Men arrested trying to steal boat from Pittsburgh Police lot
Three western Pennsylvania men were arrested after attempting to steal a boat and trailer from the Pittsburgh Police headquarters parking lot, said police.
Officers found 24-year-old Luke Miller, 52-year-old Lowell Gloecki and 23-year-old Devin Gloecki standing in the headquarters lot on Western Avenue.
Spokeswoman Sonya Toler said the West Mifflin trio had a trailer hitch on their truck that appeared to have been taken from a Flood Response Unit truck. Toler said the men were preparing to hitch the unit's trailer and boat to the back of their vehicle.
Police said the group yelled obscenities at officers when they were initially questioned.
The men were charged with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, criminal trespass and public drunkenness. It's not known if they have lawyers who can comment.
Philadelphia’s Dilworth Park was a “Pastime Paradise” as one of the biggest music legends in the world played a pop-up concert.
Iconic performer Stevie Wonder brought his band to the plaza near Philadelphia’s City Hall to announce the final performances of his “Songs in the Key of Life” tour that will include an encore Oct. 7 date at the Wells Fargo Center.
The public news conference and FREE performance -- which began at 3 p.m. -- was the second of three Wonder played Monday with an earlier stop in Washington, D.C. and an evening performance in New York City.
Join us for a FREE pop up performance by the legendary Stevie Wonder - TODAY @ 3pm @ Dilworth Park! #aWonderMoment pic.twitter.com/e1VbhB4PPt
— Live Nation Philly (@LiveNationPhila) August 17, 2015
A large stage was set up during the day with Wonder's familiar keyboards front and center.
If Monday's pop-up show made you want more Wonder, tickets to the October concert go on sale Friday at noon.
A fire police officer was struck by a vehicle in Gilbertsville, Montgomery County late Monday morning, officials said.
The ordeal began shortly after 11 a.m. as New Hanover Fire and Rescue, Gilbertsville Fire and Rescue and fire police units from both companies responded to the 1800 block of Swamp Pike for an elevator rescue.
As the firefighters were clearing the call, Gilbertsville Fire Police Office James Scott, 65, was directing traffic on Swamp Pike when he was suddenly struck by a woman driving westbound.
Scott was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital where he is in stable but serious condition. Officials continue to investigate the accident.
Two construction workers fell four stories off a North Philadelphia building after being shocked late Monday morning.
The incident played out at a work site at 16th and Oxford streets in North Philadelphia around 11:30 a.m.
The workers were on a scaffold when they came in contact with some overhead wires, said Philadelphia Police..
Medics quickly administered CPR on one worker who was rushed nearby Temple University Hospital in critical condition. The other man was listed in stable condition after suffering less severe injuries, said police.
OSHA investigated the incident Monday afternoon.
Tracy Morgan will return to Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center on October 17 as host of "Saturday Night Live."
Former cast member Morgan spent seven seasons as a "SNL" player (1996-2003) and this will be his second time hosting the comedy sketch show.
Other hosts announced for the 41st season include Miley Cyrus (Oct. 3) and "Trainwreck's" Amy Schumer (Oct. 10). Musical guests have yet to be revealed.
Soon after the news of his return to "SNL" broke, the comedian said on Twitter he was "stoked to be going home."
Morgan, 46, is still recovering from injuries sustained in a June 7, 2014 accident when a Wal-Mart truck on the New Jersey Turnpike slammed into the back of a limousine-bus carrying the former "30 Rock" star and others who were returning from a comedy show in Delaware. Morgan suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken leg, and broken ribs in the crash.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the crash, Morgan told NBC's Matt Lauer on "Today" in early June, "I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm in front of you." While his focus at the time was on healing, Morgan added he could not wait "to get back to comedy."
The most Emmy-nominated show of all time, "Saturday Night Live" celebrated its 40th anniversary with a star-studded broadcast special in February. Returning cast members included Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Rachel Dratch, Molly Shannon, Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers and Maya Rudolph. Morgan was not well enough at the time to attend.
During the celebration, Fey and Alec Baldwin took to the stage to honor Morgan.
"I wish my friend Tracy Morgan was here tonight, and I know that he was hoping he would be well enough to be here too," Fey said. "If he were here tonight, I'm sure Tracy would remind us that more than anything, he'd like to get us all pregnant."
"See you at the 41st, Tracy!" Baldwin added.
