On one block of Martha Street, it feels like Christmas came early. Panettone — sliced and dolloped with whipped cream — is already officially for sale.
Matty, who oversees the pastry program for Defined Hospitality restaurants including Suraya and Condesa, said Formosa is shorthand for Aquaformosa, the tiny mountain village in Calabria, Italy, where his grandfather was born. Likewise, the pop-up’s menu spans bread-forward (and seasonally anachronistic) sweets that are meant to evoke a sense of warmth. There are oversized cinnamon rolls swirled with blueberry jam, a sticky-sweet plum upside down cake, and doughnut shop-style maple pecan cruellers, among other delights.
At Formosa inside Picnic, pastry chef James Matty’s panettone will be served as $9 slices topped with whipped cream.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
The panettone is Formosa’s crown jewel. Flecked with dark chocolate chips, pecans, and Luxardo cherries, Matty’s version splits the difference between classic and new-aged panettones, which tend to be airier and more voluptuous. His bread is buttery soft and light, with a crackly crust that’s fun to peel off.
To me — a panettone novice — it tasted like a cross between the world’s moistest poundcake and a sourdough loaf.
Matty, who grew up in Trooper, Montgomery County, was also not raised in a panettone family. His fixation with the bread began in adulthood while studying at the Culinary Institute of America, where he became enamored with the craftsmanship good panettone requires.
Pastry Chef James Matty poses inside Picnic, the restaurant hosting his Formosa pastry pop-ups during October 2026.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Panettone is “like the mountaintop” of bread, said Matty. “It’s the most difficult to pull off consistently.”
Formosa’s version takes the equivalent of a work week to prepare. The dough must ferment for three days, said Matty. It takes another two to proof and bake. The most stressful test comes at end: Panettone must hang upside while cooling so it doesn’t collapse inward under its own weight.
The first time Matty made panettone, he said called it a “complete flop.”
Formosa’s panettone takes five days to prepare.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
“It literally flopped out of the mold,” he said. Upwards of twenty retries later, and Matty’s panettone hangs steadily on the cooling rack, sort of like muffin-shaped bats.
At Formosa, Matty’s panettone will be served in $9 slices topped with whipped cream. As for selling whole rounds in time for the winter holidays, Matty said to “wait-and-see.”
For now, I’ll just be adding it to the top of my wish list.
Formosa at Picnic, 2421 Martha St., instagram.com/formosa.philly. Hours: 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. (or sell out) Saturday – Sunday from Oct. 3 to Oct. 25.
Panettone’s real test come at the end: To cool, the Italian sweet bread must hang upside down. If prepared incorrectly, it flops.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Starting in 2022, for more than three years, a group of filmmakers chronicled much of it, mostly in Doylestown and the Central Bucks School District, and some in the Pennridge School District. At the heart of the story are two teenage girls who maintain their close friendship, even as their parents took opposite political sides.
The result is a five-part documentary called Bucks County, USA. Its first two parts debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, when the series was far from complete; even those first two episodes have been revised.
A still from the docuseries “Bucks County, USA” that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2025 and is now streaming on PBS. Using Bucks County as a focal point, the series examines political polarization and culture wars in America.Courtesy of SenArt Films & Baltimore Pictures
The series includes footage from contentious public meetings and talking-head interviews with a range of participants — from school board members to families with queer children, who all feel they have been adversely affected by the district’s policy decisions. It also includes scenes in which residents on opposite political sides discuss their differences.
Bucks County, USA, features plenty of Bucks County color, from a visit to an annual re-enactment of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware to Doylestown’s Oscar Hammerstein Museum, which, during the period of filming, was the subject of a fundraising campaign. We hear “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” a Hammerstein composition from the musical South Pacific, about the scourge of racial prejudice.
Filmmaker Robert May, who codirected the first episode and directed the other four, is a Pennsylvania native who now lives in the Poconos. The other codirector of the first episode is filmmaker Barry Levinson, whose work includes best picture Oscar winner Rain Man.
Both May and Levinson have previously made films about Pennsylvania scandals: May directed Kids for Cash, the 2014 documentary about a Pennsylvania judicial corruption scandal of the same name. Levinson directed Paterno, the 2018 HBO drama about the Penn State abuse scandal.
Jason Sosnoff, who has long worked with Levinson, is Bucks County, USA’s producer.
A still from the docuseries “Bucks County, USA” that premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on PBS. Using Bucks County as a focal point, the series examines political polarization and culture wars in America.Courtesy of SenArt Films & Baltimore Pictures
Sosnoff said the seeds of the docuseries were planted when he was invited to a focus group with Trump supporters on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol riot. The focus group was led by pollster and Penn alum Frank Luntz.
The producer came to the focus group with skepticism, but, he said, “I would say, about an hour into it, I started really hearing the people … I began to actually just hear and listen to them and see them as humans who have a point of view, rather than names and labels we give to them.”
