Lehigh County | featured news

The ding of an incoming text message can be a powerful temptation even while driving. As much as we want to ignore our phones, we've been programmed to instantly respond. So says Bethlehem Police Chief Mark DiLuzio. "It's human nature to think, 'I can look at this while driving and it's no big...

HARRISBURG — The lawyer just hired by Attorney General Kathleen Kane to be her second-in-command said Friday the two had met just twice and only briefly before she gave him final decision-making authority on legal matters while her law license remains suspended.Bruce Castor, whose appointment to...

BETHLEHEM —Alejandra Lara walked into Liberty High School's art gallery on Friday with a sense of hope and suspicion. The 17-year-old, who was adopted by a teacher after her Honduran mother's death, was among dozens of Bethlehem Area School District seniors who applied for two full tuition scholarships...

ALLENTOWN — The Pennsylvania Department of Health has confirmed that the water at Allen High School and Union Terrace Elementary School is safe to drink, according to the Allentown School District. Farhad Ahmed, Bureau of Epidemiology, said Friday that the results of water testing samples at the...

Years ago, David Lubar challenged himself to write a scene "as edgy as I could." He penned a harrowing episode of a character who was being beaten.A year ago, on a whim, he read it to his editor at Tor Books, and she immediately said, "That's your next book."The recently released book — a young...

EASTON – The Easton Main Street Initiative is accepting applications for grants to assist downtown Easton property owners with improvements to building facades, signs and design costs. Eligible buildings must be located in the "Main Street Revitalization Target Area," a 20-square-block area from...

For the past 15 years, Allentown resident Jim Jackson has run a childcare center in the city, but he dreamed of one day having a clothing line."I had a stint in the fashion business in my younger days," Jackson says. "I thought it was time for me to embark on it again. I always had a passion for...

For more than half a century the Bethlehem Steel General Office Building was a symbol of power and dominance, but Friday afternoon the 13-story South Side icon was showing its age.Glass fell from an 11th-story window of the 100-year-old building onto a busy Third Street, forcing police to close...

More than 14,000 people decided to make the Lehigh Valley their home in the past five years, new census figures show. The growth was unusual because most of the new arrivals didn't come from elsewhere in the state or country but from other parts of the world. While thousands of seniors took flight,...

When it comes down to it, "American Idol" has been about a dream. A dream that someone could go from obscurity to become America's biggest music star if he or she could display talent directly to the public. It was a dream strong enough to persuade hundreds of thousands of people to try out at...