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Yo, Philly in the News
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John Jackey Worman, the Delaware County man whose child porn case we've been posting about here for some time, was convicted in federal court of dozens of child-pornography charges yesterday. Worman could spend the rest of his life in jail. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Pennsylvania's smoking ban goes into effect today.
Today is Philadelphia City Council's last meeting before summer break, so they're going to try to make decisions on a lot of leftover items at the last minute, including proposals to hike fines for littering, privatize the city's sludge plant, take control of Fairmount Park, force contractors to keep sidewalks open during construction projects, and allow dining decks fronting the Manayunk canal. We suspect they will also all join in on a rousing chorus of "School's Out for the Summer" at the end of the session.
A memorandum sent to the School Reform Commission from the state's school-safety watchdog informed the group that it was flunking when it comes to properly disciplining the majority of violent students and thoroughly reporting serious crimes.
A 17-year-old male knocked on the door of the security booth inside the lobby of the Queen Lane Apartments late Sunday. When the cop inside opened it, the young man fired one shot with an assault rifle, striking the officer in the left hip underneath his bullet-proof vest. Luckily the officer was able to immediately slam shut the door of the bullet-proof booth before the gunman fired twice more. The youth then ran off and Zahir Boddy-Johnson was arrested an hour later for the crime, and will be charged as an adult with attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery, firearms violations and related offenses. The officer is in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.
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.
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 Miami for him.
There aren't many details available, but a schoolbus accident occurred before 8AM yesterday morning at 28th Street and Passyunk Avenue, injuring nine of the passengers, six of them children. All passengers were taken to area hospitals - the uninjured for evaluation and the injured for treatment.
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 vacation time, will keep her benefits for a full year, and will be paid at full salary for an extra nine months. Sounds like the deal was put together by departing School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels and was not approved by the full commission.
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 pass. Students who live closer to their schools will pay a reduced rate of $14.45 for the new pass.
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 Blvd. He's a black man in his 30s "who was wearing sunglasses, a dirty gray suit jacket and dirty white sneakers." He got away with some cash - and a dye pack, which was later found exploded at a train concourse at 17th and JFK.
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.
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 radius, and the destruction of many neighboring houses.
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 diesel emissions must be vented outside firehouses, but the city installed air-filtration systems that do not do that.
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 school open, especially since it sounds pretty clear that $38 million is a ridiculously inflated number.
Police are still looking for the abusive mother and the 7-year-old son she supposedly abducted. They've had some reported sightings, but none of them have panned out.
"A recently completed 'citizens' inspection' of a third of the 140 parks operated by the Fairmount Park Commission and the city Recreation Department" revealed that said parks are in bad shape, and that the park system itself needs a lot of work. There seems to be some argument, however, over whether this means the charter should be changed, or whether it just means they need more money.
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 Covenant Award in recognition of their original and effective educational achievements."
All the Brady news that's fit to print! First of all, he and his legal team are now saying he didn't forget but deliberately did not declare his city pension on his nominating papers because he thought they did not need to be included. Regardless, legal challenges to his nomination will not be cleared up quickly; it sounds like we could look forward to weeks more of this, with the case probably eventually going to the state Supreme Court. Meanwhile, there is some good news for Brady: he got the top spot on the ballot. Assuming he ends up on it, of course.
Villanova heiress Susan Tabas Tepper was sentenced to a year of probation, $2,800 in fines, mandatory anger management classes, and community service on Monday for assaulting Xiomara Salinas, her nanny and housekeeper, in the summer of 2005. Apparently Tepper got angry about a messy refrigerator and, in the grand tradition of both crazy rich bitches and kung fu masters, she used whatever was nearby as a weapon, throwing carrots at Salinas, and then striking her with a telephone handset, before pulling her hair, breaking her glasses, and even trying to push her down the stairs.
Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia has doubled the number of new private school scholarships available to low-income kids in the city. That's 1,000 new, four-year scholarships averaging $1,000 a year. Cool stuff.
Despite being named among the top U.S. leaders last month, the Philadelphia school district's chief executive, Paul Vallas, got raked over the coals on Friday by the School Reform Commission for the district's $73.3 million deficit.
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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...
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