From USA TODAY: As Americans pay about $4 per gallon for gasoline, they’re wasting 1.9 billion gallons of it annually in traffic on congested roads, a new Treasury Department report says… The report — released in support of President Obama’s plan to upgrade and expand America’s transportation infrastructure in fiscal year 2013 — comes as Republican presidential candidates criticize Obama for high gasoline prices and his administration and the Senate wrestles with House Republicans over a new transportation bill.

Concerning the cancelled track and field program at Millersville University, the Intelligencer Journal / New Era article ” Critics rally at Millersville University ” reports: “… an alumnus has offered to donate $300,000 to fund men’s cross country and outdoor track programs over the next several years while alumni look for permanent funding solution.

From the WASHINGTON POST: Ernest Drucker, an internationally recognized public health scholar, professor and physician, contends that mass incarceration ought to be understood as a contagious disease, an epidemic of gargantuan proportions. With voluminous data and meticulous analysis, he persuasively demonstrates in his provocative new book, “A Plague of Prisons,” that the unprecedented surge in incarceration in recent decades is a social catastrophe on the scale of the worst global epidemics, and that modes of analysis employed by epidemiologists to combat plagues and similar public health crises are remarkably useful when assessing the origins, harm and potential cures for what he calls our “plague of imprisonment.”…

Giant Food Stores and Weis Markets announced today that it will no longer purchase fresh ground beef containing finely textured beef, a filler that’s been dubbed as “pink slime.”

In recent weeks, the cheap meat filler has made headlines after social media exploded with worry. An online petition initiated by The Lunch Tray blogger Bettina Siegel quickly garnered more than 247,000 signatures.

HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS: In a sign that he is tired of dealing with political charades, Harrisburg receiver David Unkovic lost his cool, slammed down his fist and blasted what he called disastrous financial decisions by city leaders, as he testified in a federal courtroom Wednesday.

Unkovic didn’t point fingers, but the normally mild-mannered receiver said Harrisburg’s debt crisis was created by complicated schemes and scams involving huge monetary amounts.

Ray Gricar didn’t charge Sandusky in 1998 because there was not enough evidence, not because of a psychologist’s report. The real question is why AG Corbett and DA Madeira (and the Patriot-News for that matter) didn’t properly investigate Gricar’s disappearance in 1995.

From REUTERS: Three new studies published on Wednesday added to growing scientific evidence suggesting that taking a daily dose of aspirin can help prevent, and possibly treat, cancer. Previous studies have found that daily aspirin reduces the long-term risk of death due to cancer, but until now the shorter-term effects have been less certain – as has the medicine’s potential in patients already diagnosed with cancer.

EDITOR: We have been misinformed again and again by the generals in charge of wars in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Note the videos accompanying the following article. In watching the PBS News Hour, the Watchdog found his attention focused on the four stars on Gen. Allen’s jacket and shirt.

From “The Operators, The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan” by Michael Hastings: “The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the worlds had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood…

From the PENNSYLVANIA INDEPENDENT: More than $4 billion annually in economic activity will be reduced in Pennsylvania, if Gov. Tom Corbett tightens restrictions on food assistance recipients. Individuals and families seeking to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits would have to meet a higher financial threshold, according to the state Department of Public Welfare, or DPW…

From the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW: The Marcellus shale’s bounty of natural gas is likely close to some of the most optimistic early projections, according to the private sector and university researchers who have been butting heads with federal analysts over the size.

From NEWSMAX: A classified exercise simulating war to assess the potential ramifications of an Israeli attack on Iran determined that such a strike would lead to a regional war that would suck in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to U.S. officials quoted in The New York Times…

HARRISBURG (March 19) – As a primary approaches where the votes of a million Pennsylvania Republicans won’t matter, several Republican leaders are pushing to change that before the 2016 primary. But the party that insisted voters should have to show photo ID to vote to ensure every vote counts, wants its own voters to have their primary results count for nothing when it comes to apportioning the 72 Republican National Convention delegates.