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Engaging communities in the heart of Pennsylvania with educational, commercial-free programs on TV and FM. WPSU is a @pbs and @npr station. #ILoveWPSU

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Central Pennsylvania’s public broadcasting station, WPSU, is officially separated from Penn State.

WPSU is now part of WHYY under an agreement the Philadelphia-based station and Penn State finalized this week, bringing closure to a two-year-long process and allowing WPSU to continue bringing public radio, television, community events and educational outreach to central and northern Pennsylvania.

The transaction received approval from the Federal Communications Commission Sept. 9. WHYY and Penn State announced the completion of the transfer Wednesday.

Bill Marrazzo, WHYY’s president and CEO, called it “both a continuation and a beginning.”

“For more than 70 years, WPSU has been a trusted resource for the people of central and northern Pennsylvania,” Marrazzo said. “Our responsibility now is to honor that trust while building an even stronger and more sustainable WPSU for the generations ahead.”

Under the agreement, the university transferred its public radio and television assets to WHYY for $1. WPSU will continue to operate under the same name and call letters.

The announcement notes that WPSU’s audiences will continue to have access to PBS and NPR programming, along with local television, radio and digital content.

“We are very pleased that the more than 1.5 million people across central and northern Pennsylvania will continue to benefit from this vital public media service,” Sara Thorndike, Penn State’s chief financial officer, said in the news release.

Read the rest of the story at WPSU.org/radio. by @wpsu

A new chapter begins!

Today, WHYY and Penn State have finalized an agreement in which WHYY will acquire WPSU, the public media station that serves State College and two dozen counties across the region.

WPSU will continue to serve central and northern Pennsylvania under the WPSU name and call letters, with the same commitment to trusted journalism, educational programming, local storytelling, community engagement and public service.

We are thrilled to be joining forces in preserving and strengthening public media in central and northern Pennsylvania. You can support WPSU’s continuing mission at wpsu.org/donate by @wpsu

Paula Dunn, a business owner in Youngsville, said the middle class is feeling the brunt of a fluctuating economy. She was one of many voters interviewed by the @psunewslab, which sent nearly two dozen journalists to 26 Pennsylvania counties today to hear the latest from polling places.

Visit radio.wpsu.org to read the latest updates on the issues that drove voters' choices on Election Day. by @wpsu

What brought you to the polls today? For some Penn State students voting on the University Park campus, choosing to cast a ballot in Pennsylvania required plenty of thought in itself.

Visit radio.wpsu.org to hear from voters and follow along with WPSU's coverage of the midterm elections. Polls across Pennsylvania are open until 8 p.m. by @wpsu

Annelise Hanson, WPSU's election misinformation reporter, sat down with reporter Anne Danahy to discuss tackling voting misconceptions, the rise of AI-generated campaign advertisements and more.

Visit radio.wpsu.org to hear the full interview and follow WPSU's coverage of the midterm elections. by @wpsu

Changes to the Computer Data Center Equipment Exemption Program, introduced in 2017 and revamped in 2021, require the operators of data centers to invest millions in communities. Now, as pubic sentiment turns against data centers, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's administration is requiring developers to comply with stricter requirements to receive permits and state support.

Visit wpsu.org/radio to read the full story, produced by the @psunewslab. by @wpsu

Increasing challenges and rising costs continually threaten healthcare infrastructure in rural Pennsylvania. That is especially true for Warren, whose declining population faces a growing struggle to find adequate care in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The locally owned Gaughn's Drug Store in Warren is making plans to keep pace with the evolving healthcare industry and support the aging community. The shop plans to address the scarcity of specialists and gaps in patient care through the use a $509,895 grant through the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50-billion federal initiative meant to support projects that help sustain services through technology, innovation and new workforce models.

Gaughn's plans to use the funds to renovate the store, creating several consultation rooms outfitted with iPads for patients to access telehealth services in a location with reliable broadband, have medication consults with pharmacists and receive vaccinations. A prescription dispensing robot will also lighten the load on technicians and staff.

It takes some of the stress off the already-taxed providers, like the four local primary care physicians who are booked solid at all times. The hope is that when doctors see patients in the ER or in their offices struggling with asthma, for example, they can refer them to Gaughn's for help going over medications or how to use an inhaler.

"Let us take some of that off your plate," said Scott Newton, the owner of Gaughn's.

Visit wpsu.org/radio to read the full story, produced by The News Lab at Penn State. by @wpsu

Voters will make their voices heard on Tuesday, and WPSU is bringing you live Election Day coverage starting 8 p.m. on both radio and television. Join us on WPSU-FM for national coverage from NPR and local updates from WPSU's newsroom. WPSU-TV features special election coverage from PBS News.

If you're still deciding on key issues or need information on your polling place or ballot status, visit our local voting guide here: https://radio.wpsu.org/voterguide2026 by @wpsu

With only a few days left until the midterm elections, Stacy Garrity, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, made a campaign stop Friday in Altoona.

Garrity, her running mate for Lt. Gov. Jason Richey and other area lawmakers spoke to a small crowd of supporters inside Kepner’s Grandview Meats about a variety of issues, including transgender athletes, energy manufacturing and small businesses struggling with overregulation.

Mel Kepner said he’s operated the butcher’s shop since it opened 16 years ago. He said they’ve had to increase prices in the past four years and blames new regulations and other rising costs across the industry.

“But I didn't increase (prices) at the same rate,” Kepner said. “We've actually taken less of a margin. So we make less money. We're working harder, making less money. And it inhibits the ability for us to really grow. And it also inhibits the ability for us to hire other people.”

