Disruption

The wind might have been a problem at Citizens Bank Park yesterday, but it was the sun that impacted television viewers. Turner Broadcasting said the position of the sun caused brief disruptions in the satellite signal during the Phillies-Rockies game on TBS, leading to a blacked-out screen or a pixelated image for some viewers. Sal Petruzzi, Turner Broadcasting's senior vice president for public relations, said solar interference happens for a few days every fall and spring, potentially interrupting television broadcasts.

Delaware County's president judge announced an initiative yesterday that he hopes will help tighten the screws on deadbeat parents - particularly those working in what he called the "underground economy. " A. Leo Sereni said at yesterday's County Council agenda meeting that a minimum of 24 hours of community service would be added to sanctions already in place to deal with parents in willful contempt of child-support orders. Currently, parents who do not meet their financial obligations under court order can be jailed.

Along a two-block section of Baltimore Pike this week, windows vibrated, sidewalks shook and passersby grimaced as construction crews directed Tyrannosaurus-size cranes, deafening rollers and tar-filled trucks in a water-main replacement project that began Friday. However, not the dust, the detoured traffic or the earth-shaking roar of heavy machinery could dampen the spirits of business owners along the six-block commercial stretch. Most have been counting their blessings since the project - originally scheduled to affect six blocks at once - was altered to affect two blocks at a time.

As the start date for the $250 million upgrade of Route 202 from Interstate 76 to Swedesford Road creeps ever closer, politicians and business leaders in Chester County are rallying around a common cause. They want to see the seven-mile stretch of the highway from Route 252 to the Exton Bypass widened and improved at the same time the state Department of Transportation takes on the larger job. "The bottlenecks are there," said Chester County Commissioner Colin Hanna, who has led a coalition of state and county leaders to lobby PennDot to work on both sections at once.

Closing the courtroom to television cameras was supposed to preserve decorum at the double-murder trial of John C. Salvi 3d, the antiabortion activist whose outbursts have disrupted pretrial proceedings since his arrest a year ago. Yesterday, as jury selection in the closely watched trial was about to resume, Salvi erupted again, toppling a six-foot-long, 100-pound oak defense table, scattering legal briefs, and roaring about his right to address...

The Frankford Transportation Center moved closer to reality yesterday when neighbors and dignitaries witnessed the ground-breaking for the facility at the northern terminus of the Market-Frankford Line. Plans include the reconstruction of the terminal there. The construction is the largest single site infrastructure project undertaken by SEPTA, and service is to continue without disruption.

A white supervisor at SEPTA's Germantown bus depot allegedly referred to a black employee as "Stepin Fetchit" last week, prompting about 30 workers at the depot to stage a brief work disruption yesterday, a union official said. Roger Tauss, president of Local 231 of the Transport Workers Union, said yesterday that one worker described the disruption as "civil disobedience. " During the demonstration, Tauss said the employees stopped work to crowd into another supervisor's office, where they voiced anger at what they viewed as SEPTA's failure to mete out punishment in the matter.

If a 600-pound gorilla can sit anywhere it wants, imagine what happens when a megabuck Godzilla wants a seven-block swath of Manhattan. For most of this week, a movie company has plunked itself down and taken over the congested Flatiron District, blocking cars and pedestrians and irking some neighborhood residents and businesses as it shoots a remake of the 50-year-old tale of the giant reptile. This is not just another film shoot for the folks who try to live - or make a living - in the Big Apple.

The slow return of air traffic over Europe isn't just helping stranded transatlantic passengers. It's also easing another, less-obvious disruption: the movement of air cargo into and out of a continent shadowed for nearly a week by a cloud of ash from the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallaj?kull volcano. "When you plan for contingencies, volcanic eruptions aren't high on the list," UPS spokesman Mark Dickens said Tuesday. "We're doing the best we can. " UPS and Federal Express said Tuesday that they had finally begun getting some flights through their major European hubs - UPS's in Cologne, Germany, and FedEx's in Paris.

