Harrisburg

HARRISBURG - Gov. Corbett's controversial public welfare secretary is leaving the administration, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. Gary Alexander, who oversees a department charged with helping 2.1 million elderly, poor and disabled Pennsylvanians, will leave his $149,804-a-year post by the end of the month. Reached for comment Monday afternoon, Alexander said he did not want to discuss his future, saying he preferred to focus on the annual budget address to the legislature that Corbett is to deliver at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.

PITTSBURGH - One of Pittsburgh's two remaining Amtrak routes, the one serving Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, and points in between, may be on the chopping block in October. That's the deadline for Pennsylvania to decide whether to foot the estimated $5.7 million bill for subsidizing the service, a cost Amtrak now pays. No decision has been made, but remarks from Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials suggest the route is in trouble unless it can be shown to benefit large numbers of passengers connecting at Pittsburgh to or from cities other than Harrisburg.

HARRISBURG - In a noisy warehouse a mile from the Capitol, workers push sheets of steel through giant machines that turn the slices of metal into polished wheelbarrows. A new one rolls off the assembly line every six seconds. The Ames True Temper plant proudly calls itself the wheelbarrow capital of the world, a distinction claimed since 1876, when the original company, Jackson Manufacturing, began industrialized production of the implements. So workers there were dismayed to learn last month that the maker of Monopoly planned to retire one of the game's familiar tokens and Las Vegas oddsmakers predicted the silvery little wheelbarrow would lose the popularity contest.

The Union on Thursday acquired Harrisburg native and Harrisburg City Islanders Academy product Alex Mendoza. A dual U.S. and Mexican citizen, Mendoza spent the last three seasons with Mexico's Pumas and played for all levels of the club's system. Terms of the midfielder's deal were not announced. Mendoza, 22, joined Pumas in February 2009, participating in the club's first- and second-division teams, as well as the under-20 squad, for the 2009 and 2010 seasons. In the 2011 season, Mendoza played for Liga de Ascenso's Pumas Morelos.

HARRISBURG - The passionate debate over gun laws erupted inside and outside the state Capitol on Wednesday. On the steps, about 150 gun-rights proponents - most of them armed - rallied against calls from President Obama and others to tighten gun laws in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shootings. Inside the building, about 300 gun-control supporters, some of them clutching pictures of relatives killed by gun violence, called for stricter firearms laws at an event organized by the group CeaseFirePA.

HARRISBURG - The passionate debate over gun laws erupted inside and outside the state Capitol on Wednesday. On the steps, about 150 gun-rights proponents - most of them armed - rallied against calls from President Obama and others to tighten gun laws in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shootings. Inside the building, about 300 gun-control supporters, some of them clutching pictures of relatives killed by gun violence, called for stricter firearms laws at an event organized by the group CeaseFirePA.

HARRISBURG - The brothers of Ellen Robb met Tuesday with the chairman of the state Board of Probation and Parole to try to block the release of their sister's husband, who killed her in a rage in 2006. After the meeting with Michael Potteiger in the agency's Harrisburg office, Art and Gary Gregory said they were optimistic that the board would reverse its decision to parole Rafael Robb, a former University of Pennsylvania expert in economic game theory, from prison Monday. The meeting came after Ellen Robb's family, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, and state representatives from Montgomery County expressed surprise at learning that Rafael Robb was to be released.

Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, or PREIT, said it completed the sale of Paxton Towne Centre in Harrisburg for $76.8 million. The sale to Kansas-based Rubenstein Real Estate Co. L.C. represents a gain on approximately $33.6 million, and net proceeds of $24.9 million after closing costs for the trust, PREIT said in a statement. Philadelphia-based PREIT has a portfolio of 47 retail-shopping properties, including the Cherry Hill and Willow Grove Park malls, in 13 states in the eastern half of the United States.

  K ATHLEEN KANE , the first Democrat and first woman elected as attorney general of Pennsylvania, announced her executive team Thursday in advance of taking office Tuesday. Her selections demonstrate how the state's governmental and political community can be a small circle. Kane and her new righthand man go back two decades. Adrian King Jr. will be her first deputy attorney general. The pair met and dated while attending Temple University's School of Law (class of 1993)

HARRISBURG - Hotel stays at $300 per night. A $494 dinner. Free use of a car for work and pleasure. At a time when many Pennsylvanians are clipping coupons and pinching pennies, the members of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission appear to have no limits on what they can spend on travel and accommodations, and no requirement that they explain such expenses, a state audit has found. A 93-page report issued Tuesday by Auditor General Jack Wagner's office found that the turnpike was "overly generous and permissive" in reimbursing its five governing commissioners for expenses, and lacked transparency and accountability by reimbursing commissioners with little if any documentation.