|
|
|
What We've Found
Christine Adkins here with your morning fix:
Though the immovable snow in Philly is making parking more of a nightmare than ever, it is technically illegal to save dug out parking spaces with chairs and cones. Luckily, police are turning a blind eye to the law for the time being.
Man Overboard!, however, is not. In this week's column, Isaiah Thompson delves into the ethics of this very thorny issue, and asks you, Good and True People of Philadelphia, to render a verdict.
Eight of the 10 US missionaries are released in Haiti three weeks after they were arrested on charges of kidnapping a group of children from the quake-stricken country to bring back to America.
There is indeed a "sport" called Sport Stacking, and a cup-stacking mother-son team from York County won big at the Mid Atlantic Regional competition.
Scientists are researching the way sea slugs store memories in proteins in hopes of creating new memory-enhancing treatments.
For the first time since his Thanksgiving car accident, Tiger Woods will speak publicly tomorrow about the sex scandal that engrossed the nation for months.
There's a growing market for journalists who were found themselves at the receiving end of downsizing efforts. Head to Connecticut, where entrepreneurial local online journalism is thriving.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act celebrates its first birthday! Festivities included Obama's remarks on the success of the stimulus legislation and a White House report highlighting the economic effects of the act.
The Rev. Sun Myung Moon may have carried out his last mass unification marriage ceremony, as they are losing their flavor among younger generations who want more say in who they marry. Go figure.
The Eagles' Stacy Andrews, after missing most of last season with several injuries, needs to restructure his six-year contract if he hopes to join the team in preseason this August.
For the first time in history, US Border Patrol agents and Mexican Federal Police are teaming up for a joint attack against incoming drug shipments and outgoing cash flows. Like everything else in the history of drug interdiction, this, too, shall fail.
Lara Coleman here with your morning fix:
While facing possible civil penalties and media pressure after recalling over 8.5 million vehicles, Toyota is considering increasing that number after hearing complaints about power steering problems in the Corolla.
After a two-year study, scientists now believe that King Tut's death was caused by malaria.
A New Jersey man abducted his baby from her maternal grandmother's house yesterday around 4:30 p.m. and told police that he threw her off the parkway's Driscll Bridge in Middlesex County. Police have been searching since 9 p.m. last night.
Economists are now calling the national debt worse than ever before, reporting that it will now have extreme consequences for taxpayers including ridiculous tax increases and a lower standard of living for future generations.
More cheery news: By 2014, the interest payments on the national debt will exceed Congress's discretionary funding. The chief culprits? The recession, and Bush-era economic policies. Thanks, Republicans.
Scottish terrier Sadie wins the Westminster Dog Show, beating over 2,500 other dogs. Suck it, poodles.
Fashion designer Alexander McQueen hung himself in his apartment after leaving a suicide note.
Yesterday, a flash mob of about 100 teens wreaked havoc at The Gallery mall, in particular Macy's, on Market and 13th, leaving one teen hospitalized and over a dozen in jail.
International arrest warrants have finally been issued for 11 suspects of assassinating a Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Mabhough, in Dubai last month.
The New York Times is investigating allegations that one of its reporters plagiarized from The Wall Street Journal.
Germany is keeping it interesting, as they surpass the United States in the Medal Count by one medal.
Christine Adkins here with your morning fix:
The US leads the Olympics in overall medals won, but Switzerland currently has the most gold medals.
Speaking of Olympic medals, did you know this year's were made of landfill-bound electronics? Environment win.
Charged in the murders of three University professors, University of Alabama-Huntsville professor Amy Bishop Anderson was originally a suspect in a 1993 bomb attempt on one of her former colleagues.
Ricky, a West Caln Township K-9 who protected two presidents, had to be put down after his owner discovered a soft-ball sized tumor in his spleen. Sad face.
Twelve Afghani civilians died when a high-tech military rocket missed its target. Sorry about that.
Gastric bypass surgery, though still considered an experimental surgery on children, could be the next step in fighting adolescent obesity.
The economy's reverberations are felt on private college campuses, where schools are hacking away at their financial aid programs. Say hello to crushing student loan debt, kids.
Urban citizens are battling their rural neighbors, claiming that allowing the US Census to count prisoners as residents of the town in which their prison resides instead of their actual hometown inflates the population numbers of these heavily white areas.
According to the California Institute of Technology, fruit flies have brains; the first recordings of their brain activity have been studied while in flight and at rest.
And the NY Times, in its classic, understated way, gives tea-baggers some rope and lets them hang themselves on their own crazy.
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
A U.S. Senate subcommittee will investigate Pennsylvania courts, following charges that cases are routinely dismissed too early, witnesses are intimidated and convictions are rarely made, Senator Arlen Specter declared over the weekend.
The Iranian judiciary announced a trial based on espionage charges against three American hikers who were detained by Iranian forces when they inadvertently strayed across its northern border with Iraq.
Climate change will be one of the security threats included in the U.S. Defense Department's 2010 review of its highest priorities, following the October establishment of a new Center for Climate Change Study at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Tensions were high at the climate change conference in Copenhagen, where representatives from developing countries threatened to leave on the grounds that the conference would result in a plan wherein they'd be forced to place unfair restrictions on their own emissions.
