Five people were hospitalized late Sunday, March 20, 2017, at two separate crash scenes in Winnetka. The crashes were caused by a suspected DUI driver, police said. (Photo by Rick McClure/Special to the Los Angeles Daily News)
WINNETKA >> Five people were hospitalized after a suspected DUI driver crashed into multiple vehicles at two locations in Winnetka, authorities said Monday.
The crashes were reported at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday at Hart Street and Oso Avenue and Oso Avenue and Sherman Way, according to Officer R. Carter of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division.
The suspected DUI driver first collided with “several vehicles” at Hart Street and Oso Avenue, Carter said. The man then fled the scene and got into a second collision at Oso Avenue and Sherman Way.
Firefighters used the Jaws of Life to cut two people from a vehicle at the second crash, he added.
Three patients were transported by advanced life-support ambulances due to the violence of the crashes, Carter explained. Another patient suffered serious injuries and one had minor injuries, according to firefighters.
Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said he had no information on the ages or gender of the people who were injured. The spokesman added that one of the vehicles involved was a mini passenger van.
The Philadelphia Flower Show is perennially opulent and awe-inspiring, and this year’s Holland-themed extravaganza was no exception.
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Despite midweek snow, the Philly Flower Show blossomed with 245,000 visitors
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But as Sunday’s closing-day crowd at the Pennsylvania Convention Center could attest, the 2017 show was also a garden of delights for useful, inspirational, and gee-whiz information.
You could hear talks on tree-pruning and container gardening. See an AARP demonstration of traditional Japanese flower arranging, plus a display of the art by the Philadelphia chapter of Ikebana International. Or walk through a greenhouse exhibit on plant breeding — Holland is a world leader — by Williamson College of the Trades in Delaware County.
“I love the educational exhibits,” said Andrew Torrens, geeking out at the college's plaque about plant geneticist Gregor Mendel. Torrens had come from Brooklyn with girlfriend Abbey Meeks, hoping to get tips for their rooftop garden.
More than 245,000 visitors flocked to this year's show, "Holland: Flowering the World," according to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The attendance was a bit less than in the two previous years, largely because of the midweek storm that brought snow to the region. PHS president Matt Rader called the Dutch-themed event "a wonderful success on so many levels."
Sunday's visitors were agog at the 30,000 tulips greeting them at the entrance, and the Ecodome, a 36-feet-tall geodesic dome showing off the Netherlands’ innovative green technologies.
How-to shows were also big draws, such as the one on pruning by John Studdy, an arborist with Bartlett Tree Experts of Bala Cynwyd.
“This is our dominant stem, so I want to take a little off here and there to open it up to the sun,” he said as he snipped a leafless example of a Linden tree. Getting rid of 40 percent of foliage branches “isn’t bad,” he added.
Next up, David Mizajewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation, talked about “attracting birds, butterflies and other backyard wildlife” — which is the title of his book.
One of his messages: If you want to draw wildlife, stick to the native plants that they eat. “An oak supports 500 species of butterflies and moths,” he said. “A non-native ginko supports four species.”
Another message: Welcome the icky and ugly. “If I titled my book ‘attracting toads and wasps,’ no one would buy it,” he said, going on to extol beetles and dragonflies. “Without bugs, you do not have birds.”
Mary Beth Hassett, in Philadelphia for an acupuncturists’ conference, jotted notes to take back to Freeport, Maine, where she gardens all around her house. “It was good to hear about the importance of native plants,” she said.
Nearby, a steady stream of visitors walked through “the secret annex.” The garden featured quotes by Anne Frank, the Jewish Holocaust victim whose family hid in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam. In her posthumously published diary, the teenager drew solace from her memory of plants and nature.
"This is our first time at the show," said Carol Gitto of Margate, there with her husband Tony. "It's just beautiful."
The flower show, started in 1929, is the nation's largest and longest-running gardening event. It is a major money-raiser for the nonprofit Philadelphia Horticultural Society and finances its community improvement projects throughout the year.
Read more by Marie McCullough
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NEW RINGGOLD, Pa. (AP) - Among the groups hardest hit by the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act is one that swung for Donald Trump during last year's presidential race - older Americans who have not yet reached Medicare age.
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Many of those who buy their own health insurance stand to pay a lot more for their coverage. That is especially true for the nearly 3.4 million older Americans who have enrolled through the government marketplaces, many of whom receive generous federal subsidies through the health care law enacted under former President Barack Obama.
Health care experts predict those older adults will end up buying skimpier plans with lower coverage and higher deductibles because that's all they will be able to afford. The Republican plan replaces the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act, which mostly benefit low- and middle-income earners, with a flat tax credit that does not take into account income or local insurance prices.
On top of that, the GOP plan allows insurers to charge older people five times what they charge younger customers, compared to three times under Obama's health care law.
The Republican plan is still evolving, and many GOP lawmakers have said they want to see changes that reduce the impact on older consumers before they can support it.
