Drivers may want to avoid the Delaware Memorial Bridge Tuesday.
Two Delaware-bound lanes of the bridge that connects the First State with New Jersey will remain closed until 8 p.m., said the bridge.
The closure will allow crews to replace wire ropes that connect the bridge deck with the main suspension cable, said the bridge on its Twitter feed.
Traffic continued to flow over the bridge Tuesday morning but back in April, similar repairs caused traffic troubles so you may want to use Exit 13 along Interstate 295 or Exit 2 of the New Jersey Turnpike to the Commodore Barry Bridge (U.S. Route 322) as an alternate route to avoid delays.
A woman accused of throwing hot coffee in another woman's face outside a Starbucks in Center City has turned herself in, according to police.
Yvonne Montgomery, 47, of Wyncote, Pennsylvania faces terroristic threats, simple assault, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct charges stemming from an April 25 tussle with a 54 year-old female at a Starbucks on the 1600 block of Arch Street.
The suspect allegedly tossed a coffee stirrer at the other woman during a heated altercation inside the coffee shop. After both women went outside, a security camera caught the suspect throwing a hot cup of coffee in the woman's face before punching her in the head and body, said Philadelphia Police. She then pulled the woman to the ground by her hair and continued beating her until a passing bystander intervened and separated the two.
Montgomery turned herself in on May 24.
Food truck customers may have to find a lunch alternative Tuesday after a fire in a Philadelphia warehouse left some trucks unable to operate.
The blaze broke out at the US Mobile Commissary building at Jefferson and N 31st streets in Philadelphia Monday night. The building houses more than 20 trucks that use the building to store and prep food.
Fire crews responded to a report of heavy smoke coming from the back of the building. One firefighter was transported to the hospital with some smoke inhalation. And, firefighters got the blaze under control.
Popular bagel truck Schmear It tweeted Tuesday that it will not be operating at the Porch at 30th Street Station Tuesday. [[382078671, C]]
Schmear It also said that the fire marshal has closed the building until inspection is complete.
No word yet on the cause of the fire.
A Northeast Philadelphia man remained behind bars Tuesday, charged with a slew of offenses for allegedly approaching a woman outside a Torresdale Wawa, asking for a cigarette, then dragging her into the woods and assaulting her.
Police said Felix Ramos, 44, of James Street near State Road, accosted a 29-year-old woman outside a Wawa around the corner from his home, on the 9400 block of State Road, about 6 p.m. Monday. They said Ramos asked the woman for a cigarette and then grabbed her and forced her into a wooded area, where he indecently assaulted her and tried to rape her.
Police said Ramos exposed himself, grabbed the victim inappropriately and tried to rip off her clothes during the assault. The woman struggled, broke free and called 9-1-1. Responding officers tracked Ramos down about two blocks from the scene, and the victim positively identified him as her attacker, police said.
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Ramos is facing charges including attempted rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, aggravated indecent assault and related offenses.
The woman suffered bruises to her arms during her escape.
"She never met him before," said police Chief Inspector Scott Small. "She never saw him before even in the neighborhood, so this is a stranger sexual assault."
The law firm connected to consumer advocate Erin Brockovich announced Tuesday it’s investigating water contamination in Montgomery County amid growing concerns that cancers and other illnesses may be connected to chemicals used on local military facilities.
“Like so many other communities across the country also facing a PFOA-contaminated drinking water crisis, this community has many questions about how long they have been drinking this dangerous water, what effect it is having on their well-being and who is at fault. This investigation will seek to answer those questions,” said Robin Greenwald, head of the Environmental and Consumer Protection Unit at Weitz & Luxenberg in written statement.
Concerns about the drinking water ramped up last month after the EPA issued new guidelines showing elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemicals PFOA or PFOS in Horsham, Warrington and Warminster – which are all near the shuttered Willow Grove Naval Air Station and current day Horsham Air Guard Station where firefighting foam containing the chemicals have been used.
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Phila., called Monday for a congressional hearing into allegations of contaminated groundwater.
“It feels like we won, just a small thing,” said Valerie Secrease, crying when she heard the firm has agreed to look into contamination. Secrease helps run a private Facebook group of people who worked at Willow Grove Naval Air Station and want to know if their cancer or life-threatening ailments are connected to the water on the base.
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The group has swelled to more than 1,600, many of whom have either suffered health issues themselves or lost a loved one. Secrease worked on the base for more than 25 years and has been living with malignant melanoma for the last two decades.
"There are nights I don’t sleep and it goes over and over in my mind about the people who have passed and the people who have suffered and the women who are still crying over losing their husbands,” said Secrease. “The joy I feel is not for myself, but for all the rest of the people who have been suffering. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll get some kind of closure.”
Weitz & Luxenberg has conducted similar investigations in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Recently, the firm filed a federal class action lawsuit against a plastics company for its role in PFOA water contamination in Hoosick Falls, NY.
"Communities across our country are realizing that the source of life – water – could in fact be making them seriously ill,” said Brockovich. "It is time to give this community a voice and make sure those responsible are held accountable for this issue.”
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We've reached out to the EPA and Navy and are awaiting their responses.
One of the lead protest organizers for the Democratic National Convention in July is a neuroscientist from outside Boston.
Another is a landscaper from Northeast Philadelphia. There’s the Dallas native who has toured the country with a group called Black Men for Bernie. And a West Philadelphia mother helping to make parents with young children feel comfortable about coming to the DNC for rallies.
A loosely-based network of mostly young people, connected through social media pages, has formed with the mission of getting to Philadelphia -- and then demonstrating on city streets and outside the Wells Fargo Center in support of Bernie Sanders.
They are motivated by a frustration with the political system and what some like Laurie Cestnick, a Massachusetts brain doctor, believe is the system’s collusion with big media, lobbyists, and corporate wealth.
