Tag Archives: Philadelphia

After Philadelphia shooting Mayor says Nobody should have guns except the police

2Timothy 3:1-8 “Know this: In the last days perilous times will come. 2 Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 without natural affection, trucebreakers, slanderers, unrestrained, fierce, despisers of those who are good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness, but denying its power. Turn away from such people.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Philadelphia shooting: Dem mayor rips Second Amendment, says only the police should have guns
  • Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said the US should be more like Canada
  • Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney suggested the Second Amendment and the United States Supreme Court were too lenient when it came to gun rights, following a shooting that injured two police officers near a Fourth of July event
  • Kenney told a group of reporters that only police officers should be allowed to own guns and that he is looking forward to retiring, so he no longer has to deal with gun violence.
  • “If I had the ability to take care of guns, I would,” he said. “But the legislature won’t let us. Congress won’t let us. The governor does the best he can [and] the attorney general does the best he can, but this is a gun country.”

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Philly brings back Mask Mandate after recent spike in Covid cases

Revelations 6:8 “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Philadelphia revives mask mandate as COVID-19 cases surge
  • “Starting today, we’re asking businesses to dig up those ‘masks required’ signs and start hanging them in your windows,” Cheryl Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner, said in a news conference Monday afternoon. “Beginning Monday, April 18, our health inspectors will begin enforcing the mask mandate again,” she added, noting that the city is allowing a week’s grace period to get the word out.
  • Philadelphia is now experiencing 142 new COVID-19 cases a day, a rate that is more than 50% higher than what the city was seeing 10 days ago.

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Powerful nor’easter expected from Philly to Boston

Luke 21:25,26 “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Important Takeaways:

  • Winter Storm Watches issued for Boston, New York, Philadelphia ahead of powerful weekend nor’easter
  • A powerful nor’easter will develop into a “bomb cyclone” off the East Coast
  • Expected to intensify into a bomb cyclone, a term used to describe a low-pressure system that undergoes “bombogenesis” – defined as a rapid pressure drop of at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less – indicative of a very intense storm.
  • Heavy snow, high winds and coastal flooding are expected
  • You’re advised to avoid all unnecessary travel across this region.
  • A large portion of the Northeast coast could face a significant threat of coastal flooding, high surf and beach erosion. Astronomical tides will already be running high this weekend as we approach a new moon, which will only make these threats worse.

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Major cities see spike in crime

Mark 13:12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Carjackings soar by up to 510% in major US cities: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and New Orleans are all experiencing ‘disturbing’ spikes in crime
  • Critics are blaming a rise in violent car takeovers on lax punishment for offenders, and Covid-era changes in driving habits
  • Last November, Chicago’s top cop revealed that an 11-year-old boy is believed to have committed several of the vehicular hijackings
  • In Chicago, 1,849 carjackings were reported last year – a 510 per cent increase from the 303 vehicular hijackings in 2014, according to city data.
  • Meantime, New York City has seen carjacking rising by more than 350 per cent in the past three years, to 510 in 2021.
  • Philadelphia, which reported 750 carjackings last year, a 34 per cent year-over-year increase
  • The numbers are also moving in the wrong direction in New Orleans, which saw its most marked jump when cases hit 278 in 2020, a 104 per cent increase from 2019, NOLA.com reported.

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Philadelphia officials signal plan to reject election audit request

(Reuters) – Philadelphia officials are planning to reject a Republican lawmaker’s request for access to the city’s voting machines as part of a “forensic investigation” into the 2020 election, according to a draft letter disclosed ahead of debate on the issue on Friday.

In the letter, Philadelphia’s elections chief, Lisa Deeley, said the city’s 2020 election and 2021 primary were “secure, fair, and free from interference” and that handing over equipment would lead to decertification of its voting machines, costing taxpayers $35 million.

“The board cannot agree to the undertaking of your proposed review of the county’s election equipment,” Deeley wrote for the three-person board of commissioners, composed of two Democrats and one Republican, ahead of Friday’s vote on the matter.

The stance could lead to a legal battle between Pennsylvania’s largest city and state Senator Doug Mastriano, who launched his “forensic” probe this month targeting three counties with a deadline of July 31 to respond.

Mastriano, a leading promoter of Donald Trump’s claims that he defeated President Joe Biden in November, has argued that deeper inspection of voting equipment was needed, despite completed audits that showed no evidence of widespread fraud.

Mastriano has said he would issue subpoenas to the three counties so far targeted in his investigation: Philadelphia, York and Tioga. York and Tioga have already indicated they could not comply after the state election agency warned doing so would lead to decertification of their equipment.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Conn.; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Smoke from U.S. West wildfires leaves Easterners gasping

By Peter Szekely

(Reuters) – Dozens of wildfires in the western United States and Canada, led by a massive blaze in Oregon, are sending smoke eastward, worsening air quality and causing colorful sunsets in some places.

