Earlier today, Governor Tom Wolf outlined his budget proposal for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Senator Jay Costa is gave his take in a press release by his office this afternoon.

“I was very pleased with the Governor’s budget address. I believe it continues to capture what is important to the people of Pennsylvania by making investments in education, not only from pre-k but now from 0-3 year olds all the way up to the higher ed community and beyond. That’s important to us and that’s important to the people of Pennsylvania.”

“Quite frankly it’s unconscionable that Pennsylvania is the only state in the Northeast that has not raised its minimum wage. Our last increase was in 2006. At $7.25 it is unconscionable”
Click on the play button below to hear Senator Costa’s remarks…….

ABC’s ‘Modern Family’ to end next year after 11 seasons
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — ABC’s “Modern Family,” the five-time Emmy Award winner for best comedy, will end its run next year after 11 seasons.
ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke announced the end of the series about the boisterous extended family on Tuesday. It will finish three seasons short of the longest-running sitcom ever, “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.”
The series produced by Christopher Lloyd and Steve Levitan was an immediate hit after its debut in September 2009. It began a five-year streak of winning the Emmy for best comedy a year later. Actors Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen and Eric Stonestreet each won two Emmys.
It’s currently seen by nearly 5 million viewers a week.

State police adopt policy on dealing with foreign nationals
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state police have adopted a new policy to govern troopers’ interaction with foreign nationals, after criticism the officers were acting as an informal arm of immigration enforcement.
The new procedures imposed last week say officers may not “summarily” question passengers in a vehicle stopped for suspicion of violating traffic rules about their immigration status. They also may not detain people just for the purpose of questioning them about their own immigration status or anyone else’s.
The policy had been in the works for nearly two years. It was adopted after a story last year by ProPublica and The Philadelphia Inquirer raised questions about racial profiling and unlawful arrests.
State police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said Tuesday that troopers will retain “all available tools to positively identify” citizens of other countries when stopped in their vehicle, arrested or lawfully detained. There also will be more robust tracking of interactions with foreign citizens and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“If a foreign national is taken into custody for a criminal warrant, traffic warrant or criminal immigration warrant, ICE will be notified of the detention facility where the individual is being housed. The regulation goes on to detail the rights of detained foreign nationals to notify their government of their detention,” Tarkowski said.
Troopers may not attempt to detain or arrest a foreign national based only on their immigration status. They may contact ICE after an interaction with a foreign national is complete.
“Administrative immigration warrants are civil in nature; therefore, the suspicion, knowledge or evidence of an administrative immigration warrant does not, in and of itself, constitute responsible suspicion of criminal activity,” the new policy tells troopers.
Sundrop Carter, head of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, told ProPublica the policy should have gone further and restricted troopers’ interaction with ICE.
“That is the exact loophole we want closed,” Carter said. “The policy is better than nothing, which is what they had before. But it falls very short of what we were thinking.”
ProPublica and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last year that U.S.-born Latinos said they had been asked if they were in the country illegally during traffic stops, and a trooper held a group for hours until immigration officials arrived to look into passengers in a vehicle who did not have documentation.

The racist yearbook photo that could sink Gov. Ralph Northam’s career could have been mistakenly placed on his profile page _ but even it weren’t, it’s unlikely many students would have noticed it. Some members of the Eastern Virginia Medical School class of 1984 say few who were enrolled in the intense medical school program took the publication very seriously _ or even looked at it _ after it was published.

President Donald Trump has touted the creation of an office to help victims of crimes committed by immigrants. But most of the people calling the Trump administration hotline aren’t calling to get information. They are calling to report their neighbors, colleagues or strangers who they suspect are in the country illegally. Barbara Gonzalez runs the office and is trying to get the word out that the office is there to help people, not rat them out.

Pope Francis has for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns and says he committed to doing more to fight the problem. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Francis said: “Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it’s a path that we have already begun.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says a federal subpoena seeking documents from Donald Trump’s inaugural committee is part of “a hysteria” over the fact that he’s president. Sanders said Tuesday on CNN that there’s “so much hatred out there” that people will “look for anything” while trying to “create problems” to tie to the Republican president.

Among House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s State of the Union guests are the Planned Parenthood president, active-duty transgender service members and chef Jose Andres. Andres heads a charity that began in 2010 to feed earthquake survivors in Haiti and that offered free food and coffee to furloughed workers during the partial government shutdown.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s new budget proposal requests hundreds of millions of dollars more for Pennsylvania’s schools, as well as a sprinkling of money for new voting machines and new programs to improve skills training and the state’s agricultural sector. Wolf released the $34.1 billion budget plan Tuesday to a joint session of the Legislature. Wolf is seeking authorization for $1.9 billion in new spending, or nearly 6 percent more.

Trump guests include freed drug offender, bullied student
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman freed from federal prison after President Donald Trump cut short her life sentence for drug offenses and a Delaware boy allegedly bullied because his last name is Trump headline a varied group of 13 guests who will sit with first lady Melania Trump for the State of the Union address.
Alice Marie Johnson, 63, served more than two decades of a life sentence without parole before Trump commuted her sentence last year. Johnson’s case had been championed by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, who personally lobbied Trump in the Oval Office.
Delaware’s Brandywine School District said last year that steps had been taken to support Joshua Trump, a middle-school student who reportedly had been bullied for years because he shares the president’s last name.
Guests the White House invites to the State of the Union typically serve to help put a face on policies the president will promote in the nationally televised address.
Johnson’s case spotlights legislation Trump signed into law last year to address concerns about the criminal justice system, including giving judges more discretion in sentencing some drug offenders. Bullying prevention is a key element of an initiative Mrs. Trump named “Be Best.”
Other guests will represent Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration, his push to halt human trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border, efforts to stem the deadly opioid addiction epidemic and his economic policies.
The remaining guests are:
— Debra Bissell, Heather Armstrong and Madison Armstrong, the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter, respectively, of a Reno, Nevada, couple allegedly killed in their home last month by a person illegally in the U.S.
— Matthew Charles, a Tennessee man who was among the first prisoners released under the First Step criminal justice legislation Trump signed in December.
— Grace Eline, a 9-year-old brain cancer survivor.
— Ashley Evans, a former opioid addict nearing one year and one month of sobriety who hopes to be reunited with her daughter full-time.
— Elvin Hernandez, a special agent with the Homeland Security Department’s human trafficking unit.
— Roy James, plant manager of a lumber facility in Vicksburg, Mississippi, that the White House says was reopened under provisions in Trump’s tax cut legislation.
— Timothy Matson, a Pittsburgh police officer and SWAT team member who was shot multiple times while responding to the deadly October 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Eleven people were killed.
— Judah Samet, a Holocaust survivor and member of the Tree of Life Synagogue.
— Tom Wibberley, father of Navy seaman Craig Wibberley, who was killed in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
Johnson was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts related to a Memphis-based cocaine trafficking ring. Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected her appeals. Her requests for clemency had been rejected by President Barack Obama, who during eight years in office commuted the sentences of hundreds of federal inmates convicted of drug crimes.
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