Pennsylvania - BlogFlock

Mid-Atlantic Mushroom Foragers Collect 160 Species for Food, Medicine, Art and Science - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-30T19:55:30.000Z

Written by Amy Wrobleski, Penn State

Like many mushroom harvesters, I got interested in foraging for fungi during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I had been preparing for a summer of field work studying foraged desert plants in a remote part of Australia when the pandemic hit, and my travel plans were abruptly frozen. It was March, right before morel mushrooms emerge in central Pennsylvania.

I wasn’t doing a lot other than going on long hikes and taking classes remotely at Penn State for my doctoral degree in ecology and anthropology. One of the classes was an agroforestry class with Eric Burkhart. We studied how agriculture and forests benefit people and the environment.

These two things eventually led to a yearslong project on mushroom harvesting in our region.

Why people forage

Mushroom foraging can be a way for people to connect with nature. Natalia Lebedinskaia/Moment Collection via Getty Images

Foragers have been harvesting wild mushrooms in what is now Pennsylvania and the rest of the U.S. mid-Atlantic region for generations, but the extent and specifics of the practice in the region had not been formally studied.

In 2021, Burkhart and I decided that we wanted to better understand the variety of wild mushroom species that Pennsylvania harvesters collect and what they use them for.

We conducted a series of surveys in 2022 and 2023 that revealed a wide variety of fungi are foraged in the region – though morels, chicken of the woods and chanterelles are most common. We also learned that harvesters use the mushrooms primarily for food and medicinal purposes, and that foragers create communities that share knowledge. These community based projects often use social media tools as a way for mushroom harvesters to share pictures, notes and even the results of DNA sequences.

Our findings were published in the journal Economic Botany in October 2025.

160 species

Having spent a year building connections with local mushroom harvesters, starting in central Pennsylvania, including members of mushroom clubs and mycological associations, we recruited a diverse group of harvesters from around the mid-Atlantic. We also used mushroom festivals, social media and word of mouth to get the word out.

We asked harvesters about their favorite mushrooms, common harvesting practices, resources they used while harvesting and any sustainability practices.

Over 800 harvesters responded to the survey and reported that, collectively, they foraged 160 species of wild mushrooms. Morels and chicken of the woods were the two most popular, as each were reported by 13% of respondents. About 10% of respondents reported collecting chanterelles. Other popular species were hen of the woods, oysters, lion’s mane, black trumpet, honey mushroom, turkey tail, bolete, reishi, puffball, chaga, shrimp of the woods and Dryad’s saddle, which is also known as the pheasant’s back mushroom.

Harvesters reported a variety of reasons for collecting mushrooms. Many collected morels and chanterelle to eat, and species such as turkey tail, reishi and chaga for medicinal purposes. Art was another common reason cited for foraging, with photography being the most popular use, followed by using mushrooms to create natural dyes and pigments.

Other survey respondents said they foraged to feel more connected to nature. And while there is a thriving commercial wild mushroom industry in the region, we found that only a small minority of harvesters sell their mushrooms. Most people reported giving their mushrooms to friends, neighbors and family.

Citizen science

Chicken of the woods mushrooms are among the most commonly foraged. When cooked, their flavor resembles that of chicken. James Grewer/iStock/Getty Images Plus

We also wanted to better understand which resources mushroom harvesters turn to in order to learn more about this hobby. We asked all the harvesters what they used as a resource when they were first learning to hunt for mushrooms. A quarter of new harvesters said they used the “the internet,” followed by “family,” at 24%, and then guide books, at 20%.

Based on the survey responses, we also learned that mushroom-identification phone apps are growing in popularity, especially among new harvesters. For example, a commonly used app called iNaturalist allows harvesters to upload a few pictures of their find – one of the mushroom in its habitat, another of the underside of the cap, and a third of the entire mushroom. From there, other community members can comment and help with identification.

Harvesters also use these apps to contribute to community science projects that document biodiversity.

Some mushrooms are poisonous if eaten, which is part of why harvesters are so careful with their identification. When learning a new mushroom species, it’s important to look into multiple sources to make sure what you’re harvesting is safe to eat.

With more harvesters documenting their findings on social media and sharing information about fungal biodiversity in the region, there is much to glean and learn about the diverse world of mushrooms in the mid-Atlantic. We believe that deeper collaboration between community groups and researchers at universities and other institutions is an opportunity for scientific growth within the field of mycology. This collaboration can support long-term tracking of fungal populations and any impact that harvesters might have on them.

Amy Wrobleski is a Ph.D. Candidate in Ecology and Anthropology at Penn State.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Quiet strength’ — Sarah Beckstrom’s West Virginia hometown remembers slain National Guard member - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-30T18:53:09.000Z

A vigil was held Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, at Webster County High School in Upperglade, West Virginia for West Virginia National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. (Photo by Amelia Ferrell Knisely/West Virginia Watch)

UPPERGLADE, W.Va. — In the gymnasium of Webster County High School, community members gathered to honor West Virginia Army National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, who had graduated from the school just two years prior.

“Sarah was the kind of student teachers hoped for,” said Webster County High School Principal Gabriel Markle, who taught Beckstrom when she was a student. “She carried herself with quiet strength, a contagious smile and a positive energy that lifted people around her.”

Beckstrom, 20, died on Nov. 27 after a targeted attack in Washington, D.C., where she was serving with the National Guard.

“Her commitment to service, both in our school and in our nation’s military, spoke volumes about her character,” Markle said.

Community members in Webster Springs, West Virginia, wore blue ribbons to honor the life of West Virginia National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. (Photo by Amelia Ferrell Knisely/West Virginia Watch)

Webster Springs is a small town, and dozens of people in attendance Saturday evening knew Beckstrom or her family members.

They described Beckstrom as a peacekeeper, someone who was quick to help and who often stepped up to serve. She had dreams of becoming an FBI agent, prompting her to join the National Guard. She was part of a Military Police company.

“It’s a terrible thing that happened, but I’m glad that she was the person that’s in the spotlight and is representing not only West Virginia, but our county,” said Amy Jones, 25, who knows Beckstrom’s family.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey attended the candlelight vigil, telling the crowd that justice would be served in Beckstrom’s death.

“She loved her state, she loved her country, and she wanted to serve,” the governor said. “It’s hard to sit here and not be angry at what happened to Sarah.”

The suspected gunman, 29-year-old Afghan refugee Rahmanullah Lakanwal, will face a first-degree murder charge along with other charges after shooting two National Guard members, including Beckstrom.

The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains hospitalized in critical condition. Wolfe is also from West Virginia.

Members of the Webster County High School Junior ROTC presented the colors during a vigil for West Virginia National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. (Photo by Amelia Ferrell Knisely/West Virginia Watch)

The Webster Springs community held three vigils for Beckstrom following her death.

“The loss of Sarah Beckstrom in such a tragic and senseless manner has been devastating for all that knew her and loved her,” said Sen. Robbie Morris, R-Randolph. “The grief is palpable everywhere you go. The vigils have been filled with tears and broken hearts. My prayers continue to go out to her family, friends and fellow Guardsmen.”

On Saturday evening, the crowd prayed and sang the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” before lighting candles. Many in attendance wore blue ribbons to honor Beckstrom; wreaths in the same shade of blue hung around town in the miles winding to the high school.

The high school’s Junior ROTC members presented the colors.

“I feel like it was a worthy homage to her, and it’s good knowing that you know we have the resolve to get through this as West Virginians, as a whole state, rather than a single county,” said Junior ROTC member Liam Versmessen, 17, who attended high school with Beckstrom.

Funeral details for Beckstrom haven’t been released.

Morrisey said that Wolfe and Beckstrom were friends while serving in the Guard. The pair were patrolling near a Metro station blocks from the White House at the time of the shooting.

“We pray to lift up Andrew, who is continuing to fight,” Morrisey said.

Morrisey originally sent about 300 members of the state’s National Guard to D.C. in August, at the request of the Trump administration for “Operation D.C. Safe and Beautiful.”

About 150 members of the West Virginia National Guard are still in D.C., and have been deployed there on a voluntary basis since about Nov. 15.

In the wake of the attack on the National Guard members, President Donald Trump announced he intends to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” though he didn’t specify which countries would be included.

This story was originally produced by West Virginia Watch, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Pennsylvania Capital-Star, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

A Lost Generation of News Consumers? Survey Shows How Teenagers Dislike the News Media - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-30T14:04:06.000Z

NEW YORK (AP) — Cat Murphy, a college student, has wanted to be a journalist since she was 11. Many of her friends don’t understand why.

When they engage with the news — if they do — they hear a cacophony of voices. They don’t know who to believe. Reporters are biased. They make mistakes. Besides, why would you hitch your future to a dying industry?

“There is a lot of commentary — ‘Oh, good for you. Look what you’re walking into. You’re going to be screaming into the void. You’re going to be useless,’” said Murphy, a 21-year-old graduate student at the University of Maryland’s journalism school.

She is undeterred. And it’s also why she’s not surprised by the findings of a study this fall that documented negative attitudes toward the news media among 13- to 18-year-old Americans. The press rarely fares well in surveys of adults, but it’s sobering to see the same disdain among people whose opinions about the world are still forming.

Words to describe the news media today

FILE – A view from the control room at Spectrum News NY1 is seen during the Republican gubernatorial debate, June 20, 2022, in New York. (Brittainy Newman/Newsday via AP, Pool, File)

Asked by the News Literacy Project for one word to describe today’s news media, 84% of teens responded with something negative — “biased,” “crazy,” “boring,” “fake, ”bad,” “depressing,” “confusing,” “scary.”

More than half of the teens surveyed believe journalists regularly engage in unethical behaviors like making up details or quotes in stories, paying sources, taking visual images out of context or doing favors for advertisers. Less than a third believe reporters correct their errors, confirm facts before reporting them, gather information from multiple sources or cover stories in the public interest — practices ingrained in the DNA of reputable journalists.

INTERVIEW: Solidarity Journalism Can Help the Mainstream Media Restore Public Trust and Strengthen Democracy, with Dr. Anita Varma

To some degree, teens reflect the attitudes they’re exposed to, particularly when the most prominent politician of their age has made “fake news” a mantra. Experts say few teens follow news regularly or learn in school about the purpose of journalism.

Journalists don’t help themselves with mistakes or ethical lapses that make headlines. Opinionated reporters or commentators in an era of political division make readers wonder what to believe.

“Some of this (attitude) is earned, but much of it is based on misperception,” said Peter Adams, senior vice president of research and design for the Washington-based News Literacy Project.

