A lawsuit by the Philadelphia firm of Cozen O'Connor blaming the government of Saudi Arabia for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is probably dead in the water now after a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Saudi Arabia could not be sued for acts of terrorism. A 1-year-old child was slashed in the neck yesterday afternoon at a North Philadelphia home. The suspect is believed to be the child's father, but police are withholding the......

The parents of Danieal Kelly have filed a lawsuit against their criminal co-defendants, blaming them for the girl's demise. Leonard P. Luchko, a top computer technician for State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo pleaded guilty yesterday and told a federal judge that he followed Fumo's orders to erase e-mails being sought by federal agents investigating the powerful Philadelphia Democrat. Apparently he failed to erase incriminating e-mails from his own devices, however. Police responded to reports......

Some updates on local criminal cases: the Bucks County mother accused of turning a sleepover into a sex party was ordered to stand trial yesterday. Andy Reid's son Garrett Reid was sentenced to two years in a relatively new state corrections program that combines incarceration and intensive drug treatment. Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his latest appeal for a new trial on Monday. Perhaps not surprisingly, the DRPA got an earful from angry commuters yesterday at......

Your traffic restriction updates for today: the northbound I-95 ramp to Broad Street is closed from 8AM to 4PM for structural steel repairs. There will also be lane closures this week on I-95, the Vine Street Expressway, and the Schuylkill Expressway. Due to the recent loss of $1.4 million in federal funding, and accreditation problems, the Berean Institute, a North Philadelphia landmark that has provided vocational and business education to African-Americans for 109 years, could......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Food Origin Shows (Mon, 9PM-10PM, Food Network) Food Network is airing two shows in a row exploring the origins of similar foods. First up is Unwrapped with a look at how goat cheese, cheesecake, and Cheez-It crackers are made. Then it's How'd That Get on My Plate? which explores milk and what it goes through to end up in the various different forms of ice cream, string......

Recently a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction in the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, but said a new jury should decide whether he deserved life in prison or the death sentence for the crime. But Abu-Jamal is asking the federal appeals court to reconsider, and is still seeking a new trial. Despite a threat from Senator Fumo that their tax breaks......

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Sixteen men will receive fatherhood awards from the Father's Day Rally Committee at a reception in North Philadelphia tonight. In case you were wondering, no, SEPTA transit police did not strike yesterday. About an hour before the 2PM deadline, negotiations began at SEPTA headquarters in Center City, and continued until about 10 before ending for the night. Nothing has been resolved, but they were scheduled to meet again at 9 this morning, which means they'll......

The Inquirer profiles a Germantown clinic whose services are described as indispensable, but which may shut down soon due to a lack of funds. Suspended Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. testified yesterday in his ecclesiastical trial, trying to explain why he had not told anyone that his brother was sexually abusing a high-school student in the 1970s. A preliminary hearing was held yesterday for the five North Philadelphia teens arrested in the beating and......

Mayor Nutter is scheduled to tour the recently restored baseball field at Hancock Playground in Kensington today, where he'll announce initiatives for recreation-center safety, summer jobs for youth, and new rules for the city's summer camp programs. The Inquirer has some more details on how the FBI got involved in the case of Larry Mendte allegedly reading Alycia Lane's email. This week the the Sheriff's Office Bench Warrant Unit in Delaware County is holding......

Hey, Greensgrow, a North Philly urban farm, got profiled in a New York Times article! Go them! (Via Dexter) A plan made public yesterday reveals the city prisons commissioner's strategies to reduce prison overcrowding, fight recidivism, and improve prison-staff morale. Meanwhile, an as yet unreleased study of the Philadelphia prison system reveals that recidivism has less to do with prison overcrowding than first-time offenders. "A member of the Eagles Pep Band will be walking 90......

The five blasts from a Chinese-made SKS assault rifle that killed Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski on Saturday have reignited the debate on gun control laws. Eric DeShawn Floyd is still being sought in the crime, and a reward of more than $140,000 is being offered for information leading to his capture. A vigil was held yesterday to honor Liczbinski. And finally, Mayor Nutter requested that all flags in the city be lowered to half-staff during a......

Yes, it's true, today is the pivotal Pennsylvania primary. A record voter turn-out is expected—which probably means there will also be a record number of problems. Clinton and Obama made their final push for votes yesterday. Obama didn't promise to win, but he did promise to keep things close. Meanwhile, the Clinton camp was talking comebacks. For more Philly.com election coverage, go here, or follow their live-blog of the election. Of course, a far......

Photo of Free Tibet protesters at 5th and Market Streets taken by the author this past weekend The Daily News has more on how faulty the emergency radio system is, and also a bit on how personnel are under-trained on its functionality. Meanwhile, PHA cops have similar problems with their radios. The Daily News interviewed three women from Philadelphia's Asian American community on the controversy going on now over the 2008 Summer Olympics. (If......

We sure do love Pennsylvania politics. Someone started a fire at the Mount Carmel office of State Rep. Robert Belfanti Jr. Belfanti is unopposed in the primary and general elections, and had no idea why someone would try to burn his office down. Meanwhile, the South Philadelphia campaign office of Pennsylvania state House candidate Christian DiCicco, the son of City Councilman Frank DiCicco, was burglarized yesterday. There's a little disparity between the two Inquirer articles......

