More rain and extreme cold conditions are causing property owners and residents problems. NBC10 First Alert Weather meteorologist Brittney Shipp has some tips to keep you prepared through the rest of winter.

Amanda Yep, an 11th grader from Montgomery County, created a literacy program for underserved Asians in New York for her Girl Scout service project. She partnered with APEX, a nonprofit. She has put in over 105 hours creating workbooks and developing workshops.

A Temple University law school graduate has pleaded guilty in a case that prompted Delaware's Supreme Court to overturn the state's death penalty law.

The News Journal reports 29-year-old Benjamin Rauf pleaded guilty to manslaughter and a weapons charge in the drug-related 2015 killing of classmate Shazim Uppal.

Prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty against Rauf, but the judge sought the state Supreme Court's opinion after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Florida's similar law, which allowed for capital punishment even when juries are less-than-unanimous in recommending death.

Rauf's case also presented a second test for Delaware law, when public defenders asked a judge to toss evidence they argued was gathered from an unconstitutional search of cellphone location records. Attorneys were awaiting a decision when Rauf pleaded Monday.

A South Jersey after-school club is helping middle schoolers launch their own businesses. And, these kids are doing more than opening a lemonade stand. The students at Southampton Middle School have launched online stores, which they advertise to their family and friends. 

The top federal prosecutor in Philadelphia has filed suit to stop a nonprofit from opening the nation's first supervised drug injection site to address the city's opioid problem.

The lawsuit pits U.S. Attorney William McSwain's stance on safe injection sites against those of Philadelphia's mayor, district attorney and a former Pennsylvania governor who support them. McSwain believes that supporters should try to change the law, not break laws he is charged with upholding.

"Normalizing the use of deadly drugs like heroin and fentanyl is not the answer to solving the epidemic," said McSwain, who called the planned facility "a deadly injection site."

He announced the lawsuit Wednesday morning as supporters of the planned Safehouse program gathered outside his Independence Mall office, complaining they were barred from attending. They said thousands of people could die of overdoses in Philadelphia in the time it might take to change the law.

Philadelphia has the highest opioid death rate of any large U.S. city, with more than 1,200 fatal overdoses in 2017. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and other city officials announced last year that they'd support a private entity operating and funding safe injection sites.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has meanwhile joined the board of Safehouse and said he's willing to face arrest. He bucked similar regulations when he was Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s, sanctioning the city's first needle exchange program and inviting the state's attorney general to arrest him.

"If I thought for a minute that safe injection sites would create new addicts, I wouldn't be a part of it. I see the ability to save lives and get people who are addicts exposed to treatment," Rendell said last fall.

McSwain said he hopes the civil lawsuit — a pre-emptive strike of sorts as the program has not opened — will prompt a federal judge to declare the plan illegal. For now, he is seeking only a ruling that the practice violates the 1986 "crack house statute," not fines or asset forfeiture. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh Jr., a West Philadelphia native and President Obama appointee.

"We are not arresting anyone," McSwain said. "We're not trying to seize any property or do any thing heavy-handed at all. We're just asking the federal court to look at it."

Lisa Kelley, a 48-year-old artist who took part in Wednesday's demonstration, grew up in the Kensington neighborhood, now the epicenter of the city's opioid crisis. It was known even then as a drug haven, but today draws people battling addiction from across the region and beyond. Kelley believes a safe injection site would help the neighborhood as well as the individual users.

"I absolutely believe it would help the community. It would cut down on the needles found on the street, cut down on the number of people using on the street, cut down on the number of kids having to see that when they're walking to school in the morning," said Kelley, who lost a friend, addiction activist Paul Yabor, to an overdose two years ago, and has an adult foster son in recovery.

A 65-year-old Manhattan mom who has been missing since Monday night was found dead in a garbage bag in Morristown, New Jersey — and the woman's son and his girlfriend have been charged with concealing her body, law enforcement sources said.

Paula Chin's body was found at a home on Bailey Hollow Road, the sources said. Investigators believe Chin may have been stabbed to death in her Vestry Street apartment in lower Manhattan in a fight over money, with her body later being driven across the river by her alleged killer.

Her son Jared Eng, 22, of the Vestry Street building, his girlfriend Caitlyn O’Rourke, 21, of Patterson, New York, and a third woman, Jennifer Lopez, 18, of Manhattan, have been charged with concealing a body, law enforcement officials said.

