MANCHESTER, ENGLAND — For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school. But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist. The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. The ordeal began in Manchester when Naushaba Nadeem, a doctor, and […]

BY JEFF DEENEY The Next Mayor blog has a couple substantial posts talking about Showdown on Hurley Street. I would suggest reading them and getting involved in the larger discussion about poverty, crime and violence that’s bound to get louder as the change over to the Nutter administration draws nearer. I figured that the article would spark some strong responses both positive and negative; a lot of what I’ve written has. Let me address some points raised. * Blogger Phil starts out by saying, “An article from today, The Showdown on Hurley Street, struck me as hysteria.” In the larger […]

The company that owns the Ride the Duck amphibious tours in Philadelphia is now interested in owning the Adventure Aquarium in Camden. Steiner and Associates hopes to complete a deal by the end of October that would sell both the Adventure Aquarium in Camden and the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky to the Herschend Family Entertainment Group. Herschend spokesperson Valerie McCarty says the aquarium would compliment what the company already does in Philadelphia. [KYW]

Police serving a search warrant inside a Kensington home during a narcotics investigation found an 11-year-old boy home alone and locked in a small cell-like chamber in the basement. The boy was found in a locked 8-foot-by-10-foot chamber in a home in the 500 block of East Clearfield Street about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday by members of the Police Department’s Intensive Drug Investigation Squad, police said. Inside the chamber was a small cushion, which appeared to be used as a mattress, and a bucket containing urine and feces, police said. Police said evidence indicated the boy had been in the chamber […]

For the fifth straight year, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia tops the list of “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals” compiled by U.S. News and World Report. CHOP, as the pediatric medical center is frequently called, has also finished No. 1 for five years running on Child magazine’s list of the nation’s best children’s hospitals. This year, rankings were based not just on reputation, but on statistics about services, performance and quality of care, the magazine said in a news release.The magazine surveyed 122 children’s hospitals and got 113 replies that even delved into such difficult procedures as bone marrow transplants and heart […]