NBC10's Katy Zachry shows us how John Wister Elementary Charter School in Philadelphia is tackling so-called "stranger danger."

Chances are you know someone who died by suicide or attempted to take their own life. You’re not alone.

In 2015, suicide claimed the lives of 44,193 people. That’s more than homicide and heart disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Pennsylvania, nearly three times as many people die by suicide every year as by violent crime.

Those numbers are increasing. But experts hope talking about suicide prevention and mental health will remove the stigma and encourage people to seek help before it’s too late.

This Sunday, the region comes together to do just that at the annual American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Out of the Darkness Walk. It will take place outside the Philadelphia Art Museum from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Teams from NBC10 and Telemundo 62 will join residents as they honor their loved ones and raise their voices.

The NBC10 family is committed to raising awareness. Earlier this year, we unveiled a groundbreaking series, Preventing Suicide: Breaking the Silence, on our website. The exclusive online content features experts, including members of AFSP, and survivors candidly sharing their experiences. NBC10 Reporter Vince Lattanzio, who spearheaded the project, will emcee Sunday’s walk.

To learn more about the event and to register, click here.

On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it would temporarily waive The Jones Act for Puerto Rico at the request of its governor. The White House said the waiver could take effect immediately.

As Puerto Rico struggles amid mass power outages and food and water shortages, some politicians and experts say that one 97-year-old maritime law will make recovering from the disaster much more difficult.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, was passed after World War I to protect the U.S. ship-building industry and requires that domestic shipping must be conducted by U.S.-owned, U.S.-made ships staffed by American crews. This has meant that Puerto Rico, an island that relies on imports from the U.S., pays more than twice as much as neighboring islands for American goods, according to a report by former International Monetary Fund economists.

Nydia Velázquez, a Puerto Rican-born congresswoman who represents parts of New York City, is leading the call for a one-year suspension of the act while the island rebuilds from hurricane damage.

"The island is now facing an unprecedented uphill battle to rebuild its homes, businesses and communities," said Velázquez in a letter written to the Department of Homeland Security on Monday and signed by seven other members of Congress. "Temporarily loosening these requirements – for the express purpose of disaster recovery – will allow Puerto Rico to have more access to the oil needed for its power plants, food, medicines, clothing, and building supplies."

The DHS suspended the Jones Act on Sept. 8 because of disruptions of the oil supply system after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but the waiver expired on Sept. 22. Hurricane Maria hit on Sept. 20, knocking out all power to the island and nearly all cell phone towers.

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told NBC News Tuesday the territory risked collapsing "into a humanitarian crisis." On Wednesday, he told CNN that he expected the federal government to waive the Jones Act restrictions.

The Trump administration said Wednesday it has not yet made a decision. 

But a spokesman for DHS said Tuesday that officials thought that waiving the Jones Act would be unnecessary. An assessment by the DHS showed there was "sufficient capacity" of U.S.-flagged vessels to move commodities to Puerto Rico, spokesman Gregory Moore said in a statement to Reuters and NBC News.

"The limitation is going to be port capacity to offload and transit, not vessel availability," Moore said. "Most of the humanitarian shipments will be through barges, which make up a significant portion (along with tugs) of the US-flagged cargo fleet. After Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the rationale for a Jones Act waiver was to facilitate movement of petroleum to numerous places along the east coast, and making up for the loss of very high capacity pipelines. The situation in Puerto Rico is much different."

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke told reporters that there have been "no known waiver requests," referring to a lack of formal requests from shippers, NBC News reported. The request by some members of Congress for a one-year waiver to get fuel and other supplies to the island is "under consideration."  

Democratic Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez from Illinois on Tuesday criticized leaving the Jones Act in place, amid Puerto Rico's financial crisis. The territory has been in a severe recession since 2006 and declared a form of bankruptcy earlier this year.

Gutiérrez, who was among those who signed Velázquez’s letter to DHS, said the U.S. government should suspend the Jones Act at least for a decade if not repeal it permanently.