Based on the current plan, an Associated Press analysis of data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows older consumers, defined as those age 55 and older, would be disproportionately affected. They could lose thousands of dollars per year in government subsidies for health insurance.
The AP analysis also found that on average, the counties with the strongest Trump support will see costs for older enrollees rise 50 percent more than the counties that had the least amount of support for Trump.
"A lot of people just won't be able to afford to pay it. A lot of people are going to drop out of the market altogether," said Kaiser's Cynthia Cox.
That includes older voters who helped put Trump into office.
Take Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, an economically struggling former coal-mining center where the New York billionaire won 70 percent of the vote in November.
About 40 percent of Schuylkill County's Affordable Care Act enrollees are 55 or older, more than 10 points higher than the national average. A 60-year-old making $30,000 annually here will pay roughly $8,750 more per year for coverage under the Republican plan moving through Congress, according to the AP analysis.
"When it comes to food or insurance, it's going to be an easy choice," said Matt Strauss, a health insurance broker in New Ringgold, some of whose customers voted for Trump.
Older Americans on both ends of the political spectrum say they are worried about what the future holds. Here are some of their stories:
___
Trump supporter and longtime Republican Robert Ruscoe, who runs a Florida liquidating business with his wife, said he is not feeling "warm and fuzzy" about the GOP health care plan.
He went about five years without insurance because it was financially out of reach. When insurance became available through the Affordable Care Act, the couple was able to get a policy for about $350 per month, after a $700 monthly subsidy from the government.
"It's nice to be able to go the doctor whenever something comes up. It gives you a peace ... especially when you get close to 60," said Ruscoe, 57, of West Palm Beach.
He said he didn't hesitate to sign up through the Affordable Care Act, a program his party spent years vowing to dismantle.
"It doesn't matter who came up with it. It's a good thing to be supporting across party lines," he said.
Worried about losing coverage, Ruscoe considered voting for a Democrat for the first time last November. But he ultimately placed his trust in Trump and the GOP.
"Obamacare is eventually going to have to be fiscally sound. Otherwise it's not going to stay," Ruscoe said. "I figured (a replacement) was coming, anyway."
He said he wants Trump to know that having access to insurance matters.
"That coverage made a big difference in a lot of people's lives, just like me," he said.
___
Anna Holloway of Norman, Oklahoma, who takes daily medication for an auto-immune disease, said she is fearful the GOP plan will price her out of the market for health insurance.
"I am conscious of just how desperate this is," said Holloway, 60, fighting back tears. "I try not to let myself feel this way, but to live this way with real terror, real fear that the universe is going to fall apart around me."
She takes home about $1,150 per month working four part-time jobs. That's only $250 more than the monthly premium for a health care plan that includes Holloway and her 23-year-old daughter. Without the government subsidy that makes the policy affordable, she would have to drop it.
The Kaiser analysis estimates a family plan in Norman under the current Republican proposal would cost as much as $20,000 more for someone in Holloway's income and age bracket.
"I'd go without health care. I would get sicker, and that would make it more difficult to work. I would eventually have to stop working," said Holloway, a registered Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton.
Holloway said she has contemplated the possibility of selling her home and moving in with a family member in Virginia. She acknowledges sometimes feeling hopeless when she considers how losing her health care would affect her life.
"I'm not suicidal, but there are times that I think of the damage that could be done to my daughter and her future if I have to eat up all my reserves and my house and all that I own," she said.
___
The Affordable Care Act didn't work for Wendy Kline, a hairstylist in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who voted for Donald Trump.
Kline tried buying a policy on the federal exchange but found she made a little too much money to qualify for a government subsidy. So she was stuck paying the market rate.
Her policy jumped this year from $630 to $929 a month. As a result, the 61-year-old isn't able to save much for retirement.
"I try to put as much away as I can, but my health insurance is $30 less than my mortgage payment," said Kline, who works two jobs.
The GOP plan is a mixed bag for people like Kline. It gives some higher-income consumers the ability to get tax credits for coverage purchased off the exchange, but it also gives insurers the right to charge older customers like her more than they can under the current law.
Kline voted for Trump hoping he would be able to work with Congress "to make it affordable for everyone, across the board."
She said she still has hope, but is increasingly skeptical.
"I'm so tired of the whole thing," she said. "When they talk, I turn the television down because it just drives me crazy."
___
Retired factory worker Bob Melton, 63, said the projected cost increases for older Americans mean he and his wife Tammy, 58, would be unable to continue to afford coverage. They now pay $225 a month after the subsidies they receive through the Affordable Care Act.
He was staggered by a projection that the couple's premiums could go up by nearly $17,000 under the GOP plan.
"It'll put me and my wife out - out of insurance. There's just no way," he said.
Melton saw a doctor for the first time in 12 years after he and his wife bought a policy through the federal health insurance exchange in 2014. After three appointments and blood tests ruled out more serious ailments, Melton said he learned the nagging pain he suffered in his hands was caused by arthritis.
