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Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano formally announced his intention to seek the GOP nomination for Governor of Pennsylvania on Saturday. The longtime Army Colonel spoke to a packed Gettysburg hotel auditorium of close to 2,000 supporters and received several high-profile endorsements over the course of the day. Mastriano, a first -term state senator representing Pennsylvania’s 33rd district, rose to national prominence after spearheading election integrity efforts in Pennsylvania. Mastriano was also a leading voice in opposition to Governor Tom Wolf’s draconian lockdown measures. On November 25, 2020, Mastriano was instrumental in organizing a hearing where numerous Pennsylvania election irregularities were...

The omicron variant and a heavy winter storm have temporarily reduced staffing in Philadelphia public schools, leading more than 40 to switch to remote learning starting Monday. At least 46 public schools in the Philadelphia School District will be "100%" remote from Jan. 10 to Jan. 14, the superintendent of Philadelphia's school district, William Hite, said in a statement released on Friday.

Doug Mastriano, the state senator from Franklin County who parlayed anger over coronavirus pandemic rules and no-holds-barred support for former President Donald J. Trump into an extended political moment, opened his candidacy for governor Pennsylvania Saturday. Mastriano, who practices his politics with a messianic zeal that has helped him develop a sizeable following over the last two years, joins a still-evolving Republican field. That field has grown so large that, depending on just how big Mastriano’s base turns out to be, he has to be considered a real factor in the May Republican primary. Pennsylvanians need to elect a successor...

---SNIP--- District Attorney Larry Krasner said Thursday that a detective in his office had been placed on restricted duty for making inflammatory remarks on social media but would not confirm the detective’s identity. “We take very seriously any post in which a law enforcement officer appears to be advocating violent crime,” Krasner said. “And we take very seriously any post in which a law enforcement officer appears to be giving the same talking points that are given by white supremacists.”

The specter of charter planes landing in the dead of night at Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport carrying unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors has become a campaign issue for the GOP. Republican Lou Barletta, a former mayor and congressman now running for governor in 2022, called out Democrats Gov. Tom Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro for their lack of action on the issue. Barletta, a longtime opponent of illegal immigration, told the Delaware Valley Journal he would bus illegal aliens to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware if the federal government continued to ship them to the Keystone State. And...

Most states have a summertime state fair but in Pennsylvania, the Farm Show, held each January, is the most important agriculture event of the year. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture bills the Farm Show as the largest indoor agricultural event held in the United States. The in-person event, held at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, was canceled in 2021 due to COVID-19 mitigation efforts, although the Department of Agriculture did offer a virtual Farm Show last year with videos from farms and cooking lessons. There was concern about the 2022 event happening when in late December, PennAg Industries, an...

Pennsylvania has become the latest location where flights filled with illegal immigrants are being flown under the cover of darkness, according to reports. At least five flights carrying the illegal immigrants landed at airports in Scranton and Allentown late last month from Texas, local outlet WFMZ reported. Former GOP Congressman Lou Barletta, who is running for Pennsylvania governor, claimed the flights were sent at night by the Biden administration. Barletta said one flight had landed at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown last Thursday. The others were directed to Scranton International Airport a week earlier. Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright denied...

Gov. Tom Wolf has often said he’s “not a politician.” But before a vote on a key climate policy last month, his administration reached for a classic piece of Harrisburg leverage — state funding for local projects — to get Democratic lawmakers in line. On the record, no Democratic lawmakers would acknowledge the tactic. But privately, lawmakers and lobbyists noted that the Democratic Wolf administration implied that gubernatorial sign-off for millions in state aid to lawmakers’ districts was contingent on backing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. The threat of withholding state funding is a bit of political hardball...

ROSTRAVER TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) – A man is accused of shooting a woman to death in an apparent road rage incident on his way to a bar on New Year’s Eve, police said. READ MORE: Rostraver Township Police, Westmoreland County District Attorney's Office Investigating Shooting Twenty-five-year-old Anthony Montel Hairston is facing charges of first-degree murder, two counts of possession of a firearm, and driving with a suspended license in Holly Vadella’s death. (Photo: Provided) Police said Vadella was driving on Rostraver Road on her way home from visiting her mother when Hairston was following closely behind her. Witnesses told police...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Two gunmen fired more than 65 rounds on a Philadelphia street, sending nighttime pedestrians on a busy block teeming with markets and restaurants scrambling for cover and injuring six people, at least one of them critically, police said Friday. Police responded around 11:30 p.m. Thursday in the Germantown neighborhood and found a 21-year-old woman shot multiple times in the abdomen and chest and lying near dozens of spent casings. Officers rushed her to the hospital, where she was in critical condition Friday. Five men ages 19 to 29 were taken with gunshot wounds by private vehicles to...

