A 53-year-old Easton man and a 44-year-old Allentown woman are dead in a murder-suicide investigation in Allentown. The bodies of the unidentified people were found just after 1 o'clock Thursday morning inside a home in the 2000 block of E. Cedar Street. The coroner has ruled the death of the woman is being ruled as a homicide, while the man's death is being ruled a suicide. Investigators say it appears the man shot the woman before shooting himself. Autopsies are planned for today.
The Monroe County man killed when his motorcycle collided with a tractor-trailer on Route 22 has been identified. 29-year-old Robert Swain, of Coolbaugh Township, died Wednesday night at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg, a day after the collision on westbound 22 in Bethlehem. The death was ruled an accident.
Governor Josh Shapiro signed a historic education bill yesterday. Shapiro officially approved the 11-billion-dollar back-to-school bill during a ceremony at Emmaus High School. The bill includes a more than one-billion-dollar increase for public education. Shapiro said the future of Pennsylvania is directly linked to the success of educators.
Northampton County Council approved an ordinance to make feminine hygiene products available in county bathrooms. The total cost for the dispensaries will be more than $28,000, with another $16,000 annually for the products. Officials say the county has 69 women's bathrooms and 34 gender-neutral bathrooms, including those at county parks.
The Pennsylvania State Police have given the all clear after a threat kept kids at Pleasant Valley Schools home yesterday. Troopers searched the high school yesterday after the school district sent-in a tip through the State Police's Safe 2 Say system. There aren't any details as to just what the threat involved. While the State Police were searching the school, the district sent kids home for a remote learning day. State troopers say they didn't find anything dangerous at the school. Pleasant Valley hasn't officially said what the plan is for classes today.
In a 2-1 ruling, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court has ruled in favor of two voters whose provisional ballots were rejected after they were notified their mail-in ballots were missing the provided “secrecy envelope.” The court ordered the Butler County Board of Elections to count provisional ballots cast by two voters in the 2024 primary election. Pennsylvania’s mail ballots are sent with two envelopes for voters to use, the inner secrecy envelope in which the ballot is placed and a larger mailing envelope where the secrecy envelope is placed. Their mail-in ballots were found to be “fatally defective” and were not counted because they did not use the secondary envelope. The two voters were notified by the county, went to their polling place, and submitted provisional ballots that were also not counted. The court ruled that the provisional ballots should be counted after the voters followed the proper procedures.
Text-to-911 has been available in most Pennsylvania counties for some time, but as of Thursday, PEMA says Pennsylvania residents in every county across the state can use the feature. Text-to-911 is similar to calling a 911 telecommunicator. They will continue to ask questions about the emergency, such as confirming the location and the people involved, but it allows possible victims to contact authorities more discreetly, said PEMA. Texting allows potential victims to contact police in situations where making noise can be dangerous, and it can enable people with hearing and speech impairments to contact police quickly,
The New Jersey developer convicted of bribing former Senator Bob Menendez is pleading guilty to bank fraud in a separate case in a New Jersey federal court. Fred Daibes was accused of bribing the senator for his help in trying to get himself lenient treatment in the bank fraud case. Daibes was originally offered a plea of probation before the bribery scandal broke and now he faces up to 37-months in prison because he committed a second federal crime of bribery. He's expected to be sentenced in January.
The Eagles and Packers kick off the regular season in uncharted territory Friday night. The sides square off in Sao Paulo for the NFL's first-ever regular season game from Brazil. It's also the first time since 1970 that the league will play a regular season matchup on a Friday. Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni says both teams experienced plenty of change in the offseason. "Nobody really knows what we're going to do, so to answer that question would be a little bit of a competitive advantage that we have and they have some too. Their defensive coordinator is new as well," Sirianni says. The Eagles and Packers kickoff tonight at 8:15 and the game can be watched on NBC 10.