Leading today's news is the manhunt for Eric DeShann Floyd, one of the bank robbers responsible for the murder of Philadelphia police sergeant Stephen Liczbinski at Port Richmond's Bank of America this Saturday. Local boxer Levon T. Warner is already in custody for his participation in the bank robbery turned homicide case that cost Liczbinkski his life. The Inquirer updates readers on the imminent eviction of the Cradle of Liberty Council Boy Scouts chapter from......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. A nineteen-year-old talked about shooting up his school on Xbox Live, a fellow player took him seriously, and now the kid has been arrested, suspended, and is looking at a maximum of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted. Thieves stole the contents of a truck full of copies of the video game Rock Band yesterday while holding the driver......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. A nativity scene becomes a LARP battle in this incredibly nerdy video that may just be the best thing ever. Or at least the geekiest Christmas ever. Oh, and did we mention it's called IM IN UR MANGER KILLING UR SAVIOR? (Via Sarah) AOL Food has a list of the top 11 things that taste great with bacon. And that's a......

The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. You know what your cat needs? A wig! Ah, the internet and its fascination with doing strange and terrible things to cats... (Via) Dude, a dinosaur mummy. Scientists have found the remains of a hadrosaur that have been mummified by a natural fluke of time and chemistry. It's one of only five dinosaurs to be found in this......

The Inquirer takes a closer look at the Philadelphia policeman who was shot the day before the shooting of Chuck Cassidy, by a gunman who then fled and ultimately drowned in the Schuylkill. They also put the incident in the larger context of criminals in Philadelphia getting released from jail only to commit more crimes and be arrested again, over and over. Meanwhile, another Philadelphia police officer was injured this weekend, this time by......

The cold weather - and holiday festivities - descended upon Gothamist. The Rockefeller Christmas tree was lit, Broadway stagehand finally ended their strike, and NASCAR decided to run their victory lap through Times Square. There were disturbing photographs revealing the working conditions in which many city manholes are produced and ninjas were also a hot topic, either robbing homes or entering into alibis. But the city was really rocked by how Rudy Giuliani's visits......

A tall, icy glass of our favorite internet junk, just for you. Do you want to see a music video for the Gilbert & Sullivan version of "Baby Got Back?" Of course you do. (Via Sarah) Wow - turns out officer Chuck Cassidy and his shooting are the subject of an urban legend/email forward that already made it onto Snopes. (Via Debbie) Harmonix will send you a replacement for your busted Rock Band guitar if......

Two separate laws aimed at making most government records public by default are making their way through the state legislature. The House bill, which was approved by a committee yesterday, is stronger than the bill that was passed by the Senate yesterday, 48-1. Another day, another shooting in Philadelphia. Two officers responding to a call about a man causing a disturbance in West Philadelphia early yesterday morning chased the man into an alley, where he......

First, some updates on stories we linked to yesterday: the Inquirer has the unsettling details and about the shooting of a 5-year-old boy early yesterday morning, and how it connects with other recent incidents of violence in the city. As for the Turnpike shutdown, it lasted six hours, causing a ripple effect of traffic jams on adjacent roadways and stranding hundreds of motorists at the height of morning rush hour. The judge in the......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. As we did in our news post, let's get all the holiday-related stuff out of the way first: just in time for Thanksgiving, Cinematical finally announced the winners of their Halloween costume contest (definitely not our favorites, but we never got around to voting, so we guess it's our own fault). They also have a list of Seven Movie Characters They'd Hate to......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY The N Crowd Thanksgiving Special: Improv Comedy with the N Crowd at the Actor’s Center (257 N. 3rd), 8PM. $10 The Delaware Rag: The Delaware Rag celebrates the release of their new CD at Upstairs Live at the World Café (3025 Walnut), 8PM. Also performing is The Josh Olmstead Band. $9 SATURDAY Rittenhouse Square West: Guided architectural walking tour of the Square (18th and Walnut); meet the......

The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. Game|Life managed to get their hands on some early screenshots from the upcoming Ghostbusters video game. The winner of the Doritos Unlock Xbox Contest is Mike Borland's Dash of Destruction, the game where you run around as a T-Rex chasing a Doritos truck. And while we're talking contests, Scott Adams had one on his blog recently to choose......

The big news this morning in both the Daily News and the Inquirer is that two more Philadelphia police officers were shot last night "as they attempted to serve a warrant in a narcotics investigation in the city's Frankford section." This morning, a 16-year-old male has been arrested in connection with the shooting. The Inquirer has a bit of a preview of the major policy report PennPraxis will be unveiling tonight about the development......

The Inquirer takes another look at the troubling recent increase, both locally and nationally, in the shooting of police. Mayor Nutter, in his first speech outside the city since the election, as the keynote speaker at the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry's annual dinner, got a standing ovation before and after, and urged Southeastern Pennsylvania to come together and work as one to achieve greatness. Police are still investigating gunshots fired shortly before......

Oh, man. Did you see that Rick Santorum is writing an opinion column for the Inquirer now? Ugh. In vaguely related news, John Street's post-mayoral employment, beginning in January, will be at Temple University as a professor of urban politics and policy. Governor Rendell, who himself is an adjunct at U. Penn, encouraged Street to make the move. Officials responding to a report of a fire at a home in Upper Darby yesterday discovered......

