Candidates seeking spots on the May 16 primary ballot are now more than a week into the arduous three-week season of asking voters to sign nomination petitions. Then the real fun begins after the March 7 submission deadline, as competitors parse petitions, looking for ways to get opponents booted from the ballot.

Joe Driscoll thinks he has found a way to make it a little easier, with the help of artificial intelligence, also known as AI.

Driscoll, a former deputy city commissioner, developed a system of off-the-shelf AI products to compare petitions to voter registration records. That could help find challengeable signatures — like a Republican who signed a Democrat’s petition or a suburban voter who signed for a city candidate.

Driscoll said that could free campaigns to spend more time looking for the real shenanigans in petition season, like “kitchen-table jobs,” when petition circulators skip the circulation and use voter lists to forge names and signatures.

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Federal environmental regulators on Tuesday took charge of the cleanup from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment and chemical burn and ordered Norfolk Southern to foot the bill.

The Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] told Norfolk Southern to take all available measures to clean up contaminated air and water, and also said the company would be required to reimburse the federal government for a new program to provide cleaning services for impacted residents and businesses.

The EPA warned Norfolk Southern that if failed to comply with its order, the agency would perform the work itself and seek triple damages from the company. Also Tuesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appeared at a press conference at the site and said he had made a criminal referral against the railroad to the attorney general’s office. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said that state is doing a similar investigation.

“The Norfolk Southern train derailment has upended the lives of East Palestine families, and EPA’s order will ensure the company is held accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of this community,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement ahead of a news conference with the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

CLAIM: George Soros endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. During a keynote address ahead of last week’s Munich Security Conference, Soros said he hopes for a scenario in which DeSantis runs for and wins the Republican nomination so that former President Donald Trump will run as a third-party candidate, paving the way for “a Democratic landslide.” He did not express personal support for DeSantis as a political candidate.

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a clip of Soros’ remarks, claiming they indicate the billionaire investor and liberal philanthropist is backing DeSantis.

“My hope for 2024 is that Trump and Governor DeSantis of Florida will slug it out for the Republican nomination,” Soros says in the clip. “Trump has turned into a pitiful figure, continually bemoaning his loss in 2020. Big Republican donors are abandoning him in droves. DeSantis is shrewd, ruthless and ambitious. He’s likely to be the Republican candidate.”

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania voters did not have equal opportunities to cast or correct their ballots during the November 2022 election, the latter producing a disparity that disenfranchised hundreds of voters, a Spotlight PA and Votebeat analysis has found.

As part of a first-of-its-kind review, the news organizations contacted election officials in all 67 counties about policies regarding drop boxes and mail ballots that had disqualifying technical errors. The outlets focused on how counties treat mail ballots, as state law is silent on logistical details that directly impact how Pennsylvanians can vote and whether a person’s vote counts.

Spotlight PA and Votebeat also sought to understand the access voters have to physical polling places and to minutes of meetings held by county election boards that make critical policy decisions such as which ballots get counted and who gets a chance to fix their ballot.

The latest British Academy Film Awards have taken place as stars from around the world gathered to celebrate the past 12 months of filmmaking. The 76th annual film awards ceremony was held at London’s Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday night. Among those who attended where the Prince and Princess of Wales - with William being president of BAFTA since 2010.

Leading the way ahead of the awards was Netflix’s anti-war epic All Quiet On The Western Front with 14 nominations – while The Banshees Of Inisherin, starring Colin Farrell, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, featuring Michelle Yeoh, follow closely behind with 10 nominations each.

The 25 catagories include Best Film, Leading Actor, Leading Actress, Best Director, Outstanding British Film, Costume Design and Original Screenplay.

Here is the full list of winners and nominees for the Baftas 2023 as they are announced (winners in bold):

Best Film
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- The Banshees of Inisherin
- Elvis
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- Tár

CLEARFIELD, Pa. (AP) — The court-ordered release of a trove of government photos, videos, maps and other documents involving the FBI’s secretive search for Civil War-era gold has a treasure hunter more convinced than ever of a coverup — and just as determined to prove it.

