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  • Pa.’s Medicaid rollback on obesity drugs is a crisis in slow motion

    Pa.’s Medicaid rollback on obesity drugs is a crisis in slow motion

    The assault on healthcare for America’s most vulnerable is not only coming from Washington. It’s creeping into statehouses across the nation — even here in the commonwealth.

    In Pennsylvania, Medicaid beneficiaries rang in the New Year without the obesity treatments they previously had access to, thanks to the actions of policymakers who moved to prohibit Medicaid coverage to meet tighter state budget benchmarks.

    As a cardiologist who has spent my career treating many Black and brown patients, I have witnessed the consequences of unmanaged obesity play out in the most brutal and preventable ways: men in their 40s having heart attacks, women with decades of life ahead of them receiving stroke diagnoses, and heart failure caught too late for treatment to make a real difference. I have sat with families and explained that the disease that took their loved one was manageable — if caught earlier, with the right treatment. It’s devastating.

    That’s why Pennsylvania’s decision to strip Medicaid coverage for obesity medications, effective Jan. 1 of this year, is a sign of further catastrophe that may be coming.

    Pennsylvania has long been heralded as a champion of health equity, but our legislature is unintentionally sending a message that advances in medicine should be reserved for the privileged, the justification being cost. However, this rationale suffers from tunnel vision — the cost of untreated obesity and its complications is far greater. Treating obesity prevents its complications and saves money.

    Obesity is not a lifestyle failure. It is a chronic disease that exacerbates cardiovascular conditions, already killing Black and brown Pennsylvanians at disproportionate rates. Obesity costs the U.S. nearly $173 billion annually in direct medical costs and more than $1.4 trillion in total economic impact. Cutting access to treatment will only worsen the obesity epidemic and continue to drive up costs.

    Nearly 60% of Black women live with obesity, along with half of all Black and Latino adults. Pennsylvania is home to approximately 3.5 million adults living with obesity — one in three residents, irrespective of race or ethnicity. That number is projected to reach one in two by 2030. But for Black and brown communities, already burdened by decades of systemic underinvestment in preventive care and access to healthy food, the cardiovascular consequences of untreated obesity are the daily reality of emergency rooms and cardiac units across Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and everywhere in between.

    Gaps in state budgets shouldn’t be closed by compromising the health of the underserved, communities of color, those with disabilities, and millions of others who depend on public healthcare coverage. Access to healthcare should be more than just a budget debate — it’s both a civil rights and a human rights issue.

    At the same time, when patients cannot access FDA-approved obesity medications through Medicaid, they resort to whatever fills the void. Right now, that means a predatory market of unregulated, potentially unsafe, compounded GLP-1 drugs aggressively marketed to low-income communities.

    Attorney General Dave Sunday has already warned Pennsylvanians about the dangers of these products. The Shapiro administration itself fined a Chester County pharmacy $1 million for producing unauthorized injectable weight-loss drugs. The state knows this market exists, but fails to see how cutting Medicaid coverage for FDA-approved treatments drives patients straight into it.

    State Rep. Justin Fleming (D., Dauphin) has introduced the GLP-1 Safety Act, which would crack down on illegal compounders and protect Pennsylvanians from dangerous counterfeit medications. His bill deserves passage.

    However, enforcement without access is not a health policy. It forces patients to choose between nothing and something dangerous. For Black and brown patients in Pennsylvania, this is not hypothetical, but their current reality.

    Pennsylvania once led the nation by expanding Medicaid to cover chronic conditions like obesity. But now, with Washington dismantling Medicaid at the federal level — 310,000 Pennsylvanians are projected to lose coverage under federal cuts beginning this year — it’s important that the state moves in the right direction at the state level.

    Choosing exclusion and shortsighted cuts is weak policy and will not achieve future healthcare savings. Pennsylvania can once again lead in equitable access to obesity treatment. Our shared progress in the fight against obesity is not negotiable.

    Marietta Ambrose is a cardiologist in Philadelphia and is affiliated with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. She is a member of the Association of Black Cardiologists.

  • As the future of college athletics takes shape, Penn State doesn’t need permission to speak for itself

    As the future of college athletics takes shape, Penn State doesn’t need permission to speak for itself

    Universities should not need permission from sports conference administrators to engage with Congress on legislation that will shape their future. That statement should be obvious.

    As what had been a slow-brewing crisis in college athletics comes to a boil, Washington is finally paying attention.

    For years, universities have struggled to manage a system increasingly shaped by sweeping court rulings, a patchwork of often-contradictory state laws, and endlessly competing commercial interests rather than any coherent national policy. Athletes navigate a tangle of name, image, and likeness rules, which govern the compensation they can receive and which vary widely by state. Administrators make decisions without knowing what the rules will look like six months from now. And fans watch their favorite players transfer from campus to campus with few reliable guardrails in place.

    Yet as Congress considers the Protect College Sports Act, the most significant attempt in years to establish a national framework for college athletics — many universities appear reluctant to engage publicly while conference administrators increasingly position themselves as the primary voice speaking on behalf of their members.

    That should concern every university trustee, president, donor, alumnus, college athlete, and policymaker.

    This is not a debate about whether the Protect College Sports Act is perfect. It isn’t. Nor is it a debate about whether conference commissioners are talented leaders. Many are.

    This is a debate about who should speak for universities when the future of higher education and intercollegiate athletics is being decided.

    Nick Saban (left), the former University of Alabama football coach, speaks as Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) listens during a roundtable on the future of college athletics on Capitol Hill in March 2024.

    The current system is broken — and there are only two realistic options for what comes next: a federal framework that restores stability and national standards, or the continuation of today’s chaos. There is no option three.

    What troubles me most is not opposition to the Protect College Sports Act. Reasonable people can disagree. What troubles me is the notion that universities should remain silent while others speak for them.

    As a Penn State graduate, two-time NCAA All-American wrestler, donor, parent of a future Penn State athlete, and someone who has spent four decades building businesses and advising organizations throughout college athletics, I have watched this moment unfold from nearly every angle.

