Tag: pennsylvania

Mom Rages After Pennsylvania Borough Criminally Charges Her 10- and 12-Year-Old Daughters Over a Broken Playground Swing — Then Threatens to SUE After the Judge Throws the Case Out

The girls were hauled into court after their mother refused to pay a repair bill without first seeing evidence that her daughters intentionally damaged the swing.

This is bureaucratic insanity.

Two young sisters, ages 10 and 12, were criminally charged after a playground swing broke while they were playing with other children in Springdale, Pennsylvania.

The ordeal began on May 21 at Veterans Memorial Park, northeast of Pittsburgh, when a group of children decided to twist the swing’s chains tightly and release them so the riders would spin around and become dizzy, according to WTAE.

It was the kind of playground stunt children have performed for generations.

But this time, one of the chains snapped.

According to their mother, Katie Huss, her daughters immediately told her what had happened when she arrived to pick them up.

Approximately two weeks later, a Springdale police officer reportedly arrived at the family’s home carrying surveillance photographs and seeking payment for the damaged swing.

Huss said the photographs showed numerous children participating, prompting her to question why police were approaching her family alone. The borough later maintained that five juveniles were identified and that the approximately $295 repair bill was divided equally, about $59 per child.

Three families reportedly paid their shares.

Huss refused, saying she wanted evidence that her daughters had intentionally broken the swing and information showing when the playground equipment had last been inspected or repaired.

Then the situation escalated dramatically.

The borough pursued criminal-mischief charges against her 10- and 12-year-old daughters.

“They were super scared,” Huss told WTAE. “They’re good little girls. They go out, and they play.”

Springdale officials denied giving the family a direct “pay or your children will be charged” ultimatum. Officials argued that restitution had been offered as a way to resolve the matter without continuing juvenile proceedings.

But when Huss declined to pay, her daughters still ended up as defendants in court, Triblive reported.

At the hearing, a Springdale police officer testified that the children had violated a posted playground rule instructing visitors not to twist the swing chains.

Borough Solicitor Craig Alexander reportedly argued that people sometimes break rules for the thrill of it.

There was just one enormous problem with the borough’s case: Criminal mischief requires evidence of criminal intent.

The judge determined that the children’s conduct caused the swing to break but found insufficient evidence that the girls intended to damage it. They were consequently found not responsible.

In other words, the children were playing recklessly, not carrying out a calculated attack against municipal playground equipment.

Common sense finally prevailed in the courtroom, but only after two little girls were subjected to criminal proceedings over a broken swing and a $59 repair dispute.

Huss said she would have understood a warning or a conversation explaining how the equipment should be used. What she never expected was for ordinary childhood misbehavior to result in actual criminal charges.

That should have been the end of it.

It wasn’t. Now they want to sue the mom over pocket change

Even after the acquittal, borough officials have vowed to file a civil complaint to recover repair costs. Huss says she is “still waiting to find out if they’re going to escalate it further as they promised.” Her answer: “I’m not going to give in.”

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Pennsylvania Data Center Project Offers Residents $10,000 “Benefits Package” For Community Rebuilding

With half of all proposed data centers unlikely to materialize amid mounting local resistance, potentially amplified in some cases by foreign influence operations, and intensifying power-grid constraints, developers are adopting more creative strategies to secure community support.

In Pennsylvania, one proposed data center campus is offering $10,000 payments to residents, alongside broader investments to rebuild local communities, strengthen public services, and reduce household costs.

Local outlet PennLive recently reported that NorthPoint Development is offering $10,000 to every eligible Hazle Township household to help revive the 1,300-acre data center project, which was rejected last November.

The $10,000 grants are part of a $165 million offer made by NorthPoint Development to establish a township police department, lower garbage-collection bills, fund community programs, and pay residents directly, the local outlet reported.

Residents would receive the money after the first data center building secures an occupancy certificate, potentially by late 2027.

“The $165 million community-benefits commitment represents an unprecedented level of direct financial investment in a Pennsylvania municipality,” Missouri-based NorthPoint said in a recent press release.

