Pennsylvania category, Page 162
CNN, New York Times spotlight Westmoreland County as key in presidential race
National media outlets are eyeing Westmoreland County as a key battleground in the looming presidential election. Both CNN and the New York Times this week spotlighted the county in reports, talking to residents and politicians about their efforts to swing the race in favor of either President Donald Trump or...
Pennsylvania state universities move forward with merger study, as IUP aims at its own restructuring plan
A process that could integrate or merge six struggling state-owned universities into two “academic powerhouses” has cleared its first hurdle. The Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education on Wednesday approved launching the second step in a study that could result in California, Clarion and Edinboro...
Prosecutor says police justified in fatal Lancaster shooting
A police officer acted appropriately last month in shooting to death a Lancaster man who was wielding a knife at the officer and chasing him after his sister called 911 for help, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said there will not be criminal charges for...
Pa. health officials aim to avoid shutdown despite covid uptick
A recent uptick in covid-19 cases and a likely cold-weather resurgence of the virus will not lead to another state shutdown, Pennsylvania health leaders said Wednesday. Instead, current mitigation measures and increased testing will be used to combat the spread as cool weather drives people indoors. “We have no plans...
Pennsylvania high court to settle voter signatures fight
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s highest court granted a request Wednesday from the state’s top elections official to take up the question of whether counties should count mail-in ballots when a voter’s signature doesn’t necessarily match the one on their registration. In its brief order, the state Supreme Court said it will...
Pennsylvania tops 1,000 coronavirus cases for 9th straight day
Pennsylvania reported 1,276 new coronavirus cases and 27 deaths on Wednesday, marking the ninth straight day with more than a thousand cases. Those new additions bring respective totals to 175,922 cases and 8,411 deaths since the first cases were reported in March, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The...
Pa. health officials ask residents to cooperate with contact tracers
Pennsylvania health officials on Tuesday asked residents to cooperate in contact tracing efforts, as the state experiences a rise in covid-19 infections. In a news release, the Department of Health encouraged residents to download the Covid Alert PA mobile app and participate in case investigations. “As Pennsylvania experiences increases in...
Pennsylvania continues trend of 1,000-plus new covid-19 cases
Pennsylvania reported 1,342 new covid-19 cases Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health. Coronavirus-related deaths also increased, with 16 new deaths reported. Of the 16 deaths reported Tuesday, one is from October, nine are from September, three are from August, one is from July and two from June. Total...
Gisele Fetterman grateful for support after enduring racial slurs while shopping
Gisele Fetterman, wife of Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, said Monday she is grateful for the support she has received after a stranger verbally attacked her at a grocery store near her home. “Everyone from the governor (Tom Wolf) to our attorney general (Josh Shapiro) to our senator (Bob Casey), they are...
USDA extends waivers for free school meals
Schoolchildren across the United States can continue receiving free school meals through the end of the academic year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “As our nation recovers and reopens, we want to ensure that children continue to receive the nutritious breakfasts and lunches they count on during the...
Over 2 days, Pennsylvania adds over 2,250 new covid cases, 24 new deaths
Pennsylvania saw 2,254 new coronavirus cases over the past two days — 1,166 on Sunday, 1,088 on Monday — according to a report from state Department of Health on Monday. The state said 239,484 tests were conducted from Oct. 5-11, with 9,117 positives found. Six new covid-related deaths were reported...
Pa. Republicans drop effort to create ‘election integrity’ panel with subpoena power
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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 weekly newsletter. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Republicans have dropped their plan to create an “election integrity” panel with subpoena power, an effort Democrats...
Biden hits Trump on economy in Erie, a critical Pennsylvania county
ERIE — With the backdrop of a union facility in a key battleground county of Pennsylvania, Joe Biden on Saturday blistered President Donald Trump as only pretending to care about the working-class voters who helped flip the Rust Belt to the Republican column four years ago. “Anyone who actually does...
Judge throws out Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania lawsuit
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday threw out a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign, dismissing its challenges to the battleground state’s poll-watching law and its efforts to limit how mail-in ballots can be collected and which of them can be counted. “This is a...
Pennsylvania reports 1,742 new coronavirus cases, 36 new deaths
Pennsylvania on Saturday reported 1,742 new coronavirus cases — a whopping 362-case jump from yesterday’s 1,380. The state Department of Health reported 36 new deaths attributed to the coronavirus after posting nine on Friday. Wednesday’s total of 28 deaths was the highest of the week before today. The total number...
Judge rejects Trump campaign suit over Philly voter offices
HARRISBURG — A judge on Friday rejected a bid by President Donald Trump’s campaign to force Philadelphia to allow campaign representatives to monitor people registering to vote or filling out mail-in ballots in election offices in a city repeatedly attacked by Trump as untrustworthy. Judge Gary Glazer wrote in his...
Pennsylvania reports 1,380 new coronavirus cases, 9 new deaths
Pennsylvania on Friday reported 1,380 new cases of covid-19, with 135 of those in Philadelphia. There were 211,544 tests administered in the past 7 days, with 7,805 positive cases, according to the state Health Department. The state reported 14,662 new negative test results for a total of 1,999,765 people testing...
Marijuana leads 2020 drug seizures by Pennsylvania State Police
State police seized $19.4 million worth of processed marijuana so far in 2020, according to troopers. Nearly 3 tons of processed marijuana were confiscated by troopers across the state during the first nine months of the year, with some big seizures recently in Westmoreland County. Statistics released this week showed,...
Shapiro preparing for additional court battles as election nears
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said he has teams preparing for any election law challenges that may be filed between now and after polls close Nov. 3, even as he awaits court rulings on several GOP challenges. With 26 days remaining until the election and about 2.5 million mail and...
House leaders call for Lawrence County lawmaker Aaron Bernstine to resign over videos
HARRISBURG — Republican leaders in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives called Thursday for one of their members to resign after a newspaper disclosed the existence of videos posted to a since-deleted social media account in which he encourages his 5-year-old son to draw from a cigar and use profane language. In...
Bill Cosby appeal set for Dec. 1 in Pennsylvania high court
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear Bill Cosby’s appeal of his felony sex assault conviction on Dec. 1. Cosby, 83, is serving a three- to 10-year prison term. A lower appeals court had upheld his conviction, but the state’s high court agreed this year to review two key issues in...
Pennsylvania’s gun background check system sets record
Gun buyers in Pennsylvania between July and September gave the state’s background check system its busiest quarter in its 22-year history, already surpassing 2019’s total so far this year. A record 406,151 background checks were completed between July 1 and Sept. 30, a 55% increase from the same time in...
Philadelphia officials express alarm over 2020 gun violence
Philadelphia officials expressed alarm at surging gun violence this year that has already caused more homicides than were recorded in all of last year — and which continued Tuesday with more killings. Commissioner Danielle Outlaw told reporters Tuesday that police were “working very diligently and passionately toward the goal of...
Pennsylvania reports 1,376 new coronavirus cases, 27 new deaths
Pennsylvania on Thursday reported a third day of over 1,000 new covid-19 cases, along with 27 new deaths attributed to the coronavirus. The state Department of Health reported 1,376 cases, the highest single day increase in cases since April 30. That brings the total number of cases to 167,928 since...
Allegheny, Westmoreland surpass 2010 census response rates
Despite months of uncertainty surrounding the end date for the census, self-response rates in Westmoreland and Allegheny counties have surpassed 2010 rates. According to a census map, about 72% of people have responded in Allegheny County compared to 71.3% of people a decade ago, while 73.1% of people in Westmoreland...
