Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

Author: Robert Moran

  • N.J. Gov. Murphy declares emergency to ease propane delivery woes caused by Delco facility disruption

    N.J. Gov. Murphy declares emergency to ease propane delivery woes caused by Delco facility disruption

    With the region in the grips of bitter cold, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday declared a state of emergency due to “anticipated impacts on the delivery of propane” for homes and businesses because of a service disruption at a Delaware County distribution facility.

    The declaration allows operators of commercial vehicles transporting propane to drive for 14 hours instead of the normal limit of 11 hours before taking the mandatory 10 hours of off-duty after a shift.

    “I am declaring a State of Emergency to ensure that the approximately 186,000 New Jerseyans who rely on propane for home heating purposes can receive it without interruption. This Executive Order expands delivery capabilities to keep homes heated and families secure,” Murphy said in a statement.

    The declaration, which takes effect 9 a.m. Friday, will remain in effect until Murphy determines that the emergency no longer exists, according to the governor’s executive order containing the declaration.

    The rules for commercial truck driving are governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but a federal waiver is available during a declared state of emergency, according to the executive order.

    The National Propane Gas Association said on its website that an electric transformer at the Marcus Hook Terminal on Nov. 19 “suffered an incident which disabled the propane truck-loading rack for three days, and created lingering problems at the terminal.”

    Energy Transfer Partners, which operates the terminal, has been unable to pump propane from its storage cavern, the association said.

    “Wait times at the terminal have been increasing, and given that the terminal is loading directly from the pipeline, the time to load is taking longer than normal,” the association said, adding later that the timing for repairs is uncertain.

    A representative for Energy Transfer could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.

  • Man and teen boy killed in Germantown shooting

    Man and teen boy killed in Germantown shooting

    A 30-year-old man and 16-year-old boy were killed after a meeting for a possible transaction escalated into gunfire early Tuesday evening in the city’s Germantown section, police said.

    Officers responded shortly after 5 p.m. to multiple reports of a shooting at the intersection of West Queen Lane and Laurens Street and found the man and the teen lying on the ground unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds to their upper bodies, said Chief Inspector Scott Small.

    They were both transported by police to Temple University Hospital, where they were pronounced dead around 5:30 p.m. A handgun was found on the body of the man.

    At the shooting scene, police found 11 spent shell casings from a handgun and a rifle, Small said.

    A Nissan registered to the deceased man was found at the scene with a bullet hole and the driver’s side door still open, Small said.

    A witness said the 30-year-old arrived at the location for a transaction that was reportedly not related to drugs, and the teen was with another man who apparently had the rifle, Small said. The man who arrived with the teen fled the scene.

    Police were checking for video from cameras in the area that may have recorded what happened, Small said.

  • Twin brothers in Absecon charged with posting online threats against ICE

    Twin brothers in Absecon charged with posting online threats against ICE

    Twin brothers from Absecon, N.J., were arrested and charged Tuesday with allegedly writing threats on social media against ICE agents and Tricia McLaughlin, the spokesperson for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS announced.

    Emilio Roman-Flores and Ricardo Antonio Roman-Flores are accused of writing on social media that McLaughlin should be hanged and declaring, “Shoot ICE on sight.”

    The Absecon Police Department SWAT team and DHS executed a search and arrest warrant Tuesday morning for the brothers. DHS said both were U.S. citizens.

    DHS posted a photo on the agency’s website showing a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle and ammunition that was allegedly taken as evidence during the raid.

    Emilio Roman-Flores was charged with unlawful possession of an assault weapon, possession of prohibited weapons, conspiracy-terroristic threats, criminal coercion, threats, and cyber harassment, the department said.

    Ricardo Antonio Roman-Flores was charged with conspiracy-terroristic threats, DHS said.

    According to public records, the brothers are 26 years old.

    “If you threaten our law enforcement or DHS officials, we will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement.

    According to a Fox News story that DHS promoted on social media, one of the brothers allegedly wrote in reply to something McLaughlin posted: “[The Second] Amendment is in place for moments like this. Shoot ICE on sight.”

