THE CONTEXT

Pennsylvania produces about a million Christmas trees every year -- more than any other state aside from Oregon, Michigan and North Carolina. State of the State podcast host Katie Meyer learned all about it, even journeying to a tree farm, for the latest episode. She notes: “A lot has to happen before that tree can be strapped to the roof of your car for the holidays.”

And afterward? PennLive’s Julia Hatmaker has this story on the fate of the 75-foot-tall, Pa.-grown spruce at Rockefeller Center last year.

A retired math teacher is campaigning to make the Slinky the state toy of Pennsylvania, where it was invented and is still produced. Already, some sources erroneously identify the Slinky as the state toy. But Pa. doesn’t have an official one. It appears to be a common oversight: Wikipedia lists state toys for only Kansas (the Etch A Sketch) and Mississippi (teddy bear).

Some people turn to the emergency room for mental health care and end up staying weeks. That’s been happening more often around the country and in some Pennsylvania hospitals. Undiagnosed issues and months-long waits for specialist care are some of the factors at play, Transforming Health’s Brett Sholtis found for the latest installment of the “Through the Cracks” series.

Avi Wolfman-Arent talked to college students who don’t have a home to go back to over winter break, and to people running a new program to support them, for this Keystone Crossroads story. When researchers surveyed 43,000 college students earlier this year, 36 percent disclosed they struggled with housing insecurity and 9 percent reported experiencing homelessness.

Pennsylvania paid out more to investment managers than the state’s school employees contributed during the same period to their retirement pension fund, according to a recent report from the Public Pension Management and Asset Investment Review Commission (explained on page 103, if you’re so inclined). The startling finding was included in a nearly 400-page document that also made recommendations for savings that could total nearly $10 billion over three decades for the commonwealth’s severely underfunded state and public school worker pensions.