Half of the PhillyClout crew spent an hour this morning talking with Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY-FM's Radio Times about the controversial efforts to build two casinos on the Delaware riverfront.  The show included call-ins from Terry Gillen, a senior adviser to Mayor Nutter on casinos, Leigh Whitaker, a spokeswoman for the proposed SugarHouse casino in Fishtown, and Maureen Garrity, a spokeswoman for the proposed Foxwoods casino in South Philly. 

Follow this link to listen to the show using RealPlayer or this link to listen using Windows Media Player.

The city mourns today for slain police Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski.

Mayor Nutter and Governor Rendell want a federal assault weapons ban.

Clout reports on Sen. Barack Obama's choice of suits.
Former Mayor Street talks about teaching at Temple University.

It was a slow day in City Council this morning, with every bill up for approval held back from votes.  City Councilmen Bill Greenlee and Darrell Clarke introduced legislation that would set rules to how employers provide for time away from the job for employees.

Greenlee's bill would mandate unpaid leave for employees who have been the victim of domestic violence or sexual assault.  Companies with more than 50 employees would have to provide up to eight weeks of unpaid leave. Companies with fewer than 50 employees would have to provide up to four weeks.  Employees seeking the leave would have to show proof that they sought assistance from police or a hospital to qualify, Greenlee said. "Sometimes they need time to heal physically or mentally," Greenlee said. "This gives them that time."

Clarke's bill, dubbed "Promoting healthy families and workplaces," would require employers in the city to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours an employee works. Employees would not be able to accrue more than 72 hours of sick leave each year.  Employees at "small businesses," defined in the bill as having 10 or less employees, would only be able to accrue 40 hours of paid sick time.  The bill says that about 44 percent of Philadelphia workers do not now have paid sick time.

Mayor Nutter and Governor Rendell just held a press conference where they called for a renewal of the federal assault weapons ban -- which was enacted in 1994 and expired in 2004.

Sgt. Liczbinski was killed with a Chinese-made semi-automatic rifle called the SKS Carbine, which was outfitted with a 30-round magazine.

The 1994 ban did not specifically outlaw the SKS. But a new version of the law, introduced in the House of Representatives, lists "SKS with detachable magazine" among the banned weapons. That bill was introduced in February 2007. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak this week signed on as a co-sponsor to draw more attention to the legislation. (U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah was already a co-sponsor of the bill.)

Rendell and Nutter spoke vigorously about the need for such legislation. The two have sent a letter to the state's congressional and senatorial delegation calling for support.

"The time has come for politicians to decide," Rendell said. "You have to decide whether you're on their side -- the men and women who wear blue -- or whether you're on the side of the gun lobby."

The pols grew angry when an Inquirer reporter questioned whether the SKS Carbine was a true assault weapon, noting that the National Rifle Association disagreed with the classification and that a search on wikipedia.com would bring up information saying it was not.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey then got into the mix.

"I don't care about wikipedia or any other kind of pedias," he said. "It it's not an assault weapon by definition, then add it to the freaking list."

Rendell added, "if there's any ambiguity, we will clear it up."

As the city recovers from the slaying of a Philadelphia police sergeant, Solomon Jones -- a staffer for U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah who writes novels, as well as a Saturday column for the Daily News -- sent out the following press release:FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

      EXPERT ON CRIMINALS HIDING IN PHILADELPHIA

PHILADELPHIA -- Solomon Jones, the critically acclaimed author of five urban mysteries, including Pipe Dream (Random House, 2001), and CREAM (St. Martins Press, 2006), is available for interviews on the tactics that criminals use to hide in Philadelphia.

The capture of Eric Floyd, 33, the final suspect in the tragic shooting death of Philadelphia police Sgt.
Stephen Liczbinski, is eerily similar to the plots in Jones’s novels, because the suspect was able to elude police in an abandoned house. 

“Philadelphia’s numerous vacant houses and factories, along with the sophisticated network of alleys, one way streets and accessible rooftops make it harder for police to do an already difficult job, and makes it easier for criminals who know the city to use its infrastructure to their advantage,” Jones says.

Each of Jones’s novels is set in Philadelphia, and his plots take place against the backdrop of the city’s crumbling infrastructure. In Pipe Dream, for example, the murder of a City Councilman takes place in an abandoned house, and in Ride Or Die, his characters hide for a time in an abandoned factory. In C.R.E.A.M., his characters employ the same method as the accused bank robbers in the crime that led to Sgt.
Liczbinski’s tragic shooting – they hide in Muslim garb.

Solomon Jones is the critically acclaimed author of Pipe Dream (Random House, 2001), The Bridge (St.
Martin’s Press, 2003), Ride Or Die (St. Martin’s Press, 2004), and CREAM (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), and the forthcoming novel, Payback (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

Final suspect in slaying of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski is caught.

The killing is reigniting the call for a federal assault weapons ban. Mayor Nutter and Governor Rendell will hold a press conference today to push for the renewal of the ban, which sunset in 2004.

City Council ponders who should serve protection from abuse orders.

Federal prosecutors say union leader John Dougherty is the "subject" of an ongoing criminal investigation.

The Metro today sparked a lot of questions with a report that EarthLink, the Internet service provider that hooked up much of the city for Wireless Philadelphia, is threatening to take down the system starting tomorrow if the city doesn't take control of it.  EarthLink announced in November that it was getting out of the municipal wireless business and has been negotiating an exit with Philadelphia since then.

Doug Oliver, a spokesman for Mayor Nutter, today said those discussions are still under way.  But Oliver said the company has not given the city a deadline.  "We have not been given a date after which EarthLink will take down the existing assets," Oliver said.  Greg Goldman, Wireless Philadelphia's CEO, today put out a statement noting that EarthLink's 10-year contract with the city does not allow it to "unilaterally impose deadlines for the network's transfer."

Chris Marshall, a spokesman for EarthLink, didn't respond to questions about the rumored threat of a system shut-down but e-mailed to say he thinks the negotiations "will soon reach resolution."

EarthLink has reached agreements with Corpus Christi, Texas and Milpitas, Calif. to hand over control of wireless networks in those towns.  The company also plans to shut down a wireless network in New Orleans next week.

The video of Philadelphia Police officers kicking and stomping three men this week -- while being filmed from a local television station's helicopter -- sparked a memory here at PhillyClout of those halcyon days of 2000 when they city was sprucing up for the start of the Republican National Convention.  Just before the GOP kick-off, a group of police officers were filmed from the helicopter of another local television news station while kicking and stomping Thomas Jones.

Jones, who had been on a cocaine-fueled crime spree that included a car-jacking, purse snatching and the theft of a police patrol car, sued the city in 2001, claiming his civil rights had been violated by the "unreasonable and excessive force" used in his arrest.  The case bounced around in the courts for almost six years, with the city taking its claim that Jones had no right to sue all the way to the state Supreme Court.  But the justices ruled in 2006 that Jones did indeed have a right to sue. The case was ready for trial last July when the city settled with Jones for $85,000.

But don't think Jones, who is now serving an 18- to 36-year stretch in state prison, walked away with all that money.  Three of people he victimized during that crime spree sued him right after he sued the city.  Their case was put on hold while he duked it out with the city.  In March, he settled and agreed to pay the three victims $25,000 each, according to records from the Court of Common Pleas.

Obama blew Clinton away in the North Carolina primary last night, while Clinton eked out a win in Indiana. Meanwhile, John Baer has a plan for choosing the Democratic presidential candidate.

State Sen. Vince Fumo seems determined to go down swinging. Yesterday he proposed legislation to ban most divorces.

More on the debate over the flag code.

And budget negotiations continue.