How many cars must go missing before Philadelphia officials decide to fix the city’s longtime “courtesy tow” problem? Apparently, the threshold has not been met.

Ten new victims — including two drivers who never found their cars — have joined a pair of potential class-action lawsuits targeting the city’s dysfunctional system for relocating vehicles due to roadwork, construction, and special events.

But city lawyers have responded in court filings by arguing that the problem is … someone else’s fault. “[T]hey do not claim an injury that is fairly traceable to the City,” Anne Taylor, chief deputy city solicitor, wrote of the plaintiffs. Last week, a federal judge rejected the city’s motions to have the lawsuits tossed and ordered the parties to engage in mediation.

“This is a huge problem and we really want to see some actual change come of this,” said Aarthi Manohar, a lawyer representing 17 plaintiffs in the two cases. They are seeking class-action status on behalf of potentially thousands of victims.

Little Donny Fuckface’s ace team of parking garage lawyers were in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s D.C. courtroom yesterday. The Guy Who Convicts War Criminals In The Hague had his people there, too.

everyone was there to set a date for Donny’s Big Election Fuckery Trial.

Jack Smith had proposed a trial date of How About Right Now, Can We Do Today? Because I’m So Fucking Ready To Nail This Insurrectionist Shithead.

Trump’s lawyers countered with a proposed trial date of How About Never, and if it couldn’t be How About Never, could it at least be a thousand years from now?

oh, to be blessed with the serene self-confidence of the mediocre man.

we keep hearing what a bright guy Vivek Ramaswamy is — but holy fuck, the dude sure does spew a double metric pantsload of stupid shit.

I’m not talking about your standard Republican “climate change is a hoax” kind of dogma — and we do get plenty of that from Vivek. no, what we’re dealing with here is some genuine what-in-the-actual-fuck batshit lunacy.

Vivek has been making the rounds of all the bobblehead news shows, and so we’re all getting an earful of his patented dipshittery. presented here, in no particular order, are some recent examples.

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania will not release a state-maintained database of certified police officers, even after a national coalition of newsrooms asked Gov. Josh Shapiro to intervene. The newsrooms, including Spotlight PA, sent a letter on July 14 asking for the Democratic governor to assist with accessing public information about police officers that Pennsylvania State Police maintain.

- snip -

Shapiro’s office, in a response this week, declined to step in. “For law enforcement officers under his jurisdiction, Governor Shapiro continues to make this data available to the public in a responsible way that does not compromise trooper safety — which is our utmost priority,” said Will Simons, Shapiro’s communications director.

“However, the Pennsylvania State Police is not responsible for the administration of the other 1,300 law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania and has no way of knowing which officers from those agencies are putting their lives on the line in dangerous undercover or covert operations,” Simons said.

The letter comes after Pennsylvania State Police denied the newsrooms’ request under the Right-to-Know Law to release the data earlier this year. The database is maintained by the Municipal Police Officers’ Education and Training Commission, an internal State Police body that certifies local police officers. The information contained in the data, such as name, rank, and employment history, is public.

WASHINGTON — Sam DeMarco, chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Committee, says he’s had to knock down countless “wackadoodle” conspiracy theories over the past few elections. Many of the concerns and questions have been tied to voting by mail — largely fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020. That did the GOP “no favors,” Mr. DeMarco said.

But as 2024 approaches, the GOP is trying to turn the corner on mail-in voting. For almost a year — after Pennsylvania Democrats dominated absentee ballot totals in races for senator, governor and the White House — a rising number of Republican leaders have been educating voters on options and hammering home how Democrats have used early voting to gain an edge in the state, a pivotal battleground poised to draw heightened attention and record campaign spending.

“It’s not where I’d like it to be, but we’re making progress,” said Mr. DeMarco, who has served on Allegheny County’s board of elections. “We’re pushing it, and many of our committees are sending out letters and contacting low- and mid-propensity Republicans to try to get out the vote.”

Mr. DeMarco suggested the GOP may have to get “tired of losing” before fully buying into mail-in voting. A Republican-led state legislature initially supported the practice in 2019 before later joining Mr. Trump and allies who railed against it and unsuccessfully challenged it in court.

Russia says 10 bodies and flight recorders have been recovered from the scene of a jet crash presumed to have killed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. "Molecular-genetic tests are now being carried out," investigators say.

The plane crashed near Moscow on Wednesday, prompting speculation that a bomb or a missile was to blame. Claims that the Kremlin gave an order to kill Prigozhin were a "complete lie", Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman told the BBC earlier. Prigozhin - once a Putin loyalist - led an aborted armed revolt by his mercenary fighters in June.

