HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is changing its policy on how transgender people identify themselves on driver's licenses.

The department and Equality Pennsylvania announced a settlement Wednesday that allows people to change the gender on their licenses if they are living full-time in the new gender and it can be verified by a licensed medical or psychological caregiver.

The previous policy allowed changes in gender only for drivers who could prove they'd had sexual reassignment surgery.

PennDOT says about half the states already have adopted a similar policy. The new policy takes effect immediately.

WILKES-BARRE — The public defender's office in northeastern Pennsylvania wracked by a $2.8 million juvenile justice scandal will open a full-time unit for young defendants.At a news conference Tuesday, Luzerne County Chief Public Defender Al Flora said the new juvenile unit of three lawyers will push for outpatient treatment services whenever possible. He says incarceration will be a last resort.Two county judges — Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella — were charged last year with accepting millions of dollars in exchange for putting juvenile offenders into private detention facilities, sometimes for very minor offenses.