None of the three had been charged with murder as of Wednesday afternoon. 

NYPD detectives are getting a warrant to search Chin’s third-floor apartment on Vestry Street, as well as a car parked nearby that may have been used to transport the corpse, the sources said.

Police in Morristown are joining NYPD detectives in searching the Bailey Hollow Road location as well.

Chin has two sons, and law enforcement sources said they are looking into whether a family dispute over money may have led to the killing. Officials said it is believed Chin was stabbed in the throat during the argument.

Sources said murder charges could be filed in connection with the case later on Wednesday. 

A neighbor told News 4 Chin owned the Vestry Street building and lived at times on the third floor with her sons as well as at the home in Morristown.

James is a shy and smart young man that would love a family that can help him come out of his shell. If you would like to make James’ dream of a forever family come true, contact 1-866-DO-ADOPT.

A multi vehicle accident occurred off of Route 202 Southbound in Chadds Ford, PA.

A flipped over car was completely wrapped around the still-standing Auto & Truck Outfitters pole.

SkyForce 10 was live over the scene as the rescue crew worked for nearly an hour to remove the driver from the wrecked vehicle.

The crew pulled the driver out to safety and put him on a medical helicopter to take him to safety.

Officials have not yet revealed the cause of the accident or the driver's condition.

A Philadelphia doctor with a suspended medical license used his colleague as a go-between to get prescription drugs so he could exchange them for sex, the United States Attorney's Office announced Wednesday.

The two doctors are among 14 people facing charges for illegally prescribing opioids to patients who didn't need the drugs in exchange for cash, the USAO said. Others include physician assistants and employees of urgent care facilities in the Philadelphia region.

According to prosecutors, 78-year-old Dr. Murray Soss had his medical license suspended in April 2017, so he turned to Dr. Frederick Reichle, 83, for help. Prosecutors say Soss would have Reichle fill out oxycodone prescriptions and then Soss would exchange the pills for sexual favors from one of his patients.

The indictment claims that when Reichle was not helping Soss to sexually exploit his patient, he was getting paid off to prescribe drugs for his colleague's other patients. Since his suspended medical license meant Soss wasn't allowed to prescribe meds, he allegedly paid Reichle to act as the middleman between people and drugs.

Using this system, Soss got paid to accept new patients - at times receiving $2,500 per person - and then allegedly funneled those patients to Reichle, who would in turn provide the prescription. "Soss and Reichle charged the patients a fee to obtain oxycodone prescriptions, written by Reichle, that were not medically necessary," the District Attorney's Office said.

They and the 12 other defendants are accused of issuing more than 3,600 illegal prescriptions between 2014 and 2017.

"As alleged in these indictments, thousands of illegally prescribed pills flooded our streets because of the conduct of these defendants," U.S. Attorney William McSwain said in a news release.

According to the USAO, the suspects routinely charged people an $80 to $140 office fee at any of four Advanced Urgent Care locations before prescribing them painkillers. Federal prosecutors say the suspects did this on a daily basis and ignored signs that patients were abusing the painkillers or even selling them off to others.

Despite urine tests showing patients testing positive for drugs like meth, heroin and cocaine, the defendants continued to prescribe them opioids, prosecutors say. Other times, the defendants allegedly ignored tests that came back negative for any drugs, which would suggest people were selling off their prescription meds.

The investigation, carried out federally by agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration; and locally by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General and the Philadelphia Police Department, among others, found that the defendants exacerbated an opioid crisis already wreaking havoc on Pennsylvania.

"The defendants issued 3,678 prescriptions which amount to hundreds of thousands of pills being used by addicted individuals," said Jonathan A. Wilson, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Philadelphia Field Division.

According to the DEA, opioids disproportionately contributed to the state's 5,456 overdose deaths in 2017. "The high availability and corresponding demand leading to the misuse of illicit and prescription opioids is a crisis without geographic, demographic, or socioeconomic boundaries in Pennsylvania," the agency concluded in a September 2018 report. 

The 14 defendants are charged with distribution of oxycodone, conspiracy to dispense and distribute controlled substances outside the course of professional practice, health care fraud and related charges.

