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Philadelphia Inquirer News

• The Barnes opens with trumpets, tears and celebration at its new Philadelphia home
  With a trumpet fanfare that seemed to erase an eternity of angst and anticipation, the Barnes Foundation’s new campus in Philadelphia was officially dedicated Friday morning in honor of its founder, Albert C. Barnes, with executive director Derek Gillman promising to “dedicate ourselves anew to his passions.” “Philadelphia, our cultural star is rising,” Mayor Nutter told the hundreds of dignitaries, officials, donors and the general counsels of Italy, Germany, France and Mexico, assembled in the inner courtyard just outside the galleries.


• Security cameras catch burglar at work in S. Philadelphia
  Police today released a pair of surveillance videos in the hopes of finding a burglar who struck two Vietnamese restaurants on the same block in South Philadelphia this week. In both cases, the video caught the burglar prying open the doors at the restaurants to get inside.


• Fumes prompt evacuation of South Philadelphia alternative school
  An alternative school in South Philadelphia was evacuated this morning after a staff member reported smelling acrid fumes. Some 25 students spilled from the Ombudsman South Accelerated School, on the 2700 block of S. Front Street, about 10:40 a.m. as officials called the fire department. One student was taken to Methodist Hospital for chest pains, and two other students were went home early after reporting they did not feel well, said district spokeswoman Deirdre Darragh.


• Montco assistant D.A. is fired
  A Montgomery County assistant district attorney has been officially fired apparently for failing to follow standards set for employees in the prosecutor’s office. Karen Grace Ricca, who oversaw the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition unit (ARD), was terminated Thursday fired during a regularly scheduled meeting of the county’s salary board. No official reason was given and efforts to reach Ricca were unsuccessful.


• Cops: Uncle stabs nephew, 20, to death in S. Jersey
  Authorities say an uncle stabbed his 20-year-old nephew to death during an argument in the Deptford Township apartment they shared with the victim’s mother. Chad Gatewood, whose age was not yet available, was charged today with murder, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office.


• Railroad worker crushed by roll of newsprint at Inquirer/Daily News printing plant
  A railroad worker was killed today when he was crushed by an 1,800-pound roll of newsprint at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News Schuylkill Printing Plant in Upper Merion. Mark Block, a spokesman for Philadelphia Media Network, the newspapers’ parent company, said the roll apparently had shifted in its boxcar during shipment and fell out about 9:30 a.m. when the train’s engineer opened the door.


• Pa. Supreme Court justice facing charges today
     and Angela Couloumbis


• Cherry Hill woman with walker struck, killed in parking lot
  A 92-year-old woman was fatally struck by a car Thursday when a fellow resident of a Cherry Hill senior housing complex lost control of the vehicle in the facility’s parking lot, township police said. Rose Weber, who was pushing a walker in the lot of the Raymond and Gertrude R. Saltzman House in the 1400 block of Springdale Road, died at the scene shortly before 3 p.m. Authorities believe Shirley Braverman, 82, “stepped on the gas instead of the brake” while backing out of a space on the north end of the parking lot, said Lt. Sean Redmond.