    One of the brothers also allegedly wrote in response to McLaughlin, according to Fox News: “We Americans should find you, tar you, feather you, and hang you as we did to anyone serving tyrants before the Revolutionary War.”

    Neither the Fox News report nor the DHS announcement specified which brother made the statements.

  • Man stabbed on SEPTA train in Center City

    Man stabbed on SEPTA train in Center City

    A man was stabbed several times on a SEPTA train in Center City early Friday evening, police said.

    The stabbing occurred shortly before 5:25 p.m. and the victim was taken by SEPTA Transit Police from the 13th Street Station on the Market-Frankford Line to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, police said.

    “Two people were engaged in an argument that escalated into a fight and then a stabbing that left one of them in critical condition,” SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said in an email.

    The victim was stabbed in the neck, police said. No further information was available about him.

    No arrest was reported.

  • Lumberton mayor indicted for endangering her child while allegedly driving under the influence

    Lumberton mayor indicted for endangering her child while allegedly driving under the influence

    The mayor of Lumberton Township, who was charged earlier this year with driving under the influence, has been indicted on charges of failing to protect her then-2-year-old son who was in the car at the time of the incident, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said Thursday.

    Gina LaPlaca, 46, was charged by a grand jury with second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and fourth-degree child abuse, Bradshaw said. LaPlaca is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

    She previously was charged with several offenses, including child endangerment.

    LaPlaca, who was still listed on the township’s website as mayor of Lumberton Thursday, could not be reached for comment.

    On her Facebook account, LaPlaca posted as recently as Wednesday promoting Lumberton’s holiday tree lighting celebration set for Friday evening.

    After her March arrest, LaPlaca was censured by the township’s committee for alleged ethical violations, one of the committee members said, including allegedly driving under the influence, asking for Lumberton’s police chief while she was being arrested, and endangering her child.

    The arrest has been widely viewed on video taken from police body cameras.

  • Overnight closures to begin on westbound I-76 at 30th Street, PennDot says

    Overnight closures to begin on westbound I-76 at 30th Street, PennDot says

    The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said lane restrictions and overnight closures will begin Sunday and last until June for a short westbound stretch of the Schuylkill Expressway at 30th Street to allow for overhead bridge construction.

    The work is part of a $148.9 million project to rehabilitate the bridges that connect Market Street over Amtrak and I-76, the Schuylkill River Trail, and CSX Railroad, PennDot said Wednesday.

    On Sundays through Thursdays from 9 to 10 p.m., I-76 West will be reduced to one lane between 30th Street and the I-676 interchange.

    Then from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., all the westbound lanes will be closed and traffic will be detoured at 30th Street onto Schuylkill Avenue to then access the ramps to I-76 West and I-676 East.

    The changes will last through June 1.

    Because of the forthcoming holidays, there will be no overnight closures from Dec. 21 through Jan. 3.

    PennDot said motorists can visit www.marketstreetbridges.com to sign up for email notifications and learn more about the project.

  • Waymo starts self-driving tests in Philadelphia for its robo-taxi service

    Waymo starts self-driving tests in Philadelphia for its robo-taxi service

    Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Google’s parent firm, said Wednesday that it has begun autonomous tests in Philadelphia and expects to offer its robo-taxis to customers at some point afterward.

    “We’re making it official, Philly: Waymo will bring our service to the City of Brotherly Love!” the company announced on its website.

    Ethan Teicher, a spokesperson for Waymo, said in an email: “We recently began driving autonomously with a specialist behind the wheel, after securing permission to do so from PennDOT. We’ll continue laying the groundwork in Philadelphia to open our fully autonomous ride-hailing service for the public in the future.”

    In July, a Waymo spokesperson said the company would begin mapping Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, manually “driving through the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and freeways.”

    In its Wednesday announcement, Waymo said it will begin the mapping process in Pittsburgh, and noted that city’s connection with autonomous driving history. Carnegie Mellon University, which is located in Pittsburgh, is known as the birthplace of self-driving technology.

    The company said mapping will also begin in St. Louis and Baltimore.

