Category Archives: Philadelphia

Fourth of July overshadowed by 16 mass shootings across US

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Fifteen people were killed and 94 injured across 13 states as well as Washington DC

From the nation’s capital to Fort Worth, Texas, from Florin, California, in the west to the Bronx, New York, in the east, the Fourth of July long weekend in the US was overshadowed by 16 mass shootings in which 15 people were killed and nearly 100 injured.

The Gun Violence Archive, an authoritative database on gun violence in America, calculated the grim tally using its definition of a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people excluding the shooter are killed or injured by firearms.

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Biden decries gun violence as shootings across US mar Fourth of July festivities

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At least 15 people shot dead across the country in mass shootings so far on the holiday weekend celebrating the US’s independence

A long holiday weekend of bloodshed has intensified after a heavily armed gunman in a bulletproof vest opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia on the eve of Fourth of July celebrations, in yet another mass shooting in the US, killing five people and wounding two boys before surrendering to the police.

Across the country, Texas was entering the holiday to news that another shooting had killed three people, in Fort Worth, occurring just before midnight amid a gathering in a parking lot that also wounded eight.

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Joe Biden rallies with union workers in Philadelphia: ‘You built America’

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President enlists support of union members against GOP tax cuts for the wealthy at first political rally of 2024 re-election campaign

At his first political rally since announcing his re-election campaign for president in April, Joe Biden told a crowd of labor union supporters: “Wall Street didn’t build America – you did.”

“If the investment bankers of this country went on strike tomorrow, no one would notice,” Biden said on Saturday during a speech which alluded to his blue-collar childhood roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Renewing his longstanding vocal support for labor unions, he continued: “If this room didn’t show up to work tomorrow, the whole country would come to a grinding halt, so tell me – who matters more in America?”

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No goodbye for Toodles after poodle revived with Narcan following overdose

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Emergency veterinarians in Philadelphia save dog’s life after suspected accidental drug overdose

A poodle in Pennsylvania called Toodles was successfully revived with Narcan after an apparent accidental drug overdose, local animal welfare experts said.

The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said they received a call last week from Blue Pearl Emergency Animal Hospital in Philadelphia saying a dog was brought to them showing symptoms of an overdose.

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2 million dimes worth $200,000 stolen from Philadelphia truck, police say

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Police searching for ‘10 or more males’ in black clothing and gray hoodies, as well as white Chrysler 300 and dark pickup truck

Approximately 2m dimes, or the equivalent of $200,000, were taken from a tractor trailer in a parking lot of the Philadelphia Mills shopping mall complex in northeast Philadelphia on Thursday morning.

According to police, the truck driver had picked up $750,000 worth of dimes from the US Mint in Philadelphia and then parked the truck in the mall parking lot on Wednesday evening. The driver had planned on transporting the dimes, which were organized into 15 pallets that contained $50,000 each, to Florida, CBS reports.

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Philadelphians rush to buy bottled water despite officials claiming water is safe after spill

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Residents show skepticism to officials insisting tap water is uncontaminated after chemical spill in the Delaware River

Residents in Philadelphia and nearby have been buying bottled water after a chemical spill upstream in the Delaware River in neighboring Bucks county, despite officials latest advisory insisting tap water was safe to drink at least up to midnight Monday.

The concerns came after a leak late Friday evening at the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility in Bristol Township spilled between 8,100 and 12,000 gallons of a water-based latex finishing solution into the river, Bucks county health officials said Sunday.

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Trump’s golf course photo with Philadelphia mob boss raises questions

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Spokesman won’t say if ex-president knows Joseph ‘Skinny Joey’ Merlino, saying he ‘takes countless photos with people’

A spokesperson for Donald Trump would not say if the former president knew a notorious Philadelphia mobster, after the two men were photographed together at a Trump-owned golf club earlier this month.

“President Trump takes countless photos with people,” the spokesperson told the Philadelphia Inquirer, which obtained the picture of Trump and Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino standing together and making thumbs-up gestures.

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Philadelphia’s rising Democratic star on another school shooting: ‘I can’t become resigned to it’

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Malcolm Kenyatta talks to the Guardian about why the deadly incident at Roxborough high school hit him like a ‘gut punch’

A day after a shooting killed a 14-year-old boy and wounded four other children following a football scrimmage at Philadelphia’s Roxborough high school, Malcolm Kenyatta visited his alma mater to talk to students and staffers for the first time in more than a year.

It had been well over a decade since Kenyatta, a 32-year-old Black state legislator in Pennsylvania representing north Philadelphia, roamed those same halls as an ambitious student-body president. One of Pennsylvania’s youngest legislators and its first openly gay lawmaker of color, since he was elected in 2018, Kenyatta has advocated for reducing gun violence in a state where Republicans have long dominated the legislature despite having a Democratic governor.

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Ivy League university set to rebury skulls of Black people kept for centuries

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University of Pennsylvania houses remains at Penn Museum, where they form collection once used to justify white supremacy

The University of Pennsylvania is moving ahead with the reburial of the cranial remains of at least 13 Black Philadelphians whose skulls have been kept for almost two centuries in a notorious anthropological collection used to justify white supremacy in the run-up to the US civil war.

The Ivy League university is petitioning the Philadelphia orphans’ court for permission to rebury the skulls in the city’s historic African American Eden cemetery. Should the ceremony go ahead, it would amount to one of the most significant restorative processes for Black remains in America in the wake of the racial reckoning following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

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North-eastern US braces for record-breaking heat

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One heat-related death reported in New York while authorities in Philadelphia extend health emergency declaration

Residents in the north-east US braced for potentially record-breaking temperatures on Sunday as a near-week-long hot spell continued, prompting officials to warn of dangerous heat.

