Seal

More than 250 years after it was first settled, New Hope finally has a seal. Borough council Monday night announced the winner in its recent competition for a seal reflecting the borough's heritage. The winning design, created by Hopewell, N.J., painter Joseph Crilley, depicts an artist's palette, the Parry Mansion, which is headquarters of the New Hope Historical Society, and a boat on the Delaware Canal, which runs through New Hope. The crest bears the words, "Borough of New Hope.

Residents gathered on steps and watched as city workers went into the blighted houses to toss heaps of rusted metal and fetid trash into large yellow trucks and then seal the houses shut. "We can breathe again and look out our windows without seeing all that trash," said Kandi Tabb, of Silver Street near 25th. Several other women - almost afraid to hope for more - pointed discreetly at a drug house they said also needed to be sealed up. In front of them, a workman from the Department of Licenses and Inspections, part of a five-man crew that had been cleaning and sealing the houses on the block since Saturday, held forth on the virtues of his work.

SUPERMODEL Heidi Klum wed singer Seal Tuesday on a beach in Mexico. There were no additional details as of yesterday. We'll assume they're still married. In January, Klum said on her Web site that she and Seal were engaged. Two months later, the couple announced Heidi was pregnant. Klum, 31, and Seal, 42, began dating last year, shortly after her breakup with Renault Formula One team boss Flavio Briatore, who is the father of her daughter, Leni, born last May. Tattbits "American Beauty/Pie's" Mena Suvari, 26, has filed for divorce from Robert Brinkmann, 43, her husband of five years.

To call the South Philadelphia rowhouse a "wreck" would have been too kind. It was stripped of all plumbing and lighting fixtures. Piles of debris were strewn across the rotting first floor. The size of the holes in the ceiling and walls almost matched the pane-less windows. So why did Ken Skinner call the abandoned dwelling on Carpenter Street near 21st "a good house"? As chief of Department of Licenses and Inspections' nine "clean and seal" crews, he has seen a lot worse.

Upper Uwchlan is on its way to getting a township seal, after supervisors gave the nod Monday to the idea and its design. Local artist Jane Boggs, who was commissioned by the township's Historic Commission, presented her design to the township Monday. During her presentation, Boggs told the supervisors that she was inspired by the history of the township when deciding on a motif. Her design is a circle bordered in gold rope with the words Upper Uwchlan on a background of a green hill, or upland, with a blue sky and one gold star.

The Goode administration is developing plans to seal houses that are being used as drug distribution centers, sources said. Although a Police Department spokesman said plans are not complete, other sources said the city intends to begin physically sealing about eight so- called "crack" houses a week in the near future. The sources said the Police Department will be responsible for drawing up a list of drug houses and, where warranted, to conduct raids on them. Subsequent to the raids, and after the properties are vacant, the Department of Licenses and Inspections will seal the first-floor doors and windows with cinder blocks and cement, the sources said.

Next stop: Indianapolis. Federal officials said yesterday they had found a home in that Midwestern city for a female gray seal that has spent the last six months in a Brigantine facility recuperating from a broken back. The Indianapolis Zoo will welcome the 7-month-old female pup next month. It will join four California sea lions, three harbor seals, and one gray seal in the zoo's collection. "This is the best news we've had in days," said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine.

Thanks to Police Officer William Miles, Willistown Township now has an official identity. Founded in 1704, the township has spent the last few hundred years with a state seal rather than one depicting the township's individuality. A Willistown police officer for more than 20 years, Miles will go down in history for designing the first township seal. The seal illustrates some of the most important aspects of the township's past, present and future - fox hunts, Indians and the modest beginnings of municipal government.

Redesigned seals for the space shuttle rocket boosters will have "full redundancy" to ensure that failure of a single seal will not trigger the disastrous sequence that doomed the Challenger, an engineer for the contractor that builds the rockets said yesterday. Allan J. McDonald, an engineer with Morton Thiokol Inc., said the design team he heads may scrap the trouble-plagued O-rings whose failure sparked the Jan. 28 shuttle explosion that killed seven astronauts. McDonald, who argued against the Challenger launch the night before the accident, told the House Science and Technology Committee that Thiokol's new design will "make sure we have full redundancy . . . for the full duration of the flight.

As a modern British soul singer with nary a nod to R&B's raw-powered past, Seal has often been a slippery live performer; a sweatless crooner whose cool, powerful voice lingered on his free-floating mix of jazz and folk chords, and icy instrumentation, rather than on the intensity of his lyrics. But to an older adult audience at Electric Factory on Friday, Seal warmed up. Tentative at first, Seal displayed a vocal chill that matched the gurgling sequencers and preprogrammed drum clicks of "Crazy" and "Killer," songs whose lyrics displayed a paranoia and solitariness at one with their iceberg-funk.

