Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has launched a consumer protection investigation into automakers Hyundai and Kia after hundreds of the vehicles have been stolen across the country.
As part of the investigation, announced on Wednesday, Tong seeks records and information on certain Hyundai and Kia vehicles sold in Connecticut, including complaints, internal reports on the company’s decision-making, and anti-theft software and internal communications.
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by Lauren Jessop To be, or not to be, a sanctuary state – that is the question Pennsylvania lawmakers will attempt to answer as they seek support for two diametrically opposed House bills. A Democrat-sponsored version would limit local police assistance with immigration enforcement. A Republican-sponsored bill, in contrast, wants to prevent local governments from designating themselves as “sanctuary.” The common thread between the two is safer communities; one side claims sanctuary policies make them safer, and the other says they threaten the safety of legal citizens. Rep. Jose Giral, D-Philadelphia, is reintroducing legislation from a previous session that would prohibit police from spending resources on immigration enforcement and state postsecondary educational institutions from “enacting or enforcing discriminatory immigration enforcement policies.” In a memo, Giral (pictured above, left) said, “forcing local police agencies to devote resources to immigration enforcement simultaneously makes it harder for them to investigate crimes and wastes taxpayer money.” Giral’s office did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment. Rep. Ryan Warner, R-Connellsville, wants to prevent local governments from enacting sanctuary polices. Warner (pictured above, right) told The Center Square he believes encouraging illegal immigration is dangerous, irresponsible, and insulting to those who entered the country legally. “It…
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Pennsylvania remains one of the few states without open primary voting, but some lawmakers say the potential change isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
Some legislators want to reform the status quo, but others worry that the complexity of the state’s electoral code is too convoluted for the switch to be a wise choice.
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Republicans in Pennsylvania’s Freedom Caucus have at least temporarily blocked a bill funneling taxpayer dollars to Penn State University following news that the university hospital is prescribing puberty blockers to children.
House Bill 1456 failed to reach the needed two-thirds majority threshold Thursday that it required to pass the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
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Former Yale University volunteer and researcher Bandy Lee has lost yet another lawsuit against the school in relation to the non-renewal of her agreement with her.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a prior ruling that found Yale acted lawfully when it decided not to renew an agreement with Lee, who had an unpaid role at the Ivy League university.
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A Pennsylvania House of Representatives panel on Thursday passed bills to favor apprenticeship-trained labor and pay prevailing wages in state contracting in a process Republicans blasted as illegitimate.
The House Labor and Industry Committee reported both bills to the full chamber, with all 12 Democrats supportive and all nine Republicans opposed.
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Fewer students and falling test scores couldn’t stop New Hampshire politicians from pouring even more money into the state’s public school system. It is part of a decades-long trend of Granite State taxpayers spending more money to teach fewer children and getting declining results.
Gov. Chris Sununu bragged the FY 2024-25 budget “provides more money for public education than ever before.”
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In the eyes of most Granite Staters, former President Donald Trump is a criminal. But that’s not stopping a majority of Republicans from giving the former president their thumbs up.
And, echoing the findings of the NHJournal/coefficient poll released last week, Republicans in the latest Granite State Poll, a States of Opinion Project, out of the UNH Survey Center said Trump’s indictment on federal charges made it more, not less, likely they’ll support him.
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Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission announced this week that the commonwealth and its localities will collect nearly $279 million from natural gas extraction impact fees this year.
The revenues, applying to drilling activity throughout 2022, bring the total fees collected for gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale sedimentary rock formation to $2.5 billion since 2012, the year lawmakers imposed the tax on fossil-fuel producers. This year’s allocations will be the largest yearly amount the government amassed through the levy, representing a 19 percent increase over the prior year’s take.
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Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week passed legislation raising the state minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026 and permanently indexing it to inflation going forward.
Currently, the Keystone State mandates $7.25 in minimum hourly pay for most workers. If the bill passes the state Senate it will receive the supportive Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s signature and become law. The measure, sponsored by Representative Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia) will move the low-end wage to $11 per hour next January and $13 per hour the following January before bringing it to $15 the year after that.
