Police are investigating an attempted robbery that turned fatal this morning at a recyling company in Germantown. Police said a gunman, who posed as a customer to get inside the facility, confronted employees in a garage at Geppert Recycling in the 4500 block of Wayne Avenue. Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman, said that two workers were armed and that a shootout ensued. The gunman, who appeared to be in his 20s, was pronounced dead shortly after the 9:30 a.m. incident. [via the INQUIRER] At about 11:35 last night, a man was fatally shot in Olney, police said. The […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
NUTTY PROFESSOR: U.S. NOBEL GENETICIST SAYS BLACKS DUMBER THAN WHITES James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has provoked outrage with his comments, made ahead of his arrival in Britain today.The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.” He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.” […]
I Went To The Daily Show & All I Got Was A Good Time
BY EVA LIAO The first thing you learn about seeing Jon Stewart tape “The Daily Show” is that you have to wait — in line, for three hours to be exact — but it’s worth every tedious, snail-paced minute you spend in the Comedy Central queue. The vendor outside is making a killing selling overpriced hotdogs at $2.50 apiece (my friend and I, showing foresight, came prepared with a fifth of whiskey and a joint). Surprisingly, the crowd was not nearly as overwhelmingly white and college-y as we’d expected — though there were four Penn students representing — but unsurprisingly […]
WELCOME TO THE HOTEL VINCENT FUMO: You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave
PHILADELPHIA. If you’re looking for a new house, State Sen. Vince Fumo is trying to sell his Fairmount-area mansion. He may be asking almost $7 million, but you’ll save a ton in taxes. Philadelphia’s Board of Revision of Taxes has valued Fumo’s 29-room home at $250,000 for the past six years, just a fraction of his $6,995,000 asking price. The BRT has required Fumo to pay just $6,611 in real estate taxes each year, which according to tax advocate Brett Mandel is the most vivid picture of the problems with the city’s assessment process. “Even though thousands of people in […]
GAYBO: I Am Melting!…Melting!…Oh What A World!
BY TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR OK, I’m not sure if my Ramon rollercoaster has finally reached its zenith, or if turning 39 last week triggered some sort of desperate mid-life crisis, but I totally earned my Oscar nomination this week, complete with hyperventilating, a crying jag, and other assorted acts of anxiety. It all started at my family’s birthday party, replete with yelling and arguing between my sister and her husband. My niece dropped her cell phone in a booth at an Appleby’s and World War III erupted. Of course, the LAST place I want to eat on my birthday […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
O BROTHER, HERE ART THOU: REID BOYS REUNITED AT LAST Garrett Reid joined his brother Britt at the Montgomery County jail last night after he missed a court-ordered drug test. The eldest son of Eagles coach Andy Reid “failed to appear for a drug test that the probation and parole office demanded,” said Kevin Harley, spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office. The tests are random and Reid is not given advance notice, said Harley. “It was a miscommunication,” said Ross Weiss, one of Garrett Reid’s attorneys. Weiss said that because his client is not permitted to drive, he must […]
KILLADELPHIA: 3 More Dead Since U Went 2 Bed
INQUIRER: Warminster police are looking for three men believed to have taken part in the killing of two people and the wounding of another at an apartment complex. “This is not a whodunit, it’s a where-are-they?” said chief Michael Murphy after SWAT operations at two locations failed to snare the suspects. Shortly before midnight, a gunfire erupted at the apartment of Mendez Thomas, 22, in the Bucks Landing Apartment Complex in the 100 block of East Street Road. Thomas was pronounced dead at the scene. Lisa Diaz, 27, was taken to Abington Hospital, where she died. Both had been shot […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Collateral Damage
Hello – Last week there was an unfortunate incident outside of The Starlight Ballroom during a private birthday party (not an R5 event). After a group of people left the venue once it was closed — two individuals began to fight over a woman. The argument escalated and security directed the two men to leave the block. Once they were across the street and down the block (away from security and a stationed police officer) — an individual produced a handgun and shot at the man who he was arguing with. Sgt Wilkins from the Philadelphia Police department has made […]
THE WAY WE WERE: When We Were Kings
During the Centennial year of 1876, Philadelphia was host to a celebration of 100 years of American cultural and industrial progress. Officially known as the “International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine,” the Centennial Exhibition, the first major World’s Fair to be held in the United States, opened on May 10, 1876 on a 285-acre tract of Fairmount Park overlooking the Schuylkill River. The fairgrounds, designed almost exclusively by 27-year-old German immigrant Hermann J. Schwarzmann, were host to 37 nations and countless industrial exhibits occupying over 250 individual pavilions. The Exhibition was immensely popular, drawing […]
THE EARLY WORD: OCTOBERFIST V
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KILLADELPHIA: Taking It To The Streets
Survivors of gun violence hope a noon march in Center City will publicize a message: Get illegal handguns off the streets. It could also block traffic on a busy stretch of Broad Street. People in wheelchairs will be part of the procession, from Magee Rehabilitation Hospital at 16th and Race Streets to the State Office Building at Broad and Spring Garden Streets, where a rally will be held. Permits to march up Broad Street have been requested, but may not be officially approved until just before the event, a spokesperson for Handgun Sanity said this morning. The demonstration is to […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
POE DISPUTE TURNS GRAVE, DARKER THAN ‘THE NIGHT’S PLUTONIAN SHORE’ In the Oct. 4-11 issue of the City Paper, local literary blogger Edward Pettit declared that Edgar Allan Poe, who flourished in Philadelphia but inconveniently died in Baltimore and is buried there, must be exhumed and reinterred in Philadelphia by 2009, marking 200 years since his birth. Poe lived in Philadelphia from 1838 to 1844. Baltimore Sun columnist Laura Vozzella replied with a caustic piece headlined “We Have the Body and We’re Keeping Him!” Baltimore mystery novelist Laura Lippman groused, “What’s next, a crab cake hoagie?” Jeff Jerome, curator of […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
FROM ‘BLOHAN’ TO ‘BROKEHAN’: Lindsay Has Literally Blown Through $7 Million Lohan quickly earned millions from films like Mean Girls and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen — but she has spent it even quicker. She lived for most of last year in Hollywood’s opulent Chateau Marmont hotel, spending $450,000 on her $1,200-a-night suite, as well as another £500,000 having chauffeurs on 24-hour standby. “And the amount she has wasted putting cocaine up her nose is disgusting. Even she has lost count.” Added to that were endless bottles of Cristal champagne at $550 a pop — until the unpaid bills […]