Officials are investigating a fire that killed one person and displaced several other residents in Delaware County early Saturday morning.

The fire broke out at a two-story home around 1:30 a.m. on the 1500 block of Rainer Road in Chester Township. Joe Wigington, who lives next door, says it wasn't the blaze that woke him up but instead the sound of a car alarm.

"I heard a car alarm, someone beeping, saying 'get out of the house,'" Wigington said. "The house was just up in flames."

Officials say one person was trapped inside the house. The unidentified victim died before firefighters made their way inside.

“With a lot of heavy fire volume inside the house it made it very difficult making entrance,” said Jeff Comisiak of the Chester Township Fire Department. “Once we made entrance inside the house it was searching for the victim at the same time that made it very challenging.”

Firefighters were eventually able to place the flames under control. Officials say there was heavy smoke and water damage at four of the adjacent homes.

Neighbors tell NBC10 the victim was quiet and never bothered anyone. In spite of the tragedy, Wigington says things could have been even worse if not for the unidentified Good Samaritan who alerted the neighborhood with the car alarm.

"It was smart of the lady to turn the alarm on," said Wigington. "If not there might have been more casualties."

The Red Cross is currently assisting 14 people who were displaced by the fire.

Investigators have not yet revealed the cause of the fire or the identity of the victim.
 

A Saturday afternoon double shooting has sent two young men to the hospital.

The shooting took place around 2:45 p.m. along the 2300 block of W. Diamond Street in North Philadelphia, police said.

A 21-year-old man was shot once in the leg and a 18-year-old man was shot once in the left ankle, police said.

A woman rushed the men to nearby St. Joseph's Hospital in a personal vehicle, police say. They are listed in stable condition.

Detectives are working to gather a description of the shooter.

Philadelphia Police are asking anyone who may have witnessed the shooting to come forward and call the Central Detective Division at 215.686.3093.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

A sidewalk sign promoting a Chinatown sports bar has stirred up controversy for poking fun at domestic violence.

The message, scribed in colored chalk, read: “I like my beer like I like my violence… domestic.” It was posted Saturday afternoon outside Bar-Ly at 11th and Appletree Streets in the Chinatown section of Philadelphia. The A-frame sign is marked with a logo for Heineken Light beer, which is considered an import beer.

NBC10 viewer Lisa Schultz, who was outraged by the message, tweeted NBC10.com a picture of the sign. “Can you believe what this sign said…,” she wrote. She also sent angry tweets to the bar and her followers.

NBC10 contacted Bar-Ly to ask about the sign. A man who refused to give his name said he was the person who had written the message and that it was taken down a few hours after being posted. The man said the bar had received complaints about the sign.

“We didn’t want to offend people, so we took it down,” he said. “I personally didn’t think it was offensive.”

According to the Philadelphia-based advocacy group Women Against Abuse, more than 1 in 3 women and 1 in 7 men are victims of severe physical harm by their intimate partner during their lifetimes.

The organization also says 2,000 emergency room visits by Philadelphia women were likely the result of some type of domestic violence and more than 107,000 domestic violence complaints were filed by the Philadelphia Police Department in 2012.

Bar-Ly has used other A-frame chalk signs to post other politically incorrect messages. A photo on the bar’s Facebook page of another A-frame sign, showing a different message, likened the sign to “your loud grandmother.”

“It says whatever it wants,” the caption states. The message written on that sign called its guardian angel an alcoholic.

Through a spokesperson Saturday evening, bar owner Buu Ly said he was not aware of the sign before it was posted and did not approve it.

He said the staffer who wrote the message reflected "very poor judgment" and has been fired.

"In no way does Bar-Ly condone domestic violence nor do we find it humorous," a statement read. "We are sorry to everyone who was offended."

Did the message cross the line? Share your thoughts below.

Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.

A 4-year-old boy, returning home from his father’s funeral, was struck and killed by a van along a Delaware County street.

