Pennsylvania category, Page 75

Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz said Tuesday he supports the right to same-sex marriage, making the statement as the Senate considers a vote that could codify that right into law. Several GOP lawmakers have stated support for “The Respect for Marriage Act” would codify at the federal level same-sex marriage...

HARRISBURG — Republicans are warming up to Doug Mastriano. When he crushed a nine-person field to win the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania governor in May, some in the party warned that Mastriano’s far-right views on everything from abortion to the 2020 presidential election would squander an otherwise attainable seat in...

School employees with a license to carry a firearm would be permitted to carry a weapon at work under legislation introduced on late last week by state senator and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Doug Mastriano. The Franklin County senator stated in a memo to his Senate colleagues that his desire to...

Winning was good for John Fetterman’s campaign accounts. The lieutenant governor had long raked in millions of campaign dollars in $10 and $20 increments, but after securing the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, Fetterman saw a significant jump in his pace of fundraising, and in money coming in from outside...

Two decades after the last Quecreek miner was pulled to safety, four men with deep roots in Pennsylvania coal country have carried forward the lessons learned during those anguish-filled days in July 2002 when the eyes of the world were on Somerset County. For those men — John Urosek, 65,...

Two decades after the last Quecreek miner was pulled to safety, four men with deep roots in Pennsylvania coal country have carried forward the lessons learned during those anguish-filled days in July 2002 when the eyes of the world were on Somerset County. For those men — John Urosek, 65,...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf plans to quietly give Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities including Penn State and Pitt a one-time $40...

Four agonizing nights after the Quecreek miners were trapped underground, their families sought solace around a campfire outside the Sipesville Fire Hall. They gazed at the stars and prayed for a miracle. Clinging to each other and their hopes for a good outcome, the families maintained a round-the-clock vigil, vowing...

Twenty years ago this week, Gov. Mark Schweiker stepped to a podium in an abandoned Somerset County grocery store converted to a makeshift media center, pumped both fists in the air and proclaimed that against all odds, nine men trapped 240 feet underground for 77 hours had been rescued from...

Four agonizing nights after the Quecreek miners were trapped underground, their families sought solace around a campfire outside the Sipesville Fire Hall. They gazed at the stars and prayed for a miracle. Clinging to each other and their hopes for a good outcome, the families maintained a round-the-clock vigil, vowing...

Twenty years ago this week, Gov. Mark Schweiker stepped to a podium in an abandoned Somerset County grocery store converted to a makeshift media center, pumped both fists in the air and proclaimed that, against all odds, nine men trapped 240 feet underground for 77 hours had been rescued from...

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia’s controversy over awarding a direct commission for a permanent Harriet Tubman monument has aroused widespread national interest and a split among the city’s own statue advisory committee. During a June 15 public input meeting, critics denounced city arts officials for giving the $500,000 commission to Wesley Wofford,...

WAYNESBURG — Authorities have filed charges against three more people in the case of a Pennsylvania 911 operator accused of failing to send an ambulance to the rural home of a woman who died of internal bleeding about a day later. According to a criminal complaint, the three men were...

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, largely absent from the campaign trail for two months, is slowly resuming his campaign following a stroke that nearly killed him. Fetterman, who suffered the stroke four days before the primary election, has mostly remained out of public view but traveled to the Philadelphia area...

John Unger promised his wife that if something bad ever happened on his job in the coal mine, he’d find a way to survive. For 29 years, he kept that promise, always returning to the rural, century-old Somerset County home where they raised a family and tended to their cattle....

Brad Hillegass had operated a crane plenty of times but never with the lives of nine men in the balance. That changed July 24, 2002, when nine miners were trapped 240 feet underground at the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County and his job was to safely lift them to freedom...

A timeline of events surrounding the Quecreek mine rescue and beyond...

Brad Hillegass had operated a crane plenty of times but never with the lives of nine men in the balance. That changed July 24, 2002, when nine miners were trapped 240 feet underground at the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County and his job was to safely lift them to freedom...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania lawmakers have failed to adopt a policy change that supporters say would bolster the state’s pandemic-battered unemployment program...

Pennsylvania’s state university system looks a lot different today than it did just five years ago when it began the process of redesigning itself to address the challenges that tested the survival of some of its universities. Initially, a good bit of its focus rested on trying to keep all...

HARRISBURG — Republicans have sued again in an attempt to throw out Pennsylvania’s broad mail-in voting law, even as the state’s highest court considers a separate lawsuit aimed at wiping out a law that lost favor with Republicans following former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud. It is...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. Disputes over public records reached a record high last year, with the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records reporting 322 appeals involving...

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania has certified the results of primary elections from 64 of 67 counties, leaving out three counties in a growing legal dispute over whether to count mail-in ballots on which the voter didn’t handwrite a date, state officials said Wednesday. Certification of the remaining three counties — Berks,...