Shapiro addresses whether annual Easter egg roll will happen outside fire-damaged governor's residence
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — It'll be different, but it'll happen.
That's what Governor Josh Shapiro (D), speaking Thursday after thanking firefighters who helped save his family by serving them lunch, said about the annual Easter egg roll at the governor's residence, which is scheduled for Tuesday.
Shapiro said he and first lady Lori Shapiro — who toured the damaged residence earlier in the day — want things to return as close to normal as possible, as soon as possible, even though they recognize those will all be relative terms.
'The Easter egg roll is scheduled, and we're both insisting upon it happening,' said Josh Shapiro, standing next to Lori Shapiro. 'We want to welcome children and families from all across Pennsylvania back to the governor's residence. Obviously it'll take some time before we can have them in the state dining room, but we're going to work to get that prepared real quick. We're going right back in there.'
Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Apple TV devices
Like previous Pennsylvania governors, the Shapiros typically invite schoolchildren from throughout the state to hunt for eggs on the residence's west lawn.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Some Mainers think their new license plates come with a one-finger salute
It took Alison Soule a nanosecond to see it. 'Oh, it's a middle finger,' Soule, 46, said when she looked closely at the new plates she'd put on her SUV two weeks earlier. Advertisement Soule, a teacher and restaurant worker who lives in North Yarmouth, said getting flipped off by a treetop doesn't bother her. 'It's actually funny,' she said. 'If it was done intentionally, that's disappointing. If it was accidental, it's more comical.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Was it intentional? Or is the image like a Rorschach test inkblot, where we see what we want to see? It's the latter, says the artist who designed the plate. Mary Catus was working in the Maine Secretary of State's office in 2023 when it was charged with coming up with a design for the new plate, which by Advertisement Secretary of State Shenna Bellows suggested using it for the new plate after the legislature's transportation committee couldn't agree on a design. Bellows took Catus's watercolor to committee members, and they loved it. Catus created a new version on her iPad and donated it to the state. 'Her design was vibrant and lifelike,' Bellows said. 'It was the perfect pine tree plate for the Pine Tree State.' Catus has seen the chatter about the middle finger at the top of her tree and finds it amusing. 'I have been scrolling through Reddit, and I thought that was hilarious,' said Catus, who is now the press secretary in the Maine Senate president's office. 'There are no Easter eggs in this design. There was no intention behind that – definitely not my brand.' An upraised finger? That's what pine tree boughs look like. 'Anyone who suggests it's anything other than a pine tree doesn't know pine trees,' Bellows said. Even so, once you see the Rachel Soucy saw it when she was waiting at a red light behind a car with the new plate. 'I'm looking at the plate and looking at the plate, and I started chuckling,' said Soucy, 55, a help desk specialist who lives in Bangor. 'I couldn't believe it. Then people started posting pictures online. It gave me the opportunity to enlarge the image, and sure enough.' Mary Catus, the artist behind the tree, has seen the chatter about the middle finger and finds it amusing. "Definitely not my brand." Steve Greenlee Pictures and chatter about the plate's supposed one-finger salute are all over social media. Advertisement Gary Craig, 42, posted on Reddit after hearing about the finger in a family text chain. He said his brother-in-law runs an automotive repair shop and started seeing it. Craig said he's surprised the state didn't notice it before approving the design. 'You don't have anyone in your approval process who is slightly jaded like me and says, 'Wait a second, guys. We have a problem'?' said Craig, a chemical and biomedical engineer in Old Town. In fact, there has been a problem with the new plates, but it's not with the tree. The spacing between characters on 3,600 plates that have been printed is too small to be read by toll scanners, so new ones are being issued to those vehicle owners. Tracy Christensen of Tampa, Fla., was driving a Toyota HEV rental with the new plates in Freeport last week. She hadn't looked at the tree until a reporter asked her to take a peek. Then she saw it immediately. 'It looks like it's giving the finger,' Christensen, 52, who is an operations manager for a nonprofit, said with a laugh. Same with Bob Masciarelli, a 67-year-old retiree parking his Jeep at a supermarket in Yarmouth. 'Oh!' he said as soon as he bent down for a look. It's quite obviously a coincidence, like spotting an image of Jesus on a potato chip, and it's too soon to tell whether the plates could put a dent in Mainers' reputation as New England's most courteous drivers. What is apparent to many motorists is that the state may have unintentionally replaced the chickadee with a different sort of bird. Steve Greenlee is a journalism professor at Boston University. Advertisement
