QUICK LINKS

• LABOR PAINS: UNION RANKS DIP IN PA, NJ

• HAVERFORD VOWS CHANGE AFTER ISRAELI TALK SPARKS CLASHES

• TOW-TAL RECALL: PHILLY AGREES TO STOP LOSING YOUR CAR

• 19 CHARGED IN GANG BLOOD FEUD THAT LED TO OVER 35 VICTIMS

• FUTURE OF CHINATOWN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT IN JEOPARDY

• PAYING RESPECTS

• CITY OPENS NEW GAY PRIDE VISTOR’S CENTER

• SPRAY IT AIN’T SO

• DEBATE SWIRLS OVER LOCATION OF NEW CITY BUS TERMINAL

• FARE WARNING: NEW SEPTA AI PROGRAM TO FINE PARKING VIOLATIONS

• LOCAL CONCERTS, MARCH 2ND - MARCH 7TH

LABOR PAINS: UNION RANKS DIP IN PA, NJ

Union membership in Pennsylvania and New Jersey declined in 2025, even as national rates held relatively steady, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationwide, 10% of workers were union members last year, a slight increase from 9.9% in 2024. In New Jersey, 14.7% of workers were unionized, while Pennsylvania’s rate fell to 10.9% — each down about one percentage point from the year prior. Federal officials cautioned that comparisons to past years are more difficult because a government shutdown left October data incomplete.

The figures come amid what labor experts have described as an anti-union push by President Donald Trump’s administration, including efforts to end some federal union contracts and actions that left the National Labor Relations Board without a quorum for part of the year. Despite high-profile organizing drives and strike threats across the Philadelphia region, analysts say organizing momentum has slowed, with fewer union elections and concerns about how federal rulings could affect future efforts.

HAVERFORD VOWS CHANGE AFTER ISRAELI TALK SPARKS CLASHES

Haverford College says it will revise its events policy following a disruption during a talk earlier this month by Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur. About a dozen masked protesters interrupted the event, at one point shouting through a bullhorn and drawing a physical confrontation with an audience member before campus safety removed both individuals. Neither person was affiliated with the college, officials said. The incident renewed allegations of antisemitism on campus, which is already under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education and facing scrutiny from a Republican-led congressional committee.

College President Wendy Raymond told the campus community that shouting down speakers violates school values and acknowledged gaps in how events are managed. Administrators said updated policies will aim to clarify expectations and provide additional oversight for events deemed “higher risk” due to safety or disruption concerns.

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TOW-TAL RECALL: PHILLY AGREES TO STOP LOSING YOUR RIDE

The City of Philadelphia has agreed to overhaul its long-criticized “courtesy tow” system and pay $750,000 to 36 drivers as part of a proposed federal court settlement. The deal, which still requires approval from a U.S. district judge, would require tow truck operators participating in the city’s vehicle relocation program to electronically log where cars are dropped off. The city is also expected to partner with the Philadelphia Parking Authority to create a searchable database so drivers can locate relocated vehicles more easily.

The settlement follows years of complaints and a five-year federal lawsuit alleging that the city’s system routinely lost legally parked cars, leading to tickets, impoundments, wrongful stolen vehicle reports, and even armed police stops of unsuspecting owners in other states. Under the proposed changes, vehicles would be marked before relocation to prevent improper ticketing, and new tracking technology would aim to prevent cars from disappearing into what plaintiffs described as a “bureaucratic black hole.”

19 CHARGED IN GANG BLOOD FEUD THAT LED TO OVER 35 VICTIMS

Nineteen people connected to a violent feud between the Young Bag Chasers (YBC) and rival crews are expected to be charged in a sweeping indictment tied to nearly two dozen shootings across the city, including at least five homicides. Prosecutors say the yearslong retaliation cycle, spanning 2022 to 2024, left 35 victims ranging in age from 5 to 42. Five suspects were taken into custody Wednesday as part of an investigation by the Philadelphia Police Department.

Authorities said the probe linked members of YBC and affiliated groups — along with rivals including CCK and the Parkside Killers — to shootings fueled by social media taunts and drill rap videos. Investigators used ballistics, phone records, and online posts to connect suspects to multiple crimes, including the killings of Zyir Stafford and several alleged gang members. Officials said more arrests are expected as the long-running investigation continues.

FUTURE OF CHINATOWN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT IN JEOPARDY

The future of the Chinatown Stitch project, a long-planned effort to cap the Vine Street Expressway and reconnect the neighborhood divided by the highway, is uncertain after the Trump administration rescinded a $159 million federal grant. The funding had been awarded through a Biden-era transportation equity program, but was clawed back as part of a broader rollback of unspent federal infrastructure dollars. City officials are now scrambling to identify alternative funding sources to keep the project alive.

Planners are seeking up to $12.5 million in alternative federal funds to complete final design work, a key step before environmental approval and construction can begin. The proposal is under review by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, where some members have expressed concern about advancing the project without secured construction financing. City leaders say they are exploring options including tax-increment financing and remain committed to a project supporters say has been decades in the making.

PAYING RESPECTS

The City of Philadelphia will provide up to $2,000 to help cover funeral costs for homicide victims under a new initiative launching March 1st, becoming the first municipality in the US to do so. The Homicide Victim Funeral Assistance (HVFA) Program will pay funds directly to funeral homes, with applications reviewed within 48 hours, according to city officials. The effort will be administered by the Office of the Victim Advocate, part of the city’s Office of Public Safety.

Officials said the program is designed to ease the financial burden on grieving families, as the average funeral in Philadelphia costs about $9,100. The city’s contribution is intended to supplement Pennsylvania’s Victims Compensation Assistance Program, which offers up to $6,500 in reimbursement. The announcement comes as homicides have declined significantly since their 2021 peak, with city leaders describing the fund as a tangible way to support families facing sudden loss.

CITY OPENS NEW GAY PRIDE VISTOR’S CENTER

City leaders on Wednesday cut the ribbon on the new Philly Pride Visitor Center, an LGBTQ+ tourism hub located at 12th and Locust Streets in the heart of the Gayborhood. The center was launched by the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation and Visit Philadelphia in partnership with Visit PA and the Philadelphia Gay News. Officials say the space will promote LGBTQ+-owned and allied businesses, highlight queer-friendly destinations, and serve as a welcoming resource for visitors.

Tourism leaders opened the center ahead of what they anticipate will be a record-breaking year for travel, noting that LGBTQ+ travelers contribute an estimated $65 billion annually nationwide. The opening also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Philadelphia Gay News, underscoring the city’s historic role in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Governor Josh Shapiro joined local officials at the ceremony.

SPRAY IT AIN’T SO

Philadelphia has once again been named the “Best City for Street Art” in USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. The honor highlights the city’s reputation as the “mural capital of the world,” with thousands of public artworks transforming streets, buildings, and public spaces into an open-air gallery.

Home to more than 4,000 murals, sculptures, and installations, Philadelphia boasts one of the largest and most accessible public art collections globally. City officials and arts advocates say the recognition reflects decades of investment in public art programs that have made street art a defining feature of the city’s cultural identity.

DEBATE SWIRLS OVER LOCATION OF NEW CITY BUS TERMINAL

Residents weighed in this week on where to relocate the city’s Greyhound bus terminal during an open house hosted by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission at the Independence Visitor Center. Planners are considering three potential sites: 29th and Arch Streets near 30th Street Station, the 1500 block of Vine Street, and the 700 block of Arch Street.

City officials say public input will help shape the final decision, and residents can also complete an online survey about the proposed locations. Meanwhile, the current Greyhound station on Filbert Street is scheduled to temporarily reopen in May as longer-term plans for a permanent bus terminal move forward.

FARE WARNING: NEW SEPTA AI PROGRAM TO FINE PARKING VIOLATIONS

SEPTA will begin installing AI-powered enforcement cameras on trolleys across the region starting March 2, expanding a similar program already in use on city buses. Officials said the cameras, developed in partnership with the Philadelphia Parking Authority, will identify vehicles illegally blocking trolley lanes and stops on Lines T1 through T5 and the G1 route. After a 60-day warning period, $51 citations will begin April 1.

The initiative follows the rollout of AI cameras on more than 150 buses last year, which have since issued more than 112,000 tickets. SEPTA officials say illegally parked vehicles cause major service delays and safety hazards, and the PPA noted each violation will be manually reviewed by enforcement officers before fines are issued. The agencies say the effort supports the city’s broader Vision Zero traffic safety goals.

LOCAL CONCERTS, MARCH 2ND - MARCH 7TH

MONDAY, MARCH 2ND

• Conan Gray (Wishbone World Tour, with Esha Tewari)

  • Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia, PA

• I See Stars

  • Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia, PA

• Until I Wake

  • Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia, PA

TUESDAY, MARCH 3RD

• Ratboys (w. Florry)

  • First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA

• Beauty School Dropout (w. NIGHTBREAKERS)

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4TH

• Bryce Vine

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

THURSDAY, MARCH 5TH

• prison Affair and D Sablu (w. Snõõper and F.i.b.)

  • First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA

• Chrissy Chlapecka

  • Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia, PA

FRIDAY, MARCH 6TH

• Subtronics

  • The Met, Philadelphia, PA

SATURDAY, MARCH 7TH

• MANA

  • Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia, PA

• Subtronics

  • The Met, Philadelphia, PA

• Eric Hutchinson

  • City Winery, Philadelphia, PA

QUICK LINKS

• SLAVERY EXHIBIT MUST STAY, JUDGE RULES

• AIRPORT MEASLES CASE RAISES ALARM

• NOT SO FAST: NEW SCHOOL SPEED CAMERAS PRIMED AND READY TO TICKET

• BREATHING FREELY

• GRAD WORKERS INK DEAL, STRIKE AVERTED

• 40+ PHILLY NARCOTICS CONVICTIONS UP IN SMOKE

• MAGIC GARDENS FOUNDER PASSES AT 86

• STUDENT WALKOUT ENDS IN ARRESTS

• PAW & ORDER

• LOCAL CONCERTS, FEBRUARY 23RD - FEBRUARY 28TH

SLAVERY EXHIBIT MUST STAY, JUDGE RULES

A federal judge has ordered the restoration of interpretive panels at Philadelphia’s President’s House that detail the lives of nine enslaved people held there by George Washington. The ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, grants a preliminary injunction requiring the site to be returned to its condition prior to January 22nd, when the displays were removed following an executive order from the Trump administration. The decision sided with the City of Philadelphia and advocacy group Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which argued that taking down the panels caused irreparable harm and erased a critical part of the nation’s founding history.

In a 40-page opinion, Rufe found that a survival clause in a cooperative agreement between the city and federal government keeps key provisions in effect, rejecting arguments that the agreement had expired. She also barred further federal action that could alter or damage the site. Supporters celebrated the decision as historic, saying it ensures visitors receive a complete and accurate account of the realities of slavery at the President’s House. The federal government has said it will appeal the ruling.

AIRPORT MEASLES CASE RAISES ALARM

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health is alerting travelers to a potential measles exposure at Philadelphia International Airport. Officials say a person infected with measles was in Terminal E on Thursday, February 12, between 1:35 P.M. and 4:30 P.M. Anyone present during that window is advised to review their vaccination status and monitor for symptoms.

Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus that can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves an area. Early symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes, followed by a rash. Health officials said there is no broad threat to the general public but urged those who are not fully vaccinated to contact their healthcare provider about the MMR vaccine. Anyone who develops symptoms through March 5th should seek medical care immediately and inform providers of the possible exposure.

NOT SO FAST: NEW SCHOOL SPEED CAMERAS PRIMED AND READY TO TICKET

The Philadelphia Parking Authority is launching a pilot program that will issue warnings — and eventually, fines — to drivers caught speeding in five designated school zones across the city. Beginning Tuesday, motorists who exceed posted limits while school-zone flashers are active will receive warnings during a 60-day grace period. Starting April 20, 2026, those warnings will convert into monetary penalties, though officials have not yet announced the fine amount. Violations will not result in points on a driver’s license.

The targeted zones, selected based on crash data from 2019 to 2023, include areas near John B. Stetson Middle School, KIPP North Philadelphia Charter School, Widener Memorial School, High School of the Future, and William L. Sayre High School. Officials cited multiple serious-injury and pedestrian crashes, including a fatal incident near Broad and Olney in 2023. PPA Executive Director Rich Lazer said the program aims to curb dangerous driving and improve safety for students, pointing to similar recent enforcement along Roosevelt Boulevard and Broad Street that significantly reduced speeding and pedestrian collisions.

BREATHING FREELY

Philadelphia officials on Wednesday launched “Breathe Philly,” a new citywide air monitoring initiative featuring 76 sensors designed to track particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide levels in neighborhoods across the city. The monitors feed real-time data to an interactive online map that allows residents to check local air quality conditions. According to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, every address in the city is now within one and a half miles of a monitor, providing more localized and accessible environmental data.

Community advocates welcomed the program but said monitoring alone will not solve long-standing pollution concerns, particularly in historically-impacted neighborhoods. Mayor Cherelle Parker said the city plans to use the data to guide policy decisions and improve public health outcomes. The Breathe Philly website is now live, enabling residents to review current air quality readings and determine whether conditions may pose risks, especially for people with underlying health issues.

GRAD WORKERS INK DEAL, STRIKE AVERTED

Graduate student workers at the University of Pennsylvania have reached a tentative agreement on their first union contract, narrowly averting a strike that had been set to begin Feb. 17. The two-year deal, announced early Tuesday, follows months of negotiations between the university and Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania (GET-UP), which represents roughly 3,400 research and teaching assistants and is affiliated with the United Auto Workers. Union members had authorized a strike in November and set a deadline after key issues — including wages, healthcare, and transit benefits — remained unresolved.

If ratified, the agreement would raise the annual minimum stipend to $49,000, a 22% increase, and set a $25 hourly minimum, with additional raises scheduled in 2027. The deal also includes paid medical and parental leave, a $200,000 annual dependent healthcare reimbursement fund and a $50,000 annual fund to assist international students with visa-related costs. University officials said academic operations would have continued in the event of a strike, though striking workers would not have been paid. A ratification vote has not yet been scheduled.

40+ PHILLY NARCOTICS CONVICTIONS UP IN SMOKE

More than 40 additional drug and gun convictions tied to three narcotics officers have been thrown out in Philadelphia, as prosecutors continue reviewing nearly 1,000 cases that relied on their testimony. On Wednesday, Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi vacated 47 convictions after the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said it could no longer stand behind the credibility of Officers Ricardo Rosa, Eugene Roher and Jeffrey Holden. The cases stem from investigations by the Philadelphia Police Department’s Narcotics Strike Force, and many of the affected defendants had been serving years in prison.

Attorneys with the Defender Association of Philadelphia uncovered surveillance video they say contradicts the officers’ sworn testimony, alleging the trio failed to disclose their use of city cameras and described drug transactions they could not have seen — or that never occurred. Prosecutors have cited a pattern of inconsistencies but stopped short of accusing the officers of lying, while defense lawyers contend the misconduct was deliberate. The officers remain on active duty in reassigned roles as an internal affairs investigation continues. More dismissals are expected in the coming months.

MAGIC GARDENS FOUNDER PASSES AT 86

Isaiah Zagar, the visionary mosaic artist whose glittering glass murals transformed South Philadelphia into a kaleidoscope of color, has died at 86. Zagar, founder of Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, died at his home from complications of heart failure and Parkinson’s disease, the organization confirmed Thursday. Over decades, the self-taught artist covered an estimated 50,000 square feet of walls with broken mirrors, tiles, bottles, and found objects, creating more than 200 mosaics that reshaped the city’s visual identity and became synonymous with Philadelphia’s public art scene.

