By Whitney Downard | Reporter
“School is not only about the academics, but it’s also about making the social connections. Putting the phone down and looking up can really do a lot for our students.” — Sanjana Chamarty, a senior at Central Bucks High School South, on banning cellphones in schools.
Today, we remember the eleven lives of those who died at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh eight years ago. It remains the deadliest antisemitic attack on U.S. soil. In remembrance, I urge you to take a moment (or eleven) to be kind to someone else.
A note that we’re less than seven days out from Election Day. If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote.
At this point, voting advocates are advising people to use their county’s ballot return locations rather than the U.S. Postal Service because mailed ballots might not get there in time. And remember to sign your name and write that day’s date on the outer envelope.
Thanks, as always, for sharing and supporting our work. — Whitney
Governor Josh Shapiro signs a bell-to-bell cellphone ban into law at Lenape Middle School in Central Bucks School District on Oct. 26, 2026. (Photo from PACast)
By Whitney Downard
More than 1.7 million K-12 students in public and private schools in Pennsylvania will soon all learn under a new, statewide law: a bell-to-bell cellphone ban restricting device use during the school day.
On Monday, Gov. Josh Shapiro ceremoniously signed Senate Bill 1014, which passed the House and Senate last week, at Lenape Middle School — part of the Central Bucks School District, which has its own cellphone ban already in place.
“What we’re doing is taking the example you set, and the model that you set, and now making sure that all schools across Pennsylvania follow that model,” Shapiro told assembled students.
Two dozen states have a bell-to-bell cellphone ban, and most others have some sort of restrictions for K-12 students.
Voting booths at a polling place at the Armagh & East Wheatfield Volunteer Fire Department in Armagh, Indiana County on Election Day May 19, 2026. (Photo by John Beale for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
By Ian Karbal
The U.S. Department of Justice notified Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt last week that it plans to send federal election monitors to observe polling places in four Pennsylvania counties on election day. The counties are Allegheny, Lehigh, Luzerne and Philadelphia.
The deployment is part of a nationwide effort. Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, has said the department intends to send out 1,000 election monitors across all 50 states on Nov. 3, a larger number than typical.
Election monitors’ roles are purely observational. They are not allowed to interfere with voting and receive no greater access to polling places than members of the general public.
Vicki Wanamaker, left, and Cathy Mager, right, talked in Wanamaker’s Springdale, Pennsylvania, home on Oct. 19, 2026, about their opposition to a proposed hyperscale data center roughly a quarter mile away. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
By Ashley Murray
Residents in a small southwestern Pennsylvania town are facing the prospect of a 47-acre data center facility on their doorstep.
“Right here behind this fence is where they want to put up the data center, and as you can see, there’s houses right across the street, roughly 100 feet,” said lifelong Springdale borough resident Cathy Mager, stretching her arms to show the distance from the development site’s perimeter to a line of houses across Porter Street.
“We don’t want it,” she told States Newsroom on Oct. 19
The scenario is playing out around the United States. Both Democratic and Republican candidates during the heated midterm election cycle have had to navigate deep voter resentment of the massive advanced computer server farm developments that will power artificial intelligence.
General Manager Brian Horak walks down an aisle at Post 60 Market in Emerson, Nebraska. A new national report shows how everyday costs have increased for Americans. (Photo by Kevin Hardy/Stateline)
By Kevin Hardy
Americans’ growing frustration over high prices has defined many political campaigns ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Rising costs of healthcare, gas and groceries during President Donald Trump’s second term have put Republicans on defense, not only in Washington, but in statehouse and gubernatorial races across the country.
As the political environment continues to sour for Republicans, a new analysis released by the Urban Institute on Monday underscores just how expensive everyday life has become in America: Gas and electricity prices are rising much faster than paychecks. Housing, childcare and healthcare are becoming a bigger strain for millions of people.
And affordability pressure is worsening in once-affordable havens such as Atlanta; Louisville, Kentucky; and Rochester, New York, where costs of housing, groceries and healthcare are increasing faster than the national average.
TODAY IN THE CAPITAL-STAR
Trump DOJ’s suit over California vote counting meets a doubtful appeals court panel: President Donald Trump’s eleventh-hour campaign to intervene in California’s vote counting encountered the first signs of resistance in federal court over the weekend, with appellate judges expressing deep skepticism over the legality of the effort.
2026 ballot measures are written at a graduate-school reading level, report finds: The average readability score for state ballot measures since 2017, when Ballotpedia began tracking it, is about 18 years of education, or the equivalent of a second-year graduate student.
The percentage of people without health insurance is growing: The uninsured rate for adults ages 19-64 rose to 11.2% this year, up from 8.9% in 2024, according to a new analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy and philanthropic nonprofit.
ICYMI
Pa. Supreme Court denies request to intervene in questioned capital punishment cases: Pennsylvania’s highest court on Friday declined to intervene in the cases of two men charged with capital murder after defenders raised alarms about the district attorney’s prolific pursuit of the death penalty in Washington County.
Data centers Are ‘front and center’ in Pennsylvania’s competitive congressional elections: Residents worry about property values, rising utility bills, the impact on the water and power supply, the loss of the state’s rural character and environment and even whether artificial intelligence is a good idea at all. And the voices are coming from both parties.
Trump’s DOJ sues over Alaska Senate race, expanding preelection legal fights: The U.S. Department of Justice is stepping up its legal campaign over the midterm elections, suing Alaska over its U.S. Senate election and appealing a lawsuit against suspected noncitizen voters in California.
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