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with a 59-45 victory over Seton Hill.>>> At the Division iii level, the DeSales holiday tournament wrapped up today...the host Bulldogs took on McDaniel in the championship game...- Pick things up late 2nd half...DeSales' Aaron Burton fights through traffic and gets it to go off the glass...56-55 DeSales... Burton finished with 13 pts. - DeSales' Cody Deal hits for three from the top of the key. 61-60 DeSales... Deal led the Bulldogs with 22 pts. - Next trip down for McDaniel... DeSales gets the loose ball, but Tim Stewart steals it and lays it in...62-61 McDaniel... Stewart led everyone with 29 pts and added 17 rebs. - The teams would exchange free throws in the last minute... Now :0.6 seconds left... DeSales' Kuity Slanger throws it up and Ryan Callahan gets it to go.67-67. Callahan had 6 pts. - In OT...McDaniel's Wes Brooks gets the go-ahead basket to go. Brooks had 17 pts......McDaniel, wins the DeSales holiday tournament in a thriller,
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on. The girl has non-life threatening injuries. >>>chandi LOWRY:Windy and cold temperatures tonight, right?>>
The preliminary court hearing for alleged cop killer Eric Frein is set to take place Monday morning in Pike County.
Frein is accused of shooting and killing Pennsylvania State Trooper Cpl. Byron Dickson II and seriously injuring Trooper Alex Douglass during an ambush on the Blooming Grove barracks back in September.
His original preliminary hearing was originally scheduled in early December, but was postponed following controversy over Frein's legal counsel.
On Dec. 5, a Pike County judge granted the defense's motion to postpone the preliminary until this month after one of the attorneys representing Frein, Robert Bernathy, withdrew from the case because of a potential conflict of interest.
Pike County District Attorney Raymond Tonkin opposed the judge's decision to carry the hearing over to January. Tonkin said that hearing should have gone on as originally scheduled since Frein still retains one of his original defense attorneys.
Frein was captured following a massive manhunt that lasted 48 days.
Pennsylvania State Police spent more than $11 million on the manhunt.
Be sure to stay with 69 News and WFMZ.com on Monday for all the latest coverage of Frein's preliminary hearing.
Bethlehem police have established a crime scene while they investigate a suspicious death in the 400 block of Filmore Street.
At this point, details are limited.
Police Chief Mark DiLuzio confirmed one person is dead, and that authorities consider the death "suspicious." At this point, he would not elaborate on how the person was killed.
Several police officers are at the scene right now.
There's no official word on if a suspect is in custody. Emergency radio reports indicate one person is in custody.
Stay with 69 News and WFMZ.com for updates as they become available.
It's time now to take a look back at the stories making headlines this week in the 69 News Week In Review.
Monday, the federal government accused Dorney Park of failing to protect its seasonal employees from hazards.
OSHA said the park's parent company, Cedar Fair, failed to develop and implement procedures for protecting employees while they worked out in the sun and in small food stands with heat sources.
Cedar Fair faces a proposed fine of $7,000, which OSHA said is the maximum penalty for a serious violation.
Tuesday, authorities in Monroe County said a 57-year-old woman gave a lethal dose of oxycodone to a four-year-old girl under her care.
Mary Winbush of Stroudsburg is facing involuntary manslaughter and several other charges.
Winbush said the child was sick and she had given her medicine, but Winsbush claims she did not give the child oxycodone.
Wednesday, a mother in Lehighton, Carbon County was charged in the death of her infant child.
Police said 20 year-old Tory Lyn Schlier was high on drugs when she fell asleep with her 6 week-old baby alongside her back on October 17th. The baby died of asphyxiation.
The coroner ruled the death of a homicide.
Thursday, terror on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
According to court records, Kabril Keyes forced his ex-girlfriend and her two young children into a car near Wilkes-Barre.
Police said Keyes got on the turnpike and reached speeds of more than 120 miles per hour while trying to elude police.
Keyes eventually crashed in Carbon County.
Amazingly, no one was hurt.
Friday, a Monroe County husband and wife admitted to murdering a sick family member who authorities said they were supposed to be caring for.
John and Tina Tedesco pleaded guilty to third degree murder in the 2011 death of John Tedesco's elderly aunt.. Barbara Rabins.
Authorities said Rabins died from dehydration while living at the couple's Ross Township home.
Police said the couple didn't place Rabins in an assisted living facility because they would no longer get money from her trust fund if they did.
Jury selection is about to start in the trial of a northeastern Pennsylvania man charged with killing two people whose bodies were found buried on his property more than a decade ago.
Also Monday, the judge presiding over Hugo Selenski's trial in Luzerne County Court in Wilkes-Barre is expected to rule on pre-trial motions.
The 41-year-old Selenski is charged with killing a pharmacist and his girlfriend in 2002. Their bodies were among the remains of several people found buried in the yard of Selenski's former home in Dallas, Pa. In 2006, he was acquitted of murdering two of the other people.
Selenski, who's currently serving time for a home invasion and robbery, escaped from the county jail using a rope of sheets in 2003 and spent several days at large.
Selenski was also found guilty in a 2003 home invasion in Monroe County.
An alleged armed robber who used bogus Internet ads to lure his victims is now in custody, Allentown police said.
Noel Bautista, 19, is facing a slew of charges for allegedly posting phony Internet ads to meet people he set up for armed robberies at gunpoint.
Police said they were able to track down Bautista after he used an Internet ad to target a 29-year-old man at the Rodeway Inn on Downyflake Lane early Saturday morning.
As the victim pulled into the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn, police said Bautista pulled a handgun on him and ordered him to drive to the nearby WaWa on Lehigh Street, where the victim was forced to get cash from the ATM.