Carder Brown had just exited a gold Dodge Charger at 11th and Upland Streets in Chester, Pa. around 5 p.m. on Saturday when he was hit by a white passenger van driving down the street, Chester Police say.

Police say the boy jumped out of the car's backseat after seeing his mother standing outside.

Brown was rushed to a nearby hospital, but his injuries were too severe and he died, police said.

Police say the driver of the van did stop and is currently being questioned by detectives at the city’s police station.

The family had just returned from the funeral for the boy’s father, Derrick Brown, police said. The man was apparently the victim of gun violence in Chester and died several days ago.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
 

A Plymouth Township family says an animal rescue has unjustly confiscated their beagle after he got loose from their home.

Flash the beagle broke out of the Alexis and Rob Krekstein’s home on Tuesday after a contractor left an outside door partially ajar.

"One of the workmen who thought he shut the door tight didn't. So the dog was able to poke his nose in, pushed it open and go right out,” said Rob Krekstein.

When they realized Flash had taken off, The Kreksteins say they went on a search for the pup, called police and the SPCA, but couldn’t find him.

“They took my name and number and said they'd call if a beagle was brought in. And they asked me if he was chipped and I said yes. And they said, don't worry, you'll get a callback if they find your dog," Alex Krekstein said Saturday night.

But when the phone rang to let them know Flash had been found, it wasn’t police or the SPCA, rather the Main Line Animal Rescue – the same organization where the family had adopted the dog two years prior. The dog was identified through the microchip embedded under his skin.

The Kreksteins say the organization’s executive director, Bill Smith, then sent them an email letting them know that Flash would not be returned to their care because the family violated the adoption agreement. The message said the family failed to call the animal rescue and notify them the dog was missing and said they were not properly caring for him.

“It's infuriating. It's a member of my family. You treat a dog like a child,” said Rob Krekstein.

Smith tells NBC10 that Flash was not wearing an ID tag and state license and that they were not contacted first that he was missing, as required.

“I thought I was doing the smartest thing by getting the information out around here where he would be found. It never occurred to me the chip would show up Main Line Animal Rescue and they would not return the dog back to me,” Alex Krekstein said.

Rob Krekstein says the family technically broke the adoption contract, but that he doesn’t consider his dog “a contract.”

“I didn’t rent the dog. The dog lives in my home. It’s a member of my family,” Rob Krekstein said.

Smith said The Kreksteins know what they agreed to when they signed the contract.

Police say they found the body of a man who went missing from a retirement home last week.

Phillips Brooks, 81, was found dead around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday in a wooded area in Washington Township, Burlington County. Police say Brooks was found about two miles from his 2006 Subaru Forester which was parked on a nearby road off of Route 542.

Brooks was last seen around 9:15 a.m. on April 4 at the Meadow Lakes Retirement Community on Etra Road in East Windsor, New Jersey.

Family members told police that Brooks recently experienced short-term memory loss as well as confusion.

Police are investigating Brooks' death. At this point however they don't suspect foul play.

Stay with NBC10.com for more details on this developing story.

Also on NBC10.com:

• Body of Missing Man Found Near 30th Street
• Reward Offered for Missing NJ Man Shown Jogging in Video
   

Police are investigating the kidnapping and assault of a woman in Easton, Pa.

Police say the woman was on the 700 block of Wood Avenue around 1:20 a.m. on Sunday when an unidentified man grabbed her and forced her inside a dark-colored SUV.

The man then assaulted the woman before fleeing the scene, according to investigators.

Police did not release a detailed description of the suspect but say he is a heavyset man in his early 40’s.

Stay with NBC10.com for more details on this developing story.

Also on NBC10.com:

• Tutor Accused of Sexually Assaulting Teen Boy
• Suspect ID'd in Gay Dating App Rape, Robbery
• Woman Sexually Assaulted on NJ Bike Trail
   

Philadelphia Police are searching for a woman who they say dragged a man down a street with her vehicle and then fled the scene.

Police say the unidentified woman briefly spoke with the 74-year-old victim around 6:50 p.m. on Saturday on 29th and Thompson Streets while she was inside her vehicle.

