WALL STREET JOURNAL: When Mr. Alipour didn’t return home that night, his parents began to worry. All day, they had heard gunshots ringing in the distance. His father, Yousef, first called his fiancée and friends. No one had heard from him. At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue. Upon learning of his son’s death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a “bullet fee”—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said. Mr. Alipour […]

1) The Old 97’s would be a much more depressing band if Rhett Miller weren’t around. The structure of “An Evening With the Old 97’s,” as the show was billed, gave a unique insight into what half of the 97’s bring to the table: With no opening acts, first was a solo set by bassist Murry Hammond, who trudged through a dozen dirges that were about as cheery as a plane crash. “I’m all about the funerals,” he noted before one particularly depressing Carter Family cover. Next was a set of poppy love songs by lead singer Rhett Miller. While […]

LOS ANGELES TIMES: This historic town, where America’s founding fathers plotted during the Revolution and Milton Hershey later crafted his first chocolates, now boasts another distinction. It may become the nation’s most closely watched small city. Some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town’s many tourists. That’s more outdoor cameras than are used by many major cities, including San Francisco and Boston. Unlike anywhere else, cash-strapped Lancaster outsourced its surveillance to a private nonprofit group that hires civilians to tilt, […]

NEW YORK TIMES: TEHRAN — Locked in a bitter contest with Iranians who say the presidential elections were rigged, the authorities have acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, state television reported Monday following assertions by the country’s supreme leader that the ballot was fair. But the authorities insisted that discrepancies, which could affect three million votes, did not violate Iranian law and the country’s influential Guardian Council said it was not clear whether they would decisively change the election result. The news emerged on the English-language Press TV as a […]

KAREN HELLER: After all these years of Vince’s being the Prince of the City and Harrisburg, of battling and fighting for you, but often for himself, in that $9-for-you, $1-for-him way of his, it comes down to this: He’s between a rock and hard time. Talking to a battery of leading defense lawyers and former prosecutors, I can tell you this: Based on the sentences of other corrupt officials, Fumo’s most likely going away for a long time, and soon. Convicted in March on all 137 counts, the former state senator faces a possible term of 21 to 27 years. […]

  BY KYLEE MESSNER Easter Sunday 2006 began the first of Philly’s annual Zombie Crawls, in honor of the birth of J.C.  Today, Philadelphia is the second city in the country to host an official zombie crawl, with events like Zombie Prom and the new Zombie Beach Party under its belt.  Tonight marks the inaugural Zombie Beach Party and to mark the occasion we chatted up Zombie organizer DJ extraordinaire Robert Drake. PHAWKER: Explain what the Philly Zombie Crawl is. ROBERT DRAKE: For some it’s a chance to take make-up and costume design to an extreme and really embrace their […]

  POLITICO: POLITICO learned today that the Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the “White House Watch” blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course. MORE PAUL KRUGMAN: OK, I have no idea about the actual decision process. But I have a theory about the general mindset of the people who made this decision. Here’s how I see things: many people in the news media, especially at the managerial level, decided a long time ago that movement conservatism was The Future — and that the sensible thing, whether […]

TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU: Senior House Democrats on Friday presented a sweeping plan to reshape the nation’s health care system that represented the fullest presentation yet of congressional liberals’ vision for improving medical care — including a promise to provide health insurance to nearly 50 million uninsured Americans without adding to the nation’s deepening debt. The full price tag is expected to top $1 trillion. MORE NEW YORK TIMES: Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, […]

[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY STEPHANIE SAYES Considering the fact that I was blazed out of my MIND the first time I got high, its a wonder I remember anything at all. But I remember the details with crystal clarity. Probably because at the age of 17, I thought I was partaking in something so bad, so out of the realm of my sheltered world, that my first experience with marijuana, or any drug for that matter, has always lived in my mind as a magical memory. I was visiting Philly for the first time. My then-boyfriend was a freshmen […]