The Meltons live in Morganton, North Carolina, about 75 miles northwest of Charlotte, in a county that has seen an exodus of manufacturing jobs. Trump won more than two-thirds of the vote here.
Bob Melton himself used to be a staunch Republican. Now he blames Republicans in North Carolina for what he views as efforts to obstruct the Affordable Care Act from working as intended, by refusing to expand Medicaid coverage.
"There's no justification for it except for spite. That's just the way I feel about it," said Melton, who voted for Clinton.
Although he's grateful for his federally subsidized plan, Melton's experience highlights the diminishing options that have plagued those trying to buy health insurance on the government exchanges established under the Obama reforms.
Last year, Melton's coverage cost only about $37 after subsidies through Coventry Health Care, a division of Aetna Inc., but the company has since dropped exchange offerings in the state.
His current insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is the only choice available, and his monthly premium is up nearly $200.
___
Kennedy reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Hoyer from Washington, D.C. Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, and Emery Dalesio in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
___
Follow Michael Rubinkam, Kelli Kennedy and Meghan Hoyer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/michaelrubinkam, https://twitter.com/kkennedyAP and https://twitter.com/MeghanHoyer
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ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) - Dr. Ruth is bringing her sex-pertise to the Detroit Zoo.
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Not to be confused with famed human sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dr. Ruth Marcec is the new director of the zoo's National Amphibian Conservation Center. She is tasked with inducing frogs and salamanders to make a love connection - something the little critters aren't doing enough of these days.
Experts estimate that around half of the world's 7,600 known species of amphibians is threatened.
"It's very much a crisis," said Marcec. "If you combine all the endangered mammals and birds, that still doesn't add up to the percentage of amphibians that are threatened and endangered."
Among her responsibilities, which include overseeing amphibian care and welfare as well as conservation and research programs, Marcec is tasked with encouraging the cold-blooded vertebrates in her care to get down.
"Amphibians are very difficult to breed in captivity. You need to get the mood just right. They need some Marvin Gaye," she said, laughing. "No. They need specific barometric pressure. They need specific rainfall. Things like that." In lieu of Motown classics, Marcec will rest a tablet computer playing tree-frog mating calls on top of the animals' storage tank.
A veterinarian and reproductive physiologist, Marcec has developed a grading scale for amphibian ultrasound procedures used at zoos and aquariums across the globe, and she travels to other institutions to assist with their amphibian breeding efforts. The 30-year-old is a frequent visitor to Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, where she breeds blue-spotted salamanders and Mississippi gopher frogs.
Marcec shares her breeding successes with the rest of the world. Puerto Rican crested toad tadpoles bred at the Detroit Zoo are shipped to their natural habitat in the U.S. territory, while critically endangered Wyoming toads make their way to that state.
All of these efforts to keep amphibian species going are being undertaken for good reason, Marcec said. "If we didn't have amphibians, a lot of our ecosystems just wouldn't exist."
For instance, she said, amphibian larva serve to keep water clean, and salamanders are able to aerate soil.
"If you removed the salamanders from the Appalachian Mountains, the forests would die," she said.
In addition to their environmental importance, Marcec, who sports a tattoo on her wrist featuring her favorite amphibian - the Mexican axolotl - has a more selfish reason to keep amphibians around.
"A lot of people don't recognize how adorable they are," she said with a smile.
___
Online:
National Amphibian Conservation Center: https://detroitzoo.org/animal-habitat/national-amphibian-conservation-center/
___
Follow Mike Householder on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mikehouseholder
Householder's work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/mike-householder
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ROXBURY, N.J. (AP) - Crews have rescued a deer that was stuck in a frozen pond in New Jersey for nearly a day.
The deer was pulled from the water in Roxbury shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday. But the animal initially struggled to walk on its own and it wasn't immediately known if it had suffered any injuries.
The rescue came shortly after an amphibious land boat that crews were using to get near the deer started taking on water, forcing the rescuers into the pond's cold waters. But officials say none of them were injured.
The deer had gotten stuck about 60 yards off shore on Saturday morning. Crews then worked for most of the day to free the animal, but eventually had to suspend their efforts around dusk.
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Over the past year, the Inquirer, the Daily __news and Philly.com have uncovered corruption in local and state public offices, shed light on hidden and dangerous environmental risks, and deeply examined the region’s growing heroin epidemic. This is indispensable journalism, brought to you by the largest, most experienced newsroom in the region. Fact-based journalism of this caliber isn’t cheap. We need your support to keep our talented reporters, editors and photographers holding government accountable, looking out for the public interest, and separating fact from fiction. If you already subscribe, thank you. If not, please consider doing so by clicking on the button below. Subscriptions can be home delivered in print, or digitally read on nearly any mobile device or computer, and start as low as 25¢ per day. We're thankful for your support in every way.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump has chosen the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to head the civil division of the Justice Department, The Wall Street Journal reported.
