Pennsylvania category, Page 162
Supreme Court allows 3-day extension for Pennsylvania ballots
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will allow Pennsylvania to count mailed-in ballots received up to three days after the Nov. 3 election, rejecting a Republican plea in the presidential battleground state. The justices divided 4-4 on Monday, an outcome that upholds a state Supreme Court ruling that required county election...
Covid resurgence is here, Pa. officials say after 14 days of new cases topping 1,000
Pennsylvania’s statewide percentage of positive covid-19 cases has risen to 4.3%, the highest it’s been since August, state officials said Monday, and nearly a third of the state’s 67 counties have a percent positivity of more than 5%. “We all knew there was … going to be an upsurge in...
Pa. could become ‘ground zero’ for court battles on — and after — Election Day
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 newsletters. HARRISBURG — In the weeks leading up to November’s historic election, there has been one constant: lawsuits and court decisions that...
Prospects dim for critical election bill in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG — With 15 days until the presidential election, Republican lawmakers in the battleground state of Pennsylvania appeared unwilling Monday to authorize counties to process mail-in ballots before Election Day, seen as crucial to producing a prompt election result. A spokesperson for the House Republican majority said in a statement...
Democrats plunge cash into U.S. House race in suburban Philadelphia
HARRISBURG — Democrats are showing that they think they can beat second-term Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in a politically divided U.S. House district just north of Philadelphia. The major Democratic super PAC helping elect Democrats to the House filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission that it is spending nearly...
Pennsylvania continues to report new daily covid case loads above 1,000
Pennsylvania added 1,103 cases of covid-19 on Monday, with another 1,269 cases added Sunday, according to a report from the state’s Department of Health. The positivity rate of the most recent days was 9.02% for Sunday’s new cases and 8.88% with Monday’s cases. Over the past seven days, the state...
Emergency plans fail to consider complexity of Mariner East pipelines, and those most at risk in an accident
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 weekly newsletter. Editor’s note: This story is Part 2 of a two-part series about the Mariner East pipeline system. Just after 7:30...
$462.8 million in bets made in Pennsylvania in September
Pennsylvania’s online and retail sportsbook generated a record $462.8 million in bets in September but failed to bring in record taxable revenue. The commonwealth joins New Jersey and Nevada in surpassing $450 million in wagers in a single month, according to PlayPennsylvania. However, because of heavy promotion and some “unlucky...
Along Mariner East pipelines, secrecy and a patchwork of emergency plans leave many at risk and in the dark
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/the Patriot-News and other news organizations across Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter. Winding through green forested hills, the road to Meadowbrook Mobile Home Park in York County is nestled with brown-paneled trailers...
Pence rallies Trump supporters in Reading: ‘Road to victory runs right through Pennsylvania’
READING — Vice President Mike Pence returned to the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania on Saturday, declaring President Donald Trump a champion of the “forgotten men and women of America” and blasting Joe Biden as a “Trojan Horse for the radical left.” “The road to victory runs right through Pennsylvania,”...
Pennsylvania reports 2nd-highest covid-19 case count
Pennsylvania on Saturday reported 1,857 new coronavirus cases — a staggering 291-case jump from yesterday’s 1,566 — and the second-highest single-day total the state has ever reported. The all-time high for the Keystone State has stood since April 9, when 1,989 cases were reported. The state Department of Health reported...
Unemployment rate in Pa. drops to 8.1%, but economists remain wary
The state Department of Labor & Industry reported Friday that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.1% in September, down 2.3 percentage points from August. The current figure is nearly double the unemployment rate of September 2019, which was 4.6%. Still, Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh...
FBI searches headquarters of labor union in Philadelphia
Federal agents have searched two sites connected to a Philadelphia-based union, apparently as part of an ongoing investigation of an indicted powerful labor boss. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the FBI served search warrants Friday at the headquarters of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and its...
Pennsylvania breaking records in voter registration by mail and in person
More than 2.7 million Pennsylvanians are approved to vote by mail in the upcoming election, and about a quarter have mailed in their ballots, state officials said Friday. “We are right on track to end up right around 3 million, which was our estimate after the primary (election),” Secretary of...
Deadline looms to defuse Pennsylvania’s budget time bomb
HARRISBURG — Months after passing a partial budget that avoided some hard decisions, Pennsylvania’s Legislature and governor face a deadline at the end of November to finish the job and plug a multibillion-dollar deficit. The partially funded budget that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed in May was incomplete by design....
Pennsylvania reports 1,566 new covid-19 cases, 25 new deaths
Pennsylvania on Friday reported 1,566 new cases of covid-19 and added 25 new deaths to its total. The cases are from a batch of 15,413 new test results, with 13,847 of those being negative. The state’s daily positivity rate is 10.16%, the highest it has been since May. The new...
Talks on critical election legislation in Pennsylvania stall
HARRISBURG — Closed-door talks on legislation seen as crucial to producing a prompt election result in the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania appeared stuck Thursday between the Democratic governor and the Legislature’s House Republican majority. In a statement to The Associated Press, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office said an offer extended...
Pennsylvania reports 1,598 new coronavirus cases, 21 new deaths
Pennsylvania on Thursday reported another day of over 1,000 new covid-19 cases, along with 21 new deaths attributed to the coronavirus. The state Department of Health reported 1,598 cases Thursday. October has seen all but two days of over 1,000 cases reported. The total number of cases climbed to 177,520...
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...
