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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:28:55 -0400

Apparently, what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay there. The masked man accused of terrorizing more than a dozen Philadelphians in August was arrested in his residence in Las Vegas. Authorities tracked down 22-year-old Zymire Hughes in Sin City after he had allegedly made threats and chased at least 15 people while wearing a Chucky-style Halloween mask near Philadelphia City Hall on August 12. Clearly, the case was child’s play for investigators.

Keep reading for more winners and losers!

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X marks the spat: Shapiro, RFK Jr. needle each other online over measles outbreak

Hilary Danailova — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 20:50:16 -0400

Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania health officials today pushed back against claims by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, known as MMR, contains fetal tissue along with “human cellular debris.”

The two officials’ public dustup amid Pennsylvania’s worst measles outbreak in decades, which left two unvaccinated people dead this week, played out in a series of posts on the social media site X, with Kennedy accusing the governor of “gaslighting” and Shapiro calling Kennedy’s claims “inaccurate and misleading.”

Later on Wednesday, Kennedy went even further, questioning in another X post whether the measles deaths “may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor's hopeful staffers” and amplifying spurious suggestions from some Lancaster County officials that the reported measles victims did not actually die of the disease.

The kerfuffle began when Kennedy called Shapiro to ask whether the commonwealth needed additional support from the federal government in responding to the Lancaster County-centered measles outbreak, which began in April and thus far involves 412 reported cases, one-third of them children – 94 of which were recorded in the last week alone, all in unvaccinated people.

The governor responded that Pennsylvania’s health establishment had the resources it needs: Nearly 100 pop-up clinics have immunized some 4,100 Pennsylvanians during the outbreak, with dozens more clinics planned amid a broadening of the state’s anti-measles effort announced by Shapiro this week.

Instead, Shapiro urged Kennedy – an environmental lawyer with a long history of anti-vaccine activism – to use his platform to encourage more vaccination against the highly contagious virus, which causes life-threatening complications in 20 percent of patients.

“He then launched into a tirade – talking about fetal tissue and blaming the previous Administration for this problem. He even told me it would be better if we went back to ‘natural measles,’” wrote the governor on X about Kennedy, who in 2021 told a Lancaster County audience that “the cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.”

“Unfortunately at a time where I needed the top ‘health expert’ in the nation to responsibly work with us to deal with this outbreak,” added Shapiro in a post he later updated, “he instead chose to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and false claims.”

Kennedy blasted back with a series of posts that began with a seemingly doctored photo collage of Dr. Stanley Plotkin, a world-renowned virologist, emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and inventor of the rubella vaccine. The post shows Plotkin’s face superimposed against a nebulous backdrop of fetuses and the words “Aborted Fetal Tissue in Vaccines.”

“Plotkin admits to butchering 76 aborted normally developing fetuses, all over three months old, in just one of the many studies that led to the development of his vaccine,” Kennedy wrote, complaining that in a press conference earlier today, the governor “accused me of promoting conspiracy theories because I told him … that some Americans had religious objections to the MMR vaccine because it contained fetal tissue.”

Kennedy also complained that Shapiro had “accused me of promoting misinformation” on vaccine safety and efficacy that is partly to blame for the decline in Pennsylvania’s MMR vaccination rates – from about 97% for high school seniors to 93% in kindergarten classrooms statewide, dropping below the 95% threshold experts say confers herd immunity against viral disease.

“It’s unfortunately true that the government lockdowns, deceptions, manipulation, and overreach during Covid severely damaged public faith in the vaccine program,” he wrote. “Governor Shapiro’s press conference was an example of the same species of gaslighting.”

As secretary, however, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel of top vaccine experts that long served as a national authority. While the reconstituted committee has essentially halted activity, Kennedy has spearheaded efforts to reduce the federal immunization schedule from 17 to 11 vaccines, waving aside scientific consensus by questioning the value of many shots.

Across the commonwealth, public health leaders were alarmed by Kennedy’s latest efforts to sow doubts about the MMR vaccines, which have been safely used for generations, essentially eradicating measles in America before the vaccine-hesitancy movement facilitated its recent resurgence.

“Misinformation such as this only serves to create fear and doubt about what is an accepted scientific fact: vaccines save lives,” Andrew Lutzkanin, a physician who is the president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians, told City & State.

“While human cell lines were used to grow these viruses when the vaccines were first developed, recent claims that they continue to contain ‘aborted fetal tissue’ represents a misunderstanding of how vaccines are manufactured today.”

Pediatrician Paul Offit, the co-director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the co-creator of the 2006 rotavirus vaccine, dismissed Kennedy’s claims as “the usual anti-vaccine tropes.”

The original rubella component of the MMR vaccine was grown by Plotkin in a cell line sent to Penn’s Wistar Institute by a Swedish researcher who had obtained fetal cells from an elective abortion half a century ago, but “it’s not like they use new abortive material,” Offit explained.

He also dismissed Kennedy’s religious objections argument. “Where RFK Jr. is wrong is to in any way imply that that’s the issue for the Mennonites, because it’s not,” he went on, referring to one of the religious communities at the heart of the current Lancaster outbreak. “The Mennonite Church supports vaccination.”

And while residual fragments of human DNA are present in vaccines, he said, the Catholic Church ruled decades ago “that Catholics can certainly use vaccines because the Catholic Church, like all churches, cares about human life, and vaccines help preserve human life.”

Plotkin – now 94 – “has argued, and maybe correctly, that he’s probably prevented more abortions than the Catholic Church,” added Offit. That’s because before Plotkin’s rubella vaccine was available, thousands of women suffered spontaneous abortions due to rubella infections contracted while pregnant, while legions more “would decide to abort their child because they were infected in the first trimester and they didn’t want to deliver a child who was blind, deaf, and disabled, and had heart defects,” common outcomes of rubella in utero.

“What was Stanley trying to do? He was trying to prevent the 20,000 cases of congenital birth defects that occurred every year in this country, and he did it: We eliminated rubella from this country in 2005. So thank you, Dr. Plotkin,” Offit said. “And good for Gov. Shapiro.”

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‘These are changes that matter’: Pennsylvania will receive over $500 million from Meta settlement

Justin Sweitzer — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:17:20 -0400

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday revealed that Pennsylvania is expected to receive at least $516 million as the result of a landmark settlement between Meta and a coalition of states that sued the social media giant, alleging that it intentionally designed its social media apps to attract and addict children and teens.

The $17.1 billion settlement, which is still pending and awaits court approval, will also usher in major changes to how content on Facebook and Instagram is presented to younger users. Sunday said the settlement will bring “a complete transformation” to how children and teens experience Meta platforms.

Under the terms of the settlement, Meta has agreed to do the following:

Establish a two-hour daily time limit for teens that can only be turned off with a parent’s permission
Restrict teen use of its platforms during school and nighttime hours
Provide the option of a non-algorithmic feed for teen users
Implement regular prompts and pauses to prevent excessive use
Disable the visibility of likes and reactions, as well as cosmetic and makeup filters, for teen users
Adopt and implement an age assurance framework with age verification measures
Give parents additional information about teen app usage, interactions with suspicious accounts and attempts to change protective settings

Sunday said at a press conference that the settlement will bring significant financial resources to the commonwealth and major changes to how young users interact with Meta-owned apps like Facebook and Instagram. The attorney general said that Pennsylvania will receive at least $516 million, and potentially up to $729 million, under the terms of the settlement.

“This money will remediate social media harms for youth across the commonwealth,” Sunday said. “But to be very clear, this settlement is not just about money – it includes meaningful protections aimed at addressing the harms that social media can cause young people.”

Meta said the agreement will build on existing efforts the company has undertaken to protect teens on its platforms. The company also encouraged other social media platforms, including TikTok and YouTube, to follow its lead.

“We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone,” the company said Wednesday in an open letter. “These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers – TikTok and YouTube – to put the same measures in place.”

C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, said in a statement that the agreement’s terms will empower parents to manage how their children use Meta platforms, while underscoring the need for other social media platforms to adopt similar changes.

“Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us,” Mahoney said. “As a parent, I’m proud of both the work Meta has done to protect kids historically, and of this new groundbreaking agreement. But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead.”

Matthew P. Bergman, a founding attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center, said in a statement that the settlement agreement “is a watershed moment in holding the tech giant accountable for designing products it knew were harming children and fueling a nationwide youth mental health crisis.”

“Over the past year, Meta has suffered overwhelming defeats in courts across the country as expert testimony and its own internal documents revealed that senior executives ignored repeated warnings that its products were addictive and harmful by design,” Bergman said. “They chose profit over the lives of our children.”

“Today is a day that we honor the memories of the children who have been lost or harmed because of social media,” he added. “We honor the families who have worked tirelessly over the last five years to seek justice for their children, and to educate other families and young people about the dangers of social media so that no parent ever has to experience the heartbreak they have lived through. What began with a single lawsuit has grown into a national movement that is now sweeping across the world to protect children.”

Bergman said the work to protect children from harms presented by social media platforms is far from over: “We will continue fighting for the individual families whose children will never come home, and for those still struggling with mental health crises caused by these platforms. Accountability to the public is important – but accountability to the families harmed must remain our focus.”

Throughout his first term, Attorney General Sunday has focused heavily on the impacts of social media and the broader tech landscape. He told City & State in an interview earlier this year that technological innovations should not come at the expense of protecting children: “Innovation and technology are not mutually exclusive from protecting children,” he said. “We can do both, and we must do both.”

This month, Sunday announced separate lawsuits against TikTok and Snapchat. In a press conference announcing the suit, he said TikTok “intentionally designed” its app to be addictive to young people, and made similar claims against Snapchat, accusing the platform of breaching the state’s consumer protection laws.

The attorney general said Wednesday that the $17 billion settlement “marks a new beginning for the social media industry.”

“These are changes that matter because they directly address how young people interact with these platforms, how long they use them, when they use them, what they are exposed to on these platforms and the role that parents can play in keeping them safe – and that’s the point,” Sunday said.

“We can’t simply tell parents to do better while allowing technology companies to design platforms that are engineered to addict children and keep them coming back,” he added. “Parents deserve better. Children deserve better. And today shows that Big Tech can do better – some just chose not to. Today is the first step in forcing Big Tech to do better.”

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Snap decision: AG Sunday files lawsuit against social media giant over lack of teen safeguards

Greg Salisbury — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:07:12 -0400

If the legal teams at X weren’t paying close attention to Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday before Tuesday afternoon, they are now.

For the second time this month, Sunday filed a lawsuit against a social media company. After targeting TikTok on Aug. 11, Sunday announced Tuesday that he was filing suit against Snapchat for what he said were breaches of the commonwealth’s consumer protection laws, especially regarding how the company handles young users of its app.

“This is a very serious legal action with the end goals of being an overhaul of how Snapchat markets and advertises its app; design changes to discourage compulsive use; and safeguards so that families can decide what their children can access online,” Sunday said. He pointed out the similarities between this suit and the one against TikTok as well: “That lawsuit also alleges violations of Pennsylvania's consumer protection laws. It also regards dishonesty in marketing, and that its addictive design harms users, particularly young people. Both of these actions reflect my priority as attorney general to protect our young people from tech giants who are choosing growth at all costs over the mental wellness of its users.”

The 49-page complaint seeks to protect the youngest Snap users from a host of issues, including what it says are the app’s addictive design, its content, and the unauthorized screenshotting and sharing of posts they mistakenly think will just disappear, as the app says.

“A simple screenshot can turn what they thought was a temporary photo into a permanent nightmare,” Sunday said, adding that “Snapchat’s ephemeral component also harms children in other ways. We allege it encourages predators online to be even more aggressive in contacting and grooming kids … I can’t think of anything more concerning than predators having access to kids in arenas where they feel even more free to act deviantly, and that same feeling of freedom could also apply to cyber bullies who might think that they can get away with posting more on Snap, where their threats, their insults, and their destructive commentary will simply disappear.”

The lawsuit could have wide-ranging implications for the state’s teens. According to a December 2025 report from the Pew Research Center, 55% of American teens use Snapchat – a statistic that means roughly 450,000 of the state’s 807,000 teenagers are on the app – and, Sunday said, those users open the app an average of 30 times a day.

Sunday was joined by state Senate Communication & Technology Committee Chair Tracy Pennycuick, who introduced Senate Resolution 244, establishing the Task Force on Child Protection in the Digital Age, chaired by Sunday. The occasion was supposed to be a bipartisan showing – state House Communication & Technology Committee Chair Joe Ciresi couldn’t attend, but provided a statement of support that Sunday read in his absence.

Pennycuick seconded Sunday’s rationale for filing the lawsuit, emphasizing that the company “downplayed the prevalence of mature content on its platform while deliberately using features designed to keep young people scrolling, watching, and coming back. When a company places engagement and advertising revenue ahead of a child’s well-being, Pennsylvania has a responsibility to act.”

