Unionized Allegheny General Hospital nurses are scheduled to vote Nov. 2 on whether to continue negotiations for a new labor agreement or issue a 10-day notice of a walkout.

The vote turns up the heat on contract talks for some 1,200 registered nurses who are members of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania. A 3-year contract for the nurses expired Oct. 13 and the nurses on Oct. 18 authorized their bargaining committee to call a strike as talks continued.

A strike would be a first at the Allegheny Health Network hospital, the flagship institution in a 14-hospital system. The vote will follow multiple labor rallies in Pittsburgh since June that have drawn wide support from Democratic elected officials, from Mayor Ed Gainey to members of the state General Assembly. Whether the union can turn that support into contract gains — which include a demand for a 31% increase in the starting wage for new nurses to $40 an hour — isn’t known.

The challenge for AHN corporate parent Highmark Inc. will be to restrain rising costs at a time of flat reimbursement from government and other health insurers, while attracting and retaining talent when there are not enough nurses in the job market to fill openings. Virtually every hospital in the U.S., including those in AHN, has had to use high-cost temporary staffing nurses to fill shifts.

A Colorado state judge has denied a motion by lawyers representing former President Donald Trump that aimed to dismiss a lawsuit from voters in the state seeking to disqualify Trump from being included on the 2024 presidential ballot.

Those voters, who are being represented by the nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), assert that Trump is ineligible to run for president again under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That provision bars any person who has “previously taken an oath” to the Constitution and served in a government position from being able to run for or serve in a government post again if they’ve “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. government or gave “aid or comfort” to those who have.

Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election after his loss to Joe Biden — and his role in inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building by a mob of his loyalists — means that he engaged in, or at least aided, an attempted insurrection. But the former president’s lawyers asserted that only Congress can make that determination, rather than state courts.

That interpretation contradicts the historical application of the constitutional provision, however, and Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace rejected it outright in an order she issued on Wednesday, marking the fifth unsuccessful attempt by Trump to have the case tossed.

For better or worse, Philadelphians, get ready for more tourists at your favorite restaurants, historic sites, and tailgates because the City of Brotherly Love was just named one of the Top 10 must-visit cities worldwide.

Lonely Planet, an industry-leading travel guidebook publisher, listed Philadelphia in fifth place for the best global cities to travel to next year, making it the top-ranked U.S. city on the travel guide’s list. The annual Best in Travel guide is an annual look at countries, regions, and cities across the globe that are must-visit cities based on relevancy, uniqueness, and the “wow” factor that makes them unmissable, said Lonely Planet’s executive editor, Nitya Chambers.

“Philadelphia is the perfect blend of old school and modern metropolis, a city marked by rich history but with an ever-evolving cultural core,” Chambers said. “We were excited by the balance of old and new — museums, history, food, and iconic cultural references — that make it the kind of place that feels instantly familiar but embedded with unique and personal moments of discovery.”

The travel guide relies on the expertise of on-the-ground local contributors who discover, evaluate, and craft suggestions for Lonely Planet, who then nominate must-visit cities reviewed by a panel of travel experts. Out of hundreds of nominations, Philly made it high on the list.

After more than a year of speculation, the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub [Arch2] finally lifted the cloak and named names. The mammoth consortium that has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for up to $925 million in funding to establish a hub for methane-derived hydrogen production and use includes 15 projects and more than a dozen companies.

Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience division manager at Battelle and a former DOE assistant secretary, said he has never been involved in anything this big. What some have derided as a lack of transparency has been a mad-dash, super-competitive process that’s still not over, he said. Negotiations with DOE are slated to last the next few months until the award is secured.

Still, “the cloak of competition has been removed,” said Melanie White, director of strategic engagement with Allegheny Science and Technology who is leading community engagement efforts for the hub. Ms. White and Mr. Bennett unveiled the projects at a DOE-run public webinar.

The map they presented on Tuesday was different from the one Mr. Bennett showed during a presentation at an oil and gas industry conference, Shale Insight, last month. Most notably, it included the names of the companies and which projects they were developing. It also slimmed down its Pennsylvania inventory.

WASHINGTON — Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson led the unsuccessful effort to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election results that gave the state’s 20 electoral votes to Joe Biden.

Mr. Johnson, R-La., won the speakership on Wednesday, 220-209, following three weeks of deadlock after Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was deposed by a handful of conservative Republicans. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota all failed to get the 217 votes needed to become speaker.

Mr. Johnson led the effort, joined by 126 other House Republicans, to file a brief supporting the lawsuit brought by the state of Texas against Pennsylvania and other battleground states whose voters backed Mr. Biden over then-President Donald Trump. The suit alleged that the election results were fraudulent and said the Supreme Court should throw them out. But no evidence ever was produced to support those allegations, and the high court and dozens of lower courts dismissed numerous lawsuits based on false fraud claims.

“Proud to lead over 100 of my colleagues in filing an amicus brief to express our concern with the integrity of the 2020 election — & and our election system in the future,” Mr. Johnson tweeted in December 2020. “We believe this suit filed by Texas, supported by 17 other states, merits full & careful consideration by SCOTUS.”

Pay down debt and build up savings. That is sound and seemingly straightforward advice for people who want to become homeowners. But it’s easier said than done as homeownership becomes less affordable and paychecks stretch thinner as prices everywhere rise.

