Pompey (WSYR-TV) – An off-duty state trooper was killed Friday morning after a car struck him as he was bicycling along Route 20 in the Town of Pompey.

John Gorke, 47, of Manlius was struck and killed by a vehicle heading westbound on Route 20 shortly after 8:30am Friday. The incident happened approximately 100 yards east of Pompey Center Road.

Gorke was a 19-year veteran of the state police force.

State Police say Gorke was off-duty at the time; he was travelling with a second bicyclist, getting some exercise before his shift started later in the day. Gorke was heading westbound on the shoulder of Route 20, when police say a vehicle veered off onto the shoulder of the road and struck Gorke when the driver tried to get back on the road. 

 
Investigators taking measurements at the scene of Friday's fatal car/bicycle accident. (WSYR NewsChannel 9)

Police say the driver of that vehicle, Charles Brewer, 20, had passed the first bicyclist, who had been traveling approximately 50 yards behind Gorke. Police say it is not clear why Brewer veered off the roadway onto the shoulder of the road.

It is not clear yet whether speed was a factor in the crash. Police are also looking into whether Brewer was on his cell phone around the time of the crash.

Gorke was pronounced dead just after 9:00 a.m.

“It’s always difficult to investigate the death of any individual,” says Capt. Jeff Raub with the New York State Police. “When it’s one of our own, it’s just amplified, and it becomes increasingly hard to deal with the emotional aspect of looking at one of your colleagues who has just passed away.”

Investigators say Brewer was returning to his Steuben County home from Morrisville, where he works as a counselor.

No tickets were immediately issued.

Both bicyclists had proper gear on, including helmets, which is not required by New York State law.

Gorke was a 19-year veteran with the New York State Police, assigned to the State Thruway – Syracuse barracks. He was a member of the marine unit.

Gorke leaves behind a wife and three children.

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) – Although there are plenty of great fireworks displays throughout central New York this weekend, some people are putting on their own fireworks shows, despite police warnings that it's illegal.

It's also a health and safety issue, especially because so many kids play with them without adults around.

Syracuse Police Sgt. Gary Bulinski was on fireworks detail Friday night. He relies on his ears, sense of smell and sight.

He comes across the first incident of the evening, where kids are having their own July Fourth celebration. He issues a warning that setting off fireworks is illegal, but he's probably more concerned about safety.

“They weren't being supervised,” says Bulinski.

The best-case scenario is to find large scores of fireworks, because one bust gets a whole lot off the street.

Bulinski stops at corner shops, warning them that selling the explosives is bad for business.

The Syracuse Police Department has confiscated $14,000 worth of fireworks in the past week and a half. That's actually down from previous years.

Bulinski thinks that's due to their PSA campaign and the rainy weather.

WASILLA, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abruptly announced Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, a shocking move that rattled the Republican party but left open the possibility she would seek a run for the White House in 2012.

Palin, 45, and her staff kept her future plans shrouded in mystery, and it was unclear if the controversial hockey mom would quietly return to private life or begin laying the foundation for a presidential bid.

Palin's spokesman, David Murrow, said the governor didn't say anything to him about this being her "political finale." He said he interpreted Palin's comment about working outside government as reflecting her current job only.

"She's looking forward to serving the public outside the governor's chair," he said.

And Pam Pryor, a spokeswoman for Palin's political action committee SarahPAC, said the group continues to accept donations on its Web site, with an uptick in funds after Palin's announcement.

The announcement caught even current and former Palin advisers by surprise. Former members of the John McCain campaign team, now dispersed across the country, traded perplexed e-mails and phone calls.

But personal pressures have been mounting - scrutiny on her family, legal bills, ethics investigations and a running, public fued with McCain's camp that has flared up again.

In a hastily arranged news conference at her home in suburban Wasilla, Palin said she will formally step down July 26, and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the governor's picnic in Fairbanks. She said she had decided against running for re-election as Alaska's governor, and believed it was best to leave office even though she had well over a year left to her term.

"Many just accept that lame duck status, and they hit that road. They draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I'm not going to put Alaskans through that," she said.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee was seen as a likely presidential contender in 2012 and had proved formidable among the party's base. But the last week brought a highly critical piece in Vanity Fair magazine, with unnamed campaign aides questioning if Palin was ever really prepared for the presidency. The backbiting continued with follow-up articles recounting the nasty infighting that plagued her failed bid. Her advisers sniped with other Republicans, underscoring the deeply divided GOP looking for its next standard bearer.

