State & Regional News

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.

A microcosm of Pennsylvania, Northampton County's urban areas, rural farms and middle-class suburbs make it a melting pot of different political stripes.

"I've never seen traffic in the Lehigh Valley and the aggressiveness that we've seen in the past couple of years like it is now. It’s absolutely [expletive] bananas," one Lehigh Valley lawmaker said.

Widespread sickness among children with respiratory illnesses this year is driving up demand for children’s pain relievers and fever reducers, leaving drugstore chains and smaller community pharmacies across the nation in short supply.

On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Education announced awards totaling $1.2 million in competitive grants to 33 career and technical centers and two school districts. The funds are to purchase new equipment to train students in “high-demand occupations.” Locally, career and technical schools in Lackawanna, Columbia, Montour, Susquehanna, Monroe, Northumberland and Lehigh counties, plus the Wallenpaupack Area School District in Pike County received money.

Pennsylvania’s top elections official is fully certifying results from the November vote.

Deposition transcripts released Wednesday by the Jan. 6 Committee revealed new details about the role that Pennsylvania Republicans played in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

PA Senator Bob Casey has released a year end review of the projects that the lawmaker has supported throughout the state this year — including funding he secured for the Little Lehigh housing development in Allentown.

The number of state lawmakers who are Black, Latino or of South Asian descent will rise as part of what House Democrats call the “most diverse class of freshmen legislators” in Pennsylvania history.

The extreme weather stretched from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians.

Will it snow next week? How about the week after? Weather enthusiasts are constantly hanging on "one model run in a sea of model runs," making the job of the local meteorologist even more difficult in trying to convey the forecast.

The region could see wind chills as low as -15 degrees overnight as temperatures rapidly fall. The expected high winds could lead to power outages due to falling branches. PPL says it has 2,000 workers ready to respond.

Before his four Super Bowl championships and Hall of Fame career, Harris played at Penn State with Bethlehem native and Liberty High great Tom Donchez, who recalls his backfield mate fondly.

A newly elected state senator is looking to block the sale of the Allentown State Hospital property calling the process non-competitive. But, it may be to no avail.

The National Weather Service said the winter storm targeting the Lehigh Valley contains "an air mass the likes of which we haven’t seen for several years."