Yo, Philly in the News

• Ah, our Philly heart swells with pride: a local Fishtown dog is in competition for the World's Ugliest Dog! His name is Pee Wee Martini (AKA "Mr. Peepers," AKA "Son of Sam") and he's a hairless, crooked-nosed Chinese-crested, Japanese Chin mix with no teeth on one side of his mouth (see picture, right). One man's reaction upon seeing Pee Wee for the first time: "I was confused. I thought I just witnessed a horrible accident." Pee Wee was already on "Live With Regis And Kelly," and if all goes well he'll win the honor of World's Ugliest Dog at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California next month. You can check out Pee Wee and all the other contestants, as well as log your own vote, right now by going to this webpage (although apparently voting will also happen at the fair itself, so we're not sure how much your online vote will count). Btw, the voting was recently reset and security was increased on the page because, believe it or not, somebody hacked the page and started stripping votes away from various contestants. If ugly dog contests need increased security, something is wrong with the world.
• The race for a Democratic nomination to a PA state House seat is really going down to the wire. In fact, things are so close, it'll almost certainly take a court case to settle it. The main two contestants are a 25-year-old housing counselor named Tom Payton Jr. and a Philadelphia Parking Authority employee named Emilio Vazquez. Amazingly, Vazquez's strong showing comes in spite of the fact that he was left off of the ballot - all votes for him were write-ins. Of course, whoever wins doesn't exactly have smooth sailing ahead - he then has to defeat Republican Troy L. Bouie in the fall election.
• Almost immediately after being declared one of the most unique buildings in the U.S., our poor City Hall was struck by a fire yesterday morning, a fire which miraculously (at least, according to the AP) caused "extensive water damage" (although we suspect it was the attempts to put the fire out that actually caused the water damage). Turns out the fire started in some trash under the stairwell between the second and third floors. Maybe they shouldn't keep flammable trash in the stairwells anymore? Anyway, about 500 people were evacuated, but thankfully nobody was hurt, and the fire was put out in about an hour, although the building remained evacuated for some hours afterwards.

Image Credit: AP/ Kristin Maszkiewicz, via Sun-Sentinel.com