A disabled New Jersey Transit bus caused traffic headaches after running up a concrete median at an on-ramp for the Vine Street Expressway Friday evening.
The bus hit the median at the Broad Street ramp heading eastbound around 5 p.m., police said. No one was hurt.
The crash left the motor coach lodged on the median. Police closed one lane of Vine Street as a result.
A tow truck is being called in to help move the bus out.
A car slammed into the front of a cafe in the Lawncrest section of Philadelphia Friday evening.
The crash happened at the Asia Cafe inside a strip mall along the 5600 block of Rising Sun Avenue around 7 p.m., police said.
Glass was left shattered on the ground, the front metal wall bent and a trash can flipped over. Luckily, no one was hurt.
The city's Department of Licenses & Inspections is sending an inspector to ensure the building is structurally sound, police said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
On the third Sunday in June, many Americans will take some time out of their day to honor the nation's 70 million dads. Father’s Day wasn’t always so popular, however, and its establishment as an American — and now worldwide — institution was long and hard-fought.
Here are some things you might not know about dad's special day:
Father’s Day was founded by a woman:
Spokane, Washington native Sonora Smart Dodd is known as the “Mother of Father’s Day.” Her mother died giving birth to her sixth child, leaving Dodd’s father to raise the kids, according to the city of Spokane. In 1909, Dodd heard a sermon about Mother’s Day and spoke with the minister after the service. “I liked everything you said about motherhood," she said, as quoted in a 1978 New York Times article. "However, don’t you think fathers deserve a place in the sun, too?”
Dodd was able to garner much local support for the new holiday. The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane on June 19, 1910, with clergy dedicating their sermons to honoring fathers, according to the city, which claims the title of the Birthplace of Father’s Day.
Many men initially resisted the idea:
Far from feeling honored by the idea of Father’s Day, many men initially found the concept emasculating. American historian Timothy Marr wrote in "American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia" that in the holiday's early decades, men “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products — often paid for by the father himself.”
Many retailers and advertisers during the Great Depression promoted Father’s Day as a “second Christmas” for men, and they subsequently rebranded the day as a way to honor American troops during World War II, Marr explained. Despite lacking official recognition, Father’s Day was a de facto American holiday by the end of the war.
Making Father’s Day official took a bipartisan effort:
President Woodrow Wilson supported Father’s Day as early as 1916. Wilson, a Democrat, had approved a resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day just two years prior. In 1924, Republican President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day, according to History.com.
In 1957, Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine forcefully argued for the holiday. Smith lamented the double standard of only acknowledging Mother’s Day and admonished her congressional colleagues in a fierce proposal, as reported in the Nashua Telegraph.
Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation acknowledging Father’s Day, dedicating the third Sunday in June to the holiday, which is when Americans celebrate it to this day. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, officially made Father’s Day a national holiday in 1972, nearly six decades after Wilson’s Mother’s Day proclamation.
Father’s Day is now an international celebration — and big business:
Dozens of countries, in addition to the U.S., celebrate Father’s Day today. Most of them, from China to Chile, also do so on the third Sunday in June.
Despite generating less business than Mother’s Day, Father’s Day is still the fourth-largest card-sending holiday in the United States, according to Hallmark. Nearly 80 million cards are exchanged annually. Nearly 70 percent of cards are purchased for fathers and husbands. The remainder is bought for other male figures, such as grandfathers, sons, brothers and uncles. More than three quarters of American adults plan to celebrate Father’s Day, according to one survey by the National Retail Federation, which estimates that Father’s Day spending this year will reach $12.7 billion.
Pennsylvania's high court says a man convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer can't be executed because he has an IQ of 74.
The state Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that Edward Bracey's below-average intellectual functioning made him ineligible for the death penalty.
Bracey is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole in the 1991 murder of 21-year-old officer Daniel Boyle.
Boyle's sister, Kathleen Wrigley, called the "process unjust, imbalanced and unfair."
Wrigley is the wife of North Dakota Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley.
The Pennsylvania court voted 4-1 to uphold Judge M. Teresa Sarmina's January 2014 ruling sparing the 52-year-old Bracey.
The U.S. Supreme Court has barred execution of anyone deemed mentally disabled by a state.
It looks like the St. Louis Cardinals brought another mascot with them to Citizens Bank Park Friday night: the Rally Squirrel.
A gray squirrel stole the show at the game by climbing up the protective net behind home plate before taking a jump to the top of the Phillies dugout more than 10 feet below. The furry rodent then leapt into the dugout sending players like Chase Utley scurrying.
