Benjamin Kail
@benkail.bsky.social
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📥 383
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Senior Political Reporter, Bangor Daily News |
https://www.benjaminkail.com
pinned post!
“A democratic republic is only as good as the information the citizens have,” Lew Irwin, a political scientist at Duquesne University, told me. “We’ve immersed Americans in this new technology with all these adverse consequences, and no one has a user’s manual.”
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
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AI poised to play increased role in Pa. elections in 2026 and beyond
The five jittery clowns marched down the middle of a dark city street, flanked by passersby and the blurred glow of storefront lamps. As their wild...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2025/12/07/ai-pennsylvania-josh-shapiro-donald-trump-technology-elections/stories/202512050062
6 months ago
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The New Yorker
about 2 months ago
@ronanfarrow.bsky.social
and Andrew Marantz asked Sam Altman whether running an A.I. company was a job that came with “an elevated requirement of integrity.” This was supposed to be an easy question.
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The New York Times
3 months ago
The “Sinners” cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw has made Oscar history as the first woman, and first woman of color, to win best cinematography. “I really want all the women in the room to stand up,” she said in her acceptance speech.
nyti.ms/4s6532K
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Jimmy Cloutier
4 months ago
In his last piece for the
@post-gazette.com
,
@benkail.bsky.social
covers Pennsylvania’s role in the battle over voting reforms and the Trump administration’s efforts to “nationalize” elections ahead of the midterms.
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
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Pennsylvania on front lines of election power battle ahead of midterms
When he was mayor of Hazelton a few years before heading to Capitol Hill, former Rep. Lou Barletta left an international conference of mayors in Barcelona...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2026/02/14/donald-trump-josh-shapiro-al-schmidt-elections-fraud-voter-id-sensitive-data-pen/stories/202602120082
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Mike Wereschagin
4 months ago
Shapiro, Garrity divided over spending in spotlight amid renewed Pa. budget battle
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
by
@benkail.bsky.social
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Shapiro, Garrity divided over spending in spotlight amid renewed Pa. budget battle
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed $53 billion spending plan for 2026-27 shows that neither he nor Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity is shying away...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2026/02/08/josh-shapiro-stacy-garrity-pennsylvania-budget-election/stories/202602060054
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Mike Wereschagin
4 months ago
Jason Richey, Allegheny County GOP chair, running for lieutenant governor
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
by
@benkail.bsky.social
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Jason Richey, Allegheny County GOP chair, running for lieutenant governor
Jason Richey, a Pittsburgh-native attorney who ran for governor in 2022 and has chaired the Allegheny County GOP for about a year, is running for lieutenant...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2026/01/29/jason-richey-stacy-garrity-josh-shapiro-pennsylvania-donald-trump/stories/202601280102
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Chris Potter
4 months ago
It always amuses me how boilerplate Trump's endorsements are, as witness his backing last night of gubernatorial candidates Stacy Garrity of PA and Tom Tiffany of WI. Some biographical details and phrasing change, but oddly much of the idiosyncratic capitalization remains the same.
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Jason Richey, a Pittsburgh attorney who ran for governor in 2022 & has chaired the Allegheny County GOP for about a year, is running for Lt. governor. Stacy Garrity, the Republican state treasurer running to oust Gov. Josh Shapiro, will endorse Richey today.
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
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Jason Richey, Allegheny County GOP chair, running for lieutenant governor
Jason Richey, a Pittsburgh-native attorney who ran for governor in 2022 and has chaired the Allegheny County GOP for about a year, is running for lieutenant...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2026/01/29/jason-richey-stacy-garrity-josh-shapiro-pennsylvania-donald-trump/stories/202601280102
4 months ago
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Mike Wereschagin
4 months ago
“Had I been a double agent for Israel?” Gov. Shapiro found Harris team’s focus on Israel during 2024 vetting ‘offensive’
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
by
@benkail.bsky.social
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Gov. Shapiro found Harris team’s focus on Israel during 2024 vetting ‘offensive’
Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team asked Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro whether he ever served as an Israeli agent as part of a running...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2026/01/19/shapiro-memoir-israel-harris/stories/202601190081
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Instead of a link to the announcement of our paper's demise, here's a feature I wrote in 2024 ... about my old man's favorite roller coaster, the century-old Thunderbolt, at Kennywood Park. Like my 12 years in the news business, it's still a hell of a ride.
www.linkedin.com/posts/benjam...