This month's fatal fire in the vacant East Kensington warehouse that left two firefighters dead could have been much worse, a neighborhood activist told City Council Friday. "Our whole neighborhood could have burned down," Sandy Salzman, executive director of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation, told Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections. "This could have been so much worse and we need help from you all to make sure this doesn't happen. " After the hearing, the committee approved a bill introduced by Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez that would force property owners to seal their vacant buildings or pay for the city to do so. Quinones-Sanchez had initially sponsored a bill to address only vacant residential properties in response to a large number of foreclosures in her district, which covers parts of North Philadelphia, Kensington and the Northeast.

LABOR UNIONS unhappy that the Democratic National Convention will be held this September in union-averse Charlotte, N.C., are organizing a massive "middle-class" rally for August. The location: Philadelphia. "A lot of people aren't happy that the Democratic National Convention is being hosted in a completely, 100-percent non-union environment," John Dougherty , head of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, told us Tuesday during the traditional Election Day lunch at the Famous 4th Street Deli.

Hello there Melissa had a profile on the OKCupid dating site for nearly three months by September 2010, and she had thoughts of canceling her membership. "I had a couple of first dates, and they were fun, but no one was what I was looking for," she said. Melissa at first discounted a message from Sean. It was just an electronic wink — a wordless message that indicates interest. From Melissa's perspective, a guy should at least care enough to type a couple of introductory sentences.

Jen Aniston happy for Brangelina I'm so glad Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie waited until Brad's ex — Jennifer Aniston — found a man (Justin Theroux) before announcing their plans to wed. I don't think we could have managed the tears — and the endless media verbiage that would otherwise have ensued. "[Jen] is so in love with Justin that she is really grateful how things turned out," Anonymous Source tells gossip site HollywoodLife.com. "In a strange way, if it weren't for Angelina, Jennifer would not have connected with Justin in a romantic way. " Isn't it great how things turn out?

You didn't have the money to hire a plumber to fix the leaky pipe in the basement, so you got the brilliant idea to use bubble gum and duct tape to repair it "temporarily. " Maybe that was fine for you, but what about the next person? We mean, of course, the next owner of your house. Will bubble gum and duct tape create a laugh, or will the buyer and his or her inspector wonder if there are any other quick fixes around the house? "Deferred maintenance never helped to sell a home, and it helps less now than ever," said Cheryl Miller of Long & Foster Real Estate in Blue Bell.

One night last week, Steve Barsh, a famously upbeat, can-do serial entrepreneur, was delivering a merciless pounding. His victim was a 200-pound heavy bag hanging in a Narberth gym, where Barsh and five of his employees spent an hour punching, kicking, and otherwise aggressively acting out. None of it, Barsh insisted, was to be taken as a sign that his latest start-up is in trouble. Just the opposite, he said, explaining the Wednesday night sweat session at Uppercut Gym as productive team building for a young company of seven employees on a mission to make a big impact in the vacation industry.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - After a monthlong military siege, Syrian rebels made what they called a "tactical retreat" Thursday from a key district in Homs, saying they were running low on weapons and conditions were unbearable. Within hours of the rebels' withdrawal, President Bashar al-Assad's regime granted permission for the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter the neighborhood of Baba Amr, which had become a symbol of the resistance. Human-rights workers have been appealing for access for weeks to deliver food, water, and medicine, and to help evacuate the wounded from an area that has been sealed off and attacked by the government since early February.

Parx Racing Entries, Feb. 4 FIRST POST 12:25 P.M. 1ST -$17,000 3YO F, mdn cl, $10,000 1M 1 Shock Appeal Kendrick Carmouche 121 2-1 2 Miss Ribot Samuel Bermudez 121 30-1 3 Willkommen Wilmer Garcia xxx111 15-1 4 Sheltowee Trace Edwin Rivera 121 9-2 5 Sassy Secretary Rosario Montanez 121 9-2 6 Seal the Greel Carlos Cruz 121 12-1 7 Faulty Process Ramon Moya 121 10-1 8 Only One for...

Chris Duffin didn't appear fazed. Instead, he said, he felt prepared. As he toed the foul line with 16 seconds left in regulation and a chance to ice the game, the Cardinal O'Hara guard had to overcome a slight distraction. "Don't miss it," shouted the Haverford High fans assembled under the basket as they added groans. O'Hara was the home team, but for a moment it seemed the Lions were in foreign territory. Duffin obliged the Fords fans' request, knocking down the two foul shots, and O'Hara held on to win, 56-53, Saturday in a nonleague game between Delaware County rivals.

CHANDLER, Ariz. - If President Obama is showing some swagger, it shouldn't be a surprise. His job approval ratings point to an uptick. The Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden just pulled off a daring rescue that Obama authorized in Somalia. He's fresh off a big speech before Congress, and the Republicans who want his job are criticizing each other probably more than they are Obama. As he hits the road for three days of travel to important political states, Obama is on a roll.