State News-Thursday, Jan. 18th

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Governor Ed Rendell will be at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing today to discuss his Prescription for Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, Rendell unveiled a plan to extend subsidized health insurance to an additional 800-thousand adults Pennsylvanians that would mean higher taxes for smokers and businesses that do not provide employee health coverage. The plan calls for imposing a "fair share" tax on employers who do not provide health insurance equal to three percent of their payroll. It also would increase the state's one-dollar-35-cent-per pack-cigarette tax by an unspecified amount and taxing smokeless tobacco and cigars for the first time. Administration officials say the money would be supplemented with federal matching funds.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Rite Aid Corporation says it is ready for a growth spurt. Shareholders will vote today on a proposed deal to buy more than 18-hundred Eckerd and Brooks drug stores. The deal would expand the nation's third-largest drugstore chain by more than half and would make Rite Aid the largest drugstore chain operator on the East Coast. Rite Aid would acquire the Eckerd and Brooks operations of Canada's Jean Coutu Group for one-point-four-five (b) billion dollars in cash and 250 million shares valued at about one-point-five (b) billion dollars, plus the assumption of 850 (m) million dollars in debt.
A majority of a group of shareholders will be required to enable the deal to go forward.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Governor Ed Rendell and local leaders plan to meet again today with the Pittsburgh Penguins as the two sides appear to be getting closer to completing a deal to build a new downtown arena. The private meeting will be the first since January fourth. Penguins owner Mario Lemieux came away from that preliminary session with state, county and city officials saying he was "very optimistic" that an agreement could be reached. The Penguins' lease at 45-year-old Mellon Arena ends in June, and the team is free to relocate after that.

WASHINGTON, Pa. (AP) - Negotiations are to resume today in an effort to avert a possible strike by the union representing about 500 aides, clerks and other workers at The Washington Hospital. The union is threatening to go on strike if they don't have a new contract by February second. The Service Employees International Union yesterday announced that its workers voted 99 percent in favor of giving the strike notice. The union says hospital negotiators want to increase health insurance costs for some workers by up to 400 percent and is proposing raised of about one percent a year, even though the hospital's profits have doubled in the past year. The workers' current contract expires January 31st.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A new report says the cost to run the Pennsylvania General Assembly increased by nearly nine percent in the most recent fiscal year, and its financial reserve grew to more than 215 (m) million dollars. The Legislative Audit Advisory Commission says the General Assembly spent 308 (m) million dollars last year, with spending on the rise in both the House and Senate. The General Assembly's "continuing appropriation," money not spent from one year to the next, is designed to cushion it against the political pressure a governor could exert by withholding its money. The size of the 215 (m) million dollar continuing appropriation - a target of critics of the General Assembly in the wake of the 2005 pay-raise law - increased 34 percent in the most recent fiscal year. A more modern accounting system to measure the Legislature's spending is being developed.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A federal judge has stayed the execution of a man convicted of murdering a York County art-gallery owner who was preparing to testify against him. U-S District Judge Richard Caputo canceled the February 27 execution of Kevin Brian Dowling to allow for further appeals. The 48-year-old Dowling, an inmate at Graterford state prison, was sent to death row for the October 1997 shooting death of Jennifer Myers. Police said Dowling murdered Myers to keep her from testifying that he had attempted to rape her in August 1996.

STOWE, Vt. (AP) - Stowe Police Chief Ken Kaplan says "Goodfellas" movie star Paul Sorvino never pointed a gun at the man harassing the actor's daughter at a local hotel two weeks ago. But Sorvino did have a weapon on January third when Daniel Snee went to his daughter's motel room after the two had broken up. A police affidavit says Sorvino was considering firing a warning shot when police arrived at the hotel where his daughter was staying. It's not illegal to carry a gun in Vermont. Kaplan says Sorvino is entitled to carry a weapon from state to state because he is a deputy sheriff in the Pennsylvania County where he lives. Thirty-six-year-old Amanda Sorvino testified in court Monday in Pennsylvania that Snee threatened to kill her. Snee is in jail.