Latest U.S. Census projections are not all bad news for Pennsylvania. In one year, the Commonwealth gained more than 14,000 residents and has increased population by 56,000 residents to 13,059,432 over the last six years. That’s a lot rosier than what’s happening next door. According to ...
We’re glad to see Gov. Josh Shapiro has signed legislation backed by Rep. Kathy Rapp to mandate cursive instruction in Pennsylvania schools. The commonwealth joins nearly two dozen states to require cursive instruction after many schools across the country stopped teaching cursive after the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, which placed a greater emphasis on keyboarding. House Bill 17 is a needed step to make sure that children are familiar with the way that we’ve communicated for centuries. “Cursive isn’t just about handwriting. It’s about building ...
Since 2020, more than 1,000 pharmacies have closed in Pennsylvania - including three in Warren County. That means it’s harder for many in rural counties like ours to get their prescriptions filled. Customers have to drive longer distances and, at times, pay more. The mass closure crisis has led to expanding pharmacy deserts, defined as an area where residents no longer have reasonable access to a local pharmacy, throughout the state. It’s one reason why a bipartisan bill introduced recently in the state Senate to protect local pharmacies like Gaughn’s Drug Store in Warren ...
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2026-27 budget would spend about $53.2 billion. The proposed 2026-27 budget, like his initial proposal for the 2025-26 budget, relies on pulling deeply from reserve funding, set aside in past years by lawmakers to ensure the state was ready for future crises and on revenue from activities for which the legislature is still considerable distance from agreeing on regulatory frameworks — recreational marijuana and skills games. The 2025-26 budget, of course, was ultimately more than four months late to passage. State lawmakers already are echoing many of the ...
For decades, politicians have sold tariffs as a tonic for the working class. In reality, one particular group seems to benefit more than any other from trade wars: Washington influence peddlers. The United States collected some $288.5 billion in tariff revenue last year, up from $98.3 billion in 2024, thanks to a barrage of new levies imposed by the Trump administration. These tariffs, designed by elite lawyers in D.C. and implemented with highly technical and specialized language, presented a unique opportunity for lobbyists to charge large corporations exorbitant rates to seek relief ...
State lawmakers are poised to limit what local governments can add to a meeting agenda on the fly. House Bill 2146 recently passed the House of Representatives Local Government Committee and now advances to consideration by the full House of Representatives. The bill is a response to a November state Supreme Court ruling in Coleman v. Parkland School District that the Parkland School District had appropriately used what is known as the majority vote exception when it added a union contract that had been agreed upon by the school district and union to the agenda that night by majority ...
