By Tim Lambert | Editor-in-chief
“For 22 years, you’re used to getting up, putting your boots on every day, and going to work. I’d been in great health shape and 160 pounds. And here I am now, I don’t work at all and I’m 115 pounds.” — Kenny Thompson, a retired miner who now lives in Richmond, Kentucky, was employed in the mines for 22 years and suffers from black lung disease.
A good Tuesday morning to you. And just like that, the autumnal equinox arrives at 8:04 p.m. — better known as the first day of fall. It may also be a rainy start to the new season, according to the forecast.
On this day in 1992, the Pennsylvania State Police opened its first DNA testing laboratory in Greensburg. Six years later, the law enforcement agency would launch its second DNA facility in Bethlehem.
Thanks for starting your day with us. As always, we deeply appreciate you reading, sharing and supporting our work. -- Tim
In the early 1930s, more than 750 miners died after being exposed to silica dust while drilling a 3-mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain in West Virginia. (Photo by Taylor Sisk for KFF Health News)
By Taylor Sisk of KFF Health News
Each day at New River Health in Oak Hill, Lisa Emery finds disheartening signs of what she describes as a slow-motion repeat of the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster.
Emery is director of New River’s Breathing Center and chair of the National Coalition of Black Lung and Respiratory Disease Clinics.
The disaster she’s reminded of started in 1930, when construction began on a 3-mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain in West Virginia. Over the course of 18 months, some 3,000 miners, most of them Black, spent long hours drilling through sandstone, engulfed in a cloud of its toxic byproduct, silica dust. More than 750 men died from that exposure.
The risk still exists, and advocates for workers say the government should do more to rein it in.
Data from the U.S. Department of Labor reveals coal miners in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky have, historically, filed the highest number of claims for black lung benefits..
Alabamans hold up signs that read “No Data Center” at a County Commission meeting on Aug. 24, 2026, in Hayneville, Alabama, in the Lowndes County Courthouse. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
By David Lightman
The rare 2026 issue that draws huge support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress is the same one that’s mobilized many Americans: restrictions on giant data centers.
The House has overwhelmingly passed legislation forcing state regulators to consider requirements that data centers absorb the cost of the electricity they use.
But there’s more to be done, say data center critics, and they’re finding there is no easy or even obvious answer about what to do next.
Leave it to state and local governments to decide whether and how the centers should function? Should their size be restricted? Should they be banned altogether?
Diesel prices were more than $6 per gallon on Sept. 15, 2026, at Casselton, North Dakota. (Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)
By Ashley Murray
Diesel prices hit a record average of $6.51 a gallon Monday, and some in President Donald Trump’s own party are breaking their support for the ongoing war in Iran that has driven fuel prices to staggering levels in the United States and across the globe.
Already House Republicans locked in tight races as the November midterms approach have distanced themselves from the president’s conflict and his administration’s stagnant negotiations with Iran over reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passage for global petroleum products. Another major vote on Iran support is expected later this week in the U.S. Senate.
The cost of diesel, which fuels the movement of goods through the United States, is up nearly $1 since last month, and up from just over $3.69 a year ago, according to AAA.
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The interior of the Philadelphia Free Public Library (Parkway Central) on Vine Street in Philadelphia. (Photo by Getty Images)
COMMENTARY
How libraries in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other Pa. communities became vital public institutions
By Bernadette A. Lear of The Conversation
As a librarian who researches and writes about library history in Pennsylvania, I was delighted to see the American Library Association’s efforts to celebrate its 150th anniversary this year, while making several mentions of Pennsylvania.
The ALA highlighted its 1876 founding in Philadelphia; how Pittsburgh philanthropist Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of more than 1,600 library buildings throughout the United States; and Scranton’s Henry and Edith Carr, who attended and maintained records about the ALA’s early conferences for nearly 50 years.
But these stories just scratch the surface of how Pennsylvanians have contributed to American libraries and librarianship.
TODAY IN THE CAPITAL-STAR
Medical groups, patients sue over Medicaid work requirements: Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland include Medicaid enrollees from five states — Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina.
Rural women who got C-sections more likely to be prescribed opioids: Women giving birth in rural communities were more likely than peers in urban areas to receive oral opioid prescriptions for pain upon leaving the hospital after a cesarean section, according to a new analysis of data from half a million C-sections.
Administration says developers, loggers can kill endangered species: The Trump administration’s top wildlife official issued a directive that expands a recent rollback of endangered species protections much further than the feds had told the public.
ICYMI
Pa. Supreme Court decisions loom over lawmakers’ return: The General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene next week. At the top of the agenda are the results of two state Supreme Court decisions: one determining that mandatory life sentences for felony murder are unconstitutional and another putting tens of thousands of slot machine-like gaming terminals at risk of seizure.
Pa.’s Amazon data center boom is fueled by a lucrative tax break: After vowing to spend $20 billion on data centers across Pennsylvania, Amazon is now quietly reaping the rewards of a controversial, lucrative state tax exemption. Exactly how much Pennsylvania could be forgoing from the tech behemoth is unclear, even as it expands its footprint across the state.
Software breach affects three Pa. courts, Environmental Hearing Board: Three Pennsylvania courts and the state Environmental Hearing Board were hit by a cybersecurity incident affecting case management software that may have compromised individuals personal information.
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