"Since it was imposed on Puerto Rico, the Jones Act has cost Puerto Rican consumers more than all the money owed to Wall Street, yet the president reminds us of the debt in his tweets," he said on the floor of Congress. "Let the ships flow as quickly and as cheaply from wherever they may come from because this is an emergency."

Other politicians have spoken out in the past against the Jones Act for needlessly hurting Puerto Rico’s economy.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona first introduced legislation to repeal the law in 2010 and tried again in July.

"I have long advocated the repeal of the Jones Act, an archaic and burdensome law that hinders free trade, stifles the economy, and ultimately harms consumers," he said.

On Tuesday, McCain also said he was urging DHS to waive the act for Puerto Rico to aid its recovery efforts. In a letter to Acting Secretary Elaine Duke, he also asked that it assess how a long-term waiver or full repeal would effect hurricane-damaged communities, including those in Florida and Texas.

Economists at the University of Puerto Rico found that the Jones Act cost the island’s economy $17 billion between 1990 and 2010, according to a 2012 report.

Republican Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama cited this study in 2016 when he, too, called for Puerto Rico to be exempt from the Jones Act. Three American territories are exempt from the Jones Act: the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.

Other studies have said the Jones Act costs Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska about $2.8 billion to $9.8 billion per year.

A report by the Government Accountability Office in 2013 said that although the Jones Act may make imports to the island more expensive, the dedicated routes also ensure reliability and keep more than 1,400 American jobs.

In April, the Trump administration had appeared to be moving forward with an Obama-era proposal to reverse the Jones Act, but it was withdrawn in May.

The Jones Act was last temporarily waived in December of 2012 so that petroleum products could be delivered for relief assistance after superstorm Sandy.

Op-eds in major national newspapers have endorsed calls to get rid of the act, including one published Monday in The New York Times by Nelson A. Denis, a former New York state assemblyman who has written extensively on Puerto Rico's economic crisis.

"A humanitarian crisis is about to explode in Puerto Rico," Denis wrote. "But the consequences of Jones Act relief would be immediate and powerful. This is not the time to price-gouge the entire population. It is time for Congress to act ethically and responsibly and suspend the Jones Act in Puerto Rico."

The consequences of leaving the Jones Act in place could be dire for the 3.4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico, some experts warn.

"It means extending the suffering," said Dennis Nixon, a professor of marine law at the University of Rhode Island. "It’s hot there today, there’s a risk of thunder showers. They’ve got no electricity, no drinking water." 

Nixon said that it could lead to an even more painful financial crisis for Puerto Ricans, who might start leaving the island in a forced mass migration to the U.S.

He advocates suspending the act. 

"It would hugely accelerate the ability to move goods into Puerto Rico, because you’d basically be getting a 20 percent discount on everything," he said.

Jonathan Gutoff, a maritime law professor at the Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island, said that even though the Jones Act may not be hindering aid from reaching the island, it does increase prices for consumers and makes it harder for businesses to market their exports.

"Given that Puerto Rico is suffering from a fiscal crisis and the aftermath of Maria, anything to help Puerto Ricans should be done and the Jones Act should be suspended," he said.

Whether or not to repeal the act is a tougher question, Gutoff said. Because of the role of the Jones Act in maintaining the American boat building industry for offshore work, more study should be done before a repeal, he said.

The American Maritime Partnership said it is actively working with the Trump administration, FEMA, The United States Maritime Administration (MARAD), and other relief organizations to deliver food, fuel, first aid supplies and building materials to Puerto Rico. Approximately 9,500 containers of goods have already arrived on the island to help in recovery efforts, according to the partnership.

"A steady stream of additional supplies keeps arriving in Puerto Rico on American vessels and on international ships from around the world,” said the charmain of the partnership, Thomas Allegretti. “The problem now is distributing supplies from Puerto Rico’s ports inland by surface transportation."

The Shipbuilders Council of America did not immediately respond for comment on the Jones Act, but according to its website the council strongly supports the act, calling it "vital to America’s economic, national and homeland security."

CORRECTION (Sept. 27, 11:35 a.m.): An earlier version of this story misstated the number of U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico. There are 3.4 million.

