STATE COLLEGE — Penn State University plans to steer clear of higher-than-expected tuition increases to balance the books despite facing difficult budget decisions amid a worsening economy, school president Graham Spanier said Friday.

Penn State has an enrollment of 92,000, counting its 24 campuses statewide and online students. The Board of Trustees proposed increases for the 2009-10 school year of between 4.9 and 5.6 percent, depending on the campus, in its appropriations request to the state in September.

That same month, though, the state told the university it would likely hold back $15 million of previously appropriated money for the current school year due to economic woes.

The university hasn't had to increase tuition at midyear in large part to "defensive measures" and long-range planning, Spanier said Friday in addressing the trustees.

With prospects of a short-term recovery dim, the university is thinking ahead. Rising costs for fuel and other utilities are among the items the university must account for amid lower appropriations, a reduced endowment and the credit crunch, Spanier said.

ERIE — A former college volleyball player who suffocated her newborn was sentenced to nine to 18 years in state prison on Friday by a judge who said the case was closer to premeditated homicide than the lesser crime she pleaded guilty to.Erie County Judge William Cunningham told Teri Rhodes, 20, of Commerce, Mich., he had to take a "moral stand" with the sentence.Rhodes pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in August. She hid her pregnancy, rejected help and searched the Internet for information on how to kill a fetus, Cunningham said.Rhodes was an 18-year-old Mercyhurst College sophomore when she gave birth to her full-term daughter on Aug. 12, 2007."Unfortunately, of all the options you had available, you picked the worst option," Cunningham told Rhodes, who sobbed as she stood before him.The sentence was close to the maximum of 10 to 20 years. It was far above what defense attorney Philip Friedman sought and what prosecutors recommended.Friedman said he was "totally outraged" by the severity of the sentence and would appeal. He had hoped Rhodes would get about two years, which would have kept her in the county prison. The Erie County District Attorney's Office wanted a similar sentence.

PITTSBURGH — Foodmaker H.J. Heinz said Friday strong sales of products such as Ore-Ida frozen potatoes and frozen meals boosted fiscal second-quarter profit by 22 percent as cash-strapped consumers cooked more meals at home.The foodmaker also said it benefited from hedging against currencies. The company reported a $92 million pretax currency benefit from the use of contracts to mitigate unfavorable exchange rates.Heinz said profit for the three months ended Oct. 29 rose to $276.7 million, or 87 cents per share. That was up from $227 million, or 71 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 4 percent to $2.61 billion from $2.52 billion.