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As Philadelphia medical malpractice cases skyrocket, a pro-tort-reform nonprofit is asking a Pennsylvania Supreme Court committee to review new “forum shopping” rules.
The Pennsylvania Coalition for Civil Justice Reform (PCCJR) sent its second such request in two months to the court’s Civil Procedural Rules Committee Chair Kathleen Bruder. According to PCCJR, new data show that the failure to keep medical malpractice cases in their proper venues is worsening lawsuit abuse that financially batters insurers, threatens medical professionals, and harms consumers.
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Former University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann earned $22.76 million in 2021, most of which was due to a contractual accrued deferred compensation payout, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“Gutmann’s total figure for 2021, reported on the 990 tax form, includes her annual compensation of a base salary of $1.56 million and a bonus of $1 million and the $20.2 million deferred compensation and supplemental retirement funds, which also includes investment gains the money made over 17 years,” the Inquirer reported June 17.
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State representative Dallas Kephart (R-PA-Clearfield) wants to reduce Pennsylvania’s corporate net income tax (CNIT) to four percent by 2025.
Last year, lawmakers budgeted a gradual decrease in the CNIT from 9.99 percent to 4.99 percent over the coming decade. Before the change, the Keystone State charged corporations the highest state business tax in the U.S., behind New Jersey’s 11.5 percent rate. Now at 8.99 percent, Pennsylvania’s levy is 8.99 percent — the fifth highest. Assuming other states’ rates stay constant, Pennsylvania’s CNIT will end up roughly in the middle in terms of corporate taxes in 2031.
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Bald and golden eagles could get more protection as a proposed bill would greatly increase fines for killing the bird of prey.
Current law levels a penalty of only $200 for anyone convicted of killing the national symbol, though replacing the bird can run more than $2,000.
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The University of Connecticut (UConn) celebrated Pride Month by hosting its second annual “Queer Science Conference” June 4th, which is offered “to give queer and trans youth role models in various STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] fields.”
According to an online recap, the one-day event “connected high school students with LGBTQIA+ faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students at UConn who work in STEM disciplines, offering community and mentorship as well as state-of-the-art laboratory experiences and opportunities for hands-on science demonstrations.”
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With popular four-term incumbent Gov. Chris Sununu strongly hinting he won’t seek a record fifth term, an exclusive NHJournal/coefficient poll shows former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte is currently the top choice among Granite State Republicans to take his place.
As speculation spreads regarding Sununu’s future, three names have emerged as the most likely to seek the GOP nomination in the event of a vacancy in the governor’s office: Ayotte, Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut, and former state Senate President Chuck Morse.
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A new report from a D.C.-based nonprofit suggests that Pennsylvania lags behind most states regarding religious freedom.
Last week, Napa Legal Institute published its first annual Faith & Freedom Index on which the Keystone State ranked 40th among all 50 states. The report rated each state in terms of its legal protections for faith-based institutions as well as regulatory regimes governing those entities. The commonwealth scored 30 percent for religious freedom and 55 percent for regulatory freedom for an averaged score of 55 percent.
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President Joe Biden held his first presidential re-election campaign event on Saturday at the Philadelphia Convention Center, making strong appeals to his left-wing base.
Biden appeared alongside organized-labor activists and mentioned in the first few seconds of his oration that when he thinks of working Americans, he especially values the ones who associate with causes he finds politically congenial.
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Connecticut diners will be able to get drinks to go permanently, with the state becoming the latest to make the COVID-19 pandemic-related policy law.
A measure signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont on Tuesday codifies emergency regulations several years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic allowing restaurants to sell beer, wine and cocktails with takeout and delivery orders.
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Amid a worsening workforce shortage, more employers – both across the state and the country – may set aside child labor laws as a solution, officials say.
