliminary hearing on charges he drove drunk in the Harrisburg suburbs earlier this summer.
John Maher told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (http://bit.ly/2x8AA8p ) on Thursday that he waived this week’s hearing because he accepts responsibility for a bad decision.
Court records show an East Pennsboro Township officer stopped the 58-year-old Maher at about 1 a.m. on June 13 after seeing him make a U-turn and drive in the wrong direction.
Maher gave the officer his Capitol ID badge, telling the Post-Gazette that he typically has the ID in a shirt pocket with his driver’s license.
The patrol officer wrote that Maher nearly fell into him “while trying to stop walking.”
A test showed Maher’s blood-alcohol content was about 0.18, or more than twice the legal limit.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police are investigating after the phrase “black power” was found scrawled across the statue of an ex-mayor in the wake of a call for its removal. The message was discovered late Thursday, sprayed in white paint on the bronze statue of Frank Rizzo, a former mayor and police commissioner who critics say reigned over the city when police brutality was the accepted norm.
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Investigators identified a decomposed body found by workers alongside a Pennsylvania highway and ruled the woman’s death a homicide. Police identified the woman Thursday as 33-year-old Laura Rebecca Ingalls-Hood. Her body was found Monday along Pennsylvania Route 711 in Fairfield Township. A coroner previously told The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat it appeared the body had been there at least a week. Police have not said how the woman died.
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