It's Tuesday, right?

Summer is a bit disorienting, not least for the drop off in substantive news...

• Office space in city rebounds -- vacancies have fallen, reassuring many that the completion of the Comcast center won't torpedo the commercial rental market. (Our local healthcare giants are taking up a nontrivial amount of the square footage for administrative purposes.)
  
  
• 'Report card' is bleak for city's children -- of course, since Philadelphia Safe and Sound did the grading, and has been benefitting from a shift of monies from the DHS, it's a bit unclear how objective these measures are. [Sorry for the cynicism, but the nepotism here (i.e., see here) is a bit grating, and a friend reports that S&S is one of the most poorly run after-school funders in the city.] It's hard to deny, though, that some of the statistics, including 1000 kids shot per year, are pretty grim. The Daily News wonders why more progress hasn't been made on all of these fronts under Street's tenure.
  
  
• Ray Murphy takes at look at the Navy Yard as a possible casino location, noting a number of advantages and possible regional benefits. He suggests that casino activists have some leverage now to suggest such a thing.
  
  
• Politicians
  
  
  
  • The Daily News looks at campaign spending by judicial candidates, noting Mike Erdos' mixed feelings about the fortune he spent on his way to office.
    
    
  • AAJane looks at a recent ethics report about nepotism among US legislators, noting the typical smelliness among the Philadelphia members who were examined (only a few).
    
    
  • Jane also notes that Allyson Schwartz is among several Democrats planning to close the regulatory loophole that allows Hummer owners to take a tax-deduction for their ridiculous vehicles. More on the story here.
    
    
  • The Metro looks at Tony Payton's plan to provide scholarships to all good students to attend Pennsylvania colleges.
  
  
• Allegheny County Faces Cuts in Public Transit -- hopefully the east-west similiarities here will help with the forging of coalitions necessary to force this issue. (As well as Evans' holding the budget hostage; see prev. here.)