Philadelphia, PA

Armed police finally ended a ninety minute siege at a bank, only to discover that they’d been in a tense stand-off with a cardboard cutout.

The cops raced to the PNC Bank in Montgomery Township, New Jersey, last Thursday when an alarm went off. Upon seeing the silhouette of a person in the window of the bank, with the blinds drawn, they promptly sealed off the area and evacuated nearby buildings.

There then followed a nervous hour and a half confrontation as authorities attempted to make contact with the shadowy figure.

…are you kidding me?! We’re battling war(s), in a recession, and you’re chasing a cardboard cutout?

“I drove in the parking lot and see all these guys with guns,” local resident Ross Stout told the Star-Ledger newspaper.

After ninety minutes of fruitless attempts to negotiate with the figure using bullhorns and telephones, the police sent in a SWAT team – who discovered that the suspected criminal was actually a life-sized cardboard cutout of a person.

(Via the Metro.)

The Penn State senior who plays the Nittany Lion mascot was arrested on a DUI charge and his status for the Rose Bowl is currently in doubt.

James Sheep was pulled over on campus around 3:15 a.m. on November 22nd, hours before Penn State’s 49-18 win over Michigan State.

The officer who made the stop saw that the vehicle was overloaded, with passengers piled onto each other and blocking the driver’s view.

After determining that Sheep had been drinking, the officer administered sobriety tests and took him to the hospital for blood tests. He was later charged with DUI and summary traffic violations.

At the Michigan State game, the final home game of the year, Sheep was honored for serving as the mascot since January 2007.

Stupid college kids…

(Via our partner, CBS 3.)

Got some things to do this Saturday? Well, guess what? Parking is free on Saturdays after 11 a.m. for the rest of the year. “We have the free meter parking every Saturday,” says PPA spokeswoman Linda Miller.

Well - today was ole’ judgment day for Larry Mendte. The former CBS 3 anchor Larry Mendte returned to federal court today to be sentenced after pleading guilty in August to illegally accessing the email of his former co-anchor Alycia Lane.

Mendte, who bypassed media as he entered the courthouse for his 3 p.m. hearing, was sentenced to three years probation, six months home confinement, 250 hours community service, computer monitoring, psychiatric evaluation, a $5,000 fine and a $100 special assessment.

Poor little Larry.

The latest big story in Bucks County, PA. is all its recent Alien sightings.

What started with a single UFO sighting over a Middletown Mexican restaurant Jan. 26 has turned into a science fiction sensation.

Spaceships were spotted over Sesame Place.

Black boomerangs were reported over Citizens Bank Park during the Phillies National League Championship series.

An extraterrestrial even was seen recently in the men’s department of the local JCPenney, smiling at our women.

With more than 50 reports from Bucks since January, the Pennsylvania Mutual UFO Network says it now will gather here for its next alien hunter conference Jan. 24 at Bucks County Community College.

Holyshit. The UFO conference will be held on the most depressing day of the year. Seriously. Not joking. Incredibly depressing.

On June 23, a woman reported seeing an “alien entity” in the JCPenney’s men’s section.

“He was standing by a clothes rack,” the report said. “She described him as being male, no hair, gray skin, almond black eyes with a lumpy heavily wrinkled face.” The alien appeared to be shopping and had a “pleasant smile” for ladies in the store.

Yet the woman told MUFON she decided to leave the scene “because she and her husband were planning to attend a movie.”

(It’s not known which outlet the aliens chose for their shopping spree, though several other sightings were reported near the Oxford Valley Mall.)

It’s good to know the impending alien invasion won’t be that bad; the aliens have the same commitment to savvy shopping as we do, at least. So hey, what’s to worry about?

In completely unrelated news, the UFO Call Center is sick and tired of receiving prank phone calls.

Are you looking for information on where to attend the National Protest Against Prop 8? Well, we have the information right here for you!

City: Philadelphia

Address: City Hall: Broad & Market Street
Dilworth Plaza @ City Hall
Across from LOVE park.

Date: Saturday Nov. 15, 2008

Time: 1:30pm - 4:00PM (We will honor a 1 minute moment of silence at 2:00PM for rights lost in California)

Organizer(s):
Brandi Fitzgerald
(We have no ’sponsors’ just groups coming together to promote LOVE)

Contact info: Brandi
brandi146@gmail.com

For more information on the Philadelphia protest, click here.

Two zoning bills that open the door for a casino to be located in the Gallery at 11th and Market streets were approved in City Council this morning.

It has been two months since Foxwoods investors announced they are considering moving their casino project from a state-approved location on the Delaware riverfront in South Philly to the Gallery. Foxwoods has not shown any plans for what a Center City casino might look like. Foxwoods will need state approval for a move and approval from the City Planning Commission on a plan of development in order to open at the Gallery.

Looks like Philadelphia just lost the little bit of class that it had.

Catherine Baker Knoll, who at age 72 became the first woman to be elected as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, died Wednesday after a four-month battle with cancer. She was 78.