Never picking up the news habit

FILE – Newspapers are displayed magazine and newspaper stand, June 11, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, FIle)

There are ways to turn things around, but it will take work.

Many of Lily Ogburn’s classmates get their information from social media. Their parents didn’t watch or read news reports as they grew up, so they didn’t pick up the habit, said Ogburn, a senior at Northwestern University’s journalism school.

Ogburn is the former editor-in-chief at the well-regarded Daily Northwestern student newspaper. The newspaper’s 2023 reports on alleged hazing and racism within the school’s football program led to the ouster of its coach. Still, she found some students don’t understand the newspaper’s role; they believe it exists to protect people in power rather than hold them accountable.

She frequently had to explain what she did to classmates. “There’s a lot of mistrust toward journalists,” she said. But it has firmed her resolve to stick with the profession.

“I want to be a journalist that people trust,” Ogburn said, “and I want to report news that makes people believe and trust in the media.”

READ: Democratic State Rep. Chris Rabb Proposes Bills to Bolster Local News Media (and Democracy) in Pennsylvania

The news industry’s financial troubles over the past two decades have hollowed out newsrooms and left fewer journalists on duty. Along with not seeing much legitimate journalism, young people frequently don’t experience it through popular culture — unlike a previous generation, which learned in detail how Washington Post reporters Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate scandal in the Academy Award-winning movie “All the President’s Men.”

When the News Literacy Project asked, two-thirds of teens couldn’t think of anything when asked what movies or TV shows come to mind when they think about journalism. Those who had answers most frequently cited the “Spider-Man” franchise or the movie “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” Neither portrayal was particularly flattering.

Upon retiring as editor of Newsday, Howard Schneider helped develop the State University of New York system’s first School of Journalism. But instead of teaching future writers, editors or producers, he became drawn to teaching non-journalists about being news consumers.

Now the executive director of SUNY Stony Brook’s Center for News Literacy, Schneider wasn’t surprised about any of the recent survey’s findings, either.

“The negativity, the feeling that news is biased, is just a reflection of how their parents feel,” Schneider said. “The more exposed to news, legitimate news, the more their attitudes turn positive.”

He has developed news literacy programs for school districts. “Students will say, ‘I get my news from YouTube,’” he said. “I say, ‘No, you don’t,'” and explains where the news originates and how to be discerning about what they see.

Lessons from a news literacy class

FILE – Pedestrians pass under a news ticker in Times Square on March 11, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

That’s one of the lessons that 16-year-old Brianne Boyack has taken from her course in news literacy at Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. She had little trust in news going in, but has learned the importance of double-checking sources when she sees something interesting and seeking outlets she’s found reliable.

Her classmate, Rhett MacFarlane, applied what he learned in class to investigate when a friend told him the Louvre was robbed in Paris.

“I’ve learned that there is definitely fact-checking (in journalism),” MacFarlane, also 16, told The Associated Press. “You guys are professionals and you have to tell the truth or you’d be fired. I thought you guys just did whatever you wanted and chose what to say about a topic.”

READ: Democratic State Lawmakers Want to Mandate K-12 Media Literacy in Pennsylvania to Combat the Rise of Online Misinformation

Still, news literacy programs in schools are relatively rare. Schools already have a lot of subjects to cover to prepare students for the future. And, remember, journalists don’t have the best reputations. It can be hard for educators to stick their necks out for them.

“There’s an inertia here,” Schneider said, “and this is an urgent issue.”

At the University of Maryland, Murphy said she didn’t think there was an inherent hatred toward journalists among her fellow students. “They don’t have any experience reading journalism,” she said.

That’s where she sees the journalism industry needing to make more of an effort. One of the things she finds most frustrating about her chosen field is a resistance to change, particularly an unwillingness or inability to make meaningful use of social media.

“There’s very little movement in the direction of going to where people are, as opposed to expecting them to come to where you are,” Murphy said. “The only way to turn it around is going to be to switch to doing things that captivate people today, as opposed to captivating people 20 years ago.”

OPINION: Why The Associated Press Is Standing for Your Right to Speak Freely - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-29T12:42:24.000Z

NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press was back in a courtroom Monday defending itself and our principles against the White House, continuing to fight for the right of the press and public to speak freely without being targeted by their government based on its preferences.

This is not a controversial idea. Yet this foundational American freedom remains under threat.

It’s why AP took a stand nine months ago when the government blocked us from covering presidential events because of what we call a body of water. We strongly believe this case could have much wider implications, not only for other news organizations, but for anyone in America.

Those ripples are becoming more evident since we first took this case to court.

READ: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick Helps House Republicans Pass the ‘Gulf of America Act’

In the last few months, we have seen the White House take legal action against other news organizations; the Pentagon require reporters to agree to a new press policy incompatible with journalistic standards; and journalists from other outlets restricted from covering the White House over what they’ve written.

All this makes it as important as it has ever been to be clear about the role of the press in a democracy and what exactly is at stake.

AP and Trump administration argue access case before federal appeals court

When we talk about press freedom, we are really talking about your freedom. Reporters ask questions, photographers take pictures, and video journalists record history on your behalf to ensure that you are informed about the things you don’t have the time to unearth, watch or learn about for yourself.

Letting the government control which journalists can cover the highest office in the land and setting rules about what those journalists can say or write is a direct attempt to undercut the First Amendment. It should worry all of us. Because if a president of any party can use personal and political preference to choose which journalists to allow in – and kick others out because of the words they use – it means you are not getting a full picture of what is happening. It results in a filtered look at whoever holds the highest office, not the rigorous coverage the public deserves.

Independent, accurate, factual journalism is essential to civil society. AP journalists contribute to this every day. We bear witness, ask hard questions and document history as it unfolds, on behalf of the public. We always strive to get it right – and to own up to mistakes when we make them. We don’t advocate or take a side. Our mission is to report the facts, plain and simple, so you can decide. That’s it.

When fundamental freedoms are at stake, however, it becomes our duty, as an independent, not-for-profit news organization, with no owner and no shareholders, to stand up. On behalf of all of us.

Because, after all, AP’s freedom of speech is yours, too.

Bucks County Native Jess Urwiler Releases Debut EP ‘Roots’ - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-28T18:29:07.000Z

New artist Jess Urwiler’s EP roots is a six song introduction to Urwiler and her music showcasing vulnerable songwriting about teenhood, past relationships, and school memories.

Released in late September, the EP features Urwiler’s acoustic guitar work and vulnerable, visceral lyricism taking listeners on a journey as Urwiler finds herself. Urwiler’s debut is the culmination of years of songwriting, studying music production, and overcoming setbacks.

Urwiler grew up in Bucks County attending Neshaminy High School where she was involved in a number of music programs, including multiple choirs, Wind Ensemble, symphony orchestra and marching band. She was also manager of the school Jazz Band, which she credits as her path into music production. In between Urwiler’s long hours at school, she wrote songs.

The EP features two songs Urwiler wrote in high school. The first song titled “meet me” is about not being herself when meeting people. Urwiler began writing “meet me” in high school before finishing it in college. She completed the EP’s debut single “teen” while in high school, capturing the angst of transitioning into adulthood.

“That’s just kind of what I hope, that if anyone can feel something from the music, or find any comfort in it, or even if you don’t care about any of that and you just like the way it sounds, like that’s cool too,” Urwiler said.

Now, Urwiler attends Drexel University where she has gained the skills and the confidence to produce her own music. Like high school, Urwiler dove into the music scene at Drexel. She is music director of the Treblemakers a cappella group, partnered with Drexel’s Mad Dragon Music Group, interned at recording studios in Philadelphia, and built a personal recording studio in her room.

“There’s been a lot of setbacks and things that maybe in the past would have made me not release this EP, but I’m really glad I was able to actually persevere and keep working on it.”

Prior to attending Drexel, Urwiler had only recorded and produced the songs she applied with. As a music industry major, Urwiler has learned more about the technical side of music producing, but says she still has a long way to go.

Urwiler faced obstacles along the way ,including spilling water on her MacBook with all of her songs and going through a number of health issues while trying to record.

“There’s been a lot of setbacks and things that maybe in the past would have made me not release this EP, but I’m really glad I was able to actually persevere and keep working on it,” Urwiler said.

Urwiler has been wanting to make an EP for a long time, but never felt confident enough to release music. Harsh criticism and negative opinions about her music would have “destroyed” her before, she said, but now Urwiler feels ready to share her work.

“I feel a lot more secure in my art and my creations that I don’t place that much worth on other people’s opinions,” said Urwiler.

Often Urwiler’s songwriting helps her work through strong emotions, which can be felt by listeners. The vulnerability in Urwiler’s songs made it scary for her to release the EP, she said.

“But I feel like for me, that’s the whole point of my music is to process my emotions, but also to make other people feel things,” Urwiler added.

The track “my red guitar” is a favorite for both listeners and Urwiler, but it also helped her process the end of a five year relationship. Urwiler was inspired to write the song after attending an Adrianne Lenker concert.

“There were a lot of emotions when writing that song and I feel like the best songs come from a place of intense emotion,” said Urwiler.

Lenker and artists like Phoebe Bridgers have been sources of inspiration and influence for Urwiler’s acoustic sound and lyricism. She credits Bridgers as the reason she started making music.

“She definitely gave me my voice and is … overall, my biggest inspiration,” Urwiler said.

As a young singer-songwriter, Urwiler said some of her earlier songs tried to sound like her influences rather than herself, but roots reflects her personal growth as an artist. The EP’s last song “make it out” concludes Urwiler’s journey where she comes to terms with life’s hard truths and comes out on the other side.

The EP went through many forms before Urwiler finished writing the project’s final song in March. Once it was completed, Urwiler had a clear direction for her debut music. This clarity gave her the motivation to finish and release roots.

“It gave me a clear vision of everything and it kind of like, wrapped everything up,” said Urwiler.

Urwiler announced the release of her EP with the music video for “teen”. Urwiler added more visuals with recorded live sessions with Mad Dragon Music Group where supporters get a live look at Urwiler’s guitar skills.

To celebrate the release of her EP, Urwiler hosted a listening party using her apartment as a makeshift venue. Friends of Urwiler’s performed for the intimate group before Urwiler played roots.

“My whole living room was full of people who came to listen to it and it was so sweet,” Urwiler said. “ It was definitely one of my favorite memories of college so far.”

Friends have continued to support the EP by posting to social media and recommending it to extended friends and family.

