The National Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents, directed by Malik Aziz, builds a new website as a new Model for Youth Development in Southeastern Pennsylvania areas

The National Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents, directed by Malik Aziz, builds a new website as a new Model for Youth Development in Southeastern Pennsylvania areas 

Malik Aziz, the local and often time’s national leader in the fight for more awareness about troubled children and young adults coping with today’s urban crisis, has a website at http://malikaziz.blogspot.com/ called United Windows with Malik Aziz and Antoinette Jackson-Aziz. The site was created for Malik and his wife Antoinette in 2010.  Today, in 2014, Aziz is involved with re-launching the United Windows website to share the site with a program for children and young adults of incarcerated parents. 

Launched in June 2000, National Exhoodus Networks, LLC Summer Youth and Young Adult Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents is a long-term student management intervention model for disconnected youth whose obstacles such as lack of parental leadership, education, homelessness, trauma, substance abuse, and court involvement prevent them from accessing resources and achieving educational, employment, and healthy living goals.

Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents work on a one-on-one basis with each youth to remove barriers, proactively encourage participation in a broad set of Exhoodus Networks, LLC services, and connect them to other needed resources through participation in a broad set of Exhoodus Networks, LLC  services, and connect them to other needed resources within the community so they may make a successful transition to adulthood and reconnect to their family support and communities.

A New Model for Youth Development in Southeastern Pennsylvania areas such as Philadelphia County and Delaware County.

The National Exhoodus Council from 2000 to 2010 successfully operated Exhoodus Networks, LLC summer youth and young adult Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents.   This retreat was held every summer, during the years of operation, at the end of August, at the Hillside Inn Resort, in Marshall Creek, Monroe County, East Stroudsburg, Pa Pocono Mts area. Enrollment for the Retreat did not exceed 100 youth as these children and young adults were primarily from the inner city of Philadelphia, Pa.  The Exhoodus Council, picked up operation of the Retreat in 2007, prior to that it was a partnership with Men United for a Better Philadelphia, Mayor's Office of Community Services and The Philadelphia District Attorney' Office,  and the City Wide Youth Agency.     The Director of the Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents is Malik Aziz, founder and co-chair, MUBP.  The retreat ceased operations in 2010 due to the closure of the Hillside Inn Resort. However, in 2014 the retreat operations has been re-launched promoting getting youth off of the mean streets back into the homes using the best means of internet services a business has to offer to maintain safety and success involving the summer retreat.   EXHOODUS RETREAT Believes: A strong relationship with caring adult support is critical to a youth's ability to achieve successful outcomes Combining individualized student management with mentoring and high-quality services leads to transformational outcomes for children and young adults Student management will give disconnected children and youth an opportunity to develop a relationship with an Exhoodus Retreat personal care person committed to the "relentless pursuit" of his/her success

The Exhoodus Retreat Goes Beyond Traditional Student Management Models Personal Care Persons are Exhoodus Retreat support individuals that act as mentors, case managers, community health workers, and advocates for high risk youth and children and young adults whose parents face incarceration.  These highly trained and experienced support individuals work intentionally and deliberately to build relationships designed to transform a young person’s life.  Working across programs to address all the youth’s needs, Exhoodus Retreat leaders work with youth over an extended period of time.   They continue to work with youth even after they complete programs and services, ensuring a lasting impact by constantly moving towards academic success, long-term employment, and live healthy living skills. Exhoodus Retreat Evaluation Design and Results.  As with all Exhoodus Retreat programs, the Exhoodus Retreat uses a web-based data management system that allows for sophisticated demographic output, and outcomes reporting. Exhoodus Retreat stratergems help to track youths' progress along many dimensions including whether goals are being met, frequency of service provision, and completion of referrals.  Contact Information For more information about the Exhoodus Retreat for Children and Young Adults of Incarcerated Parents, please contact Malik Aziz Exhoodus RetreatDirector at (267) 581-1252.

Work Begins To Convert West Phila. Landmark Into New Police HQ

Work Begins To Convert West Phila. Landmark Into New Police HQ

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A ceremony today marked the beginning of rehabilitation for an elegant former office building in West Philadelphia, which will eventually be the new home of the city’s police administration

The Provident Mutual Life Insurance building, at 46th and Market Streets, has sat vacant for six years.  But now there is a new future for the historic building.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Retired Philadelphia Police Officer Murdered In Virginia

Retired Philadelphia Police Officer Murdered In Virginia

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Former Police Officer Virginia Hill, who retired from the force in 2002 after devoting her 24-year career to finding missing children, now has become a victim herself, murdered inside her Suffolk, Va. home Saturday.