    My perspective comes from life as an athlete, entrepreneur, executive, adviser, and parent. From the wrestling mat to the boardroom, I have never seen college athletics facing greater uncertainty than it does today.

    Congress is not asking the Big Ten what is best for Penn State. Congress is asking stakeholders what is best for college athletics.

    In fact, one of the bill’s cosponsors, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, recently challenged the growing influence of conference administrators in the legislative process, asking whether universities were really comfortable allowing conferences to drive the discussion.

    It’s a fair question.

    Penn State should answer that question itself.

    Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) recently challenged the growing influence of conference administrators in the debate over the Protect College Sports Act.

    Lawmakers are finally engaging. They are asking questions. They are seeking input from universities, athletic leaders, and stakeholders across the country. Penn State should be part of that conversation.

    If conference administrators are prohibiting university leaders, trustees, athletic directors, donors, and other stakeholders from engaging directly with lawmakers or expressing support for legislation, then conference employees are attempting to silence the voices of the institutions that created them. That is not their role.

    Universities created the conferences. Conferences exist to serve universities — not to control them.

    If institutions with Penn State’s stature are unwilling to engage directly with lawmakers, then the future of college athletics will increasingly be shaped by others.

    The stakes extend far beyond football. As a former student-athlete, I know firsthand that the value of college athletics goes well beyond the sports that generate the largest television audiences. Wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, swimming, track and field, soccer, softball, lacrosse, and dozens of other sports depend on a healthy and sustainable collegiate model.

    The opportunities those programs create changed my life, as they have changed the lives of countless others. They deserve to exist for future generations as well. That is what is at stake.

    The decisions being made in Washington will affect every university in the nation. They will shape opportunities for college athletes for decades to come.

    Pennsylvania’s universities deserve a voice in that discussion. Penn State certainly does — and it should take its seat at the table and speak with its own voice, as should other institutions that have recently voiced independent concerns, including Michigan, Ohio State, and USC.

    Not because the legislation is perfect. Not because every stakeholder agrees. But because leadership requires engagement.

    Penn State has never been a follower. It shouldn’t start now.

    Chris Bevilacqua is a veteran of four decades in sports, media, and technology as an entrepreneur, operator, investor, and adviser, including founding the nation’s first 24-hour college sports television network. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State where he was a two-time NCAA All-American on the wrestling team and also competed internationally for USA Wrestling.

  • The Trump Justice Dept. has forfeited the benefit of the doubt. Act accordingly.

    The Trump Justice Dept. has forfeited the benefit of the doubt. Act accordingly.

    For nearly as long as American courts have existed, they have extended the federal government a quiet courtesy. It is called the presumption of regularity. It holds that when government officials act, judges should assume they did so lawfully and in good faith, absent clear evidence otherwise. It rests on a simple bet: that the people enforcing the law are trying to follow it.

    That bet no longer looks safe, and the people best positioned to know are saying so out loud.

    A new survey from Bright Line Watch and the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law asked more than 300 legal experts — sitting federal judges, elite lawyers, and law professors — to assess the state of the rule of law in America. The findings should unsettle anyone who assumes the system will police itself. Only one in five legal experts agreed that the federal government still merits the presumption of regularity in court. Among elite lawyers, the figure was 24%. Among law professors, 17%. Even among federal judges, less than half, just 41%, said the presumption was still warranted.

    The doctrine that courts should trust the government’s word is now rejected by a majority of the legal professionals who built their careers inside that system, and by most of the judges who apply it.

    The reasons are not mysterious. Nine in 10 legal experts said the current administration has used the Department of Justice to target enemies and reward allies. Likewise, 86% said political appointees at the DOJ mislead federal judges. And 80% said federal officials fail to comply with court orders. More than 90% viewed the prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey as politically motivated. These are not the impressions of activists. They are the considered judgments of people who have clerked at the Supreme Court, run U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and served as general counsels to major institutions.

    Judges are not just saying this in response to a survey. They are saying it from the bench.

    In a Maryland courtroom this past summer, a federal judge, Paula Xinis, told a government lawyer, “You have taken the presumption of regularity, and you’ve destroyed it.” A judge in Washington, D.C., wrote that “blind deference to the government” was “no longer a thing,” explaining that “trust that had been earned over generations has been lost in weeks.” By March 2026, three New Jersey and Oregon judges had separately declared, in unrelated cases, that the deference long extended to the U.S. Attorney’s Office had been “undeniably eroded.”

    Judge Paula Xinis, seen in a video image during her Senate confirmation hearing in 2015 for U.S. district judge for the District of Maryland. In 2025, she excoriated government lawyers, saying they had “destroyed” the legal “presumption of regularity.”

    Pattern of bad behavior

    A study by the legal publication Just Security has now cataloged more than 200 instances in which courts have voiced concern over the government’s noncompliance with orders, distrust of its representations, or findings that its actions were arbitrary and capricious. One judge, surveying six months of the administration’s conduct, concluded the president “may have forfeited the right to such a presumption of regularity.”

    When the watchdogs of the legal system conclude that the government can no longer be taken at its word, the question stops being abstract. It becomes practical. What are the rest of us supposed to do?

    Consider what happened to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In April, the Justice Department indicted the civil rights organization on charges of wire fraud and money laundering, alleging it concealed payments to informants who had infiltrated extremist groups. The SPLC denies the charges and outside experts have called them weak and politically motivated. Members of Congress have pointed to whistleblower reports that the DOJ pressed prosecutors to rush the indictment despite doubts about its strength. No court has weighed the evidence. The organization remains in good standing with the IRS. An indictment, as more than one community foundation has had to remind the public, is an allegation, not a verdict.

    And yet the consequences arrived immediately, delivered not by a judge but by three financial institutions. Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, and DAFgiving360, the philanthropic arm of the investment bank Charles Schwab, together three of the largest sponsors of donor-advised funds in the country, blocked their account holders from sending grants to the SPLC.