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Trump Orders Shock Voter Fraud Crackdown in Nine States, Including: WA, WI, MO, GA, CA, PA, NV, NY and CT

Cue the shrieking demons in the leftist media!

President Trump ordered a shock voter fraud crackdown on Monday in nine states, including Washington, Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, and Connecticut.

It starts on Tuesday.

Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative arm, will launch what officials are calling a ‘coordinated criminal voter fraud surge initiative to pursue investigative leads, conduct field interviews, and support timely prosecutorial review.’

Agents will be authorized to pursue investigative leads through mid-October — right as the midterm election season gets underway.

Today’s news comes after DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin previously stated 250,000+ noncitizens were found on voter rolls in four states.

In July, Secretary Mullin sent letters to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, New Jersey Secretary of State Dale Caldwell, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, and Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt.

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Pennsylvania Sues Snapchat Over Lack of Age Verification

Child safety is an extremely powerful weapon used to force private companies to implement age verification digital ID checks and, in some cases, change the design of their platforms. And once this is done, it’s not clear that children are any safer, but one thing is certain: online privacy and anonymity are weakened, and in some cases, lost.

This is the context in which the latest legal action against a major US tech company should be seen. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has sued Snap, the maker of the Snapchat app, accusing it of violating the state’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (UTPCPL).

The filing, in Philadelphia County on August 25, 2026, is framed as consumer protection, but it is about pressing Snap to verify its users’ ages and to change how the app is designed.

“Child safety” is a broad and vague banner that can cover a lot of ground – from protecting minors from predators and inappropriate content, to shielding them from features that the state decides are “addictive.”

But before it gets to the “addictive” part, the complaint states that Snapchat’s age gate is not good enough – specifically, that it defaults to 18, and that this makes it “unreliable.”

The filing further states that this has “helped render Snap’s efforts to protect young users from predatory adults practically useless for any safety features that depend on accurate age-gate information.”

The remedy the state wants is a court order forcing Snap to implement reliable age verification for all users.

Other claims made in the suit are that Snap has misrepresented how often adult-themed content appears on the platform in order to get the app a 13+ rating in stores – and that it has built “addictive” features into the app, such as infinite scroll and autoplay.

“Snap deliberately designed Snapchat to be addictive,” the complaint says, adding that the company “knows that minor users especially are susceptible to Snapchat’s addictive features.”

The features that the state wants a court to stop Snap from using are: Snapstreaks, push notifications, infinite scroll, autoplay, ephemeral content, and Snapchat+’s Friend Solar System.

The suit also wants the court to order Snap to pay civil penalties and cover the costs of the suit.

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RESIGN: Democrat Josh Shapiro Still Refuses to Answer Basic Questions on Two So-Called Measles Deaths — Second Person Still Unkown

Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro is still refusing to provide the public with basic information about two deaths his administration labeled “measles-associated,” even after the Lancaster County coroner determined that one of the individuals, a newborn baby, died from a ruptured spleen and massive blood loss, not measles.

During a Friday press conference, a reporter confronted Shapiro directly about the serious discrepancy between his administration’s explosive announcement and the findings of Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni.

“Since you had your news conference in Lancaster, we’ve learned a little bit more information about the case with the baby—that it was a newborn,” the reporter said.

“The coroner said that it was a ruptured spleen and didn’t consider it a measles death,” she continued. “Given the fact that we’re in an environment where there is misinformation and there is confusion, why not be a little more specific and transparent about that case?”

Shapiro would not answer. He waved the question off as if Pennsylvanians were not entitled to know whether their governor just stood in a hospital and used a dead infant as a political prop.

The Democrat governor dismissed the growing demands for transparency as “conspiracy theories.”

“I don’t think it serves the interest of public health or slows the spread of this outbreak for me to get into a back-and-forth about conspiracy theories that are showing up online,” Shapiro said.

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RFK Jr. Fact Checks Democratic Governor Who Claimed ‘There Is No Fetal Tissue’ in MMR Vaccine

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fact-checked Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro after he claimed that there is “no fetal tissue” in the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, known as MMR.