An effort by Rutgers students to donate leftovers from their meal-plans to a soup kitchen in New Brunswick backfired when university administrators prohibited the practice and the soup kitchen personnel refused to distribute the food because they couldn't vouch for its safety.
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
Kensington female cops posing as prostitutes arrested 102 people in a two-week sting, but failed to catch their target: a local man who's been raping and beating prostitutes over the past few months.
In response to increasing rape cases in his country's schools and homes, a Senegalese judge was calling for tougher sentences against rapists, punishments for family members who know about rapes but do not report them and allowing women's-rights associations to bring suits as civil plaintiffs.
The American Civil Liberties Union lost 25 percent of its budget when its largest donor, an anonymous individual who gave $20 million annually to the group, withdrew his gift "due to market conditions".
Websites devoted to online panhandling, a recent and growing phenomenon, were crowded with appeals from parents hoping to get their children something for the holidays without having to beg for money openly in the street.
According to data recently released from Mayor Nutter's office, street homelessness in Philadelphia has declined over the past year, with 135 fewer people on the streets this November compared to November 2008.
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
Lincoln University voted last week to make voluntary an exercise course that had been mandatory for obese students out of fear that keeping the requirement would constitute discrimination, according to the professor who proposed the change. Students will now instead be invited to take the course depending on their performance in a health-risk assessment test.
After all the panic about swine flu, epidemiologists are now predicting that the death toll from the disease will be far lower than that of any previous pandemics.
Ohio was preparing to execute Kenneth Biros with a new type of lethal injection drug, one that only requires one injection instead of three, after executioners spent hours last September trying to put to death a prisoner with the old injection system.
The U.S. Senate began debate on an abortion amendment to its own version of the health-care bill, similar to the one in the House version that would prevent private insurers from covering the abortions of women receiving federal subsidies. Though the amendment is unlikely to pass, the more votes it gets from Senators the harder it will be to excise such an amendment from the final legislation.
Amidst the ongoing investigation into the misconduct of judges in Luzerne County, supporters of the notion that Pennsylvania judges ought to be appointed rather than elected made their case at a state House hearing yesterday.
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
Thirty Asian students boycotted South Philadelphia High School by not showing up for class today, in protest of the high violence rate at their school and the perception that the school district isn't doing enough to combat it.
Hundreds of Somalis protested a deadly suicide attack last week at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu, in the first major show of opposition to As-Shabab, the group widely believed to be behind the attacks and one of several militant groups vying for total control of the country.
New polls showed that Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical of man-made climate change and resistant to government regulations that would control it, even as President Obama joins other world leaders at the largest ever climate change summit in Copenhagen.
The Environmental Protection Agency finalized its ruling today that greenhouse gases threaten the environment and human health, opening the door to increased regulation on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, factories, and other major sources.
Puerto Rican civil rights activists demonstrated yesterday outside the Northeast Philadelphia hospital where Joaquin Rivera died one week ago, calling for reform and increased regulation of "an inept health-care system."
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
Philadelphia police yesterday announced that Operation Pressure Point, a crime-fighting effort that flooded the city's worst neighborhoods with law enforcers each weekend for the past seven months, has been a resounding success.
In preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games, police in Rio de Janeiro are attempting a new, community-based policing system, in which citizens call on the police when crimes occur, or to report on drug trafficking activity.
An Iranian arms trafficker, who was arrested by Philadelphia-based federal agents in Europe in 2007 and extradited to the United States, where he's been imprisoned near Philadelphia ever since, was expected to be publicly tried for the first time today.
Five British sailors whose racing yacht accidentally strayed into Iranian waters last week were released today by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, after being detained and interrogated for several days.
Behind the scenes of his public statements, such as last night's speech, President Obama has reportedly been authorizing an expansion of the U.S. military presence in Pakistan, increasing the C.I.A.'s budget for operations there and ordering more drone attacks in the southern part of the country.
The 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan announced last night by President Obama will cost at least $30 billion more than current spending, and it is unclear where the government will find the money to pay for it. Democratic leaders have already reviewed and struck down the idea of imposing a "war tax".
Julia Harte with your mid-morning fix.
Philadelphia schoolteachers appeared likely to enter the spring semester without a new contract, as the School District announced a third extension of its current pay-pact with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
In all recent contracts it brokered with major oil companies, including some that resulted from months of secret negotiations, Iraq managed to retain the bulk of profits from its fields' expected future oil yield.
Brazil was building massive oil-production platforms at sites where the government says it has found pools of oil holding over a billion barrels. Investors believe the discoveries could make Brazil a major player in the global oil exchange.
The pride and joy of the entire Italian police force, a $250,000 Lamborghini, was irreparably damaged after an accident near the northern town of Cremona.
Anyone operating a vehicle while using hand-held cell phones on Philadelphia streets will be fined $75 by city police starting today, though hands-free devices are still permitted.
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
Philadelphia bicycle messengers were planning to demonstrate tonight against controversial City Council measures that would mandate the paid registration of all bicycles in the city and result in steeper fines for traffic violations.
