The Week in Philly from KYW Newsradio

Host Matt Leon and KYW Newsradio reporters recap the biggest news in Philadelphia each week. Catch up on what you missed and dig deeper into the top stories.

News
1201
The Port Richmond Blues
Port Richmond is a Philadelphia neighborhood known for its great polish food, the best pound cake in Pennsylvania, and a working class, blue collar vibe. But for the better part of the past couple years, the neighborhood has been turned upside down. Two different infrastructure projects have claimed the trolley, the ramp from I-95, and the main road through the business district. Today on the podcast, we're following John McDevitt through Port Richmond to meet some of the characters who live there and find out how the neighborhood is reacting to the changes. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert (@teerick) in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
11 min
1202
The Inventor vs. the Spotted Lanternfly
The Spotted Lanternfly has invaded Pennsylvania, and it's kicking bark and taking names. So far its only natural predators are humans who enjoy squishing bugs, and we're losing. But there might be some hope for the humans -- a secret weapon named Rachel Bergey. She's 14, she's an inventor, and she's on a mission to save the trees and kill the lanternflies. Jim Melwert (@JMelwert) joins the podcast to talk about the coolest science fair project we've ever heard of. Check out his article about Rachel on kywnewsradio.com. Scroll Down is produced by Tom Rickert (@teerick) in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
18 min
1203
8 Hours of Hell
On Wednesday, August 14th six police officers were shot in North Philadelphia. KYW Newsradio covered the harrowing standoff that night and into the morning. It was an intense, scary, and completely affecting 8 hours of radio. Today on the podcast, we wanted to bring you that night. Or at least what it sounded like on the radio -- in a much shorter amount of time than the 8 hours it took to play out. This is what we heard and what we found out that night, as it happened, as heard on KYW Newsradio. Scroll Down is produced by Tom Rickert (@teerick) in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!     See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
29 min
1204
The Skeleton in the Museum, Part 2
This is part two of a story we started last year about a remarkable woman named Carol Orzel. Carol was 59 years old when she died from a very rare bone disease. Her last wish was for her body to be donated to the Mütter Museum -- so scientists could study her skeleton and learn more about the disease that killed her. KYW reporter Mark Abrams (@MAbramsKYW1060) is back on the podcast today to tell us how Carol's wish was fulfilled. You can hear the first part of the story wherever you get your podcasts (it's episode #37), or at kywnewsradio.com. Read more about Carol Orzel on kywnewsradio.com.  To find out more about the Mütter Museum, check out their great website at muttermuseum.org. Find out more about the great work done by Skulls Unlimited at their website, skullsunlimited.com.  Remembrance photos of people who have passed away from FOP can be found at ifopa.org. Carol's photo is there too. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert (@teerick) [LINK = https://twitter.com/teerick ] in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod [LINK = https://twitter.com/scrolldownpod ]. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
20 min
1205
The Skeleton in the Museum, Part 1
Part one of the story of Carol Orzel originally aired in August of 2017. We're re-airing the episode today because part two is up next! Carol Orzel had a very rare bone disease. It's called Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP. It's a condition she shared with only about 800 or 900 people around the world. And when Carol died, she had a request: she wanted her skeleton to be displayed in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Mark Abrams (@MAbramsKYW1060) joins the podcast to talk about the life, death, and legacy of Carol Orzel. Check out the article Mark wrote about Carol: CLICK LINK For more about the Mütter Museum, head to muttermuseum.org. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
24 min
1206
The Old Books in the Warehouse
When Bucks County Recorder of Deeds Robin Robinson discovered the county's oldest deeds weren't in her office, she threw herself into a search and rescue operation that took her from an old, musty Doylestown warehouse to a laboratory in Vermont. Today on the podcast, Jim Melwert (@JMelwert) has the story of a rediscovered treasure trove of history. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert (@teerick)  in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
16 min
1207
Haircuts for the Homeless
Jawuan Jones is not your typical barber. He finds a spot in the city -- anywhere, really, from a sidewalk in Center City to Love Park -- sets up a chair and a generator, and hangs up a sign that reads "Free Haircuts for Homeless." Then the line starts, and Jawuan gets to work. Today on the podcast, KYW Newsradio reporter Cherri Gregg (@CherriGregg) takes a trip to Jawuan's office, the median at the center of Broad Street just south of City Hall, to find out more about the barber to the homeless. Follow Jawuan on Instagram: @haircut4homeless Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. And you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
15 min
1208
Update: Free Peter Biar
Update: Free
7 min
1209
#52: The Search for the Rosies
During World War II, a lot of working age American men were drafted or joined the armed forces. They left a lot of jobs back home that needed to be filled to power the war effort. In many cases, the jobs were taken by women, who became known as Rosies (as in Rosie the Riveter). Now, 75 years after D-Day, there's a movement underway to find the Rosies who are still with us. Scroll Down producer and reporter Charlotte Reese takes over the podcast this week with the stories of two Rosies who helped in the war effort, and one woman has made it her life's mission to reunite the working women of World War II across the country. Find out more about the American Rosie Movement at thanksplainandsimple.org  Scroll Down is hosted and produced in the KYW Newsradio Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
25 min
1210
#51: Maddie Gebert Just Keeps Going
Maddie Gebert is great at lacrosse. She's a junior at Temple University, a star on the women's lacrosse team, and one of the best players in the American Athletic Conference. And she's doing all this while living with epilepsy. Matt Leon (@MattLeon1060) is back on Scroll Down to talk about Maddie's story. Check out his article on Maddie at kywnewsradio.com.  Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. And you can follow Tom: @teerick  Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
