The Spark

It’s Friday when we talk with journalists on The Spark. We were joined by two reporters who are new to covering the State Capitol in Pennsylvania – WITF’s Ben Wasserstein and LNP/Lancaster Online’s Jaxon White.

The state's fiscal year began July 1. After appearing to be on track for passage by that deadline, an impasse ensued when Senate Republicans said Gov. Josh Shapiro reneged on a promise to include a $100 million voucher program to pay for tuition at private and religious schools. White said lawmakers still have to pass "code bills" in order to finalize the spending plan and there's some question as whether vouchers will once again become an issue,"Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman said that they were basically looking for any avenue possible to get the voucher program through, but he did not mention the code bills to make that clear. But my question was about the code bills when he said that he would explore other avenues. So it's up in the air whether they're going to try."

The State Senate returns to session next week.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly is also considering moving the 2024 primary election (a presidential election year) from its scheduled date of April 23 to earlier in the month. Wassenstein indicated the Jewish observance of Passover is one of the reasons,"This would also give Pennsylvania a bigger say in who is the nominee. Considering that Pennsylvania is the largest swing state, I believe at this point now that Florida is red. So this would give a bigger say, especially since elections tend to come down to Pennsylvania in a lot of regards. So having an early say on who gets the nomination would be beneficial to Pennsylvania. But on top of that, it would be more equitable for the Jewish people."

Wasserstein pointed out lawmakers will have to move quickly to change the date and one of the considerations is candidates have enough time to circulate nominating petitions to run for office in 2024.

Wasserstein has reported on a move in the legislature to regulate how much health insurance companies can use artificial intelligence when deciding on claims, "Some insurance companies, Cigna, for example, has an algorithm that can go through tons of claims and deny them in 1.2 seconds. And it has been exposing certain biases based on sex and race. And that is something that legislators are trying to take a look at because it could potentially mean life or death for some people. So they want to have a human voice and not be solely relying on the technology. And AI is becoming a pretty bipartisan issue."

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One in 37 Pennsylvanians are on probation or parole. That’s the fourth highest total in the U.S.

Under current law, those on probation could be incarcerated or have their sentences extended for what’s referred to as a technical violation such as not reporting to their probation officer or traveling out of their jurisdiction for a job.

There seems to be almost universal support for reforming probation in Pennsylvania. A bill passed the Senate earlier this summer with bipartisan support and the House is expected to approve it when lawmakers return to Harrisburg next month.

Erin Haney, Policy Director for Reform Alliance -- a group that advocates for probation reform -- was on The Spark Thursday and said Pennsylvania has one of the most broken systems in the country,"There are nearly 100,000 people right now on probation in Pennsylvania who are subject to a laundry list of conditions, many of which really don't serve any public safety purpose. So they aren't deterring crime or supporting reentry. They serve instead support into reentry, really as obstacles to reentry. So we've actually made it more difficult for people on supervision. We've also made it more difficult for probation officers. And the result of that has been no returns for public safety and a lot of taxpayer waste."

The bill that was approved by the full State Senate and the House Judiciary Committee would narrow the definition of technical violation, provide more incentives for work and education and institute shorter review terms.

The American Civil Liberties Union agrees there is a need for probation reform but objects to a few aspects of the bill being considered. That includes those on probation who don't have a lot of money and are ordered to pay restitution will be at a disadvantage.

Haney responded by saying the current system doesn't allow for poor people to pay restitution and this bill would help them.

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If a presidential election was held today in Pennsylvania – Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden would beat Republican front runner and former president Donald Trump 42-40%. That’s according to the latest Franklin and Marshall College Poll that was released Thursday.

But there are some caveats – both Biden and Trump are not popular with Pennsylvania voters and the two percent difference falls within the poll’s +/-4.5% margin of error.

The poll does show that Gov. Josh Shapiro  has the highest favorable ratings of any new Pennsylvania governor in almost 30 years. And Pennsylvanians are a little more optimistic about their finances than just a few months ago.

