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We are four games into the Patriot League season, and the men's teams are all bunched up within two games of each other. So sitting at 2-2, the Lafayette men are right in the thick of things, but then so is everybody else. We should start to see some separation in the next week or so. Lafayette's men are home tomorrow night, and hosting Loyola. The Leopards have looked really good in some games this year, and they've really struggled in others. Tomorrow night they are hoping to get back on track at home in front of their home crowd, knowing these are the games they need most if they want to host some playoff games. >>>>>> The Lehigh men have to go back on the road tomorrow night. They are 1-3 in league play, and very much in need of some wins. Tomorrow they travel to American and that's never been an easy place to win. American provides some interesting challenges, they want to play a very slow style and Lehigh wants to push tempo, so patience could be a factor.
Facebook is joining the fight to help find missing children.
The social media network will now deliver Amber Alerts to users' news feeds.
Facebook said the alerts are aimed at users in targeted alerts will include photos and details of the missing children.
Authorities say this is a way to spread information to the more than 180-million Americans who use Facebook.
Former Philadelphia sportscaster Don Tollefson traded the broadcasting booth for the stand.
"The best analogy I can make is it's like another day in law school," Tollefson said.
Then this would be his 7th day in class. The former Philadelphia sportscaster is representing himself in his fraud trial.
"I did not want to represent myself but I don't think anyone in my position would've seen other choices," he said.
The prosecution says bad choices led Tollefson to court. He's accused of bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from people, who thought they were buying sporting event trips set up by Tollefson's Winning Ways charity.
In court Tollefson often rambled, couldn't stay focused and appeared frustrated however the prosecution admits it may work in his favor.
There is an opportunity for him to garner sympathy from the jury," Prosecutor Matt Weintraub said
Tollefson says he's a bad businessman, with a charitable heart, who was battling drug and alcohol addiction.
On the stand he showed the jury sports memorabilia he's tried to sell and said full restitution has always been his goal.
"It was difficult because I've known Don for 40 years." Bill Werndl said.
Former colleague and friend Bill Werndl was one of several character witnesses called to the stand.
"A lot of good people have gone down the wrong path, everyone deserves a second chance, everyone," he went on to say.
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The number of people claiming they were sold bogus deals stands at 200. However Marquis Wallace said he and 6 other underprivileged youth got everything they were promised when Tollefson and Winning Ways took them to the 2011 Super Bowl.
Got to see Green Bay win, and that was sponsored by someone who donated, " Wallace said.
The trial is expected to last until next Tuesday.
Parents in the Poconos are literally calling on community members to rally behind their school district's superintendent.
A team of those hoping to see Dr. John Toleno keep his title within the Stroudsburg Area School District, organized a phone bank.
Over the course of three days, parents will cold-call hundreds of people within the community.
Their goal is to convince them to show their support for the longtime administrator at the next school board meeting.
"The parents of Stroudsburg strongly sit with Dr. Toleno and his vision for our district," said Erin McCabe, a parent.
Last week, the school board voted 5 to 4 not to automatically renew Toleno's contract.
"The majority of the board is motivated by attempting to see what the current superintendent market will yield before they commit to a three-to-five year term with Dr. Toleno, or frankly, another candidate," said Jeffrey Sultanik district solicitor.
Sultanik would not elaborate as to why some board members chose to consider looking at other candidates.
"The school board does not discuss personnel issues publicly, or its rationale with Dr. Toleno," Sultanik said.
The board has asked its business manager to seek out proposals from employment firms to review candidates for the job.
In order to hire an outside agency to do that, the school board would have to vote on it at a public meeting.
"The board has encouraged him {Dr. Toleno} to submit an application to apply," Sultanik said.
But some parents strongly disagree with that proposed idea.
"To ask taxpayers to spend that money for Dr. Toleno to re- apply for a job he's obviously qualified for, is a slap in the face to Dr. Toleno and to the district itself," McCabe said. "We are in the middle of closing two buildings, a massive redistricting, to hire a new superintendent at this time is foolish."
Last May, the school board voted to close Ramsey Elementary School and Clearview Elementary School.
The board needs to choose a permanent hire or a fill-in by June 30th when Toleno's current contract expires.
Dr. Toleno has not yet announced whether or not he'll submit an application.
Prior Contract Debate
In June 2014, the same school board voted unanimously to keep Toleno as Superintendent through June 2015.
For weeks leading up to that vote, there was talk of the board letting Toleno go prior to that expiration date. Toleno threatened to sue if it happened.
The debate was prompted by a prior district solicitor who found Toleno's 2007 contract and an extension offered in 2011, illegal.
Hundreds of parents had showed their support for Dr. Toleno through that debate too.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered his fifth State of the State address in Trenton Tuesday afternoon.
While there were many comparisons to the state of New Jersey and national affairs, not surprisingly, there was not a direct mention of a possible 2016 bid for the White House.
Instead Governor Christie focused on employment, education, drug rehabilitation efforts and pensions.
"We have cut unemployment by over one third in the last five years," Christie said. "That is good for the New Jersey families who are now working."
Governor Christie also said that while progress has been made through tenure reform in schools, even more reform is needed.
"A great first step would be to…pass the Opportunity Scholarship Act to give parents a choice of schools to meet their children's needs," Christie continued.
Governor Christie also repeatedly focused on drug addiction as a disease, as well as the responsibility of public servants to protect life for every citizen.
"For as long as I am Governor of New Jersey, treatment will be mandatory in our system," Christie said. "And that system will not yield to the scourge of drugs in our society."
Governor Christie acknowledged that pensions and health benefit costs are still pressing issues that the state faces. While he said progress has been made in these areas, the state is still suffering from decisions of past politicians.
"These sins of the past have made the system unaffordable," Governor Christie said. "But we do not have the luxury to ignore this problem."
Some New Jersey Democratic leaders say the address failed to lay out a vision for the state.
A Berks County musician who claims he taught Taylor Swift to play guitar and write songs is now making national headlines.
After years of silence, Ronnie Cremer, of Spring Township, spilled his alleged Swift family secrets to the New York Daily News last week. His story made the front page on Sunday.
"It was surreal. It was surreal," said Cremer, who works predominantly as a computer technician in Kenhorst.
But years before that, according to Cremer, it was he who first taught the now-superstar to play chords, back when the family lived in Wyomissing.
In the New York Daily News piece, Cremer detailed his role, claiming that he's received very little recognition for it.
"It would have been nice if they could have just said, 'Ronnie Cremer taught her this, taught her how to write songs,'" he told 69 News. "That's not writing a check. That's just being honest."
Cremer further alleges that Swift has embellished facts pertaining to how she first learned to play the guitar.
In interviews, she has detailed the "magical twist of fate" that launched her guitar-playing; while doing homework in her room one day, the man who was hired to fix her computer noticed a guitar and asked if he could teach her how to play. That's what's outlined in a clip from her "Journey to Fearless" DVD, but it isn't the way Cremer describes things.
"I did come over to her house and fix her computer after I was giving her lessons, sometimes the same day I was giving her lessons," he said.
Swift has not responded to his claims.
Cremer has received tokens of appreciation from the Swifts, including a platinum DVD that was sent to him in 2007.
He said he isn't bitter, but is rather happy for the mega superstar's success. Had it not been for the newspaper allegedly tracking him down, he would not have shared his side, he said.
"It's kind of cool because she still employs a lot of the things that I taught her. I don't know the first thing about being a pop star, but I do know about structuring songs and music theory, and she has used that stuff pretty well," he said. "So for that, I'm proud of her."
Since the story came out Sunday, Kremer said he's received calls from people requesting music lessons.
In terms of response to his claims, he's faced mixed reviews.
"There's been some negativity nationally," he said. "Locally, I've gotten great response because a lot of people did know the story."
A man will spend three to six years behind bars following a deadly crash in Chester County.
Kenneth Haldeman pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence.
The crash happened on Route 322 in Honey Brook Township in May.
Authorities said Haldeman's truck collided with a car being driven by Diana Weaver of West Chester. She died at the scene.
Gov.-elect Tom Wolf is again turning to appointees of Pennsylvania's last Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, for his administration.
Wolf said Tuesday he'll nominate former state Treasurer Robin Wiessmann to be banking secretary and former Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding to the job for a second time. Both require Senate confirmation.
Wolf, who takes office next week, also picked longtime Senate aide Randy Albright to be budget secretary.
