Pennsylvania

Workers prepare to replace older water pipes with a new copper one in Newark, New Jersey, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021.

Scientists link childhood lead exposure to adult mental health problems

Health & Medicine

Lead contamination in drinking water can have serious impacts on growing brains, including cognitive issues in the short term and mental illnesses years after the exposure ends.

Red and white trucks flank a tall drilling well pictured against the sky

Trying to measure fracking’s toll on human health

Environment
White-tailed buck

Lead in hunted meat poses health risk to families and food banks

Health & Medicine
A woman is shown wearing a face mask and sitting at a desk with a box nearby designated for rejected ballots.

Biden ahead in Georgia, Pennsylvania; Trump attacks process

A woman sits on a bench in jail.

Mothers in prison aren’t likely to see their families this Thanksgiving — or any other day

Justice
A woman stands in front of a banner reading "End Family Detention"

As Trump eyes more family detention, experts say it puts kids at risk

Immigration

Doctors inspecting detention centers found problems with recruiting and retaining qualified pediatricians and mental health care providers, and a lack of access to emergency and specialty care, given the remote locations of most of the facilities.

Ugandan rapper Tshila

This Ugandan rapper was ‘miseducated,’ Lauryn Hill-style

Music

The 1998 album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” helped change Sarah Tshila’s direction in life. This Ugandan-born college graduate with a degree in computer science decided to become a musician.

Monessen, Pennsylvania, was once a prosperous steel town. The small city, 27 miles south of Pittsburgh, has fallen on hard times since its steel mills shut down in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.

Forgotten and crumbling, a PA steel town turned to Trump. Two years later, it’s a mixed bag.

When presidential candidate Trump visited Rust Belt cities like Monessen, Pennsylvania, he made some bold promises to bring back jobs from overseas. Many voters, including lifelong Democrats, loved his message. How are they feeling now?

A person holds tear gas canisters and shot guns shells all tied on to a string

The global tear gas business is booming. It’s complicated.

Use of tear gas has steadily risen around the world. But odds are, a lot of those silver canisters come from a factory in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, home to just over 600 people, and the uptick in sales has helped the community.

A sunset with the silhouette of a mosque and man approaching

How 16 Americans found family, faith and their immigrant roots — generations after their parents left their homelands

Immigration Rewind

Through war and Islamophobia, a generation thought they might have lost their histories and faith in Eastern Europe. But, unexpectedly, they found it again.