There’s a day for giving thanks, three days for cashing in on deals — and now there’s a day to give back.

Giving Tuesday is observed internationally on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. It’s meant as way to promote philanthropy and generosity.

The movement aims to bring people, businesses and charities together and facilitate change in their communities by giving them a give back during the holiday season.

If you’re feeling generous, you can open up your wallet and give to the charity of your choice. Or you can volunteer your time for a local organization by doing yard work, painting or decorating for the holidays.

The campaign was launched in 2012 by 92nd Street Y, a New York City-based cultural and community center, and the United Nations Foundation. The website says it "has engaged over 30,000 organizations worldwide," including Microsoft, PayPal and MSNBC.

Organizers urge those taking part to go on social media with the hashtag #GivingTuesday and show how they’re giving back.

Head to GivingTuesday.org to see what organizations you can donate to in your area. 

A group of masked men tried to abduct a man off a Philadelphia street overnight, shooting him as he ran for his life, said Philadelphia Police.

Police rushed to the 2500 block of S Robinson Street, near Elmwood Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia around 11 p.m. Monday to find a man in his late 20s or early 30s on front steps suffering from gunshot wounds to his abdomen and a graze wound to his head, said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.

The man was taken to Penn Presbyterian Hospital in critical condition where doctor’s said the man – who had no identification on him – was expected to survive, said Small.

"Just prior to the shooting, five males wearing (masks) covering their faces attempted to pull the shooting victim into a van," said Small.

Police spent overnight searching for clues.

"We know that at least 16 shots were fired from a semiautomatic weapon," said Small. "It appears that the shooter may have been chasing the victim round some parked vehicles."

No word yet on a motive for the attempted abduction and shooting.

Working on tips after releasing surveillance video, police just outside Philadelphia charged a homeless man with sexually assaulting a mother during a home invasion.

Bensalem Township Police said Tuesday that tips lead them to an abandoned car parked in Philadelphia where they found 21-year-old Derrick Anderson.

The homeless man is believed to be the man that a Bensalem mother managed to fight off after he broke into her apartment and sexually assaulted her while her daughter was sleeping.

Officers responded to an apartment at Lafayette Gardens along Bristol Pike in Bensalem around 5 a.m. Saturday, said Bensalem Police. The woman and her daughter were sleeping when they found an intruder, said police.

"My first memory is I was awake and there was a man in my living room," said the woman, who NBC10 chose not to identify.

The victim fought back in an attempt to get the intruder to leave. He then hit her, grabbed her by the throat and sexually assaulted her, police said. The woman then managed to get him out of the house and he was last seen on video running away from her apartment.

"I don't know how long he was in the house," she said. "As I was pushing him out the door he tried to grope me. My daughter waking up, that was the key that scared him enough to be able to give me the strength and the opportunity to get him out of the house but it happened so fast."

"This woman is incredibly brave that she was able to fight him off," said Bensalem Public Safety Director Fred Harran. "Probably a mother's instinct jumping in, and protecting her daughter."

Investigators found surveillance video from a Sunoco gas station at Frankford Avenue and Knights Road in Northeast Philadelphia that shows the suspect, said police. The woman said the man was wearing the same brown coat he was wearing in the surveillance video when he sexually assaulted her. She also said she never met the man before.

A judge arraigned Anderson on burglary, trespassing, indecent assault and related charges Tuesday morning, said online court records. Bail was set at 10 percent of $200,000.

Police thanked the public for directing them to Anderson.

Police in New Jersey's capital city are investigating after a 2-year-old boy was shot in the hand at a home on the north side of Trenton.

NJ.com reports officers were dispatched to a residence on Southard Street around 11:20 a.m. Monday after police received a call to report the boy's injury.

The toddler was transported to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, where he was treated for a wound to his finger that wasn't considered life-threatening.

Lt. Rolando Ramos says investigators are still trying to determine exactly how the child was shot.

The boy's injury comes a day after Trenton police responded to three separate shootings in which a total of 66 shots were fired and one man was wounded.

