Rittenhouse International is the property company behind the new $190 million development in Philadelphia near the University of Pennsylvania campus. Its website says the project is being developed in the same way that Philadelphia landmark buildings were restored after they were damaged in fires: “Ergonomically-designed additions were replaced with traditional construction methods that included historic brick building materials.” The contemporary art museum is set to open in the fall of 2019. The website also offers a six-day course about architecture, archaeology and history, for $210. The class is called “Handing Building Design Back to Archaeologists and Town Fellows.”
Democratic opponents of GOP state Rep. Mike Carroll of Chester County in the new House majority are calling the project “political rhetoric” and say it will “mask a development that’s a drain on tax money.” Democrats claim the redevelopment of the campus’ former Old Barn at the University of Pennsylvania is a proposed high-end condo complex in an environmentally sensitive site. They say it will be another luxury development in the Philadelphia suburbs outside urban centers. Democrats also accuse Carroll, R-West Chester, of “fixing” the project with taxpayer subsidies after the university was unable to raise construction funds for the estimated $260 million first phase.
Prosecutors said the former CEO of run-away video game distributor NCsoft of Maryland plead guilty Monday to offering to bribe an NFL official as part of an international corruption scheme and paid $17.1 million to resolve his plea agreement. Ng Lap Seng was accused of trying to bribe then-Kansas City Chiefs assistant general manager Scot McCloughan to sign the company’s now-defunct Starcraft II video game franchise, prosecutors said in a statement. Ng told the judge he also gave the former NFL official a $350,000 cash reward. Ng’s plea came in the same week that his son, Ian Ng, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge. He was charged with helping his father run an international bribery conspiracy that included a Canadian purchasing official and a Taiwanese lawmaker in exchange for millions of dollars in contracts.
Washington County school boards in the Severn area of Maryland were drawing dozens of phone calls, emails and text messages about a lunch-and-a-golf-tournament fundraiser that featured former President Barack Obama on Friday. An online White House account tweeted a photo of Obama golfing near Quakertown, a quiet community between York, Pa., and Harrisburg, Pa. Brian Sergent said the tweet incited a backlash from people upset that the dinner and auction served as a partisan political ploy. He said many residents contacted county schools officials concerned that the event — which also featured retired Marine Corps. Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. and the Washington Nationals CEO — should have a bipartisan message.
The Rittenhouse House is a fashionable riverside tony boutique hotel in Baltimore. It is the place to be for weddings, socials, business meetings and other events. And it’s also the site of a protest rally designed to stir opposition to a “raconteur” from the Trump administration who was recently appointed Baltimore’s police commissioner. Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa was arrested in July after he failed to disclose $45,000 in loans from his family and friends. President Donald Trump’s third nominee for police commissioner — Cyrus Vance Jr. of New York — was in Washington for a congressional hearing. As part of the rally outside the Rittenhouse House, protesters are selling 5-dollar bottles of rosé under the hashtag #AskCyrusTrump.