    Under a 2022 Pennsylvania law legalizing the commercial operation of “highly automated vehicles,” Waymo needs a “certificate of compliance” to conduct autonomous testing in specified locations. In July, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said it was reviewing an application from Waymo.

    PennDot’s website on Wednesday showed that Waymo now has a certificate for Philadelphia.

    The only other company with a certificate for the city is Perrone Robotics, which operates a self-driving shuttle service at the Navy Yard.

    In New Jersey, state law does not allow for commercial services using self-driving vehicles on public streets. Legislation recently was introduced to create a pilot program requiring three years of testing with a human driver in the vehicle.

    Waymo offers self-driving taxi service in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta, and has test-driven in dozens of other cities. Testing began in New York City this summer.

    Currently, the company says it is performing a total of 250,000 rides a week using fully autonomous electric vehicles.

    A spokesperson for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said Wednesday that the mayor and other city officials are “closely monitoring Waymo and its plans for Philadelphia” but declined to elaborate.

    Besides mapping and testing its vehicles, Waymo has “engaged with community organizations” in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, including the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania, said Teicher, the company spokesperson.

    In the company’s announcement, it included a statement from Samantha Civitate, the Pennsylvania state director for Best Buddies, a nonprofit that brings together volunteers and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

    “Accessible transportation remains a vital piece of fostering independence and inclusion,” Civitate said.

    There has been no groundswell of opposition to Waymo coming to Philadelphia. The company, however, has had to deal with recent incidents elsewhere that have generated negative attention.

    A Waymo taxi in Los Angeles was caught on video making a left turn just feet away from an incident involving police officers positioned behind their vehicles shouting commands at a suspect who was lying facedown on the ground, apparently waiting to be arrested.

    In San Francisco on Sunday, a Waymo taxi hit an unleashed dog, which reportedly needed to be euthanized because of its injuries.

    Waymo vehicles have also been targeted, though mainly because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In June, several Waymo taxis were burned during anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. The company temporarily halted service in the area.

  • William Way services will return to Center City building after renovation, nonprofit says

    William Way services will return to Center City building after renovation, nonprofit says

    The William Way LGBT Community Center will return to the building it has called home after much-needed renovations are completed, instead of permanently leaving as had been previously announced, the leaders of the nonprofit’s board said Tuesday.

    Earlier this year, William Way announced it was planning to sell its 175-year-old building at 1315 Spruce St. because fundraising efforts for a “comprehensive redevelopment plan to renovate and expand” the Center City property had fallen short.

    The nonprofit said early last week that it was permanently closing its doors later this month and relocating services, and even had a “One Last Dance” goodbye party in the building scheduled for this Friday.

    The building will still close on Dec. 18, but the services that William Way provides will eventually return, the nonprofit said Tuesday.

    “Thanks to the support of multiple sources, including generous individual donors, and the efforts of our board, staff, and partners, we are pleased to share that the center will return to the building once redevelopment is complete,” Dave Huting and Laura Ryan, cochairs of the William Way LGBT Community Center Board, said in a statement.

    “While there are still many details to finalize, including a timeline for when we can once again welcome the community back into the building, we are thrilled to share that the center will not be leaving its longtime home,” Huting and Ryan said.

    “We look forward to sharing our vision for a reimagined facility, one that continues to be an essential resource for Philadelphia’s LGBTQ community, and which will become a reality as details are finalized,” they said.

    “We are partnering with a nonprofit developer to redevelop our building at 1315 Spruce Street, transforming it into a modern and welcoming space that better serves our vibrant and engaged community,” Huting and Ryan said.

    The center briefly closed for inspection and emergency repairs last fall, then partially reopened in January 2025.

    In June, William Way said it needed to sell the building — which it had purchased in 1997 — because the nonprofit could not move forward with the more than $3.5 million in immediate repairs that were needed “before any broader redevelopment could proceed.”

    The statement on Tuesday did not explicitly say the building would not still be sold.

    A spokesperson for William Way could not be reached for comment.

    In the meantime, William’s Way’s programs will move.