13 min
1211
#50: The Thing About Suburban Station
Store owners in Suburban Station have a problem. Crime, drug use, and homelessness is up, they tell KYW Newsradio, and business is down. Way down. And they think it started when a homeless outreach center in the station expanded its services. Today on the podcast, Justin Udo takes their concerns to the city, SEPTA police, and the Hub of Hope, three different organizations with a lot invested in Suburban Station. He found a lot of different ideas -- about solutions to the situation, and even about what the problem is to begin with. Follow Justin on Twitter at @JustinUdo, and check out his article about Suburban Station on kywnewsradio.com  Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. And you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
40 min
1212
#49: Ghost Guns
Operation Stone Wall started as an investigation into a cocaine ring in South Jersey. One year later, New Jersey's attorney general says four people in that ring became the very first to be charged under a new law criminalizing ghost gun trafficking. This week on Scroll Down, Steve Tawa and Kristen Johanson tell us about ghost guns, how Operation Stone Wall developed, and what's next for New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Read Steve's article about Operation Stone Wall on kywnewsradio.com Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod. And you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
20 min
1213
#48: Free Peter Biar, Part 2
Listen to the first part of this story in episode 40, anywhere you get your podcasts, or on kywnewsradio.com Peter Biar Ajak has been in a notorious prison in South Sudan for the last 7 months. Friends of the jailed peace activist and political prisoner say his situation has gotten worse since we talked to them last, back in September of 2018. Follow the effort to free Peter on Twitter: @FreePeterBiar  and on Facebook: @FreePeterBiar  Tim Jimenez (@timjradio) helped bring Peter's story to the podcast today. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
20 min
1214
#47: Runaway Cows and Refugees
One of the things Old First Church is known for is the live animal nativity scene around Christmas time. Every December, you could walk by the church in Old City and look at the animals. This lasted for 40 years. Right until the Christmas of 2017. Today on the podcast, John McDevitt and Andrew Kramer join Scroll Down to tell the story of how a Philly church's New Year's Eve service radically transformed after a cow decided to cross I-95. John McDevitt is on Twitter at @JM1060  Andrew Kramer tweets at @Philly_Kramer  Check out John's story about the refugee nativity: CLICK HERE Andrew wrote some words about it too: CLICK HERE Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert at the KYW Newsradio podcast factory in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownKYW. And you can follow Tom: @teerick. Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
18 min
1215
#46: Hiring, Bachelor's Degree, $11/Hour
"The ugly duckling of education" isn't looking so ugly anymore. Teachers and students at a South Jersey trade school say today's high schoolers watched how the Millennials piled up college degrees -- and the mountains of debt that went with them -- and are deciding to follow a different path. And the state of New Jersey wants to help. Today on Scroll Down, Mike Dougherty (@MicDougherty) talks about what he found at the Gloucester County Institute of Technology, and why Generation Z is embracing the trades. Mike's article on kywnewsradio.com: CLICK HERE Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownKYW and you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
14 min
1216
#45: Stop Recycling Pizza
When KYW Newsradio's Mike DeNardo came back from touring a recycling plant in Philadelphia, we quickly realized that a lot of what we thought we knew about recycling... was just plain wrong. This week on Scroll Down: the international intrigue that determines what actually happens after you put your blue bin on the sidewalk, and the top five things you can recycle to ruin it for everyone. Mike DeNardo is on Twitter: @_MikeDeNardo  Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownKYW and you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!   See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
22 min
1217
#44: Guys Like Us
Today on the podcast, Scroll Down producer Charlotte Reese visits the secret headquarters of an animal rescue organization, to talk with Wolf, the tattooed biker responsible for saving thousands of abused animals and nursing them back to health. Find out more about Justice Rescue at their website, justice-rescue.com. Scroll Down is made in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. Today's show was reported and produced by Charlotte Reese (@creese28). Tom Rickert (@teerick) is Scroll Down's executive producer. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @ScrollDownPod. Thanks for listening!   See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
22 min
1218
#43: Digging Up Bodies
Dr. Erin Kimmerle digs up bodies. She's carefully picked through mass graves in Kosovo and Croatia to identify victims of war crimes. She did the same thing in Peru, where men, women, and children were executed by the military forty years ago. She dug up the bones of young boys murdered at a Florida reform school. And this summer, she came to Philadelphia, to dig up bodies. Kristen Johanson (@KristenJohanson) joins the podcast today to talk about how forensic anthropology hopes to solve decades old cold cases, even when the victims are unidentified. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick. Kristen and Tom make a true crime podcast about unsolved murders in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter (@GoneColdPhilly) and to listen to the episodes CLICK HERE or wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
27 min
1219
Update - #23: Stories of Our Heroes
We're celebrating Veterans Day in America, when we honor the men and women who have put on a uniform for the United States. Many of us have someone close who has served -- a family member, a friend, a coworker. This week's show is about our veterans, and it's about our heroes. This episode was originally released on November 13th, 2017. It was remixed and rescored for 2018, with an update on some of the people we talked to at the end of the show. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Studies in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownKYW. And you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe! See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
43 min
1220
#42: The Cracks in the System (Where's Grandma,...