Fifty-eight percent of Swiss voters approved a referendum banning the construction of minarets on Muslim mosques, even after polls suggested that such a measure would be rejected by a majority of voters. The resulting scandal caused a Swiss Justice Minister to suggest that certain policies should not be decided with public referendums.
After officials announced that the Middle East conglomerate Dubai World was deeply in debt and struggling financially, United Arab Emirates markets dropped dramatically, and the UAE's central bank offered other UAE banks cheap loans in an effort to stave off a run on every bank in the country.
Even after the U.S. Congressional Budget Office found that every part of the health-care bill currently being debated by the Senate could be paid for with spending cuts and tax increases, experts were debating whether the bill would be able to reduce the nation's deficits or not.
Plastic surgery patients and doctors were outraged over a five percent "Bo-tax" in the health-care bill, which would be applied to any cosmetic surgery that does not fix injury-related, congenital or illness-related disfigurements.
A University of Pennsylvania endocrinologist is leading a study to see whether lowered testosterone levels are natural for men, and whether popular hormone-boosting medications impair bodily functions in older men.
Where's my violin? Go to 16th & JFK on any day and watch how bike messengers follow the law. They routinely ride on the sidewalks and run through red-lights. If they even wait for the light to turn green, they do little figure 8's in the crosswalk around pedestrians, because they refuse to stop on those illegal track bikes. I have never, ever, observed a bike messenger actually come to a complete stop for a red-light. They are offended because they are being perceived as law breakers? Too bad. The behaviors of bike messengers and other rogue bicyclists are the very reason behind the proposed new fines and regulations.
- ActiVman
- adventures
- Arts
- Ask A Man-About-Town
- Award Tour
- Awards
- Bad Idea Factory
- Beer
- Below the Curve
- Bikes
- Booze
- Brian Hickey
- BRT
- Budget
- Budget Fuss
- Business
- Casinos
- City Council
- City Hall
- CouncilMANIC
- CP Abroad
- CP in the Community
- Criminal Justice System
- Day Tripper
- Death and Taxes
- Delaware River
- Design
- DROP
- Drugs
- Dubious Distinction
- Elections
- End of Days
- Environment
- Fashion
- Film Fest
- Financial Meltdown
- FrackTrack
- Free Library
- Gambling
- Gay Stuff
- Get Lit
- Greenstorming
- guns
- Hall Monitor
- Health
- Health Care
- Hello, Kitty
- Holidays
- Ice Cubes
- Iggles
- Immigration
- In Memoriam
- Labor
- Lawsuits
- Letters
- LGBTQ
- Maps
- Marcellus Shale
- Media
- MMA
- Mummers
- Music
- MUST READ
- Mysterious Mysteries
- Nation
- News
- Non Sequitur
- Opinion
- PA politics 2010
- Parking Wars
- Parks and Recreation
- People Send Us This Stuff
- Philadelphia Police
- Philadelphia Union
- Philaphemera
- Philly From Scratch
- philly madness
- Photos
- Poverty
- PPA
- President Obama
- Print Edition
- Prisons
- Protest
- Readers Write
- Real Estate
- Rock Bottom
- Schools
- Science
- Screwing Philly
- SEPTA
- snow
- So Lush
- Soccer
- Sporting Life
- Sports Complex
- State Politicians
- State Politics
- Street Art
- Strike
- Stuff We Like
- Taxes
- Taxi Drivers
- Tech Fetish
- television
- The Budget Crisis
- The City Paper
- The CLOG
- The Human Condition
- The Mayor
- The Phightin Phils
- The World
- Things that make you go hm
- Tinfoil Hats Off
- Under the Table
- Under the Tables
- Urban Development
- Urban Planning
- urban wildlife
- Video Poker
- We Call Shenanigans
- Weather
- Web Junk
- Weekend Omnibus
- White House
- What We've Found
- Women's Issues
- Flyered Up!
- How 'Bout That Weather?
- it's always sunny in philadelphia
- Stu!
- Shopping
- get out
- 10-track mind
- ArtsFlash
- Bloggity
- Bruce Being Bruce
- Colleges
- Comedy
- Gigantic Surprises
- Hello Canary
- Hello Puppy
- errata
- get lost
- Inside The Fishbowl
- Library Closings
- Local Support
- Movies
- Murder
- Night Moves
- Recycling
- radio
- Scientology
- Sex
- Sixers
- Skeeze Police
- State Politicians Screwing Philly
- That's a cool stencil!
- Theater
- Things We See
- This Week
- This Week in Oates
- University City
- WIN
- What we don't heart
- trailer!
- what we heart
- Feeling Guilty
- Askadelphia.
- Broke in Philly
- Contest
- Dance
- Dear Paper Doll
- Do A Good Thing
- Education
- Film Fest Schism
- G20-20 Vision
- Goodbye
- Gossip
- Great American Heroes
- PATCO
- Pearl Jam Week
- Puppy
- Stars of the Photostream
- sustainability
- Lower Merion Webcam-Gate
- The Cycle
- Equality Forum
- Bureaucrat of the Week
- Animals
- ElectionEar
- Photostream
