PITTSBURGH — Duquesne University in Pittsburgh will no longer require students to meet SAT or ACT test standards if they apply to its College of Liberal Arts beginning next fall.

The school will still have test score requirements for students applying for education, health service, nursing or pharmacy degrees.

Liberal arts students who choose not to submit SAT or ACT scores must still have a 3.0 grade-point average while taking college preparatory classes in high school, and also have a record of extracurricular participation and write an admissions essay.

According to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing more than 800 U.S. colleges and universities have stopped using standardized tests for admission in recent years.

PITTSBURGH — A court-appointed receiver says a deal has been struck to pay more than $33,000 owed to union stagehands that had threatened to derail the $8.85 million sale of a black arts and cultural center in Pittsburgh.August Wilson Center receiver Judith Fitzgerald, a former bankruptcy judge, says the deal will satisfy the Allegheny County district attorney's office that last week filed criminal charges against the center itself to freeze its assets so the stagehands could be paid.The five-year-old center has been plagued by financial and attendance problems.

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's jobless rate dropped back down a notch in September after bumping up the past two months, even as employer payrolls shrank during the month.The state Department of Labor and Industry said Friday the seasonally adjusted rate in September was 5.7 percent, down one tenth of a percentage point from August. The U.S. rate is currently 5.9 percent.