From Crystal Club Soda to Gertrude Hawk Chocolate

The Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reports that  the New York Department of the Transportation and Amtrak will study the feasibility of passenger rail service from Binghamton to Scranton, Pa., staff in U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer’s office announced today. The route would provide Southern Tier residents a route over rails to the New York City region for the first time in more than 30 years.  Schumer is pushing rail service as an economic boon to the area and a more environmentally friendly alternative to driving.

In May, a charter airline will start offering non-stop flights from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Southern Skyways is already booking tickets.  The airline is coming here without any financial backing from Lackawanna or Luzerne counties.  The airlines that currently fly out of the airport in Luzerne County offer only connecting service to popular vacation destinations.  Southern Skyways will offer direct flights to Myrtle Beach.  Continue reading.

Photo by tomdobb.

The city would have saved nearly $20 million on health care costs alone if its financial recovery plan had been implemented upon approval in 2002, officials said Tuesday.  The plan also would have alleviated the need for borrowing to help balance budgets over the past five years, Mayor Chris Doherty said.  Continue reading.

The highest bidder for East Scranton Intermediate School wants to turn the school into 35 upscale apartments.  GreenSpace Properties LLC has offered $569,000 for the Quincy Avenue school. The other bid, from city businessman Paul Mansour, was $525,000. Bids, for which the district had set a minimum of $500,000, were opened Friday. GreenSpace’s bid package included information on the apartments, which would include one- and two-bedroom, loft and studio styles. The facility would include a fitness center and laundry, and offer parking and wireless Internet. The project would take about two years to complete. Continue reading.

While getting my daily news fix at the Times-Tribune website, I stumbled upon a new site from Team Shamrock. It’s called the570.com and it’s defiantly worth checking out. We’ll have to forgive the lack of originality in naming the site… From Crystal Club Soda To Gertrude Hawk Chocolate was already taken.

According to the Times-Tribune, the rate of violent crime in Scranton plummeted more than 13 percent in 2007, while police recorded the most arrests in recent memory, according to crime statistics released Thursday. Scranton Police Department officials attribute the increase in arrests to more-active community policing efforts.

Photo by qpmarl42.

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resource issued a press release touting an agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey to put the department’s PAMAP high-resolution aerial photography on Google Earth, where the image of a phallus on the field was discovered in early December.  The release describes access to images of Pennsylvania that are “at a scale 10 times better than what was previously available” on earlier maps.  Pranksters used herbicide to create the outline of a phallus on the turf of Harman-Geist in the summer of 2004, before the sod was ripped up and replaced with an artificial surface. The grass died and the image — which stretches from sideline to sideline, or about 53 yards — became visible.  Continue reading.  Editor’s note.  To see a picture of said phallus, click here.

A man who authorities say provided key information that led to the arrest of reputed mobster Billy D’Elia was rewarded Wednesday for his cooperation, receiving a significantly reduced prison sentence on a money laundering charge. Frank Pavlico III had faced up to just more than 11 years in prison, but was instead sentenced to 10 months and ordered to pay a $15,000 fine based on the recommendation of federal prosecutors.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod acknowledged the sentence was a drastic departure from sentencing guidelines, but said the reduction was warranted because Pavlico had risked his life to obtain evidence against D’Elia, the reputed head of the Bufalino crime family.  Continue reading.