Dramatic video released on Thursday by Philadelphia Police shows a gunman approaching a group of men in Philadelphia's Hunting Park section and opening fire, then chasing the men down as they run for their lives.

The shooting happened in broad daylight near 8th and Butler streets just after 3 p.m. on Tuesday, according to police.

Surveillance video shows a green Dodge or Plymouth minivan creeping slowly down the block before a man jumps out of the van, runs up behind three men as they walk along the sidewalk, and opens fire.

As the three men scatter, running, the gunman chases one of them back up the block, still wildly firing his weapon. Police said one of the men ran into a nearby corner store yelling that someone was trying to kill him.

Police said the driver of the van also got out and began firing shots down the street at one point, leaving the vehicle to continue rolling down the block.

Incredibly, police say no one was injured in the incident. Bullets did strike several parked cars on the block, though.

Police are asking the public's help to track down the green minivan shown in the surveillance video and the two men involved in the shooting -- the van's driver and the gunman.

The only description investigators had available of the driver and the gunman is that they wore black masks and dark-colored hooded sweatshirts at the time. They fled in the van after the shooting.

Anyone with information on the shooting should call East Detectives at 215-686-3243 or text a tip to PPD TIP (773847).

Questions linger a year after Amtrak 188 ran off the tracks in Philadelphia, taking life and limb with it, and pain persists for those devastated by the derailment.

For Robert Hewett, the warm May evening when his world flipped upside down is burned into his memory.

Hewett, 58, is among those who suffered more serious injuries in the crash, which occurred moments after the train left 30th Street Station.

He was sitting in the first car — the car shown crushed like a soda can in footage from the scene — and was the first victim taken to Hahnemann University Hospital that night.

"Right before I lost consciousness, I crashed head-on with another gentleman," Hewett recalled on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the derailment. "I woke up laying on a pile of rocks. All my clothes had been ripped off, I couldn't move my legs, I couldn't see out of my right eye."

Hewett said fires burned in the field near where the train careened off the tracks, but he was too badly hurt to move himself to safety. So he waited.

"I was scared laying there," Hewett said. "I couldn't move, I couldn't get away. I started yelling for help."

Eventually, that help came. First responders carried Hewett away from the scene.

"I remember [the rescuer] saying, 'This guy's gotta go now or the whole back of his head's coming off,'" Hewett recalled.

Hewett would be the first derailment survivor to arrive at Hahnemann Hospital, but the last to leave. The severity of his injuries required lengthy and extensive medical treatment.

Tom Kline and Bob Mongeluzzi, two attorneys representing the majority of Amtrak 188's surviving victims, said their clients want accountability on the part of Amtrak and engineer Brandon Bostian.

Authorities have said the train was traveling at more than double the speed limit the night of May 12, 2015 when it rounded the curve at Frankford Junction, off of Wheatsheaf Lane in a desolate stretch nestled between Juniata, Port Richmond and Frankford, and lurched off the tracks.

Bostian was placed on leave in the wake of the derailment and has not returned to work. He has told investigators he recalled speeding up in the moments before the crash, then braking when he felt the train was moving too quickly into the sharp curve. When he realized the train was derailing, he recalled holding the controls tightly and thinking, "Well, this is it, I'm going over," according to documents made public in the case. Bostian is not believed to have been distracted by his phone at the time.

Investigators have also said that positive train control, a measure that automatically slows trains when necessary, was not being used on the dangerous curve at the time. Positive train control has since been installed along all of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

Federal investigators are scheduled to meet again next week to discuss the probable cause of the crash.

For the families of the eight victims who died — and the more than 200 others injured that night — added safety measures came too late.

"This has been a trying time and a troubling time and a difficult time for all of those who were horribly devastated and lost loved ones," Kline said recently.

Most victims have elected not to talk publicly about their ordeal. Victims were treated at 10 area hospitals in the aftermath of the mass-casualty disaster.

Temple University Hospital received 54 patients that night. NBC10's Matt DeLucia talked with doctors from the hospital, who recounted a level of devastation they will likely never see again.

"I have never experienced anything that was to the volume that we saw that night," said Dr. Amy Goldberg, who was Temple Hospital's chief of trauma at the time. "When I walked in and saw the number of patients we had already on site and the numbers we were getting, it was rather impressive."

Dr. Herbert Cushing, Temple's chief medical officer, remembered the questions that raced through his mind as he traveled to the hospital's North Philadelphia campus that night.

