Latest Pennsylvania state government News

Workers in protective suits administer coronavirus tests at a COVID-19 testing site for those who were potentially exposed to the coronavirus at a wholesale food market in Beijing, Wednesday, June 17, 2020. As the number of cases of COVID-19 in Beijing climbed in recent days following an outbreak linked to a wholesale food market, officials announced they had identified hundreds of thousands of people who needed to be tested for the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

The Latest: China rejects food imports after virus detected

Jul. 10, 2020 10:47 PM EDT

BEIJING — New coronavirus cases have dropped sharply in China, and authorities are turning their attention to concerns that the virus could spread through imported food. Those worries have risen since a June outbreak in Beijing that was linked to the city’s largest wholesale market. Testing has...

FILE - San Francisco Police Auxiliary Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) volunteer David Flynn offers face masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus at Dolores Park in San Francisco, Sunday, May 24, 2020. California is creating roving

The Latest: New Zealand to charge patient who went shopping

Jul. 7, 2020 10:21 PM EDT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand authorities say they will press charges against a coronavirus patient who escaped quarantine in Auckland and went shopping at a supermarket. Air Commodore Darryn Webb, the head of managed isolation and quarantine, said the 32-year-old man escaped through a fence at...

Health officials disinfect an area around a hospital after one of the hospital's patients tested positive for the new coronavirus in Gwangju, South Korea, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. South Korea is considering including religious facilities on the same list with nightclubs, hostess bars and karaoke rooms as

The Latest: South Korea worries as virus resurgence spreads

Jul. 1, 2020 10:41 PM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it has confirmed 54 more COVID-19 cases as the coronavirus continues to spread beyond the capital region and reach cities like Gwangju, which has shut schools and tightened social restrictions after dozens fell sick this week. The figures reported Thursday brought the...

FILE - In this file photo from Feb. 21, 2009, an ambulance is parked outside the farmhouse where Kenzie Marie Houk was killed in Wampum, Pa. Jordan Brown, who was eleven-years-old at the time was charged in the shooting death of the 26-year-old pregnant mother of two. He is now filing a wrongful prosecution and conviction lawsuit, alleging that the state police investigators knowingly disobeyed protocols, fabricated and manipulated evidence to further a fake narrative that he was guilty. (AP Photo/Beaver County Times, Kevin Lorenzi, File)

Man sues for wrongful conviction after childhood in prison

Jul. 1, 2020 6:54 PM EDT

A Pennsylvania man is suing a handful of retired state police investigators and officials alleging malicious prosecution after he spent most of his childhood in prison for the shotgun killing of his father's pregnant fiance before the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Jordan Brown was 11 years old...

FILE - In this Sept. 25, 2018, file photo, Bill Cosby arrives for a sentencing hearing following his sexual assault conviction at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown Pa. Cosby has won the right to fight his 2018 sexual assault conviction before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The 82-year-old Cosby has been imprisoned in suburban Philadelphia for nearly two years after a jury convicted him of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. He’s serving a three- to 10-year sentence. The Supreme Court has agreed to review two aspects of the case that Cosby’s lawyers challenge. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Bill Cosby appeal will test scope of #MeToo prosecutions

Jun. 23, 2020 6:33 PM EDT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In a stunning decision that could test the legal framework of #MeToo cases, Pennsylvania's highest court will review the trial decision to let five other accusers testify at Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial in 2018, which ended with the longtime TV star's conviction. Cosby, 82, has...

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2019, file photo, Ohio State Sen. Sandra Williams speaks during an interview, in Columbus, Ohio. The killing of George Floyd has sparked broader discussions of race and discrimination in state legislatures across the country. Affirmative action, reparations and designating racism as a public health crisis are generating debate and a fair amount of controversy. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Lawmakers use protest momentum to push state racial reforms

Jun. 20, 2020 9:22 AM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The racial reckoning sweeping the country after the killing of George Floyd in police custody has generated momentum at state capitols for widespread reforms addressing a range of inequities. Lawmakers have floated proposals to address affirmative action, racial disparities in...

File – This Feb. 13, 2012, file photo shows a Cabot Oil Gas Corp. wellhead in Dimock, Pa. Federal government scientists are collecting water and air samples in the first week of August 2017 from about 25 homes in Dimock, Pa., a tiny, rural crossroads about 150 miles north of Philadelphia that became a flashpoint in the national debate over fracking, to investigate ongoing complaints about the quality of the drinking water. Cabot Oil Gas Corp. was charged Monday, June 15, 2020, following a grand jury investigation that found the company failed to fix faulty gas wells in Dimock and surrounding communities that leaked methane into residential water supplies. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Driller charged over contamination in 'Gasland' town

Jun. 15, 2020 6:00 PM EDT

An energy company faces felony charges that it polluted residential water wells in a Pennsylvania community that has long been a battleground in the national debate over natural gas drilling and fracking. Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. was charged Monday following a grand jury investigation that found...

Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pittsburgh, speaks with reporters in the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Monday, June 8, 2020. Lee and other Democrats commandeered the state House rostrum on Monday to press for movement on bills to change police procedures and accountability. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo)

Legislators commandeer House to demand action on policing

Jun. 8, 2020 6:48 PM EDT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Black Democrats in the Pennsylvania House preempted the day’s business to call for changes to policing, displaying a Black Lives Matter banner and commandeering the podium for about 90 minutes at the start of a voting session Monday. The dramatic takeover went on pause when...

The Latest: China orders pangolin protection amid pandemic

Jun. 5, 2020 11:11 PM EDT

BEIJING — China is ordering its highest level of protection for the armadillo-like pangolin as part of its crackdown on the wildlife trade following the global coronavirus pandemic. While the virus is believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, most scientists say it was most likely...

This is an undated file photo of Pennsylvania state Rep. Andrew Lewis, R-Dauphin. A bitter partisan fight over a Lewis's decision to wait a week before disclosing his COVID-19 diagnosis spread to the House floor Thursday, May 28, 2020, and the state attorney general declined to investigate. The Legislature has continued to meet during the pandemic. Lewis, from a Harrisburg-area district, said he was tested two weeks ago, learned the results last week and stayed quiet out of respect for others in his circle. (Martin Boutros/The Patriot-News via AP)

Secrecy on legislator's COVID-19 illness roils a statehouse

May. 28, 2020 5:49 PM EDT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A bitter partisan fight over a Pennsylvania lawmaker's decision to wait a week before disclosing his COVID-19 diagnosis spread to the House floor Thursday, and the state attorney general declined to investigate. A day after Republican Rep. Andrew Lewis' announcement through a news...

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