    On Jan. 5, the center’s empowerment programs, including the elder initiative, peer counseling, and trans programs, will operate out of the nearby Church of St. Luke and the Epiphany at 330 S. 13th St.

    A plan is being developed to temporarily relocate the John J. Wilcox Jr. Archives and is expected to be announced next year, the nonprofit said.

    “We have always said that the center thrives not because of its building, but because of its people. However, the rebuilding of the center will allow it to become an even more effective space to advance our mission and enhance the services and support we provide to our community,” the board cochairs said.

    As of Tuesday evening, the “One Last Dance” party was still being promoted on William Way’s website.

  • Campbell’s exec loses job after alleged racist comments and claims of 3D-printed chicken, company says

    Campbell’s exec loses job after alleged racist comments and claims of 3D-printed chicken, company says

    Campbell’s Co. said on Wednesday that a vice president reportedly caught on an audio recording disparaging the Camden-based soup giant’s products — claiming the company uses bioengineered meat, which Campbell’s denies — and allegedly making racist comments is no longer an employee.

    The allegations emerged after Robert Garza, another former employee, filed a lawsuit last week claiming that he was fired for reporting in January to his manager that Martin Bally, who had a position at Campbell’s as chief information security officer, had made problematic comments to him during a meeting in November 2024.

    According to the five-page lawsuit, Bally “made several racist comments about Indian workers at the company.”

    Bally also told Garza that Campbell’s products were highly processed food for “poor people,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Michigan, where both Garza and Bally live and worked for the company.

    Garza, who worked as a cybersecurity analyst for Campbell’s, did an interview last week with WDIV-TV, an NBC affiliate in Detroit, and provided at least some portions of secretly recorded audio of the meeting to the station for broadcast.

    The audio recording is not mentioned in the lawsuit. However, it is legal in Michigan for one party in a conversation to make a recording without the consent of the other party.

    The person in the recording, alleged to be Bally, says: “We have s— for f— poor people.” The speaker then acknowledges rarely buying Campbell’s products, saying they are unhealthy.

    The voice says that Campbell’s uses “bioengineered meat. I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer.” The speaker then goes on to make racist comments about coworkers.

    “After a review, we believe the voice on the recording is in fact Martin Bally,” Campbell’s Co. said in a statement on Wednesday.

    “The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused. This behavior does not reflect our values and the culture of our company, and we will not tolerate that kind of language under any circumstances,” the company said.

    “As of November 25, Mr. Bally is no longer employed by the company,” Campbell’s said.

    Bally could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

    Campbell’s said in its statement that the company makes food from high-quality ingredients, including real chicken meat.

    “We’re thankful for the millions of people who buy and enjoy our products and we’re honored by the trust they put in us,” the company said.

    Campbell’s has a new page on its website to answer questions about its food that were raised by the former vice president’s alleged comments.

    One section responds to the question: “Is Campbell’s chicken 3D printed?”

    “No. We do not use 3D-printed chicken, lab-grown chicken, or any form of artificial or bioengineered meat in our soups,” the website said.

    On Monday morning, James Uthmeier, the attorney general of Florida, responded to a post on X from an account apparently based in Ohio raising concerns about “FAKE MEAT that comes from a 3-D printer.”

    Uthmeier said: “Florida law bans lab-grown meat. Our Consumer Protection division is launching an investigation and will demand answers from Campbell’s.”

  • Regional Rail service snarled late into Tuesday night because of earlier disabled trains, SEPTA says

    Regional Rail service snarled late into Tuesday night because of earlier disabled trains, SEPTA says

    Regional Rail service through Center City was snarled early Tuesday evening — and late into the night — because of disabled trains blocking a tunnel, SEPTA said.

    “We had a brief power outage at about 4:15 that started this. The power was back within 10 minutes, but we had three trains that could not restart,” said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

    “We are in the process of transferring those customers to other trains, but it is causing major delays,” Busch said.

    Busch later added that the afternoon power outage originated with Amtrak.

    Shortly before 10:20 p.m., SEPTA reported on social media that service “remains significantly delayed due to earlier overhead power loss in Center City. Expect delays of up to 45 minutes.”