Philadelphia schools opened on time on Wednesday despite the icy conditions. NBC10’s Rosemary Connors looked into the tough commute for students and teachers.

Mother Nature couldn’t stop two classes of 2017 from enjoying one last trip with their high school classmates to sunny Florida.

Students from Perkiomen Valley High School in Collegeville, Montgomery County, got some extra time in warmer weather thanks to the Nor’easter that crippled the East Coast.

"It was kind of crazy because we didn't know when we were going to get home," said Perk Valley student Laura Schafer.

With Philadelphia International Airport a ghost town, it quickly became apparent that Schafer and her friends would get extra time in the Floridian warmth.

"Some people are ready to go but some people are excited because we got so much extra time," the Schwenksillve teenager told NBC10 Wednesday.

Around 160 members of the Perk Valley senior class and their 20 chaperones,  including the principal and his wife, had been in Orlando since Saturday enjoying Universal Studios and Disney World as part of the Collegeville school’s senior trip. Everything came to an abrupt stop when their Tuesday flight home was canceled.

Luckily, the Perk Valley party was able to switch rooms at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort with another local school whose trip was similarly delayed because of the storm.

Seniors from the Boyertown Area Senior High School were set to arrive Tuesday, but fate had other plans.

"They actually switched room because Boyertown High School had to cancel their flight because of the snow," said Susan Barry Schafer, whose daughter Laura, attends Perk Valley.

The change gave Schafer and her classmates extra time to ride the attractions at Disney World Tuesday night and head to Disney Springs Wednesday before their flights.

Schafer and her mom praised trip organizers for communicating changing plans and alleviating concerns over the plan to get home. 

While Perk Valley students stayed in Florida, Boyertown students got a new itinerary that pushed their trip to Orlando back to Wednesday night to Sunday after some tense moments wondering if the trip wouldn’t happen due to the storm. [[416102133, C]]

"That was the biggest scare," said Cathy Sullivan Saxon, whose daughter, Georgi, is a senior at Boyertown.

Everyone involved praised trip organizers for including trip insurance in the price (more than $1,000, subsidized by fundraising) meaning that no one would have to pay more despite the changed plans.

But now the vacation is over. Perk Valley students were told to be prepared to return to class Thursday.

"I’m kind of hoping that the plane is delayed, at least maybe two or three hours so we get back too late to go to school tomorrow," Schafer joked.

So what was the best part of the trip? For her it was meeting new friends before graduation.

"I’ve made new friends on this trip, we’ve been hanging out all the time, we’ve been together nonstop, we’ve like constantly laughing," Laura said. "It’s honestly been one of the best weeks of my life."

No one answered the phone at Boyertown high school Wednesday -- the school was closed for a second day -- while a Perk Valley spokeswoman didn't return NBC10's call for comment.  [[416147603, C]]

Twenty-three years after a psychologist first diagnosed Ben Rzucidlo with severe infantile autism, his mother Susan still remembers the heart-breaking prognosis as if she heard it yesterday.

“I was told he would never learn to use a spoon, or tie his shoes, be toilet trained or speak. I was told he would never even know I'm his mother,” the Chester County, Pennsylvania, woman said. “Well, he can tie his own shoes. He can speak. And he damn well knows I’m his mother.”

Rzucidlo credits Medicaid with her son's improbable achievements.

Now, she and thousands of other parents of children with special needs who receive wide-ranging treatment and therapies through the federal program face a worrisome future as the Republican-controlled Congress pushes forth major health care reforms.

A proposal passed by two House committees last week includes an overhaul of Medicaid both in funding and in formula. It would trim $880 billion over the next decade by ending Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and converting the federal program’s payments to the states from reimbursement-based to a capped annual amount based on current average individual expenses.

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Health advocates and Democratic lawmakers say that all Medicaid recipients, including children with the most severe physical and mental disabilities, are at risk of losing often costly and extensive services.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), in an exclusive interview with NBC10, said the Republican proposal to cap state Medicaid funding through pre-determined lump sums, often called block grants, mask “a basic hostility to these programs.”

