Funding

The Philadelphia firefighters union on Wednesday announced the establishment of the Capt. Michael Goodwin Memorial Fund to honor the firefighter who died April 6 in the line of duty. "We vowed to Mike's family, as we have to all families who have lost a loved one in the line of duty, that we will always stand by them and take care of them. This is the first formal step in that ongoing process," said Bill Gault, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 22. Goodwin, 53, died battling an intense blaze at a fabrics warehouse in South Philadelphia.

Some details of how an estimated $2.5 billion would be raised via taxes, fees, and fines and spent on Pennsylvania's transportation needs under a plan released Tuesday by State Sen. John Rafferty (R., Montgomery), chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee: Spending $1.9 billion a year for state and local highways and bridges. $510 million a year for Pennsylvania's 36 urban and rural mass-transit agencies. $115 million a year for railways, airports, ports, and bicycle and pedestrian programs.

By Mike Fitzpatrick, Adam Garber, and Jeff Marshall Whether it's watching your kids sled for the first time, cooling off in a stream, or even casting a line at one of the best fishing spots in the country, our natural heritage in Pennsylvania is where some of our most treasured memories are formed. From Tyler State Park to Valley Forge and the Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvanians are blessed to live near such beautiful forests and parks. Without the help of one national program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, many of these places would have been polluted or lost to development.

Battered by waves of state funding cuts and troughs of low attendance, the crew that operates Camden's Battleship New Jersey has a new plan to blast the tourist attraction out of its predicament. The Turret II Experience opens up a new world of heavy firepower to museum visitors by letting them load mock powder bags and pull the lever, sending a dummy artillery shell up to the massive turrets. The visitors help target "the enemy" on a computer and pull the big brass trigger as a color screen shows footage of the mammoth 16-inch gun firing as the whole deck rumbles - just as it did when the New Jersey pounded Iwo Jima in World War II and Lebanon in the 1980s.

Under Gov. Christie's proposed fiscal 2014 budget, almost half of New Jersey's school districts will see a net drop in the amount they receive from the state next year, according to a legislative analysis. The reason is an extra bill for debt service on school construction grants, the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services said in its analysis of the governor's proposed $13.3 billion education budget. Factoring in that charge, the agency found that about 270 districts - or 48 percent - would see net losses ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than $200,000 in Barnegat and East Brunswick.

MAFRAQ, Jordan - To the caches of ammunition and medicines that they lug each day from this border city back into their homeland, Syrian rebels have added new tools to support their fight against President Bashar al-Assad: metal detectors and pickaxes. The rebels, struggling to finance their effort, have joined an emerging trade in illicitly acquired Syrian artifacts and antiquities, selling off the country's past as the war for its future intensifies. "Some days we are fighters; others we are archaeologists," Jihad Abu Saoud, 27, a rebel from the Syrian city of Idlib, said in an interview in this northern Jordanian city.

ATHERTON, Calif. - Making a down payment on his vow to go all in for Democrats in 2014, President Obama courted well-heeled donors in California on a two-day fundraising jaunt that required him to walk a fine line: Berate Republicans too much, and he could put fragile prospects for achieving his second-term goals in jeopardy. Obama's California swing kicked off an effort to help his party win back the House and keep its Senate majority next year. Obama struck a careful balance Thursday, telling donors at a Silicon Valley luncheon that he would continue to reach out to Republicans to advance the interests of the middle class and those aspiring to join it. "Having said that, though, there are still some really big arguments that we are having in Washington," Obama said.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Tuesday proposed an effort to map the brain's activity in unprecedented detail, as a step toward finding better ways to treat such conditions as Alzheimer's, autism, stroke, and traumatic brain injuries. He asked Congress to spend $100 million next year to start a project to explore details of the brain, which contains 100 billion cells and trillions of connections. That's a small investment for the federal government - less than a fifth of what NASA spends every year just to study the sun - but it's too early to see how Congress will react.

Nationwide Financial Services Inc., whose mutual-fund unit is based in King of Prussia, said it had agreed to buy 17 equity and bond mutual funds from HighMark Capital Management Inc. The price was not disclosed. The funds had $3.6 billion in assets at the end of last year and are expected to bring Nationwide Funds' total to about $51 billion, Nationwide said. Highmark, a unit of Union Bank, of San Francisco, will continue managing nine of the funds, which will be recast as Nationwide funds.

HARRISBURG - Gov. Corbett, under pressure to accept a federal expansion of Medicaid, said Wednesday that he is looking at ways to use those same dollars to fund private coverage for hundreds of thousands of uninsured Pennsylvanians. Corbett has resisted opting into the Medicaid expansion envisioned under President Obama's healthcare overhaul, saying he is concerned it would be too costly for the state down the road. He did not commit to changing his mind on Wednesday. After a late Tuesday meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, however, he said he may consider pursuing a private plan similar to what Arkansas, Ohio and a handful of other states are exploring.