The Rip It Baseballtown Charities Training Facility in Bern Township has served as a refuge for young athletes trying to improve their game. Read more

'Anyone can bring them down — it doesn't matter if they're licensed, illegal or whatever.' Read more

Meet Pierre, a two-foot tall statue who lovingly holds a roll of toilet paper, and is part of the Vynecrest Winery family. Read more

The Sunny Slope Crossings proposal calls for 76 homes on 130 acres at Dogwood Road and Hanover Street, near Bicentennial Park.  Read more

Pizza Como & PC Pub in the Pennsburg Square Shopping Center teamed up with Lansdale amusement and game company Pennsylvania Skill to hand out hundreds of meals to families and seniors. Read more

The proposal calls for a power purchasing agreement. Read more

(The Center Square) – Environmental groups said this week Gov. Tom Wolf must close a perceived loophole in the state’s pending methane emissions rule or he will risk his climate legacy. Read more

Paul "Cooter" Jones, former minor leaguer and coach, is being remembered as one of the big staples of FirstEnergy Stadium and the Reading Fightin Phils. Read more

The event featured live music and an organic food truck.  Read more

The reinstallation and restoration of 88 shutters on historic Bethlehem's 1741 Gemeinhaus is several hundred years in the making. Read more

(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania’s emergency management officials said Thursday the legislative process moves too slowly to make the snap decisions required in a disaster situation. Read more

Leandro Crisostomo said it's hard to make sense of what happened. Read more

The victim suffered a lacerated liver in the 2019 attack at a Dixon Street home in Allentown Read more

Drop boxes for mail ballots will be available for Lehigh County residents at five municipal buildings beginning May 3. Read more

WEST CHESTER — The Chester County District Attorney’s Office filed a civil complaint on behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania against Energy Transfer LP, and its subsidiaries Energy Transfer Operating LP, Sunoco Partners Operations LP, and Sunoco Pipeline. Read more

Kalafer passed away on Wednesday morning. Read more

Syracuse, N.Y.,  -- Every April, dairy farmers rally together to celebrate environmental practices that help preserve the earth. On Earth Day especially, everyone is reminded of the continued need to protect our natural resources. According to the American Dairy Association North East, for dairy farmers, sustainability is a major focus every day when they produce nutritious milk — it's made with care for the planet in mind.  Read more

The suspected gunman, Za Uk Lian, used a semi-automatic pistol when he shot and killed a truck driver and wounded another person. Read more

They left bouquets of flowers and candles in remembrance of truck driver Ramon Ramirez. Read more

(The Center Square) – Some Pennsylvania businesses said Wednesday the president’s “ambitious” climate goals border on “unrealistic” and could spike global emissions if implemented too quickly.  Read more

Mack Trucks’ orders continued to grow in the first quarter of 2021. Read more

Authorities say a father admitted to hitting his baby's head on a table, then putting her dead body on the couch and going back to sleep. Read more

The allocations approved were from one of two funding rounds. The second round of applications starts Monday. Read more

Her body was found with a dress, bonnet and shoes, wrapped in a tarp in a wooded area behind the suspect's former place of employment, the DA said. Read more

The trooper was one of many police officers who responded to the area after a shooting in the Wawa parking lot. Read more

SpaceX's third crew has an attack helicopter pilot, a former Air France pilot, a Japanese rocket scientist and an oceanographer. The four veteran astronauts should reach the International Space Station on Saturday for a six-month stay. They launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, who led a helicopter platoon during the 1991 Gulf War, is the spacecraft commander. His pilot is NASA's Megan McArthur, whose husband launched in the same capsule nearly a year ago. France's Thomas Pesquet and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide are also on board.   Read more

