Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

After months of very few major crimes against Drexel students, especially robberies of any kind, there have been four robberies using firearms in the last two weeks, according to the DPS Crime Logs online.

Here are the following crimes

• Friday, May 2nd, at 3:01 a.m. - Robbery with firearm at 36th and Spring Garden Street - Pending Investigation
• Monday, May 5th, at 10:43 p.m. - Robbery with firearm at 36th and Chestnut Street - Closed
• Thursday, May 9th at 11:29 p.m. - Robbery with firearm at 33rd and Spring Garden Street - Pending Investigation
• Sunday, May 11th at 10:22 p.m. - Robbery with firearm at 33rd and Powelton Avenue - Pending Investigation

Be very careful at night, and don’t walk alone if you can help it. Here is The Triangle’s Crime Log report from last week for the first and second robberies. In the second one, it should be noted that two of the suspects were later arrested:

A student reported to DPS and PPD that he had been robbed at gunpoint. The student said that he was approached by three black males who displayed two handguns and demanded money. The group took $130 and fled in an unknown vehicle. The suspects are described as black males 16 to 17 years old, apporximately 5-foot-8.

A student reported to DPS and Penn Police that he had been robbed at gunpoint by 10 to 12 black males. The suspects took $50 and fled on foot toward Sansom Street.

Tune into The Triangle’s crime log this week to learn more about the details of the third and fourth robberies.

UPDATE: DPS has provided alerts on its website detailing these four crimes for students to review. For fourth robbery at 33rd and Powelton, PPD was able to detain a suspect matching the description given, but the two students robbed were unable to identify him.

Photo courtesy of MCT Campus.

John C. Cavanaugh, current president of the University of West Florida in Pensacola, will become the new chancellor of the system that oversees Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities on July 1st, according to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has run the Florida school since 2002 and was once an administrator at the University of Delaware.

The job includes helping the system’s board to set policies for the 14 universities, which enroll more than 110,000 students and setting goals for the president’s of each school.

State-owned universities are Cheyney, West Chester, Bloomsburg, California, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg and Slippery Rock. The operating budget for the entire state system is $1.4 billion.

Photo courtesy of UWF.edu.

Philadelphia’s plan to have a wireless signal throughout its borders has collapsed, as Earthlink, the firm contracted to build it, has ended negotiations on the network’s future, according to an article on KYW1060.com.

Earthlink says that talks to give away the $17 million network for free to either the city or a nonprofit organization has fallen through. The city says that if it took over, it would cost taxpayers millions each year to operate it. Earthlink plans to cut the service on June 12th. They are also asking a federal judge to give them permission to remove the wireless transmitters that it has installed on utility poles across 80 percent of the city.

Earthlink has been trying to get out of municipal wireless contracts across the country, and has been negotiating with the Nutter administration to get out of Philadelphia’s contract as well. The original goal was to give the city a wireless Internet signal and make it available at low cost to the city’s low-income residents.

Photo courtesy of KYW1060.com.

Governor Ed Rendell yesterday said he would veto any legislation to ban smoking in public places statewide if it would weaken the law that Philadelphia already has in place, according to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Philadelphia has taken a strong stand to support the public health of its residents, and I will not backtrack on that,” Rendell said.

Legislators on a join House and Senate committee have been trying to strike a compromise for months on a statewide smoking ban, but one of their clauses is that they want it to be comprehensive, to preempt all local municipality smoking bans, including Philadelphia’s nearly two-year-old ban. The statewide proposal also allows multiple exceptions, such as private clubs, cigar bars, and casinos.

Photo courtesy of MCT Campus.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has worked out a budget deal with city council, but it appears that he will need to back off some on his wage and business tax cuts, because of the economy, according to a KYW1060 article.

The elimination of the gross receipts portion of the business privilege tax will happen over ten years instead of eight, the first-ever reductions to the net income portion of the same tax will happen, but at a rate half as fast as originally proposed. The plan for wage tax cuts over the next five years will be tweaked so that it is slightly less aggressive.

These changes are because of declining revenue projections, including a large drop in the revenue from the real estate transfer tax.

Photo courtesy of MCT Campus.

Former Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards is beginning a campaign this morning in Philadelphia, as the chairman of a new effort to cut U.S. poverty by 50 percent in the next 10 years, according to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The group is called Half in Ten and is a compilation of many other groups. The group will build support for practical legislation to attack poverty, such as expanding child-care assistance programs and increasing minimum wage laws.

“We’re going to be out there pushing legislators, pushing the Congress, pushing presidential candidates . . . and making sure that Americans, not just politicians, are responding” to the issue, Edwards said last week on NBC’s Today Show.