Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is telling President Donald Trump he won’t be using state authority granted last month to refuse to accept refugees. Wolf on Tuesday wrote the President and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to say his state will continue to welcome those facing persecution and danger, including people that other states won’t accept. The president’s order requires state and local officials to provide public written consent to receive refugees.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A former Pennsylvania state senator’s conviction for using government employees to work on political campaigns is being upheld by federal appeals judges. A federal appeals panel on Tuesday ruled against former Allegheny County Republican Sen. Jane Orie, saying her second trial in 2012 did not constitute double jeopardy. The appeals court says it also was not a violation for the first trial to be halted during jury deliberations because a forgery had just come to light.

Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky will learn next month what his new prison sentence will be for a 45-count child sexual abuse conviction. An order was filed Tuesday in Centre County that set Sandusky’s resentencing for Nov. 8^th. Sandusky was convicted and sentenced in 2012 to 30 to 60 years, but the state Superior Court ruled in February that mandatory minimums had been improperly applied.

UNDATED (AP) — Seven members of an extended British family who made an unauthorized border crossing into the United States from Canada are being held in federal custody at a Pennsylvania detention center nearly two weeks after their arrest. The family says they mistakenly crossed the border into Washington state while trying to avoid an animal in the road. An affidavit says family members have been “treated like criminals” by their jailers. U.S. officials assert the family crossed the border on purpose.

After months of controversy, the Eastern Lancaster County District in Pennsylvania has approved a plan to build non-gender specific locker rooms and changing areas. The renovation project comes after a transgender student, who was born female but identifies as male, was allowed by the district to use the boys’ locker room. The proposed plan could be a map to the future in the Elanco School District. The product is a $2.4 million renovation to create four, nongender specific showers and changing areas with 76 showers and 48 changing areas. Each area in the renovated locker rooms will have its own door to ensure privacy. The superintendent said today’s students have more body image issues than previous generations and hardly use the school’s communal shower facilities. The school district is hoping to begin the locker room renovations next spring, and have the project finished by the end of 2020.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Lawyers for the man accused of shooting to death 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue last year say the case would be over if federal prosecutors had accepted his offer to plead guilty in return for life-without-parole. Lawyers for Tree of Life shooting defendant Robert Bowers made the statement in a response Tuesday to prosecutors’ proposal to start trial in mid-September 2020. Bowers’ attorneys told a judge in May that he wanted to plead guilty in return for life.

GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A defense attorney says a Greensburg teenager will plead guilty but mentally ill in the slayings of his mother and younger brother three years ago. The Tribune Review reports that public defender Wayne McGrew told a judge Tuesday that 17-year-old Jacob Remaley will enter the plea after his 18th birthday in February. McGrew said it will be easier to place Remaley in a psychiatric institution as an adult. He said Remaley is expected to receive sentences of 30 years to life.

A woman with ties to Beaver County may soon be ready to stand trial for murder in Florida.  Physicians determined in May that Kimberly Kessler wasn’t competent to stand trial for the 2018 murder of a co-worker at a Florida salon.  She was committed to a Florida hospital in July with the intention that she have another competency hearing within 30 days.  The staff at that hospital sent a letter to the judge saying they felt Kessler was now ready to face the charges for the death of Joleen Cummings, whose body hasn’t been found.

State troopers say an Ellwood City man is dead after falling into a pit at a small sewer plant in Franklin Township yesterday. The 61-year-old man fell at the plant on Park Road in Moraine State Park. The Man’s identity hasn’t been released.

Two Pennsylvania state senators have introduced a new bill to legalize recreational marijuana for adults. SB 350 would allow anyone who is at least 21 years old to consume cannabis, according to Sen. Daylin Leach’s website. The bill also says the use of marijuana in public would be generally prohibited, but that lounges could allow consumption on their property. Last month, Governor Tom Wolf said he was in favor of legalizing marijuana for recreational use, saying most of the state’s residents support it and the state has a wealth of knowledge from the experience in other states to guide the new effort. Eleven states have legalized recreational marijuana. Wolf would like Pennsylvania to be the 12th. Public opinion polls in Pennsylvania have shown a majority of those asked were in favor of legalizing marijuana, as did a report released Wednesday from Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s statewide listening tour on legalizing marijuana. According to the report, the legalization of recreational marijuana has the support of 86 percent in Beaver County.