Japan has issued a third state of emergency for Tokyo and three western prefectures to curb a surge in the coronavirus just three months ahead of the Olympics. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced the emergency for Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo from April 25 through May 11. Japan’s third emergency since the pandemic comes only a month after an earlier, toothless emergency ended in the Tokyo area. This time, after a law stipulating virus measures was toughened in February, authorities can issue binding orders for businesses to shorten their hours or close, with compensation for those who comply and penalties for violators. Suga says the step is intended to stop people from traveling over upcoming holidays.  Read more

Britain has seen its budget deficit rise during the coronavirus pandemic to its highest level since the year after the end of World War II. The Office for National Statistics said Friday public sector net borrowing reached 303.1 billion pounds ($420 billion) in the financial year to end-March. This was equivalent to 14.5% of the country’s annual gross domestic product, the highest level since 1946, when the deficit hit 15.2% of GDP. The government has spent billions of pounds propping up the economy since the pandemic started more than a year ago, notably by covering the lion’s share of the salaries of people unable to work during the country’s many lockdowns and providing further support to hard-hit businesses. Read more

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan’s prime minister has summoned troops to help police implement social-distancing rules as a part of new measures aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus. Read more

Japan has declared a state of emergency to curb a rapid coronavirus resurgence, the third since the pandemic began. The measures in parts of Japan, including Tokyo, have so far failed to curb infections caused by a more contagious new variant of the virus. Experts have warned that the variant, detected earlier in Britain, is rapidly spreading among younger people in offices and classrooms, causing more serious cases, overburdening hospitals and disrupting regular medical care. Testing remains insufficient. The 17-day emergency begins Sunday and lasts until May 11, just after the end of Japan’s “golden week” holidays, to discourage traveling. Read more

The White House is bringing out the billionaires, the CEOs and the union leaders to help sell President Joe Biden’s climate-friendly transformation of the U.S. economy. Friday's closing day of his virtual summit on climate change is to feature Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, steelworker and electrical union officials and CEOs for solar and other renewable energy. It’s all for an argument U.S. officials say will make or break Biden’s climate agenda among voters: Pouring trillions of dollars into clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure will jet-pack the U.S. economy into the future and create jobs, while saving the planet.  Read more

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be under as much scrutiny as Myanmar's junta leader when the 10-member regional body meets Saturday. The general who led the February coup ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was invited to the special ASEAN summit being convened to discuss the post-coup crisis in Myanmar. That invitation infuriates the junta's opponents, who argue that since Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power by force, he is not Myanmar’s legitimate leader. They believe the opposition’s parallel National Unity Government should have been invited. ASEAN hopes its quiet diplomacy can create an opening to at least end Myanmar's deadly political violence. Read more

A Norwegian climber became the first to test positive for COVID-19 in Mount Everest base camp. Erlend Ness told The Associated Press in a message Friday that he was confirmed infected on April 15 and was flown to Kathmandu. He says another test on Thursday was negative and he's now staying with a local family in Nepal. An ace mountain guide, Austrian Lukas Furtenbach, warned that the virus could spread among the hundreds of other climbers, guides and helpers who are now camped on the base of Everest if all of them are not checked immediately. He says any outbreak could prematurely end the climbing season, just ahead of a window of good weather in May. Mountaineering in Nepal only just resumed after a year.  Read more

Demand for the coronavirus vaccine has fallen off in some places around the United States to the point where some counties are turning down new shipments of doses. More than half of all U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine dose. But administering the shots remains a challenge. In Iowa, nearly half of its counties have declined new shipments of doses. About three-quarters of Kansas counties have turned down new shipments of the coronavirus vaccine at least once over the past month. And the state of Louisiana turned down new shipments this past week. Said one pharmacist: “I would like to have some on hand, but I don’t want them to go out of date because they’re just sitting there.” Read more

The disappearance of an Indonesian submarine off the resort island of Bali follows dozens of other disasters in the depths of the world's vast seas. Military secrecy limits public access to details, but such accidents show technological advances are still no match for dire risks at great depths. It can take years to find a sunken sub. A search continued Friday for the KRI Nanggala 402, with less than a day’s supply of oxygen left for its 53 crew members, as concern mounted that it may be stranded in waters too deep to reach or recover. That has been true of submarine disasters in the past.  Read more