To analyze the results of the poll on The Spark Thursday was Berwood Yost,(Ph.D.) the Director of the Center for Opinion Research and the Director of the Floyd Institute for Public Policy at Franklin & Marshall College. He is also the Director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

Yost was asked what the big takeaways from the poll are for him,"Voters are feeling a bit more optimistic about how things are working in the state and how things are going with their checkbooks, with their pocketbooks. And so if we're talking about broad sort of factors that are going to affect an election down the line, people's perceptions of of how things are going are always important. They speak to whether or not an incumbent is going to be successful. And so when you start seeing some of those changes, it's worth taking note. And so because we saw the kind of rise in optimism, we did see an uptick in some of the approval, job approval ratings for some of the candidates we tested. So Josh Shapiro, Governor Shapiro, his numbers increased and they're at the highest of any first term governor since Tom Ridge. That's been a long time. And and so his standing is very strong. President Biden is still relatively weak when it comes to an incumbent's job approval rating. But it started to tick up and that's what you would expect to start happening right now as he begins transitioning from governing to campaigning"

The poll indicated that 59% of voters viewed Biden unfavorable and 64% were unfavorable toward Trump.

A disagreement over whether the state should use tax money to partly pay for tuition at private and religious schools caused a budget impasse last month. The F&M poll showed voters oppose a school voucher program by a 51-47% margin, although statistically that's a split.

Yost said he's seen a change in how voters answer the voucher question though,"It used to be starkly divided by party. And there is still a strong partisan division. Republicans do tend to favor it. Democrats tend to oppose it. But that has changed over time, where we see a geographic component as well as a party partisan component. That is, I think people in more urban or rural areas where school performance may be more critical or critically viewed or where funding is not as high as they'd like it to be, those communities are much more supportive of these voucher ideas than, say, suburban communities whose schools are good and who do a good job of educating students and have plenty of money to do it."

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NPR’s All Things Considered co-host Mary Louise Kelly career as a journalist has taken her around the world including Russia, North Korea, Iran and Ukraine. That’s not when she’s on the anchor desk at the NPR studios in Washington.

Kelly has written for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian and The Atlantic. But she also has authored three books.

Her latest is called It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs about her life with her family during her son James’ senior year in high school.

Mary Louise Kelly appeared at Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg last Saturday and The Spark's Scott LaMar spoke to her about the book, her career and the news.

Here are a few excerpts:

Why did she write the book?

My oldest son, who loves soccer. Has lived for soccer since before he could walk. He would have been like crawling along the front here, batting a little Nerf soccer ball. He was going out for his varsity team and their games are weekdays at 4:00. And this is what he lives for. Lives for these games. And I have a conflict on weekdays at 4:00, which is to the minute it's when All Things Considered goes on air. This had been the case for years. He made the varsity team as a freshman and as a sophomore and as a junior. And I had missed all the games freshman year, sophomore year. But I was suddenly staring down senior year. And the choices. That I had wrestled with. I never took them lightly, but I always thought, there's a chance I'll make a different choice next time. Like next year I'm going to figure this out. And I suddenly, instead of thousands or hundreds of games, I could count them on my two hands. There just weren't that many. There weren't that many left. And I realized if I'm going to make a different choice. I got to do it right now. And I did. And I took an extended absence from NPR. So if you didn't hear me much in the fall of 2021, that's why I was going to soccer games. And the act of deciding to do that and the impact it had on my career and how I thought about it led me to think about all the decisions I'd made that has gotten us there and what the impact on my family on me has been"

Did her son James appreciate that she was at the soccer games?

"That's such a good question. There were games that I went to. And, you know, some games he would trot over and meet me on the sidelines afterward. But others, the team is going into meetings in the locker room and I wouldn't see him until we got home and he would show up at our dinner table and report the score and tell me about the highlights. And I'd look at him and say, I was there. You know, I saw that goal and he. Oh, you were there? I thought, yes, I was there. But yeah, I think I think he knew and I think he appreciated I think he got it."

