Free Republic

One of Pennsylvania’s mitigation strategies for keeping students in schools is providing free COVID-19 testing to school districts, but the program has drawn a lackluster response. According to state Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam, nearly 400 schools of the state’s more than 3,000 public and private schools have enrolled in the program. As of last Thursday, nearly 27,800 school-age students had tested positive for the virus since Aug. 16. That, in turn, has prompted some schools to switch to virtual learning and cancel sporting events due to outbreaks. Despite that, state Education Secretary Noe Ortega said the school year os...

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania legislature unanimously voted Wednesday to extend dozens of regulatory waivers put into place last year to help health-care providers fight COVID-19. Without action, the waivers would have expired Thursday, potentially exacerbating ongoing staffing crises in hospitals and long-term care institutions, which are again facing rising COVID-19 cases. Health-care workers and their advocates had warned any lapse in the relaxed rules would have renewed administrative burdens and made fighting the ongoing pandemic more difficult. Wednesday’s action will keep the waivers in place until March 2022 while the legislature considers a number of bills that would make the...

Parents would be empowered to decide whether their child wears a face covering in school under legislation that moved out of the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill, sponsored by Republican Sens. Doug Mastriano of Franklin County and Judy Ward of Blair County, would allow for parents to opt their children out of a COVID-19-related public or private school mask order imposed by the state Secretary of Health or the local school board. Republican lawmakers have pushed the bill after Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration issued a mask order for schools which took effect earlier this month. The measure would...

Pennsylvania School administrators are trapped in the middle of the school mask debate and need better communication from the state Department of Health. That was the testimony Thursday during a hearing of the Senate Education Committee that explored the impact of the Department of Health’s order requiring masking of students and children at schools and daycare centers. “Have you ever tried to put a mask on a 2-year-old and have them wear it all day? How about 10-minutes without them touching it? Often times bodily fluids from their nose and mouth soak the mask and it ends up being a...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) on Tuesday made it clear he is inviting Afghan migrants to his state with open arms amid concerns of measles outbreaks and terrorist sympathizers being among them as others commit visa fraud. “Pennsylvania stands ready as a safe, welcoming place for those who seek refuge in the United States. To the Afghan evacuees who just arrived: Welcome home,” Wolf said, retweeting another grand welcome from the Keystone State’s official Twitter account, which declared in all caps that “ALL ARE WELCOME HERE”

Wolves from a game camera in Wisconsin, courtesy Dean Weingarten On 20 August 2021, the Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission voted to follow the intent of bill SB314, passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Greg Gianforte, on 30 April 2021. SB314 was passed with the goal of reducing the wolf population while maintaining a minimum of 15 breeding pairs or 300 wolves in Montana. The 15 breeding pairs or 300 wolves are mandated to keep the wolf in Montana from being re-listed as an endangered species by the Federal government.Re-listing would remove management of the wolf...

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Gov. Tom Wolf held a news conference Wednesday afternoon at Hancock Elementary School in the Norristown Area School District about getting back to school safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "Back to school is an exciting time as many of our teachers and students return to the classroom fulltime," said Gov. Wolf in a prepared statement. "Our goal this year is not just to start the year with kids in school, but to keep them in school all year long. Research shows that learning in a classroom is important, because many students learn better in a classroom. "But...

If he hadn’t already with most people, I think it’s safe to say that with his new mask mandate for kids in schools and day care, Gov. Tom Wolf has finally worn out his welcome as Pennsylvania’s chief executive with the state’s residents. He’s been in over his head for years, and the last 18 months have made that situation painfully clear to anyone with the willingness to look beyond partisan politics and the fear machine created by those who have crippled this state, this nation and the entire world because they, themselves, are afraid – irrationally afraid – of...

The Republican leader of the state Senate and a group of parents filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to overturn the Wolf administration’s new mask mandate for Pennsylvania schools. The governor’s spokesperson dismissed what she called the GOP’s “effort at undermining public health.” The suit, filed in Commonwealth Court, asserts that Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam failed to comply with state law when she ordered masks to be worn in all Pennsylvania public and private schools, as well as child care facilities. The masking order isn’t valid because it didn’t go through the state’s regulatory review process, the lawsuit said. It...

After a summer of angry school board debates over mandatory masking at schools, Gov. Tom Wolf stepped up and took the heat himself Tuesday, defending his administration’s new order - and the about-face it took to issue it - to make masking mandatory for all students and staff at all Pennsylvania schools effective Sept. 7. The order by Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam, Wolf said, comes in the face of a new wave of COVID-19 cases, driven by the Delta variant and a huge population of school children who aren’t even eligible for vaccinations yet. In Pennsylvania, the two-week...