More than 80 large wildfires in 13 western states charred nearly 1.3 million acres (526,090 hectares), an area larger than the state of Delaware, by Tuesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho.

But due to the jet stream and other cross-continental air currents, the regional disasters were being felt nationally.

Wildfire smoke prompted an advisory from New York health and environmental authorities on Tuesday for fine particulate matter as the region’s Air Quality Index hit 118, which is unhealthy for sensitive groups such as people with breathing problems.

AQI readings well above 100 were also recorded in other Northeast cities, including Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia.

In Cleveland and Detroit, AQI topped 125, which NIFC meteorologist Nick Nauslar said was likely caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires in southeast Manitoba and southwest Ontario.

“Sunsets look prettier, redder, more colorful” said National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Orevec of the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

While some smoke diffuses into the upper atmosphere after traveling thousands of miles, it still can lower air quality, Nauslar said.

Unhealthy AQI readings were recorded on Monday in parts of Idaho and Montana, which, along with Washington state, are in the wind-driven path of smoke from southern Oregon’s Bootleg fire, according to air resource adviser Margaret Key.

“Wildfire smoke exposure also increases susceptibility to respiratory infections including COVID, increases severity of such infections, and makes recovery more difficult,” Key said by email.

The Bootleg fire, already the country’s largest wildfire, grew by 24,200 acres overnight to nearly 388,600 acres (157,260 hectares), about half the size of Rhode Island. Some 2,200 personnel managed to contain 30% of it, officials said.

As of Tuesday, the fire had destroyed 67 homes and was threatening 3,400 more. An estimated 2,100 people were under evacuation orders or on standby alert to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

Rising smoke from the fire raging in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest about 250 miles (400 km) south of Portland has already produced at least two pyrocumulonimbus clouds, an unusual phenomenon often called fire clouds, the NIFC’s Nauslar said.

“It can start to produce its own lightning, and essentially become a fire generated thunderstorm,” he said by phone. “This can cause rapid and erratic fire spread.”

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. educators wrangle over school re-opening

By Brendan O’Brien and Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – Educators in major cities including Chicago and Philadelphia on Monday called for strong COVID-19 safety protocols in their classrooms as those and other districts pushed to re-open schools that have been closed for nearly a year.

Across the nation, school reopenings have become a red-hot topic. District officials, teachers, parents and health professionals have been debating when and how to safely re-open schools for millions of students who have been taking classes remotely for 11 months since the pandemic closed schools last spring.

In Chicago, the powerful Chicago Teachers Union was considering the school district’s proposed COVID-19 safety plan that would allow schools to begin re-opening this week. In Philadelphia, educators won an agreement to allow a mediator to decide when in-person learning could safely resume.

If approved, the agreement with Chicago Public Schools, the third largest U.S. district, would avert a threatened lock out by the district, or strike by teachers who demanded stronger safety protocols to prevent the spread of the virus in classrooms.

A deal would allow for some 67,000 students to gradually return into school buildings over the next month, starting with pre-kindergarten and special education pupils later this week.

The union’s leadership is expected to decide on Monday night whether to send its 28,000 rank and file members the district’s safety plan to for a vote on Tuesday.

In Philadelphia, the teachers union succeeded late on Sunday in reversing a district order to return some 2,000 pre-kindergarten through second grade teachers to their classrooms on Monday to prepare for students coming back on Feb. 22.

“There is a lot of uncertainty about the process of re-opening,” said Pennsylvania State Senator Nikil Saval on a Twitter video as he protested with Philadelphia teachers outside his child’s school. “We want an eventual return to schools but only when it is safe … for teachers and students.”

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers on Twitter cheered the city’s concession to allow an independent arbitrator to decide when the district can safely resume in-person teaching.

“The mediation process is still ongoing,” the union said on Twitter.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday addressed the issue on Sunday, describing school closures and their negative impact on families as a national emergency.

During a Super Bowl interview on CBS, Biden said it was time for schools to reopen if they can do it safely, with fewer people in classrooms and proper ventilation.

“I think about the price so many of my grandkids and … kids are going to pay for not having had the chance to finish whatever it was,” he said. “They are going for a lot, these kids.”

Leading health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have said there is little evidence that schools contribute to the spread of the virus, which has killed more than 460,000 people in the United States since the pandemic began.

In Michigan, more than 350 physicians and psychologists signed a letter to Ann Arbor Schools officials urging the resumption of in-person classes by March 1. They warned of the “harmful impact of delayed school reopening on our community.”