Meghan Stapleton, Palin's personal spokeswoman, shot down speculation that ranged wildly from Palin dropping out of politics altogether to eyeing runs against fellow Alaska Republicans U.S. Rep. Don Young and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Palin's comment about serving outside government refers to the present, she said.

Stapleton, however, said it's too early to say whether Palin would seek the presidency. In the meantime, the governor will continue to work "toward affecting positive change as a citizen without a title right now," she said.

"Her vision is what's best for Alaska, which translates into what's best for America," Stapleton said.

Palin's resignation, timed on the eve of the July 4 holiday when many Americans had already begun a three-day weekend, seemed designed to avoid publicity. She alluded to how she could help change the country and help military members - code that she didn't think her time on the national stage was over.

One senior Palin adviser, who spoke to the family in recent days, described the governor and her husband as tired of the constant media scrutiny. Nevertheless, the adviser was shocked to hear Palin's announcement Friday.

A longtime confidant who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, the adviser counseled the Palins that leaving government was politically unwise, but the governor was resolute.

Though the announcement touched off a flurry of speculation among Democrats and Alaska political bloggers that Palin had been drawn into one of the many criminal investigations that have upended Alaska politics in recent years, the adviser reported seeing no evidence of such an investigation and said if one is under way, then Palin has kept it to herself and it would be yet another surprise to supporters.

Jerry McBeath, a veteran political science professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, called the pending resignation a "smart move," both for Palin and the state.

But political analyst Larry Sabato, in Charlottesville, Va., said Palin's announcement left many confused. "I think it eliminates her from serious consideration for the presidency in 2012."

Palin said her family weighed heavily in her decision.

"I polled the most important people in my life, my kids, where the count was unanimous," she said. "Well, in response to asking, 'Hey, you want me to make a positive difference and fight for all our children's future from outside the governor's office?' It was four yeses and one 'Hell, yeah!" And the 'Hell, yeah' sealed it."

Palin's decision not to seek re-election was a familiar one for a potential presidential candidate. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney chose not to seek another term as he geared up for an unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has announced he won't seek another term, giving him plenty of free time ahead of a potential 2012 bid.

Palin emerged from relative obscurity nearly a year ago when she was tapped as then Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate.

She was a controversial figure from the start, with comedian Tina Fey famously imitating her elaborate updo and folksy "You betcha!" on "Saturday Night Live."

In the presidential race, Palin became the butt of talk-show jokes and Democratic criticism after news broke that the Republican Party had spent $150,000 or more on a designer wardrobe, accessories and hair and makeup services for her. The high-end spending spree contrasted with the down-to-earth image she sought to craft for herself and became an unwelcome issue for the McCain campaign.

She didn't leave the limelight once McCain lost the presidency. She recently led a public spat with "Late Show" host David Letterman over a joke he made about one of her daughters being "knocked up" by New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez during the governor's recent visit to New York. Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, is an unwed, teenage mother. Letterman later apologized for the joke.

Palin also complained that her 14-month-old son, Trig, who was diagnosed with Down's syndrome, had been "mocked and ridiculed by some mean-spirited adults recently." She didn't elaborate.

Fred Malek, a Republican strategist who has advised Palin over the past year, said Palin was "really unhappy with the way her life was going."

"She felt that the pressures of the job combined with her family obligations and the demands and desires to help other Republican candidates led her to decide not to run again. Once that decision was made, she realized, why not do it now and let the lieutenant governor take over and get a head start on his election," Malek said.

Palin's move also prompted speculation among bloggers and critics that the governor was facing a looming political crisis or embarrassment.

"There's got to be something below the surface that's about ready to come to the surface that quite potentially she just didn't want to deal with as governor," said Andrew Halcro, a Palin critic who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to her.

Stapleton, Palin's spokeswoman, dismissed the rumors of damaging news on the horizon.

"No truth whatsoever. Period," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Just more nonsense from the same people who choose to waste state resources."

Palin has become a polarizing figure in Alaska since the national campaign, leading to multiple ethics complaints to be filed against her with the state personnel board. The complaints have ranged from accusing her of wearing the logo of her husband's sponsor at snowmobile races to illegally gaining from office with the creation of a legal defense fund.

All but two of the 15 complaints have been dismissed with no findings of wrongdoing, although one complaint led to Palin's agreement to reimburse the state about $8,100 for costs associated with trips taken with her children. The state says it has spent nearly $300,000 to investigate the complaints, and Palin says she has racked up more than $500,000 in legal fees fighting them.