George Conway was chosen to head the office that has responsibility for defending the administration's proposed travel ban and defending lawsuits filed against the administration, the newspaper reported.
Conway is a partner at the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The law firm's website says Conway has extensive experience in litigation involving securities, mergers and acquisitions, contracts and antitrust cases. He graduated from Harvard and then Yale Law School. He joined the law firm in 1988, soon after his graduation from law school.
He has been involved in numerous complex, high-profile cases with that law firm, where he has been a partner since 1994. In the 1990s, Conway wrote the Supreme Court brief that cleared the way for Paula Jones' civil suit against President Bill Clinton. Clinton's denial of an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky during a deposition in the Jones case led to his impeachment trial.
The White House and the Justice Department would not confirm the pick Saturday. George Conway declined to comment.
Kellyanne Conway is a longtime Republican pollster who helped turn around Trump's presidential campaign at a critical time last summer. She joined the campaign as a senior adviser and quickly earned the candidate's trust. She's also close with daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, another influential voice in Trump's inner circle.
Kellyanne Conway stepped in to manage Trump's bid against Democrat Hillary Clinton when the campaign began flailing in the face of a series of controversies. Many credit her with boosting him toward his Election Day victory after she urged him to more closely follow the teleprompter in his speeches and helped him deliver clearer talking points that minimized controversy in the final days of the campaign.
Back in January, when asked about the future of recently fired head coach Rex Ryan, Bill Cowher said, “I don’t see him coaching again in the National Football League as a head coach.”
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Turns out he was right.
A source has confirmed a report by New York Daily __news reporter Manish Mehta that Ryan, who was fired by the Buffalo Bills after just two seasons, has been hired by ESPN to a multi-year deal, even as the network grapples with budget cuts and looming layoffs that has some staffers on edge. His brother, Rob Ryan, who failed to land the job as Washington's defensive coordinator, won't be joining him.
Ryan will join the network’s Sunday NFL Countdown show, which saw its ratings decline last season (as did most NFL broadcasts) after replacing longtime hosts Tom Jackson, Mike Ditka, Keyshawn Johnson and Cris Carter with Randy Moss, Matt Hasselbeck, Charles Woodson and Trent Dilfer.
Critics of the new crew say it lacked some of the personality Ditka and Carter brought to the show, something of a strength for the outspoken Ryan, whose boisterous and sometimes profane press conferences and speeches were often picked up by national __news outlets. As viewers of the New York Jets’ season of HBO’s Hard Knocks can attest, Ryan on television is gold, which is why his services were highly sought by many sports networks, including Fox Sports.
In addition to Ryan, ESPN has reportedly offered the show’s main hosting job, vacated by the retirement of longtime fixture Chris Berman, to ESPN college football reporter Sam Ponder, though a deal has yet to be signed. Ponder could not be reached for comment.
Ponder, who is married to NFL quarterback Christian Ponder, joined the Worldwide Leader in 2011 and succeeded Erin Andrews on College GameDay when the former ESPN reporter jumped ship to rival Fox Sports. Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch speculates the move is part of ESPN president John Skipper’s desire to place more women in prominent positions during the network’s NFL coverage.
Ryan performed well-enough during a guest spot as an analyst on ESPN’s pregame coverage of Super Bowl LI for the network to bring him on board, though Deitsch says he thought Ryan was “underwhelming”
“Ryan was certainly personable but he didn’t offer anything memorable as far as analysis,” Deitsch wrote.
The move to hire Ryan comes as ESPN faces budget cuts, with the network planning “significant” layoffs targeting its on-air talent to help relieve pressure caused by cord cutting and increasingly-costly contracts with professional sports leagues.
Disney reported disappointing first-quarter fiscal results last month, primarily because of weak performance by ESPN and the company's media networks. Advertising revenue declined 7 percent compared to the first quarter last year while programming costs increased, including a new NBA deal that costs the network 1.4 billion a year, a 143 percent increase over its previous contract with the league.
At the same time, the network lost over 11 million subscribers to cord cutting between February 2011 and December 2016, according to according to Nielsen (whose numbers ESPN disagrees with). ESPN earns $6.50 per subscriber per month.
Unlike a 2015 round of layoffs that claimed around 300 staffers, this round of layoffs will spare behind-the-scenes staff but include many hosts and reporters whom fans know and recognize. ESPN will also reportedly buy out the contracts of some well-known hosts.”
The layoffs will reportedly take place over the course of next four months.
"Everybody's calling their agent. Nobody is safe," one source told Sporting News reporter Mike McCarthy.
Read more by Rob Tornoe
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Louis Rivera remembers when he took home his first Brown’s ShopRite paycheck and showed it to his wife.
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“I was humiliated,” he said, handing over his check for $120. “I said, `I’m sorry, babe. I can’t do this. I’m going back to selling drugs.’ ”
Rivera, 40, believes a good job is key to keeping people from returning to prison, and experts agree.
