BEAVER — Sheriff's deputies say a western Pennsylvania county jail inmate wearing an orange-and-white striped uniform tried to hail a taxi to escape from a hospital where he was taken for medical treatment.
The Beaver County Times reports Tuesday that 23-year-old Holden Wooley was taken to Heritage Valley Beaver Hospital on Saturday night after a reported seizure. Deputies say at one point during his four-hour hospital visit, Wooley went outside to hail a cab — but the driver refused to pick him up.
When hospital security officers tried to grab him, Wooley ran into the woods. Police say he was arrested a couple hours later when officers used a dog and a stun gun to subdue him. He was treated for a dog bite at the hospital and returned to jail.
Online court records don't list an attorney for Wooley.
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Fire reported at nonlethal weapons plant
HOMER CITY — Emergency crews have closed a western Pennsylvania highway near a fire at a plant that produces nonlethal weapons, including smoke grenades.
A phone message left at Nonlethal Technologies in Homer City was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Indiana County 911 dispatchers say the fire was reported about 10:30 a.m. after at least one explosion was also reported.
It was not immediately clear if anyone has been injured at the plant about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The plant is on Route 286, which has been closed in both directions.
A dispatcher says crews were still on the scene about 90 minutes later, but were primarily dealing with smoke as the fire has reportedly been extinguished.
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UGI: No way to know Allentown pipeline would fail
ALLENTOWN — A utility is telling Pennsylvania regulators it had no way of knowing a pipeline implicated in a fatal gas explosion in Allentown would fail.
The Morning Call reports UGI Utilities said in a filing with the Public Utility Commission on Monday that it had no way of knowing the cast iron pipeline would fail in February 2011, killing five people and destroying eight homes.
The utility also says that levels of odorant in the gas were within federal and state guidelines.
A PUC report blamed the explosion on a leak emanating from a crack in a cast-iron distribution line. The PUC has cited multiple safety violations and recommended a series of corrective actions and a $386,000 fine.
This week's filing sends the matter to an administrative law judge.
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Police: Woman tried to drown son, 2, in hotel
PITTSBURGH — A West Virginia woman is jailed on attempted homicide and other charges that she tried to drown her 2-year-old son in a Pittsburgh-area hotel room.
Allegheny County police announced Tuesday the arrest of 33-year-old Sharon Flanagan, of Inwood, W. Va.
Paramedics were called to the Green Tree hotel about 8:30 p.m. Sunday after Flanagan was seen screaming in a hallway. Her son was found unresponsive in a bathtub and is now in a Pittsburgh hospital in critical condition.
Police say they charged Flanagan because her statements were inconsistent. Court papers show Flanagan told police she left the boy alone in the tub while she bandaged her sore back, but also indicated she was with the boy but somehow failed to hold his head above water.
Online court records don't list a defense attorney.
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Organ harvesting lawsuit set for August trial
ERIE — A federal judge in Erie says jury selection will begin Aug. 28 in an Ohio couple's lawsuit claiming their son's death was hastened so his organs could be harvested after a 2007 skiing accident.
Criminal investigators determined that doctors at what is now UPMC Hamot hospital followed proper procedures when they declared 18-year-old Gregory Jacobs dead and got permission to take his organs in March 2007.
The teen's parents, who live in Bellevue, Ohio, are suing the hospital and the Pittsburgh-based Center For Organ Recovery and Education, claiming medical officials illegally hastened his death.
Hamot's attorneys have argued the boy wouldn't recover and CORE officials have argued nobody did anything to intentionally harm Jacobs.
The Erie Times-News reports Tuesday that the judge set the trial date after refusing to dismiss the lawsuit.
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Email citing Paterno brings defense of late coach
HARRISBURG — Details from a decade-old email are raising new questions about Joe Paterno's response to a sex abuse complaint regarding former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, but a Paterno family spokesman says he's not worried about the impact on the late coach's legacy.
Family spokesman Dan McGinn said Tuesday that Paterno never directed him to protect his legacy or clear his name. McGinn says Paterno believed his record would speak for itself.
The Paterno family wants all emails and records related to the Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal to be released.
CNN has reported that an email by the school's athletic director in 2001 indicates he changed his mind about going to child welfare authorities after speaking with Paterno.
Sandusky awaits sentencing after being convicted last month of 45 counts.
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Webpage describing old voter ID law removed
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania elections officials say they have removed a webpage that said non-photo identification can be used as Election Day proof of identity by first-time voters.
Department of State officials say they acted after The Associated Press pointed out the webpage Tuesday.
A new law in effect for the November election requires all voters to show a certain kind of photo ID. Spokesman Ron Ruman says the old law is still in effect for an Aug. 7 special election for a vacant state Senate seat in suburban Pittsburgh.
Pennsylvania's Republican-sponsored law is one of the nation's toughest and is being challenged in court as unconstitutional.
Democrats opposed the law. They also pounced on recent comments by Republican House Leader Mike Turzai, who said the changes will allow GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to win Pennsylvania.
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Obama to visit Pittsburgh on 2-day campaign swing
HARRISBURG — President Barack Obama is coming to Pennsylvania for the second time this year, this time as part of a two-state campaign swing.
The Obama campaign said his two-day bus tour will wrap up in Pittsburgh on Friday after a tour through northern Ohio.
In Pittsburgh, Obama will speak at Carnegie Mellon University's campus. The campaign says he'll focus on economic themes.
The visit coincides with the Obama's campaign release of a new TV ad in Pennsylvania this week that criticizes Republican rival Mitt Romney's economic philosophies.
It will be the president's first bus tour of the 2012 campaign. He last visited Pennsylvania in a trip to Philadelphia last month.
Romney took a bus tour of his own through Ohio and Pennsylvania last month.
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