NEWSWEEK: In the year and a half since Barack Obama was elected president, Republicans nationwide seem to have given up on the whole governing thing and chosen instead to play a long, rancorous game of “I’m More Conservative Than You Are.” They’ve been playing it in Utah, where incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett—lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 84—lost a primary battle this past weekend. They’ve been playing it in Florida, where moderate Gov. Charlie Crist was forced last week to abandon his bid for the Republican Senate nomination and run as an independent instead. And they’ve even been playing it on the […]

CLARK DELEON: The apocalyptic irony of May 13, 1985, is that everything the crazy people predicted came to be. MOVE said the authorities would try to annihilate them, and as a consequence there would be a fiery confrontation the likes of which Philadelphia had never seen. Let me describe May 13 in the shorthand I developed as a reporter and columnist watching the events unfold. A bunch of crazy people had taken five children hostage. (None of the six MOVE adults were the biological parents of the children inside 6221 Osage Ave.) The police tried freeing the children in the […]

Times Square, 40th & 7th Ave., 12:14 PM by JEFF FUSCO * WIKIPEDIA: Columbia president Clive Davis didn’t want them to record their song “Time” and said that they didn’t record that kind of stuff at Columbia. He also wanted to find a white group to record the song for them. The band said that this would never happen. When they broke the news to David Rubinson he was very heartbroken as he was really looking forward to producing “Time”. He found a solution to the problem. He told the brothers that he might lose his job for doing this […]

BY MAVIS LINNEMANN I fell in love with Indian food about 10 years ago, when one of my friends and I popped into a nondescript storefront selling curries and naan like McDonalds sells hamburger, with only two or three guys working the entire line and whipping up orders like it’s nobody’s business. As an Indian food virgin, I was drawn to a dish that was both exotic and familiar at the same time, one I was sure I couldn’t go wrong with, just because of the description, which probably went something like this: “Succulent pieces of yogurt-marinated chicken draped in […]

INHABITAT: It’s a backpack harness system with a network of wires strung all over the city. All you have to do is strap on the battery-powered harness, hop onto a wire and start flying around the city. It may be science fiction now, but someday this could be a reality. Recently presented at TEDx conference in Thessaloniki, and based on Kolelinia, the flying bicycle lanes constructed from taut steel wires, Kolelinio goes a step further, making the efficient urban transport system accessible to anyone, even those with disabilities. Each person has their own backpack composed of a harness, a battery […]

INQUIRER: A Philadelphia police sergeant who said he was shot last month by an unidentified black man in the city’s Overbrook section actually fabricated the entire story and shot himself, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said this morning. Sgt. Robert Ralston, a 21-year veteran of the department, admitted to homicide detectives early this morning that his previously reported story was false. Ramsey called the incident, “a terrible and embarrassing chapter in our history.” MORE ASSOCIATED PRESS:  A white Philadelphia police sergeant made up a story about being shot by a black man while on patrol last month and actually intentionally shot […]

ALTER NET: Last week, the U.S. stock market suffered the greatest sudden drop in its history, for reasons that nobody on Wall Street can seem to decipher. But of all the explanations being examined—a tech glitch, Greek debt worries and fraud have all been discussed–the most troubling is not being given sufficient attention. Coming on the very day that Congress considered two key financial reforms, the timing of the “flash crash” raises concerns that Wall Street is resorting to extreme tactics in its efforts to intimidate politicians who want to rein in the capital markets casino. Thursday’s market plunge could […]