The Week in Philly from KYW Newsradio

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 trans...

"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 abou...

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 DeN...

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 wa...

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 (@Kris...

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...

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...

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...

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 S...

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...

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 episod...

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, an...

It's something that's always been around -- grandparents raising their grandchildren when something happens to the parents. But as the opioid epidemic ravages more and more families across the country, the number of Grandfamilies is on the rise. This is a story about three of those families, and what is being done to give them the help they need. KYW Newsradio's Molly Daly (@ThisMollyDaly)  joins...

Erin Redmond was a freshman lacrosse player at Rowan University when she was taken to the emergency room because of kidney stones. After a CAT scan at the hospital, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Matt Leon (@MattLeon1060) is back on the podcast with a story about an 18 year old athlete who didn't know how to give up. LINKS: Matt's article about Erin: https://bit.ly/2Kj4RMD Rowan Lacrosse:...

Back in April we reported on homeless encampments popping up under four railroad tunnels in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood. The city set up a pilot program in two of the tunnels, offering treatment and beds to anyone who wanted them. And at the end of May, it was time to shut down what was left. Today on the podcast -- what a tunnel eviction looks like. Pat Loeb (@PatLoeb) covers homelessn...

Shelter dogs, prisoners, and veterans with PTSD are the focal points of a program in the Camden County Correctional Facility that's trying to give all three a second chance. John McDevitt (@jm1060) went to prison to check the program out. Scroll Down (@ScrollDownPod) is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert (@teerick) in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. Check out our new website at kywnewsr...

Last summer, four young men were murdered on a quiet farm in Bucks County, outside Philadelphia. Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiario, Tom Meo, and Mark Sturgis were shot and killed, their bodies were burned. Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Kratz, the two cousins who prosecutors say were behind the four murders, were expected to plead guilty this week. But the court hearing on Wednesday, May 16th didn't turn ou...

Mary Baxter, AKA "Isis tha Savior" is fighting against youth homelessness and pushing for protections for incarcerated women -- two subjects she's intimately familiar with. Mary's first bout with homelessness came at age 11. She gave birth to her son while shackled to her hospital bed, and then did seven months in prison before she could spend time with him again. Now she's giving talks at places...

When an engine on Southwest Airlines flight 1380 failed in midair, cracking a window and tragically causing the death of a passenger, every single passenger on the Boeing 737 dealt with some very real emotions at the same time, in their own way. Some were terrified. Others comforted the people near them. Many took the time to write texts saying goodbye to their family and friends. This is the stor...

People have started living in four tunnels under the railroad tracks in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood. City officials say most of them are drug users who've been unwilling to go into treatment, and prefer life under the tracks to a shelter. The city wants them gone, so Pat Loeb (https://twitter.com/PatLoeb) went to ask the people living there why they're staying. Pat's article on the peop...

This episode of Scroll Down KYW is about four murders that happened in the Philadelphia suburbs last July. Since then, a lot of things have happened. Paul Kurtz (@Kurtzpaul) joins the podcast with an update. (Original description) In July of 2017, four young men suddenly disappeared in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The search for answers took just over a week. What happened to them shocked the nati...

Late at night on November 16, 2017, the Barclay Friends assisted living community in West Chester, PA, went up in flames. The fire tore through the building, quickly growing to five alarms. 137 seniors were inside. This story is about the heroic efforts by first responders to get them out, and the neighbors who got up in the middle of the night and sprang into action. Paul Kurtz (@Kurtzpaul), Dan...