Northampton beat Falls 4-3 in a battle that took 8 innings to decide.  Here Falls catcher Jim Harris (left) and Northampton’s Drew Stoll (center) get into an argument in the eighth inning after Northampton scored the go-ahead run. Northampton’s Joe Crane (right) looks on.

READING, Pa. (AP) — Police say a 22-month-old boy was hospitalized after riding a tricycle off the second-floor roof of a Reading apartment on Wednesday. The boy was flown to Hershey Medical Center for treatment of head and other injuries after the 9 a.m. fall. His condition was not immediately available. Police say the boy lives in a third-floor apartment with a back door that opens onto the second-floor roof, which has a clothesline. Capt. Francis L. Drexler, head of the criminal investigations division, says the fall appears to have been “a tragic accident.” But he says there will be an investigation. Police have also contacted Berks County Children and Youth Services to conduct a separate investigation.

By Ben Finley

Staff Writer

Some might’ve called it torture.

Gas was too expensive for a drive to the Shore. The sun was fanning the mercury to 92 degrees. And you took the day off to take your kids to the pool.

But the pool was closed. Through the fence you saw the still, crystalline water; the abandoned spiral slide and the lonely, baking beach chairs.

That was the case all day Wednesday and until 4 p.m. Thursday at the county-owned Oxford Valley Pool in Falls. A low-chlorine count in the water shuttered the oasis, according to county spokesman Chris Edwards.

The water was splashing after 4 p.m. on Thursday. And the pool will be open from noon to 8 p.m. today, the Fourth of July, he said.

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Bristol Township’s youngest students will learn more than their ABCs and 1-2-3s when the school year begins in September, school officials said.
The kids will take part in the district’s new Children in Balance initiative. The two-year anti-obesity pilot program will be funded with a $300,000 grant from Tufts University in Massachusetts.
District officials pursued the grant because the obesity rate in Bristol Township elementary schools is 30 percent, or double the national average, officials said. In fact, 15 percent of the elementary students are considered “morbidly obese,” they said.
The Children in Balance program will aim to reduce the onset of obesity in the district’s youngest students, said Pam Duffy, the program manager.
“We’re not targeting any specific kids. We’ll be giving all kids and their families the tools they need to be physically healthy and create healthy habits in school and at home too,” the social worker said. “We’ll be looking to increase activity time and decrease screen time.”
Duffy and other members of Bristol Township’s Children in Balance team recently returned from Tufts, where they spent a week brainstorming ideas and collecting information about anti-obesity efforts.
They got some ideas on how to stage health fairs and TV turnoff campaigns, do taste-testing sessions during lunch, and use the district’s Tiger Classic as a vehicle to get kids and their parents exercising throughout the year in preparation for the annual May event, team members said.
The group plans to use money from the Tufts grant and other grants to buy various fruits and vegetables that will be put on colorful display in the school cafeterias during lunch, said team member and district spokeswoman Eileen Kelliher.
The grant money also could be used to buy inexpensive equipment like salad spinners to entice kids to eat healthier foods, she said.
In addition, efforts are in development to show parents the ills of fast food and examine what role economics plays in the obesity epidemic, team members said.
Over the next couple months, Duffy said she’ll call on area businesses and local agencies that run before and after school programs in the district to enlist their help in the initiative. Plus, she’ll send a survey to district families that will ask them about their obesity concerns and ways they promote healthy dietary and physical habits in their homes.
Additionally, the district will host half-day training sessions for primary teachers and school nurses to get them on board with the campaign, Kelliher said.

If you’re a Plumstead resident with an inflatable pool that’s more than two feet deep, you may be hearing from township code enforcement.

After some debate, supervisors decided Tuesday that the best way to inform people that above-ground pool owners are required to take certain precautions - a fence at least four feet tall is required, for example - is to send an educational letter whenever the code enforcement officer spots one that’s not in compliance.
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