City Council talks DROP, School District faces Nutter’s deadline

Good morning, Feeders, and happy heat warning!

Tom MacDonald will have the latest on “DROP, DROP and more DROP,” and we’ll also bring you the latest from the school/city funding fiasco.

Today at noon is the deadline Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter issued for the School District to open its books and let the city what’s really going on with the District’s finances. Dave Davies is out to see how the request is handled.

Could the Sixers be sold? Lizz Fiedler will look at the possibility of the ’76s being bought by a young billionaire and what it means for the team. She’ll also have the full story for us on the closing of the LiDestri plant in Pennsauken.

At noon today, LGBT and HIV/AIDS community leaders will be at 13th and Spruce streets to express support for paid sick leave. Susan Phillips will be there for more information about their stance on Philadelphia’s Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces Act.

In New Jersey, Phil Gregory will review the Shield Law for bloggers (or lack thereof), and talk to the State Health Commission about the heat warning.

How do you defend the objectivity of science without defending a controversial opinion? It’s a strange vortex the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is in since it announced yesterday its defense that science doesn’t have a bias in response to a long disagreement over its Morton Collection of skulls reviewed by a scientist who determined different races have different intelligence levels based on the size and shape of the cranium. Peter Crimmins will break down the whole strange story.

Maiken Scott will take a look at Pennsylvania’s motorcycle helmet laws as the state considers bringing it back. She’ll explain to us how the law works, because it isn’t so cut and dry.

Here are just a couple of the stories you’ll find on our hyperlocal pages today:

Roxborough Library is still closed. The Ridge Avenue branch won’t reopen until next week due to a small little problem: there’s no air conditioning and the windows are sealed shut.

More than 1,000 people filled Enon Tabernalce in West Oake Lane for a movie premiere. The large church celebrated the efforts of students from Northwest Philadelphia high schools who came together to make a film about creative ways to avoid violence.