We'll have to wait a little longer to find out what might become of the old Air Products corporate headquarters along Hamilton Boulevard in Trexlertown. Upper Macungie Township's zoning hearing board delayed a vote until July 13th on the plan to allow Prologis to put up three warehouses on the property. One bone of contention is how Prologis' promised limit of 572 truck trips per day would be enforced once the three warehouses are fully occupied. More than 2.5 million square feet of warehouses is proposed for the site. Air Products vacated the property last year when it moved to its new headquarters about a mile away.
Gas prices in both the Lehigh Valley and across the state dropped in the past seven days. The average price of a gallon of unleaded in Pennsylvania was $5.01 yesterday, down a nickel from seven days earlier. It was still $1.84 higher than June 21 of last year. In the Lehigh Valley, the average price stood at $4.98 Tuesday, down nearly seven cents from the previous week, but $1.87 higher than one year ago.
A months-long battle over the contested 2021 election for a judgeship in Lehigh County is finally over. David Ritter conceded Tuesday in the fight over undated ballots that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Ritter, a Republican candidate for the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas, held a narrow lead over Democrat Zachary Cohen for the last of three open seats until an order to include the undated ballots and when that was done last week, Cohen was ahead of Ritter by five votes. The ballots are expected to be certified today.
There's Festplatz, Handwerkplatz, Americaplatz and now...Stadtplatz. Musikfest's newest location in Payrow Plaza will be known as PNC Stadtplatz, which translates to "city place" or "town square." More than 2,100 names were suggested for the new venue. This August, the music festival is returning to Payrow Plaza for the first time in more than a decade.
A break-in is prompting the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown to upgrade its security. Someone broke in to the center on West Maple Street last week. Cash was stolen from the donation box, and the ground and main floors of the building were vandalized. Allentown police are investigating.
The Bethlehem Area School Board has approved the district's 2022-23 budget. It's a nearly $325,000,000 budget, with no tax increase included.
The House State Government Committee will meet soon to review a bill that would move up Pennsylvania's presidential primary election date by several weeks. Senate Bill 428, which would move primary election day to the third Tuesday of March, unanimously passed in the state Senate in December. The bill's sponsors believe states that vote earlier can have an influence on which candidates remain in the primary race.
State House Republicans have used their majority vote to block a measure that would have stopped young adults from possessing so-called assault-style rifles. They voted in a legislative committee Tuesday to completely change the bill into a constitutional amendment to allow anyone to carry concealed guns. In its original form, the bill would have prevented anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing, possessing or transporting the kind of weapons that have been used in recent mass shootings.
Two bills that would prohibit classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in elementary schools have passed out of the state Senate Education Committee. One of the bills' sponsors says their measure is different from Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, in that it would not ban discussions or prohibit teachers from having conversations. They also say it would not ban support services to students facing issues related to sexual orientation or gender identity.
The committee investigating the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol says Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler received multiple calls from Trump lawyers. The House Select Committee played audio samples of voicemails left on Cutler's phone from Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. The committee says both of those people were pushing false claims about election fraud in service to then-President Donald Trump. The Washington Post says the calls came just a few days before the former president himself reached out to speaker Cutler.
New Jersey state officials are announcing when the wait list for a rent relief program will open. The state's Department of Housing and Community Resources will accept pre-applications online for the state rental assistance program, which targets those who are elderly, family, disabled, and homeless. Only 4000 candidates will be selected and officials say they must have an email address to apply. The pre-application window opens July 11th and remains open through July 22nd.
When the U.S. Senior Open tees off Thursday morning at Saucon Valley Country Club, Accu-Weather's Joe Lundberg says conditions may be a little soft. "As we go deeper into the afternoon, the risk of showers increases and I think there will be rain off and on tonight, into the first half of tomorrow. There could be some hard downpours, but I'm not sure we're going to have flooding rains, but it's going to come down fairly hard on occasion," Lundberg says. After some lingering rain tomorrow morning, Lundberg says the final three rounds should be dry.
Padraig Harrington has won two British Opens and one PGA Championship. He'll be playing in his first U.S. Senior Open this week at Saucon Valley Country Club and he likes what he sees. "It's very nice. A great golf course. It suits my game, so I'm looking forward to it," Harrington says. When the first tee shot is hit at 7 o'clock Thursday morning, Saucon Valley will become the only course to host the U.S. Senior Open on three occasions.