The case in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial was handed to the jury Thursday afternoon. The government presented their closing arguments in the morning, followed by the defense team for accused shooter Robert Bowers.

The jury of 12 men and women moved to deliberations around 2:30 p.m. Mr. Bowers faces 63 federal charges and the possibility of the death penalty in the Oct. 27, 2018 shooting in Squirrel Hill. On Thursday morning, attorney Mary Hahn steered jurors through the horrors of that day.

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The government’s closing arguments took jurors back through 11 days of testimony: The first-hand testimony from survivors, the harrowing descriptions from first responders, the damage the rifle bullets did to each victim’s body, and the hateful, antisemitic social media posts made by Mr. Bowers.

[Attorney Mary Hahn] called Mr. Bowers’ decisions and movements “cold, calculated, deliberate choices” that killed half of the people in the synagogue that morning in a matter of minutes.

HARRISBURG — Two Pennsylvania lawmakers have requested investigations into the state Gaming Control Board following a Spotlight PA story that detailed how top officials met privately with casino lobbyists about a major competitor and failed to disclose the meeting on public logs required by the regulatory agency’s ethics rules.

State Sen. Gene Yaw (R., Lycoming) and state Rep. Jared Solomon (D., Philadelphia) have asked the state attorney general’s office and the state Ethics Commission respectively to review the gaming board’s actions for compliance with the law, and review internal rules established to ensure the agency remains impervious to outside influence.

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Earlier this year, Spotlight PA reported that lobbyists for the state’s largest casino, Parx Casino in Bucks County, embarked on an intense, behind-the-scenes effort to get the Gaming Control Board to abandon its hands-off stance toward skill games. Skill games resemble slot machines and have proliferated over the past decade in convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, social clubs, and other locations statewide.

Unlike slot machines and other casino gambling, skill games are not regulated by the Gaming Control Board. Nor are they taxed at the high rate that casino slots are. As a result, the skill games industry has become a prime target for some casino executives and their array of lobbyists, who argue the machines are illegal and should be banned in the state. Those executives have mounted a fierce campaign away from public view to convince officials to help them rid the state’s gambling landscape of skill games, according to emails and other documents obtained by Spotlight PA.

HARRISBURG — A court decision requiring Pennsylvania lawmakers to make the funding system for public schools more equitable is front and center in this year’s budget negotiations, but the issue will not be resolved by the looming deadline. Commonwealth Court ruled in February that the current school funding scheme is unconstitutional, but did not prescribe a solution, leaving it up to lawmakers to find an answer.

The budget has a deadline of June 30, and while some lawmakers hope to include extra education funding in deference to the court’s ruling, talks over a larger education overhaul are expected to last much longer. The Democrats who newly control the state House are pushing for a large funding increase, and also want to boost money specifically earmarked for the poorest districts.

Republicans are reluctant to spend down the commonwealth’s multibillion budget surplus, citing concerns about a possible economic downturn. Many also say they want any school overhaul to include more publicly funded scholarships for students to attend private or charter schools, a policy that many Democrats argue weakens public schools.

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Pennsylvania uses two different formulas to determine how much money goes to each school district. One is generally seen as outdated and unfair because it doles out cash based on 30-year-old enrollment numbers, which means it routes relatively more money to shrinking districts and less to ones that have grown in recent decades, and doesn’t account for factors like student poverty. The other is considered to be more responsive to districts’ needs, but it’s only used for funding that has been added to the budget since 2016.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg promised Tuesday to help repair the East Coast’s main north-south highway as quickly as possible and said that the destruction of a section of I-95 will likely raise shipping costs because truckers must now travel longer routes. Speaking near the site where an out-of-control tractor-trailer hauling gasoline flipped over on an Interstate 95 off-ramp and caught fire, Mr. Buttigieg said he expected that disruptions in trucking routes will put “upward pressure” on costs along the East Coast.

Mr. Buttigieg toured the site and then, over the sounds of heavy machinery and demolition, told reporters that “every resource that is needed will be made available” to help Pennsylvania repair the bridge as quickly and safely as possible. The collapse is snarling traffic in Philadelphia as the summer travel season starts, upending hundreds of thousands of morning commutes, disrupting countless businesses and forcing trucking companies to find different routes.

One body was pulled from the wreckage. The resulting fire caused the collapse of the northbound lanes of I-95. The southbound lanes were compromised by the heat from the fire, authorities say. It could take weeks, at least, to replace the damaged and destroyed section.

Pennsylvania’s transportation secretary, Michael Carroll, said he expects to release a replacement plan on Wednesday for the roughly 100-foot-long section of I-95.

Seven SEPTA buses outfitted with AI-driven cameras have been monitoring bus lanes and stops along two Center City routes for illegally parked vehicles since late April, documenting an average of 4,000 blockages a week during a test of the enforcement technology, transit agency officials said.

No tickets or warnings are being issued as a result of the images captured on Routes 21 and 42. SEPTA is partnering on the study with Hayden AI, a Silicon Valley start-up that has installed its artificial intelligence cameras on buses in several large transit systems, including in New York and Washington.