Kelly was asked to describe her famous interview with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"We did the interview. We started with Iran. It was contentious. It was a testy interview from the start and got more so when I changed the subject to Ukraine, which he did not want to talk about to the extent that his staffer cut the interview short before the full 10 minutes. And I thanked him, as is customary to do. And he said nothing. Just leaned close and glared at me. And then left the room. So my team and I are packing up to head back to file. And the same staffer came and got me and brought me back to...we're on the seventh floor of the State Department in Washington and brought me back to his living room adjacent to his office. And he screamed at me for about the same amount of time as the interview. And asked...Forgive my language, but if I'm going to quote accurately. Do you think Americans care about (expletive) Ukraine? And I said yes.

Did she find herself counting the days until James graduated?

"I wasn't counting days so much as experiences. I was counting, like. Maybe not counting like checking them off. I would set the table for family dinner and think how many more nights? And they come home as those of you with older kids know or you know, they come back. But it's never going to be quite the same as that nuclear family where you're all under one roof. So I think I was I was focused on that, but also focused on the beauty of those moments. In what might have been my very first interview about this book, I was speaking to my colleague Scott Simon, who was my NPR interview for Weekend Edition, and Scott was asking me about lasts. Like the last time your kid crawls onto your lap for a cuddle. And you, of course, never know in the moment. This is going to be the last time because they're 11 or 12 and they're about to be taller than me. But. Sometime it's going to be the last one."

James will be starting his second year at the University of Chicago.

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Since the Russians invaded Ukraine in February, 2022, The Spark has been in communication with the ProEnglish Theatre in Kyiv from time-to-time as art continues to thrive with violence and death throughout Ukraine.

On The Spark Monday, we were joined by Alex Borovensky, the artistic director of the ProEnglish Theatre, who spoke to us live from Kyiv. Borovensky spoke about important art is while the war goes on,"I believe that at the moment this is the only thing that keeps us going. And yes, I'm talking about this brings you to experience, because for many Ukrainians, they have different sources of inspiration. But for us, our bubble, our circle, art is the only thing that matters. And that kept us going when we ran out of finances, when we ran out of the initial adrenaline rush, when we ran out of this national burst, we're going to kick Russians out of our country. All of this ends. Art doesn't because art speaks about the future and it works for us. It works for artists, it works for people who watch our performances. It gives this invisible sources of energy that makes us go on no matter what. You cannot resist art. It penetrates you on any level."

The Ukraine Fringe International Festival entitled "Festival for the Brave" begins August 30 at the ProEnglish Theatre. It includes performers from six countries and a variety of performances and genres. Borovensky says the title is significant,"It works on two levels for us even to put International Theater Festival in the heart of people these days is the sign of biggest bravery possible. Yes, we do it in the bomb shelters, but international artists, they do come these days to Kyiv to present the arts to Kyiv. Audiences see two performances in English, and we're going to have about 20 of those. So it works on two levels. We call those international artists that do come to Kyiv. Great, because it's bravery, not insanity. Bravery for sure. Every Ukrainian is great because we're still there. We're still have the guts and power not only to donate and support and fight and resist, but also to come to see it and enjoy the show."