    Donors who rushed to support the group’s legal defense found their requests denied, in some cases learning of the freeze only when the transaction failed. The sponsors cited internal policies permitting them to pause grants to organizations under investigation.

    Weaponizing the law

    Each firm acted within its legal rights. The money in a donor-advised fund, or DAF, is legally controlled by the sponsor, not the donor. Yet the result is troubling. Three private companies, applying a rule that treats a politicized indictment as if it were a finding of guilt, did to the SPLC what no court has done: They cut off its lifeline at the moment it most needed resources to defend itself. The sponsors of the DAF extended the SPLC’s accuser precisely the deference that judges, in case after case, have been withdrawing.

    The mechanism this creates for the weaponization of the rule of law is worth understanding. The administration does not need to win in court to inflict the punishment. It only needs to bring the charge and then rely on a web of private institutions to treat the charge as conclusive. The indictment becomes the sentence. The presumption of regularity, eroding inside the courtroom, is being smuggled back in through the side door, as private actors continue to defer to government accusations that the legal profession itself no longer trusts.

    We do not believe the Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab affiliates acted in bad faith. We believe they applied old rules to new circumstances without recognizing that the circumstances had changed. A policy that pauses grants to indicted organizations can make sense in a world where indictments reflected the impartial judgment of career prosecutors. It makes far less sense in a world where the leading scholars and judges of American law have concluded that the same Justice Department weaponizes its charging power against political targets.

    The norms that govern civil society and industry were built on an assumption that is no longer reliable. They assumed regularity. They now need to account for its absence.

    This does not mean private institutions should ignore genuine wrongdoing or bankroll proven fraud. It means they need standards calibrated to the actual environment rather than an imagined one.

    A donor-advised fund sponsor could, for instance, distinguish between an indictment and a conviction, maintain grant-making to organizations that retain their tax-exempt status, and reserve suspension for cases where independent evidence, not a government press release, establishes a real problem. Banks, law firms, insurance companies, and professional associations face versions of the same choice. Each can decide whether to be an instrument of political pressure or a check against it.

    Strained guardrails

    The financial industry already has standard procedures for exercising independent judgment. It conducts due diligence. It weighs reputational and ethical risk. We are asking it to extend that same judgment to a new kind of risk: the risk of becoming the enforcement arm for accusations that the legal profession has flagged as suspect.

    The Bright Line Watch data tell us that the formal guardrails, the courts, the separation of powers, the presumption of good faith, are strained. The legal experts surveyed do not expect this to change materially over the next several years — if the current trajectory holds, it likely may get worse.

    That is sobering. But it also clarifies the assignment. When official institutions falter, the informal ones, the norms and standards that private actors set for themselves, become load-bearing.

    Civil society and industry cannot restore the rule of law on their own. But they can refuse to be the means by which it is dismantled. They can decline to treat an accusation as a conviction. They can ask, before they act on a government charge, whether that government still deserves the benefit of the doubt.

    The legal profession has given its answer. It is time for the rest of our institutions to listen.

    Joe Goldman is the president of Democracy Fund. Ian Bassin is co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy.

  • Pennsylvania’s highest court confirmed what we already knew about skill games. Now lawmakers must act.

    Pennsylvania’s highest court confirmed what we already knew about skill games. Now lawmakers must act.

    When Gov. Ed Rendell first championed casino gambling in Pennsylvania more than two decades ago, the promise was straightforward: Regulated gaming would boost the economy, modernize the state’s entertainment industry, and create jobs. For years, it did exactly that.

    But something went wrong along the way. Skill games, devices that look, sound, and function like slot machines, spread to thousands of bars, restaurants, gas stations, and clubs across Pennsylvania, completely unregulated and untaxed. Meanwhile, as brick-and-mortar casinos paid their fair share to the commonwealth and submitted to oversight from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, skill game operators avoided both. The playing field wasn’t level. It was tilted, and Pennsylvania workers at licensed casinos paid the price.

    This was always a fairness problem. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has now confirmed it is also a legal one.

    On June 15, the state’s highest court ruled that skill games are slot machines under Pennsylvania law, “several times over,” in the court’s own words. The justices found that Commonwealth Court’s previous rulings to the contrary were “deeply flawed” and “incorrect on both points.” What the skill games industry spent years arguing in court, that their machines were fundamentally different from slots, was rejected at the highest level.

    Unregulated gaming devices known as “skill games” in a barbershop in Hazelton, Pa., in August.

    This is not a surprise to anyone who has watched these machines proliferate across the commonwealth while casinos absorbed the competitive damage.

    The Philadelphia region knows this story well. Between 2019 and 2025, Harrah’s Philadelphia lost 616 jobs, a 51% decline. Rivers Philadelphia lost 446 jobs, a 28% decline. Valley Forge Casino lost 627 jobs, a 62% decline. Parx Casino lost 344 jobs, a 15% decline. Combined, these four Philadelphia-area casinos shed more than 2,000 jobs during a period when skill games were expanding freely across the state without paying a dollar in gaming taxes or answering to a single regulator.

    These are not abstract figures. These are men and women in this region who lost livelihoods while an unregulated industry built a 70,000-machine footprint across Pennsylvania.

    Between 2019 and 2025, Rivers Casino, pictured here, lost 446 jobs, a 28% percent decline. Casinos, writes David Black, accepted state regulation, paid taxes, and employed thousands of people in good-paying jobs while forced to compete against an unregulated industry that played by none of the same rules.

    Statewide, the picture is equally stark. From 2019 to 2025, the 12 casinos operating in Pennsylvania during that period saw a 27% reduction in employment, dropping from 15,400 employees to 11,200. More than 4,000 jobs gone across the commonwealth, in cities and rural communities that could least afford to lose them.

    While the Supreme Court has provided a 120-day window to act on skill games, the practical reality is far more urgent. Pennsylvania’s budget deadline of June 30 is rapidly approaching, and skill games are already part of that conversation.