Penn State Health on Thursday advised people not to come to its emergency rooms for routine COVID-19 tests and non-emergency care, saying some people seeking tests might be turned away. However, Penn State Health said people experiencing severe symptoms such as difficulty breathing should come to the ER. It noted some people with no symptoms are coming to the emergency room wanting to be tested. It said people with no symptoms who come to the ER for tests related to travel or possible exposure might be turned away. “People seeking COVID-19 tests at the emergency department when they are not...

Lees couldn't confirm the siblings' vaccination status or whether they have been tested for COVID. "They were people that were sick," Lees said. "Whether or not they were tested I don't know, I can't determine that at this point in time." The siblings 68-year-old Ruth Kinsey was reportedly found dead on the kitchen floor and 70-year-old Richard Kinsey was found sitting on a chair in the living room. Meanwhile, 72-year-old Donald Kinsey was discovered in bed in a camper located on the property. Authorities became aware of the siblings' situation after they were asked to check on them, the AP...

Twelve major cities across the nation broke annual homicide records this year, following 2020’s already historically bloody year. "The community has to get fed up," Rochester Police Department Capt. Frank said at a news conference in November. "We're extremely frustrated. It has to stop. I mean, it's worse than a war zone around here lately."

In December, hundreds migrants landed at Pennsylvania’s Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport. After arriving, they were reportedly loaded on buses and sent to unknown locations. According to GOP lawmakers, the Biden administration did not make anyone aware of the transfers, leading some to classify them as “ghost flights.”

Republican gains among Hispanics in Reading mirror those in other parts of the country, but Democrats think they still have important advantages with this growing demographic!READING, Pa.—Joseph Nuñez at first didn’t like Donald Trump. “I couldn’t stand the guy. I didn’t like the way he spoke about Hispanics or people in general,” he said. But by 2020, Mr. Nuñez had become a fan of Mr. Trump’s style and priorities, and he voted in favor of giving the president a second term. So did many other Latino voters in this working-class city who had once backed Democrats or, like Mr. Nuñez,...

Questions arose Monday about which government agency organized charter flights filled with minors that landed at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport four times this month. Jim Gallagher, president of Aviation Technologies Inc., the airport’s fixed-base operator, said Sunday the flights were listed as “ICE flights” by private charter companies. “ICE” stands for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. However, ICE spokeswoman Mary Houtmann said Monday the agency did not organize flights that landed at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Dec. 11, 17 and 25. “These are not our flights,” Houtmann wrote in an email. The flights might have been organized by the Department of...

While numerous bills are proposed throughout the year, some bills move quickly to the floor for a vote while others never get out of committee. As the calendar turns to 2022, here are some new laws Pennsylvania legislators will be trying to pass in the coming year—a small sample of the many new laws recently proposed. Mandatory Handwriting Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Angel Cruz seeks to amend the Public School Code to require handwriting instruction in kindergarten through fifth grade. “My legislation will ensure that students can legibly print by third grade and write in cursive by the end of fifth...

READING, Pa.—Joseph Nuñez at first didn’t like Donald Trump. “I couldn’t stand the guy. I didn’t like the way he spoke about Hispanics or people in general,” he said. But by 2020, Mr. Nuñez had become a fan of Mr. Trump’s style and priorities, and he voted in favor of giving the president a second term. So did many other Latino voters in this working-class city who had once backed Democrats or, like Mr. Nuñez, had skipped elections altogether. Now, as political strategists continue to sift through the 2020 election results, the emergence of these newly Republican voters is setting...

The head of a national non-partisan organization focused on research and education about voting by mail will become the next person to run Pennsylvania’s Department of State. Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday announced Leigh M. Chapman, who currently serves as executive director of Deliver My Vote, will move into the spot on Jan. 8 that is now held by Acting Secretary Veronica Degraffenreid. Degraffenreid will become a special advisor to the governor. Chapman has some familiarity with the department, having worked as its policy director from 2015 to 2017 overseeing the implementation of electronic voter registration. She will serve the...

Approximately 2,200 people have been shot during 2021 in Mayor Jim Kenney’s (D) troubled Philadelphia. 6 ABC reports “nearly 1,800” people had been shot and wounded and another 473 had been shot and killed as of December 22, 2021. Overall, Philadelphia witnessed 547 homicides by December 22 as well.