Environment & Science

A female mallard duck has stolen the spotlight at the Promenade Saucon Valley after nesting in a planter. Her month-long residence will postpone landscaping plans, but her newfound popularity is making up for it.

First introduced by state Sen. Lisa Boscola in 2015, the bill would increase penalties and direct any money collected toward bald and golden eagle conservation efforts in Pennsylvania.

Brandon Krock has 440,000 seeds to plant at Fox Summit Farm, a pick-your-own sunflower farm that will return this summer in the Lehigh Valley. He's planning fireworks, food trucks, a 5k and more.

Philadelphia Eagles Safety Reed Blankenship will visit the park as part of its Iron Menace Ride for a Cause event this Friday, which benefits the Eagles Autism Foundation.

WLVR's Brad Klein and Marty McGuire, known as Bethlehem's 'Backyard Astronomy Guy' spoke over the phone about the April 8 total solar eclipse. The path of totality veered toward the Northeast, where McGuire saw it from New York.

A severe weather threat is on tap for Sunday, forecasters warn, with a tornado threat for central Pennsylvania and damaging winds possible in the Lehigh Valley.

From April 20 through April 28, residents are invited to join or host a cleanup along a section of the D&L Trail as part of a trash collection competition. Winners will be announced May 3.

More than 2,000 acres on 28 farms in 15 counties across the commonwealth were preserved. Here are the Lehigh Valley farms now safe from development.

More than six months after its launch, 33 air quality monitors have been installed throughout the Lehigh Valley as part of Lehigh Valley Breathes, a regionwide effort to monitor air quality amid emissions from trucking and warehousing.

Arcadia Development Corporation plans to tear down the SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western at 300 Gateway Drive off Route 512, replacing it with a warehouse. The permit hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. April 29 at Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem.

Less than 24 hours removed from the Lehigh Valley’s heaviest snowfall in three years, forecasters have a word of advice to offer: don’t put the shovel away just yet.

Tuesday's fast-moving storm swept quickly through the Lehigh Valley but packed a wallop, bringing nearly a foot of snow to several spots.

“This has been a tremendously difficult storm to forecast due to rapidly changing conditions/temperatures expected and the difference in timing,” the National Weather Service said in its forecast discussion.

PPL Electric Utilities and Met-Ed reported more than 13,000 customers without power Tuesday morning as a winter storm swept through the region.

Several Lehigh Valley schools are closing Tuesday because of the weather forecast.

Early Monday, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning in effect for the Lehigh Valley for 7 to 10 inches of snow, with locally higher amounts over the higher elevations.

One area of potential concern at the Allentown State Hospital had been the presence of dioxins in the soil. Dioxins are a group of toxic chemical compounds that take a long time to break down in the environment, and can cause health problems in people.

Betelgeuse is the red supergiant star at Orion’s ‘right shoulder.’

Lehigh and Northampton counties are under a winter storm watch in effect from 12 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, with 4 to 8 inches of heavy, wet snow possible.

Take a look at stories that ran throughout the week of which we are most proud, had a profound impact on readers or that you might want to look at again.

It’s a special year for cicadas, insects known for their high-pitched mating songs. Two adjacent broods are expected to co-emerge for the first time in 221 years. Here's the next time they emerge in the Valley.

Northern flying squirrels are endangered, and the Pa. Game Commission works to improve their habitat. A group went searching for the species in the Poconos.