The woman then allegedly pulled away from the curb with her vehicle, traveling northbound on 29th Street, as the man held onto the side.

Police say the woman drove for two city blocks, dragging the man, before he finally fell off. The woman then allegedly continued northbound on 29th Street, fleeing the scene.

The victim suffered a fractured skull, broken leg and broken foot. He was taken to Hahnemann Hospital where he is currently in serious condition.

Police say the woman was driving a green mid-size SUV type vehicle, possibly a Jeep Grand Cherokee or Ford. They have not yet released a detailed description of the woman however.

Stay with NBC10.com for more details on this developing story.
 

In the 2011 film The Muppets, character Walter muses whether he’s a man or a Muppet…

Billy Barretta, the voice and puppeteer behind several Muppets' characters, is both. Billy and his brother, children's author and illustrator, Gene Barretta talked to NBC10 about how their Philly roots influenced their work with the Jim Henson company.

Question: What were you like as kids growing up in the Philadelphia area?

Gene: We were born in New Jersey but then we moved and were raised in Yardley. We were always involved in the arts in some way. As the older one, I always dragged him along to whatever I was doing. We would make Super 8 movies a lot. I know that sounds ancient and antique.

Billy: He (Gene) would orchestrate what we were going to do. He had the creative brains in that sense. "Okay we’re going to make home movies now." He’d get a camera and figure out how to make a movie. I was cast in all these movies.

Q: Is movie making what led you to discover the Muppets?

Gene: My cousin Gary and I first discovered Sesame Street in 1969 or 70, around the time that it first started airing. We were just really captivated by the Muppets and wanted to try to make our own versions of them. We would go to the foam and fabric store and do whatever we could to improvise and figure out how they were done. I decided, I'm going to write Jim Henson a letter and ask him how to make Muppets.

Billy: Gene just figured he was sitting around at his house making puppets or something. But Jim wrote back with detailed instructions.

Gene: I was really pleasantly surprised.

Billy: I did some of the puppeteering but not much. I really thought I was just going to be an actor. And now I get to be an actor through these characters.

Q: How did you start working with the Jim Henson Company and become involved with The Muppets movies?

Billy: One summer Gene and I both worked at Sesame Place. It used to be all man-powered rides. There was nothing mechanical and anything you did there you had to use your body to do it. We helped the kids get on and off the rides.

Gene: We cleaned, swept up cigarette butts. We were right there at the beginning. It was a much different park then. And then one summer Brian Henson, Jim's son came to work there as an employee which was a real surprise. We never expected to meet one of Jim's kids. He came over to the house and helped me make these clay figures for stop motion animation and brought back one of Jim's own cameras for me to film it. It was something holy.

Billy: We all got along and we stayed in touch over the years. The first time Brian and I ever worked together after Sesame was right after his father passed away and they were going to do the show Dinosaurs. I was living in California at the time and Brian was running the company at 28 years old. So I auditioned and ended up getting it and we started working together.

Later Brian and I would do pairs of characters together. And within Henson there was a lot of that too like Jim Henson and Frank Oz (Kermit and Miss Piggy), Steve Whitmire and Dave Goelz (Rizzo and Gonzo). So with my Johnny Fiama he’s Sal the Monkey who’s my right-hand man and body guard. Back when we did Muppets tonight I was Pepe the King Prawn and he was this big elephant named Seymour.

Gene: I was part of the Sesame Street family for a while doing some animated films for them. Then I moved on to work on Between the Lions. I did some books for them and I did some behind the scenes illustration work for them. Some of the same Henson puppeteers worked on that show as well. At first I wanted to be a film director but it was the animation stuff and the children's shows that kind of transitioned me over into doing the picture book work and having this career now. It was all based around story-telling in the end really.

Q: What was the inspiration for some of the Muppets you created? Was the city of Philadelphia an influence in any way?

Billy: The character Johnny Fiama came from our father and grandfather. Guys from Philly and Camden.