Born in Brooklyn in 1939 and educated at the Pratt Institute, Zagar moved to Philadelphia in the late 1960s with his wife, Julia, and helped spark the South Street Renaissance while fighting plans for a Crosstown Expressway. His immersive Magic Gardens installation, once threatened by demolition, was preserved after supporters raised funds to purchase the property, cementing its status as a cultural landmark that now draws roughly 150,000 visitors annually. Zagar’s work appears in major museum collections and across city blocks, leaving behind a legacy etched in tile and mirror. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

STUDENT WALKOUT ENDS IN ARRESTS

A student-led walkout protesting immigration enforcement turned chaotic this Friday in Quakertown, ending in multiple arrests after a confrontation with police. About 35 students from Quakertown Community High School left campus around 11:30 A.M. despite warnings from administrators. Authorities said some students became disruptive, allegedly throwing snowballs, blocking traffic and damaging property, prompting police to respond. By the end of the incident, five to six students and one adult were taken into custody, and the school was briefly placed on lockdown.

Video from the scene shows a man identified by sources as the Quakertown police chief — dressed in plain clothes — placing a female student in what appears to be a chokehold before falling to the ground as other students gathered around. Witnesses disputed police claims that students escalated the situation, saying officers intensified what began as a peaceful protest against ICE. Police have issued only a written statement, and school officials say they are reviewing the actions of students who left campus without permission.

PAW & ORDER

Philadelphia City Council has approved a temporary ban on unlicensed puppy breeding in an effort to reduce overcrowding at the city’s primary animal shelter. The measure places a three-year moratorium on the unlicensed breeding, sale and transfer of puppies within the city. The Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia will begin enforcing the law in three months.

Under the new rules, prospective sellers who advertise puppies without including a valid kennel license number and the ZIP code where the dog is located could face daily fines. Supporters say the crackdown is designed to curb irresponsible breeding practices and ease the strain on Philadelphia’s shelter system.

LOCAL CONCERTS, FEBRUARY 23RD - FEBRUARY 28TH

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23RD

• RUEL

  • Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• Valgur, Andy Loebs, and ZOM6ii

  • Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia, PA

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24TH

• TWICE

  • Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia, PA

• Mariah the Scientist

  • The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

• Rich Brian

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

• Lynch Mob

  • Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia, PA

• Rio Kosta,

  • Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH

• JJ Grey & Mofro

  • Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA

• Aries (with Zack Villere)

  • Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• Clinton Kane

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

• Briscoe

  • MilkBoy, Philadelphia, PA

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH

• Brass Against

  • Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• blackwater holylight

  • Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27TH

• Chad Taylor

  • Solar Myth, Philadelphia, PA

• Everyone Orchestra

  • Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH

• Brett Young Xcite Center,

  • Parx Casino, Bensalem, PA

• Peter McPoland (w. DUG)

  • Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• Lost Frequencies

  • NOTO Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

QUICK LINKS

• BEN THERE, FORGED THAT: CENTER CITY BAR BANS UNDER-25s

• NO HEAT, NO SEAT

• GOV. SHAPIRO VOWS TO FIGHT DHS DETENTION CENTERS

• CITATION NATION

• ONLY TWO OUT OF 140 SPEED CUSHIONS UP TO CODE, CITY CONTROLLER CLAIMS

• SHAPIRO MAKES $1 BILLION HOUSE CALL

• PHILADELPHIA KILLER ARRESTED AFTER 25 YEARS ON THE MOST WANTED LIST

• CITY SHELLS OUT FOR OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT — AGAIN

• TRASH FIRE IN GRAY’S FERRY MAY POSE HEALTH RISK

• LOCAL CONCERTS, FEBRUARY 15TH - FEBRUARY 21ST

BEN THERE, FORGED THAT: CENTER CITY BAR BANS UNDER-25s

A popular Center City dive bar has raised its entry age to 25 in response to a flood of high-quality fake IDs and growing rowdiness. Dirty Frank’s, at 13th and Pine streets, lifted its minimum from 21 to 25 after owner Jody Sweitzer said younger, underage patrons were using increasingly sophisticated fakes, smuggling in outside liquor, vaping indoors, and ignoring house rules. The breaking point came when staff seized a nearly undetectable counterfeit ID bearing Benjamin Franklin’s face and a fake Market Street address; the document reportedly scans and passes UV-light inspection.

Since the change took effect, some regulars have seen it as an improvement. One 25-year-old patron described the previous scene as chaotic, with aisles packed and people “bumping into each other,” calling the new cutoff necessary despite its bluntness.

Sweitzer, who has spotted the same fakes selling online for about $100, is acquiring advanced scanning equipment but says the “25-and-over” house rule will remain in place until better detection tools arrive.

NO HEAT, NO SEAT

Heating failures linked to the prolonged cold snap have disrupted operations at multiple Philadelphia schools, forcing relocations and leaving some classrooms dangerously cold. At Strawberry Mansion High School, staff reported temperatures in the 40s across parts of the building, while Greenberg Elementary students shifted to virtual learning for nearly a week before being relocated to the former Meehan Middle School, a district “swing space.” Officials said repairs are ongoing but did not provide a clear timeline, acknowledging that the move may continue for an extended period as heating issues are assessed and resolved.

Parents say the disruptions have strained families and raised concerns about safety, overcrowding, and the district’s aging infrastructure, which faces billions of dollars in unmet needs.

Some criticized the relocation logistics and said repeated building problems could drive families away from the city’s schools. District leaders pointed to a proposed $2.8 billion facilities master plan — including school closures and widespread modernization — as a long-term solution, while emphasizing that student safety remains a priority and that transportation and support services are being provided during the transition.

GOV. SHAPIRO VOWS TO FIGHT DHS DETENTION CENTERS

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is threatening legal action against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over plans to convert warehouses in Berks and Schuylkill counties into large-scale immigration detention centers. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Shapiro warned his administration would “aggressively pursue every option” to block the facilities, which could hold up to 9,000 people. The proposed sites are part of a broader federal push tied to President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanding detention capacity nationwide.

Federal officials say the projects will undergo community impact reviews and could bring jobs and economic activity, but Shapiro and several state leaders argue the facilities would strain local infrastructure, harm public health, and pose safety risks. The governor also criticized what he described as a lack of local consultation and raised concerns about aggressive enforcement tactics. Despite his opposition, Pennsylvania continues limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities, while immigrant rights advocates push for the state to end all collaboration with ICE.

CITATION NATION

Philadelphia’s First Judicial District has issued a fraud alert warning residents about a text message scam impersonating the city’s municipal courts. Officials say the messages falsely claim recipients owe unpaid parking tickets and threaten court appearances unless payments are made through links included in the texts. Court leaders stressed that the municipal court system does not demand payments or send citation notices through unsolicited text messages.

Authorities are urging residents not to click suspicious links or share personal or financial information with unknown senders. Anyone who receives the messages or believes they may have been targeted is encouraged to contact local police, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, or the Federal Trade Commission. Officials say the warning is part of ongoing efforts to protect the public from increasingly sophisticated impersonation scams.

ONLY 2 OUT OF 140 SPEED CUSHIONS UP TO CODE, CITY CONTROLLER CLAIMS

There are widespread problems with speed cushions installed near Philadelphia schools, according to findings from the Philadelphia City Controller’s Office. Inspectors examined 140 traffic-calming devices at 44 schools and found only two met required blueprint specifications. Controller Christy Brady said 95% of the cushions were too steep, with many exceeding recommended heights and grades set by state and federal safety standards, potentially increasing the risk of vehicle damage and unsafe driving conditions.

The report follows numerous 311 complaints from residents about noise, swerving traffic, and damaged cars, including one driver who reported costly repairs after hitting an oversized cushion near a school. Officials say the city has installed cushions at 135 schools since 2023 at a cost of roughly $51,000 per location, but it remains unclear how many citywide are out of compliance or who will pay for repairs. The Philadelphia Streets Department, which oversees the project, said it could not comment until reviewing the full report, while watchdog officials suggested the city may need to seek restitution if installations are found to be substandard.

SHAPIRO MAKES $1 BILLION HOUSE CALL

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a new affordable housing proposal during an appearance in the East Falls section of Philadelphia, outlining a long-term strategy to expand access to housing across the state. The “Housing Action Plan” aims to build new homes, preserve existing units, reduce barriers to homeownership, and strengthen renter protections over the next decade. The proposal also seeks to streamline development regulations and improve coordination between state and local governments to accelerate construction.

As part of his latest budget proposal, Shapiro included $1 billion in a critical infrastructure fund intended to support housing development projects statewide. The plan and funding package must be approved by the Pennsylvania General Assembly before moving forward, with supporters arguing the initiative could ease housing shortages while critics and lawmakers weigh costs and implementation details.

PHILADELPHIA KILLER ARRESTED AFTER 25 YEARS ON THE MOST WANTED LIST

An arrest in Honduras has brought a breakthrough in a decades-old Philadelphia child murder case. Authorities confirmed that Alexis Flores was taken into custody more than 25 years after he was accused of raping and killing 5-year-old Iriana DeJesus in North Philadelphia in 2000. Iriana’s body was discovered wrapped in wallpaper weeks after she was reported missing. Flores was identified as a suspect in 2007 and later placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Director Kash Patel announced the arrest on Friday, stating that “time and distance do not shield violent offenders from justice.”

Honduran authorities have reportedly approved Flores’ extradition to the United States, though a timeline for his return to Pennsylvania and prosecution remains unclear.

CITY SHELLS OUT FOR OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT — AGAIN

Philadelphia taxpayers will be paying $250,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a former employee of the city’s Register of Wills office who alleged he was fired for refusing to contribute to then-Register of Wills Tracey Gordon’s reelection campaign. Nicholas Barone claimed Gordon pressured staff for donations in 2021 and terminated him in early 2022 after he declined to give, despite receiving a positive performance review days earlier. The settlement comes after four similar lawsuits were previously resolved for a combined $400,000, bringing total payouts tied to alleged misconduct in the office to more than $650,000 during Gordon’s tenure.

The controversy has continued under Gordon’s successor, John Sabatina Sr., who defeated her in the 2023 Democratic primary. The city has since paid an additional $256,000 to settle lawsuits from former employees who allege they were fired to make room for political hires, with several cases still pending. Good-government advocates have criticized the mounting legal costs and renewed calls to reform or abolish some of Philadelphia’s row offices, including the Register of Wills, arguing that entrenched “patronage” practices continue to burden taxpayers.

TRASH FIRE IN GRAY’S FERRY MAY POSE HEALTH RISK

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health issued an advisory Thursday evening urging residents in the city’s Grays Ferry neighborhood to avoid unnecessary exposure to smoke from a trash fire near the Philadelphia Transfer Station on Grays Ferry Avenue. The blaze, reported around 5:30 p.m. at a facility operated by Waste Management, appeared contained to a large open building, and no injuries were reported. Health officials said inspectors were dispatched to collect air samples and that no specific hazardous substances had been identified, but cautioned that smoke could pose risks to sensitive groups.

Officials advised residents to remain indoors as much as possible, close windows and doors, and limit physical activity outdoors. Those who must go outside were encouraged to wear masks if available. The health department and the city’s Office of Emergency Management said they will continue monitoring air quality and provide updates as more information becomes available.

LOCAL CONCERTS, FEBRUARY 16TH - FEBRUARY 21ST

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH

• Sound & Shape

  • Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia, PA

• Jade

  • The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17TH

• Blessing Offor and Laura Cheadle

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

• Drew Nugent

  • The Lounge at World Café Live, Philadelphia, PA

• James Day

  • Sellersville Theater 1894, Sellersville, PA

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18TH

• Lauren Spencer-Smith, Henry Moodie, and Maisy Kay

  • The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA

• The Final Draft

  • City Winery, Philadelphia, PA

• TWEN

  • Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA,

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19TH

• The Barr Brothers

  • Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• Sword II

  • Warehouse on Watts (WoW), Philadelphia, PA

• YOUTHYEAR

  • Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20TH

• Margo Price and Pearl Charles

  • Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• Dead Boys

  • Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia, PA

• BARELY ALIVE

  • The Ave Live, Philadelphia, PA

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21TH

• Miguel and Jean Dawson

  • The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

• redveil

  • Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, Pa

• Noah Rinker

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

• Remember Sports (w. Eraser)

  • Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia, PA

CONTACT US:

X: @phillyfreepress

Email: inbox@phillyfreepress.org

Dr. David Asch, Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and professor at both the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School of Business, has come under renewed scrutiny due to his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, his former high school physics teacher at the Dalton School. Recent releases of Epstein-related documents have revealed email exchanges that appear to contradict Asch’s prior public statements about the extent of his contact with the convicted sex offender.

Asch was previously the subject of scrutiny for his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein when his name appeared in a batch of 20,000 documents made public by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this past November in connection with its investigation into Epstein’s business dealings.

In one email from Jamie Rosenwald, an NYU adjunct professor and investment advisor, Rosenwald tells Epstein: “David Asch and I toasted to you during our Thanksgiving weekend in Amagansett in November.”

Rosenwald also states: “Unless your PR advisor is Donald Trump, I am not sure that current press provides you with much benefit.”

The email, dated January 5th, 2015, was sent just days after Epstein was named in a lawsuit alleging he forced a teenage girl to have sexual relations with several men.

Epstein replied the next day: “thanks, what is david doing?”

Rosenwald and Asch are both former students of the Dalton School, the Manhattan private institution where Epstein served as a mathematics and physics teacher from 1974 to 1976.

After the email surfaced, Asch said in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian in December 2025:

“Epstein was my high school physics teacher. The last time I had contact with him was nearly 50 years ago … I would not have toasted him because he turned out to be a contemptible man. I am heartbroken for all of his many victims.”

But in early 2026, the Department of Justice released over 3,000,000 documents, many of them email exchanges, related to the government’s investigation into the disgraced financier. One newly disclosed correspondence between Epstein and Asch appears to contradict his earlier statement about having last communicated with Epstein nearly 50 years ago. It also suggests the two continued some level of contact after Asch left the Dalton School, and after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for procuring a person under 18 for prostitution.

In an email titled, “Hello from your Dalton Years!” and dated September 23rd, 2012, apparently sent from David Asch’s email account, Asch writes to Epstein with nostalgia and expressing a desire to "catch up.”

In one portion, Asch says: “You may also recall that I worked with you at Bear Sterns one [redacted]. It’s been more than 35 years since I’ve seen you.”

Jeffrey Epstein began working at Bear Stearns in 1976, shortly after he was dismissed from his teaching position at the Dalton School. He remained there until 1981.

Asch continues: “It looks like you’ve done extremely well (and a lot better than Bear Stearns as a whole)… If you get this message, I’d be happy to buy you a cup of coffee in NY (or the same if you’re ever in Philadelphia).”

In a later exchange dated September 28th, 2012, what appears to be an assistant to Epstein replies to the email, indicating Epstein’s desire to talk with Asch over the phone. Asch responds: “Sounds great! I will find a time to call.”

Dr. Asch did not reply to a request for comment.

There have been no accusations against Asch for any participation in Epstein’s illegal activities or wrongdoing.

CONTACT US:

X: @phillyfreepress

Email: inbox@phillyfreepress.org

QUICK LINKS

• TODAY’S SUBJECT? NOT SLAVERY

• HAVE PATIENCE, WILL TRAVEL

• ICE’D OUT

• 20 LOCAL SCHOOLS ON CHOPPING BLOCK

• HISTORICAL PRESERVATION LEGISLATION SPARKS HEATED DEBATE

• NO BAKE SALE REQUIRED

• POLICE INVESTIGATE TOWING MURDERS

• FEDS PROBE POTENTIAL MISCONDUCT IN GREENBERG CASE

• PA. LEADERS CONDEMN TRUMP ELECTION LAW PROPOSAL

• LOCAL CONCERTS, FEBRUARY 9TH - FEBRUARY 14TH

TODAY’S SUBJECT? NOT SLAVERY

The city of Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit against the federal government following the removal of signs and exhibits at the President’s House site on Independence Mall. These displays detailed the lives of the nine enslaved people held by George Washington during his presidency at the residence, which is now part of Independence National Historical Park. The National Park Service took down the panels in late January, leaving only outlines behind, under a directive from the Trump administration.