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“They give it all this benign terminology: ‘Flexibility.’ Block grant.’ Doesn’t block grant sound nice? You’re giving this big grant. It all sounds so benign,” Casey said at his Center City office. “But it’ll decimate the program.”

Medicaid, which last year was roughly $575 billion, has long been a target for Republican downsizing, Casey said.

“There is a basic far-right philosophy that is no longer on the ascendancy -- it is driving the bus -- which is the federal government should be basically about the business of national defense and a few other things,” he said. “I think a lot of people don’t know how dependent and how important Medicaid is to people’s lives, even a lot of people who voted for the president by the way.”

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Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, a part-time writer and director of a non-profit said her family’s middle-class life relies on Medicaid. Her son, George, is a 14-year-old with autism and intellectual disabilities who is able to attend a special needs school in Lansdale thanks to the federal program. The cost of the school as well as his busing each day to and from their Elkins Park home is paid for through the Cheltenham School District, which is reimbursed by Medicaid.

“Even though we’re a middle-class family, we require Medicaid to help pay for all of his services, and we know that we will need it when he is an adult to help pay for housing and therapeutic supports,” Kaplan-Mayer said.

Like so many parents with dependent children, she now worries his son’s future is in jeopardy.

“Our country has made wonderful progress in how we care for people with disabilities in the last 30 years,” she said. “The Medicaid block grants could turn that progress backwards.”

Many advocates in the medical and educational fields agree. The PolicyLab of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute wrote in an analysis last week that “current proposals to simultaneously repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and reform the federal Medicaid program would be devastating to children and young adults with disabilities and complex medical needs.”

The PolicyLab estimates that caps based on the average annual cost for a child eligible for Medicaid “may leave insufficient funding for medically complex children whose health care costs are significantly higher than those of other children.”

The federal funding, according to Dr. Sophia Jan of CHOP, provides for smarter spending on special needs, including in-home and in-school treatment.

“Having the nurses in the home not only allows children to interact with community settings and socialize instead of being institutionalized but also allows parents to work,” Jan said. “(And) the cost for providing services in community-based settings instead of institutional settings is much cheaper.”

If Medicaid shrinks to levels that do not sufficiently cover costs for those often defined as traditional recipients -- children and adults with special needs, the elderly and the poor -- states would be left to pick up the difference.

Most, however, don't see a scenario in which states could afford to fill a hole in Medicaid funding.

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U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, a Republican from West Chester, Pennsylvania, was on one of the two House committees that last week approved sending the Medicaid overhaul to the full House for debate.

Discussion on Medicaid, as well of Republicans’ overall health care reform bill called the American Health Care Act, is expected to take the next two or three weeks before a version is sent to the Senate.

Costello said he does not favor any cuts in funding or services to traditional Medicaid. The target for cuts, instead, is the program’s expansion through Obamacare, which he said would explode to $1 trillion by 2026.

“When states face budget crunches in coming years, I don’t want special needs children, the aged, the blind, to be waiting in long lines competing for aid,” Costello said.

The Republican proposal, he argued, would halt the expansion, which through the Affordable Care Act now covers health care costs for American households making up to 138 percent of the poverty line.

“The GOP plan takes the expansion population and instead gives them a tax credit,” Costello said.

In that scenario, a Medicaid-reimbursed program like Pennsylvania's ACCESS that school districts use for special needs services “not only persists, but from a funding perspective, doesn’t have to compete” with expansion costs, Costello said.

It remains unclear how -- or why -- funding for those covered by Medicaid expansion will be interwoven with traditional recipients in any legislation that gets sent to the Senate for consideration.

Casey, who voted for the ACA in his first term, believes that Republicans are still grappling with the challenge of “co-mingling good health care policy, right-wing policy, and promises they’ve made.”

"It’s like running after a car and they never thought they’d catch it,” he said of the years that GOP congressional leaders have pushed to repeal the ACA. “But in this case the dog, figuratively speaking, I’m not saying Republicans are dogs, but the dog caught the car. And they’ve had to throw it together pretty quickly.”

