A national social networking site is setting the stage for National Dog Day next week.
Nextdoor.com generated customized infographics that displays the top dog names across the country just a week before National Dog Day on Wednesday, Aug. 26.
The social network collected data from some of the 70,000 neighborhood subscribers and collected the top names overall and by breed. According to the site, America’s favorite dog name is Bella.
Here’s the ranking of the top 10 names in Philadelphia:
Did you furry friend’s name make the list?
A local judge is under fire after being accused of making racist remarks during a child support case last month.
Kostas “Gus” Hartas, who is Greek, told NBC10 he was attending a child support hearing in Delaware County when Judge Michael Coll went into an anti-Greek tirade.
According to court transcripts, Coll asked Hartas, “Are you of Greek background sir?”
“Yes sir," Hartas replied.
“Right, the Greeks never pay taxes,” Coll said.
As Hartas’ attorney objected, Coll then said, “That’s why their country is in bankruptcy.”
Hartas’ attorney objected again but Coll continued his rant.
“So can I take judicial note of the fact that the Greeks are in bankruptcy as a nation and one of the reasons, the principal reason is because none of them ever pay taxes?” Coll asked.
“Your Honor, I object to lumping my client in with the entire country of Greece,” the attorney replied.
“The what?” Coll asked.
“I object,” the attorney said. “I object to the statements that you’re making.”
“Well, these are simply statements of fact, right?” the judge asked.
Hartas told NBC10 he believes Coll’s comments are blatant examples of racism.
“If he said that about the Greeks that just means he’s a straight racist person,” Hartas said. “If he said that about us, you know he would’ve said that about anybody, blacks, Hispanics.”
Hartas also said the judge’s statements brought his mother, who brought him to the US from Greece when he was three-years-old, to tears.
“I turned around to see and I couldn’t find her,” he said. “Her head was down. She was crying.”
NBC10 reached out to Coll Wednesday.
“My language does not accurately reflect my feelings about the Greek community,” he said. “I regret the language I used during the hearing.”
Hartas, who insists he’s doing everything he can to support his children, told NBC10 the judge’s apology meant little.
“I would like for him to apologize to me face to face,” he said. “He said it to my face. He can apologize to my face.”
In addition to his apology, Coll told NBC10 he vacated the child support order signed at the hearing and ordered a new hearing with a different judge.
Hartas is scheduled to return to the courthouse on Thursday.
A local woman is outraged after she says she received a vulgar receipt when she ordered from a South Jersey pizza shop.
“I just had to shake my head because I couldn’t believe it,” said Loretta Smith Layne of Bridgeton, New Jersey.
Layne told NBC10 she placed an order for wings back on July 25 at Danny’s Pizza Pizzazz on Burlington Road in Bridgeton.
“I ordered wings fried hard,” she said.
Layne says she was shocked when she saw the receipt attached to the delivery bag. Underneath the “special instructions” on the receipt were the words, “Fried hard like a black d***” and “d***.”
“I was very offended and upset and disrespected to get those words on a receipt,” she said.
NBC10 spoke to a manager at Danny’s Pizza who Layne claimed took her order. The manager denied the receipt came from Danny’s Pizza and then directed us to his father, Danny Sommeling, the owner of the shop. Sommeling told NBC10 he was unsure where the vulgar receipt came from.
However, Layne later showed NBC10 text messages she claims came from Sommeling, in which he apologized to her for his son’s choice of words, saying he made a bad decision that was “definitely not professional.”
Over a month before the Pope’s visit to Philadelphia, NBC10’s Matt DeLucia embarked on a four mile-long walk from Camden to Philadelphia Thursday morning.
DeLucia started at the base of the Ben Franklin Bridge in Camden and walked to the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philly.
An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people will make the same walk over the bridge to see Pope Francis next month.
To see a recap of Matt's journey, you can check out his Twitter and Periscope accounts.
Shoppers in Philadelphia will soon have yet another place to get their goods.
Target announced Wednesday it plans to open a new store in Philadelphia.
The store will open in July 2016 at 12th Street and Chestnut Street near Washington Square.
The store is the second Target has announced this month. Another location will open in Rittenhouse Square in the same month as the Washington Square store.
The superstore chain's new Philadelphia location will be approximately 19,000 square feet, according to a press release.
The evening after a car struck siblings and a cousin Tuesday night in Southampton Township, New Jersey.the eldest child, who was looking after her half brothers, half sister and cousin, died.
Jairisa Galindo, 18, died late Wednesday night at Cooper University Hospital, New Jersey State Police said Wednesday.
Jairisa was pulling her half-brothers -- 2-year-old Jyonsheil Martinez and 6-year-old Kahariel Martinez -- inside a wagon in the center of the eastbound lane of Buddtown Road Tuesday around 8:20 p.m. Monday as the boys’ sister Mahya Martinez, 13, and their cousin, 8-year-old John Giles, walked with them on the side of the road.