Washington Post
a day ago
- Washington Post
Josh Shapiro details Passover arson attack, condemns political violence
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Josh Shapiro jolted awake. Someone was pounding on his door, screaming that he and his family needed to get out. 'Governor, get up. Get up. There's a fire. First lady, let's go,' an officer yelled. Police hurried Shapiro, his wife, Lori, their children and their dogs down a back staircase as firefighters rushed inside. The air was damp and cool. The Shapiros huddled outside the Governor's Residence in the clothes they slept in. As they waited, Shapiro wondered if perhaps a candle they'd lit for their Passover seder the previous evening had caused the inferno inside a dining room in the governor's mansion
a day ago
As Bolivia celebrates its main Andean festival, it feels the pain of mounting crises
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Bolivia's largest Andean religious festival has long inspired joyous revelry and offered a chance for the nation to forget about its perpetual political turmoil and escape into the world of its rich folklore. But this year on Saturday, Bolivians say the day of the Great Power, the beloved carnival dedicated to a 17th-century painting of Jesus Christ, reflects more than distracts from the country's spiraling economic and political crises. The typically exuberant crowd fell silent for a few moments on Saturday before the folk dance performance kicked off in the major city of La Paz, paying their respects to the victims of fierce clashes between protesters and police last Thursday that left six people dead, among them four police officers and two civilians. The second civilian, identified by protesters as a young student beaten by police, had been hospitalized and succumbed to his wounds on Saturday, just before the festival. After Bolivia's electoral tribunal disqualified former President Evo Morales, a leftist political titan who still wields influence in the country's tropical heartland, from running in Bolivia's August presidential election, his loyalists took to the streets to vent their outrage earlier this month. Many of them, both peaceful and violent, have reported being bruised and beaten by officers in recent days. The government sent military tanks to the streets of Llallagua, in central Bolivia. La Paz municipal authorities proposed postponing the festival, citing the 'pain of the Bolivian people." But organizers refused, pointing to the $68 million that was expected to be generated Saturday – a shot of stimulus into a sputtering economy now witnessing its worst crisis in 40 years. The annual festival, which takes place some eight weeks after Easter, was recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee for displaying the nation's unique mix of Roman Catholic belief and Indigenous heritage. The ceremony pays tribute to what is believed to be a miraculous rendering of Jesus Christ — El Señor del Gran Poder, or The Lord of the Great Power — that shows the Christian savior with Indigenous Andean features and outstretched arms. Dancing in the festival is a holy act of spiritual devotion as dancers pray for personal forgiveness and salvation. This year, however, many turned their prayers on a more immediate target. "Devotees are asking for economic recovery, as well as for peace and unity among Bolivians in this time,' said a priest leading the ceremony, Father Saul Mamani. Economic strain was visible at Saturday's giant party as participants pared down their usually elaborate costumes and masks and dancers traded their traditional gold jewelry for Chinese-made knock-offs. 'The price of my costume went up by 60%," said dancer Jorge Rodríguez, 37. 'Many haven't been able to dance, almost half of my group didn't come." Organizers could only afford to hire some 70,000 dancers — some 20,000 fewer than last year — and scrapped their usual plans to invite regionally renowned musicians. Every year, one of La Paz's wealthy merchants, or 'qamiris," gets the expensive honor of paying more than anyone else for Gran Poder. This year, the unlucky merchant, Edgar Apaza, said he had been saving all year and his budget was still tighter than ever before. 'The crisis is affecting everyone,' Apaza said. Inflation in Bolivia over the first five months of 2025 hit 9.81%, the highest rate in more than a decade, according to official figures, fueling public protests over President Luis Arce's handling of the economy and leaving many Bolivians struggling to buy even the basics. Plácida Quispe, 73, an embroiderer at the festival Saturday, said there wasn't enough demand to sell her colorful costumes this year. She said she would rent her handiwork to participants instead. 'There is no business,' she said. 'People want to celebrate, but they cannot afford to pay the price.'
