Morning Headlines: DNC Security Won’t Shut Down City

The papal perimeter was nothing if not secure. | Photo by Liz Spikol

Good morning, Philadelphia. Here’s what you need to know today:

Security for the Democratic National Convention will be tight. But officials say it won’t bring the city to a halt.

Officials on Wednesday described — loosely — some of the details surrounding security plans for the DNC in July. KYW reports they promised that the event won’t duplicate last fall’s visit of Pope Francis, which emptied the streets of Center City. “I think we’re going to have a flawless security plan that does not interfere with the citizens of Philadelphia to go about their daily business,” said Comcast’s David Cohen, an advisor to the host committee. “We are in the process of preparing for everything,” Cohen said. “90 percent of what we prepare for we will never use.” Philly.com adds that the city has applied for a $50 million federal security grant to cover staffing and equipment costs for the event.

A new report suggests Philadelphia has one of the most fiscally disadvantaged big-city school districts in the country.

Surprised? The Notebook observes the report emerges at the same time that Gov. Tom Wolf agreed to let a GOP-passed budget become law — with much less ed funding than he had requested. In any case, the report from Rutgers compared school district funding to the relative poverty in a community to come up with its index. The conclusion: “The cities of Chicago and Philadelphia are, year after year, the two most fiscally disadvantaged large urban districts in the nation,” the report says. “Illinois and Pennsylvania have highly regressive school funding systems and score near the bottom” of funding indicators.

A New Jersey video of an man being a juvenile to pulp has gone viral — and attracted a police investigation.

6ABC reports the video — featuring a man identified as a practitioner of mixed martial arts — has been viewed more than 2 million times. West Deptford Township police are investigating. “It took me back. I was very, very shocked to watch what appears to be a juvenile just getting assaulted for no reason at all,” said Chief Samuel DiSimone. Investigators have identified the juvenile and alleged assailant. “They do know each other so we’ve made certain that they’re not gonna see each other, they’re not gonna come together, have any interaction between the two,” DiSimone said. The investigation is ongoing.

Police: Employees in the Pennsylvania Senate mail facility were dealing heroin.

PennLive reports Corey Allen Miller, 29, and James H. Ulrich, 55, have been charged in the case. Police said they were called to the facility, located on the former Harrisburg State Hospital grounds, after another worker found 20 packets of suspected heroin inside a bathroom. Miller reportedly admitted bringing the heroin to work for another employee; investigators found another eight packets of heroin in his wallet. The two, along with another mail facility employee, were fired.

Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rogers says he saw a UFO in New Jersey.

Philly.com reports the incident happened in February 2005, and was revealed in a podcast interview this week. Rogers was staying at a friend’s rural New Jersey home when he saw the unidentified object. “It was a large orange, left-to-right-moving object,” Rodgers said. “Because of the overcast nature of the night and the snow, you couldn’t make out. … It was behind kind of the clouds we were seeing, but it was definitively large in the night sky, moving from left to right.” He added: “And it goes out of sight and we look at each other and go, ‘What in the f— was that?'” Philly.com notes there have been many UFO sightings in South Jersey over the years — particularly near the Salem Nuclear Power Plant.

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