Police Worry Tainted Heroin Remains In Upper Dauphin In the last two weeks in northern Dauphin County, four people apparently overdosed on what might have been tainted heroin, with two of them dying, police said. One dealer bought 20 bags of heroin in Reading on Wednesday and sold it to users in the Lykens and Wiconisco area, police said. On Thursday, a 41-year-old Lykens man bought three packets of the drug, snorted some of it, and died of an overdose minutes later, police said. Fourteen packets are unaccounted for, raising the possibility there could be more overdoses and deaths in the upper Dauphin area, police said. [continues 659 words]
LICKDALE -- State police seized more than $230,000 in cash that was hidden inside a concealed compartment in a station wagon they stopped yesterday morning on Interstate 81 just south of Lickdale. It was the second time in two weeks that state police found a large amount of cash hidden in a car driven on I-81 in Lebanon County. At about 8:40 a.m. yesterday, according to state police, a trooper pulled over the car carrying two Dominican men because there was no license plate, only a temporary paper tag, on the vehicle. [continues 453 words]
Senate favors Huey; House pushes larger, costlier Blackhawk WASHINGTON -- The drug fight in Colombia has turned into an air war in Congress. Although the Senate and the House have agreed to send $1.3 billion in aid to combat drug production in the South American country, lawmakers are fighting over which helicopter to send, the lightweight and venerable Huey or the larger and longer-range Blackhawk. Senators favor sending 60 Hueys, arguing that those transport helicopters are less costly. House members are pushing for 30 Blackhawks, saying they can take small- arms fire and keep on flying. The Blackhawks, these congressmen say, also can fly higher into the Andes to help wipe out the ever-expanding coca fields and processing labs, which provide 80 percent of cocaine on U.S. streets. [continues 951 words]
Congress gets plans for academy with notorious graduates WASHINGTON - Critics have branded it the School of Assassins. Now the Pentagon wants to remake the Army's School of the Americas, to put a more humanitarian face on the controversial 54-year-old training academy for Latin American military officers and police. Last week, the Clinton administration sent a reform package for the Fort Benning, Ga., school to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have tried for years to close it down, complaining that its less illustrious students include a death squad leader, a drug-connected dictator and roving bands of killers. [continues 893 words]
