WASHINGTON — John Joyce in­sists he wants ev­ery­one to get the COVID-19 vac­cine.

The sec­ond-term Re­pub­li­can con­gress­man from Blair County, who spent more than 25 years as a der­ma­tol­o­gist and of­ten re­fers to his med­i­cal back­ground on health care mat­ters in Wash­ing­ton, be­lieves the vac­cine is the key to stamp­ing out the pan­demic. Mr. Joyce al­ready re­ceived his jab and has re­peat­edly pressed, in let­ters

All Penn­syl­va­nia vot­ers — yes, that in­cludes in­de­pen­dents and mi­nor-party mem­bers — will be asked to con­sider four bal­lot ques­tions on May 18. Two of them are about as non­con­tro­ver­sial as pos­si­ble. The other two? A dif­fer­ent story. Be­low, Spot­light PA breaks down the ba­sics of what they would do, who is in fa­vor, and who is op­posed.

Ques­tion 1

What would it do? This is a state­wide ref­er­en­dum (as op­posed to a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment) that would al­low mu­nic­i­pal fire de­part­ments or com­pa­nies with paid per­son­nel, as well as EMS com­pa­nies, to ap­ply for a loan through an ex­ist­ing state-run pro­gram for vol­un­teer com­pa­nies. The money can be used to mod­ern­ize or pur­chase equip­ment.

Who is in fa­vor? The mea­sure passed the Leg­is­la­ture with unan­i­mous sup­port from Dem­o­crats and Re­pub­li­cans. The Penn­syl­va­nia Fire Emer­gency Ser­vices In­sti­tute is urg­ing a “yes” vote, as is the Penn­syl­va­nia Ca­reer Fire Chiefs As­so­ci­a­tion.

Who is op­posed? Spot­light PA could not iden­tify any op­po­nents.

Ques­tion 2

What would it do? Cur­rently, only Penn­syl­va­nia’s gov­er­nor can end a di­sas­ter dec­la­ra­tion, like the one the state is cur­rently un­der to deal with the cor­o­navi­rus pan­demic. State law gives the Gen­eral As­sem­bly the op­tion to pass a res­o­lu­tion to ter­mi­nate the dec­la­ra­tion, al­though the state Supreme Court ruled last year the gov­er­nor still gets the fi­nal say. The Leg­is­la­ture can over­turn a gov­er­nor’s veto with sup­port from two-thirds of mem­bers.

This pro­posed con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment would al­low a ma­jor­ity of law­mak­ers to ter­mi­nate the dec­la­ra­tion at any time, with­out the gov­er­nor’s con­sent. What hap­pens af­ter that is the mat­ter of some de­bate.

Who is in fa­vor? This pro­posal, born out of a con­ten­tious re­sponse to the Wolf ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ap­proach to the pan­demic, has been cham­pi­oned by the House and Senate Re­pub­li­can cau­cuses, with sup­port from a few Dem­o­crats.

The Penn­syl­va­nia chap­ter of the con­ser­va­tive po­lit­i­cal group Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­ity has also launched a cam­paign to urge a “yes” vote on the ques­tion.

Who is op­posed? Most Dem­o­crats in­clud­ing Gov. Tom Wolf are urg­ing Penn­syl­va­nians to vote “no,” as is the grass­roots Demo­cratic group Turn PA

The Black Po­lit­i­cal Em­pow­er­ment Proj­ect is call­ing for changes in lo­cal po­lic­ing and ask­ing that sev­eral types of po­lice traf­fic stops be halted “im­me­di­ately” to avoid trag­e­dies like the re­cent death of Daunte Wright out­side Min­ne­ap­o­lis.

Tim Stevens, B-PEP chair­man and CEO, is­sued a state­ment Tues­day — the same day that for­mer Min­ne­ap­o­lis po­lice Of­fi­cer Derek Chau­vin was found guilty of mur­der­ing an­other Black man, George Floyd — di­rected at Pitts­burgh po­lice, Mayor Bill Peduto’s of­fice and other city and county of­fi­cials. In it, Mr. Stevens ac­knowl­edged that city po­lice have al­ready be­gun re­view­ing their use-of-force pol­i­cies, but he urged them to make that re­view an even “higher pri­or­ity.”