Pennsylvania is far from the first state to try to bring Snap to heel. Seven other states – Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Nevada – have brought legal action against the company for what they have alleged is the failure of the company to protect young users, including for its failure to protect minors from sexual exploitation and sextortion, child sex abuse material and deceptive practices.

Sunday’s focus on bringing accountability to social media companies – his office is also part of a multi-state lawsuit brought against Meta by numerous attorneys general – hews closely to how he explained his priorities to City & State in an extensive interview earlier this year, highlighting the need for a balance between innovation and public safety. “Innovation and technology are not mutually exclusive from protecting children. We can do both, and we must do both. It’s that simple,” Sunday said.

In response to a request for comment, a company spokesperson stated: “The allegations against Snap fundamentally misrepresent our platform and our approach to teen safety.”

“We share the Attorney General’s commitment to protecting young people online and are disappointed they have chosen litigation rather than working with us toward that shared goal,” the spokesperson continued. “We remain focused on strengthening and enhancing the safeguards, tools, and educational resources that support the safety, privacy, and well-being of all Snapchatters.”

While Sunday refused to get into specifics about which social-media companies he would target next, he made it clear that more lawsuits could be on the horizon. “I don’t want to go into great detail on that, but I will tell you that we are actively looking at other companies as well,” he said. “Any company that’s using their product to harm children is something we’re looking at.”

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‘Completely preventable’: Pennsylvania now has two fatal measles cases – the first in the U.S. this year

Harrison Cann — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:08:07 -0400

Pennsylvania has its first two measles deaths in 35 years – and the first deaths reported in the U.S. this year.

Both individuals from Lancaster County were unvaccinated.

“This is a serious and a growing problem across the country, and right here in our commonwealth,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday at a press conference inside Lancaster General Health's Women & Babies Hospital.

Shapiro, joined by Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen and leaders from Lancaster area hospitals, said “we hope and pray those deaths will be the last.”

“I want to be clear: This illness and death from measles is completely preventable,” he added.

Since April, when Pennsylvania’s largest measles outbreak in recent history began, the commonwealth has recorded 393 measles cases. Shapiro noted that of the confirmed cases – now the highest number in the state since 1992 – nearly 20% of the individuals have been hospitalized. Every hospitalization involved an individual who was not fully vaccinated.

“The vaccine is the best tool we have for preventing the spread of this disease,” Shapiro said Tuesday. “This disease does not respect county lines or religious lines – it goes after all who are unprotected.”

Public health experts say the true number of measles victims is almost certainly many times higher, since the disease is highly contagious – nine out of every 10 people exposed will get sick within three weeks – and infected family members may not bother with testing.

And, according to the state Department of Health, the vast majority of cases in the commonwealth have been reported in Lancaster and Chester counties – areas where traditional Christian groups, such as Amish and Mennonites, constitute a significant share of those county’s populations.

But, Shapiro stressed, the outbreak in Pennsylvania is now in 28 different counties and is in multiple communities statewide.

“Both from a religious perspective and from a broader community perspective, it would not be fair for anyone here to conclude that this is just a problem in one particular community,” he told reporters.

Pennsylvania’s prognosis

While childhood vaccination rates have been falling steadily, Pennsylvania’s measles vaccination rates have been improving recently. Shapiro said providers across the state typically administer roughly 25,000 doses of the measles vaccine in a month, but last month that figure reached about 35,000.

“The most critical step we can take is making sure that those who are not currently protected receive the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, also called MMR,” Bogen said Tuesday. “The MMR vaccine is backed by decades of research and real-life, real-world proof that it is the best way to protect you and your family from measles, providing 97% lifelong protection after two doses.”

She noted that based on 2025-2026 school year data, the state estimates more than 93% of kindergarteners, more than 94% of 7th-graders and more than 96% of 12th-graders in the commonwealth have received both doses of the MMR vaccine. The state Department of Health will also roll out 40 additional vaccination and information clinics in the coming weeks to provide greater outreach.

Herd immunity – when a large part of a community becomes immune to a disease, making it hard for the infection to spread – requires more than 95% of a community to be vaccinated.

“Because the MMR vaccine essentially eliminated measles here in the United States decades ago, people have forgotten how serious it can be, especially for the very young, the pregnant, and the very old,” Bogen added.

In late July, the number of confirmed measles cases in the U.S. surpassed the total reported for all last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year's total of 2,289 – which has already been surpassed in 2026 – was previously the highest number of recorded measles cases in more than 30 years.

U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” movement ushered in a vaccine-skeptical approach at the federal level last year, including a recent push to dramatically pare back America’s childhood immunization schedule.

Five years ago, Kennedy spoke on a farm in Lancaster County and delivered a warning to the local Amish community about the nation’s public health agencies, downplaying the infectious disease and effectiveness of vaccination.

“The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A,” Kennedy claimed at the event.

When taking questions from the media, Shapiro said Kennedy called him this morning and that he was “very blunt” with the secretary about the “negative impacts” he’s having on the misinformation front.

“I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that's coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania. That there’s real-life consequences to spreading misinformation,” Shapiro told reporters Tuesday. “There’s real-life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors and actual medical professionals to provide unbiased information to parents, so that we can make reasonable decisions for our kids.”

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Center of attention: Data centers are dominating Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race

Harrison Cann and Justin Sweitzer — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 15:35:39 -0400

Across the country, Americans’ opinions on data centers are growing increasingly negative, with a recent Heatmap News poll showing 75% of Americans would oppose a data center being built in their communities – and 61% saying they would “strongly oppose” data center proposals. That sentiment holds in Pennsylvania, with data centers quickly becoming a dominant issue in the state’s race for governor between incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro and his GOP challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity.

Shapiro, a Democrat who is seeking reelection in this year’s race, has taken a harder stance on data centers as public opposition to them grows: He recently released a set of “responsible development” standards that data center developments must meet to unlock state tax benefits, and rolled out a website for Pennsylvanians to submit feedback on local data center proposals.

Garrity has seized on the issue, knocking Shapiro over his past support for data center projects in Pennsylvania and promising to support a pause on data center development if elected. Shapiro’s campaign, meanwhile, has hit Garrity over past comments touting the state’s need to “deregulate” to promote more data center development.

The war of words between the two candidates demonstrates just how divisive data centers have become as the state nears the November gubernatorial contest.

Shapiro signs executive order on data centers

Shapiro signed an executive order Tuesday aiming to protect Pennsylvania consumers from the impacts of data centers – a move that comes after months of increasingly negative public and political sentiment against data centers.

The executive order, Shapiro said, directs developers to comply with previously proposed standards that were unable to get through the Republican-led state Senate.

His Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development, or GRID, standards – proposed earlier this year – would require prospective data center developers to provide a notice of intent to comply with energy safeguards and require a local community’s approval before any project could begin construction. The executive order also immediately removes all data center projects from the state’s permit fast track program.

“Without proper controls, the proliferation of data centers could harm Pennsylvanians’ right to clean air and pure water because of their emissions, water use, and energy demand,” the executive order reads. “(T)his Administration will always fight to protect Pennsylvanians’constitutional rights and prevent excessive energy cost increases from being passed on to residents of the Commonwealth.”

Shapiro acknowledged his past support for data center projects, including a $20 million investment by Amazon to build two data center campuses in the state. “Last summer, I announced two projects that will bring thousands of new jobs and $20 billion in new investment to Pennsylvania in Salem Township, Luzerne County, and Falls Township, Bucks County. Since then, we’ve seen an unacceptable number of speculative proposals for data centers swamp our Commonwealth – many of them led by developers who have no regard for local communities,” he said upon signing his latest executive order.

“If these companies want to do business here, they need to comply with the strictest guardrails in the nation on data center development, starting today. Otherwise, they’ll have to go somewhere else,” he added.

On Friday, the governor also encouraged Pennsylvanians to submit their concerns on local data center projects through the pa.gov/YourVoiceOnDataCenters website.

A data (center)-driven campaign

Shapiro’s evolution on what has become an energy and environmental flashpoint nationally is now a point of attack for his opponent.

Garrity’s campaign has recently honed in on Shapiro’s original embrace of artificial intelligence and data center projects. In a statement, Garrity’s campaign likened Shapiro’s executive order to “gaslighting,” saying Shapiro “was the biggest data center cheerleader in the nation” and had received campaign donations from the tech industry.

“Now that public opinion has turned against him and his donors, Josh Shapiro is playing CYA, and Pennsylvania voters aren’t buying it,” Garrity’s team said in the statement on Aug. 18. “Josh Shapiro lit the fuse on the chaos we are seeing in community-after-community across the commonwealth because he was more concerned with his political ambitions than fighting for Pennsylvania communities.”

Her latest campaign ads stress the same notes. Garrity’s campaign has run attack ads in Shapiro’s own Montgomery County, claiming his “data center scandal keeps growing.” The ad connects Shapiro’s campaign to donations from data center developers, saying “Shapiro sold us out.”

During his remarks signing the executive order, Shapiro said the feedback he’s “gotten from people in their communities has shaped” his perspective on the issue. He added that the move will “put local leaders back in charge of their communities.”

Garrity’s views on data centers have also seemingly evolved over the course of the last year. In a 2025 interview on KDKA’s Big K Morning Show, Garrity said that “we need to deregulate” when discussing data center development.

She also previously stated that “very rural” areas of Pennsylvania could be “perfect places to put data centers.”

In a call with reporters on Friday, Garrity called on Shapiro to return more than $5 million in political contributions from “data center interests.” The sum includes contributions from individuals with ties to Big Tech, though not all of them are data center developers. That includes $3 million from Jennifer Duda, the wife of Arista Networks President Kenneth Duda, whose company manufactures hardware and networking software for data centers. Garrity also urged Shapiro to return $2 million from Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and former CEO of LinkedIn who currently serves as a Microsoft board member, as well as $500,000 from John Fish of Suffolk Construction and a $100,000 contribution from NorthPoint Development.

“If Josh Shapiro really believes these developers are greedy, if Josh Shapiro really believes they're predatory … then why is he pocketing their money?” Garrity said Friday.

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s reelection campaign, highlighted Garrity’s past comments in support of data center regulation.

"Stacy Garrity’s long record of supporting completely unregulated data center development makes it clear that she just can’t be trusted,” Bonder said Friday in a statement. “Garrity’s true position is clear: she wants aggressive deregulation and hundreds more data centers built all across Pennsylvania communities – and we’re going to hold her accountable.”

The back-and-forth will likely only ramp up as the gubernatorial race enters the home stretch this fall.

A July 2026 Quinnipiac University poll of the Pennsylvania governor’s race found Shapiro leading Garrity 53% to 40%, with 5% of registered voters undecided. In the same poll, 74% of Pennsylvania voters said they would oppose the construction of a data center in their community, while 16% said they would support a data center proposal.

Meanwhile, a poll released in early August by National Public Affairs Polling, a GOP polling firm, had Shapiro pulling in support from 50% of likely voters and Garrity notching 43%. Of those surveyed, 7% said they were undecided on the race.

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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 17:01:21 -0400

A scandal in Happy Valley has once again captured the attention of the nation – this time in relation to an alleged cocaine-trafficking ring purportedly led by members of two fraternities at Penn State. This week, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced charges against 13 current and former Penn State students (and one of their dads) for their participation in what he called a “coordinated and highly profitable” cocaine-trafficking operation. The internet has had plenty of fun with the news, christening Agostino Abbatiello – the alleged ringleader and a member of Sigma Chi – as Pablo Pledgescobar, Snow Paterno and BlowPa. As some posters pointed out, the scandal will likely give a whole new meaning to this year’s White Out game.

Keep reading for more winners and losers!

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What to know about Pennsylvania’s 2026 special elections

Justin Sweitzer — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:20:00 -0400

Following resignations in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, multiple seats have been decided through special elections scheduled to fill vacancies in the chamber.

The resignations came after several lawmakers won elections for local office in November, and others resigned for various reasons. The lawmakers who have since departed the chamber are former state Reps. Torren Ecker, Dan Miller, Lou Schmitt, Josh Siegel, Seth Grove and Stephenie Scialabba.

Dates for all of the special elections are set after House Speaker Joanna McClinton signed writs of election to fill the now-vacant seats.

August 18, 2026: Democrats flip Butler County House seat

House District 12: Republican state Rep. Stephenie Scialabba announced her resignation from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on March 24, 2026, stating her desire to spend more time with her family. "Over the years, we've found plenty of ways to make life easier for those of us who serve. I won't list all of the perks, but it's a pretty good gig. For families, it's just hard," Scialabba said at the time.

House Speaker Joanna McClinton scheduled a special election to replace Scialabba for Tuesday, Aug. 18. On Election Day, Democrat Brandon Dukes, a construction loan administrator, defeated Republican candidate Scott Timko, a military veteran and commercial pilot, to flip the seat in Democrats’ favor. The win marks the first time Democrats have held the 12th House District seat since the late 1990s.

