A former performing arts director in Parkland School District is facing charges for allegedly secretly recording a student. Police say 43-year-old Francis Anonia recorded the student changing clothes on multiple occasions. Charges were filed on Monday, six months after the investigation started and Anonia was placed on leave. He resigned from the school district in June.
The Big Lots' bankruptcy process is claiming a Lehigh Valley location. The company says it's closing 50 more locations, including its MacArthur Road, Whitehall Township store. It's unclear when the Whitehall Big Lots will close. Big Lots has other Lehigh Valley stores on Hamilton Boulevard in Trexlertown, West Union Boulevard in Bethlehem and Lehigh Street in Allentown.
The Northampton Area School board has decided to keep Moore Elementary School open once the new elementary school project is finished. The new East Allen Elementary School is expected to be ready for the 2026-2027 school year. The board voted to keep Moore Elementary open rather than closing it when the new school opens. The vote allows for full or partial renovations of Moore Elementary or new construction. A partial renovation would cost an estimated $25 million. Full renovations would cost an estimated $51 million.
Bethlehem police are searching for a driver involved in a fatal Sunday night crash. 20-year-old Ezequiel Hernandez-Cartagena died at the hospital after having been driven there in a personal vehicle. Police say nobody was at the scene of the crash in which a car drove into a pole in the 700 block of Central Boulevard. Police think Hernandez-Cartagena was a passenger in the car involved. They are looking for the driver.
Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Erie Monday and said the consequences of Republican Donald Trump ever being president again are "brutally serious." "I think in our collective opinion, certainly in mine, is he is an unserious man," Harris told supporters. Trump was in Oaks Monday to speak to voters at a town hall. The former president promises a Gold Star family that he will make sure there is an investigation into the deaths of the american service members that lost their lives during the Afghanistan withdrawal. "In the first week, we will set up a commission and we're going to find out. Because so many people want to know what happened and why it happened to their son or daughter," Trump said. Election Day is three weeks from today.
Democrat vice presidential nominee Tim Walz's wife campaigned in the Lehigh Valley Monday. Gwen Walz attended a 'Commit to Vote' house party at a home on College hill in Easton. Mrs. Walz pushed the importance of making a plan to vote and then following through on it.
Both of Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate candidates were in Allentown yesterday. Democratic Senator Bob Casey visited the Lehigh Valley Center for Independent Living to discuss the state's ABLE Savings program, which assists residents with expenses related to disabilities. His Republican opponent Dave McCormick was at the City Limits Assembly of God Church to assist with their community service efforts. Casey and McCormick will meet for a debate tonight in Philadelphia.
The second and final Bob Casey/Dave McCormick debate is tonight in Philadelphia. The hour-long debate begins tonight at 7 o'clock and can be seen on 6ABC out of Philadelphia. The candidates had previously tentatively agreed to three debates, but at this point they have not officially agreed to a third one. Polling shows Casey holding a narrow edge over his Republican challenger with three weeks remaining before Election Day.
Pennsylvania residents have six days left to register to vote. The registration deadline for the November Fifth election is next Monday, October 21st. The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is October 29th. For more voter information, visit the Pennsylvania Department of State website.
Cases of whooping cough are currently surging across Pennsylvania. That's according to the CDC, which says Pennsylvania has the highest number of whooping coughing cases in the country, with nearly 22-hundred cases reported. Babies under a year old are at greatest risk of developing whooping cough and having severe complications, including apnea and pneumonia. Health experts blame the surge on missed vaccinations, a trend that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, plus mask-wearing that lowered transmission rates.
Public health managers in Harrisburg are sending thousands of Xylazine care kits to communities across the state, but there aren't enough to keep-up with the demand. The state's Department of Health last week said it is sending 50-thousand wound care kits to local health agencies. Xylazine, also known as tranq, has exploded in Pennsylvania, and the number of deaths tied to it has also jumped. The Department of Health says 51 people OD'd on tranq back in 2018, that number jumped to over 1100 by 2021. The Department of Health says it will try and make more wound care kits available, but didn't have a timeline as to when that might be.