I am because I rushed bringing this to you:
Judge rules in favor of Pa. girl who needs lung
Pa. girl is placed on adult lung donor list; boy also sues
Pa. girl’s transplant deemed success
Pennsylvania girl has second lung transplant
Girl who got new lungs in Pa. has pneumonia
Pa. girl off oxygen after 2 lung transplants
New lungs working, Pa. girl goes home
Pa. gay marriage defiance heads to court
No gay marriage licenses, Pa. judge rules
"Woman turns up alive after N.J. funeral" by Michael Rubinkam | Associated Press, August 24, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — Several weeks after she had been reported missing and thirteen days after her family thought they had laid her to rest, Sharolyn Jackson showed up, alive, at a Philadelphia hospital.
The 50-year-old woman’s reappearance on Aug. 16 came nearly two weeks after her family attended her viewing, funeral, and burial in New Jersey. They had noted that Jackson’s nose looked thinner. But they figured something had happened to it during the embalming process.
The wrong body was in the casket?
Jackson was reported missing around the time that paramedics took a woman who had been found lying in a Philadelphia street to a hospital, where she died July 20. One of Jackson’s sons and a social worker at Horizon House, where her mother said she had been receiving treatment for drug and mental health problems, viewed pictures of the dead woman’s body and made the identification.
Philadelphia officials plan to exhume the buried body in hopes of correctly identifying it.
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"Pa. boy dies after serving as parents’ best man" by Joe Mandak | Associated Press, August 07, 2013
PITTSBURGH — A terminally ill 2-year-old western Pennsylvania boy who served as his parents’ best man at their wedding last weekend has died, according to his mother’s Facebook page and a family friend.
Christine Swidorsky Stevenson’s Facebook post said little Logan Stevenson died Monday night in her arms at the home she shared with the boy’s father, her new husband, Sean Stevenson. The couple live in Jeannette, about 25 miles east of Pittsburgh, and were wed Saturday at a ceremony at their home.
The boy, who had leukemia and other complications, was dressed in a tan pinstripe suit and orange shirt for the wedding. His mother carried him on her shoulder, before he stood and was held by his grandmother, Debbie Stevenson, to witness the 12-minute ceremony.
A family spokeswoman, Sylvia Johnson of Youngwood, confirmed Logan’s death on Tuesday. She later released a brief statement from his parents saying: ‘‘Logan passed away at 8:18 yesterday evening, surrounded by his family and loved ones. He was very comfortable.’’ His mother said on Facebook, ‘‘He is with angels and he’s in no more pain.’’
The post indicates the boy’s breathing became labored before his mother called a hospice worker, who told the couple he was dying.
‘‘Sean and I held him all day he was comfortable with his medication then at 8:18 my son took his last breath in my arms,’’ his mother wrote.
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Not to be insensitive, but tens of thousands of babies in this world die every day.
"‘Bucket list’ bandit sentenced in Pa." by Joe Mandak | Associated Press, August 16, 2013
PITTSBURGH — A bank robber dubbed the ‘‘Bucket List Bandit’’ after allegedly telling a Utah teller he had just four months to live was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in federal prison for a string of heists spanning 10 states.
Michael Eugene Brewster’s sentence works out to a year for each of the 11 bank heists he committed across the country last year, though under federal sentencing guidelines, he might have received as little as 6½ years. Those guidelines, which take into account a person’s criminal history and the seriousness of the crime, were increased because of the number of banks Brewster robbed, resulting in the longer sentence....
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Also see: Brewster's Bucket List
"A blaze that erupted early Thursday at a central Pennsylvania home killed four people, including two children, and left three other residents critically injured, authorities said. Investigators believe unattended food caused the fire."
"Mother, 3 sons killed while crossing road" by Maryclaire Dale | Associated Press, July 18, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — A mother and three young sons were struck and killed while trying to cross a busy Philadelphia highway after dark, and police on Wednesday were questioning a driver who may have been drag racing....
The highway has become notorious for pedestrian fatalities, many of them at night and several involving drag racing....
No arrests had been made, but police said Wednesday that charges were pending....
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"Men charged in deadly Pa. crash" Associated Press, July 19, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — Two men face third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and other charges in a crash that killed a mother and three young sons crossing a 12-lane highway plagued by pedestrian deaths, police said. A fourth son was injured.
Khusen Akhmedov, 23, of Lancaster, and Ahmen Holloman, 30, of Philadelphia, were arrested Wednesday night. Investigators believe they may have been drag racing....
Samara Banks, 28, and her three youngest sons were killed as they crossed Roosevelt Boulevard at a point with no crosswalk or traffic light. Her oldest, 5, survived with bumps and bruises.
Roosevelt Boulevard had the nation’s second and third most dangerous intersections in a 2001 study, which tallied 618 crashes at those two intersections in a two-year period.
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Related:
"An SUV crossed into oncoming traffic on a rural northwestern Pennsylvania highway and smashed head-on into another vehicle, killing six people, including two children, authorities said Sunday."