<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Masks will be required in all Pennsylvania K-12 schools, Gov. Tom Wolf was set to announce Tuesday, reversing course amid a statewide COVID-19 resurgence that is filling hospital beds just as students return to class.</p><p>The Department of Health order will take effect Tuesday, Sept. 7 — the day after Labor Day — and will require students, teachers and staff to wear masks when inside, according to two people briefed on the plan. The people were not authorized to release details ahead of an official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.</p>

Republican legislative leaders are standing firm in their position that when it comes to mask mandates in K-12 classrooms and child-care centers, local officials are better positioned to make those calls. In a hand-delivered letter to Gov. Tom Wolf, Republican leaders of the GOP-controlled General Assembly on Thursday turned down the governor’s request for the Legislature to return to session immediately to pass a statewide mask mandate for students and young children in light of the surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. “We believe that the current approach - allowing local officials to manage and respond as needed - makes...

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf is calling on the Republican-led legislature to return to the Capitol immediately to pass legislation mandating the use of masks in K-12 classrooms and child-care centers throughout Pennsylvania. In a letter to legislative leaders in both chambers, the Democratic governor struck a note of urgency, noting that many public schools have already returned to the classroom — many without mask requirements — and that parents overwhelmingly support a statewide mask mandate in classrooms. Just 59 school districts out of the 474 that submitted health and safety plans to the Department of Education had implemented mandatory...

The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action is warning of more potential shortages of ammunition since the Joe Biden administration is banning the importation of Russian ammo. The organization confirmed word has come from Biden's Department of State that a ban on importation of Russian ammunition is looming. The federal department said, "New and pending permit applications for the permanent importation of firearms and ammunition manufactured or located in Russia will be subject to a policy of denial." The policy appears to prohibit the importation of both firearms and ammo, but those firearms already were heavily restricted, which means...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is reinstating a mask mandate for all state employees and contracted staff working under his jurisdiction regardless of their vaccination status, starting on Monday. State employees were notified on Friday about this change in policy that comes as cases of COVID-19 infections are on the rise. The number of new COVID-19 cases reached the highest one-day total since May on Thursday, registering 3,451 new infections. In a memo to employees, the administration cites the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation for everyone in areas with high or substantial transmission to wear a mask in...

On 11 August 2021, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board held a meeting that had, as one part of the agenda, the setting of a quota for the number of wolves to be harvested in the November 2021 hunt. The board took testimony from over 50 people. The meeting took over six hours. Link to youtube of Wisconsin Natural Resources Board Meeting on 11 August 2021.At about 5:43:00 Board member Greg Kazmierski gave the number of wolves killed in previous years, which he read from a “green sheet” presented by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to the Board. The numbers...

Love and Commandments: Francis Again Gets It WrongFrancis spoke at the August 11 General Audience about the Ten Commandments in order to relativise them,“May the Lord help us to journey along the path of the commandments but looking toward the love of Christ, with the encounter with Christ, knowing that the encounter with Jesus is more important than all of the commandments,” he said.This contraposition is wrong because loving Christ and observing his commandments is the same thing as Christ himself says in John 14,21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.”Francis is...

Pennsylvania state workers who are employed in health care facilities or other “high-risk” settings will be required to get vaccinated or be tested weekly for COVID-19, Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday. The move affects 25,000 state workers, the Wolf administration said. The requirement covers state employees working in 24-hour state facilities including state hospitals, state homes for people with intellectual disabilities, veterans homes, community health centers and state correction institutions. Those workers will need to be vaccinated by Sept. 7 or they will undergo weekly coronavirus tests. “It is our responsibility to do our part to protect our most vulnerable...

Responding to questions from state lawmakers, Pennsylvania Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said Friday there are no plans to implement a statewide masking requirement for students in schools. However, Beam stressed state officials are strongly recommending school districts decide on their own to have students wear masks in schools. Combined with vaccines and social distancing, Beam stressed masks can help reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19. The Senate Education Committee held a hearing in the state Capitol Friday afternoon on school policies, as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have risen in Pennsylvania and nationwide. The hearing again illustrated the tensions...

Bishop Schneider compares Pope Francis’ crushing of Latin Mass to a shepherd angrily beating his sheep with a stickTue Aug 3, 2021 - 2:20 pm EDTTue Aug 3, 2021 - 2:25 pm EDT (The Remnant) –In his first print interview since the release of Pope Francis’ new decree restricting the Traditional Latin Mass, Traditionis Custodes, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said the document “demeans” a thousand-year-old liturgy of the Roman Rite, commits an “injustice” against Catholics who adhere to it, and creates a “two-class society” in the Church.“The privileged first-class are those who adhere to the reformed liturgy,” Bishop Schneider asserts,...