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‘That extra whip’: Kennywood’s Thunderbolt roller coaster celebrates a century of thrills | Benjamin Kail
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is shutting down after May 3. In between calls for unrelated stories, I thought I'd say thank you to our readers and subscribers. Thank you to my insightful sources and t...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benjaminkail_that-extra-whip-kennywoods-thunderbolt-activity-7414793917604532224-uZmO?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAnSFp8BUZdAJKk7dxh8P4Oxs7SvY3vh7P0
5 months ago
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anna
5 months ago
Lest we forget what the great Megan Harris is up to:
pittsburgh.citycast.fm
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City Cast Pittsburgh
The City Cast Pittsburgh daily podcast and the Hey Pittsburgh daily newsletter are made by Pittsburghers for Pittsburghers.
https://pittsburgh.citycast.fm/
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Carl Quintanilla
5 months ago
“.. What happened to Rob and Michele is an obscenity, an abyss in lived reality. .. I have to be allowed to imagine .. that one day, I’ll be at a dinner or a party and find myself seated next to Rob .. and feel lucky all over again to have him as a friend.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/o...
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David Lynch's Worlds
6 months ago
#TwinPeaks
#CharlieBrown
#Snoopy
artwork by
@schumisnoopy.bsky.social
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Chris Morran
6 months ago
Many reporters went to Albany, Georgia, when it became one of America's first COVID hotspots. But
@propublica.org
's Ginger Thompson kept returning, kept reporting. What she uncovered reveals some ugly truths about American healthcare. Read her new 5-part series, Sick in a Hospital Town:
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As Phoebe Memorial Grew, the Health of Albany, Georgia, Declined
The five-part series, “Sick in a Hospital Town,” pursues one question: Why are people in Albany so sick when its most powerful institution is a hospital?
https://projects.propublica.org/albany-georgia-hospital/
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Kevin M. Kruse
6 months ago
I'm not sure it's in the self interest of America's tech bro billionaires to suggest that we bring back public executions to punish the most destructive people in our society.
add a skeleton here at some point
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“A democratic republic is only as good as the information the citizens have,” Lew Irwin, a political scientist at Duquesne University, told me. “We’ve immersed Americans in this new technology with all these adverse consequences, and no one has a user’s manual.”
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
loading . . .
AI poised to play increased role in Pa. elections in 2026 and beyond
The five jittery clowns marched down the middle of a dark city street, flanked by passersby and the blurred glow of storefront lamps. As their wild...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2025/12/07/ai-pennsylvania-josh-shapiro-donald-trump-technology-elections/stories/202512050062
6 months ago
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Dave DiCello
6 months ago
This composition had eluded me for nearly a decade, but yesterday I was finally able to capture it. A train rolled through just as the Duquesne Incline was crossing over the tracks in
#Pittsburgh
, creating a picture perfect winter scene. It was worth the hours and hours I've waited over the years.
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jamelle
6 months ago
this is just gutter racism
add a skeleton here at some point
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John Sipher
6 months ago
Territory they hold? You mean Ukraine?
add a skeleton here at some point
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Peter Baker
6 months ago
Trump and his administration have targeted at least 470 people, organizations and institutions for retribution since he took office, according to a
@reuters.com
tally – an average of more than one a day.
www.reuters.com/investigates...
