Pennsylvania news briefs

SCRANTON

Minor injuries after car, school bus crash

Police say a car collided with a school bus making a turn in northeastern Pennsylvania, leaving a woman and a boy in the car with apparently minor injuries.

Scranton police say the school bus driver and the three children riding on the school bus were not injured.

Officials say the school bus was turning left when a car struck the side of the bus. The driver of the car and three children in the car were taken to Moses Taylor Hospital.

Authorities say 30-year-old Jamie Kasarda of Archbald and a 5-year-old boy had apparently minor injuries, and a 3-year-old and a 2-month-old appeared uninjured.

STROUDSBURG

N.J. man convicted of baseball bat attack

A New Jersey man has been convicted of a baseball bat attack on two men in northeastern Pennsylvania.

A Monroe County jury convicted 23-year-old Melvin Cowart of two counts each of aggravated assault with intent to commit serious bodily injury and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Cowart denied responsibility for the October 2006 attack on East Stroudsburg Mayor Armand Martinelli and Monroe County conservation official Craig Todd.

MEDIA

Father, son charged in 72 Philly burglaries

Authorities say a father and son are charged in 72 burglaries in suburban Philadelphia that happened between September and January.

The 41-year-old father from Akron, Lancaster County, is accused of breaking into homes along with his 20-year-old son from the Philadelphia suburb of Clifton Heights. Police said Thursday that they broke into homes when most people are at work and stole valuables that they pawned or traded for heroin.

GROVE CITY

Student appeals porn video suspension

A student who appeared in pornographic videos using a pseudonym is appealing his suspension from a Christian college in western Pennsylvania saying the off-campus job wasn’t the business of school officials.

John Gechter, 22, of Philadelphia said he needed the income from his roles in gay porn to pay for school but was suspended for one year from Grove City College, pending his appeal, after a student saw him in a video posted online.

“I absolutely believe this college violated my rights,” Gechter told The Herald of Sharon. “They (suspended) me based on my occupation. I was not doing anything illegal.”

PITTSBURGH

Hospital won’t be charged in roof death

A prosecutor says he won’t file charges against a Pittsburgh hospital where a dementia patient wandered onto the roof in subfreezing temperatures and died.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. says there’s not enough evidence to charge UPMC Montefiore or any employees with criminal negligence in the Dec. 3 death of 89-year-old Rose Lee Diggs.

Zappala said Thursday a civil suit filed by the woman’s family and remedial measures required by the state department of health are sufficient to address her death.

Diggs went missing Dec. 2 and was found the next morning.