Around 2AM yesterday, Joseph Kelly Sr. was driving along the Vine Street Expressway when he saw a homeless man in a wheelchair marooned on the median. He pulled over and crossed three lanes on foot to try to help the man across the street. As one car slowed down to let them pass, another struck that vehicle and then ran into Kelly and the other man, killing them both. A 17-year-old male knocked on the......

The Daily News suggests strongly that if the city made use of private ambulances when Fire Department medic units are swamped with calls, it could make the difference between life and death for certain patients. Philadelphia doesn't use nonmunicipal ambulances because of legal issues. Also in the Daily News this morning is an article providing more details on the case of the three North Philadelphia teenagers killed in a car accident on Saturday. Last......

The Inquirer has an article about the Philadelphia Community Cats Council, a group of folks trying to manage and reduce the city's huge feral cat population, estimated to be at least 250,000. They do this by trapping feral cats, neutering them, and then returning them where they were found. Both the Daily News and the Inquirer have articles about Sharon Hill native John Patrick Foley and his elevation this weekend to the status of Cardinal......

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......

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......

A little Philly celebrity news: 50 Cent was in town earlier this week. Click through for details and pictures. Earlier this spring, when the whole thing came out about the Philadelphia School District's budget problems, their chief financial officer and budget overseer resigned. But it's just now coming out that, despite the fact that she only worked for the district for two years, she left with a ridiculously good deal: she was paid for unused......

Rendell is now supporting the idea, spearheaded by outgoing Philadelphia School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels, of trying to bring a major league soccer franchise to the city of Chester. While the court battle still rages over whether SEPTA will be able to eliminate transfers or not, Rendell and Fumo announced Tuesday that all seventh-through-12th graders who live more than 1 1/2 miles from their schools will ride for free with a new weekly transit......

Andy Reid's son Britt pleaded guilty yesterday to four charges. His lawyers are arguing that he's full of remorse and are angling for him to get probation, but he could end up being sentenced to six to 14 months in jail. We won't know for sure until later this year. The FBI is looking for a filthy dude in connection with the robbery yesterday of the Trumark Financial Credit Union at 1811 John F. Kennedy......

The Inquirer has a nice little article (and a video) about the super-cool Girls Rock Philly day camp, which is at Girard College this week. Apparently every summer Senator Arlen Specter likes to visit all 67 counties in Pennsylvania and have a little Q&A session. Here's how the trip's going this year. Another annual ritual in PA is a SEPTA bus tour for Philly assistant DAs of some high crime city neighborhoods. This year......

A veteran Philly cop got drunk off-duty, jumped in his car early Sunday, and promptly rammed it into a marked police car in West Philly, injuring a fellow officer. He's been "charged with aggravated assault, driving under the influence, recklessly endangering another person and related offenses." An abandoned warehouse in West Kensington was the site of the start of a 7-alarm fire Wednesday morning that led to the evacuation of people within a two-block......

The city's eighth annual "Report Card on the Well-Being of Children and Youth in Philadelphia" has been released, and the news is not good. The city got its worst rating - 5 for "problematic" and "very troubling" - in the category of child safety. D'oh. The city will be spending $1.3 million dollars to fix a mistake made years ago that violates the contract with the firefighters union. The contract states, reasonably enough, that......

Thomas FitzSimmons High School in North Philadelphia will graduate their first class of all boys this Thursday. The school went all-boys two years ago, and is the only all-boys public school in the state. Meanwhile, the Ada H. Lewis Middle School in East Germantown might be voted closed on June 20th by the School Reform Commission, due to declining enrollment and a $38 million repair estimate. But parents and teachers are fighting to keep the......

Christoph Eschenbach, who won't be renewing his contract with the Philadelphia Orchestra after this season, was surprised to hear that he won't have a job in Paris, either. The Orchestre de Paris announced late Wednesday that they'd be replacing him. Eschenbach, however, seems perfectly happy with the news. He says he has plenty of other jobs lined up, and besides, "The management in both cases [Paris and Philadelphia], I'm sorry to say, is amateurish..........

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......

Holy crud! Well, this Phillyist's prediction about how the whole casino thing was going to go has just been totally shot to hell: yesterday the City council unanimously approved putting that referendum about casinos on the May 15 primary ballot, which "would change the city charter to ban casinos within 1,500 feet of any residential neighborhood." We'll be jiggered! All the Brady news that's fit to print! First of all, he and his legal......

Milton Street's court-appointed lawyer in his corruption trial (not his NJ traffic ticket trial; try to keep up!) couldn't come to an agreement with her client on how to handle his case, so she's withdrawing from the case. Street can't afford to hire his own lawyer (what's he been spending his money on? Not paying traffic tickets, that's for sure), so he's being appointed a new one, although the judge pointed out he probably......

Daniel Whelan made his the final meeting of his five-year term on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission a doozie by proposing two controversial resolutions that hadn't been presented before: one to bar school employees from engaging in political activity (rejected), and another calling for the sale of valuable artworks to raise money for the schools (postponed), which brought to mind the whole Eakins "Gross Clinic" dust-up. Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia has doubled the number......

Three fatal car crashes occurred in the area between Thursday night and Friday morning. One involved a speeding car travelling the wrong way on the Schuylkill Expressway. The vehicle collided with another car, killing both drivers. The highway was closed for three hours as a result. Meanwhile, another fatal accident early Friday on Route 42 in New Jersey blocked off the Walt Whitman Bridge for hours. The third incident was a hit-and-run and occurred Thursday......