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Trump’s campaign of retribution: At least 470 targets and counting
A Reuters investigation documents at least 470 acts of retribution under Trump’s leadership.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-retribution-tracker/
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Sean Duffy
6 months ago
There is beauty everywhere but especially in autumn in Philadelphia! 😻
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Mike Wereschagin
6 months ago
Shapiro says Trump administration not 'minding the shop' as DHS targets immigrant truckers
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
by
@benkail.bsky.social
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Shapiro says Trump administration not 'minding the shop' as DHS targets immigrant truckers
The recent arrest of an alleged Uzbek terrorist who obtained a Pennsylvania commercial driver’s license this summer has stirred calls for investigations...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2025/11/20/josh-shapiro-donald-trump-pennsylvania-trucker-commercial-drivers-license-terror/stories/202511200107
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Kyle Cheney
6 months ago
JUST IN: A federal judge says one of the Venezuelan men — illegally deported to El Salvador in March before he was swapped back to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange — is now missing, possibly a victim of the violence he was seeking asylum from.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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Molly Jong-Fast
6 months ago
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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Yaneer Bar-Yam
6 months ago
Let’s not get confused about science. Many studies have looked for a link between vaccines and autism — none has found one. “We haven’t ruled it out” is a logic loop; by that logic we also haven’t ruled out peanut butter, bedtime stories, or blue socks. 1/
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Marisa Kabas
6 months ago
i’m sure someone else has already put this together but fucking wild he called for members of congress to be hanged the same day the coast guard said a noose is no longer a hate symbol
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Aaron Rupar
6 months ago
Crow: "It just tells us everything that we need to know that reminding people to obey the law, reminding people to obey the Constitution, is somehow criminal in Trumpworld and should be responded to with death threats. It's very, very telling."
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The arrest of an alleged terrorist who obtained a Pennsylvania commercial driver’s license this summer has stirred calls for investigations by Republican policymakers & pushback from the Shapiro administration aimed at potential flaws in a federal database.
www.post-gazette.com/news/politic...
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Shapiro says Trump administration not 'minding the shop' as DHS targets immigrant truckers
The recent arrest of an alleged Uzbek terrorist who obtained a Pennsylvania commercial driver’s license this summer has stirred calls for investigations...
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2025/11/20/josh-shapiro-donald-trump-pennsylvania-trucker-commercial-drivers-license-terror/stories/202511200107
6 months ago
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Senator Ron Wyden
6 months ago
EPSTEIN BOMBSHELL: my staff is releasing a new report showing JPMorgan Chase executives – all the way to the top – enabled Epstein's sex trafficking operation. You're going to want to read this.
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Wyden Presses for Investigation Into JPMorgan Chase and Epstein
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/us/politics/jeffrey-epstein-jpmorgan-chase-ron-wyden.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2k8.Y48w.EX_I17v1IL-g&smid=url-share
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Kyle Griffin
6 months ago
Breaking: The House voted unanimously, 426-0, to strip a provision in the funding bill that allowed senators to sue the government for $500K if their phone data was searched without their knowledge. The provision was designed for GOP senators to sue over the Jack Smith investigation.
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Helen Branswell 🇨🇦
6 months ago
RFK Jr. says other nations should follow the US lead & bar thimerosal in
#vaccines
. The preservative safeguards multi-dose vials, a key tool for vaccination drives in many countries. Experts don't think it will happen, but worry that disinformation could take root.
www.statnews.com/2025/11/19/r...
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RFK Jr.’s warnings on thimerosal in vaccines threaten to instill doubt overseas, experts fear
Health secretary RFK Jr. wants other countries to ban the use of the preservative thimerosal in vaccines, despite research showing it is a safe ingredient.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/19/rfk-jr-warning-thimerosal-vaccine-preservative-raises-concern/
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Kyle Cheney
6 months ago
BREAKING: Prosecutors in the Comey case just told the judge that they’re under orders from the Deputy Attorney Generals’s office not to disclose whether career prosecutors wrote a memo recommending *against* indicting Comey prior to Halligan going to the grand jury.
