With the great clash between Philly and LA coming up tonight, it's time to compare the cities and start trading barbs. (Meanwhile, as the Eagles seem to drift further and further from a championship, they at least have phone sex with Playboy Playmates to console them.) This weekend a number of political superstars will be coming to the region, including Sarah Palin, who'll be dropping the first puck at the Flyers' regular-season opener at the......

The Phillies beat the Brewers yesterday afternoon to win the Nation League Division Series. At almost the same time, the Eagles suffered an embarrassing loss to the Washington Redskins, but most Philadelphians were ignoring that and focusing on the positive, not to mention the upcoming National League Championship Series where the Phillies will face the LA Dodgers. Your deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania in time for the presidential election is today. So......

Sources say that Governor Rendell and Mayor Nutter will announce at a 1PM press conference today that Foxwoods Casino has made an agreement with the state and the city to move its long-delayed slots parlor, originally planned for the South Philadelphia waterfront, to the Gallery at Market East. In January, former President Bill Clinton will replace former President George H.W. Bush as chairman of the National Constitution Center. Bush suggested Clinton as his replacement and......

We're starting off with a very weird and disturbing story this morning. Shortly after midnight on Thursday, on the SEPTA subway near the Fairmount Avenue stop, a bearded, stocky, 5-foot-9, thirty-something black man in a yellow shirt and black pants, accompanied by a three- or four-year-old child, took out a hammer and, with no provocation whatsoever, began using it to viciously beat a 20-year-old man who was dozing off in his seat nearby. Surveillance......

"Authorities yesterday searched the Main Line home of a dentist who they believe may have been involved in dumping some of the syringes and other medical waste found on eight Jersey Shore beaches in the last two weeks." The Penn State football team is in trouble again. Coach Joe Paterno said last night that defensive end Maurice Evans, defensive tackle Abe Koroma, and tight end Andrew Quarless would not play tomorrow against Oregon State after......

Former CBS3 anchor Larry Mendte is scheduled for a plea hearing at 9:30AM this morning at the federal courthouse at Sixth and Market Streets, where he is expected to plead guilty to hacking into the personal e-mail of onetime colleague Alycia Lane. Lawrence Scott Ward, 65, a former marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, is already serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison for trafficking in child porn, but yesterday new......

The high-speed car chase and wreck on Roosevelt Boulevard that led to the death of a 17-year-old boy appears to have come out of a dispute over a 14-month-old baby—a baby who died early yesterday morning from injuries sustained in the crash. Philadelphia photographer, founder of phillyskyline.com, and friend of Phillyist Brad Maule has sued The Colbert Report, and the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer for using his photographs without permission. He is seeking......

The Philadelphia area is under an excessive heat watch through Sunday. In response, the Philadelphia Senior Center, in conjunction with Comcast-Spectacor, will give away 300 fans on a first-come, first-served basis this morning. The Daily News examines how an alleged DUI killer's outrageous MySpace page is not exactly helping his case. (What a freaking idiot.) The city's Board of Revision of Taxes meets at 10AM today to vote on the Actual Value Initiative, a plan......

A rear-end collision took place around 1AM this morning on southbound Roosevelt Boulevard near Adams Avenue. It tied up traffic for hours, killed a 17-year-old male, and critically injured at least two people, including an infant and a man. The crash apparently followed an argument and a chase, and is being investigated as a homicide. The Inquirer discusses the Dalai Lama's one-day visit to Philadelphia today. A City Planning Commission hearing was held yesterday on......

Wiretapped conversations being used as part of an investigation into organized crime in North Jersey could help federal authorities build their case against mobster Nicodemo S. Scarfo and Elkins Park businessman Salvatore Pelullo in an unrelated financial fraud probe that stretches from Philadelphia to Texas. Jocelyn Kirsch is scheduled to plead guilty this morning in U.S. District Court. Four more murders took place in the city this past weekend. In honor of the fact......

Penn now has a building named after a former editor of The New York Post Page Six gossip column. (Via Jill) Expect backups late tonight into early tomorrow morning on the westbound Schuylkill. Click through for details. Also expect upcoming delays with SEPTA as it makes another push to finally complete its overdue, overbudget reconstruction of the Market-Frankford El. When a 46-year-old Upper Darby meter maid tried to write a ticket for a Yeadon......

Photo of Cody by Dan Bergeron Torontoist took a look at Regent Park, a low-income neighborhood whose soon-to-be-demolished buildings are being graced with huge wheatpastes of the area's displaced residents. (On that note, they also tried to find a legal middle ground for street art.)Phillyist curated their first art exhibition, and posted pictures from its opening.Gothamist was shocked when surveillance footage was released of a Brooklyn hospital's staffers repeatedly ignoring a patient—who had waited......

Photograph of one of the man-made waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge by Jake Dobkin Gothamist enjoyed watching New York City's latest big public art project--four multi-story man-made waterfalls--rise up in East River and the debate about whether it's art or folly (but they sure look pretty at night).Londonist handed out advice on how to queue for Wimbledon tickets, then embarked on a gruelling fact-finding tour of drinking-holes at the capital's main terminus rail stations.Seattlest......

"Two bills aimed at cleaning up commercial breeding kennels in Pennsylvania are slated for committee votes in Harrisburg today." A new veterans cemetery to be known as Washington Crossing National Cemetery is scheduled to start construction in Bucks County next year, with the first burials starting toward the end of the year. The plans for the new cemetery will be available for review tonight during a public briefing by the Department of Veterans Affairs at......