During a Tuesday news conference, Shapiro accused Kennedy of spreading vaccine misinformation and tied it to the deaths of two people in Lancaster County, which he said were “measles-associated,” a claim county officials have since disputed.

In a phone call with Kennedy, the governor recounted, “I was very, very blunt with him and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania.”

“There’s real life consequences to spreading misinformation. There are real-life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors and actual medical professionals to provide unbiased information to parents so that we can make reasonable decisions for our kids,” he added.

“Sharing conspiracy theories and misinformation does not help the cause of public health,” Shapiro said.

Kennedy responded with a post on X, writing, “At his press conference today, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro accused me of promoting conspiracy theories because I told him, during an earlier telephone conversation, that some Americans had religious objections to the MMR vaccine because it contained fetal tissue. ‘There is no fetal tissue in the MMR,’ he told me.”

The post included video testimony from Dr. Stanley Plotkin, who developed the rubella component of the MMR vaccine, according to the Smithsonian.

“Plotkin admits to butchering 76 aborted normally developing fetuses, all over three months old, in just one of the many studies that led to the development of his vaccine,” RFK Jr. wrote.

“The rubella virus used in MMR-II is grown on the cultured cell line composed of lung tissue from an aborted three-month-old female embryo and listed as ‘WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts’ in the ingredients of MMR-II as portions of these cells end up in each vial of MMR II,” Kennedy added.

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Josh Shapiro falsely blames baby’s death on RFK Jr, measles vaccine hesitancy—coroner says infant died from ruptured spleen

An infant whose death Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro indicated was because of measles has been revealed to have actually been caused by a ruptured spleen, according to the coroner who looked into the death.

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Health Department had said that there were two deaths in the state that were “measles-associated” but did not say if the two deaths were actually from measles. During the press conference, Shapiro said that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been “spreading misinformation” about vaccines and “sharing conspiracy theories” about vaccines that lead to these consequences. 

That turned into a spat between Kennedy and Shapiro online, where Kennedy accused the governor of “gaslighting” and Shapiro responding that Kennedy’s various claims about vaccines are “inaccurate and misleading.”

In a post, Shapiro stated, “In Pennsylvania, 70 people who have tested positive for measles have been hospitalized this year — and yesterday, our @PAHealthDept announced that two Pennsylvanians who tested positive for measles have died. According to doctors and medical experts, the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your kids, and your community against measles. But we have seen vaccination rates decline on RFK’s watch.”

At the time of the press conference, no information was given about the deaths. But the Pennsylvania Department of Health later said in a post to social media that the Lancaster County Coroner stated that their office was “reviewing an infant death with a positive measles test.” The child, who was a newborn, would not have been vaccinated. Children generally do not get the measles vaccine until they are over 12 months old, or 6 months if they are traveling abroad, meaning vaccine hesitancy would have nothing to do with the death.

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Pennsylvania Democrats ERASE “Mother” and “Woman” From State Health Code — Replaced With “Postpartum Individual” in Radical Gender Ideology Push

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration is quietly attempting to erase women and mothers from the Commonwealth’s health code in the name of radical gender ideology.

Buried inside a sweeping 502-page regulatory proposal from the Pennsylvania Department of Health are multiple revisions that strike the words “woman” and “mother” and replace them with dehumanizing, gender-neutral terms such as “individual” and “postpartum individual.”

The changes were first uncovered by The Daily Wire. The proposed overhaul of 28 Pa. Code Chapter 27, which governs communicable and noncommunicable diseases, was published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on August 8.

The Shapiro administration apparently believes the words “mother” and “woman” are now too offensive for Pennsylvania’s official health regulations.

You simply cannot make this up. Under the proposed changes:

  • “Pregnant woman” becomes “pregnant individual.”
  • “Mother of a newborn” becomes “postpartum individual.”
  • “Mother of stillborn” is replaced with “case of stillbirth,” while references to the mother are changed to “postpartum individual.”
  • A “mother’s medical record” becomes a “postpartum individual’s medical record.”
  • Language referring to medical professionals attending women during childbirth is rewritten to say they attend “individuals.”

