As of now, neither Lehigh Valley Health Network nor St. Luke's University Health Network plan on bringing back mask mandates. Because of rising COVID cases, many of the major health networks in the Philadelphia area have reinstated mask requirements for patients, staff and visitors. This includes Jefferson Health, Penn Medicine, Temple Health, Main Line Health and Cooper University Health Care. Dr. Jeffrey Jahre says St. Luke’s has no plans to put any new mask mandates in place. He says, “We don’t believe in universal masking. I think we found out that that was not an effective situation. Most of the transference occurs when visitors come in. Even if you make them wear a mask, they’ll take the mask off in the room or they’ll wear it incorrectly.”
There's good news on the power outage front. Both PPL and First Energy report almost all of their customers have had service restored after Tuesday's storm. As of 5am, PPL says just 862 of its customers are still in the dark. More than a quarter of them are in Bucks County. First Energy says more than 6000 of its customers are still without service, 600 of whom live in Berks and Bucks counties.
Most of the Lehigh Valley picked up more than two inches of rain Tuesday and that caused flooding problems. Accu-Weather's Joe Lundberg says more rain is on its way Friday. "I think there's going to be another inch of rain. Some places may get an inch-and-a-quarter or an inch-and-a-half. But it's going to come in about a ten hour period, just after dark until before sunrise, so that's the time period we're looking at. I think it will cause renewed flooding across the area," Lundberg says. He says while we're getting more rain and wind, the rain won't be as much and the wind won't be as strong with this Friday's storm as it was on Tuesday.
Allentown City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to elect Cynthia Mota as the new council president. Mota served as president in 2022 and as vice president in 2023. Council voted 4-3 to elect Santo Napoli as vice president.
Easton police say 53-year-old Michael Ayala Sr. was the driver of a car involved in a hit-and-run crash on December 28th. Ayala allegedly hit a 67-year-old man around 7:15am in the area of Fourth and Washington streets and then fled the scene. Investigators found his vehicle the next day and arrested him on unrelated charges. The man who was hit is still in the hospital with serious injuries but is expected to survive.
Peeps has announced four new flavors for the 2024 Easter season. They are: Peeps Rice Krispies Treats to be sold at Walmart; Peeps ICEE, a blue raspberry flavored marshmallow chick to be sold only at Target; Peeps Sour Strawberry, only available at the Kroger family of stores; and Peeps Delights S'mores Graham Crackers, which will be dipped in milk chocolate and available nationwide.
The escalators are the state house in Harrisburg seem to be out of commission a lot of the time. But state officials say the two escalators are set to be part of an overhaul of the East Wing rotunda. The work will include replacing the current large spiral staircase with a 20-person elevator. Then, the two escalators will be demolished to make room for a grand staircase. State officials say they've spent nearly $250,000 in just the past five years to maintain the escalators.
Pittsburgh-area Congressman Chris Deluzio is calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. It was recently reported that Austin had been hospitalized for several days without informing the White House. We now know that the secretary has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and suffered complications during a recent procedure. Deluzio, who sits on the Veterans Affairs and Armed Services committees, yesterday said that he has lost trust in the Defense secretary due to his lack of transparency about his medical treatment. Deluzio, the first Democrat to call for Austin's resignation, also expressed his hope that the still-hospitalized secretary has a speedy recovery from his cancer treatment.
Ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has dropped out of the Republican presidential race. After his announcement, Christie made a promise to supporters in New Hampshire. "I want to promise you this. I'm going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be President of the United States again. That's more important than my own personal ambitions," Christie said. Christie says he's dropping out because he did not see a path forward for himself to win the GOP nomination.