Hill, who told CBS 3’s Walt Hunter, in a July, 2001, interview that she treated every missing child as one of her own, was tenacious finding and identifying children who vanished, many of whom met with foul play.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

CHOP Designated As Possible Site For Ebola Treatment

CHOP Designated As Possible Site For Ebola Treatment

 

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia confirmed Thursday that it has been designated as one of several pediatric hospitals in the United States that may be called upon to provide medical care for any child who contracts Ebola.

“The likelihood of an Ebola outbreak in the United States is extremely low, however, if a pediatric patient should need care for Ebola in this country, CHOP is one of the sites that has agreed to provide care,” said Dr. Julia Shaklee Sammons, Medical Director and Hospital Epidemiologist for CHOP’s Department of Infection Prevention and Control in a statement. “It is important for our staff and patient families to know that CHOP is prepared to safely care for a patient with Ebola without compromising care for other patients or protection for our clinical teams.”

Officials say the hospital created an “Internal Ebola Task Force” in August that has been planning since then to address all of the processes that are necessary to safely care for a patient while maintaining normal clinical care for other patients.

 For full story go to: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/










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Montgomery County Jury Sentences Man To Death For Killing Of Baby, Grandmother

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Montgomery County Jury Sentences Man To Death For Killing Of Baby, Grandmother

October 14, 2014 9:16 PM

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NORRISTOWN, Pa., (CBS) --  A Montgomery County jury has sentenced an Upper Merion man to death for the murders of a 10-month-old child and her grandmother in a botched kidnapping attempt in King of Prussia nearly two years ago.

After three and a half hours of deliberations, the seven men and five women delivered the death penalty to Raghu Yandamuri for the killings of Saanvi Venna and her grandmother. Yandamuri showed no emotion but turned to his stand by attorney and asked him to please let my mother know. Prosecutor Kevin Steele says this has been a difficult two years for the Venna family.

 For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Conservative bishops move away from gay overture

Conservative bishops move away from gay overture

Cardinal Angelo Scola, left, and Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, are reflected on the glass door of the Paul VI hall as they arrive for a morning session of a two-week synod on family issues at the Vatican, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. Catholic bishops signaled a radical shift in tone Monday about accepting gays into the church, saying they had gifts to offer and that their partnerships, while morally problematic, provided homosexual couples with "precious" support. In a preliminary report, released half-way through a Vatican meeting on family life called by Pope Francis, the bishops also said the church must welcome divorcees and recognize the "positive" aspects of civil marriages and even Catholics who cohabitate, as well as the children of these less traditional families.

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A fight for the soul of the Catholic Church has broken out, and the first battlefield is a document on family values that pits increasingly alarmed conservatives against more progressive bishops emboldened by Pope Francis' vision of a church that is more merciful than moralistic.

On Tuesday, conservative bishops distanced themselves from the document's unprecedented opening toward gays and divorced Catholics, calling it an "unacceptable" deviation from church teaching that doesn't reflect their views and vowing to make changes to the final version.

The report, released midway through a Vatican meeting on such hot-button family issues as marriage, 

divorce, homosexuality and birth control, signaled a radical shift in tone about welcoming gays, divorced Catholics and unmarried couples into the church.

Its message was one of almost-revolutionary acceptance and understanding rather than condemnation. Gays, it said, had gifts to offer the church and their partnerships, while morally problematic, provided gay couples with "precious" support. The church, it added, must welcome divorced people and recognize the "positive" aspects of civil marriages and even Catholics who live together without being married.

The leaders of the bishops' meeting, or synod, that produced it stressed Tuesday that it was merely a working paper and was never intended to be a statement of church doctrine, but rather a reflection of bishops' views that will be debated and amended before a final version is released on Saturday.

Still, its dramatic shift in tone thrilled progressives and gay rights groups, and dismayed conservatives already deeply uncomfortable with Francis' aim to make the church a "field hospital" for wounded souls that focuses far less on the rules and regulations emphasized by his two predecessors.

