Oliver Morrison

4 weeks ago | pennlive.com | Oliver Morrison

The Trump administration on Friday sent a notification to more than a hundred groups across the country, including several in Pennsylvania, that the legal services they provide to unaccompanied minors–would no longer be funded. This decision could leave hundreds of children, whose lives may be at risk if they are deported, without adequate legal representation. The nonprofits that have been supporting these children are now scrambling to find funding to continue their work.

1 month ago | pennlive.com | Oliver Morrison

The consequences have been trickling out over the past month at Penn National Race Course, after regulators say they uncovered a conspiracy between “a rogue veterinarian” and trainers that led to the death of a number of horses and the suspension of some of the track’s more successful trainers.

Jan 22, 2025 | wesa.fm | Oliver Morrison |Tom Riese

As one of his many actions taken on his first day in office, Donald Trump commuted the sentences of 14 defendants and pardoned every other defendant who was found guilty of crimes – including violent acts – related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol. That move has been celebrated by defendants and their supporters, but denounced by officers who were injured defending the Capitol that day and say they felt betrayed by the American people for voting for Trump.

Jan 17, 2025 | wesa.fm | Oliver Morrison

This is WESA Politics, a weekly newsletter by our political reporters providing analysis about Pittsburgh and state politics. If you want it earlier — we'll deliver it to your inbox on Thursday afternoon — sign up here. At Donald Trump’s final rally in Pittsburgh in November, he said recent immigrants were so nasty that only professional fighters had a chance against them. “The day I take office, the migrant invasion ends and the restoration of our country begins,” Trump said, to applause.

Jan 17, 2025 | wesa.fm | Oliver Morrison

Over the last two years, Republicans have controlled the U.S. House of Representatives by only a handful of seats – a margin so narrow that they ended up relying on Democrats to pass even their modest spending bills. Republican conservatives ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and struggled to elect an alternative, until finally settling on Rep. Mike Johnson. Democratic Chris Deluzio, whose district includes Beaver County and many Allegheny County suburbs, said it made for a frustrating first term.