High Level

Remember Callahan Bright, the 2005 version? Back then, he was a Harriton High senior, destroyer of blockers and ballcarriers and a prize recruit of Florida State. The defensive tackle was so dominant he was listed as the nation's 14th-best recruit in the Class of 2005, according to Rivals.com. To put Bright's standing in perspective, current Nebraska all-American defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh was ranked 37 spots behind him. Now meet Bright - the updated version. In the last few years, he has worked as a garbage man, served time in jail, and played a season at Division II Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. While Suh is expected to be among the first three selections in the NFL draft that begins tonight and continues through Saturday, Bright - after academic problems and a scrape with the law - hopes a team gambles on him as a late-round pick.

Robert H. Winters, superintendent of the Central Bucks School District, has picked up a 9.5 percent salary increase - but not everyone on the school board agreed he should get it. Board members Jacqueline Wolchko and John Toth opposed the raise in a 5-2 vote Thursday night. Winters' salary was increased from $76,000 to $83,200 as he started the third year of his four-year contract. Winters get his raise each year on the anniversary of his first day in the job. "By no means is this a personal reflection on Mr. Winters," said Toth.

THE VERY interesting group of citizen-professionals selected by city leaders for the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. have many of the same very desirable strengths of the present Fairmount Park commissioners that the city leaders led the charge to abolish on the other side of town. Those strengths are independence and protection from politics applied to that group of highly experienced citizen-professionals, a high level of planning, and earnest and intelligent commitment to the mission.

The Chester County coroner could not determine whether a Phoenixville man who died five days after his arrest at a concert in Camden last summer was the victim of an accident or a homicide. The family of Brett Katzenmoyer has charged in a federal lawsuit that he died after being beaten by Camden police. The corner did note that the 21-year-oldsuffered head injuries while being subdued by police, and suffered "extensive microscopic" brain damage consistent with a severe concussion.

Mario Lemieux, whose comeback has excited his sport as much as Michael Jordan's did for basketball, wants to be hockey's dominant player again. "I'm not coming back to embarrass myself," Lemieux said at a news conference yesterday. "I wouldn't come back unless I thought I could play at a high level and regain the title of the best player in the world. I have the desire and passion to do it. " Lemieux denied his unexpected comeback after a 31/2-year layoff has anything to do with enhancing the finances of the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise he now owns.

La Salle coach John Giannini announced yesterday that senior guard Ruben Guillandeaux would be out for the remainder of the season because of a stress fracture in his right foot. The 6-foot-5 Guillandeaux will apply to the NCAA for a medical hardship with the hope that he can play his fourth season of eligibility next year. To be granted a medical redshirt, an athlete must have played in fewer than 30 percent of his team's games and none during the second half of the season. Guillandeaux was sidelined after the first four games, in which he averaged 9.5 points and shot 62 percent from three-point distance.

The federal government is extending its nationwide terrorism alert through March 11, but this time is aiming the warning more to police than to the general public, officials said yesterday. The FBI extended the alert "based on the continuing high level of generalized threat information," said Gordon Johndroe, Homeland Security Office spokesman. About 18,000 police agencies nationwide got the word Wednesday via the FBI's Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. High alerts against terrorism have been virtually continuous since Sept.

Up and down is the best way to describe Matt Harpring's debut season with the 76ers, but it has been more up lately than down. In the first five of the seven games on the Sixers' current road trip, Harpring connected on 26 of 42 field-goal attempts overall - a stellar 61.9 percent - and 2 of 3 three-pointers while collecting 30 rebounds and scoring 65 points. In the two games before last night's against the Seattle SuperSonics, Harpring collected 19 points and 10 rebounds against Utah last Saturday and 15 points and 10 rebounds against Phoenix on Wednesday.

Lan Van says that she doesn't remember much of her native Vietnam, a country that was in the midst of war when she was born. What she does remember is her grandparents, who were Chinese, teaching her to speak their language, and how she used to walk long distances to school, from the countryside where she lived into Saigon. "My mother and father wanted me to have a good education and they felt that the schools in the city were better," she said. The desire of her father, Mao Khai Van, and her mother, Truong Thuy Van, to provide a good education has paid off for Lan Van, who will be graduating at the top of her class from Penn Wood High School on June 16. She will be giving the school's valedictorian address - no small accomplishment for someone who did not speak the language fluently until four years ago. Lan Van came to the William Penn School District in 1980, two years after leaving Vietnam for Hong Kong en route to the United States.

The Philadelphia Pirates hope they can reestablish women's soccer in the area. The Pirates, an expansion entry in the 20-team Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL), a high-level amateur league, were introduced yesterday at a news conference at the Downtown Club. The team, made up mainly of high school seniors and college players, will play its home games at Swarthmore College. David Jones is the team owner and coach. Philadelphia has been without women's soccer since the Charge disbanded - along with the Women's United Soccer Association - after the 2003 season.