Several polls in Pennsylvania and across the nation show that affordability is at the top of voters’ minds, regardless of party affiliation. But, in an AP-NORC poll conducted Sept. 24-28, voters said they trust the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party to handle the cost of living.

Garrity said she isn’t concerned about recent polls that show Shapiro leading the race by a wide margin. She said she believes those polls oversample Democrats.

“I'm not concerned at all because I travel all around the Commonwealth and there's excitement on the ground,” Garrity said. “And if these polls are right, then everybody's in trouble.”

Garrity said, if elected, she plans to call for a special session to regulate skill games. Garrity is in favor of taxing each machine at $500 per month, while Shapiro wants to tax the machines at 52%, the same rate as casinos.

Garrity said she also plans to immediately address transgender athletes in schools.

“Day one executive order: No more biological males competing against our girls in sports or in their locker rooms,” Garrity said as the room cheered.

Read more coverage on our website at wpsu.org/radio. by @wpsu

Centre County has introduced a new feature for mail-in ballots this election designed to help election workers quickly spot ballots missing the required secrecy envelope, which can be a common reason some ballots may get rejected in the mail-in voting process.

This year, the county had the printer punch a small hole into the outer mail-in ballot envelope.

When mail-in ballots arrive at the county elections office, workers timestamp ballots and check for a valid signature, date and, now, for that little yellow glimpse of the secrecy envelope.

“That hole punch simply allows the elections office staff when they receive your ballot to be able to see at a glance if your ballot is in a yellow secrecy envelope, or if it is a naked ballot,” said Amber Concepcion, Centre County commissioner and board of elections chair.

“Naked ballots” returned without the secrecy envelope do not get counted. In past years workers could not identify these ballots until Election Day, since state law won’t let them open mail-in ballots until then.

But this year, election workers could start helping voters fix their ballots as soon as they arrived at the elections office.

When a ballot arrives without the secrecy envelope, the elections office reaches out to the voter by email if it has their email on file, or by mail if not, so voters have a chance to fix the issue.

Concepcion said voters can either go to the elections office in person to get a new mail-in ballot and fill it out there, or they can choose to vote with a provisional ballot at their polling place on Election Day.

That provisional ballot should be counted as the voter's actual ballot if their original mail-in ballot cannot be counted because it was missing the secrecy envelope, Concepcion said.

Mail-in ballots must be received at the county elections office by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

If you still have a mail-in ballot at this point, you should hand-deliver it to the elections office, put it in a drop box before 9 a.m. on Monday, or bring it to the polls on Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and trade it for an in-person ballot. by @wpsu

Penn State officials say they’re transforming part of the closing DuBois campus into a regional manufacturing hub, thanks to nearly $200 million in private and public investments, including a $39.9 million federal grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

According to a Penn State release, the future DuBois Center for Innovation Regional Manufacturing Hub will open on the DuBois campus sometime in the next year-and-a-half, but construction and facility redevelopment will start in the next few months.

Speaking Tuesday at the Clearfield County Commissioners meeting, John Sobel, one of the commissioners, said the hub will support workforce development throughout northcentral Pennsylvania, but mainly in Elk and Clearfield counties.

“The powdered metals industries in the area, in the region, have been having difficulty getting employees, and I understand the proposal, once the operation is up and running, is to train as many as 150 workers a year," Sobel said.

Sobel said the international company Bunting Magnetics & Magnetic Applications is also investing $150 million into the hub.

"They manufacture magnets, of which components are in some instances made from rare earth elements and critical minerals, which we have in abundance here in Clearfield County," Sobel said.

Pressed materials companies in the northcentral region of Pennsylvania represent 43% of the industry's employment nationwide, according to the Penn State release on the hub's development.

Dave Glass, another commissioner, said he’s glad to see part of the Penn State DuBois campus continue to economically support the region.

“I think it's a very good opportunity. I mean, we've all been concerned about what's going to happen with that campus," Glass said.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees voted in 2025 to close seven campuses, including DuBois, by the end of the 2027 spring semester because of declining enrollment.

Mount Aloysius College, which is based in Cresson in Cambria County, is already using part of the Penn State DuBois campus as an educational space for training in nursing, surgical technology and ultrasound. by @wpsu

Centre County is moving several polling places to new locations for the Nov. 3 election after a Department of Justice accessibility review found that some existing sites did not meet updated standards.

Federal accessibility requirements for polling places have been in place since the 1980s, said Centre County Commissioner Mark Higgins, who is also vice-chair of the county's board of elections, but the standards polling locations must meet have changed over time.

During the 2022 gubernatorial election, the DOJ audited 20 of Centre County’s 86 polling locations. Higgins said Centre County sees these reviews about every decade.

After the county received that report in 2024, they brought in an architect to help them meet the standards. The county worked with some polling locations on simple fixes, like adding signage or grinding down ramps that were too steep. But Higgins says they decided to move eight polling places, since most of the locations usually only need to meet the less stringent state accessibility standards.

“Rather than push these churches or nonprofits or local businesses to spend thousands of dollars to allow us to use their location twice a year, we’re moving a lot of these polling places to locations that have already passed,” Higgins said.

Historically, the county tried to keep polling places within the precincts they serve, but Higgins said that might not be possible.

The architect will eventually assess the county’s roughly 60 remaining locations to determine they’re in compliance.

Higgins said renovations could still be an option for any of those polling places that need updates. He said the county can negotiate improvements with property owners, with costs potentially split between the property and the county when projects become more expensive.

The county said it notified voters whose polling places had changed through postcards.

Voters who go to a former polling location will see signs explaining that the polling place has been moved and giving directions to the new site.

Read the list of precincts that have moved and the new locations on our website at wpsu.org/radio by @wpsu