In the wake of last month's devastating earthquake in China, a group of Widener University professors is using video-conferencing to train faculty at East China Normal University in Shanghai to teach psychological first aid. State Rep. Darryl Metcalfe refused to apologize for the comments he made on the floor of the House on Wednesday, wherein he suggested that he was opposing recognizing a Muslim religious organization's convention because "Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as......

Figures released yesterday revealed that $613 million of the money gamblers have been pumping into slot machines in Pennsylvania will go to property-tax relief for most homeowners and to lower the wage tax in Philadelphia. It's all thanks to Act 1, passed in 2006, which gave the state a portion of the gaming revenues from slots to use for tax relief. The Inquirer points out that finding the lowest gas prices in the area......

The Eagles' 2008 schedule has been released, and one of the more exciting games will be the one they'll they'll play at home versus the Arizona Cardinals on Thanksgiving night. It will be nationally televised on the NFL Network. (Via Sarah) Barack Obama's wife, Michelle Obama, was apparently well received when she spoke at a rally at Haverford College yesterday. A new Daily News/Franklin & Marshall poll has Clinton still in the lead with......

In reaction to that AP series last month revealing that Philadelphia ranked first among 24 metropolitan areas reporting traces of an assortment of drugs in its water supply, today the City Council's committees on health and human services and the environment will examine the Water Department's data on the subject. Hopefully you're already aware that tomorrow is Tax Day. If not, you'd better get to work! Regardless, a warning: "According to a recent study......

A state trooper tried to stop a white SUV for speeding in the northbound lanes of Route 42 about 4:30PM yesterday afternoon. When the car began moving erratically, the police had to break off pursuit for safety concerns. A few minutes later, the driver stopped on the Walt Whitman Bridge bridge, got out of his car, and started swinging a baseball bat at cars while holding a baby in his other arm. After he struck......

Around 2:46PM yesterday afternoon, in the underground SEPTA concourse at 13th and Market streets near the City Hall station, four teens shouted at a 36-year-old Starbucks employee named Sean Patrick Conroy, then surrounded him and attacked him as he crouched defensively. The victim lost consciousness on the concourse and was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:09PM. There appeared to be no prior connection between Conroy and his......

The Inquirer reminds us that Monday is the last day to register for Pennsylvania's April 22nd primary. They also include a list of locations you can go to register, and a link to a site with more information. Meanwhile, the Inquirer has another primary-related article which reveals that since last November, according to state registration numbers, the Democratic Party has gained 111,227 new voters, and the Republican Party has lost 13,391. A helpful list......

The closure of I-95 has taken a toll on some, but the road did indeed reopen this morning around 6:30AM, and it's expected to remain open during the more permanent repair of the cracked column that will soon follow, and which should take about a month. After that comes the really major work: "Replacing the whole elevated stretch of I-95 between Spring Garden Street and Cottman Avenue." A split three-member panel of the Philadelphia......

Lots of people are talking about Obama's speech in Philly yesterday, including the Daily News and the Inquirer (and us, of course). Hillary Clinton's response was sort of an "isn't that nice for him" kind of thing. Somehow the story of the twin gay porn star burglars keeps getting better. Now it's come out through court testimony that their mother served as a lookout during their rooftop break-ins. The Inquirer tells the story of......

Commissioner Charles Ramsey has ordered an Internal Affairs investigation into how the suspect that cops had cuffed and put in the back of a patrol car somehow drove off in the vehicle on Sunday. It appears that the suspect "slipped his hands under his feet and then squeezed through an opening in the Plexiglas panel separating the back and front seat." The question is, how was he then able to start the car? A police......

Remember those makeshift stables in Strawberry Mansion that animal cruelty investigators raided yesterday? Well, the owners of about 40 of the horses living there removed their animals yesterday, as ordered. About 20 more horses were allowed to stay in three garages on Fletcher Street near 27th that had been made into stables while owners of those properties made repairs. The other structures will be bulldozed today. Yesterday, City Council gave final approval to a lease......

Animal cruelty investigators raided some rowhouse stables on Fletcher Street yesterday, giving the owners 24 hours to relocate the 60 horses on the site. The Daily News paints a pretty horrific picture of the conditions the animals were living in. Chelsea Clinton was at Penn yesterday, stumping for her Mom, and said we should expect to see her and her family a lot in the near future. Which sounds like a threat to us. Beware,......

Our very own state could actually be of key importance in the Democratic presidential primary, so the campaigns for both Clinton and Obama will be opening offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the coming days, and expanding their staff by recruiting local pros. The Inquirer takes a look at the battle going on over a proposed state-wide ban on smoking in Pennsylvania. A woman leaped from her third-floor apartment window on South Street near 2nd......

Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of police shootings in the country. The Daily News takes a look at what's being done about it, and is pretty underwhelmed. Apparently "many of the officers involved in these shootings are back to their regular street beats, even though most incidents are still being investigated without a determination that the officers were justified in firing their weapons." Due to the fact that local schools had received recalled......

The Inquirer takes a close look at Mayor Nutter's first budget proposal. The subtitle of the article is: "The $3.98 billion plan seeks bonds for pensions and a kitty for unions." Awww, that's nice! He's getting a kitty for the unions! We hope it's a cute kitty. David C. Sicoli, a Philadelphia priest with "a long history of abusive and manipulative relationships with adolescents," according to a grand jury report, has finally been defrocked by......

Sons of Ben and other Philly area soccer fans rejoice: the Inquirer says sources are telling them that "Major League Soccer is moving swiftly toward an agreement that will grant a long-sought expansion team to the Philadelphia region." Saint Joe's will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5PM today to officially open its new Hawks' Landing parking and retail facility at 54th and City Avenue. Hawks' Landing is a $19 million project that features a five-story,......