The document was remarkable both in what it said and what it didn't say: Absent were assertions of Catholic doctrine present in most church documents that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered" and that couples who cohabitate are "living in sin." In their place were words of affirmation and welcome.

"The report, obviously composed under pressure, has easily given rise to some misinterpretation," British Cardinal Vincent Nichols said Tuesday. "It is not a doctrinal or decisive document. It is, as stated in its conclusion, `intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured and made clearer on reflection.'"

Several conservatives who participated in the synod immediately distanced themselves from the report. The head of the Polish bishops' conference, Cardinal Stanislaw Gadecki, called it "unacceptable" and a deviation from church teaching.

South African Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier said the report didn't reflect the opinion of the synod in its entirety and contained problematic positions. He hoped the final report "will show the vision of the synod as a whole and not the vision of a particular group."

"My worry is that the message has gone out - and it's not a true message - that this synod has taken up these positions, and whatever we say hereafter is going to be as if we're doing some damage control, which is certainly not what is in my mind," he told reporters.

Hard-line American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the head of the Vatican's supreme court, told Catholic World Report that the document contained positions "which many synod Fathers do not accept and, I would say, as faithful shepherds of the flock cannot accept."

He accused the Vatican press operation of releasing "manipulated" information about the synod debate that didn't reflect the "consistent number of bishops" who opposed such a tone.

To some extent, he had a point.

The Vatican has greatly reduced independent access to information about the closed-door proceedings, withholding bishops' individual speeches from public view, much to the dismay of Burke and other conservatives who want their side known. The only information released has been summaries of the day's debate by the Vatican spokesman, whose briefings have reflected a general a tone of opening and welcome.

The briefings made scant reference to gays at all, and yet the provisional report gave significant ink to the issue. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said while he only recalled one major speech about gays out of 265, it was likely that bishops' written remarks covered the material and were reflected in the document.

The big question looming is how the battle over the final document will shake out.

The bishops themselves elected a host of known conservatives to lead the working groups hammering out details of the final report. In an apparent bid to counter their influence, Francis appointed six progressives to draft the final document.

The Vatican on Tuesday highlighted areas that will be debated in the coming days. In a summary of bishops' reactions, the Vatican press office said bishops had "appreciated" the report but that some offered additional reflections "to bring together various points of view."

These bishops suggested that the final document highlight faithful Catholic families to avoid "a near-exclusive focus on imperfect family situations."

On gays, they said "prudence" was required "so that the impression of a positive evaluation of such a tendency on the part of the church is not created."

"The same care was advised with regard to cohabitation," they said.

The bishops noted that the word "sin" barely appeared in the document at all and that the final document must better explain the "law of gradualness" - a theological concept that encourages the faithful to take one step at a time in the search for holiness.

Bishops are concerned that an emphasis on that concept can lead to confusion about whether Catholics really must follow church law to the letter on hot-button issues like contraception.

Pa. Mom Finds Liver Donor On Facebook For 3-Year-Old Daughter

Pa. Mom Finds Liver Donor On Facebook For 3-Year-Old Daughter

 

Local

Pa. Mom Finds Liver Donor On Facebook For3-Year-Old Daughter

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Donya McCoy found a liver donor for her 3-year-old daughter the new-fashioned way: on Facebook.

McCoy’s daughter, Kennedy Stevenson, of Elizabethtown, is one of just eight people in the world with a rare metabolic disorder.

A liver transplant could be the cure. Kennedy’s liver “match” turned out to be McCoy’s high-school classmate, Mike Thompson, now a Bethlehem paid firefighter.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Packed Streets Marked The First Annual Old City Festival

Packed Streets Marked The First Annual Old City Festival

Derek Weidman takes part in the first annual Old City Festival.
 
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Today was the first annual Old City Festival, a day for retailers and restaurateurs to showcase the best of what they have to offer.

The streets of Old City were packed with tens of thousands of people enjoying food and drinks and even some exhibits, like the one with Derek Weidman outside The Center for Art In Wood.

“I’m demonstrating a lathe, woodworking and wood turning in particular. You know, a really old, old technique and old machine.”