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Patrick Radden Keefe
7 months ago
Source: this wonderful remembrance of Bennet by Nick Paumgarten
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
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John Bennet, Enemy of the “Blah Blah Blah”
“An editor is like a shrink,” was one of many Bennetisms. He was that, and a lot more.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/25/john-bennet-enemy-of-the-blah-blah-blah
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Recycling Lead for U.S. Car Batteries Is Poisoning People
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
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The Auto Industry’s Lead Recycling Program is Poisoning People
We documented the toxic fallout of a green technology.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/lead-poisoning-car-battery.html?rsrc=flt&smid=bs-share
7 months ago
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Chris Morran
7 months ago
NEW: When Andrew Tate landed in the US, Customs & Border Protection seized his electronic devices. But
@propublica.org
found that a White House official told DHS to return the devices, emphasizing that the request came from the White House. By
@robert-faturechi.bsky.social
& Avi Asher-Schapiro
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The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation
Federal authorities were chided for seizing electronic devices from Tate and his brother, and told to return them, records and interviews show. Experts said the intervention was highly inappropriate.
https://www.propublica.org/article/andrew-tate-investigation-dhs-paul-ingrassia
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Aaron Rupar
7 months ago
Massie: "The president has been saying this is a hoax. Well, he's just now decided to investigate a hoax, if it's a hoax. And I have another concern about these investigations he's announced. If they have ongoing investigations, those documents can't be released. So this might be a big smokescreen."
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Victor Narro
7 months ago
Ms. Wilson, a self-described socialist, joined the race after Mayor Bruce Harrell opposed taxing high-income residents to finance construction of new housing.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
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Katie Wilson, a Political Newcomer, Is Elected Mayor in Seattle
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/us/politics/seattle-mayor-election-results.html?smid=bs-share
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Joyce White Vance
7 months ago
Count the ways they’re corrupting DOJ: Presidents don’t direct AG’s to open criminal cases, especially ones designating only Dems for investigation when POTUS himself is involved. DOJ doesn’t publicize criminal investigations & the AG definitely doesn’t assign them on Twitter.
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Jayson Stark
7 months ago
Unanimous MVP awards: Michael Jordan 0 LeBron James 0 Shohei Ohtani 4
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In Matt Gaetz Scandal, Circumstances Left Teen Vulnerable to Exploitation
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
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In Matt Gaetz Scandal, Circumstances Left Teen Vulnerable to Exploitation
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/us/politics/in-matt-gaetz-scandal-circumstances-left-girl-vulnerable-to-exploitation.html?smid=bs-share
7 months ago
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Dare Obasanjo
7 months ago
They’ve laid off so many people that the government is now getting its economic data from DoorDash.
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Department of War
7 months ago
To every veteran who raised their right hand and answered the call — thank you. Today, and every day, we honor you. We are free because of you.
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Ken Jennings
7 months ago
Whenever some sanctimonious Dem announces that America needs a functioning Republican Party, I always think “I’d settle for a functioning Democratic Party.”
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Fox News - Breaking News Updates | Latest News Headlines | Phot…
7 months ago
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Pat McAfee defends having Trump on show, says he extended invite to Obama: 'It's the president'
Pat McAfee defended having President Donald Trump on his ESPN show, saying it was Veterans Day and the right moment despite viewer backlash.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/pat-mcafee-defends-having-trump-show-says-he-extended-invite-obama-its-the-president
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Acyn
7 months ago
Shapiro: He rose to some prominence by writing a book about growing up in Appalachia, where there are a whole lot of people who get SNAP. He made millions of dollars off telling their stories, and then he turned his damn back on those very people he likes to write about and claim as his own.
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Joshua J. Friedman
7 months ago
Mamdani cracks 1M votes, the first NYC mayor to do so since John Lindsay in 1969
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Chris Geidner
7 months ago
MAMDANI: "I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the last time I utter his name ...."
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Aaron Rupar
7 months ago
Mamdani: "We believe in standing up for those we love. Whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job ... your struggle is ours too."
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Michele
7 months ago
Fall colors 🍁🍂
#eastcoastkin
#bloomscrolling
#photography
#leaves
#autumn
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