“So the support has been amazing, and I’m so grateful for all of the amazing people that I am surrounded with,” she said.

Urwiler says her next step is working on her senior project which will likely be an album. Whether or not Urwiler releases the album herself is the question.

The university senior says she knows producing an album will be a long process, but she feels the experience of producing and releasing her EP will help. For now, the new artist is focusing on her producing and mixing skills before starting anything new.

“I want my next project to be better than what I just released and I think it will be because I’m still learning and there’s always room to improve,” said Urwiler.

National Guard shooting suspect to face murder charge - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-28T16:20:08.000Z

A small memorial of flowers and an American flag outside the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., near where two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot on Nov. 26. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced Friday it has charged the man who allegedly shot two National Guard members earlier this week with first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died as a result of her injuries.

Other charges include three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

The attack shocked the country and has led to a renewed discussion about immigration policy as well as the war in Afghanistan and how the country withdrew during the Biden administration.

President Donald Trump announced late Thursday night he intends to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” though he didn’t specify which countries would be included or exactly how such an order would be implemented.

Trump wrote on social media he plans to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

The post came just hours after U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from injuries she sustained during a Wednesday shooting a couple of blocks from the White House. The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remained hospitalized in critical condition. Both were West Virginia National Guard members.

The alleged shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national who worked with United States forces, entered the country on Sept. 8, 2021, as part of Operation Allies Welcome, according to a statement from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

No details of immigration proposals

The White House press office declined to say Friday which countries would have their residents barred from entering the United States under the new order, referring back to the president’s social media posts, which did not include a list.

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump wrote. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a Thursday afternoon statement the administration would pause immigration applications for Afghan nationals.

“Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” she wrote.

The Trump administration will also review “all asylum cases approved under the Biden Administration,” McLaughlin said, saying those cases required more vetting.

Biden Afghanistan policy blamed

In a separate post, Trump blamed former President Joe Biden for allowing the alleged shooter into the country.

McLaughlin echoed that sentiment.

Lakanwal “was paroled in by the Biden Administration. After that, Biden signed into law that parole program, and then entered into the 2023 Ahmed Court Settlement, which bound (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) to adjudicate his asylum claim on an expedited basis. Regardless if his asylum was granted or not, this monster would not have been removed because of his parole.”

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, following two decades of war that began as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been widely criticized.

Many of the Afghan nationals who aided the United States and allied countries were left behind as the Taliban quickly regained control.

Motive unknown

Lakanwal had been residing in Washington state and drove across the country before the shooting, according to Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Officials investigating the shooting have yet to release a possible motive.

Lakanwal was granted asylum in the U.S. in April, according to reporting by many media outlets, including NPR.

The Department of Homeland Security did not confirm for States Newsroom the date Lakanwal was granted asylum.

New Book Explores the ‘Dark Passions’ Fueling American Politics - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-28T14:06:26.000Z

William A. Galston’s Anger, Fear, Domination: Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech illustrates a core problem within a political system that relies upon public consent. “Democracy’s defenders cannot defeat its enemies without understanding the enduring power of the passion to which they appeal—and how best to blunt this appeal.”(2) In an ideal world, a rational public discourse would consider the facts in a thoughtful, logical process.

However, as we all know, Pollyanna is not alive or well in contemporary America

What then is the solution to a problem dominated by public passions and leaders intent on manipulating them? Galston recommends “the improvement, not the replacement of liberal democracy.” (10) More specifically, the author suggests that “realism about the dark side of the human soul does not rule out an aspirational liberal politics.” (37)

In practice, this is an extremely difficult needle to thread.

Galston starts with a sharp critique of liberalism. At points, liberal belief suffers from self-created blinders. He counsels the reader to understand that: “Our commitment to liberal democracy must not be entangled with faith in the inevitability of progress.”(22) Too often, liberals prioritize economic growth as the main yardstick for progress, while losing track of equally, if not more importantly, measurements of social fulfillment. This blind spot brought to mind Thomas Frank’s 2004 book What’s the Matter with Kansas, which argued that citizens in Kansas – once a stronghold for progressive populist social movements – now vote against their own best interests when they support anti-elite conservatives and the reactionary culture war issues they wrap themselves in. However, dismissing the cultural underpinnings of conservative discontent, as Hillary Clinton did with her “basket of deplorables” remark in 2016, simply amplifies the problem by illustrating the profound gap between a fractured, restive public –with many legitimate grievances—and political leaders who willfully ignore them.(120) In his 2017 book, Insane Clown President, Matt Taibbi’s scathing commentary about the Clinton campaign’s “Mannequin Challenge” video is a perfect snapshot of the moment:

As a metaphor for an overconfident and incompetent ruling class that was ten miles up its own backside when it should have been listening to the anger percolating in the population, the “Mannequin Challenge” is probably unsurpassable. Here was a planeload of effete politicos making a goofball video when they should have been frantically bailing water to stave off maybe the most disastrous loss in the history of American presidential politics.(xix)

In order to understand the foundation of this problem, Galston indulges in a lengthy examination of the definitions of “dark passions” at work within the public discourse. He offers an extensive catalogue of the types of fear; fear of death, of disaster, of the loss of physical and mental acuity, of a loss of social ties, of dishonor, failure, embarrassment, of the future, or threats to a way of life. (78-83)

Importantly, the author makes the distinction between “productive and counter-productive fear.” (70) In his classic work on the American condition, Alexis de Tocqueville encouraged a life recognizing “salutary fear which makes men keep watch and ward for freedom, and not with that flabby, idle terror which makes men’s hearts sink and enervates them.”(68)

It is in this distinction that the book offers a possible solution to what ails the country. To illustrate his point, Galston borrows from the past. FDR’s 1933 fireside chat on the bank crisis is a masterclass on balancing fear with a common purpose for action. Roosevelt spoke about citizens being instrumental to effective public policy. Washington could regulate banks, but the average person had to trust their relationship with law makers to make deposits again. FDR did not promise an easy path, but he did make sure that Americans understood cooperation and collective action were essential. (128-131)

Years after the Great Depression was over, Richard Hofstadter wrote about the basic qualities of “a decent society” in 1968. His treatment deserves quoting at length:

Comity exists in a society to the degree that those enlisted in its contending interests have a basic minimal regard for each other: one party or interest seeks the defeat of an opposing interest on matters of policy, but at the same time seeks to avoid crushing the opposition, denying the legitimacy of its existence or values, or inflicting upon it extreme and gratuitous humiliations beyond the substance of the gains that are being sought. The basic humanity is not forgotten; civility is not abandoned; the sense that a community life must be carried on after the acerbic issues of the moment have been fought over and won is seldom far out of sight; an awareness that the opposition will someday be the government is always present.(124)

Robert F. Kennedy applied this principle that same year at a campaign event in Indianapolis when news of Martin Luther King’s death reached the gathering. Kennedy treated the crisis like a responsible leader. He acknowledged that members of his audience might be overwhelmed “with bitterness, with hatred, and … a desire for revenge.”(131) He invoked King’s memory and urged the people assembled to peacefully return home. His own personal experience with a brother’s life cut short gave his empathy agency. Indianapolis avoided the havoc that engulfed the rest of the country.

READ: President Trump’s Ft. Bragg Speech Was Dangerous and Disturbing in How it Politicized the Military

Kennedy captured lightning in a bottle in 1968. Subsequent history has proven how rarely the appeal to the “better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln once famously said, actually works. Persuasion is limited by a long list of factors.(108-109) Without a shared frame of reference, consensus flounders.(114) The sometimes deliberate ignorance of facts and the absence of expertise, as we learned during COVID and since the pandemic, undercuts official authority when we need it most. Public impatience, and the appeal of short-term solutions, too often circumvent robust policy requiring diligence and significant commitments.

Perhaps the most durable obstacle to progress, something that America has wrestled with since its creation, lies in reconciling the principle of individualism with the need for collective social stability.

It is here that Anger, Fear, Domination, understandably falls a bit short. While it provides detailed and useful definitions and an examination of the problem affecting the country, a viable prescription is elusive. “Realism demands more than a narrow focus on achieving political order within which individuals can pursue their self-interest.” (35)

This is true, but what is the solution? How can we foster a “full awareness of the threat the darker side of human nature will always pose.”? (135)

I think the answer is right in front of us.

As of this writing, we are just weeks removed from a peaceful election where the people voted on a host of issues from judicial retention to the composition of local school boards. The people spoke. And it is important to understand that the public is capable of forming its own conclusions about the constant “darker side of human nature.”

Time will tell. But there is hope out there.

Pa. man accused of double voting in 2020 election says Trump pardon applies to him - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-28T10:44:22.000Z

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access..

A man charged with voting twice in the 2020 election has adopted a novel legal argument: that he’s covered by the pardon that President Donald Trump granted to allies who attempted to reverse his 2020 election loss.

Federal prosecutors charged Matthew Laiss in September with double voting in the November 2020 election. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleged that Laiss moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in August of that year and voted both in person in Florida and via mail ballot in Bucks County. Both votes were allegedly for Trump.

Early this month, Trump issued a pardon to 77 people, including members of his legal team and the so-called fake electors, for their conduct in connection with the 2020 election. However, the pardon proclamation was written broadly, saying in part that Trump was granting “a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all United States citizens” for conduct related to the 2020 election.

Laiss’s attorney argued in a motion to dismiss filed last week that the “plain language” of the pardon meant it extended to Laiss.

Beyond that, the motion cited “the unequivocal absurdity of the notion that individuals like John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and Sidney Powell … are explicitly pardoned for their exponentially more egregious alleged conduct, while a then-26-year-old man who cast two votes for President Trump in the general election is not.”

“To read the Pardon Proclamation to intend such an outcome would be outrageous, particularly in light of its sweeping language,” Laiss’s attorney argued.

Voters at a polling location in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 5, 2024. Federal prosecutors announced charges against two people for alleged double voting. One case was in 2020, and other in the 2024 election. (Kriston Jae Bethel for Votebeat)

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney declined to comment. The White House Press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Legal scholars warned when Trump issued the pardon that the broad language could have unintended consequences for the administration.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in California and a former Justice Department official, said he wasn’t surprised to see a defendant making this argument.

The pardon was so broad and poorly written, Levitt argued, that it could conceivably apply not just to the allies Trump intended to pardon, but also to people accused of voting illegally in 2020, like Laiss, and to election officials Trump has implied should face prosecution for “cheating.”

The caveat is that the pardon applies only to federal crimes, and election-related crimes are generally prosecuted at the state or local level.