    Lawmakers don’t have until October to figure this out. They have a matter of days to decide whether this year’s budget will finally bring skill games into the same regulatory and tax framework that governs licensed casinos, or whether the issue gets punted again while the clock the court has set continues to run in the background.

    But getting it right means more than finding a tax rate that fills a budget gap. Gov. Josh Shapiro has projected more than $2 billion in annual gaming revenue if skill games are brought into the fold, and that revenue is badly needed. Republicans in the state Senate have proposed a 35% tax rate; Shapiro’s budget calls for 52%, closer to the 55% casinos already pay. That debate is legitimate and worth having.

    What cannot get lost in that debate is the human cost of the last several years. Pennsylvania’s casinos did everything right. They accepted regulation, paid taxes and employed thousands of people in good-paying jobs. They were then forced to compete against an unregulated industry that played by none of the same rules. The Supreme Court has now said that was wrong. Lawmakers have the opportunity and the obligation to correct it.

    This is the time for lawmakers to address not just the problems with skill games, but to address the broader policy inequities as it relates to how gaming policy impacts economic development, job creation, and community impact.

    The four major forms of gaming in Pennsylvania — casinos, online gaming, sports betting, and skill games — have dramatically different tax rates and economic impact. The fact is that only casinos create major economic development through employment, local spending on goods and services, and community engagement. Our state policy should encourage this type of economic development.

    As this year’s budget negotiations intensify, I urge the General Assembly to prioritize the workers who built Pennsylvania’s gaming industry and who have borne the cost of unfair competition for too long. A fair tax structure is a start. But the final product should be judged not just by how much revenue it raises, but by whether it begins to reverse the job losses that should never have happened in the first place.

    The court did its job. Now it’s time for the legislature to do its job.

    David Black was a deputy secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development in the administration of former Republican Gov. Tom Ridge.

  • The hidden link between mummers and Pennsylvania’s most notorious labor rebels

    The hidden link between mummers and Pennsylvania’s most notorious labor rebels

    The biggest mass execution in Pennsylvania’s long history took place 149 years ago this week.

    Ten Irish Catholics from the hard coal region went to the gallows, convicted of murder in a long-running labor war against the all-powerful coal companies. Another 10 would be hanged over the next few years, for a total of 20. Their trials made a mockery of justice, with a coal company president as prosecutor, a Pinkerton detective hired by the company as the star witness, and Irish Catholics excluded from the jury.

    The hanged men were called Molly Maguires, a name straight out of Ireland, where a secret society using that moniker battled the landlords on behalf of starving peasants during the horror of the 1840s potato famine. These Mollies disguised themselves in women’s clothing, or straw clothing, or whiteface or blackface. And they timed their killings around major holidays.

    That’s because the Molly Maguires were merely the flip side of a group quite familiar to Philadelphians — the mummers. The connection explains many of the mysteries about the Mollies — where the name came from, why the Mollies wore odd disguises, why they did their killing around high points of the calendar, and why they were revived in Pennsylvania amid resistance to the Civil War draft.

    In Ireland, mummers were more actors than musicians. They visited every home in a district around New Year’s and collected money by putting on a skit that always featured a killing. The money paid for a party for the whole community. Groups like the mummers performed this kind of trick or treat around other big holidays — St. Brigid’s Day on Feb. 1, Easter, the summer solstice and Halloween.

    During the potato famine, small bands of men — dressed in the women’s clothes or the straw of the mummers — began going from house to house, collecting money for the hungry. But these men weren’t mummers. They were Molly Maguires. And when they didn’t get what they wanted, or when landlords evicted tenant farmers, the mock killing of the mummers became the very real violence of the Molly Maguires.

    The entrance to the former Carbon County Jail in Jim Thorpe, Pa., where seven Irish coal miners were hanged in 1877.

    The killings often took place around the days that the mummers celebrated, to signal that the Mollies were acting on behalf of the community. The three most celebrated Molly murders in Ireland came within a day or two of St. Brigid’s Day, the summer solstice, and Halloween.

    The name itself sounds like something from the mummers’ play. A female character often had names that began with the letter M — Molly Masket or Mary Ann McMonagle. And, curiously, Molly Maguire wasn’t always Molly — a number of death threats were signed “Mary Ann Maguire.” The similarity between “Mary Ann McMonagle” and “Mary Anne Maguire” underlined the links between the mummers and the Mollies.

    Famine emigration led many from the Molly Maguire heartland to the booming anthracite industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It was one of the few rural places in the United States where famine immigrants settled in such concentrated numbers that the folkways of the Irish countryside were transplanted wholesale, including mummery — and its associated pattern of violence. In 1848, a man acquitted of killing an Irishman was murdered in Schuylkill County, on Dec. 30. The killer, an Irishman, had whitened his face like a mime or a mummer.

    Mummery had long been established in Philadelphia, but a peculiar offshoot, called the fantasticals, emerged in Northern Liberties before the Civil War, as a protest against mandatory militia service. At the time, able-bodied men between ages 21 and 45 were regularly required to muster for militia drill. This meant a day without pay — and the fantasticals protested by making a mockery of it.

    They showed up for drill in ridiculous costumes, with giant wooden swords, or in some cases the leg of a deer. This mockery widened from muster day to mummers parades around Christmas and the Fourth of July and Halloween, and spread beyond Philadelphia.

    Before one of the Molly Maguires was hanged, he put his hand on the dirty floor of his cell in the former Carbon County Jail and then placed it firmly on the wall proclaiming, “This handprint will remain as proof of my innocence.”

    In 1855, the Pottsville militia was called out after a mine boss was beaten in Branchdale, Schuylkill County. Though just four men attacked him, the militia rounded up 28 Irish Catholics. Adding insult to arrest, the militia then played a Protestant anthem from Ulster, “The Boyne Water,” which celebrated the defeat of Catholic Ireland.

