Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania will receive hundreds of millions of dollars to plug defunct oil and gas wells that may pose health and environmental threats. And now, the state’s existing program is getting more scrutiny for how it prioritizes projects and uses that money.

The black bear harvest declined to a 10-year low, according to state data, despite a dramatic spike in interest among hunters during that same time. The Pennsylvania Game Commission announced that 2,920 bears were killed in the 2023 seasons, an 8% drop from the 3,171 bears taken in 2022. The recent high came in 2019 when 4,650 bears were killed by hunters, but most of the last decade has seen 3,100-3,700 bears taken every year.

Treating drug addiction is two-fold: one part is law enforcement reducing the supply and another is getting addicts the help they need to recover. Such is what legislators heard during a House Republican Policy Committee on Thursday as Pennsylvania continues to deal with an opioid crisis that outpaces the rest of the country.

Donald Trump (R) has raised the most money from Pennsylvania state of all presidential candidates, with $2.14 million raised since the start of the campaign cycle. Trump raised $502,595 in the fourth quarter of 2023. Joe Biden (D) has raised the next most from Pennsylvania, with $1.5 million since the start of the campaign and $943,704 in the fourth quarter. Twenty-three notable presidential candidates, including those who have dropped out of the race, raised a total of $6 million from Pennsylvania donors between Jan. 1, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2023. Thirty-five notable candidates raised $47.6 million in Pennsylvania during the 2020 election cycle, while 25 raised $25 million during the 2016 election cycle.

About two dozen grants totaling $6.3 million will go to 25 counties in Pennsylvania to combat homelessness. The Emergency Solutions Grants, issued by the Department of Community and Economic Development, can be used for prevention, emergency rehousing, street outreach, emergency shelter, and related uses.

The use of tax credits and state subsidies has grown significantly in recent years, and the trend is expected to intensify in the near future. A report from the Independent Fiscal Office noted that Pennsylvania awarded $857 million in tax credits in fiscal year 2022-23, and the IFO projects that $1.23 billion will be given away in 2023-24.

A Democrat in the battleground state of Pennsylvania voiced concerns over her party increasingly losing Latino voters to the GOP ahead of the November election, Politico reported Friday. Democrat Nicarol Soto of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, who ran an unsuccessful city council campaign in 2023, told the outlet that she’s seen signs of the voting bloc moving toward the Republican Party within her own family. Soto, who immigrated to Pennsylvania from the Dominican Republic, believes the shift is largely due to the community’s views on the economy and abortion, according to Politico.

Pennsylvania’s energy future isn’t only a question of renewables versus fossil fuels — it’s a question of whether the state can reliably provide enough energy to meet growing demand. One problem is that power plants retiring is happening quicker than new, cleaner ones get built. The shuttering has been driven by state and federal rules to mitigate pollution, but getting projects approved and built takes years and years.

Despite the key positions states like Ohio and Pennsylvania hold to solve future energy problems, shifting the power grid from coal and natural gas to wind and solar isn’t as easy as flipping a switch. A cadre of Pennsylvania legislators trekked to Columbus for a joint meeting of three House and Senate committees from the two states to be advised by energy officials on PJM, the regional power grid to which both belong.

A recent state Supreme Court ruling side-stepped the question of constitutional abortion access in Pennsylvania, reviving discussion over a would-be ballot referendum mired in legislative gridlock. Five justices said Monday the Commonwealth Court erred when it dismissed a 2019 case brought by seven abortion providers challenging Medicaid coverage restrictions first established in 1982 and upheld in 1985.

Pennsylvania’s economic future, state officials think, means growing the outdoor recreation economy. Such was the discussion during the Department of Conservation and Natural Resource’s advisory council meeting on Wednesday. The newly launched Office of Outdoor Recreation touted the industry’s impact, calling it responsible for $17 billion annually and 164,000 jobs.

A proposal that recently cleared the House Education Committee would consider mental health days as excused absences for students. The bill was one of three approved Thursday after lawmakers fielded testimony about the public education system’s struggle to offer comprehensive mental health support to students.

The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) saw the amount of donations from China more than triple in its most recent reporting period, shortly after the university faced a scandal regarding Joe Biden’s storage of classified documents in his think tank’s offices at the university. As reported by Fox News, the surge in foreign donations was revealed in documents obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT). With donations from individuals and entities directly tied to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the university saw roughly $25 million in such donations during the 2022-2023 academic year. By contrast, the academic year of 2021-2022 saw just $8.6 million from China.

The Arizona Sun Times examined the outcomes of the 92 cases challenging problems with the 2020 election and discovered many of the rulings were opposed to each other despite the facts and laws being very similar. The analysis was based on a comprehensive report compiled by physicist John Droz and a team of statistical PhDs, which refuted the mainstream media’s claim that were 60 lawsuits thrown out on the merits. The report found that only 30 of those cases were decided on merit, and of those 30, Trump and/or the Republican plaintiff prevailed in 22. This analysis, Part One, examines some of the divergent opinions on standing, fraud, and injury.

A growing dissatisfaction with America’s two-party system might make voters more open to supporting an alternative candidate this year – something the Forward Party is banking on.  Forward’s current goals are to get candidates on the ballot in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and achieve official party status – both statewide and nationally.