You know how Michael rolls – green. And not green like dollar bills with 19" wheels and reverse-spinning rims. Green like he's going to be reducing his carbon footprint. The new Mayoral wheels are a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. And he even saved the city some coin, as he paid for the Tahoe with his leftover campaign funds rather than taxpayer money. Of course, we think that if Michael was really serious about helping save the......

Two things with regard to this post. 1. Sorry the post didn't go up last week. The author was out of town on business and flaked out and didn't get someone to cover the post. 2. We're abandoning the day-by-day format that we'd adopted for our first several recaps of the goings-on in the Nutter Administration, and will be doing a more streamlined list of the previous week's highlights. The change is mainly because it......

The president and board chairman of the city-funded nonprofit Philadelphia Safe and Sound testified yesterday that they were forced by Mayor Street and his senior aides to spend an extra $21 million that they knew did not exist in the city budget. It's those expenditures that have forced Safe and Sound to cancel dozens of programs in recent weeks. You can find copies of Safe and Sound's testimony online here and here. Insiders say......

Last Friday & the weekend: Michael probably doesn't know it, but he got a shout-out from Hot Hot Heat frontman Michael Bays at last week's FREEZEtival before the band played "Bandages." What the connection between the song and our mayor is, we have no idea. And in real news, Michael named his appointees to the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority board. Monday: Michael joined a record-setting number of volunteers at this year's MLK Day of Service,......

Last Friday & the Weekend: Michael must have had a low-key weekend, as the Nutter newswires were fairly quiet. He probably needed the rest, though, as he had a pretty hectic week last week, and it may only now be sinking in that he's the mayor. Monday: Michael tapped Lori Shorr, (now-)former VP for policy and planning at Philadelphia Youth Network, to serve as his chief education adviser and help him get to work on......

There's a new big boss man in the City of Brotherly Love, which means there's a new column on Phillyist. Each week, we'll be tracking Michael Nutter's mayorship (which we only found out was a word when spellcheck didn't correct it) and giving you the Reader's Digest version of the week that was in Nutter's tenure. Think of it as SportsCenter for the new man in charge: You might not have seen the whole story......

Governor Rendell has proclaimed January 11, 2008 “Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day” in the State of Pennsylvania. There will be a benefit concert to honor the gospel music legend that night at the Keswick. (Via Bob) You can catch a film profile of Allen Iverson by rapper Nelly tonight at 10:30PM on IFC. The Inquirer has a short interview with A.I. about the project. "A federal judge refused yesterday to release on bail the five men......

Rev. Joseph F. Sica of Scranton, a Catholic priest and longtime confidant of casino owner Louis A. DeNaples, was charged yesterday with lying to a grand jury about his relationship with a mob boss. At least one of those New Year's arrests that we posted about yesterday was a complete disaster. Not only was it police gunfire that injured a 9-year-old boy at the scene, the cops arrested the wrong man and let the......

The Philadelphia Inquirer takes a look at how yesterday's shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto is affecting Pakistani Americans living in the Philadelphia area. After a three month pause, a grand jury resumed its investigation yesterday into wealthy businessman, and owner of the Mount Airy Casino Resort, Louis A. DeNaples. DeNaples is suspected of lying to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board about his connections to organized crime. DeNaples' brother Eugene, a former state gambling investigator, showed......

If you still aren't bored of stories about Jocelyn S. Kirsch and Edward K. Anderton, then by all means, read on. Meanwhile, other rather more dangerous criminals are still on the loose. Police still have little to go on in the brutal November 25th murder of John Bartram High School sophomore Antonio Q. Clarke, who was last seen alive trying to catch a trolley in Southwest Philadelphia. Call police at 215-686-3334 or -3335 with......

The fact that this morning's article about "Bonnie and Clyde" turning themselves in starts with a story about Kirsch's tits would be funny anyway, but we find it particularly amusing given the focus and title of our post on the subject yesterday. Yesterday's snow storm didn't cause too much trauma, besides a few accidents, some icy roads and sidewalks, and some school delays. The developer working on the Girard Warehouses ("the historic complex of early......

Use caution if you're travelling around the area this morning - there's actually snow on the roads north and west of the city, and 2 to 7 inches in northeastern parts of the state, and the weather has already caused some accidents and downed power lines. Some schools are opening late or canceling their morning kindergarten; check out NBC10's full list of school closings here. Mayor Street, "once regarded as Public Enemy No. 1......

Hey, it's election day! And what with the Mayor's race being a foregone conclusion and everything, the interesting stuff is happening in the fight for two seats on the state Supreme Court. The search for John Lewis, the suspect in the murder of Officer Chuck Cassidy, is over. Police apprehended him at a homeless shelter in Miami at 7AM. They tracked him down after learning that a relative had bought a bus ticket to......

Today has been declared Phillies Day by Mayor Street, and the Inquirer has some Phillies fashion advice for you. 250 artists, prison officials and criminologists are coming together for the first-ever Arts in Criminal Justice National Conference, which is being held today through Friday at the Sheraton Center City hotel. The Philadelphia police officer who took a shotgun blast to the face last week left the hospital yesterday and says he's doing great, and......

