Pope Francis has appointed the top canon lawyer in the Harrisburg diocese as the new bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg.

The appointment of the Rev. Edward Malesic, 54, was announced Friday.

He's replacing Bishop Lawrence Brandt who reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 on March 27, 2014. Bishops typically resign at that time, but remain in office until the pope names a successor.

Bishop-elect Malesic is the judicial vicar in Harrisburg, meaning he heads that diocese's tribunal on church law which governs annulments and other legal issues. He's also pastor of Holy Infant Parish in York Haven, about 20 miles southeast of Harrisburg.

The diocese serves about 149,000 Catholics in 78 parishes in Armstrong, Fayette, Indiana and Westmoreland counties.

Malesic will be the fifth bishop in the diocese which Pope Pius XII created in March 1951 by subdividing the four counties, which had been part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The former nanny of Pittsburgh Penguins player Chris Kunitz has been charged with stealing diamond earrings from the player's home, then selling them to a jewelry store.Although the new theft charges were filed Wednesday, the investigation of 26-year-old Andrea Forsythe began when her rental home burned down in June.She's already charged with setting that fire and then filing false insurance claims to collect on jewelry lost in the fire — plus a claim for the earrings, which prompted the theft charges filed this week by police in Collier Township, where Kunitz lives.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are going all in on their computer program competing with top human poker players.Computer science professor Tuomas Sandholm and researchers Sam Ganzfried and Noam Brown were taking poker-playing computer program Claudico to Rivers Casino.Claudico — the Latin word for limp, as in limping in to a bet — will take on Doug Polk, Dong Kim, Bjorn Li and Jason Les. They'll split a prize purse of $100,000. The computer will play 80,000 hands of Heads-Up No-Limit Texas Hold 'em in the two-week tournament.Sandholm said having computers beat humans in poker has been their goal. He said the numerous unknown variables is the perfect test for artificial intelligence.

Television star Alan Alda will deliver the commencement address at Carnegie Mellon University on May 17.Alda is perhaps best known for his roles as surgeon Hawkeye Pierce on “MASH” and Arnold Vinick on “The West Wing.”But Alda, who also writes and directs, has hosted “Scientific American Frontiers” on PBS for 11 years. He also helped establish the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook (N.Y.) University, where he serves as a visiting professor.