A story on budget cuts affecting Mayfair civic programs and the Devon theater.

And another story on the closings of Dougherty and Northeast Catholic schools.

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South Street, long one of Philadelphia’s most popular venues, has always drawn a diverse weekend crowd and a wide array of wardrobes.

But last night, the most prominent fashion statement was the uniform – as in the police uniform. On foot, horse, and bicycle, more than 50 state troopers and Philadelphia police officers, including Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, were on hand in an effort to avert a repeat of the May 30 debacle.

And a week after mayhem and violence rocked South Street, last night it was about as tranquil as the splendid June weather.

On May 30, as many as 10,000 youths, evidently lured to South Street by social-networking sites, overwhelmed surprised police officers. A cabdriver was carjacked, and two other people were pulled from their cars and assaulted.

At a police staging area at South and Passyunk Avenue, Lt. Gerry McShea declined to say precisely how many officers were on the street last night but did say the number was “significantly greater” than on a typical Saturday night.

On a warm, clear, and moonlit night, the crowds were about average for a Saturday, the only noticeable difference being fewer families with younger children in tow.

Police promised they would strictly enforce a midnight curfew for juveniles. Police said they believed that the region’s teenagers were using social-networking sites, such as MySpace, to arrange huge gatherings.

Large numbers of youths have congregated at other times this year in University City and Upper Darby. However, they were not on a scale with the throng that showed up on South Street on May 30.

The dense South Street corridor from Second to Ninth Streets has a rich and sometimes troubled history.

It has long been one of the city’s most alluring strips with its mix of idiosyncratic businesses, restaurants, and urban panache. While it has undergone many personality changes in the last 40 years, and arguably lost some of that edginess, it remains perhaps the most popular weekend destination in Center City, particularly among young people.

What happened last weekend was the most disruptive incident on the strip in eight years.

About 40,000 people showed up on South Street for Mardi Gras on Feb. 27, 2001. By nightfall, fighting had broken out, bottles had been thrown, and stores had been looted. In the end, 81 people were arrested.

Last weekend, several youths were arrested for curfew violations, but none for the violent incidents.

“There was no way we could have anticipated what occurred,” Deputy Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Thursday during a community meeting.

That’s understandable, Keith Ahn, manager of Lulu.ish, a trendy clothing and jewelry store, said last night. “It’s so crowded at night, there’s not always much that they can do,” he said.

This article originally appeared on philly.com.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that granting Kimberlie Webb an exception to a regulation banning religious symbols while in uniform would impose an “undue hardship” on the city of Philadelphia.

Webb, a Philadelphia cop since 1995, requested permission in February 2003 to wear her head scarf while on duty. She was denied that permission, and filed complaints with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In August 2003, Webb showed up to work wearing her head scarf. When she refused to remove it, she was sent home. This was repeated on two additional days.

“There is a history of allowing palms in police cars on Palm Sunday,” said Jeffrey Pollock, Webb’s lawyer. “[Washington,] D.C., New York City and Chicago all allow officers to wear religious symbols.

“Why can’t the Philadelphia Police make the exception?”

In October 2005, Webb brought a lawsuit against the city, claiming religious and sex discrimination.

The court’s opinion said that “uniform requirements are crucial to the safety of officers (so that the public will be able to identify officers as genuine, based on their uniform appearance).”

The appeals court also declined to consider Constitutional issues brought up by Pollock. Those issues were not raised at trial, so the court did not have to consider them, according to the opinion of the three-judge panel.

A lower court already had ruled that the city would suffer undue hardship if it were required to accommodate Webb’s request.

“I respect [the judges], but I’m obviously disappointed,” Pollock said.

Pollock said that no decision has been made about whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This article can be found on philly.com.

Yes, according to Sgt. Marren, who I quoted in the article. As I tried to convey, the officers never goad the alleged predators into sexual conversations. Instead, they always play it passively, and follow the other person’s lead. So, they are not trying to “trap” an innocent person, although I think it’s hard to argue for the innocense of anyone who enters into a sexual conversation with a minor, goaded or not.