He went to Levinson, his business partner, proposing that they start a project that would “humanize the right to the left and the left to the right.”
The next step was to find a community that could serve as a microcosm of that story and to ask, “Why is there such opposition now between the left and the right, Democrat or Republican, whatever you want to call it? Why is there such animosity in the air?” Levinson said.
The answer lay in “The School Board Wars,” a 2021 two-part episode of the New York Times podcast The Daily.The podcast examined the bitter political fights that had come to school boards nationwide, with the Central Bucks School District featured as an example.
“In that podcast, you hear people from the town screaming at each other, yelling at each other, death threats,” said Sosnoff, who thought, “Wow, this is a community that’s in trauma. And I think there’s a story there.”
A still from the docu-series “Bucks County, USA” that premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on PBS. Using Bucks County as a focal point, the series examines political polarization and culture wars in America.Courtesy of SenArt Films & Baltimore Pictures
“What we saw in Bucks County was the possibility of using the school board wars and the school board campaign … as a narrative drive for the series,” May said. “These parents are all going to school board meetings, and they’re firing shots at both sides for the sake of their children.”
They started filming in April 2022 and continued through the end of 2025. Over that time, the filmmakers documented many school board meetings in which community members yelled at each other, wrote hundreds of angry social media posts, and battled over a 2023 school board election in which control of the Central Bucks School Board hung in the balance.
“They’re all protecting their kids, but they’re all fighting in front of their kids, too,” said May.
Two of those kids are Evi and Vanessa, who were 14 when the series started filming and remained best friends, even as their parents battled over political considerations. Vanessa’s father, Paul Martino, is a businessman who funded the conservative Back to School political action committee. His wife, Aarati, ran for the school board. Evi’s mother, Lela Casey, is a contributing writer to the local, progressive-leaning publication, the Bucks County Beacon.
The film team shifted its focus, in part, to Evi and Vanessa. The two teenagers were initially reluctant to speak on camera for fear of jeopardizing their friendship, but they ultimately did and remained friends.
It’s part of a repeating theme, May said. “The kids were a lot more civil with each other, and had a great deal of respect for each other, much more than a lot of the adults did.”
The filmmakers wanted to apply fairness to all sides and give everyone a say on camera. Winning the trust of some participants was hard.
A still from the docuseries “Bucks County, USA,” now streaming on PBS. Using Bucks County as a focal point, the series examines political polarization and culture wars in America.Courtesy of SenArt Films & Baltimore Pictures
“The conservative folks that we talked with viewed us as the media. ‘You’re making a movie, so you’re gonna bash us. We don’t want to be part of that.’ So it took a while to really convince them,” said May, who believes the team has been able to create a “nonbiased portrayal.”
The rancor has continued, nonetheless.
Bucks County Community College was set to host a local premiere screening of the documentary Sept. 15 but canceled it two days earlier. The screening instead took place that same night at a different venue: the Hiway Theater in Montgomery County’s Jenkintown, a Democratic stronghold.
In a statement provided to the media, the BCCC said the screening was canceled after “after we received information that raised concerns about our ability to provide a safe environment for campus visitors.”
“With the docuseries premiering locally on WHYY in less than one week,” the statement read, “and erring on the side of caution, the decision was made to cancel the event.”
“It is obviously unfortunate,” May and Sosnoff said in an email. “We had taken months to plan a great event at this location.” The entire point of the special screening was, they said, “to thank the community for their hospitality over the past four years, and in particular, thank all those who participated in our project.”
”Unfortunately, we live in fearful times, and while the school was not acting with ill intentions, they took something away from the community they are supposed to serve. Our series is all about community — how it can be built and how it can be destroyed,” they said. “Our goal is to foster more trust going forward.”
“Bucks County, USA” is available to stream via the PBS app, as well as The World Channel.
Friedman — who has posted over 50,000 photos and videos of dogs (and their humans) online since 2013 — is hosting a meetup on Sunday morning on the Schuylkill Banks. Hundreds of hounds are expected to attend.
“We’re going to meet at the Schuylkill River Dog Park,” said Friedman, speaking via Zoom from his Manhattan apartment, “and then we’re going to walk along the river up to the Art Museum and climb the Rocky steps for a group photo.”
Friedman will be there with his dog, Elsa, the Instagram-famous white husky mix who was dog of honor at his 2025 wedding to Samantha Cutler, his fellow alum of Wynnewood’s Friends Central High School. The wedding was featured in the New York Times’ Vows column.
“It’s a little crazy for me,” said Friedman, “because I feel like I’m a prophet, or” — he laughs — “some sort of dog evangelist, where everybody’s gonna follow me. It’s like I’m leading a march.”
