Free Republic

The man who had been sought this week in the stabbing of City Councilman David Oh turned himself in to police Saturday morning, according to multiple reports. Shawn Yarbray, 24, surrendered to Southwest Detectives and is set to be arraigned late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, Lt. John Walker told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the City of Brotherly Love, you can retain your voter registration no matter what crime you commit. That’s because election officials refuse to take convicted felons off the voter rolls even if they’re still serving time in jail. One potential voter is convicted baby murderer Dr. Kermit Gosnell. In May 2013, in a case that shocked the nation, Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder for killing fully developed babies born alive at his abortion clinic by severing their spines with scissors. He got three life terms, the latter for killing a baby that he joked was so large it...

As many as 50 protesters believed to be with the anarchist group “Summer of Rage” caused at least $100,000 in damage to new buildings and high-end vehicles in a developing part of North Philadelphia Monday night, police said, in an apparent attempt to protest what they regard as gentrification in the area. --SNIP-- In Suchocki’s backpack, police said, they found a mask, a scarf, a device used for shattering windows, and a “mission statement on how to disrupt capitalism.”

Coca-Cola says Philadelphia’s new tax on sweetened drinks is seriously hurting their business in the city. According to a story on the beverage company’s website, the company’s volume in Philadelphia is down 32 percent from a year ago. Fran McGorry, president and general manager of the local bottler known as Philly Coke, says because of the lost sales, the company’s workforce has been reduced by about 40 positions. The company has more than 700 workers in the region. …

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning filmmaker who observed emphatically American characters with a discerning eye, a social conscience and a rock ’n’ roll heart, achieving especially wide acclaim with “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia,” died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 73. His publicist, Leslee Dart, confirmed the death. Mr. Demme disclosed that he had cancer in 2015. Mob wives, CB radio buffs and AIDS victims; Hannibal Lecter, Howard Hughes and Jimmy Carter: Mr. Demme (pronounced DEM-ee) plucked his subjects and stories largely from the stew of contemporary American subcultures and iconography. He created a body...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)–A Sunday drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike nearly turned deadly for Tracy Andrews.“I noticed a guy standing near the concrete barrier with a rock, throwing it across the barrier. He hit my windshield,” said Andrews.The damage left behind: a sizable crater, shards of glass and shock.“I was horrified,” Andrews said. “It could’ve killed me very easily.”Corporal Steven Ranck with the Pennsylvania State Police confirms around 5 p.m. Sunday near mile marker 357, at least two men hurled rocks and steel rebar at passing cars in the westbound lane.Photo/ Anita Oh The two were reportedly standing at ground level behind...

Delaware River Turnpike Bridge to Reopen Late Tonight Crossing was closed for seven weeks as fractured truss member was repaired. Officials from the PA Turnpike Commission (PTC) and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) today announced that they expect to reopen the jointly owned Delaware River Bridge sometime late tonight. The 1.25-mile-long bridge, which carries traffic between the two states, first closed Jan. 20 when a complete fracture was discovered in the superstructure beneath the westbound lanes on the Pennsylvania side in Bristol Township, Bucks County. “Many people were greatly inconvenienced by this closure over the last seven weeks, and...

Philadelphians will soon no longer be able to purchase 2-liters or 12-packs of Pepsi soda products at local stores, according to grocers. Managers of two independent Philly grocery stores confirmed they’d received letters from Pepsi saying the company would no longer distribute 2-liters or 12-packs to Philadelphia stores, as of March 20.

Federal authorities accused Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Tuesday of accepting travel to the Dominican Republic, a custom sofa and other gifts in exchange for offers to fix cases and ease law enforcement troubles for a friend and business owner.

"In the Philadelphia area, ICE arrested several at large criminal aliens in which the agency had issued detainers but the City of Philadelphia failed to honor them and released the individuals from custody — a situation that puts the public at unnecessary risk. ICE will continue to conduct targeted enforcement operations, whether local jurisdictions intend to cooperate with ICE or not," said Ritchey.

America is in the midst of an "invisible water crisis" as the post-war water infrastructure reaches the end of its duty-cycle and cash-strapped public utilities struggle to find the money to rebuild it. The estimated bill for upgrading the end-of-lifed American urban water infrastructure is $1 trillion. Cities that have tried privatization as a means of pushing the bill onto investors have been shocked by the bills: in Atlanta, the private water provider charges $325.52 a month, which only qualifies as "affordable" if your household income tops $87K.

