Sarah McLachlan made a surprise early performance as Butterfly Boucher's back up singer at the Lilith Fair on Wednesday night. (Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer)

Lilith Fair! The 90s-era bastion of musicianship and sisterhood and all-female lineups is back - at least for this summer - and it's making a stop in Camden as part of its 23-city tour. I am Aubrey Whelan, resident Inquirer features intern and not-so-secret Sara McLachlan superfan, and I will be blogging my way through seven hours and 10 acts today at the Susquehanna Bank Center.

Though it's been plagued with lower-than-usual ticket sales, 10 canceled shows and the loss of a few headliners (dance-punk sensation Janelle Monae dropped out of this date a few days ago), Lilith Fair is not without its supporters. The parking lot wasn't terribly crowded when I rolled up at 2:30 today, but there were already quite a few tailgates. Lilith-goers know how to party.

I just got back from an interview with Jill Hennessy, who's playing at 4:50 p.m. today. The Canadian-born actress, probably best known for her star turn on NBC's "Crossing Jordan," is also a singer-songwriter who put out an album, Ghost in My Head, last June. She's thrilled to be on the tour, to say the least.

"I was so psyched. I've been gunning for any date I can get, and I would have taken as many dates as I could. I would not have backed out, man," she said. "This is a dream - how could I not be psyched? I'm psyched there's bottled water here."

Hennessy wasn't at the Lilith Fairs of the late 90s, but she wanted to go - and she says that even though there's hasn't been a Lilith for 10 years, the tour still commands respect.

"You mention the name Lilith, and everyone immediately recognizes it," she said.

Backstage at Lilith Fair - for the 10 minutes I saw it - is surreal. Martie Maguire, one-third of the Dixie Chicks (performing here with Courtyard Hounds), strolled out of Hennessy's dressing room right before I went in. There are signs pointing to Sara McLachlan's dressing room and backup musicians dashing in and out of sound checks and security (obviously) everywhere.

Hennessy, for her part, is doing a bit of fangirling herself.

"I think I'm going to have to sort of ignore Sara McLachlan when I see her," she said, laughing. "Who knows what's going to come out of my mouth."

Read more reports in our From The Source blog.

Just talked to a group of women who were at the original Lilith Fair in 1996. Back then, alt-rock icon Liz Phair and Beth Orton (plus the ever-present Sarah McLachlan) were headliners - and the crowd was much bigger.

Lauren Herring, 23, of Chester Springs, said the original Lilith made a deep enough impression on her that she had to go back this year.

She was only 10 at the '96 Lilith Fair. Today, she was one of a small crowd camped out on the lawn, waiting for the bigger acts tonight.

"It's definitely a little different when a bunch of women get together and sing - there's more emotion," she said. "Guys get up there and they're just like, 'OK, dude, let's jam.' "

Read more reports in our From The Source blog.

Inquirer Staff Report

The council representing delivery and press room unions at the Inquirer and Daily News warned today it would not tolerate any move by the newspapers' future owners to start over by dismissing all employees and then hiring back only half of them.

The warning came as a bankruptcy auction to determine the newspapers’ ownership appeared to be stalled in New York.

The Council of Newspaper Unions said it would be willing to engage in “good faith negotiations” with the new owner "but will not tolerate being forced to do so with a gun to the heads of our members and their families.”

It said if there are mass layoffs, “we will have no choice but to react appropriately.”

The council did not spell out any specific response.

The council was responding to reports that one of the bidding groups — the company’s senior lenders — planned to dismiss all employees and hire back half of them in a reconstituted operation.

The council does not include the Newspaper Guild, which represents newsroom and advertising employees.

In a bulletin to its membership, Guild leadership urged calm and said the detail about the mass layoffs had been made public by an official of the newspapers' current parent company “deliberately to spread panic among employees.”

“There are plenty of rumors swirling, but few facts,” Guild President Dan Gross and Executive Director Bill Ross said in a joint statement.

“The actual intentions of any of the bidders, including the local investors, are not known,” they said, adding the language attributed to the senior lenders was a “legal technicality and is expected to be clarified today at the auction.”

Read more reports in our From The Source blog.

As of 1 p.m., there was no official word about what was happening at the bankruptcy auction in New York to determine the ownership of the the Philadelphia Inquirer,  Daily News, and Philly.com.

The auction is closed and it is not known yet even if the bidding has actually started. It had been scheduled to start at 11 a.m.

Read more reports in our From The Source blog.

Representatives of three bidders are gathered in New York at this hour for an auction to determine the ownership of the The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com and bring their parent company out of bankruptcy.

The closed auction is taking place at the offices of Proskauer Rose, a law firm that represents the parent firm, Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C.

The auction was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., but there is not word yet at to whether it has actually begun.

Inquirer reporters are in place at the law firm’s building at 1585 Broadway awaiting developments. We will report them as they become available.

The bidders are a group of local investors; the senior lenders and Stern Partners Inc. of Canada.

The principals -- the bidders and their lawyers -- are not meeting face to face, but are in separate rooms for the auction.

The auctioneers are Lawrence McMichael and Mark Thomas of Proskauer Rose. They will run the bidding process, which is quieter and less frantic than the popular image of an auction.

There will be a round robin, with each bidder given an opportunity to top the existing high bid. The minimum monetary bid increase will be $100,000.

After each round of bids, there will be a break of 15 to 20 minutes to allow the participants to reconsider their positions and prepare for the next round, McMichael said.

The auction will continue until the last bid goes unchallenged.

With another snow storm bearing down on the region tomorrow night, PennDOT officials announced today that the reactivation of ramp meters on I-476 has been delayed for another week.
The ramp meters, which control the flow of traffic onto the interstate, were scheduled to be activated tomorrow on four Delaware County ramps on the Blue Route at the MacDade Boulevard, Baltimore Pike and Route 1 interchanges.
That’s now been put off until Feb. 16.
Ramp meters, which are similar to a traffic signals, last operated at those interchanges in 2008. A PennDot study in 2005 found the ramp meters reduced congestion on the highway and increased the average travel speeds 10 to 31 m.p.h. between the MacDade Boulevard and Route 1 during the morning rush hour.
 

Read more breaking news in our From The Source blog.