"Two men were arrested in northeastern Pennsylvania on Friday in connection with the weekend shooting death of a toddler in a stroller in New York City."
"Parents charged in Pa. girl’s starvation death" by Maryclaire Dale | Associated Press, September 11, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia couple faces murder charges in the starvation death of their disabled 3-year-old girl, a case with harrowing echoes in a city where a series of children have suffered the same slow, agonizing death.
Nathalyz Rivera weighed just 11 pounds when she died Monday. Although she had severe disabilities, she had not seen a doctor in more than a year, and was apparently not on the radar of social services....
‘‘The fact you can have a child that literally starved to death in the city of Philadelphia is abysmal,’’ said Dr. Rachel P. Berger, chief of the division of child advocacy at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, who is not involved in the case.
‘‘The real question is, as a society, how did we fail this child? Who saw this child, outside of the family or even within the family?’’
Don't blame us for government incompetence and neglect as we are looted.
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"Pa. mother sentenced in twins’ starvation" Associated Press, June 29, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — A mother of six whose infant son starved to death at a homeless shelter was sentenced Friday to 9-18 years in prison after a jury convicted her of involuntary manslaughter in 2-month-old Quasir Alexander’s death, which occurred just before Christmas 2010.
Tanya Williams, 34, was also convicted of aggravated assault in the near death of Quasir’s twin.
Defense lawyer Gregory Pagano said a caseworker saw Quasir 36 hours before he died. Williams, whom Pagano argued at trial has an IQ of 65, was the only person charged in the case, although two Lutheran Children and Family Service workers lost their jobs....
Assistant District Attorney Peter Lim told jurors that Williams failed to take advantage of help offered by caseworkers, a shelter worker, and the visiting nurse.
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Also see: Faith healers charged with murder after 2d death
Boy Dies in Pennsylvania as Christian Couple Defies Court
Pittsburgh Zoo denies blame in toddler’s death
"Ordinance in Pa. town linking evictions, 911 calls faces challenge" by Maryclaire Dale | Associated Press, September 20, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge ordered a trial Thursday to decide whether towns can force the eviction of tenants who make too many 911 calls, a national test case pitting free speech rights against community safety concerns.
US District Judge Eduardo Robreno said he expects the ‘‘complex and novel’’ case to reach a federal appeals court.
The American Civil Liberties Union believes the laws endanger domestic violence victims and violate their free-speech rights. The group’s Women’s Rights Projects had been looking for a test case, and found one in nursing assistant Lakisha Briggs, a single mother living in a rowhouse in Norristown under a federal subsidized rent program.
An ordinance in the Philadelphia suburb fines landlords and orders them to evict tenants who make three 911 calls within four months. Norristown officials say the laws are designed to promote peaceful neighborhoods and discourage nuisance calls.
After a series of police calls involving arguments with her 21-year-old daughter and others, Briggs was afraid to call police during an attack by a former boyfriend last year. A neighbor eventually called, over Briggs’s protests, and the severely injured Briggs was airlifted to a hospital.
At the hearing, Robreno denied the township’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but he also rejected the ACLU’s bid for a temporary injunction, since city officials have agreed not to pursue any action. The landlord supports Briggs, although she has since moved.
Hundreds of communities around the country have passed similar tenant rules, according to the ACLU.
The lawsuit alleges the ordinances disproportionately affect women, since they are more often the victims of domestic violence, and that the federal Violence Against Women Act protects their housing rights.
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"School officials in Pa. quit after exchanging racist, sexist texts" by Michael Rubinkam | Associated Press, September 24, 2013
COATESVILLE, Pa. — Two top administrators of a large southeastern Pennsylvania school district traded a series of racist and sexist text messages on their district phones, the school board confirmed Monday, seeking to contain the fallout by mandating sensitivity training for all district employees.
Richard Como, superintendent of the Coatesville Area School District, and Jim Donato, the high school’s athletic director, resigned on Aug. 29 after they learned of the board’s intent to fire them over the ‘‘highly offensive’’ messages, according to a statement released by the district’s lawyer.
‘‘The racist and sexist language expressed by these two men was sickening and obviously unacceptable,’’ school board president Neil Campbell said in the statement, released after the texts were obtained and published by The Daily Local News of West Chester.
The scandal has rocked Coatesville, a steel town 35 miles west of Philadelphia where nearly a third of the district’s students are black. Como and Donato are both white.
Prosecutors in Chester County learned of the texts during an unrelated investigation into the school district, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said.
Hogan said that once he learned of the texts, he requested that the district turn over copies of the messages and the phones used to send them, and the district complied.
‘‘The text messages that we reviewed were of a shockingly racist nature,’’ he said. ‘‘They looked like something from 1813, not 2013.’’
The Rev. Randall Harris, who leads a predominantly black congregation at Coatesville’s Tabernacle Baptist Church, said he’d met with Como on numerous occasions.
‘‘We always had a good working relationship, but that’s been tainted,’’ Harris said, appalled and angered over the texts.
The school board said it is working with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to provide sensitivity training to board members, administrators, staff, and faculty.
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