Yo, Philly in the News

• Bruce Springsteen will play a free show on the Parkway this Saturday as part of an open-air rally for Barack Obama. The latest poll shows Obama still leading John McCain in Pennsylvania. In fact, thanks to efforts by the Obama campaign in the area, Democrats now have a 1.1 million registration edge in Pennsylvania, with large gains in the traditionally Republican Philadelphia suburbs.
• Coverage of Patrick McDonald's funeral.
• 25-year-old Michael Thomas was held for trial on murder charges yesterday in the June shooting death of his girlfriend and their unborn child at the Queen Lane Apartments in Germantown. However, he did not actually shoot the woman; he's being accused of murder based on the fact that he started the fight that led to her being shot by someone else.
• Hakeem Bey has been convicted of first-degree murder and will learn today if he will get life in prison or be sentenced to death by lethal injection.
• Tonight DHS will host the first of four Town Hall meetings to discuss reforms resulting from the deaths of children under the agency's supervision.
• Steven J. Devlin, the Lehigh University administrator caught by police in an Internet sex sting last summer, was sentenced yesterday to three to six years in prison.
• Chester City police say a murder on Monday and a drive-by shooting the same day might be related.
• Bucks County government's three highest-ranking Republicans denied in federal court yesterday that they had harassed, intimidated, or politically leaned on the county elections director.

Image Credit: Flickr user Vitorio Benedetti