This week, we're following up on our last episode -- a story about a Philadelphia family who found out their grandmother had died months after it happened. We followed Cherri Gregg and David Wilson as they tried to find out what happened to David's grandmother Ruth Pasley, where she was buried, and why they weren't notified by her guardian after she passed away. Today on the podcast, Cherri Gregg is back to break down what's being done to try to fill the cracks in the Pennsylvania guardianship system, so what happened to the family of Ruth Pasley doesn't happen again. You can follow Cherri on Twitter at @CherriGregg, and listen to her community affairs podcast "Flashpoint" at kywnewsradio.com  Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.   See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
18 min
1221
#41: Where's Grandma?
Ruth Pasley was 85 years old when she died, on New Years Eve, 2017. She lived in a nursing home, and a court appointed guardian controlled her affairs. Her grandchildren found out she died six months later. It took weeks to discover where she was buried. Cherri Gregg (@CherriGregg) joins the podcast with the story of what happened to Ruth Pasley, the cracks in the guardianship system, and how Ruth Pasley and her family slipped through those cracks. Read Cherri's reporting on this story at KYWNewsradio.com Cherri hosts the KYW Original Podcast "Flashpoint." You can listen to new episodes HERE or find it wherever you get your podcasts. Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
42 min
1222
#40: Free Peter Biar
Peter Biar Ajak left Sudan during a horrible civil war, one of the 40,000 Lost Boys. He found a new home in Philadelphia, went to Central High School and graduated from La Salle University in 2007. He continued his education at Harvard, then Cambridge. And then, he went back -- hoping to use his education to help bring peace to South Sudan. Peter was arrested in July for speaking out against the South Sudanese government and has been kept in prison since then. His friends from Philadelphia and around the world are calling for his release. Two of his friends from La Salle are on the podcast today to tell us why. Follow the effort to free Peter on Twitter: @FreePeterBiar, on Facebook: @FreePeterBiar, and on the website, FreePeterBiar.org  For more information, email info@FreePeterBiar.com. Tim Jimenez (@timjradio) helped bring Peter's story to the podcast today. You can read his article about Peter on kywnewsradio.com  Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.   See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
18 min
1223
#39: One Day at a Time (The People in the Tunne...
Earlier this year, we put out an episode about homeless encampments, occupied by drug users, that were springing up under railroad tracks in Philly. We called it "The People in the Tunnels." Part two came out a couple months later, about a pilot program the city developed in two of the tunnels. Basically, anyone living there could get a bed and treatment to get sober, if they wanted it, before the encampments were shut down. Today on the podcast: part three of our series on the people in the tunnels. What does life look like now, for someone who decided to say yes and get clean? And is there really such a thing as a fresh start? Thanks to KYW Newsradio city hall bureau chief Pat Loeb for coming back on the podcast, you can follow what she's covering on Twitter at @patloeb.  Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
21 min
1224
#38: So Many Guns
In a North Philadelphia classroom, a group of fifth graders decided to work together on a project about gun violence. What they found out was shocking. And Mike DeNardo (@_MikeDeNardo) joins the podcast to talk about what happened two days before they were supposed to present their findings.  Read the article Mike wrote about the project and incident at Duckrey Elementary: CLICK HERE   This episode of Scroll Down was produced and edited by Charlotte Reese (@creese28). Tom Rickert (@teerick) is Scroll Down's executive producer.  You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @scrolldownpod.  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
19 min
1225
#37: The Skeleton in the Museum
Carol Orzel had a very rare bone disease. It's called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP. It's a condition she shared with only about 800 or 900 people around the world. And before Carol died, she had one request: she wanted her skeleton to be displayed in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. KYW Newsradio's Mark Abrams (@MAbramsKYW1060) joins the podcast to talk about the life, death, and legacy of Carol Orzel. Check out the article Mark wrote about Carol CLICK HERE For more about the Mütter Museum CLICK HERE Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
23 min