Dr. Kim Monroe, a pediatrician who helped organize the Michigan effort, told radio station WEMU, “We are seeing so much mental illness in children due to the virtual schooling.”

A gradual re-opening unfolded in Atlanta when third through fifth grade students went back to school on Monday after prekindergarten through second grade returned to schools on Jan. 25.

In New York City, in-person classes in the nation’s largest school system will resume for middle school students on Feb. 25. About half of the public school system’s 471 middle schools will offer five-day-a-week classroom learning with the remainder working toward that goal, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said at a press briefing.

“If we’re in an environment where the city is overwhelmingly vaccinated, we’re able to bring school back as it was. Same physical proportions. Same number of kids in classrooms,” De Blasio said, adding he hopes to have all schools back to full-time in-person learning in the fall.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Editing by David Gregorio)

‘Dial back’ or ’emergency brake?’ New lockdowns and the U.S. economy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The surge in new COVID-19 infections is driving a fresh wave of restrictions in cities and counties across the United States.

California’s “emergency brake,” Oregon’s “freeze,” Philadelphia’s “safer at home” and Minnesota’s “dial back” are among a new patchwork of rules adopted by states, cities and counties that are much less strict and far more narrow than measures imposed to stop the spread of the virus in the spring.

The overall economic bite will be smaller, too, compared to the downdraft that started earlier this year and which led to roughly 22 million people losing their jobs, a collapse in retail spending and a recession.

“I don’t see where you get a 30% hit to GDP,” said Tim Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon. “There’s not as much to take off the table … I’m having a hard time seeing where you are going to derail the recovery.”

Businesses that were fully shut in March, like medical offices, shops, factories, and even hair salons, will remain open in many areas this time around.

That’s in part because many Americans have changed their behavior, businesses from manufacturers to retail stores have added routine temperature checks, and face masks are more common and in many states mandated. Meanwhile, consumers have embraced online shopping and curbside delivery to keep spending.

High-frequency data backs that up: even after the latest explosion in case numbers, economic activity has not collapsed.

SURGICAL STRIKE

Many of the latest restrictions target activities where science shows the spread of the virus is the most pernicious – indoor pursuits, in close quarters, for extended periods of time, or with heavy or unmasked breathing.

That means they will hurt some already hard-hit sectors of the economy, including hospitality and entertainment. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday issued a strong recommendation against travel over the Thanksgiving holiday this month, though it did not ban it outright.

Many of the more than two dozen states that have issued new restrictions this week have closed or restricted indoor dining and gyms. California, the biggest state by economic output, is among that group.

At the same time, businesses shut during California’s lockdowns in the spring, including shopping malls, body waxing venues, and barber shops, can continue to operate, albeit with some limits to contain the spread of the virus.

Philadelphia’s ban on indoor dining goes into effect on Friday.

Stock Fishtown and Stock Rittenhouse, which are owned by Philadelphia-based restaurateur Tyler Akin, will shift to carry-out and delivery mode. On Monday new rules in Delaware will force him to reduce capacity at his Le Cavalier restaurant in Wilmington to 30%, down from the current 50%. Though better than being entirely closed down, as was the case in March, Akin may need to adjust staffing to fit revenue.

“We have some really hard conversations ahead of us,” he said.

Efforts to adapt business to the realities of the pandemic may allow some restaurants and bars to weather the worst effects of the restrictions. In Oakland, California, as in many cities around the country, restaurants and bars have built platforms decked out with tables, chairs and propane heaters to make customers more comfortable outside in chillier weather.

It’s “a way to keep our businesses afloat,” said Ari Takata-Vasquez, who leads a small-business alliance in Oakland that has raised money to build the outdoor dining areas for cash-strapped eateries.

She’s working on, or completed, five of them – and has 30 eateries and gyms on the waiting list.

In Minnesota, movie theaters and yoga studios will shut at midnight on Friday, along with indoor and outdoor service at eateries, pubs and gyms. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, like many of his counterparts across the country, is also telling families not to have household gatherings, and he acknowledged the new rules will be felt especially hard by small businesses.

“By closing your doors and putting your financial well-being at risk, you are protecting the lives of your neighbors,” he said this week.

LIGHTER LOCKDOWNS, LESS RELIEF

Many of the newly implemented restrictions are expected, at least for now, to last two to four weeks. But even though lockdowns will be more moderate – and in many places are simply sector-specific curfews rather than sweeping closures – business owners and employees, especially in the restaurant industry, are worried their own financial pain will be sharper.

That’s because Congress has shown little sign of delivering another round of fiscal relief, let alone the massive pandemic packages totaling some $3 trillion passed earlier this year.

