Free Republic

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An order by Pennsylvania's acting health secretary that requires masks inside K-12 schools and child care facilities was thrown out Wednesday by a state court that said she lacked the authority.

Pennsylvania’s requirement that teachers and school students and staff must wear masks to guard against COVID-19 is invalid because the official who issued it lacked authority to do so, a sharply divided Commonwealth Court ruled Wednesday. Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam issued that order in August and it has been in force since Sept. 7, causing considerable discord among parents who oppose or favor the measure. Yet Beam had no legal standing to issue such and edict because Gov. Tom Wolf did not have a disaster emergency proclamation in effect that would make the measure enforceable, Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon...

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday revealed his wife, First Lady Frances Wolf, dropped his mail ballot off for him, a violation of Pennsylvania election law. State law currently prohibits, in most cases, anyone other than the voter from returning a mail ballot, an act punishable by up to one year in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. On the “KDKA Radio Morning Show,” host Kevin Battle asked Wolf if he visited the polls to vote in person during Tuesday’s municipal election. “I didn’t show up in person at the polls. We voted a couple weeks...

In 1967, as part of a government reorganization, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board was formed from two previous boards, to oversee the Department of Natural Resources. The board governs the Department of Natural Resources. It is part of a long history of Citizen controlled boards in Wisconsin. The board members are not paid. The governor appoints board members. The state senate confirms their appointment. There are seven members, who serve six-year staggered terms. There has never before been a dispute about who controls the Department of Natural Resources, and who makes policy. This is confirmed by the Department of Natural...

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration’s COVID-19 vaccine incentive program launched on Monday has drawn mixed reactions across state government. While the 72,000 commonwealth employees who work under the governor’s jurisdiction now eligible for up to five paid days off or a lump sum equivalent if they get vaccinated by Dec. 31, many government workers who work outside those agencies will not be given the same enticement to get their shots. Neither the Senate chamber nor the House Republicans plan to offer anything similar at this time, spokesmen said. A spokeswoman for the Office of Attorney General said her agency doesn’t plan...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge has granted a request from wildlife advocacy groups and blocked Wisconsin’s fall wolf hunt two weeks before hunters were set to take to the woods. Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost issued a temporary injunction Friday halting the season, which was set to begin Nov. 6. The order comes as part of a lawsuit wildlife advocacy groups filed in August seeking to stop the hunt and invalidate a state law authorizing annual seasons. The groups sued after the Department of Natural Resources board brushed aside calls to cancel the fall season after hunters exceeded...

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration has announced the creation of a $5 million grant program designed to spur COVID-19 vaccination in underserved communities. Wolf announced the new COVID-19 Vaccine Outreach Grant Program at an event in Philadelphia Friday afternoon. The program will provide grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 for outreach efforts. The money can be used for community-based vaccination events, supplies, equipment to set up vaccine appointments, training materials and media buys, the Wolf administration said. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania reached a milestone with 70% of the state’s adults being fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But the governor and state lawmakers...

Conservation groups have expressed outrage after the US Department of Agriculture revealed it killed eight young wolves in an Idaho forest. The Timberline wolf pack - unofficially "adopted" by students at Boise's Timberline High School over the past 18 years - appears to have been among the targets. Their den, on public lands in Boise National Forest, was found empty this spring. An official from the Agriculture Department confirmed federal agents had killed the animals in order to force the adult wolves to relocate.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Schools across Pennsylvania are still dealing with the low rate of vaccinations for young children, which has increased the need for masks in the classroom. According to Gov. Tom Wolf, getting vaccine shots into the arms of school-aged children remains a roadblock in lifting the mask mandate in schools across Pennsylvania. "I think the key is not so much the date as when the vaccine becomes available to all school children and how fast we can get them vaccinated," Wolf said. The governor's mask mandate went into effect in early September. However, Wolf said he initially planned...

Amid some encouraging news that Pennsylvania’s rate of new COVID-19 cases appears to be leveling off, Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday once again drew attention to persistent COVID-19 related health disparities among minority communities. Wolf used the backdrop of one of the region’s largest providers of health care to impoverished communities to once again urge ethnic and racial minorities to get vaccinated. “This is a sales pitch,” said Wolf during a press conference held at the Hamilton Health Center in Harrisburg. The center provides care for more than 20,000 underserved central Pennsylvania residents, the majority of them Black or Latino....

School administrators have faced hostility from some parents and residents after Pennsylvania’s mask order for schools took effect last month. This week, the Pennsylvania Principals Association released a survey indicating the intense backlash they are encountering from parents who oppose the statewide mask order. The survey found 44% of the principals who responded said they were threatened “by a parent, student, or community member as a result of the mask mandate.” The survey included responses from 449 members. Dr. Eric Eshbach, executive director of the Pennsylvania Principals Association, said some of the threats didn’t necessarily indicate violence. Some parents have...

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...