But, at that moment nine years ago, as Rivera held his first-ever paycheck, his new path to legitimacy seemed an uphill climb. The only positive, and Rivera had to reach for it, was that the $7.35 an hour that ShopRite paid him for part-time work beat the 19 cents per hour that he had earned behind bars cleaning jailhouse toilets.
These days, Rivera is the lead assistant manager at ShopRite’s East Norriton store in Montgomery County. As far as Brown’s Super Stores chief executive Jeffrey Brown is concerned, Rivera represents the pinnacle of what Brown adopted as a mission -- serving his stores' communities by hiring its formerly incarcerated sons, fathers, and sisters to work at the chain's 13 ShopRite and Fresh Grocer supermarkets.
For Rivera, it’s a more complicated story full of ironies.
Here’s one: If Rivera hadn’t made so much money in drugs, he would not have been able to afford to work at Brown’s ShopRite. “I guess I was out of the norm because I still had money saved from back then” to draw on until he gained full-time hours and some promotions.
About 250 to 350 of the formerly incarcerated among Brown's 3,000 supermarket employees get hired through programs with community organizations such as the Salvation Army. Not Rivera.
Rivera got his start by walking in the front door of the ShopRite on Oregon Avenue and begging. "I had just come home from prison," he said. "I told them, 'If you don't give me a job today, I'll probably go back to prison.' "
Rivera realizes that everyone gets a part-time job to start. At 20 hours, "that’s maybe $140. I don’t know anyone who can live off of $140 a week. It’s virtually impossible. I wish we could offer higher rates.”
“One of the biggest solutions,” he said, “would be to give people set schedules,” working the same hours, if not the same days. “If we’re not giving them higher rates or more hours, then we should at least give them the opportunity to find a second job.”
At ShopRite, Rivera works more than full time. He earns $65,000 a year, plus an additional $10,000 in bonuses. That’s $75,000, as much as he could have made in six weeks selling drugs. He said he owned a Mercedes and a Lincoln Navigator and thought nothing of buying a $15,000 necklace or of flying to Miami for the weekend.
He said he made so much money that he lost $20,000 when he was robbed, at gunpoint, of just one weekend’s revenues.
“Do I make a lot less now? Yes, but I’m content with it. I made a lot of money, but to me it wasn’t worth the time I spent in prison,” he said. “They couldn’t pay me enough money now to spend even a week in jail.”
Rivera said he was living in Lancaster when he started selling drugs at age 11. His mother had gotten remarried, but he and his stepfather didn’t get along. “I’d stop by, but I was living out on the streets, in abandoned cars. I had to fend for myself, make my own lifestyle.”
Rivera saw guys on the corner making money on crack. They supplied him with drugs; he supplied them with the profits from the sales. “I was never addicted to drugs,” he said. “My addiction was to money and the way of life.”
CEO Brown says savvy drug dealers make good retailers -- understanding inventory, margin, marketing, logistics, and human resources. Rivera is a case in point.
Supermarkets operate on a high-volume, low-margin basis. Rivera’s business strategy was the opposite – strictly high margin.
“My philosophy was I didn’t sell whatever everybody sold,” Rivera said. “Everybody was selling crack, so I went after the other stuff people couldn’t get.”
In Lancaster, Rivera wouldn’t trade in “backyard boogie,” an everyday grade of marijuana that cost dealers $800 a pound wholesale, he said. They’d make a 33 percent profit by selling it to street dealers for $1,200 a pound, who would in turn distribute it to crews on the corner to market at $5 a gram.
Instead, Rivera opted to spend $2,300 a pound for a higher grade of marijuana and sell it for $4,000, turning a profit of about 40 percent. On the street, Rivera’s marijuana sold for $20 to $25 a gram, he said.
Rivera said he followed the same philosophy for PCP -- phencyclidine, known as angel dust -- and ecstasy. He had enough cash flow to buy ecstasy in 3,000-pill lots at $3 a pill, selling them for $20 to $25 apiece.
“To me it’s the exact same thing as I’m doing here,” he said, during an interview in a crowded office behind the deli department. “You are buying a product. You have overhead. You have bills. You have associates you have to pay.”
And motivate – in the store, on the corner.
“You have to learn the people and their abilities and see how they handle themselves before they work for you,” Rivera said. "Someone who is smoking pot and playing video games is not someone you want selling drugs for you, because, obviously, they won’t come back with your money."
At ShopRite, “you have to know what sells in your building,” he said.
ShopRite’s wholesale distributor, Wakefern Food Corp., sometimes offers a lower wholesale price on certain items if the supermarket buys more. Around Christmas, the item was crabmeat, $11.99 a can, usually available at about $6 a can wholesale; Wakefern sweetened the deal to $4.
It was Rivera’s decision. “We ended up buying 60 cases,” he said. His colleagues “thought I was buying too much. But I took a chance. We sold through all of it.”
Merchants, like fishermen, love to brag about the size of their take.
