By Tim Lambert | Editor-in-chief

“We have to do more with less, and we have to get creative about the way that we’re sourcing food ... We have to rely more and more on the charity of the community around us. But that’s merely supplemental. It can’t fill in the gaps that we’re seeing emerging from the SNAP crisis we’re going through.” — George Matysik, executive director of the Share Food Program in Philadelphia.

By Ian Karbal

The shelves of the Allentown Area Ecumenical Food Bank were cluttered with cans, jars and boxes of all varieties. As Lehigh County’s only daily food bank, it receives around 15,000 pounds of food per week.

But to Executive Director Anne Eagan, it hardly looked like enough. 

“When you see all this and you say, ‘Oh, look at all this food we have,’” she told reporters. “Well, actually, we distribute about a million pounds of food a year.”

This year, a series of overlapping economic issues and federal policy changes have affected both the food bank’s client base and its ability to stock its own shelves.

But leaders at food banks across the state point to another factor – perhaps the biggest driver of recent demand for their services. It’s the changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps.

By Sarah Jane Tribble of KFF Health News

A federal judge in July gave digital equity advocates a partial victory against President Donald Trump, stopping his attempt to unilaterally kill a multibillion-dollar grant program Congress created.

But U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, in a 35-page opinion, also agreed with the administration that it was unconstitutional for the government to use race or ethnicity as the basis to award money under a program created to expand internet skills and access.

“It was definitely disappointing,” said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that filed suit last year after not receiving a nearly $26 million award meant to bolster digital and internet skills nationwide. “With this administration it’s really worrisome.”

At Computer Reach in western Pennsylvania, Executive Director Dave Sevick said his organization has cut staff and programs. He said the nonprofit, which started in 2001, has refurbished more than 24,000 computers, giving them away to families it finds through schools and churches.

By Emily Previti

About 80 data center projects are in the works throughout Pennsylvania. They’re at various stages: from preliminary exploration when land hasn’t yet been acquired, up to construction being underway. 

And public reaction tends to be strong where the facilities have been proposed.

Peter Hall recently published a story based on his reporting in three future, prospective or would-be host communities in the commonwealth, published a story and made time to talk more about it on this episode. 

Independent reporting on Pennsylvania's state government that impacts communities statewide — free to read and republish.

You know that every piece of legislation voted on by your elected leaders in Harrisburg and Washington D.C.  lands somewhere — like a school budget, a road project or a healthcare bill. 

Our goal is to connect those dots for you.

You can help us continue to produce fact-based, contextualized and nuanced reporting on the policies and people shaping our great commonwealth by supporting the Capital-Star.

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By Jon Hurdle of Inside Climate News

The federal government alleged that U.S. Steel could have prevented a catastrophic explosion at Clairton Coke Works near Pittsburgh on Aug. 11, 2025, killing two workers and injuring 11.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) issued a final report a year after the incident, saying the company had no procedure for how to safely conduct maintenance in which workers were attempting to fully close and then reopen a valve supplying toxic and flammable gas to one of the plant’s coke-oven batteries. In a coke oven, coal is burned at very high temperatures to remove impurities like tar and sulfur. Coke is used in the steelmaking process. The Clairton Coke Works was built in 1901.

The accident “should never have happened,” said CSB Chairperson Steve Owens in a press release about the report.

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