Here are the top news stories you need to know to start your day from your friends at NBC10.
TODAY'S TOP STORY
Teens Arrested in Flash Mob Attacks in Center City: At least two teens were arrested while several people, including a SEPTA police officer, were attacked during flash mob incidents in Center City. Police say the ordeal began Saturday around 7 p.m. on the 1700 block of Walnut Street when two large groups of teens became disorderly. One group exited a club and attacked a couple walking down the street, according to investigators. Officials also say a second group of approximately 100 teens were acting rowdy and harassed people walking nearby. Samir Maalaoui, the owner of Lazaro’s Pizza, located on the 1700 block of South Street, also told NBC10 a group of teens rushed into his shop shortly before 8 p.m., attacked two of his delivery drivers and stole a pizza. One of the drivers suffered a broken nose while another suffered a black eye. Philadelphia Police and SEPTA Police arrived at the scene and began to disperse the crowds. As they were controlling the crowd, at least one SEPTA police officer was attacked, officials said. Police say there were reports of three assaults and one robbery in all. SEPTA Police arrested two teens, ages 14 and 16, in connection to the attacks in Rittenhouse Square. They have not yet revealed the specific charges against them.
WHAT YOU MISSED YESTERDAY
Arrest Made in Killing Inside NJ Applebee's: Police arrested a man accused of shooting and killing a man inside a New Jersey Applebee's restaurant. Noel Powell III, 27, of Fountayne Lane, Lawrence Township, was arrested in Trenton, New Jersey around 2:30 p.m. Sunday by members of the Mercer County Homicide Task Force and the U.S. Marshals NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force. He is charged with murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon. Police say Powell shot and killed Devin Smith, 23, of Lawrence Township, inside the Applebee's Grill + Bar restaurant along Brunswick Pike (U.S. Route 1) near the Quaker Bridge Mall in Lawrenceville, New Jersey around 12:25 a.m. Tuesday. Powell approached Smith, who was seated and alone at the bar and shot him once in the head, according to investigators. Powell fled in a dark-colored SUV and Smith was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. While Powell is in custody, police have not yet revealed a possible motive in the murder or whether or not he knew the victim.
YOUR FIRST ALERT FORECAST
Monday is expected to be windy and cold with temperatures in the 40s but it will feel even colder. Sun is expected for Tuesday with warmer temperatures in the 50s. Wednesday could see some rain in the morning. Thursday is expected to be chilly but sunny. Friday and Saturday could see a slight warm up with temperatures in the 50s. Get your full NBC10 First Alert forecast here.
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Community Supports Victims of Senior Living Facility Fire: As some residents remain in the hospital while others are still unaccounted for days after a massive fire at a West Chester Senior Living Facility, the community is stepping in to help the victims. A fire started at the Barclay Friends Senior Living Community late Thursday night, injuring nearly 30 people and leading to a chaotic evacuation. On Sunday donations for victims were collected at the Good Will Fire Company on 552 E. Union Street in West Chester from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Yet even after 7 p.m., cars still lined up outside the Fire Company with people bringing in more donations. “We have everything from walkers, to commodes to clothing in the other room,” said Ted Hartz, President of the Good Will Fire Company. The West Chester community’s support was so overwhelming that a warehouse was needed to store more of the clothes and other supplies.
AROUND THE WORLD
Killer, Cult Leader Charles Manson Dies: Charles Manson, the California drifter-turned-cult leader responsible for a string of murders that cast a dark pall over the summer of 1969, died Sunday night in a Kern County Hospital. He was 83. Debra Tate, the sister of actress Sharon Tate, one of Manson's most famous victims, received a call from Corcoran State Prison telling her Manson died at 8:13 PM. While Manson died of natural causes, Tate knew he had been sick for a long time and was "expecting" this. Manson was recently taken to Bakersfield Hospital where he was being treated for intestinal bleeding since January. Surgery was recommended but it was later deemed too risky. He had been locked up since his arrest in December 1969 following his conviction for orchestrating the murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others. Some of his followers remain behind bars for their part in the killings. One, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, attempted to kill President Gerald Ford, and was later released on parole in 2009. Tate says she will make sure all of Manson's followers remain behind bars for the rest of their lives. “I’ve forgiven them, but that does not mean I’ve forgotten what they did … I will never forget,” she said.
