(File Photo of the Primanti Bros. Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a spokesperson from Primanti Bros. on Wednesday, the Primanti Bros. on Penn Avenue in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh has closed. The spokesperson confirmed that there was an ending lease for this restaurant and the company did not renew it. Primanti Bros. has 24 of its 42 locations in Western Pennsylvania.
(File Photo of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Harrisburg, PA) Pennsylvania poker players who play online now can play with people in five other states. State officials have approved combining pools for players in Pennsylvania with players in Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada and West Virginia. Since Governor Josh Shapiro allowed this change in April, games in multiple states already started through BetMGM and World Series of Poker.
(File Photo of someone driving while texting)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Harrisburg, PA) Today is when Paul Miller’s Law goes into effect in Pennsylvania. This law prohibits people from using mobile devices while driving. People also cannot use items like their phones when they are at a stop that is momentary, when they are at a red light or when they are at a delay of traffic. However, if hands-free technology is in their car, phones can connect to the car to be used. The law is named after Paul Miller, who was killed in 2010 because of a distracted driver.
(File Photo of a Dollar Sign)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Beaver County, PA) According to a report from the Pennsylvania Lottery on Monday, an unidentified Beaver County person has recently won $1.35 million from the Jackpot Spectacular online game. Jackpot Spectacular is a game in which multiple states have progressive jackpots that can be connected and can be won at any time. The player won the money from playing the game on either a device that is mobile, a computer or a tablet.
(File Photo of State Representative Rob Matzie)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Harrisburg, PA) According to a release from State Representative Rob Matzie’s office, a strong bipartisan majority of the Pennsylvania House passed Matzie’s bill to ban speculative ticketing yesterday. House Bill 463 has a statement that aims to get rid of a practice that resellers of tickets list tickets for events for sale before they have those tickets with them. Matzie believes speculative ticketing does not help small businesses and venues because of lost revenue and public credibility.
(File Photo of Point Park University Graphic Photo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) According to an announcement last Wednesday from Point Park University, the college is teaming up with Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School for education purposes. The collaboration is for high school juniors and seniors, who can get a maximum enrollment of two courses for college during the semester in the fall. If the students have good academic standards, they can have potential enrollment of up to three college courses instead of just two.
(File Photo of Shell Polymers Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Monaca, PA) According to a Facebook post from Shell Polymers Monaca, yesterday at around 2:20 p.m., the company observed smoke from a furnace unit. Notifications went to local and state agencies about this incident. Air quality and any potential impacts offsite will be monitored by the mobilization of a third-party company. Shell is trying to primarily focus on the environmental protection in their community as well as the health and safety of all people.
(File Photo of a Gavel)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Pittsburgh, PA) Acting U.S. Attorney Troy Revetti announced yesterday that a resident of New Castle got seventy months in jail for conspiring to distribute fentanyl and fluorofentanyl. Thirty-eight-year-old Kailin Stewart got the sentence after pleading guilty to this crime before between May of 2021 and October of 2022. Stewart was on state parole in 2022 for a homicide conviction and wanted to commit trafficking of a mixture of fentanyl and flourofentanyl of between 70 and 100 grams.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – Governor Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference regarding the shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York, Pa. on Feb. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, saying the agency, under President Donald Trump, had illegally cut off funding to it through a program designed to distribute more than $1 billion in aid to states to purchase food from farms for schools, child care centers, and food banks.
The lawsuit in federal court, announced by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, comes three months after the USDA advised states that it was ending the pandemic-era assistance program because it no longer reflected agency priorities.
“I don’t get what the hell their priorities are if not feeding people and taking care of our farmers,” Shapiro said at a news conference at a food bank warehouse in Philadelphia.
The USDA declined comment Wednesday.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Harrisburg, asks the court to reverse the USDA’s decision to end the reimbursement program.