A store owner in Pittsburgh turned the tables on two masked teens on a mission to rob the store Friday night.
According WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh, the masked men ran into Perry Market as the owner was closing and tried to rob the store.
One of the men pulled out a foot-long machete and demanded money, but the store owner pulled out his own, bigger sword and chased the duo out of the store.
The whole encounter was captured on surveillance video.
Police told WPXI that the would-be robbers didn't get away with anything, and that one even dropped T-shirts he was trying to steal as he ran out the door.
No arrests had been made Monday afternoon.
Surveillance video captured an intense fight inside a Philadelphia deli in which a shot was fired after a suspect tried to rob a man who happened to be armed and licensed to carry.
The suspect walked into the Lancaster Hoagie City deli on the 600 block of North 40th Street back on August 9 at 12:10 a.m. Police say the suspect then grabbed a 22-year-old man who was inside from behind and tried to rob him.
Surveillance cameras captured the victim, who was armed and licensed to carry, fight off the robber. As the two men fought, the victim's gun fell from his hip. The two men then struggled over the gun until the robber was able to gain control. Police say he then fired one shot that narrowly missed the victim. The victim then chased the robber out of the store. The robber managed to escape however.
The suspect is described as a man in his early 20’s standing between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-10. He was last seen wearing a plaid checkered shirt with a red or orange colored shirt underneath and a red baseball cap.
If you have any information on this incident, please call Philadelphia Police.
A car carrier overturned on the New Jersey Turnpike in Bordentown, New Jersey Monday afternoon.
The carrier overturned and two cars that were on it fell off on the southbound NJ Turnpike ramp at Interchange 7. No injuries have been reported. The Exit 7 southbound ramp is currently closed.
As temps pushed toward 90 for the third-straight day, the region hunkered down under another official heat wave Monday.
The heat wave became officials as temperatures reached 90 by mid-afternoon. The high temperature on Saturday was 91 and Sunday was 93.
The heat wave was expected to last through Wednesday according to NBC10 Chief Meteorologist Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz.
Isolated storms began to pop up Monday afternoon, including one caught from the air by SkyForce10 over Bucks County and another in Northeast Philadelphia.
A flood advisory is in effect for south central Bucks County, east central Montgomery County and Northeast Philadelphia until 9:15 p.m.
Hot and muggy stays in the forecast through Friday with a possibility of pop-up storms each afternoon.
We can expect a break from the humidity come the weekend.
A Delaware County man is behind bars after he allegedly molested a 5-year-old girl he was babysitting.
Ronald MacNeal, 65, of East Lansdowne, is charged with the rape of a child, aggravated indecent assault of a child, sexual assault and other related offenses.
Police say the investigation began on August 13 when a woman reported her 5-year-old daughter had been sexually assaulted. The woman told police she left her daughter in MacNeal’s care at his home on the 400 block of Pembroke Avenue back on August 7. After she picked her daughter up the mother said she began to act unusual. When she asked her what was wrong, her daughter told her, “Ron put his fingers in my privates,” according to investigators.
After hearing from the mother, police immediately took the girl to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for evaluation. Jodi Kaplan, the director of the Delaware County Children’s Advocacy Center and a child forensic interviewer then spoke with the girl.
During the interview, the girl told police she was sleeping in MacNeal’s bed after eating popcorn and watching the movie “Frozen” back on August 7. She said she awoke to MacNeal sexually assaulting her.
The girl told police she kicked MacNeal and wanted him to die after the sexual assault. She also said MacNeal told her to, “shut up b----,” and threatened to punch her in the face if she told anyone about the assault.
Police collected evidence after the interview. MacNeal was then taken into custody and remanded to the Delaware County Prison after failing to post bail.
If you have any information on the case or know anyone who may have been victimized by MacNeal, call Sgt. James Cadden of the East Lansdowne Police Department at 610-259-2308 or County Det. Mark D. Bucci of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) at 610-891-4700.
MASSIVE, DEADLY STORMS AREN’T “FUN”
Jason Samenow, the normally reasonable leader of the “Capital Weather Gang” blog on the Washington Post must have gone over to “the dark side." I agree with him on practically everything, so it was a shock to see a column titled: “Godzilla El Nino’: Meteorologists need to back off their criticism of apt description." He said using the word “Godzilla” was a “fun, buzz-worthy weather term”. What?????
“SUPER EL NINO” /”RECORD EL NINO AREN’T ENOUGH”?