    It just so happened that the fantasticals made their first appearance in Schuylkill County that very year, marching in Pottsville on Christmas Day. The whole performance mocked the Pottsville militia and its music. The captain wielded a giant wooden sword, the rest were dressed in “every imaginable burlesque costume,” and the band was drunk — and played that way. In 1857, when the militia was used to break a strike by largely Irish mine workers in Cass Township, the fantasticals appeared in Schuylkill Haven on the Fourth of July and in Cressona on Dec. 26.

    A few short years after those anti-militia mummers parades, opposition to compulsory militia service in the Civil War led to the revival of the Molly Maguires. The man who administered the 1862 militia draft in Schuylkill County was a nativist Republican who saw conscription as a way to sweep large numbers of Irish Catholic Democrats into the maw of a bloody war. He set unfairly high conscription quotas for heavily Irish Cass Township, then urged that the draftees be shipped out before a crucial election.

    A cell in the former Carbon County Jail in Jim Thorpe, Pa.

    In response, Irish mine workers went out on strike, marching under arms with a fife and drum from mine to mine. Two months later, they went out on strike again, calling themselves Molly Maguires. When a government crackdown appeared imminent, the Mollies targeted residents who had shown government sympathies by volunteering for the military.

    On Jan. 2, 1863, five men fatally shot an Irish mine worker home wounded from the Union Army, then cheered for the Confederate president. Over the next nine days, two former militia men were attacked in Cass Township. A few days after Halloween, gunmen with false whiskers and blackened faces killed a mine owner who had been helping to enforce conscription.

    Note the progression. In the last half of the 1850s, some Schuylkill County residents were making fun of the militia, but by 1862, they were on strike to oppose the militia draft, and as 1862 edged into 1863, they were shooting former militia members around New Year’s. As in Ireland, what started as mummer revelry ended as Molly Maguire rebellion.

    The Molly troubles raged for another 15 years, ending only when a Pinkerton infiltrated the organization. The ensuing executions showed that the Mollies were no match for the coal companies and the state of Pennsylvania when it came to dealing death at high points of the calendar. The biggest killing — the hanging of 10 men on June 21, 1877 — came on the summer solstice.

    Mark Bulik is the author of “The Sons of Molly Maguire: The Irish Roots of America’s First Labor War.” A retired senior editor for The New York Times, he grew up in Ridley Park, Delaware County.

  • People under 30 are most concerned about the environmental impact of data centers

    People under 30 are most concerned about the environmental impact of data centers

    In recent months, the public’s backlash to the artificial intelligence boom has spilled over to a surprising place: college commencement stages. From Florida to California, students have booed speakers who praised AI or highlighted its growing role in today’s society.

    A cohort that historically has supported and quickly adopted cutting-edge technologies is now growing more skeptical.

    The backlash is hardly surprising since AI threatens to wipe out the kind of entry-level jobs that new college graduates depend on. But beneath that immediate threat lies another, less obvious one: the AI boom’s impact on climate change — an issue that young people have grown up worrying about and that has shaped how they view their future.

    In Pennsylvania alone, there are more than 130 AI infrastructure projects either under construction or in the approval pipeline. As demands for AI have increased, utilities and developers are racing to secure enough power to support them. Clean energy projects are already playing an important role in the AI infrastructure build-out.

    But many companies trying to meet energy demands are turning to new fossil fuel plants, reviving coal-fired power, and rolling back their corporate climate goals.

    Shown is the Northampton generating station in Northampton, Pa., in 2024. Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a plan to fight climate change Wednesday, saying he will back legislation to make power plant owners in Pennsylvania pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and require utilities in the nation’s third-biggest power-producer to buy more electricity from renewable sources.

    There is a stark contradiction at the center of this reality. AI is marketed as a 21st-century future-oriented technology, yet much of it is being powered by 19th-century energy sources.

    In addition to the energy demands, data centers can require up to five million gallons of water for cooling per day, including in regions already facing drought and water stress linked to climate change.

    A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that 54% of adults under the age of 30 believe data centers will have negative impacts on the environment. While older cohorts surveyed still express concerns about environmental impacts, it isn’t the majority of respondents as it is with younger people: 44% of those 30 to 49; 35% of people ages 50 to 64, and 26% of those 65 and older.

    The increasing backlash among younger people — which has found expression from college commencement speeches to community forums — points to what research has consistently shown: Younger generations are worried about climate change.

    They are already experiencing the impacts in Pennsylvania: hotter and longer heat waves, more dangerous flooding, worsening drought conditions, and the increase in certain diseases thanks to the territorial expansion of carriers, like ticks.

    Chart shows the rise of tickborne illnesses in Pennsylvania.

    If the growth of AI leads to more fossil fuel use, higher emissions, and worsening air pollution, young people are justified in questioning whether the technological progress is worth the future problems they will inherit.

    Leaders have a responsibility to usher in new development responsibly. One way to do that is to pair data center expansion with investments in clean energy sources. Clean energy is affordable, local, and reliable, and by producing homegrown power, Pennsylvania could potentially lower power bills and protect families from price spikes in the process.

    A clean energy standard for data centers would require that these Big Tech companies use clean energy in increasing percentages over time and that they pay for the required electricity system upgrades to support their operations.

    Another way is for the state to require greater transparency around the electricity and water use of these data centers, so communities understand the tradeoffs required for these proposals in their backyards before agreeing to them.

    Both of these are part of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) Standards, approved by the Pennsylvania House on Wednesday, which codify guardrails to protect consumers and hold data center developers accountable. Companion legislation may be introduced in the state Senate in coming days.

    It is a positive move toward responsible development.

    Not all young people skeptical of AI are rejecting it; many are just questioning whether the race to build that future is happening with an understanding of the environmental consequences.

    For the U.S. and Pennsylvania to continue leading in technological innovation while protecting the planet on which young people will build their lives, leaders must take climate change concerns seriously. Young people deserve their future.

    Sanya Carley is the Mark Alan Hughes faculty director of the Kleinman Center. She is also vice provost for climate science, policy, and action at the University of Pennsylvania and presidential distinguished professor of energy policy and city planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

  • An educational program that helped uplift a million Pa. students is under attack

    An educational program that helped uplift a million Pa. students is under attack

    As president and chairman of a private school, we might seem out of place commenting on public policy. But recent state legislation that would undermine a vital Pennsylvania program — one that thousands of families and students depend on — compels us to speak up.

