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......

It's now been a week since the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Now that the hysteria dust has settled a bit, we've decided to take a look at the Heller decision to see what it says, what it doesn't say, and what it might mean for Philadelphia. We're not going to pass judgment......

It's bargain day here at Phillyist, so we're bringing you a two-for-the-price of one Asshole of the Week. (Actually, we missed last week, but this week's column gives us two Assholes, so we figure it evens out.) When in doubt, count on Philadelphia's gun problem to give us a bona fide Asshole. This week, the Supreme Court handed down its Heller decision holding that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own a firearm.......

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......

In the wake of the deadly tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo, the Inquirer takes a look at the safety of the tiger exhibit at the Philadelphia Zoo. Seven state lawmakers, naming the city as the defendant, brought a lawsuit before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday asking that all construction of the proposed SugarHouse Casino be halted, "contending its license to build on submerged land beyond the river's edge is illegal." Chester Township......

As Phillyist Sarah pointed out yesterday in a comment on Philly in the News, Mark O'Donnell was arrested yesterday in the murder of Ebony Nicole Dorsey, the daughter of his girlfriend. He's been charged this morning with beating, strangling and sexually assaulting the 14-year-old. Dorsey's mother says the attack came after O'Donnell had been smoking crack all night, but O'Donnell says that's not true and that he caught the girl molesting his daughter. About 100......

We're sure you've heard by now, but as we haven't had a chance to mention it here yet: on Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that "City Council's longstanding failure to vote on SugarHouse's zoning and land-use requests" constituted "deliberate inaction" and therefore "cleared the way for construction to begin on the $550 million SugarHouse casino in Fishtown and Northern Liberties." SugarHouse officials say they expect to start construction in a matter of weeks. The......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

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......

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......

The Inquirer discusses the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race and the possible repercussions on the Philadelphia area. The police now have a suspect in the death of police officer Chuck Cassidy - 21-year-old John Lewis of North Philadelphia - and have issued an arrest warrant for him. The search for him has intensified, and police and his relatives are asking him to turn himself in. Lewis is armed and dangerous; click through for a description......

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......

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,......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too – two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

Turns out we've been a bad blog. Thanks to Phillyist Sarah, and the Inquirer, we've found some local news stories that we were supposed to be writing about but haven't. One is the story of Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan getting sued by Chops because, they say, he gave a bad review to their strip steak when he didn't even eat it. However, the receipt from the meal, which he cleverly kept, seems to......

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,......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. Heh heh. Hearing somebody actually try to pitch some classic video games of the past makes you realize how insane the premises of some of them really are. (Via) Yay! 1UP has more terrible video game box art for us (via)! Meanwhile, Yahoo has the Top 10 Cheesiest Classic Game Commercials (via). You'd be surprised and amused by what odd combinations......

The state Supreme Court says Brady can stay on the May 15 primary ballot, despite his paperwork errors. So, we guess that's it for that. Yesterday an accident caused problems on 202, but starting this coming Sunday it'll be a planned construction project that will cut the road down to one lane in each direction between Route 401 and Route 30. Thankfully construction will only take place between 10PM and 5AM, Sunday through Thursday.......

It's definitely a big deal that the US Supreme Court has upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortions. But the Inquirer is pointing out that the decision will actually have little impact on policies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey - because PA "already has one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws," and "Gov. Rendell, a supporter of abortion rights, would likely veto any new efforts to further restrict abortions." Some fool has robbed......

The Daily News has an amusing article about how fans let nothing stop them from enjoying yesterday's Phillies home opener - even inconvenient little things like the fact that the Phillies lost. One guy came even though the game was the same day as his pregnant wife's due date. Commonwealth Court upheld Philly's much discussed limits on campaign contributions on Monday, but Chaka Fattah said he would appeal the ruling, which would bring the......

This story about a popular barber shop owner being shot and killed Tuesday morning is just one example of many articles about recent violent deaths. We're too depressed to link to them all. Some are trying to pass laws to ban casinos in Philly, but there could already be a law on the books that would prohibit the building of at least one of the casinos: the planned SugarHouse Casino at Frankford and Delaware......

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......

Yes, the rumors you've heard are true: as of yesterday, gay couples can now register to get married in that land of promise that borders us to the east, just over the bridges. Well, they can register to get a civil union anyway, which is the same thing, but just under a name that the NJ Legislature hopes will upset fewer people. This came about due to a lawsuit filed a while back by seven......

The NJ Supreme Court has decided that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals (what a novel idea!) and has given state lawmakers 180 days to rewrite the law to include either gay marriage, or some sort of civil union. In other words, there may soon be a closer option for local gay couples who want to solidify their unions. Awesome. Equality is a good thing. (Via Libby) Sunday night a New Jersey......

Two local police dispatchers have allegedly crossed the Thin Blue Line by selling the names and addresses of suspected drug dealers to a would-be-robber. Only the erstwhile robber was, in fact, a government informant. More recent shootings means we might exceed last year's homicide count. Tomorrow is "The World Can't Wait" protest, when " people everywhere will walk out of school, take off work, and come to the downtowns & townsquares" to march against......

A song by Florida band The Cruxshadows, who are on independent Philadelphia record label Dancing Ferret Discs, stole the top spot on Billboard's Dance Single Sales chart last week from Beyonce and Jay-Z. Nice! Apparently even the folks at Dancing Ferret were taken a bit by surprise. The Cruxshadows' number one song is an industrial-electronic dance track called "Sophia." Their lead singer calls himself Rogue and they just had a big show at DragonCon in......

In general, the Catholic Church has handled the priest sex abuse scandal pretty shamefully, but we have to respect what they did on Friday when Cardinal Justin Rigali and about 330 priests met at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood to hear the stories of the abused from the victims themselves, and their families. The event was called Witness to the Sorrow, and indeed the Cardinal and the priests had to pay witness to......

Did you ever notice how all politicos seem cut from the same cloth: same neatly over-styled coiff, same blue suit, same power tie, same sweater so-offensively trotted out to try and sway the vote when they skew poorly with women? (Psst...hey...guys? They educate women now, you know? We can read - and actually vote on, oh, issues. Just a helpful hint.) Phillyist never thought this Polished Politician Package (patent pending) was an accident, but......

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. Phillyist thinks that readers recommended this post the most because "most of our quieter readers (probably) agree with us that rude commenting sucks." Know what else sucks? Philly's not getting the Olympics, but they are getting thinner.......

On Friday, we mentioned the fact that a health advisory had been issued which warned folks to avoid all contact with the Wissahickon Creek and Schuylkill River. Well, happily that advisory has been lifted, as water tests have revealed that the water is safe. It is a bit upsetting, however, that they still don't know yet what exactly killed all the fish (the event that started all this)... Have you happened to notice, walking the......