This action stems from an executive order and related policy aimed at reviewing and removing interpretive materials deemed “disparaging” to America’s history or not aligned with shared national values. Philadelphia officials, including Mayor Cherelle Parker, argue the federal government lacked authority for the unilateral change, pointing to a 2006 agreement requiring collaboration and consultation for any modifications to the exhibit, which opened in 2010 after archaeological discoveries of slave quarters. The Department of the Interior has dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous” while the city seeks restoration of the displays.

HAVE PATIENCE, WILL TRAVEL

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker acknowledged residents’ frustrations with ongoing snow removal efforts, now in their 12th day following a major winter storm that dumped significant snowfall followed by prolonged sub-freezing temperatures.

Speaking at a news conference, Parker stated, “They have a right to be frustrated,” as crews with front loaders, plows, bobcats, and 1,000 workers plus 800 pieces of equipment continue clearing streets. Most have been treated, but pedestrian access and sidewalks remain restricted in many areas due to rock-solid snow and ice.

To accelerate progress, the city has deployed the “Clean and Green Team” alongside paid laborers through the “Same Day Work and Pay” program, paying $25 per hour to shovel key spots like ADA ramps near schools, recreation centers, and commercial corridors.

Challenges to snow removal in the city were exacerbated by a delayed shipment of 21,000 tons of road salt, stuck due to iced-in conditions at Fairless Hills, with Coast Guard assistance underway. Parker vowed the city will not stop until every neighborhood is cleared.

ICE’D OUT

Philadelphia is experiencing heightened tensions over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations amid President Donald Trump’s highly controversial crackdown on illegal immigration, with protests erupting across the city in past weeks.

Immigration activists remain on high alert, citing increased ICE presence targeting individuals with criminal histories, while city officials and state lawmakers like Sen. Art Haywood have voiced opposition, emphasizing civic responsibility to protect vulnerable communities.

As a sanctuary city, Philadelphia’s City Council addressed the issue in its first 2026 meeting, highlighting conflicts with federal immigration enforcement alongside local priorities. Mayor Cherelle Parker has notably maintained a low profile on the issue, mostly refraining from public criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Sources close to City Hall suggest this silence stems from a deliberate strategy to avoid drawing unwanted federal scrutiny or retaliation, such as potential funding cuts or intensified audits, especially as the city navigates budget challenges and other priorities like housing and education.

Authorities urge calm as investigations into related incidents continue, with no major arrests reported from the Philly protests yet.

20 LOCAL SCHOOLS ON CHOPPING BLOCK

The School District of Philadelphia announced a proposed $2.8 billion Facilities Master Plan on Thursday, January 22, 2026, aimed at modernizing 159 school facilities, maintaining 122 others, and addressing long-standing issues with building conditions over a 10-year period. A key and controversial component involves closing or repurposing 20 schools to consolidate resources, reduce the number of facilities rated “poor” or “unsatisfactory” from 85 to zero, and enable more efficient allocation of funds toward high-quality academic programming.

The proposed closures include six PreK-8 schools, six middle schools, and six high schools. Students from closing schools would be reassigned to other campuses, with middle schools phased out gradually. Of the 20 affected buildings, 12 would be repurposed for district use, while eight would transfer to the city for potential redevelopment into affordable housing or job creation initiatives.

Superintendent Tony Watlington emphasized that the plan stems from over two and a half years of community feedback, enrollment trends, and facility assessments, with changes set to take effect starting in the 2027-28 school year.

A transition team will support families with transportation, social-emotional needs, and other concerns. The plan requires School Board approval, with a presentation scheduled for February 26, 2026, and ongoing opportunities for public feedback via community meetings and the district’s Facilities Planning page at PhilaSD.org.

HISTORICAL PRESERVATION LEGISLATION SPARKS HEATED DEBATE

A controversial bill introduced by Philadelphia Councilmember Mark Squilla to overhaul the city’s historic preservation rules has sparked sharp backlash from preservation advocates, who warn it would gut protections and trigger a “demolition derby” for historic buildings.

Critics say the legislation, backed by local industry, would give developers a 30-day window to raze structures once a nomination is filed and would allow pre-existing demolition plans to override new protections. Supporters, including zoning attorneys and some former preservation task force members, call it a modest “good government” fix that simply gives property owners advance notice and basic fairness in a process currently driven by outside nominators. Even some preservation critics — including homeowner groups hit hard by recent historic districting — oppose the bill, arguing it helps big developers while doing little for ordinary residents.

Squilla says compromise talks will continue, with hearings expected in 2026.

NO BAKE SALE REQUIRED

“Abbott Elementary” creator and West Philly native Quinta Brunson has launched the “Quinta Brunson Field Trip Fund” to provide thousands of Philadelphia public school students with fully funded field trips.

The new initiative will award grants twice a year to teachers and administrators who apply through the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia. Brunson, who seeded the fund with her own donation, said the trips she took as a district student — including ones her class fundraised for by selling hoagies — “opened my world” and inspired her dreams. Superintendent Tony Watlington called the fund a key step in giving every child access to real-world learning experiences that help “accelerate student achievement.”

Applications are now open for the first round of awards.

POLICE INVESTIGATE TOWING MURDERS

Philadelphia police are investigating potential links between the shootings of three men connected to the city’s towing industry. The most recent victim, 25-year-old Aaron Whitfield Jr., was shot and killed while in a tow truck with his girlfriend outside a smoke shop near Bustleton Avenue and Knorr Street in Northeast Philadelphia.

Two suspects in another vehicle fired at least a dozen shots, killing Whitfield at the scene and wounding the woman in the leg. Whitfield worked as a truck operator for 448 Towing and Recovery, a Jenkintown-based company.

At least two other individuals employed by towing companies have been shot and killed in the past month and a half.

Lt. Thomas Walsh of the homicide unit noted an apparent “connection” on the surface, though different vehicles were used (including a recovered silver Honda Accord), and it’s unclear if the same perpetrator or multiple are involved.

Authorities caution against unsubstantiated conspiracy theories circulating online, despite the industry’s competitive “Wild West” nature, and a prior 2017 case involving contract killings at another towing firm.

FEDS PROBE POTENTIAL MISCONDUCT IN GREENBERG CASE

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania have issued subpoenas seeking documents and information related to the contentious 2011 death of Ellen Greenberg, a 27-year-old Philadelphia teacher found stabbed 20 times in her Manayunk apartment. The death was initially ruled a homicide by the assistant medical examiner due to the extent of the wounds, including 10 to the back of the neck, but was later controversially changed to suicide, though no suicide note or clear intent by Greenberg to take her own life was found.

The family has long challenged the ruling and pursued lawsuits against city agencies for what they allege was a botched investigation and cover-up. The federal inquiry does not appear focused on reexamining the manner of death itself but rather on how various Philadelphia and Pennsylvania agencies — including the Police Department, Medical Examiner’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, Law Department, and Attorney General’s Office — handled the case over the subsequent 15 years, and whether any potential mishandling or missteps may rise to criminal corruption.

Spokespeople for the involved offices and the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to confirm or deny the investigation or subpoenas.

Greenberg’s parents, Joshua and Sandra, and their attorney Joseph Podraza Jr. expressed excitement and gratitude, describing it as the long-sought federal scrutiny after years of local resistance, including a 2024 court decision acknowledging flaws in the original case (while upholding the city’s position) and a recent $650,000 settlement with the city that prompted a new medical examiner review reaffirming suicide.

PA. LEADERS CONDEMN TRUMP ELECTION LAW PROPOSAL

Pennsylvania officials, including Gov. Josh Shapiro and Philadelphia elections commissioner Omar Sabir, have firmly rejected President Donald Trump’s call to nationalize U.S. elections. In remarks on the Dan Bongino Show, Trump urged Republicans to “take over” and “nationalize” voting in at least 15 locations, citing concerns over election integrity.

Officials emphasized that the U.S. Constitution assigns election administration to the states, with Shapiro declaring no interference from the White House would be tolerated. Sabir assured voters that access to the ballot would be protected “at all costs.”

The White House clarified that Trump’s comments supported passage of the SAVE America Act, a House-passed bill requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo ID at polls. Critics, including the Committee of Seventy, warn the measure could limit access for over 21 million Americans lacking easy access to such documents. As of now, there is no confirmed plan to deploy federal agents like ICE at polling places, and Pennsylvania law requires police to stay at least 100 feet from entrances.

LOCAL CONCERTS, FEBRUARY 9TH - FEBRUARY 14TH

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH

• Shallow Alcove

  • The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA

• Slaat (with machéte, Giant, and The Red King)

  • Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia, PA

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10TH

• The Head and the Heart and Brandi Carlile

  • Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia, PA

• Nicotine Dolls

  • City Winery, Philadelphia, PA

• Bobby Rush

  • Sellersville Theater 1894, Sellersville, PA

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH

• The Black Heart Procession

  • Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, US

• Mohini Dey and Marco Cirigliano

  • City Winery, Philadelphia, PA, US

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH

• Lazyacres Dante Robinson

  Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia, PA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH

• Umphrey’s McGee

  • The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA

• Artifakts (w. crawdad sniper)

  • Otherworld Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH

• Tommy James And the Shondells

  • Penn’s Peak, Jim Thorpe, PA

IT’S SAFE TO SAY I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WRITING.

I’M NOT A LITERARY SCHOLAR. I don’t hold a degree in philosophy or political theory. I’ve never worked at a prestigious publication. I’ve written things I regret, things I attempted to fashion in the likeness of writers I admired — Hunter S. Thompson being the most obvious victim of my imitation. But oftentimes they come off as a brazenly poor impersonation, like a counterfeit $3 bill with “Slick Willy” Clinton’s face on it, and hence why I despise most of them.

But I do think I’ve observed something real worth writing about: something increasingly visible — faint, but growing louder — in modern conversations about relationships, gender, and more, that disturbs me.

With an increasing frequency, there are “sacred cows” of American political and philosophical discourse; things the average American can not reasonably challenge without risking significant strife and turmoil. I don’t dare to slay them; I have a butter knife when I need a sword.

I do have a couple questions, though.

The questions at hand aren’t even really political; but, nevertheless, they often make their way into the background of various hot-button political and cultural discussions of the 2020s, despite seeming more reminiscent of 19th century Marxist theories on the worker-boss relationship than anything that might be relevant to America today.

And the fundamental question is: where do people factor into these ideas?

To show you what I mean, I want to start with a concept that was originally academic, has since gone mainstream, and now lives in memes, podcasts, and TikTok advice videos: emotional labor.

Going back to its roots, it is widely acknowledged that the concept of “emotional labor” was first introduced by Arlie Russell Hochschild’s 1983 book “The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling.”1 In the book, Hochschild introduced “emotional labor” as the management of feelings for professional purposes: workers expected to smile, soothe, and empathize even when exhausted or enraged. This was real work, she argued: invisible, emotionally draining, and often uncompensated.

Hochschild explored how an occupation, like a flight attendant, hotel staff, or nurses, might be expected to be extremely friendly in the everyday discharge of their duties, even if a customer at the other end is being a total asshole.

Over time, though, the term expanded beyond the workplace. It entered conversations about domestic roles — and these examples do have some validity. But something happened along the way: the term migrated from labor to life. From professional, even social expectations, to the private realm of devotion.

To reiterate, my concern isn’t that emotional labor is a totally meaningless idea — I think it may have some utility as a concept — but that when a vocabulary designed to diagnose exploitation in capitalism becomes the language we use for love, it can reshape our relationships into contracts, rather than covenants.

“Emotional labor” is now used to describe planning birthdays, choosing restaurants, being the more emotionally available partner, or simply being a good listener.

It’s not unreasonable why the phrase caught fire. Millions of women— maybe some men, too — looked up from their marriages and realized they were carrying 80, maybe 90 percent of the mental load while their partner often kindly, often obliviously, coasted.

The exhaustion was not an illusion, the resentment was real.

A name for the thing probably felt like oxygen. But something shifted when the diagnosis hardened into a full-on worldview on how human relationships foundationally function. And it begs the question — is the concept of emotional labor, applied in its current managerial form, still truly a helpful analysis?

As I said, I don’t pretend to have a degree in something like sociology or political science or whatever — but I can’t help but draw the obvious parallels between the line of thought present in emotional labor and that of, say, Karl Marx.

I hear an echo from Marx’s notion of the commodity in Capital — “an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind” — which seems to apply here with strange clarity.2

In Marxism (defined very broadly, for our purposes), your view of the history is characterized by an obsession with material conditions and specifically the idea that “societal changes have arisen from material conflicts, such as those between different economic classes,” and as the primary force of social change.3

Predictably, when talk of concepts like surplus labor migrates from the factory floor to the kitchen table, when economic language and frameworks are applied to intimate spaces, it comes with a risk that we start to think of ourselves like commodities — the very thing Marxists accuse capitalism of doing.

The relationship between two lovers becomes something resembling the relationship between a worker and management. Love and devotion are framed as something owed, billed, or compensated, and utterly mundane.

Now, I’m not saying emotional labor is secretly a Marxist plot in disguise; but the starkly transactional perspective of “emotional labor,” as it perceives human relationships, makes it difficult to argue that its second-wave and third-wave feminists progenitors — many of whom were openly influenced by Marxist or materialist feminism — don’t owe at least some part of its heritage to such lines of thinking.

And the fundamental Marxist insistence that all is structural risks draining desire of its spontaneity; everything is material, nothing is human, everything is a transaction.

In its current form, the idea of emotional labor now broadly seeks to describe how women may disproportionately bear the burden of managing feelings, care, and intimacy — viewed as invisible labor under capitalism. Intimacy is work owed, structured by patriarchal systems of power.

All the impressive academic and economic jargon aside, I don’t think a lot of people really appreciate how antihuman this perspective truly is.

That is not to say that American feminists are going to kill us all. The issue is that, at their roots, they are both managerial analyses, more focused on divisions of labor, exploitation, and productivity, activities better suited to boardrooms than bedrooms. They are concerned with who does what work, when, and if they’re approved to do so.

That is all well and good, but such analyses don’t belong to me or most of you; such things belong to the world of supervisors and calendars. They certainly have no place in human romance.

Maybe, to an extent, it’s a simple matter of projection. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that such thought is the byproduct of unhappiness. Say, people who marry who are not truly in love with each other; maybe they even come to fully resent each other, over whatever trigger(s) it might be. When love is absent or has eroded, people reach for managerial tools because that’s all they have left.

Or maybe it is the misguided spokesman of people who have never met someone they could conceivably see as “their other half,” never felt the spark between two personalities locked in evolutionary struggle, a feeling not unlike the caveman who struck the first spark from a flint blade and learned he could control fire.

This article is mostly a philosophical presentation, not a scientific one, but there is a certain amount of empirical evidence to support this assertion: Americans, as well as a lot of our counterparts in the first world, are lonelier than ever, having less sex than ever, and getting married less than ever, seemingly dazed and confused in a brave new world of our own making but strangely alien at the same time.45

It is not totally unexpected that we would apply a similarly cold and calculated approach to relationships in the same way we do the production of motor vehicles or rocketry or even HVAC, or any number of other technological advancements that have taken us far and away from the lowly likes of the Australopithecus, the first hominid who had the audacity to stand upright, and to places like the moon. If we already live in an age of emotional scarcity, maybe it’s natural that we start treating affection or domestic labor like a commodity.