    Conversations about education often focus on learning loss and declining academic performance, but students at our school, Liguori Academy, are moving in the opposite direction. Our students often arrive several grade levels behind, but they quickly recover and often surpass their peers.

    And we have the numbers to back that up. This year, between 67% and 72% of our students, depending on grade level, demonstrated measurable growth in reading, gaining one and a half to more than two grade levels in a single school year. Many are now reading at a college level. In mathematics, between 58% and 74% of students also improved, with our ninth graders posting the strongest gains.

    Conversations about education often focus on learning loss and declining academic performance, but students at Liguori Academy are moving in the opposite direction, write Michael Marrone and Joseph Marano.

    Watching those students, who were so far behind academically, gain confidence, earn industry certifications, secure internships, and prepare for college and careers is a reminder of what is possible when students are given the support and opportunities they deserve.

    And what has made this educational growth possible? It’s simple, really: Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.

    Unfortunately, state lawmakers may gut this life-changing program. The Pennsylvania House Education Committee passed legislation that would decimate the state’s wildly popular tax credit scholarship programs. Originally, House Bill 2632 proposed slashing $102 million from the Educational Improvement Tax Credit and robbing Pennsylvania kids of about 30,000 scholarships.

    A committee amended the bill to avoid the cuts, but the updated bill still cuts tax credit levels, eliminates supplemental scholarships, hamstrings student eligibility, and imposes onerous taxes and regulations on scholarship organizations.

    Critics of these programs — including many of the lawmakers sponsoring and supporting HB 2632 — will wrongly characterize this as a public vs. private issue. They claim the Educational Improvement Tax Credit “robs” funding from public education.

    But nothing could be further from the truth. Although it may appear like a line item in the state budget, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit doesn’t use public funds. Instead, it relies on donations to scholarship organizations and the donors who receive a tax credit for their charity. Without the generosity of these donors, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit wouldn’t exist. If it went away, so would the philanthropy that funds it.

    The timing of this bill is interesting, to say the very least. The Educational Improvement Tax Credit recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, having served more than 101,000 scholarships to kids across the state in conjunction with its partner program, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit. Over their lifetime, these programs have awarded more than one million scholarships.

    Despite this volume, there aren’t enough scholarships to go around. Even after awarding a record-level number of scholarships last year, nearly 70,000 scholarships went unfulfilled. But this isn’t because the students weren’t eligible; rather, state-legislated caps limit the number of available scholarships.

    State lawmakers should take note: Pennsylvania families are demanding more, not fewer, scholarships.

    These scholarships change lives and fuel academic success. The Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, one of the largest scholarship organizations in Pennsylvania, commissioned a report showing scholarship recipients from both programs outperforming their public and private school peers academically.

    These scholarships provide equity for families struggling financially. The average household income for Liguori families, for example, is about $37,000, which is barely above the federal poverty line.

    None of this happens without the Educational Improvement Tax Credit.

    That is why what happened in Harrisburg recently should alarm every Pennsylvanian who believes every child — regardless of zip code or income — deserves a chance. This newly introduced legislation would take away much-needed scholarships not only from Liguori kids, but also from tens of thousands of Pennsylvania kids who worked hard to better themselves educationally.

    As school leaders, we understand and welcome accountability. If scholarship programs are going to continue, schools must be prepared to demonstrate strong academic outcomes, sound financial stewardship, and compliance with program requirements.

    But we have also seen the difference educational choice makes. We have watched students who arrived years behind their peers grow into young people ready for college and the workforce. That transformation is real — and the Educational Improvement Tax Credit made it possible.

    Pennsylvania should be building more doors like ours, not slamming them shut.

    Michael Marrone is the president and founder of Liguori Academy. Joseph Marano is chairman of the board of Liguori Academy.

  • The Supreme Court is deciding your future. Pay attention.

    The Supreme Court is deciding your future. Pay attention.

    For most Americans, the U.S. Supreme Court occupies a seat on the back burner. We know it is important, but so much of what it does seems unconnected to our daily lives.

    Every now and then, it pops up in the news when something major is on the table and briefly grabs our attention — overturning Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to choose to have an abortion grabbed the headlines, as did throwing out Donald Trump’s tariffs. But, outside of the circles of lawyers, judges, and academics, most of what the court does goes unnoticed. For a brief moment, the nation pays attention. Then the spotlight moves on.

    Enduring consequences

    Over the next two to three weeks, before the justices depart for their four-month summer recess, the court will issue a series of decisions in cases it has been considering for months. They have listened to the lawyers argue their cases for hours, reviewed thousands of pages of briefs submitted by lawyers, interested organizations, and government officials, and debated among themselves.

    Any day now, decisions will be handed down that could alter the legal landscape for decades to come. These cases will affect millions of people, directly and indirectly. These decisions become the law of the land, and their impact will endure for decades. While the court can later reverse its own decisions, it rarely does. So the decisions it makes in the next two to three weeks will endure long after many of us are dead. In 1954, for example, the court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education finally ended desegregation, 50 years after the same court had infamously approved it in Plessy v. Ferguson.

    More recently, in 2022, the court reversed Roe v. Wade, ending a constitutional right to abortion that had been established since 1973.

    In short, the decisions it makes in the next couple of weeks are not likely to change for half a century or more. Given what the court is about to decide, all of us have a stake in the outcome.

    People demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in 2025 before justices hear oral arguments in a birthright citizenship case, one of many critical issues before the court.

    One of the most pressing issues it is considering is “birthright citizenship.”

    President Trump signed an executive order ending automatic citizenship for those born in the United States unless they meet certain conditions, despite the Constitution (in the 14th Amendment) explicitly conferring it to “all persons” born in the United States.

    The stakes in this case extend far beyond immigration policy or the end of birthright citizenship.

