AG Kane will attend hearing on her case

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane plans to attend state Supreme Court arguments in Philadelphia over the legality of a special grand-jury probe that could thwart her career.

Kane’s lawyers challenge the appointment of a special prosecutor to review allegations that Kane leaked grand jury material to the Philadelphia Daily News.

Defense lawyer Lanny Davis says special prosecutor Thomas Carluccio has ignored leaks from his own grand jury investigation.

The attorney general admits she gave material about a foe to the Daily News but says she was not covered by grand jury secrecy laws.

The Supreme Court has released documents that show the special grand jury recommends perjury, obstruction and other charges against Kane.

Montgomery County’s district attorney is weighing those recommendations. But they are now on hold amid the high court review.

Lawmakers warned on Scranton’s debt

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s elected fiscal watchdog, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, says Scranton will go bankrupt in the next two to four years unless lawmakers come up with a statewide solution to the state’s growing problem of municipal pension debt.

DePasquale, a Democrat, made the comments Tuesday during a state House Appropriations Committee hearing. DePasquale has given recommendations to lawmakers about how to address municipal pension debt. However, leadership of the Republican-controlled Legislature hasn’t made the issue a top priority.

Since taking office in 2013, DePasquale has warned lawmakers that municipal pension debt is putting municipalities and retiree benefits on shaky ground.

He says municipal governments with the weakest pension plans were underfunding them by $7.7 billion as of the end of 2012. Nearly 70 percent, or $5.3 billion, was attributed to Philadelphia.

Arguments aired regarding records

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s open records office is currently being run by a lawyer on its staff, but that could change after a court hearing.

Commonwealth Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments today in a lawsuit brought by Erik Arneson. The longtime Republican Senate aide was hired in January as the office’s executive director by Gov. Tom Corbett, then fired less than two weeks later by Corbett’s successor, Gov. Tom Wolf.

Arneson argues the Office of Open Records can’t perform its job effectively if the executive director is fired at the governor’s whim. Many of the disputes the office handles involve executive branch agencies under the governor.

Wolf has said Arneson’s appointment was too hasty and lacked transparency. He plans a national search for the next open records czar.

Thousands more in Pa. get insured

HARRISBURG — Federal officials say more than 472,000 Pennsylvanians enrolled or re-enrolled in insurance plans for 2015 sold through the marketplace created by the 2010 federal health care law.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the statistic covers the period through the Feb. 15 deadline to enroll for 2015 coverage, although some finalized their paperwork after that.

That’s about 50 percent more than the 317,000 Pennsylvanians who signed up for 2014 coverage, although not everybody kept the plan all year.

The report says 41 percent of the more than 472,000 are considered new enrollees, while the rest had signed up for plans that they kept through 2014.