Jamestown

The old Glendora Skating Rink in Gloucester Township was destroyed by fire early yesterday, and a township resident was charged with setting the blaze, authorities said. Joel Adam Preston, 19, of the Jamestown Square Apartments, was charged with aggravated arson. Police said Preston had told a friend that he would set fire to the building. They said they knew of no motive. He was released on $2,500 bail. The fire in the mammoth building, at Erial and Blackwood-Clementon Roads, was reported at 3:36 a.m., police said.

The Phillies' minor-league system has been successful at the lowest levels but has struggled at the higher levels. Here are how things stand as of Thursday: In the International League (triple A), the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (49-76) are in fifth place in the North Division, 25 games behind first-place Scranton-Wilkes Barre (Yankees). In the Eastern League (double A), the Reading Phillies (59-63) are in fourth place in the Eastern Division, 14 games behind first-place Trenton (Yankees)

A 19-year-old man and a 17-year-old male, both from Willingboro, were charged Friday with sexually assaulting and robbing an Edgewater Park woman during a home invasion, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and Edgewater Park police said. Michael Jeh and the juvenile, whose name is not being released because of his age, face aggravated sexual assault and robbery charges. The juvenile also faces charges of burglary and making a terroristic threat, authorities said. The victim's Jamestown Road residence was entered between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. Her green 1998 Subaru Legacy with Pennsylvania license plates (GCE-1163)

The 50 copies of redistricting options the superintendent brought to the Gloucester Township school board meeting last Monday weren't nearly enough for the 100 parents who rushed up to grab copies. And that was just the beginning. After the Monday night meeting, irate parents gathered, many questioning the merits of the six proposals. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, the superintendent held informal meetings to try to reassure parents and discuss the plans, but many were still troubled.

A PHILLYCLOUT favorite, former City Councilman Rick Mariano could be doing electrical work at a job site near you any day now. Mariano, who was sentenced to six years for corruption, is set to leave the minimum-security federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., Monday and move to a halfway house in Juniata Park, according to an e-mail he sent to friends and family on Sunday titled "8 Days to Go. " In the note, Mariano said he hoped to...

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A noted scientist taking part in a weekend charity bicycle ride to raise money for troubled children was killed when he crashed his bike into a car that was stopped at an intersection in North Jersey. Doug McCune of Princeton Township was pronounced dead at the scene Saturday in Clinton Township. He was wearing a helmet, authorities said, but further details on his injuries were not disclosed. A cause of death had not been determined, and Hunterdon County prosecutors said it was unlikely that any charges would be filed.

One of five white men who beat a black teen-ager in Roxborough last year was sent to prison yesterday. Randolph Douglas, 20, of Harleysville, Montgomery County, told Common Pleas Judge Albert W. Sheppard Jr. he didn't realize how prejudiced he was until after his arrest. "I'm trying very hard to become a better person," Douglas said before being sentenced to 23 to 46 months in prison, plus four years' probation. Douglas was jailed for an early morning attack on Ricardo Lamar Simmons, 17, on May 11, 1989, near Henry Avenue and Jamestown Street.

It was a case of common sense, not more Montreal Expos' dollars, that caused Delino DeShields to walk away from a Villanova University basketball scholarship Thursday. "I just sat down one night recently and had a talk with myself and came to the conclusion that baseball, not basketball, is my future," DeShields said from Jamestown, N.Y., home of the Class A Jamestown Expos. "As much as I like basketball, I just decided that if I'm going to be a professional baseball player, I've got to play baseball, period.

Delino DeShields, the multisport star from Delaware's Seaford High whom the Montreal Expos drafted in the first round this year, has decided to forgo a basketball scholarship at Villanova and devote his full attention to professional baseball. DeShields, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound shortstop, was picked 12th overall in the amateur baseball draft in June. A point guard in basketball, he was Villanova's only 1987 recruit. DeShields, who signed with the Expos in June and currently is playing for Montreal's single-A farm team in Jamestown, N.Y., informed Expos officials of his decision last weekend.

John Lambert Cotter, 87, curator emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, died of cancer Friday at Logan Square East, a retirement center in Philadelphia where he lived. Although officially retired, Dr. Cotter maintained an office and worked half-days at the museum until a week and a half before he died. From 1936 to 1937, he was head of the field party organized by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia at the Clovis Paleoindian Type Site in New Mexico.