“We are call­ing for po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and the heads of po­lice de­part­ments in Pitts­burgh and Al­le­gheny County to help pre­vent fu­ture un­nec­es­sary ar­rests and deaths re­sult­ing from what his­tor­i­cally has been re­ferred to as ‘rou­tine traf­fic stops,’ ” Mr. Stevens said in the state­ment. “The Black Po­lit­i­cal Em­pow­er­ment Proj­ect is in fact urg­ing all po­lice de­part­ments in our area to take what­ever steps are nec­es­sary to im­me­di­ately sus­pend traf­fic stops.”

Wright was shot and killed by Min­ne­ap­o­lis po­lice on April 11 af­ter be­ing pulled over due to an ex­pired ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tion. And while Floyd’s death didn’t oc­cur dur­ing a traf­fic stop — his in­ter­ac­tion with po­lice be­gan when he was ques­tioned about a coun­ter­feit bill — much of Mr. Stevens’ state­ment was framed in the con­text of the Black com­mu­nity be­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ately tar­geted by po­lice.

In its re­quest, B-PEP asked that po­lice dis­con­tinue traf­fic stops for the fol­low­ing in­frac­tions: out-of-date tags or plates; bro­ken tail­lights; par­tially ob­scured li­cense plates; fail­ure to use turn sig­nals; fail­ure to stop at stop signs; go­ing through stop lights; fail­ure to obey “yield” signs; driv­ing over the speed limit; fail­ure to slow down in and around con­struc­tion sites; pass­ing in a “no pass­ing” zone; fail­ure to stop at a rail­road cross­ing; ig­nor­ing “No U Turn” signs; fail­ure to stop for a pe­des­trian in a cross­walk; and fail­ure to stop for school buses with flash­ing red lights.

A spokes­man with Mr. Peduto’s of­fice de­clined to com­ment di­rectly on B-PEP’s de­mands.

“Mayor Peduto has long worked with Tim Stevens and B-PEP on po­lice re­form is­sues and will re­view their lat­est re­quest,” may­oral spokes­man Tim­o­thy McNulty said via email Wed­nes­day.

Buck­ing her col­leagues on Pitts­burgh City Coun­cil to be­come the only mem­ber to en­dorse the sit­ting mayor’s pri­mary chal­lenger, Coun­cil­woman Deb Gross said state Rep. Ed Gainey should be the next mayor be­cause he’d take ac­tion on the press­ing is­sues fac­ing the city and not just talk about them.

Ms. Gross, who rep­resents coun­cil’s 7th Dis­trict, said Pitts­bur­ghers de­serve a mayor they can trust and who trusts them back, and one who will lis­ten to them.

That’s Mr. Gainey, she said, and not Mayor Bill Peduto.

In mak­ing her an­nounce­ment Wed­nes­day night, the coun­cil­woman de­scribed a city that is chang­ing rap­idly, with some neigh­bor­hoods see­ing mas­sive de­vel­op­ment in re­cent years — to the tune of mil­lions of dol­lars — while oth­ers suf­fer from blight, aban­don­ment and dis­in­vest­ment.

“What we need to do now is take ac­tion. We’ve had plans. We’ve had re­ports. We’ve had task forces. But

The But­ler Eagle is the lat­est news­pa­per to sue Google and Face­book on an­ti­trust grounds, say­ing the two dig­i­tal be­he­moths con­trol most of the dig­i­tal ad­ver­tis­ing in the U.S. and are threat­en­ing the sur­vival of news­pa­pers by si­phon­ing off ad rev­e­nue.

The pa­per, which does busi­ness as Eagle Print­ing Co. and also pub­lishes the Cran­berry Eagle, filed the suit Mon­day in fed­eral court in Pitts­burgh and is