Philadelphia Police vowed to find the driver in a hit-and-run that killed a young girl in the city's Overbrook neighborhood earlier this month while the girl's mother begged the driver to surrender.

The wreck at 63rd Street and Lansdowne Avenue left Jayanna Powell, 8, dead. Her family and friends laid her to rest Monday. On Tuesday, accident investigators updated their investigation while the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police announced a $15,000 reward -- mostly from private donors -- for information leading to an arrest of the driver. Mayor Jim Kenney's office also put up $10,000. [[403455146, C]]

"I just want to talk to the person who hit my daughter," said Jayanna's mother, Ayesha Poole. "It may have been an accident, I don't know, I just ask you to turn yourself in.

"I had to lay my baby to rest yesterday -- the hardest day in my life," Poole said. "I don't get a prom, I don't get a graduation, no marriage, no grandkids, no nothing, so, just turn yourself in. Make it better on everybody -- please turn yourself in."

Jayanna and her siblings were walking home from school around 3:15 p.m. when a car slammed into the 8-year-old.

"We was just crossing the street just to get the bus," Jayanna's 12-year-old brother Hassan Cox said. [[401993186, C]]

Cox said he was holding his sister's hand as they crossed 63rd Street when they were struck by a driver speeding through the intersection trying to catch a yellow light. The force of the impact was so strong that the girl was thrown 20 feet, her family said. A witness said the girl's backpack also tore open, splaying paper and books all over the street.

Cox was knocked into a nearby car, the family said. Jayanna was rushed to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with serious injuries. She died a short time later, police said.

Police have been searching for a gray or silver 2009 to 2016 Nissan Altima or Maxima with damage to the headlights and grill. The car was last seen heading southbound on 63rd Street. Cox described what the driver looked like. [[402770276, C]]

"He was bald. He had a half-beard at his chin," Cox said. "He had white glasses on."

"We need the public's assistance in finding the person responsible," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

Anyone with information about the driver or whereabouts of the car is asked to call accident investigators at 215-685-3180 or 3181.

Lawyers for Pennsylvania education institutions, including the state teachers’ union and three associations for school administrators, have described it as “staggering” and “judicial meddling.”

A ruling by a Montgomery County judge in August threw out Lower Merion School District’s most recent tax increase and, in turn, ignited debate across the educational landscape. At stake, according to briefs filed in Commonwealth Court in recent weeks, is the independent governing power of local school boards.

The showdown pitting the affluent Montgomery County district against a handful of residents, led by local attorney Arthur Wolk, will emerge back in court Dec. 15 in Harrisburg. The district’s appeal is asking the higher court to overturn Judge Joseph Smyth’s decision, which forces Lower Merion to rescind its 4.4-percent tax increase.

“It has the potential for untold disruption to public education across the Commonwealth,” the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and two other statewide organizations wrote in support of the appeal by Lower Merion.

In his decision, Smyth agreed with Wolk’s assertion that the district has enough in reserve accounts to pass a smaller tax increase. Lower Merion had a state-mandated cap on any new tax increases -- 2.4 percent in the 2016-2017 budget. But the district was granted exemptions by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

But in a brief filed ahead of the upcoming hearing, an attorney for the district claims that the surplus cash is dedicated to special education and employee pension payments.

The district has consistently argued that its tax increase above the cap was approved, as required, by the state DOE, for the costs of capital improvements, special ed and pensions.

In its pre-hearing brief, Lower Merion's attorney, D. Alicia Hickok, argued that Smyth found nothing illegal about the tax increase.

She reiterated what has become the broader appeal to Smyth’s ruling: the judiciary should not step in and override local taxing authorities that act lawfully and through proper public notification.

“The disputes Plaintiffs have with the (Lower Merion Education) Board reflect philosophical and policy differences,” Hickok wrote. “This is not the kind of subject matter that translates to an abuse of discretion.”

Wolk, in a brief filed Monday, refuted the arguments by Lower Merion and the state education groups that support the district. He asked that the higher court not look at the case through a larger lens, but focus as Smyth did on Lower Merion's spending.

