Pennsylvania

The federal government on Friday set a deadline for Pennsylvania landowners who have refused to give up their property so that a memorial to United Airlines Flight 93 can be built. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told landowners that they have one week to reach sale agreements with the National Park Service before the agency exercises eminent domain to acquire the 500 remaining acres for the memorial, at the site where the hijacked plane crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.

An armed man strolled to the back of an exercise class at a health club in suburban Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, pulled out two guns and started shooting, leaving at least four people dead, including himself, and wounding at least 10 others. "He did not say anything," Allegheny County Police Supt. Charles Moffatt said. "He walked right into the room where the shootings occurred as if he knew exactly where he was going."

Carbon monoxide fumes killed a hotel guest and sickened four others Friday after a construction canopy blocked venting from the building's water heaters, officials said. Levels of the poisonous, odorless gas were so high that rescuers were forced to retreat until the Best Western Allentown Inn & Suites could be ventilated. The dead hotel guest was identified by the coroner's office as Philip D. Prechtel, 63, of Hilton Head Island, S.C.

The rest of America is about to get a crash course on the Keystone State. That would be Pennsylvania, so nicknamed because of its central location among the original 13 colonies. It's one of the country's largest states -- in land mass and population -- but it has never fired the public imagination like California, Texas or New York.

Despite all of the hand-wringing among Democrats about how the long-running Clinton-Obama battle could hurt the party's eventual nominee in November, not everyone is so sure that a drawn-out struggle is a bad thing. One of those optimists is Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, whose state hosts the next big Democratic contest. Rendell, who supports Hillary Rodham Clinton, points to his own victorious primary fight in 2002 against Bob Casey, now the state's junior senator.

With just days to go before Tuesday's crucial Pennsylvania primary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took aim again at rival Sen. Barack Obama's rhetoric, suggesting that she is the more substantive candidate for the presidency. "I'm not here just to talk in generalities and make you feel good," she told supporters Saturday. "I'm here to tell you specifically what I'll do." The specific topic was the economy -- which she used as ammunition against China.

After a six-week hiatus, the Democratic presidential contest goes back to the voters Tuesday, when Pennsylvania holds a primary that is a make-or-break contest for Hillary Rodham Clinton's struggling campaign. It also is a test of whether Barack Obama can regain his momentum despite recent controversies and can win over blue-collar voters who have been cool to him elsewhere.

Today in Pennsylvania's hard-fought Democratic presidential primary, there will be a winner and a loser. But the winner might not be the one with the most votes. With neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Barack Obama able to secure the nomination without support from the so-called superdelegates who will cast decisive votes, many dynamics are at work beyond who comes out on top in one day of balloting.

Pennsylvania voters Tuesday gave Hillary Rodham Clinton every reason to continue her campaign for president. But they did not present any definitive new evidence that would compel Democratic Party elders to step in and anoint Clinton as their White House nominee, particularly when Barack Obama continues to lead in the overall delegate count and in the popular vote.

After six weeks of testy campaigning by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama for the affections of this working-class city that has seen better days, voters streamed to the polls Tuesday. And if people such as Simon Lipchus were any indication, the television ads, interminable robocalls, bad bowling and whiskey sipping didn't make a whole lot of difference.