“It’s a very joyful thing to have people meet up around a shared love of dog. They get to know each other, and make a lot of connections. It’s an amazing show of the power of not just the dog community, but the Dogist community.”
Sunday’s walk with Friedman is part of a Dogist tour tied to the launch of the Dogist Company, a canine wellness brand whose first product is Vitality, which is advertised as a “Board-Certified Vet-formulated antioxidant chew that supports brain, joint and immune health.”
“It’s salmon flavored so a dog might consider it a treat,” Friedman says of the product he developed with veterinary nutritionist Angela Rollins, which is available at thedogistcompany.com. “But it’s not a treat, it’s a supplement.”
Elias Weiss Friedman, a.k.a. the Dogist, holds a package of his newly launched canine wellness brand, The Dogist Company’s Vitality supplement, during a Zoom interview.Dan DeLuca
“Everybody wants more years with their dog. But it’s also about having good years with your dog,” says Friedman, who credits Elsa, 6, as “chief wellness officer” on the Dogist Company website.
“I’ve spent the last 13 years of my life showing the world how amazing dogs are. So the next evolution of the Dogist ecosystem is creating products that make dogs’ lives better — because it’s the least we can do for them for all they do for us.”
“They’re based in Narberth where I grew up,” Friedman said. “They raise service dogs to work with teenagers and children who are clinically diagnosed with depression, or PTSD, or are on the autism spectrum.”
Friedman also has a show on YouTube — simply called Dogs — where he strolls around meeting pups with celebrities, such as actors Zooey Deschanel and Sarah Paulson, and comedians Roy Wood Jr. and Lewis Black.
Elias Weiss Friedman, photographer and founder of the Dogist, holds onto his dog named Elsa, while photographing Michael Rey and Rosie, in his childhood neighborhood on May 20, 2025, in Narberth.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Last year, Jane Goodall was a guest in an episode recorded a week before her death. Meeting the English primatologist and anthropologist “was the biggest honor, probably, of my life,” said Friedman.
The Dogist origin story dates back to when he was a 2 year old and wandered away from his grandmother’s house in Narberth toward traffic on Montgomery Avenue. Oreo, his grandmother’s dutiful black Lab, kept him from walking into speeding traffic.
Most of the Dogist’s photos are taken in New York, but Friedman’s content-gathering travels have frequently brought him to Philadelphia, where he’s found four-legged subjects in Manayunk, Rittenhouse Square, and the Main Line.
“Negativity is easily found on the internet,” he said. “Dogs are an antidote or a respite to all that.”
At group meetups like Sunday’s — where walkers without dogs are also welcome — he can connect IRL with members of the digital Dogist community.
“I always enjoy going out and meeting people and talking to them about their dogs,” said Friedman, who has published three books including last year’sThis Dog Will Change Your Life.
“Dogs don’t have an ego, right?” he said. “They’re not burdened by one like we are. So part of the joy of seeing that they’re so free is that it allows us to transcend our ego for a few minutes. And that’s a very liberating experience.”
The Dogist Company Vitality Walk at Schuylkill River Park, 30 S. 25th St. at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 4, Instagram.com/thedogist
The Pennsylvania House Republican Caucus chastised a GOP state legislator Thursday after hereportedly hurled a homophobic slur earlier in the week at Democratic State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of Philadelphia, who is gay.
State Rep. Aaron Bernstine, a Republican who represents portions of Butler and Lawrence Counties in Western Pennsylvania, also allegedly said in a Harrisburg bar that Kenyatta had lost weight, which Bernstine allegedly attributed to AIDS, according to reporting by PennLive. Kenyatta was not present when the alleged remarks were made.
“The alleged conduct is troubling and does not comport with the values and professionalism Pennsylvanians expect of their state lawmakers,” Republican Caucus spokesperson Jason Gottesman said in a statement.
“All elected officials, regardless of party or position, must act in a manner consistent with the expectations of their constituents. When they fall short of that standard, it is upon them to take personal and individual responsibility for their actions quickly and appropriately.”
Kenyatta didn’t respond to several requests for comment, but other Democrats expressed their outrage on his behalf, including the Democratic National Committee, for which Kenyatta serves as vice chair.
“Hateful, homophobic, and racist attacks like this have absolutely no place in our politics, our communities, or our country,” DNC chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
The Democratic leaders of Pennsylvania’s Legislative LGBTQ Equality Caucus, as well as the Black Caucus, demanded Berstine’s immediate resignation in a joint statement Thursday, saying that Bernstine’s “unacceptable” conduct has rendered him “unfit to serve.”
“We are calling on all House members, but especially Republican leaders, to denounce his behavior, to join us in demanding his resignation, and for Republican leaders to identify the steps they will take to guard against this kind of pathetic behavior within their caucus,” said the statement from Black Caucus Chair Napoleon Nelson (Montgomery County), and LGBTQ Equality co-Chairs Ismail Smith-Wade-El (portions of Lancaster County), and Jessica Benham (portions of Lancaster County).