Since Jan. 1, the city of Philadelphia has implemented a 1.5 cent per ounce tax on soda and other sweetened beverages, causing businesses to incur losses and lay off workers, the New York Post reported. PepsiCo announced last week that it saw a 43 percent drop in business because of the new tax and would lay off 80 to 100 employees over the next few months. Canada Dry also has eliminated positions due to declining business.

Pepsi says slumping sales from Philadelphia’s new sweetened-beverage tax are prompting layoffs of 80 to 100 workers at three distribution plants that serve the city. The company sent out notices Wednesday saying layoffs will occur at plants in north and south Philadelphia and in Wilmington, Delaware, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Dave DeCecco, spokesman for the Purchase, New York-based company that employs 423 people in the city, said the tax has cut sales by 40 percent there. …

The Democratic mayor of Philadelphia is touting the success of the city’s beverage tax and lashing out at the “greed” of retailers as sales crater by as much as 50 percent. City officials say the unpopular soda tax is already exceeding expectations, raking in $5.7 million in revenue in January. The revenue is more than double what officials estimated, which goes towards early childhood education programs in the city. Despite the supposed success of the policy, sales among retailers are getting crushed. Stores are reporting beverage sales down 30 to 50 percent and are planning layoffs to cope with the...

Some Philadelphia supermarkets and beverage distributors say they’re gearing up for layoffs because the city’s new soda tax has cut beverage sales by 30 percent to 50 percent, worse than the city predicted. An owner of six supermarkets tells The Philadelphia Inquirer he expects to cut 300 jobs, and a soft drink distributor predicts a 20 percent workforce reduction. City officials expect business to rebound once customers get over sticker shock. …

When Philadelphia became the first US city to pass a soda tax last summer, city officials were eagerly looking forward to the surplus-tax funded windfall to plug gaping budget deficits (and, since this is Philadelphia, the occasional embezzlement scheme). Then, one month ago, after the tax went into effect on January 1st we showed the tax applied in practice: a receipt for a 10 pack of flavored water carried a 51% beverage tax. And since  PA has a sales tax of 6% and Philly already charges another 2%, the total sales tax was 8%. In other words, a purchase...

President Donald Trump’s rise to the White House has been accompanied by increasingly harsh rhetoric about immigration. In response, local immigrant rights activists have decided to give Philly a taste of what the world would be like if proponents of mass deportations had their way. They've planned a “Day without Immigrants” (Un Dia Sin Immigrante) protest on Thursday. “What if a good chunk of Philadelphia society was gone in one day? This is what we’re talking about,” said Miguel Andrade, an organizer with Juntos, an immigrants' activist group that is coordinating the protest. Immigrants will be “closing shops, not sending...

Federal authorities have identified a Philadelphia journalist as the woman who infiltrated and might have secretly recorded a closed-door discussion of congressional Republicans at their Center City retreat last week, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the matter. After a probe involving multiple agencies, they said Emily Guendelsberger is unlikely to face federal charges in Philadelphia, despite getting past security and into a room in the Loews hotel where Vice President Pence met privately with senators and representatives.

WHEN I COVERED the protests of President Trump and the Republicans on retreat in Philadelphia last week, I was struck by the sheer number of signs that were carried by protesters. Many were straightforward about stopping the repeal of Obamacare. Many beat to death the meme of Trump as Hitler. Some were very crude, and others were really clever. Signs like "We want a leader not a creepy tweeter" were interesting. As a Sixers fan, I think "Trust the protest" was probably my favorite. They mostly reflected anger and desperation. However, I noticed two signs hanging from a construction site...

WASHINGTON — A woman impersonated the wife of a GOP lawmaker and snuck into the congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia Thursday, the same day President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence appeared, retreat organizers told lawmakers late Saturday. The revelation came as the nonprofit Congressional Institute that organizes the retreat investigates how audio of the gathering leaked. In an email to GOP lawmakers, institute president Mark Strand did not directly say that the impersonator was the same person who leaked the audio, but that was the implication. “The Congressional Institute is continuing to investigate this breach in order to...