HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania’s proposed new high-school graduation competency tests are one step closer to becoming a reality.
The Keystone Exams were endorsed Wednesday by a panel of the state Board of Education. The full board is slated to take a vote Thursday.
The new tests would replace the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests now administered in the 11th grade. Students would take the Keystone Exams in grades nine through 12 as they complete their course work, and the scores would count as one-third of their final grades.
Proponents say the plan would more effectively measure students’ progress, while allowing local districts to develop their own tests subject to state approval. Critics say the new tests are too costly and could unfairly penalize students who do poorly on tests.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Gov. Ed Rendell is calling on library users to pressure Senate Republicans to stop advocating spending cuts that he says would decimate library services.
The Democratic governor appeared before dozens of library employees and supporters at the East Shore Area Library in Harrisburg on Tuesday.
The state’s libraries received a record $75 million in state subsidies last year, and Rendell is advocating a 10 percent reduction that he said would not seriously impair library services.
But he said the Senate GOP’s plan to cut subsidies by more than half would force libraries to reduce their hours, cut back on book purchases and lay off staff members.
The governor said libraries provide a vital part of many youngsters’ education, and defended his plan to increase taxes to preserve important services.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Layoff notices are on their way to 250 Pennsylvania state employees.
Gov. Ed Rendell says the number of layoffs so far is lower than anticipated because of savings from attrition. But he told reporters in Hershey on Monday that the number of layoffs may still grow.
The layoffs were forced by cuts Rendell made even before he signed a bare-bones state budget last week that will ensure that tens of thousands of other state workers will get paid on time.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Friends, relatives and co-workers are paying their respects at a suburban Pittsburgh funeral home to two of the women slain at a health club this week.
Loved ones gathered Friday afternoon at the William Slater funeral home in Scott Township for 49-year-old Betsy Gannon, of Pittsburgh.
A viewing is being held across the hall for 46-year-old Heidi Overmier, of Carnegie, who worked at the Kennywood amusement park.
Funerals are scheduled for both women Saturday at separate churches.
A viewing for the third victim, 37-year-old Jody Billingsley, of Mount Lebanon, will be held Sunday.
Forty-eight-year-old George Sodini opened fire on an aerobics class this week, then killed himself. Police say he didn’t know the victims.

By Joe Mandak and Ben Dobbin, Associated Press Writers
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The man who went on a deadly shooting rampage at a Pittsburgh-area health club shares a chilling trait with other mass killers, an expert says: the desire to make their woes understood through multiple deaths.
No indication has surfaced that George Sodini had documented mental problems, but his massacre shares threads with others analyzed by psychiatrists and legal experts, who say the line between lonely and homicidal remains hard to place.
“They’re thinking,

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Four of the women wounded in a shooting rampage at a suburban Pittsburgh health club Tuesday night remain hospitalized.
Two women are listed in fair condition at Allegheny General Hospital. Twenty-two-year-old Heather Sherba of Collier Township expects to be discharged Friday. The aerobics instructor, 26-year-old Mary Primis of Moon Township, has been moved out of intensive care.
Two other women are being treated at UPMC Mercy Hospital. One remained in serious condition Friday, while the other is listed as fair.
George Sodini opened fire at an L.A. Fitness health club in Bridgeville Tuesday night, killing three women and injuring nine more before committing suicide.

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) - The gunman who killed three women and wounded nine others at a Pittsburgh-area health club bought accessories for a handgun from the same Wisconsin-based dealer that sold a gun to the Virginia Tech shooter.
Forty-eight-year-old George Sodini bought the accessories from TGSCOM Inc. of Green Bay, Wis.
Police investigating Tuesday’s shootings at the L.A. Fitness center in Collier Township have said Sodini bought his weapons legally.
TGSCOM’s president, Eric Thompson, confirmed the purchases after WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh obtained a receipt. Thompson says he’s cooperating with investigators.
Sodini committed suicide after the shootings, as did Seung-Hui Cho who bought a .22-caliber handgun from TGSCOM in February 2007, two months before he killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Treasury Department is paying about half of the state work force on Friday, and officials say most of the rest will get their back-pay paychecks on Monday.
State Treasurer Rob McCord said Thursday that the first batch of payments will go to those who received partial paychecks on July 24, along with employees in the judicial system, the Auditor General’s office and the Treasury Department.
On Monday, McCord’s office will pay those who received partial pay on July 17 and no pay on July 31.
About 77,000 state workers have missed at least some of what they’ve earned since the start of July. A state budget impasse prevented them from being paid until special legislation passed this week.
State workers at the Public Utility Commission, retirement funds and other similarly funded agencies won’t be paid until separate authorization is approved.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - About 77,000 Pennsylvania state workers will finally be paid and billions of dollars become available for welfare checks under a partial budget bill Gov. Ed Rendell signed into law Wednesday.
Back-pay checks for state workers are expected to go out by Monday, although the governor said hundreds of state workers also may soon be laid off. Rendell said that number is expected to be between 300 and 800, a figure to be announced Thursday or Friday.
Pennsylvania has gone without a comprehensive 2009-10 spending plan since its new fiscal year began July 1. Rendell and his Democratic allies are fighting to protect state programs, most notably education spending, while Republicans are adamantly opposed to balancing the budget by raising the personal income tax or sales tax rate.
The governor Wednesday used his line-item veto to eliminate nearly $13 billion from an already bare-bones spending plan that passed the state Senate nearly three months ago. In a veto message he sent to the Senate, Rendell called the bill “a deeply flawed piece of legislation” that “robs the commonwealth and its citizens of future opportunities.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania lawmakers on Tuesday approved a measure designed to pay the tens of thousands of state employees whose wages have been in limbo since the new fiscal year began five weeks ago without a government budget in place.
The House voted 195-3 to approve a budget bill that Gov. Ed Rendell plans to cut sharply by using his line-item veto authority. Back-pay checks for 77,000 workers could go out within a week.
The measure is an austerity budget that passed the Republican-controlled state Senate three months ago without any support from Democrats and, by all accounts, does not meet the state constitution’s requirement for a balanced budget.
Several lawmakers said Tuesday they were holding their noses in voting for it.
“Every single person in this chamber knows today that this is not a balanced budget,” said Rep. Dan Moul, R-Adams. “I have to challenge the constitutionality, although I won’t make a motion because I do believe that the state workers do need to be paid.”
The vote did nothing to resolve the taxes-vs.-cuts ideological battle that has gripped Harrisburg for months, as the economic slowdown has evaporated billions in expected tax revenues and forced difficult decisions on the politically divided General Assembly.