A Chester county boy with diabetes and his parents filed for a "due process" hearing with his middle school after school officials refused to let the boy attend gym class more frequently than other kids to keep his blood sugar low.
The Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance to children in low-income families, would be phased out by the House health overhaul bill, which would instead direct such children either to Medicaid or to a national health insurance exchange.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai must show "measurable results" of his efforts to fight corruption and cronyism and improve the Afghan army before he can expect to receive future civilian aid from the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed Karzai yesterday.
Since there has been no inflation in cost-of-living expenses over the past year -- in fact, a net deflation of 0.14 percent -- Pennsylvania state lawmakers' salaries were frozen at $78,315 this month.
WHYY's Susan Phillips reports today that State Senator Larry Farnese and State Representative Mike O'Brien are both calling on the state to tell Foxwoods its time is up.
Said Sen. Farnese:
They should shut the door on this and we should move forward. And the city of Philadelphia should move forward on this. I think its a bad idea to try and give them additional time. Because they've never convinced anybody and they've never done anything to prove they can do what they say they're gonna do.
Yesterday, the Inquirer's Jennifer Lin broke the news on a buried clause in a proposed amendment to the amazingly pernicious table games bill that would give Foxwoods yet another extension to get up and running.
The casino actually just got an extension in August, giving it another two years to open. This amendment would have allowed it to take yet another year.
But Foxwoods appears to be in serious financial difficulty. They've been unable to find sufficient funding for their South Philly waterfront location; and, the AP reports today that Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut just announced that they'd be defaulting on a debt payment, prompting Standard and Poor's to lower their credit rating to a 'D.'
Why, then, do there seem to be efforts afoot in Harrisburg to help the faltering casino afloat?
A bill extending statewide hate-crimes legislation to protect gays, women and the disabled passed its first vote in the Pennsylvania General Assembly and was expected to pass in the House, though it may have more trouble in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Climate change will affect women in developing countries worst, because they do most of the agricultural work around the world and are hence most vulnerable to weather-related natural disasters, the United Nations Population Fund reported.
Half of all children in the United States will be on food stamps at some point in their lives, according to a new United States Department of Agriculture report. Forty-three percent of individuals receiving food stamps in Philadelphia are children.
CT scans of 22 Egyptian mummies several thousand years old, mostly priests or courtiers, show that they suffered from hardened arteries -- proving the condition isn't unique to modern humans, according to the cardiologist who headed the study.
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient fire pit and a variety of small tools from 3,500 years ago on the grounds where the SugarHouse casino is slated to be built, in what constitutes the largest single discovery of Native American artifacts in Philadelphia. When the dig is over, the site will become a parking lot for the casino.
This installment of Stars of the Photostream comes from HannahLa (now and always backlogged), who writes of this photo of the just-imploded Drexel Shaft:
Australian officials invented and issued a new fire alert, "catastrophe" level, to urge residents of South Australia to immediately evacuate their houses and avoid the deaths of people who linger when fires hit, trying to protect their property.
A 6-foot-high cross was burned outside the home of a white Western Pennsylvania family, after their black foster son's high school football team lost a game.
The recession was smoothing historically tense relations between the white and black populations of an Atlanta, Ga., suburb, as job losses and economic hardship indiscriminately sent residents to welfare offices and food stamp lines.
President Obama's bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito over the weekend was provoking outraged online commentary, mainly from conservatives, who thought it looked like Obama was groveling to the foreign leader.
Several groups, including the N.A.A.C.P. and A.F.L.-C.I.O., were preparing to join together and call on Obama to create more jobs, specifically by spending more on schools and roads and financially relieving state and local governments to prevent more layoffs.
A deer-culling expedition composed of USDA marksmen was preparing to run through Lower Merion for the next four nights to reduce the local deer population and prevent the transmission of Lyme disease. The deer carcasses will be donated to the local food bank.
The giant Irish deer -- the largest species of deer that ever lived, with antlers nearly eleven feet across -- went extinct about 10,000 years ago because of natural climate change that caused fewer plants to grow and starved the deer, scientists found.
Rather than hammer out a climate change agreement at the widely-anticipated Copenhagen conference in December, world leaders including President Obama agreed in Singapore over the weekend, they'll just come up with a less specific, non-legally binding pact that will have to be fully realized at a later international conference.
Alaskan governor Sean Parnell was suing the federal government to get polar bears off the list of threatened species, claiming that protections on the bears' habitat was preventing the state from developing lucrative offshore oil discoveries.
In anticipation of the impending healthcare bill, the pharmaceutical industry was raising the prices of drugs at the fastest rate in seventeen years: about 9 percent over the last year, which will add more than $10 billion to the nation's drug bill this year.
Teachers routinely paid thousands of dollars to obtain teaching jobs in the public schools of northeastern Pennsylvania, according to the results of an FBI probe that began in the spring. So far, six school board members have been indicted for accepting bribes from prospective teachers.
Former listings editor/award-winning City Paper writer Juliet Fletcher works at the Atlantic City Press these days. It's a daily newspaper, but I guess they do video stuff from time to time. (Don't we all?) In this report, Juliet ventures to the edge of an eroded sandbank in Sea Isle City. A little madness breaks out around the 3:15 mark.