But perhaps it’s also a sign we’ve mistaken labor for meaning.

To draw on a personal example, my grandfather was notorious for leaving all afterlife planning to my grandmother. He refused to speak of funerals, or death, or even life insurance. As the story goes, when he entered old age, my grandmother had to practically force him at gunpoint to draft even a basic will; this was despite the fact that he had just recently experienced a catastrophic heart attack that required a heart transplant.

I don’t pretend to understand exactly why my grandfather was so adverse to thinking about death — perhaps it was because, as a veteran of the Second World War, he had seen so much death and destruction to last a lifetime that he never wanted to even think of those feelings again. Or maybe it was the simple fact that he assumed his wife would outlive him, as is overwhelmingly statistically true of marriages across the globe, and wanted whatever she thought was best.

Regardless of the reasons, he left those labors to my grandmother. But never once have I ever perceived this as “emotional” or “unpaid domestic” labor.

Why? Well, though I’ve never had one, I’m told that marriages are defined by compromise. Humans are finnicky and unpredictable creatures, as you might have noticed. In the case of my grandparents, that meant my grandmother took on the responsibility of afterlife planning, whether that was fair or not. And she did it not because she owed him her labor, but because she loved him.

Equally, he did things in tribute to her.

For example, he was the sole person who, with so much care, maintained the garden of tomato plants in their backyard that she adored so much and reminded her of her childhood, for decades. He did not do that so much for his own benefit, but for hers. They were married for 50+ years, and I have yet to see a couple as in love as they were.

So, with this in mind, to see people approaching relationships armed with concepts like “emotional labor” is most certainly a little alarming.

To see your relationship as one in which you need to prevent your husband (or wife, ostensibly) from extracting surplus labor from you, as if you were the head chairman of the East German State Planning Committee, simply cannot be conducive to a happy relationship. Maybe I’m wrong, but I have some deep reservations about conducting my life in such a way that such deep human experiences become a series of equitable transactions between people who live together. So, maybe, we keep the phrase when it names a genuine injury. And maybe we retreat when it starts turning the person across the table into a coworker.

What else can I say?

YOU LOOK DOWN AT YOUR PHONE.

IT’S A WALK SIGNAL.

BUT YOU DON’T WALK.

Across the crosswalk, that is. A Honda Civic hesitates at the intersection, a sneaker scuffs against the pavement as it passes you. But none of it registers: not the drivers, not the pedestrians, not the helpful little brightly-lit stick man telling you it’s safe to cross. You’re stuck.

All that matters is the clock on your screen. It’s been five, maybe six hours. That’s a whole part-time work shift at the CVS down the corner from you, maybe a little more if you count the unpaid break time. You’re dressed like a car crash, and your heart feels like an airbag never deployed. Six hours is more than enough to build a house of regret, brick by brick.

Maybe it means everything, maybe it means nothing … and that’s the hell of it. The thoughts bang around your head like shoes in a washing machine.

The sun sets like a sinking ship, orange and hazy on the horizon. It’s not immediately apparent to you if this is an entirely natural phenomenon or consequence of the exhaust fumes of a thousand idling cars bleeding into the atmosphere. Probably the fumes.

You turn to me. “Will they ever respond?” you ask with a sigh.
”How should I feel?”

But I shake my head. These are the wrong questions.

The question you should be asking is: how the hell did we get here?

And yet, you don’t ask yourself that.

Spoiler: you’re a sucker. So am I. So are most of us, truth be told; don’t feel too bad. And, like a gym membership you can’t cancel without three forms of ID and proof you’ve relocated to Guam, we keep signing ourselves up. It’s in our nature.

Of course, if you didn’t care, if you could shrug it all off, it wouldn’t be a situationship; the pain is proof of purchase. In a situationship — a romantic limbo, more than a hookup but less than a relationship, thriving on undefined boundaries — the one who cares less holds the nuclear codes to your heart.

VOICES FROM THE TRENCHES

“Situationship.”

A word that tastes like diet commitment and smells like snake oil. Always talked about in the negative, yet perpetually reappearing, like emotional kudzu.

According to Wiktionary, it’s defined as:

“From situation +‎ -ship or a blend of situational +‎ relationship; A romantic or sexual relationship in which the parties do not consider or are not clear that they are in such relationship; such that is informal, without the responsibilities of a formal relationship; a companionship.”1

Fascinating. In plain English: a bear trap with your heart caught in it.

So, what do you do? Do you shoot, putting the poor animal out of its misery swiftly? Or do you simply let its life slip away, dying slow, afraid and in pain?

Logic says you shoot. But human beings are known to behave illogically; quite frequently, in fact. They will avert their eyes, shuffle their feet; mumble to themselves things like, “maybe it’ll wriggle free on its own” — anything and everything to abdicate responsibility, given the right time and the right place. We are creatures of comfort, after all.

There is perhaps a lot to be gleaned from the fact that many people seem to fall victim to situationship, and by extension, many people are choosing the second option.

Ending a situationship — calling a spade a spade, essentially — would be merciful. But mercy requires courage; courage is in short supply these days.

The result? A million mini-tragedies. Texts that shrink to single words, effort that seemingly drains out like a punctured tire. Potentially hundreds of hours, wasted.

From the outside, it’s maddening. You want to grab your friend by the shoulders and scream:

“YOU DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS! THIS IS A PYRAMID SCHEME, WITH KISSING!”

Of course, it’s so obvious to the outsider, to the étranger. But rarely, if ever, can the victim — dare I use that word — find the courage to stand up for themselves.

But they won’t. Maybe they can’t. They’re hypnotized by the narcotic drip-feed of attention.

That’s the terrible genius of the situationship: the cruelty is so small, so plausible-deniable, it almost feels rude to name it, like you’re some kind of romantic-paranoid-schizophrenic.

So, how did we get here?

Well, having had the dumb luck to have not been the victim of one (yet), but nevertheless psychotically compelled to write about it, I had to ask around.

So naturally I lobbed the question out there, like a flare out on the highway after a late-night car breakdown:

“Have you ever been the victim of a situationship? Can I interview you about it?”

A half-serious, half-suicidal inquiry in the name of “press freedom.” The kind of question that feels safe to ask through the glow of a screen at 11:56 PM, when only the sleepless reply, when you’ve had a couple, and when none of your friends take your journalistic pursuits particularly seriously. But, of course, simply writing about situationships had to not be all that easy, either.

The reply came back flat, surgical, and cold, just like a scalpel dropped from a chilly hospital tray.

“I’m sorry I can’t be more help but that isn’t really something I want to do.”

Bang. Metaphorical door slammed. No witnesses. Case closed.

The body registers rejection long before the brain can talk you down. One minute you’re a professional with a notebook, the next you’re a sad-eyed fool, doubled over, wondering if your whole career is just a series of people politely refusing to talk to you.

And, coincidentally, that’s usually what you feel like at the end of a situationship, too. Anticlimactic, empty, humiliating.

Love, sex, and now half-relationships — these are the radioactive materials of the 21st century — you can forget about plutonium.

But not everyone was so tight-lipped. In fact, some people I probably couldn’t have paid to stop complaining about their situationship. One confessed:

“I have participated in hookup culture, and I don’t see myself as a relationship person, and I enjoy sex. However, for other people, I think they do it because it’s like all you can get with a connection with people.”

Perhaps the concept of the situationship as less than a relationship is not so much the problem, but more the lack of a meaningful choice between the two. Romance (or just sex, if you prefer) is based on emotion. As intelligent as we have become, evolution still does not trust us to reproduce using our higher level thinking. And as a consequence, you cannot always expect humans to behave rationally in love (or whatever you care to call it at the given moment).

Another described the addictive rush:

“The high is always in the beginning. The long nights where everything feels charged. The texts that come at 2 a.m. and light you up. The laughter, the closeness, the illusion that you’ve stumbled into something profound without having to define it. But like every drug, the high doesn’t sustain. The comedown is inevitable, and the withdrawal is cruel.”

The perception of situationship, at least from where I’m standing, is resoundingly negative. Very few people, if anyone, had a positive word or phrase or spiel to speak about “situationships.”

Said another,

“depends on the age group. situationships my age tend to be because people dont want to tie themselves down and waste their ‘good years.’
its weird because they will tell you they are living the most optimal way but are super scared of their future.”

You can hold expectations, cast predictions, extend trust — but the other person does not always have to uphold them. In fact, oftentimes they will frequently not, and will do so without real consequences. A younger respondent framed it as fate:

“It is absolutely a real thing it’s just way more niche situation than you think.
I spent a few years working in central America, running a backpacker hostel and bartending, and had one whirlwind love affair for a couple years with a girl from NYC with some crazy high paying WFH [Work From Home] corpo job. I was a gorgeous, nobody Canadian boy tradie from the sticks. Our lives and legitimate love was never going to work outside this very constrained situation we were in, so we hung onto it for as long as we could until it had to all fall apart. Many would call this a situationship.”

With the lack of sound structure to hold up these expectations, the oft-dreaded situationship often rears its ugly head. Of course, there were dissenters:

“A situationship is not a real thing. It’s a phrase men invented to describe a woman who doesn’t want to date them but continues replying to their texts. I think zoomers refer to this as a ‘situationship’ where people basically act like they’re together but usually without any (or much) physical intimacy.”

It seems that in our attempts to try and rationalize our way out of emotion, we have, in many ways, made a much more confusing and complicated situation. We have begun to avoid paying the electricity bill by never turning on the light; but as a consequence, we stumble around the house, unsatisfied and blind. You trade one inconvenience for, arguably, a much worse other.

Others framed it as weaponized vagueness:

“[Situationships] thrive on vagueness which allows them to get all the attention with none of the accountability.”

They continued,

“I don’t end up in such situations [normally] but if one did start I would just say ‘that’s not appropriate’ and move on with my day. They only have as much power over you as you give them.”

THE EMOTIONAL DEMILITARIZED ZONE

What do these quotes tell us about ourselves?

Well, the human animal has always been afraid of two things: being trapped, and being alone. The tension between those two opposites runs through every virtually every myth, every religion, every piece of bad poetry ever written, in some way. We want connection, but we simultaneously fear the burden it comes with, because it can incur a very high cost.

How do we reconcile this?

In earlier eras, social infrastructure like marriage helped handle the contradiction: you signed a contract, learned to live with the ‘chain,’ and were supported by your immediate surroundings. In 1960, 72% of U.S. adults were married; by 2024, that number dropped to less than 50%, per the U.S. Census Bureau.

We’re freer than ever, but that freedom comes with ambiguity.

Now the chains have been rusted through by 21st century capitalism and self-help rhetoric, or maybe progressivism, or maybe hedonism, or some other -ism, and we’ve built something new: the void. It kinda resembles freedom, but disappears between your fingers when you try to grab it. Much less pressure, much less responsibility, but also usually much less rewarding in the long-term.

Why is it more frequent now? Because, in many ways, modern life is engineered for it.

Algorithms feed us infinite options, infinite distraction, infinite maybes. Each meme or tweet or god-knows-what is as fleeting as the last. Our current mode of consumption, in many ways, keeps us permanently dissatisfied by feeding on such feelings. An psychological chocolate-chip cookie rather than a steak dinner. A situationship may be less of a bug than it is a feature of modern life. We are tiny idols at the feet of digital gods.

And yet, underneath it all, there is a deeper revelation: situationships thrive because they reflect our deeper human condition, a certain flawed ape-like quality looking for the greatest reward with the least risk. They’re a testament to still being human in the 21st century.

And now, we are all stuck in our own DMZs — political, spiritual, and more. A North and South Korea technically at peace, but with guns perpetually trained in the direction of the opposing side, should someone try to pull anything.

Yes, situationships can tell us more than just the status of modern romance; they’re the romantic expression of a wider civilizational stasis. Everything in our era feels suspended, whether it’s politics locked in endless culture wars, economies caught between boom and bust, climate action stuck at the bargaining table while the seas rise and cities sink. We live in a world of half-measures and deferred decisions, a culture allergic to commitment and effort. Of course our love lives would mirror that; what the fuck did you expect? The situationship isn’t an aberration — it’s the logical romantic form of an age that can’t pull the trigger on anything, from legislation to a text message.

No war, no peace. Just waiting.

Maybe that’s the real sickness. An autoimmune response to boundaries, obligations, following through; an age of unprecedented deconstructivism. Boundaries are treated like something akin to asbestos: dangerous, outdated, ripped out in the name of progress.

But is it really progress? Are we so enlightened?

Labels, definitions, commitments — all shoved into the garbage without a second thought. Oof. To live without demarcation is, broadly speaking, sold as living with freedom: no lines, no cages, no responsibility. It seems reasonable to conclude that we’ve mistaken impulse for philosophical sophistication, vagueness for liberation, detachment for maturity, etc., etc.

But maybe it’s closer to cowardice in drag. And, now, everywhere.

It’s quiet, yes, for now, but only because everyone’s waiting in silent anticipation for the next shell to drop.

And that, dear reader, is the truth of the situationship: the romantic DMZ of the idgaf war. Not dating, not single, not committed, not free, not enslaved. Both parties camped out on opposite sides of the border, sending out occasional flares of affection, testing the perimeter, never daring to plant a flag.

Ultimately — not very ideal.

The punchline: we’re told this, in theory, is liberation. That vagueness is modernity. That ambiguity is sexy.

But if that were true, why is everyone complaining?

This is The Great American Half-Relationship Experiment: a grotesque, unregulated trial being carried out on millions of unsuspecting citizens. No IRB approval, no informed consent necessary.

We are, at least from where I’m standing, an increasingly unhappy nation of guinea pigs running laps on the hamster wheel of “we’ll see where this goes;” the emotional version of buying timeshares in Florida swampland. There is maybe value to stuffy old order and routine yet.

But, there are, of course, “laws of the jungle” to help you survive such an ordeal.

The situationship is far older than you or I; it can be thought of as an ancient beast we have forgotten how to defend ourselves from, and as such, it holds significantly more power under modern conditions.

In my peer-reviewed, clinical research of the situationship, I can offer up with a few rules that may help you avoid the emotional potholes that are so common to modern dating. So, here’s what you can do to survive (maybe):

1. The one who cares less controls the clock. Don’t let them set the pace. What do you want?

2. If they can’t define it after three months, walk. You’re not the one.

3. If it looks like a duck and texts like a duck, it’s a duck. Stop indulging vague replies and ghosting; those are your exit signs.

4. They end in heartbreak. Hitting ‘eject’ now saves you a ton of time — and pain — down the line. Do I really have to explain this one?

And with that: greetings, and welcome to the new abnormal! Commitment without commitments, intimacy with an asterisk. It’s a brave new frontier with every kiss is a limited-time offer, every “we” is written in pencil. In short, grotesque parody of love.

And, like many American experiments of years past, it likely will run until the wheels fall off, the subjects riot, or somebody finally admits that the emperor has no clothes.

Hunter S. Thompson once said:

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone … we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely — at least, not all the time – but essentially, and finally, alone.”

I believe him. I’m not saying to not give people a chance … but I think if they deserve the chance, you will probably know it.

So if you’re in a situationship, try to remember:

Don’t settle for diet magic. Demand the real thing. Don’t swallow an aspartame romance and try to pass it off as sugar; your time is too valuable.

And, so, if you don’t feel the spell? Then what you’ve got is a cheap trick. And you’ll know it, when the rabbit stays in the hat.

Which brings us back to the crosswalk. The light says walk, but we don’t.

We stand there, phone in hand, watching the seconds bleed away, waiting for some cosmic revelation that will never come. The car idles. The air thickens with fumes, and we choke on them. But still, we hesitate. Maybe that’s what a situationship really is: not the wrong love, but the refusal to move, to risk, to cross.