According to unofficial election returns, Dukes received 8,434 votes compared to 8,346 votes for TImko, giving Democrats an 88-vote victory.

May 19, 2026: An election to replace former state Rep. Seth Grove

House District 196: McClinton scheduled a special election for the vacant 196th House District for Tuesday, May 19, following the resignation of York County state Rep. Seth Grove in January. Throughout his tenure in the General Assembly, Grove served stints as chair of the House Appropriations Committee, the House State Government Committee and the House Government Oversight Committee, among other roles.

Grove accepted a position as president and CEO of Pennsylvania Aggregates and Concrete Association while still in office, a move that drew scrutiny from some lawmakers and advocacy groups who worried that his acceptance of the position, coupled with his role as minority chair of the House Labor & Industry Committee, created a conflict of interest. His resignation took effect on Jan. 31. In a statement, Grove said serving the community he grew up in was “the honor of a lifetime.” The 196th House District encompasses parts of York County.

Republican George Margetas defeated Democrat Ron Ruman, a West Manchester Township supervisor, on May 19 to keep the seat in Republican hands. Margetas was sworn in on June 9.

March 17, 2026: Republicans hold onto seats in Central Pennsylvania

House District 79: The special election for House District 79 was held on Tuesday, March 17. The seat was previously held by Schmitt, a Republican who was elected and recently sworn in as a judge on the Blair County Court of Common Pleas. The Blair County District encompasses Allegheny Township, the City of Altoona, Logan Township and Tunnelhill Borough.

In the 79th House District race, Republicans nominated Andrea Verobish, a staffer for U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, as their nominee. Democrats picked registered nurse Caleb McCoy as their candidate in the special election to replace Schmitt.

Verobish defeated McCory during the March 17 contest, winning the race with 56% of the vote, according to unofficial election returns.

House District 193: The special election for House District 193 was also held on Tuesday, March 17. The seat was previously held by Ecker, a Republican who was elected in November as a judge on the Adams County Court of Common Pleas. The 193rd House District encompasses parts of Cumberland County and parts of Adams County.

The GOP tapped Catherine Wallen, Ecker’s former district director and the owner and operator of a family farm, as the party’s nominee, while Democrats nominated Todd Crawley, a Shippensburg resident who most recently worked as Harrisburg Area Community College’s director of public and environmental health and safety.

Wallen beat Crawley on Election Day by a margin of 59.7% to 40.2%, holding the seat for Republicans.

Feb. 24, 2026: Democrats win in Allegheny and Lehigh counties

House District 22: The special election for House District 22 will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 24. The seat was formerly held by Siegel, a Democrat who was sworn in as Lehigh County Executive on Jan. 5. The Lehigh County district represents parts of the City of Allentown and Salisbury Township.

Democrats nominated Allentown School Board director Ana Tiburcio for the Feb. 24 election, while Republicans picked Robert Smith, a former member of Allentown City Council as well as the Allentown School Board, as their nominee for the contest.

Tiburcio retained the seat for Democrats on Election Day, beating Smith by a margin of 67% to 33%.

House District 42: The special election for House District 42 will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 24. The seat was most recently held by Miller, a Democrat who was elected as an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge in November. The Allegheny County district encompasses Baldwin Township, Castle Shannon Borough, Dormont Borough, Mount Lebanon Township and Upper St. Clair Township.

Both Republicans and Democrats have selected their special election candidates for the 42nd House District seat. Democrats picked Dormont Borough Councilmember Jennifer Mazzocco, and the GOP nominated recent law-school graduate Joseph Leckenby, who ran against Miller in 2024.

Democrats were also able to hold the 42nd House District seat, with Mazzocco securing nearly 82% of the vote, compared to Leckenby’s 18%.

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Pennie drops: PA’s insurance marketplace suffers massive decline in enrollment

Hilary Danailova — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:27:52 -0400

The Trump administration’s decision to end federal subsidies for the Affordable Care Act has led to worries that hundreds of thousands of newly uninsured Pennsylvanians with urgent medical needs will burden emergency rooms and urgent-care clinics – and to warnings about the downstream effects of a torrent of uninsured patients on financially stressed health systems, small businesses and the local economies that depend on them.

Healthcare leaders insist they have good reason to worry: Five years of progress expanding health insurance coverage across the commonwealth evaporated in just months when the cancellation of federal subsidies prompted over 50,000 Pennsylvanians to cancel their state marketplace insurance plans for 2026 – meaning more than 10% of the half-million enrolled in 2025 no longer are insured through Pennie, the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace.

“What we saw coming into 2026 was the largest single-year increase (in premiums) that we had ever seen in the marketplace, and it has ended up reversing many years of progress towards having a lower uninsured rate in Pennsylvania,” said Pennie Director Devon Trolley. “And that has a lot of broader impacts across our healthcare system and our local economies that are not positive changes.”

Pennie enrollment had grown by about 150,000 since 2021, when enhanced tax credits – a pandemic-era federal initiative originally designed to be temporary – made health insurance newly affordable for many Pennsylvanians.

In voting to end the subsidies, Republicans had pointed to Congressional Budget Office figures showing the tax credits would add some $350 billion to the ballooning federal debt over the next decade. Many also expressed concern that subsidizing ever-higher premiums does nothing to rein in healthcare costs and may, in fact, enable their growth.

But Trolley noted that additional pending federal policy updates “will continue to make it harder to enroll and stay enrolled,” likely continuing the downward enrollment trajectory.

“I think the key point is that the cost of coverage matters,” she said. “When people can afford it, they want coverage. They understand the value of it, and they know it provides access to medical care and financial protection.”

A rising burden

With subsidies withdrawn, the average monthly amount that Pennie enrollees owe for their health premium more than doubled for 2026; in some counties, average premiums tripled or even quadrupled, with the highest increase, 485%, in Juniata County. “We saw a lot of price sensitivity at lower incomes,” said Trolley, noting that rising inflation is compounding the equation: “Even at a small dollar amount, people are already extremely stretched on their budgets.”

Those who have dropped coverage are more likely to live in rural counties, and to be younger and what Trolley described as more “risk-tolerant” – willing to gamble on youthful good health to avoid spending double on insurance they might not use much.

But when younger people drop insurance, the remaining market tilts more heavily toward older, sicker clients with higher medical costs, prompting insurers to raise premiums. That can send an insurance market into a kind of death spiral, where escalating costs spur further exits and, in turn, higher costs that ultimately make insurance unaffordable for all but a few.

Consistently, about one-third of Pennie subscribers have been between the ages of 55 and 65 – the age when Medicare coverage kicks in – and that trend continues, Trolley said. That demographic “has enough health needs that they are going to make whatever sacrifices they have to make to keep this coverage,” she explained.

But as health plans grow less affordable, the prospect emerges of a population signing up for Medicare with chronic, poorly managed health conditions that are more costly to address at age 65. “It just becomes a very inefficient way to have a healthy population,” Trolley said. “It makes you wonder: Are we not paying more by having people uncovered than we would have just to subsidize health insurance?”

Compounding Medicaid cuts

Pending cuts to the federal Medicaid insurance program have already put a strain on the commonwealth’s health infrastructure. “The real burden is going to be felt on our ERs and our local hospital systems, who are going to be absorbing more of these individuals, quite frankly, through urgent care or (the emergency room),” affirmed Allentown Health Bureau Director Dave Synnamon.

Since last year’s passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cuts Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over a decade, Synnamon has been meeting with county officials, local hospital systems, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and agencies such as United Way to strategize the Lehigh Valley's health needs. Lehigh County is among the Pennsylvania counties with the highest proportion of Pennie dropouts – with this year’s premiums up by an average 205% – complicating the picture even further.

Some 300,000 Pennsylvanians are projected to lose Medicaid coverage next year, according to the Hospital + Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, which said the state’s hospitals – already reimbursed at rates below the cost of care – are poised to lose an additional $4.5 billion in direct funding over the coming decade.

“Imminent cuts and rising uncompensated care will worsen this trajectory,” said Nicole Stallings, the association’s president and CEO. “At the same time, expenses for drugs, labor and supplies continue to rise.”

The result, she said, may well be myriad facility closures. Already, the state has lost more than two dozen hospitals over the past decade to financial challenges, leaving vast regions without critical services and prompting lawmakers to consider measures to protect health systems from predatory investors.

Without further intervention, at least a dozen Pennsylvania hospitals could shutter by 2030, with many more forced to cut services to survive, according to a January analysis the association commissioned from the firm of Oliver Wyman.

Rural hospitals are particularly vulnerable. One institution that is feeling the strain is Geisinger, a 10-hospital academic health system serving a mix of rural and urban communities in Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“These changes in ACA funding and enrollment, combined with our projection of up to $188 million in annual revenue losses for our system beginning in 2028 as a result of (last year’s federal spending bill, including Medicaid cuts), will create a very challenging environment for rural healthcare providers,” Terry Gilliland, Geisinger’s CEO, told City & State.

Like Trolley, he is worried about a new wave of uninsured patients showing up with the more serious, costlier conditions that result from delayed care – and the resulting economic impacts. Geisinger has already seen a 10% increase in unique uninsured patients in the first six months of 2026.

Forced to spend more on uncompensated or undercompensated care for those uninsured patients, the health system will likely “struggle to generate the revenue needed to cover expenses and invest in our people, facilities and technology,” Gilliland noted.

The trickle-down effect

In many of the 45 counties where Geisinger operates, the health system is also the largest employer in the area, “so any reduction in investment will significantly impact the local economy,” the CEO said.

Health systems are far from the only organizations that will feel the impact of skyrocketing insurance costs. Many mom-and-pop businesses buy their health plans through Pennie, as do many of the farmers who power Pennsylvania’s critical agricultural sector.

“We have heard throughout the last eight months from small business after small business trying to figure out how to even stay open with these cost increases,” Trolley said. “They’re saying, ‘I either have to shut down my business and go to a large employer, or I have to increase the cost of my goods and services.’ Or from farmers, ‘I'm going to have to increase the cost of the food that I sell.’”

All of which, said Stalling, illustrates how the economic health of a region is interwoven with the physical health of residents – and that health depends on access to affordable care.

“Communities feel these consequences, not just hospitals,” she said. “We cannot have healthy, vibrant and economically competitive communities in Pennsylvania without financially stable hospitals.”

Shoring up a stressed system

Insurance coverage is evidently beyond the scope of the Pennsylvania House Health Committee, noted Erika Fricke, the Democratic executive director of the committee.

But she said the committee’s Democratic chair, state Rep. Dan Frankel, was spearheading efforts to approach the burgeoning crisis from another angle – by exploring ways to ensure more stable revenue for the commonwealth’s hospitals.

“The truth is that hospitals have fixed costs. They have buildings, they have equipment, they have medical staff, and that doesn’t change based on the number of paying patients,” Fricke said.

One potential alternative the Health Committee is exploring, Fricke said, is an arrangement along the lines of the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, a program of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that proposes transitioning financially stressed rural hospitals from a fee-for-service model to global budget payments to ensure a more stable revenue flow.

“They would set an amount that would be sustainable, that the hospitals would know was coming in, so that they can budget more effectively,” explained Fricke. Long before this year’s axed subsidies increased the strain on the commonwealth’s hospitals, financial sustainability has been “one of the main issues that the committee has focused on.

“And obviously it’s going to continue to be,” she said, “because it’s not going away.” Urban or rural, she added, the patients in question “are people who just deserve access to healthcare in their communities.”

This article has been updated to reflect that the total number of Pennie enrollees in August 2026 is down 56,000 from the same time last year.

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Greek history: A recent timeline of Penn State fraternity scandals

Justin Sweitzer — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:22:13 -0400

The crackdown on a cocaine-trafficking ring at Pennsylvania State University has once again placed a spotlight on Greek life in Happy Valley, as two fraternities were implicated and 13 of the 14 defendants are current or former students.

With Penn State fraternities back in the headlines, City & State put together a brief history of recent scandals involving Greek life organizations at Penn State and the ripple effects that each incident had in State College and beyond.

2026: The Penn State cocaine ring crackdown

On Aug. 17, 2026, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced charges against 14 individuals in a cocaine-trafficking ring crackdown involving two fraternities and more than a dozen current and former Penn State students following a grand jury investigation. The alleged leaders of the cocaine-trafficking operation – Agostino Abbatiello, a Sigma Chi fraternity brother, and Thomas Robinson, a Delta Upsilon fraternity brother – were the ring’s primary suppliers, obtaining large quantities of cocaine from Philadelphia and New York. According to the criminal complaint, members and pledges of both fraternities helped package and prepare cocaine for resale. One business partner said Abbatiello was believed to be the “largest distributor of cocaine at Penn State University.” Abbatiello, Robinson and two others were charged with felony corrupt organizations, conspiracy, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity and other offenses, while another eight student-aged defendants face misdemeanor counts of possession and paraphernalia. Sunday described the operation as a “coordinated and highly-profitable drug-trafficking crew revolving around two senior members of the fraternities, other fraternity brothers, and pledges.” Penn State University officials said the Delta Upsilon fraternity was placed on interim suspension pending an investigation. Andrea Dowhower, the university’s vice president for student affairs, said Penn State leaders were “horrified” by the allegations. “Criminal activity, including hazing, such as this has no place at our institution, and we will cooperate with law enforcement in any way we can,” she said in a statement.