Gene: We had a big Italian family. Lots of cousins and uncles and aunts who lived nearby and everyone was pretty much a ham.

Billy: Johnny Fiama is Italian- bad Italian humor. He definitely has that Philly draw. "He kinda talks like this. Ya know he's a Philly guy."

Gene: Back then family get-togethers always meant that there was gonna be a show and the kids would arrange some kind of after-dinner entertainment- anything from lip-syncing songs to improvising skits. There was a time when I was doing a puppet show and my uncle decided to put an ice cream cone in the mouth of my muppet. It didn't go over really well with me.

Q: You've been in Muppets from Space, Muppet Treasure Island, 2011's The Muppets and now Muppets Most Wanted which hit theaters March 21. What's your role in that film?

Billy: I'm a co-producer of the movie and what they call the puppet captain. My job as a producer is to oversee the creative sides of the Muppets and how they're integrated into the movie and help them find that balance. As a puppet captain I have to figure out logistically how this all going to work, where the actors are in relation to the Muppets. I'm basically next to the camera all the time.

Q: Tina Fey who plays Nadya in the movie is from the Philadelphia area as well- did you two talk about that at all?

Billy: I got to work with her a lot. She and I realized that we were both from the Philly area and we would have fun with the accent. She'd be walking by and I'd say "Hey, how ya doin hun?" And she'd say "Oh, I'm going to my camper." Then I’d go, "Alright I'll call ya I'll check ya out later." Then I’d say, "Oh what ya doin for lunch?" She goes, "Uh, I don't know, maybe a hoagie."

Gene: We (my wife, my son and I) went out the night it opened and saw the movie. We really enjoyed it a lot. It's always extra fun to see those films because of just knowing all the puppeteers and having heard things behind the scenes or listening and picking out my brother's voice maybe in doing back vocals of the songs all that stuff. It gets much more personal.

Q: Living in Los Angeles is a lot different from living in Philly- is there anything you miss?

Billy: I miss not having to be in a car all the time. In Los Angeles you need a car, it's spread out up here. Where I grew up you could just walk to your friend's house. Walk to or ride your bike to the shopping center and I miss the seasons too. People say oh you wouldn't like this winter that we've had and I probably wouldn't, but I miss that change of season. I miss Family. I don't get to see my brother a lot or my aunts and uncles.

Gene: It's much more email and phone calls. We see each other once or twice a year. That's the unfortunate thing our two sons are only 4 months apart but they don't get to see each other as much as we'd like.

Billy: My son reminds me a lot of my brother actually. It's kind of like growing up with my brother again. I just sit there and I remember watching my brother draw all day long and I would look over his shoulder and watch him create these characters. My son can take a puppet and make it talk. He just has a knack for it.

The brothers also stay close by putting each other in their work. Gene Barretta uses Billy as a background character in his books and next time you see you that big orange behemoth Muppet you’ll know where Billy got the idea to nickname him "Gene."

The Philadelphia Parking Authority is cracking down on cars parked in bike lanes.

New numbers from the PPA show the agency and police issued nearly 350 tickets for the offense from January through March.

PPA Deputy Executive Director Corinne O'Connor said the flurry of tickets began since the agency started urging people to report vehicles parked in bike lanes through Twitter.

"You can tweet if you see a vehicle parked in the bike lane," O'Connor said. "That will then automatically go to our Twitter account which will then be forwarded to the ticketing department and then therefore we can send out an enforcement officer to issue a a ticket if the vehicle is still there."

Connor said sometimes the vehicle moves before the enforcement officers show up to issue a ticket.

"I mean you're talking 5, 10, 15 minutes later. But if the vehicle is still parked there they will receive a ticket," she said.

O'Connor said the tickets cost up to $75.

She said during three months of the Unblock Bike Lanes Twitter campaign, the Parking Authority received 55 complaints related to about 30 different blocks. She says Pine Street between 3rd and 20th logged the most complaints.

Even with the social media effort, the numbers haven't changed much.

She said the number of tickets issued during the period is pretty typical.