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"The Appellant and its surrogates ... want to try and make this case about something it is not. They want to make this case about the Court 'usurping' the roles of the school districts of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Education," Wolk wrote. "This is a case about reining in abuses by a school district in levying unlawful and excessive taxes."

Beyond the boundaries of Lower Merion, the dispute has also raised the spectre of loose oversight by the state Department of Education in its enforcement of state-mandated caps on tax increases.

One in three districts in Pennsylvania received exemptions to raise property taxes above their state-mandated caps this year, according to documents provided to NBC10.com by the state DOE.

The number of districts that received approvals, 178 this year, has increased from 165 in 2014-2015 and 173 in 2015-2016, the documents show. It is unclear how many used the exemptions to raise taxes above their caps.

“All you have to do is complete the form. That’s it,” Springfield Township, Montgomery County, school budget chief Ken King told NBC10.com. “We don’t use exemptions. We don’t like to use them. But you start the budget process in October with very little known. There are a lot of things outside our control. Just to be safe, we file for exemptions.”

It's at the town level that decisions about public education funding should be made, Hickok wrote for Lower Merion, because locally elected school boards are most familiar with needs and future expenses.

“The Supreme Court has said that elected officials – both those in the General Assembly and those on school boards – should be the ones making decisions about educational policy and educational funding,” she argued. “Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint – and the court’s injunction order – would replace both ‘legislative’ and ‘administrative’ with ‘judicial.’ The public interest is in reserving these questions to the people elected to address them.”

Education groups in support of Lower Merion went so far to claim Smyth’s ruling “encourages risky and unsound financial practices” if schools can’t plan ahead by putting money in reserve accounts.

“This case strikes at the heart of local control of education programming, (and) interjects the judiciary into education policy making clearly reserved to the people and the ballot,” the PSEA wrote in its amicus curiae brief.

Wolk, however, said the lower court came to its conclusion by simply following the money.

"Not a single dollar of tax increases collected over an eleven year period was needed by the Appellant to meet every cent of its bloated and out of control budget," Wolk wrote. "The now more than $60 Million in the bank is a product of fraud, pure and simple, and proved in the Court below."

City officials are taking a major step in fighting Philadelphia’s youth homelessness crisis. On Monday, members of City Council and the Director of the Office of Homeless Services announced $700,000 in new funding would go toward expanding initiatives to end youth homelessness in Philly.

Throughout the year, city council members held hearings on youth homelessness with Mayor Jim Kenney's administration to work toward providing additional resources to address the crisis.

One of the hearings, which took place on April 28, opened with a three-minute clip from Faces of Homeless Youth, an in-depth report by NBC10 published and aired late last year that explored youth homelessness through the eyes of young people who are currently or who have been homeless.

“Philadelphia has the highest rate of millennials of any major city, and we must keep them here by providing opportunities, jobs, resources, services and most importantly a roof over their heads,” said Councilman Allan Domb (At Large), Chair of the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless. “Awarding these much needed funds puts our City on the right track towards achieving that goal.”

Every year, hundreds of young people in Philadelphia between the ages of 18 and 24 don't have a place to call home. Though social service agencies concede the numbers could be much higher as the youth may be embarrassed to say they're homeless.

Further complicating the issue, those who come forward for temporary housing could be turned away. Currently, Philadelphia has 439 beds for homeless youth 18 and older. City officials and advocates say the number is much lower than necessary.

“These new funds will enable the Youth Homelessness Collaborative to expand the youth homeless system by 12 percent,” said Liz Hersh, Director of the Office of Homeless Services. “That’s a great down-payment on addressing this problem. We have the opportunity to change the future history of young people through employment and training, education and social services all anchored by a safe place to live.”

Officials also formed the Coalition to End Youth Homelessness which is made up of five aid agencies dedicated to expanding the capacity of the city’s homeless youth system.

“This effort, which has been a long time coming, proves that Philadelphia doesn't need to wait for change from above — we can and are making change in the lives of our children and youth right here, right now,” At Large Councilwoman Helen Gym said.

Learn more about youth homelessness in Faces of Homeless Youth here.

WHAT CHANGES ARE ON THE WAY?

