Senator blasts PSU for speech by Ayers

STATE COLLEGE — The presiding officer of the Pennsylvania Senate wants Penn State to cancel plans to have a co-founder of the Weather Underground group speak on campus next week.

President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, a Jefferson County Republican, says in a letter sent Friday to university president Eric Barron he wants to know how much it is costing the school to host Bill Ayers next week.

The Weather Underground was an organization that opposed the war in Vietnam. It claimed responsibility for bombings, including at the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.

Ayers was a fugitive for years but turned himself in in 1980 and charges were later dropped.

Police chief to trial for on-duty crash

CORAOPOLIS — A suburban Pittsburgh police chief has been ordered to stand trial in connection with an August crash that seriously injured a woman.

Coraopolis Police Chief Alan DeRusso has been on administrative leave since charges including felony aggravated assault by motor vehicle were filed Jan. 14. Before that, the 56-year-old chief had been on medical leave due to his injuries.

Investigators say they found no evidence DeRusso was answering an emergency call in his unmarked car when he allegedly ran a red light in Moon Township at 80 mph and hit an SUV driven by 36-year-old Kristy Grazier.

Recovery officer in York resigns

YORK — The man brought in to help turn around York City’s schools has quit after more than two years.

The York Daily Record/Sunday News reported Friday that David Meckley resigned from the chief recovery officer post he’s held since late 2012.

Meckley tells the paper a recovery plan announced in December that involves some charter schools isn’t viable because of opposition to charters by Gov. Tom Wolf.

Meckley was hired by Democrat Wolf’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

Corbett’s Education Department in December got a local judge to name Meckley as the schools’ receiver, a post that would have given him the ability to convert to charter schools without approval from the school board.

Shelter fire leaves 10 people homeless

UNIONTOWN — A fire at a southwestern Pennsylvania homeless shelter caused the roof to collapse and has left 10 people living there — including four children — homeless again.

State police fire marshals were investigating reports that a young boy playing with matches or fire might have started the blaze Thursday at the City Mission in Uniontown.

The fire was reported about 6:30 p.m. and heavily damaged six apartments in the building, each filled by a different family.

Irmi Gaut, the mission’s executive director, calls the fire “heartbreaking.”

Ex-officer faces prison sentence

PITTSBURGH — A former Western Pennsylvania police officer faces prison for violating a man’s civil rights by using a stun gun on him three times while he was handcuffed.

A jury convicted 30-year-old Nicole Murphy in November.

She worked as an officer in the tiny Pittsburgh suburb of Millvale when she stunned Thomas Jason James Smith after his arrest for public drunkenness in September 2012.

Her attorney argued at trial she was merely trying to stop Smith from banging his head on a desk and office cubicle, though she filed official reports saying Smith was combative and spat on her partner, which that officer has denied.

But a cell phone video showed Murphy and other officers laughing at Smith during the ordeal.

Prosecutors want a sentence of between 27 and 33 months in prison Friday.