It’s similar to the flawed logic of the “Rihanna must have done something to warrant the beating she got from Chris Brown” argument. Just as at no point short of legitimate physical threat is beating another person warranted, it is never OK to talk sexually to a minor, and certainly not OK to propose, or agree to, meeting for sex.

Bensalem police yesterday announced the arrests of dentist John Lackner, 44, and Arun Kurikote-Antony, 24, an Indian national in the U.S. on a student visa, for soliciting an undercover cop posing as a 14-year-old girl.

Lackner, a dentist at Main Street Dental, in Vineland, had been having sexually oriented conversations with undercover police since January, police said.

John Lackner

Sgt. Michael Marren, of the Bensalem Police Department’s special-victims unit, said that Lackner communicated unwittingly with police through online messages, text messages, phone conversations and a Web cam.

“He got graphic and masturbated” on camera, Marren said.

Lackner also sent $150 to undercover cops to buy a phone that he could use to call the presumed minor, Marren said.

Lackner was arrested Tuesday when he showed up to meet whom he believed to be the girl at a Bensalem shopping mall and was greeted by police instead. Police found a set of toy handcuffs in Lackner’s vehicle.

Kurikote-Antony was arrested Feb. 16 after a five-month investigation. Police said that he also had been engaging in sexual conversations through text and online messages with undercover cops. They said that they waited to release news of his arrest to avoid tipping off other alleged predators.

“Our concern was that they Google ‘Bensalem,’ and the arrests will be the first thing to pop up,” Marren said, referring the popular computer-search engine.

Kuricote-Antony took a taxi from his apartment on 41st Street near Baltimore Avenue, West Philadelphia, to a Bensalem apartment complex to meet the minor, and was carrying condoms when he was arrested, police said.

Both men were charged with attempted statutory sexual assault, attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and attempted aggravated indecent assault.

Lackner’s bail was set at $1 million. Kurikote-Antony was released on $200,000 bail, on condition of surrendering his passport.

“These people prey on a victim who is vulnerable,” Marren said. “They’ll try to find something about that child they can exploit, like a missing parent or poor grades. If we don’t get them, then they may find a real victim.

“We let them come to us,” he said. “We let them control where these conversations go.”

Marren said that seven predators have been arrested by Bensalem police since November 2007 as a result of the undercover investigations, including the two announced yesterday.

This article can be found on philly.com.

The seven, who ranged in age from 40 to 44 when they took the civil-service exam in late 2005, passed the exam and fitness tests and were placed on a list for training, said Shannon Powers, spokeswoman for the commission.

The applicants then received letters saying they had been put on the list in error, as their age made them ineligible, Powers said.

“I think it should be based on ability,” said Brian McBride, president of Local 22 of the firefighters union. “There are 40-year-olds who can run rings around 20-year-olds.”

Two of the applicants, David Lewis and Edward Gardner, served in the military; three, Gerard Kershaw, Samuel Gollapalli and Mark St. Marie, are paramedics; one, Daniel Butler, is a Philadelphia police officer. The seventh applicant, David Thummel, owns a landscaping company.

To prove they were capable of becoming firefighters, the seven applicants, who filed a complaint with the commission in 2006, opted to take the skills test at the Burlington County Emergency Services Training Center even after they had been removed from the list. They passed even without the three months of training that applicants normally receive.

Dozens of firefighters age 40 and older, including one who was 59, were hired by the city between 1988 and July 2005, according to the commission’s report.

Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers reinstituted an age restriction in 2006, but said that raising the cutoff age from 31 to 40 had been done “as a compromise.”

Ayers said the age restriction has a historic precedent.

“When I started 35 years ago, you could not have reached your 31st birthday if you wanted to join the Fire Department,” he said.

“We felt we should draw from a younger pool of the population, because this is a very arduous job. [Applicants] need to be able to weather this tough, dangerous job.”

Furthermore, the younger the applicants, the longer they could potentially work for the department, Ayers said. The department normally hires 80 to 100 firefighters a year to replace those lost to retirement or other ventures, he added.

Ayers said he and other city officials are reviewing the commission’s ruling and haven’t decided whether to challenge it. “At this point, everyone’s just taking it in,” he said. *

Staff writer Dana DiFillipo contributed to this report.

This article can be found on philly.com.