Borovenskiy was asked how performances have changed since the start of the war,"In the beginning of invasion, there were no audiences. All the audience was hiding in the basements, bomb shelters and everything and theaters were officially prohibited as the public gathering place. So we had no theater for, say, like three months or so. Yes, we rehearsed. Yes, we showed it to a small number of local audiences. It was not there. Then when we started theaters in the beginning, we're mostly reflecting on what's going on. War is still there. It's very poignant. So we had a lot of stage readings and they were directly talking about what's going on. It was like this minute to minute diaries that we put on stage and the actors just read it. So the lot of these things and some of them did transform into the theater performances. Some of them didn't. And only now we come in not to what I say, theater normal, but what I call the new theater, because all of our performances, they are affected by war. There is none of this that wouldn't be touched by it, but it doesn't speak about this directly anymore. We come in back to the theater that works through symbols, that works form, that works through structures like theater, as it should be. But it's still very poignant because the war is still there. So right now, the audience, I would say, we don't watch the stupid comedies anymore. We watch smart comedies. If we want to laugh, we don't watch drama, drama anymore. We watch drama that make us better. We smile. We watch something that makes us think and speak. This is one of the biggest things. Pretty much after every discussion, after every performance, we would have a discussion and talk. And this is what we didn't have before. Shows over. Audience Go home now. It's not like this anymore. We talk and sometimes we talk longer than the performance, and this is very important."

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The number of suspected child abuse cases increased slightly last year in Pennsylvania according to the Child Protective Services Report from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

There were 39,093 suspected child abuses reported. Sixty children died as the result of child abuse.

Joining us on The Spark Monday to provide some insight is Angela Liddle, President and CEO of the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, who was asked what leads to abuse and neglect, "Stress impacts families, lack of resources, impacts families, lack of knowledge around child development impacts, parenting, an absence of knowing good, solid, positive parenting skills impacts how children are raised. I think you put all of that together."

The report indicated most of the child deaths were due to neglect. Liddle said not being able to find affordable child care is a factor in neglect.

Mandated reporters were the source of 82% of all suspected child abuse reports in 2022.

Liddle encouraged members of the community to report child abuse or help de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation. PFSA has instituted the Front Porch Project, "It's trying to increase awareness so those folks learn very safe ways that can help support a family when they see a family in crisis or when they think a child is not safe in public or in your neighborhood. How you go to the grocery store over the weekend, you're at the local Walmart on a Friday night, and sometimes you just know the stuff you see is not okay. So what can you do in that moment to safely help de-escalate a situation and maybe prop up mom or dad and kind of get through that really tough moment? It can range the training ranges from situations like that to those situations we know we sometimes have in our communities, in our neighborhoods where kids really are not supervised, they're too young or too immature to be left home unattended or whatever the situation may be. And so there needs to be intervention."

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The reigning National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies are scheduled to play the San Francisco Giants Monday night at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Coming off the World Series last year, the Phillies are playing before nearly sell-out crowds for most games.

Since the COVID pandemic, physical tickets aren’t the only way to enter a ballpark or other venue. Apps on phones are often used instead.

Starting Monday, there will be another option at Citizen’s Bank Park – fans will be able to get into the games with the scan of their face. It’s being called “Go-ahead entry.”

Karri Zaremba, MLB Senior Vice President of Product for Ballpark Experience & Ticketing appeared on The Spark Monday and explained how it works,"All they need to do is have the MLB Ballpark app and all ticketed fans have the option to take a selfie and that's it. They're enrolled and then when they get to the game, they just look for one of the clearly marked go ahead entry lanes at first base gate and they just keep on walking. There's no need for them to even stop or get out their phone."

According to MLB, all individuals will be scanned by the facial authentication cameras for entry. The ticket holder's family and guests will enter Go-Ahead Entry with the ticket holder if the tickets are on the ticket holder's MLB Ballpark app account.

Go-ahead entry is a pilot program and after evaluation, MLB may institute at other ballparks starting next year.

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Artist and Philanthropist Alex Wednesday Colon has been making music just as long as he's been giving back to his community. From Film festivals aimed at highlighting content creators with smaller budgets, to this month's book bag giveaway, Alex has always used his unique skillset and connections to help build community within his community. Alex also runs a media company emphatically called The Ripple Effect, which is a creative platform that brings light to the independent artists in it’s set city. Traveling up and down the east coast, The Ripple Effect has made its presence in South Florida as well as Pennsylvania since being established in 2017. Every curated event is a brand new experience: new artists, new genres, new venues, as well as a new audience. They strive to provide a platform that makes the up and coming artists that they put on stage feel they are the show.