In case you haven’t heard, there was a fairly big election a few weeks ago. And the results are likely to impact future U.S. government attitudes and actions regarding climate change. I’ve broken the “climate functions” as:

1. Monitoring

2. Modeling

3. Research

4. Communications

If there was only one government agency that handled climate change, the questions about what will happen in the future would be relatively simple. The complication is that there are THIRTEEN U.S. government agencies that deal with climate change in some way:

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Defense

Department of Energy

Department of Health & Human Services

Department of the Interior

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Environmental Protection Agency

NASA

National Science Foundation

Smithsonian Institution

U.S. Agency for International Development

I never even heard of that last one. There is some overlap in the functions of the different agencies, but not as much as you might think. So, how is a new administration going to be able to make big and fast changes in how the government views and deals with climate change?

USGCRP HANDLES IT ALL

All of the above agencies participate in the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). They are supposed to coordinate on the role each agency plays. For example, here are some topics different agencies focus on:

Department of Agriculture-farming, food security, drought tolerance, forests

Department of Interior-climate and land use, impact on fish & wildlife

Department of Defense-changes in Arctic, impact of sea level rise on installations and plans, stress on vulnerable nation states, disaster response.

You get some idea of how climate change can lead to such a diverse area of issues. It could take years (or more) to fully reorganize such a complex mission. Some of the agencies most involved in climate change are:

NOAA (Department of Commerce)

This is the outfit I worked for many decades ago. The National Weather Service is part of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). And NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce, although it never made sense to me (or my co-workers). Yes, accurate weather forecasts can help local, national, and international business. But that wasn’t the reason President Nixon placed the newly formed NOAA where he did. Even President Obama commented on the absurdity in 2012:

“…apparently, it had something to do with President Nixon being unhappy with his Interior Secretary for criticizing him about the Vietnam was. And so he decided not to put NOAA in what would have been a more sensible place.”

Even the NOAA website mentions “The logic of Secretary Stans' recommendation, possibly combined with some political tensions between the White House and Interior Secretary Hickel, lead [Ed. led] to a decision in favor of Commerce”

So, the NWS was supposed to be in the Department of Interior in the first place. Why does this matter? Because the Cabinet Secretary in charge gets a BIG say in how the departments under him or her operate. And this includes how the money is allocated.

The new Secretary of Commerce can change the NOAA’s emphasis on climate studies compared with the forecast and warning aspects of the NWS.

NOAA’S FUTURE

NOAA deals with climate in different ways. Their Climate Prediction Center is involved in areas more in the “short-term” climate area, such as El Nino, seasonal forecasting, and even forecasts as short as 6-10 days out. There’s a big difference between monitoring and forecasting the next El Nino and forecasting how much the earth will warm in the coming decades.

NOAA has an award-winning website www.climate.gov that has beautiful and easy to understand maps related to climate change. Here are a couple of examples:

[[403643956, C]]

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The black line shows the average of many different simulations of global temperature in the 20th century compared to average from 1971-1999, and the colored lines show projected temperature changes in the 21st century for three possible emissions scenarios. The shaded areas around each line indicate the statistical spread (one standard deviation) provided by individual model runs.

Those images are simple and obvious evidence of the past temperature trends and how future temperature rises will be determined by future fossil fuel emissions.

Other NOAA divisions that at least partly deal with climate issues are:

1. National Ocean Service (NOS)

2. National Environmental Satellite Data & Information Service (NESDIS)

3. Ocean & Atmospheric Research (OAR)

NASA

Everyone knows NASA’s role in space exploration. It has been one of the most popular government agencies for decades. But that’s not all they do. I counted 18 different centers and facilities in their organizational chart (plus Headquarters). There are two that deal with climate in a big way:

Goddard Space Flight Center (“Earth, the solar system, and Universe observations”) and Goddard Institute for Space Studies (“Broad study of global climate change”)

The GISS is the most critical one for decisions on the future. Not only does the GISS have a highly respected global temperature record (one of three main ones in the world). The other thing is that the Director is Dr. Gavin Schmidt, an outspoken and highly published scientist who is well known throughout the climate world.

