This week's biggest Winners & Losers

Dr. Rachel Levine continues to break barriers even after leaving the Keystone State. The former state health secretary made history once again this week when she became the first openly transgender four-star officer in the country’s history. Levine was sworn in as an admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps on Tuesday, making her the first female four-star admiral as well. We give a salute to her service.

Bipartisanship is always a cause for celebration, especially on something as important as reforms to the state’s probation laws. This week, State Sens. Lisa Baker, Camera Bartolotta and Anthony Williams saw their probation reform legislation advance out of committee with a unanimous vote. The bill, Senate Bill 913, would prohibit courts from extending probation periods due to the inability of a person to pay fines and would limit what technical probation violations can land a person back in prison. Congrats to these three for earning unanimous committee support on a measure that would modernize the state’s probation system.

October has been a big month for Attorney General Josh Shapiro. He launched his long-awaited campaign for governor with a statewide bus tour that concluded this week, and also announced that he has more than $10 million in the bank to support his bid for governor. With a contentious battle for governor on the horizon, that cash is going to be a big asset for Shapiro as November 2022 gets closer.

Shae Ashe, president of the Norristown Area School Board, is facing scrutiny after allegedly sending suggestive and inappropriate messages to a 17-year-old student, and rightfully so. Messages obtained by the Delaware Valley Journal show Ashe telling the student he wished she was 18 and making other inappropriate remarks. Ashe is also a director of constituent services for state Sen. Amanda Cappelletti, who suspended him following the report, according to the publication. If the allegations are true, it’s pretty safe to say this guy probably shouldn’t be leading a school board, of all things.

This guy is the post office’s worst nightmare. Elieze Guilamo, a 20-year-old from York, was sentenced Tuesday to 15 months in prison for conspiring to steal government property. The property? More than $100,000 worth of postage stamps. Guilamo and his co-conspirators purchased the stamps from Pennsylvania post offices with personal checks linked to bank accounts with insufficient funds. No one’s taken aim at the postal service quite like this, unless your name is Louis DeJoy.

Some say the first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. It’s probably time that Philadelphia Police Officer Joseph Marion does a little introspection. After assaulting a woman in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot in 2015, Marion was fired from the force. He was reinstated in 2017, and this week was arrested again for – get this – another assault in an off-duty altercation in April, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Marion has been suspended by Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who intends to dismiss him following his suspension. Good riddance.