State & Regional News

SpaceX’s capsule Polaris Dawn splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico in the predawn darkness early Sunday. Returning to Earth were two SpaceX engineers, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot and tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman of the Lehigh Valley. Isaacman became only the 264th person to perform a spacewalk.

A Lehigh University graduate last year recorded a new species of mushroom at Wildlands Conservancy's South Mountain Preserve.

Monarch butterflies are starting to migrate through the Lehigh Valley. An annual tagging program, held at Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center, helps conservation efforts.

What feels like a local housing crisis is actually a “global phenomenon” across all income levels, state Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh, said at a housing summit Friday.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on procedural grounds that a lower court should not have taken up the case because it did not draw in the election boards in all 67 counties.

Called the Recovery in Nature initiative, two state departments have joined forces to create regional-specific partnerships to bolster substance use recovery efforts while strengthening all residents’ connection to nature.

Folks of older age and those with mobility troubles may already have enough of a hard time getting where they need to go, so a local panel is brainstorming how to get federal funding to make day-to-day transportation a smoother ride for them.

Democrats said they wanted Vice President Kamala Harris to provide more details about her policies while Republicans acknowledge she presents a more serious challenge to former President Donald Trump.

Early Tuesday, Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who has a home in the Lehigh Valley, launched into space for a second time as part of a mission dubbed Polaris Dawn. The launch was visible in the area.

This week on Political Pulse, Tom and Chris talk about public opinion polling at a state and national level — and what that means to voters.

The city is hoping to gain approval as one of only a handful of World Heritage Sites in the U.S. — and join with other locations in Europe as a single Moravian Church settlement site of significance.

Grants of up to $400,000 that focus on addiction treatment services for communities that were hard-hit by the opioid epidemic will be awarded later this year.

“When a bill jumps $200 or $300, that’s the difference between groceries on the table. So we have to see what legislative remedies there are at our disposal, because ‘you’ve gotta pay your bill’ is not the answer I want to give anybody," said Rep. Josh Siegel.

Rules around gifting have changed for top officials in Gov. Josh Shapiro's administration.

The audit of a dozen districts released last week has drawn the ire of school business experts.

A new program hitting Pennsylvania high schools is just one of many ways the state is responding to a teacher shortage that’s created cascading staffing challenges across the Commonwealth.

A deadline set by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration came and went Friday for lawmakers to pass a package of proposed constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot in May’s primary election

Central Bucks South High School librarian Matt Pecic said a principal told him to take down four posters with a quote from Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel.

A mother bear and her cubs are nestled under the deck of a Pike County home, and you can peek in on them 24/7. The camera is expected to be up until late March or early April, when the bears leave the den.

The additional payments, created during the pandemic will stop and SNAP recipient households will go back to receiving one payment a month.

Based on history alone, fans of winter should be optimistic. But El Niño doesn't just affect one season, and scientists warn its possible return is a major cause for concern. Here's what we know so far.

The State Museum of Pennsylvania has the 24th-largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S. Getting them back to their tribes is a challenge.