Package

RUNNING BACKS as big as Bryce Brown, who is 6-foot and 225 pounds, aren't supposed to be as fast as Bryce Brown.  They aren't supposed to be able to run a 4.37 40-yard dash like Brown did at the predraft workout that convinced the Eagles to take a seventh-round flier on a kid who quit two college programs and entered the draft with just 104 college carries.  And they aren't supposed to get to a corner and turn it and have an entire defense eat...

THAT GROWLY, BARKY delivery, those foot-draggy Southwestern vowels, the world-weary sighs. The voice on the phone could belong only to Tommy Lee Jones, calling to talk about "Lincoln" as he drove across south Texas toward Houston. In Steven Spielberg's Civil War panorama, Jones nearly eclipses the nominal hero. He plays Thaddeus Stevens, the thorny Republican congressional leader who was Lincoln's temperamental opposite and tactical antagonist as both sought to free the oppressed.

If you want to know what kind of impact Mike Trout's surreal rise to major-league baseball stardom has had on his hometown of Millville, N.J., just ask the mayor. "My mother is 88 years old, and she has completely changed her sleep schedule," said Tim Shannon, the 56-year-old mayor and former next-door neighbor to the Trout family. "She stays up all night watching Mike [play for the Los Angeles Angels] and then sleeps in until 10:30 or 11:30 in the morning. " The good news for Jean Shannon and all of Millville on Monday night was that they did not have to stay up late to see the 21-year-old Trout receive the American League rookie of the year award.

Lisa James Otto confidently guides her Jaguar over the rough roads that carve Solebury Township pastureland into six neat, green rectangles. "You really must see the view," explains the veteran New Hope real estate broker, whose current listings of historic houses and land number more than 100 in Bucks County and across the Delaware River in New Jersey, and never mind the sale she brokered in Italy recently. The property being explored on this gray Columbus Day holiday, however, truly falls into the often misapplied category of "unique": Four horse farms as a single entity, encompassing nearly 464 acres of rich ground in Solebury, Upper Makefield, and Buckingham Townships, six houses, barns, outbuildings, and - this is the clincher - about 175 standardbred horses, including stallions, broodmares, colts, and fillies.

Who: Roughly 5,500 nonunion city workers and first-level supervisors: 1,840 non-civil service employees in the court system; 1,689 non-civil service employees reporting to the mayor, City Council, and other elected officials; 1,127 nonunion civil service employees; and 840 supervisors belonging to AFSCME who are not covered by collective bargaining. Wages: As of Oct. 1, they get a 2.5% increase across the board, their first pay boost since 2009, but no retroactive pay. About 2,000 civil service personnel will get additional step and longevity increases.

United Parcel Service Inc., which has a large airfreight hub in Philadelphia, missed second-quarter earnings estimates Tuesday and cut its full-year outlook, citing broad economic uncertainty. The world's largest package-delivery company, a bellwether for transportation companies globally, expects the U.S. economy to grow just 1 percent this year, below projections of some economists. The delivery giant said export volumes from Asia fell more than expected in the three months ended June 30. "Economies around the world are showing signs of weakening," chief executive officer Scott Davis said on an earnings call.

Stop knocking Romney, Obama President Obama recently had the audacity to complain that the atmosphere in Washington is "broken," and that there is an absence of "the decency … of ordinary people. " I wonder if this "pillar of honor and integrity" would explain how repairing Washington is furthered through negative campaign advertisements in which we are told only why Mitt Romney is a no-good, dirty bum who hates American workers, rather than why we should reelect the president.

After more than six hours of debate, the Lower Merion Township commissioners voted late Wednesday to approve a $275,000 pay package for township manager Douglas Cleland. A minority of Republicans led by commissioner Jenny Brown tried without success to amend the two-year pact, which would have caused it to be tabled under Roberts Rules of Order. The vote was 8 to 5, with one member of the 14-member panel absent. The yes votes all came from Democrats; the no votes came from three Republicans and two Democrats who broke with party lines.

In a slow economy, how much is too much to pay the manager of an affluent township of 60,000 people on Philadelphia's Main Line? That question, debated for months in Lower Merion, will come to a head this week. Republican Commissioner Jenny Brown, and several others on the township board, say a $275,000 pay package for Township Manager Douglas Cleland is "excessive. " Brown has been e-mailing residents to urge them to "make your concerns heard" on Wednesday when the board is scheduled to vote on a new contract for Cleland that would bump his pay over time but keep it flat in 2012.