As the PPA continues to crack down, one man is taking matters into his own hands. Michael Warrington launched a social media campaign and created a website focusing on members of a local church whom he claims are illegally parking in bike lanes.

According to Warrington, attendees at Tenth Presbyterian Church on 17th and Spruce Streets have continuously parked in lanes reserved for bicyclists.

“The purpose is to stop religious service attendees at 10th Presbyterian from illegally parking their cars in the bike lane on Spruce Street between 16th and 19th Streets,” Warrington said.

Warrington arrived outside the church on Sunday around 7 a.m. for a protest. Very few other protesters were there with him however. Despite this, Warrington is continuing his campaign in the hopes that it will gain more support.

"Other advocacy groups have tried this," Warrington said. "But the progress is impossibly slow. I'm hoping to bring more attention to the problem through the protest."

NBC10 reached out to Tenth Presbyterian for comment. We have not yet heard back from them.

This story is reported through a newsgathering partnership between NBC10.com and NewsWorks.org.
 

Police say a man was struck and killed by a Philadelphia streets department vehicle on the Schuylkill Expressway while he was trying to help his girlfriend.

The 26-year-old man was driving in the westbound lanes of I-76 on Saturday around 10 p.m. near Montgomery Drive and approaching Roosevelt Boulevard. Investigators say the man’s girlfriend was following him in another vehicle.

The woman pulled over to the side of the road after experiencing some problems with her vehicle. Police say the man pulled over to help her.

As he got out of his car to check on her vehicle, investigators say he was struck by a city-owned streets department vehicle that was passing by. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have not yet revealed his identity.

The striking vehicle remained at the scene. No charges have been filed.

I-76 was closed at the scene of the crash for several hours before it reopened around 2 a.m.
 

Not long after firefighters arrived at the scene of a fire at 117 East Pine St. in Millville, offiicials requested utilities be shut off in the area. 

The two and a half story house was heavily on fire and thick smoke was seen exiting the dwelling.

Nearly two hours later, the fire was still not under control. The Salvation Army canteen unit was dispatched. 

Also on NBC10.com:

• Man Killed, Families Displaced in Delco House Fire

• NTSB: No Evidence FedEx Truck Was on Fire Before Crash

After being cooped up for the long, grueling winter, some are already thinking about ways to spend the most time outdoors enjoying warmer temperatures.

People have been gearing up their grills and heading to the hardware store to pick up flowers and mulch this weekend.

Mapes Hardware in Ardmore says people have been in to buy wheelbarrows, rakes and “anything you can shake a stick at.”

Tree houses are a favorite backyard addition among children.

Families visited the King of Prussia Home Depot this weekend to pick up some supplies and pressure treated wood. Home Depot sells Tree House Kits and also offers installation services.

If you’re planning on building from scratch you may want to check out Tree Top Builders, Inc. based out of West Chester. They have an upcoming “how-to” workshop May 17 to 18 where you can learn everything from tree biology to building zip lines. The fee is $480 and the company also offers $150 consulting sessions to help with families’ plans. Also the inspiration is free with numerous pictures under the Portfolio tab that shows completed projects that may give you a starting point for your own structure.

What would your dream treehouse look like? Already have a cool tree house or play set in your backyard? We want to see it! Share it with us on the NBC10 Facebook page.

A brush fire may be expected in the woods, but one local community saw one rapidly spread within their city's limits Sunday afternoon.

The brush fire spread quickly from Grieves Parkway and South Front Street in Salem. It started around 12:30 p.m. and the fire jumped the roadway. 

"Basically the fire outraced us before we could get enough resources here to get in front of it," said Fire Chief Fred Ayers. "It played a large factor in our ability to contain it."

The fire started as a one-acre fire and spread quickly to impact 100 acres. The fire department lost two brush trucks due to the shifting winds, but the firefighters were able to escape the trucks unharmed. The flames were at least four feet high.

No one was reportedly injured in the fire. The fire was under control before evacuations were necessary.