This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The Pennsylvania Capitol will soon host a braille version of the American flag after Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a bill into law to honor veterans with visual disabilities. The proposal was sponsored by state Sen. Scott Martin, who said the braille monument will honor veterans with “a lasting tribute that guarantees their courage will always be remembered by a grateful commonwealth.” The braille flag, which will be located in the state Capitol’s East Wing, includes the Pledge of Allegiance in braille. 

The city’s dynamic dining scene scored yet more national accolades. Chibanos, a five-month-old Chinese-Cuban sandwich joint, made The Infatuation’s list of the 25 Best New American Restaurants, while the retro-reimagined-Italian Bomb Bomb Bar – the lone Philadelphia boîte to land on the New York Times’ “Best Restaurants” list this year – was named among Eater’s 2026 Best New Restaurants as well. In its 2026 Eater Awards, the dining site also lauded Phila Lorn, who owns two Philadelphia establishments, as one of its five Chefs of the Year.

As far as traffic-calming measures go, nothing beats the effectiveness of a red-light camera, as Pittsburgh pedestrians and drivers have discovered. In the first two months since the City of Pittsburgh installed red-light cameras at two high-risk intersections (Penn Avenue and Dallas Avenue, and Saw Mill Run Boulevard and Woodruff Street), more than 10,000 warnings have been issued to drivers who committed red-light infractions. Those numbers will inevitably decrease as more drivers get the message – and the fines. Increased safety and a new revenue stream make for a win-win here.

The midterms may be over, but the fallout, especially when it comes to voting, isn’t. This week brought an actual real-life case of voter fraud. Michelle Ziolkowski, 54, a registered Republican, mailed a registration application to the Allegheny County Elections Division in late September under the name Fern Winans. Winans, Ziolkowski’s mother and a registered Republican, has also been dead since 2021. Ziolkowski, a senior vice president and head of payables at Truist Financial Corporation, claims she tried to add her mother to the voting rolls as a Democrat to test whether voter fraud was real. Success, we guess?

She helped launder nearly $400,000 from a Pennsylvania municipality, and all she got was a used car. Charlette Banquero pleaded guilty to charges stemming from her involvement in the swindling scheme, in which she was promised a cut of the loot – but ended up with only a second-hand vehicle for her troubles and, now, up to 50 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

Tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike are set to rise again as the mainline of the Turnpike converts to open road tolling beginning on Jan. 3. Tolls will increase by 3.5% in accordance with Act 44 of 2007, according to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, with the per-mile rate increasing from $.073 to $.075 and the segment fee rising from $1.13 to $1.17. The commission, which approved the toll rate in July, said the 3.5% hike represents the lowest rate increase since 2014.