News & Brews June 10, 2025
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Amazon’s Pa. plans not without controversy
PennLive reports that Amazon announced yesterday that it plans to spend $20 billion to create multiple data centers in Pennsylvania, the first two of which would be in Luzerne and Bucks counties. While the move drew praise, “the announcement comes with its share of controversy.” For example, “the positive financial impact from data centers may not be as large as it seems. A 2022 law allowed computer data center equipment to be exempt from state sales and use tax for eligible companies, which Amazon qualifies for.”
Charged with crimes, Pa. public school teachers stay in the classroom
When teachers are charged with serious crimes, they’re supposed to be removed from the classroom. But Pennsylvania’s public school bureaucracy is instead letting potentially dangerous teachers stay with young students, putting them at risk. The Inquirer reports that a “review of Pennsylvania’s disciplinary actions against Philadelphia-area educators found at least a dozen instances, starting in 2015, in which the state took more than a year to act on the licenses of teachers charged with crimes that the law says warrant immediate suspension.” And according to Pa.’s former victim advocate, “Sending sexual text messages or other forms of communication is a ‘very, very common part of teacher abuse we see.’”
Shapiro & Dems are wrong on cyber charters
As Gov. Shapiro and Democrats aim to slash funding for cyber charter students, Dr. James Hanak, the founder and former CEO of PA Leadership Charter School, busts two myths that Dems and Shapiro are propagating. Then, he sets the record straight on who really stands to benefit from targeting cyber charter students. Spoiler alert: It’s teachers’ unions.
Trouble brewing in Allegheny County GOP?
Tony Moreno won the recent Republican primary election for Pittsburgh mayor, but the City of Pittsburgh Republican Committee and the Republican Committee of Allegheny County will not be supporting Moreno’s campaign. The city’s GOP party chair said, “The root cause of the problem, as we see it, there is a philosophical disagreement on the campaigning expectations from both sides and we can’t come to a middle ground.” In a recent Facebook post, Moreno said the “political machine is in our face telling us to shut up and sit down.” The party claims this post was effectively a resignation from the party committee, and county party chair Jason Richey said Moreno “will be immediately removed from our committee list.”
Profiling Trump’s would-be assassin
The New York Times has an extensive profile of Thomas Crooks, the shooter who attempted to kill President Trump in Butler last year, injuring Trump and two others while killing Corey Comperatore. “This account,” the Times claims, “offers the fullest picture yet of Mr. Crooks’s life. Although many aspects of his background and mental health are still unknown, The Times’s reporting is based on thousands of pages of his school assignments, emails and logs of his internet activity, as well as text messages, government reports and interviews with dozens of people who knew him or were familiar with the case.”