"Do we have enough emergency rooms? Is the blood bank ready?" Cushing recalled.

Cushing said the hospital had prepared for a disaster situation like the derailment, but after living it, he feels the hospital is even "better prepared now to handle a large disaster situation."

For many of the victims, recovery has come slowly. Attorneys say they are still living with the effects of the deadly crash day in and day out.

"They feel this pain not just on the day of the anniversary of this derailment," Mongeluzzi said. "But every waking hour of their lives."

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed two bills sponsored by Pennsylvania congressmen aimed at protecting young athletes and newborns from opioid addiction.

In a votes of 421-to-0, the House passed the John Thomas Decker Act and Infant Plan of Safe Care Improvement Act on Wednesday. Both bills will move over to the Senate for consideration.

The Decker Act, introduced by Rep. Pat Meehan (Pa.-7th), would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review the resources and educational materials available about opioid addiction among young athletes. The agency would then publicly report the findings, including addiction treatment options, and share materials with students, parents and athletic organizations.

Young athletes are susceptible to becoming addicted to powerful painkillers like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin while nursing sports injuries like ligament tears and broken bones.

"They will self-medicate, because they want to play through the season, so you begin to see people who are abusing the opioids thinking that they're young and they're strong and before they know it they have an addiction," Meehan told NBC10.

John Decker, a college lacrosse star, was found dead by his parents inside the family's Gladwyne home in January. The 30-year-old became addicted to prescription painkillers after undergoing surgeries for a knee injury suffered while playing basketball as a teen, his father, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Like so many others who get hooked on the powerful synthetic pills, Decker turned to heroin, the father said.

Meehan is a friend of Decker's family and introduced the bill in April.

Providing better care and more protection for infants born with an opioid addiction is the goal of the other bill passed Wednesday.

The Infant Plan of Safe Care Improvement Act seeks to require states to have policies in place to ensure special care for the babies and strengthen information and reporting about each infant's circumstance.

The legislation would amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to put in place the federal requirements.

Congressman Lou Barletta (Pa.-11th) sponsored the bill and calls the reforms common sense.

“Every 25 minutes, a child enters the world having already been exposed to drugs.  Every 25 minutes, a newborn has to pay the price for something he or she was defenseless against.  Every 25 minutes, another infant becomes a victim of the national opioid crisis.  These are the victims this bill will help protect," he said in a statement.

NBC10 recently conducted an in-depth investigation into the opioid and heroin epidemic called Generation Addicted. The reporting uncovered a generation of addicted people and a public health and law enforcement system ill-equipped to save them. The legislation is one step to correcting the gaps.

Congress is also scheduled to vote on the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Reduction Act on Friday.

When Elaine Riggs won a vacation sweepstakes 25 years ago and chose a free trip to Philadelphia over other offered destinations like the Super Bowl in Florida or Malibu, Calif., her choice was so surprising to the host city that local news outlets did stories about her.

“Back when we arrived in 1991, people were so amazed that someone would pick Philadelphia,” she said.

Her then-friend who has since become her husband, Jim, accompanied her and remembers NBC10 reporter Bill Baldini greeting them at the airport.

“The city had an obvious self-esteem problem,” Jim Riggs said.

Fast forward to 2016, and the couple from Tennessee is back in town for another vacation -- and they said Wednesday over breakfast at the Hotel Palomar in Center City that they have found a city filled with self-confidence.

“The big difference is it’s a cool place and they’re owning it,” Jim Riggs said, as Elaine Riggs agreed: “It’s a place to be now.”

The Riggses’ visit this week -- they arrived Tuesday, and are staying until Friday -- was an idea-turned-reality by Visit Philadelphia, the city’s tourism and marketing agency.

Visit Philly thought it would be a good piece of publicity to bring back a couple who one tourism official, Cara Schneider, called “prescient” to Philadelphia’s future when they made that fateful choice in 1991.

Visit Philly President Meryl Levitz first conjured bringing back Elaine and Jim Riggs after reading a story in February about the Riggses’ first trip. The story highlighted the Riggses at a time when Philadelphia was riding a wave of national accolades and honors.

At the time, Philadelphia was recognized by travel magazine and website Lonely Planet as the top choice on its annual "Best in the U.S." list. A couple months earlier in 2015, The New York Times ranked the city No. 3 on its international list of “52 Places to Visit.”