Palin was first elected in 2006 on a populist platform. But her popularity has waned as she became embroiled in partisan politics following her return from the presidential campaign. Her term would have ended in 2010.

Palin expressed frustration with her current role as governor.

"I cannot stand here as your governor and allow the millions of dollars and all that time go to waste just so I can hold the title of governor," Palin said, referring to the alleged impact of multiple ethics complaints against her, most of which have been dismissed.

Palin remaining as governor is not good for Alaska, given the "political bloodsport" by her critics, Stapleton said. Stepping down is a "fighter's move," Stapleton said, essentially Palin stepping around political barriers in her way and pursuing her vision.

Palin's announcement comes after several recent blows to the Republican party. Ensign, a member of the Christian ministry Promise Keepers, stepped down from the Senate Republican leadership last month after admitting he had an affair for much of last year with a woman on his campaign staff who was married to one of his Senate aides. Ensign later disclosed he had helped the woman's husband get two jobs during the affair.

A government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wants the Senate ethics committee and the Federal Election Commission to investigate.

Just days after news of Ensign's affair broke, Sanford admitted an affair with a woman in Argentina. Some lawmakers are now calling for his resignation. Before the admission, Sanford had been missing from the state for five days visiting his lover. He had slipped his security detail, lied to his staff about where he was and failed to transfer power to the lieutenant governor in case of a state emergency.

The party's troubles seem to have left two prominent 2012 prospects, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and 2008 presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, unscathed, however.

Palin has the potential to make far more money in the private sector than the $125,000 or so she has been making as governor.

Palin already had a deal with publisher HarperCollins to produce her memoirs, with publication planned for next spring. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Six-figure book deals are common for high-profile political figures.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Law enforcement officials say a powerful sedative, normally confined to hospital operating rooms, has been found in the rented home where Michael Jackson died in Los Angeles.

The drug is called Diprivan. It's an anesthetic widely used to put patients to sleep and it's milky color earned it the nickname "milk of amnesia." Diprivan is given intravenously. It's very unusual to find in it somebody's home.

Jackson is known to have been plagued with insomnia. Cherilyn Lee, a private nurse who worked with Jackson, says she repeatedly rejected his pleas for Diprivan, which she says he wanted to help him cope with the stress of preparing for his comeback concerts. Lee says she did everything she could to warn him against it.

Doctors from the Mayo Clinic issued a warning last year that Diprivan can lead to "an irreversible chain of events," ending in death.

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Part of the Erie Canal will be closed Monday to help remove a hydraulic dredge that sunk there last month. 

Starting Sunday night at 10 p.m. the water level between lock E-28B in Newark and lock E-29 in Palmyra will be lowered gradually by about five feet.

Monday morning, the canal will be closed between the two locks and will likely stay closed for several days. 

The dredge barge sank June 13th; crews tried to re-float the vessel about a week later, but failed.

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP) - A year ago, Ryan Hunter-Reay left Watkins Glen International brimming with confidence after a surprising IndyCar victory.

He returns to defend his title Sunday in the Camping World Grand Prix, sometimes having to glance down at his racing suit just to make sure he knows who he's driving for.

And it's not Rahal Letterman Racing, the team he was with in his first and only IndyCar victory.

"We had a great thing going there at Rahal Letterman," Hunter-Reay said. "Definitely, momentum was building through the season and the end of the season with a third place at Surfers Paradise. We had every sign that things would continue."

Every sign vanished after the season. RLR lost its primary sponsor when an American ethanol company decided to pull out of the open-wheel series. The team had to search for sponsorship in one of the nation's deepest recessions ever, and when the money didn't come through Hunter-Reay was out of a ride.

"To have everything going for you and then have it all fall out from under you, yeah, that's pretty hard," the Texas-born Hunter-Reay said. "But there are two sides to every coin. I'm very persistent, and no matter where I end up going I end up, hopefully, making the best of it."

A ride with Vision Racing surfaced right before the season opener in April.

"I didn't sign my deal until Friday practice at St. Petersburg," he said. "We had a great week at St. Pete, finished second. But the team's been in a bad financial situation to run two cars."

So bad that Hunter-Reay is driving the No. 14 for A.J. Foyt for the remainder of the season in place of Vitor Meira, who's recovering from a back injury sustained in the Indianapolis 500.

"I've been wearing three different race suits, so it's definitely been all over the place," Hunter-Reay said. "I'm still working with everybody at Vision trying to get the chemistry going together there and now I'm starting from scratch again. It's definitely going to take some time. That said. That doesn't mean it will stand in the way of good race results."