The big news today is police shootings. The Inquirer and the Daily News both examine the alarming local and national trend. The Daily News also reveals some backstory on the gunman who shot four people, including a policeman, before jumping into the Schuylkill River Tuesday night (his body was found early yesterday morning). And finally there are two articles about yet another shooting that took place early yesterday morning when a man tried to......

Nutter's got an ad on TV again, this one designed to reintroduce himself to voters, and to hopefully increase what is threatening to be a very low voter turnout. Meanwhile, Delaware County Republicans have their own election problems, which include W., declining party registration, and the real chance that a Democrat might win a council seat for the first time in nearly 30 years. It's Fumo time! The good news for Fumo: his corruption trial......

The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. Rumor is that X-Files 2 will start shooting on December 10 in Vancouver. The latest Star Trek casting rumor: Josh Lucas is up for the role of Captain Christopher Pike. A short film called Your Friend the Rat included on the Ratatouille DVD will feature the first hand-drawn, 2-D animated and stop-motion animated sequences ever in a Pixar......

An animal cruelty epidemic is sweeping the city, with dog fighting and pit bull abuse the most prominent activities. Seven Democratic presidential candidates will be coming to Drexel University tomorrow for a two-hour debate that will be televised on MSNBC. No public tickets are available. The Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus is offering a sensitivity-training program (which made its debut on Thursday) to hotel employees so they can learn how to be sensitive to the......

It's been a while since we've had the pleasure of adding a new writer to the mix, but today we get to do it again. Please help us welcome John K. Frisbee, who among other things is the Director of Development at Pig Iron Theatre Company, to our cadre of writers. John's primary interest is in covering Philly's outer neighborhoods – but we're going to let him start with University City. Werner Herzog's increasing popularity......

We are totally enamored of the accessories made by Jessica Evans, proprietor of In Hope: Readymade Cute. This crafty chick from Fishtown creates all kinds of accessories, from vinyl cuff bracelets adorned with flowers or cupcakes, to purses covered with octopus outlines or retro video game characters. We asked her what inspires her, and she told us it was whatever made her smile. "No matter if it is a robot in hell or a laser......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

No bones about it: Simpatico Theatre Project's latest play, The Why, is a weird show. And the timing of its production, although accidental, makes it weirder. This review is coming in late because I've been struggling with how to write a review of a dark comedy about a school shooting, when earlier on the day I saw the production, news of a school shooting in Ohio broke; the next day, one would be attempted......

Laurel Hill Cemetery is haunted - according to South Jersey Paranormal Research, anyway. 2,350 unionized janitors and maintenance workers who clean Center City buildings could strike at midnight tonight when their contracts expire, unless they come to an agreement with management before then. Talks are continuing, so we'll see what happens... Around 12:50AM Saturday morning in Springfield Township, Delaware County, an 18-year-old recent Springfield High School graduate driving a 2004 Ford Mustang Cobra struck......

The Daily News takes a look at the high rate of shootings by Philadelphia cops in connection with the recent shooting of 15-year-old Ronald Timbers. The police version of that incident is told in detail here, while in this article the Inquirer talks about the investigation into which version of the story is true. In a vaguely related story, an American Bar Association report released yesterday says that the Pennsylvania death penalty system is......

Investigators are still trying to work out how a woman's vehicle ran over both of her legs while she was in the drive-thru lane at a McDonald's in Phoenixville this past Friday. (Via JReedNet, via our contribute page) A whole array of services are now being offered to college students nationwide - as well as right here in the Philadelphia area - with names like DormAid, DormMom, CollegeBellhop and Soapy Joe's. They do things......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus & Columbus: The Lost Voyage (Mon, 9PM-11PM, PBS [WHYY & WLVT]; Mon, 9PM-11PM, History Channel) - Celebrate Columbus Day the way he'd have wanted you to: by watching TV! PBS has a film edited from a seven-part BBC series which covers Columbus' first Atlantic crossing, and even features a recreation of the voyage with replicas of the three famous ships. Meanwhile, at......

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford begins with the last train robbery Jesse and Frank James did together, and already you can tell the lengths to which writer/director Andrew Dominik and his DP Roger Deakins have gone to create a new cinematic language for the Western. The night is pitch-black, and the light of the train shines through a late-autumn forest as if God himself were onboard. The inside of the......

The Inquirer has the details on yesterday's Phillies pep rally, which folks are claiming was the largest pep rally in the city's history. Today is the one year anniversary of the Amish school shooting. The Penn student who died on September 9th of meningococcal meningitis was discharged from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania only days earlier and told she had a viral infection that would soon clear up. Penn officials are still claiming......

An update on the Chester High School shooting: the victim was scheduled to be released yesterday from the hospital; the bullet went in and out of his leg and he didn't need surgery. Meanwhile, the suspect surrendered to detectives on Wednesday and was charged as an adult with attempted homicide and aggravated assault. The new principal of the school is trying to deal with the fallout, and change the perception of his school. Meanwhile, the......