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WITH TICKET prices starting at $75 for Jay Z's Made in America concert festival Labor Day weekend - Philly's first large event on the Ben Franklin Parkway that requires a ticket - you may be tempted to sneak in. You probably won't get far, thanks to two layers of 8-foot fences surrounding the three stages and cops swarming the area. But in this case, it might not hurt to try. Police will watch the fences to catch people trying to crash the party but won't lock them up for making the attempt, said Lt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman.

A new plan for rail service along the Northeast Corridor will begin to take shape early next year. Federal planners came to Philadelphia on Monday as part of a nine-city visit to gather ideas on how to remake the 457-mile corridor between Washington and Boston with updated equipment, more trains, new stations, possible new routes, and the prospect of high-speed trains capable of cutting current travel time in half. The Federal Railroad Administration is in the early stages of a 38-month process to figure out how to improve rail travel on the corridor for the next 30 years.

What does the nation's busiest rail corridor need to make train service faster, more frequent, and more dependable? Federal planners will be in Philadelphia this month as part of a nine-city visit to explore the future of the 457-mile Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston. The Federal Railroad Administration is in the early stages of a 38-month process to figure out how to improve rail travel on the corridor for the next 40 years. By March 2015, the FRA is to come up with a comprehensive plan, including an environmental-impact statement, for remaking the corridor, with proposals for updated equipment, more trains, new stations and possible new routes, with estimates of costs and benefits.

TAMPA, Fla. - Tampa has hosted four Super Bowls, but the protesters expected to cram into the city for the Republican National Convention will be a different sort of crowd, and the police are trying to be ready. In 2008, thousands of protesters arrived in St. Paul, Minn., for the RNC. Some smashed cars, punctured tires and threw bottles in a confrontation with pepper-spray wielding police. Hundreds were arrested over a few days, including dozens of journalists. "Minneapolis surprised everyone," said Rod Reder, a retired Hillsborough County sheriff's captain who worked three Super Bowls in Tampa and the Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in Miami in 2003.

A regional planning panel on Thursday approved $3.8 billion in funding for 385 transportation projects in Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania suburbs over the next four years. The highway and transit projects include continuing work on the long-awaited connection between I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and SEPTA's new "smart card" fare system. The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission adopted its "transportation improvement program" for fiscal years 2013-16, establishing a blueprint for projects in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties.

America's so-called fiscal cliff is making it hard for investors to plan ahead. The fiscal cliff is the paradox that Congress and the White House now face: If they pass measures to slice the country's massive budget deficit — potentially raising taxes and cutting spending — the very austerity measures helping to reduce a government budget crisis could ultimately plunge us into another recession. What's an investor to do in a portfolio? The fiscal cliff is prompting consternation among financial planners, some of whom warn their retirement-age clients to avoid the stock market.

When she was divorced in 1975, Sally Huling Hilderbrand recalled, she moved back to Collegeville "because I needed to have my parents to help me. " She was a single parent with a 2-year-old and twins in first grade, "and I knew I could call on my dad for anything," she said in a phone interview. Clarence W. Huling Jr. had several business and civic responsibilities, but "he helped me with the car, with home repairs, all the things I needed a man for. " Her mother provided child care, while "his was mostly a supportive role in terms of helping me maintain my house and my kids.

Saturday was "Grow This Block" day on Germantown's West Rockland Street, and just like last year, residents were in their front gardens spreading mushroom compost and planting flowers. It was exactly the kind of event you would expect from a couple of savvy, Gen Y marketing whizzes. Preparations were chronicled on a blog, rocklandstreet.com . Journalists were alerted in advance, donations obtained. And, naturally, the day's highlights were broadcast to the world via regular Twitter blasts.

Charles F. Case, 100, of Lansdale, a financial-planning consultant, died Friday, Jan. 13, of heart failure at Abington Health Lansdale Hospital. Two days before his death, Mr. Case was working at his computer at Borer, Denton & Associates, an investment-advisory firm in Blue Bell. He was still driving his Cadillac to the office until November. In recent months, colleagues picked him up. "Charles had a good attitude about life. He had a wonderful sense of humor and always got the joke," said Fred Bluefeld, a colleague for 20 years.

The leaders of a nonprofit planning group are seeking the public's ideas to improve Spring Garden Street for pedestrians, motorists, cyclists, residents, and businesses. "We want to make Spring Garden Street the best street in Philadelphia," said Patrick Starr, executive vice president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. "We're trying to push the envelope here to do something beyond the norm. " The Pennsylvania Environmental Council is a statewide nonprofit group dedicated to protecting and restoring "natural and built environments through innovation, collaboration, education, and advocacy," officials said.