There are other federal cases that may be covered by the pardon. Earlier this year, a Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, man pleaded guilty to multiple counts of election law offenses, one of which occurred during the 2020 election.

Derek Muller, an election law professor at Notre Dame Law School who first noted Laiss’s motion on the Election Law Blog, said it makes sense that Trump issued a broadly worded pardon, given that his allies’ conduct in 2020 and early 2021 spanned a long time frame, crossed multiple states, and involved many individuals. Typically, pardons are tailored to specific people or circumstances.

Even when former President Joe Biden issued broadly worded pardons to his son and members of Congress who served on the committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Muller said, he narrowly tailored the pardons to specific people.

Trump’s pardon “does name individuals, but it does speak to anyone, and it also speaks to a wide range of conduct,” Muller said. “It’s a little sloppier language. With that broad of language, it allows for unintended consequences.”

The U.S. attorney’s office has until Friday to respond to the motion. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge in the case to decide if the pardon applies, Muller said.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org. Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access.

One of the National Guard members shot in attack in D.C. has died, Trump says - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-28T02:59:46.000Z

FBI Director Kash Patel, left, at a press conference on Nov. 27, 2025, looks at photos of the two West Virginia National Guard soldiers shot in Washington, D.C., the previous day. They were identified as Andrew Wolfe, 24, and Sarah Beckstrom, 20. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — West Virginia National Guard member U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, one of the victims of a shooting near the White House, died Thursday, President Donald Trump said.

“She’s just passed away,” Trump said. “She’s no longer with us. She’s looking down at us.”

Trump, who was speaking with members of the military via video, said she was “magnificent in every way.”

A White House official said Trump spoke with Beckstrom’s parents on Thursday night.

U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of Summersville, W.Va. , died on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025, after she was shot while on mission as a member of the West Virginia National Guard in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Joint Task Force-District of Columbia)

The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, underwent surgery and remained hospitalized in Washington, D.C., in critical condition.

“The other young man is fighting for his life,” Trump said.

Earlier Thursday, federal law enforcement officials examined evidence collected from the home of the alleged lone gunman, who drove to the nation’s capital from Washington state to target the troops, officials said.

They did not disclose a motive for the attack in a busy area of offices and retail just blocks from the White House, the day before Thanksgiving.

Beckstrom and Wolfe underwent surgery and were hospitalized after the suspect allegedly shot them in broad daylight Wednesday, according to Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

A military press release said Beckstrom, of Summersville, was assigned to the 863rd Military Police Company, 111th Engineer Brigade. Wolfe, of Martinsburg, was assigned to the Force Support Squadron, 167th Airlift Wing.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, of Martinsburg, W.Va., was shot on Nov. 26, 2025, while on mission with the West Virginia National Guard in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Joint Task Force-District of Columbia)

Wolfe entered service on Feb. 5, 2019 and had been on orders in the district since the beginning of the mission in August. Beckstrom entered service on June 26, 2023 and also had been in the district since August.

“Their families are with them now. They are critical. I think you understand the meaning of that,” Pirro told reporters at a Thursday morning briefing.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan refugee who worked with U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is currently facing three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, Pirro said, adding the charges are “appropriate” for now.

“It’s not clear, you know, how this is going to end up. But let me be perfectly clear about how it will end up in this office if one of them is to pass. And God forbid that happens, this is a murder one (charge). Period. End of the story,” Pirro said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Thursday morning the Department of Justice will seek the death penalty if either of the guard members succumbs to their injuries.

Bondi said Beckstrom had volunteered to work over the holiday.

Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard, commanding general of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, told reporters, “Regardless of the outcome, we know that their lives, their family life, their families’ lives are all changed forever because one person decided to do this horrific and evil thing.”

Pirro said the suspect “drove his vehicle across the country from the state of Washington with the intended target of coming to our nation’s capital.”

Trump mobilized 800 National Guard members to the district in August, on the grounds of a “crime emergency,” despite a nearly 30-year low in violent crime in the city.

Some of the guard troops were instructed they would be carrying service weapons while deployed in the district, according to an Aug. 17 report in the Wall Street Journal.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday the administration will send an additional 500 National Guard troops to the district.

Fellow guard troops responded ‘immediately’

Shortly after 2 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, at 17th and I streets NW, near the Farragut West Metro station, Lakanwal allegedly shot the first guard member, then “leans over and strikes the guardsman again,” Pirro said, not identifying which member was initially struck.

Lakanwal then struck the second guard member “several times,” she said.

“Fellow guardsmen who were there responded immediately, engaging the suspect, neutralizing the threat, and subduing him at the scene. He was transported to a local hospital, where he remains as we speak, under heavy guard. Thanks to the swift and coordinated response of the National Guard and the Metropolitan Police Department, no additional victims were harmed, and the scene was secured within minutes,” Pirro said.

Kash Patel, director of the FBI, said the agency searched Lakanwal’s home last night in Bellingham, Washington, seizing multiple electronic devices and interviewing family members. Patel said the suspect is believed to have five children.

The gun Lakanwal used in the attack, a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver, is being analyzed at the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, Patel said.

Patel said the FBI is also interviewing interested parties in San Diego but would not provide further details on the “ongoing investigation.”

A ‘relationship’ with ‘partner forces’ in Afghanistan

Patel told reporters that he spoke to CIA Director John Ratcliffe Wednesday night and obtained “confirmation now that the subject had a relationship in Afghanistan with partner forces.”

“We are fully investigating that aspect of his background as well, to include any known associates that are either overseas or here in the United States of America,” Patel said.

Patel would not answer reporters’ questions about whether and when Lakanwal had been granted asylum in the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for a timeline.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a statement Wednesday night confirming Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2021, as part of the Operation Allies Welcome.

The program was established after the U.S. military’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan “to support vulnerable Afghans, including those who worked alongside us in Afghanistan for the past two decades, as they safely resettle in the United States,” according to Department of Homeland archived information.

Noem did not provide any further information on Lakanwal’s asylum process.

The administration announced Wednesday night it will immediately halt any immigration requests from Afghan nationals.

Lakanwal had worked with a CIA-backed military unit in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, Fox News reported Wednesday night. The CIA did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Guard deployment in the courts

Last week, a District of Columbia federal judge found the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the city illegal. However, Judge Jia Cobb paused her order for three weeks to give the Trump administration time to remove the guard members along with appealing her ruling.

More than 2,000 members of the guard have remained in the district, and are expected to stay until the end of February, according to Cobb’s order.

The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an emergency motion to intervene.

National Guard Shooter Reportedly Fought in CIA-Backed Paramilitary Unit in Afghanistan - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-27T22:41:53.000Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — The brazen daytime shooting of two National Guard members in the nation’s capital by a man authorities identified as an Afghan national has raised multiple questions.

Officials have released the name of the suspect, who is in custody, and the names of the two Guard members who were shot, but the suspect’s motive for the attack is not yet clear.

Here’s what we know so far, and what we don’t know:

Condition of the National Guard members

This combo from photos provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025, show National Guard members, from left, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe and Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. (U.S. Attorney’s Office via AP)

The Guard members, who have been identified as Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were hospitalized in critical condition after Wednesday’s shooting.

They belong to the West Virginia National Guard, which deployed hundreds of troops to the nation’s capital as part of President Donald Trump’s crime-fighting mission that involved taking over the local police department. There were nearly 2,200 Guard members in D.C. for the mission.

Both Beckstrom and Wolfe have been on orders in Washington, D.C., since August, according to the West Virginia National Guard. Beckstrom, from Webster Springs, West Virginia, entered service in June 2023. Wolfe, who is from Martinsburg, West Virginia, entered service in February 2019.

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey initially posted on social media that two of his state’s Guard members were killed. He later walked that back, saying his office was “receiving conflicting reports” about their condition. Morrisey has not elaborated, but his office said Thursday that he met with the victims and their families and other guard members.

How the attack unfolded

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, drove across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver.

Video reviewed by investigators showed the assailant “came around the corner” and immediately started firing at the troops, according to Jeffery Carroll, an executive assistant D.C. police chief.

At least one Guard member exchanged gunfire with the shooter, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Troops ran over and held down the shooter, Carroll said, and he was taken into custody. Authorities believe he was the only gunman.

Carroll said that it was not clear whether one of the Guard members or a law enforcement officer shot the suspect and that investigators so far had no information on a motive.

The suspect’s wounds were not believed to be life-threatening, one of the officials said.

The suspect and his pathway to the US

Lakanwal, 29, entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement.

Supporters have said there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

The initiative brought roughly 76,000 people to the U.S., many of whom had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The program has drawn intense criticism from Trump and other Republicans over what they have argued are gaps in the vetting process and the speed of admissions. Supporters have said the initiative has offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

Prior to his arrival in the United States, the suspect worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, “as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” John Ratcliffe, the spy agency’s director, said in a statement.

Zero Units were paramilitary units manned by Afghans but backed by the CIA and also served in front-line fighting with CIA paramilitary officers.

Ratcliffe did not specify what work Lakanwal did, but said the relationship “ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation” of U.S. service members from Afghanistan.

A resident of the eastern Afghan province of Khost who identified himself as Lakanwal’s cousin said Lakanwal was originally from the province. The cousin, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said Lakanwal had worked in a special Afghan Army unit known as Zero Units. A former official from the unit, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal was a team leader and his brother was a platoon leader.

Zero Units were paramilitary units manned by Afghans but backed by the CIA and also served in front-line fighting with CIA paramilitary officers. Activists had attributed abuses to the units. They played a key role in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country, providing security around Kabul International Airport as the Americans and others fell back during the Taliban offensive that seized the country.

The cousin said Lakanwal started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012, and was later promoted to become a team leader and a GPS specialist.

Lakanwal’s former landlord, Kristina Widman, said Lakanwal had been living in Washington state with his wife and five children.

Pirro said Lakanwal currently faces charges of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. The charges could be upgraded, she added.

“We are praying that they survive and that the highest charge will not have to be murder in the first degree. But make no mistake, if they do not, that will certainly be the charge,” she said.

Pirro said that “it’s too soon to say” what the suspect’s motives were.

More National Guard troops

Soon after the shooting, Trump said he would send 500 more National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. It’s not clear where the additional troops would come from.

As of early November, the D.C. National Guard had the largest number on the ground, with 949 members. In addition to West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama also had forces in the capital early this month.

A federal judge last week ordered an end to the Guard deployment but also put her order on hold for 21 days to allow the Trump administration time to either remove the troops or appeal.