Bernstinedenied that he made the comments.
“The allegations attributed to me are false. This is a political attack,” he said in a statement Thursday.
He also referenced an altercation he had at the bar that same night with individuals he identified as being with the Pennsylvania Building Trades Council. Saying he was the subject of threats, he added that he alerted local police.
Berstine went on to criticize reporters who initially broke the story. “Reporters should scrutinize elected officials, including me,” he said. “But scrutiny is not a license to publish falsehoods or omit critical context. We are exploring all available legal remedies.”
The Philadelphia House Delegation posted a statement on X Thursday afternoon, calling for Bernstine’s resignation in response to his “alleged disgusting, hate-filled tirade.”
House Democratic leadership said it was “exploring potential next steps” and that majority party looks forward to “hearing what repercussions Republican House leadership will impose for his abhorrent behavior.”
Expulsion requires two-thirds majority in the House, which could happen if some Republicans crossed the aisle in the narrowly divided chamber.
In 2020, House Republican leaders called for Bernstine’s resignation after videos of him encouraging his young son to smoke and curse surfaced. Soon after, Bernstine was reelected, and the demands quieted.
Three years earlier, in the midst of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in which motorists were blocked, Bernstine posted on X, “If anyone EVER tries to stop my car on a highway with negative intentions… I will not stop under any conditions.”
Staff writers Gill McGoldrick and Michelle Baruchman contributed reporting.
A 13-year-old boy was charged with murder and related crimes after fatally shooting a 16-year-old boy in a Norristown home, authorities said Thursday.
The shooting happened the morning of Sept. 22 at a residence on the 700 block of Arch Street, where prosecutors said Daniel Hawkins-Boyce fatally shot the victim, William Boyd.
Hawkins-Boyce came into possession of a Ruger .380 handgun a week before the shooting, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. It was not clear how he did so. He told police he “found” it, the document said.
Hawkins-Boyce and Boyd were hanging out in the home’s basement and had recently smoked marijuana when he accidentally discharged the firearm, striking Boyd in the face, the affidavit said.
Hawkins-Boyce called 911, and detectives arrived to find him on the front porch with his mother, where he told them he was responsible for the shooting.
Hawkins-Boyce did not live at the home where the shooting occurred, authorities said. He told investigators that he’d taken the gun to meet Boyd, and that he’d checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded.
In the basement, he told police, he left the gun unattended when he went to the use the bathroom for 10 or 15 minutes.
When he returned, he said, he noticed the gun was in a different position than where he left it.
Hawkins-Boyce told police he began scrolling the social media app TikTok and tapping the gun’s trigger with his index finger, and the gun went off.
After the shooting, he ran home and awakened his mother to tell her what happened, the affidavit said.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a statement Thursday that evidence showed the teen had “recklessly fired the firearm at the victim.”
The firearm was reported stolen in Philadelphia in June, according to the affidavit.
Steele said Hawkins-Boyce was charged as an adult in accordance with state law, but he said the case would likely move to juvenile court after a review from a judge.
The teen was arraigned on Sept. 30 and is being held at the Montgomery County Juvenile Detention Center on a $200,000 bail.
He is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 14.
Montgomery County prosecutors announced felony drug charges Wednesday against nearly 50 businesses that they say illegally sold powerful THC products, the latest effort in an ongoing crackdown against smoke shops selling unregulated drugs.
District Attorney Kevin Steele said 46 retailers — including shops, gas stations, and corner stores throughout the county in towns including Haverford, Pottstown, and Narberth — ignored warnings from his office that some of the products on their shelves were illegal to sell in Pennsylvania outside of a medical marijuana dispensary.
“I think folks thought we were blowing smoke, for lack of a better way to say this, about the things that were coming if they didn’t abide,” Steele said. “They haven’t abided, and so … they are facing felony possession with intent to deliver charges.”
The crackdown comes about a year after Steele’s office issued a scathing grand jury report on the proliferation of smoke shops selling illegal THC products. The 107-page report was influenced in part by an Inquirer investigation that found some over-the-counter products were not legal at all — and often rife with harmful contaminants.
The Inquirer began testing over-the-counter THC products in the spring of 2025, at a time when Pennsylvania law enforcement showed little interest in examining the products sold openly at smoke shops.
But enforcement has risen steadily as storefronts multiply across the region — outnumbering schools in Montgomery County, according to Steele. The shops also peddle an array of other potentially dangerous products, from ultra-addictive 7-OH kratom pills masquerading as health supplements to unregulated psychedelic drugs baked into chocolate bars.
Shops attempt to sell these supposedly legal THC products through a legal loophole set by the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, which allows hemp-derived products to be sold if they contain minuscule amounts of Delta-9THC.
