Car being hawked as a character in 'The Middle'

NEW YORK (AP) — Frankie Heck settled into the driver's seat of a new Volkswagen on a recent episode of ABC's "The Middle," caressing the steering wheel as celestial music played. Her face was a mask of such pure pleasure that you almost wanted to avert your eyes.

The gleaming Passat appeared throughout the half hour. Dad Mike found it a comfortable refuge for a nap, daughter Sue studied for driver's ed and the whole family used it as a restaurant by driving around with a bucket of chicken.

Welcome to the world of product "integration" on prime-time television. Advertising within programs has gone beyond the mere placement of soda bottles on the table in front of "American …

Castle, Lee (originally, Castaido, Aniello)

jazz trumpeter, leader; b. N.Y., Feb. 28, 1915; d. Hollywood, Fla., Nov. 16, 1990. His brother Charles is a trombonist. He played in junior bands on drums, began on trumpet at 15, and became professional at 18. He worked in the mid-1930s with Joe Haymes, Dick Stabile, and Artie Shaw, before joining Red Norvo in July 1937. He joined Tommy Dorsey in September 1937, leaving the band when Tommy sent him to study with the Dorseys' father in Lansford, Pa., and returned in late 1938. He played briefly with Glenn Miller, then with Jack Teagarden from April-December 1939. He led his own band in 1940, was briefly with Will Bradley, then joined …

Chambers back reforms to save urban cores

REGION

Third-class cities initiative backs pension, arbitration and economic reforms

Revenues are shrinking, costs are skyrocketing, and Pennsylvania's third-class cities are struggling to keep the books balanced.

Meanwhile, state laws limit their options.

If the problems aren't fixed, companies could be slow to move to Central Pennsylvania and businesses across the region would have trouble attracting talented job prospects, according to state chambers of commerce, including three in the midstate.

The Harrisburg, Lancaster and York chambers and others have signed onto the Third-Class Cities White Paper that asks the state to make changes to the …

DNA tests reveal mystery surrounding playwright Schiller

Who is buried in Friedrich Schiller's tomb? Several people, apparently, but none of them the famous poet and playwright, according to new research.

After two years of painstaking DNA research, experts have determined that none of the remains billed as those of Schiller belong to the German writer, who died in Weimar in 1805, Germany's MDR television reported. The study, dubbed the Friedrich-Schiller Code, was undertaken by the television station, the Foundation of Weimar Classics and an international team of scientists.

"Two years ago I was certain that we would prove that it was him; now we have proved the opposite," said foundation president Hellmut …

A look at developments in the auto industry

A look at developments in the auto industry Friday:

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_General Motors Corp. said it plans to reopen a shuttered U.S. factory to build subcompact cars that will be the smallest vehicles the automaker has ever produced in the U.S. The move comes as GM prepares to announce the fate of the poster child for gas guzzlers, the Hummer brand. The retooled factory will be able to build 160,000 cars per year, GM said. It would create 1,200 jobs, offsetting some of the 21,000 that will be lost when GM closes the 14 factories by the end of next year.

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_The United Auto Workers ratified a package of concessions designed to reduce GM's labor …

Untamed Hearts Tangle In Entertaining `Shrew'

Among the more delicious scenes in Shakespeare Repertory's lavishproduction of "The Taming of the Shrew," which opened Wednesday atthe Ruth Page Theatre, is one that might be dubbed "the great waggingof tongues."

In it, the wild-eyed "Katherine the cursed" and her cocksuresuitor, Petruchio, first meet. And after raging like bulls, sparringlike champions and trading looks that burn more deeply than lasers,it is announced, to the amazement of all - but most especially to thebride-to-be - that they are to marry.

Of course this is a production by director Barbara Gaines, sowithin that ferocious, broadly comic battle of the sexes there aremoments that pop out and …

Larry Hagman set to visit 'Desperate Housewives'

NEW YORK (AP) — Larry Hagman will be paying a visit to Wisteria Lane when the former "Dallas" star appears in a guest role on "Desperate Housewives."

ABC says Hagman will play a love interest of Stella Wingfield, who is played by Polly Bergen on that network's prime-time soap opera. Stella is the mother of the character played by series star …