“SEPTA is really excited about the possibility of improvements for our passengers: safety at bus stops, safety on the bus lanes, and then [reduced] congestion on the corridors so that we can get our buses moving more reliably,” said Matthew Zapson, SEPTA’s project manager for transit priority, which refers to strategies and technologies that enable transit vehicles to avoid congestion.

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The AI software activates the cameras to record the date, time, precise location and license plate numbers of vehicles only when it detects a violation, which it recognizes because it has mapped and learned the lanes and road-markings along the routes, Zapson said.



When cars or trucks park in bus-stop zones, the buses can’t get close to the curb so passengers have a clear, safe path to board their ride, Zapson said.

STATE COLLEGE — In an unusual legal filing, Sandy Township seeks to pause its voter-approved consolidation with the City of DuBois as a result of corruption allegations against the city’s suspended manager and alarming financial oversight issues.

The consolidation, a rarity in Pennsylvania’s patchwork of more than 2,500 municipalities, was approved by DuBois and Sandy Township voters in a 2021 referendum — by a razor-thin margin of 1% among township electors — after three failed attempts in previous decades.

Now, Sandy Township officials argue in a new court filing that the sweeping fraud allegations against Herm Suplizio, one of DuBois’ most politically connected government officials, and mounting questions about city oversight and ongoing investigations necessitate an intervention.

“Given the unique and extraordinary circumstances presented here, including serious criminal malfeasance, absent a permanent injunction the township will suffer substantial financial losses and harm,” officials wrote in the complaint, filed in Clearfield County Court of Common Pleas.

On the same day Chris Christie is set to launch his 2024 presidential campaign, it’s election day back home for the former New Jersey governor. Polls in New Jersey are open until 8 p.m. for the state’s primaries, which will decide the Democratic and Republican nominations in the Legislature’s 40 districts.

Thanks to redistricting, 27 sitting lawmakers are on the move, because of retirement or the desire to jump from the Assembly to the state Senate. But most of the races remain uncontested.

One of the few contested primaries is in the 3rd Legislative District in South Jersey, where incumbent Republican Sen. Ed Durr — a truck driver who upset former state Senate President Steve Sweeney in 2021 — is being challenged by GOP Assemblywoman Beth Sawyer. In northern New Jersey, incumbent Democratic senators Dick Codey and Nia Gill are facing off in the 27th Legislative District. Redistricting left Gill’s hometown of Montclair inside the district currently held by Codey, who is being backed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

Voters won’t get to weigh in on governor until 2025, when Murphy’s second term ends. So far, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop is the only candidate to announce a campaign for the Democratic nomination in what will almost certainly be a crowded primary field. Democrats hold a 25-15 majority in the state Senate and a 46-34 majority in the Assembly.

The Democrat-controlled state House Monday evening passed a bill for proposed state budget spending in 2023-24 that is well over $1 billion more than what Gov. Josh Shapiro outlined in his budget address, triggering immediate and harsh criticism from Republicans.

The party-line 102-101 vote in the chamber where Democrats have a one-seat majority came in the first House voting in June, which traditionally is the busiest month in Harrisburg as lawmakers and the governor attempt to pass a budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. It came about three months after Mr. Shapiro unveiled his $44.4 billion proposed spending plan. The bill now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate for consideration, but lawmakers from both sides of the aisle said changes are likely as negotiations begin.

Top Democrats said more money could be spent because of unexpected increases in revenue that had occurred after Mr. Shapiro’s budget proposal was prepared. Republicans said they only learned Monday morning of Democrats’ plans to propose a larger spending increase. After the bill cleared a Democrat-controlled committee early in the afternoon, House Republican leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, described the package as being created with a “complete lack of transparency” and — because of its proposed drawdown on state reserves over a period of years — is likely to “bankrupt Pennsylvania.”

Among the major spending items that were not in Mr. Shapiro’s budget is a dedicated stream of $225 million in so-called “Level Up” funding for the state’s most financially strapped school districts. Democratic Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said that all told, the Democrats’ new proposal will boost education spending by $1.7 billion beyond the current year.

HARRISBURG — June is budget negotiation month in Pennsylvania, when state lawmakers decide how to direct billions of tax dollars and make big policy choices on everything from energy to education to health care. The average Pennsylvanian likely doesn’t have time to prowl the halls of the Capitol in Harrisburg to keep up with the latest developments, which is why Spotlight PA has compiled this guide.

Below, you’ll learn what Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed, what comes next in the process, and how to follow along.

What’s on the table?

In his March budget address, Shapiro proposed a $44.4 billion spending plan. It calls for $1 billion in new education spending (including state funding directly to school districts as well as money for building repairs and mental health services), ending transfers of gas tax money to the State Police, and the commonwealth’s first-ever investment into public defenders.

Legislators in both major parties have greeted it with cautious optimism as a fine starting point, even if their priorities are in opposite directions.