The Philadelphia area just suffered through yet another massive electric power outage caused by the failure of PECO's distribution network during recent storms. At its peak, 215,000 of PECO's 1.6 million customers were without electricity. My residence was without electricity for 67 hours. I hope we all recognize that such large-scale, long-duration outages are not merely inconveniences, but significant disruptions to the region's economy. Thousands of businesses were forced to shut down for the duration of the outage, thus losing revenue.

Roads around Girard College in North Philadelphia and I-95 could be temporarily tied up this morning by the arrival and departure of Vice President Joseph Biden. At 9 a.m., Biden will address several thousand volunteers gathering at the college to take part in more than 150 activities planned to observe the 17th annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service. In addition to various projects, workshops, training sessions and a health fair, the "signature site" of the city's sprawling effort will have a Jobs & Opportunity Fair, with about 20 employers.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters blocked cargo trucks at some of the West Coast's busiest ports Monday. The protests stretched from San Diego to Anchorage, Alaska, brought work to a standstill in Oakland, Calif., and Longview, Wash., and led to the closure of a major marine terminal in Portland, Ore. Organizers declared victory and promised more demonstrations to come. "The truckers are still here, but there's nobody here to unload their stuff," protest organizer Boots Riley said.

TRENTON - Amtrak service was halted Wednesday between New York City and Philadelphia after a fatal accident near here. The accident occurred shortly before 1 p.m. and involved an unidentified trespasser who was struck by an Acela Express just west of the Hamilton Township station. None of the 170 passengers and crew aboard the Boston-to-Washington train was hurt. - AP

A man startled passengers this afternoon on the Market-Frankford line, announcing he had a bomb or explosives on him, a SEPTA spokesman said. Spokesman Andrew Busch said the incident occurred near the Girard station and police were called to the scene. Passengers were evacuated from the train at the Girard station while police investigated. After about 20 minutes, service was restored. Busch said the man was taken into custody by police.

Rheumatoid arthritis can be a painful, debilitating disease. But like some of its victims, Fred LeStourgeon was lucky enough to find long-term relief through drug therapy - in his case, with a combination of two widely available generic drugs. Then something odd happened, and LeStourgeon has been asking questions ever since. Last fall, one of the medications he relied on, leflunomide, nearly vanished from the market - only a much higher-priced brand version, Arava, remained available.

Online banking operations at Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania were disrupted for several hours on Friday by what the bank described only as a "technical issue. " By late afternoon, Citizens said, business was fully operational, though online customers experienced residual delays because of high volume. For six days in early October, Bank of America customers also were slowed in, or prevented from, accessing their accounts online. It also cited a technical problem.

The business community in the tiny Chester County town of Malvern is looking forward to better times. If an economic recovery kicks in, that would be welcome, too. But for now, what will constitute better times for the stores and restaurants that line King Street, the borough's main commerce corridor, is when a construction project in the heart of town since February 2010 finally comes to an end, possibly by Nov. 1. The goal of the $9.9...

Service on SEPTA's Paoli/Thorndale Rail Line was briefly disrupted today after a contractor cut a signal cable. SEPTA had feared that the disruptions - during which no SEPTA trains were running between Paoli and Thorndale - would extend into the evening rush. But at 1:15 p.m., SEPTA reported that cable had been repaired and normal service had resumed. During the brief outage, Amtrak was making local stops in both direction between Paoli and Thorndale.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Kayvon Webster returned a fumble 96 yards for an early touchdown as South Florida came to South bend to play Notre Dame for the first time and stunned the 16th-ranked Irish, 23-20, on Saturday in a game disrupted for hours because of storms. Bulls coach Skip Holtz got an emotional victory in his return to Notre Dame, where he went to school and where his father, Lou Holtz, led the Irish to their last national championship, in 1988. Webster's long return for a score four minutes into the game took all the momentum from the Irish and they couldn't recover.

NEW YORK - The U.S. Open will begin today with tweaks to the day's original schedule, including a 2-hour delay for the start of play at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The U.S. Tennis Association said yesterday that the site of the year's last Grand Slam tournament had "minimal damage" from Tropical Storm Irene. The gates at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center will open to the public at 10 a.m. today, and matches will start as planned at 11 a.m. on nine of the tournament's 13 courts, including Louis Armstrong Stadium.