Global stock markets are mixed after Wall Street declined following a news report that President Joe Biden plans to raise taxes on wealthy investors. London and Frankfurt opened lower while Tokyo declined and Shanghai advanced. Wall Street futures were higher a day after the benchmark S&P 500 index lost 0.9% following a report by Bloomberg News that Biden's plan would raises taxes on people who earn more than $1 million in capital gains. Investors are also focused on company earnings reports, the state of the virus outbreak, the pace of vaccinations and the prospects for economic recovery from the pandemic. Read more

India is putting oxygen tankers on special express trains as major hospitals in New Delhi begged on social media for more supplies to save COVID-19 patients who are struggling to breathe. More than a dozen people died when an oxygen-fed fire ripped through a coronavirus ward in a populous western state. India’s underfunded health system is tattering as the world’s worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation, which set another global record in daily infections for a second straight day with 332,730. The situation was worsening by the day with hospitals taking to social media pleading with the government to replenish their oxygen supplies and threatening to stop fresh admissions of patients. The government has started running Oxygen Express trains with tankers.  Read more

Jacob deGrom of the Mets is 1-1 with a 0.45 ERA, 35 strikeouts and three walks in 20 innings going into a homestand opener against Washington and Erick Fedde. While deGrom has a 2.03 ERA in 79 starts since the start of the 2018 season, New York is 37-42 in those games. Meanwhile, Clayton Kershaw starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second game of the big series at Dodger Stadium against the San Diego Padres. Yu Darvish takes the mound for the Padres, who lost two of three last weekend in San Diego during the first series of the season between the NL West rivals. Read more

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated British theater, a world-renowned cultural export and major economic force. The theaters in London's West End shut even before the U.K.'s first lockdown began in March 2020, and they have remained closed for most of the past 13 months. They are now preparing to welcome audiences back. Some theaters are reopening once the government allows indoor venues to admit limited audiences on May 17.  But with social distancing restrictions, almost no foreign tourists and uncertainty about whether the virus will surge again, the West End and the thousands of people who work in the storied theater district face deep uncertainty. Read more

The San Diego Padres opened the second series of the season between Southern California’s big baseball rivals with a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Jurickson Profar singled and scored the tiebreaking run in the eighth inning, and Trent Grisham homered and had two hits. Los Angeles took two of three in San Diego last weekend, but the Padres answered with timely hits, strong pitching and a fantastic inning-ending double play in the eighth, capping yet another well-played matchup between two stacked rosters. AJ Pollock and Sheldon Neuse hit back-to-back homers leading off the seventh for the major league-leading Dodgers. Read more

Shock G, who blended whimsical wordplay with ’70s funk as leader of the off-kilter Bay Area hip-hop group Digital Underground, has died. He was 57. The group's former head of security says the rapper-producer was found unresponsive in a hotel room in Tampa, Florida. Malonga said Shock G had struggled with drug addiction for years. The group found fame with the Billboard Top 10 hit “The Humpty Dance” in 1990, with Shock G performing as one of his many alter egos, Humpty Hump. He introduced the group's former roadie 2Pac to the world a year later on the song “Same Song.” Read more

The Rip It Baseballtown Charities Training Facility in Bern Township has served as a refuge for young athletes trying to improve their game. Read more

Luka Doncic scored 30 points, leading the Dallas Mavericks to a 115-110 victory over the Lakers in the return of Los Angeles star Anthony Davis from a 30-game injury absence. Davis was rusty in his first game since Feb. 14 because of right calf and heel issues, scoring four points on 2-of-10 shooting while limited to 17 minutes in the first half only. The Mavericks lost their big man in the third quarter of the first of two consecutive games against the Lakers when Kristaps Porzingis sprained his left ankle and was ruled out for the rest of the game. Read more