The last of the extra government aid for the unemployed is due to run out at the end of this year. A bill with bipartisan support to rescue the restaurant industry is caught in limbo in Congress, as the outgoing Trump administration focuses on challenging the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

While households overall still have excess savings, built in part from prior government aid, for many families that money is likely to run out before a vaccine comes into widespread use.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir and Jonnelle Marte and Howard Schneider; Editing by Paul Simao)

Philadelphia police probe alleged plot to attack vote counting venue

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – Philadelphia police said on Friday they were investigating an alleged plot to attack the city’s Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes from the hotly contested U.S. presidential election were being counted.

Local police received a tip about a Hummer truck with people armed with firearms driving toward the vote counting venue late on Thursday, a Philadelphia Police spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Police arrested two men and seized their firearms as well as the Hummer truck about which they had received the tip, the spokesman said, adding the probe was being conducted by the police and the FBI.

“The males acknowledged that the silver Hummer was their vehicle, and an additional firearm was recovered from the inside the Hummer,” the spokesman added.

No injuries were reported and no further details about the alleged plot were disclosed.

Video footage broadcast by Action News, an ABC affiliate, showed a number of police officials at the scene late in the night.

On Thursday, supporters of both Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden held rallies in Philadelphia as election staffers slowly counted thousands of mail-in ballots that could decide Pennsylvania’s crucial 20 Electoral College votes.

A state appellate court ruled on Thursday that more Republican observers could enter the building in Philadelphia where poll workers were counting ballots.

The U.S. Postal Service said about 1,700 ballots had been identified in Pennsylvania at processing facilities during two sweeps late on Thursday and were being delivered to election officials.

Trump has said repeatedly without evidence that mail-in votes are prone to fraud, although election experts say that is rare in U.S. elections.

A federal judge in Philadelphia denied an emergency request from Trump’s campaign to stop ballot counting in Philadelphia so long as Republican observers were not present. The campaign had sued Philadelphia County’s Board of Elections on Thursday to seek an emergency injunction.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Jonathan Oatis)

In cities across U.S., dueling protests sprout up as vote-counting drags on

By Nathan Layne, Maria Caspani and Katanga Johnson

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) – A second day of sometimes dueling demonstrations over the integrity of the U.S. presidential election started early on Thursday in Philadelphia and other cities as ballot counting dragged on in a handful of states that would decide the outcome.

Some groups, mainly Democrats, rallied around the slogan to “count every vote,” believing a complete tally would show former Vice President Joe Biden had beaten Republican President Donald Trump.

Ardent Trump supporters countered with cries to “protect the vote” in support of his campaign’s efforts to have some categories of ballots, including some votes submitted by mail, discarded.

Both factions appeared outside a vote-counting center in Philadelphia on Thursday morning. A group of Trump supporters holding Trump-Pence flags and signs saying “vote stops on Election Day” gathered across the street from Biden supporters who danced to music behind a barricade. Similar rallies were planned later in the day in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital.

Scott Presler, a pro-Trump activist, said he organized the “Stop the Steal” rally in Harrisburg to ensure that only legal ballots are counted.

“I want to bring national attention for people to take action, for them to call their state legislators,” Presler said in a phone interview while en route to Harrisburg. “I want them to demonstrate and show up in force, that we are not going to allow this election to be stolen by any fraudulent ballots.”

In Washington, a procession of cars and bicycles, sponsored by activists from a group called Shutdown DC, paraded slowly through the streets of the capital to protest “an attack on the democratic process” by Trump and his “enablers,” according to its website.

Most demonstrations in cities around the country have been peaceful and small — sometimes amounting only to a few dozen people with signs standing in a city center — as Biden’s path to victory looks a bit more assured than Trump’s, even though either outcome remains possible.

On Wednesday, a few demonstrations led to clashes with police. The demonstrations were triggered in part by Trump’s comments following Tuesday’s Election Day in which he demanded that vote counting stop and made unsubstantiated, conspiratorial claims about voter fraud.

Police in New York City, Denver, Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, all reported they had arrested some protesters, often on charges of blocking traffic or similar misdemeanors.

On the second floor of Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, county election officials sat at six tables steadily processing a few thousand remaining mail-in ballots on Thursday morning, some pausing only to order coffee.

Some Republican and Democratic ballot-counting watchers took notes as officials sorted each batch of 400 ballots one by one, ensuring signatures matched between envelopes and ballots.

Hoping to avoid Election Day crowds during the coronavirus pandemic, more than 100 million Americans submitted ballots during early voting this year, a record-breaking number.

The counting in Atlanta was far calmer than in Phoenix where a crowd of Trump supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside a counting center on Wednesday after unsubstantiated rumors that Trump votes were deliberately not being counted.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Maria Caspani in New York; Katanga Johnson in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Michael Martina in Detroit; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Peter Graff and Jonathan Oatis)