However, the vapes, gummies, and other items sold in the shops investigated by his office were potent, and had enough THC in them to be intoxicating, according to the prosecutor. Some, he said, contained as much as 2,000 mg of THC and were sold in colorful packaging that seemed to target children.
These gummies, which contain an amount of THC illegal to sell outside of a medical marijuana dispensary, were allegedly sold at Eagleville Smoke Shop, according to Montgomery County prosecutors.Montgomery County District Attorney's Office
The charges were not filed against individual owners, but against the businesses themselves, Steele said. Penalties can range from fines to the revocation of business licenses.
If necessary, Steele added, his office could file more serious charges, including racketeering, against individual owners.
He stressed, however, that his efforts are not “anti-business.”
“What we’re trying to do here today is to get businesses operating in Montgomery County to comply with the law, because we care about kids and public safety in our community,” he said.
The letters warned the shops’ owners that the sale of high-THC products was illegal, and asked them to check their inventory and remove any offending products from their shelves.
Follow-up checks by investigators in subsequent months found that 46 of them were still selling the products, triggering the criminal charges.
“I had hoped when we did the grand jury report and put people on notice that would be enough,” Steele said. “It was not.”
Last year’s grand jury report was the product of a joint investigation with prosecutors in Bucks and Chester Counties. It found many stores used “misleading packaging and fraudulent lab reports” to openly sell banned substances across all three counties, and called for greater enforcement of store operators who “knowingly violate the law.”
Nearly 300 stores selling hemp operate in Montgomery County, outnumbering schools, according to the report, a reality it described as “a public health crisis unfolding in plain sight.”
The report’s findings referenced the 2025 Inquirer investigation that found samples of these products purchased from different stores in the Philadelphia region exceeded the 0.3% Delta-9 THC potency level cited in the Farm Bill, making them illegal to sell in Pennsylvania.
Those items contained Delta-9 THC at levels from 200% to more than 2,400% over the federal limit. Six samples, strengthened by other hemp-derived THC variants, were as potent as most dispensary-grade marijuana.
The Inquirer also found that some companies deceived consumers about what was in their products by digitally altering lab results to remove evidence of contamination. Seven of the samples tested by The Inquirer contained a potentially harmful fungus. Three contained pesticides, including one illegal chemical.
Owners of some of the stores investigated by Montgomery County in 2025 told detectives they removed illegal products from their shelves after The Inquirer’s investigation was published that July, according to the grand jury report.
“We are trying to address this for the sake of the children in our community, for the sake of the public who is misinformed about what these items are, and to deface myths that are out there that if a store is selling something like that, it must not be harmful,” Steele said. “That is not the case.”
Staff writer Max Marin contributed to this article.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s hope for a Democratic state Senate likely hinges on the Philadelphia suburbs, where three swing districts could give his party the majority in the chamber for the first time in 33 years.
Democrats in the Keystone State have zeroed in on the GOP-held seats in the 6th District in Bucks County, the 16th in Bucks and Lehigh, and the 24th in Montgomery and Berks Counties as three of the districts they’re hoping to flip to create a Democratic trifecta in Harrisburg with a possible blue wave in November.
The competitive races in Bucks and Montgomery Countiesare unfolding ahead of this November’s midterm elections when Pennsylvania will also be in the spotlight for Shapiro’s reelection bid and four congressional contests that could determine party control of the U.S. House.
Like most Democrats across the country, Eileen Hartnett Albillar in the 6th District, Mark Pinsley in the 16th District, and Chris Thomas in the 24th are centering their pitch to voters around affordability as Pennsylvanians’ signal their overwhelming disapproval of President Donald Trump’s handling of economic issues and gas prices.
“Individual candidates matter, campaigns matter … but I do think it’s pretty clear that all these elections, to one extent or another, wind up being a referendum on President Donald Trump, and I think that puts Democrats in a very strong position,” said State Sen. Santarsiero, the chair of Bucks County’s Democratic Party. Santarsiero is also running for reelection this year.
Republicans currently hold 27 seats in the 50-member state Senate.Democrats would need to flip at least two seats and hold the governor’s office to take control with the lieutenant governor’s tie-breaking vote.
A Democratic trifecta in Harrisburg — if the party maintains its House majority and flips the Senate — would allow Shapiro in a second term to usher through a minimum wage increase and more transportation funding among other priorities that have been blocked by the GOP Senate.
But Democratic candidates will have to win over independent and even some Republican voters to prevail in the swing districts against GOP incumbent State Sens. Frank Farry in the 6th, Jarrett Coleman in the 16th, and Tracy Pennycuick in the 24th. The GOP has a registration advantage in all three districts, according to state data.
Farry, Coleman, and Pennycuick did not respond to requests for an interview, but the state party projected confidence about their ability to hold their seats.
“Maintaining the majority in the Senate is a top priority for Republicans in Pennsylvania,” said James Markley, executive director of the PA GOP.
