THE 12:30 REPORT: Your News Update
Wrecked rec centers: The City Controller’s Office has released a report on 75 of the city’s 170 recreation facilities, detailing a number of safety hazards and upkeep issues stemming mostly from underfunding and poor management. Mayor Nutter has allotted $1 million to remedy conditions such as a pool of water complete with electrical cords reaching across it (not fun) and a hole in a wall big enough for kids to climb through (could be fun). [Inquirer]
Possible terroristic teacher goes to trial: Susan Romanyszyn, the fourth-grade teacher accused of terroristic threats against her own school, will go to trial today. Romanyszyn, who worked at Longstreth Elementary School for ten years, was accused of retaliating against the school after being reassigned to teach fourth grade. Over nine days, officials found various threatening notes sprawled throughout the school along with nails in the parking lot and a bomb-like contraption in a fifth-grader’s desk. Romanyszyn maintains her innocence, claiming she is a scapegoat brought on by backlash from outraged parents. [Inquirer]
If I go down, I’m taking you with me: Vince Fumo crony Howard Cain has pleaded guilty to income tax evasion — he faces up to five years in prison for admittedly failing to pay $411,000 in taxes and simply skipping the whole tax return thing for 15 years — and agreed to cooperate in with prosecutors going after Fumo and others for allegedly falsifying invoices for $200,000 of state Senate funds used on campaign work. [AP]
Nowadays everything causes cancer: The Department of Environmental Protection has been called to investigate Muhlenberg High School’s athletic fields in Berks County after roughly 20 former athletes recently graduated from the school have been diagnosed with a rare form of melanoma. More than 100 soil samples will be tested for 65 different carcinogens including lead and arsenic. [CBS 3]
