A lawsuit by the Philadelphia firm of Cozen O'Connor blaming the government of Saudi Arabia for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is probably dead in the water now after a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Saudi Arabia could not be sued for acts of terrorism. A 1-year-old child was slashed in the neck yesterday afternoon at a North Philadelphia home. The suspect is believed to be the child's father, but police are withholding the......

The parents of Danieal Kelly have filed a lawsuit against their criminal co-defendants, blaming them for the girl's demise. Leonard P. Luchko, a top computer technician for State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo pleaded guilty yesterday and told a federal judge that he followed Fumo's orders to erase e-mails being sought by federal agents investigating the powerful Philadelphia Democrat. Apparently he failed to erase incriminating e-mails from his own devices, however. Police responded to reports......

Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC, owner of the Daily News and the Inquirer, requested their union employees to forego a $25-a-week raise scheduled to begin September 1st, as a cost-cutting measure in the face of declining revenue that has afflicted newspapers nationwide. Members voted overwhelmingly to do so. Early this morning, someone called police to report a break-in at a South Philadelphia home. The homeowners were away at the Shore. While investigating, police critically wounded a......

South Philadelphia is a unique collection of narrow streets, old-world traditions and curse words. Hidden amongst the proud blue-collar glaze of cheese-whiz and Catholicism lies a number of fascinating mysteries, mysteries that have never penetrated the protective border of Washington Avenue. Until now. Until one Phillyist* decided to pull back the curtain of intrigue and reveal…The Mysteries of South Philadelphia. Mystery #1: The Fountain of Youth. Right around the corner of 12th and Tasker......

The Philadelphia area is under an excessive heat watch through Sunday. In response, the Philadelphia Senior Center, in conjunction with Comcast-Spectacor, will give away 300 fans on a first-come, first-served basis this morning. The Daily News examines how an alleged DUI killer's outrageous MySpace page is not exactly helping his case. (What a freaking idiot.) The city's Board of Revision of Taxes meets at 10AM today to vote on the Actual Value Initiative, a plan......

City Controller Alan Butkovitz will release an audit of the city's recreation centers and playgrounds in an 11:30AM press conference today. Charter schools in the city of Chester seem to be successful, but the school district is having a hard time coping with the drain they put on available resources. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission will hold the first of two scheduled public hearings today on the proposed closing of two troubled city......

"Police removed a large suitcase filled with human remains from a rowhouse in South Philadelphia yesterday." The case has not been ruled a homicide. The older man living in the rowhouse is being cooperative and is apparently not connected to the suitcase. The suspicion is that the remains may be those of a baby reported missing in Baltimore several months ago. An autopsy will be performed today. "State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille......

Photo of Free Tibet protesters at 5th and Market Streets taken by the author this past weekend The Daily News has more on how faulty the emergency radio system is, and also a bit on how personnel are under-trained on its functionality. Meanwhile, PHA cops have similar problems with their radios. The Daily News interviewed three women from Philadelphia's Asian American community on the controversy going on now over the 2008 Summer Olympics. (If......

We sure do love Pennsylvania politics. Someone started a fire at the Mount Carmel office of State Rep. Robert Belfanti Jr. Belfanti is unopposed in the primary and general elections, and had no idea why someone would try to burn his office down. Meanwhile, the South Philadelphia campaign office of Pennsylvania state House candidate Christian DiCicco, the son of City Councilman Frank DiCicco, was burglarized yesterday. There's a little disparity between the two Inquirer articles......

The route followed in this video is about as plausible as Rocky's run. But hey, let's post it anyway!......

Phillyist VIP: Matt Nelson...

Fun around town, for $10 or less: XPN Presents: Griffin House and Sons of William at Tin Angel (20 S. 2nd), 8:30PM. $10 Japan/USA: Dance and music as part of the ongoing Sound Space: Japan/USA project at the Mascher Space Coop (155 Cecil B. Moore Ave), 8PM. $10 Kulu Mele: West African dance workshop with Kulu Mele at the South Philadelphia Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia (1700 S. Broad), 6PM. Free Quizzo Mania:......

Beginnings “Let me first say that it was not my intention to be a Pain in the Ass. I was far too lazy, arrogant and insecure to think I could ever be one. Apparently I was halfway there. “I had friends who never wanted anything more than to be Pains in the Asses. Their fathers were Pains in the Asses, and their grandfathers before them. My friend Lou learned how to be one from......

Strange and amusing stories are already pouring out of Milton Street's trial. Yesterday Philadelphia Airport Services official Gregory Taylor testified that Milt's "financial problems and apparent affinity for debt had led Street to bounce three checks for $133,000 each - part of an alleged kickback - that he had written to PAS. And that Street had asked for personal loans and demanded that PAS hire a politically connected minister for a no-show job." Today,......