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Local Church Holds Donation Drive To Help Liberians Struggling With Ebola Virus

Local Church Holds Donation Drive To Help Liberians Struggling With Ebola Virus

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Congregants of the Enon Tabernacle Baptist church in Mt. Airy held a donation drive Saturday to collect items to help Liberians who are struggling with the spread of the Ebola virus.
“We are collecting sanitary items as well as food items to help halt the spread of the Ebola virus,” says Reverend Kevin Murphy, Associate Pastor of Missions and Evangelism. “We do have some members that have family members in Liberia, but our real connection is through the Lott Carey. The missioner who founded the Lott Carey organization left the United States and he started a school as well as the Providence Baptist church. That’s our true connection and that’s where we will be sending all these items.”

More Ebola Screening To Begin At 5 U.S. Airports

More Ebola Screening To Begin At 5 U.S. Airports

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government will begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.
President Barack Obama said the new efforts would provide yet another tier of protection at key U.S. points of entry.

“These measures are really just belt-and-suspenders — it’s an added layer of protection on top of the procedures already in place at several airports,” Obama told state and local officials in a teleconference call Wednesday.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

More Ebola Screening To Begin At 5 U.S. Airports

More Ebola Screening To Begin At 5 U.S. Airports

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government will begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.
President Barack Obama said the new efforts would provide yet another tier of protection at key U.S. points of entry.

“These measures are really just belt-and-suspenders — it’s an added layer of protection on top of the procedures already in place at several airports,” Obama told state and local officials in a teleconference call Wednesday.

However, the focus is still on stopping the epidemic in West Africa, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, said in Atlanta.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Official: Enterovirus D68 Virus Caused NJ Boy’s Death

Official: Enterovirus D68 Virus Caused NJ Boy’s Death

HAMILTON TWP., N.J. (CBS) – It’s official. Authorities in New Jersey say that a four-year-old Hamilton Township, Mercer County boy died of the virus that’s sickened hundreds of people — mostly children — in 43 states.

At a Saturday afternoon news conference, Hamilton Township Mayor Kelly Yaede made the announcement that nobody wanted to hear:

“A little boy attending Hamilton Township Schools indeed passed and the cause of death was Enterovirus-D68.”

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Hospital: Dallas Ebola patient critical

Hospital: Dallas Ebola patient critical 

Hazardous material cleaners prepare to hang black plastic outside the apartment in Dallas, Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, where Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient who traveled from Liberia to Dallas stayed last week. The crew is expected to remove items including towels and bed sheets used by Duncan, who is being treated at an isolation unit at a Dallas hospital. The family living there has been confined under armed guard while being monitored by health officials.

 

DALLAS (AP) -- After hospital officials on Saturday said the condition of the lone Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. has worsened, the woman he came to Texas to visit said she is praying for his recovery.

Louise Troh said that she was not aware until a reporter told her that Thomas Eric Duncan's condition had been deemed critical and that she had not spoken with him Saturday.

"I pray in Jesus' name that it will be all right," Troh said in a telephone interview from the home where she and three others are being isolated.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas didn't provide any further details or respond to questions about Duncan's health on Saturday. The hospital has previously said Duncan, who was being kept in isolation, was in serious but stable condition.

Duncan traveled from disease-ravaged Liberia to Dallas last month before he began showing symptoms of 

the disease that has killed some 3,400 people in West Africa.

Health officials said Saturday that they are still monitoring about 50 people who may have had contact with Duncan for signs of the deadly disease. Among those are nine people who are believed to be at a higher risk. 

Thus far none have shown symptoms.

Included in the group being monitored are people who later rode in the ambulance that took Duncan to the hospital last Sunday, said Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Duncan was staying with Troh at a Dallas apartment when he became ill. On Friday a hazardous-materials crew hauled out items from the apartment in industrial barrels for permanent disposal. That same day, Troh, originally from Liberia, and three others - her 13-year-old son, Duncan's distant relative and a family friend - were moved to a private residence where they are being carefully monitored.

The city had trouble finding a place to take them until a volunteer offered the private residence.

The first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S. has raised concerns about whether the disease could spread in the U.S. 

Federal health officials say they are confident they can control it.

Frieden said that they've already gotten "well over" 100 inquiries on suspicious cases in recent months, with an uptick coming after the Dallas patient was diagnosed. Federal officials have said tests have been done on about 15 and all but one - Duncan - were false alarms.

Most of the cases don't involve travel to West Africa, "but we'd rather have a wider net cast," said Frieden. That way "we're more likely to find someone promptly if they did actually have exposure and they do actually have symptoms," he said.

