Young People

Most of the lot at 335 Righters Ferry Rd. in Bala Cynwyd doesn't look like much, with its tangle of trees and weeds on hilly ground. But to Lower Merion Township officials, it is the beginning of turning the unremarkable and unwalkable area around City Avenue into a pedestrian's paradise. The township's Planning Committee on Monday night heard an initial presentation from Nolen Properties to construct an 11-story apartment building on the Righters Ferry site, bounded by Monument Road, Belmont Avenue, and St. Asaphs Road.

Alfred M. Brown was not a dancer or a singer or an actor. But "Mr. Al" brought the arts to thousands of children and teens through the Point Breeze Performing Arts Center, a cultural haven in a section of South Philadelphia that has struggled with crime and violence. "We had some of the best and most talented teachers who worked with young people and turned them into professionals," said his wife, Donna. Mr. Brown, 68, died Wednesday, Feb. 27, of a heart attack. A graduate of Bok High School in South Philadelphia, Mr. Brown was trained as a draftsman.

  Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) will hold a congressional hearing next week into a federal shortfall that is causing the suspension of new enrollments for Job Corps, the job-training program for low-income young people. At a news conference outside the office of the Job Corps in South Philadelphia Monday, Casey said he would investigate why the U.S. Department of Labor was short $61.5 million in funding the program begun in the 1960s. "They haven't given me much of an answer," Casey said.

The Luzerne County cash-for-kids scandal revealed the potential for tragedy when locking up juvenile defendants becomes routine. Thousands of young people were harmed by the scheme hatched by two disgraced judges, who took millions of dollars in kickbacks to place young offenders in for-profit detention centers. While juvenile incarceration rates across the country have fortunately declined sharply in recent years, America is still putting too many young people in jail, even for minor crimes.

MICHAEL "OG-Law" Ta'bon was pacing back and forth in a prison cell, planning to kill himself, when he said he felt God talking to him. "The night I was going to do it was the night that I found out God was real," Ta'bon said. Last week, he talked about that night in state prison in Albion, Erie County, as he sat on a cot inside a makeshift jail on the grounds of the Berean Institute, in North Philadelphia. Ta'bon compared the experience to the Biblical story of Saul being converted to Paul on the road to Damascus.

Alfred M. Brown was not a dancer or a singer or an actor. But "Mr. Al" brought the arts to thousands of children and teens through the Point Breeze Performing Arts Center, a cultural haven in a section of South Philadelphia that has struggled with crime and violence. "We had some of the best and most talented teachers who worked with young people and turned them into professionals," said his wife, Donna. Mr. Brown, 68, died Wednesday, Feb. 27, of a heart attack. A graduate of Bok High School in South Philadelphia, Mr. Brown was trained as a draftsman.

Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) will hold a congressional hearing next week into a federal shortfall that is causing the suspension of new enrollments for Job Corps, the job-training program for low-income young people. At a news conference outside the office of the Job Corps in South Philadelphia Monday, Casey said he would investigate why the U.S. Department of Labor was short $61.5 million in funding the program begun in the 1960s. "They haven't given me much of an answer," Casey said.

BORN-AND-RAISED Philadelphian Danielle Harvey never really saw herself moving away from her hometown. Then, last spring, she witnessed a shooting at the same bus stop where she had been robbed about a month before. Harvey, 24, who worked at a law office in Center City, said that she was able to shake off the robbery, in which her phone was stolen and pockets rifled through at a bus stop outside Frankford's Margaret-Orthodox El station. "You live in the city, this stuff happens," she said.

Khalif Wyatt is generous. Not flamboyant. Doesn't strive to be the center of attention. Sort of a philanthropist, really. And then there's Leaf Buckets 01. College basketball fans know Leaf Buckets 01. He's Wyatt's alter ego, Temple's game-day hero, and the unquestioned key to the Owls' bid for a sixth consecutive NCAA tournament appearance. When Temple takes the court Sunday at Charlotte, all eyes will be on the Owls' No. 1 in the Atlantic Ten tilt at Halton Arena. The 6-foot-4, 210-pound guard is arguably the most dominant player in the conference.

ALTHOUGH SOME SEE President Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour as a way to help people make ends meet, others see it as a way for people to lose jobs. Anthony Liuzzo, professor of business and economics at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., said many people who now make the minimum wage may find themselves unemployed if the wage is increased. "I think it will hurt the exact people it was intended to help," he said. "An employer will look hard at whether they can afford it. People who make the minimum wage will simply be terminated rather than get the higher salaries, especially young people.