Mayor Nutter has cut taxpayer-funded nonprofit Philadelphia Safe and Sound's funding by $21 million, and City Council's majority leader said she would call today for hearings to look into how Safe and Sound conducts its business. The funding cuts will result in the closing of ten school-based community centers; the termination of a parent-truancy program; and the elimination of many after-school programs. As the head of one after-school program put it, "It's a fiasco."......

"A weekend Philadelphia police clash with partygoers at a Latina girl's 'Sweet 15' celebration ended with at least 20 people alleging they were beaten by officers, prompting the first major internal investigation of officer misconduct under new Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey." A woman 28 weeks pregnant was killed with a single shotgun blast to the back shortly after 1AM this morning on the 4600 block of Griscomb Street. She was found by police......

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......

"Federal highway officials have declined to approve the state's application to make I-80 a toll road," which will obviously make it harder for the state to collect the money from said tolls with which it planned to fund statewide highway and bridge repairs. The New Jersey state legislature gave final approval to a bill today that would abolish the state's death penalty; now all that's needed is for Governor Corzine to sign it, which he's......

With a preliminary hearing for the case scheduled for tomorrow, the Inquirer takes another look at the 41-year long murder of Police Officer William Barclay. Pennsylvania officials will decide soon whether to spend $45 million to build a stadium in Chester as the final step toward securing a Major League Soccer team for the Philadelphia area. Right now, Philly is second behind St. Louis for the remaining expansion slot, its chances contingent on a stadium......

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......

The "10,000 men: A Call to Action" campaign will get started in earnest on Saturday when they put the first 200 men on the streets. It'll be a field exercise for squad leaders, and apparently they'll also be doing a door-to-door campaign to alert neighbors of the effort. Then they'll be patrolling in South Philadelphia next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening. John Lewis, the suspect in the murder of police officer Chuck Cassidy, was......

The Attorney General's Office has accused Former State Rep. Frank LaGrotta of giving his relatives fake jobs in order to pay them thousands in taxpayer dollars. A cheval-de-frise (an iron-tipped log that's placed in a riverbed along with many others in order to gore the hulls of enemy warships) was recently found at the bottom of the Delaware River at the Sunoco Logistics pier in South Philadelphia. It's a relic from the mid-1770s, and......

"A former lawmaker has returned $79,000 he was paid to serve as litigator for House Republicans." But the state Ethics Commission still has to decide whether his contract violated Pennsylvania law, in which case he might have to pay fines equal to three times that amount. The 90-year-old woman who was beaten and robbed outside her Port Richmond home last month has now died from her injuries. The police are asking for help in......

75-year-old Maximo Jurado escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1979 and has been on the run ever since - until he was captured by police last night in Philadelphia at the home of an ex-girlfriend, who had known him for a over a year but had never discovered the truth about his past. The Daily News story we linked to the other day about the bloated Parking Authority pay roll has caused Ed Rendell......

...so go make one happen. Want to speak out about the violence in your neighborhood? Have concerns about drug sales conducted in broad daylight? What else is on your mind? Take it out of your mind and put it in the lap of (in all likelihood) future Mayor Michael Nutter. Tonight there's a town hall meeting in South Philadelphia where you can bend the good man's ear. Have at it. Nothing changes if you don't......

CultureGrrl points out that the architects just selected to build the new home for the Barnes Foundation apparently had trouble keeping water from dripping down into one of their recent buildings: the American Folk Art Museum. D'oh. 63-year-old retired policeman "Osvaldo Torres walked into the emergency room at Albert Einstein Medical Center yesterday morning, sat for a few moments, then went to a nearby restrooom and shot himself to death." A suicide note was found......

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......

SEPTA had planned to cancel transfers today, but the judge in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court case needed more time to decide whether to prevent the cancellation plans, and so issued a temporary injunction that will maintain the status quo until Monday. All of which means, transfers are not cancelled yet. A 16-year-old has been arrested in the case of the teen who was killed for his dirt bike. The suspect will be charged......

Uh oh. Even Katie Couric has said—and on the national news, no less—that Philadelphia has a violence problem. So now it must be true. The 13-year-old Lansdowne boy who fatally stabbed his 16-year-old brother because he wanted a turn playing video games has been allowed by the judge to attend his brother's funeral, although he will be shackled and accompanied by deputy sheriffs. Maryann Neabor is accused of killing her brother-in-law with an antifreeze-laced......

A fire that killed the owner of the House of Bread in the Italian Market on Wednesday was caused by a cooking pot left on the stove. The man accused of supplying weapons to the Fort Dix terrorists has been denied bail. Runner-up mayoral candidate and professional rich guy Tom Knox wants more money! He plans to go into investment banking and make hundreds of millions of dollars. Then maybe run for office again. Mumia......