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PA Gov. Josh Shapiro and State Health Officials Caught Pushing Fake Measles Death Narrative in Lancaster County — Officials Refuse to Cooperate as County Coroner Confirms ZERO Deaths FROM Measles

The mainstream media and leftist government bureaucrats are at it again, pushing panic, fear, and unverified headlines to control the public narrative, only to get caught red-handed when local officials demand basic transparency.

During a high-profile press conference on Tuesay, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, alongside state health officials and Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, announced that two “measles-associated deaths” occurred in Lancaster County.

The legacy media immediately ran with the headlines. Two people died FROM measles. Case closed. Get the shot. Blame the unvaccinated. Blame RFK Jr.

There’s just one major problem: Local authorities have ZERO record of these alleged deaths.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called out the massive discrepancies and the state’s sudden refusal to share basic factual data.

Kennedy said Shapiro accused him of promoting “conspiracy theories” after Kennedy noted that some Americans have religious objections to MMR because of fetal-cell substrate used in manufacturing.

Shapiro reportedly snapped that there is “no fetal tissue in the MMR.” Kennedy responded that Shapiro could not produce a single example of HHS “misinformation” when asked, yet repeated the smear on camera anyway, while ignoring the fact that Pennsylvania’s own drop in vaccination rates largely occurred during the Biden years, a fact Shapiro reportedly admitted in a private call with RFK Jr.

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Shapiro Tries To Arm Pennsylvania Health Bureaucrats With Warrantless Entry Powers And Forced Vaccine Databases — Voters Already Said No Once

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is pursuing autocratic powers for public health that Pennsylvania voters removed five years ago, and he is doing it behind the scenes through regulations not legislation.

A 502-page proposal for modifications to the Pennsylvania health code, published on August 8, grants the Pennsylvania Department of Health vast new powers to enter premises without warrants, access medical records without consent, direct a statewide vaccine data system, impose masking mandates during an outbreak, as well as masking mandates in an effort of “prevention” for any “condition” the department has determined warrants an intervention.

It is important to digest the implications of this. The proposed regulations define “condition” to mean “noninfectious medical ailment or other health-related event”. That gives far reaching powers to the department of health in the guise of public health.

“The administration’s draft rules on masks and infectious diseases are deeply troubling,” said Pennsylvania lawmaker Michele Brooks. “These include standards that establish ‘rule by fiat’ for the imposition of masking, distancing, and virtually any other disease control measures; a state vaccine registry with mandatory reporting; the power to control attendance at funerals; and the broadest powers to track and collect private health information and to enter private property.”

Pennsylvanians know where this goes. Former Governor Tom Wolf instituted some of the most draconian COVID-19 lockdown orders in the U.S. from March 2020 to June 2021. Shapiro, then Attorney General, issued the mandates, and in defense of the state’s school mask mandate, called concerned parents “self-centered” in a 2021 filing to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ultimately handed down a judgment against Shapiro, ruling the Department of Health acted outside of its authority. However, the Court did write that the Department of Health had the ability to change its own rules. Shapiro seems to have taken this to heart.

In May 2021, Pennsylvanians passed a constitutional amendment constraining governors’ emergency powers to three weeks. Shapiro’s regulatory maneuver is designed to circumvent this democratic outcome entirely, granting a permanent, non-emergency power to a department he controls.

Randall Wenger, chief counsel of the Independence Law Center, fearful that health care workers will be allowed to access schools and interrogate children in private, said that parents deserve the right to care for their children as they see fit. “These regulations allow a bureaucrat to go into a school to meet with a child without parents’ knowledge and telling the school officials that they can’t even interfere with this. That’s unconscionable,” Wenger told The Daily Wire.

Shapiro comes from the Democrat buzz saw of presidential candidates and is potentially running in 2028. What he is doing in Pennsylvania is not public health — it is building a system of surveillance and compliance to be used nationwide. Pennsylvania did not vote for this system. Shapiro is doing it anyway, and whether the legislative branch steps in tells us how much the voters value the limits to power they voted for this year.

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