Yo, Philly in the News

• Remember earlier this year when Center City criminal defense lawyer Larry Charles was found naked with a partially dressed 14-year-old girl at the Criminal Justice Center? How could you forget, right? Well, his trial begins today at 9AM in Common Pleas Court.
• University of Pennsylvania sophomore "Anne Ryan, 19, was hospitalized Saturday afternoon in critical condition, and died early yesterday morning" of meningococcal meningitis. Penn has therefore issued a health alert for those who were in close contact with her.
• Governor Rendell is pushing for PECO to start offering a program, available in other parts of the country, allowing customers to pay the actual cost of their electricity instead of the regular flat-rate prices for each kilowatt-hour.
• School starts today in Philadelphia, and the Daily News is taking a look at some of the remaining problems for the district. Meanwhile, up to 10,000 fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and other male family members walked their children to school in Philadelphia this morning as part of a nationwide project to have 1 million African-American fathers in 200 cities across the country walk their children to school. The idea is for fathers and other caregivers to become more involved in the kids' education.
• A New York-based married couple - Tod Williams and Billie Tsien - have been chosen as the architects for the new home of the Barnes Foundation on the Parkway. Williams and Tsien designed the Skirkanich Hall labs at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Yesterday at around 5:30PM a teal or bluish late-model Toyota sedan with a square back and front-end damage struck two children - a 6-year-old and a 14-year-old - on Torresdale Avenue near Wakeling Street. The driver, probably a 19- or 20-year-old white or Hispanic male with a goatee, stopped long enough to look behind him, then took off. The 14-year-old is stable, but the 6-year-old is in critical condition.

Image Credit: Flickr user AEngineer