HARRISBURG — The Republican leader of the Pennsylvania Senate wants to create a panel to investigate and study possible health and safety impacts from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reports that Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson, is proposing a nine-member panel of doctors, scientists, and industry leaders to study science, technology and public health data related to drilling.

Scarnati says in a memo that the state Secretary of Health would be a member of the panel.

Last spring, representatives from Gov. Tom Corbett's office and the state Senate cut $2 million of funding from a bill that would have created a statewide health registry to track illnesses potentially related to gas drilling.

HARRISBURG — State lawmakers are hearing warning signs about the Pennsylvania Turnpike's debt load from the state's elected fiscal watchdog.The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Auditor General Jack Wagner told a legislative committee Tuesday that Turnpike officials are using “flim-flam” financing and predicted the toll road could go bankrupt in a couple years.The paper says Turnpike chief executive Roger Nutt reassured lawmakers that toll increases will allow it to avoid financial calamity.Wagner wants the General Assembly to repeal a 2007 law that is producing hundreds of millions annually for transportation projects and public transit.

CANONSBURG — Police say a woman talked an armed man out of robbing the restaurant where she worked by discussing her faith.Mary Moss says she would normally be at church but was filling in for a co-worker when the man entered the Subway restaurant in Canonsburg on Sunday morning demanding money.Moss says she asked the robber why he was doing it and he said he had a debt. Moss says she told him that the man's only debt was to God. After a few minutes Moss says she gave the man a soda and asked him to leave.Twenty-year-old Mario Pellegrini was arrested a short time later with a pellet gun. He's jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail.