Northeast
Liberty bellwethers: Five Pennsylvania counties to watch on election night
Pennsylvania is once again likely the closest-watched state on election night, as the commonwealth’s 19 electoral votes are poised to swing the election one way or another.
Five counties — Bucks, Northampton, Erie, Centre and Luzerne — out of 67 are likely the ones that will tell the tale of whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris will win the 2024 presidential election.
BUCKS COUNTY – COUNTY SEAT: DOYLESTOWN
Bucks County made national headlines last week after the RNC and the Trump campaign took legal action against county officials after lines for “on-demand” voting were truncated prior to the stated closing time.
A judge ultimately allowed Bucks voters involved in the process until Friday to cast their early ballots. Bucks is also known as one major county where voters typically split their votes.
A Pennsylvania welcome sign greets drivers on US-222 entering Peach Bottom, Pa., from Maryland, 2022. (Charlie Creitz)
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and his late brother, Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, both Republicans, enjoyed consistent-but-close wins in the county, while national and gubernatorial results are often a mixed bag. Brian was re-elected in 2020 just as Biden won the county.
The county also flipped to a GOP voter registration advantage this cycle, with the Philadelphia Inquirer reporting the Republicans enjoy just under a 1,000-registrant majority.
While Trump lost all of Philadelphia’s once-Republican collar counties — Delaware, Chester, Montgomery and Bucks — in 2016, only the latter appears in play this cycle.
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY – COUNTY SEAT: EASTON
Bordering Bucks, Lehigh and Northampton counties geopolitically unite to form the key, postindustrial Lehigh Valley region. The congressional seat currently held by Rep. Susan Wild, a Democrat, is always a tight contest.
While Lehigh typically remains in Democrat hands due to Pennsylvania’s third-largest city — Allentown — as its anchor, neighboring Northampton County surprised everyone when Trump took it in 2016.
CRISSCROSSING PA TO REGISTER VOTERS, SCOTT PRESLER SEEKS TO FLIP KEY COUNTIES RED
The Moravian Star shines on South Mountain above the Ofc. Philip J. Fahy Memorial Bridge in Bethlehem, Pa. (Charles Creitz)
Northampton’s Republican Party leader, Andrew Azan III, said in a recent interview he is very optimistic again this year, and said there was recently a “waitlist” for Trump yard signs.
ERIE COUNTY – COUNTY SEAT: ERIE
Far to the west, Erie sticks up into the great lakes like a thumb, and its electorate could put their collective thumb on the scale for either candidate.
Erie GOP chair Tom Eddy recently said that Erie is “unique… in the fact it’s able to pick the winners.” Trump won Erie County and the election in 2016, and Biden won in 2020.
Eddy called the county “Little Pennsylvania” — as it has a bit of every piece of the state within its bounds: an urban area, agricultural lands and industry.
LUZERNE COUNTY – COUNTY SEAT: WILKES-BARRE
Meanwhile, in Luzerne County, anchored by Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton, Republicans recently shocked observers in September by becoming a majority there.
The union-heavy county neighboring Biden’s Lackawanna went for Trump in 2016 and 2020 despite its then-Democratic bent.
“We’d all like to thank the Democrats and the Democratic platform because they’re the ones that really inspired people to leave the party and become Republicans,” Luzerne County GOP 119th District Chairman T.J. Fitzgerald said.
Early Vote Action leader Scott Presler, who has crisscrossed Pennsylvania to register Republican voters, previously said it was a major feat ahead of an expectedly close election.
PENNSYLVANIA LEADERS TALK ‘EXCITING’ GROUND GAME ON BOTH SIDES, AS GOP SEEKS TO UNDO DEM GAINS
A Harris-Walz supporter arrives in Wilkes-Barre in a campaign-logo-emblazoned police-style vehicle. (Charlie Creitz)
When Fox News Digital covered a weekend of Presler’s work in red counties like Lancaster and Dauphin, he also identified Bucks, Luzerne and Centre as those most ripe for Republicans’ picking.
CENTRE COUNTY – COUNTY SEAT: BELLEFONTE
Centre County is the rare blue dot in the middle of northwestern Pennsylvania’s forested expanse. Much of the county reflects the Republicanism of neighboring Clinton, Huntingdon and Blair — but the presence of Penn State University in State College skews it Democratic.
Of the approximately 110,000 voters there, 41.2% are Democrats and 40.3% are Republicans. Prior to the Nittany Lions’ blowout of Kent State in September, however, Presler and volunteers registered tailgaters to vote and encountered students who were fervently pro-Trump.
State Sen. Cris Dush, a Republican who represents Centre and six other neighboring counties, said the prospect of flipping the blue enclave is “actually getting very exciting.”
Dush said one of them — rural Clinton County — was solidly Democratic until the Trump era and recently went “over 3-1 Republican.”
PSU (Gregory Fisher via Getty Images)
Centre may have a shot at the red column this year in part because Gen Z is suddenly battling a rough economy for young hires.
While Pennsylvania industry faces hurdles in regulation and more, Dush commented, the most regrettable outsourcing has been among those young voters.
“The fact that they’re putting such restrictions on the development of businesses in the northern tier and western Pennsylvania: There’s not a state in the United States that doesn’t have a Steelers bar in it, and that’s because working-class kids have become our best export. I want them back,” he said.
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Northeast
Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting
ICE-involved shooting prompts mass protests
Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons join ‘America’s Newsroom’ to discuss the mass backlash surrounding the fatal shooting of a woman by an ICE agent.
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Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday demanded that two private airline companies stop providing flights for ICE to quickly remove illegal immigrants who have been detained, citing the recent ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis.
In a letter to top executives of GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express, Healey criticized the companies for “sever[ing illegal immigrants] from their family, friends, community, and legal counsel without due process of law.”
“They are hard-working, productive, and beloved members of our community who have been indiscriminately targeted for deportation proceedings,” Healey wrote. “Some have been United States citizens. Some have been children. And as we have seen in our communities and, most recently, in Minnesota, ICE’s tactics are increasingly chaotic, brutal, and even deadly. This doesn’t make our communities safer — it, in fact, makes us all less safe.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is urging private airlines to cut ties with ICE. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
DEM SENATE CANDIDATE MOCKED AFTER CLAIM ABOUT DISMANTLING ICE GOES VIRAL: ‘UNMASK THESE THUGS’
Twin Cities resident Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot and killed Wednesday by an ICE agent after she allegedly accelerated her car toward him during an immigration operation.
Healey also alleged the Trump administration’s use of private jets for ICE activity is costing taxpayers, while private airlines profit.
“On behalf of American taxpayers, I also find it incomprehensible that the Trump administration is choosing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private jets to obstruct people’s due process at a time when they are denying hunger benefits, cutting health care access, and raising costs on everyone through costly tariffs,” she wrote.
“This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts or as Americans. I hope your company agrees.”
ICE is conducting flights to remove illegal immigrants from the U.S. and back to their home countries. (ICE Seattle)
WALZ PREPARES NATIONAL GUARD AFTER WOMAN KILLED IN ICE OPERATION: ‘NEVER BEEN AT WAR’ WITH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The letter comes after Healey demanded that ICE halt ICE flights out of Hanscom Field airport, which is located roughly 20 miles outside Boston in Bedford, Massachusetts.
Avelo Airlines, a company that was previously chartering flights for ICE in Massachusetts, recently announced it had cut ties with the administration.
Migrants released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center wear ankle monitors while waiting to board flights in Shreveport, La. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“One of your peer companies recently cut ties with ICE. It’s time for you to do the same,” Healey wrote in the letter.
Healey’s office, GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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Boston, MA
When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe
Have you noticed a lack of major snowstorms over the past several winters here in New England? Perhaps you’re wondering if this is a new permanent pattern. Snowfall across New England is highly variable, particularly here in the Boston area and the rest of Southern New England, where we lie on the southern edge of consistent snowfall.
First, let’s look at how radically different winter snowfall can be. On Feb. 25, 2022, Boston received 8½ inches of snow. That was the last time the city saw a 6-inch snowfall, which is meteorologically considered a “major snowfall” in New England (accumulation of at least 6 inches of snow). Roughly 1,414 days later and counting, we are now in the midst of our second-longest streak devoid of 6-inch snowfalls, since data was first recorded in 1872. You have to go back to 1988-92 to find a similar “major snow” drought. That streak lasted 1,772 days.
As a side note, the Boston area would have to make it through this entire winter without a major snowstorm to move into the No. 1 spot. Will we do it?
These gaps in significant snowstorms might be considered mini snow droughts, but when they end, the winter weather pattern tends to shift in the other direction. For example, when that streak ended in 1992, it ushered in three of four blockbuster winters, including one that dumped over 107 inches of snow in the winter of 1995-96.
This very snowy mid-’90s was followed by highly variable snowfall seasons with as little as 15 inches of snow in 2001-02 and as much as nearly 87 inches of snow several years later during the 2004-05 winter season.
Snowiest decade on record (2008-18) vs. least snowfall (2015-present)
Then, starting in 2008 and lasting until 2018, we experienced the snowiest decade on record in Greater Boston with a total of 543 inches of snowfall.
If you move the starting point to winter 2015-16 and conclude through 2025, we received only 333 inches of snow, marking the lowest 10-year period of snowfall on record. This is where we currently sit, and it makes sense with the lack of major nor’easters nearing New England over the past several winters.
Even winter storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service have fallen. Check out the chart below, and you’ll notice that the past several years have seen fewer than six winter storm warnings issued.
All of this should not lull you into a false sense that we are in some new paradigm without major coastal storms or that it’s not going to be snowy again. On the contrary, nor’easters are actually getting stronger and are generating more precipitation than they used to. According to research published last summer on the intensification of the strongest nor’easters, noted climate scientist Michael Mann and five of his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania looked at how our famous coastal storms have changed over the past several decades.
“Our analysis of nor’easter characteristics reveals that the strongest nor’easters are becoming stronger, with both the maximum wind speeds of the most intense nor’easters and hourly precipitation rates increasing since 1940,” the researchers said.
The reason why I’m mentioning this while also talking about the lack of snow in our region is that both can be true. As we have seen, snowfall itself is very cyclical. That cycle is occurring amid a backdrop of a warming climate. With more and more anthropogenic CO2 — carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels — average temperatures have increased, and that rise has led to an availability of more energy for coastal storms.
‘Climate change has made crippling snow and flooding rain more likely despite the recent dearth of these types of storms locally. ’
As the oceans warm, they provide more latent heat or fuel for these nor’easters. Additionally, with warmer temperatures and still an availability of cold air to the north, there’s an increase in temperature contrast, or what meteorologists call “baroclinicity.” This is a critical feature and aids in the rapid intensification or bombogenesis of low-pressure areas east of the Atlantic Seaboard.
The Perfect Storm back in 1991, the Storm of the Century in 1993, the so-named Snowmageddons in February 2010 and winter 2015, and the January 2018 blizzard are all examples of unusually strong nor’easters.

The trend in maximum wind speed in nor’easters has increased since the middle of the last century. You can see from the Mann paper some of the actual data used to reach this conclusion.
In addition, hourly precipitation has also increased in these coastal storms. This means that crippling snow and flooding rain are becoming more likely in spite of the recent dearth of these types of storms locally.
In the same way that we haven’t had a hurricane reach the shores of New England since 1991, so too are we overdue for a major nor’easter. Both are in our future. It’s just a matter of when.
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Pittsburg, PA
Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’
Based upon Alice Walker’s novel, this epic tale with book by Marsha Norman follows Celie, a young woman who despite unbelievable hardship embarks on an intense personal journey over the course of 40 years.
Thanks to composers Brenda Russel, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, the musical enjoys a dynamic score of jazz, ragtime, gospel, blues and African music.
Tanika Baptiste directs the musical with Jon Gallo as music director and Carla BaNu Dejesus creating the choreography.
For a complete cast listing, go to pittsburgcommunitytheatre.org/color-purple.
“The Color Purple” runs Jan. 30 through Feb. 8 at the California Theatre on 351 Railroad Ave. in Pittsburg, then Feb. 13-22 at the Campbell Theater on 636 Ward St. in Martinez. To purchase tickets, go to tickets831.com (California Theatre) or campbelltheater.com (Campbell Theater).
Berkeley: An improbable love story, not to mention music that pulls you in and won’t let you, go highlights February at Berkeley Playhouse.
Whether you’ve seen the movie (which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original song) or the Tony Award-winning musical, you know how mesmerizing and just plain fun “Once” can be. As the musical captivates your heart, you are reminded how powerful music can be and how complicated relationships often are.
Set in Dublin, an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant, who is an accomplished pianist, meet and find a connection through their love of music. Over the course of one week, both sparks and chords fly.
As their friendship evolves into a complicated love story, their chemistry leads them to a new level of songwriting. The gorgeous melodies played throughout add another level to their relationship and a love that only happens once.
“I’ve always loved ‘Once’ because it digs into something I think about a lot: what music really is and how it connects us as human beings,” said Director Josh Marx. “I loved the movie ‘Once’ when I first saw it — and then the Broadway production pulled me in even deeper, especially the way it evoked a sense of community; similar to drinking a pint of Guinness in an Irish pub while patrons play music together. For Berkeley Playhouse’s production, we’re looking to put something truly special together; each actor plays their own instrument (sometimes more than one!), and we want to create an unforgettable experience that capitalizes on the amazing talent that we’re bringing into the room.”
Jake Gale (Guy) and Gillian Eichenberger (Girl) play the lovestruck couple calling upon their instrumental skills as well as acting talents. Other cast members include Michael Barrett Austin (Billy) and Dyan McBride (Baruska).
“Once” runs Feb. 20 through March 8 at the historic Julia Morgan Theater on 2640 College Ave. in Berkeley. For tickets, call 510-845-8542×351 or go to tickets.berkeleyplayhouse.org.
Orinda: Vacant for the past year without the hustle and bustle of various performing arts events, the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater in Orinda finally has a new tenant. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) announced a 15-year lease of the nine-acre property at 100 Gateway Blvd. to the nonprofit Siesta Valley Foundation (SVF)
SVF hopes to preserve the EBMUD watershed and revitalize its impressive amphitheater. According to the foundation’s website, they will program projects that “reduce fire risk, restore habitat and protect water quality” while also offering live music, theater, film and dance events. The agreement lists approximately 40-50 events, which in addition to the performing arts would include an EBMUD native plant and bird garden and Watershed Community Center for public education and environmental literacy.
“EBMUD looks forward to seeing this agreement preserve the watershed, revive a regional arts landmark and generate sustained community and financial value,” said EBMUD Board President Marguerite Young. “This unique site will once again be a vibrant East Bay destination.”
I, for one, hope Young is right. I’d love to be back in that beautiful valley enjoying a live performance.
The foundation’s operating partner Siesta Valley Bowl plans to run the facility as a mixed-use performing arts center with a tentative date of April for its first events. Ultimately, the group hopes to build an indoor facility that will allow programming year-round.
For more information, go to siestavalley.org.
Martinez: Onstage Theatre is auditioning for the outrageously fun “The Rocky Horror Show” Feb. 27 and 28 at The Campbell Theater on 636 Ward St.
Dianna Schepers directs with Shelly McDowell as choreographer and Adam Green as musical director. Rehearsals begin in late August with performances Oct. 30 through Nov. 22.
For more information, go to campbelltheater.com/auditions.
Reach Sally Hogarty at sallyhogarty@gmail.com, and read more of her reviews online at eastbaytimes.com/author/sally-hogarty.
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