PublicSource

Pennsylvanians for Accountability runs television ads that accuse Gov. Tom Corbett of playing a shell game with the state.

But what game is the Pittsburgh advocacy group itself playing? It refuses to name its officers and directors. It conceals its funders. It uses a mail drop for an address.

Scrawled on the whitewashed walls of cells at Pittsburgh's Western Penitentiary, photographer Mark Perrott found raw words that told the stories of former prisoners of E Block.

Dan Blevins, 29, of Carnegie is one of more than 10,000 veterans in Pennsylvania who has been waiting more than a year for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to rule on disability claims.

Through all the chaos and sorrow that swept through Joplin, Mo., after a devastating tornado in 2011, one man stood out.

David Scott Zimmerman of O’Hara near Pittsburgh consoled teens on Facebook, shipped free T-shirts to boys who needed clothing, and prodded a family to form a youth group in honor of their son, who died in the storm.

A recently proposed Pennsylvania bill would make it a crime to photograph, videotape or audiotape activities on farms without the permission of the owner. The bill would limit information to the public about food safety, animal cruelty and environmental issues, according to its critics.

When Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane ruled that Gov. Tom Corbett’s contract for private management of the state lottery was illegal, proponents of privatization shot back that Kane’s decision meant a loss of an additional $50 million for senior services.