Pennsylvania category, Page 66
Charges put focus on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ handling of abuseVideo
YORK HAVEN — A Pennsylvania grand jury in recent months accused nine men with connections to the Jehovah’s Witnesses of child sexual abuse in what some consider the nation’s most comprehensive investigation yet into abuse within the faith. The sets of charges filed in October and February have fueled speculation...
Expecting more than $1B in opioid settlement money, Pa. grapples with policing versus treatment
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — A historic settlement to resolve claims against opioid companies is expected to bring Pennsylvania more than $1 billion, but...
Pennsylvania to restrict ‘tranq,’ animal sedative linked to overdoses
HARRISBURG — States are increasingly looking to restrict access to an animal tranquilizer showing up in supplies of illicit drugs and contributing to a growing number of human overdose deaths. Pennsylvania’s governor said Tuesday that his administration will add xylazine to the state’s list of controlled substances, tightening regulations on...
Printing error forces Pennsylvania county to replace ballots
HARRISBURG — Elections officials in a central Pennsylvania county were scrambling on Monday to fix an error on more than 18,000 mail-in ballots for the spring primary, when voters will elect judges for the state Supreme Court and other positions. Late last week someone noticed that the ballot for Superior...
Court tosses Gov. Wolf suit against voter ID, abortion amendments
HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania court on Monday dismissed a challenge to how lawmakers have bundled together five potential state constitutional amendments, including one regarding abortion, on grounds the legal dispute was not ripe for the judges’ review. The five-judge Commonwealth Court panel said judges were not passing judgment on the...
Supreme Court to deliver answer in religious mailman’s case
LANCASTER — Gerald Groff liked his work as a postal employee in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country. For years, he delivered mail and all manner of packages: a car bumper, a mini refrigerator, a 70-pound box of horseshoes for a blacksmith. But when an Amazon.com contract with the Postal Service required carriers...
FBI cautions about phone ‘spoofing’ scam
Pittsburgh FBI officials said there is an ongoing telephone scam in which a caller portrays themselves as a special agent and the phone number shows up on caller ID as the FBI. The scam caller tells victims their identity has been compromised and used to open fraudulent bank accounts and...
Pa. Medicaid reenrollment: What you need to know to keep your health insurance or find other options
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — If you’re one of the nearly 3.7 million Pennsylvanians who use Medicaid for health insurance, you’ll need to requalify...
Pennsylvania university shooting wounds 2; suspects sought
LINCOLN UNIVERSITY — Two people are being sought in a shooting that wounded two others at a university in southeastern Pennsylvania over the weekend, authorities said. Lincoln University security officials said the shooting happened at about 10 p.m. Saturday during “Yardfest,” an annual spring event at the Chester County campus...
Bomb found by Pa. fire department while fighting nearby brush fire
Police in Schuylkill County reported that a homemade bomb was found when fire fighters responded to a brush fire this week. PA Home Page reports that the Tamaqua Borough Policce and Fire Department responded to a brush fire around 10 p.m. Wednesday night, in the Dutch Hill section of Tamaqua....
In private, Gov. Shapiro’s working group on climate change meets
HARRISBURG — The group tasked by Gov. Josh Shapiro with developing a state-level plan to fight climate change met for the first time this week, a step the Democrat promised to take when he questioned his predecessor’s strategy to make Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel state to adopt carbon...
Montgomery County mother charged in son’s death after SUV found at New Jersey beach
HORSHAM — A mother has been charged with murder in the death of her 11-year-old son in southeastern Pennsylvania and is awaiting extradition from New Jersey, where she was arrested after her SUV was found in the surf on a beach at the Jersey shore. Ruth DiRienzo-Whitehead, 50, of Horsham,...
Lawsuit: Pa. chocolate factory ignored warning before deadly blast
A Pennsylvania candy-maker ignored warnings of a natural gas leak at its chocolate factory and bears responsibility for a subsequent explosion that killed seven workers and injured several others, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The family of Judith “Judy” Lopez-Moran, a 55-year-old mother of three, filed what their lawyers...
U.S. organ transplant system overhaul: What will it mean for Pennsylvanians waiting?
For nearly 40 years, organ transplants in the United States have been directed by a single nonprofit called the United Network for Organ Sharing — UNOS. Critics say UNOS has come to be plagued by problems including outdated technology, wasted organs and lack of transparency. In March, the Biden administration...
Ex-firefighter from Pa. gets prison for Jan. 6 extinguisher attack
Robert Sanford, 57, a retired firefighter from Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, a town southwest of Philadelphia, threw a fire extinguisher at police officers during the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to more than four years in prison. Sanford struck two police officers in the head with the fire extinguisher that...
Pa. Democrats aim to appeal to working-class voters with policy, symbolism, and some anger
Pennsylvania Democrats are trying to show they can be populists, too. When Gov. Josh Shapiro took office in January, he sent a symbolic message by using his first executive order to end the four-year college degree requirement for most state government jobs. Sen. John Fetterman campaigned as a Democrat who...
Pa. launches abortion access website in wake of Texas ruling against abortion medication
After a federal judge’s ruling in Texas last week halted the approval of a drug used in medication abortions, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro launched a website informing state residents about their rights to accessing to abortion services. Shapiro said Monday that Pennsylvanians’ reproductive rights have not changed because of the...
Pa. Supreme Court candidates with party backing show fundraising advantage
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — The candidates running for an open seat on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court are getting campaign money from wealthy donors, their...
Pa. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey to seek 4th term
HARRISBURG — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey will seek a fourth term in office, bringing the power of incumbency and unmatched name recognition in Pennsylvania politics to his party’s defense of a seat in a critical presidential battleground state. The announcement by Casey, the longest-serving Democratic U.S. senator in Pennsylvania history,...
More buses from Texas? Philly ready to welcome immigrants as pandemic ban drops
PHILADELPHIA — From shortly before Thanksgiving until after the New Year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent nearly a thousand immigrants to Philadelphia aboard unscheduled, unannounced buses. The last of 19 coaches pulled up outside 30th Street Station on Jan. 7. And since then … nothing. What at first seemed a...
Fetterman, Casey slam federal judge’s ruling against abortion medication
Pennsylvania’s Democratic U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey did not mince words when responding to Friday’s ruling by a federal judge in Texas halting the approval of an abortion medication. “This ruling by a hard-right Trump appointed judge is simply bull(expletive),” Fetterman said in a statement released Saturday morning....
New Pennsylvania license plate benefits ‘Pollinator Habitat’ efforts
PennDOT is announcing the addition of a “Pollinator Habitat” license plate to its lineup of special fund registration plates. Sixty-five percent of the proceeds from the license plate will be deposited into the agency’s Pollinator Habitat Program Fund. The fund is dedicated to supporting ongoing efforts to reinvigorate the populations...
Shapiro’s proposed Pa. State Police fund saves road dollars but raises accountability concerns
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — In his first budget proposal as governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro aims to resolve a longstanding fiscal conundrum: funding the...
With snakes emerging as temperatures rise, Pa. has 3 venomous species to be aware of
Don’t look now but the sun is shining a little more, and the temperatures are starting to warm up. It’s a beautiful thing after slogging through another Pennsylvania winter, but humans aren’t the only creatures ready to get out and about in the nice weather. The rising temperatures mean snakes...
Poll shows Gov. Josh Shapiro with 54% approval rating 3 months into term
Gov. Josh Shapiro has been in office for three months and so far, more than half of Pennsylvanians approve of the job he is doing although a majority believe overall the state is heading in the wrong direction, according to a statewide poll released on Thursday. The “Common Ground in...
