Gov. Josh Shapiro says his administration will cut ties with an organization that funds “crisis pregnancy centers” when its multimillion dollar state contract expires at the end of the year.

Real Alternatives, a Harrisburg nonprofit, for decades has received millions in funding from the state legislature earmarked for programs that offer alternatives to abortion. State lawmakers have also sent Real Alternatives about $1 million per year in federal funding from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which is intended to provide cash assistance to women and children in poverty.

In Pennsylvania, Real Alternatives funds 27 facilities that dissuade clients from obtaining abortions and instead offer pregnancy and parenting support. Advocates for reproductive rights have for years criticized these centers, saying they distribute misleading information to vulnerable patients seeking help with an unplanned pregnancy.

“For decades, taxpayer dollars have gone to fund Real Alternatives. My administration will not continue that pattern – we will ensure women in this commonwealth receive the reproductive health care they deserve,” Shapiro said in the statement. Shapiro’s administration said the state Department of Human Services will instead ask for applications from women’s health providers across the state to fund women’s health programs.

Pennsylvania State Police officials announced a new body camera pilot program for select state troopers ahead of a planned statewide rollout.

The pilot program, which began two weeks ago, applies to patrol troopers in Troop H, Carlisle, who will wear the cameras while on duty. Eighteen cameras will be shared between 43 troopers as a way to reduce costs, according to the State Police.

The pilot program will help guide how the State Police rolls out body cameras to the rest of its 87 patrol stations, said State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris. “We will take what we've learned, we will look at our policy and we will again start building it out across the other 87 installations across the commonwealth,” Paris said.

Paris said the cameras will serve as an “objective means” of documenting interactions between police and citizens, and that the cameras will also benefit troopers, as they will gather additional evidence that can be used during criminal proceedings. He added that the body cameras will also protect both troopers and residents from false claims of abuse or misconduct.

with each passing day, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan gets another opportunity to wedge her shoe just a bit further up Donald Trump’s ass.

the judge had given the DOJ and Trump’s ace team of parking garage lawyers until Friday to meet with her to discuss that protective order against compulsive blabbermouth Donny. find a time that’s good for both of you, she said.

Jack Smith was all any fuckin’ time you want, Judge, snap your fingers and we’ll be there. we have all the time in the world for this shit.

Trump’s team tried to pull their usual delay tactic bullshit. uhhhh, yeah, about that … we’re kinda busy this week, y’know, we have a lot of stuff going on, can we maybe have next week? or maybe the week after that? because, y’know, reasons.

Judge Chutkan was having none of it, and her reply was basically nice try, fuckos, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ll see you in my office Friday at 10am sharp. be there or face a blizzard of shit.

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris made a return trip to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, announcing steps to boost pay for 1 million construction workers and perhaps also bolstering President Joe Biden’s chances next year in the nation’s most populous battleground state.

Ms. Harris made her second visit to Philadelphia in three months — sandwiched around a trip by Mr. Biden — as she said the administration would revise the federal law that sets a minimum wage for construction workers on federally funded projects,

“We strongly believe every worker deserves fair wages for their work,” Ms. Harris said at the Finishing Trades Institute, which houses apprentice programs for workers to get certified in trades such as installing drywall and painting. “We are updating this law and giving workers across the nation a raise.” Besides Ms. Harris’ two visits, Mr. Biden has stopped in Philadelphia six times so far in 2023.

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Following her speech Tuesday, Ms. Harris traveled to view some construction along Interstate 95, the East Coast’s major interstate highway, near where the highway reopened within two weeks after a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline flipped on an exit ramp and caught fire on June 11. The blaze caused a bridge to collapse, severing the expressway. The driver was killed in the crash.

SAG-AFTRA MEMBERS HAVE pressed pause on film and TV production for the past three weeks, aside from some green-lit indie projects, in an effort to get Hollywood studios and streamers, or the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), to offer them a fair deal. Last week, the Writers Guild of America received a request from the AMPTP to reconvene negotiations after a more than three-month strike, and SAG-AFTRA members are hoping to be next. While calls for fair compensation, AI protections, revenue sharing, and updates to healthcare benefits are at the top of their list, there’s been a lot of discussion about residuals. Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have transformed traditional pay scales, and residuals that once helped actors stay afloat between projects have often diminished to pennies.

For starters, residuals are payments performers receive for TV and film projects after initial compensation. An actor can expect a residual check once a show or movie re-airs on cable or a streaming service, or sells via DVD or VOD. For streamers like Max and Disney+, initial compensation covers the first 90 days a show or film is aired. Residuals are calculated using a formula based on year, time spent on set, production type, and where it will air. Residuals contain an interplay between how much a performer should get paid and the value of the production.

Barry Gordon, a former SAG president and retired California State University media law professor, says that as streaming gained more prominence, factors like ratings and subscriber counts made it more difficult to determine how revenue should be distributed. “It’s never going to be equivalent to what it was, right, just because it’s so diverse,” Gordon, who served as SAG president from 1988 to 1995, explains. “When it was three networks, it was pretty easy to know where that show was playing anytime it was playing.”

