Winners & Losers
This week’s biggest Winners & Losers
Who’s up and who’s down this week?
City & State
Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction might have had Hannah Gann in mind. Clad in a keffiyeh, the School District of Philadelphia teacher – a self-identified Black Palestinian – was for years a strident voice at pro-Palestinian protests, earning her the sobriquet “Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite.” So it was with a heaping dose of schadenfreude that the world learned this week that Gann is not only white, but Jewish – and a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a far-from-oppressed background. Anyone known as “The Palestinian Rachel Dolezal” – as Gann now is, having acknowledged her deception – is without doubt a loser par excellence.
Keep reading for more winners and losers!
Higher eds -
The commonwealth’s marquee universities are holding their own nationally. In U.S. News & World Report’s 2027 “Best Colleges” rankings, Carnegie Mellon University rose six spots to No. 14 overall – additionally claiming the No. 1 spot for computer science – while Penn State rose to No. 22 among national public universities and to No. 55 overall, and the University of Pennsylvania retained its No. 7 overall ranking from last year.
Reading Fightin Phils -
Red October came early in the City of Reading. The Phillies Double-A affiliate won the MiLB Eastern League championship this month after sweeping the Erie SeaWolves – the PA-based Double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers – 2-0 in the title series. The Fightin Phils’ championship is the team’s first since 1995, breaking a 31-year drought. Fingers crossed that the minor leaguers’ luck translates to the major leaguers in Philadelphia.
Data center devs -
The land-use wars are picking up across Pennsylvania. In a decision handed down on Sept. 22, a judge denied a request from Cumberland County residents fighting a massive data center project to halt work on the project. The developers of the PAX-1 data center won the first legal battle, with Judge Matthew Smith denying an appeal of early development plans, saying the plans for the Middlesex Township site adequately cover environmental and water concerns.
Ed Gainey -
New reports – and an unsealed search warrant affidavit – are raising questions about how former Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration gave out government contracts. According to the affidavit, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala has reportedly been investigating Gainey’s administration after two City Council members and the City Council’s former solicitor alleged that the city improperly gave out no-bid contracts and grants to Gainey’s political allies. While the investigation certainly isn’t a good look for Pittsburgh, no charges have been filed in connection with the warrant or investigation.
Geisinger Health -
Last year’s federal spending bill is hitting at least one Pennsylvania health system hard: Geisinger expects to lose $180 million in revenue next year, mostly due to the impact of Medicaid cuts. The federal Rural Health Transformation Program was designed to cushion that blow – but for the 10-hospital Central Pennsylvania system, the $6.7 million it’ll receive from the fund amounts to a drop in the proverbial bucket.
Food security -
A new report from the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and Feeding Pennsylvania revealed that food insecurity in Pennsylvania has increased by 44% since 2021. More than 1.76 million Pennsylvanians faced food insecurity in 2024 – a figure that includes 507,000 children. According to the report, children were 60% more likely than adults to live in food-insecure households, with an estimated 1 in 5 children and teens living in households that struggled to feed themselves.