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When Maria and Vadim Brodsky's then-7-year-old daughter needed an MRI two years ago to examine a tumor in her head, they took her to a hospital in their health plan's network and were dismayed to receive a $4,500 bill. The couple had a $6,000 deductible on their family plan. And even though the bill was reduced to $3,000 - the price the provider and insurer had agreed to by contract - the Brodskys had to cover all of it. The next year, when their daughter needed another MRI, the Huntingdon Valley couple took her to a stand-alone facility and put the procedure on a credit card.

Hey, Philly. Airfares to Boston are going to get cheaper - a lot cheaper. JetBlue Airways announced today it will begin five daily nonstop flights between Boston and Philadelphia on May 23, with "low fares and an ideal schedule for the business traveler. " JetBlue will offer a special $17.76 one-way "independence" ticket for travel between May 28 and June 19, if booked at www.jetblue.com between now and midnight tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 14. A check of JetBlue's website showed fares as low as $64 one-way for other days, once the service begins.

For several years, even as the Camden city administration warned that it was unable to financially support its police department, more than half of $12 million in federal and state grants that poured in during that time lay unused. Most of that money couldn't be used because the city failed to keep police staffing at levels required by the grants. But more than $500,000 in grant money that the city was free to use sat around for two years until recently when the police department purchased various items, including new cars, portable radios, and tires, according to an Inquirer analysis of police-related grants the city has received since 2009.

The Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State generated a public outcry for stronger laws against child abuse and neglect. Several bills have been introduced that purportedly provide a "complete overhaul" of Pennsylvania's child-protection laws. For example, Senate Bill 20 makes it clear that any adult who "causes serious bodily injury," either by "kicking, biting, stabbing, cutting, or throwing a child," or "forcefully shakes or slaps a child under one year of age," or "causes serious physical neglect," or "causes a child to be near a methamphetamine lab," or "operates a vehicle in which a child is a passenger while driving under the influence of alcohol," has committed child abuse.

Frank Nofer, 71, of Spring Mill, a celebrated graphic artist and watercolorist who designed a Philadelphia logo for the American Bicentennial, died Thursday at Keystone House in Wyndmoor. His representational watercolors are included in prominent private and corporate collections. In 1995, the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College honored him with a one-man retrospective exhibition. For 25 years, Mr. Nofer operated a graphic-design studio in the Old City section of Philadelphia, where he did advertising for pharmaceutical companies and amassed many awards.

By Brian Wright O'Connor Nearly 50 years after leaving the University of Pennsylvania for Vietnam, Lt. Col. Mortimer Lenane O'Connor will receive a posthumous Ph.D. today in a ceremony honoring academic achievement and sacrifice on the field of battle. My father, who set aside his dissertation to lead soldiers in war, will be included in the Class of 1968, the year he would most likely have completed his doctorate had fate not intervened. Born in 1930, my dad grew up in the company of soldier-storytellers on Army garrisons from Manila to the Old West, and watched his own father and three uncles set off for war in Europe.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Benghazi scandal. The scandal is that Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) and some Republican colleagues are dishonoring the memory of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans by making a political circus out of their deaths. As chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa is ready to manipulate the pain and anger of relatives and colleagues of the victims, but shows little interest in making U.S. diplomats safer. The hearing he held last week ignored the real issues raised by Benghazi in favor of promoting conspiracy theories about "talking points" that administration officials used after the tragedy.

Despite the number of cooks in the kitchen, preparations to create a Shabbat dinner were moving smoothly. That's no small feat, and this was no small event - not just because the Mangels are a family with eight children, ages 3 to 19. At least eight guests were coming over, half of the children were returning from schools in three states to spend the weekend in Cherry Hill, and their parents - Rabbi Mendel "Mendy" Mangel, 45, and Dinie Mangel, 40,...

LEROY FISHER recalled the good ol' days for Hunting Park yesterday. "When I was a child, it was a wonderful place," said Fisher, 42, president of Hunting Park United. "It had the carousel, the playground and the pool. It was a nice place to go. " But then, the bad ol' days of crime hit hard starting in the mid-1980s. "The park was not an attractive place," said Fisher, a school-bus driver. "There was a lot of drug use and prostitution. It wasn't a safe park. They didn't have good lighting.

For the first time, the city's vast inventory of 9,000 vacant properties for sale will be just a mouse click away. The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) is rolling out a new online site for viewing all of its vacant land and buildings, as well as the holdings of the Public Property Department and the city-run Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. The official launch will be in June. Technicians are working out the bugs, but the site will be accessible through the main PRA page (www.phila.gov/pra)