A Pennsylvania-based company has agreed to pay $95 million in criminal fines for illegally employing undocumented immigrants. The judgment is the largest of its kind in U.S. history, federal prosecutors said.

Asplundh Tree Expert, based in Willow Grove and described by federal officials as one of the largest privately-held companies in the country, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Philadelphia, agreeing to an $80 million criminal forfeiture money judgment and a $15 million civil payment.

The scheme to unlawfully employ undocumented immigrants was perpetrated throughout the ranks of Asplundh from 2010 to December 2014, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Asplundh, a 90-year-old family owned business, specializes in ensuring utility lines are clear from tree branches. They employ more than 30,000 people in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"The highest levels of Asplundh management remained willfully blind while lower level managers hired and rehired employees they knew to be ineligible to work in the United States," according to the statement.

Asplundh incentivized managers who skirted immigration law, federal prosecutors said.

Company Chairman and CEO Scott Asplundh said in a statement posted to its website about "the DOJ matter" that Asplundh was aware of the federal investigation since 2015.

He said the company took "immediate correction action."

"Consequently, the circumstances and practices of the past, which gave rise to the investigation, have been addressed and eliminated going forward," Asplundh said.

He apologized to customers and accepted "responsibility for the charges."

The company also agreed to present a compliance program to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The program included revising hiring procedures to verify each ID examination for every new hire and implementing a photo ID card system.

NBC10 and Telemundo62 will host a live, informational phone bank to answer viewer questions about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on Thursday, Sept. 28.

The phone bank's toll-free number will be available on both stations on air and online when the phone lines open at 4 p.m. Thursday.

The phone bank will last until 6:30 p.m. and will feature experts from local organizations to provide free, confidential advice and counsel to local callers.

Participating organizations include CEIBA, Juntos, Nationality Services Center and the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia.

This is the fourth community phone bank that Telemundo62 has hosted this year related to immigration issues. The previous phone bank, in July 2017, garnered more than 200 calls in only 90 minutes.

Four of the main motives for murder in Philadelphia declined last year when compared to five years ago — those being arguments, domestic violence, highway robberies and retaliation — according to a new report by Pew Charitable Trusts.

One glaring exception: Drug-related killings. Those jumped from 18 percent of all Philadelphia homicides in 2012 to 32 percent in 2016, Pew found. 

"Drugs appeared to be driving the murder rate over that period, with police statistics showing that the percentages for other top causes declined during that time," the analysis said.

And the pace so far this year would mean another increase from the 89 slayings over drugs last year. 

The finding comes at a time in the city's recent history when yearly homicide totals have stayed well below 300. (The current total of 227 homicides for 2017 through Sept. 27 is 8 percent above last year's pace.)

The decade's annual totals continue a downward trend started in the second half of last decade when annual homicide totals were in the low 300s. Those years came on the heels of some of the city's deadliest following the turn of the century.

The police department told Pew in a statement that police did not see a correlation between drug-related slayings and the increase in fatal overdoses during the ongoing opioid epidemic.

"The Philadelphia Police Department said it was too soon to know whether the data from the past few years represent a trend—and did not speculate on what may be driving the increases," according to the analysis.

Thursday's temperatures felt more like fall, but a cold front will arrive Friday night making the temperatures drop even more. NBC10 Chief meteorologist Tammie Souza has your forecast.

For one couple, the cooking hasn't stopped as they continue to prepare food to raise money for their relatives in Puerto Rico. And as this couple worries about their relatives, thousands of other families in Puerto Rico are running out of food and water. NBC10's Cydney Long has the story.

As millions remember Hugh Hefner following his death,  former employees of Atlantic City's old Playboy Casino hotel are reflecting on his legacy. NBC10's Ted Greenberg spoke with them about Hefner's link to the Jersey Shore.

After actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus announced she has breast cancer, local doctors are reacting to the announcement, and hoping it can help other women gain access to healthcare. Now, those doctors are praising Louis-Dreyfus for raising awareness.

Students in kindergarten through third grade now have plenty of books in their classrooms, thanks in part to two people. NBC10's Erin Coleman explains.

