State & Regional News

PennDOT officials say complaints about roadside trash peak in early spring when snow melts, revealing months of litter build-up. State officials estimate there are 500 million pieces of rubbish on Pennsylvania roads — about a third of which are cigarette butts.

Lehigh Valley Public Media comprises LehighValleyNews.com, PBS39 and 91.3 WLVR. Debates to be held in advance of the May 20 primary election include Allentown mayor, Bethlehem mayor, Northampton County executive and Lehigh County executive.

The U.S. Center for SafeSport knew a former police officer was the subject of an internal investigation at his former job but hired him anyway, according to details released this week by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is looking into the matter.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in Pennsylvania rose about 14 cents this week, from $3.261 to $3.405.

Northampton County officials on Thursday announced $100,000 in grants to a handful of food banks and homeless shelters. The grants are a response to cuts to federal food aid programs, County Executive Lamont McClure said.

Mack Trucks will display a 100-year-old Mack AB model tractor manufactured in Allentown at the 125th New York International Auto Show April 18-27.

'A Community Conversation: The Road Ahead' will feature several guests discussing Lehigh Valley traffic and transportation issues. It will start at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 3, at the Univest Public Media Center in Bethlehem.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection last week launched the Child Care Lead Testing and Reduction grant program. Aimed at schools and childcare facilities, the program is focused on testing for, and remediating, lead in drinking water.

Lehigh Valley business experts said it's too soon to determine how President Donald Trump's across-the-board tariffs of 10% or more will affect the economy but acknowledged that stakes are high.

Gov. Josh Shapiro made an appearance at Fegley's Brew Works in Bethlehem Wednesday to speak out on tariffs and how they could impact small businesses across the Lehigh Valley, including its thriving craft brewery scene.

A fossilized tyrannosaur tooth found lodged between bones in a hadrosaur's tail is giving paleobiologists pretty firm clues about the tyrant king's meal plan. And Hollywood may have been right all along — T. Rex definitely knew how to kill.

The recommended change would mean that patients would begin treatment before they get extremely sick. In Africa, where millions of people are infected with HIV, a move to earlier treatment would be challenging for the public health system.

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.