The House Judiciary Committee has approved subpoenas for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full, unredacted Russia report. The committee voted to give Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler permission to issue subpoenas to the Justice Department for the final report, its exhibits and any underlying evidence or materials prepared for Mueller’s investigation. Nadler has not yet said if he’ll send the subpoenas.

Seaman Dakota Parson from New Castle recently talked to children at Community Boys and Girls Club of Wilmington about the construction of ‘Old Ironsides’ during Wilmington Navy Week. Wilmington is one of the selected cities to host a 2019 Navy Week, a week dedicated to raising U.S. Navy awareness through local outreach, community service and exhibitions.

At perhaps the longest work session of 2019, the County Commissioners had no shortage of topics and discussions to go through with each other.

First off, Commissioner Sandie Egley had good news in regards to the recent discovery that Aliquippa (since 2012) and South Heights (2006) had not submitted any building permits in several years:

Then Chairman Dan Camp, who recently went to Capitol Hill to speak on environmental issues, talked about the experience to his counterparts and those in attendance. Commissioner Egley had her reservations in regard to communication protocol, and this led to a contested dialogue among all three Commissioners. The full conversation:

 

Next, it was District Attorney David J. Lozier that spoke on behalf of the county in regard to cameras at traffic intersections used for crime solving; in particular, the cameras purchased and being used by New Sewickley Township police:

And Beaver County Humane Society sponsorship manager Mike Romigh came forth, announcing that the BCHS was presenting the County with a $10,000 check through the Roethlisberger Foundation for new K9 services:  

The Commissioners’ next work session is on April 10 at 10:00 AM.

Pennsylvania lawmakers, criminal justice reform advocates and rapper Meek Mill are pushing for changes to state and county probation rules, House Democratic Whip Jordan Harris on Tuesday announced he will soon introduce a bill designed to result in fewer people on probation and for shorter periods of time. Harris and Mill spoke at an event in Philadelphia to promote a change in state law that Harris is pursuing in the Legislature.

Democrats are claiming victory in a special election for a vacant state Senate seat in politically divided suburban Pittsburgh where the sides tested some national themes ahead of 2020’s presidential election. Tuesday’s contested pits Republican D. Raja against Democrat Pam Iovino for a seat largely controlled by Republicans the past half-century, but the district is viewed as increasingly friendly to Democrats. Iovino claimed victory shortly before 10 p.m.

A road in New Sewickley Township remains closed this noon, more than 15 hours after a tractor-trailer crashed Tuesday afternoon. The crash was reported just before 4 p.m. Tuesday on Freedom Crider Road, a 4-mile stretch of which was closed at one time. The closure is in place between Route 989 and Crows Run Road. Officials said the closure was needed after a tractor-trailer crashed off the road, taking out part of the guide rail and sliding down a hillside. No one was injured in the crash. Officials say the road will likely not reopen until later today, once crews from PennDOT can assess the situation.