Jorge Barahona looks longingly at a grassy lot in Atlantic City that once held a home he bought with his brother and father. 

The young man hoped a new house would by now be on a parcel Superstorm Sandy ruined five years ago.

But his family finances were hit with another wave of destruction in the last 18 months, he says, allegedly at the hands of a contractor who took their money to rebuild the house.

"This is it, dirt again," he told NBC10 as he looked over the property. "We've been going through hell."

The Barahonas are not alone when it comes to allegedly getting ripped off at the hands of scrupulous contractors in the aftermath of the storm that ripped apart communities up and down the Jersey Shore in October 2012.

The ongoing struggle to be made whole serves as a warning for the massive recovery efforts now underway in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Yearslong problems between stakeholders like homeowners and contractors, homeowners and insurance companies, state agencies and local government, continue to haunt New Jersey.

One of those alleged contractors to literally take homeowners' money and run is Tre McAllister. The registered contractor in New Jersey allegedly took numerous homeowners' payments to rebuild their damaged or destroyed houses, but never finished the work.

Now, Atlantic City police are investigating, and a department spokesman said a criminal complaint has been filed against McAllister. But one problem is McAllister can't be found. Whether it's at his former Somers Point office or his old Ocean City home, those who hired him to do construction work can't get a hold of him.

The contractor did call NBC10, but he declined to discuss specifics.

For homeowners like Barahona, they want some sort of closure. It has been five years, after all, since the storm.

"We're just hoping to get our house back," Barahona said.

A raccoon found in Camden County has tested positive for rabies. The State Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the results to the county’s health department on Tuesday, sending residents into high alert.

The raccoon was captured after a Haddon Heights’ family called animal control when their dog came in contact with the wild animal in their neighborhood. The dog remains under observation and treatment by local health officials.

Freeholder Carmen Rodriguez, liaison to the Camden County Health Department, urged pet owners to keep their animals vaccinated and to contact local animal control if they see any stray animals in their neighborhoods.

As temping as it may be to nurse a wild animal back to health, Rodriguez said people must avoid contact with them, since their behavioral and health conditions are unknown.

Eight days after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, thousands of Americans living on the mainland have not heard from their loved ones on the island. Even elected officials do not know the condition of their friends and family.

Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, a Philadelphia native with relatives in Puerto Rico, is one of those people. She has only heard from a handful of loved ones, including a cousin who spent all day Wednesday trying to find cellphone reception. When she finally got through to Philadelphia, the 40-year-old woman cried wondering how her family will eat. They were running out of water and food, Quinones-Sanchez said.

“Her first reaction was ‘I gotta get off the island’ and my first reaction was ‘No, you’re 40. You’re young. You need to stay there,” the councilwoman said.

The full human toll of Hurricane Maria remains uncounted because relief efforts have barely started. Frustrated by the government’s slow response, Philadelphia City Council adopted a resolution Thursday urging immediate federal relief to support all aid efforts in Puerto Rico.

“What we’ve done is not nearly enough,” Mayor Jim Kenney said. “The White House response to this devastating storm is already past due. It’s important that we understand compassion.”

City officials have stopped short of sharing any contingency plans should thousands of Puerto Ricans seek refuge in Philadelphia or other parts of Pennsylvania. Kenney has repeatedly said he would open all of the city’s resources to victims, but no federal request been received.

“At this point during Hurricane Katrina, there were 20,000 troops and 40,000 national guards on the ground. We are nowhere near that,” Quinones-Sanchez said. “People here are going to be more frustrated because they can’t reach their loved ones.”

Quinones-Sanchez worries Puerto Rico will experience a brain drain. Young people and those with financial means have already been fleeing the island’s crumbling economy and resettling in places like Philadelphia where opportunities are more abundant. But without those residents, Puerto Rico could soon descend into a remote outlet for the sick and elderly, Quinones-Sanchez said.

 “That’s why it’s important the federal response provide hope so that people can stay and rebuild,” she said. “They’ve been in the middle of a fiscal crisis and 10,000 people were already voluntarily leaving the island every month prior to the devastation.”

