“Our young people will suffer under a devastating bare-bones budget,” Mayor Michael Nutter warned at a press conference last week. “The quality of education in Philadelphia will plummet and we will all suffer as a result: poverty, unemployment, crime, lost…

Hostile Witness A May 13 Inquirer business column by Diane Mastrull was posted online with a curious editor’s note: “The opinions and analysis expressed here reflect the views of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of…

On Aug. 31, 1995, Eugene Gilyard was just one of a group of young men hanging outside the bulletproof-glass-encased Chinese store at 17th and Venango, dealing crack. When Thomas Keal, a local businessman, was murdered early that morning, police did…

Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir Funding for SEPTA and other public transit is “subsidizing a minority of our population’s bus fare, which is just more welfare,” said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), according to an e-mail discussion obtained by the Capitolwire…

This past January, Andre Hawkes got the first of several unpleasant phone calls. “We have your name here,” the caller said, explaining that he was collecting old debts for the Philadelphia courts. “If this debt isn’t paid, a warrant could…

Last Saturday was supposed to be a big day for Lisa Sodano. Maurice Ingersoll, her fiance, was going to take her shopping for a wedding ring. She woke up early and drove from Bucks County to Community Corrections Center No.…

Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir “If you smell something stinking … it’s Ill-Adelphia Because We’re The Shit!” That’s what the shirt, with an image of a big steaming pile of poo underneath, announces to passersby — people walking by City Hall,…

In the 1990s, the American Journalism Review dubbed Philadelphia “Libel City.” Plaintiffs, the journal noted, “included three state Supreme Court justices, a Superior Court judge, nine Court of Common Pleas (trial) judges, a Municipal Court judge, a U.S. attorney, Philadelphia’s…

Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir I was walking through the City Hall SEPTA concourse a few days ago and saw this guy. His sign reads: Capitol Hill, Ezekial 20:29, which, according to the online King James Bible is: “Then I said…