As I’ve pointed out in a couple of blogs, a possible record El Nino continues to build in the Tropical Pacific, and it is certainly helping to suppress hurricane season in the Atlantic.
And last week, I looked at how the El Nino could influence another “feast or famine” winter here:
Apparently, calling it a “Super El Nino” or “Record El Nino isn’t enough for some folks. We live in an age of hype-in blogs, movies, politics, and yes, even news at times. It helps sell papers, create a “buzz," get more “clicks," and get valued media attention. But do scientists have to play that game? Are we so un-creative that we have to make up nonsense names to get attention?
The name “Godzilla” was added to the El Nino term by none other than a man Jason described as “respected NASA scientist William Patzert”. A quick Google look proves that not only is he brilliant, but a terrific communicator. He’s so good that he is well-known in California. Los Angeles Magazine calls him “The Prophet of California Climate." Clearly the guy has no problem finding words to describe his science.
ALL IT TAKES IS ONE PERSON….
Jason seems to feel that “Godzilla” is fine because it was used by a “respected scientist” and that “I say it often: If you’re boring, you’re irrelevant in weather communication.” Just how “un-boring” can you be as a scientist without causing a problem for everyone else? It is now a perfect defense by any headline writer in the world to call the El Nino “Godzilla." “Hey, a respected scientist called it that, not us.” This kind of thing has happened before, and I’m sure it will happen again.
“THE PERFECT STORM”
Now, that was a great name. It was attributed to a former co-worker of mine, Bob Case, from the National Weather Service office in Boston. The 1991 combination of a dying hurricane, a cold front, and a high pressure area coming down from Canada were the three elements. They led to a best-selling book in 1997 and a popular movie starring George Clooney in 2000. While it wasn’t that unique in weather history, Bob apparently told the author, Sebastian Junger that it was a “perfect situation”. As I recall, only meteorological nitpickers objected to the name.
BRIEF HISTORY OF STORM NAMES
When we think of names for storms, we think of hurricanes. That officially started in 1953. But the origin of that was probably the habit in World War II of pilots naming their planes for their wives, girlfriends, or movie stars. The main objection regarding hurricane names was in 1979, when the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was ordered to alternate men’s and women’s names. It had been all female names before that.
Hurricane names have been carefully selected, first by NHC, and then by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). None of them are “jokes" or silly names, unlike the winter storm naming from The Weather Channel starting in 2012.
WINTER STORMS “ASTRO," “THOR," “VULCAN”
There are some real science nerds at The Weather Channel (I should know-I used to be one of them). It must have been a kick to be able to name winter storms after characters on “The Jetsons” (“Astro”), “Star Trek” (“Vulcan”), mythology (“Thor”, and many others), Captain “Nemo”, cartoon or comic book characters (“Linus”, Electra”), etc….etc….Believe it or not, I don’t object to the general idea of naming winter storms. It’s just the obvious frivolous and playful choice of names. Why not name them after Presidents? Or great scientists? Or war heroes? There are plenty of serious possible choices.
SNOWMAGEDDON
We had more than one big snowstorm in the record winter of 2009-10. The biggest was on Feb. 5-6, 2010. We got 28.5” of snow officially in Philadelphia, making it the second biggest one ever recorded. In the Washington/Baltimore area, Dulles airport got 33” and BWI 25”. So, of course, someone had to come up with a special name for the special storm. The Capital Weather Gang asked for suggestions, and one of them, “Snowmageddon” became the favorite. The storm will forever be known with that name.
While the name was nice and cute, there were several deaths associated with it. But not nearly as many as there were in “Frankenstorm”.
“THE FRANKENSTORM” KNOWN AS SANDY
We knew Sandy was going to be bad days in advance. When an executive on a conference call asked what the “worst case scenario” was, I replied: “The worst natural disaster in our part of the world." This was no time for frivolous names. People were about to die. Others would lose their lifetime homes. Millions suffered in one way or another.
But one National Weather Service meteorologist wrote in a discussion, noting that Halloween was near, that “inviting perhaps a ghoulish nickname for the cyclone along the lines of ‘Frankenstorm,' an allusion to Mary Shelley’s gothic creature of synthesized elements.” What????? What happened to the days when The National Weather Service had standards as a serious, life-saving institution? Is it about internet “clicks” now? Or, “let’s get as much publicity as possible?"
