Pennsylvania Senate approves GOP’s $3B tax-cutting plan, over objections of top Democrats
HARRISBURG — Republican lawmakers on Tuesday advanced legislation for a $3 billion tax cut, their just-unveiled counterproposal to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro ‘s budget plan as each side offers a competing vision for how to use a massive cash surplus sitting in the state treasury. The tax legislation cutting taxes...
Judge in Trump’s classified documents case cancels May trial date; no new date set
WASHINGTON — The federal judge in Florida presiding over the classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump has canceled the trial date for May 20, postponing it indefinitely. The order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had been expected in light of still-unresolved issues in the case and because...
Cumberland Valley school director resigns over ‘30 Rock’ actor being allowed to speak to students
Cumberland Valley School director Brian Drapp has resigned his school board seat over the district’s handling of a middle school assembly featuring author/actor Maulik Pancholy. But in an interview Tuesday with PennLive, he said that issue is really a symptom of deeper problems with the board’s operation. “I believe you...
U.S. service member shot, killed by Florida police identified by the Air Force
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force said an airman based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida, was shot and killed Friday during an incident involving a sheriff’s deputy. Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, died at his off-base residence, the Air Force said in a...
Stormy Daniels evokes Ben Roethlisberger during Trump trial
Former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was mentioned Tuesday during Stormy Daniels’ testimony in former President Donald Trump’s election interference trial. Daniels testified under oath about the sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006 and the alleged $130,000 deal to keep it a secret, made just days before...
Biden condemns current antisemitism in Holocaust remembrance during college protests and Gaza war
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden condemned the “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world” during a Tuesday ceremony to remember victims of the Holocaust at a time when the Hamas attack on Israel and controversy over the war in Gaza have sparked new waves of violence and...
Marjorie Taylor Greene pauses effort to oust Speaker Johnson after meeting
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green is scheduled to continue talks Tuesday with House Speaker Mike Johnson over Greene’s promise to bring forward a motion to remove him. Whether Greene, R-Rome, will follow through with her threatened “motion to vacate” remains to be seen as members of her own...
Where Pennsylvania has lost Democrats since 2008, and what it means for November
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — For the first time in at least 16 years, the Democratic and Republican parties in Pennsylvania are...
Israel seizes Gaza’s vital Rafah crossing, but U.S. says it isn’t the full invasion many fear
CARIO — Israeli troops seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing on Tuesday in what the White House described as a limited operation, as fears mount of a full-scale invasion of the southern city and cease-fire talks with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge. The U.N. warned of a...
Boy Scouts of America changing name to more inclusive Scouting America after years of woes
IRVING, Texas — The Boy Scouts of America is changing its name for the first time in its 114-year history and will become Scouting America. It’s a significant shift as the organization emerges from bankruptcy following a flood of sexual abuse claims and seeks to focus on inclusion. The organization...
University of Chicago clears a pro-Palestinian demonstration as MIT confronts a new encampment
CHICAGO — Police cleared a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at the University of Chicago on Tuesday as tension ratcheted up in standoffs with demonstrators at other college campuses across the U.S. — and increasingly, in Europe. Nearly three weeks into a movement launched by a protest at Columbia University, the Rhode...
Jayne Anne Phillips’ novel ‘Night Watch,’ Eboni Booth’s drama ‘Primary Trust’ among Pulitzer winners
NEW YORK — Stories of race, slavery and the Civil War, real and invented, were winners this year for the Pulitzer Prizes. Jayne Anne Phillips’ “Night Watch,” a mother-daughter saga set in a West Virginia asylum right after the war, was cited for fiction. Jacqueline Jones received the history prize...
Greensburg council to vote on body-worn camera grant, event approval process
Greensburg is expected to outfit its police force with its first set of body-worn cameras. City council will vote next week to accept a $140,000 grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development to purchase 27 body-worn cameras — one for each of its police officers, said Chief...
Bernie Sanders says Gaza may be Joe Biden’s Vietnam — but he’s ready to battle for him over Trump
WASHINGTON — In April, Bernie Sanders repeatedly stood shoulder to shoulder with President Joe Biden, promoting their joint accomplishments on health care and climate at formal White House events while eviscerating Donald Trump in a widely viewed campaign TikTok video. Then just last week, Sanders was bluntly warning that the...
After deadly Oklahoma tornado, forecasters warn Midwest residents to brace for storms
OKLAHOMA CITY — Several Midwest states were bracing for dangerous storms Tuesday as tornadoes spun through parts of Michigan, one day after a powerful twister roared through a small Oklahoma town, killing at least one person and destroying dozens of homes. The National Weather Service said some tornadoes were spotted...
Ukraine says it foiled a Russian spy agency plot to assassinate President Zelenskyy
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian counterintelligence investigators have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top military and political figures, Ukraine’s state security service said Tuesday. Two colonels in the State Guard of Ukraine, which protects top officials, were detained on suspicion of enacting the plan drawn...
Stormy Daniels describes meeting Trump during occasionally graphic testimony in hush money trial
NEW YORK — Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday at Donald Trump’s hush money trial, describing for jurors a sexual encounter the porn actor says she had with him in 2006 that resulted in her being paid off to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later. Jurors...
Denial and uncertainty are looming over a Biden-Trump rematch 6 months out from Election Day
WILMINGTON, N.C. — This North Carolina voter is nervous. Will Rikard, a 49-year-old father of two, was among several hundred Democrats who stood and cheered for Joe Biden as the first-term president delivered a fiery speech recently about the billions of dollars he has delivered to protect the state’s drinking...
Crews search central Pa. waterways for Pittsburgh area woman police say was killed
The search for a missing Western Pennsylvania woman last seen in the Harrisburg area and deemed a homicide victim was concentrated Friday along two creeks in northern York County. Susquehanna Township police sent out a thank you via Crimewatch on Monday that expressed “its sincere gratitude for the agencies, organizations,...
A gene long thought to just raise the risk for Alzheimer’s may cause some cases
WASHINGTON — For the first time, researchers have identified a genetic form of late-in-life Alzheimer’s disease — in people who inherit two copies of a worrisome gene. Scientists have long known a gene called APOE4 is one of many things that can increase people’s risk for Alzheimer’s, including simply getting...
Greene won’t move against Johnson just yet
WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene delayed moving to oust Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday night and will instead continue to talk with him following a nearly two-hour meeting between the two and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., earlier in the day. With House Democratic leadership vowing to vote to table...
House Republicans are ready to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt over Biden audio
WASHINGTON — House Republicans plan to move forward next week with holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for his refusal to turn over the unredacted audio of an interview that was conducted as part of the special counsel probe into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents....
Pa. Senate Republicans propose ‘historic’ tax cut to counter Democrats’ desire to spend more
Senate Republicans are proposing a historic tax cut for Pennsylvanians that includes taking the personal income tax back to 2003 levels and lower electric bills. An amendment offered Monday afternoon to a bill granting a tax credit to volunteer emergency medical technicians was approved on 11-5 party-line vote by the...
Liberal icon Bernie Sanders is running for Senate reelection, squelching retirement rumors
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont announced Monday he will run for reelection this year, squelching speculation that the 82-year-old progressive icon might retire at a time when the Democratic Party is anxious about the advancing age of its top leaders. Hailing from a Democratic stronghold, Sanders’ decision virtually guarantees that...
Boeing 787 employees falsified inspection records; FAA opens probe
The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it has opened a new investigation into a potential manufacturing quality lapse on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner after Boeing admitted that inspection records on work at the wing-to-body join were falsified at the jet’s final assembly site in South Carolina. Boeing informed the FAA in...