Shapiro’s administration, in the lawsuit, said the USDA’s termination of the contract was illegal, saying the USDA didn’t explain why it no longer reflected agency priorities and that the contract didn’t expressly allow the USDA to terminate it for those reasons.
Shapiro said he was confident that Pennsylvania would win the lawsuit.
“A deal is a deal,” Shapiro told the news conference. “They made a deal with our farmers … they made a deal with Pennsylvania and they illegally broke it.”
The loss to Pennsylvania is $13 million under a three-year contract, money that the state planned to use to buy food from farms to stock food banks. States also use the money to buy food from farms for school nutrition programs and child care centers. Purchases include commodities such as cheese, eggs, meat, fruits and vegetables.
The department, under then-President Joe Biden, announced a second round of funding through the program last year.
(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – A pedestrian passes the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Nov. 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Democratic-sponsored proposal to limit per-student payments to Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools and make other changes to how they operate narrowly passed the state House on Wednesday over Republican objections that it would imperil the online learning programs.
The 104-98 vote, with only two Republicans in favor, sets down a marker on the perennially contentious issue of school funding as state lawmakers work to complete the coming year’s state budget for the fiscal year that starts in July.
The bill’s $8,000 limit on how much public school districts would have to reimburse the cyber charters was the central piece of the sprawling legislation and would be a boost to the districts and the property tax payers who bear much of the cost of public education in Pennsylvania. There currently is no cap for the districts’ payments to cyber charters, an amount now linked to how much districts spent on their own students in the prior year.
Supporters said changes to the cyber charter rules are widely backed among the state’s 500 school boards and that cyber school spending has been the subject of critical reviews, including recently by Republican Auditor General Tim DeFoor.
But opponents defended the existing system as a critical lifeline to the students and families that for various reasons have sought alternatives to traditional schools.
The bill would set annual tuition payments from school districts to cyber charters at $8,000 per student, with potential yearly increases. Special education funding would also see changes.
Cyber charters would not be able to maintain cash balances above 12% of their spending and would not be able to provide payments or gifts to parents as incentives to enroll their children.
The bill would bolster disclosure requirements regarding cyber charters’ policies, instructional materials and budgets.
It would bar the state Education Department from approving any additional cyber charter schools through the 2029-30 school year. A new Cyber Charter School Funding and Policy Council would be set up to make recommendations concerning enrollment, governance and funding.
During floor debate Wednesday, Rep. Martina White, a Philadelphia Republican, said the measure will “close real schools, displace real students, strip families of the very choices that they depend on to give their children a chance at success.”
The moratorium would be highly damaging to cyber charters, said Rep. Craig Williams, a Delaware County Republican.
“You limit the number of cyber charters now in existence, you choke off its funding, and eventually you can kill cyber charter. Sixty-plus thousand students in our school system, finding another way to learn, and we’re going to choke it off with this bill,” Williams said.
The chair of the House Education Committee, Lehigh County Democratic Rep. Peter Schweyer, enumerated cyber charter spending issues raised in the auditor general’s report, including staff bonuses, gift cards, vehicle payments and fuel stipends.
“Gift cards?” Schweyer asked his colleagues. “We would all get in trouble if we were taking gift cards as part of our compensation.”
Leaders of existing public cyber charter schools say the measure would cut their funding by about $450 million or more across the state, with a third of the total reductions targeting special education student reimbursements.
A Democratic analysis put the figure at more than $600 million.
About 65,000 Pennsylvania students currently attend the state’s 14 public cyber charter schools, which are public, nonprofit corporations. They do not have to follow all of the requirements mandated of public schools under state law.
Cyber charter school are considered independent public schools, approved to operate with a “charter” issued by the Education Department. They use technology to provide much of the teaching. Students usually do not need to attend a physical location beyond certain events, such as standardized testing.
The proposal was sent over to the Republican majority state Senate for its consideration. The bill becomes part of a wider negotiations to determine the budget before lawmakers recess for the summer.