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily 

fluids - blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen - of an infected person who is showing symptoms.

Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later. After an initial visit to the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, he was sent home. He returned to the hospital two days later, last Sunday, and has been kept in isolation ever since.

The hospital's explanation about what they knew about his travel history has changed in the time since his diagnosis was revealed on Tuesday. Federal health officials have advised hospitals to take a travel history for patients with any Ebola-like symptoms.

When Duncan's diagnosis was first disclosed, the hospital said it wasn't till he came back Sunday that they discovered he had been in West Africa. The hospital later acknowledged that Duncan had told a nurse his travel history on his first visit but said the information hadn't been fully communicated to the whole team.

On Thursday, the hospital elaborated by saying that a flaw in the electronic health records systems led to separate physician and nursing workflows and that the doctor hadn't had access to Duncan's travel history.

But the hospital issued a statement late Friday saying that the doctor who initially treated Duncan did have 

access to his travel history after all.

Hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said Saturday he could provide no further details, saying, "We're still 

looking into the entire chain of events."

Van Stone Jr., Downing's Birthday Photo: Happy 7 Birthday Van Stone Jr., aka Sammy!

 

 Van Stone Jr., Downing's Birthday Photo: Happy 7 Birthday Van Stone Jr., aka Sammy! 

Joel Perlish at the Philadelphia Front Page News-Magazine

Black Female Super Heroines! Comics character from Van Stone's Heroes of the Last Q "Shadai Chiropractra; SciFi Blacks in Space

Black Female Super Heroines! Comics character from Van Stone's Heroes of the Last Q "Shadai Chiropractra; SciFi Blacks in Space.

Thousands Turn Out For Puerto Rican Day Parade On Ben Franklin Parkway

Thousands Turn Out For Puerto Rican Day Parade On Ben Franklin Parkway

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — It was a picture perfect day to celebrate Puerto Rican culture on the Ben Franklin Parkway.

The sun was hot for the Puerto Rican Day parade on Sunday. The salsa dancers were even hotter.

Juan Gonzalez said the day’s festivities reminded him of being back on the island.

“You feel like you’re going back home,” he said. “Everything you see reminds you of where you’re from, where you came from — and it’s good.”

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Community Marches To End Gun Violence In Philadelphia

Community Marches To End Gun Violence In Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Residents and community groups marched on Saturday in West Philadelphia to call for an end to gun violence.

Dozens marched three miles along 52^nd Street as part of the Hands Across Gun Violence event.

Organizers say it’s important to educate young people:
“We have to get people to stand up against it – stand up against the shooting and the killing,” says Tony Jackson with the NAACP – one of the groups that organized the event.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

3 guilty in Ga. salmonella-tainted peanut trial

3 guilty in Ga. salmonella-tainted peanut trial

FILE - In this March 12, 2009 file photo, Peanut Corporation of America's president Stewart Parnell arrives a federal court in Lynchburg, Va. A federal jury in Albany, Ga., convicted Parnell and two others Friday, Sept. 19, 2014, in connection with a salmonella outbreak that prompted one of the largest U.S. food recalls ever, sickened hundreds across the country and was linked to several deaths. Parnell was convicted on numerous counts including conspiracy, wire fraud and obstruction of justice related to shipping tainted peanut butter to customers and faking results of lab tests intended to screen for salmonella.

ALBANY, Ga. (AP) -- More than five years after hundreds of Americans got sick from eating salmonella-tainted peanut butter, the top executive at the Georgia plant where it was made was convicted Friday and faces prison time in a rare food-poisoning trial that advocates said sends a stern warning to others who may be tempted to place profits over safety.

Former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell, 60, could face more than three decades in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, wire fraud and other crimes related to the outbreak in 2008 and 2009 that was linked to nine deaths and prompted one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history. His brother, Michael Parnell, and a second co-defendant could face 20 years in prison or more.

Experts said it was the first time American food processors have gone to trial on federal charges in a food-poisoning case. Food safety advocates applauded the jury verdict reached after a seven-week trial, though they also noted the case was unusually egregious.

"The message it sends is actually a pretty simple one: If you deliberately ship and sell contaminated food, there's now a good chance you might go to jail," said Jaydee Hanson of the Center For Food Safety. "That's good news. The bad news is deliberately shipping adulterated product is not what causes most of the salmonella outbreaks we've seen."

