HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Treasury Department is paying about half of the state work force on Friday, and officials say most of the rest will get their back-pay paychecks on Monday.

State Treasurer Rob McCord said Thursday that the first batch of payments will go to those who received partial paychecks on July 24, along with employees in the judicial system, the Auditor General's office and the Treasury Department.

On Monday, McCord's office will pay those who received partial pay on July 17 and no pay on July 31.

About 77,000 state workers have missed at least some of what they've earned since the start of July. A state budget impasse prevented them from being paid until special legislation passed this week.

SCHWENKSVILLE — Republicans have nominated a state representative as their candidate for a vacant Pennsylvania Senate seat in Philadelphia's northern suburbs.Rep. Bob Mensch was nominated Thursday as the GOP candidate in the Sept. 29 special election for the 24th District seat. The district includes parts of Montgomery, Northampton, Lehigh, and Bucks counties.The election is to replace Republican Sen. Rob Wonderling, who has resigned to become president and chief executive of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

MERCER — Charges are dismissed against a district judge accused of holding up a gun during a traffic dispute in northwestern Pennsylvania.But Erie District Judge Tom Carney isn't out of the woods. Mercer County Assistant District Attorney Brian Farrone says he will refile the charges.Mercer District Judge Lorinda Hinch said Thursday that the prosecution hadn't clearly established that Carney was driving the car at the time of the Jan. 11 traffic dispute on Interstate 79.Previously, Carney has said he was a victim and a lawyer has said he acted in self-defense and has a license to carry the gun.

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia woman killed by a falling tree branch while jogging was a high school math teacher new to the city.She was 23-year-old Mary Katherine Ladany, who lived in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia and taught at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philadelphia.Ladany, originally from Montclair, N.J., was a 2008 graduate of Bucknell University who majored in math.Ladany was killed Wednesday when a 30-foot-long tree branch fell 50 feet onto her. Police say a portable music player she was wearing might have kept her from hearing the branch breaking.