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With the shift to streaming, Bradley says residuals have largely evaporated. Sylvia Batey Alcalá, a SAG member since 2008, has received meager residuals for streaming services, like Amazon Freevee, as well. It’s frustrating, she says, because the industry isn’t transparent when it comes to its metrics for determining success. As Oscar-winning filmmaker and TV creator Steven Soderbergh recently told Rolling Stone, “It’s impossible to figure out what’s fair if you don’t know what’s real… They will not open the books, so how do you figure out what’s fair if you don’t know what’s going on?”

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State is facing at least one allegation of wage discrimination, while salary data show the university’s gender pay gap is among the worst in the Big Ten.

A Penn State Abington professor who was born in Iran is suing the university for wage, race, and gender discrimination. In a lawsuit filed last month, Faranak Pahlevani argued she earns less than an American-born male colleague despite the two doing equal work. According to the lawsuit, Pahlevani raised her concerns internally, but the university did not take action. The university said in a statement that it does not comment on pending litigation.

Across Penn State’s statewide system, female instructional staff earn on average about 80% of what their male colleagues make, according to the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Penn State combines data from all of its campuses when reporting to IPEDS.

The size of the wage gap varies depending on academic rank. According to adjusted IPEDS salary data from the 2021-22 school year, female professors made 88% of their male colleagues’ average salaries while female associate professors earned 87% of their male counterparts’. For female assistant professors, the figure was 90%; while female instructors, lecturers, and instructional staff without an academic rank earned 98%, 86%, and 72% of their male colleagues’ average salaries.

DONALD TRUMP IS a long, long way from winning the GOP primary, let alone retaking the White House. But he always has revenge on his mind, and his allies are preparing to use a future administration to not only undo all of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work — but to take vengeance on Smith, and on virtually everyone else, who dared investigate Trump during his time out of power.

Rosters full of MAGAfied lawyers are being assembled. Plans are being laid for an entire new office of the Justice Department dedicated to “election integrity.” An assembly line is being prepared of revenge-focused “special counsels” and “special prosecutors.” Gameplans for making Smith’s life hell, starting in Jan. 2025, have already been discussed with Trump himself. And a fresh wave of pardons is under consideration for Trump associates, election deniers, and — the former president boasts — for Jan. 6 rioters.

The preparations have been underway since at least last year, with Trump being briefed on the designs by an array of attorneys, political and policy advisers, former administration officials, and other allies. The aim is to build a government-in-waiting with the hard-right infrastructure needed to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of Trump’s agenda, according to five sources familiar with these matters and another two people briefed on them. Trump’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

One idea that has caught thrice-indicted former president’s attention in recent months is the creation of the so-called “Office of Election Integrity,” which would be a new unit inside the Justice Department. It would be tasked not only with relitigating Trump’s lies about his 2020 election loss, but also with aggressively pursuing baseless allegations of election “fraud” (including in Democratic strongholds) in ways that Trumpist partisans believe the department has only flirted with in the past.

As Donald Trump entered a Washington, D.C., courthouse Thursday to be arraigned for his alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, his lawyer was busy outside, undermining his entire case.

Trump was charged Tuesday for attempting to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. He faces four counts that include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against the right to vote. His record third indictment hinges on the argument that Trump knew he had lost the election but still actively worked to overturn the results.

Which means Trump’s legal team should be arguing that he genuinely didn’t know he lost. But Trump’s lawyer argued the exact opposite.

“I think that everybody was made aware that he lost the election, but that doesn’t mean that that was the only advice he was given,” Alina Habba told reporters. “There are a numerous amount of advisers and politicians and lawyers, not just one or two, that are giving you advice and telling you what they believe is true.”

“The president has the right, as every one of us do, to listen to several opinions and make their decision.”

WASHINGTON — As the first Black woman elected to the U.S. House from Pennsylvania, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (PA-12, including most of Pittsburgh) is traveling a different path than her predecessors.

The freshman lawmaker this year quickly allied herself with a group of young, liberal lawmakers known as the Squad, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. The lawmakers, all people of color, seek to push the House Democratic caucus further to the left.

Ms. Lee’s predecessor, 14-term Democrat Mike Doyle, was considered more moderate. While she is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mr. Doyle, who retired after 2022, was not. Mr. Doyle even endorsed one of Ms. Lee’s primary opponents, Steve Irwin. And Mr. Doyle ranked 98th of 435 House members in a 2021 index of bipartisanship from Georgetown University and the Lugar Center, a public policy group founded by the late U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez ranked 401st.)

“Anytime you can add a new perspective to the Congress, especially someone who has had unique experiences in this country, it is beneficial,” said U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., one of Ms. Lee’s fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Ms. Lee has demonstrated her leadership already and I’ve been very impressed with her. She took the place of a great member. Everybody was watching to see how she would perform and she’s getting her legs under her and learning very well the ways of the House of Representatives.”