    The issue is not simply whether birth in the United States confers automatic citizenship. More fundamentally, it asks whether a president may effectively amend the Constitution, eviscerating rights and guarantees formerly entrenched in American society, literally with the stroke of a pen.

    The Constitution is meant to endure and survive political winds — and it has for 250 years. In that time, aside from the Bill of Rights, there have been only 17 amendments. The Constitution provides a process for changing its provisions. It is purposefully neither quick nor easy. The framers understood that fundamental rights should not fluctuate like a weather vane depending on who occupies the White House. Constitutional rights are meant to endure and survive political winds — and they have for 250 years.

    Executive orders signed by the president, any president, are not among the methods the Constitution provides for rewriting its guarantees.

    Critical decisions

    The decision is critical. If a president’s signature on an executive order can override constitutional guarantees in one area, where does that authority end? What’s next? The right to remain silent? Free speech? The freedom to practice your religion, safe from government interference? The right to counsel? The guarantee of a fair trial? Presidential term limits? Can Trump end the constitutionally mandated two-term limit with his signature?

    Free speech is a central issue. Can students be punished for participating in peaceful demonstrations on college campuses because officials disagree with their views? Does freedom of expression apply equally to all viewpoints, or only to favored ones? If the government can silence one unpopular group today, what prevents it from silencing another tomorrow?

    Among the issues that will be decided in the next few weeks are whether states can exclude transgender women from participating in female athletic competitions. Earlier, the court addressed whether states may prohibit licensed therapists from discussing certain issues relating to gender identity with their patients — can they prohibit some of it, or all of it, or none of it. The First Amendment won that battle. Surprisingly. But transgender rights are not a favored policy, and the administration is unashamedly hostile to them, and civil liberties advocates are not hopeful.

    The court was asked to revisit long-standing Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Under what circumstances may police officers enter a person’s home without a warrant, probable cause, or judicial authorization? How far may a warrant reach before it undermines the constitutional guarantee that people should be secure in their homes?

    Gun safety advocates rally outside federal court in Philadelphia in 2023 as the Third Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral arguments about a New Jersey law keeping guns out of parks, playgrounds, bars, and other sensitive places. The law was challenged by the National Rifle Association and other gun lobby groups.

    The Second Amendment and gun control remain among the most active areas of constitutional law. If school shootings and the murder rate are important to us, we need to be paying attention.

    Beyond individual rights, the courts are increasingly confronting questions concerning executive power and the structure of the federal government itself. May a president deploy National Guard troops without the consent of state officials? Can federal employees be dismissed without cause? Does the president have the authority to remove senior agency officials at will, or are there constitutional limits on that power?

    Shaping lives

    The fundamental right to vote is also at stake, as the plethora of decisions already announced on redistricting and voter rights will undoubtedly shape the political landscape. In the next few weeks, the court’s decisions on mail-in ballot restrictions will add to that mix.

    These are not abstract legal debates. They are questions that go to the heart of citizenship, liberty, equality, and the limits of governmental power. They will shape lives, influence public policy, and define constitutional rights long after today’s political battles have faded from memory.

    The Supreme Court may not dominate our daily conversations, but the decisions it issues in the coming days will touch every American in one way or another. Whether we agree with the outcomes or not, this is one of those moments when paying attention is not merely advisable — it is essential.

    Susan Sullivan is a lawyer and professor of constitutional law and politics at Temple University.

  • Philadelphia has built African trade ties for decades. Trump’s silence on one expiring law could undo that.

    Philadelphia has built African trade ties for decades. Trump’s silence on one expiring law could undo that.

    For Maxwell Adew, the owner of Kuueza, a U.S. import-export and sourcing company based in Southwest Philadelphia, uncertainty surrounding the African Growth and Opportunity Act is more than just a policy debate in Washington — it has forced him to rethink his business strategy.

    Known as AGOA, the trade preference program allows over 7,000 products from eligible African countries to enter the United States, but it is set to expire on Dec. 31. Because of concerns raised by the Trump administration about the fairness of the program, Congress faces a steep climb to save it.

    Adew argues that AGOA is well worth saving due to the critical role it plays in helping African goods enter the U.S. market at competitive prices.

    “Without AGOA, some businesses using our platform have actually stopped exporting,” he said.

    The uncertainty about the program’s future comes at a particularly challenging time for many businesses owned by African immigrants in the United States, including in Philadelphia.

    “A lot of immigrant-owned small businesses have been affected,” Adew said. “Some have already shut down. Organizations like the African Cultural Alliance of North America in Southwest Philadelphia are helping businesses navigate these challenges.”

    Why it’s important

    President Trump has questioned the fairness of the trade preference program, but in February extended it for a year while policymakers weigh its merits. Rosa Whitaker, the president and CEO of the Whitaker Group and one of the program’s architects, said preserving AGOA was an important reminder to the rest of the world about the U.S. commitment to Africa.

    “The extension of AGOA sent a powerful signal that Africa was perhaps more important to the United States than many people realized,” she said.

    A Netflix representative at an exhibition at the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The program, which fosters U.S.-African trade, is in jeopardy, writes Alexanderia Haidara.

    As Congress debates AGOA’s future, several U.S. industries are pressing for both renewal and reform.

    “AGOA has not generally been utilized to leverage improved market access for U.S. agricultural products, even though it was intended as a tool for that purpose to facilitate that two-way trade,” said Jim Remcheck, director of export services at the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

    But Florizelle Liser, the president and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa, the leading U.S.-Africa corporate business association, said the program is worthwhile in terms of opening up Africa as an alternative supply chain.

    “AGOA has also been beneficial to U.S. companies looking to diversify their sourcing away from China,” she said. “And it supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States, as well as producing significant savings for U.S. consumers.”

    While critics argue AGOA has not met its full potential, analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) point out that it has generated measurable economic benefits to both African countries and the United States. In a report, the center noted that AGOA imports totaled $9.7 billion in 2023.

    Nevertheless, Adew has already changed his investment decisions in Africa because of the uncertainty.