2017: The hazing death of Timothy Piazza

Timothy Piazza, a 19-year-old sophomore student at Penn State, died on Feb. 4, 2017, after a night of intense – and ultimately deadly – hazing during his first night of pledging for the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. According to reports, Piazza consumed at least 18 drinks in less than an hour and a half and fell down the stairs at the fraternity house. Fraternity members carried him up the stairs and placed him on a couch, and he suffered several more falls after attempting to get up throughout the night, according to the Gordie Center, a University of Virginia organization dedicated to ending hazing. Fraternity members did not get Piazza help for more than 12 hours after his fall, and he ultimately died of his injuries. Two members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity faced hazing and reckless endangerment charges and were sentenced to two to four months in prison as a result of Piazza’s death. The incident prompted state lawmakers to pass the Timothy J. Piazza Antihazing Law in 2018, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Tom Wolf. The law created tiered penalties for hazing, required schools, colleges and universities to publicly report hazing violations and provides immunity to those in need of medical attention who participated in hazing.

2015: The Kappa Delta Rho secret Facebook group

Penn State’s Kappa Delta Rho fraternity was suspended in 2015 after investigations into the fraternity revealed that its members were operating invite-only Facebook groups that showed inappropriate images of women – including some who appeared to be passed out, sleeping, nude or partially dressed – and featured conversations about sexual activity with those pictured. The first Facebook group was titled “Covert Business Transactions” and was reportedly shut down after a victim discovered a picture of herself on a fraternity member’s computer. Later, another group titled “2.0” was created in its place. In May 2015, the fraternity was suspended by its national headquarters, and Penn State suspended it for three years. “We base this decision on the sum of misbehaviors exhibited by various members of Kappa Delta Rho,” Damon Sims, then Penn State’s vice president for student affairs, said at the time. “Not every member of the chapter was equally culpable for violation of the University’s expectations for recognized student organizations,” Sims said. “Even so, the sum of the organizational misbehaviors is far more than the University can tolerate from a student organization that seeks its imprimatur.”

2014: Hazing and Marquise Braham’s suicide

In March 2014, Penn State Altoona student Marquise Braham died after jumping off a hotel roof near his family’s home in Queens. Braham, who was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa, had reportedly been in “psychological distress” after being subjected to hazing, according to CNN. Rich Braham, Marquise’s father, said his son had taken pictures of alleged hazing rituals, and that his phone included an image of a dead squirrel that Marquise had been forced to kill. Rich Braham also detailed his son’s participation in an alleged “Locked In” ceremony that involved locking pledges in a closet and forcing them to drink alcohol until they vomited. His family filed a lawsuit against both the university and the fraternity. However, prior to his death, Marquise left a suicide note that read: “I saw this coming since I was a child.” Ultimately, a grand jury ruled that there was no connection between Marquise’s suicide and the hazing he faced, though his family reached settlements with the university, the fraternity and individual defendants, according to the Fierberg National Law Group.

2009: The death of Joseph Dado

In September 2009, Penn State freshman Joseph Dado was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell after being reported missing – roughly 75 yards away from the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house where he was last seen alive. Dado’s disappearance set off a search that lasted more than 30 hours, until his body was found by university maintenance workers near the entrance of a mechanical room. Dado died from head trauma after a 15-foot fall and had a blood alcohol content of .169%. Two students and two fraternities accused of giving alcohol to Dado were charged with misdemeanors. As a result of Dado’s death, both Phi Gamma Delta and Alpha Tau Omega were suspended, and Alpha Tau Omega was sentenced to pay a $500 fine and serve community service. The fallout from Dado’s death was significant: Penn State’s Interfraternity Council restructured its policies for socials, and then-President Graham Spanier outlined a 30-point plan to combat the university’s No.1 party school ranking, according to Onward State.

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Connecting the dots: PA health officials battle historic measles outbreak

Hilary Danailova — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 18:02:07 -0400

Like many of the healthcare workers on her staff, Chester County Health Department Director Jeanne Franklin began her career decades ago, when measles presented more often in textbooks than in exam rooms. “My lead nurse just saw her first measles case the other day – and she’s been a nurse forever,” Franklin told City & State in late August.

But with a dozen residents already hospitalized for measles complications, Chester’s public health workers expect to see more. Since April, when Pennsylvania’s largest measles outbreak in recent history began, the commonwealth has recorded more than 400 cases of the airborne virus, with 94 cases in the past week alone (between January and March, for comparison, the commonwealth recorded only a dozen cases). 73 have been severe enough to require hospitalization, and one-third of cases involve children.

Public health experts say the true number of measles victims is almost certainly many times higher, since the disease is highly contagious – nine out of ten people exposed will get sick within three weeks – and infected family members may not bother with testing. All of the reported cases so far are in unvaccinated individuals, “obviously lending credence to the value of the vaccine,” said Franklin, whose county team has administered more than 350 doses thus far this year, most within the last several weeks.

According to the state Department of Health, the vast majority of measles cases – 197 – have been reported in Lancaster County, with an additional 4 confirmed in neighboring Chester County as of Thursday, Aug. 27. Those cases are “predominantly within the plain community,” Franklin said, using a term for the traditional Christian groups, such as Amish and Mennonites, that constitute a significant share of those county’s populations.

“The Pennsylvania Department of Health is working closely with health care providers and local communities to directly combat this measles outbreak,” Neil Ruhland, a press secretary with the state Department of Health, told City & State. The department has responded by vaccinating some 4,100 residents at pop-up clinics across the state, with dozens of additional clinics planned to help curb the outbreak and to complement local efforts by counties, like Chester, which have their own health departments.

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced an expansion of the state’s measles efforts in response to the widening outbreak, which has seen cases reported in 30 counties across the commonwealth.

Ruhland added that “the overall risk remains low if you are fully vaccinated,” pointing out that the standard two-dose MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine is 97% effective at preventing measles infection. “Pennsylvania’s robust baseline immunity is a critical line of defense that will help limit the number of cases compared to regions with lower vaccination coverage,” he noted.

Still, childhood vaccination rates have been falling steadily. By the 2025-26 school year, 93% of kindergarteners statewide had received both MMR vaccines, as compared to 97% of 12th-graders. The decline stems from a decades-old anti-vaccine movement fueled by a scientifically debunked 1998 study showing an association between the MMR vaccine and autism; more recently, vaccine resistance flared during the COVID-19 pandemic’s culture wars.

And U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” movement ushered in a vaccine-skeptical approach at the federal level last year, including a recent push to dramatically pare back America’s childhood immunization schedule.

Nearly two-thirds of the cases in Pennsylvania’s outbreak involve adults between 18 and 49, which reflects the downward age trend of unvaccinated Americans. In Allentown, Health Bureau Director David Synnamon said the state’s third-largest city recently saw its first measles cases since 2019. The two cases, reported in early August, were not connected to the Lancaster outbreak, he noted, adding: “I think we’re seeing the effects of individuals making decisions to not get vaccinated post-COVID starting to really hammer home.”

Before the measles vaccine became available in 1963, the disease killed 400 to 500 Americans annually. Symptoms typically appear one to two weeks after exposure; in addition to the infamous rash, they include high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, one in five unvaccinated people will require hospitalization for potentially life-threatening complications like seizures and pneumonia, with babies and young children at highest risk.

With the current outbreak concentrated in plain communities, public health officials have taken a culturally sensitive approach to their vaccination push. (Lancaster County, like many counties across the commonwealth, does not have its own health department and receives public health services from the state Department of Health, which has administered more than 2,700 MMR doses statewide so far this year.)

Franklin said that plain people have historically had lower vaccination rates due more to following tradition and maintaining a separate, pared-down lifestyle than because they subscribe to mainstream anti-vax sentiment. Her team reaches out to plain community elders, who in turn guide families’ decisions and practices. When presented with the facts, Franklin said, many plain people have privately opted for the vaccine.

“We respect their privacy,” she explained. “You have to have trust for the conversation … So, for example, we have immunized just for MMR. We’re not pushing any other vaccines right now.”

Discretion is key when public health officials seek to protect as many as possible, and practices like quarantines and contact tracing may not be feasible. Plain people “have farms to run, they have businesses to run, and it requires all hands on deck from family units,” said Franklin, whose team has jabbed whole families at their farms. “The trend we’re seeing is not wanting to share their close contacts. Some of that could be carryover from COVID, but it’s also ingrained in their culture.

“We don’t have to argue that,” he added. “We meet them where they’re at. Our message is: If you have measles, tell your neighbors and the family members you’ve been around.”

Healthcare workers have faced a learning curve of their own. For most physicians, measles education was a brief overview in medical school – and illustrations featuring pink dots on white skin. Now that real cases are showing up, the state Department of Health has launched a campaign “focusing on health care provider education and community protection,” said Ruhland. That includes reminding providers to encourage vaccination, and bringing frontline workers up to speed on how to recognize measles – including the different ways the signature rash might appear on darker skin tones.

“We took a lot of lessons from COVID. … We kept what went well. We ditched what didn’t,” reflected Franklin, who has led Chester’s health department since 2013. “I am very grateful that I have a team that will do everything possible and not get into personal opinions, political opinions, judgment. We just want to help make this work. But it saddens me, because it is preventable.”

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Flocked and loaded: Pennsylvania lawmakers look to regulate license plate-reading cameras

Justin Sweitzer — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 15:08:44 -0400

An increasing number of Pennsylvania state lawmakers are backing efforts to regulate the use of Flock cameras and automated license plate readers – a push that comes amid escalating anxieties around mass surveillance and government overreach linked to the technology.

Flock’s AI-assisted automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, are used by law enforcement, businesses and communities to capture vital vehicle information – including a vehicle’s license plate number, make, model, color, bumper stickers, dents, exact locations and timestamps. Flock customers can tap into a national network of 120,000 cameras that proponents say have been used to solve a range of crimes, including missing-person cases and vehicle thefts.

However, misuse of Flock cameras and ALPRs has led to mounting public pushback. The Washington Post reported this month that more than 50 law enforcement officers across the country have been charged or accused of misusing ALPRs to stalk or surveil people. As Pennsylvania residents have become more aware of the prevalence of Flock cameras in their communities, they’re urging local officials to remove the cameras and, in some cases, are doing it themselves, cutting them down and replacing them with American flags in acts of protest.

Deepening apprehensions around Flock cameras have prompted several state lawmakers to introduce proposals to regulate the use of Flock cameras and ALPRs statewide.

Democratic state Rep. Tarik Khan is partnering with Democrats and Republicans on legislation to establish guardrails for ALPR use and license plate data. In an interview, Khan told City & State that misuse of license plate data is tapping into the public’s existing concerns about a “rapid expansion of tech without clear guardrails.”

“It’s not just restricted to one state that’s using it. This is everywhere, and there are no clear guardrails on this technology,” Khan said. “No one wants constitutional rights to be violated, especially in terms of privacy.”

According to DeFlock, a nonprofit project that tracks ALPRs across the country, Pennsylvania has at least 1,752 ALPRs. Khan acknowledged that there are legitimate uses for ALPR data, but said lawmakers need to act to curb abuse of the cameras and data.

“With this technology, if they’re using it to go after a stolen car, great,” he said. “But if someone’s using it to track how many times I’m going to Insomnia Cookies for a late-night run, that’s a problem.”

Khan said his legislation, which has yet to be formally introduced, seeks to establish parameters on who can use ALPR data, what the data can be used for and how long the data can be stored. His bill also seeks to improve transparency around how ALPR data is used, while also establishing civil penalties for those who misuse data from Flock cameras and other ALPRs.

“We have to make sure that there are clear guardrails in place so that people’s rights are not being violated – that people are not being spied on and surveilled,” he added.

Other lawmakers in the General Assembly have proposals regarding ALPRs, including Republican state Reps. Brenda Pugh and Jamie Walsh, who plan to introduce a bill that would prevent private unauthorized disclosure of ALPR data by vendors.

“ALPR systems have become valuable law enforcement tools for locating stolen vehicles, apprehending dangerous fugitives, locating missing persons, and solving serious crimes,” the lawmakers’ co-sponsorship memo reads. “Many law enforcement agencies, however, rely on private vendors to both operate these systems and store the resulting data. Without clear statutory safeguards, an ALPR system vendor could sell or transfer sensitive information – or enable third parties to access it – without the knowledge or authorization of the law enforcement agency that collected and owns the data, with the vendor serving only as its custodian.”