The alarming trend prompted lawmakers on the House Labor and Industry Committee to advance legislation that would double penalties for these violations: $1,000 for first-time offenders and up to $3,000 for repeated incidents.
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One day before Joe Biden heads to a Saturday Philadelphia rally, U.S. Representatives Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA-14) and Dan Meuser (R-PA-9) excoriated him in a press call over quality of life issues.
Joined by Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas, the two lawmakers blasted the president for seeking reelection in 2024, insisting Biden has made life worse for Americans on virtually every facet affected by public policy. They mentioned that inflation rages, real wages slump, energy production languishes, gas prices rise, fentanyl use spreads, reading and math scores tumble and crime swells.
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Connecticut is taking aim at telemarketers accused of bombarding the state’s consumers with hundreds of millions of ‘robocalls’ every year.
The state’s General Assembly approved a proposal last week that would expand the state’s anti-robocall statutes to cover text messages, ban “gateway” voice over internet protocol providers from facilitating overseas scammers’ access to the U.S. telecom networks and allow for enforcement action against calls received by Connecticut area codes, regardless of where they originate.
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While Democrats insist Pennsylvania misses out on revenue from natural gas extraction, a Pittsburgh nonprofit’s analysis published on Thursday observes drilling impact fees yielded $2.25 billion through 2021.
Since the boom in hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), the horizontal drilling technique gas companies use to access the vast reserves of fossil fuel from the Marcellus Shale sedimentary rock formation, many politicians have eyed an extraction tax. Instead of such a tax, former Governor Tom Corbett (R) and a Republican-led legislature levied an impact fee in 2012, with revenues going to localities largely to mitigate fracking-related environmental disruption. In the new policy brief from the Allegheny Institute (AI), the think tank’s executive director Frank Gamrat detailed those revenue gains.
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Two Pennsylvania state senators announced this week they are introducing a companion bill to a house-passed measure designed to improve rail safety.
Senate action on the bill sponsored by State Senators Katie Muth (D-Royersford) and Lindsey Williams (D-Pittsburgh) would advance the legislation toward Governor Josh Shapiro’s (D) desk. The house version passed that chamber 141-62 earlier this month with the support of all Democratic representatives and a sizable minority of Republicans.
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As Democrats proceeded with Pennsylvania minimum wage hike legislation on Wednesday, Republican state representatives tried and failed to amend the measure to mitigate job losses.
The bill supported by the Democrats’ one-seat House of Representatives majority would increase the Keystone State’s minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour by 2026. The wage floor would thenceforth permanently rise according to inflation.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is touting a $51 billion, two-year state budget that includes the “largest” income tax cut in state history.
The spending plan, which he signed on Monday after winning approval from the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, increases state spending by about 7.5% over the next two fiscal years but keeps the expenditures under the state’s cap on spending.
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A proposed wind farm has given rise to concerns by state military officials who say the windmills pose a threat to the safety of its training operations.
The windmills would be located within the buffer zone surrounding Ft. Indiantown Gap and lawmakers want to require permission from federal authorities before permits are granted to install them.
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School officials and parents of LGBTQ students in Burlington, Massachusetts, are calling for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training in the district following the actions of some middle-school students who organized a counter-protest of a “pride” celebration by reportedly tearing down “pride” stickers and chanting, “USA are my pronouns.”
“Parents and teachers are outraged over the response to a middle school pride event,” reported WBZ News. “Now families are demanding school officials do more to protect LGBTQ students.”
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Pennsylvania state representatives this week passed legislation creating a state version of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
The federal EITC, which went into effect in 1975, is designed to incentivize work. It ranges from $560 to $6,935 and goes to households earning up to $59,187. The proposed state-level counterpart would allow low-wage earners to claim 25 percent of the federal credit on their Pennsylvania taxes. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia offer a similar credit.
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The cost of health insurance plans offered through Connecticut’s Affordable Care Act Exchange could increase next year with private insurers seeking double digit rate increases.