State troopers say they found three young boys asleep and near a gun inside a running pickup truck at a Chester County Walmart on Christmas Eve. The boys' parents were nowhere to be found.

One of the boys later told investigators his stepfather, Harold Nuse, had also fed him crystal meth.

"Guns and drugs don't mix with children," District Attorney Tom Hogan said.

Hogan announced child endangerment and drug charges against the 43-year-old Nuse Wednesday.

"Instead of caring for these children, the defendant was putting them at grave risk of death or serious injury," Hogan said. "We are lucky police intervened."

Nuse was arrested in the early hours of Dec. 24 after state troopers investigating a DUI in the Walmart parking lot in Sadsbury Township noticed an unrelated Chevy Silverado running in the lot around 3:45 a.m. In the pickup, they saw three young boys sleeping in the back and a handgun in plain view on the center console.

Temps were near freezing at the time, Hogan said. Troopers woke up the boys, aged 6, 8 and 11, who said they didn't know when their parents would return.

About 30 minutes later, Nuse and his wife, Brandy, returned from shopping for Christmas gifts at the Walmart, a criminal complaint said. Brandy Nuse is the biological mother of all three boys and Nuse is their stepfather, Hogan said.

Police arrested both parents and the boys were handed over to family members.

Nuse later told investigators he and his wife had been out all night collecting scrap metal and he didn't think there was any harm leaving the sleeping children alone in the running truck.

Nuse told police they could find the bullets to the unloaded gun above the front seat visor, a criminal complaint said. He also told investigators that they may find a small amount of meth in the truck.

County detectives and state police spoke to the boys in January after a family member alerted police of alleged abuse, investigators said.

One of the boys told the investigators that on at least five occasions, Nuse took him to a shed on their Honey Brook property and made him stick a chunk of methamphetamine under his tongue to dissolve. The boy said his mother was present during some of the instances and that if he spit out the substance, Nuse forced him to put it back in his mouth, a criminal complaint said.

The child said the white substance looked like a "weird gem" and didn't taste good, Hogan said. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says methamphetamine can appear to be shiny, rock-like substance with a bitter taste.

Both Harold and Brandy Nuse face child endangerment charges. Harold Nuse also faces drug charges.

Both Nuses remain jailed, unable to post $75,000, according to court records.

Brandy Nuse's court-appointed attorney Mark Conte, of West Chester-based Law Offices of Kelly & Conte, asked that people not rush to judgment. He said that all the evidence in this case has yet to be presented. He also said his client denies being present when the child was allegedly being fed drugs.

Harold Nuse's public defender hasn't responded to NBC10's request for comment.

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and many people are placing flower orders. NBC10 Responds Reporter Harry Hairston has some tips on what you may want to consider before purchasing those flowers.

The hit-and-run culture is spread over much of the city. In the two years' data that police provided NBC10 Investigator, it is revealed that a hit-and-run was reported at more than 26,000 different locations. We tracked down victims and city activists, who have ideas for how to curb the thousands of incidents each month in which a driver flees a crash.

Looking for more information about a subject you saw featured on NBC10 News? Find it here!

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 6:

Veterans Dress Giveaway

'Oleanna' at Walnut Street Theatre

Project Innovation

TUESDAY, FEB. 5:

Cupid's Undie Run

'Julius Caesar' at the Media Theatre

MONDAY, FEB. 4:

'Father's Kingdown' Movie

Philly Theatre Week

A New Jersey bus driver is accused of watching porn in front of elementary school students.

The incident occurred Monday around 8:30 a.m., investigators said. Franck Lafortune, 64, of Burlington Township, New Jersey, was dropping off students while parked outside Indian Mills Elementary School in Shamong, New Jersey. Two students said they noticed Lafortune was watching a pornographic video on his cell phone as they exited the bus.

The students told their parents who notified the school as well as New Jersey State Police. Lafortune was later arrested and charged with obscenity to minors under the age of 18. He was released pending a court appearance.

Lafortune, who is originally from Haiti and says he’s been a bus driver for nearly 20 years and is also a minister, insists that the incident was a huge misunderstanding. His wife, a teacher who did not want to be identified, spoke on his behalf.

She told NBC10 the video was sent by a friend to her husband and that it was meant to be funny, showing police breaking up a fight. She also said that while the video showed people getting their clothes ripped, there was no actual nudity.

