Free Republic

Former President Donald Trump (R) leads over President Joe Biden (D) by 4 percentage points – 49% to 45% ...

Rutgers University is awarding an honorary degree to the nation’s first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Admiral Rachel L. Levine has led the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps since 2021 and is the assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Levine will receive an honorary doctor of science degree Sunday during the Rutgers-New Brunswick and Rutgers Health commencement at SHI Stadium, the university said Monday. Levine served as Pennsylvania’s physician general and as state Secretary of the Department of Health, before being nominated by President Biden to her current...

Authorities claim there's no need for sentencing hearing, bail option.. A state legal action in Pennsylvania is sparking outrage .. for the result it demanded: Two farmers arrested and jailed on 30-day sentences with no sentencing hearing and no option for bail. ... Their lawyer, Robert Barnes, charges, "This is the craziest thing I've every seen." ... This is an unlawful civil contempt order. There are certain procedures that must be followed in a civil contempt action and to our knowledge those were not followed here. Even if they had been followed, the maximum allowable punishment is 15 days in...

US regulators have seized Republic First Bancorp and agreed to sell it to Fulton Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday, underscoring the challenges facing regional banks a year after the collapse of three peers. The Philadelphia-based bank, which had abandoned funding talks with a group of investors, was seized by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The FDIC, appointed as a receiver, said Fulton Bank, a unit of Fulton Financial, will assume substantially all deposits and purchase all the assets of Republic Bank to “protect depositors.” Republic Bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4...

Donald Trump suffered a blow in the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday, as tens of thousands of Republicans refused to vote for him despite being the presumptive GOP nominee...Nikki Haley, who ended her campaign for the White House after Super Tuesday in March, still received 16.5 percent of the vote, equating to more than 155,000 ballots.

GO VOTE!

Absolutely the slowest election so far I have worked.. worked every election for last 10 years. My borough is consistently among the highest in turnout in our county in terms of percentage of eligible voters who vote. Not overly surprising there really isn’t anything major contested on either parties ballot to draw voters.

A drag queen story hour event that was moved from a library venue to a theologically progressive church in Pennsylvania has been canceled. Vision of Hope Metropolitan Community Church of Mountville planned to host a drag queen performer known as Miss Amie for a gathering described as a “tea party” on April 27. However, the church announced Monday morning that the event is canceled, citing “unforeseen circumstances and news media publishing content without fact checking." Get Our Latest News for FREE An earlier social media post from the church stated that the decision to cancel the story hour ultimately came...

A Beaver County woman shot and killed a man who broke into her home, police said.

A recently retired schoolteacher is suing his Pennsylvania borough over a local ordinance after he was found guilty of putting a "for sale" sign on his legally parked car. "We put you in office as judges and state representatives to protect our rights," Will Cramer told Fox News Digital. "And when we see things like giving people tickets for putting a for-sale sign in their car – violating our First Amendment right – it's sad."

Speaking outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Donald Trump left everyone confused when he attempted to explain the Battle of Gettysburg, praised (and invented a quote from) Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and generally had no idea what he was talking about. When his off-the-cuff remarks hit late-night television on Monday, the hosts couldn’t hide their laughter. . . .

Multiple people were shot during a Ramadan event in Philadelphia on Wednesday (April 10) afternoon. Police arrested numerous people and recovered several guns at the scene. At least one police officer fired their weapon. Officials have not said how many people were injured in the shooting. According to WPVI, hundreds of people were gathering to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when shots rang out. The area was littered with chairs and tables that were left abandoned as people fled the area.

---SNIP--- Every day, SEPTA employees see criminal acts, fare evasion, people experiencing mental illness, homelessness, or drug addiction. The union I lead, Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents 5,000 SEPTA workers, has been sounding the alarm that unless conditions improve, the very survival of the public transit system is at stake. In response, we have been asked by image-conscious SEPTA managers and other public officials to tone things down and not draw too much attention to the transit agency’s challenges.

(The Center Square) — Pennsylvania’s energy future hangs in the balance amid a federal pause on liquified natural gas production, leaving taxpayers on the hook for more costly and less reliable power. At least, so say the critics of President Joe Biden’s decision to temporarily block LNG exports – which they say has a particularly devastating impact in the commonwealth. “We have to put our natural gas to work,” Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades said during a House Republican Policy Committee hearing on Monday. If Pennsylvania doesn’t do the work, he argued, that other...

John Sabo and Josh Thieler grew up in Pittsburgh-area communities that were hit hard as 200,000 steel and manufacturing jobs disappeared from the region, upending their parents’ generation and leaving main streets pocked with empty storefronts. Sabo, the son and grandson of mill workers, says his father rarely found steady work after losing his job in a U.S. Steel mill, leaving Sabo to “know what government cheese tastes like.” Thieler spent part of his childhood in a trailer park in a small city that shed nearly half its population as families hunted elsewhere for work. Today, both men have good...

Some residents say the new regulation makes them feel safer, while others say it compromises their survival.For Leem Washington, ski masks aren’t just a fashion accessory that protects his face from the biting cold of Philadelphia winters — they also keep him from being a victim of mistaken identity. “In Philly, you have to pick your poison,” said Washington, 19, noting that growing up in West Philadelphia, one of the most crime-plagued parts of the city, has left him in a constant state of “paranoia.” Ski masks, he said, are a form of protection from being wrongly identified for a...

For the past two years, my wife and I have spent a few winter weeks on Florida’s Sanibel Island, an amazing place — except for last year. Last year, Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc on the island, destroying the Sanibel Causeway, a critical bridge that connects the island’s residents and businesses to the mainland. It was truly a disaster. But Florida’s governor (and now presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis stepped up. Realizing the importance of this road to the local economy, he marshalled both federal and state resources and oversaw a temporary reconstruction of the bridge that had it back up in...

The Patriot-News, after intense coverage of the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Londonderry Twp., Dauphin County, printed a special section on April 16, 1979, called “The Agony of the Atom.” That section included this chronology, detailing the days around the country’s worst nuclear power plant accident, 45 years ago now. Three Mile Island, March 28, 1979. (Allied Pix archive photo) WEDNESDAY, March 28 3:53 a.m. – A malfunctioning valve causes the shutdown of two pumps in the secondary feedwater system, a separate unit that cools the water circulating through the reactor core, and triggers a...

Officials in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recently codified into law city policies that have been in effect since 2019 limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The all-Democrat Lancaster City Council unanimously passed an ordinance last month preventing local police and any city official from inquiring about a person’s immigration status unless it's required by state or federal law or by court order, or reasonably necessary in the course of a criminal investigation. It also prohibits them from providing any information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that could result in civil or noncriminal immigration enforcement actions. Such “sanctuary” policies have been at...

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — A German man is charged with having sex with a minor in Lancaster County. Police said Erik Weidling, 20, traveled to East Donegal Township from Germany to have sex with a 15-year-old girl multiple times between Feb. 29 and March 8. A criminal complaint alleges that Weidling knew the girl's age. Police said he was aware of her school schedule and her mother's work schedule, and he would come to the victim's home after her mother went to work. Weidling is facing charges that include involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault and unlawful contact with...