The street isn’t going to cross itself. Neither will your heart.

Take a step.

QUICK LINKS

• SEPTA UP AND RUNNING

• ILLEGAL DUMPING? THINK TWICE

• MAN ARRESTED IN SERIES OF BOMBINGS

• THIEF IMPERSONATES POLICE OFFICER

• CHARGES LESSENED IN CENTER CITY SHOOTING

• NEW GUN ORDINANCE IN EFFECT WITHIN CITY LIMITS

• SHAPIRO CRITICIZES NATIONAL RESPONSE TO KIRK ASSASINATION

• PA MAN BANNED FOR BRINGING ALLIGATOR INTO WALMART

• INVASIVE FISH CONTINUE SPREAD ACROSS NORTHEAST

• DOCTOR V. DOCTOR

• LOCAL CONCERTS, SEPTEMBER 16TH - SEPTEMBER 22TH

SEPTA UP AND RUNNING

SEPTA will fully restore its services this Sunday, September 14, after a Philadelphia judge ordered the agency to halt planned service cuts, including bus and rail eliminations, curfews, and station closures. The court injunction comes as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro approved nearly $400 million in emergency funding to keep transit running.

While service will return to normal, fares are set to rise 21.5%. The new base fare for bus and metro trips will be $2.90. SEPTA says the combination of fare revenue and temporary state funds will prevent cuts for about two years but stresses that a long-term funding solution is still needed.

State Senator Vincent Hughes is urging SEPTA to cancel the fare hike, arguing that recent state aid should shield riders from what amounts to a more than 30% increase since 2024.

Riders can view updated schedules and fare details at septa.org/news/restored-service-schedules.

ILLEGAL DUMPING? THINK TWICE

Philadelphia is stepping up its fight against illegal dumping with a new task force that combines surveillance cameras, patrols, and steep fines. The initiative is led by the city’s “Clean and Green” cabinet, created under Mayor Cherelle Parker.

Roughly 470 cameras are now monitored by staff trained to catch offenders, who can face fines of up to $5,000 per item dumped. Since the program began last year, officials say they’ve closed 49 cases and collected about $3 million in fines.

The crackdown is expanding: 15 newly trained recruits will soon patrol dumping hotspots in person, issuing violations on the spot. City leaders say the goal is to clean up streets and hold violators accountable.

MAN ARRESTED IN SERIES OF BOMBINGS

A man dubbed the “Gruver Bomber” has been arrested in connection with a series of explosions in Palmer Township, Northampton County. Police identified the suspect as Ronald Erney of Fogelsville, who was taken into custody after investigators executed a search warrant at his Upper Macungie Township home.

During the search, officers found explosive materials, including chemicals, fuses, PVC tubing, and projectiles, along with tools used to build devices. Authorities also recovered ten firearms and parts to assemble ghost guns. Because Erney is a convicted felon, he is barred from possessing weapons.

In Northampton County, Erney faces seven counts of possessing explosive or incendiary devices and seven counts of disorderly conduct. In Lehigh County, prosecutors charged him with weapons of mass destruction, possession of explosive materials, and ten counts of illegally possessing firearms.

He has been arraigned and is being held at Northampton County Prison on $50,000 bail.

THIEF IMPERSONATES POLICE OFFICER

A man in Philadelphia’s Tacony neighborhood says he was the victim of a terrifying home invasion after a suspect posing as a police officer forced his way into his house. According to the 63-year-old homeowner, this impersonator handcuffed him at gunpoint, taped his mouth shut, and demanded information about money and bank accounts – some of which the victim said he didn’t even recognize.

The intruder also stole the man’s keys and wallet before making his escape through the back door. Neighbors called for help, and Philadelphia police arrested a 24-year-old suspect nearby, recovering a weapon and towing a white Jeep Cherokee used in the incident.

Though the victim was unharmed physically, he was predictably shaken. Authorities have not yet released the suspect’s name or formally announced the charges.

CHARGES LESSENED IN CENTER CITY SHOOTING

Charges have been downgraded in the fatal Center City Philadelphia shooting of 33-year-old Lauren Jardine, after new surveillance and cellphone videos painted a more complex picture of how the confrontation unfolded. Initially charged with murder, the accused, 45-year-old John Kelly, now faces voluntary manslaughter charges.

The incident occurred just before 6 p.m. at the busy intersection of 12th and Chestnut Streets. The video shows Jardine drawing a gun, then Kelly pulling what is described as a screwdriver. After a struggle over the firearm, Kelly gains control and fires multiple shots at Jardine, resulting in her death.

Witnesses described the scene as chaotic, and neighbors stated Kelly has been known for past disturbances in the area. Jardine’s family highlighted her recent efforts toward self-improvement, noting she was earning her GED and talking about starting her own business.

Police believe Jardine may have intervened in a dispute between Kelly and the woman believed to be his girlfriend, who is also visible in the video.

NEW GUN ORDINANCE IN EFFECT WITHIN CITY LIMITS

Philadelphia has enacted a new law targeting “straw purchases” of firearms. The ordinance, signed by Mayor Cherelle Parker, requires all licensed gun dealers in the city to post bright orange warning signs. These signs will inform customers of the penalties for buying a gun for someone who is legally barred from purchasing one themselves—a federal crime known as a straw purchase.

Violators of the law face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. Dealers who fail to display the required warning signs could be fined $2,000 per day.

SHAPIRO CRITICIZES NATIONAL RESPONSE TO KIRK ASSASINATION

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is urging elected officials to take a universal stand against political violence, criticizing President Donald Trump for what he described as “selective outrage.” In an interview with ABC News, Shapiro said Trump “cherry-picks which political violence he’s going to condemn,” noting that while the president denounced the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, he failed to mention recent attacks against Democrats, including the firebombing at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion and the murder of two Minnesota lawmakers.

Shapiro stressed that “no political violence can be viewed as acceptable,” warning that rising threats make Americans less safe and stall national political progress. He condemned rhetoric surrounding Kirk’s death, saying no one should celebrate the killing or call for revenge, emphasizing that Kirk “left behind a wife and two children.”

Shapiro ordered Pennsylvania flags flown at half-staff through Sunday to honor Kirk, aligning with Trump’s national proclamation. He called the shooting “yet another example of the sad reality of rising political violence in our country,” citing multiple attacks in recent months as evidence of a growing crisis that “needs to end.”

PA MAN BANNED FOR BRINGING ALLIGATOR INTO WALMART

A Pennsylvania man and his five-foot emotional-support alligator, named Jinseioshi, have drawn attention after being banned from entering a Walmart in West Brownsville. The alligator, which weighs about 32 pounds and is sometimes dressed up, had accompanied its owner, Wesley Silva, on shopping trips there for years without incident.

Silva says Jinseioshi has received a warm reception at many public places, including restaurants, and that she has become something of a local celebrity. However, Walmart has officially prohibited the pair from its premises, citing safety concerns. The store noted that while service animals are allowed, alligators are not permitted due to potential danger to customers and staff.

Jinseioshi’s status as an “emotional support” animal does not give legal protection equivalent to that of a service animal. Animal welfare experts warned that reptiles can act unpredictably in crowded or stressful environments like stores. Silva, for his part, expressed disappointment over the ban but said he plans to continue bringing the alligator out in public despite the restriction.

INVASIVE FISH CONTINUE SPREAD ACROSS NORTHEAST

Scientists in Pennsylvania are intensifying efforts to study and contain Northern snakeheads, an invasive fish species that has rapidly spread through the Delaware River Basin since first being documented in Philadelphia’s FDR Park in 2004. Biologists with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission recently collected specimens at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, where drained wetlands exposed the air-breathing fish in the mud.

Native to Asia, snakeheads are prized as food but are considered a major environmental threat because of their ability to survive out of water and their voracious appetite. Researchers found that they consume at least 21 species of local fish, including killifish, sunfish, and eels, raising concerns for endangered species such as the Ironcolor Shiner.

The current study is examining snakeheads for contaminants like PFAS and other biomarkers, while also assessing their ecological impact. Wildlife officials report declines in frogs and other sensitive species at Heinz due to predation.

With snakeheads now found across the region — from Philadelphia’s waterways to creeks in South Jersey and even the upper Delaware in New York — scientists warn the “top predator” poses a long-term threat to the balance of local ecosystems.

DOCTOR V. DOCTOR

A Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) pediatrician is highlighting how teens increasingly turn to social media influencers, rather than their own doctors, for health advice. Writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dr. Katie Lockwood noted that even her son prefers following “Dr. Mike,” a YouTube-famous physician, over listening to her expertise.

Lockwood said a major challenge for pediatricians today is competing with flashy online content that often spreads misinformation about vaccines, supplements, or health trends. To meet patients where they are, she shares advice on Instagram and through CHOP’s Primary Care Perspectives podcast, while also pointing families toward Pediatric Health Chat—a new CHOP website designed to counter myths with expert guidance.

She encourages parents to model critical thinking when consuming media, teaching children to evaluate sources, credentials, and motives behind online posts. Just as families teach kitchen safety, Lockwood argues, they must also teach digital safety.

Her message: credible health information may come from popular influencers, but it also comes from the doctors sitting across the exam room—or even across the dinner table.

LOCAL CONCERTS, SEPTEMBER 16TH - SEPTEMBER 22ND

Tuesday, September 16

• Garbage with Starcrawler — Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia

• KALEO, Quarters of Change, and Júníus Meyvant — Archer Music Hall, Allentown

• Wolf Alice — Union Transfer, Philadelphia

• Bayside and The Sleeping — Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia

• múm — Underground Arts, Philadelphia

• He Is Legend, Eyes Set to Kill, Downswing, and The Teeth — Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia

• Sister Wife, Sex Strike, Apes of the State — Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia

• Celtic Thunder — F.M. Kirby Center, Wilkes-Barre

• Radio Free Alice, Zastava — Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia

• Mint Field — Silk City, Philadelphia

• Texas Headhunters — The Music Hall at World Cafe Live, Philadelphia

• Matt Heckler — MilkBoy Philly, Philadelphia

Wednesday, September 17

• PUP with Jeff Rosenstock & Ekko Astral — The Fillmore Philadelphia

• Bayside and The Sleeping — Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia

• Russian Circles, Blackwater, Holylight — Archer Music Hall, Allentown

• Fu Manchu — Underground Arts, Philadelphia

• Michael Schenker — Keswick Theatre, Glenside

• Michael Minelli, The Color 8 — MilkBoy, Philadelphia

• Hook — The Hook at Caesars Atlantic City, NJ

• House of Waters — Sellersville Theater 1894, Sellersville, PA

• Small Town Titans — Musikfest Café, Bethlehem

• Lavender Llama — Funhouse, Bethlehem

Thursday, September 18

• Alabama Shakes with The Budos Band — TD Pavilion at the Mann, Philadelphia

• Eric Church and Elle King — Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia

• YUNGBLUD with Sawyer Hill — The Fillmore Philadelphia

• Charlie Sexton, Elvis Costello & The Imposters — Wind Creek Event Center, Bethlehem

• Deafheaven with I Promised the World — Arrow, Allentown

• John Mulaney — The Met Philadelphia

• CoComelon — Keswick Theatre, Glenside

• Bambara — Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia

• Tara Clerkin Trio — Solar Myth, Philadelphia

• Sebastian Maniscalco — Ovation Hall at Ocean Casino Resort, Atlantic City

• Shallow Alcove, Sarah Gross & Kennedy Shaw — Spruce Street Harbor, Philadelphia

Friday, September 19

• The Lumineers, Chance Peña, Dr. Dog — Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia

• Papa Roach, Rise Against, Underoath — PPL Center, Allentown

• Turnstile, Mannequin Pussy, Jane Remover, Speed (AUS) — Highmark Skyline Stage at Mann Center, Philadelphia

• The Growlers — Union Transfer, Philadelphia

Saturday, September 20

• Kali Uchis, Thee Sacred Souls — Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia

• Freddie Gibbs, Alchemist, Jalen Ngonda, Sven Wunder — The Fillmore Philadelphia

• Soccer Mommy — XPoNential Music Festival, Camden, NJ

• Russian Circles, Blackwater, Holylight — Union Transfer, Philadelphia

• CAFUNÉ, Crushed (LA) — The Foundry at The Fillmore, Philadelphia

Sunday, September 21

• Peter McPoland — Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia

• The High Kings — Keswick Theatre, Glenside

• KennyHoopla — Arrow, Philadelphia

• Gurriers — MilkBoy, Philadelphia

• Author & Punisher — Ukie Club, Philadelphia

• Steve Gunn — Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia

• Agnostic Front — Arrow, Philadelphia

• SPRINTS — Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia

• Zao — Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia

• 200 Stab Wounds — Anchor Rock Club, Philadelphia

Quick Links

• BROAD STREET IS WATCHING

• DROPOUT PREVENTION PROGRAM EXPANDED IN PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLS

• CYCLISTS PROTEST LANE PROTECTION PLANS

• CITY GOVERNMENT UNVEILS “NEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVE” FOR 2026

• CLOSE CALL AT CHESTER COUNTY PRISON

• 2-YEAR-OLD CHESTER BOY MISSING

• SEPTA SERVICE TO BE TEMPORARILY RESTORED, JUDGE RULES

• SWEEPING ARRESTS MADE AGAINST AUTOTHEFT GROUP THAT KILLED POLICE OFFICER

• PHILADELPHIA MOST SLEEP-DEPRIVED CITY IN THE NATION, SAYS STUDY

• PHILADELPHIA-AREA COCAINE RING BUSTED

• LOCAL CONCERTS, SEPTEMBER 8TH - SEPTEMBER 15TH

BROAD STREET IS WATCHING

Speed cameras are set to debut along Broad Street in Philadelphia on September 15, 2025, the Philadelphia Parking Authority confirmed. For the first 60 days, drivers will receive warnings only, with fines beginning afterward.

Broad Street was named the city’s most dangerous road in a 2024 Vision Zero report, with 14 fatalities recorded so far this year. By contrast, Roosevelt Boulevard — once the deadliest corridor — has seen sharp declines in speeding and crashes since speed cameras were installed in 2020, including a 93% drop in speeding tickets and a 50% reduction in pedestrian crashes, according to the city.

Officials hope Broad Street’s new enforcement program will mirror the safety improvements seen on Roosevelt Boulevard.

DROPOUT PREVENTION PROGRAM EXPANDED IN PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLS

A program aimed at reducing Philadelphia’s student “dropout crisis” is expanding into four more schools this year.

Philadelphia Academies Inc. announced that its 9th Grade Success Network will now serve students at Building 21, Franklin Learning Center, Philadelphia Military Academy, and Hill-Freedman World Academy for the 2025-26 school year.

The initiative focuses on supporting ninth graders—particularly students from marginalized backgrounds—through staff training, leadership coaching, and early interventions to keep them “on track” toward graduation.

With the expansion, the program will operate in 28 district schools, with a goal of reaching 32 schools by next year. It is funded through 2027 with $10.6 million from the School District of Philadelphia and the Neubauer Family Foundation.

Officials say the program is showing results, with “on-track” rates improved by several percentage points over last year, although some schools reported dramatic increases in graduation readiness. District data indicates the approach has contributed to a 10-point rise in graduation rates over seven years.

School leaders say the network provides a much-needed “roadmap for success,” offering tools and resources to help educators meet student needs before they fall behind.

CYCLISTS PROTEST LANE PROTECTION PLANS

Cyclists staged a mass ride to Philadelphia City Hall Friday night, demanding full concrete protections on the bike lanes along Spruce and Pine Streets in Center City.