That's what you need to know to Catch Up Quickly, but we've got more stories worthy of your time. Click here to check them out.
Jaindl Farms in the Lehigh Valley started raising turkeys over 80 years ago. Turkeys sold in grocery stores on the East Coast, such as Wegmans, come from this farm. And for the past 58 years, the farm has provided the White House with their Thanksgiving turkey. Matt DeLucia has more.
Winter is on the way and for wooden ships like The Gazela at Penn's Landing, work needs to be done to preserve the planks from the elements. Volunteers from Team Rubicon and the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild took time on Saturday to get the Gazela ready for the cold months.
Four people living in a West Chester, Pennsylvania, senior community ravaged by a five-alarm inferno last week are now presumed dead.
Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said Monday the four were "not saved."
Investigators are sifting through the rubble of the Barclay Friends Senior Living Community in an attempt to recover their bodies.
“The victims are everyone’s parents and grandparents,” Hogan said. “Our hearts go out to the families of the missing folks.”
The fire erupted shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday as most of the 137 residents were sleeping. The blaze started in the back of one of the buildings, ripped through the center and all the way to the ceiling, creating a "raging inferno," Hogan said.
Flames tore through the senior living community's personal care wing with such speed that some of the nearly 400 first responders rushed into the building without securing their breathing equipment.
Several firefighters described their helmets melting and cracking from the intense heat.
Most of the residents were bedridden or in wheelchairs. Senior home staff and outside neighbors rushed from room to room in the facility, wrapping residents in blankets and sweeping them out in to the frigid night in wheelchairs and even in beds.
One of the elderly women rescued is the aunt of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent-in-Charge Don Robinson, who is spearheading a team of more than 60 investigators. She is safe with relatives, but Robinson said it's a reminder of how many community members were touched by the fire.
“We’ve all got a piece of this,” he said. “We’re depending on each other and we will be here as long it takes to get some answers for the families."
Paramedics took 27 residents to nearby hospitals for treatment. Some of the injuries were described by authorities as "serious." Eight residents are still hospitalized as of Monday afternoon, authorities said.
Of those that were rescued without injury, 102 have been placed in other facilities and 31 have been taken in by family members.
The cause of the fire remains unclear. ATF investigators have made attempts through the weekend to enter the destroyed wing, but their efforts were hampered by unsafe conditions and high winds Sunday.
Parts of the complex burned for more than 24 hours and unstable walls teetered over the scene.
Last year, state health officials cited Barclay Friends and its owner Kendal with fire safety violations, including a failure to maintain corridor smoke doors. The violations were recorded in the facility's nursing home section, which was not touched by fire.
A provisional license status for the nursing home was lifted in February following a new inspection, but at least one fire safety violation remained, state records showed.
As parents and kids look for alternative sports to play in, drones have been flying high. NBC10 Delaware Bureau reporter Tim Furlong takes a look at the growing sport.
Stressed over cooking your Thanksgiving meal? NBC10's Cydney Long shows you a tasy alternative.
A viewer called Harry Hairston at NBC10 Responds after she could not receive a refund on her peeling furniture.
Wilmington's new police chief Robert Tracy was officially sworn in Monday. NBC10's Tim Furlong spoke with the chief about his plans.
Local chefs at the Jersey Shore are giving back to the community by preparing Thanksgiving meals for close to 2000 people in need. NBC10's Ted Greenberg gives a closer look at their meal preparations.
All this month, NBC10 is showing parents alternative, non-contact sports that their kids can participate it. One of those sports is archery. NBC10's Tim Furlong has the details.
A woman has been charged in the murder of her grandfather after she allegedly stabbed him 41 times in a Port Richmond home.
Patricia Diocson, 21, was arrested Monday in the stabbing death of her grandfather, 80-year-old Robert Girard.
Girard was found dead and naked on the kitchen floor inside his home on the 2500 block of East Lehigh Avenue around 9 p.m. Wednesday. Girard was suffering from multiple stab wounds and blood was found on the first and second floors of the home.
Police say there were no signs of forced entry and the home was not ransacked at the time of his death.