The Connecticut Insurance Department said it has received 10 proposed rate increase filings from health insurers for plans that will be available on and off Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange.
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Pennsylvania state Senator Devlin Robinson (R-Bethel Park) this week proposed changing a program that subsidizes film production to the tune of $100 million annually.
The Keystone State allots the film-production tax credit to movie and television projects on the basis that it generates net economic growth by bringing in new (if temporary) jobs and boosting local businesses. Robinson is circulating a memorandum among Senate colleagues suggesting the program could benefit from an increased focus on multi-year projects to make the job gains attributable to the program more stable.
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A new media campaign unveiled last month in Philadelphia and New Jersey is providing empirical evidence of what’s been obvious anecdotally all along — it isn’t loyalty that keeps so many public employees ensnared in a labor union five years after the U.S. Supreme Court banned mandatory membership and dues.
It’s fear and lack of information.
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An LGBTQ group’s “Pride Mass” has been canceled following a report from The Daily Signal highlighting the bishop of Pittsburgh’s condemnation of the event.
The Mass had been scheduled to take place on June 11, at 1 p.m. at Duquesne Holy Spirit Chapel, and was to be presided over by Father Doug Boyd, according to fliers obtained by The Daily Signal, which said the event would be co-hosted by various groups, including Catholics for Change in Our Church and the LGBTQ Ministry at St. Joseph the Worker.
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Pennsylvania state Senator Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem) is drafting a bill to ensure voters have their in-person votes counted in cases when their defective mail-in ballots were tossed.
Boscola sponsored Act 77, the 2019 law that legalized no-excuse mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, and her emerging bill seeks to clarify a part of that statute. A provision in that law led the Delaware County Board of Elections to vote unanimously on May 23 to throw out six of its eligible voters’ ballots cast in the May 16 primary. Three of those voters are now suing the board in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas to have their votes tallied and to guarantee those in similar situations have their ballots counted in the future.
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A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania state lawmakers are championing legislation enabling small-business association healthcare plans to offer workers affordable coverage.
Such plans facilitate lower costs by allowing business and industry organizations to pool their members and negotiate insurance prices. The measure’s author, Representative Valerie Gaydos (R-Moon Township), was among numerous sponsors who told The Pennsylvania Daily Star they experienced firsthand how governmental burdens have made it harder for companies to provide their members with inexpensive medical coverage. Gaydos said this is particularly true since the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, heavily restricted association plans.
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Connecticut has become the latest state to authorize early voting in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic under a bill signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday.
The measure, which cleared the state Legislature last week, authorizes a 14-day early voting period for general elections, a seven-day period for primaries, and a four-day early voting period for special elections and presidential primaries.
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Many residents know the common headache of so-called porch pirates as mail theft ramps up in tandem with the pandemic-driven online shopping boom.
In the Senate, Republicans see an obvious solution: increase penalties for those caught stealing packages delivered to residences.
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Free speech attorneys sent a letter this week to University of Pittsburgh officials defending the organizers of a transgender issues debate that ignited a campus protest earlier this year.
Philip Sechler, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom – a non-profit legal firm that litigates issues related to free speech, religious freedom, parental rights, and abortion – said the university demanded an unconstitutional security fee from College Republicans and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for public unrest that officials themselves provoked.
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Connecticut’s General Assembly passed a $7.5 billion two-year bond package on Wednesday, sending the package to Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk on the final day of the legislative session.
The plan, approved by the Democratic-controlled Legislature on a bipartisan vote, includes borrowing authorization for up to $5 billion for transportation, housing, capital projects and public schools over the next two fiscal years.
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Charges were dropped this week regarding Christian street preacher Damon Atkins who was arrested for speaking negatively about an LGBTQ pride-flag-raising he attended at Reading, Pennsylvania City Hall on Saturday.
