• With Hillary Clinton's big primary wins in Texas and Ohio, it seems that the national eye has turned towards Pennsylvania and our primary on April 22. So much of the news about Michael this week was about his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. He says he's going to campaign hard for Clinton, who is no longer the presumptive nominee, as she was when Nutter gave his endorsement. Given that race may now be back in play as an issue in the election, we're struggling with a little bit of morbid curiosity as to how this will pan out. (Plus, if we remember correctly, Michael ran for mayor on a "fresh blood"/reformer style platform against, primarily, Pennsylvania establishment Democrat Tom Knox. Color us a little baffled by his endorsement of Clinton over Obama.)
• We're starting to lose track of who stands where on the whole casino issue. Last we checked, Michael was pretty firmly against it. But this week, a Michael aide speaking to a group of pro-casino Fishtown residents (yes, apparently, contrary to what most of the local media would have you believe, there are pro-casino residents out there) said that Michael was moving cautiously forward on the project.
• Apparently the mayor's office is now also a headhunting agency, as Michael has pledged to start making phone calls to Philadelphia-area businesses to encourage them to hire Philadelphia students for summer jobs.
• It wasn't all serious for Michael this week, though. We appreciate that he's being more inviting than his predecessors in the mayor's office. Case in point, the contest that ran to win tickets to watch the finale of The Wire with him on Sunday evening. No word, however, on whether Michael was as pissed off by Omar being killed as our own Bill Hayes was.
• And in the most important news of all, Michael will be tapping the first keg of Philly Beer Week tonight at the Marketplace at East Falls.

Image via Flickr user JHill (and yes, we know we used this same image a few weeks ago, but in honor of Philly Beer Week, we just had to run it again).