Police said Bautista fled, but they were able to identify him thanks to surveillance video from WaWa.
Through further investigation, police said they were able to tie Bautista to a similar crime that happened at the 7-11 store on Susquehanna Street back on Dec. 28. In that incident, police said Bautista used a Craig's List ad to lure the victim, who was robbed of cash, a wallet and cell phone.
Bautista, who police said has no current address, is facing numerous charges, including theft, simple assault, robbery, being a person not allowed to possess a firearm, and possessing a firearm not to be carried without a license.
These days, with electronic devices that can be carried around by hand, loaded with more information than most computers had 20 years ago, with pod-casts that are all the rage, it is hard to imagine the impact that television had when it arrived in the Lehigh Valley in the 1940s. But there once was a time when people thought it would never happen here.
Although television had been invented as early as the 1920s, the Great Depression of the 1930s made investors unwilling to put money into this new “device,” and the market for consumer electronics was not growing. But by the 1940s, at least in large cities, TV stations had begun to offer programs, primarily sports events.
So it makes sense that the first television broadcast in the Lehigh Valley that is known was a basketball game. The date was Dec. 21, 1946, and the Muhlenberg College basketball team was playing the University of Pennsylvania at the Penn Palestra. It was to be broadcast by WPTZ in Philadelphia.
One of the few televisions that existed in the Lehigh Valley at that time was owned by B. Bryan Mussellman, a managing director of radio station WSAN.
The day before, Mussellman’s son had extended the antenna by 60 feet to be sure of reception. Here is how it was reported in the Morning Call the next day by John Y. Kohl, Sunday editor:
“The B. Bryan Mussellmans settled themselves comfortably in the living room of their home at Allentown, R 1. Someone flicked off the lights and there they were in the Penn Palestra watching the first class basketball game between Muhlenberg and Penn. It sounds like magic. Actually it was the first television broadcast received in the area.”
Muhlenberg went on to beat Penn in an exciting game that ended 57-50. And although the players could only be seen during the foul tries and times out, broadcasters described the action in between “the commentary and crowd sounds were crystal clear.”
To judge from comments in the press of the time, many people in the 1940s thought the whole idea of television in the Lehigh Valley was a pipe dream. Sure, radio worked fine, but would TV reception work at all in the region? Wouldn’t South Mountain block out any kind of broadcast from Philadelphia?
Skeptics apparently had a point, but it was a debatable one. The day after the broadcast, the local press noted that while it had its drawbacks, it was inaccurate to write off television just yet.
“While the visual reception was not as clear as it could be if the set was in the Philadelphia area,” one newspaper noted, “the reception was a triumph for the local area inasmuch as it was believed impossible.”
Despite this relative success, few in the Lehigh Valley were ready to jump on the television bandwagon. Perhaps the biggest breakthrough came on February 21, 1947. On that day, according to Allentown’s Evening Chronicle, a local bar owner, Bill “Jazz” Max, installed the first television in his tap-room at 2nd and Tilghman Sts in Allentown.
Now able to see the new broadcast medium, without having to go out and actually buy one, the conservative Lehigh Valley population got to view a television in operation. Soon other bar owners were following Max’s example.
Prize fights were among the more popular bar-room draws on the little black and white screens. Baseball games were another. According to local historian, the late Mahlon Hellerich, between 16,000 and 20,000 Allentown residents saw the World Series games between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees on television in 1947.
The broadcast of national political party conventions in the hotly contested 1948 campaign was another, although one local woman was later to complain that all she could see most of the time were the delegates’ legs.
At the same time department store owner Max Hess was also seeing the opportunities of television. Hess brought in Philadelphia TV dealers and network representatives to prove to them that reception was possible, if not perfect, in the Lehigh Valley.
Electronic appliance dealers were soon putting televisions in their windows as they were broadcasting. “You would walk up and down Hamilton Street which in those days was a very busy street,” recalled Sylvia Lawler, who covered television for the local press for many years, “and you would see little knots of people at the windows.”
But the cost of a 16 inch screen television, $395 for a Motorola, almost $500 for a similar-size RCA Victor, was expensive by the standards of the time. In 1950 a new Philco with an internal aerial was selling for $229.95 plus tax, which was a little better. By 1949, at a time when there were 6 million TV sets nationwide, it was estimated by the Evening Chronicle that there were between 5,000 and 6,000 sets in the Lehigh Valley.
Reception remained a problem. Towers were erected at the cost of $1,000 a piece to receive channels 3, 6 and 10 out of Philadelphia. TV antennas sprouted from roof tops. “It was awful,” recalled Lawler, remembering the visual clutter. “There was this jungle tangle of high television antennas that looked horrid.”
Although largely useless today, those home antennas remain in many places. Few in Allentown at the time were aware of the pioneering work in cable television being undertaken at that point in the coal regions by John Walson. It would be the early 1960s before it finally arrived in Allentown.
Today the Lehigh Valley has many television options including two local stations, WFMZ-69 and WLVT 39. Wouldn’t those people who gathered around a grainy black and white screen to watch a snowy vision of a basketball game in the Mussellman’s living room in 1946, be amazed.
A pedestrian suffered life-threatening injuries after being hit by a car on Route 422 in Heidelberg Township, Berks County, state police said.
It happened around 11:30 pm. Saturday on Route 422 West, near Tulpehocken Forge Road.
Police said a woman was walking across the lanes of travel when she was hit by car.
The woman was rushed to Reading Hospital for life-threatening injuries, according to police.
The incident is under investigation.
Police have not indicated if any charges may be filed.