Great PA News Quiz: New anti-discrimination law, breaking election ties, and Thanksgiving traffic - Spotlight PA

2025-11-27T16:00:00.000Z

In this week’s news quiz: A new tax credit, an effort to revive an old license plate, and a Pittsburgh team scores a championship title.

As always, let us know if you encounter any technical issues. Just email Newsletter Editor Colin Deppen (newsletters@spotlightpa.org) with a heads up. And good luck!

OPINION: Starbucks Ignores Worker Demands at Its Peril - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-27T14:09:31.000Z

Thousands of baristas at nearly 100 Starbucks locations are on strike this holiday season, picketing outside the iconic cafes for a contract. While the corporate coffee chain has claimed little to no disruption to its bottom line so far, the union chose one of the most lucrative sales days of the year to launch its strike—Red Cup Day—and boldly rebranded it as a “Red Cup Rebellion.”

How long the rebellion will last is unclear. But given the union’s strong stand and public appetite to punish misbehaving corporations, Starbucks is risking everything by ignoring its workers’ demands.

“This is not the first nationwide strike,” explained Diego Franco, a Chicago-based Starbucks worker who is active with Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) and an elected strike captain. “However,” he added, “this will be the largest strike in the company’s history.”

It all began in December 2021 when the New York Times hailed the first-ever successful union vote at an Elmwood Starbucks near Buffalo, New York, as a “big symbolic win for labor.”

In response, the company brought its founding CEO Howard Schultz out of retirement in 2022 to lead it on an interim basis. But Schultz’s return did little to stave off the union’s momentum, and by 2025, in spite of multiple changes in leadership, more than 640 Starbucks cafes were unionized under the banner of SBWU. This is despite a union-busting campaign that was so aggressive that the National Labor Relations Board denounced the company’s actions as a “virulent, widespread and well-orchestrated response to employees’ protected organizing efforts.” Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also lambasted it as “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country.”

The company has long referred to its workers as “partners,” a term that holds the promise of fairness. But, according to Franco, “they claim that we are partners until we have serious issues and serious demands [that] we want to bring to the table… At that point, they choose to stonewall us, they engage in union busting, and they try to drag this out for as long as they can.”

The union is calling on the public to not cross picket lines and to not spend money at any Starbucks location or on products until the company agrees to negotiate a contract. It’s a well-timed strike that comes on the heels of many months of stalled negotiations—Starbucks relies on brisk sales during the holiday season when it rolls out signature hot drinks and coffee-related gift-giving—and it has a catchy name: “No Contract, No Coffee.”

“We are asking people not to shop at Starbucks, whether the location be union, non-union,” said Franco. “Do not buy Starbucks at the grocery stores. Don’t even buy it from the vending machines.” Such a widespread boycott could cripple a company whose sales are already flagging.

Unfortunately for Starbucks, the strike also comes at a time when Americans are in a rebellious mood against corporate elites and extremely distrustful of billionaires. In the public opinion battle between a young, diverse, low-income group of workers and a new CEO—who was gifted an unimaginably large compensation package of $96 million for four months’ work in 2024, plus use of the company jet—workers will likely win.

The company boasts of good pay and benefits for its workers, but the reality is quite different. “Tenured coworkers and tenured employees often find themselves having their hours cut, and so, then they do not make the threshold to qualify for these benefits,” explained Franco.

He added, “I’ve had coworkers get kicked off of [their] healthcare insurance. I’ve seen college students get kicked off of the college tuition plan that Starbucks offers, and then having to pay back the money in student loans that they thought the company was paying off for them, simply because their hours had gotten cut.”

READ: How Starbucks Tried to Quash Union Activity in Colorado

In order to take advantage of the company’s touted benefits, workers need to put in at least 20 hours of work a week. But many find themselves stuck at 19 hours even as customer wait times have increased. In other words, the company appears to be squeezing every penny of profit at the expense of its workers and customers. It’s a far cry from the company’s “long-standing commitment to making Starbucks the best job in retail.”

The majority of Starbucks workers are women, and about half are people of color. Like Franco, they are largely young and well-educated, have high expectations of the nation’s social contract that hard work will pay off, and are very vocal on social media.

“The CEO and the C-suite executives are treated so well at the very top, as opposed to the baristas in the stores or other corporate workers who have had their quality of life diminished over the past year,” said Franco.

This CEO-worker dichotomy is a fitting symbol of everything modern-day capitalism has wrought in the United States, and one that SBWU is making much of. The union has won the support of Senator Sanders, the newly elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, and young social media influencers with huge followings.

Starbucks ought to view what happened to the retail giant Target as a cautionary tale. A well-publicized boycott of Target launched early in 2025, in response to the company’s decision to drop diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, has resulted in significant losses and is holding strong.

Moreover, coffee lovers have more options than ever, not in the form of corporate brands, but at independent cafes that are thriving and offer unique, warm, and inviting alternatives to cookie-cutter chains.

Starbucks ought to heed its workers, but instead seems to be backtracking on previous assurances as well. For example, Starbucks executive vice president Sara Kelly said in November 2025 that the union’s demand to allow baristas to pause online orders via the mobile app during high customer traffic is unreasonable. But in a call to investors in July, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol announced, “[W]e plan to sunset our mobile order and pickup only concept in fiscal 2026. We found this format to be overly transactional and lacking the warmth and human connection that defines our brand.”

The overpaid Niccol appears to be a major reason why negotiations have come to a stop. SBWU representatives say contract negotiations were making headway under the previous CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, for the better part of a year.

But when Niccol replaced Narasimhan, talks stalled. And now, Niccol’s plan to turn the company around involves burdening baristas with unreasonable demands such as a stricter dress code and more stringent guidelines on customer interaction. “Baristas were instructed to write something ‘genuine’ on each customer cup, with threats of repercussions if they didn’t,” said author Justin Bariso in an Opinion piece for Inc. magazine.

That’s hardly the way to make peace with a disgruntled workforce. Even corporate insiders are perplexed at the company’s refusal to treat its workers well. Kelly O’Keefe, the CEO of the marketing and strategy consultancy Brand Federation, told Business Insider that “They need to double down on their own employees — if they win with their own employees, they will win with the customer, and I don’t think they’re there yet.”

SBWU is inviting the company to do right by its workers, like Franco, who are determined to stand firm. “The strike will go on until the company decides to bring forth a good economic package,” he said. “I would rather stand outside in the cold than work for an employer that’s choosing to disrespect us.”

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Rifle deer hunting season begins in Pennsylvania Saturday, with two Sunday hunting days. - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-27T10:51:00.000Z

A hunter walks across a field. (Getty Images)

More than half a million hunters are expected to take to the fields and woods for Pennsylvania’s firearm deer hunting season that begins on Saturday, Nov. 29 this year.

The season will last through Dec. 13, with hunting allowed on two Sundays – Nov. 30 and Dec. 7.

Listen to Ian and Emily’s audio recap:

https://penncapital-star.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/26epikRDHS.mp3

“Opening day of deer season here touches countless families, mine included, as well as offices, work sites and schools,” said State Game Commission Executive Director Steve Smith. “It’s about more than recreation, though. Deer season is also conservation and compassion turned into action, as our hunters keep deer in balance with their habitat, while feeding themselves and hungry neighbors. There’s truly nothing like it.”

Last year, an estimated 476,880 deer were harvested by hunters in Pennsylvania, with an estimated 283,760 during firearm season.

Nearly 284,000 pounds of venison were donated through the Hunters Sharing the Harvest program at more than 100 licensed butcher shops in 56 counties. It was then distributed to food banks across the state. Some 1.1 million servings of venison were ultimately delivered.

According to the Game Commission, during rifle deer hunting season, Pennsylvanians are allowed one antlered deer per hunting license, and one antlerless deer per Wildlife Management Unity (WMU) specific antlerless license, Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) permit or Agricultural Deer Control Permit.

Hunters must wear 250 inches of fluorescent orange material on their head, chest and back, visible 360 degrees around them, and can shoot between a half hour before sunrise and a half hour after sundown.

This year marks the first firearm deer hunting season since legislation allowing hunting on Sundays was passed in Pennsylvania. Thirteen Sundays were selected throughout the year, with two, during rifle deer season.

However, hunting will not be allowed in Pennsylvania state parks on Dec. 7, though it is permitted on state game lands, state forests and private lands where hunters have permission.

Licenses cost $20.97 for adult Pennsylvanians and $101,97 for nonresidents.

Antler restrictions vary by WMU. Details about antler restrictions statewide and reporting harvests can be found on the game commission’s website.

Hunters are required to fill out harvest tags that come with their licenses and attach them to the ear of each deer. Deer harvests must be reported to the Game Commission within 10 days, which can be done online at huntfish.pa.gov or by calling 800-838-4431.

How George Washington used his first Thanksgiving as president to unite a new country - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-27T09:50:10.000Z

Washington Taking Command of the American Army, at Cambridge, Massachusetts July 3rd, 1775. Copy of lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1876. (Photo courtesy of the National Archives)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, George Washington woke early. Assisted by his enslaved valets – William “Billy” Lee and the young Christopher Sheels – he powdered his hair, put on his favorite black velvet suit, tied his white neckwear and donned his yellow gloves.

Finally ready, he set out to travel the short distance from the President’s House, at what used to be 3 Cherry St., New York, and St. Paul’s Chapel, which still stands at 209 Broadway.

He had an important aim that day: to celebrate Thanksgiving. Washington had thought carefully about this Thanksgiving, the first of his presidency. On Oct. 3, 1789, following the recommendation of a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives, Washington had issued a proclamation. He urged the people of the United States to celebrate “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.”

But Washington believed that particular Thanksgiving in 1789 was a crucial occasion. He would use it to call on the people he now led to hold their new country together in the face of forces that he knew could pull it apart.

Devotion in the service of unity

It was not the first Thanksgiving Americans celebrated. The first took place at Plymouth colony in the autumn of 1621 – Pilgrims held a feast to thank God for their first harvest and invited members of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe.

It was not even the first national Thanksgiving – which was held on Dec. 18, 1777, at then-General Washington’s behest. Nor was Thanksgiving yet a federal holiday to be observed every last Thursday of November – it became so with the 1863 proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln.

George Washington’s Oct. 3, 1789, Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. (Courtesy of the National Archives)

Nov. 26, 1789, was a Thursday, and the weather was miserable. Few New Yorkers showed up at St. Paul’s Chapel to see the president: “I went to St. Pauls Chapel,” Washington wrote in his diary, “though it was most inclement and stormy.” There were “but few people at Church.”