“That was not pornography at all,” she said. “It’s on WhatsApp so they send to anybody. One of the videos, I even got it.”

Lafortune's wife also claimed her husband has disciplined at least one of the kids who reported the incident, implying that the student may have had a vendetta against him.

"This is out there to dirty our names," she said. "We've never been in a case like that. This is ridiculous."

State Police told NBC10 they could not comment on the investigation.

What is millions of years old and is trapped inside of a rare gem?

Not sure? We aren't either.

But that's exactly the question a local gem dealer is trying to answer after discovering an unidentified insect fossilized in a rare piece of opal.

Brian Berger, a Philadelphia-area gemologist, purchased the artifact after taking a trip to the Indonesian island of Java. Now, he is reaching out for help in identifying the mystery bug.

“I’ve gotten 100 emails from different entomologists,” Berger said. “I’m trying to figure out who the right people to do the job are.”

Berger told NBC10 he has been in communication with scientists from France, Germany, and Australia.

The discovery is an uncommon one for several reasons. Scientists estimate that the insect may have become encased in the opal millions of years ago.

In a blog post written by Berger, he analyzes the bug’s physical characteristics, describing it as having an open mouth and “fibrous structures extending from the appendages.” 

He also says it is likely that the critter became trapped by tree sap or resin, which then fossilized into amber. 

Because the insect appears to be fully intact, Berger believes that the amber subsequently opalized, preserving the bug. Opal is formed when water runs down through the earth, carrying silica from sandstone into the earth’s cracks. After the water evaporates, the opal remains.

This case has left many in the scientific community scratching their heads. Jon Gelhaus, curator of entomology at Drexel University, believes that there simply aren’t enough details to identify the specimen yet.

“It certainly looks insect-like. It’s an oddity,” he said after viewing a photo of the artifact.

Berger plans to name the opal "Beverly" in honor of his grandmother.

“[She] was a unique gem just like this one,” he told NBC10.

When a major bridal store chain in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, closed down, they left behind 500 dresses that are now being donated to veteran brides or military spouses.

Students are calling out in bunches due to the norovirus that is spreading across the area. It is now forcing some schools in our area to cancel classes and doctors are warning residents to be on alert.

Sister Jean’s Kitchen, an Atlantic City charity that feeds the hungry, served its last meals on Wednesday. But there’s high hopes that the kitchen will open again.

Editor's Note: Tune in to NBC10 News Today Thursday for a closer look at the SS United States and the plans for the ship.

After spending more than two decades anchored in Philadelphia, a retired ocean liner is preparing to make waves once again.

The SS United States, which holds the record for the fastest maritime journey across the Atlantic Ocean, has been docked at Philadelphia's Pier 82 on the Delaware River since 1996.

Since then, several plans to revitalize the cruise liner have sputtered. But that could soon change

“My hope for the ship is that she is brought back to life, that she has a second chance,” says Susan Gibbs, the executive director of SS United States Conservancy. But she also has a deeper connection to the ship than most. Her grandfather, naval architect William Francis Gibbs, was its main designer.

The boat shattered the record for transatlantic sea travel during its maiden voyage in 1952. It completed its journey from New York to an island off the coast of United Kingdom in only three days, 10 hours, and 42 minutes.

The luxury liner included 14 first-class rooms, 23 public rooms, and 395 staterooms. Excluding a grand piano and cutting boards in the kitchen, there was no wood allowed aboard the ship. This was requested by William Francis Gibbs himself, who wanted to minimize the likelihood of the SS United States catching on fire.

The ship quickly became a cultural icon, with visitors like President John F. Kennedy and actors Judy Garland and John Wayne hopping aboard.

By the late-1960s, financial roadblocks, the growing accessibility of air travel, and William Francis Gibbs’ death contributed to the ship’s eventual demise as a passenger liner. It would remain in service as a U.S. Navy reserve ship until 1978.

RXR Realty, the company that owns the mothballed ship, tells NBC10 they are still working to determine if a redevelopment project is viable. The conservancy says that any deal would include a museum to honor the ship’s history.

While future plans for the boat remain unknown, Susan Gibbs is certain about the enduring legacy of SS United States.

“The ship continues to bring so many people together from all walks of life," she says. "So many people are moved to tears when they come aboard this beautiful ship."