Their legislation would “prohibit a vendor from selling, disclosing, transferring, licensing, or otherwise providing access to ALPR data” without authorization from the contracting law enforcement agency. Pugh and Walsh note in their co-sponsorship memo that their bill would not restrict legitimate information-sharing between law enforcement agencies, nor would it interfere with investigations, task forces or efforts to apprehend fugitives.

Facing growing backlash across the nation, Flock Safety this week announced a slate of new safeguards, including shortening its data retention period from 30 days to 7 days.

“Today we’re cutting our default to seven days,” Garrett Langley, the founder and CEO of Flock Safety, said in a video posted to Flock’s website on Aug. 13. “That means every image our cameras capture is by default purged from the customer’s database after one week, unless it becomes evidence in an active criminal investigation, in which case it enters evidence mode and is retained as the law requires.”

Langley said Flock’s most important changes aim to address misuse of its tools. He said Flock’s “Audit Assistance” tool, which detects abnormal behavior on its platform and flags it for review, will automatically lock users out of its system when their behavior is deemed as potential misuse. The company will also now require specific case codes for all law enforcement searches, though law enforcement can bypass those case codes in emergency situations. In those instances, emergency searches will be flagged for administrative review, Langley said.

Langley also called on state legislators across the country to pass laws that require audits on all law enforcement data systems, as well as laws that raise penalties for officers who use ALPR systems to stalk or surveil individuals.

“An officer who uses these systems to stalk someone or settle a score should face severe criminal charges and lose their certification permanently,” Langley said.

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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 15:31:15 -0400

Pittsburgh’s vaunted medical-research sector – like its cross-state antipode, Philadelphia – took a hit when it was swept up in mass grant cancellations by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Two University of Pittsburgh grants worth a combined $4.5 million were axed, ending investigations into post-ICU patient care and pain relief for patients with advanced cancer. So it was welcome news that the Richard King Mellon Foundation just pledged $25 million to launch a Pittsburgh-based rare-disease research hub. The organization, Rare Ventures, will leverage “venture philanthropy” to fast-track the kinds of medical breakthroughs for which the Steel City has long been, in the words of a Mellon trustee, “an epicenter.”

Keep reading for more winners and losers!

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Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announces lawsuit against TikTok

Justin Sweitzer — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:12:35 -0400

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced on Tuesday that his office is suing TikTok, accusing the social media platform of designing its app to be “intentionally addictive” – while also regularly featuring “frequent and intense” adult content despite its “13+” rating.

“TikTok intentionally designed its platform to be addictive to young people, maximizing the time kids spend on their platform to grow their bottom line,” the attorney general said Tuesday at a press conference at the state Capitol. “They want users, including children, to crave the app. They want users to endlessly scroll while they rake in astronomical ad revenue.”

Sunday added that he strongly believes that the information gathered by his office’s investigation shows “that TikTok designed their app to promote infinite scrolling that can deteriorate and decay a child’s mental wellness.”

The 65-page lawsuit argues that developers deliberately designed TikTok in ways that make it addictive, and that the company has downplayed the prevalence of adult-themed content – including content that depicts drug and alcohol use, profanity, sexual activity and violence – to secure a “13+” rating on various app stores.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday explains the two components of his lawsuit against TikTok. pic.twitter.com/yin3MjbvMR
— Justin Sweitzer (@justin_sweitzer) August 11, 2026

According to the lawsuit, TikTok has stated through the Apple App Store that its platform contains “infrequent/mild” levels of sexual content, profanity, alcohol and drug use, and other mature themes. But the attorney general’s office disagrees.

“All of those representations are false,” the suit reads. “The TikTok app contains frequent and intense sexual content and nudity, profanity and crude humor, mature and suggestive themes, and alcohol, tobacco, and drug use and references.”

To underscore the addictive nature of TikTok, Sunday pointed to the viral slang term “bed rotting,” which refers to people spending extended periods of time in bed scrolling on their phones.

“TikTok’s infinite scroll feature promotes that,” Sunday said. “And if you haven’t been on the app in a while, they will send you a very enticing push notification to try and lure you back.”

The lawsuit argues that TikTok violated the state’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law by misrepresenting the level of adult-themed content on its app to receive a “13+” age rating, with the AG’s office adding that the app should instead have a “16+” or “18+” rating. The lawsuit also suggests that TikTok has deceived Pennsylvania consumers by making its app addictive through “deliberate design choices.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas.

Sunday said the lawsuit “seeks to put into place effective barriers and safeguards that will consider the child consumer’s well-being and safety.”

A spokesperson for TikTok pushed back on characterizations made in the lawsuit.

"This lawsuit relies on misleading and inaccurate claims and deliberately ignores the concrete safety measures TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support the well-being of our community,” a spokesperson told City & State in a statement.

“Teen accounts have 50 preset safety, privacy and security settings built-in, and TikTok’s Family Pairing tools give parents direct control over screen time and content filters,” the statement continues. “We will vigorously defend against these claims."

Sunday spoke with City & State earlier this year about how new technologies are altering everyday life for Pennsylvanians, highlighting the need for a balance between innovation and public safety. “Innovation and technology are not mutually exclusive from protecting children. We can do both, and we must do both. It’s that simple,” Sunday said.

With children and teens exposed to a range of new technologies and products, ranging from TikTok to AI chatbots, Sunday said it’s important that parents be aware of the apps and platforms their children use.

“Talk to your child,” he said. “Be a part of their life in that space.”

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Congress needs to stamp out the intoxicating hemp products loophole

Scott L. Bohn — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:27:12 -0400

For Pennsylvania’s police chiefs, the debate over intoxicating hemp products is not an abstract discussion about agricultural policy or federal law. It is a public safety issue affecting our communities, schools, roadways, businesses, and the officers responsible for enforcing the law.

That is why the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association supports Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday and the bipartisan coalition of attorneys general urging Congress to preserve the federal hemp reforms enacted in November 2025.

Those reforms addressed a problem that had grown steadily since passage of the 2018 Farm Bill.

The 2018 law was intended to legalize legitimate hemp production and create opportunities for American agriculture and industry. But an unintended loophole allowed highly intoxicating products derived from hemp to enter the marketplace under a regulatory framework never designed for products capable of producing marijuana-like effects.

Products containing delta-8 THC, delta-10 THC and other intoxicating cannabinoids became widely available as gummies, candies, beverages, vaping products and other consumer goods, sometimes in packaging easily mistaken for ordinary products.

Law enforcement has seen the consequences firsthand.

Officers encounter these products during traffic stops, impaired-driving investigations, incidents involving juveniles, school-related calls and retail enforcement matters. Police departments, prosecutors, laboratories, businesses and consumers have also had to navigate a confusing legal environment in which a substance can produce significant intoxicating effects while still being marketed as federally lawful “hemp.”

Police officers need laws that can be understood and consistently enforced. Prosecutors need clear standards. Businesses deserve to know which products can lawfully be manufactured and sold. Parents and consumers should have confidence that intoxicating substances are subject to meaningful safeguards.

The reforms enacted in November 2025 moved federal law toward that clarity.

Rather than focusing narrowly on one form of THC, the revised federal definition addresses total THC and other intoxicating cannabinoids, establishes limits for final hemp-derived cannabinoid products, and addresses cannabinoids synthesized or manufactured outside the plant.

The objective is straightforward: preserve legitimate industrial, agricultural and nonintoxicating hemp while preventing the federal definition of hemp from becoming a pathway for the largely unregulated sale of intoxicating cannabis products.

Law enforcement is not seeking to interfere with Pennsylvania farmers, responsible hemp businesses or consumers using lawful nonintoxicating hemp products. Those industries deserve a predictable regulatory environment in which legitimate businesses can compete fairly.

What concerns police chiefs is a marketplace where intoxicating products can be sold without safeguards comparable to those governing other intoxicating cannabis products.

Youth access is particularly troubling.

Police departments across Pennsylvania work with schools, parents, prevention organizations and community groups to reduce young people’s access to intoxicating substances. Products presented as colorful gummies, candies or flavored beverages create an obvious concern when they contain psychoactive cannabinoids but are sold outside the regulatory controls the public reasonably expects for intoxicating products.

Roadway safety is another concern.

Impaired driving remains one of the most serious threats encountered by law enforcement. Whether an intoxicating substance originated from marijuana or hemp does not change the danger an impaired driver poses to families traveling Pennsylvania’s highways. The law should recognize that reality.

Consistency also matters. Pennsylvania and other states have spent years developing laws, regulations, and enforcement practices in response to the growth of intoxicating hemp products. Reversing the federal reforms would renew uncertainty and invite litigation over where lawful hemp ends and intoxicating cannabis begins.

That serves neither law enforcement nor responsible businesses.

Attorney General Sunday has correctly framed this debate around consumer protection and public safety. Pennsylvanians should know what they are purchasing, and parents should not have to wonder whether a product resembling ordinary candy or a beverage contains an intoxicating cannabinoid.

Regulation and prohibition are not the same thing. Closing an unintended loophole does not mean eliminating legitimate hemp. It means establishing a clear boundary between industrial and non-intoxicating hemp products and products manufactured to create intoxicating effects.

Congress took an important step toward establishing that boundary in 2025. Changing course before those reforms are fully implemented would recreate uncertainty for police officers, prosecutors, businesses, regulators and consumers while risking a return to the marketplace Congress sought to address.

Pennsylvania’s police chiefs understand that effective public policy must balance legitimate commerce, individual choice and public safety. That balance is best achieved through laws that are clear, consistent and enforceable.

Our message is simple: Legitimate hemp agriculture should flourish; responsible businesses should have clear rules; consumers deserve transparency; children deserve protection from easy access to intoxicating products; and law enforcement deserves a regulatory framework that makes sense.

Congress closed the intoxicating hemp loophole for a reason; let’s keep it that way.

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Philadelphia’s Chinatown community celebrates highway cap project despite funding uncertainty

Harrison Cann — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:02:09 -0400

The Philadelphia highway capping project known as the Chinatown Stitch was celebrated by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation at a community event Thursday evening that showcased its progress and potential economic impact.

The Chinatown Stitch, which will create a two-and-a-half-block street-level park over I-676, is seen as a huge win for a neighborhood that’s been divided by the highway’s construction and has endured repeated, unpopular development attempts near Center City.

“It’s all about reconnection,” John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, told City & State. “Chinatown’s been cut in half (for) decades.”

The original $207 million project had nearly all of its federal funding rescinded last year. Preliminary funding had already been allocated for the planning process and final construction documents, but the construction cost – in the range of $150 million according to officials – is standing in the way of organizers getting the project across the finish line.

But for the Chinatown community – and organizers who have helped get the preliminary phase off the ground – the funding uncertainty is just another hurdle they will work through.

“Back in 2016, it was an ‘If’ question, but we got some significant federal resources,” Chin told City & State. Now, he added, “it’s really ‘When.’”

PCDC – a key entity in the highway cap project – held a celebration Thursday evening to commemorate the progress and highlight the plaza’s market stall designs.

“Tonight, we celebrate our collective work to bring this once-in-a-lifetime project to this point,” Chin said at the event. “As far as the stitch design, we’re near the finish line.”

The highway cap project would not only reconnect parts of Chinatown that were divided by the Vine Street Expressway construction in 1991, but also reduce the air and noise pollution that come from the more than 100,000 vehicles that use the I-676 expressway every day.

PCDC and community members worked with the city and state, and received two grants together worth over $160 million in 2022 and 2024 to construct the cap and street-level park.

But after the federal funding was pulled, local leaders had to scramble – looking to the city and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to step up. Both parties did their part, with DVRPC allocating $10 million and the city matching $2.5 million – the figure needed to fund the rest of the design process and final construction documents, which could take six months to a year.

Chin and officials expect a combination of public and philanthropic sources, such as federal, state or foundation grants, to bridge the gap left by the federal funding rescission.

“The designs reflect your desires. You have said that you want a gathering space, celebration space and just a place to be with others,” Chin said.

The latest design for the capped park between 10th and 12th streets includes landscaped pathways, a playground, plaza and shaded pavilion, and a stream. The market stalls shown Thursday are the first pilot for the project – and a clear sign to the community that it’s moving forward.

Kara Medow, the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems’ new senior capital projects manager, said that partnerships and community engagement are “all critical to the success of the Chinatown Stitch project.”

“These market stalls … show the project’s potential and offer a preview of the new community spaces the stitch will bring,” Medow said Thursday. “Together, we can reunite Chinatown and give this community a beautiful green space it has long deserved.”

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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:01:10 -0400

He chased women with Casanova, was thrown out of 1770s Venice for gambling and “seditious verses,” and then exiled from Vienna when his operas fell from favor; starting over in the New World, he introduced Italian opera to New York audiences and the Italian department to Columbia University. So it was with great delight that Pennsylvanians learned from The New York Times this week that the great Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s famed librettist of classics like “Don Giovanni,” spent time as a small-town grocer in Sunbury, where – like so many New Yorkers seeking affordability – he had settled during a nadir in his colorful life of perpetual reinvention. Despite his considerable losses gambling and elsewhere, Da Ponte’s legacy some 200 years later – and, as the Times chronicles, his progeny’s devotion to it – is undeniably a win for the ages.