Rivera immediately followed his crabmeat story with one about marijuana. One of Rivera’s suppliers thought a load of marijuana seemed a little off, and asked Rivera if he wanted to buy some at a discount. “Here it was the best marijuana,” Rivera said, “but he didn’t know it was good.”
As a “favor,” Rivera bought 10 pounds for $1,600 a pound. “I sold every ounce for $425” turning $16,000 into $68,000.
He still smiles thinking about it.
In 2004, Rivera was arrested, convicted of charges related to the drugs, and sentenced to four to 10 years in state prison. He got out in 2008.
On March 1, 2008, he started working at the ShopRite, near his home in South Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife and three of his four children.
Rivera hasn’t forgotten his first paltry paycheck for $120 or his wife’s reaction when he said he vowed to return to drug dealing. “She begged and pleaded and cried,” he said. “She said, 'I can’t afford to lose you again.’ ”
And so Rivera returned to ShopRite determined to make it work, and he wants what he accomplished to encourage others to do the same.
Rivera landed in the fish department. “I didn’t know the difference between salmon and tilapia,” he said, “and those two fish are completely different colors.”
In 18 months, he became a department manager. It took him less than three years to become an assistant manager, in charge of a whole store.
Working as a documents specialist for a logistics company, his wife earns a little more than he does. Between them, they are solidly middle class. “If you want to change your life, you need to do everything in your ability to get here, to learn,” he said.
Mostly Rivera doesn’t know the backgrounds of ShopRite’s employees. But, sometimes he can tell. He looks for the ones trying hard for a new life, the ones determined to change their street hustle.
“I know the struggle they are going through when they look at their check and it doesn’t equal what they got on the street,” he said.
“I try to pull them aside and tell them, `I’ve been in your shoes.’ ”
Two years after a West Philadelphia couple rescued an abandoned pit bull from a local shelter, the silver-furred tank of love they named Blue rescued them by taking a bullet during an armed invasion of their Cobbs Creek home.
Because of Blue’s heroic actions last month, Nina Taylor and Leroy Buchanan are alive to tell the tale, and thanks to the team at Penn Vet’s Ryan Hospital, Blue’s tail is still wagging.
Taylor, 33, and Buchanan, 50, live in a neighborhood where, in the last month alone, 43 violent crimes and 71 property crimes were reported, according to city data.
“All you got to be doing is letting one of your family members in or something and these [guys] come running down the street with guns. It’s crazy,” Taylor said. “So I said instead of doing the wrong thing that’s going to get me incarcerated, I’m going to go ahead and do it the legal way and get some protection.”
That’s where Blue came in. Stocky but muscular with broad shoulders and a jawline that could cut glass, Blue is intimidating at first glance, especially with the dog's metal-spiked collar. But within seconds, the 8-year-old blue-nose pit bull is a puddle of love with well-wishers.
Shortly before 10 a.m. Feb. 13, Taylor had just returned from the market and Buchanan was making breakfast when an acquaintance they know as “D.I.” knocked on their door.
Taylor answered and says D.I. pushed his leg in the door, saying that it hurt. Moments later, a second man — wearing a black ski mask — jumped over the railing from the porch next door, brandishing a gun and demanding that Taylor “ ‘give it ... up!’ ” she recalled.
Buchanan ran from the kitchen to the front door and twice gave Blue a command: “Get him!”
The gunman started to run and Blue chased him into the street, where the dog locked its jaws onto the man's leg. The man shot Blue once in the left shoulder.
“I instantly broke down,” Taylor said.
But Blue didn’t break the hold. It wasn’t until Buchanan gave the clear signal that Blue let the man go. The injured dog then hobbled back inside and curled up, whimpering.
The gunman ran off and was followed shortly behind by D.I., who the couple now believe set them up.
Taylor stayed at the scene to speak to police while Buchanan loaded a bloody Blue into the back of a police cruiser to be taken to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine's Ryan Veterinary Hospital.
Brian Brophy, a surgery resident at Penn Vet and the lead surgeon on Blue’s case, said this wasn’t his first gunshot victim.
“We see more than we’d like to,” he said.
In the operating room, eight to 10 people worked on Blue as '90s alternative music played in the background to ease the tension. Doctors sawed open Blue’s sternum to track the path of the bullet. The shot that injured the dog was a “through and through,” Brophy said, one that went from the left shoulder through the chest and lung lobe and came out through the sternum. A lobe of Blue's lung was removed.
The surgery took about an hour; Blue returned home four days later.
“Pit bulls have an inherent toughness and will to live about them,” Brophy said.
Taylor and Buchanan were able to offset some of the cost of Blue’s $10,000 surgery thanks to Ryan Hospital’s Charitable Pet Care Fund, which provided a significant amount toward Blue’s care.
Buchanan and Taylor said they’ve told police who they believe set them up, but he remains a free man. Both have said they’ve seen him in the neighborhood since the crime.
Police said there have been no arrests in the case.
When asked whether Taylor considers her dog a hero now, she said: “Damn right! That’s my son.”
