PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE: Democrat Tom Wolf, the front-runner in a seven-way gubernatorial primary, said on Monday that some of his opponents may try to use against him events from more than a decade ago when he was campaign chairman for a former York mayor, an admitted racist acquitted of murder.

The use of force by Russia in Ukraine would be a choice of last resort, Putin said, and sanctions being considered against Moscow by the West would be counter-productive…

Among key findings: while suicide rates for soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan more than doubled from 2004 to 2009 to more than 30-per-100,000, the trend among those who never deployed nearly tripled to between 25- and 30-per-100,000…

Amid new signs that the situation in Crimea is getting even more tense, Ukraine’s defence ministry said its forces in Crimea had received an ultimatum from Russian forces to surrender to them by 5am local time on Tuesday or face military attack…

The lumping together of people with strikingly different historical experience and comfortable in different (though closely related) languages, underlies the current divisions.

She cherishes the autonomy of private practice and speaks darkly of the rush of independent physicians into hospital networks, which she sees as growing monopolies…

To admit at this late date that the findings responsible for millions of felony arrests over an interval of 44 years have been erroneous would indeed be difficult, particularly since the real reason is that the authorities making and confirming them were medically incompetent, yet refused to allow pertinent evidence to be presented or heard.

Not that he didn’t have the opportunity to do better. With decent majorities in the state House and Senate, Corbett should have a record of accomplishment similar to GOP Governors in Michigan and Wisconsin. Corbett has proposed reforms in pension funding, labor unions, public education and privatization of any section of the government where people who benefit write large campaign checks.

McCord said if elected governor he would work to immediately increase the minimum wage to $10.70 an hour, a higher rate than the $10.10 supported by President Obama on the federal level and other Democrats running for governor are supporting.

The downward revision comes after new data showing lackluster retail sales, inventory adjustments and a slightly less impressive trade balance late last year. Disappointing reports on job creation in December and January have also prompted fear of continued weakness into the spring of 2014…

Some retailers pay their workers even more. Costco, one of the most successful retailers in the country, has a starting wage of $11.50 per hour for most entry-level jobs, and its average wage for hourly workers is $21 an hour. Patrick Callans, a senior vice president for the company, said that Costco’s higher pay and benefits “allows us to attract and retain great employees.” A 2006 management case study argues that the higher pay has also helped the company keep “shrinkage,” or theft, fraud and errors, low by industry standards