The president had prepared for the occasion. He also contributed a sizable sum of his own money to buy beer and food for prisoners confined for debt in the New York City jail. The donation was deemed to be a magnanimous and moving gesture, suitable to the spirit of the holiday. A week later, in an advertisement in the Dec. 3 issue of the New York Journal, those very prisoners returned their “grateful thanks” to their president “for his very acceptable donation on Thursday last.”

Washington’s first Thanksgiving as a president may have not been tremendously successful, given the scarce attendance at the church service.

Yet, as a scholar writing a biography about Washington, I believe it was an important step in his much larger political plan to bring the executive branch to the people’s doorstep.

What Washington wanted was a virtuous kind of populism in the new country he led. Washington’s populism wasn’t about inciting an angry mob; it was about sharing in their rituals, worshiping their God, speaking their own language. And he did so in the sole interest of the American people.

Thanksgiving 1789, for Washington, was at once religious and more than religious. Washington’s proclamation invoked devotional language, literally. The upcoming festivity, in his words, could “be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

But Washington’s main concern was political. The nation was recently formed, and he feared that it could easily collapse. Its many internal divisions and separate interests could be lethal. Consequently, the president wanted this holiday to be a civic celebration in which “we may then all unite.”

‘Pardon our national…transgressions’

As its first president, Washington recognized that the United States was born out of slavery, conquest and violence as much as of sacred principle. Civic unification required acknowledgment of these flaws. Thus, in the proclamation, Washington asked God “to pardon our national and other transgressions.”

A tremendously self-aware man, Washington knew that he was a deeply flawed person himself.

He was a slave owner, a relentless pursuer of African American fugitives and a destroyer of Native American villages. He was also a warrior who deployed brutality against enemies. He was a commander who resorted to corporal punishment with his own soldiers. Washington believed that he was not a saint to be mindlessly imitated. This made him humble in his duties.

More importantly, Washington also grasped the power of his symbolic position as president. He sought to leverage that for the good of the nation.

Washington’s proclamation was printed in newspapers throughout the country.
(Courtesy of George Washington’s Mt. Vernon)

As president, Washington could not advertise his actions effectively via Twitter and social media. He had to show himself around constantly, no matter the weather. He had to painstakingly attend balls, plays, dinners, public receptions and of course the church. Every occasion, every Thanksgiving counted.

Through his outings, Washington met with a diversity of people, including those who were second-class citizens or were not citizens at all. Women, for example, greeted Washington at nearly every stop of the extended presidential trips he took between 1789 and 1791. Textile workers in New England, Jewish leaders in Newport, many enslaved persons in the South and churchgoers everywhere did the same.

These women and men, in bondage or free, believers or skeptics, played a part in the invention of a new political theater. Maybe, it was just a theatrical illusion. But these individuals – just like the prisoners in the New York City jail – thanked President Washington because they felt they were voices in a larger political culture.

Washington made sure his Thanksgiving message – not simply a message, but a “proclamation” – sounded clear and strong: May God “render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.”

Maurizio Valsania is professor of American History at Università di Torino. He has published three books on Thomas Jefferson (University of Virginia Press). His last book, First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity, was published in October 2022 by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Two National Guard members from West Virginia shot in Washington, D.C. - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-26T23:08:17.000Z

FBI Director Kash Patel speaks to reporters following the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 26, 2025. Mayor Muriel Bowser looks on. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Image

WASHINGTON — Two National Guard members from West Virginia were shot Wednesday afternoon near the White House in Washington, D.C., officials confirmed.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey first posted on social media that they had died, before later writing he was hearing “conflicting reports about the condition of our two Guard members and will provide additional updates once we receive more complete information.”

“Our prayers are with these brave service members, their families, and the entire Guard community,” he added.

President Donald Trump was briefed on the shooting and was “actively monitoring this tragic situation,” according to a statement from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The shooting happened just one day before Thanksgiving.

Trump mobilized 800 National Guard members to the district in August, on the grounds of a “crime emergency,” despite a nearly 30-year low in violent crime in the city. Last week, a District of Columbia federal judge found the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the city illegal. However, Judge Jia Cobb paused her order for three weeks to give the Trump administration time to remove the Guard members along with appealing her ruling.

More than 2,000 members of the Guard have remained in the district, and are expected to stay until the end of February, according to Cobb’s order.

The Metropolitan Police Department reported around 2:45 p.m. Eastern that it was on the scene of a shooting near the intersection of 17th and I streets NW, an area of office buildings and retail just about two blocks from the White House.

MPD reported shortly later on social media that one suspect was in custody.

Trump posted on social media prior to Morrisey’s statements that both guardsmen were “critically wounded” and taken to two separate hospitals. The shooter, he added, was “also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price.”

The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly, reported the suspect sustained “injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.”

White House on lockdown

The White House was placed on lockdown due to the shooting, according to a White House official. Trump and first lady Melania Trump are in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday and were not present at the time of the shooting.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on social media that the department was “working with local law enforcement to gather more information.”

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When Trump mobilized the Guard, he also federalized the district’s police force for 30 days. While the federalization of the police force expired, Trump has kept the National Guard in the district.

Since then, Republican governors have agreed to send their own Guard members to the district, from Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia, among others.

Lawmakers react

Members of Congress responded to the initial reports of the shooting with prayers and gratitude for the service members.

Members of the U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies respond to a shooting near the White House on Nov. 26, 2025. At least two National Guard members were shot, officials confirmed. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“Praying for the National Guard members wounded in this horrific shooting,” U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on social media. “Thankful for the brave law enforcement officers and first responders who swiftly apprehended a suspect. There is no place for violence in America.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, called for prayers for the victims.

“Join me in praying for the two National Guardsmen shot in D.C. and their families,” she said. “Our men and women in uniform truly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and deserve our greatest respect.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote he was “closely monitoring the situation and am praying for the wounded National Guardsmen and their families.”

“My heart breaks for the victims of this horrific shooting in Washington DC near the White House,” Schumer wrote. “I thank all the first responders for their quick action to capture the suspect.”

Speaking in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Vice President JD Vance, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said the attack was “a somber reminder.”

“Our soldiers are the sword and the shield of the United States of America,” he said. “And as a person who goes into work every single day in that building and knows that there are a lot of people who wear the uniform of the United States Army, let me just say very personally thank them for what they’re doing.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrote that his “thoughts and prayers are with the National Guardsmen who were attacked this afternoon. I urge you to keep them in your prayers too.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Man Accused of Voting in Both Florida and Pennsylvania in 2020 Election Says Trump Pardon Applies to Him - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-26T19:07:06.000Z

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local

READ: Trump Pardons Rudy Giuliani and Others Who Backed Efforts to Overturn His 2020 Election Loss

Laiss’s attorney argued in a motion to dismiss filed last week that the “plain language” of the pardon meant it extended to Laiss.

“To read the Pardon Proclamation to intend such an outcome would be outrageous, particularly in light of its sweeping language,” Laiss’s attorney argued.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney declined to comment. The White House Press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Legal scholars warned when Trump issued the pardon that the broad language could have unintended consequences for the administration.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in California and a former Justice Department official, said he wasn’t surprised to see a defendant making this argument.

The caveat is that the pardon applies only to federal crimes, and election-related crimes are generally prosecuted at the state or local level.

READ: Fact-Checking Trump’s Latest Claims About Mail Ballots and Voting Machines

The U.S. attorney’s office has until Friday to respond to the motion. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge in the case to decide if the pardon applies, Muller said.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Erica Deuso Didn’t Run for Mayor to Make History (Even Though She Did). She Ran to Make Downingtown a Better Place to Live - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-26T17:01:11.000Z

Erica Deuso made history earlier this month by becoming the first transgender person to be elected mayor in Pennsylvania, and the fourth to do so in the country. The mayor-elect of Downingtown has received national attention for her win, and the milestone it marks.

She, however, is more interested in being a “Good Neighbor” than a “first.”

Deuso’s campaign focused on the needs she saw in her neighbors: affordability, traffic reduction, solutions to flooding, and protection from federal abuses of power. She made a point of focusing on local issues, not her identity as a trans woman.

The success of Deuso’s campaign is representative of a wider trend we’ve witnessed this election cycle: when a politician genuinely has a sense of what people care about and actually bothers to address it, people overwhelmingly show up and vote. Right now, an issue on most Americans’ minds is affordability. When asked about this very issue, Deuso’s opponent Richard Bryant suggested that Downingtown residents being priced out can just find somewhere else to live. Deuso’s overwhelming win with 65% of the vote, then, wasn’t so surprising at all.

I spoke to Deuso about her campaign, her goals as the mayor, and how her identity as a trans woman impacted her issues-driven campaign.

Photo courtesy of Erica Deuso.

How do you feel about the statewide and national attention you’re receiving after becoming the first out transgender mayor elected in Pennsylvania?

I’ll be honest, I did not expect this kind of attention. It has been a little surprising and pretty heartwarming. I’ve heard from people all over Pennsylvania and all across the country. I’ve even heard from folks overseas, including places where being LGBTQ+ is still a crime. I knew this was historic, so I figured I’d get a few messages, but I didn’t expect this many. I think a lot of people were looking for a bit of good news in a tough time, and somehow my race gave them that.

I guess I never thought it was this big of a deal because I don’t think about my gender identity all that much anymore. It’s just part of who I am. But I know some people still see it as a marker of progress, and this win meant something to them. I’m grateful for every message, every kind word, every bit of support. But at the end of the day, I keep my head down and focus on the work. The title only matters if I use it to make life better for the people who live here.

Your campaign didn’t focus heavily on your identity as a trans, bisexual person. Why did you make that decision? And were there ways that your campaign was informed by your identity?

I kept my campaign focused on what working families here in Downingtown actually talk about at their kitchen tables. Affordability came up first, every time. Housing costs too much. Groceries cost too much. Rent for our small businesses costs too much. People also talked about safety, flooding, and traffic, but the cost of keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table came up more than anything else. And honestly, most people don’t care about my identity. The ones who do are usually focused on the wrong 1% of the population. This race was never about me. It was about the people of this town. I wanted them to see me as their neighbor who listens and shows up.

I guess I never thought it was this big of a deal because I don’t think about my gender identity all that much anymore. It’s just part of who I am.