INDIANAPOLIS - Not to keep beating a dead horse, but hell, let's. Long story short, 2 years ago, the Eagles traded up to the 13th spot in the first round of the draft. Wanted a defensive end. Had a choice between the freakishly-athletic-but-relatively-inexperienced Jason Pierre-Paul of South Florida, and steady-Eddie-productive Brandon Graham of Michigan. The Eagles opted for Graham. Their division rival, the Giants, who they hopped over to grab Graham, happily took Pierre-Paul.

Home court has never been an advantage for La Salle as it has been this season. The Explorers recorded their 13th straight victory, dating back to last season, at Tom Gola Arena with a 78-63 triumph against George Washington on Wednesday night. The Atlantic Ten win also enabled La Salle (15-6, 4-2 A-10) to tie the record for the most single-season wins (11) at the arena, which was set during the 2008-09 season. The Explorers also have their longest winning streak at home since winning a school-record 19 straight, from Feb. 28, 1968, to Jan. 2, 1970.

MARISA Tomei had worked so hard improving her reporting skills when she played on-screen reporters in both "War Inc. " and "The Paper," she didn't feel the need to do too much prep for her role as a New York Times political reporter in "The Ides of March. " Aside from more than two decades of acting experience to draw upon, Tomei had another advantage: George Clooney. Her "Ides" co-star, co-writer and director understands the modern media machine as well as any celebrity, perhaps because it's in his genes.

HARRISBURG - First he lost his state car and his parking space. Now, Philip Abromats has lost his high-level job in the Corbett administration. Abromats, a deputy secretary in the Department of Public Welfare, allegedly berated a woman last month outside the Capitol complex for parking in his designated space. He has been reassigned to a newly created post overseeing audits for the agency. A spokesman for the Department of Public Welfare said Abromats, who served less than six months as the deputy secretary in charge of an office that oversees billions in county assistance funding, had been appointed executive director of program audits and regulatory review.

A seven-month study of air quality around Paulsboro High School has concluded that despite the school's proximity to an oil refinery, toxins registered "below levels of concern," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said. The agency will cease special air-toxin monitoring at the Gloucester County school based on its findings, contained in a final report released Tuesday. The EPA monitored air quality at 63 schools in 22 states to determine whether pollution from nearby plants would pose long-term exposure risks.

When a professional athlete in middle age can maintain elite performance, they join a short list. It includes George Blanda, the NFL quarterback and kicker who retired at 48 after 26 seasons; tennis star Martina Navratilova, who won a Grand Slam title two months shy of her 50th birthday; and swimmer Dara Torres, who at 41 earned three silver medals at the Olympics. Then there's boxer Bernard Hopkins, who on Saturday could become the oldest fighter to win a major world title.

SINCE THE 76ERS were ousted from the playoffs in five games by the Miami Heat, president Rod Thorn, general manager Ed Stefanski and coach Doug Collins have been evaluating the season, their roster, free agents and players in the June 23 draft, in which the Sixers hold the 16th pick. We posed questions to Thorn and Stefanski about the franchise. Q: Coach Collins stated that a playoff series would teach him more about his team than an 82-game season. What did you learn about the team in the series against the Heat?

Five pieces of ceramic kitchenware purchased in Chinatown contained levels of lead many times higher than the legal limit, according to an analysis by Thomas Jefferson University doctors who have tested dozens of items sold by Philadelphia merchants. They reported the results to the Food and Drug Administration, and a spokesman said Monday night that the agency would be following up with its own tests. Although the two spoons and three plates appear to be clearly out of compliance - the lead standard for plates is 3 parts per million, and these contained 52, 130, and 145 ppm - it is unclear whether they caused any problems for infants, who are most at risk.

Elections in Philadelphia have long been messy affairs where dead people have been known to vote, street money influences turnout, and fights erupt at polling places. But who knew dirty tricks were also being carried out by a high-level official inside the city agency in charge of conducting nonpartisan elections? Renee Tartaglione, the former chief deputy of the elections office, funneled tens of thousands of dollars from the Democratic City Committee to the wards run by her mother and then-jailed husband, while also distributing bogus sample ballots designed to mislead voters who wanted to support her husband's political enemy, State Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.

In a troubled economy, government, health care, and education are considered the last sectors to slash jobs, or so the conventional thinking goes. People continue to get sick. The government goes into overdrive, providing services for all those deadbeats who gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett believes "don't want to go back to work when they still have unemployment. " And children still need to be educated. Teach for America, which recruits college graduates to work two years in schools serving impoverished neighborhoods, received a record number of applications for this fall's group, an astounding 46,359 applicants for 4,500 spots.