Yo, Philly in the News

• "On the last day of the fiscal year, Gov. Rendell and legislative leaders struck a deal on a $28.2 billion state budget, averting a repeat of last year's employee furlough and partial government shutdown."
• The Inquirer examines what it meant (for the players and their families) for a team from Camden's Cramer Hill neighborhood to play T-ball on the White House lawn yesterday.
• A Daily News reporter gets a few minutes with John McCain.
• Contracts for the four city municipal unions expired last night at midnight, but some of those contracts have since been extended, negotiations are ongoing, and the city is still in business—for now.
• The Department of Labor announced yesterday that nine high schools have been chosen to share in $49.5 million in grants to help expand educational and employment opportunities for students, and seven are from Philadelphia. They include some of Philadelphia's most violent high schools. In other local school news, Philadelphia School District students' test scores on reading and math exams have increased for a sixth straight year.
• You can expect traffic delays in the Philadelphia suburbs, and on southbound Route 309 in Lower Gwynedd Township.
• Terry Phillis, the city's chief information officer and one of the highest ranking holdovers from the Street administration, is stepping down at the end of the month. A spokesman for Mayor Nutter said he's giving up his post voluntarily, in a decision that's one of mutual consent between himself and the administration, but the Inquirer's sources say he's being forced out of his position because he was at odds with Managing Director Camille Cates Barnett over the scope of a planned 311 call center.

Image Credit: Flickr user cpt.spock