The new owners of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com have demanded immediate concessions from the union that represents the publications’ employees. According to Poynter, “In a letter to employees last month, IGM CEO Bob Hall told employees revenue at the company was down $16 million from the year before. It told the Guild the same day it would seek $28 million in cuts.” Poynter also points to a previous case in 2009, where the Boston Globe’s Guild accepted 8.3 percent pay cuts after the New York Times Company (which owns the Globe…related: conservatives call this paper the Boston Globe Democrat) threatened to shut the paper down.

…And in the end, they drowned in a sea of funny cat pictures, Gif lists of things people liked in the 1990s and a horde of college interns willing to do it all for free…

Did you see the union protests have essentially stopped in Callowhill outside the Post Brothers worksite? That’s because U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (who else?) put together a meeting between Michael and Matthew Pestronk (who own the building) and union leaders. The unions have asked for the brothers’ next project, the Atlantic Building at Broad and Spruce, be done with 100 percent union labor. The owners have not agreed to that.

Gov. Tom Corbett has turned to a law firm that helped his campaign in 2010, and awarded them a $75,000 contract to help with the Voter ID. The firm, Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP, and its lawyers donated $21,000 in cash and $5,505 in legal services to the governor’s campaigns over the years and the Inquirer is not happy about any of this—considering the administration hasn’t exactly been completely open about this issue since they started picking at it a couple weeks ago.

Oh, and despite both the Romney and Obama camps (and the Super PACs) essentially leaving the state to focus on the real swingers (we are likely going Obama, in case you haven’t heard), the governor says Pennsylvania is still “a very competitive state.” He adds that observation is based upon his “ravels across the state.” That dude ravels like you’ve never seen. His ravels are essentially uncanny.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenge of the Voter ID law begins today in City Hall.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz has found that the city may have mismanaged its funds in trying to help the homeless—and that’s the nice way of putting it. According to Fox 29, “The audit found the unclaimed account, called the Client Savings Account, had a balance of more than $105,000 representing nearly 900 homeless accounts,” and yet “the savings account only contained funds for clients who were no longer in the shelter system.”

Mayor Nutter has kicked off his campaign to raise funds for a statue commemorating real-life boxer Joe Frazier. I know of an account where they may be able to pick up a few bucks for this!