This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Nobody likes being called garbage. Not the 450,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, whose homeland was dismissed as an “island of floating garbage” at a Trump rally last weekend, and certainly not the Trump supporters who are pretty sure that’s what President Joe Biden called them in response (who you believe depends on whether you heard an apostrophe). All the attention has put the commonwealth’s Latino electorate in the limelight like never before – with both campaigns courting the demographic’s votes that may tip the scales next Tuesday. 

Train enthusiasts (and those wanting a quicker commute from Scranton to New York City) got some good news in the form of federal funding this week. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright announced that the region has secured $8.9 million in federal funds through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to begin construction to bring passenger rail service to a track – which was discontinued in 1970 – that once linked the Electric City to the Big Apple.

A judge on Wednesday sided with Donald Trump’s campaign and agreed to extend an in-person voting option in Bucks County, where long lines on the final day of early voting led to complaints that voters were being disenfranchised by an unprepared election office. Bucks County officials, who were granted a one-day extension, said they’re “pleased to be able to offer additional days for those who are still seeking to vote on-demand.”

Who needs accurate information about the general election when X and other social media platforms are doing their worst to “flood the zone with shit”? Several parts of the commonwealth have become the target of false and misleading claims about voting and the election. In Northampton County, a viral video falsely claimed that ballot harvesting was taking place when a postal worker was actually just doing his job by delivering the mail. Meanwhile, in Bucks County, officials pushed back against claims that a person was ripping up mail ballots after a fake video circulated showing ballots being ripped up. According to U.S. intelligence officials, the video was created and amplified by Russian actors.

Tens of thousands of overseas and military voters can breathe easy about their mail-in ballots, according to this week's ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania. Six GOP members of Congress had claimed the commonwealth fails to sufficiently verify the identification of overseas and military voters, thus opening the door to foreign saboteurs. But the judge dismissed their lawsuit this week, pointing out that far-fetched hypotheticals did not justify interfering with ballots so close to the election.

A Philadelphia man was arrested and charged for allegedly calling the Montgomery County Republican Committee Office and making threatening statements, according to officials. Edward Cieri Jr. reportedly called the office line using derogatory words and stating that he would “shoot that place up” and “blow it up.” The 39-year-old is charged with threatening to place weapons of mass destruction, terroristic threats and harassment – and one costly phone call.