A House committee Tuesday approved a bill to clarify which law enforcement officers can carry guns in school, a measure which has quickly turned into a referendum on allowing armed police in schools at all.

SB 621, authored by Sen. Mike Regan (R-Cumberland), passed the Senate last week on a 32-17 vote. It comes after some school districts pulled armed officers out of schools following the state Department of Education’s interpretation of Act 44 of 2018 that armed security guard were not allowable.

After police related shootings, such as East Pittsburgh officer Michael Rosfeld shooting and killing unarmed teenager Antwon Rose II last year, a handful of Pennsylvania legislators are pushing for changes to the law that governs police use of force. 

Rep. Summer Lee (D-Allegheny) announced at a rally on Tuesday afternoon that she and a handful of her colleagues are introducing a package of legislation that would, she believes, protect their communities.

A cadre of Democratic lawmakers announced Tuesday a push to re-examine the state’s use-of-force guidelines for law enforcement, weeks after a jury in Allegheny County acquitted an officer in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Antwon Rose. 

The effort is led by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Allegheny), who represents the district where Rose was shot and killed by former East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Rosfeld during a traffic stop in 2018. 

A fight has been reignited in the Capitol over whether the state should end making general assistance cash payments to poor Pennsylvanians, after the program was reinstated in 2018 because of a technicality found by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
 

House Republicans are seeking to once again end the cash assistance program, which pays out monthly stipends of approximately $205 to Pennsylvania citizens who have under $250 in countable resources. The program was eliminated in a 2012 bill signed into law by then Gov. Tom Corbett, but was reinstated when the state Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the Pennsylvania Constitution's single-subject rule.

Even as the smog clouds that have characterized the city for decades fade, Pittsburgh continues to have lackluster air quality.

The way to fix this, according to activists, is to start from the top, with County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

Since July, three environmentalist groups — the Clean Air Council, PennEnvironment and the Breathe Project — have gathered outside Allegheny County Courthouse each Friday with signs, grievances, and the occasional protest song. The events have followed clean air activism that's sporadically popped up since March.