“If he wasn’t here we probably would have been all shot up,” she said.
Despite a brush with death, Blue’s personality hasn’t changed a bit.
“He still knows who he is and he knows he’s home,” Taylor said.
Read more by Stephanie Farr
Published: | Updated:
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When you're an American Muslim, it's bad enough that you have to take all kinds of crap from people because of your faith.
But imagine deliberately putting yourself in a position, where you are trying to explain Islam and fielding silly questions from fellow citizens, such as "Are you straight from the Middle East?" and "What religion do you practice?"
Frankly, I'm not sure I would have the patience to do it.
But that's exactly what members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community subjected themselves to on a recent Saturday. Despite frigid temperatures, they positioned themselves at several locations around Philadelphia, including Ninth and Wharton Streets in South Philly. They stood in small groups, holding up signs saying, "#MeetaMuslim" or "Ask me anything." They were motivated, in part, by a new poll by the Pew Research Center that reveals what most folks already know: that most Americans know little or nothing about Islam.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, a group for Muslim men and boys, organized the demonstrations to clear up misconceptions about Islam. Similar gatherings took place at more than 125 locations in about 80 cities nationwide.
"Our signs essentially said, 'I am a Muslim. Ask me anything,' " explained Dr. Madeel Abdullah, an anesthesiologist who spent a couple of hours outside on the sidewalk near Geno's Steaks and Pat's King of Steaks talking to strangers. "So, whatever questions people have, we want to help and answer the questions."
In 2010, Time magazine reported on a survey that revealed that 62 percent of Americans claimed never to have met an American Muslim. In Philly, that's hard to imagine, given the city's sizable Muslim population.
At any rate, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association is out to change that. Local members plan to head back out to Center City again on March 25. This time, they'll be stationed near Independence Hall, holding their "#MeetaMuslim" signs and hoping to soften a few hearts.
"It's our job to spread what we really are," said Dr. Iftekhar Ahmad, 40, an assistant national director of outreach for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association. "I can't make somebody listen, but once the truth's out there, then that's a start."
I wish them luck. It won't be easy, given the amount of fear and loathing surrounding Islam these days. President Trump's incendiary campaign promise to impose a Muslim travel ban and subsequent executive orders attempting to limit immigration from certain countries with large Muslim populations hasn't helped.
Last month's Pew study pointed out that Americans who lean Republican had a more negative view of Muslims now than in 2002, just after the 9/11 attacks. The opposite was true for Democrats, according to the report.
"It's up to us, meaning the Muslims, to clarify these misconceptions," said Ahmad, who's also a physician. "It's easy to say, 'Oh, that's not true.' OK, but what is true? What are the issues? What does Islam say about, for instance, women's rights? That's one that's always pushed. If you really look at it, Islam champions women's rights. It champions women's education. ... People say, 'Well, what about jihad?' Islam categorically rejects all forms of terrorism. It's not OK."
At the recent #MeetaMuslim meetup in South Philly, one passerby called out the Arabic greeting of "assalamu alaikum" which means "peace be with you." Another told the men, "You need to be on every street corner of Philadelphia and educate everybody."
But then, there was the young woman asking, "What religion do you practice?" Mind you, she posed that to a guy holding the sign saying, "I'm a Muslim. Ask me anything." Taseer Bhatti, a West Chester University student who was born in Maryland, was surprised but didn't let it show. Nor did he get irked. As he explained later, "That's why we were out there in the first place."
Over the past year, the Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com have uncovered corruption in local and state public offices, shed light on hidden and dangerous environmental risks, and deeply examined the region’s growing heroin epidemic. This is indispensable journalism, brought to you by the largest, most experienced newsroom in the region. Fact-based journalism of this caliber isn’t cheap. We need your support to keep our talented reporters, editors and photographers holding government accountable, looking out for the public interest, and separating fact from fiction. If you already subscribe, thank you. If not, please consider doing so by clicking on the button below. Subscriptions can be home delivered in print, or digitally read on nearly any mobile device or computer, and start as low as 25¢ per day. We're thankful for your support in every way.
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After more than five years and nearly a dozen separate investigations, there seemed little left to be revealed about Jerry Sandusky and his serial sex abuse of children.
That abruptly changed in about an hour last week in Harrisburg.
The unexpected guilty pleas to child-endangerment charges by two former Pennsylvania State University officials reopened the door to a long-unresolved and oft-debated question: When did university leaders know about the former assistant coach's predatory behavior and what did they do — or fail to do — about it?
And this week Tim Curley, the former athletic director, and Gary Schultz, a onetime Penn State vice president, could provide answers.
Both men said little during or after their Monday hearing in Dauphin County Court before senior Judge John Boccabella. Their plea documents were sealed.
But Curley and Schultz are likely to return to Harrisburg as early as Monday as witnesses in the trial of the lone remaining, and most prominent, defendant: Graham B. Spanier, their boss and former president of the state’s flagship university.