In 2007, Rendell nominated Wiessmann to be treasurer for two years to serve the remainder of Bob Casey's term after his election to the U.S. Senate. Redding served just over a year as agriculture secretary at the end of Rendell's second term.
Redding, 55, is a dean at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Bucks County; Wiessman, 61, is on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.
 | Cardale Jones, Ezekiel Elliott and the Buckeyes won the first College Football Playoff by a score of 42-20. | From: ABC News Views: 0 0 ratings |
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Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a stroke.
"My left arm and part of my face were numb and tingling, and when I went to stand up to dress myself, I fell right to the floor," Brad Fahrenkamp recalled of his stroke.
"It never occurred to me that it could possibly be a stroke. It didn't even cross my mind," said Jessie Porter, another stroke patient.
But getting treatment quickly can make all the difference.
Dr. Peter Rasmussen, a neurosurgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, said the life-saving drug tPA must be delivered within four-and-a-half hours or less of a stroke, and the sooner the better.
"Unfortunately in the United States, only between three- and eight-percent of Americans get tPA if they're having a stroke," Rasmussen said.
Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic are trying to change that with a new mobile stroke unit. It travels to the emergency scene when a stroke is suspected.
"I can't really think of a faster way that you could deliver stroke care to a patient," Rasmussen said.
The unit is equipped with a CT scanner. The mobile team can scan a patient's brain and perform lab tests right away. The results are sent to a neurologist at the hospital, who can make a diagnosis via a broadband telemedicine link. The on-board staff can then deliver treatment before the patient even gets to the emergency room.
"We're able to initiate therapy at the scene immediately," Rasmussen explained.
Preliminary studies show the mobile unit is working. Less than 10-percent of patients nationwide receive tPA. With the mobile unit, more than 30-percent are getting the drug.
"I'm convinced this is a better way to deliver stroke care to the people of this country," Rasmussen said.
It's stroke care on the go that could save lives.
The Cleveland Clinic implemented the mobile stroke unit after visiting a hospital in Berlin that used a similar technique. That hospital was able to cut down on the time it took to deliver tPA by more than 30 minutes.
The unit costs a little less than $1 million, and it will likely cost about $1 million a year to staff it, but doctors say it may actually be a money-saver if it can help prevent more stroke patients from needing rehabilitation or life-long nursing care.
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Considered "a true personification of the American Dream," Severin Fayerman, a survivor of the Holocaust and founder of Baldwin Hardware, has died. He was 92.
Fayerman was born in Poland in 1922 and later survived the horrors of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other Nazi concentration camps after his family's factory was seized by the Germans.
Reunited with his family when the war ended, Fayerman emigrated to the United States in search of a new life.
With his father, he founded Baldwin Hardware in 1946 and relocated to Reading, where he led the company until 1982 and then served as its chairman emeritus until his formal retirement in 2009.
"To think I was a poor immigrant not that many, well maybe, that many years ago, never could I have imagined that," Fayerman told 69 News in 2003 on his successful pursuit of the American Dream. "This is America. This can only happen in America."
Fayerman was always willing to share his story of survival and success at the annual World War II Weekend in Berks County and at schools and community group gatherings around the region.
"I think when you read something or see it on television on in the movies, you think it could be made up. It could be something unreal, but when you see it, someone in the flesh and blood, then it really tells you, yes, it was so," Fayerman told 69 News of his desire to share his story with others.
Fayerman also detailed his experiences in a book, "A Survivor's Story," in 2011.
A Berks County lawmaker is seeking a solution to Pennsylvania's growing pension problem.
Pa. Sen. Judy Schwank, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that she will introduce a bill that would direct a new commission to examine the issue and propose a bipartisan solution.
"We have known for years that Pennsylvania's pension systems have been suffering because of the decisions of the past," Schwank said. "But those decisions, like the proposals that have since been offered and rejected, were made without the full benefit of their implications."
If Schwank's bill is approved, the Public Pensions Review Commission would be comprised of representatives from each branch of state government plus state system universities, state-related universities, the separate state organizations of county governments, municipal governments and school districts, major public employee unions, and the general public.
The commission would be authorized to conduct hearings and required to submit its solution no later than six months after the bill is signed into law.
"We have wasted too much time rehashing the same proposals and political posturing while the pension issue festers. We need to get the right people to the table and find the right solutions to the pension problem," Schwank said. "We need solutions that are equitable to state and public school employees as well as Pennsylvania taxpayers."
