INQUIRER: Two people are dead and three others in critical condition in separate shootings across Philadelphia overnight, police said this morning.Since just after 7:30 p.m. last night there have been seven shooting incidents in the city and in Overbrook an woman was stabbed numerous times. James Lewis, 17, was shot in the back of the neck in the 3100 block of Rorer Street in Kensington at 10:21 p.m., said Officer Christine O’Brien. Lewis, of the 1900 block of East Monmouth Street in Kensington, was taken to Temple University Hospital and pronounced dead at 10:39 p.m. No arrests were reported. At […]
THIS JUST IN: Philly Wireless Lives To Die Another Day
INQUIRER: A group of local investors will rescue the city’s trailblazing wireless network from what seemed like imminent shutdown, with a new for-profit company that will replace Earthlink Inc. as the system’s operator, according to multiple sources close to the deal. Although the details of the deal were unclear yesterday, the new company is said to be considering an advertising-based business model that would provide free Internet access to all, or at least in those places where the spotty network is available. Earthlink charged $20 a month for the service. The sources said little, if any, taxpayer money would be […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
PEACE CORPS: War On Drugs, Johnny Brendas, June 7th [Photos by TIFFANY YOON] BOSS, I’m sorry this is so late, but I have a good story: The day after the show I had work all day and then hopped a bus to New York and counted on getting a seat on the Boltbus, because the buses are equipped with Internet. Didn’t happen. Then I was hoping when I got to Brooklyn I would have the opportunity to use my sister’s Internet at her apartment, but I couldn’t get a hold of her until Monday afternoon. A friend from out of […]
BREAKING: Gore Set To Endorse Obama
Dear Jonathan, A few hours from now I will step on stage in Detroit, Michigan to announce my support for Senator Barack Obama. From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected President of the United States. Over the next four years, we are going to face many difficult challenges — including bringing our troops home from Iraq, fixing our economy, and solving the climate crisis. Barack Obama is clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America. This moment and this election are too important […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR The critically acclaimed television series Weeds is back for its fourth season, and creator Jenji Kohan is relocating the satire from suburbia to the borderlands. Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker), suburban mother and drug dealer, trades her gated community for a beach town just miles from Mexico. The focus shifts from bourgeois hypocrisy to larger social issues such as immigration, free trade, and the larger effects of drug trafficking. Kohan is optimistic about the reinvention of the series and is eager to welcome actors like Albert Brooks to the cast. Before creating Weeds, Kohan also served as a […]
THIS JUST IN: Bloomsday Started Six Minutes Ago!
WHEN: TODAY, Monday, June 16th from Noon – 7 p.m. WHERE: Rosenbach Museum & Library, 2008-2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia WHAT: The Rosenbach Museum & Library celebrates its 16th annual Bloomsday today. The Rosenbach, home of James Joyce‘s original manuscript for Ulysses, holds this Philadelphia tradition every year on June 16th, drawing hundreds of friends, neighbors, Joyce enthusiasts, book-lovers, and curious passersby to Delancey Place. Bloomsday is free and open to the public and features readings on the steps of the museum from some of the city’s most interesting business, creative, and media personalities, along with a special exhibition of Joyce […]
FATHER’S DAY: Barack Obama Saved Quincy, Illinois
What’d you do? John McCain made his priorities clear, making kissy-face with the Foreign Minister of Iraq and stressing the necessity of a 100-year lease on American military bases in Iraq while Obama filled sandbags to help save an American city.
TRAGIC: Cops Seize 52 Pounds Of Harmless Vegetation
By STEPHANIE FARR Philadelphia Daily News Six men who were busted with 52 pounds of marijuana in Upper Darby on Saturday are finding that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. [Obligatory bad drug pun in the lede, because, hey, pot busts ARE FUNNY, setting up law enforcement source for…] “They’re in a black hole,” said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. [ …the punchline. Good one, Mr. C.] Upper Darby narcotics detectives, state police and members of the Delaware County Drug Task Force were overcome by the stench of $90,000 worth of marijuana [NOT pictured, above] when […]
KILLADELPHIA: Wouldbe Teacher Snuffed In S. Philly
INQUIRER: Beau Zabel, 23, came to Philadelphia from Minnesota six weeks ago, eager to experience urban East Coast living and to become a math teacher in the city school system. He found a place to live through roommates.com in South Philadelphia near the Italian Market, and took a temporary job at the Starbucks at Fourth and South Streets.He recently updated his page on myspace.com, which proclaims his optimism: “Just waiting for life to begin.” But his life ended at about 1:30 a.m. today, when police said Zabel was ambushed as he walked home from the midnight shift at the coffee […]
THE AMERICAN GULAG: McClatchy Publishes Hard-Hitting Overview Of Gitmo, Who’s There, How They Got There, And Why Most Shouldn’t Be
BY TOM LASSETER OF MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens and perhaps hundreds of men whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments. McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees along with a number of local officials, primarily in Afghanistan, and reviewed available U.S. military tribunal documents and other records. Most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals, the McClatchy investigation found. At least seven […]
WORTH REPEATING: Riddle Me This
Reckoning ÷ Crooked Rain Crooked Rain = Around the Sun? BY JONATHAN VALANIA Twenty-four years ago — let’s just pause and think about that for a sec, 24 years ago! — R.E.M. released Reckoning. It was the much-anticipated sophomore release by the underground’s then-favorite sons of the South. The album made good on the kudzu-crusted promise of the band’s bewitching and ultimately confounding debut Murmur, radiating a murky but hopeful aura to an alt-world grown weary of punk’s safety-pinned doom and goth’s spider web of gloom. “I’m the sun and you can read,” they sang, or at least that’s what […]
MAILBAG: What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?
DEAR PHAWKER, I spent a month in the medical unit at George W. Hill. I did not see the sun the entire time. We were only allowed out of our cells for showers and phone calls. We were supposed to be allowed to go to the gym once a week, which happened once the whole time I was there. While in custody I became suicidal and the psychiatrist at the prison said that “I could cost the prison 1 million dollars if I was successful”. There was a gentleman who screamed 12 hours a day. The guards would let him […]
PHENO BARBIE DOLL: Cindy McCain’s House Of Pain
[Illustration via 23/6] SALON 1999: GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on “Dateline”) and Diane Sawyer (on “Good Morning America”) the tale of her onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief organization. It was a brave and obviously painful thing to do. It was also vintage McCain media manipulation. But both of Cindy McCain’s staged, teary drug-addiction confessions have been vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out — even if it’s a […]