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The Last Three Octobers Are the Warmest Octobers On Record- Posted Nov. 15, 2016

Those types of headlines and graphics get worldwide publicity. And there are many members of Congress who are not happy that the “space agency” has being doing research of our home planet. And they are not happy that Dr. Schmidt has been so outspoken against any attempt to limit NASA’s future role in climate study.

So, will some (or all) of NASA’s climate change mission be redirected to NOAA? Will Dr. Schmidt be able to continue as Director of a major governmental agency? Will funding for climate change research be increased or decreased? Will scientists who do not accept the consensus of climate change (caused mostly by human activity) be put in charge of some of the above agencies?

There are so many questions about how the new administration will deal with climate change that it may take several blogs to explore it adequately. Stay tuned.

Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz - Chief Meteorologist NBC10 Philadelphia

Friends and family are mourning a teenage boy who was gunned down in Philadelphia's Mayfair section Monday night in an apparent random robbery attempt.

"He was kind, he was sweet. If you said anything was wrong he'd try to fix it about you," said Frank Myers, a friend and classmate of 14-year-old Ian Wilsey at Northeast High School.

Wilsey was on the 6200 block of Brous Avenue at 9 p.m. when at least one unidentified gunman opened fire. The teen was struck three times in the chest and torso. Donna Dressler, a Mayfair resident, found him lying on the ground moments after the shooting.

"I was down the basement, I heard 'pop, pop, pop,'" Dressler said. "I quick, ran out the door and I wasn't expecting to see a young kid laying down like that."

Wilsey, who would have turned 15 in a few weeks, was pronounced dead at 9:37 p.m. The teen was not from the immediate area where he was killed but he had an address connected to a home in the neighborhood.

On Tuesday, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said it appeared that Wilsey was the victim of a robbery and wasn't targeted.

Police believe the suspects in the shooting are two men who were wearing dark-colored clothing. They also say one of the men was wearing a beanie.

No arrests were immediately made. Police continued to investigate Tuesday. Meanwhile Wilsey's classmates, many of whom learned about his death when they arrived at school in the morning, continue to cope with the tragedy.

"I feel terrified," Myers said. "I just feel like there was no point in doing all that. And that was my friend. I've known him since I was in 6th grade."

The victim of the Center City apartment bombing is speaking out for the first time as his friends raise money for his continued recovery.

Jim Alden, 62, released a statement Tuesday updating people about his progress and thanking everyone for the support.

“What I want to say at this point is how overwhelmed I have been at the outpouring of love and support that I’ve received from my partner, family, friends, and coworkers,” Alden wrote.

On November 22, Alden arrived home at his apartment on the 1800 block of Pine Street after being out of town. As he opened a package that he thought contained asthma medication, the contents inside exploded. The envelope, which was rigged with a bomb, contained some type of shrapnel, causing injuries to Alden’s face, chest and arms.

Officials believe Alden was specifically targeted and continue to investigate the bombing. Alden, who pursued a career in theater before working as a restaurant manager and caterer at the Warwick Rittenhouse Hotel, is currently out of the hospital and resting at home. He still faces more surgeries and a long road to recovery.

“The “shrapnel” damage to my face, chest and arms is slowly healing, and a blister on my ear drum is affecting my hearing, but is supposed to heal,” Alden wrote. “At this point, I only know that I have a long road ahead of me, and I will likely be unable to work for quite some time.” 

Knowing that he faces mounting medical expenses, Alden’s friend Talbott Smith created an online fundraiser asking for donations.

“While he has health insurance, Jim faces large medical copays, and ongoing medical treatments, physical therapy, and costly future reconstructive and plastic surgeries,” Smith wrote. “He and his partner are also facing costs for cleanup and repairs to their apartment. Unlike his home state of California, Pennsylvania does not have a state disability insurance program, so Jim will suffer significant loss of income during his extended recovery time.”

“As longtime friends of Jim’s we are asking for your help as we all come together to support Jim through this time and bring him some peace of mind so that he can concentrate on the long journey ahead of him as he heals.”

CLICK HERE if you would like to donate to Alden’s medical funds.