“After review of the video of the incident, including body-worn cameras, and a review of the case law, we did not believe we could prove a criminal case of disorderly conduct,” Berks County’s District Attorney’s office said in a statement.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has signed a sweeping gun control law that bans open carry of firearms and further tightens the state’s existing restrictions on military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
The Democratic-led measure, signed by Lamont on Tuesday, limits handgun purchases to three per month, raises the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21 and regulates the sale of body armor to civilians, among other provisions.
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A Pittsburgh-based think tank’s analysis published this week shows the city’s public schools spend far more per student than the average public school even as achievement severely lags.
Examining student testing statistics and finance data, the brief by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (AI) determined that Pittsburgh Public Schools spend almost $30,000 per pupil — among the highest spending figures in the state — while their institutions score woefully low.
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Pennsylvania’s House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday passed a resolution calling on the federal government to remove marijuana from the top section of its controlled-substances list.
Called House Resolution 420 — an allusion to 4/20, a day of celebration for many pot smokers — the measure sponsored by state Representative Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia) asks federal officials to move cannabinoid products off of Schedule I. The topmost of five illicit drug categories, Schedule I includes substances the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) characterizes as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
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The LGBTQ activist group known as Stamford Pride is offering events over the next several weeks to further draw children, teens, and their families into acceptance of gender ideology.
In partnership with professional association for design AIGA, Stamford Pride will host events such as the “Rainbow Rave” on Friday night, a “Drag Brunch” on June 17, and “Gayme Night” on June 27.
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No EMS-related hearing in the Pennsylvania General Assembly is complete without legislators and testifiers sounding the alarm over a system in crisis.
At a State Senate Health and Human Services hearing on Tuesday, these warnings and more echoed in the Capitol.
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A taxpayer-funded grant from the Department of Justice distributed $150,000 to “amplify the voices” of transgender people in New Orleans who are accusing the police of discrimination.
Based on the assumption that LGBT people of color are discriminated against by police, Rutgers University researchers pledged to find 25 subjects and “conduct narrative interviews” to document their experiences. This study is one of many examples of taxpayer-funded federal research dollars going to projects tailored to progressive gender and sexuality politics.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit heard arguments Tuesday in Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools in which four female athletes assert that the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s (CIAC) policy that allows males to compete in girls’ athletic competitions based on gender identity not only “create[s] an unfair playing field for female athletes,” but also “reverses nearly 50 years of athletic advances for women.”
Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti – all dedicated elite athletes from Connecticut – have all trained hard “for the personal satisfaction of victory, an opportunity to participate in state and regional meets, and a chance to earn a college scholarship,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), their legal representatives.
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At first, Keystone State Republicans viewed Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget proposal with mere skepticism. This week, state House Democrats larded it with an extra $1.1 billion and passed it, making a fray between their chamber and the Republican-run Senate even more probable.
The nearly $47 billion spending plan, approved by representatives along party lines, hikes spending by $5.7 billion over the current fiscal year, a more than a 13-percent increase. Members of the Republican minority excoriated their Democratic colleagues for rushing the plan to passage within six hours of its completion, a move they said reflected poor transparency. Representative Doyle Heffley (R-Weissport) spoke for many in his party when he called the House-passed plan a “poison pill” for Pennsylvania’s economy.
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Connecticut could become the latest state to outlaw child marriage, a practice that child welfare advocates say usually involves coercing vulnerable youths into unwanted unions.
A proposal unanimously approved by the state Senate on Friday would set a minimum age for marriage at 18, with no exceptions, and require clerks or magistrates to get proof of age from people seeking marriage licenses. The bill was approved on a 98-45 bipartisan vote last month in the House of Representatives. Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to sign it.
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The Pennsylvania House Freedom Caucus (PAFC) this week issued an ultimatum to the Pennsylvania State University: Either your hospitals will stop providing puberty blockers to children or funding won’t be forthcoming.
Penn State Health operates six hospitals in central Pennsylvania. The PAFC is castigating the university-run system for “prescribing experimental puberty blockers and providing “‘gender-affirming care’ to children as young as FIVE YEARS OLD.”
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