HARRISBURG — Political spending has kicked into high gear in the final stretch of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court race. After an election cycle in which political contributions were consistently dominated by a single libertarian billionaire, a Democratic-aligned group has also begun pouring millions into the race. Facing off for a vacant seat on the court are Republican Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Carluccio and Democratic Superior Court Judge Daniel McCaffery.

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that elects judges in partisan contests, and these races have attracted big money in recent years as the court has handled weighty issues like election law and redistricting, and as abortion access has become a state issue.

In their expensive messaging to voters, Carluccio has attacked McCaffery over a decade-old scandal in which his brother, former state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, resigned after sending lewd emails from his government account. McCaffery’s campaign and his allies have portrayed Carluccio as an idealogue who opposes abortion rights and has cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

Carluccio, who reported bringing in about $3.4 million for the year in her September campaign report, raked in $2.7 million over the past five weeks in the form of donations and in-kind contributions from groups funding ads on her behalf. Most of her financial support throughout the campaign has come in the form of ads paid for by a political group tied to Pennsylvania’s richest man, Jeff Yass. This reporting period was no exception.

HARRISBURG — On a rainy June Thursday, Pennsylvania lawmakers gathered in Harrisburg as the governor signed off on a complete revamp of the law that regulates elections. One new rule the legislature had landed on: the need to have lanterns, or a proper substitute, in polling places. The year was 1937, when electric lights were only in roughly two of every three American homes, and power was just starting to make its way to rural Pennsylvania. Today, that rule is still on the books....

Examples like these abound in Pennsylvania’s 270-page Election Code, which governs when, where, and how elections are run in the state. While county directors carry out elections on the ground, state law sets the rules they must abide by. Many obsolete provisions, like the need for lanterns, are simply ignored these days. But some outdated sections aren’t as amusing.

A review of the Election Code by Spotlight PA and Votebeat found that numerous conflicts between sections have led to confusion and lawsuits, and fueled misinformation. The law also does not address key legal precedents or reflect how elections are run in 2023 with evolving technologies.

Going into the 2024 presidential election, old rules will likely remain on the books and important new precedents won’t, a product of the divided legislature failing to agree on even the most basic changes that have bipartisan support. As in years past, this could contribute to electoral chaos, disenfranchise some voters, and attract more costly lawsuits.

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.”