Lynnise Burnett, a 14-year-old freshman at Germantown High School, had been missing since Thursday, and had sent distressing text messages over the weekend, one saying that "she was in a dark room and she was hungry and that someone was going to kill her." Apparently she was able to sneak back into her home recently, as police found her on the roof of the house Saturday night threatening to jump. She was taken to......

A study released earlier this week revealed that Philadelphia area drivers spend an average of 38 hours a year sitting in traffic, which is up an hour from last year, but as it turns out, it's still not that bad as far as traffic delays in large American cities go: we ranked 33rd. But we ranked second in the level of impact that accidents and stalled vehicles have on traffic congestion. Kind of makes......

This is pretty hilarious: State Representatives were pulling prints from 1838 and 1850 off the walls of the Independence Seaport Museum yesterday to prove that the Foxwoods Casino site used to be under the water of the Delaware River, which would mean that the land would be under the state's control today, and that transferring the "riparian rights" to said land would require the approval of the General Assembly - a General Assembly which has......

Mayor Street and the man most likely to be our next mayor (Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter) are disagreeing over the location of a new Family Court. Street wants to move "the court from its current location on Vine Street near 18th to a site at 15th and Arch streets where a parking lot now stands," while Nutter wants "the new court building as close as possible to a new Youth Study Center. He......

Yesterday Unity Day was celebrated in the rain on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and thousands of people of all shapes, sizes, and colors attended, enjoying music, food, games, and activities. A report to be released today by City Controller Alan Butkovitz shows that two decades of expensive attempts to build a new computerized water billing system have achieved little, and the system will almost certainly not be done by the time Mayor Street leaves office,......

Mayor Nu... Mayor-elect Nutt... Mayorial candidate Michael Nutter has proposed altering the city's approach to lobbying in Washington. Specifically, he would like to establish a lobbying office on the city's behalf, staffed by lobbyists employed by the city, rather than hiring outside firms to lobby for Philly (which is the way things have been done in the past). Will it matter? Maybe not, but file it in the list of things Nutter would do different......

Mayor Street really is doing something about the violence problem in Philadelphia, he's just not doing a good job of publicizing what he's doing - which is probably a mistake. Still on the subject of Philly's violence problem: Mayor Street and top law enforcement officials said yesterday that the attitude in the city needs to change before the violence will stop - meaning, more witnesses have to find the courage to step forward. Probably true,......

The six people killed in the city over the weekend puts us at 233 for the year, which means we're on pace to see the highest number of homicides in a decade. The Inquirer has started a fascinating series about a woman who hunts terrorists online. Check out part one, and part two. SEPTA finally has dedicated funding, but that means local citizens and lawmakers are expecting more and better services. Some private schools......

We're kind of tired of the whole Mayor Street/iPhone debacle at this point, but the Daily News column Clout did have something vaguely interesting to add: a poll of the top ten local political figures (other than Street) asking if they have or are interested in having an iPhone. The answers were "no" and "no" for everybody. As Clout puts it, "Maybe our mayor is just way ahead of the curve." Neighbors of the Barnes......

As we're sure you already read somewhere (whether here, or elsewhere on the internet), Mayor Street sat in line for a while waiting for an iPhone, before he finally couldn't deal with the criticism anymore and had an aide stand in him for him while he went back to work. What you may not know, however, is that there's a video of him in line, getting some of that criticism firsthand, on YouTube (which,......

Mayor Street was out in force today on the streets of Philadelphia... at least the one in front of the AT&T store. Seems the iPhone is the great equalizer, sending our mayor out to wait shivering in the drizzle (he's number 3 in line, so no need to feel too bad for him - or rather for the male aide who is currently standing in his stead). We wonder who he'll call first. "Hey Nutter,......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. Heh. The Daily News got a great photo of Mayor Street waiting in line for his iPhone. (Via Neil) Any film geek is bound to have issues with the AFI's latest list of 100 greatest films, but here's a blog that took their issues a step further and made a detailed list of the films the AFI missed - both times they counted......

The New Philadelphia City Hall Tour Office and Visitor Center officially opened on Wednesday with a little ceremony and everything. But as it turns out, the tour of City Hall is so much cooler now, that it's also no longer free; adults pay $10 for the full two-hour tour of the building, and $5 to go up in the Observation Tower. (Via HughE) In vaguely similar news, the Silk City diner reopened last night.......

A mother who had been barred from contact with her son for being physically abusive towards him managed to sign him out of his elementary school on Tuesday and police are now searching for her and the boy. The boy is seven years old and asthmatic. Call Southwest Detectives at 215-686-3183 if you have any information. "A recently completed 'citizens' inspection' of a third of the 140 parks operated by the Fairmount Park Commission and......

Some depressing news: the first eagle's nest in Philadelphia in two centuries, which was located in the Navy Yard, has failed. Wildlife officials believe the eaglet or eaglets were eaten by predators soon after the eggs hatched. To cheer us up, how about some news of a hometown hero getting honored? "Rabbi Philip Warmflash, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Partnership in Philadelphia, is one of three Jewish educators nationwide selected to receive a......

Here's a very horrifying and surreal story for you: Tuesday night a 10-year-old boy was playing outside near his home on Lindley Avenue near 5th Street in Olney when a 25-year-old man walked up, grabbed the boy, and sliced his throat with a knife. The man was held by the family until police arrived, but he offered no resistance and didn't try to get away. Why he did it is still a mystery. The......