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Inside her Avondale, Chester County, home, Lisa Lightner effortlessly pivots from a conversation about Medicaid to opening the door for a milkman to feeding her son, Kevin, 10. In a moment she looks away, Kevin pushes a small bowl of macaroni off the tray of his specialized wheelchair. Now, Mom is cleaning up his mostly uneaten dinner from the floor. 

Three friends who live with the same struggle -- running a household and caring for a disabled child -- sit nearby and each testify to Lightner's unique ability to juggle tasks.

"She's unbelievable," one friend, Lynn Thomas Guidetti, says. "I don't know how she does it."

Guidetti is referring to how Lightner also writes an advocacy blog about special needs children and volunteers as a Democratic committeewoman in Chester County.

Lightner then puts into words what she and her friends, Guidetti, Susan Rzucidlo and Laura Boyer, now confront more than ever.

"What will happen to him after I'm gone? This is something I ask myself all the time."

Her son lives with severe forms of epilepsy and intellectual disability. He will depend on his mother and father for the rest of his life.

"Why is all this being done on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens?" Lightner asked.

She and the other women have vowed to fight any legislation that would decrease Medicaid's ability to those most vulnerable Americans. All see the federal program as greatly improving their children's lives.

"All budgets reflect values and if you’re cutting Medicaid, what do you really value?” Rzucidlo said.

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The Villanova Wildcats are looking to repeat and win another NCAA championship. NBC10 reporter and Villanova alum Keith Jones is going along for the ride and following the team on their journey.

YOU’D THINK IT WOULD BE EASY-BUT THINK AGAIN
We can measure how tall we are.
We can measure what our shoe size is.
We can measure how far it is from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore.
We can measure how fast a runner goes from home to first base.
In weather, we can measure exactly what the temperature is.
We can measure the peak wind gust and the barometric pressure.
And we can measure just how much rain fell (as long as it wasn’t so windy that it was raining sideways).

But we can’t measure snow-not precisely.  That doesn’t seem right, does it? We just stick a ruler into the snow and see how high it goes. Even a 2nd grader can figure that out.

But how much has fallen when it has turned to sleet or rain, which compresses the snow? Well, it depends on how you measure it, when you measure it, and where you measure it.

HOW MUCH FELL DURING THE MONDAY NIGHT/TUESDAY STORM? IT DEPENDS…..
The official Philadelphia snowfall was reported as 6.0”. Tuesday evening, after the snow had ended, the official daily climate report had a different number: 8.3”. And when I came back into work Wednesday morning, the official number was back to 6.0”. Why did they change it? How did they decide how much to change it by? And might this be changed again in the future?

Why do I care? It’s not because a higher number makes my forecast better. We predicted 6-10” for Philadelphia, and getting 6” was just fine. It seems every other forecast was for more.

I care because weather history is important to me. It’s so important, I co-wrote a book on Philadelphia weather with Dr. Jon Nese, now a professor at Penn State.

We (mostly Jon) went through a LOT of trouble to research data going back hundreds of years, including explanations of changes in where the official Philadelphia measurements were taken. This data is what meteorologists and climate researchers will be looking at in the years, and decades, and millennia to come. How will they know that some of these snow records are basically ESTIMATES?

When I was an intern at the National Hurricane Center in Miami ages ago, I had to train at the Miami Airport with the official observers on how they did their job. (I swear this is true, word for word)….We were all inside the building, when we saw heavy rain falling outside. I asked the observer: “How do you know the exact time the rain starts.” He replied: “Someone usually comes in and tells me.” Nice.

HOW IS SNOW MEASURED? (THIS IS A FUNNY ONE, TOO!)
1.    Believe it or not, official snowfall in Philadelphia was measured IN NEW JERSEY for nine years (at National Park)! The Inquirer and Philly.com’s Tony Wood just wrote a terrific explanation about this and other snow measurement mysteries.

2.    The new observers at the airport were trained using a 14-page instruction document. Are you kidding-14 pages? Don’t you just stick a ruler in the ground?

3.    There are “snow boards” that all observers are supposed to use, taking observations every 6 hours (including one at 2 a.m.). The numbers are added up, since melting (or rain, or icing, or wind) could reduce the amount if they waited until the storm was over.

