Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Lawmakers Must Make Environmental Justice a Top Priority
Pennsylvania communities deserve environmental justice.
Imagine living all your life next to a power plant that sends smoke into the atmosphere each day. Imagine your local water system being filled with chemicals that go into your bloodstream every time you hydrate. Imagine your kids getting asthma at a young age because of the harmful particulates in the air they breathe. For too many Pennsylvania residents, these situations are all too real.
This year, voters will consider whom to support in the State House, a critical opportunity to strengthen Pennsylvania’s slim pro-environment majority in Harrisburg. For decades, the legislature has been under the influence of large corporate polluters, doing their bidding and thus endangering the health of thousands of Pennsylvanians one community at a time. Now that the environmental movement has gained a foothold in Harrisburg, Pennsylvanians can set their sights on building support for a more robust environmental agenda. A top priority must be the pursuit of environmental justice policies.
READ: Time to Move on Bold, New Clean Energy Plan for Pennsylvania
Environmental justice is needed to protect the health and well-being of citizens who have suffered from living in close proximity to fossil fuel-burning and polluting infrastructure. Individuals who live near power plants, landfills, factories and highways face health risks that other residents do not. Higher risks of asthma, cancers and fertility issues from chemical exposure, and chronic cough issues are among the challenges that too many residents face.
It is disproportionately low-income communities, Latino and African-American communities that bear the worst burden from these industry-caused illnesses. For decades, these issues and the inequality underlying them went unexplored, unexplained, and ignored.
Finally, Pennsylvanians are calling for environmental justice in a statewide effort to push back on environmental racism.
The truth is that decision makers who decide where to build factories, power plants, incinerators, landfills, and sewage plants have either 1) not considered the impact on local populations or 2) deliberately placed such infrastructure near communities without political clout. As a result, burdened communities with little political influence suffer from worsening air quality and water conditions.
Three bills in Harrisburg will do something about it.
HB 652 would give standing to communities in close proximity to unsafe facilities. It would create a legal definition of “burdened communities” to insist upon consideration for affected neighborhoods and ensure local voices are represented in decision processes on utilities, factories, landfills and powerplants. Under the bill, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) would be allowed to deny permits to project applicants whose plans have a measurably corrosive health impact on surrounding communities.
READ: How Fossil Free Penn Is Advocating For Climate Justice
HB 707 would protect one of the only state organizations in place to advocate for marginalized communities from environmental abuse: the Environmental Justice Advisory Board (EJAB). Composed of historically marginalized groups, environmentalists, academics, and industry experts, EJAB does essential work in scrutinizing and replacing policies that harm human health. The bill safeguards the EJAB from potential partisan dismantlement under any future anti-environment administration.
HB 742 would give marginalized communities a seat at the table and petition the government to change harmful projects and policies. The bill directs the DEP Secretary to form Regional Environmental Justice Committees consisting of historically marginalized groups and environmental experts. Individuals from burdened communities would be able to petition these committees about adverse environmental effects of state policies. This crucial step would give voice to local residents to prevent environmental damage to local people.
Pennsylvania is one of the few states in the nation that provides citizens a constitutional right to a clean environment. As Section 127 of Pennslylvania’s constitution reads: “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.” For far too long, this right was not properly afforded to individuals and families in burdened communities.
There are some who are still fighting for frackers, drillers, and oil companies that pursue profits at the expense of human health. We must do everything we can to defeat these forces and ensure our commonwealth lives up to its constitutional promise.
We hope that readers will contact their legislators and encourage them to support HB 652, HB 707, and HB 742 to protect the health and wellbeing of all Pennsylvania residents, no matter their zip code, race, or socio-economic situation.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania state police trooper pleads guilty to using work computer to create AI-generated pornography
A Pennsylvania State Police corporal has pleaded guilty to creating AI-generated pornography, possessing child sexual abuse material and secretly filming women, including coworkers and a Montgomery County judge, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
Thirty-nine-year-old Stephen Kamnik pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court Wednesday to a total of 15 charges for years of abusing law enforcement databases, state-owned devices and unauthorized material for personal sexual gratification.
Kamnik, who is currently suspended without pay, used secured law enforcement and commonwealth computer systems to create AI-generated pornographic images of numerous women, according to the attorney general’s office. Prosecutors said Kamnik created some of the explicit material at a Montgomery County barracks.
The investigation, which was conducted by state police, found that Kamnik secretly filmed and photographed numerous women while on duty. Authorities said he repeatedly entered the women’s locker room at the state police barracks to take pictures of female officers.
