This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The 412 easily takes the No. 1 spot this week. The city was named one of the 25 most awe-inspiring and meaningful travel experiences globally for 2026 by National Geographic, thanks in part to its newly historically designated Sister Bridges. Also on the dial is Sports Talk 93.7 The Fan on KDKA-FM, which won a prestigious Marconi Award as the best large-market station in the country.

As chair of the Pennsylvania Senate’s Law and Justice Committee, the Erie County Republican this week secured legislation he’d championed to establish a state Cannabis Control Board. The new entity will oversee Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Program and create what Laughlin described as badly needed safety standards for the variety of hemp products already sold around the state.

Amid a landscape of disinvestment in U.S. scientific research, Penn Medicine is a rare bright spot, thanks to the début of a $376 million research center dedicated to immunology, including the new Colton Center for Autoimmunity. Immunology is having a moment – immunologists just won this year’s Nobel Prize for medicine – and Penn is betting that the field can unlock treatments for myriad diseases and spur private-sector collaborations.

Nearly 2 million Pennsylvania SNAP recipients are at risk of not receiving supplemental nutrition assistance payments in November due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. The United States Department of Agriculture recently notified states that, due to the shutdown, it likely won’t be able to pay out November SNAP payments. This means many Pennsylvanians will have trouble putting food on the table as the shutdown drags on.

Two thousand, three hundred and seventy people – that’s how many detainees are in solitary confinement in federal immigration centers in Pennsylvania. Only Texas has more ICE detainees in solitary confinement – 3,429 – than the Commonwealth, according to Harvard University researchers and Physicians for Human Rights.

Freedom Caucus OG and U.S. Rep. Scott Perry is once again in the headlines, this time for comments made about Democrats who served in the military. While on a conservative talk radio show, Perry suggested – without any evidence, natch – that Democrats “hate the military,” and only serve in the military to use the credential for campaign purposes. The comment that drew condemnation from Dems. Perry later said he wasn’t referring to all Democrats, just leftists in Congress.