(The Center Square) – Genetic testing has drastically changed what we’re able to know about ourselves and our families. It can inform individuals about their bodies and health and connect them to the past through ancestral lines. For the past two decades, consumers have been handing over their genetic information to private industry for the chance to make those connections. Throughout those two decades, both entrepreneurism and technological innovations have outpaced legislation, leading to a landscape in which companies have found lucrative ways to leverage genetic data with third parties. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania House voted unanimously to grant consumers privacy rights over their information.

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(The Center Square) - Intense polarization and the alarming rise of partisan political violence has left many Americans wondering about the nation’s trajectory. That’s why Gov. Josh Shapiro and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox joined journalist Savannah Guthrie for a discussion on the topic at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. Tuesday evening. Cox said the two made each other’s acquaintance within the National Governors Association. He found support from Shapiro in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Utah. The Pennsylvania governor, the victim of arson and an assassination attempt in April, has been thrust into expertise on the subject of political violence.

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(The Center Square) – Questions surrounding taxpayer money spent upgrading the governor's private residence were legally elevated Tuesday. Senate Republicans, eager to curb state spending — and to play the foil to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — have long had their eye on excessive spending from the executive office. Tuesday, the Senate Intergovernmental Operations committee announced that they’ve issued three subpoenas to get a better sense of the nature of a $1 million dollar expenditure on the governor’s private residence.

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(The Center Square) - Health care workers in Altoona held a vigil Monday night to demand increased safety for hospital employees. The event came weeks after UPMC emergency room technician Travis Dunn was brutally attacked by a patient, leaving him with a skull fracture and brain bleed among other injuries. Between the physical demands of their jobs and the volatility of working with patients, health care workers are exposed to more on-the-job injuries than most other professions.

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(The Center Square) - With budget season disappearing into the rearview, advocates for home health care services aren't wasting a minute. Though the programs saw a $21 million investment toward workers within the self-directed care model, those appropriations fell woefully short of the state’s own recommendations to stabilize the industry. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Homecare Association said providers submitted formal Program Revision Request filings for the coming fiscal year demanding major investments to correct the deepening shortfalls in the industry.

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(The Center Square) – Rapid expansion of data centers in the mid-Atlantic region leaves its power grid’s operator, PJM, standing at a crossroads: how can electricity supply keep up with exponential growth in demand without spiking bills for ratepayers? After a Wednesday meeting with all of the organizations members – which include utility companies, state regulators, power plants, transmission providers, project developers, and commercial and industrial businesses – there's still no path forward. This, despite 12 proposals put forward for a vote. None earned majority support.

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(The Center Square) - Since the advent of DNA testing, law enforcement agencies have been able to prosecute crimes - and exonerate the wrongly convicted - with greater certainty than ever before. Though not perfect, genetic technology has brought justice to scores of violent crime victims and their families, and with them has come what the American Civil Liberties Union called a “Pandora’s box” of constitutional privacy issues. In the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case Maryland v. King, justices narrowly ruled that it was not a violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights to collect a DNA sample upon their arrest. In keeping with that ruling, 34 states and the federal government now have laws on the books authorizing DNA collection upon arrest for certain crimes.

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(The Center Square) – A suspected terrorist arrested in Kansas earlier this month is a licensed truck driver in Pennsylvania, according to federal authorities. Akhror Bozorov fled his native Uzbekistan after law enforcement there issued an arrest warrant in late 2022. The 31-year-old, not an American citizen, is accused of recruiting on behalf of an unnamed jihadist terrorist group and distributing its propaganda online. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Bozorov crossed the southern border in February 2023, where he was apprehended, released and given work authorization before receiving a commercial truck driver’s license in Pennsylvania in July.

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