It hasn't before. Racing for several Champ Car teams, he won a race in Australia as a rookie in 2003 and added an impressive wire-to-wire victory for another team the next year at Milwaukee. However, by the middle of 2005 - with yet another team - he again was looking for work.

Hunter-Reay's best finish in his short IndyCar career came at the 3.4-mile track in upstate New York's Finger Lakes wine country. He passed Darren Manning, now his teammate, with less than 10 laps remaining after Scott Dixon made an uncharacteristic mistake while running second on a restart late in the race that cost him in his bid for a fourth straight victory at the historic road course.

"I've been looking forward to Watkins Glen since I left Watkins Glen last year," said Hunter-Reay, who began racing go-karts in the 1990s and also has driven in the Barber Dodge Pro Series and Toyota Atlantic Series.

"It's such a tough race track. Unfortunately, quite a few of the teams have come to test, the big teams, so it's going to be tough to go there with no testing and to be on par with those guys. But hey, we did it last year."

After a stretch of six consecutive oval races, the IndyCar Series transitions to Watkins Glen, the first of three consecutive road and street course events.

Dixon, the defending IRL champion, has been the master of the high-speed turns at The Glen and is fresh from a win at Richmond, his series-best third of the season. He trails Target Chip Ganassi teammate Dario Franchitti by one point in the standings and is itching to make up for last year's blunder.

"It was definitely one we threw away," Dixon said Friday before taking off on a different kind of ride aboard Fat Alpert Airlines, the four-engine, propeller-driven C-130T cargo plane the Blue Angels use in their air shows.

"To be going for a record of four in a row (at Watkins Glen), it was extremely frustrating to let it slip by. It ranks right up there along with the constant reminder from (team owner) Chip (Ganassi)."

Mainly because of Dixon's dominance, AGR hasn't had that breakthrough victory at Watkins Glen. So it was no surprise when Marco Andretti and teammates Danica Patrick and Tony Kanaan tested at the track three weeks ago.

"It just seems like it's one of the tracks where we've been very competitive but have never won here," said Kanaan, who was third a year ago and fourth in 2007. "It's something in our setup and the way we run our cars. We can't figure it out."

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Saturday will mark the first time since September 11, 2001 that the public will be allowed back into the crown of the Statue of Liberty. 

For the past eight years, only a very few people have been allowed up there. One of them is a Syracuse man, and he's made quite the habit out of it.

Dennis Heaphy started his career as a tinsmith as a kid in the family business; the statue has been his place of work the past ten years.  Heaphy will be there Saturday when the crown is reopened to visitors.

It's the way he says it should be.

"It is an incredible experience to climb the stairs, the spiral staircase, the double helix staircase going up through the middle, and actually experience the architecture of it," Heaphy says.

The inside structure is in fact Eiffel’s first tower. Not only has Heaphy worked in the statue, he's actually slept in the crown.

Back when people were still allowed in, he had to wait until visitors left, leaving him about a three-hour window to do his work at night before the last boat left Ellis Island. One night, though, he worked well past that, leaving him no choice but to spend the night.

"That night, I finished 25 of the easier windows to repair, and when I was tired I just got my perspective again and realized that the tablet was outside the window, and put down the bed roll and went to sleep," says Heaphy.

Some of the tools Heaphy started with when he was 11 years old are being used on the Statue of Liberty to work on the skin of the statue, which is just slightly thicker than a penny.

"It is a strange realization as to where you are every time, because it isn't like I'm working on a duplex in the Bronx," he says.

The base of the statue reopened in 2004.  As for the crown, visitors will now be taken in groups of 30, to stand atop the statue's head and peer from under the spikes of her crown. Reservations for that option are suggested.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Malt-O-Meal Co. is voluntarily recalling oatmeal that contains instant nonfat dry milk that may be contaminated with salmonella.

The instant nonfat dry milk came from Plainview Milk Products Cooperative of Minnesota which is recalling products made over the past two years due to the possible contamination. Many of Plainview's products were sold to other food makers.

Minneapolis-based Malt-O-Meal is recalling "Maple & Brown Sugar Instant Oatmeal" sold in cartons and variety packs with best-if-used-by dates of June 30, 2009 to Oct. 28, 2010.

The oatmeal is sold nationally under brands including Cub Foods, Diamond Crystal, Fastco, Flavorite, Foodland, Good 'n Hearty, Hearty Traditions, Hy-Top, IGA, Mom's Best Natural, Megaroons, Millville, Our Family, Richfood, Shop 'n Save and Smart Menu.