4.    There was sleet and freezing rain with this storm. This made measurements very difficult. If this happens, the manual says: “creativity may be needed to make a snow depth measurement.” What? Creativity-in measuring something?

So, the National Weather Service looked at other measurements in Philadelphia, which were lower than the 8.3” and decided to go back to the 6.0”. That was closer to the 6.8” at the nearby Office of Emergency Management. So, who’s to say the OEM’s “creativity” was done properly? And what does the observer at the airport think about having his report altered by more than 20%? And how many other places had more snow fall than they reported?

CAN WE TRUST SNOW MEASUREMENTS?
If a storm is all snow, probably “yes." Amateur observers are told to measure the snow in three places and average them. They probably don’t use snow boards.

But when sleet and/or freezing rain is part of the storm (which is most big winter storms in Philadelphia), there are questions. A study had to be done after the “Blizzard of ‘96” to verify that we really did get 30.7” (the previous record was 21.3”). The verdict was “yes, it was right”.

I realize this is all trivia to many of you. But did you realize how non-scientific this is? We move instrument locations, build new buildings near the instruments, and pave roads near the instruments. This is why many big city readings are excluded in climate research. There are plenty of other locations in the country that stay the same. Good thing they do.

Stay with the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team for the latest weather updates including alerts, maps and forecasts.

Five local police officers who survived being shot in the line of duty were among the 29 law enforcement members who were honored Wednesday night during a ceremony in Northeast Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Police Sergeant Sylvia Young, University of Pennsylvania Police Officer Ed Miller, Folcroft Police Officer Christopher Dorman, Philadelphia Police Officer Jesse Hartnett and Philadelphia Police Officer James McCullough were all honorees during ASIS International’s Philadelphia Chapter 19th annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Night. The event started at 7:15 p.m. at FOP Lodge #5 on Caroline Road.

Sergeant Young was shot eight times while inside her patrol car in West Philadelphia during an ambush shooting back on September 16, 2016. Officer Miller was also shot in the hip and leg after he confronted the gunman who later died in a shootout with responding officers.

Officer Dorman was shot seven times in June of 2016 by an alleged drug dealer.

Officer Hartnett was shot three times while sitting in his patrol car during an ambush attack on January 7, 2016 in West Philadelphia while Officer McCullough was shot in the leg while arresting carjacking suspects on April 17, 2016.

“This year’s tribute dinner will no doubt be one of the most emotionally charged events that ASIS International in Philadelphia has ever held,” said John Russell, chairman of the event and a project manager for Allied Universal in Philadelphia. “As a former Philadelphia police officer, I know the feeling of terror and desperation that grips a police officer when facing the barrel of a gun. Our hats are off to each of the officers who came through their ordeals when they put their lives on the line for all of us.”

ASIS International is an organization for security professionals, with more than 38,000 members worldwide.

Nearly 250 people were arrested in the last two weeks in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a press release issued by the federal agency this week.

Few details about individual arrests were released, though ICE did provide information about broader reasons for the arrests and detainments.

• Fifty people arrested previously have been removed from the United States.
• One hundred twenty have a conviction on their record and/or pending charges.

Here are the 10 things you need to know to start your day from your friends at NBC10.

TODAY'S TOP STORY

13 Charged in Major Heroin Operation: A major heroin bust in Bucks County led to charges for 13 people and the dismantling of a large drug operation responsible for several fatal overdoses, according to officials. Investigators announced charges against three brothers, Sheamus McCarthy, 27, Casey McCarthy, 22, and Thomas McCarthy, 25, as well as 10 other suspects. The 13 suspects are charged with running or participating in the drug operation as well as several drug-related felonies and misdemeanors. Police say the McCarthy brothers led an organization that sold as many as 400 bundles of heroin, each containing 10 to 14 bags, per week in the Quakertown area from late 2013 through late 2016. Sheamus and Casey McCarthy ran the operation from a remote, wooded family compound in Richland Township and also had locations in Springfield Township and Quakertown, Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said. The organization made almost $1 million in annual business, according to Weintraub.

