Reassessment moves forward: The Board of Revision and Taxes voted yesterday to take the first major step in overhauling the city’s residential and commercial property regime since the idea was first floated by the Tax Reform Commission five years ago. The BRT expects to produce 100 percent valuations for all properties by the end of the year — a move meant to fix the inequities in the current fractional valuations without increasing overall tax burden — but says it won’t implement them until City Council develops programs to assist homeowners who are hit with unexpected increases. [Daily News]

Even the Good Witch would melt around here: With temperatures about to peg 95 or above and even more humidity rolling in, the National Weather Service says that if you go outside for more than 90 seconds between now and Sunday night, you will be excessively heated into burnt mush on the sidewalk. Or something like that. [KYW]

It’s raining money on the Parkway: Mayor Nutter and Gov. Rendell are scheduled to block traffic on the Ben Franklin Parkway this afternoon, but the transitory inconvenience caused by their presence in the middle of the road should be soothed by the millions in state and city money they’ll be pledging toward a $17 million facelift for our homegrown Champs-Elysées. All the prettying up should be ready by the time the Barnes settles into its new home. [Metro]

Police aid in backseat birth: Two Philadelphia police officers delivered a baby during rush hour yesterday in North Philadelphia. Officers James Pembrooke and Charles Waters realized the 37-year-old mother was about to give birth and acted accordingly, calling on neighbors to grab towels and sheets for the backseat of the patrol car. After smacking the baby’s bottom to make sure it was alive, both crying baby and relived mother were transported to Temple University Hospital.
[CBS 3]

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Save the Boyd!: Recent worries aired by Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron and others over losing the Boyd Theater, Center City’s last golden-age movie house, seem to have paid off: The theater gets another shot at protection when the Philadelphia Historical Commission hears its nomination this morning. An earlier attempt at designating the theater was turned down. [Inquirer]

Philly’s DUI epidemic: After a recent spate of drunk-driving accidents, including one that claimed the life of a visiting St. Louis Cardinals fan, the Daily News finds that year-to-date DUI arrests may be up as much as 20 percent over the same period in 2007. Most surprising: Half the city’s DUI cases involve not alcohol, but prescription drugs like Xanax and Percocet. [Daily News]

Generations clash over … skyscraper?: The City Planning Commission yesterday gave the public its first shot at weighing in on the humongous American Commerce Center tower proposed for 18th and Arch. For it: younger residents from nearby lofts, excited by the idea of what would be the country’s third-tallest building. Agin it: older residents from nearby Kennedy House, and Vince Fumo. Aux armes, anciens! [Daily News]

And the other ill-gotten shoe drops, quietly: Jocelyn “Bonnie” Kirsch pleaded guilty yesterday to seven counts of identity theft, bank fraud and money laundering stemming from a yearlong thieving spree with boyfriend Edward “Clyde” Anderton, who also pleaded guilty a few weeks ago. Kirsch, 22, may be looking at seven years in the federal pen; sentencing is scheduled for October. [Daily News]

Don’t look up — look down at the pretty flowers!: Developer Walnut Street Capital is slated to give a formal presentation to the Zoning Commission today about its proposed American Commerce Center. To make the idea of the gargantuan tower — which will exceed the height of the Comcast Center by more than 500 feet — more palatable, 30 percent of the property will be given over to public space, including an outdoor plaza, a sixth-floor garden, and an extension of SEPTA’s underground concourse with storage for hundreds of bicycles. [Metro]

It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it …: Akerman Wolf Block — a name it looks as if we’ll all have to get used to if, as expected, partners of the storied Philadelphia law firm WolfBlock and the Florida firm Akerman Senterfitt vote in the next few weeks to merge. The combined firm would employ more than 800 lawyers, making it one of the nation’s largest, and would be run jointly by Akerman’s Andrew Smulian and Wolf’s Mark Alderman, who was a big part of our April cover story on the last days of the Philadelphia lawyer. [Inquirer]

“Experimental” doesn’t necessarily mean “leave out the fuel gauge”: A 70-year-old pilot and his passenger fortunately escaped injury when the experimental light aircraft they were flying in crashed in someone’s front yard in Winslow Township, Camden County. The pilot, returning from a trip to the Shore, says he ran out of fuel, causing the plane to plummet. [CBS 3]

Cardinals fan dies: One of the two visiting Cardinals fans hit by an alleged drunk driver after the Phillies-Cardinals game on Juy 10th died Saturday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Cindy Grassi, a 43-year-old former teacher from St. Louis, had suffered a brain injury, a broken pelvis and a broken leg when Philadelphian Joseph Genovese Jr., 18, ran into the pair as they crossed Broad Street near Curtin. Her friend, 36-year-old Sandra Wacker, remains in critical condition at HUP. [Daily News]

Rip currents kill three at the Shore: Two men drowned in Wildwood and another in Atlantic City over the weekend as wave effects from a distant tropical storm helped to create rip currents all along the Jersey shore. Conditions may stay hazardous for another two says, and some towns, such as Belmar, have banned swimming until the situation stabilizes. [KYW]

Disincentive to leave New Jersey about to increase mightily: It must be a Philadelphia plot to keep Jerseyites out. The Delaware River Port Authority has announced plans to increase the toll on the Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman, Betsy Ross, and Commodore Barry bridges to $4 in September, and $5 in September 2010. PATCO fees will also jump — 10 percent in September and another 10 percent in 2010. Public hearings on the increases will be held on July 22nd at Rutgers and July 23rd at the South Philadelphia Cruise Terminal. [KYW]