The Cardinals are known to be friendly with gray squirrels after one ran across home plate during the 2011 National League Division game against the Phillies in St. Louis. The Phils went on to lose the series.
A proposal that would have banned renters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware from using pools at the homes they're staying was torpedoed Friday night.
Rehoboth Beach Commissioners voted unanimously not to approve the controversial plan which was introduced as part of an ordinance by resort Mayor Sam Cooper during a 7 p.m. meeting, city manager Sharon Lynn told NBC10 Delaware Bureau reporter Tim Furlong.
If it had been put in place, homeowners who rent out their properties would have been forced to lock down their pools from renters.
NBC10 reported earlier this month how homeowners were divided on the issue. Some sought a ban to keep families from making excess noise in the rental home backyards, while landlords saw it as a violation of their rights and assault on their living.
Residents packed the meeting to voice their opinion on the proposal. The pool ordinance eventually did pass, but without the pool ban portion.
A 16-year-old boy is hospitalized after being shot in the Juniata section of Philadelphia Friday night, police said.
The shooting happened around 8:40 p.m. along the 4300 block of O Street, police said.
The boy was hit once in the right knee and taken by paramedics to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. He's listed in stable condition, police said.
No word on a suspect or what sparked the shooting.
Police are investigating the deadly shooting of a man in Northeast Philadelphia early Saturday morning.
The shooting happened at about 1 a.m. in the 5700 block of Leonard Street.
A 50-year-old man was shot in the leg and stomach, police said. After being shot, the male ran into a nearby home.
Officers took the man to Temple University Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
The victim’s identity was not immediately known.
So far, no arrests have been made.
The deadly shooting is under investigation.
A fire truck that was assisting at an accident scene in Philadelphia Saturday morning was struck by a tractor-trailer.
The crash happened at about 3:30 a.m. at Ridge Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard.
According to fire officials, the fire truck was blocking the intersection because of an earlier accident between a car and a motorcycle.
While parked, a tractor-trailer struck the fire truck and a SUV.
A female in the SUV was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for minor injuries.
No firefighters were injured.
The motorcyclist involved in the initial accident ran away from the scene, police said.
Both crashes remain under investigation.
An oil truck crash along the eastbound Pennsylvania Turnpike Saturday left the roadway closed for more than five hours.
The fire started at about 7:15 a.m. near the Bensalem Exit in Bucks County.
According to the Pennsylvania State Police, a truck hauling 2,700 gallons of home heating oil caught fire. The crash happened in the eastbound lanes of the Turnpike in a construction zone.
The fire was placed under control about 8:15 a.m. an no injuries were reported. Police reopened the roadway around 12:25 p.m.
The wreck remained under investigation Saturday.
A group of activists set fire to two Confederate flags in Philadelphia, only steps from the Liberty Bell.
The activists gathered at Independence Mall Friday afternoon to voice their opposition to the flag.
The activists placed two Confederate flags inside a metal tub, doused them with lighter fluid and set them on fire.
The burning of the flags was in response to the shooting of nine church-goers during Bible study at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, Wednesday night.
“That flag, to us, says terrorism. It’s a slap in the face to those folks that were murdered,” activist Mannwell Glenn told NBC10 outside Independence Mall.
The suspect in the mass shooting is Dylann Roof. The incident is being investigated a hate crime. Investigators say Roof was a devout white supremacist who wanted to start a race war. Roof had a Confederate flag on his front license plate of his car.
“In America, it’s the Confederacy and the Confederate flag. We have a problem with that, as much as maybe a Jewish person would have a problem with a Nazi flag,” Glenn said.
Roof is being held on $1 million bail.
At South Carolina’s state capitol, the United States flag and state flag were lowered in honor of the church shooting victims.
The Confederate flag, which flew atop the statehouse from 1962 until it was moed to a separate pole on the grounds at a Confederate war memorial in 2000, remained untouched.
State law requires lawmakers to approve changes to how the flag is flown and the General Assembly is out of session until January, NBC News reported.
Still, leaders are working to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol permanently.
“That symbol has to come down. That symbol must be removed from our state Capitol,” said Cornell Brooks, of the NAACP.
Opinions on the Confederate flag are divided among those who see it as a symbol of Southern pride or racism.
President Barack Obama weighed in on the controversy saying the flag belongs in a museum, not on top of a government building.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney weighed in on the debate Saturday on Twitter.
"Take down the #ConfederateFlag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims," he said.
