Northampton County News

Bob's Discount Furniture just off Easton-Nazareth Highway (Route 248) celebrated its grand opening Friday by giving back to two Easton nonprofit organizations.

Are developers proposing to build a warehouse, fulfillment center, industrial manufacturing facility or something else in Northampton Borough? Members of the LVPC's Comprehensive Planning Committee want to know.

The district will keep the building and surrounding property with the intention of reopening the school at a later date that has not yet been determined.

Sammy Sasso, a former Nazareth Area High School state wrestling champion, is charged with possessing unlicensed guns and a controlled substance after police said they stopped the car he was driving because of an expired registration.

Drake Bell, best known for his starring roles on Nickelodeon’s “The Amanda Show” with Amanda Bynes from 1999-02, and “Drake & Josh” from 2004-07, will perform at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 17 at Gin Mill and Grille, at 1750 Main St., Northampton.

Check out a roundup of activities, places, and times to see the fireworks as the Lehigh Valley celebrates Independence Day.

Turkish candy company Kervan celebrated a groundbreaking for a new warehouse, manufacturing, and office space off Commerce Park Drive at the border of Bethlehem and Lower Nazareth townships.

Police said Amir Sims-Watson, 17, opened fire on a group of pedestrians in Allentown before robbing a woman at gunpoint at Trexler Middle School. Two other teens are charged in the shooting.

The district will operate four elementary schools in the 2026-27 school year when East Allen Elementary opens. Moore Elementary will be closed, but the district will keep the property for potential use.

Northampton Area School Board voted 5-4 for the spending plan. Some school directors said the tax hike was too high and the district should have cut more expenses.

Easton officials announced Thursday that the city will begin leasing public parking from the county lot and the Social Security building lot to address access to public parking.

In a move that Santander Bank said aligns with the financial institution's digital shift nationwide, seven Lehigh Valley branches will be sold to Community Bank. Branches will remain open and employees will be offered continued employment during the transition, which is expected to complete by the end of the year,

Nearly a year after the Biden administration designated xylazine as an "emerging threat" to the United States, Gov. Josh Shapiro classified it as a schedule III drug, making unauthorized possession a crime in Pennsylvania. Experts say the move has partly served to clear the way for new illicit substances to enter the drug market.

Pennsylvania's 137th District is among the most competitive state House races in the commonwealth. It's based in the swing suburbs of Northampton County.

The city is the third major city in the Lehigh Valley to become certified through Bird Town Pennsylvania, an annual designation focused on community-based conservation.

Sigal Museum held a screening of Mariska Hargitay's movie about her famous mother for staff and volunteers on Tuesday. Hargitay filmed at the museum while tracing her family tree for the film.

Despite not being approved for human consumption, veterinary tranquilizers are infiltrating the illicit drug supply in Pennsylvania. Harm reduction specialists and health care professionals say these overdoses can't be approached solely with naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.

The bill would limit the manufacture, sale, distribution and use of firefighting foam containing PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, beginning in 2026.

Xylazine, an animal-grade tranquilizer that's not approved for human use, has taken Pennsylvania's illicit drug supply by storm. Known on the streets as "tranq," it accounted for almost 1 in 4 overdose deaths in Pennsylvania by 2023. Last year in Lehigh County, it was a contributing cause of death in 20 of the 112 deadly overdoses, or 17.9 percent of cases.

The funding comes from the commonwealth’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program, a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Known as "tranq" on the streets, an animal tranquilizer named xylazine infiltrated drug supplies throughout Pennsylvania since 2019. Its presence in the Lehigh Valley has grown, with deadly consequences.

Life changed for Bethlehem's Moravian community as the Revolutionary War waged. "Suddenly, the world just descends," said one historian. This is the first in a recurring series exploring the Lehigh Valley's place in American history.