(Hopewell Twp.) Hopewell Elementary School Principal Korri  Kane  said  yesterday students in Hopewell, Independence and Margaret Ross Elementary Schools are celebrating  Read Across America Week with a variety of fun activities. Some even made themselves into the CAT  in the HAT,  Dr. Seuss  story.  She said many spent time  focusing on specific genres of children’s  books each day. The students listened to, read and discussed biographies, poetry,  humor, realistic fiction and mystery selections.  In the classrooms, activities also  included  visiting readers  from the district, creating book reports, various art projects, and google slides from their  favorite  books and authors.

Keystone State News Connection

March 4, 2021

Andrea Sears

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A new report showed raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $15 an hour would give workers an additional $6 billion and help the economy recover from the pandemic.

Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour this year, then an additional 50 cents an hour every year through 2027.

Claire Kovach, senior research analyst at Keystone Research Center and co-author of the report, said data from the Economic Policy Institute showed the increase would put the state on a path to creating a high-wage, high-productivity economy that helps all working Pennsylvanians.

“This proposal, if enacted in Pennsylvania, will lift many low-wage workers out of poverty and off of assistance programs, and even begin to reduce the racial pay disparities,” Kovach contended.

Critics claim many low-wage workers are teenagers working for pocket change, but the report shows more than 80% are older workers, including many essential workers.

Kovach noted the proposal would have the biggest impact on those who have been most affected by the pandemic, including retail, health care and restaurant workers.

“Three industries that have been really, really slammed by COVID-19 as the economic effects rippled through the economy,” Kovach asserted. “These are people who need this boost more than ever.”

While two-thirds of the workers who would get increases are white, 40% of Black and Hispanic workers would get higher wages.

Kovach pointed out the initial increase to $12 an hour in July would raise wages for 1.4 million Pennsylvanians, and up to 1.6 million by 2027 when it reaches $15 an hour.

“These are folks earning up to 115% of the new $15 minimum wage and expect to see their pay increase as pay scales shift,” Kovach explained.

She added the benefits would be accelerated if the Biden administration plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 gets through Congress.

Pennsylvania teachers, school staff to get 1-dose vaccine
By MARC LEVY Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — With growing emphasis on getting students back in schools, teachers and school staff will receive the first doses delivered to Pennsylvania of the newly approved one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That’s according to Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan being released Wednesday. State officials expect 94,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to arrive this week. Wolf’s office says giving the vaccine to teachers and other school staff will “help protect school communities and get more students back into classrooms.” The state is still in Phase 1A of its vaccine plan. That’s health care workers, people age 65 and over and younger people with high-risk medical conditions.

Pittsburgh, PA – PennDOT District 11 is announcing a lane restriction on southbound Interstate 79 in Robinson Township, Allegheny County will occur tonight, Wednesday night, March 3 weather permitting.

A lane restriction on southbound I-79 will occur from 11 p.m. Wednesday night through 5 a.m. Thursday morning between the Neville Island Bridge and the Moon Run (Exit 60B) interchange.  Crews from Armstrong Drilling will conduct the drilling operations.

Motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles, including color-coded winter conditions on 2,900 miles, by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information, and access to more than 1,000 traffic cameras.

511PA is also available through a smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following regional twitter alerts accessible on the 511PA website.

(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

The County Commissioners have opened up discussion on bringing back a juvenile detention center to Beaver County.

Commissioner Chairman Dan Camp spoke about sending an e-mail to the prison board in order to form a committee to try and get Beaver County its first operating juvenile detention center in over a decade.

“We spend over half a million dollars a year sending our Beaver County kids outside of the county,” Camp said. “We have space for a jail down here.”

The other two commissioners agreed very much with the idea, agreeing that the benefits would be more than monetary.

“We need to keep our kids in the county,” Commissioner Tony Amadio replied. “It was a big problem back in the day when we looking at doing this…I’m glad we’re doing this now.”

Beaver County’s last juvenile center, Allencrest, had closed in 2009 with the property rights sold in 2019.