Pennsylvania category, Page 190
Students eligible for free lunch to receive $370 in SNAP benefits to cover rest of school year
Students who are eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals at school can now be reimbursed for the meals they are no longer getting. The Wolf Administration announced a new program Thursday that will let students benefit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Students who are eligible through the...
Applications drop for student aid as pandemic raises questions about college enrollment
State officials say the covid-19 pandemic may be driving college decisions for students. Applications for Pennsylvania’s need-based grants for college costs are down by 31,000 — or about 8% — since mid-March compared to this time last year, officials with the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) said Thursday. The...
Wolf extends stay-at-home order for red zones to June 4, will reveal next yellow-phase areas Friday
Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday night extended Pennsylvania’s stay-at-home order through June 4 for all counties deemed red zones, although which counties remain under that designation could change Friday. As of Thursday night, all of Southwestern Pennsylvania remains a red zone, where the strictest restrictions on people and businesses remain...
Unemployment benefits now available for self-employed Pennsylvanians
Self-employed Pennsylvanians who are out of work because of coronavirus can file for unemployment benefits now that the state’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance system is fully operational, according to the Department of Labor and Industry. The department launched the first phase of the system last month, which allowed people to file...
Gov. Wolf signs order granting civil immunity to health care providers during covid-19 pandemic
Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order Wednesday that could shield health care workers from potential lawsuits while confronting the covid-19 pandemic. The order grants civil immunity to individual licensed, certified and registered health care workers acting in “good faith” across all types of state-defined health care facilities — among...
Senate bill would mandate safety protocols for Pennsylvania nursing homes
Long-term care facilities that have become the epicenter of Pennsylvania’s covid-19 fatalities would be subject to new safety protocols during emergency disaster declarations under a measure state Sen. Kim Ward is promoting. Pennsylvania has recorded 3,106 deaths from covid-19, with about two thirds of those coming from 495 nursing homes...
State police unable to hold memorial ceremony to mark 115th anniversaryVideo
State police take May 2 of each year to remember and honor troopers who have died in the line of duty with a ceremony in Hershey. Because of the covid-19 pandemic, an in-person ceremony wasn’t possible in 2020, the Pennsylvania State Police’s 115th anniversary. Instead, police officials created a tribute...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg weighs in on Trump v. Pennsylvania birth control case from hospital bedVideo
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made history as a lawyer, scoring courtroom victories for clients in sexual discrimination cases. On Wednesday, the 87-year-old justice made history again — this time by participating in oral arguments in a pivotal hearing on insurance coverage for birth control from her room at...
Pennsylvania to hire civilians to ramp up coronavirus contact tracing
Pennsylvania will hire civilians to bolster contact tracing across the state in an effort to better contain and mitigate the coronavirus, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Wednesday. The group, called the Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps, “will reduce our unemployment rate while making a lasting health and economic contribution to our Commonwealth,”...
Pennsylvania reports 94 new coronavirus deaths, 4th straight day with under 1,000 new cases
Another 94 Pennsylvanians have died from the coronavirus, state health officials said Wednesday, pushing the statewide death toll above 3,100. The state also added 888 new cases of covid-19 between 12 a.m. Tuesday to 12 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. The running state total is now 51,845 cases since the first...
Limited in-store sales to resume at 77 Pennsylvania liquor stores
State liquor stores in Clarion, Lawrence, Mercer and Venango counties will be the closest to Pittsburgh resuming limited in-store public access on Friday, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board announced Wednesday. The 14 stores in the four counties north of Pittsburgh are among 77 Fine Wine & Good Spirit locations in...
Hunting-related shooting fatalities increase in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG — The number of hunting-related shooting fatalities in Pennsylvania went up in the past year, according to the state game commission. There were 26 hunting-related shooting injuries in Pennsylvania in 2019, four of which were fatal. The number of fatalities is up from the previous year when only one...
Counties in Pittsburgh region plead with Gov. Wolf to reopen — soon
County leaders across Southwestern Pennsylvania are trying to convince Gov. Tom Wolf to allow them to begin reopening as soon as possible — regardless of what is going on in Allegheny, the most populated area of the region, which also has its highest number of coronavirus cases. On Monday, 37...