My identity did shape things, but in quieter ways. I know what it feels like to be part of a group that rarely gets a seat at the table. I know what it feels like to fight for equal rights and still go unheard. That gives me a soft spot for people who feel ignored or brushed aside. It helps me understand why some neighbors feel frustrated when they try to speak up and nothing changes.

I want people here to feel heard and seen. That’s what matters to me.

Was affordability already a conversation in the government of Downingtown or among your local Democrats, or did you feel like you were bringing something new to the table with your campaign?

Photo courtesy of Erica Deuso.

I definitely didn’t hear it from our borough council, from our current mayor. I think I come at it from a different perspective. I didn’t have everything when I was a kid. My family struggled, and I still remember that.

Chester County is the richest county in the Commonwealth, and I think sometimes elected officials lose a little perspective of what it means to really go without. I really wanted to bring that home to the people of Downingtown who are struggling.

It was in contrast to what my opponent was saying, which was: if you can’t afford to live in Downingtown, maybe you should look somewhere else. I think you shouldn’t be struggling to live in your hometown. You shouldn’t be told, hey, go find someplace cheaper. The government should be helping you, and that’s what I’d like to see.

How did you connect with the LGBTQ+ community in Downingtown during your campaign?

I didn’t run any targeted outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. What happened was more natural. People found me. Folks stopped me at events. Parents of transgender kids just talked to me when they saw me out for a run. Gay couples talked with me at Good Neighbor Day or Downingtown Fall Fest. Others reached out through Facebook or social media to share what they were feeling during the race. They wanted to tell me their hopes, their worries, and later their relief. It all just felt very human. Nothing scripted. Just neighbors talking, even if that neighbor lived 2000 miles away!

READ: Lawsuits Push Back Against Trump Administration’s Attacks on Health Care and Privacy Rights for Pennsylvania’s Transgender Youth

When I met LGBTQ+ residents at the door, our conversations almost never centered on identity. I remember when I met a transgender man who said later that it felt like a breath of fresh air that I did not make the conversation about being trans. I told him that I was sorry, but that I honestly didn’t know he was a transgender man until he just told me. He lit up! He said it felt good to be seen as himself without the weight of labels.

That is how I connected with the LGBTQ+ community here. It was simple. It was organic. It was people talking to me the same way they talk to any neighbor.

Have you felt pressure to de-center your identity in your campaign process because of the current narratives and environment regarding trans people? Or do you think this would have been your approach regardless of when you had campaigned?

I wanted to run this campaign focused on the issues, but never denying who I am — never trying to downplay my background. So I’m running this campaign and even if I’m talking about something mundane, there was always somebody there who was really negative about who I am or my gender identity, the way that I look, the way that I talk, or the way that I act. And I can see that if I made my identity a bigger part of this campaign, this campaign would have devolved into a big argument about my own humanity—a big argument about whether I belong or I exist. There were people arguing whether or not I even existed as a person. So I felt if I kept the focus on what people care about, it was much harder for people to come back and make it about my identity. They tried, I’ll give them credit. There were people who decided that regardless of what I said, regardless of what I did, they were going to make this election about my identity. They failed, obviously.

I am grateful for the people of Downingtown. They trusted me with something big, and I don’t take that lightly.

The town really cared about the things that I was talking about. They cared about affordability, flooding, our police and our traffic and our roads. You know, that’s what people care about. They want to keep their families safe. They want to put food on the table. They want to keep a roof over their head. Anything else that people want to talk about is just noise.

Tell me more about being a Good Neighbor. What does that mean to you? To Downingtown?

To me, being a Good Neighbor is pretty simple. You look out for the people around you. If someone needs a hand, you help. If something feels off, you check in. And if the town needs you, you show up. That’s how I grew up, and it’s why Downingtown felt like home right away.

And honestly, I think some of our elected officials in Washington and Harrisburg have gotten a little detached from that. I don’t think folks like Donald Trump or Senator Dave McCormick have ever really had to be the kind of good neighbors many of us grow up around. I don’t picture them jumpstarting a neighbor’s car before dawn so they can get to work. I don’t see them dragging branches out of the road in the middle of a storm, or showing up with a shovel when someone’s driveway is buried. People like that have always had the money to pay someone else to handle the hard stuff.

Most of us don’t live in that world. We live in towns where you help the person next door because it’s the right thing to do, and you roll up your sleeves without expecting anything back. Good neighbors get their hands dirty and show up when it matters, and that’s the spirit I bring into the mayor’s office. I try to lead the way people already live here, by listening first, treating folks with respect, helping solve problems, making sure people feel heard, and keeping the focus on what actually makes their lives better. That’s what being a Good Neighbor means to me, and it’s what I see every day in this town.

In what ways should your constituents expect you to stand up for them as the federal government continues to overstep its powers? For example, you’ve said that under your leadership, your police department would not cooperate with ICE “except for where legally obligated.” Would you elaborate on that?

When I talk about standing up for people here, I mean looking out for everyone who calls Downingtown home. Our police department serves and protects all residents and neighbors. Their work depends on trust. People need to feel safe calling 911 without worrying about federal politics.

On ICE, my view is simple: Our police should not act as an arm of federal immigration enforcement. Their job is to keep our neighborhoods safe and respond when someone needs help. The only time we would cooperate with ICE is when the law makes it clear we must. A good example is a dangerous criminal who needs to be arrested. In that situation, the criminal charges come first. Only after those charges are handled would any civil immigration issues come into play.

READ: Bucks County’s ICE-Loving, MAGA Sheriff Fred Harran Got What He Deserved: A Pink Slip From Voters on Election Night

Our residents should feel comfortable calling our police, even if, especially if, ICE is trying to detain someone. Our police can inspect warrants, inspect immigration officer’s credentials to ensure they are actually legit, and protect residents against the blatant violence used by ICE in many instances. And, if a crime is committed against a resident, our police will be fully within their jurisdiction to make arrests of federal agents who break the law.

I will push back when outside forces try to drag Downingtown into national fights that do not help this community. I answer to the people who live here. My job is to protect them, support them, and keep this town a place where every neighbor feels safe.

Finally, did you have anything else that you wanted to add that we didn’t touch on?

I guess the only thing I would add is this. I am grateful for the people of Downingtown. They trusted me with something big, and I don’t take that lightly. I want them to know I am going to show up every day, listen, and do the work. I also want folks to know that this job is not about being the first anything. It is about making sure their lives feel a little easier, a little safer, and a little more stable.

And if anyone ever has a question, a worry, or an idea, I hope they reach out. I want my office to feel like a place where neighbors can walk in and be heard. That is the kind of town we are, and that is the kind of mayor I plan to be.

Democratic lawmakers who urged troops to reject illegal orders say FBI is targeting them - Spotlight PA

2025-11-26T17:01:08.000Z

This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s partnership with NOTUS, a nonpartisan news organization that covers government and politics with the fresh eyes of early career journalists and the expertise of veteran reporters.

Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday that they were being targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after appearing in a video that urged troops to disobey illegal orders.

Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania; Jason Crow of Colorado; and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire said in a joint statement that the FBI reached out to the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms on Monday to request interviews. Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, who also appeared in the video, said they also appeared to be part of an FBI probe.

“President Trump is using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass Members of Congress,” Crow, Deluzio, Goodlander, and Houlahan said in a joint statement.

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“No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our Constitution,” the House members’ statement continued. “We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship.”

White House directed questions to the FBI, which declined to comment. The office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to comment as well. House Speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Six Democratic lawmakers released a video on Nov. 18 telling members of the armed services that they did not need to comply with illegal orders, provoking the ire of President Donald Trump and top officials in his administration.

Trump suggested the lawmakers could be guilty of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

The Pentagon on Monday announced it would investigate Kelly, which it said “may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”

Kelly’s office confirmed to NOTUS on Tuesday that it was the recipient of the sergeant-at-arms’ request for an interview with the FBI.

“Senator Kelly won’t be silenced by President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s attempt to intimidate him and keep him from doing his job as a U.S. Senator,” his office said in a statement.

Slotkin posted Tuesday on social media that the FBI Counterterrorism Division “appeared to open an investigation into me in response to a video he did not like.”

“The President directing the FBI to target us is exactly why we made this video in the first place,” Slotkin posted to X. “He believes in weaponizing the federal government against his perceived enemies and does not believe laws apply to him or his Cabinet. He uses legal harassment as an intimidation tactic to scare people out of speaking up.”

“This isn’t just about a video,” she continued. “This is not the America I know, and I’m not going to let this next step from the FBI stop me from speaking up for my country and our Constitution.”

The speed and aggressiveness of the FBI’s apparent inquiry surprised several former high-ranking bureau officials, who noted that subject interviews normally occur in later stages of a full-blown investigation.

One former FBI employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, explained that special agents normally begin with a cursory assessment before moving on to a preliminary investigation that would allow for limited evidence collection — like searching phone call records. Only after agents find “probable cause” of a crime would they receive a supervisor’s approval to launch an actual investigation, which would permit requesting judicially approved search warrants, spying on private communications and eventually interviews with the person being looked at.

If the FBI was following internal policy, former agents said, investigators would have already sought these senators’ and representatives’ text messages and emails to ascertain whether their comments in the video were actually driven by an intention to get soldiers to disobey lawful orders.

“My guess is they skipped over the investigation. It seems unlikely they had sufficient time to meticulously, dispassionately, and objectively pursue a preliminary investigation before going to interview the targets,” this person said. “I don’t know what articulable facts they could possibly have to open an investigation. Telling people to not follow illegal orders does not indicate criminal activity.”

Tariffs trickle into cost of Thanksgiving dinner, jilting consumers and farmers - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

2025-11-26T14:56:50.000Z

A sprawling farm sits alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg on October 14, 2025. (Photo by Jessica Kourkounis for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star)

TOPEKA — Collin Tuthill, president of one of the country’s largest canned and frozen food importers and distributors, said the current state of the U.S. food industry is “like we live in some kind of alternate universe.”

The most efficient industry is being hit the hardest by tariff policies and rising costs, he said Tuesday during a video call with reporters.

“The folks that are taking the punches are the ones that can’t really afford to take the punches,” said Tuthill, president of Royal Food Import, a North Carolina-based company that distributes food to hospitals, food banks, schools and prisons.

Tuthill was part of a group brought together by Tariffs Cost US, a campaign highlighting the detrimental effects of Trump administration tariff policies.

Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, said costs were already rising — for consumers and farmers — before President Donald Trump implemented tariffs.

“With tariffs, they are going up more,” he said.

Families see the effects in the cost of their Thanksgiving meals, he said.