Dennis Parada waged a legal battle to force the FBI to turn over records of its excavation in Dents Run, Pennsylvania, where local lore says an 1863 shipment of Union gold disappeared on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. The FBI, which went to Dents Run after sophisticated testing suggested tons of gold might be buried there, has long insisted the dig came up empty.

Parada and his advisers, who have spent countless hours poring over the newly released government records, believe otherwise. They accuse the FBI of distorting key evidence and improperly withholding records in an apparent effort to conceal the recovery of a historic, extremely valuable gold cache. The FBI defends its handling of the materials.

Parada’s dispute with the FBI is playing out in federal court, where a judge overseeing the case must decide whether the FBI will have to release its operational plan for the gold dig and other records it wants to keep secret. The judge could also order the FBI to keep looking for additional materials to turn over to the treasure hunter.

. . . snip . . .

He and his son spent years looking for the fabled gold of Dents Run, eventually guiding the FBI to a remote woodland site 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh where they say their instruments identified a large quantity of metal. The FBI brought in a geophysical consulting firm whose sensitive equipment detected a 7- to 9-ton mass suggestive of gold.

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania lawmakers are increasingly sounding off about the horrific Feb. 3 train derailment just over the state line in Ohio, calling railway company Norfolk Southern an “ignorant” exemplar of corporate greed — and some will take part in a public hearing next week in Beaver County.

State Sen. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery, the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs & Emergency Preparedness Committee, said she’s worried about Pennsylvanians who live near the state line. The train derailed in East Palestine, just on the other side of the Ohio border. The controlled release of toxic chemicals from several train cars following the derailment has left people in East Palestine and beyond fearful of the health consequences, even as officials offer assurances that the air and water are safe.

“There is severe concern that people could have long-term health effects,” Ms. Muth said, citing things she has read from subject experts.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, the committee chairman, has scheduled a joint public hearing with the Senate Transportation Committee to scrutinize the derailment and the response to it. The hearing is set for 10 a.m. Thursday at Community College of Beaver County. Mr. Mastriano said in a statement that testimony would come from Norfolk Southern, state and local officials, and citizens.

At least five lawsuits have been filed after the derailment of about 50 train cars, including at least 10 carrying hazardous materials, and the associated spill, fires and release of chemicals. State House Speaker Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, lambasted Norfolk Southern on Friday and called images from the derailment site heartbreaking.

By day, Andrew Wolf enjoyed a reputation as one of the most popular teachers at the elite Springside Chestnut Hill Academy — a coach to players on the middle-school baseball team, a decorated educator, and a mentor to the dozens of boys who passed through his eighth-grade classroom each year. But each night, he spent countless hours online plotting with others to exploit them.

The 42-year-old former math teacher was sentenced to nearly 39 years in federal prison Thursday for devising an elaborate catfishing scheme to trick dozens of his current and former students into sending him sexually explicit photos of themselves. And while Wolf told a federal judge he hadn’t considered at the time the harm he was inflicting on them, he was confronted in court by the mother of one victim insistent that he reckon with the damage he had done.

The woman — who did not give her full name to protect her child’s identity — said her son, a once affable and popular teen, fell into a well of shame after discovering that nude photos he’d thought he’d sent to a teenage girl were instead in the possession of his math teacher, who’d shared them with other pedophiles over the internet.

“He spiraled into depression and self-harm,” the mother said of her then 13-year-old. “He began cutting his arms to deal with the emotions he’d never experienced before.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro called on the state legislature to end the death penalty in Pennsylvania on Thursday, marking the first time a governor has formally asked the General Assembly to abolish the controversial practice.

Inside a West Philadelphia church, Shapiro also said he would extend the moratorium on executions that was put in place eight years ago by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

“The commonwealth shouldn’t be in the business of putting people to death, period,” Shapiro said. “At its core, for me, this is a fundamental statement of morality, of what’s right and wrong, in my humble opinion. And I believe as governor that Pennsylvanians must be on the right side of this issue.”

Pennsylvania’s last execution, in 1999, was the lethal injection of Gary Heidnik, who raped and tortured six women he kept chained in the basement of his Franklinville home, then killed and dismembered two of them.