US resorts to expanded ‘catch and release’ as migrants surge
By CEDAR ATTANASIO and ASTRID GALVAN Associated Press
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The surge of migrants arriving at the southern border has led the Trump administration to dramatically expand a practice President Donald Trump has long mocked as “catch and release.”
With immigrant processing and holding centers overwhelmed, the administration is busing people hundreds of miles inland and releasing them at Greyhound stations and churches in cities like Albuquerque, San Antonio and Phoenix because towns close to the border already have more than they can handle.
Relief organizations in some cities are struggling to feed and house the migrants and warning that a public health crisis is taking shape.
“We’re asking volunteer doctors and nurses and community members to step up and do what the government should be doing. If this was a hurricane, FEMA would be on the ground helping,” said Jim Gannon, CEO and executive director of Catholic Charities in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
For many years, families seeking asylum in the United States were typically released from U.S. custody immediately and allowed to settle in this country with family or friends while their cases wound their way through the courts, a process that often takes years.
Trump has railed against the practice, tweeting in November that it was over: “Catch and Release is an obsolete term. It is now Catch and Detain. Illegal Immigrants trying to come into the U.S.A., often proudly flying the flag of their nation as they ask for U.S. Asylum, will be detained or turned away.”
But in recent months, the number of families crossing into the U.S. has climbed to record highs, pushing the system to the breaking point. As a result, the government is releasing families faster, in greater numbers and at points farther removed from the border.
Since Dec. 21, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has set free about 108,500 people who came into the U.S. as families. On some days, more than 1,000 people were released in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley alone.
Customs and Border Protection is also overloaded, and instead of holding families for up to 72 hours before turning them over to ICE, it has started releasing them directly into the U.S.
“The numbers are overwhelming right now,” said Gregory Archambault, ICE director of enforcement and removal operations in San Diego. “Everybody is stressed. The agency is stressed, the (local governments) are stressed, the law enforcement agencies. Everybody is stressed because there are these mass numbers of people.”
ICE has been releasing asylum-seeking families so quickly that they don’t even have time to make travel arrangements. Families are given court dates, a head of household is often fitted with an ankle monitor, and they are dropped off at a charity-run shelter or bus station.
San Antonio received part of that surge in recent days, forcing the city to open a help center with food for migrants.
In El Paso, where shelters and churches are at capacity and seats on buses headed out of the city are getting harder to find, authorities briefly resorted to holding migrants in a pen lined with concertina wire under the shade of a bridge that connects the American city to Juarez, Mexico. They closed the makeshift holding area over the weekend and moved the migrants to a place with more shelter.
“We spent four days under the bridge, sleeping on the rocks,” said Eliseo Santiago, 37, who is from Guatemala.
“They treated us like animals,” said Herling Jerlyn, a teenager from Guatemala.
In Albuquerque, nearly 280 miles from the border, faith-based organizations have helped roughly 1,000 migrants since mid-February. The groups were small at first, but they have been growing and the arrivals have become more frequent.
San Diego County recently opened a shuttered downtown courthouse slated for demolition to house up to 150 asylum seekers. A coalition of religious and civic groups that manages the shelter said it has helped more than 11,000 members of asylum-seeking families since authorities began large-scale releases in late October.
About 18,500 immigrants have been released in Arizona in the past three months. In the Phoenix area, the nonprofit organizations and churches taking them in have a capacity of only 700 a week, said Connie Phillips, president and CEO of Lutheran Social Services in the Southwest.
That means immigration authorities have to drop off families by the busload at places not designed to take them in, like the Greyhound station in Phoenix.
The bus company is no longer allowing anyone without a ticket to wait inside, so immigrant families, including little children, stand outside until a volunteer can get them in touch with a relative to buy them a ticket. That sometimes takes hours.
“The federal government is saying, ‘This is not our responsibility,'” Phillips said. “And the cities and states have not stepped up to provide any kind of emergency funding.”
She added: “This is going to be a public health disaster. These are small children, these are families, these are babies, and we cannot have people just out in the heat.”
Authorities said family arrivals along the U.S.-Mexico border reached an all-time high in February of 45,827 arrests or denials of entry.
“We didn’t have family groups for years and years, like we have now,” ICE’s Archambault said. “Our facilities are not made for this. We have diapers and baby formula and all this stuff, like a nursery.”
In another sign of how U.S. authorities are being tested as rarely before, figures released Tuesday show a significant drop in prosecutions for illegal entry, even as arrests have climbed sharply. The numbers are at odds with Trump’s vow to prosecute everyone who enters the country illegally.
In February, Customs and Border Protection referred 8,998 illegal-entry cases to prosecutors along the border, a drop of 12% from January and 23% from October, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Border Patrol arrests of single adults are moving in the opposite direction: 23,451 in February, up 26% from January and 7% from October.
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Galvan reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Nomaan Merchant in Houston; Colleen Long in Washington; and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this story.

Polls are open in a special election for a vacant state Senate seat in politically divided suburban Pittsburgh where the sides are testing some national themes ahead of 2020’s presidential election. Tuesday’s contest pits Republican D. Raja against Democrat Pam Iovino for a seat largely controlled by Republicans the past half-century, but the district is viewed as increasingly friendly to Democrats. On Monday, Republicans issued a robocall by Donald Trump Jr., urging listeners to vote for Raja.

The Pittsburgh City Council has given final approval to gun restrictions proposed after last year’s synagogue massacre. The legislation places restrictions on military-style assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle that authorities say was used in the rampage at Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 and wounded seven. It also restricts armor-piercing ammunition and high-capacity magazines. Pro-gun advocates say they’ll sue to block the laws from taking effect.

Nancy Pelosi says Joe Biden should keep his distance from women as his team scrambles to contain any political damage over his past behavior. The Democratic House speaker said Tuesday at a Politico event in Washington that the former vice president should keep handshakes at arms’ length and stop being touchy-feely while he considers running for president. Biden has been accused of kissing the back of one woman’s head and rubbing noses with another but says he never meant to cause any discomfort.