• MORE ON THE DRUG OPERATION 

YOUR FIRST ALERT FORECAST  

The cold is expected to continue Thursday with temperatures in the mid-30s and partly cloudy skies. Friday is expected to be cloudy with temperatures hitting 40 degrees. Saturday could see some rain. High Temp: 34 degrees. Get your full NBC10 First Alert forecast here.

WHAT YOU MISSED YESTERDAY

3 Die While Shoveling Snow in Pa.: An eastern Pennsylvania coroner says three people have died while shoveling snow from this week's storm, including an elderly woman found buried in the snow. Dr. David Moylan III, the Schuylkill County coroner, told The (Pottsville) Republican-Herald on Wednesday that all three died of apparent heart attacks. Moylan said two of the deceased were men in Ringtown while the third was an 83-year-old woman in Wayne Township. He said state police found the female victim Wednesday afternoon "under 10 inches of snow" with a shovel underneath her body, and she may have died as early as Monday night. Moylan didn't provide the ages of the men but said one died Tuesday and the other Wednesday. He said the deaths "add tragedy with this storm."

• MORE ON THE DEATHS

AROUND THE WORLD

Federal Judge Blocks Revised Travel Ban: A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's revised travel ban hours before it was to take effect, marking the second time courts have thwarted Trump's efforts to freeze immigration by refugees and citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations. This time, the ruling came from a judge in Hawaii who rejected the government's claims that the travel ban is about national security, not discrimination. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson also said Hawaii would suffer financially if the executive order constricted the flow of students and tourists to the state, and that Hawaii was likely to succeed on a claim that the ban violates First Amendment protections against religious discrimination. Watson criticized what he called the "illogic" of the government's arguments and cited "significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus" behind the travel ban. He also noted that while courts should not examine the "veiled psyche" and "secret motives" of government decision-makers, "the remarkable facts at issue here require no such impermissible inquiry.” Trump called the ruling an example of "unprecedented judicial overreach" and said his administration would appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also called his new travel ban a watered-down version of the first one, which he said he wished he could implement.

• MORE ON THE RULING

Widow of Slain Corrections Officer Refuses to Meet with Gov.: The widow of a corrections officer killed during an inmate uprising at Delaware's maximum security prison is refusing to meet with Gov. John Carney. In a statement released by her attorney Wednesday, Saundra Floyd instead urged Carney to respond to demands of her family for the autopsy report on Steven Floyd and details on how he died. "Today the governor's office called me and asked if he could stop by this Friday to see how my family is doing. But actions speak louder than words, so my answer to that is no," the statement read. "Just reply privately or publicly to my demand for the release of the autopsy of my husband. How did he die? Did he suffer greatly, or did he pass quickly? Was he tortured? Was he stabbed 100 times, as we have heard? Did he die in a great pool of blood, as is rumored?” The statement, issued by attorney Thomas Neuberger, also indicated that the state is seeking reimbursement for what Neuberger described as thousands of dollars for Floyd's funeral expenses, paid with workers compensation funds.

• MORE ON THE STATEMENT

SPORTS SPOT

Flyers Beat Pittsburgh: The Flyers won 4 to 0 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Get your full sports news at CSNPhilly.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

See more Top News Photos here.

THROUGH IGER'S EYES

@kiingshoota captured this cool photo in the Philly subway.

Have an awesome Instagram photo you'd like to share? Tag it with #NBC10Buzz.

TODAY'S VIRAL VIDEO

Check out the Tic Tac smoothie challenge. Watch more here.

Montco Baby with Rock Star Hair Appears on Ellen: The Internet has done what it does best and created another viral sensation. This time, it's an adorable 7-month-old baby from Montgomery County with long, luscious hair -- and he has caught Ellen DeGeneres's attention. Meet Theo, a 7-month-old child from Merion Station, Pa., with a luscious head of hair. His hair is so irresistible that his mother Adrianna Alfano Cherkas uploaded a video of her son showing off his mane. The video amassed 36 million views and caught the attention of the talk show host.  Read more.

That's what you need to know. We've got more stories worthy of your time in the Breakfast Buzz section. Click here to check them out. 