Homicide sources confirmed Diocson was arrested Monday. They also say she allegedly stabbed her grandfather 41 times.
Police have not yet revealed a possible motive or what led to the stabbing.
An investigation is underway after a man was found dead near a shopping center in Plymouth Township, Montgomery County Monday.
The body of the unidentified man was discovered on Ridge Pike and Lynda Drive around 5:45 p.m. Officials have not revealed a cause of death but say the victim was suffering from stab wounds.
Police remain at the scene and continue to investigate.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
A Delaware day care owner was arrested Monday after she allegedly abused children who were in her care.
New Castle County Police first investigated a report of abuse that occurred at Primary Colors Family Day Care on Margaretta Drive in Middletown, Delaware. Detectives looked at video surveillance at the daycare which showed the owner Angela Flewelling, 46, dragging and kicking children in her care, according to investigators.
Flewelling was arrested and charged with child abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. She is being held at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution after failing to post $7500 secured bail.
If you have any information on the investigation, please call Detective Graham at 302-395-8110 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIP-3333.
Austin Schuetz was just 2 years old when doctors diagnosed him with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a rare and potentially fatal form of cancer. His parents were stunned. Schuetz was like any other little boy that age - active, healthy and showing few signs of illness.
Too young to understand his diagnosis, Schuetz told his parents that he had “cancer cooties,” his mother, Kim Schuetz, said.
“I felt like I was looking into somebody else’s life,” she told NBC10.
Chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant followed, but nothing seemed to work. His parents enrolled Schuetz in a clinical trial at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and, within one month, their luck began to change.
Schuetz had an adult leukemia patient named Bill Ludwig to thank.
Like Schuetz, Ludwig made his way to Philadelphia in hopes of beating his cancer 10 years after first being diagnosed. Chemotherapy no longer worked, and Ludwig and his wife sought some kind of miracle at Penn Medicine.
“I was hoping for a day, a week or a month,” he said.
Ludwig became the first patient to try an experimental treatment called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, or CAR-T, that would eventually save his, and Schuetz’s, life.
“I asked God every night to give me the strength to fight,” he said.
And fight he did.
Using a modified version of the HIV virus, doctors removed Ludwig’s healthy cells and modified them to search for and destroy cancerous cells. The so-called hunter cells were infused back into Ludwig’s body and left to do their work.
The subsequent side effects were almost worse than the initial diagnoses, however. Within days, every major organ stopped functioning properly, Ludwig said.
With his help, doctors began to understand and address the unexpected side effects. Just a few weeks later, Ludwig was cancer-free.
“I’m a bless individual,” he said.
Ludwig has been in remission for seven years now. Since then, doctors at Penn Medicine and CHOP have applied what they learned from the 72-year-old patient to kids with leukemia.
CHOP became the first institution to study T-cell therapy on ALL, the most common type of childhood cancer. Typically, 20 percent of those diagnosed with ALL do not respond to conventional treatments.
But a 2015 global trial involving 68 children and young adults saw positive results in 83 percent of patients.
In August, the Food and Drug Administration approved the therapy for patients 25 years and younger.
“The big question is can we make these kinds of cells work for other kinds of cancers?” Dr. Stephen Grupp, who oversaw the first clinical trial, said.
For Schuetz’s family, every check-up can feel like the very first one. He still flinches when doctors draw blood, and his mom worries the cancer could resurface. But thanks to Ludwig and the clinical trials, the little boy from Wisconsin remains cancer-free four years later.
“You just want to have that one last hope that this is going to work and this is going to save him,” Kim Schuetz said. “I do believe in miracles.”
Crews just cleared a crash that shut down a part of the Black Horse Pike at Ganttown Road in Washington Township, New Jersey. A tractor-trailer hit someone on the road. Police didn't reveal the victim's condition.
A Virginia company is recalling a hummus product sold in several states because of possible bacterial contamination.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said in a statement that Asmar's Mediterranean Food, Inc. of Alexandria is recalling one lot of Asmar's Original Hommus because the product has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
Listeria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections to individuals with weakened immune systems.
The department says while healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea, listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
The hummus was sold in 16-ounces packages with the lot code TV11/2617. It was distributed to retail stores in northern Virginia as well as Whole Foods stores in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
