Yo, Philly in the News

• The big story around these parts continues to be the arrest and imprisonment of CBS3 anchorwoman Alycia Lane. The Daily News has an article about the incident, focusing on Lane's call to the governor from prison, which she apparently made in order to "make sure he knew her side of the story because he is an opinion-maker and runs around in influential circles."
• A 4-year-old in Southwest Philadelphia shot himself once in the throat about 4:50PM yesterday inside a rowhouse belonging to his family. He was pronounced dead forty minutes later at Children's Hospital. The weapon was a 9mm handgun, and there doesn't seem to be any information yet on how the child got his hands on it, or who it belongs to.
• "The University of Pennsylvania has followed Harvard and a handful of other elite institutions by replacing student loans with finance-free aid packages for middle-income students, Penn announced yesterday. Starting next fall, loans will be eliminated for undergraduates whose families earn up to $100,000. Those with higher incomes will get a 10 percent reduction in the amount they owe on their loans."
• Mark Patrick O'Donnell, the man charged with sexually assaulting and killing his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter, Ebony Nicole Dorsey, is scheduled for a preliminary hearing today.
• Center City lawyer H. Allen Litt made his first appearance in court yesterday as the defendant in a large-scale insurance fraud case. The preliminary hearing was continued until March 4.
• Now that New Jersey has abolished capital punishment, the Inquirer takes a look at the likelihood of other states following suit.

Image Credit: Flickr user enfi