As of Thursday, only six post offices are open on the entire island. More than 40 percent of residents do not have drinkable water. Ninety-seven percent of people are without cell service and 100 percent are without electricity.

“There are people dying over there and that should stop right now,” State Rep. Bob Brady said. “We are the richest country … and we can help our own.”

Brady stood side by side with Kenney, Quinones-Sanchez and other elected city and state officials. Their united front is just one of the many ways they hope to push President Donald Trump into a more robust response. He has yet to visit Puerto Rico, and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Frank will make her first visit to the island Friday.

Speaking in Philadelphia Thursday evening, Brady said fuel, gas and medicine is most needed to hurricane victims.

“What we need is boots on the ground to protect United States citizens,” he said. “They are United States citizens.”

Philadelphia is uniquely poised to help the Caribbean island. Puerto Ricans comprise 8 percent of the city’s total population and 75 percent of Philadelphia’s Latino community, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. The push to help hurricane victims goes beyond politics.

State Rep. Brendan Boyle said he received call from one of these local residents yesterday. Her grandmother had died in the wake of Hurricane Maria and she wanted to know how this could happen on American soil. All Boyle could offer was his condolences, but that didn’t feel like enough, he said.

“This administration has not shown commitment … to the people of Puerto Rico,” he said. “We have to make sure for everyone else’s grandmother and family members that they do not experience a loss of life.” 

About 100 people were arrested in Philadelphia during a four-day nationwide immigration sweep targeting so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, federal authorities announced Thursday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said "Operation Safe City," which ended Wednesday, targeted people who have "violated U.S. immigration laws, prioritizing aliens with criminal convictions, pending criminal charges, known gang members and affiliates, immigration fugitives and those who re-entered the U.S. after deportation."

The agency noted that agents targeted regions "where ICE deportation officers are denied access to jails and prisons to interview suspected immigration violators or jurisdictions where ICE detainers are not honored."

"Sanctuary jurisdictions that do not honor detainers or allow us access to jails and prisons are shielding criminal aliens from immigration enforcement and creating a magnet for illegal immigration," ICE Acting Director Tom Homan said. "As a result, ICE is forced to dedicate more resources to conduct at-large arrests in these communities."

Nobody registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program -- which provides protection from deportation for people brought to the country illegally as children by their parents -- were targeted in the operation, officials said.

ICE officials said 107 people were arrested in Philadelphia, out of 498 nationally. Other raids were conducted in the Los Angeles area; Santa Clara County; Baltimore; Cook County, Illinois; Denver; New York; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; and the state of Massachusetts.

Philadelphia had the most arrests, followed by Los Angeles with 101.

According to ICE, among those arrested in Philadelphia was a citizen of the Donminican Republic who entered the country illegally and has previous convictions for possession of firearms.

The 498 people arrested in the operation came from 42 countries and 312 of them had criminal convictions, according to ICE.

Finally feeling like fall. NBC10 First Alert Weather chief meteorologist Tammie Souza has your neighborhood forecast.

In an effort to curb crime, there's a new push to open businesses in Kensington. NBC10s Brandon Hudson reports.

A family in south Jersey with 50 relatives in Puerto Rico is making plans to get much needed supplies to their family. NBC10s Aaron Baskerville explains how they plan to get the supplies to those in need.

The manhunt is on for a gunman who chased down and killed a man in the downtown of a quiet Chester County town while apparently using a stolen gun.

Keyon La-Shawn Carpenter fired a shot at Joshua Mitchell and witnesses after getting into an argument with Mitchell in the area of The Children’s Plaza (Bank and Bridge streets) in Phoenixville around 9:45 p.m. Thursday, Phoenixville police said.

Mitchell tried to flee but Carpenter chased him down and fired a fatal shot into Carpenter’s upper body, witnesses told police.

Mitchell, 20, died a short time later at the hospital.

Carpenter, 21, fled on foot. Investigators found a stolen gun along his getaway route. Someone tried to “obliterate” the gun’s serial number, police said.

Carpenter is considered armed and dangerous, police said. Anyone who spots him should call 911.