    “We’re not sure about the future of AGOA,” he said. “We have to rethink where we invest our resources, and focus on products with stronger demand and higher value.”

    U.S.-African relations have been sorely tested under the Trump administration. Some analysts and business leaders say cooperation between the U.S. and African nations has deteriorated amid disputes over trade, aid, migration, and diplomatic engagement.

    And while U.S. companies lobby Congress to keep the lines of trade open, South Africa is pushing for a 15-year extension of AGOA, a key part of marketing its vast resource of critical minerals. Government and business leaders there warn that a shorter extension or suspension will undermine investor confidence and disrupt manufacturing plans.

    Whitaker believes the African diaspora can enhance U.S.-Africa relations and make them more inclusive to amplify trade and investment efforts.

    Beyond trade

    For Whitaker, the future of U.S.-Africa economic relations must extend beyond AGOA to support regional integration efforts such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Global shocks and a reduction in foreign aid have left the continent too vulnerable, she said. And she underscored the need for structural reforms in the international financial system to help the continent become more competitive with other parts of the world.

    “Africa is recognizing that it must become more self-reliant,” Whitaker said. “Economic integration is no longer optional.”

    As Washington debates the future of AGOA, businesses like Adew’s are already adjusting their strategies. The possibility of AGOA’s renewal is no longer theoretical. It is reshaping the future of U.S.-Africa commerce in real time.

    Alexanderia Haidara is a former U.S. diplomat and U.S. Agency for International Development specialist helping U.S. companies expand to emerging markets.

  • Ten years after Philly killed hitchBOT, the robots are back. Let’s be nice this time.

    Ten years after Philly killed hitchBOT, the robots are back. Let’s be nice this time.

    Philadelphia is known for some great things: the Declaration of Independence (happy 250th!), Rocky, and the cheesesteak. It is also known for “killing” hitchBOT, the famous hitchhiking robot that was dismembered in August 2015. A decade later, there’s a new bot in town: the Uber Eats delivery robot, operated by Avride.

    When these robots first arrived, I had my own spontaneous encounter with one. I was surprised by how unsettled I felt, especially as someone who has spent years researching them. I am an expert in human–robot interaction, and my research focuses on why people abuse robots. I immediately wondered how long it would be before another robot made headlines in this post‑hitchBOT world.

    It only took 18 days.

    Uber Eats robot attacked by Philly pedestrians

    Since these delivery robots rolled into town, they have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons: getting beat up, hit by cars, and colliding with pedestrians. These coolers on wheels are having an effect on Philadelphians, and I do not blame my fellow city dwellers.

    We are living in a cultural climate where artificial intelligence and automation are often framed as threats to jobs amid inflation and economic anxiety. Layer on top of that Philadelphia’s unique reputation as a destroyer of robots, and the reaction is hardly surprising.

    Clockwise from lower left. 1) Last known image of an intact hitchBOT in Philadelphia in 2018. 2) Frame grab from surveillance video of man in No. 12 jersey after tossing what appear to be hitchBOT’s arms to sidewalk. 3 & 4) Man appears to stomp item believed to be hitchBOT.

    With innovative technology, there is always disruption. When UberX and Lyft arrived, Philadelphians were up in arms about the traffic congestion caused by rideshare vehicles, a problem the city later officially acknowledged.

    Yet in less than a decade, the norm quietly shifted. Today, many of us hail a rideshare instead of a taxi despite the unresolved congestion issue. The question now is whether we will react to delivery robots as another passing disruption, or whether we will choose to use them to actually improve city life.

    Garci Peterkin, owner and CEO of Carter’s Cheesesteaks by Garci in the 1000 block of Race Street, demonstrates how food delivery robots work, in March.

    Recently, Councilmember Jeffery Young proposed a $1,000 surcharge on deliveries made by autonomous delivery devices using city sidewalks. That may sound like mere regulation, but in practice it would push the robots out entirely. Before Philadelphia taxes these devices into irrelevance, we should look at how other cities are putting them to work for the public good.

    West Hollywood, for example, has had delivery robots on its sidewalks since 2020. On Jan. 1, 2026, the city implemented a new program, the first of its kind, to use data and fees from these devices to improve and pay for sidewalk repairs. In this program, companies that operate delivery robots partner with an accessibility app used by blind and low-vision residents. As they travel city streets, the robots can report real-time obstacles such as blocked sidewalks, helping make navigation safer. The city then uses information gathered by the robots to map accessibility problems and prioritize sidewalk improvements.

    The companies also pay a daily fee for each robot in their fleet, plus an advertising fee (about four dollars per day per device) with that advertising revenue directed into a sidewalk repair fund that is expected to bring in roughly $40,000 to $80,000 per year.

    In other words, the robots are not just delivering takeout; they are quietly scanning the city, funding basic infrastructure, and making the streets more accessible.

    There are a lot of potential benefits: using robot data to measure and assess street conditions, cutting down on short car trips by shifting them to small electric devices, and easing traffic congestion on already strained streets.

    These are practical, achievable ways to use technology to help address the climate crisis and long‑neglected infrastructure. This moment should also demonstrate that it’s past time for us to stop pretending we can opt out of technological change altogether.

    Philadelphia City Council should resist a blanket $1,000 surcharge that effectively bans delivery robots and instead work with residents, robotic operators, advocates, and experts in human–robot interaction to build a Philadelphia version of West Hollywood’s data‑and‑sidewalk‑repair model.

    Uber Eats’ delivery robot in Chinatown on March 10, 2026.

    If we are going to share our streets with robots, we should make sure the companies profiting from them are paying their way and helping fix the sidewalks they roll on.

    Will Philadelphia embrace that possibility, or will we become a city of Robo-NIMBYs, elected officials and residents alike?

    Lindsay Ouellette is a Philadelphia-based social psychologist and human-robot interaction researcher who studies public responses to robots and emerging technologies. She recently earned her doctorate from Temple University, where her research examined aggression toward robots.