Friday: Shed a tear for T&P Fine Art, the excellent South Phil cheapo art gallery, who will close their doors after this show. But then pull yourself together, Omnibussers! We have far too much to do. Such as watch Broken Lizard, they of Super Troopers, Beerfest and the upcoming Slammin' Salmon, do their thing. Or give it up for some kick ass ladies, literally, as the Liberty Belles roller derby team battles for supremacy at the Declaration of Derby. Mama Omnibus has faith that the Belles will wipe the floor with NYC's Gotham Girls…
Saturday: …but that ain't the only Philly v. New York action in town. Lorraine Ranalli (yeah!), writer of Gravy Wars: South Philly Foods, Feuds & Attytoods, will take on the Big Apple's Johnny DeCarlo (boo!) in the World Series Gravy Competition. Sigh, DeCarlo, it's not even worth it. Now that your appetite is whetted for blood thirsty competition (and you're already in South Philly), head to The Arena for CZW: Night of Infamy for some wrasslin' smackdown action.
Sunday: You might as well stay in the neighborhood 'cause next it's the Found Footage Festival at Connie's Ric Rac, who are subbing in for the on-hiatus 941 Theater (sad face). Then it's northward ho for New Zealand punks The Axemen, who share a bill with the totally awesome Times New Viking and The Mad Scene.
As Stewie might say, "as long as we're hitting these phenomena at the height of their popularity," but there's a fine line between dated and retro, and we say time's ripe for a Ren and Stimpy revival.
Little White Bag: Joey Ryan (behind cloud) hits Necro Butcher with a bag of "cocaine" in a November Ring of Honor bout.
Photo | Neal Santos
As a companion to this morning's cover story byShaun Brady on the South Philly indie wrestling scene — there are no less than four independent promotions working The Arena — we had our vid-man Neal Santos and intern Scott Yorko head down to the Nov. 5 Ring of Honor show to take some pics and record some audio to give a better sense of the scene.
Yes, it's difficult to argue that the Phils need fixing per se, but the need to do a little something something to get back to the World Series and get over a hump we'll call the Yankees.
Here at The Clog, we've isolated four main areas the Phillies need to lavish a little TLC on over the off season:
Third Base (Feliz has to go)
The Rotation (Is Moyer the best we can do at fifth starter? Will Happ repeat his strong rookie performance?)
The Bullpen (Can we count on Lidge to recover? Should we sign free agent? Should we groom hard-throwing youngsters Scott Mathieson and Antonio Bastardo for bigger roles down the line?)
The Batting Order (Can we really thrive with a .290 OBP at the top of the order? Can we please split up Howard/Utley vs. lefties?)
The Bench (No more Bruntlett?)
and have concocted a poll with what we believe to be the main options for the team.
The winners of the Internet Baseball Awards — essentially the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie and Manger of the Year awards as chosen by stathead fans — were announced of the last two days.
More than 1,200 ballots were cast in this year's installment. The hometown nine fared well in the National League though, much like this year's post-season, nobody took home any hardware:
MVP:
Chase Utley and Ryan Howard finished 4th and 10th respectively in the MVP voting. Jayson Werth (20), Raul Ibanez (24) and Cliff Lee (28) also made showings
Cy Young:
Cliff Lee finished 9th in the balloting, which is not bad considering he put in less than a half season of work in the red pinstripes. J.A. Happ placed 16th with Cole Hamels clocking in at 19th.
Rookie of the Year:
This was a nailbiter, as J.A. Happ finished 2nd to the Braves' Tommy Hanson in a photo finish. Happ racked up 5,473 points to Hanson's 5,487. To my knowledge, no other Phils rookies received votes.
Manager of the Year:
Charlie Manuel finished 4th, behind Jim Tracy (whose miraculous reversal of the Rockies season was deserving of praise even if his handling of the NLDS was not), Joe Torre (who's kind of coasting on reputation at this point) and Tony LaRussa (see Joe Torre).
Water cascaded through the streets of the Southwest Philly Eastwick neighborhood for three hours after a 30-inch water main broke around 3 a.m. this morning.
After an enormous 17,000-megawatt hydroelectric dam abruptly went off the grid last night, large parts of Brazil, including its two major cities, underwent a blackout for two hours.
For the first time, the Mormon Church has announced its support for gay rights legislation, specifically Salt Lake City laws that prohibit discriminating against gays in jobs and housing.
To mollify Iraqi officials upset about the fatal shooting of 17 civilians in 2007 in Baghdad's Nisoor Square, the security contractor group Blackwater tried to pay off those officials with about $1 million in bribes, according to former executives of the corporation.
"Predatory towing" companies are marauding the streets of Philadelphia, according to the City Controller, charging residents exorbitant fees to get their vehicles back.
Mechanical leaf collection: service just for the wealthy? (7)
— Nick: Plant Evergreens. Conifers. No leaves, constant, year-round photosynthesis. Better for nature, better...
— Les: I just wish that you all could see the amount of leaves that fall onto my property. I would need at...
Longer school days? (1)
— ciquisa: i think their should be extended school days because it could cause less confusion between schools!
Staff Blog