The widow of a young New Jersey attorney who was killed in a carjacking at the Short Hills mall in 2013 testified Wednesday about the sudden ambush and the harrowing wait for help as she watched her husband bleed. 

Jamie Friedland gave the emotional testimony at the trial of the alleged getaway driver, Basim Henry, who already confessed to police his involvement in the December 2013 shooting, according to prosecutors. The accused gunman's trial has not yet started. 

Surveillance photos presented during the trial showed the couple walking hand-in-hand inside the mall that day. As they walked back to their SUV, Friedland recalled: "I looked at Dustin and said, 'What a great productive day we just had. We finally got to celebrate our anniversary and the purchase of our new condo.' It actually was a good day till the end." 

Friedland went on to describe getting in the car, then hearing her husband's muffled voice outside. She turned to see him outside the rear window, talking to two men, one on each side of him. 

"I saw the struggle, I saw the taller man... I saw him put the gun to Dustin's head," Jamie Schare Friedland said in tears as she described the sound of the gunshots. 

"He opens the car door, he leans in and he points the gun at my head and said, 'Get out of the [expletive] car, [expletive],'" Jamie testified. 

After the men sped off in her Range Rover and the getaway car, Jamie rushed to her husband, lying in a pool of blood.

"I was screaming, 'Stay with me, stay with me.' You don't even know what to do in situations like that. And I see his eyes, and he's looking at me, and he's gasping for breath," Jamie cried, recalling how she couldn't get her new phone to work.

Eventually, someone came over with a walkie-talkie and called 911. 

The assailants drove off in the Range Rover, which was found the next morning in Newark, about 10 miles from Short Hills. Prosecutors have said the couple was targeted solely because of the make of their vehicle.

Jamie Friedland, who wasn't hurt in the attack, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the malls owner in 2014, claiming they reduced security to increase profits and first responders mishandled a call for help, allegations those parties have denied. 

Hanif Thompson, of Irvington, and Newark residents Karif Ford, Basim Henry and Kevin Roberts have pleaded not guilty to felony murder and other charges in connection with the carjacking. 

Jamie and Dustin Friedland met at Syracuse Law School and married two years before he was killed. The couple lived in Hoboken at the time. 

Dustin Friedland grew up in Toms River, and graduated in 2002 from Toms River North High School, where he was an accomplished swimmer, rower and Eagle Scout. 

Some residents in the Philadelphia region, including along Pensdale Street in Manayunk.

Former Vice President Joe Biden will be honored with the HELP HERO Humanitarian Award in New York City Thursday afternoon. 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will be presenting the award at the annual HELP USA 30th anniversary luncheon in recognition of Biden's advocacy work for veterans and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. 

Some of Biden's advocacy includes sponsoring the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, creating the first White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, and speaking out against sexual assault at the 2016 Academy Awards. 

HELP USA operates a shelter service for survivors of domestic violence, and provdes support programs in East New York, the neighborhood with the highest rate of domestic violence in New York City.

Cuomo helped found HELP USA nearly 30 years ago. The organization helps over 1,000 domestic violence survivors annually. 

The luncheon will take place at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. 

A driver crashed into a school bus filled with several children at a Elizabeth, New Jersey intersection, then tried to flee the scene, dropping drugs along the way, authorities say.

Police say officers tried to stop a sedan when the driver fled and sped through the intersection of Madison and Fairmount avenues, crashing into a minivan and then a school bus. 

The driver of the sedan tried to run from the scene and dropped drugs as he fled, police. He forced his way into a nearby home during the chase, but officers caught up with him and found a more substantial amount of drugs on him.

The eight Elizabeth public school students on board the bus and the minivan driver were taken to Trinitas Medical Center with minor injuries. 

The suspect was arrested on drug charges, along with resisting arrest, burglary and aggravated assault charges. 

President Donald Trump’s new travel ban was supposed to take effect Thursday but a judge put it on hold. NBC10’s Pamela Osborne reports from Philly International Airport where the first attempt of the travel ban sparked protests.

As the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Field of 64 gets whittled down Thursday, the madness of deciding what is Montgomery County’s best pizza has really heated up.