Tariffs on imported steel have increased the overall cost of canned goods. Cheeses, spices and chocolates also have become more expensive. The tariffs, which have reached the highest average rate since 1935, stack on top of higher fuel, seed, fertilizer, equipment and transportation costs, Levendofsky said.

Then farmers see an even smaller share of profits.

For a turkey that costs $2.40 per pound, a farmer receives 6 cents, Levendofsky said. For a $6.99, 8-pound bag of potatoes, farmers receive 94 cents. A $4.49, 18-ounce package of dinner rolls gets a farmer 9 cents. A 12-ounce bag of green beans sold for $2.49 earns a farmer 62 cents.

“So when we talk about tariffs, we’re not talking about an abstract policy. We’re talking about real price increases on the foods that make up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner,” Levendofsky said. “Every added cost in the supply chain eventually shows up at the checkout line.”

The bottom line, he said, is tariffs don’t protect families or farmers.

Mary Carroll Dodd, owner of Red Scout Farm in western North Carolina, grows crops to sell through community-supported agriculture, at farmers’ markets and to local restaurants. Many of the supplies she depends upon — greenhouse materials, potting soil, tools, insect netting and produce bags — come from Canada, Mexico and China.

Costs add up quickly and profit margins are thin, she said.

“Every increase means tough choices,” Dodd said.

That can include price hikes for customers or other cost-cutting measures, which often come at the expense of fair worker pay, she said.

Because of the increase in her farm’s costs, she has raised the price of collard greens, kale and lettuce mix bags.

“We should be making it easier for family farms to survive,” Dodd said, “not harder.”

The Trump administration has touted trade deals and proposed bailout payments to mitigate low crop prices and high production costs. The administration also has claimed Thanksgiving food prices are lower this year than in past years, which the panelists said was misleading and inaccurate.

“A bailout is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” Levendofsky said.

Policy shifts throughout the agriculture industry are needed, he said. Kansas has piles of sorghum that are growing by the minute, but there’s no market for the farmers that grow it, he said. Farmers also need antitrust law enforcement that targets massive companies that have outsized control of markets, particularly meatpackers, Levendofsky said.

“I can honestly say farmers don’t want a bailout,” he said. “They want trade, not aid.”

Dodd said farms need long-term, sustainable solutions that are not one-size-fits-all. Existing programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, such as its conservation stewardship program and cropshare programs, can provide farmers with sustainability.

Tuthill said a bailout is not going to solve farmers’ issues. The food industry needs customers outside of the country to draw dollars back into the country, he said.

For his company, tariffs and rising costs have meant fewer items going to food banks, smaller portions in school cafeterias and lower quality products in hospitals and prisons. Tariffs or taxes on food make no sense, he said.

“We’re at a pretty sad state of affairs to see that we’re raising the price of food for the most in need,” Tuthill said. “We see it every day.”

This story was originally produced by Kansas Reflector, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Pennsylvania Capital-Star, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

How Philadelphia Uses Automated Systems to Decide Which Homeless Persons Get Housing and Who Stays on the Street - Bucks County Beacon

2025-11-26T14:50:48.000Z

Written by Pelle G. Tracey, University of Washington

Seeing a person huddled under a makeshift roof of tarps or curled up on a warm grate can evoke powerful emotions and questions.

How did they get here? Why doesn’t someone help them? What can I do about this?

The answers to these questions are complex. However, a significant body of research suggests that there is a highly effective solution for many individuals who experience homelessness. It is called supportive housing.

Supportive housing programs combine a housing subsidy – financial assistance that helps make housing affordable even for those with very low incomes – with wraparound supportive services that help a person remain stably housed. Supportive services often include case management, occupational therapy and mental health and addiction treatment. These programs have helped thousands of Philadelphians end their experiences of homelessness.

As a researcher and former social worker, I have spent much of the past decade working in and studying homeless services in Philadelphia. For my dissertation research, I conducted hundreds of hours of ethnographic fieldwork at a soup kitchen and outreach center in the city between 2022 and 2024. I interviewed 75 homeless services workers, volunteers and people who were experiencing or had experienced homelessness. I also analyzed hundreds of pages of policy documents.

I have found that while the city has succeeded in centralizing services to support unhoused people, there remain major bureaucratic challenges exacerbated by insufficient funding and a shortage of supportive housing. These challenges impact both people seeking supportive housing and front-line workers trying to help them.

Khalil’s story

Consider the case of Khalil, a 48-year-old from West Philly who became homeless during the pandemic. (As for all the interviewees’ names used in this article, Khalil is a pseudonym I’m using to protect his privacy.) Khalil told me that he lost his job as an IT technician at Verizon, where he had worked for nine years. Sleeping outside and unable to afford life-sustaining kidney medication, he said, his physical and mental health spiraled.

A supportive housing program changed that, providing him with a stable and affordable place to live, while social workers helped him enroll in Medicaid and connect with a community health clinic. This support, Khalil explained, allowed him to “transition back into residential living and back into employment and back into being a working member of society.”

Despite the efficacy of supportive housing, cities do not receive sufficient federal funding to provide this service to all residents who are eligible. As a result, the need for these housing programs vastly outstrips the supply.

So how do officials in Philadelphia decide who will continue to sleep on the street or in a shelter, and who can move into a supportive housing facility with a warm bed and access to valuable wraparound services?

How the city determines who gets housing

Like other localities, Philadelphia uses a Coordinated Entry System. CES is a form of automated bureaucracy that combines several different algorithms and administrative processes with the goal of helping officials and social service workers allocate resources fairly and efficiently.

CES is intended to help workers identify which people experiencing homelessness are in greatest need of aid. These systems work by combining a central pool of resources like housing programs and a central list of people seeking help. Unhoused people are scored using a vulnerability assessment tool, and those that score highest are matched to an opening in a supportive housing program.

READ: Pennsylvania Homeless Advocates Condemn Trump’s Plans to Punish the Unhoused, Involuntarily Commit Them

Because most of these systems are premised on targeting resources to the most vulnerable people, defining and gauging vulnerability becomes fraught with tension. After all, vulnerability is inherently subjective, and there is no universally agreed-upon best way to measure it.

These systems will soon come under even greater pressure as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development prepares to slash funding for supportive housing programs. As many as 170,000 people nationwide who were previously homeless will be at risk of returning to the streets once these funding changes are implemented.

CES has benefits and drawbacks

Coordinated entry has made real progress on several long-standing challenges for Philadelphia’s homeless services system. Chief among these is centralization.

Most resources available for people experiencing homelessness are administered by nonprofit social services organizations. Prior to CES, a person seeking assistance would separately apply to various nonprofits and put their name on multiple waiting lists.

CES centralizes resources into a common pool, accessed through the vulnerability assessment process. As one administrator with the city’s Office of Homeless Services told me, this arrangement is “immensely more supportive and fair” than the scattered process that came before. For example, individual nonprofit providers are less able to earmark resources for clients they already work with.

However, there are downsides to Philadelphia’s approach to CES.

READ: End of Emergency Housing Voucher Program Will Increase Homelessness in Pennsylvania

Vulnerability assessments, like those used in Philadelphia, have been criticized for failing to capture a full picture of a person’s plight. Assessments involve asking unhoused people a series of yes or no questions about their housing, health and financial history, and generate a vulnerability score based on the responses. A person who has a relatively mild experience with several different risk factors can end up with a much higher score than a person with an extremely serious experience with just a few.

And similar to other automated assessments, such as in the criminal legal system, they have the potential to introduce racial bias into allocation outcomes.

Furthermore, the way CES works is, by design, hidden from the people it impacts most. The ambiguity is intended to prevent people from gaming the system, but it also creates confusion for those living in shelters and on the street. Some seeking aid may hide evidence of their vulnerability, such as addiction, out of fear it will disqualify them from housing. Others may amplify their vulnerability in an effort to improve their odds of receiving help.

The result is a perception among people experiencing homelessness that the system is unfair.

As Andre, a 60-year-old who had been sleeping in shelters off and on for nearly a decade, told me, a person who “goes in there and tells the absolute truth, they’re put on the back burner.”

‘You’ve got to have a record of being homeless’

Leon, a 25-year-old from North Philadelphia, told me as we chatted over coffee that in order to be prioritized through CES, “You’ve got to have a record of being homeless.”

But generating such a paper trail can be difficult. A city database tracks shelter stays that can serve as proof of homelessness, but not all shelters participate. And for those sleeping outside, like Leon, proof depends on regular interactions with outreach workers, which requires being in the right place at the right time.

READ: Trump’s Proposed Time Limit on HUD Subsidies Would ‘Devastate’ Low Income Families in Bucks County and Across Pennsylvania

If an unhoused person cannot prove the length of their time on the street, or provide documentation of a mental health diagnosis, they may be deprioritized through CES, even if they are highly vulnerable.

For all its advantages, CES in Philly is not designed to take into account the input of unhoused people themselves. In the words of Richie, a 32-year-old who was seeking housing for himself and his pregnant wife, “There is no voice for homeless people … because homeless people don’t have a voice.”

Despite these challenges, the city has lowered barriers to participating in CES. For example, the city has launched a pilot program involving mobile assessors who can complete assessments in different locations beyond city shelters, such as at soup kitchens, to meet unhoused people where they are.

3 ways to improve the system

Here are three concrete ways the city could reduce more of the bureaucratic hurdles to supportive housing.

First, the city could expand pathways to supportive housing through a model called multiprinciple allocation. This approach combines different methods for determining who gets housing. Some subsidies could be allocated through new vulnerability assessments that are better vetted for bias, while others are distributed based on length of homelessness or a lottery system. This could bolster fairness by ensuring that people whose vulnerability is not picked up through the assessment tool could still have a shot at aid.

Second, the city could provide opportunities for unhoused people and front-line workers to attest to vulnerability and experiences of homelessness in their own words – allowing someone to say, “I am struggling with housing for reasons that the assessment did not cover.”

READ: Listen to the Voices of the Homeless

And third, Philadelphia could reduce the degree of automation in the CES matching process. As things stand, people with high scores are mechanically matched to open programs, even if that program is a poor fit for the individual person. Giving staff and unhoused people more agency in making housing matches could produce better outcomes.

No amount of tinkering with CES can address the fundamental resource constraints that shape the fight against homelessness in Philadelphia. Simply put, Philadelphia lacks sufficient funding for housing the most vulnerable. But thoughtful changes to CES could make the response to homelessness more effective, compassionate and fair.

Pelle G. Tracey is Assistant Professor of Information at University of Washington.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.