An internal city memo recently revealed plans to install barriers on only half of the bike lanes, a move advocates say puts all road users at risk. The protest was organized by Philly Bike Action, which argues partial protections fall short of ensuring safety.

The debate follows a lawsuit filed in June by a neighborhood group opposing the barriers altogether, citing lost parking spaces and questioning the mayor’s authority. Calls for stronger protections intensified after the 2023 death of Dr. Barbara Friedes, a physician killed when a driver struck her near 18th & Spruce.

Friday’s ride also honored Harry Fenton, a Philly Bike Action member killed Tuesday while cycling in Fairmount Park.

In response, the city said its Vision Zero program remains committed to preventing traffic deaths around the clock.

CITY GOVERNMENT UNVEILS “NEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVE” FOR 2026

With the nation’s 250th birthday just a year away, Mayor Cherelle Parker unveiled a “neighborhood-focused” vision for the Semiquincentennial celebrations in 2026.

The initiative, titled “Ring It On! One Philly, A United Celebration,” will invest more than $100 million into block parties, public art, business corridor beautification, and festivals throughout the city. Over 60 community and cultural organizations are partnering in the effort.

Mayor Parker said the goal is to ensure residents and visitors alike can “see, touch, and feel” the vibrancy of America’s 250th anniversary through art and unforgettable events.

City leaders emphasized that the investment also supports local businesses, with corridor improvements like benches and clean-up crews aimed at making neighborhoods both more inviting and economically sustainable.

Community groups, including the Lancaster Ave 21st Century Business Association, praised the resources, calling the initiative a boost for small business success and neighborhood pride.

CLOSE CALL AT CHESTER COUNTY PRISON

Law enforcement stopped an escape attempt at Chester County Prison Wednesday afternoon, September 3, 2025.

Officials say Thomas Hackett, 35, of Phoenixville, jailed since June on indecent exposure and open lewdness charges, tried to scale a fence around 2:30 p.m. He reportedly climbed into layers of razor wire on the roof after inmates alerted guards by pointing toward the area.

Hackett managed to push through the wire and jump off the roof, but a corrections officer stopped him before he reached another fence lined with barbed wire.

He suffered multiple cuts during the attempt, received medical treatment, and was returned to prison the same evening, authorities confirmed.

2-YEAR-OLD CHESTER BOY MISSING

The City of Chester Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating a missing 2-year-old boy, Jeremiah Cottman, also known as Jarimah Cottman or Jeremiah Jamar Ferguson.

Jeremiah, born May 30, 2023, is described as 3 feet tall, with a medium build, dark complexion, brown eyes, and short black hair.

Police said they learned Jeremiah was missing after responding to his mother’s home on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, for a reported argument. Relatives told officers they had not seen him since his birthday party in May. His mother later confirmed he has been missing since early June.

Authorities believe Jeremiah may be with his grandparents, Ashley Ferguson or Roger “Yousef” Montgomery, who are known to frequent areas in Philadelphia. Despite ongoing efforts, police say the child and his grandparents have not yet been located.

Anyone with information regarding their whereabouts is advised to contact police immediately.

SEPTA SERVICE TO BE TEMPORARILY RESTORED, JUDGE RULES

A Philadelphia judge has ordered SEPTA to halt all service cuts, while allowing a planned 21.5% fare increase to move forward amid the agency’s budget crisis.

The ruling, issued Thursday, requires SEPTA to restore bus routes, Regional Rail service, special trains, paratransit, and station operations that had been cut or scheduled for elimination. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by attorney George Bochetto, who called the decision “full relief,” requiring every rollback to be reinstated.

Following the ruling, SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer announced the agency will aim to restore full service on Sunday, Sept. 14, while also implementing the fare hike that same day. Sauer said he has asked state officials for $394 million in capital assistance funds to cover the shortfall, warning the agency faces a $213 million budget deficit. He described the move as a “Band-Aid” that could keep SEPTA afloat through 2026, but at the expense of long-term infrastructure repairs.

The lawsuit alleged SEPTA used service cuts as leverage to secure more funding, disproportionately affecting low-income and minority riders. SEPTA countered that cuts were based on low ridership and alternative route availability.

Unless further court action intervenes, riders can expect full service restored and higher fares beginning Sept. 14, 2025.

SWEEPING ARRESTS MADE AGAINST AUTOTHEFT GROUP THAT KILLED POLICE OFFICER

Thirteen people have been indicted in connection with a violent multi-state car theft ring tied to the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Mendez, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced Friday.

The group, led by brothers Alex and Alexi Vargas, is accused of stealing more than 40 vehicles across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware between July 2021 and January 2024. The ring allegedly targeted high-value cars such as Jeep Grand Cherokees, Dodge Chargers, Dodge Durangos, and Ram trucks.

Three defendants — Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, Alexander Batista-Polanco, and Hendrick Pena-Fernandez — were already charged in Philadelphia with the October 2023 killing of Officer Mendez and the wounding of Officer Raúl Ortíz. They now face additional conspiracy charges in the auto theft case.

According to investigators, the ring operated like an organized business, with members assigned roles ranging from scouting vehicles and reprogramming keys to creating fake registrations and selling stolen cars with fraudulent documents. Over 20 vehicles were stolen in Pennsylvania alone.

Officer Mendez was fatally shot at Philadelphia International Airport in October 2023 while attempting to stop a car theft. Officer Ortíz survived after being shot in the arm.

Officials say Friday’s indictment marks a major step in dismantling a criminal enterprise that spanned multiple states and was directly linked to a deadly attack on Philadelphia police.

PHILADELPHIA MOST SLEEP-DEPRIVED CITY IN THE NATION, SAYS STUDY

A new study has found that Philadelphia is the most sleep-deprived city in America.

The research, published by Amerisleep, analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2025 County Health Rankings, and surveys of more than 1,200 people.

Findings show that 43% of adults in Philadelphia get fewer than seven hours of sleep per night, while the city also has relatively low access to wellness support — just 10 practitioners per 100,000 residents. The average workweek for Philadelphians was reported at 39 hours.

By contrast, Portland, Oregon, was ranked the most well-rested city, offering better wellness support, cleaner air, and more rest-friendly environments.

Experts recommend improving sleep quality by creating a cool, dark environment and minimizing light disturbances at night.

PHILADELPHIA-AREA COCAINE RING BUSTED

Nearly two dozen people are facing charges in connection with a large-scale drug trafficking operation in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced.

Investigators say the network, operating near 5th and Cornwall Streets, distributed cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana.

A total of 21 individuals were charged, with 16 arrested on Thursday. Among those indicted are Jimme Torres, identified as the group’s leader, and his son Matthew Torres, who allegedly managed operations while his father was in Puerto Rico.

Authorities also seized 19 firearms, large quantities of narcotics, and $275,000 in cash during the investigation.

LOCAL CONCERTS, SEPTEMBER 8TH - SEPTEMBER 15TH

Monday, September 8

• The Pogues with Ted Leo — Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia

• Sparks — Keswick Theatre, Glenside

Tuesday, September 9

• Pulp — The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia

• The Waterboys with Anna Tivel — Keswick Theatre, Glenside

• Dorothy and Eddie & the Getaway — Musikfest Café, Bethlehem

• Grant-Lee Phillips — City Winery, Philadelphia

Wednesday, September 10

• The Who — Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia

• The Brian Jonestown Massacre — Union Transfer, Philadelphia

• 10cc — Keswick Theatre, Glenside

Thursday, September 11

• Phantogram — Archer Music Hall, Allentown

• A Day to Remember, Yellowcard, State Champs, and Boundaries — Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Camden, NJ

• Our Last Night with Grayscale and Wind Walkers — Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia

• The Buttertones — Nikki Lopez Philly, Philadelphia

Friday, September 12

• The Who - Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ

• Car Seat Headrest with The Lemon Twigs — Highmark Skyline Stage at Mann Center, Philadelphia

• La Dispute with Tummyache and Glitterer — Union Transfer, Philadelphia

• Black Moth Super Rainbow, Huron, and Ricky Eat Acid — Underground Arts, Philadelphia

Saturday, September 13

• Eric Clapton with The Wallflowers — Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia

• The Feelies — The Music Hall at World Cafe Live, Philadelphia

• David Cook — New Hope Winery, New Hope, PA

Monday, September 15

• Wolf Alice — Union Transfer, Philadelphia

• Wand — Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia

Quick Links

• KENYATTA’S LONG MARCH

• WEST NILE VIRUS DETECTED IN PHILADELPHIA

• FRANKFORD HIGH SCHOOL REOPENS AFTER ASBESTOS REMOVAL

• HURRICANE ERIN DEPARTS EASTERN SEABOARD

• DAYCARE WORKER CAUGHT ON CAMERA BEATING CHILD

• LOCAL ANIMAL SHELTER HOLDS CASINO NIGHT FUNDRAISER

• THIEVES BEAT MEAT (TRUCK)

• TEACHERS UNION, SCHOOL DISTRICT, SHAKE HANDS OVER NEW DEAL

• “SEE YOU IN COURT,” JUDGE TELLS SEPTA

• WATER DEPARTMENT TO UP RATES - AGAIN

• SCHOOL SAFETY OFFICER SHOT ELEVEN TIMES OUT OF THE HOSPITAL

• LOCAL CONCERTS, AUGUST 30TH - SEPTEMBER 6TH

KENYATTA’S LONG MARCH

In a bold five-day, 105-mile trek from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta is demanding urgent action on transit funding. His journey is a direct response to SEPTA’s 20% service reductions that began just before the start of the school year, and driven primarily by a significant $213 million operating deficit that the state legislature has refused to address.

Kenyatta left North Philadelphia on Friday morning, livestreaming his walk and staging rallies at key stops like 69th Street and West Chester. His stop in Lancaster precedes his expected arrival at the Capitol steps on Tuesday for a final press event. He accused Republican legislators of inaction, pointing to a stalled budget and underscoring the real-world burden these cuts place on students, seniors, and workers.

SEPTA’s service overhaul is estimated to impacts tens of thousands of schoolchildren and daily commuters, with longer commutes and reduced accessibility already taking a toll, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, a Democratic-backed bill in the state House proposes a $292 million transit funding increase — which would avert up to 50% of planned service cuts, but faces resistance in the GOP-led Senate.

Kenyatta is framing his march as both symbolic and urgent, invoking the legacy of civil rights marches while shining a spotlight on the escalating transit crisis facing everyday Pennsylvanians.

WEST NILE VIRUS DETECTED IN PHILADELPHIA

State health officials reported this week that 12 positive samples of West Nile Virus have been collected in Philadelphia, as well as 15 in Chester County and 11 in Delaware County. Though no one has tested positive for the disease this year, the disease can be extremely hazardous to human health. The West Nile virus has been detected in mosquitos from almost every Pennsylvania county. For greater information on the illness and its prevention, please visit this link.

FRANKFORD HIGH SCHOOL REOPENS AFTER ASBESTOS REMOVAL

After more than two years closed due to asbestos concerns, Frankford High School has reopened following a $29.9 million renovation. The project included asbestos remediation, new air-conditioning units, smartboards, windows, LED lighting, and upgrades to classrooms, the gym, and cafeteria.

School officials praised the reopening as both a safety milestone and an investment in students’ futures. The district has also strengthened its asbestos monitoring program, now requiring inspections every six months to ensure the building remains safe.

HURRICANE ERIN DEPARTS EASTERN SEABOARD

Hurricane Erin has emerged as one of the most powerful and rapidly intensifying storms on record, transforming from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours — a phenomenon meteorologists have described as “explosive intensification,” according to CNN. This dramatic escalation caught forecasters off-guard and heightened concerns across the U.S. Northeast and Caribbean.

Although Erin skirted the U.S. coastline — only coming within roughly 200 miles of North Carolina — it unleashed dangerous surf, rip currents, and coastal flooding between Florida and New York. Its sheer size was exceptional; only Hurricane Sandy in 2012 rivaled Erin in terms of storm-force wind diameter.

Experts warn that Erin’s rapid growth reflects a troubling trend fueled by climate change. As sea surface temperatures climb, storms are more likely to intensify quickly, making preparedness a pressing priority for coastal communities.

Despite beach erosion caused by the storm, labor-day vacationers are nonetheless flocking to places like the Jersey Shore to celebrate the holiday.

DAYCARE WORKER CAUGHT ON CAMERA BEATING CHILD

A 50-year-old woman, Nakia Bartley, has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a six-year-old girl inside the Rainbow Daycare & Learning Center on Huntingdon Street. Authorities say Bartley dragged the child into a bathroom and punched her, resulting in a cut lip and a loose tooth.

Surveillance video captured the incident, prompting immediate action from state authorities. The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services issued an emergency removal order on August 13th, forcing the daycare to remove all children from the facility.

Bartley faces multiple charges, including aggravated assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a child, and corruption of minors. Her attorney stated that Bartley was employed at the daycare at the time but has since been dismissed, noting that the widely shared "10‑15 second" video clip doesn’t reflect the full context under investigation, though they did not elaborate on what context would justify beating a child.

Her preliminary hearing was on August 25, 2025.

LOCAL ANIMAL SHELTER HOLDS CASINO NIGHT FUNDRAISER

Rylie's Rescue, a local volunteer nonprofit dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating, and rehoming dogs in need, is gearing up for its 5th Annual Casino Night Fundraiser.

Event details:

• Date & Time: Friday, September 19, 2025, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM

• Location: The Farm House Restaurant, 1146 Stump Hall Road, Skippack, PA

Attendees can enjoy a lively evening filled with casino games, great food, and community camaraderie, all to support a meaningful cause. Raffle tickets and silent auction items will be available for purchase via Venmo, PayPal, or cash.

Rylie's Rescue’s mission centers on giving loving homes to dogs that have been abandoned, neglected, or abused, making this fundraiser a vital part of their work.

THIEVES BEAT MEAT (TRUCK)

In the early hours of Friday, a delivery driver for a Texas-based meat supplier fell victim to a brazen theft in South Philadelphia. At approximately 5:45 a.m. on the 2600 block of Penrose Avenue, one truck driver was asleep in his truck when he awoke to the sound of rattling and discovered intruders had forced open his locked rear cargo hold.

Spotting two men and a woman, the unarmed driver watched helplessly as the thieves removed an entire pallet of meat and fled. The driver admitted he usually carries a firearm and stated that its absence may have made all the difference: “I usually pack my pistol with me man. Because if I had packed my pistol you wouldn’t have gotten away man,” he told NBC10 Philadelphia.

Philadelphia police confirmed they are actively investigating the incident. They noted that, so far this year, the city has reported 42 cargo thefts — more than half of which have involved meat, poultry, or seafood products.

The driver, visibly shaken, stated: “I hate for this kind of shit to happen to me. I know it happens to other drivers... this kind of throws your whole day off.”

TEACHERS UNION, SCHOOL DISTRICT SHAKE HANDS OVER NEW DEAL

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has overwhelmingly approved a three-year contract with the School District of Philadelphia, with 70% of union members voting "yes.”

Key highlights of the new agreement include:

• 3% annual pay raises

• A $1,400 one-time bonus, disbursed in October

• Five weeks of paid parental leave for all new parents

• Expanded bereavement leave, now allowed within 30 calendar days (up from the previous 10 working days)

Union leaders had warned that, without this deal, the union’s approximately 14,000 members could have gone on strike just one week into the school year, risking a grim repeat of the DC-33 strike earlier this year. The contract is set to go into effect on Monday, September 1.

“SEE YOU IN COURT,” JUDGE TELLS SEPTA

A Philadelphia judge granted a temporary injunction today following an emergency hearing, halting further SEPTA service cuts and suspending the planned 21.5% fare increase and other reductions, pending a follow-up hearing on September 4.

