Yo, Philly in the News

• Some updates on local criminal cases: the Bucks County mother accused of turning a sleepover into a sex party was ordered to stand trial yesterday. Andy Reid's son Garrett Reid was sentenced to two years in a relatively new state corrections program that combines incarceration and intensive drug treatment. Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his latest appeal for a new trial on Monday.
• Perhaps not surprisingly, the DRPA got an earful from angry commuters yesterday at the first of two hearings on proposed toll hikes and PATCO train fare increases.
• "After a four-year investigation, 17 people from Philadelphia and Delaware County were taken into custody [yesterday] in connection with a large-scale bookmaking, gambling and loan-sharking organization with ties to Philadelphia organized crime, according to authorities."
• Two SEPTA trolley accidents this week have left 19 people injured. On Monday, downed wires caused a fire inside a trolley tunnel at 37th and Spruce streets, forcing an evacuation, and yesterday, three underground trolleys collided at 13th and Market Streets.
• The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled yesterday that mentally ill prisoners can now be forcibly medicated in order to make them mentally competent to continue their appeals. The ruling marks a setback for four death-row inmates, including two mentally ill prisoners from Philadelphia.
• Two apparently unconnected North Philadelphia shootings which took place less than ten minutes apart last night left two people dead. On his way to one of the crime scenes, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey came upon a drunken scuffle and issued an assist officer call. The dramatic response caused the infamously unreliable police radio system to crash. It remained down for 40 minutes. And that's not the end of the problems for Philly police officers; problems with the quality of surveillance cameras produced by the manufacturer Unisys have forced the department to drastically scale back their plan of adding 250 surveillance cameras throughout the city by the end of the year.
• "Authorities yesterday announced the arrests of two Jamaican nationals living in Philadelphia who they said were responsible for moving more than $1 million of marijuana from Texas to Philly."

Image Credit: Flickr user lindseywb