Taxi Driver

British filmmaker Stanley Long, whose cheap-and-cheerful soft-core romps led him to be dubbed the "king of sexploitation," has died at age 78. A producer, director, and cinematographer, Mr. Long created movies with titles like Nudist Memories and The Wife Swappers before scoring his biggest success with Adventures of a Taxi Driver and other 1970s sex comedies. The mix of bawdy humor and nudity mad Adventures a hit. The film was sold to 36 countries and spawned two sequels.

'How you?" The gentleman in the sunglasses asked, not of me. "Everything safe?" I looked forward at the man behind the wheel, expectantly. "Yah, yah, man, everything safe," Bunn replied. And at the moment, it was. Everything was safe. I leaned back in my seat behind him. Bunn was our taxi driver during my family's weeklong sojourn on Jost Van Dyke, the smallest of the main British Virgin Islands. According to the local nurse-practitioner, there are just 198 souls on the island, all catering in some way to the tourist trade.

As though arriving in Philadelphia by the back door could get any drearier. Long-running construction on the Platt Bridge, now eight months behind schedule, has managed to add an automotive thrill ride to a familiar eyesore. The $43 million painting and reconstruction of the 61-year-old bridge gives the city's grimy industrial gateway from Philadelphia International Airport a gloomy and treacherous centerpiece. Arching over sprawling oil tanks and the steaming stacks of the Sunoco refinery, the bridge begins in weeds and ends by a junkyard, as it has for decades.

Cabbie, tourist die in N.Y. crash NEW YORK - A three-way wreck on a rain-slick highway Saturday killed a taxi driver and a Utah woman who was taking her grandson to see the city sights, and the boy was hospitalized after being rescued from the crushed cab. Suzanne Nicholson and her grandson Gabriel Larsen, 11, were taking the taxi from John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens to Manhattan, a trip arranged to celebrate his recent birthday,...

Hello there In September 2009, the dating site eHarmony told Lisa and Ray that they might make a good pair. Looking at his profile, Lisa saw that Ray "was passionate about making a difference in the world, and I was intrigued by that. " Ray, who grew up in Cherry Hill, had moved to Camden to try to help revitalize that city. He is CEO of the nonprofit Latin American Economic Development Association, which helps to start and grow small businesses. Lisa, who lived in the Art Museum neighborhood, sent him a message through the eHarmony site.

Man finds mother dead, father unconscious * Winfield Avenue near West Chester Pike, Upper Darby A taxi driver found his mother dead and his father unconscious in an apparent murder-suicide attempt yesterday at their home behind the Upper Darby police station, cops said. Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said a taxi driver in his 20s received a garbled call on his cellphone from his father about 1 p.m. asking him to come home. When the son arrived, he found his mother, who was in her 40s, dead in bed. His father, who is in his 50s, was next to her. He was breathing but unconscious, police said.

POLICE COMMISSIONER Charles Ramsey yesterday urged a driver to come forward after three passengers in his car fatally assaulted a man Saturday in the city's historic district, suggesting that he might be able to wrangle a better deal for himself. "Right now he [the driver] is part of the murder case," Ramsey told the Daily News . "But if he comes forward, there is a possibility that the district attorney might work with his attorney. " That doesn't mean the driver would get off scot-free, Ramsey said, but he could be "given consideration" by prosecutors if he offers information.

An elderly woman was killed in Atlantic City on Saturday afternoon as she crossed Pacific Avenue and was struck by one or more vehicles. The Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office identified the woman as Bu Do Jo, 88. Television news reports said police were questioning a taxi driver. The Press of Atlantic City quoted witnesses at the scene as saying the woman was a resident of a nearby apartment complex in the 1300 block of Pacific Avenue, near Ocean Avenue. She was struck about 3:50 p.m. The witnesses said a resort taxi, seen speeding away, might have hit her. The woman reportedly was struck a second time, by a jitney.

An Atlantic City taxi driver who was stopped after a hit-and-run that killed an 88-year-old woman Saturday evening has been charged with traffic violations but no criminal charges had been filed by Sunday night. The Atlantic County Prosecutor's office identified the driver as Jean A. Sene, 43, of Atlantic City. Prosecutors said he left the scene of the incident, in the 1300 block of Pacific Avenue. Prosecutors said the investigation was ongoing. The victim, Bu Do Jo, was struck by the cab and subsequently hit by a jitney.

Reprinted from Wednesday's Inquirer. It's not hard to see why Martin Scorsese fell in love with The Invention of Hugo Cabret , Brian Selznick's Caldecott Medal-winning graphic novel for kids. For decades, Scorsese has devoted great energy and effort to the preservation of old films, and in Selznick's voluminous fantasy, French magician-turned-moviemaker Georges Méliès not only figures prominently, but so, too, does his work. Among Méliès' dreamlike flights of filmic whimsy to show up in the book: "A Trip to the Moon," that 1902 one-reel gem with the giant rocket flying right into the Man in the Moon's eye. A 3-D spectacle (yes, be sure to put on those 3-D spectacles!