As the General Assembly again weighs whether to change the statute of limitations on child sex abuse, another survivor is filing suit against the Diocese of Harrisburg, claiming they took part in a conspiracy to cover up abuse.

According to the complaint, filed in Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas Thursday, Patrick Duggan said he was abused by a teacher in 1974 at the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Harrisburg. He claims the alleged abuser, Ronald Stewart, groomed him and others by offering them alcohol, marijuana and other drugs at his house.

The state branches of the ACLU and the League of Women Voters announced Thursday they would be filing suit in an effort to stop the victims’ rights amendment Marsy’s Law from appearing on the ballot next month, arguing its structure is unconstitutional.

Citing language in the state’s constitution mandating that two or more amendments to the constitution must be voted upon separately, the ACLU said the legislature erred in not doing its due diligence in ensuring that Pennsylvanians had the opportunity to understand what they are voting on.

Rep. Sara Innamorato (D-Allegheny) thinks of her father often. She attributes to him her love of public transit. He took her on her first rollercoaster ride, Innamorato recalled. And he died from a drug overdose after years of battling addiction.

With those memories in mind and the opioid crisis raging on, this week Innamorato called a policy hearing to focus on harm reduction - the strategies employed to reduce negative consequences associated with drug use.

A new survey of over 900 voters released Wednesday suggests that Pennsylvania voters favor reforming how the state’s political maps are drawn, reinforcing results of a state report that said state residents would prefer maps to be drawn by an independent commission, rather than elected officials.

 

The September poll, conducted by Franklin & Marshall College and sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Fair Districts PA, a redistricting advocacy group, found that 67 percent of respondents support the idea of an independent commission to draw state maps, a proposal that has been floated in the state legislature ahead of 2020 census.

A federal grant will help bring Temple University on board to study the Kensington Initiative, according to a statement released Tuesday. The partnership between the state attorney general and the city of Philadelphia will receive over $358,000 to include the university to examine the program’s methods and results. 

Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) started the initiative with local, state, and national law enforcement agencies to target major criminal drug organizations in the neighborhood. The drug problem in Kensington, notorious for what’s been called the “largest open-air drug market” in the United States, escalated with the opioid crisis.