Once-powerful Pa. senator faces trial

PHILADELPHIA -- A longtime power broker in Pennsylvania politics earned nearly $100,000 a year as a state senator, up to $1 million a year as a rainmaking lawyer and millions more from the sale of a family bank.

However, prosecutors say freewheeling Philadelphia Democrat Vincent Fumo used little of his own money as he took yachting vacations with friends, spent lavishly on a 33-room city brownstone and hired operatives to spy on ex-wives and political foes.

Fumo faces trial Monday in federal court on charges alleging he used $3.5 million in what he called "OPM" -- other people's money -- to keep his political machine well oiled and fund a lifestyle that included three vacation homes and heated sidewalks outside his mansion. The trial is expected to last a full three months, after a week of jury selection.

Fumo is accused of misusing nearly $2 million in Senate funds and of raiding the coffers of a neighborhood charity after using his political clout to steer $27 million in corporate donations to the charity.

Fumo, 65, argues that he did nothing illegal and worked tirelessly to serve his constituents in blue-collar, parochial South Philadelphia. He takes credit for securing more than $8 billion in government and corporate benefits for the region.

"I spent half my life here and I spent it here with every fiber in my body," Fumo said in a farewell speech to the Senate this summer, after deciding not to seek another term this fall.

Tortoise needs ride back to Mojave Desert

CUSICK, Wash. -- Sadie the desert tortoise needs a ride to an adoptive home in the Mojave Desert -- the sooner the better.

The 10-inch reptile, found at a U.S. 95 rest stop in Idaho, has thrived at the Kiwani Wambli wildlife rehabilitation center north of Spokane since July but is unlikely to do so well with the onset of fall, center operator Dotty Cooper said.

"It's just way too cold," she said.

Cold-blooded desert tortoises are unaccustomed to temperatures below 40, much less when the mercury dips to freezing temperatures. To survive a winter in Cusick, Sadie would have to be kept indoors for months.

She has shared a pen with an orphaned fawn. Sadie even showed the fawn how to forage for greens to eat -- a process much harder for humans to demonstrate, Cooper said. The duo once wandered off after the tortoise burrowed under a plastic fence.

"When I got home, she and the deer were marching down the road," Cooper said.

The fawn has been released into the wild, which isn't an option for Sadie at this time because of the possibility that she's acquired a disease that could be passed on to others of her kind.

"Once they've been touched by humans, they're now a domesticated pet. They're no longer classified as a wild animal," said Ginger Wilfong, of the Bay Area Turtle and Tortoise Rescue in Castro Valley, Calif., east of San Francisco, which is helping Sadie find a home.

S.F. Bay-area officer killed in gun fight

MARTINEZ, Calif. -- Three people including a police officer are dead after a reported domestic disturbance at a hair salon turned into a gun fight, police in this San Francisco Bay area community said Saturday.

Martinez police and Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies responded to the disturbance call at Elegant Hair Designs at 11:35 a.m., said Jimmy Lee, a sheriff's spokesman.

At the time the salon was full of customers, including a bridal party. No one inside the salon was shot.

After officers arrived, the gunman, who said he was looking for his ex-wife, fled to an apartment complex behind the salon, and shots were fired, Lee said.

Owner: Ride's over at Coney Island

NEW YORK -- When reports circulated over the weekend of a last-minute deal to keep Coney Island's historic Astroland amusement park open for another year, owner Carol Hill Albert was not amused.

Indeed, her tone was bitter as she described plans to close the park Sunday night in lieu of an agreement with the city or with private developer Thor Equities, which have competing plans for the 3-acre Brooklyn site.

"Despite rumors to the contrary, there are absolutely no negotiations going on, and there never were," said Albert, whose family has owned Astroland for more than four decades.

She said uncertainty about Astroland's future had created stress for its 400 employees and hampered the acquisition of spare parts for the rides, and that the park would close permanently.

"We cannot risk the safety of our customers," she said.

The Cyclone, the famous Coney Island roller coaster, and the 150-foot-tall Wonder Wheel, a Ferris wheel, are separately owned and landmarked by the city so they are unaffected by the closing.

But the news that Sunday would be the last gasp for the Dante's Inferno fun house, 22 other rides and three arcades drew hundreds of nostalgia-minded visitors, including elderly residents of the beach area and families with children who had never ridden on the Tilt-A-Whirl or the Water Flume.