Keep reading for more winners and losers!

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City & State's best summer vacation ideas for politicians

City & State — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:33:09 -0400

Pennsylvania’s powerful need some “live, laugh, love” moments – and there are few better ways to find them than on an individualized trip focused on personal growth that helps open hearts and minds.

As a public service, City & State has some summer vacation ideas for several of Pennsylvania’s biggest and brightest, offering firsthand experiences we believe could change their perspectives:

Joe Pittman visits a SEPTA station

Having Pittman – SEPTA’s toughest opponent in the state Senate – and other GOP grandstanders who call the city a “shithole” daytripping on the Market-Frankford Line will show them how transit riders from all walks of life need SEPTA to get around.

John Fetterman visits his Philadelphia office

An all-too-rare visit by Pennsylvania’s lightning-rod U.S. senator to his Philadelphia district office might be better suited to October – all those cobwebs and skeletons of would-be staffers give off early Halloween vibes.

Dave McCormick spends time on his Pennsylvania farmstead

Pennsylvania’s newest senator comes with bespoke baggage of his own – questions regarding his true residency that date back to his campaign. McCormick, a longtime Connecticut resident, can kick off summer with a trip back to his roots at the family farm near Bloomsburg.

Summer Lee and Chris Rabb go on Birthright Israel

Two of the most outspoken Democrats in the state will now bookend the congressional delegation, with Summer Lee in Pittsburgh and Chris Rabb in Philadelphia. The pair has plenty to say about Israel and Palestine – so it only makes sense that they would take an educational trip of their own to see the Holy Land up close.

Rob Bresnahan rings the stock exchange closing bell

The congressional freshman’s stock portfolio and proximity to New York make perfect sense for a poignant day trip to the Big Apple, where Bresnahan can take a helicopter tour of the city and cap off the day by ringing the Stock Exchange’s closing bell.

The Wawa goose and Buc-ee's beaver swap places

The gas chain giants try living a day in the life of a fellow regional icon. Wally Goose will try to navigate his way through one of the Texas-based chain’s legendary labyrinths to find some beaver nuggets, while Bucky the Beaver sinks his teeth into a pork roll Sizzli.

Pennsylvania’s gridiron stars go on a spa retreat

Both of the state’s football teams could use a day off. Nick Sirianni and Big Dom can dip into meditative practices and receive “tush push” glute massages, while Aaron Rodgers can learn the ways of science-backed remedies and modern medicine.

Lawmakers tour the National Watch and Clock Museum

It’s time to have all four legislative caucuses meet at the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, so lawmakers can examine the history of timepieces – and, since the clock is ticking on this year’s budget, figure out how to get a budget done on time.

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Sunday calls for transparency from OpenAI after unprecedented Hugging Face hack

Justin Sweitzer — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:32:11 -0400

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced this week that his office joined a coalition of 15 states calling for greater transparency from OpenAI in the wake of an unprecedented cyber incident where two of the company’s AI models broke containment and hacked into Hugging Face, an AI platform.

The July hack came as OpenAI was testing the cyber capabilities of its GPT‑5.6 Sol model and “an even more capable” pre-release model in an isolated testing environment, though the models ultimately found a way to access the internet and hacked into Hugging Face’s production database. OpenAI said the incident was unprecedented and marked “an important moment for AI safety.”

The coalition of AGs appears to agree, writing in a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that “OpenAI’s inability or unwillingness to ensure the safety of its products poses an imminent risk of substantial harm to our States.”

“OpenAI’s unprecedented and alarming misconduct demands an immediate and significant response,” the letter reads. “Based on facts already in the public record, OpenAI may have violated State and federal law, including consumer protection and data-privacy statutes that many Attorneys General are charged with enforcing.”

OpenAI outlined how the cyber intrusion was able to take place in a series of statements following the incident. “After gaining Internet access, the models inferred that Hugging Face potentially hosted models, datasets and solutions” that could be used to perform better on the evaluation of its cyber capabilities, OpenAI stated in response to the incident. “Knowing this, the model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation.”

“Artificial intelligence is advancing at a remarkable pace, but innovation cannot come at the expense of public safety,” Sunday said in a statement. “When powerful AI systems are released without sufficient safeguards, the consequences can extend far beyond the companies developing them. Pennsylvanians deserve confidence that emerging technology is being tested responsibly and that companies will be transparent and accountable when something goes wrong.”

OpenAI said it is working with Hugging Face to conduct a forensic investigation into the incident and will add stronger safeguards for future training and evaluations.

The attorneys general called on OpenAI to preserve a wide range of records related to the Hugging Face hack, including materials related to the pre-release model involved in the intrusion; the company’s discovery of the cyber incident; and documents and materials related to the company’s reviews and investigations into the incident. The AGs also requested that OpenAI cease and desist from conducting similar cyber evaluations in the future.

“Unless and until OpenAI shows that it can conduct such activities in a controlled and responsible way, such activities pose an imminent risk of serious harm to the citizens of our States,” the letter reads.

In an interview with City & State earlier this year, Sunday said that while powerful AI models can present new innovations and capabilities, inappropriate use of models poses significant risks.

“There’s a lot of great stuff that comes with technology and innovation … but at the same time, any tool used inappropriately can cause tremendous harm,” he said. “When we’re talking about something that’s so powerful like AI, if it’s used incorrectly, that harm can be powerful and overwhelming as well.”

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A matter of life and death: Understanding the debate over second-degree murder sentencing in PA

Justin Sweitzer — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 14:45:34 -0400

In March, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that found that sentencing rules for all second-degree murder convictions violate protections against cruel punishment in the state constitution – and tasked the General Assembly with fixing the law at the heart of the issue.

The court ruling came in response to a case known as Commonwealth v. Derek Lee, where Lee was charged with felony murder – also known as second-degree murder – in the 2014 killing of Leonard Butler in Pittsburgh’s Elliot neighborhood.

The ruling has wide-ranging implications for second-degree murder sentences in Pennsylvania, and has sparked a spirited debate between Democrats and Republicans in the General Assembly. Below, City & State looks at the ongoing debate over second-degree murder sentencing – and what comes next, as lawmakers struggle to reach a consensus on how to reform the state’s felony sentencing statute.

The crime

On Oct. 14, 2014, two armed men – Lee and Paul Durham – entered the Pittsburgh home of Leonard Butler and Tina Chapple, guiding the couple into the basement, where they demanded that Butler and Chapple give up their money.

Lee reportedly pistol-whipped Butler during the course of the robbery and took his watch before heading upstairs. Durham remained with the couple, and later fought with Butler over the gun; a shot was fired during the struggle that ultimately killed Butler.

Following his arrest on multiple charges, a jury found Lee guilty of second-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy. In December 2019, Judge David Cashman sentenced Lee to serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Durham also received a sentence of life without parole for second-degree murder.

Pennsylvania’s Crimes Code states that a person who has been convicted of second-degree murder “shall be sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.”

The case considered by the state’s high court centered around an appeal from Lee, which argued that his mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for second-degree murder amounts to “cruel punishment” and violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as Article I, Section 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The court ruling

In Pennsylvania, a homicide is considered second-degree murder when it is committed during the course of a felony, including robbery, rape, arson or kidnapping. The charge can be levied against both principals and accomplices, regardless of whether there was an intent to kill.

On March 26, 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that “a mandatory life without parole sentence for all felony murder convictions, absent an assessment of culpability, is inconsistent with the protections bestowed upon our citizens under the ‘cruel punishments’ clause” of the state constitution. That clause states that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel punishments inflicted.”

The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Debra Todd, argued that a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole that lacks an individualized assessment of a person’s culpability “prevents the sentencer from considering whether this harshest of sentences proportionately punishes the offender.”

“Ultimately, we find that the mandatory sentencing scheme for second degree murder poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment, and, thus, find it to be cruel,” Todd wrote.

“The main point of their opinion was based on the fact that, under the present statute, the court does not examine the culpability of the actors who may have been involved in the homicide,” Berks County District Attorney John Adams told City & State in an interview.

The state’s high court vacated Lee’s sentence and called for him to be resentenced for his crimes. The court also stayed its order for 120 days, giving lawmakers in the General Assembly several months to reform the state’s felony murder sentencing rules.

The policy debate

The issue of how to respond to the court’s ruling spurred a debate between state lawmakers this month as the court’s July 24 deadline came and went without a solution.

On June 25, the GOP-controlled state Senate passed Senate Bill 1400, which would impose a minimum sentence of 35 years in prison for individuals convicted of second-degree murder, while giving certain defendants the chance to have their sentences reduced. The legislation would also provide parole opportunities for qualifying offenders who have served at least 35 years of their sentence, as well as those who are above the age of 70 who have served at least 20 years.

The proposal, sponsored by state Sen. Lisa Baker, has the support of Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and other law enforcement organizations – and still awaits a vote in the state House. The Senate also advanced another bill addressing second-degree murder sentencing, House Bill 1042, on July 12.

However, the Democratic-controlled House opted not to advance SB 1400 when it returned to session on July 23. Instead, the chamber passed an amended version of House Bill 1042 that, among other things, tasks the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing with setting guidelines for second-degree murder sentences and would expand Pennsylvania’s medical release program for inmates with health issues – both of which SB 1400 does not do. That bill, approved with a 102-100 vote, was sent back to the Senate for consideration.

With lawmakers unable to find a consensus on second-degree murder sentencing reforms, the issue currently remains unresolved.

Senate Republicans accused Democrats of purposely running out the clock on the court’s 120-day deadline. Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward said House Democrats delivered a “soft-on-crime, criminal-friendly bill that will give violent second-degree murder convicts an immediate opportunity for release.”

Democrats viewed the situation a bit differently. House Speaker Joanna McClinton said in a statement following the House vote that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling “provided an opportunity to address years of inequity and rethink reform.” McClinton said House Bill 1042 “fulfills the court’s directive by ensuring that individuals are held accountable in a manner that reflects their level of responsibility for a crime.”

“It also demonstrates our commitment to protecting Pennsylvanians by giving a voice to victims, reducing recidivism through expanded educational opportunities in our correctional institutions, and strengthening compassionate release, a reform that will save the commonwealth millions of dollars without compromising public safety,” she added.

The future

The General Assembly’s inability to agree on a legislative fix by the Supreme Court’s July 24 deadline leaves the state in limbo, according to Adams, who serves as the communications chair for the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.

“It leaves us in … I will call it a position of flux,” Adams said. He added that the state’s district attorneys “anticipate many of the 1,100 individuals who are serving life sentences for second-degree murder will be filing petitions to be resentenced,” noting that the court did not say whether its ruling should be applied retroactively to those already sentenced.

“The issue of retroactivity was not addressed by the Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Lee,” he said. “Since the legislature has not acted, I believe that district attorneys across the state will not concede retroactivity at this point without a new second-degree murder statute. We are hoping that the legislature acts because at this point we do expect to receive petitions.”

“We’re just in a kind of a wait-and-see situation – and it’s concerning to us.”

Bryan Widenhouse, the state legislative affairs manager for FAMM, an organization that advocates against mandatory minimum sentencing laws, pushed back on claims from lawmakers that the lack of a legislative fix would result in a mass release of convicted murderers from prison.

“It certainly doesn’t open the floodgates,” said Widenhouse, who served 31 years in prison after being sentenced to life without parole – before being granted parole after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed such sentences for juveniles. “We’re creating a mechanism of review here, not a mechanism of release. So whether it’s the parole board or the court, they’re going to review these cases, and they’re only going to release those who should be released that don’t pose any threat to public safety.”

Both Adams and Widenhouse said that the lack of an updated, clearly defined statute could create a patchwork of resentencing results, further necessitating a uniform fix to state law.

“In some cases, the district attorneys and judges might say, ‘Yep, we agree. We’re going to resentence you,’” Widenhouse said. “And they give them a resentence. In some cases, district attorneys and judges are going to fight it, and they might say, ‘Hey, nobody has answered the question of retroactivity yet.’”

Adams made a similar point. “Without a legislative fix, the disparity in resources from county to county will produce the ‘justice by geography’ outcome,” he said. “This is why it is very concerning to all of us, because what could happen in Philly versus what could happen in my county or many other counties could be astronomically different.”

On July 31, the state Supreme Court denied a request from Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. to extend the court’s stay by an additional 120 days.

In a statement to City & State, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman condemned House Democrats for opting not to advance the legislative proposals sent to them by the Senate, adding that the Senate will not consider the legislation approved by the House in July.