The brothers will be allowed to remain free pending sentencing if they can post bond. Federal marshals led them from the courtroom.

Stewart Parnell was convicted of knowingly shipping bad peanut butter to customers who used it in products from packaged crackers to pet food. The jury also found him and his food broker brother guilty of faking results of lab tests intended to screen for salmonella.

Prosecutors said the brothers used fake results so that wait times for real tests wouldn't slow down their hectic shipping schedule to customers including Kellogg's.

After being told a shipment faced delay while awaiting lab results, Stewart Parnell wrote an email referenced several times by prosecutors in the case that read: "Just ship it. I cannot afford to (lose) another customer."

Mary Wilkerson, the peanut plant's quality control manager, was convicted of obstruction of justice for withholding information from investigators, as was Stewart Parnell.

The outbreak sickened 714 people in 43 states by the time federal investigators traced it to Peanut Corporation's plant in Blakely, in January 2009. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nine people who ate the tainted peanut butter died, though it couldn't say for sure salmonella caused each death.

Federal investigators found a plant with a leaky roof, roaches and evidence of rodents - all ingredients for brewing salmonella. Even worse, they eventually uncovered emails and records showing food confirmed by lab tests to contain salmonella was shipped to customers anyway.

"Corporate officials are now on notice that they'll be held to account for their conduct and claims of ignorance of arguments that `I was too busy' or maybe that `I delegated the responsibility to someone else' or even just finger-pointing in general will not be a shield from basic responsibility," said U.S. Attorney Michael Moore, whose office in Georgia's Middle District prosecuted the case.

Defense attorneys acknowledged during the trial that the plant shipped tainted peanut butter and somebody faked lab tests. But they blamed two former plant managers who pleaded guilty in the case.

"We respect the jury's work and the jury system, but we believe this was the wrong result," said Tom Bondurant, Stewart Parnell's lead attorney. "We'll continue to fight for Stewart at sentencing and in an appeal."

Michael Parnell's attorney, Edward Tolley, noted his client was acquitted on about 20 counts linking him to the actual shipments of contaminated products.

Peanut Corporation filed for bankruptcy after its plant was shut down by inspectors in 2009 and victims of the outbreak who filed claims against the company ended up splitting $12 million.

But federal prosecutors felt civil penalties weren't enough. The Parnell brothers and Wilkerson were indicted on a total of 71 counts last year. They weren't charged with sickening or killing anybody, but rather were accused of defrauding customers. Still, their sentences are likely to be long.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Dasher estimated the Parnells will likely get 27 to 33 years in prison, which would "in effect be a life sentence" for the middle-aged brothers. Wilkerson faces a maximum term of 20 years.

Marshall Tousignant's father - 78-year-old Clifford Tousignant - died in January 2009. He was sickened by salmonella from tainted peanut butter sandwiches at a nursing home.

"It's great to hear he's not getting away with what he thought he would get away with, I guess, that justice is going to be served," the Brainerd, Minnesota, man said of Stewart Parnell.

 

Organizers Of Philadelphia’s Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade And Festival Invite Entire Community To Take Part

Organizers Of Philadelphia’s Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade And Festival Invite Entire Community To Take Part

Joanna Otero-Cruz, executive director of El Concilio, talks about the upcoming Puerto Rican Day parade and festival during a City Hall news conference on Wednesday.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Organizers of the annual Puerto Rican Day parade and festival in Philadelphia are finalizing plans for the cultural celebration later this month.

Joanna Otero-Cruz is executive director of El Concilio, the organization coordinating the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday, Sept. 28 along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Otero-Cruz says this year’s parade will feature some 1,500 participants.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Local Firefighter Hospitalized In Fox Chase Blaze

Firefighter Hospitalized In Fox Chase Blaze

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A blaze in Philadelphia’s Fox Chase neighborhood sent a firefighter to the hospital Monday night.

The fire was reported around 7 p.m. in the 900 block of Griffith Street.

Firefighters arrived to flames coming from the second floor of a home.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Brand New 10K Run In Philadelphia Draws Sell Out Crowd

Brand New 10K Run In Philadelphia Draws Sell Out Crowd

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — 3,000 runners took to the streets Saturday for the first-ever “Philly 10K” — and the unusual course was an instant hint.