He also praised Farry, Pennycuick, and Coleman for their work to lower costs and improve the state’s education system.
“When it comes to majorities in the State House or the State Senate, every seat matters,” he said.
Here’s what to watch.
Gov. Josh Shapiro addresses supporters at a primary night part in Warminster on Tuesday, May 19, 2026Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
‘You don’t take for granted anything in Bucks County’
Bucks County’s importance ahead of November has been clear for months.
In Warminster last May, Shapiro held a primary night party at a former space centrifuge where he promotedhis reelection campaign and a slew of downballot candidates. There, Hartnett Albillar, who is also the county’s clerk of courts and a social worker by trade, declared: “The path to flipping the Senate runs right through Bucks County.”
As she continues knocking on doors and courting voters in the 6th District, which includes most of the middle of the county, that reality could not be more obvious. But, Hartnett Albillar said, despite Shapiro’s support (he has endorsed all three candidates) and a blue wave in the forecast, she’s not thinking of her election as a shoo-in.
“We know that you don’t take for granted anything in Bucks County,” she said in an interview last month.
That’s because the suburb is notorious for split-ticket voting, she said.
“Democrats have won here in other races, but I believe you have to make your case to voters individually,” Hartnett Albillar said, adding that voters in her district don’t look at party labels.
It’s a dynamic that has, for example, allowed GOP U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick to maintain his congressional seat even in years Democrats do well — like in 2022 when Shapiro won the county by nearly 20 points.
Pinsley is trying to make that argument in the Upper Bucks County portion of the 16th where voters are less familiar with the Lehigh County controller and where Republicans have a roughly 22,000 voter registration advantage — the largest gap of the three districts.
Eileen Hartnett Albillar (center) is challenging State Sen. Frank Farry in Bucks County’s 6th District.Hartnett Albillar Campaign
This race is also a rematch for Pinsley after he lost by 8 points against Coleman in 2022.
But the Democrat was given another chanceby votersthis year after he succeeded in a heated primary without the Bucks County Democratic Committee’s backing.
Now that he has the party’s support, he says it’s helped him reach a whole new circle of people for his events, including “Pastries with Pinsley,” a regularmeet-and-greet at various coffeehouses in the district, but especially in Bucks. This weekend, he’s headed to the So Fresh So Green Cafe in Perkasie.
“60% of the vote is in Lehigh County, and 40% of the vote is from Bucks County,” Pinsley said in an interview last month. “We need Bucks. We need Bucks to win. You’re not going to win in just Lehigh.”
Across county lines into Montgomery County — Shapiro’s home county, which has a reputation for being deep blue — also lies another swing district that Democrats are investing in as Thomas, a volunteer firefighter and community organizer, hopes to bring Pennycuick’s tenure in the state Senate to a close.
Until now, the 24th District, a hodge-podge of suburban and rural communities in Montco and Berks County that Thomas calls “all-encompassing of Pennsylvania” has “always been just out of reach in terms of how the district was drawn.”
But this year, with a combination of voters’ frustrations and Shapiro on the ballot, Thomas believes “a lot of the stars are aligning.”
“There’s a slim path to the majority without this district,” he said.
But Republicans won’t be giving up these suburban swing districts so easily.
Michael Straw, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Senate Republican Campaign Committee, said the GOP is “ready to compete for every vote in Bucks County.”
Straw said in a statement that candidates will highlight the bipartisan bills that lawmakers have introduced and have since been signed into law, including Farry’s legislation to reduce cost barriers for breast cancer screenings and Coleman’s bill to address school safety and increase parental transparency.
“We are making these legislative accomplishments known to voters across the political spectrum,” Straw said.
Both parties are betting on affordability
Heading into November, both Democrats and Republicans are trying to make the case to voters in these key swing districts that they are the party of affordability.
Straw said that Republicans view these elections as an opportunity to emphasize affordability and fiscal responsibility to put “an important check on the Democrats overspending.”
“Senate Republicans have helped to prevent wasteful spending, stop the Democrats’ electricity tax that would have cost Pennsylvanians more, and have supported reducing taxes on working families,” Straw said. “PA Senate Republicans have made affordability the priority while Democrats have repeatedly stood in the way.”
Bucks County GOP State Sen. Frank Farry (center) during a ceremonial meeting of the Pennsylvania Senate at the National Constitution Center May 5, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
And for Democrats, that means addressing voter frustrations that have trickled down from federal policies.
Trump — who has urged voters to think of him as being on ballot — is getting worsening marks on the economy from Pennsylvania voters. The president’s own voters in 2024 are also dissatisfied with his handling of gas prices, polling shows.
“They’re not happy about the Iran war. They’re not happy about the cost of gas. There are other costs that are going up, and many of them do blame the president, and all of these races have been federalized in many ways,” Pinsley said.
