Yo, Philly in the News

• Former CBS3 anchor Larry Mendte is scheduled for a plea hearing at 9:30AM this morning at the federal courthouse at Sixth and Market Streets, where he is expected to plead guilty to hacking into the personal e-mail of onetime colleague Alycia Lane.
• Lawrence Scott Ward, 65, a former marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, is already serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison for trafficking in child porn, but yesterday new child porn charges were lodged against him.
• PennDot is cracking down on drunk drivers in the area, now through the Labor Day holiday. Click through for the details on which areas will be targeted when (although why you'd need to know we're not exactly sure—just don't drink and drive!).
• "Two former officials of the union that represents Bucks County police officers were arrested yesterday and charged with stealing more than $93,000 from the union treasury."
• A bid yesterday of just under $294.5 million for the major construction package on the Pennsylvania Convention Center left officials cautiously optimistic that they can afford the ambitious expansion project.
• "Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll has announced she has a rare form of cancer, but said she was undergoing aggressive treatment for the disease and hoped to return to work next month."
• Philadelphia School District superintendent Arlene Ackerman discusses the district she found when she arrived in June, and outlines her to-do list.
• Two Philadelphia-area men—Brian Conley, 28, a videographer from South Philadelphia and his friend Jeffrey Rae, 28, a photographer from Wayne—were arrested early Tuesday in Beijing, where they had traveled to document pro-Tibet protests. They were among 13 Americans detained in three incidents since early Tuesday in connection with protests organized by Students for a Free Tibet.

Image Credit: Flickr user fPat