“We have a very passionate community of runners here in Philadelphia,” said race organizer Ryan Callahan.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Lindenwold Parents Outraged After Bus Service Discontinued For Some Elementary School Students

Lindenwold Parents Outraged After Bus Service Discontinued For Some Elementary School Students

LINDENWOLD, NJ – It’s the first day of the school year and already, dozens of parents are furious with Lindenwold Public Schools because they say their kids are expected to walk a potentially dangerous route to school.

Families of about 40 kids who took the E4 bus were told over the summer in a letter that since they live within two miles of Elementary School #4, their children are legally allowed to walk.

The District says the decision to eliminate the route was a policy decision and not just about saving the $20,000 – 30,000 a year a bus route costs.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Comedian Joan Rivers dead at 81

Comedian Joan Rivers dead at 81

FILE - This Oct. 5, 2009 file photo shows Joan Rivers posing as she presents "Comedy Roast with Joan Rivers " during the 25th MIPCOM (International Film and Programme Market for TV, Video, Cable and Satellite) in Cannes, southeastern France. Rivers, the raucous, acid-tongued comedian who crashed the male-dominated realm of late-night talk shows and turned Hollywood red carpets into danger zones for badly dressed celebrities, died Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014. She was 81. Rivers was hospitalized Aug. 28, after going into cardiac arrest at a doctor's office.

Joan Rivers, the raucous, acid-tongued comedian who crashed the male-dominated realm of late-night talk shows and turned Hollywood red carpets into danger zones for badly dressed celebrities, died Thursday. 

She was 81.

Rivers died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, surrounded by family and close friends, daughter Melissa Rivers said. She was hospitalized Aug. 28 after going into cardiac arrest in a doctor's office following a routine procedure. The New York state health department is investigating the circumstances.

"My mother's greatest joy in life was to make people laugh," Melissa Rivers said. "Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that we return to laughing soon."

Under the immobile, plastic surgery-crafted veneer that became Joan Rivers' unapologetic trademark as she aged, her wit remained as vibrantly raw and unruly as when she first broke her way into a comedy world belonging largely to men.

In a 2010 "Late Show" interview, David Letterman broached the plastic surgery issue: "You don't look exactly like the Joan Rivers I used to know." Rivers was unapologetic.

"Our business is so youthful. ... You do little tweaks, and I think if a woman wants to look good, or a man, do it," she said. "It's not about anybody else."

Fashion and acting were the early dreams of the woman who grew up as a self-described "fatty," but it was humor that paid the bills and ultimately made Rivers a star. She refused to cede the spotlight as the decades passed, working vigorously until her death.

"I have never wanted to be a day less than I am," she said in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. 

"People say, `I wish I were 30 again.' Nahhh! I'm very happy HERE. It's great. It gets better and better. And then, of course, we die," she quipped.

Rivers was a scrapper, rebuilding her career and life after a failed attempt to make it as a late-night host was followed closely by her husband's suicide.

Rivers' style was hard-driving from the start and her material only got sharper. She was ready to slam anyone. A favored target was Elizabeth Taylor's weight ("her favorite food is seconds"), but the comedian kept current with verbal assaults on Miley Cyrus and other newcomers.

With her raspy voice and brash New York accent, Rivers turned the red carpet of the Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes into a stalking ground for E! Entertainment. Her familiar query - "Who are you wearing?" - would quickly give way to such snarky commentary as her assessment of Adele's Grammy outfit: The singer looked like she was sitting on a teapot.

The barbs could turn inward as well, with Rivers mocking everything from her proclaimed lack of sex appeal ("my best birth control now is just to leave the lights on") to her own mortality.

In 2007, Rivers and her partner-in-slime, daughter Melissa, were dropped by their new employer, the TV Guide Channel, and replaced by actress Lisa Rinna. But the Rivers' women found new success on E! with "Fashion Police," which Rivers hosted and her daughter produced.

Joan Rivers never relaxed, always looking for the next and better punchline.

"The trouble with me is, I make jokes too often," she told the AP in 2013, just days after the death of her older sister. "I was making jokes yesterday at the funeral home. That's how I get through life. Life is SO difficult - everybody's been through something! But you laugh at it, it becomes smaller."

She had faced true crisis in the mid-1980s. Edgar Rosenberg, her husband of 23 years, committed suicide in 1987 after she was fired from her Fox talk show, which he produced. The show's failure was a major factor, Rivers said. Rosenberg's suicide also temporarily derailed her career.