The injunction blocks any upcoming route eliminations, service reductions, station closures, or curfews, locking service levels at their current state.

SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said the agency will need about 10 days to comply with the court’s order, likely tapping into its “Service Stabilization Fund” to do so.

The court action follows a lawsuit filed earlier this week by lawyer George Bochetto, who argues SEPTA fabricated its fiscal crisis and imposed cuts that unfairly burden minority communities and poorer residents. The suit has been criticized by transit advocates as a distraction from the debate in the Harrisburg over SEPTA funding.

WATER DEPARTMENT TO UP RATES - AGAIN

The Philadelphia Water Department will raise residential water rates by nearly 10%, or about $8, starting September 1, bringing the average monthly bill to roughly $91. This hike aims to bolster aging infrastructure and prevent issues like water main breaks, sinkholes, and burst pipes. A further increase is expected in September 2026.

SCHOOL SAFETY OFFICER SHOT ELEVEN TIMES OUT OF THE HOSPITAL

School Safety Officer Craig Romanczuk, who miraculously survived being shot 11 times in June while responding to a road-rage incident near Penn’s Landing, was released from rehabilitation and returned home today. He was honored with a touching "clap-out" celebration at Jefferson Moss-Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Center City as fellow officers and staff cheered his recovery

Romanczuk, 68, is a seasoned veteran with nearly 30 years with the Philadelphia Police Department, and almost two decades in the School District’s Office of School Safety. He sustained serious injuries when he stopped to assist someone flagged down during the incident on I‑95; after being shot, he managed to drive a short distance before crashing into a tree.

School safety officials hailed his survival as "nothing short of an absolute miracle," praising his strength and dedication. With a suspect now in custody, Romanczuk faces months of rehabilitation, though he’s already talking about returning to work.

LOCAL CONCERTS, AUGUST 30TH - SEPTEMBER 6TH

• Tuesday, September 2

  • Jerry Cantrell and Sparta (Archer Music Hall, Allentown)

  • Tawnted (The Fire, Philadelphia)

  • Blood Tithe Fear the Dark, Concrete Caveman, and Ariadne’s Thread (Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia)

• Wednesday, September 3

  • Benson Boone & Elliot James Reay (Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia)

  • Duckwrth & Sherwyn (The Foundry, Philadelphia)

  • Stiff Little Fingers (Underground Arts, Philadelphia)

  • Jonathan Coulton (City Winery, Philadelphia)

• Thursday, September 4

  • HAIM (TD Pavilion at the Mann, Philadelphia)

  • Swans and Little Annie (Union Transfer, Philadelphia)

  • Frankie Cosmos (with Fantasy Of A Broken Heart and Moontype) (Underground Arts, Philadelphia)

• Friday, September 5

  • Sea Wolf (City Winery, Philadelphia)

• Saturday, September 6

  • Men I Trust (with strongboi) (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia)

  • One Fine Day Festival featuring Sting, Shaggy, O.A.R., Big Freedia, The Original Wailers, Chance Emerson, and more (TD Pavilion at the Mann, Philadelphia)

INTRODUCTION

The emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s posed an unprecedented challenge to medical science and public health, particularly for individuals with hemophilia who relied on blood-derived clotting factor to manage their condition.

Documents from the period reveal that Cutter Laboratories, a subsidiary of Bayer AG, became aware by 1983 that its Factor VIII and IX concentrates, critical medicines in treating hemophilia, were contaminated with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but continued to sell the product anyway.

Despite their knowledge, in the face of substantial financial losses, Cutter elected to distribute these contaminated products to international markets, particularly in Asia and Latin America, between 1984 and 1985. This decision, made in regions with less stringent regulatory oversight, contributed to the infection of thousands of hemophiliacs with HIV, exacerbating the global toll of the AIDS crisis.

EARLY HISTORY: 1971-1981

During the initial stages of the AIDS epidemic, though the disease had not yet been discovered at the time, the effects of what is now known as HIV were observable. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, doctors were puzzled by the increasing number of deaths in their otherwise healthy patients. These patients were experiencing a steep decline in immune function, and were succumbing to what are known as “opportunistic infections,” or otherwise mild bugs that only pose a threat to individuals with severely weakened immune systems. At the time, scientists were at a loss to explain why so many people’s immune systems were suddenly and inexplicably failing across the United States.

This pattern eventually became known colloquially as “4H disease” among US researchers, an abbreviation for the four populations where it was showing up the most: heroin users, Haitian immigrants, homosexuals, and hemophiliacs.1 The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would eventually coin the official term “Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome” to describe the phenomenon later in 1982, but it wasn’t until 1985 that HIV would be definitely identified as the cause of AIDS.

But even prior to 1985, though experts did not know fully know what disease or diseases were causing AIDS, they knew full well what populations it affected the most and how it was spread - almost exclusively through sexual contact and bloodborne-transmission. In fact, as early as 1982, the Centers for Disease Control had warned that “that hemophiliacs were becoming ill from blood products” and acquiring AIDS, though the specific cause was, once again, unknown.2 They reiterated this point again in March 1983, saying more explicitly that clotting factors “appear responsible for AIDS among hemophilia patients.”3

Hemophilia, for those unfamiliar, is a genetic disease where the body doesn’t produce enough clotting factors - or, the proteins that help blood form scabs and stop bleeding. As a result, people with untreated hemophilia bleed more easily and for longer periods, leading to dangerous blood loss and occasionally even death.

The modern treatment for this is pretty straightforward: more clotting factor. Though we are now able to synthesize these clotting factors in a lab, for a long time, the standard treatment for hemophilia was with blood transfusions. These transfusions contained the necessary clotting factors taken from non-hemophilic individuals. But these transfusions were “pooled and isolated from thousands of anonymous and untested blood donations” during the time of the AIDS crisis, including from high-risk sources like US prisons or underdeveloped countries.4

One of many companies that produced these types of clotting factor products was Bayer AG.

BLOOD MONEY

With the rise of HIV, using plasma from human donors to treat hemophilia introduced previously unknown risks to patients. Bayer was well aware of this, which is why it introduced a safer version of the medicine in February 1984.5

"There is strong evidence to suggest that AIDS is passed on to other people through ... plasma products,” read one internal Bayer memo from 1983.6

By 1983, other companies in the industry had begun to heat-treat their blood to render the bacteria and viruses in blood products inert, a process not unlike how a fever fights infections in the human body; Bayer was one of the last companies to receive US approval for its new heat-treated clotting factor in early 1984. But, when the French government made the decision in 1983 to halt all imports of foreign clotting factor, Bayer’s Cutter responded rather strangely. Contrary to its internal position and upcoming new product, Cutter responded to the decision by stating,

“AIDS has become the center of irrational response in many countries…this is of particular concern to us because of unsubstantiated speculations that this syndrome may be transmitted by certain blood products.”

While manufacture of the new product began in early 1984, Bayer continued to manufacture the old product alongside it until August 1984, a decision believed to be based on the fact that the older product was cheaper to produce. Notes from a Cutter company meeting in mid-1984 noted that, while the new product was selling well, “there is excess nonheated inventory,” and that the company needed to “review international markets again to determine if more of this product can be sold."

Cutter estimated that it risked losing $2 million in sales if it were to pull the old product off the shelves in a recall. Records indicate that in one case, Cutter asked a Hong-Kong distributor to “use up stocks” of the old clotting factor before they could receive its “safer, better” product. By 1985, once it was becoming apparent that new HIV infections in Hong Kong were directly linked to stores of Cutter’s old clotting factor, Cutter’s Hong Kong distributors demanded the newer product; Cutter told the distributor flatly that the new medicine would mostly be going to the US and Europe and that Hong Kong wouldn’t be getting any.

By mid-1985, a Cutter executive noted that “It appears there are no longer any markets in the Far East where we can expect to sell substantial quantities of nonheat-treated [medicine],” and the company stopped selling the older product soon after.

The consequences of this 2-million-dollar decision were catastrophic. By 1992, at least 10,000 hemophiliacs internationally were believed to have been infected with HIV unknowingly from use of the clotting factor, and of those, approximately 2,000 died after developing complications related to AIDS.7 According to experts, coming to reliable figures on how many others these people went on to infect is “impossible.”8

"These are the most incriminating internal pharmaceutical industry documents I have ever seen," said Dr Sidney Wolfe in 2003, who, at the time, was director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, an organization dedicated to transparency in medicine and “has been investigating industry practices for 30 years.” Another report described the incident as a violation “of basic principles of medical and business ethics.”9

At the time, though, the situation largely remained unknown to the general public. According to the New York Times,

“In May of 1985, believing that the companies had broken a voluntary agreement to withdraw the old medicine from the market, the Food and Drug Administration's regulator of blood products, Dr. Harry M. Meyer Jr., summoned officials of the companies to a meeting and ordered them to comply. ''It was unacceptable for them to ship that material overseas,'' he said later in legal papers.”

But Meyers also wanted the issue “quietly solved without alerting the Congress, the medical community and the public,” the Times continued, according to witnesses at the meeting. And so it was not until the late 1990s that the true scope of the problem became fully apparent.

CONCLUSION

By the end of the 1980s, it was estimated that a staggering 90% of hemophiliacs in the United States had been infected with HIV or Hepatitis C, a similarly transmitted disease, and 20% of hemophiliac deaths during the decade were due to AIDS, larger than any other cause.1011 One pediatrician, in a 2016 retrospective on the AIDS crisis, stated that “virtually every hemophiliac I treated in the mid-1980s has since died from AIDS.”12

One case, brought against Bayer and Cutter Biological in 2000, described a man named Kenneth Dixon, born with hemophilia in 1967. He was first given clotting factor to treat the condition in 1976, at nine years old. In November 1985, with testing now available to detect HIV, Dixon’s hematologist told him that an earlier sample of his blood had tested positive for the disease; his doctor’s opinion was that the source of the infection was probably untreated clotting factor, and that he would, in all likelihood, go on to develop AIDS. Dixon was only 18 years old.

Ten years later, in 1995, despite utilizing the treatments available for HIV at the time, Dixon died at the age of 28 from AIDS-related complications.

The case concluded when a jury found “Bayer and Alpha [a Bayer affiliate] liable for the negligent manufacture of an unreasonably dangerous product, and fraud, all of which were the cause-in-fact of Ken's death as a result of AIDS,” and awarded $35.3 million in wrongful death damages to Dixon’s family in a class-action lawsuit.13

And Dixon is far from the only one. In total, Bayer and three other companies affiliated with producing the product have paid a total of over $600 million in damages, or approximately $1.05 billion today, adjusted for inflation.

Bayer has insisted that it has always “behaved responsibly, ethically and humanely" in its operations.

THE GREAT ACADEMIC EXODUS

Harvard and Yale’s finest, the philosophy docs and fascism nerds, are stuffing their tweed jackets into suitcases as we speak, hightailing it to Canada like their face just made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted.

This past April, Yale Philosophy Professor and expert in fascism Jason Stanley talked to NPR in an interview titled “Why this Yale professor is fleeing America.” In that interview, Stanley announced that he was packing his bags and moving his family to Canada because he sees the Trump administration as trying to “take down democracy.”1

He’s not alone - the New York Times piled on to that sentiment in May with an article titled “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S,” featuring interviews from multiple professors and experts on authoritarianism across the US. In that article, they too blamed the Trump administration as the reason why they were leaving to take up positions outside the country, comparing it to a sinking Titanic:

“We’re like people on the Titanic saying our ship can’t sink,” [Professor Shore] said. “And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.”2

These are the canaries in the coal mine, we’re told, the intellectual sentinels who sniff out authoritarianism like bloodhounds hunting the scent. And now, they’re bailing out, saying that the US is in teetering on the brink of fascism.

It’s a hell of a story - but it raises an uncomfortable question.

Why now?

If the argument is that the United States is entering the beginnings of fascism, one might ask why these experts believe it started only with Trump - either in 2016 or his return in 2025.

Because if the criteria is government overreach, repression of dissent, or erosion of civil liberties, America didn’t cross those lines recently. If that’s the case for leaving, well, the “fascism experts” are late to the game. When we started, say, torturing our suspected enemies, or warrantlessly wiretapping people - which is arguably much more frightening and characteristic of fascist regimes throughout history than much of what Trump’s done - it probably would have been a good time to leave then.

So why are these “experts” only now clutching their pearls? Well, if I had to guess, probably because Trump’s too crass to hide the decay we’ve all been ignoring for decades. We are not “backsliding” into anything - we’ve been descending in authoritarianism for quite some time.

THE GREATEST HITS

The claim that the U.S. is backsliding into authoritarianism under Trump assumes a relatively recent departure from democratic norms. But America’s flirtation with authoritarianism didn’t start with Trump’s golden escalator ride in 2015.

Let’s rewind the tape - we can start with The PATRIOT Act, rammed through in 2001 just 45 days after the Twin Towers fell. “No one has really had an opportunity to look at the bill to see what is in it,” said Rep. Bobby Scott.3

Regardless, the bill overwhelmingly passed Congress. Overnight, the government could snoop through your emails, tap your phones, and check what library books you borrowed - all without a warrant. “National security” and fear of a second 9/11 was the justification for shoving the Fourth Amendment in a shredder.

Then the Bush administration’s CIA built a network of “black sites” where torture methods, like sleep deprivation or waterboarding - “enhanced interrogation” - were used to extract confessions or valuable intelligence. The Senate’s 2014 Torture Report, which the CIA hacked Senate computers to get ahead of time, concluded that at least 119 detainees, 26 of which were wrongfully held, were tortured in ways more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than a free and open society.4

Obama, the hope-and-change messiah, kept a “kill list” that turned drone strikes into a Tuesday afternoon routine - weddings, funerals, entire villages reduced to rubble in places like Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.5 The New York Times reported in a 2012 article titled “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will” that Obama personally signed off on targets, including American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki and his sixteen-year-old son - no trial needed.6

And Guantanamo Bay? Still open, despite campaign promises.

The NSA’s PRISM program, exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013, slurped up every digital crumb you left online. Texts, calls, nudes; it was all fair game. It drew comparisons to the Gestapo, Stalin, and the East German Stasi - and it’s still going on, by the way.

And whistleblowers? Obama’s DOJ prosecuted more under the Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined.7 Chelsea Manning spent years in solitary confinement; John Kiriakou blew the whistle on CIA torture, only to end up the only person prosecuted in connection with the program; Julian Assange rotted in legal limbo, afraid to step outside the Ecuadorian Embassy lest he face extradition to America, until he finally gave himself up in 2019.

On the specific topic of politically-motivated deportations, which has made waves in recent weeks, even that is not completely new. The recent deportations of pro-Palestinian activists draws eerie comparisons, going past the post-9/11 era and into the ‘70s, to when the FBI under a vindictive Nixon notoriously devoted millions of dollars and hundreds of manhours in a futile attempt to get John Lennon deported for his anti-Vietnam War efforts.8 Their tactics included around the clock surveillance and the tapping of Lennon’s phone lines, for essentially nothing other than trying finding to find reason to ship the loudmouth back off to jolly old England. And Lennon was far from the only one.

Trump’s playbook? It’s his “Ignition remix.” Trump’s less inventing American authoritarianism than he is just the latest face. The face of an administration like Obama’s was charismatic, diplomatic; Trump’s is ugly and insensitive.

THE OPTICS OF OUTRAGE

Critics of Trump argue that his actions are not merely a continuation of past policies, but a distinct, qualitative shift. And on specific policy, I would be inclined to agree: take Trump’s attacks on higher education, unilaterally ending virtually all foreign aid, or laying off thousands of federal workers for pretty much no reason in violation of federal law, for instance. The events of January 6th and their aftermath are also a pretty big deal, putting it lightly. Yet, this perspective risks overlooking how past policies enabled Trump’s actions.