Prosecutors said Kamnik also used the state’s Justice Network, known as JNET, to obtain hundreds of photographs of women, violating database policies.
Investigators also found an unlawfully recorded video of a Montgomery County magisterial district judge during a court proceeding that prosecutors said Kamnik edited for lewd purposes.
Authorities also found a stolen .22-caliber gun during a search of Kamnik’s vehicle in January 2025.
Kamnik pleaded guilty to four felony counts of unlawful use of a computer, sexual abuse of children, misdemeanor counts of invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence and other related offenses.
A Montgomery County judge is scheduled to sentence him July 8.
“These crimes stain the great work being done by law enforcement every day in communities across the Commonwealth,” Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a statement.
A lawsuit filed by a victim who alleges her image was used in AI-generated pornography claims Pennsylvania State Police were aware of prior incidents of Kamnik abusing his position as a state trooper but failed to properly discipline him.
The complaint alleges Kamnik took undergarments belonging to female troopers from a locker room and kept a mannequin at his assigned station where he placed the stolen clothing to photograph it.
It also alleges Kamnik conducted traffic stops involving female motorists while presenting himself as a law enforcement officer and making degrading requests, including asking them to stick out their tongues while he secretly filmed them.
Pennsylvania
When is the deadline to register for the Pennsylvania primary?
(Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
PENNSYLVANIA – The 2026 midterm elections will decide control of the next U.S. Congress and key state leadership, including Pennsylvania’s statewide offices.
Before the general election, each state will hold primaries to determine which candidates appear on the November ballot.
By the numbers:
In Pennsylvania, the May primary will narrow the field of candidates who will compete in the November general election for several important posts, per Ballotpedia.
- U.S. House of Representatives — All 17 districts will hold primaries to choose nominees.
- Pennsylvania Governor — Although both major parties’ current frontrunners are effectively unopposed in their primaries, the contest sets the stage for the November race between incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican Stacy Garrity.
- State Legislature — all 203 seats in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and half of the State Senate seats are up for election, with primaries deciding many general election matchups.
Dig deeper:
Pennsylvania is considered a key battleground state in the 2026 midterms, with several congressional districts expected to be highly competitive and potentially pivotal in determining which party controls the two chambers of Congress.
As of April 2026, the Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress.
On Nov. 3, voters will cast ballots for all 435 U.S. House seats, 35 U.S. Senate seats and numerous state and local positions, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Voters will decide 33 regularly scheduled Senate seats, plus two special elections to fill the seats vacated by J.D. Vance of Ohio and Marco Rubio of Florida, who left Congress to serve as vice president and Secretary of State, respectively.
Voter registration and deadlines
What you can do:
Voters in Pennsylvania who want to take part in the state’s 2026 primary must register by Monday, May 4, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. This deadline applies to both new registrations and updates to existing voter registrations.
The primary election will be held on Tuesday, May 19. The mail-in ballot request deadline is Tuesday, May 12.
Voters are encouraged to check their registration status and ballot information well before these dates to ensure participation in both the primary and the November general election.
The Source: Information from the Pennsylvania Department of State, Ballotpedia, the Bipartisan Policy Center and previous FOX 5 NY reporting.
Pennsylvania
Multiple Reports Of Fireball Sighting In Eastern PA Skies
Multiple people in the Philadelphia region reported seeing a fireball in the sky Tuesday.
The American Meteor Society listed the event in its meteor sighting database, saying it had received nearly 150 reports from across the region, including in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut about the fireball.
According to the database, reports of the fireball came in from Doylestown, Lansdale, Willow Grove, King of Prussia and more.
Nick Brucato of Whiting shared video of it in The Pine Barrens group on Facebook and with Patch. “Took this video as fast as I could today in Whiting at 2:34 PM. Heard the loud boom minutes later,” he said.
“We were out on our deck and my wife saw it,” a Waretown resident said on the Tri-County Scanner News post. “She said it was bright white ball and then it broke apart into several pieces and then it was gone. Then the sonic boom hit!”
A meteor is the flash of moving light that becomes visible when a meteoroid — a chunk of an asteroid or a comet — hits the Earth’s atmosphere, according to the American Meteor Society.
In mid-March another meteor was the likely cause of a large boom that was felt over parts of Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio.
The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh said it received reports from numerous people across Western Pennsylvania of the tremendous noise and a fireball in the sky on March 17.
A weather service employee caught the cause of the boom and the weather service posted it. MORE: Meteor Causes Tremendous Boom Over Parts Of PA
With reporting by Karen Wall
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