PennDOT says $800M in federal aid needed to keep non-critical projects rolling
Facing a drop in gas tax revenue from fewer motorists driving at a time when the Pennsylvania Turnpike won’t turn over more than $100 million due in July, PennDOT might delay noncritical bridge and highway projects if the state does not get $700 million to $800 million in covid-19 federal...
Pennsylvania Game Commission will reopen shooting ranges in ‘yellow’ counties
The Pennsylvania Game Commission on Friday will reopen public rifle, shotgun, pistol and archery ranges in counties the state has moved into the “yellow” phase of coronavirus mitigation efforts. Ranges in red-phase counties, including Allegheny, Westmoreland and the rest of Southwestern Pennsylvania, will remain closed. The shooting ranges on state...
Pennsylvania Sens. Casey, Toomey tackle coronavirus from different angles
Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, and Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, are tackling the coronavirus from distinctly different angles as Congress struggles to respond to the pandemic that has claimed more than 70,000 lives in the United States. Casey said he will introduce a bill this week creating a GI Bill-type benefit...
Pennsylvania birth control case part of historic livestream of U.S. Supreme Court arguments
Lawyers from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office will be on deck Wednesday as the U.S. Supreme Court continues streaming oral arguments live for the first time in history. The case, Trump v. Pennsylvania, centers on the Trump administration and the Little Sisters of the Poor seeking to uphold a rule...
Pennsylvania coronavirus deaths top 3,000 as state catches up with data
Coronavirus deaths in Pennsylvania surpassed 3,000 on Tuesday as the Department of Health works to catch up with information coming from individual counties through a number of platforms, state officials said. The jump in deaths is “a result of our continued work to reconcile data from various sources,” health officials...
Mail-in ballot requests approach 1 million ahead of Pennsylvania’s June 2 primary
Nearly one million Pennsylvanians have opted to vote by mail in the June 2 primary, and state officials are hoping to provide the funding and framework to grow that record-setting number significantly higher before the deadline. “Did I mention that we’re encouraging everyone to vote by mail?” Secretary of State...
Pennsylvania reports 825 new coronavirus cases, eclipses 50,000
Pennsylvania health officials will decide this week whether to share coronavirus-related data from nursing and personal care homes with the public, which is where the majority of covid-19 deaths are occurring. About 67% of covid-19 deaths reported by the state have occurred in residents from such facilities. So far, the...
Pennsylvania reports 26 more covid-19 deaths as total cases top 49K
Pennsylvania health officials on Sunday reported 962 new cases of covid-19 and 26 more deaths, bringing the statewide death total to 2,444. As of Sunday, 49,267 Pennsylvanians had tested positive for covid-19, and 191,374 residents had tested negative, state officials said. All 67 counties in the state have cases of...
Pennsylvania reports 64 more covid-19 deaths, total cases top 48K; nursing home cases approach 10K
Pennsylvania health officials reported 1,334 new cases of covid-19 and 64 more deaths as of Saturday morning, bringing the statewide coronavirus death toll to 2,418. Hospitals now are treating 2,673 patients with the disease, and 555 people are on ventilators — six fewer patients than were on ventilators as of...
Budget fallout from virus hitting Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
The economic hurt from measures to contain the coronavirus unfolded more Friday, as Pennsylvania state government’s tax collections collapsed in April and, in Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney proposed tax increases and layoffs. The state Revenue Department reported collecting $2.2 billion in April, half of what it had originally expected in...
May is National Lyme Disease Awareness MonthVideo
With the prospect of quarantine measures slowly being lifted across the state in the coming weeks, many Pennsylvanians are relishing the prospect of getting outside and enjoying warming spring weather. Unfortunately, not only will they have the specter of the coronavirus hanging in the air, they’ll also have tick nymphs...
For now, Southwest Pa. must wait as Gov. Wolf eases coronavirus restrictions in 24 northern counties
Counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania are not among those that will see coronavirus-related restrictions eased next week, Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday, and there is little indication as to when more counties can begin the reopening process. Two dozen counties in the Northwest and North-Central parts of the state will move...