Montco’s Best Pizza Tournament 2017 is down to its own "Sweet (sauce) 16" with tight battles between beloved pizza shops vying to be named the best in the county.

For the second-straight year, the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board is holding the best pizza tournament, a March Madness-like competition to determine the county's favorite pizza.

"When it comes to pizza, everyone has an opinion," the VFTC said on its website. "That's why every year we open it up to you to tell us your favorite pizza in Montgomery County."

Voting is open now and has been very close.

"Three of our second round match-ups were determined by 10 votes or less so make sure your cast your ballots Your vote matters," organizers said. [[416241533, C]]

The winning pizzeria will get a one year membership on the Valley Forge Tourism Board; an official trophy; ad space in county dining guide, Crave; billboards and championship gear.

Defending champ Chiaro's of Green Lane sneaked past (less than a one percent win) Sal's Bravo Pizza of Limerick to earn its spot in the Sweet 16. Will Chiaro's reclaim its crown? Check back to find out. [[414500383, C]]

NBC10’s Matt DeLucia reports from Villanova University as the Wildcats prepare to enter the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

NBC10 Responds and Harry Hairston help a man whose tax return never came, and share how to prevent issues like this from happening to you.

NBC10’s Katy Zachry gives the details on what departments President Donald Trump plans on cutting funding to and what he wants to increase spending on in his first federal budget plan.

Not all heroes wear capes; sometimes, they come in four legs.

Blue, an 8-year-old pit bull, has been hailed a hero by Philadelphia veterinarians for defending his owners Nina Teller and Leroy Bucahan when two armed men burst into their West Philadelphia home one February morning.

"I told Blue to get after the guy," Buchanan told Penn Vet. "He locked onto the guy's leg and that's when he fired his gun."

The home invaders took off — leaving the loyal dog with a severe gunshot wound. Buchanan rushed Blue to Penn Vet's Ryan Hospital.

"My first instinct was that the shoulder wound was an entry and the sternum was the exit wound," recalled Dr. Erica Reineke, the vet who assessed Blue when he first arrived at the hospital. "We knew the wounds were close to his thorax or in his thorax, and he had some air under his skin. So the first thing I was concerned about was thoracic trauma and bleeding from the bullet."

With critical internal damage, Blue needed emergency surgery. Surgeons at Penn Vet operated on the pit bull for about an hour.

Just 24 hours after post-operation, Blue was up and moving and eating with no complications from the surgery, the Penn Vet said. The loyal dog returned home four days later. 

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Beware of potentially dangerous falling ice.

That’s the message Philadelphia has for people as sun and warming temps could cause ice to fall from city high-rises. And, city agencies want building owners and managers to take evasive actions to prevent any potential injuries.

"The Department of Licenses and Inspections and the Streets Department are advising mid-and high rise building owners and managers to monitor their building facades and ledges for ice build-up," the city said in a news release Wednesday. "Ice that has melted enough to break free and fall from building surfaces can pose a threat to passersby below. Building owners are advised to take precautions such as placing barricades and warning signs around potential fall zones."

On Wednesday he Lowes at 12th and Market streets in Center City had a "Caution: Falling Ice" sign out front and had part of the sidewalk blocked off a day after a nor'easter dumped half a foot of heavy snow and ice on the city.

Some streets in the area were closed midday Thursday as crews knocked off remaining ice on the historic hotel.

The melt was greater on Thursday as sunshine and temps in the mid-30s could cause more ice to become dislodged.

The city said that SEPTA buses and sidewalks could be rerouted if there are falling ice concerns.

"Pedestrians are advised to be cautious and respect any temporary barricades erected on the sidewalk," the city said.

Pennsylvania's Democratic U.S. senator described the healthcare reform proposals from the Republican-controlled Congress as "devastating" to older Americans and adults and children with disabilities. He said the proposal to overhaul healthcare is a "transfer" of wealth and resources to the wealthy over the next decade. "It's a several hundred billion dollar transfer, and it's unacceptable and we have to stop them," he said a day after an exclusive interview with NBC10 about the perils facing Medicaid as part of the GOP overhaul.