All Philadelphia public schools will remain closed on Friday, Jan. 5, due to heavy snowstorm that hit the area on Thursday. All after-school activities, including all athletic programs and professional development sessions scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday are also canceled. All District early childhood centers will also be closed.

School District headquarters will open on a two-hour delay.

All Archdiocesan high schools and parochial elementary schools will also be closed on Friday due to today’s storm.

Snow emergency for Philadelphia will end at 8 p.m. on Thursday.

The City of Philadelphia has issued a snow emergency effective at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday. That means that vehicles should be moved from certain streets in the city, including the entire length of Chestnut and Walnut Streets and Woodland Avenue in West Philly.

The region is under a winter storm warning with three to six inches of snow expected.

Vehicles remaining on the emergency routes will be ticketed and towed. More info on snow emergency routes can be found here. If your car is moved, call 215-686-SNOW to find it. Do not call 911.  Continue Reading

Lawyer and West Philadelphia resident Jeff Curry announced this week that he is running for state representative in Pennsylvania’s 188th district as a Democrat in the May 15 primary. The announcement was made on Jan. 1 at the University City Arts League, where he addressed the crowd of over one hundred and fifty supporters, according to a press release.

The seat has been held by State Rep. James Roebuck since 1985.

Curry has been a resident of this district for the last decade. He and his wife Angela first moved to the district in 2007 to start and raise a family in the community. A father of three young children, Curry is running for office because he feels “Harrisburg does not reflect his family’s values of hard work, respect others, and equality and fairness for all.”  Continue Reading

Check out New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day events and other useful information below. Before heading out the door please make sure to dress warm since it will be extremely cold outside. Happy New Year!

Sunday, Dec. 31

New Year’s Eve Fireworks

You can ring in 2018 twice during SugarHouse Casino’s New Year’s Eve Fireworks on the Delaware River Waterfront. There will be two free fireworks shows along the Delaware River – at 6 p.m. and midnight. For more information, go to: www.visitphilly.com/events/philadelphia/new-years-eve-fireworks.

Monday, Jan. 1

2018 Mummers Parade

Philadelphia’s New Year’s Day tradition lives on! Mummers Officials and the city decided that the 2018 Mummers Parade will be held as scheduled on New Year’s Day despite the frigid temperatures. The city is planning to have heating tents and warm buses along the route for the Mummers. The parade kicks off at 9 a.m. at City Hall and will end sometime before 6 p.m. at Broad St. and Washington Ave.  Continue Reading

As SEPTA Key card sales have increased, SEPTA is phasing out token sales.

If you’re still using SEPTA tokens for your rides, take note: Starting in mid-January 2018, SEPTA will begin the process of phasing out token sales at cashiers’ booths and vending machines at Market-Frankford and Broad Street Line stations. Tokens will continue to be sold at major SEPTA sales offices, Regional Rail stations, and at over 200 third-party retailers until further notice.

More and more riders are making the transition to the SEPTA Key, and token sales have been steadily declining. About half of the station vending machines on the Market-Frankford and Broad Street Lines have already been removed. Beginning in mid-January, cashier sales will end and the 40 remaining token machines will be removed over a six-week period. Token sales at all these locations are expected to end on or about March 1, 2018. The full phase-out schedule will be posted on SEPTA’s website, www.septa.org, in early January.  Continue Reading

To print this graphic, go to www.greenphillyblog.com

The holidays can be wasteful and on the day after it can be difficult to sort through what’s trash, what’s recycling, and what shouldn’t be thrown away at all. With this in mind, we’ve been reading the helpful work done by our colleagues at the Green Philly blog, where they compiled a simple infographic explaining what can and can’t be recycled.

Here are some of the most important lessons we’ve learned from them and elsewhere:

These are things you cannot recycle:

• Plastic bags
• Straws
• Light bulbs
• Greasy boxes/paper
• Takeout containers
• Styrofoam
• Napkins, tissue paper
• Broken glass

Not only are these items non-recyclable, they can potentially be dangerous for workers, whose job is among the more deadly in the nation.

Julie Hancher, editor of the Green Philly blog, said the website created the guide to simplify sustainability, which she said often confuses her readers.  Continue Reading