Spanier, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, also intends to take the stand, according to sources close to him.
Prosecutors plan to lay out for jurors what by now has become a familiar assertion: that in 1998 and again in 2001, the three men learned of accusations that Sandusky had sexually assaulted boys in showers, but failed to take sufficient steps to alert authorities or the public. Schultz and Curley acknowledged as much in their pleas.
Friends of Spanier, now 68, say that prosecutors offered him a deal like the one the others took in exchange for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor endangerment count — but that he rejected it.
As recently as Thursday, Spanier confidant and Penn State trustee Al Lord said, the former president told him: “I’d rather go to jail for telling the truth than admit to a lie and say I did something I didn’t do.”
(Spanier’s lawyers, Samuel Silver and Bruce Merenstein, declined to comment, as did the Attorney General’s Office.)
According to Lord, Spanier remained confident, even while recognizing the trial will undoubtedly shift an unwanted spotlight back on Penn State.
“His anxiety level is high,” Lord said. “But at the same time, he’s pretty excited about the chance to tell his side of the story and get this done.”
Spanier, a childhood victim of physical abuse at the hands of his father, has repeatedly insisted he did nothing wrong.
“It is unfathomable and illogical,” he wrote in a 2012 letter to Penn State’s trustees, “to think that a respected family sociologist and family therapist, someone who personally experienced massive and persistent abuse as a child … would have knowingly turned a blind eye to any report of child abuse or predatory sexual acts directed at children.”
An acquittal would offer long-awaited vindication to those in the Penn State community who have felt for years that the university was unfairly maligned by the scandal and that top administrators failed to defend its reputation from specious allegations while the case dragged on.
A conviction would deal another blow to an institution still reeling from the fallout of Sandusky’s serial sex abuse.
The scandal cost Spanier his job and also led to the ouster of one of Penn State’s most beloved figures — iconic football coach Joe Paterno. It has cost the university about a quarter billion dollars since 2011, including at least $93 million paid to settle claims from 33 Sandusky victims, $60 million in NCAA fines, and $14 million spent to fund the legal defense of Spanier, Curley, and Schultz.
That total also includes the $12 million a Centre County court ordered the university to pay former assistant coach Mike McQueary — who said he told administrators about Sandusky’s 2001 shower assault — in a whistle-blower and defamation case.
Spanier testified at McQueary’s civil trial last year.
“This was an unbelievable injustice,” he said at the time, testifying about the charges against Curley and Schultz, “that these two guys, who are like Boy Scouts, would be charged with a crime.”
McQueary, during his own stints on the witness stand in several Sandusky related proceedings, has repeatedly asserted that after witnessing Sandusky’s shower assault he made clear to Paterno, Curley, and Schultz that what he had seen was “way over the line and extremely sexual.”
But while testifying before the grand jury in 2011, Curley and Schultz maintained that McQueary failed to convey the seriousness of the incident, leaving both under the impression that he had merely witnessed questionable “horseplay.” They also testified that that was how they later described the incident to Spanier.
Prosecutors in Spanier’s case say they have evidence to suggest otherwise — namely, 2001 emails that suggest Spanier and his fellow administrators at least considered going to police to report what McQueary saw.
They ultimately rejected the idea, opting instead to bar Sandusky from bringing children on campus, to urge him to submit to counseling, and to inform his children’s charity, the Second Mile, of the allegations.
“The only downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon,” Spanier wrote, signing off on the decision. “We then become vulnerable for not having reported it.”
In court filings leading up to the trial, Spanier’s lawyers have hinted at a trial strategy that will aim to shift the focus away from any moral obligation he may have had to deal with Sandusky. Instead, the defense has zeroed in on a limited view of what the former president was required to do under the law at the time.
State law in 2001 bound only people who regularly encountered children through their jobs — such as teachers, doctors, police officers — to report suspected child abuse. It wasn’t until 2006 that the statute was broadened to include supervisors who oversaw employees in those roles.
Prosecutors, however, maintain a cover-up lasted well beyond the point when the law was changed.
“They made a choice, and each and every day they engaged in conduct that furthered that choice,” Chief Deputy Attorney General Laura Ann Ditka wrote in a court filing this year.
What jurors make of their arguments could help shape the future legal landscape on just how far supervisors can be held criminally liable for failing to pass on abuse reports from their subordinates.
“This is one of those situations that will potentially prove precedent-setting,” said Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children’s Justice in Berks County, who also noted the many improvements lawmakers have already made to Pennsylvania’s child-abuse reporting laws in the wake of the Sandusky scandal. “So in some ways the lessons to be learned have already been learned and are in place, hopefully protecting kids better than five years ago, a decade ago, two decades ago.”
In many ways, Penn State has succeeded in moving past Sandusky.
But Lord, the trustee, said he was proud of Spanier for continuing to fight.
“I think he’s innocent,” said Lord. “I think the other guys are innocent, too … but they felt they couldn’t run the risk of an arbitrary jury.”