More details emerge about the Rohm & Haas sale to Dow: The Haas heirs who own a big chunk of the company (no, sadly, no relation) were advised last year to diversify their holdings, and CEO Raj Gupta worked quietly for months to develop a plan for the company to buy them out. An agreement was reached in June, but once word got around, offers from Dow Chemical and BASF were impossible to ignore. Dow won with a $78-per-share cash deal that values R&H at $18.8 billion. For now, it looks as if the headquarters will stay in Philadelphia and that there won’t be major employment cutbacks. [Inquirer]

City contemplates Garbage Mountain, quickly cans trash fees: The “pay as you throw” trash collection trial balloon floated a few days ago has been punctured and put in an appropriate receptacle. We should all be glad they listened to people like Dennis Lee, director of Project NEAT, who spoke truth to the Metro: “A fee will create more litter than recycling.” [Metro]

We’re going down!: Philadelphia has lost more residents since the year 2000 than any other major American city except New Orleans — and we don’t have a tragic hurricane as an excuse. New Census Bureau estimates put us at 1,449,634 residents — a loss of 68,000 in seven years — but it’s not a new trend: We lost about that many between 1990 and 2000 as well. “That’s pretty consistent,” demographer Greg Harper told the Inquirer. “Philadelphia is one of the fastest-losing cities in the country.” Woo-hoo, our new slogan! [Inquirer]

Money woes affecting SEPTA safety?: The National Transportation Safety Board yesterday released its report on the 2006 R2 train collision that injured dozens, finding that two SEPTA employees who ignored alarms and a missing fail-safe system contributed to the crash. The backup system still hasn’t been installed on a quarter of the Regional Rail network, which a SEPTA spokesman attributes to a lack of funding. [KYW]

More chips stacked against casino locations: Calling the proposed sites “problematic,” Mayor Nutter has signed on for the Dwight Evans/Vince Fumo effort to get the SugarHouse and Foxwoods casinos to hie themselves off the waterfront. Neither company wants to budge, claiming to have already spent millions on their sites. [Metro]

Welcome to Garbage City, U.S.A.: The Nutter administration has announced that it’s looking into the idea of charging a “pay as you throw” rate for trash collection, replacing the current tax-supported model. The goal? Increasing the city’s recycling rate by providing a disincentive for throwing away plastics, cans and bottles. The reality? Piles of stinking mess in front of abandoned lots and houses, plus the occasional murder when people put their costly Christmas detritus on someone else’s curb. [Daily News]

At least the Bulgarians understood English: The trifecta of fewer available work visas, increasing gas costs, and a weakening dollar has led to more American teenagers working seasonal jobs at the Shore this year. The successive waves of temporary immigrants, most recently from Eastern Europe, who have filled these jobs for the last few decades are actually better off staying home to work in their own growing economies. The end is nigh. [KYW]

Lawmakers bully schools into fighting bullies: A new Pennsylvania law, first introduced in 2002 by a state senator concerned about the connection between bullying and the Columbine attacks but passed only last Friday, mandates that all schools in the state develop and adopt an anti-bullying policy by January 1, 2009. For once, the Philadelphia school district was ahead of the curve, having had an anti-bullying system in place since 2001. [Metro]

What, you want me to prove I learned something in the last 12 years?: After “overwhelming opposition” from constituents, the Rendell administration and the legislature have agreed to hold off instituting mandatory graduation testing for Pennsylvania students. Money has already been allocated to develop the tests, which will be optional for at least the 2009-2010 school year. [CBS 3]

Skimming is never a good idea: As in skimming your bank statement, which might cause you to miss the fact that your credit or debit card info has been “skimmed” by a pair of thieves using small electronic devices they’ve been putting on some Wawa gas pumps in Delaware, Chester, Montgomery and Bucks counties and New Castle, Delaware, since April. State police are asking non-skimmers who notice suspect withdrawals on their statements to contact them. [KYW]

This skimming sounds like an awful lot of work: With metal prices increasing dramatically — a pound of copper has joined gas in the $4 club — thieves are going after formerly unwanted (for their nefarious purposes, anyway) objects like manhole covers and sewer grates. One brazen fellow has even been taking copper from fast-food restaurant bathrooms — at one place twice in three days. [Daily News]

Were you stuck in traffic over the holiday? Blame this guy: 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the first transcontinental family road trip, undertaken by wealthy Pennsylvanian Jacob Murdock and kin in a 1908 Packard. A publicity sensation that helped convince people cars were a comfortable means of leisure travel, Murdock’s 32-day slog from Pasadena to New York City led to a boom in road construction. At the time, Murdock noted that the roads in Eastern Pennsylvania were “the best of the trip.” If only. [Inquirer]

Pretty please, Mr. Casino Man?: With Dwight Evans and Vince Fumo now teaming up and vowing to strong-arm the developers of Philadelphia’s two new casinos if they don’t willingly relocate off the waterfront, Gov. Rendell has piped up to remind all and sundry that there’s no legal way to force them to move. He says he’ll meet with the developers and try again to persuade them to move, but tells community groups not to get “too excited” about the possibility. [KYW]

Open, rinse, toss in one big bucket: Single-stream recycling — which allows residents to put all recyclable materials into one container for pickup — is ready for prime time across the entire city starting today. Since the program began in select neighborhoods in 2006, the recycling rate has gone from 5.5 percent to 8 percent, and the Streets Department thinks we can hit as high as 18 percent by 2012. [Metro]