Those touts followed other noteworthy events and designations for the city: the Democratic National Committee announced it would holds its presidential convention here in July 2016; Pope Francis visited in September; and UNESCO gave Philly the title of World Heritage site: the first American city with that honor, joining places like Cairo, Jerusalem, and Paris.

In the February story, former Mayor Michael Nutter boasted of the great strides his native city has made in recent years, easily visible on the streets and in the clouds.

"Look at the skyline. It's incredible and keeps growing," Nutter said. "Just imagine 30 years ago, none of them was there. None of them."

As Elaine and Jim Riggs ate an early breakfast in the Palomar's lobby restaurant looking out on 17th and Sansom streets, they remarked on how smooth the transition for Philadelphia seems to have been.

“They’ve done a marvelous job of blending new and old,” Elaine Riggs said.

After breakfast, the Riggses took a taxi to Sixth and Market streets and met tour guide Ed Mauger about 10 a.m. They got a look at the President’s House where Washington and Adams presided as America’s first presidents, then checked out the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

For dinner after they arrived Tuesday, they chose Rittenhouse Square bistro Parc -- a fine beginning to a trip for two retirees who have traveled near and far in their 22 years of marriage. Last year, they drove to New Orleans. Recent other trips included County Claire, Ireland, and the coastal region of Turkey.

This summer, they’re taking a car ride to Elaine Riggs’ hometown in North Dakota for her high school graduating class’s 50th anniversary party.

She was reminded of another North Dakotan who is going to make a splash in Philadelphia soon -- Eagles quarterback heir apparent, Carson Wentz.

“I was thinking, ‘Boy, he’s in for a shock,’” Elaine Riggs said of Wentz, who has spent his entire football career in North Dakota.

The couple planned to see as many sights in the city as they could before leaving around noon on Friday. Jim Riggs counted Mutter Museum as one they expected to get in. Later on Wednesday, Schneider said she planned to show the couple the Art Museum steps and Rocky statue, and then bring them to meet Mayor Jim Kenney at City Hall.

Schneider said Visit Philly had put together an initial itinerary that offered them stops at some regional attractions like Longwood Gardens, a place they visited during the 1991 trip.

But she said the Riggses figured they’d have more than enough places to visit in the city itself.

“They felt there was so much to do in town they chose to spend Thursday in the city as well,” Schneider said. “Again, very prescient!”

A 10th grade Phoenixville high school student has been charged after authorities say he made a bomb threat inside school Thursday.

The male student, whose identity was not released, was overheard saying he had a bomb inside his backpack by school staff around 8:30 a.m., police said.

Administrators evacuated the school and police swept the building with bomb sniffing dogs and searched the backpack. No device was found. Students were allowed back in just before 11 a.m.

The student who allegedly made the remark was taken into custody and questioned. Police decided to charge him with making terroristic threats and related offenses, officials said.

Emergency crews worked to free a man trapped in a vehicle after it collided with a SEPTA trolley Thursday afternoon.

The crash happened after 3 p.m. near the intersection of Girard Avenue and 9th Street in North Philadelphia.

Video from SkyForce10 showed crews working to free a man from the vehicle involved.

"I saw a car, an SUV come up the side of the trolley and try to pass in front. What the driver and I didn't know was he was actually trying to make a turn onto 9th street instead of just going in front" Angie Lofton, a passenger on the trolley told NBC10. 

The passenger said about 30 people were on board the trolley at the time.

Officials said the driver was rescued and taken to Jefferson Hospital listed in stable condition. Three people aboard the trolley were also taken to the hospital after suffering minor injuries.

If you like to get shade from that tree in your yard, you might soon be at odds with a hungry caterpillar.

It’s feeding time for the Eastern Tent Caterpillar. You may have noticed them setting up shop in tree branches in your neighborhood. The black colored insects build fuzzy, odd-shaped forts around tree branches, close to their favorite food: leaves.

The caterpillars, native to our area, recently hatched from their eggs and are focused on growing ahead of their metamorphosis into moths. For about six weeks, the larvae chew their way through leaves morning, day and night.

Unlike other caterpillars, the Eastern Tent are a social bunch, hanging in groups says Greg Cowper, an entomologist with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.

“It’s unusual for caterpillars,” he said. “They eat together; they literally leave the tent in the morning and have breakfast on the leaves and then come back to the tent before going back out for lunch.”