A new pilot program aims to help Philadelphians become homeowners by removing or reducing common barriers to home ownership. The Revitalizing Neighborhoods and Increasing Homeownership program, which the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency announced last week, offers home buyer education, forgivable loans of up to 5% of a home’s sales price, and grants of up to $25,000 for down payments and closing costs.

Other home buyer assistance programs also offer help with up-front purchase costs. But in this program, home buyers can use excess funds from the grant to help pay their student loans, which can be huge barriers to financial stability and keep households from being able to afford to buy a home. And through this program, people who don’t have credit scores can show nontraditional sources of credit, such as a history of rent payments, to get approved for mortgages.

Buyers in the program also don’t have to pay mortgage insurance, which can help them save hundreds of dollars every month. Abraham Reyes Pardo, vice president of the nonprofit Urban League of Philadelphia’s office of housing and diversion services, said that despite the high costs of homes and elevated mortgage interest rates, he talks to people every day who are trying to become homeowners.

“The No. 1 item that is preventing some of these folks from getting to the finish line is down payment and closing cost assistance,” Reyes Pardo said. Many households don’t even consider the possibility that they could own a home, he said.

It seems that Mark Meadows — that poster boy for the entitled male dipshit — has been spilling his guts to The Guy Who Convicts War Criminals In The Hague.

Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Marky Meds, you’ll recall, was one of the chief shit-stirrers in the whole Help Help My Election Was Stolen conspiracy, telling anyone who would listen all about how eLeCtIoN fRaUd wAs RaMpAnT and he had proof and it was all going to come out and that Donald Trump would be restored to the throne back in the White House.

he wrote a whole fucking book about it. well, it looks like Meadows is singing an entirely different tune to the grand jury.

Jack Smith was all “so tell me about what it says in this book of yours” and Meadows was like “hey bro, what book? I told Trump like a million times that there was no election fraud. I said right to his face, man. literally one million times. if Trump thought the election was stolen, he sure didn’t get it from me.”

“as an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously, and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings. in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, I believed that challenging the results on behalf of President Trump should be pursued in a just and legal way. I endeavored to represent my client to the best of my ability.

“I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience to provide me with true and reliable information, especially since my role involved speaking to the media and to legislators in various states. what I did not do but should have done, your honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true, were in fact true. in the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges to the election in several states — including Georgia — I failed to do my due diligence. I believe in and I value election integrity.

“if I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to defend Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse. for those failures of mine, your honor, I have taken responsibility already, before the Colorado Bar, who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia. thank you.”

got that? Jenna is blaming her woes on “lawyers with many more years of experience.” here’s a hint as to whom she’s talking about: his name rhymes with ‘Rudy Giuliani.’ but instead of getting sound legal advice, she got farted on.

IF YOU ASK advocates for abortion rights where the most critical elections will be this November, they’re likely to name four states: Ohio, the site of a high-stakes referendum; Virginia, the last state in the South where abortion remains widely accessible (and where the governor has promised to “gleefully” ban the practice if his party gains control of the legislature); Kentucky, where the most outspoken advocate of the state’s near-total abortion ban is running against a pro-choice Democrat; and Pennsylvania, where a key seat on the Supreme Court is on the line.

One major Republican donor is pouring millions into groups funding the anti-abortion candidates in three of those contests: Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. He is also one of the largest personal shareholders in the viral social media network, TikTok.

According to a widely circulated origin story, Jeff Yass’ investing career started with a poker game in a SUNY-Binghamton dorm room. Yass went on to found the options trading firm Susquehanna Investment Group, and is now worth a cool $28 billion. One of Susquehanna’s richest bets was purchasing a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in 2012; according to the Wall Street Journal, Yass’ personal stake in the company is about seven percent.

A longtime member of the advisory board at the Cato Institute and a top donor to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Yass, 67, self-identifies as a libertarian — a political philosophy that would seem to be at odds with the desire to increase government control of women’s health care decisions.

Little Donny Fuckface is — and I’m going to use a very precise legal term here — super fucking fucked. Donald Trump’s very bad week got a lot worse yesterday morning, as the writers threw in a plot twist that no one saw coming: Sidney Powell decided that she absolutely did not want to go to prison for Trump, and pleaded guilty for her part in the Big Georgia Election Fuckery Conspiracy.

Sid was sentenced to six years’ probation and agreed to pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution. Powell was looking at 5 to 20 long and lonely years in the slammer. that she got probation and a few thousand in fines instead is extremely bad news for Donny. here’s why: she also agreed to turn over documents and testify truthfully in her co-defendants’ trials.

and oh fucking boy, does Sidney ever have all the goods on Donald Trump. she was right there in the Oval Office for all the secret meetings where all the cockamamie ideas for breaking into voting machines and stealing the data were cooked up. Fani Willis is nobody’s fool. you know that she yours-in-serviced the fuck out of Powell until she was satisfied that Sid could deliver every bit of incriminating evidence on Trump — and that’s why Powell got such a sweetheart deal.

Sidney’s going to get up on the witness stand and sing like a bird against Donald Trump — because if she doesn’t, per the terms of her guilty plea, she goes right back to looking at that 5-to-20 prison stretch. everything is going badly for Donald Trump right now, and there’s no good news on the horizon. every one one of his trials is pointing to a big fucking guilty verdict. if I were Donny, right now I’d be screaming at the butler and the pool boy to google for “countries with no extradition treaties.”