“The eleventh-hour attempt by the House to pass a bill with language opposed by many organizations on the last day before the Supreme Court deadline was disingenuous at best,” Pittman said. “We are always willing to have conversations about meaningful legislation to keep our communities safer, but we will not entertain watered-down bills pushed for by House Democrats that even further expand the ability for serious criminals to get out of jail through such processes as medical parole.”

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PA’s lack of contribution limits has led to a ‘Wild West’ of campaign fundraising

Justin Sweitzer — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:45:29 -0400

Wealthy donors and fat checks are nothing new in American politics. Each election cycle, those looking to influence elections and curry favor with politicians cut checks to candidates and political action committees, seeking to exert what influence they can on the nation’s political system.

Among both those seeking and those delivering those cash infusions, Pennsylvania stands out. The commonwealth has earned a “Wild West” reputation for its complete lack of contribution limits, which allows limitless spending and millions of dollars to regularly infiltrate elections.

That stands in stark contrast to limits on federal elections, where individuals are capped at $3,500 per year for contributions to individual candidates and $5,000 per year for contributions to political action committees.

“Campaign financing is nuts in Pennsylvania,” Rabbi Michael Pollack, the executive director of the government reform group March on Harrisburg, told City & State in an interview. “It's absolutely unlimited. You can give anything you want to anybody's campaign without limit. That's absolutely insane.”

Throughout its 10-year existence, March on Harrisburg has pushed for reforms to how money and perks permeate Pennsylvania politics – from gifts given to sitting lawmakers to the commonwealth’s virtually limitless campaign finance system.

The impact of Pennsylvania’s lack of contribution limits is on full display in this year’s elections for governor and state legislative seats in the General Assembly – as well as in recent retention elections for seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

In this year’s gubernatorial race, where incumbent Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is facing a challenge from GOP Treasurer Stacy Garrity, Shapiro has raised more than $50 million this election cycle, entering the summer with $38 million in cash on hand. That dwarfs sums raised by other governors running for reelection this year, like Arkansas GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has raised a little over $7.5 million in the current cycle, and Arizona’s Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has raised more than $4.5 million in 2026. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rivals Shapiro in fundraising, having brought in over $28 million in the first six months of the year, bringing his total cash on hand to $67 million.

Shapiro’s $38 million war chest has been buttressed by a number of six-figure donations from his political allies – trial lawyers, labor unions and even the owner of the Philadelphia Phillies. Garrity has raised significantly less than Shapiro – reporting $1.48 million in total contributions in 2025 and raising $1.96 million through the first six months of 2026.

In 2026, there have already been several contributions to high-ranking Pennsylvania politicians that have broken the seven-figure mark. Earlier this year, Shapiro pulled in a $1 million contribution from business executive and investor Chris Larsen. In March, state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward received a $2 million contribution in March from the Jeffrey Yass-backed Students First PAC.

And then there’s Yass himself.

Yass, a trader and co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, is Pennsylvania’s richest man and a prolific political donor who has funneled millions of dollars to conservative causes and candidates. An avowed supporter of school choice, he has donated more than $60 million to the Students First PAC, which, since 2022, has contributed money to several other political action committees.

Labor unions have traditionally been major spenders in the state’s elections, as well. According to an analysis from the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based conservative think tank, PACs connected to labor unions spent more than $22.4 million – a figure that includes contributions and in-kind, non-monetary donations – in the 2025 election cycle. Of that figure, $2.2 million went toward the state’s Supreme Court retention elections.

The tens of millions of dollars directed to candidates and political committees don’t even take into account the millions more spent on independent expenditures – the political communications that, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, aren’t subject to any contribution limits.

And while Pennsylvania candidates on both sides of the aisle play by the existing rules, there have been efforts in the state Capitol to reform the state’s campaign finance system by establishing a new framework for financing elections in the commonwealth.

You can give anything you want... without limit. It’s absolutely insane.

– Rabbi Michael Pollack

In the Pennsylvania Senate, Minority Leader Jay Costa has routinely introduced sweeping legislation that would institute donation and expenditure limits in Pennsylvania elections, implement more stringent disclosure requirements for political campaigns and seek to limit foreign corporations from influencing elections in the commonwealth. Costa has introduced his omnibus campaign finance reform bill several legislative sessions in a row, though the bill has failed to receive consideration in the Senate.

“It's just frustrating that we cannot get a fair conversation on this,” he told City & State in an interview. “We are an outlier among states in that we don't have any limitations on what we can do with respect to contributions.”

Costa added that several Pennsylvania cities and municipalities – including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County – have even placed limits on local elections, all while Pennsylvania continues to allow limitless wealth to flow into political contests.

“It's just crazy what folks can contribute, and how wealthy people can get into this game and keep people out of it because they don't have the resources necessary to compete,” he said.

Costa acknowledged that, as the leader of Senate Democrats and a key force in trying to elect more Democrats to the General Assembly’s upper chamber, Pennsylvania’s current campaign finance system requires him to play by the existing rules.

“The seat I sit in now requires me to participate under the rules that are in place – and I can't unilaterally disarm as much as I'd like to,” he said. “It's an injustice to my caucus if I do that, because I'm competing with the other side … The sooner we get something done, the better.”

In the state House of Representatives, lawmakers recently approved House Bill 497, which would prohibit foreign-influenced corporations from making political contributions to candidates, PACs, and political parties, and also bar such corporations from spending money on efforts to influence ballot questions.

Under the bill, foreign-influenced corporations refer to corporations where a single foreign investor holds, owns, controls or has beneficial ownership of 1% or more of the total equity, and those with two or more foreign investors that have beneficial ownership of 5% or more of the total equity, outstanding voting shares, membership units or other applicable ownership interests of the corporation.

“House Bill 497 simply says that there shouldn't be foreign influence in the elections, referendums, and government processes of Pennsylvania,” Democratic state Rep. Joe Webster, the prime sponsor of the bill, said on the House floor in June. “We need to protect Pennsylvanians from the fact that lots of money comes into our elections and we don't know where it's coming from. It's time to make sure we do know, and make sure it's in the best interests of Pennsylvanians.”

Pollack said the bill could significantly curtail the amount of corporate money flowing into Pennsylvania elections by limiting multinational companies' ability to contribute. “It takes out 98% of the S&P 500, which are multinational, technically foreign-influenced corporations,” he said.

Pollack noted that similar efforts in other states have faced legal challenges, including in Minnesota, where a judge blocked a similar law from taking effect in February 2025.

Republicans in the General Assembly have introduced campaign finance reform proposals of their own. State Sen. Lisa Baker is the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 105, which would require those making independent expenditures to disclose their top five contributors during that election cycle. In a co-sponsorship memo sent to colleagues, Baker wrote that such a requirement written into state law would “make it easier for citizens to ascertain who is donating the most money to generically-named PACs.”

Others have looked to change how unions use union dues for political purposes. David Osborne, the director of labor policy at the Commonwealth Foundation, pointed to “paycheck protection” proposals that would prevent union dues from being used for independent expenditures and political purposes.

“Unions have increasingly relied more on membership dues dollars because they can take an unlimited amount of union dues dollars and spend it in support of political candidates and causes,” Osborne told City & State in an interview. “These are independent expenditures that cannot be coordinated with proper campaigns, but that is where the bulk of the spending is going.”

A paycheck protection law, he said, would prevent that from happening “so that unions couldn't request the employer to deduct union dues or fees out of people's paychecks.”

Different sides of the political spectrum propose different solutions for curtailing the flow of money into state and national politics. But across the nation, there appears to be bipartisan agreement that too much money is devoted to politics.

A Politico poll released earlier this year found that 72% of Americans agree that there is too much money in American politics. That includes 80% of voters who chose former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and 77% of voters who cast their ballot for President Donald Trump.

The bipartisan agreement on the amount of money in politics also comes at a time when trust in U.S. institutions is at an all-time low, and Costa said reforms that address the unfettered flow of money in Pennsylvania elections could help in improving the public’s perception of their institutions.

“For the sake of the public's perception of the electoral process, I certainly would want to see more disclosure of people who are contributing – and limiting the amount that they're contributing,” he said. “Right now people feel that we’re the Wild West, and we can do what we want, when we want.”

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Shapiro and Garrity release dueling attack ads as Pennsylvania governor’s race intensifies

Justin Sweitzer — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:19:55 -0400

Pennsylvania’s race for governor is heating up, with Gov. Josh Shapiro and Treasurer Stacy Garrity, the GOP nominee, both unleashing new attack ads on Friday that highlighted the intensifying nature of the 2026 race.

In new TV ads released on Friday, Shapiro’s campaign linked Garrity to President Donald Trump, referring to her as “100% MAGA” – while Garrity’s ad elevated the growing discontent with data centers across Pennsylvania, accusing Shapiro of selling the state out to data center developers.

Shapiro’s ad – titled “100% MAGA” – includes clips of Trump and conservative state Sen. Doug Mastriano voicing support for Garrity, while also highlighting past comments from Garrity supporting Trump’s imposition of tariffs.

In the ad, a narrator states that Garrity is “all MAGA all the time.” The narrator adds: “She called Trump's tariffs fantastic, even though costs are skyrocketing. Garrity said Congress should pass Trump's cuts to nursing homes and health care ASAP. And as governor, Garrity will put Trump's agenda ahead of Pennsylvania.”

Garrity’s campaign accused the Shapiro campaign of putting out “a dishonest, lying attack” ad, noting that Garrity recently told reporters that she would “probably do the tariffs a little bit differently.”

Garrity’s ad – titled “Sold Us Out” – zeroes in on Shapiro’s support for certain data center projects in the commonwealth, including a $20 billion investment by Amazon to build two data center campuses in the state.

“Josh Shapiro’s data center scandal keeps growing,” a narrator says in Garrity’s ad. “First, Shapiro handed Amazon a fortune in tax credits to build a data center here without any community input. Then Shapiro fast-tracked building permits, also without community input, and Shapiro said he’s putting even more data centers in our backyards. Now we know why. Shapiro pocketed over $5 million in political contributions from out-of-state data center developers.”

The $5 million figure referenced by Garrity’s campaign includes contributions from a range of individuals with ties to tech and AI, though not all are data center developers. The sum includes $3 million from Jennifer Duda, the wife of Arista Networks President Kenneth Duda, whose company manufactures hardware and networking software for data centers. Shapiro also received more than $2 million from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who has launched multiple AI startups, as well as a smaller $100,000 contribution from NorthPoint Development.

Shapiro’s tone on data center development has shifted amid growing concerns from Pennsylvania residents about a deluge of data center proposals across the state.

After previously stating that Pennsylvania was “all in on AI” following the Amazon announcement, Shapiro more recently announced new standards that data center developers will need to meet to earn faster permitting approvals and other state tax benefits. This week, the governor criticized the handling of a data center proposal in Conshohocken, where local officials say a developer has intimidated and bullied the community.

“This is the exact wrong way to do development here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said Friday in a post on X.

Garrity’s views on data centers have also seemingly evolved over the course of the last year, as she said in a 2025 interview on KDKA’s Big K Morning Show that “we need to deregulate” when discussing data center development.

However, Garrity has since said that Pennsylvania should pause data center development to give communities the opportunity to update their zoning laws and ordinances, and has hosted a series of data center-focused listening sessions in communities across the state.

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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:26:50 -0400

Pennsylvania museum-goers have just a few days left to visit the State Museum of Pennsylvania before it closes for renovations for the next three years. The museum will receive a $55 million facelift and is expected to reopen to the public in 2029, so if you have any desire to check out the State Museum, be sure to make it there before Aug. 3.

Keep reading for more winners and losers!

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Philadelphia’s forgotten baseball stars helped make America’s pastime an international game

Harrison Cann — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:17:36 -0400

As Philadelphia basks in the afterglow of hosting the 2026 Major League Baseball All-Star Week – and the international stars who shined in the 4-0 American League win – there has never been a better time to celebrate one of the city’s forgotten trailblazers of the game: the Philadelphia Royal Giants.

The Royal Giants were a Negro league team that followed in the footsteps of the Philadelphia Giants, a fellow Negro league team that was one of the strongest in Black baseball during its run from 1902 to 1911, including winning the “World’s Colored Championship” in 1905 and 1906. The Giants fielded an astounding six future Hall of Famers: Rube Foster, Frank Grant, Pete Hill, John Henry Lloyd, Louis Santop and Sol White.

The Royal Giants teams that succeeded helped take America’s pastime global by following up the collegiate stars’ 1908 All-American Tour of Japan.

The Philadelphia Royal Giants’ barnstorming schedule brought professional baseball players to Japan in 1927 for a series of international games. The Royal Giants’ residency – as the first all-Black team to play in Japan – took place years before the better-known visit of Babe Ruth and his All-Star-led team, who are credited with bringing baseball into the Japanese mainstream.

“The tour was put together by a Japanese businessman by the name of George Irie. He put that tour together, and they played some games in Hawaii, and then they made their way over to Japan,” Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, told City & State. “This team of Black players became early U.S. ambassadors. The Japanese players and fans absolutely adored them.”

