The nation's unemployment rate inched up to 9.6 percent in August as public and private employers, for the third straight month, laid off more people than they hired, the Department of Labor reported Friday. […]

Having secured a place in obscurity in local weather lore, once-mighty Hurricane Earl, now a tropical storm, sped toward dissolution in the North Atlantic on Friday, leaving in its wake perhaps the most splendid weekend of the summer. […]

As federal investigators scrutinize the books and operations of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, the agency has suspended all contracts with outside consultants and lawyers until further notice. […]

How could this happen? That's what the head of the Delaware County Office of Services for the Aging wants to know, after Maryland authorities charged Darby Borough oddball Steven Molin with murdering his 85-year-old mother by running her over with his work van - as many as three times. […]

CAN PEOPLE change? Judaism's response: a resounding yes! It is this core belief that drives our concept of repentance in the High Holy Days. […]

Carol Keenan, a Goretti girl who became the first female homicide detective in Philadelphia, wasn't about to let cancer get in the way of her having a great time with friends and family. […]

Mastery Charter’s three new Renaissance charter schools seem to have been successful at bringing families back to their neighborhood schools – perhaps too successful. At Mastery’s Harrity, Mann, and Smedley Elementary Schools, all of which opened on September 1, there are currently waiting lists for neighborhood children. read more […]

Update: See response from School District on actual cost of turnstiles. What would you buy for a million dollars worth of school money? Some modernized classrooms, you say? Noontime aides and community liaisons to replace the ones the District laid off at the beginning of the summer, perhaps? How about a handful of turnstiles at District headquarters? Last w […]

Black and Latino boys disrespected, task force finds Notebook NEWSFLASH SRC Chair Archie and Commissioner Irizarry presented recommendations from a task force study including ideas about how to better engage Black and Latino boys in the classroom. See also: Task force cites high dropout rates for African American, Latino students The Inquirer Local Black dro […]

In the world of gaming there are many things that fill us with uncontrollable squealing schoolgirl like glee. For example earning the highscore in a game that has been under ownership for the past three years, but for some reason there is over two decades of calculated hours logged into it. Another Justin Beamer CD […]

Who would have ever thought… […]

Infamous is a fun game if you like the action adventure type, I played it after finishing Batman:Arkam Asylum. The only thing though is that if you've seen a 'Karma' system once then you've seen it hundreds of times. […]

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In just over three months, Mastery Charter Schools, the local nonprofit that has received national recognition for success in turning around formerly troubled middle schools, has doubled its schools to six. Mastery’s goal is to prepare students for college with a strict behavior code, a longer school day and a longer school year. Tutoring and […]

Comic Madness Ages 9-12 Tuesdays, 6-7:30pm: Oct. 5, 12, 19, 26 and Nov. 9, 16, Learn techniques for crafting a narrative—pacing, story-boarding, page layout and cover art. By the end of these six sessions, you’ll have produced your very own comic book individually (or collectively in a small group). Come join the ranks of […]

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Today, in the New York Times, book critic Janet Maslin calls Isabel Wlkerson’s new nonfiction book—“The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration”—”a landmark piece of nonfiction.” That kind of praise is hard to come by in the NYT. The New Yorker weighed in, too, suggesting the author became “something of a one-woman […]

Folks on here may enjoy seeing the faces of folks standing up to natural gas drillers. These are leaders in the Williamsport area that Clean Water Action has found working on the issue of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus formation. read more […]

I came across this letter to the editor in the Inky on Tuesday (emphasis mine): Jim Florio states, "Businesses are deciding . . . higher levels of U.S. unemployment are a necessary and acceptable way to control costs and boost profit." Florio has obviously never run a business. Businesses don't consider the overall employment level when determ […]

Environmentalists call on General Assembly to pass a severance tax like WV’s On behalf of its 185,000 members in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Clean Water Action called on the General Assembly today to impose a volume based 45¢ per thousand cubic feet severance tax on Marcellus Shale gas drillers and earmarking 3¢ of the tax to restore the Department of […]

Given today's article about the private bail industry angling to move their business into Philadelphia, I am bumping back up my post from January of this year. Please, please listen to the NPR series linked at the bottom of the post, if you haven't already. And thanks to the decision-makers - the courts, DA, and Public Defenders - who are pushing b […]

Mayor Nutter spoke at an immigrant rights rally at Welcome Park yesterday organized by the Pennsylvania chapter of the Reform Immigration for America campaign. The rally was intended to show that Philadelphia is a welcoming city to immigrants, in contrast to Arizona, where the anti-immigrant law SB1070 was implemented in part yesterday. WHYY News reported th […]