SPORTS
January 18, 2013 | By FRANK SERAVALLI, Daily News Staff Writer seravaf@phillynews.com
FOR JAKE VORACEK, the one benefit of the NHL's 119-day lockout was a chance to play in his native Czech Republic. "It was something I hadn't done since I was 18 or 19 years old," Voracek said. "It isn't every day that you have a chance to play at home, and play in the best league [KHL] in the world at the time, since there was no NHL. " There were a few downsides, though. One of them was living at home. "I lived with my mom, downstairs at their house," Voracek said with a smile.
NEWS
November 25, 2012 | By Peter Mucha, Inquirer Staff Writer
What a year for Powerball. The cash jackpot for Saturday's drawing is the game's second biggest cash jackpot ever - $212.8 million. And the record of $224.6 million was just set in August. Because no one matched Wednesday night's numbers (8, 18, 24, 30 and 39, with a Powerball of 26), the annuity prize rose again, to $325 million. That's the fifth biggest in the game's history - and two of the others also came this year, including $337 million in that August drawing and $336 million in February.
SPORTS
August 29, 2012 | BY RYAN LAWRENCE, Daily News Staff Writer
AND NOW THE least surprising turn of events in the Phillies' season: Charlie Manuel digs the long ball. A former longtime, big-league hitting coach and a power hitter in Japan, Manuel can't help but be intrigued with Double A slugger Darin Ruf, who tied Ryan Howard's Reading franchise record with his 37th homer on Tuesday night against the Binghamton Mets. Of Ruf's 37 blasts, he has hit 19 of them in 28 games in August. With Reading's regular season set to end on Monday, Manuel said he'll bring up Ruf's name when the Phillies make decisions on September call-ups this week.
NEWS
August 20, 2012
HAPPY BIRTHDAY on Monday to Ukee Washington, who'll wake up with the city (or, as he says, his "morning family") by celebrating his 54th on "Eyewitness News This Morning. " The West Philly-born news vet's been at Channel 3 since 1986, first as a sports anchor, now as the anchorman for both "This Morning" and "Talk Philly. " (You can also catch him on the CW.) Recently recovered from a left-hip replacement, Washington has a big year ahead of him, starting with a few more squats and lots more fabulous Fridays.
NEWS
July 11, 2012 | By Genaro C. Armas, Associated Press
STATE COLLEGE - Pennsylvania State University received more than $208 million in donations for the fiscal year that just ended, the second-highest total in university history despite the upheaval after the arrest of Jerry Sandusky on child sex-abuse charges. The school said Monday there was a slight uptick in the number of alumni who donated money or gifts in the fiscal year that ended June 30 to more than 75,500, reversing two years of slight declines. "We're very grateful - humbled, really - to have this kind of response from Penn Staters, who I think have rallied to the cause . . . by the side of the institution through a very difficult time," said Rod Kirsch, senior vice president for development and alumni relations.
BUSINESS
April 18, 2012 | Joe DiStefano
"You can't get a hotel room in Philadelphia this week. We're having to put people at the airport, and over in Jersey," says John Beauchamp, who weighs and prices weather damage and other environmental risks for companies as an underwriter in the Philadelphia office of New York specialty insurer Beazley Group. He's talking about RIMS 12, the New York-based Risk Management Society's annual conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which has collected crowds of pros who track floods, fires, storms, financial fraud, medical-data security, fear of terrorism, global warming, and other modern ills for their living.
SPORTS
October 31, 2011 | DAILY NEWS WIRE REPORTS
WIMBLEDON champion Petra Kvitova won her first WTA Championships title yesterday in Istanbul, beating Victoria Azarenka , 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, for a victory that also will put her at No. 2 in the world rankings. Kvitova started the year outside the top 30 and was playing in the season-ending tournament for the first time. "It's unbelievable to play here," said Kvitova, who beat Azarenka in the Wimbledon semifinals on her way to winning her first Grand Slam title this year.
NEWS
October 25, 2011 | By Sandy Bauers, Inquirer Staff Writer
Tom Reed was recently spared a six-hour round-trip drive to North Jersey. He'd been headed there to see a bird. And not just any bird, but a calliope hummingbird, which normally doesn't come anywhere near here. But someone claimed to have spotted one near I-80. Shortly after leaving his home in Cape May County, however, Reed got a call. False alarm. It was a common rufous hummingbird. He was glad he didn't have to buck rush hour traffic around Newark. But, boy, he needed that bird.
SPORTS
October 21, 2011
Spotlight: Triton RB/DB James Burns It's easy to overlook James Burns. On a Triton team that features quarterback Brian Keller and running back Josh Woods, Burns is the guy who does a little bit of everything. And all of it well. "I think people do overlook me sometimes," Burns said. "I'm a guy who fills in the gaps. " Triton (4-1) will need Burns to play his typical complete game Friday night at Bishop Eustace (3-2) in what looms as a tough WJFL interdivision clash.
ENTERTAINMENT
October 14, 2011 | BY GARY THOMPSON, thompsg@phillynews.com 215-854-5992
I VIEWED "The Big Year" and for the first time in my life left a movie thinking: needs more bird-watching. Weird, since it's putatively ABOUT competitive bird-watching, loosely based on a nonfiction book about three actual people who devoted a year of their lives to an obsessive, continental bird-spotting contest. There is a rich premise here for a distinctive comedy about a singular subculture - think of how "Best in Show," for example, looked for laughs by delving into the details of dog-show culture.