Pennsylvania's pension plans – the State Employees' Retirement System, or SERS, and the Public School Employees' Retirement System, or PSERS – have a combined shortfall of $48 billion, Schwank said.
Two Penn State trustees said Monday they have learned the university has proposed new settlement terms with the NCAA in a lawsuit related to the handling of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal and want their board chairman to tell them the details.
Trustees Anthony Lubrano and Al Lord, who were elected by alumni, released an email they sent to board chairman Keith Masser saying any such discussions should be shared with them and all other trustees.
"We do not know its terms but are naturally skeptical of a proposal designed by only those trustees complicit in the travesties of 2011, 2012 and 2013," Lubrano and Lord wrote. "As chair and vice chair during these periods, you should be particularly mindful of the real and perceived conflict potential your leadership decisions have."
Masser replied that they were making incorrect "suppositions" and that public airing of any possible litigation settlement could damage Penn State. He said that the board has a subcommittee that handles such legal matters.
"With respect specifically to the Corman v. NCAA litigation, you have previously been informed that any proposed settlement would be brought to the board for its approval," Masser said in a statement released to reporters.
The NCAA, college sports' governing body, declined to comment.
The NCAA and Penn State are co-defendants in a state court case brought by two high-ranking elected officials regarding a 2012 consent decree that imposed unprecedented penalties on the university after the Sandusky sex abuse scandal.
Sandusky, a longtime assistant to former football coach Joe Paterno, was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys, some on campus, and is serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence but maintains his innocence.
The NCAA and Penn State signed the consent decree shortly after Sandusky's 2012 conviction. The decree imposed a four-year bowl ban on the university, reduced football scholarships, required the university to pay $60 million to fund anti-child-abuse measures and invalidated more than 100 of Paterno's wins.
A report commissioned by Penn State concluded Paterno and other high-ranking university administrators concealed key facts about Sandusky to avoid bad publicity, a finding disputed by many Penn State alumni and fans.
The lawsuit, by Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and state Treasurer Rob McCord, began as an attempt to enforce a law requiring the consent decree's $60 million fine be spent entirely within Pennsylvania, but it's now focused on the legality of the consent decree. Trial is scheduled for next month.
The NCAA has said it's willing to keep the fine money within Pennsylvania and has reinstated the football scholarships. In September, it announced Penn State could resume post-season play, and the university won the Pinstripe Bowl last month.
Any potential settlement could address where the $60 million fine will be spent and whether to restore 112 wins from the final years of Paterno's career.
A spokesman for McCord declined to comment on settlement discussions but said he would welcome a deal that brings a fair resolution for all involved. Corman said he has not agreed to any settlement or proposed resolution and was preparing for trial.
Lubrano also released an email he sent a week ago to Masser and other trustees. He said in the email that the board was unlikely to approve any deal that doesn't void the consent decree or that "suggests the NCAA had the authority to act." He said he was concerned the board may be asked to vote on the matter when the trustees meet Friday in State College.
upcoming Snow Ball. >>> jaciel cordoba: When we go to the doctor's office for a test, we often assume "no news is good news" if we don't hear back..but is that always true?>> eve tannery: In LIfe Lessons, WFMZ's Nancy Werteen has the story of one woman who says it might not be. >>Nancy: This woman says she had a routine test and never heard back about the results. That slip up almost cost her her life. >> nat sound (laughter) (:01) susan daniels enjoys simple moments with her family.its time she wasnt sure she would have. >>Susan Daniels Things in life happen for a reason.I dont know what they are, but i can tell you that Ive learned a lot through all this. (:06) >>nancy: her story began five years ago, when she went to her doctor of 20 years for a pap smear. >>Susan Daniels The one who birthed all three of my children. (:03) >>nancy: when the office didnt call with results, susan thought she was fine.but two years later her doctor discovered a cervical tumor so big it was inoperable.she was referred to doctor christine lee. >>Christine Lee, md Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Houston, Texas This all stemmed from an abnormal pap smear that wasnt caught. (:03) >>nancy:" susan underwent chemo and radiation, but the cancer came back. doctor lee gave her two choices.death within a year or have a major surgery to remove all her female parts, her vagina, rectum and bladder. >> Susan Daniels i was horrified.I
