AP Pennsylvania Headlines, Conversation Starters and Sports for 5/14/2017

AP PA Headlines

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Wealthy school-choice advocates have sought to play a powerful role in Pennsylvania politics.  More than $10 million from school-choice advocates has made its way into Pennsylvania political campaigns in the past decade.  The AP analyzed the political contributions by the people who have been major contributors to advance school choice measures.

A little over $1.2 million has come from a group of some of the country’s wealthiest people who have underwritten the political push for school choice.  That’s dwarfed by contributions from a suburban Philadelphia trio.  In 2010, Arthur Dantchik, Joel Greenberg and Jeffrey Yass gave $5 million to help Philadelphia state Sen. Anthony Williams run for governor. He was third in the Democratic primary.  They then poured $7 million into helping Williams’ campaign for Philadelphia mayor in 2015. Williams lost again.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pennsylvania’s top prosecutor has charged a speeding Amtrak engineer with causing a catastrophe, eight counts of involuntary manslaughter and other crimes in a 2015 derailment that came after he accelerated to 106 mph in a 50 mph zone.  Prosecutors said Friday they have been in talks with engineer Brandon Bostian’s attorney to have him surrender and be arraigned on the charges. A judge says Bostian lives in Massachusetts. Bostian’s lawyer hasn’t returned messages seeking comment this week.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro has expanded on charges filed a day earlier by a Philadelphia judge asked to approve a private criminal complaint sought by the family of a woman killed in the May 12, 2015, crash. The judge ordered city prosecutors to charge Bostian with two misdemeanors.  Philadelphia prosecutors had earlier declined to charge Bostian, citing insufficient evidence. The crash killed eight people and injured about 200 others.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The University of Pittsburgh rowing team says their uniforms were among items stolen from team vans as they prepare for a big race in Philadelphia.  The team says the vans were broken into Thursday on a road running along Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, where the Dad Vail Regatta is scheduled to start Friday.  A post on the team’s Facebook page says they are trying to stay focused on the race.  Police are investigating.

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Oddities & Conversation starters

GREAT FALLS, Montana (AP) — A Montana beekeeper has recovered hives that were stolen from him in California, thanks to an agricultural sting operation.  Lloyd Cunniff of Choteau reported 488 hives stolen in January, after he had transported them to California for the almond pollination season.  A tip led Fresno County authorities to find stolen hives worth $170,000 in a rented bee nursery space, a cow pasture and hidden in a drainage along a freeway.

Fresno County Detective Anders Solis, member of the county’s agriculture crimes task force, says there were 10 victims in seven California counties in all.  Cunniff got most of his bees back last Sunday. He says he is keeping the recovered hives in a separate field in case they are infected with disease or mites.

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of Neil Gorsuch’s sharpest dissents as an appeals court judge came just months before he was nominated for the Supreme Court.  That’s when he sided with a New Mexico seventh-grader who was handcuffed and arrested after his teacher said the student had disrupted gym class with fake burps.  The boy’s mother wants the Supreme Court to hear the case.

And she’s using Gorsuch’s words to argue she has the right to sue the officer who arrested her son.  The court could act as early as Monday, either to deny the case or take more time to decide.  Gorsuch said arresting a “class clown” for burping was going “a step too far.” His earlier involvement means he probably won’t have any role in considering it at the high court.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is delivering his first commencement address as president.  Trump speaks Saturday morning at Liberty University in southwestern Virginia. The leader of the Christian school, Jerry Falwell Jr., was among Trump’s earliest and most vocal supporters.  Trump’s remarks will mark his first extended public appearance since he fired James Comey as FBI director.

Trump has stayed largely out of public view since Tuesday. That day he dismissed the head of the agency that is investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump’s campaign.  Trump says in his weekly address that he’s “delighted to be participating first-hand” as students and faculty celebrate Liberty’s more than 18,000 graduates.  Falwell is credited with helping Trump win an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote.

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — The young black bear was probably looking for treats when he climbed inside a car in Virginia, but it managed to honk the horn.  Roanoke police say the 200-pound animal got stuck and blew the horn, rousing the car’s owners about 5 a.m. Thursday.  An officer was able to open the car’s back door, and the bear ran into the woods.

Police say snacks were inside the car and reminded people to keep their cars locked.  The incident comes shortly after a bear caused a spectacle in downtown Roanoke.  Lee Walker of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries tells Police say residents shouldn’t be alarmed about the multiple bear sightings. He says bears are more afraid of people than the other way around.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Scores & Skeds

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved