HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Rebounding prices for natural gas and a growth in new wells exploring Pennsylvania’s vast Marcellus Shale reservoir are fueling a recovery in fee revenue for state programs and county and municipal governments.
The Independent Fiscal Office projected Wednesday that impact fee collections for 2017 will be just above $219 million, $46 million more than 2016’s low point of $173 million.
The rebound breaks a string of three years of declining revenue. The Independent Fiscal Office says the increase is largely due to the average annual price of natural gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange passing $3, which triggered a $5,000 per-well increase.
The office also says 812 new wells were started, making 8,634 wells subject to the fee. Pennsylvania is the nation’s No. 2 natural gas state behind Texas.

AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two students were shot and wounded, one critically, inside a Los Angeles middle school classroom Thursday morning and police took a female student into custody, authorities said.
A 15-year-old boy hit in the head was transported to a trauma center in critical but stable condition, according to fire department spokesman Erik Scott. A 15-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to the wrist was taken to a hospital in fair condition, Scott said.
Three other people, ranging in age from 11 to 30, suffered minor cuts and scrapes.
Police arrested the female student and recovered a gun after the shooting that happened just before 9 a.m. at Salvador B. Castro Middle School, west of the city’s downtown.
Television news footage showed a girl with dark hair wearing a sweatshirt being led out of the school in handcuffs a short time later.
Police cars blocked off an intersection near the school and parents gathered at the street corner, talking on their phones and awaiting word on their children.
Gloria Echeverria was waiting outside a line of police tape preventing people from approaching the school, waiting for news about her 13-year-old son.
“I’m just hoping it has nothing to do with him,” she said. “I’m just scared for all the kids — school is supposed to be a safe place for them, and apparently it’s not.”
Steve Zipperman, chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District police force, said the school’s campus remained on lockdown later in the morning but had been declared safe.
“We will attend to the needs of these students who witnessed this very carefully, with the understanding this is very traumatic,” Zipperman said. “We have our school mental health folks that are here to support the needs of the students.”
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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber, John Antczak and Michael Balsamo in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Around 2:45 p.m, yesterday, The University of Pittsburgh had a small explosion in the Clapp, Langley and Crawford Hall complex on Fifth Avenue, according to University of Pittsburgh spokesperson Joe Miksch. The hall houses the biological sciences and neuroscience department.

The explosion was contained by a fume hood designed to limit exposure to hazardous materials, according to Miksch.

Students were evacuated temporarily as a precaution. The Halls are back open except for the first floor of the Chevron Annex building.

One student was evaluated for an eye irritation.

A man is hospitalized after his pickup truck went over a hillside in Shaler Township not far from Route 8.

His truck hit the front of someone’s lawn, went through a wooden sign, across the street and over the hillside last evening.

April Vinski, who called 911 before rushing to help, said “The noise was like an explosion,”
“I just hoped he wasn’t dead.” She & another man lifted the mangled windshield to get to the driver.

Emergency crews used ropes to extricate the driver before he was taken to the hospital.

Police do not think drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash.

Beaver County was visited this week by a delegation of high-level politicians within the Japanese government to learn how local officials approach emergency management situations involving nuclear power plants. The officials visited last year and when they learned that Beaver County Emergency Services was holding more training this month centered around the “radiological response to potential nuclear disasters.”, they decided to make the return trip .

Sandie Egley, chairwoman of the Beaver County Commissioners, said the county’s emergency management facility is new and equipped with cutting-edge technology, which likely played a role in the Japanese officials wanting to visit here.

“To catch the attention of international (delegates) is very prestigious,” she said. “For people in Tokyo to be noticing what we’re doing in Beaver County is really something.”

A Pittsburgh woman, Kexuana Sayles, pleaded guilty Tuesday to participating in a 2013 robbery gone wrong in Coraopolis that resulted in the death of one man, Thomas Cassano. Police said his two young children were home at the time of the shooting.

Records show Sayles, who was charged in October 2015… nearly two years after the incident, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy

Our U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus was on the chartered train heading to the GOP Retreat in West Virginia that collided with a garbage truck. One person on the truck was killed. Rothfus was uninjured and wrote “I am fine & safe but my prayers are with those who may be hurt,”

According to The Associated Press, the chartered train left Washington, D.C., for the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., before the collision with the truck just south of Charlottesville, Va., at about 11:15 a.m. Charlottesville is about 2½ hours south of the nation’s capital.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey,said on Twitter that he was not on the train.