The groups average about 15 to 20 caterpillars, which means they can put a pretty dent in the amount of leaves they mow down.

The tents they form are made from silk spun out of the caterpillar’s mouth and the bigger the group, the larger the tent. Cowper said they use the home as a way to regulate their body temperature.

“Throughout the day they’re moving to different parts of the tent based on how hot or cold they are,” he said.

They also hang together to keep predators like wasps and flies away. When a threat is nearby, all of the caterpillars violently shake their heads at the same time, making it tough for the insects to lay their eggs on the caterpillars.

While the caterpillars can decimate tree leaves, they’re nothing more than a nuisance. A short-term one at that. Cowper says the caterpillars typically cocoon after that six week eating period, before turning into moths, mating and then dying.

Trees usually bounce back once the eating assault is over and regrow their leaves.  But if you just can’t stand them, you can take matters into your own hands – literally.

“In my neighborhood, we go around often and just rip them out of the tree and throw them into a bucket of soapy water,” he said.

The soap keeps them from escaping the bucket and they drown. You could also dump the soapy water on the tree tent as well or use the natural insecticide BTK.

And those looking to prevent the caterpillars from coming back next year can cut down egg cocoons of laid by the moths.

THE COSMIC COINCIDENCE

I love coincidences. The best one is the fact that from our view on earth, the moon and sun appear to be exactly the same size. Actually, the sun is about 400 times wider than the moon, but it is also about 400 times farther away. This is why total solar eclipses are so spectacular. The odds of this happening are astronomical (pun intended). Yet it is purely a coincidence. 

OTHER POPULAR COINCIDENCES

LINCOLN AND KENNEDY

Some of this is true, but some is urban legend:

1. Both defeated incumbent Vice Presidents

2. Both their Vice Presidents were Southern Democrats named Johnson

3. Both presidents were shot in the head on a Friday, seated next to their wives

4. Both presidents fathered 4 children, and had a son die during his presidency

5. Each assassin committed his crime in the building where he was employed

6. After shooting Lincoln, Booth ran from a theater to a warehouse; after shooting Kennedy, Oswald ran from a warehouse to a theater

7. Both assassins were killed before being tried

And more…… 

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND JOHN ADAMS

Both presidents died on the same day-July 4, 1826. It was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And yet another president, James Monroe, died on the 4th of July. 

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?

Sometimes coincidences happen. But most times that one thing seems to cause another thing, they really are connected (unless it interferes with your pre-conceived beliefs…..) 

It must be a coincidence that: 

*Global temperatures have increased as carbon dioxide has increased (as expected from global warming science (GWS)……yes

*Warmer oceans hold more moisture which leads to more days with downpours…..already happening

*Warmer oceans lead to higher sea levels, which lead to more days of coastal flooding….already happening

*Warmer oceans in winter lead to more moisture. If it’s cold enough, the big snowstorms get bigger….already happening 

*Warmer oceans in winter can help lead to bigger snowstorms when it is cold enough for snow (the map below from the winter of 2015-16 just before our one giant snowstorm of the winter in the Philadelphia area)….already happening

*Sea level has been steadily increasing in recent decades…as expected by GWS…..already happening

*As more carbon dioxide gets dissolved into the oceans, the water will become more acidic….already happening 

*The amount of snow cover overall will decrease due to higher temperatures and fewer snow days…..already happening

*Warmer oceans allow any given hurricane, typhoon, or cyclone to become more intense. This is true for many parts of the world…..already happening

*Warmer temperatures will lead to overall less snow pack due to melting snow in addition to fewer days with snow….already happening

*The poles will warm more than other areas, helping to accelerate ice melt in the Arctic….already happening (sea ice melt leads to higher temperatures, which leads to more melting, which leads to higher temperatures…etc) 

*Ice melt on land directly leads to higher sea levels. Greenland is critical,

And melting continues there…already happening 

*Parts of the Antarctic Peninsula are vulnerable to quick ice melt…while sea ice is increasing in other parts of the continent, the fragile Peninsula is indeed already melting.

*The great majority of glaciers around the world will have significant melting due to higher temperatures…already happening

Either this is the most amazing series of coincidences I’ve ever heard of, or global warming is already having a significant impact in many ways over many areas. Are you willing to bet the future that all of these “coincidences” will stop or reverse themselves? Or do we take this seriously and do something to at least slow down these changes? 

Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz

Chief Meteorologist, NBC10 Philadelphia