Even after completing a Friday morning autopsy, the Lehigh County Coroner's Office is unable to release the cause and manner of death of a woman who went missing Tuesday night. The body of 46-year-old Catherine Blank was found Wednesday in the 4700 block of Indian Creek Road in Upper Milford Township. The coroner says the woman was found in the same clothes she was wearing at the time of her disappearance, Alburtis Borough Police and Pennsylvania State Police are investigating Blank's death.
The Treichlers Post Office in Lehigh Township, Northampton County, will be closed temporarily due to "safety concerns." Customers' mail will be moved to the Walnutport Post Office, located at 249 Lehigh Gap St. in Walnutport. There's no word yet on when the Treichlers location will reopen.
The Hershey Company has responded to allegations from Consumer Reports about concerning amounts of lead in some of Hershey's dark chocolate products. A petition calling on Hershey's to commit to a timeline for reducing levels of cadmium and lead in those candies. In response, the Hershey Company said it does not add cadmium or lead to its products, but it doesn't necessarily mean those metals aren't found in the chocolate. In a release, Hershey says "Cadmium and lead naturally exist in the environment. As a result, agricultural products, including cacao, can contain trace levels of elements like cadmium and lead. Because these elements are part of our environment, their presence in various foods cannot be entirely avoided. Consumers can rest assured that they may continue to enjoy Hershey products safely," said The Hershey Company.
The knowledge of who has been evicted from their home may soon be blocked from public information in Pennsylvania. A group of Democratic lawmakers is pushing for new legislation to seal all evictions filings so that the information doesn't interfere with a renter's efforts to find a new home. A bipartisan committee held a public hearing Thursday on House Bill 1769. It would apply to cases where an notice was filed but didn't actually end in eviction. Currently, there's no limit on how long eviction records are publicly viewable.
State Fish and Boat Commission officers have been affirmed in their use of open-water boat safety checks A Commonwealth Court decision upheld the practice last week in a case that started eight years ago. That's when a boater protested a 75-dollar ticket given to him after FBC officers conducted a safety check while he and some friends were out fishing. The case was the first time the use of such checks had been challenged as an unconstitutional violation of the search and seizure articles in the state Constitution.
New Jersey's legal marijuana business is thriving in less than two years of recreational sales. The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission says there are now over 100 medicinal and recreational marijuana dispensaries up and down the Garden State. They say those figures exist with 60-percent of New Jersey towns opting out. Recreational weed sales hit close to $675 million last year while medicinal cannabis sales reached nearly $100 million for the first three quarters of 2023. The only county that doesn't have at least one legal cannabis dispensary is Salem.