At least one heat-related death, in New York, was reported. Around the region, athletic events were shortened or postponed and cities opened cooling centers and even turned to buses to offer relief from the heat.

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Gun violence rattles US amid Independence Day celebrations – latest updates

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Suspect pre-planned Highland park attack and wore ‘women’s clothing’, police say

A new poll from Monmouth University has found that President Joe Biden remains unpopular, but for Democrats, that’s not its most troubling finding. The Biden administration has hoped that the supreme court’s recent rulings curtailing abortion access and expanding concealed weapons possession would fire up Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, but the poll instead shows that voters’ biggest issue remains the nation’s high rate of inflation - a trend that Biden has had little success in reversing.

First the bad news about Biden’s approval rating, which Monmouth reports actually worsened last month:

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Philadelphia, Tennessee and Michigan shootings leave at least nine dead and 27 wounded

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Gunfire erupted Saturday night in Philadelphia’s downtown area and near a Chattanooga nightclub and north-west of Detroit on Sunday morning

Gunfire killed three people and wounded at least 11 in one of downtown Philadelphia’s most popular entertainment districts late on Saturday night, hours before separate shootings in Tennessee and Michigan left six dead and at least 16 wounded, authorities said.

The violence erupted as many, including US president Joe Biden, call on Congress to enact meaningful gun control measures, especially in the wake of deadly mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

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Covid cases rise in north-eastern US, driven by the BA.2 subvariant

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The subvariant of omicron that’s more transmissible than BA.1 was responsible for an estimated 86% of new US cases last week

Covid cases are on the rise in the north-eastern part of the US, as many Americans travel and gather together for spring break and religious holidays.

The rise is being driven by BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron which is more transmissible than its sibling BA.1, and was responsible for an estimated 86% of new Covid-19 cases nationwide last week, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Philadelphia becomes first major US city to reinstate indoor mask mandate

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Covid-19 cases have risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which city’s guidelines call for masking indoors

Philadelphia on Monday became the first major US city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections, with the city’s top health official saying she wanted to forestall a potential new wave driven by an Omicron sub-variant.

Confirmed Covid-19 cases had risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which the city’s guidelines called for people to wear masks indoors, said Dr Cheryl Bettigole, Philadelphia health commissioner.

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Bobby Rydell, US pop idol of the early 1960s, dies aged 79

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Singer, drummer and actor had five US Top 10 hits, and inspired the Beatles to write She Loves You

Bobby Rydell, who enjoyed numerous US hits during the teen pop craze of the early 1960s, has died aged 79. He suffered complications from pneumonia, and died in hospital in his native Philadelphia.

With songs of decorous romance sung in his clean, hearty voice, Rydell reached the US Top 10 five times – with We Got Love, Swingin’ School, his version of the standard Volare, Wild One (also a UK Top 10 hit) and Forget Him. The latter is believed to be the inspiration for the Beatles’ She Loves You after Paul McCartney said the song was inspired by an unnamed Rydell number.

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Nor’easter lashes eastern US with snow and wind gusts near hurricane force

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  • Philadelphia, New York and Boston in path of storm
  • Flooding, high winds and cold weather expected

A nor’easter with hurricane-force wind gusts battered much of the US east coast on Saturday, flinging heavy snow that made travel treacherous or impossible, flooding coastlines and threatening to leave bitter cold in its wake.

The storm thrashed parts of 10 states, with blizzard warnings from Virginia to Maine. Philadelphia and New York saw plenty of wind and snow, but Boston was in the crosshairs. The city could get more than 2ft of snow by early Sunday.

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Philadelphia lab briefly locked down after worker finds ‘smallpox’ vials in freezer

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Worker found ‘questionable vials’ while cleaning out freezer, but CDC says no one was exposed to the deadly disease

A lab worker at a Merck facility outside Philadelphia found 15 “questionable vials” labeled “smallpox” and “vaccinia” while cleaning out a freezer earlier this week, raising harrowing security concerns.

The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the discovery, which involves a disease that is believed to have killed more than 300 million people since the dawn of the 20th century.

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Philadelphia holds day of remembrance for 1985 Move bombing that left 11 dead

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Occasion overshadowed by disclosure that bones of children who died held for almost four decades by University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia on Thursday marks the city’s first official day of remembrance for the 1985 bombing of a Black liberation group in which 11 people, including five children, were killed and an entire African American neighborhood burned to ashes.

Related: Ivy League colleges apologize for ‘serious error’ in using bones of Black child for teaching

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Helmut Jahn obituary

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Architect known for his flamboyant, postmodernist buildings in Chicago, Berlin and other cities around the world

Standing on a corner of downtown Chicago as a dazzling rocket ship of mirrored glass and salmon pink steel, the James R Thompson Center, more than any other building, encapsulates the flamboyant oeuvre of the German-American architect Helmut Jahn, who has died aged 81 in a cycling accident.

The glitzy government building, originally known as the State of Illinois Center, is a fitting monument to the larger than life architect, as exuberant as it is divisive.

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Ivy League colleges urged to apologise for using bones of Black children in teaching

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Bones of children who died in 1985 police bombing used in anthropology course – but some bones now appear to be missing

Two Ivy League institutions, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, are facing mounting demands to apologise and make restitution for their handling over decades of the bones of African American children killed by Philadelphia police in 1985.

Related: Bones of Black children killed in police bombing used in Ivy League anthropology course

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