“When you’re on the internet a lot like young people are, you see the difference between reality and what’s being reported,” Cestnick said.
She started a Facebook rallying cry five weeks ago to help Sanders supporters figure out how to get to Philadelphia for the DNC. Five weeks later, she said, her group is nearly 25,000-strong.
“I got involved in going to the DNC and getting the super delegates to vote for Bernie,” Cestnick said.
She and fellow pro-Sanders protesters will face a tough week. Hillary Clinton this week became the presumptive nominee when virtually all major news outlets determined that she secured the number of delegates needed to secure the party’s approval at the convention.
And the Sanders campaign has had no official relationship with any of the groups that have applied for permits to march and demonstrate the DNC week of July 24-28, according to interviews with the permit applicants, including Cestnick and Philly community activist Billy Taylor.
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“They have their reasons,” said Taylor, who described himself as president of a group called Movements for Bernie. “I can’t judge or say what their reasons were.”
He did say Sanders’ people had been in touch about using a portion of FDR Park that Taylor applied through the city of Philadelphia to have a rally on Sunday, July 24. He believes Sanders may speak to demonstrators that day.
“They do want a permit,” Taylor said of the campaign. A message left Tuesday for Sanders’ press office was not returned.
Taylor received approval from the city for 30,000 demonstrators at FDR Park the entire week. Cestnick is seeking approval for a march of 5,000-15,000 people on Monday, July 25, from City Hall in Center City to the convention at the sports complex in South Philadelphia.
She said the impression is that the permits don’t really matter.
“We can march on public streets,” she said “The real reason we’re applying for permits is that they make people feel better. It shows we’re all working together.”
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The Philadelphia Law Department released names of the individual applicants for demonstration permits after NBCPhiladelphia.com filed a right-to-know request. Three demonstrations applied for by Taylor have been approved, including the weeklong protests at FDR Park across from the Wells Fargo Center and two separate protests at Thomas Paine Plaza in front of the municipal building on Penn Square.
Two advocacy groups have been approved for protests, the Food & Water Watch and Global Zero.
A local group called Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign was denied a permit for a march on South Broad Street, but its leader said the march would go on without city permission.
A public art installation, a small pro-Sanders march, a Black Men for Bernie rally, and a rally for Green Party candidate Jill Stein round out the 11 city applications for demonstrations.
To accommodate the thousands of potential Sanders supporters coming into Philadelphia for a week, home sharing services like BernieBNB have popped up. Facebook groups across the country are filled with people trying to fill buses and share cars to make the trip.
Organizers are also working on designating parts of Philadelphia parkland as makeshift campgrounds for the week.
Despite the prospect of many Sanders supporters adding to a convention already expecting more than 4,400 delegates and hundreds more of Democratic Party officials from across the country, the city and Secret Service have told NBCPhiladelphia.com that the event is not like the papal weekend last September that effectively shut down all of Center City.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Jim Kenney last month compared the DNC to a Army-Navy football game played often in Philadelphia at the sports complex.
A Secret Service spokesman said last week that the agency, which manages the security for major national events, began planning for the DNC in October. It is designated as a National Special Security Event (NSSE) like Pope Francis’ visit was.
But, Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said, “you can’t compare NSSE to NSSE.”
“From a geographic standpoint, the pope’s visit stretched from the Art Museum, down the Parkway, to Independence Hall. That’s why you had a big swath of Center City fall under the NSSE,” he said. “In this case, you’re talking about one site, one indoor site. So everything under this NSSE designation is under one roof.”
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Sanders protesters don’t see it exactly that way.
If super delegates end up deciding the nomination for Clinton -- hundreds already have pledged their votes to the former secretary of state, which has contributed to her overall delegate lead -- protesters are vowing a public mass exodus from the Democratic Party.
“It’ll be a massive de-registration,” Taylor said of potential demonstrations following the convention.
Such a move would be a manifestation of the frustration already boiling over in liberal circles.
“No one anointed us to be Clinton superdelegates—a privilege that went to corporate lobbyists, rich people, and party hacks,” columnist Chris Hedges wrote Sunday on a website called Truthdig. “No one in the Democratic establishment gives a damn what we think.”
Melanie Bowen landed the chance of a lifetime to compete on one of her favorite game shows recently, and better yet, the Montgomery County high-school teacher walked away a big winner.
Bowen started watching "Wheel of Fortune" when she moved in with her aunt after college. Snagging a spot as a contestant on the show seemed like something that would never happen, but that didn't keep her from trying.
When the "Wheelmobile" visited Atlantic City, she decided to try her luck again. This time, she landed an audition, and a few weeks later, she received a letter telling her she had secured a place on the show. She hopped a plane to Los Angeles to appear on the show's "Philadelphia Week."
Down on her luck during the first two rounds, but still high in spirit, Bowen was anxious going into round three with $0 after going bankrupt twice.
"I know in 'Wheel of Fortune,' it's not over until the final spin and I still had time. I tried not to let it shake me," Bowen said. In the final round, her luck turned around as she won the prize puzzle and managed to move on to the bonus round.
Bowen explained the double Ls were the key to solving the final puzzle: "Paid in Full." In the end, she walked away with more than $63,000 -- including an all-expenses-paid trip to the Dominican Republic and a brand new car.
Bowen said the support from her Spring-Ford High School community was overwhelming.
"I'm still being congratulated when I'm out at the store or wherever. My students were super excited for me and thrilled to hear about my experience," she said. "Things have pretty much returned to normal at school, but I'm hopeful that my 'Wheel' experience showed my students that they can do anything that they set their minds to."
Moving forward, Bowen is planning on taking her trip to the Dominican with her husband and surprising her 4½-year-old daughter, Josie, with a trip to Disney World in June.
