State & Regional News

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission issued 19 recommendations for PPL Electric to improve upon, including fixing its poor customer service and restoring power to customers faster following an outage.

The National Weather Service posted a flood watch starting at 6 a.m. Friday for the Philadelphia region and its suburbs.

The $208 million will also produce 295 new union jobs, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s announcement said, though it’s unclear what cut of the funding the Macungie facility is getting or the number of new jobs expected locally.

Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled new designs for highway welcome signs and license plates this week, both featuring the Liberty Bell and the phrase "Let Freedom Ring." But it appears history hot spot Easton was left out.

While the Easton Police Department only took a few phone calls over fireworks complaints for July 4, it appears citizens and city council are riled up over the nuisance and danger tied to the explosives.

Hellertown Borough's historical society touts the Heller-Wagner Grist Mill, located along West Walnut Street, as one of the oldest landmarks in town. The mill operated into the 1950s.

State Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-Lehigh/Bucks, is looking to force his predecessor, now Secretary of Revenue Pat Browne, to release tax returns about Allentown's Neighborhood Improvement Zone. Browne, who crafted the NIZ, has worked to keep the information confidential for five years.

Funding was awarded through the Lehigh Valley Greenways Mini Grant Program. The program aims to protect and promote natural resources through the implementation of ready-to-go, single-year projects.

The National Weather Service expanded an excessive heat warning into the Lehigh Valley on Wednesday, calling for dangerously hot conditions with heat index values up to 105 degrees. A severe weather threat will follow.

Allentown and Easton have been paired with an engineering company to reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. It's Allentown's first time, but Easton's second, in the program.

Budget cuts and layoffs are hitting teachers in Philadelphia. But the city and a local developer are hoping to offer some relief: a housing project designed for them. At a similar project in Baltimore, having fellow teachers as neighbors brings support and camaraderie after a tough day at work.

It's not just homesteaders, hipsters and foodies getting into the hands-on pursuit. The butter-churning craze is part of a larger, do-it-yourself food movement that includes everything from canning, to making homemade bitters, a food writer says.

For 20 years, Linda Smith was a successful ER doctor. But she started to regret doing painful procedures on patients without having the time to sit down and talk with them. So she became a palliative care doctor, one of a growing number helping people deal with life-threatening illnesses.

An experimental "gut check" test can tell us more about the bacteria that live inside us. By studying the way the microbial populations change over time, researchers think they may have a new tool for monitoring health.

Audie Cornish speaks with Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East for analysis of the latest events in Egypt.

The Statue of Liberty reopens July 4, for the first time since Hurricane Sandy damaged the statue's pedestal and flooded park service offices. We look at what it took to reopen the iconic statue — and why nearby Ellis Island remains closed indefinitely.

After years of food shortages and drought, in a country that was once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe's crippled economy is recovering — after adopting the U.S. dollar as its currency. But memories of the violent elections in 2008 are fueling fears about security. The disputed vote ended in a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and his main opposition rival. The Zimbabwean leader has now proclaimed July 31 as election day. New York-based Human Rights Watch warns there's potential for more violence — unless key security and other reforms are brought in before the vote.

When it comes to selling Texas Latinos on the Republican Party, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz would seem like a natural. But even though he is the son of a Cuban refugee, Cruz is much closer to his Tea Party supporters' hard line on immigration than he is to the Republicans who are urging a more accommodating position for the sake of the party's future.

One day after Egypt's military deposed the nation's first democratically elected president, it began a crackdown on Mohammed Morsi's Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Homemade sodas are hot these days: Americans bought more than 1.2 million home carbonators last year. For the Fourth of July, we asked mixologist Gina Chersevani to help us tap into the trend with a soda float inspired by Independence Day.

A young college grad asks an economist for advice.

Consumers already have an abundance of choice when it comes to entertainment and news subscriptions. But analysts say it's still early days for all the digital subscription offerings we'll have to pay for.