"Nobody wants to see someone whose husband has killed himself do comedy four weeks later," she told The New York Times in 1990.

Rivers had originally entered show business with the dream of being an actress, but comedy was a way to pay the bills while she auditioned for dramatic roles. "Somebody said, `You can make six dollars standing up in a club,'" she told the AP, "and I said, `Here I go!' It was better than typing all day."

In the early 1960s, comedy was a man's game and the only women comics she could look to were Totie Fields and Phyllis Diller. But she worked her way up from local clubs in New York until, in 1965, she landed her big break on "The Tonight Show" after numerous rejections. "God, you're funny. You're going to be a star," host Johnny Carson told her after she had rocked the audience with laughter.

Her nightclub career prospered and by late that year she had recorded her first comedy album, "Joan Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis and Other Funny Stories." Her personal life picked up as well: She met British producer Rosenberg and they married after a four-day courtship.

Rivers hosted a morning talk show on NBC in 1968 and, the next year, made her Las Vegas debut with female comedians still a relative rarity.

"To control an audience is a very masculine thing," Rivers told the Los Angeles Times in 1977. "The minute a lady is in any form of power, they (the public) totally strip away your femininity - which isn't so. Catherine the Great had a great time."

In 1978, she wrote, directed and co-starred in the movie "Rabbit Test." It had an intriguing premise - Billy Crystal as a man who gets pregnant - but was poorly received. In 1983, though, she scored a coup when she was named permanent guest host for Carson on "Tonight."

Although she drew good ratings, NBC hesitated in renewing her contract three years later. Fledgling network Fox jumped in with an offer of her own late-night show.

She launched "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers" on Fox in 1986, but the venture lasted just a season and came at a heavy price: Carson cut ties with her when she surprised him by becoming a competitor.

Carson kept publicly silent about her defection but referred obliquely to his new rival in his monologue on the day her show debuted.

"There are a lot of big confrontations this week," Carson said as the audience giggled expectantly. "Reagan and Gorbachev, the Mets versus the Astros, and me versus `The Honeymooners' lost episodes."

Her show was gone in a year and she would declare that she had been "raped" by Fox; three months later, her husband was found dead.

It took two years to get her career going again, and then she didn't stop. Rivers appeared at clubs and on TV shows including "Hollywood Squares." She appeared on Broadway and released more comedy albums and books, most recently "Diary of a Mad Diva."

She was born Joan Molinsky in Brooklyn to Russian immigrants Meyer Molinsky, a doctor, and Beatrice. Rivers had a privileged upbringing but struggled with weight - she was a self-proclaimed "fatty" as a child - and recalled using make-believe as an escape. After graduating from Barnard College in 1954, she went to work as a department store fashion coordinator before she turned to comedy clubs. She had a six-month marriage to Jimmy Sanger.

In recent years, Rivers was a familiar face on TV shopping channel QVC, hawking her line of jewelry, and won the reality show "Celebrity Apprentice" by beating out her bitter adversary, poker champ Annie Duke. 

In 2010, she was featured in the documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work."

She never let age, or anything, make her sentimental. Earlier in 2014, she got inked: a half-inch-tall tattoo, "6M," on the inside of her arm representing 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust. In 2013, she brashly pledged to work "forever."

"You never relax and say, `Well, here I am!'" she declared. "You always think, `Is this gonna be OK?' I have never taken anything for granted."

Survivors include her daughter, Melissa and a grandson, Cooper.

Head Of Philadelphia Pastors Network Encourages Spiritual Leaders To Speak Out On Controversial Issues

Head Of Philadelphia Pastors Network Encourages Spiritual Leaders To Speak Out On Controversial Issues

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — On this Labor Day holiday, the head of the Philadelphia based American Pastors Network is troubled by a trend – Pastors unwilling to speak out on controversial issues from the pulpit.

Sam Rohrer is president of a network of pastors acting as resources for those who believe in the authority of the Bible and what he calls a Biblical world view on matters of public policy.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Police Searching For Missing Strawberry Mansion Man

Police Searching For Missing Strawberry Mansion Man

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia police are asking for the public’s help in finding a mentally ill Strawberry Mansion man who went missing Sunday.

Police say 51-year-old Victor Smith was last seen at home in the 2400 block of North 32nd Street around 12:30 yesterday afternoon.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/