Mr Putin at the time described the mutiny as "treachery", but a deal was later struck for Wagner mercenaries to either join Russia's regular army or go to Belarus - Moscow's ally. Even so, in the wake of the rebellion, many observers described Prigozhin, 62, as a "dead man walking", arguing that the Russian president would never forgive the Wagner boss.

During Friday's conference call with journalists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC there was "lots of speculation" around the "tragic" deaths of all 10 people in Wednesday's air crash in the Tver region, north-west of the Russian capital. Prigozhin and his right-hand man Dmitry Utkin, as well as five other passengers and three crew members, were on board of the Embraer Legacy 600 jet, according to the passenger list.

A refrigerated van was stolen in the night. For a city caught in a homicide crisis, this was petty crime. But for three restaurant owners, it was the last of several devastating thefts that have left their small businesses reeling.

Without the vehicles, Marcos Tlacopilco, who travels to either New York or Maryland thrice weekly, has difficulty getting the fresh fish he needs for his restaurants, Marco’s Fish Market & Crab House and Alma Del Mar. The seafood restaurant, named for his wife, Alma Romero, garnered fame when it was featured for a makeover on the fifth season of Netflix’s Queer Eye.

Nacho Flores, who opened Los Taquitos de Puebla in 2020, struggles with buying food and supplies. “My van was stolen in February and a few days ago, Mrs. Alma’s work van was stolen, so we cannot buy another van to do the shopping for our businesses,” Flores said.

That’s the reason behind the trio’s $45,000 crowdfunding campaign, which has been verified by GoFundMe. As of Thursday, 37 donors had given $1,377, but less than one out of four crowdfunding campaigns reaches its goal. For the restaurant owners, the largest contributor, at $150, is Jill Fink, executive director of the Merchants Fund, a nonprofit grant-making organization that has also provided emergency funding to Tlacopilco.

A volunteer dressed in a carrot costume? Find him posing for pictures outside New Love Center’s new mobile unit, which brings fresh food to rural communities in Pennsylvania, thanks to a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

New Love Center, a nonprofit in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, [pop. 4,166 in north-central PA] that focuses on food disparities, received $117,500 as part of a grant to expand rural health services in the Commonwealth. It was among five organizations in the state to receive funding in recent months from the Emergency Rural Health Care Grant Program, with grants available through the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act.

“Our clientele increased greatly over the pandemic — anywhere from 25-40%,” said Alice Fox Cline, acting director of operations and board vice president for New Love Center. “Our ongoing needs for food have not changed, they’ve only increased. We consider ourselves very blessed that we’ve got this funding and can continue to provide what we see as basic necessities.”

The money has come in partial payments and in the form of reimbursement grants to offset the group’s expenditures, said Dave Winkleman, New Love Center’s board president. The organization’s mobile unit can help catch Jersey Shore residents from falling through the cracks due to lack of transportation or disability, and supplements numerous programs at New Love that target food insecurity.

HARRISBURG — In the coming years, Pennsylvania will receive more than $1 billion in federal funding to bring high-speed internet access to everyone in the state. It’s a historic opportunity and a serious challenge, according to a new plan from the state Broadband Development Authority that outlines how it will accomplish that goal over the next five years.

The money comes from the wide-ranging bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Pennsylvania will also receive an estimated $900 million for broadband from other federal programs and private investment required as a condition of grant funding.

Here are five obstacles Pennsylvania will have to navigate as it spends the money, according to the authority’s plan:

We waited all season for that? Truly, hats off to Kim Cattrall, who I’m sure got paid a literal fortune to sit in a car and pretend to talk to her archnemesis on the phone for 60 seconds. If the cameo had been kept under wraps, it would have been a fun little surprise to begin the episode. But with everyone anticipating the return of Samantha Jones with bated breath, the phone call was underwhelming (even with the Annabelle Bronstein reference).

This season’s penultimate episode and finale were labeled part one and part two, which makes sense because this installment actually felt like a continuation of various arcs (mostly), whereas the rest of this round of And Just Like That… dropped developments from week to week.

Take, for example, my guy Steve (David Eigenberg). One of the most impactful scenes of the season was his blowout with Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) in episode six, in which they aired years of frustrations and grievances—and then the show basically never dealt with the fallout. How did Miranda feel about it? How did Steve feel? How did it impact Brady? We’ll never know! I would have loved an old school Sex And The City brunch scene where they all dissected the fight.

Last week, Miranda found out from Carrie that Steve was opening a new restaurant on Coney Island, and she began to grapple with how abruptly she leaves relationships. In the finale, she actually visits Steve on Coney Island and they have a heart-to-heart about wanting to be in each other’s futures, even as they let go of their partnership. I mean…yeah? You have a son together? You were definitely going to have to see each other. This isn’t a revelation.