In response to the rising costs of living, affordability has taken up most of the oxygen in Democrats’ messaging as the party shifts away from issues that have been prevalent in previous campaigns, such as abortion.
With a focus on prices, the three swing district candidates have not had to switch up their stump speech even when chatting with Republican or independent voters that they’ll need to win over to be successful in November.
Hartnett Albillar said that all voters are simply looking for a “functional” and competent government.
Other key issues popping up in these races include funding for SEPTA and data centers; the latter of which has sparked contentious ads, including one by Hartnett Albillar’s campaign in the 6th District that provoked Farry’s campaign to file a cease-and-desist.
“I’ve heard many times that folks are not looking at whether there’s a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ next to the name,” she said. “They’re looking at the person who will be able to bring change and bring fresh ideas because the current system is not working for us. Costs are way too high, and they want someone who’s going to do the work.”
In response to congressional concerns about a video of Phillies star Bryce Harper that a FanDuel VIP account manager sent to a bettor who had an addiction, a FanDuel executive recently disclosed in a letter to lawmakers that the company has sent approximately 30 similar personalized videos of athletes and entertainers to its customers during the last two years.
“On occasion, FanDuel has arranged a personalized video message, almost always through publicly available services, as a token of appreciation for a customer’s loyalty in choosing FanDuel over its competitors,” Cory Fox, a senior vice president for public policy and sustainability, wrote on Sept. 24.
The videos, Fox said, are not used to “induce customers to continue gambling.”
FanDuel did not name the 30 athletes and entertainers in its letter. The company declined on Wednesday to provide their identities to The Inquirer.
It was the second letter that FanDuel has sent about its business practices to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and U.S. Reps. Paul D. Tonko (D., N.Y.) and Valerie P. Foushee (D., N.C.) since mid-August. The lawmakers had demanded that the company end its VIP program after The Inquirer wrote in July that FanDuel had sent in 2024 a short video greeting from Harper to a bettor from the Philadelphia suburbs who had a gambling addiction.
Blumenthal, Tonko, and Foushee also called on Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association to prohibit players from doing promotional work for gambling entities. Such activity is permitted in the league’s current collective bargaining agreement, as long as players do not encourage betting on baseball.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is among the federal lawmakers who have criticized FanDuel over some of its business practices.Allison Robbert
In response, the players union said it would support banning players from participating in personalized marketing campaigns for VIP programs as part of its next contract.
The legislators pressed FanDuel for additional information about its VIP practices earlier this month, accusing the company of initially providing them with “misleading and incomplete” responses.
Fox said that FanDuel’s VIP program “serves only a small fraction of total FanDuel customers” and is meant to encourage customer loyalty. He noted that the company’s competitors — including federally regulated prediction markets — have similar loyalty programs.
The lawmakers previously alleged that VIP account managers foster “false friendships” with gamblers to entice them to continue betting, and asked whether FanDuel ensures they are not extending predatory offers to problem gamblers.
Fox denied those claims in his response.
He said VIP managers are trained to recognize and report signs of problem gambling — such as a bettor expressing concern about paying bills or making references to harming themselves — and must seek approval before offering customers certain levels of rewards.
The company separately reviews customers’ wagering, deposit, and withdrawal patterns and the amount of time spent on FanDuel’s platform for potential red flags.
“FanDuel’s VIP program is not designed to encourage destructive gambling,” Fox wrote.
A VIP manager obtained a video of Harper, a two-time National League Most Valuable Player, through the video service Cameo, and sent it in November 2024 to Terry Thompson, a Montgomery County resident who lost nearly $2 million on sports bets that he placed with FanDuel and DraftKings beginning in 2020.
Earlier this year, having gambled away the last of his money, Thompson indicated to his therapist that he was planning to die by suicide. He entered a psychiatric facility to be treated for gambling addiction.
When Harper recorded the greeting, he was not aware that Thompson had an addiction, or that FanDuel intended to use the video for business purposes, Harper wrote on Instagram in July.
Fox said if customers indicate that they want to cut back on gambling or shutter their account, the company provides assistance, and does not offer perks to encourage them to reconsider.
“Where the right outcome is closing the account entirely,” Fox wrote, “FanDuel’s VIP Account Managers take that action.”
The Inquirer will continue to report on issues related to the growth of gambling addiction — among teens and adults — across Pennsylvania. If you, or someone you know, would like to speak with a reporter, please contact David Gambacorta or William Bender at dgambacorta@inquirer.com and wbender@inquirer.com
After being boxed in by two cars, rear-ended by a U-Haul truck, and punched in the face through his car’s open window, a man driving to Philadelphia on I-76 said he heard Samuel Marquez say a few words that filled him with dread.
“Go get my knife.”