The group was going with flow of traffic when a BMW sedan struck Jairisa, Jyonsheil, Kahariel and John. The impact caused the two boys to be thrown out of the wagon.
“We were outside and we heard a thud and my husband thought it was thunder,” said Cheryl O’Neil, a witness. “I was just horrified.”
O’Neil said she along with the driver, who stopped at the scene, tried to help the children.
“I checked his arm for a pulse and I didn’t find anything,” she said. “I think right then and there he took his last breath right after the paramedics got here and were working on him.”
Mahya, the only child who wasn’t struck, held her baby brother in her arms as the paramedics arrived.
“She was holding him and he was just covered in blood,” O’Neil said. “She kept screaming, ‘is he breathing? Is he breathing?!’”
Jyonsheil was taken by medical helicopter to Virtua Hospital in Mount Holly where he later died from his injuries.
The remaining three victims were all flown to Cooper in Camden where Jairisa died about 24 hours later from a head injury. The other two were listed in critical condition.
Investigators said the posted speed limit at the crash scene is 45 mph and there are no sidewalks, shoulders or street lights. Police said the driver of the BMW is cooperating with the investigation and no charges have been filed. They also say there are no indications that speed, drugs or alcohol played a role in the accident.
A GoFundMe page was set up for the family. CLICK HERE if you would like to donate.
There have been 22,888 hit and run accidents in Philadelphia since January 2014 according to police data obtained and reviewed by the NBC 10 Investigators.
Hit and ran car accidents have killed eight and caused 903 injuries or property damage in the past 18 months.
“I heard the car coming real fast down my block,” mother Josie Rivera said. “My first thing was ‘don’t cross. No David no.’”
Rivera’s son David was killed in April near his home off Lehigh Avenue.
The NBC 10 Investigators mapped every hit and run accident in the city since January 2014.
48 hit and run accidents happened near the intersection of Adams Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard – the most in the city.
The map shows the deadliest stretch for hit and runs on Lehigh Avenue between Front street and Mascher.
“Unfortunately we’re reactive in our unit and we maybe need some more proactive measures,” Philadelphia police Captain John Wilczynski said.
The captain said increasing enforcement, educating drivers and changing the engineering on city streets could lead to fewer hit and runs.
Speed bumps are illegal in Philadelphia, however after reviewing the NBC 10 Investigators map members of the city council are considering solutions.
“Do we have to slow down traffic? Do we have to time lights? Do we have to install more stop signs? What do we need to look at city wide?” councilman Mark Squilla said.
Squilla is chairman of the city streets and services committee.
Councilman Curtis Jones Jr., who chairs the city’s public safety committee, also reviewed the hit and run map.
The Philadelphia District Attorney said his office prosecutes between 500 and 600 hit and run cases each year. In 2015 there have been more than 9,000 hit and runs.
Mystery surrounded the death of a jogger in a Montgomery County park Wednesday night.
A group of friends went for a run in Fort Washington State Park in Whitemarsh Township. At some point, the victim, later identified by the county coroner of Christopher Braun, became separated from the group.
Investigators believe Braun, 25, became disoriented from the heat and fell down a 20-foot ravine. Due to difficult search conditions, it took crews about an hour to find his body near railroad tracks.
A train didn't hit Braun and there were no obvious signs of trauma, police said.
The coroner's office performed an autopsy on the Plymouth Meeting man Thursday morning but said a cause of death pended further testing that could take up to a month the complete.
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump posed with a bald eagle at his New York City office for a spread in this week’s issue of Time magazine.
The 27-year-old eagle, named uncle Sam, was flown in from Texas and brought to the 25th floor of the Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.
Trump appears on the cover of the magazine under the headline "Deal with it.”
In an interview with the publication, Trump sounded off on undocumented immigrants, Hillary Clinton’s email controversy, and taxes.
When pressed on how feasible it would be to remove undocumented immigrants from the U.S., he did not detail specifics but said, "it'll all work out."
“It’s called management,” Trump said. “Politicians can’t manage; all they can do is talk. It’s called management. And we’ll do an expedited system. Because I agree with you, there are some very, very good people here who they are here illegally. But they are illegal.”
He also discussed the controversy around Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server at the State Department.
“She’s going through something that for me, for me is Watergate,” Trump said. “Her only hope is that because the prosecutors are Democrats she doesn’t get prosecuted. That’s the only hope she’s got.”
Trump also said that as president, he may decide to change laws around taxes.
“Well I’m thinking about it but I have a problem because I may want to switch taxes around,” Trump said. “I want to save the middle class.”
Trump’s Time magazine cover issue hits newsstands Thursday.