The Royal Giants played a 24-game exhibition series in 1927, with a record of 23-0-1 across the Japanese tour. Kendrick said the tour was so successful that it led to Ruth’s All-Star team getting an invite to Japan years later, although the mutual respect among players wasn’t quite there for Ruth’s team.

Ruth’s team “made a mockery of the tour, and the Japanese felt very deflated, very disrespected. Ruth and his all-Americans were essentially doing what most people would have naturally assumed that the Black players would be doing: showboating,” Kendrick said, adding that the Black players “were not subjected to the same kind of racism that they were facing here in the states … the Negro Leaguers were very respectful to their Japanese counterparts.”

The Royal Giants’ traveling roster included several original Giants players, with era-fitting names: O’Neal Pullen, Frank Duncan, James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, Herbert “Rap” Dixon, and Andy Cooper. The team also played games in Korea, China and the Philippines.

“There were some tremendous players on that team, led by a couple of Hall of Famers (in Mackey and Cooper), and Riley “Biz” Mackey would teach a young Roy Campanella how to catch,” Kendrick said of their lasting impact. “If Campy were alive today, he'd tell you that the greatest defensive catcher this sport has ever seen was Riley “Biz” Mackey.”

And they didn’t stop there: the team went on another international tour years later before disbanding, playing another 46 games on its 1932-1933 Asian tour.

“It was that tour, and a subsequent tour by that same Philadelphia Royal Giants team, that was the spark that lit the flame that is now the fire for professional baseball in Japan,” Kendrick said. “It's such a tremendous indicator of just how impactful the Negro Leagues were in helping make our game the global game that it is today.”

Japan's Koshien Stadium plays host to a baseball game in the 1920s. | Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images

The Philadelphia Giants, who predated the Royal Giants, were a championship-winning team in the early 1900s. | National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Photo Archives

Andy Cooper was one of the Royal Giants players to participate in the team's tour of Japan. | National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Photo Archives

James Raleigh "Biz" Mackey was a history-making member of the Royal Giants. | National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Photo Archives

The Philadelphia Royal Giants pose with a banner and trophy. | Negro League Baseball Museum

A Japanese baseball card from the early 20th century illustrates the enduring popularity of the sport. | Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images

Duncan Frank was another member of the Royal Giants' traveling roster during its 1927 trip to Japan. | National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Photo Archives

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Addition by subtraction: Philly schools’ controversial closure plan has many ways to fail

Harrison Cann — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:18:47 -0400

Jessica Thompson can measure her family’s experience with the Laura Wheeler Waring School in numbers: Three children, a dozen years as a Waring parent, and nine years left until the last of her brood graduates from the School District of Philadelphia.

In March, the district added a new number for Thompson and other stakeholders to consider: 2031. That’s the year that Waring will become one of 17 of the district’s 249 schools to close as part of a $3 billion, 10-year plan to “right-size” operations through a thorough overhaul of its facilities across the city. The school’s student population will be absorbed by the Bache-Martin School, a roughly 10-minute walk away, while the school building itself will be renovated into the new home of the Masterman Middle School.

For Thompson, the news was “heartbreaking,” she recalled. “I just knew that my son, who was in the fifth grade, would be the last class graduating from Waring.” Yes, the district “had some open houses for parents to kind of come and express their concerns. But I felt like at that point, it was kind of counterproductive,” she added. “They had already finalized the decision. It was like a forum for us to complain about something that we couldn't change.”

For his part, SDP Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. has cited some numbers of his own: 70,000 empty seats and counting. The state’s largest school district currently educates just shy of 200,000 students, 20,000 fewer than a decade ago – and it does so in buildings that are largely aging and in need of repair.

Philadelphia is not alone in dealing with a shrinking student population: A recent article in the Washington Post noted that school closures nationwide have spiked by 35% over the past four years, driven by everything from the end of COVID-19 relief funding to declining birthrates, the federal immigration crackdown and a trend of parents opting out of public schools.

The School District of Philadelphia’s plan, which confronts a $300 million structural deficit, initially called for the elimination of 148 teaching jobs and 119 staff positions – layoffs that, in response to a widespread outcry, were reversed shortly afterward. The current plan includes badly needed upgrades to an additional 169 schools, many of which are housed in deteriorating buildings from the last century that fail to meet modern standards for safety, temperature control and student recreation.

Despite these rationales, educators and families are concerned by the short- and long-term implications of the plan for their home schools and communities – and struggling to understand why and how the changes are being implemented.

For Donna Perkins, who chairs the Friends of Waring – a 501(c)3 that supports the Waring School and runs its library – the inclusion of the 70-year-old institution on the closure list came as a blow.

“It was surprising, but not shocking,” she said. “There had been so much work happening on the building – upgrades for the electrical system, air conditioning units – and, particularly, the superintendent and his team had just visited us the week before (the announcement) … Lots of photo ops, lots of, ‘You're doing a great job here’ – all those nice things.

“We’re a small school, but you know, it’s an amazing staff,” Perkins added. “There's very little turnover with the teachers. Principal Amanda Strain is a great leader. So, yeah, I would say I was surprised.”

Retrenching redux

For many stakeholders, memories are still fresh of the district’s last major consolidation after the 2012-2013 school year, when two dozen schools were shut down and five others were relocated or merged. At the time, the district, facing a $300 million budget deficit, also laid off nearly 3,800 employees – including 676 teachers.

One of those teachers, Ashante Palmer, was hired back at Waring, where she has been for the past 11 years. Palmer, who teaches fourth grade – and who has taught all three of Thompson’s children – has reservations about how this latest retrenchment plan is going to work for her students and those at Masterman and Bache-Martin.

The district’s goal “is to move Masterman into our school – that's at least 700 Masterman students. Our building is only designed to hold about 420,” she explained. Palmer added that for families of the 900 children displaced from Waring and Morris Elementary, another school slated to close, details have been scarce around the proposed remodeling of Bache-Martin to accommodate a nearly 1,000-pupil expansion.

“This is going to lead to more crowded classrooms … The logistics and the data don't make sense about why we need to close,” she reflected. “My students are just as deserving of a home that they already have, instead of having to move to get that ‘better education.’”

Finances remain one of the biggest questions this time around, with stakeholders pointing out that funding for the district’s ambitious $3 billion overhaul remains uncertain. The district will allocate $1 billion of its capital budget over the next decade to begin the process of closures, mergers and renovations – but where the remaining $2 billion would come from is unclear.

The district says it has a 16-year, $1.85 billion backup plan that involves borrowing, rather than resorting to outside funding. But “there is no alternative plan,” SDP spokesperson Monique Braxton told Axios, contradicting the district’s own website.

Chief among the plan’s critics is Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, who argues that both the district’s decisions on school closures and how the process will work seem “arbitrary.” He observed that while the district has taken pains to emphasize community engagement this time around, that effort has been more superficial than substantive.

“Their public position on how they intended to engage people was much clearer (this year) than it was then,” Steinberg said. “They made no bones about not engaging the community last time, so the district put together what they claimed was a transparent process this time. It really was not … They will dazzle you with statistics and all kinds of meetings they had, but you have to dig down and see who attended and what they actually did with the input they got at those meetings.”

Palmer, for one, would like to see her union be more aggressive. “I feel like they've been a little quiet. I just wish that they would do more for these schools that are closing, especially because some schools were able to get off the list,” she said. “I want to hear more about how you're working with the district to get protections in place for us, or how to keep seniority if we do want to move. Are you putting other plans in place … that shows that these schools can stay open and they can still meet their goals? I would just like to hear more from them.”

When Friends of Waring took on the school's library, it had been closed for years. / Donna Perkins

Today, the fully stocked and staffed Waring School library is a hub of activity on a daily basis. / Donna Perkins

Ashante Palmer, center, poses with her fourth-grade class at the Waring School. / Ashante Palmer

Transition team

The point person in charge of easing anxieties this time around is Assistant Superintendent Shakeera Warthen-Canty, formerly assistant superintendent of school operations and management, who’s been tasked with leading the transition office’s implementation of the $3 billion plan.

“A large part of the transition office is to be able to be a place, a one-stop shop, for community members – from families to students to community partners to our staff members that have questions about the process – about different services or the impact to their particular school communities,” Warthen-Canty told City & State.

Warthen-Canty, along with four other employees, will coordinate with district departments to ensure that everything from student and teacher placement to facility and safety upgrades is done hand in hand with an individual school’s community.

She explained that her office will focus during the upcoming academic year on working with the individual schools that will be impacted, especially those affected beginning with the 2027-2028 year.

“We have a number of schools that, at the end of this 2026-2027 year, will close, and we have another handful that will begin a phaseout, so in this year we will be standing up committees in those schools in terms of making so that we are ready for school selection,” Warthen-Canty told City & State.

Much of the transition office’s work, Warthen-Canty said, will center on modernization projects that will address everything from handicapped accessibility to classroom upgrades. The district hopes those upgrades will bolster its academic momentum: According to Chalkbeat Philadelphia, in 2025, Philadelphia students’ average scores on state math tests reached their highest rate in nine years. However, only about one-quarter of students in grades 3 through 8 achieved proficient scores, well below the district’s goal of greater-than-50% math proficiency by August 2030.

“This is an investment in buildings, but it's also an investment in improving academic outcomes and opportunities for our students,” Warthen-Canty said. “How do we make sure that when we invest in school and we create this new facility, that we're also making sure that we're offering increased academic programming? … It's not just about the physical space; it's also about the experience and the opportunity that it provides for our students.”

For Palmer, the very setup of the transition office underscores the district’s lack of commitment to the process. “How are four staffers going to accommodate 17 school closures – and not just school closures, but buildings where they want to co-locate programs?” she asked. “How are you going to give them the treatment they deserve with such little staff?”

Facilities frenzy

The school closure saga and long-awaited facilities plan were months in the making.

The district arguably started off on the wrong foot with last spring’s contentious school board meetings, which included shouting matches between the district board and members of Philadelphia City Council, who have been frustrated by the district’s lack of transparency throughout the process.

Emotions ran so high that councilmembers, several of whom pushed back on closures within their respective councilmanic districts, disrupted the board meeting discussion of the facilities plan, prompting the board to hold a closed-door session, where it completed its initial vote via video call.

The school board ultimately approved the facilities master plan, which claims to prevent teacher job losses in the immediate future – a major sticking point for PFT and educators throughout the process.

The district and city officials agreed to hold off on 340 school-based position cuts through a one-time $48 million allocation from City Council. That deal, however, would not reverse the 220 substitute teacher cuts or the 130 central office position cuts the district adopted as part of its facilities plan.

District leaders say closing schools will allow them to bolster both academics and extracurricular opportunities in the schools that stay open.

They have promised that if the plan goes through, the district will be able to provide access to algebra for all eighth-graders, offer more pre-K options, expand career and technical education programs, and add Advanced Placement courses at neighborhood high schools. The plan, officials say, will also eliminate all buildings in poor condition and boost building utilization, which stands at 65% systemwide.

School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr., at the podium, has championed the district's plan. / City of Philadelphia

Payment plans

District leaders are keen to dispel concerns that any school, student or teacher will be left behind.

Warthen-Canty said that her office will be there to give everyone a voice – not only in transitions, but also on design elements for schools undergoing modernization. “These are very personal things for school communities,” Warthen-Canty added. “The reality is, we do have some neighborhoods that are over-enrolled, and we have some that are under-enrolled. But how can we get to a place where all of our students are in buildings that are rated as satisfactory, and all of our students are in buildings that can offer them various programs?”

With the current proposal, she said, “ultimately, students and staff and families will have a better facility that meets the needs of a growing population.”

Steinberg worries that key elements of the district’s plan could be put on hold if some or all of the yet-to-be-determined $2 billion in future funding does not materialize. If that happens, he said, all of the upheaval endured by those affected by an incomplete process would be for naught.

“My great anxiety and fear is that the schools are going to close, and they're phased in, so they're not going to close for a few years down the road,” Steinberg said. “And then all of a sudden, (the district is) going to come back and say, “‘Oh, we didn't get the money. We have to stop the plan. We have to stop the renovations … You'll have these schools closed, neighborhoods devastated – and you won't get the modernized schools, which is the carrot that’s being dangled in front of everybody. In my mind, it’s all a house of cards – the foundation is very shaky, and it could collapse at any point.”

Jessica Thompson, the Waring parent, is resigned to her school’s impending demise – and harbors little hope that the district will do what is best for the parents, educators and, most of all, students. “Can you ensure that they're going to be in another environment where the teachers are caring, where the students are actually learning and thriving – or are they just going to be thrown into another school and become numbers on a piece of paper?” she wondered.

“Because I never felt like that at Waring. If my kids miss school at Waring, the teachers are calling: ‘Hey, is everything okay? Is Caleb sick?’ They care. And I don't understand, especially in this climate, why you would want to take it from these kids.”

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