The man testified Tuesday at Marquez’s preliminary hearing that, fearing for his life, he crawled out the window of his damaged Mercedes-Benz and called 911 from a median on the Blue Route in Lower Merion after taking the exit from I-76.
And while trying to read the license plate of one of the vehicles involved in the four-car crash Sept. 6, the man said, he felt a blow to his side. At first, he said, he thought Marquez had punched him. Then he saw the blood.
Marquez, 40, of Kensington, was held for trial on charges of aggravated assault and related crimes in the alleged road-rage stabbing, which left the victim with a 2-inch wound to his lower abdomen, as well as a shallow slash to his left arm.
Marquez’s attorney, Andrew Levin, said afterward that, given the chaotic nature of the fight on the highway, it was unclear who held the knife that stabbed the victim: The melee involved Marquez, as well as his nephew, his girlfriend, and another male relative.
“You have multiple vehicles involved, and what I believe is a mutual physical altercation,” Levin said. “It’s clear that the complaining witness got stabbed. I don’t think it’s clear by who.”
Assistant District Attorney Robert George said the evidence was clear that Marquez was the one holding the knife, which investigators later recovered, still covered in the victim’s blood, from behind a Sunoco where he parked the U-Haul.
That truck was part of a caravan of vehicles, including a Toyota Sienna minivan and an Acura SUV, whose drivers were heading to Philadelphia to help Marquez move to the city from Reading, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
During the trip, a minivan driven by Marquez’s girlfriend had engine trouble, and the group pulled onto the highway’s shoulder to fix it, the affidavit said.
When they merged back onto the road, they cut closely in front of a Mercedes-Benz, the driver of which told police he honked his horn and drove around the group.
The man testified Tuesday that Marquez was driving aggressively, veering into his lane and gesturing at him as he drove. The other vehicles connected to Marquez tried to pass him, he said, but he did not allow them to do so. He also brake-checked the U-Haul to get it off his tail.
“Wouldn’t you, if you thought something bad was going to happen?” the man testified.
Eventually, the man took the exit onto a ramp connecting I-76 with I-476, known as the Blue Route. As he did so, the U-Haul intentionally rammed his vehicle, while the minivan and SUV drove past and stopped in front of him, he said.
The fight, and eventual stabbing, broke out afterward, and Marquez fled in the U-Haul.
He was later arrested at Memorial Park in Bryn Mawr. The knife police believe he used in the stabbing was found nearby.
At the time of the highway stabbing, Marquez had an active arrest warrant out of Delaware County in connection with the gunpoint robbery of a Royal Farms gas station in Upper Chichester in November 2022.
In that case, Marquez plotted the robbery with Elizabeth Serrano, his girlfriend, who worked at the store as a cashier, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Serrano pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and a related crime in 2024, and served a year in county jail, court records show.
Marquez remained in custody in the road-rage case with bail set at $1 million. He will be arraigned in Montgomery County Court in November.
Montgomery County officials are starting a new consumer protection collaboration and taking on cash-advance apps in one of its first cases.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners announced the effort Monday, saying that the solicitor’s office and district attorney’s office would work together to investigate issues that impact the finances, health, and well-being of residents.
“When companies engage in unlawful or deceptive conduct that harms our residents, we will use every available tool to hold them accountable,” Steele said in a statement.
“This is the first long-term partnership on consumer protection that we’re aware of,” Montgomery County Commissioner Neil K. Makhija said in an interview. He added that it is particularly important given continued economic uncertainty.
“People are struggling to cover everyday needs,” Makhija, a public interest attorney, said. “Some companies see that and they see an opportunity to make a profit.”
Montgomery County Commissioner Neil K. Makhija says digital lending apps have taken advantage of Pennsylvanians who are struggling to make ends meet.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Some digital lending apps are among those companies, according to Montgomery officials.
But Montgomery County officials say some apps continue to give out similar loans, disguised as interest-free cash advances.
On Monday, the county district attorney’s office filed two lawsuits against the apps MoneyLion and Dave, alleging that the companies provide short-term cash advances and then tack on fees, tips, and other charges so they effectively function as high-interest loans, violating Pennsylvania law.
Spokespeople for MoneyLion and Dave did not immediately return requests for comment.
More than a million Pennsylvanians have used these apps, Makhija said, and officials hope to learn through the lawsuits how many Montgomery County residents have been impacted. Suits such as these can result in financial settlements or orders to stop illegal practices, the commissioner said.
“The reason this is so powerful is that we are not bound by the fine print” that consumers often agree to when they sign up for these apps, Makhija said. “Consumers today unknowingly are waiving their rights to a jury trial … what we are able to do is take action on behalf of the Commonwealth by our district attorney.”
The county accounted for this effort in its 2026 budget for the district attorney’s office.
“These cases pay for themselves: You’re addressing harm and you’re able to recover funds to continue the work,” Makhija said. “This is not a cost sink for the county.”
