Archive

Diners aren’t just great places for an affordable bite to eat. Specifically here in Philadelphia, they’ve long been places for community members and politicians of all stripes to gather, talk and debate, with a civil tongue. But the 2016 presidential election may be changing that, judging by the firestorm that has erupted...

In 1942, as World War II food ra­tion­ing ramped up and gro­cery shelves emp­tied, M.F.K. Fish­er wrote a wry, prac­tic­al little book called How to Cook a Wolf. The wolf she meant was the one at the door—and with tips for frugal dishes and a chapter titled, with grim de­term­in­a­tion, “How to Keep...

CHERRY HILL, N.J. – JULY 15 – Richard Donnelly, president of Donnelly Distribution (Pennsauken, N.J.), announced today that he has acquired Broad Street Media and its affiliates. The Philadelphia-area community newspaper and magazine group publishes more than a dozen separate publications. The group includes the award-winning Philadelphia Weekly alternative weekly and the longstanding Northeast...

For the last two decades, rates of autism have been on the rise, with a Center for Disease Control study identifying 1 in 68 children as having Autism Spectrum Disorder. Awareness has steadily grown about autism and its high-functioning subcategory Aspergers syndrome, chiefly characterized by idiosyncratic difficulties in understanding social norms. Alternative...

When news of the death of J. Whyatt “Jerry” Mondesire circulated Sunday evening, there was open weeping and, for many, repressed joy. You see, to know Mondesire was to know one thing: It’s complicated, as was he. He sharply divided Philadelphians into two camps: those who loved him and those who hated...

Design­ing a Ren fest spe­cific­ally for a big-city audi­ence has meant do­ing some things dif­fer­ently. For starters, its cast of per­formers boasts not just a merry im­prov troupe of knights, jug­glers and tav­ern wenches …

State Sen. Vincent Hughes is contemplating a 2016 run against Republican Pat Toomey. PW head-checks the senior Democrat on the big issues.

Shut off a man’s phone and he can still hear his push notifications. That’s the bizarre thing about our technology-integrated society: In the absence of our doodads, we still imagine them pinging and buzzing in our pants. Such was the case recently when my phone was shut off for non-payment of the...

I like making lists like this one. They serve as an archival resource—a permanent snapshot of a fleeting cultural moment. Even when they’re not definitive, then, they’re useful. You’ll probably detect my stylistic biases here, naturally; I’m not that into noise, punk, contemporary jazz, metal, country or modern classical music. Those are...

Shemtov Michtavi is no stranger to the law. After being sentenced to federal prison in Pennsylvania in 2004 for his involvement in a worldwide Ecstasy ring, the so-called “lieutenant” of Israeli drug kingpin Ze’ev Rosenstein has sued the United States at least twice for better in-prison treatment—and that was after he’d already...