D'oh! We up and forgot to celebrate Pennsylvania Day yesterday! While we were forgetting, Pennsylvania was earning the national average grade of B-minus in the Pew Center on the States scorecard on the effectiveness of state government, which just happened to get released yesterday. PA "was praised for creating a plan to respond to its alarming backlog of bridges in need of repairs and furnishing meaningful information about programs funded with state money." Meanwhile,......

Teamsters plan to rally outside the Four Seasons Hotel at 18th Street and the Ben Franklin Parkway at 1:30PM today because AmerisourceBergen Corp.'s annual shareholder meeting is being held there at that time, and the teamsters are accusing the company of unfair labor practices. Remember how Rick's Steaks was fighting to stay in the Reading Terminal Market? Well, the fight continues. A recent court ruling dismissed most of Olivieri's claims against Reading Terminal, but Olivieri's......

Anyone trying to help kids is good by us.......

Let it be said, first, that I am glad this little drama exists and look forward to seeing more. Mite We? is a testament to community theatre's ability to make art that directly confronts local issues. In it, members of the Puppet Uprising theatre group attempted to confront white flight, gentrification, and general liberal angst right here in West Philly to adults and children of all races in a span of 90 minutes using puppets.......

One-time rap music impresario Alton "Ace Capone" Coles is on trial for using his record company as a front for a $25 million, Southwest Philadelphia-based cocaine trafficking network, and yesterday a former girlfriend, and the mother of his two children, testified against him. A man was walking north on Broad Street near Somerset in North Philadelphia, just before 5PM, when someone ran up to him from behind and, he thought, punched him in the......

The Daily News suggests strongly that if the city made use of private ambulances when Fire Department medic units are swamped with calls, it could make the difference between life and death for certain patients. Philadelphia doesn't use nonmunicipal ambulances because of legal issues. Also in the Daily News this morning is an article providing more details on the case of the three North Philadelphia teenagers killed in a car accident on Saturday. Last......

The grandnephew of former Mayor W. Wilson Goode - a 24-year-old named Timothy J. Goode - was shot and killed late Friday by police during what they're describing as a drug bust. Police say Goode pulled a gun on them, and that the weapon has been recovered, but Goode's mother says that's not true and that her son was shot twice in the back. The tapes from surveillance cameras at the scene may be......

The other day, a friend sent this Phillyist a link to Bill Maher's Dickheads of the Year blurb from Rolling Stone. (Maher's obvious liberal partisanship aside, it's pretty damn funny.) We're kind of ashamed that neither this Phillyist nor any of the other Phillyists with a sick sense of humor and a liking for this kind of thing—Bill Hayes? Bill Hayes? Bueller?—didn't do a Countdown to 2008 list of the top dickheads of 2007. So,......

Rev. Charles Newman, the disgraced former Archbishop Ryan High School president accused of stealing $900,000 from the school and his religious order, had his preliminary hearing, scheduled for New Year's Eve, postponed until March. Meanwhile, an alumni group expressed their complete confidence in the administration of the school. A man outside at a New Year's party in East Germantown, confronted by police for firing his gun into the air, turned the gun on the officers,......

The "10,000 men: A Call to Action" campaign will get started in earnest on Saturday when they put the first 200 men on the streets. It'll be a field exercise for squad leaders, and apparently they'll also be doing a door-to-door campaign to alert neighbors of the effort. Then they'll be patrolling in South Philadelphia next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening. John Lewis, the suspect in the murder of police officer Chuck Cassidy, was......

The Inquirer takes another look at the troubling recent increase, both locally and nationally, in the shooting of police. Mayor Nutter, in his first speech outside the city since the election, as the keynote speaker at the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry's annual dinner, got a standing ovation before and after, and urged Southeastern Pennsylvania to come together and work as one to achieve greatness. Police are still investigating gunshots fired shortly before......

The Inquirer discusses the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race and the possible repercussions on the Philadelphia area. The police now have a suspect in the death of police officer Chuck Cassidy - 21-year-old John Lewis of North Philadelphia - and have issued an arrest warrant for him. The search for him has intensified, and police and his relatives are asking him to turn himself in. Lewis is armed and dangerous; click through for a description......

Prepare to be insulted! A recent survey of visitors and residents of 25 cities ranked Philadelphia as the home of the least attractive people in the United States. Apparently we're also among the least stylish, least active, least friendly, and least worldly. Well, we don't know about all of those things, but these results certainly make us feel pretty unfriendly at the moment... (Via Jen) As another new tactic in the fight against crime and......

Well, last night's Eagles game was an agonizing and embarrassing experience, but at least Philly sports fans have something to cheer about. 61 people were admitted to Abington Memorial Hospital over the weekend after being exposed to fumes (probably carbon monoxide) at an eight-story Pavilion mini-mall on Old York Road in Jenkintown. Most of those people should be released today. The president of Temple University is announcing a $500,000 Employee Home Ownership Program today......

A college student died in West Chester over the weekend from an unusual strain of meningitis called meningococcal meningitis, which is not one of the five or six strains covered by the vaccine recommended for college students. The death has prompted some fear and panic in the area, but only two people have been identified who had close enough contact with the student to warrant antibiotics. The source of the student's infection remains unknown. News......