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Former President Donald Trump and 18 others were indicted by a Grand Jury in Georgia this week for allegedly attempting to interfere and overturn 2020 election results in the state. Even though the alleged crimes were directed at Georgia’s election, there are several ties to Pennsylvania – another state that Trump and his allies contested after Joe Biden won in 2020.

Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis laid out charges under the state’s Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act otherwise known as RICO.

WITF’s Democracy Beat reporter Robby Broad was with us on The Spark Friday to talk about the Pennsylvania connections.

York County Congressman Republican Scott Perry is alleged to have introduced Jeffrey Clark, an Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division to Trump. Broad explained from there,"Perry introduced him through (Trump Chief-of-Staff) Mark Meadows through text messages. And he essentially talked to Mark Meadows a good amount leading up to the 2020 election and urged him to talk to Jeff Clark... Trump found Jeff Clark to be someone who would be sympathetic to his claims of election fraud and ultimately tried to install him as attorney general, which kind of caused a revolt in the DOJ. And a lot of senior leadership wanted to resign. But that ultimately didn't happen. But text messages from Scott Perry found that Mark Meadows sent to him were used to as part of the indictment on Mark Meadows for his racketeering activity. But I just want to underscore that Scott Perry's name was not mentioned in the indictment, and he has not been accused of any crime."

Meadows allegedly also tried to get former Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler's phone number from Perry and Broad explained,"Mark Meadows was looking for Brian Cutler's phone number to be able to connect him with Trump so they could talk about essentially what the prosecutors say would be ways to criminally undermine the electorate in Pennsylvania. So that was actually another text message that he connected with Scott Perry to get Bryan Cutler's number. And prosecutors say that that constituted racketeering in that although that doesn't specifically involve Georgia, this was what they describe as a criminal act committed by what they say is a criminal enterprise."

The Georgia indictments also referenced a State Senate committee hearing in Gettysburg in December, 2020 attended by Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani and attorney Jenna Ellis, that included Trump by phone where they falsely claimed Pennsylvania's election was riddled with fraud and irregularities.

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We’re seeing the affects of climate change seemingly every day – whether it be wildfires in Hawaii or Canada or extreme weather like blistering heat waves around the world or storms that cause major damage and are life-threatening.

Often, we also hear what governments, policy makers, businesses and colleges and universities are doing to try to slow the progression of climate change. But what can YOU do?

StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Rachel McDevitt is writing a series of stories on ways that individuals can fight climate change and joined us on The Spark Thursday,"Home energy and electricity use make up an estimated 20% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. It's a big source of our personal emissions. We have some control over how that works. I mean, your home, what you do in your home, that's a big part of what you're doing to generate possible emissions."

McDevitt offered some energy saving tips,"Go around your house and see if your air is leaking from any place. Do you have older windows? Do you have doors that don't seal very well when you close them? You can buy pretty cheap foam rolls of weather stripping. You can put that down so it minimizes air leaks. You can get a programmable thermostat. Some people may need some help installing those...But if you get a programmable thermostat, you can install it. There are lots of videos on YouTube and then you can set it so that you're not cooling your house when you're at work all day. Maybe you can put the temperature up to 80, 85 when you're not at home and then you have it set to turn on that does cool down to like 75-72 by the time you do get home...So you're not using energy that you don't need, right? You can switch out all of your light bulbs for LEDs, which use very minimal amounts of power. Once you have LEDs it's actually less important that you switch them off when you're not using them because they use so little power. But the biggest things in your home that are going to be sucking up that energy are the the heating and air conditioning. So anything you can do to help them be more efficient, which would be sealing those air leaks and then not using them when you're not at home, that's going to cut down on your bills and it's going to cut down on the emissions they generate."

McDevitt said that often saving energy and money on your energy bills is a matter of changing habits.

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