What's open, closed on Vets Day

All Philadelphia city offices will be closed and services curtailed on Wednesday for Veterans Day. Trash and recyclables will not be collected, delaying trash collection by one day for the rest of the week.

District Health Centers will be closed, as will branch offices of the Department of Licenses and Inspections, the North and Northeast Municipal Service Centers, the Marriage License Bureau, Department of Recreation facilities, the Free Library and all its branches.

Also closed will be the executive offices of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, as well as its violations branch, 9th and Filbert streets.

Grant applications sought

The Phoebus Criminal Justice Initiative is accepting grant applications from organizations that address the root causes of problems in the criminal-justice

system.

The initiative is a partnership between the Phoebus Fund family foundation and the Bread & Roses Community Fund.

For guidelines and more info, visit www.breadrosesfund.org/ go/phoebus or call Patrice Green at 215-731-1107, x208.

Grants will be in the amounts of $3,000 to $6,000.

Web info on hospital safety

New Jersey consumers can now access detailed information on patient safety at hospitals throughout the Garden State. State health officials recently released a report that shows each hospital's patient-safety performance and incidence of serious medical errors - such as operating on the wrong body part or leaving a sponge or instrument inside a patient's body.

The report can be found at www.nj.gov/health/hpr.

Coast Guard aids 5 on boat

The Coast Guard assisted five people aboard a 30-foot boat, taking on water, 2 miles south of Cape May Saturday. The Coast Guard received a call at 2:45 p.m. from a crew member aboard the Drifter who reported that the boat was taking on water.

Two rescue-boat crews from Coast Guard Station Cape May arrived on scene and one of the crews transferred a pump to the crew of the Drifter. The other rescue boat towed the Drifter and its crew to Cape May Harbor.

Poll finds belief in corruption

A new poll shows that nearly two-thirds of New Jerseyans believe that there is "a lot" of political corruption in the state.

The Rutgers-Eagleton survey also found that 54 percent of respondents believe that the Garden State is more corrupt than other states, while 40 percent believe it's about the same as elsewhere.

$1.15M bias award for chiefs

Two black Camden deputy fire chiefs will receive $1.15 million in a settlement of a racial discrimination suit in federal court in Camden.

The men, Terrence Crowder, who retired in May, and Kevin Hailey, who will retire next year, first brought the suit in 2001, alleging a hostile work environment involving Fire Chief Joseph Marini and Chief Herbert Leary, who are white. A jury in 2005 found for Crowder and Hailey, but they filed a second suit in 2006, claiming that the discrimination persisted and that they faced retaliation.

- Staff and wire reports