5 things to know today

🏛 The U.S. Supreme Court won’t fast track a Republican challenge of Pennsylvania’s extended mail-in ballot deadline, but justices could still rule in the GOP’s favor after Election Day, potentially disqualifying mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. We’ve got tips for making sure your ballot is counted at the bottom of this newsletter. Short answer: Hand-deliver it to the county asap. (CNBC)

📈 COVID-19 cases are surging in Allegheny County and across Pennsylvania, which saw a record 2,751 new infections on Tuesday — breaking the previous record set on Friday. But fewer patients are helping Pennsylvania officials track the illness’s spread. Here’s why that matters. (Associated Press / TribLIVE)

🎃 Light Up Night is canceled for the first time in 60 years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And while trick-or-treating is still on for Saturday, folks like Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald are taking very creative precautions. (Pittsburgh Magazine / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

📺 Tuesday’s season premiere of NBC’s “This is Us” drew powerful parallels between the 1995 killing of Jonny Gammage by suburban Pittsburgh police and this year’s police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Spoilers ahead. (TribLIVE / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

📊 Current COVID-19 totals: Allegheny County (15,300 cases), Pennsylvania (200,674 cases), and the United States (8.9 million cases).

5 things to make you smile

🏈 When a Pittsburgh dad with dementia started forgetting the names of his favorite Steelers, rookie Chase Claypool sent him a signed jersey — and the internet melted. (CBS Sports)

➡️ On the move: A 39,000-pound Alcoa aluminum smelting pot that’s been parked near the Gateway Clipper in Station Square for 30 years. (TribLIVE)

😈 How ScareHouse adapted its frightmare to pandemic times and tailored its in-your-face style for a socially distanced era. (Mental Floss)

🚩 Show of hands: Who else thinks we should bring back Pittsburgh’s official streamer and pennant? (James Hill on Twitter)

👀 Take a mental breather with “25 charming facts about Pittsburgh,” featuring cameos by The Beatles, Winston Churchill, and more. (Pittsburgh Magazine)

Last week we talked about the Ten Commandments plaque on the Allegheny County Courthouse and how it fits into the U.S. Supreme Court’s view of religious symbols in public spaces.

But while we talked about the plaque’s legal history, we wanted to talk today about the people behind it.

Luckily, reader Martha Berg was ready with the assist. Berg is the archivist at Rodef Shalom Congregation, where A. Leo Weil — the lawyer, philanthropist, and anti-corruption advocate who presented the plaque to Allegheny County in 1918 — served as vice president of the Board.

Weil presented the plaque on behalf of the International Reform Bureau (IRB), an interfaith — though predominantly Christian — organization. The IRB was headed by Rev. Wilbur Fisk Crafts, a “Christian lobbyist” and Methodist minister who campaigned for the introduction of religious principles into public life and law while also campaigning against vices like gambling, opium, and close dancing.

Berg had more context to share. In our original piece on the plaque, constitutional law expert and Duquesne law professor Bruce Ledewitz said the high court had favored publicly placed religious symbols that were erected in bygone eras and with less overtly religious or political motives.

He added of the courthouse plaque: “I bet it wasn’t the least bit controversial when it went up.”

Berg said it wasn’t, adding: “At the time, it would have been seen as expressing what the predominant religions all had in common. It was put up in April of 1918, which was almost exactly a year after the United States got into World War I. At that point, as many as a million U.S. soldiers were in Europe fighting the war, and I think the idea of unity was really significant.”

But while the high court just last year upheld a 40-foot cross on state property in Maryland — part of a World War I memorial there — as a “passive” monument with room for secular or at least more universal interpretations, Ledewitz said it would be harder to separate religion from the commandments and biblical scripture adorning the courthouse plaque here.

Still, he thinks it is constitutional, at least in the current view of the highest court in the land.

We talked this week about the state’s push to get voters to hand-deliver their mail-in ballots instead of putting them in the mail. Here’s that information, in case you missed it.

But have you ever wondered what happens to your ballot after it’s in?

This cool video shows what the industrial-scale processing of mail-in ballots will look like in Philadelphia for this historic election, and this video shows what processing looked like in Allegheny County during June’s primary.

Keep emailing and messaging us on social with your voting questions and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Thanks for reading to the bottom. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.