The redesigned ballot return envelope used for mail-in voting apparently worked. According to analysis by Votebeat and Spotlight PA, counties rejected 9.6% fewer ballots in this year's primary election than in 2023. The redesign is being credited with fewer ballots being rejected for a missing date or signature on the return envelope, an incorrect date or failing to return a ballot without an inner secrecy envelope. But the redesigned envelope didn't prevent all errors. Officials say a new problem was voters putting a date on their envelopes but leaving the year only partially filled in. With the new design it has the digits “20” prefilled for the year, to prevent voters from writing their birth date, but some voters failed to fill in the final two digits.
Police in Allentown are investigating a weekend murder in a city park. It happened around 6:30 Saturday evening at Fountain Park when an unidentified 25-year-old man was shot to death. Despite the violence, St. Rep. Josh Siegel says his city is not a dangerous place to live or visit. "I want people to understand that Allentown is a safe city and we're getting safer every day. We take these public safety threats really seriously," Siegel says. In a statement, Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk said, "A terrible and preventable act of violence upended a beautiful day in Allentown yesterday. Our parks are our havens and some hateful individuals tried to take that away from us."
A crash involving a car and motorcycle ended up sending the motorcycle into a building on Hamilton Street in Allentown. The crash occurred Saturday evening and damaged the storefront of 737 Hamilton Street. Two people were transported to the hospital, but no word yet on the severity of their injuries.
State lawmakers are considering some options for what to do with a roughly $800 million budget surplus. Officials are going over the commonwealth's spending plan ahead of the June 30th budget deadline.
Pennsylvania lawmakers are worried about deep-fakes and political ads. There's legislation in both the Pennsylvania House and State Senate that would fine campaigns for 'unauthorized media content that negatively influences an election.' State Senator Tracy Pennycuick says lawmakers need to protect voters from blatant election interference and misinformation. Currently 14 states have rules or regulations for deep-fake ai-generated campaign ads.
The federal bribery trial of Senator Bob Menendez enters its fourth week in a Manhattan courtroom today. Last week, after the bags of cash and gold bars had been entered into evidence, jurors heard a voicemail his wife left in 2018, when the pair were still dating. Nadine Arslanian said on the recording that she had a favor to ask him -- quote -- her very handsome senator. Menendez's lawyer said the prosecution is omitting important information from the text messages that make the messages seem worse than they really are. Menendez and two businessmen are on trial for a suspected bribery scheme, where Menendez and his wife are accused of taking cash, gold bars and even a Mercedes Benz. The Menendez's have pleaded not guilty.
During Sunday night's 5-4 loss to St. Louis, Phillies left fielder Brandon Marsh had to leave the game with an injury. Manager Rob Thomson doesn't have much of an update just yet. "We'll find out Monday, but it's a right hamstring. We'll look at it Monday, but he's day-to-day at this point," Thomson says. Marsh was injured running the bases in the bottom of the eighth inning.