Now that one real scientist used a “fun” name, it seemed every media outlet jumped in to join the fun. Except, of course, it turned out to be as far from fun as any storm we’ve seen along the East Coast. Later, it was called “Superstorm Sandy," which was a perfectly appropriate name for such a disaster.
AND NOW FOR “GODZILLA”
“The Perfect Storm” , “Superstorm Sandy”, “The Storm of the Century”, “The Lindsay Storm” (look it up), “The Labor Day Hurricane”….all were names that described the storm, the timing of it, or the politician whose career was hurt by it (Lindsay). But where does “Godzilla” come in?
It’s no more serious than “Sharknado”, which is a nice, funny joke. Everyone knows it’s a joke. And it’s about something fictional. “Godzilla” has nothing to do with El Nino, in any way. But expect to hear that name a lot more. After all, it was “a respected scientist” who coined it. It’s the perfect defense.
With the school year about to begin, what’s popular among the thousands of apps, videos and websites designed for the classroom? What are some of the favorites for teachers and why? We asked some technologically savvy educators for their picks and here they are:
Nearpod is an app that allows a teacher to create and share interactive presentations with students on their iPads or iPhones — for example, a slide of how to divide a fraction by a fraction — and track their comprehension immediately.
“My favorite thing about Nearpod is the format,” Yenca said.
She can evaluate her students’ grasp on the material instantly by asking them to answer a question, complete a poll or draw a diagram. She can see the images they create, and then share them with the class, anonymously if she wishes.
“It’s an easy way to present information and assess kids right away,” she said.
Nearpod works on Chromebooks, Windows 8.1 and Android devices, Nooks and any PC or MAC.
Book Creator lets students create ebooks, incorporating video, audio clips, photographs and mathematical work.
“It’s a great way for kids to showcase what they know,” she said.
Her students have used it to review for exams, creating tutorial videos and other interactive test preparation.
Desmos is an app specific to math, a dynamic graphing calculator that enables her students to create graphs, plot tables of data and evaluate equations. It is free.
“Kids can test relationships, make the graphic move and see how adjusting parameters affectives things,” she said. “So there’s a richer mathematical experience.”
In a first, the school district paired Desmos with Casper Focus from JamfSofware, a tool that locks student iPads into one app, which allowed students to use Desmos during state testing, she said.
Osmo offers games for tablets, phones and other devices. Among them: Word, in which students choose letters to spell a hidden word on-screen, and Tangram, which calls for arranging puzzle pieces into on-screen shapes. Klein said she liked the way it bridged a hands-on experience for children with technology.
“It has such a collaborative environment that you really don’t even want to play alone,” she said. “You’re playing with people right next to you.”
Livescribe provides smart-pens that together with the company’s paper captures sounds as well as words or images on the paper. When you later touch the pen to paper, the sounds will play back. If students are working in groups, Klein can check their work afterward to hear what they were thinking.
Sound stickers, about the size of a quarter, allow students to post audio notes — on books as reviews, for example, or on maps to record where they have been on vacation.
appoLearning is a collection of free educational resources that have been vetted by expert teachers, apps, videos and websites that can be searched by keywords, category or Common Core state standards.
Tackk is a free app that creates pages that can be used for assignments, presentations, blogs, journals or portfolios. It allows students to embed images, videos and texts and can be shared through social media or email. Students can collaborate with Tackk Stream.
“It creates these really beautiful pages, like online posters, that you can use for so many different things,” she said.
Canva is a graphic design tool that she often uses with Tackk. Students can choose from different templates or create their own to design everything from a banner for Facebook to letterheads, posters, info-graphics or postcards. It has a drag and drop tool, is online and is free.
Whatwasthere joins historical photos to Google maps so students can see what a building, a street or an area looked like in the past. It can be used not only for history or social studies classes but also for creative writing and other lessons, she said.
Code is a non-profit organization dedicated to the idea that every student should have the chance to learn computer science, that computer science should be part of the core curriculum. The Hour of Code tutorials are designed to show that anyone can learn the basics.
A man is fighting for his life after a shooting in the Grays Ferry section of the city.
The unidentified man was on the 1900 block of 23rd Street at 6:34 p.m. Monday when a gunman opened fire. The man was struck in the stomach and the gunman fled the scene.
The victim was taken to Presbyterian Hospital where he is currently in critical condition. No arrests have been made.
