NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Train birth: A pair of Philadelphia transit police officers rushed onto a downtown subway train on Christmas and helped make a special delivery: a baby boy. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Sgt. Daniel Caban and Officer Darrell James joined the delivery-in-progress shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday at the 15th and Market streets station. They coached the woman through the delivery, unwrapped the umbilical cord from the baby’s neck and placed the boy in her arms. The baby’s father wrapped him in a shirt to keep warm.
2 Fire deaths: The bodies of a woman and three grandsons visiting her for Christmas have been tentatively identified after a house fire in Ohio. Fayette County coroner Dr. Dennis Mesker says the badly burned bodies were turned over Friday to the Montgomery County coroner’s office for autopsies and confirmation. He says the victims are believed to be 60year-old Terry Harris, 14-year-old Kenyon Harris, 11-year-old Broderick Harris and 9-yearold Braylon Harris. Terry Harris lived alone in the single-story, ranch-style house that was engulfed early Friday morning. Sheriff Vernon Stanforth says the children lived nearby and were staying with their grandmother so she wouldn’t be alone on Christmas night. State fire investigators are trying to determine the fire’s cause.
3 John Wayne’s Alamo: Time and Mother Nature are threatening to dismantle the replica 18th-century Spanish mission and Old West movie set John Wayne built for his Oscar-nominated 1960 movie “The Alamo” that for decades was a tourist mecca and film production site. In recent years, a large crack has developed on the front of the facade. A tree grows inside. Other walls and structures that have been replaced or redone are failing. Corpus Christi businessman David Jones says he’s close to raising the $8 million he believes is necessary to buy the a 400-acre plot of land about 120 miles west of San Antonio and ready it for visitors.
4 Penny parking: In a time of strained city budgets, Sycamore, Ill., a community of 18,000 residents an hour west of Chicago, is one of a handful still holding onto parking meters that accept pennies, nickels and dimes around its town square. A penny gets you 12 minutes, a nickel buys an hour and a dime is worth two hours. The City Council quadrupled the fine for parking tickets a few years ago. “The fines went from a quarter to a dollar,” Mayor Ken Mundy said, adding that out-of-towners often ask for a copy of the ticket as a keepsake.
5 Stripper lawsuit: On Christmas Eve, a U.S. district judge in Dallas left a little something extra under the tree for some 190 women who spent time dancing in an all-nude Dallas strip club: a signed settlement worth $2.3 million, minus a sizable chunk of attorneys’ fees. The pile of money is the result of a three-year legal battle over that age-old question: Are strippers full-time employees deserving of proper wages or just transient part-timers — independent contractors — dancing for tips? The Dallas case, involving a strip club that the city is now trying to close altogether, ended like most of the lawsuits filed over strip-club wages in recent years — with the dancers collecting a settlement in the millions, but the club continuing to conduct business as usual.