Knoll died at National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C., where she was recovering from a viral infection she contracted as a result of chemotherapy treatment for cancer, Gov. Ed Rendell said.

Knoll was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in July 2008 and began radiation and chemotherapy treatments before publicly revealing her illness in August.

(Via our partner, CBS 3)

Here’s a report from Its Our City, talking about Philadelphia’s first Barack Obama mural.

Yes, normal crazy philadelphians have joined together to create a Barack Obama mural. Hope.

A fiery crash left six people dead yesterday, including four children, in Kent County.

Police said two SUVs collided head-on while driving on Carpenter Bridge Road in Frederica at about 3:30 p.m.

Both of the SUVs burst into flames following the crash. The intense fire charred grass surrounding the accident scene and left the roadway blackened.

The crash killed thirty-six-year-old Kelly Rinaldi of Harrington and four of her children: fifteen-year-old Jacob Rinaldi, five-year-old Jessup Crow, five-year-old Kyle Crow, and seven-year-old Kaylee Crow.

The driver of the second SUV, thirty-four-year-old Michael Miller of Frederica, was also killed.

No one yet knows why this accident happened.

Just terrible.

Mayor Nutter finally held a press conference yesterday to announce the South Street Bridge is finally coming down in December!

And, of course, an actual date that this project will begin to happen has not yet been released:

“The design phase for the new bridge began in 1995.”

It’ll most likely take them around twenty-four months to finish this project. The city also has an entire web page full of detour maps and other fun .pdf files.

I wonder when the exact date will be announced…

Police in Newark, Delaware are investigating the death of a University of Delaware student early Saturday Morning.

Medics were called to the scene of 28 Annabelle Street in Newark, Delaware around 2:30 a.m. for reports of an unconscious ninteen year old male. The unconscious teen student was transported to Christiana Hospital where he was pronounced dead of an apparent alcohol overdose.

The investigation in the accounts surrounding the teen’s death remains active and no further information is available.

According to eyewitness account, a group of college students were having a contest to see how many shots of alcohol they could do in five minutes.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says four out of five students drink at college but two out of every five students are considered binge drinkers. The organization also says nearly half of all alcohol consumed by students at four-year colleges, is consumed by underage students.

The University Of Delaware has seen its fair share of deaths.

A group of Penn kids had a bad experience at the McDonald’s at 40th and Walnut the on October 28th. This happens nearly every night, because when drunk kids from North Jersey and Long Island meet night shift workers making somewhere around minimum wage, no good things can happen.

Thanks to this being our modern era of technology, the Penn kids then made a group on Facebook imploring students to boycott McDonald’s.

Thank to their little boycott, several workers at McDonald’s have been fired.

Wharton sophomore Keith Williams, who witnessed the incident, explained that he and a group of friends entered the McDonald’s that morning so his friend, a College junior who did not wish to be included in the article, could use the restroom.

The security guard told them that the friend was not allowed to use the restroom until he ordered food. The student proceeded to order a meal, Williams said, but the cashier made a mistake and needed an override from the shift manager.

Because the friend had already complained about the service, the manager on duty “deliberately told [the cashier] to take her time,” explained Williams. When he complained again, the security guard jumped in and began threatening the students.

The guard said things like “don’t make me take you out of here,” and referred to the rest of the customers as “stupid school kids,” Williams said. The cashier also screamed at the students for standing too close while trying to read the menu, Williams added.

So - I know what you’re thinking: This is the greatest McDonald’s of all time and it is totally worth eating their disgusting food to support it. Apparently, though, the McDonald’s caved to the record seventeen complaints about its service and fired some people. For shame, McDonald’s.

There is no word on whether she’ll be leaving us in a sexy Halloween costume, but Halloween will be the last day for traffic anchor Dorothy Krysiuk’s at Fox 29, a station spokeswoman confirmed on October 20th. Sources say that Krysiuk, who has worked early morning hours at Fox since 2001, wants to take a break from television and that the desire to not renew her contract was mutual. We have tried to make contact with her agent Lloyd Zane Remick, but he was not immediately available for comment.

Do you remember Jocelyn Kirsch? Well - she’s going to jail for five years.

Jocelyn Kirsch, who is the “Bonnie” of the Center City couple dubbed “Bonnie and Clyde,” will spend most of her twenties in federal prison.

Kirsch, twenty three years old, was sentenced to five years in prison and five years supervised release. She was also ordered to pay $101,033 in restitution.

Kirsch and her boyfriend, Edward Anderton, pleaded guilty to stealing the identities and credit cards of unsuspecting neighbors, co-workers and friends. They used that information to run up bills of more than $100,000, living a lavish lifestyle, traveling the world.

Anderton is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

Kirsch turned herself in during July to begin getting credit for time served. She must serve at least four more years of her five year sentence before being eligible for parole. Kirsch will likely spend her sentence at a federal prison in California, close to her mother’s home.