An investigative grand jury will form next month in Pittsburgh, and some officials believe it might gradually shift its focus toward possible corruption in the gambling industry.

Attorney General Tom Corbett is empaneling the grand jury to focus on public corruption and organized crime, and possibly environmental crimes and insurance fraud, spokesman Kevin Harley said Friday.

He would not comment about gambling, but other officials said they believe the licensing and development of casinos in Pennsylvania will become the grand jury's focus.

A grand jury that expired and will be replaced with this one heard testimony related to casinos. When a grand jury convenes, prosecutors summarize for the jurors unfinished business from the previous jury, Harley said.

Four years ago, when Democratic candidates like Bob O'Connor, Michael Lamb, and Bill Peduto ran for office -- there were at least five televised debates and 12 joint appearances.
 
This year, voters may be lucky to see Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Carmen Robinson, and Patrick Dowd together at all -- early on, Dowd called for nine debates.

"The mayor said he wanted three, and we acquiesced, and now he's saying he wants two, that he doesn't have time in the next 30 days to reschedule a debate that was obviously rightly postponed I think," Dowd said today.

Two debates were originally scheduled while minds were still focused on the fallen police officers.

There were police officers from nearby towns and far-away cities. Combat veterans and young children. Family members and strangers, gathered in a line that seemed to grow endlessly, even as daylight slipped into darkness.

Through a chilly day and night, thousands of mourners had 20 hours to file past the bodies of three slain Pittsburgh police officers, and to try, however impossibly, to come to terms with their deaths.

"Every day when you leave for work, you lie to your family and say 'I'm going to be all right.' But you never really know," said Carmen Robinson, a former sergeant for one of the officers, Eric G. Kelly.

The city of Pittsburgh missed out on getting money from a coalition of nonprofit institutions last year, and will get less in the future than it did under a three-year pact that ended in 2007, officials said yesterday.

That means the Pittsburgh Public Service Fund joins state government on the list of recession victims that are shorting the city, which has a healthy bank balance but expects precarious budgets starting next year.

The fund, which has included around 100 medical, educational, charitable and cultural institutions, volunteered nearly $14 million to the city for the years 2005 through 2007 under a unique agreement aimed at helping the city recover from near-bankruptcy. The final payments came in last year, but were meant to satisfy the fund's pledge for 2007.

Months ago, the fund sent the city a draft agreement that would govern another three years of payments, said the Rev. Ron Lengwin, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and for the fund. If it had been signed last year, the city could have gotten payments, he said.

"We had reason to believe that everyone was OK with that draft," he said. "We're waiting for them to sign the agreement."

Campaign money raised for local elections sometimes gets spent in unusual places -- like Europe.

Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato and Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl each spent money meant for electioneering on trips to Europe last winter, according to campaign finance reports filed this month. Both traveled with their wives, and tapped the money provided by supporters to cover costs not picked up by organizations that paid for official parts of the trip.

The $1,033 spent on European travel by Mr. Onorato's campaign, and the $1,911 by Mr. Ravenstahl's political committee, were the farthest-flung expenditures reported from a year that saw many local officials deciding how to use campaign funds to go to events like the Democratic National Convention. The disclosures also come on the heels of Mr. Ravenstahl's and Mr. Onorato's use of campaign money to go to Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa.