Many communities across the region issued this summer's first hot weather heat warnings Monday.

Recently I was able to tag along with the trainers at the Philadelphia Zoo during the animals' favorite part of the day: feeding time. I was able to get a first-hand look at how many of the animals behaved during this important time of the day.

This is commentary from political blogger and cartoonist Rob Tornoe.
Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, dangerously "armed with concrete," was found guilty of his own murder over the weekend, and gun-toting George Zimmerman, the man who pulled the trigger that ended Trayvon's life, was nothing more than an innocent victim of reverse racism.

Rutgers University's president sits on advisory boards of two companies that do business with New Jersey's flagship school.

George Zimmerman is free as a bird, predictably so. His acquittal verdict jibes with the laws of Florida, a notorious NRA state that stacks the deck for citizen shooters.

Mr. President, in Nov. 2008, I took my son into the voting booth as I cast my ballot for you. Like millions of black voters across the nation, I recognized that day, that year, that season of hope and change as a key moment in our great nation's history.

Hundreds rallied in downtown Philadelphia over the weekend, following a Florida jury's acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Vigils and protests started in Philadelphia and elsewhere within hours of Saturday night's verdict.

The latest Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll finds that New Jersey consumer confidence is improving.

The news report above by a Johnstown, Pa. TV station was linked to last week by the website Real Clear Politics with the headline "Obamacare Forcing Companies to Reduce Hours and Not Hire Full Time."

Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court is set to hear a challenge Monday to Pennsylvania's voter identification law.