Trump’s second term immigration sweeps, which have rounded up thousands and dumped them in El Salvador, look brutal. But, by the numbers, Obama deported more - 2.5 million people, earning the nickname “deporter-in-chief” from The Atlantic.9 Indefinite detention? Trump can, and has, used it to detain immigrants, without trial, for as long as he wants - baked into legislation like the 2011 NDAA, signed by Obama.10 Extraordinary rendition? Bush’s brainchild, continued through the Obama and Biden administrations, right up until Trump began using it to send migrants to El Salvador’s “Terrorism Confinement Center” and Guantanamo Bay, of all places.1112

So, what truly makes Trump look so different to these experts, then? Why are the professors bolting now?

Well, to quote Marshall McLuhan: “the medium is the message.”

Trump’s brashness and general disregard of public perception has made “the medium” - how he communicates - appear rather ugly in many corners of America, and by extension, “the message.” But on paper? The message is not particularly special. You gave up all these rights a long time ago. The difference is not the existence of these powers, but Trump’s willingness to wield them brazenly and without rhetorical restraint.

So why are you complaining now?

People who once dismissed concerns with "Oh, the government would never do that" and placed their trust in the government essentially with an IOU ("pretty please don't abuse this power") are now changing their tune because it's now become readily apparent the government would, in fact, do that. Why now? Because now it’s the professor’s friends on the no-fly list. Their tweets getting flagged. Their jobs and grants at stake.

And unfortunately, the only way the American people seem to take civil liberties infringement seriously is often when they begin to brush against hot-button, emotion-driven, identity-based issues; illegal immigration, gender theory, or charges of systemic American racism all come to mind.

For example, many tried to warn the public in the early 2010s about the militarization of police following the drawdown and eventual US troop withdrawal from Iraq. As the war came to a close, the Pentagon quickly realized that much of the equipment on its hands had outlived its usefulness. The easiest way to get rid of them, of course, was to give them to someone else, someone they trusted; and so they began to offload these leftovers to police stateside, such as MRAP armored vehicles and grenade launchers, usually completely for free.

The natural effect of this was that, as police began to receive tools less suitable for a local police force and more of an occupying army, they began to act that way, too. Suddenly, towns with populations of 500 began to see aggressive SWAT police rolling around in armored vehicles built to withstand the blasts of Iraqi IEDs to bust a couple of methheads, with deadly consequences. Of course, the issue was only seriously confronted in the aftermath of the George Floyd incident in 2020, when widespread questioning of longstanding police policies and abuses became front and center on the national stage in relation to race.

Police militarization, like some of Trump’s policies, mirrors a long-standing trend of prioritizing state power over civil liberties, ignored by many - unless it becomes about identity.

Maybe if Obama had only accidentally drone-strike’d a black, gay illegal alien that escaped from a CIA blacksite that he located through illegal wiretaps, could we have seen some real change, but alas.

And many scholars and commentators point to Trump’s open contempt for the press as a sign of creeping fascism.

True, Trump is without precedent in things like his combativeness with reporters, kicking the AP out of morning press briefings, and suing CBS for defamation. Reporters Without Borders went as far to call it “Trump’s war on the press.” But something seems to have been overlooked in the discussion. Trump is not friendly to the press, yes, but Obama did something arguably much worse to the AP: he actually spied on them.

In a 2015 segment from The Week magazine:

“The Associated Press on Monday revealed that the Department of Justice had secretly spied on AP reporters, obtaining two months' worth of telephone records in what was most likely an attempt to crack down on internal leaks.

According to the AP, the Justice Department acquired records for more than 20 different phone lines associated with the news agency — including reporters' cell, office, and home lines — that could affect more than 100 staffers. Calling the move a "massive and unprecedented intrusion," AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt demanded that the DOJ explain why it had gone after the records. He also insisted that the government return the phone records and destroy all other copies of them.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters," he said in a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.”13

Trump’s combativeness is crude and unlike any president before him, but spying seems far worse. Where were the fascist experts when that was going down? And the same op-ed pages that call Trump a Nazi once laundered Dick Cheney’s lies about WMDs and called torture “enhanced interrogation.” Come on, now.

The experts seem to have ignored such elements to the fascist equation in light of the grand, bombastic circus that is the current administration; that is to say, the criticism towards Trump seems more about his optics than any novel quashing of press freedom. The fascist experts were nowhere to be seen in 2015; now, who’s to stop Trump from taking cues from Obama, or worse?

THE ALARM WE KEEP SNOOZING

It may be tempting to characterize this article as “whataboutism,” but it’s really not. What it should be is a wake-up call.

Things like Trump’s immigration enforcement policies do demonstrate a clear authoritarian streak, particularly with ICE arresting individuals at their immigration hearings while they pursue legal citizenship. Tactics like these, unprecedented in their audacity, demand scrutiny.

It’s also probably important to point out that Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship not only appears unconstitutional but distinctly nationalist, setting it apart from other executive overreaches in the past two decades. His administration’s overt nationalism and populism, absent in prior, recent administrations like Biden or Obama, merits attention. The expansion of executive power under Trump has exacerbated - though not created - the erosion of legislative authority, as Congress continues to largely abdicate its legislative functions. The past three or four presidents, including Trump, have issued numerous day-one executive actions, with Trump being the worst culprit, setting a new record in 2025 - 142 executive orders in the first 100 days.14 This trend fuels the ongoing conflict between the executive and judicial branches we’ve seen over the past year.

But the structure, institutions, and precedent that Trump has used to carry out his policy were not built overnight. It wasn’t even built over four years of his first term. It was built gradually, over decades, brick by brick and layer by layer. I would wager that a sizeable number of the same people who said in response to the NSA spying scandal statements like, "Well, I have nothing to hide" probably feel now that they do, in fact, have something to hide. Given the hostility of the Trump administration and their willingness to throw all unspoken agreements and professionalism out the window, it’s only become obvious to many recently that the government has far too much power in its possession - especially the executive branch. If Trump’s style is alarming, so too should the policy that enabled it.

I am, essentially, begging you to oppose authoritarianism wherever it occurs - even if the guy doing it is polite. Because even if it’s done with good intentions or a classy delivery, authoritarianism always, always comes back to bite us in the ass.

Arguing this point may provoke outrage among some. A lot of Americans disapprove of Trump, and of those who disapprove, their disapproval is very strong. They may extrapolate a piece like this as being a defense of Trump; they couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, take it as an indictment of almost every modern administration: Trump, Biden, Obama, etc., and, lest we forget, our sleepwalking Congress. The point is not that Trump’s actions are unimportant; Trump’s actions are dangerous, but many of them are not unique.

The current state of democratic affairs in the US is something like a disease; maybe you shrug off the first couple symptoms when they’re not too ugly. Ignore it for too long, though, and you find yourself in the hospital on death’s door.

The academic exodus highlights genuine concerns about Trump’s policies, but it also reveals a selective outrage. The fascist experts point to Trump’s irreverent behaviors as evidence of a dictator in the making, but it seems trivial in any discussion of fascism when past presidents have done arguably much more “fascist” things policy-wise; when they do point to tangible abuses, they’re often abuses where Trump can rely on precedent to back him up.

Arguing that the US is undergoing “a democratic backsliding” in 2025 seems a little like arguing in August 1939 that the Nazi regime was threatening the democratic process in Germany - too little, too late.

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• IBX ANNOUNCES “EMPLOYEE BUYOUT”

• SEPTA CRACKS DOWN ON FARE EVASION

• NO NEW MONEY FOR STADIUMS, SAYS GOVERNOR

• PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLS FACE MAJOR OVERHAUL, CLOSURES

• STINGING ASIAN ANTS MAKE NEW HOME IN PHILADELPHIA

• PHILADELPHIA SCHOOL DISTRICT FIRST IN THE COUNTRY TO FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROBE

STRIKE IS OVER

Philadelphia’s first major city workers’ strike since 1986 ended after eight days when Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and AFSCME District Council 33 President Greg Boulware reached a tentative, three-year contract agreement on July 9, 2025. The deal, covering about 9,000 blue-collar workers like trash collectors and 911 dispatchers, includes 3% annual raises, a $1,500 one-time bonus, and a new pay scale step boosting veteran workers’ wages by about 2%. The strike, which disrupted important services like trash collection, highlighted tensions between city unions and the Mayor’s office. Parker stated that her priority was fiscal responsibility, while the union stated that they were pushing for “a living wage.” The contract, costing $115 million over five years, awaits union ratification. The strike has strained Parker’s ties with labor allies, and available data suggests that the union has strong public support.

ROBOTAXIS COME TO PHILADELPHIA

Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous vehicle company, began "road trips" to Philadelphia and New York City to explore expansion from cities like San Francisco and into the Northeastern United States. These trips involve mapping new areas with human-driven vehicles equipped with Waymo’s self-driving technology, followed by autonomous testing with a human behind the wheel to refine the AI system. While similar road trips have led to commercial launches, such as in Los Angeles, Waymo’s activities in Philadelphia will cover complex urban areas, and in NYC, they will map parts of Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Hoboken. However, NYC’s regulations currently prohibit fully driverless operations, and Waymo is pushing for regulatory changes while awaiting approval to test with a human driver. These efforts build on Waymo’s existing robotaxi services in cities like Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix, with planned launches in Miami and Washington, D.C.

STATEWIDE 911 OUTAGE

Pennsylvania's 911 system experienced intermittent outages on Friday but resumed normal operations by late that day, according to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). The cause of the outages is under investigation, with no initial evidence suggesting a cybersecurity issue, as stated by Comtech Telecommunications, the state's contract provider. A full root cause analysis is underway, and an independent review will aim to prevent future disruptions; officials indicated that the outage was almost certainly IT-based. Most county’s 911 systems were reported stable by midnight Friday, with no further issues by Saturday morning. PEMA recommends residents save their county’s 10-digit nonemergency number for use during potential future outages.

IBX ANNOUNCES “EMPLOYEE BUYOUT”

Independence Blue Cross, a Philadelphia-based health insurer, offered buyouts to employees who started before December 31, 2020, as part of an effort to streamline operations amid rising medical and pharmaceutical costs. The company, employing 4,134 people under Independence Blue Cross LLC, said that they aim to build a “resilient” organization but did not disclose the number of employees offered buyouts or whether layoffs would follow if targets are not met. This follows a 3% staff reduction last fall and comes as the broader health insurance industry faces financial challenges, with Independence reporting a $239 million loss in 2024. The loss was the company’s first since 2015, driven by increased costs in Medicare and Medicaid plans.

SEPTA CRACKS DOWN ON FARE EVASION

SEPTA, Philadelphia's public transit system, is addressing fare evasion through a new enforcement “blitz” that has already shown promising results, with a 200% increase in sales at Huntingdon Station in Kensington since officers were deployed last week. The initiative, which involves stationing officers at various stations across the Market-Frankford, Broad Street, Regional Rail, and trolley lines from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., aims to ensure all riders pay fares, reducing the financial burden on SEPTA and paying customers, especially as SEPTA faces budget shortfalls.

NO NEW MONEY FOR STADIUMS, SAYS GOVERNOR

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that the state will not provide funding for new sports arenas, including potential projects for the Philadelphia Eagles, whose lease at Lincoln Financial Field expires in 2032, or the Pittsburgh Steelers and their stadium. Speaking at Pocono Raceway, Shapiro emphasized balancing investments in sports and tourism with other state priorities amid federal budget cuts. He confirmed ongoing discussions with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and the Steelers’ Rooney family about their stadium needs but stressed no state funds would be allocated, as seen with the 76ers’ recent arena plans. Shapiro also highlighted talks about bringing a NASCAR race to a Philadelphia stadium like Franklin Field to boost the sport’s visibility while supporting Pocono Raceway’s economic success, which saw its third consecutive sellout. Additionally, he celebrated Pennsylvania’s 2026 sports lineup, including the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, the MLB All-Star Game, the World Cup, and the PGA Championship.

PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLS FACE MAJOR OVERHAUL, CLOSURES

Philadelphia’s school district is nearing a major overhaul of its 300 buildings, with Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. set to propose closing some schools, rearranging others, and renovating or building new facilities by Fall 2025, with school board decisions expected by year-end. The plan, guided by a facilities master planning process, evaluates buildings based on safety, accessibility, modern technology, environmental standards, program offerings, capacity utilization, and neighborhood vulnerability. The plan aims to address aging, unequal facilities and inefficiencies stemming from enrollment trends. Watlington emphasized reducing grade configurations from 13 to six, consolidating career and technical programs, and decreasing traditional middle schools to improve academic and extracurricular equity across neighborhoods. Community engagement sessions are scheduled through July 24, but advisory groups have raised concerns about incomplete data and the process’s transparency, with some urging a freeze on closures and a greater focus on maintenance to avoid repeating the negative outcomes of past closures in 2012 and 2013.

STINGING ASIAN ANTS MAKE NEW HOME IN PHILADELPHIA

The Asian needle ant (Brachyponera chinensis), an invasive species native to China, Japan, and the Korean peninsula, has been sighted in Philadelphia, with three confirmed reports on iNaturalist: May 2020 on Krams Avenue in Manayunk, July 2023 on Delaware Avenue, and April 2025 on Woodland Avenue in Elmwood Park. These small, shiny, dark brown to black ants, measuring about 0.2 inches, deliver a painful sting that can cause anaphylaxis in hypersensitive individuals, though the prevalence of such reactions in the U.S. is unknown. While not yet a major threat, their presence raises concerns due to their potential to displace native ant species and reducing biodiversity, like many other invasive species. Experts like Michael Skvarla from Penn State note that their prevalence in Pennsylvania is unclear, and more research is needed to assess their abundance. The ants, first detected in the U.S. in 1932, thrive in temperate forests and urban areas but are hard to control due to a lack of natural predators and the impracticality of widespread insecticide use. Homeowners are advised to seek professional pest control for suspected infestations to avoid exacerbating the issue.

PHILADELPHIA SCHOOL DISTRICT FIRST IN THE COUNTRY TO FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROBE

The Philadelphia School District has entered a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Department of Justice following a five-year investigation into its failure to comply with federal asbestos regulations under the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA). The district, the first in the U.S. to face criminal charges for such violations, was found to have missed mandatory three-year inspections at seven schools and six-month inspections at one school between 2015 and 2023, affecting 31 buildings, some with improperly handled asbestos, like using duct tape for repairs. The agreement, approved unanimously by the school board on June 26, 2025, requires five years of court-monitored compliance, including regular inspections, remediation, and transparent reporting, with charges to be dropped if met. The district has tripled its environmental budget to $55.7 million, aided by a $100 million University of Pennsylvania donation, and now conducts twice-yearly inspections. Past underfunding and faulty record-keeping contributed to closures like Frankford High in 2024.

Hey! It’s been a while. Also, happy Fourth of July 🎆

Follow us on Twitter at @phillyfreepress or email us at phillyfp@proton.me.

Quick Links

• SEPTA MOVES FORWARD WITH DOOMSDAY BUDGET

• PHILADELPHIA NAMED AMERICA’S “MOST WALKABLE CITY” FOR THIRD YEAR IN A ROW

• DC-33 STRIKE GETS PHYSICAL

• PARKER DEFENDS AGAINST ACCUSATIONS OF CRONYISM

• SPAT OF ROBBERIES TARGET ASIAN RESIDENTS, POLICE SAY

• SECOND PHILLY UNION HOLDS STRIKE VOTE

• UPENN CIVIL RIGHTS CASE ENDS IN DEFEAT FOR TRANSGENDER ADVOCATES

• GOV. SHAPIRO WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES OF LOOMING CUTS TO SNAP, MEDICAID

• POLICE OFFICER CLEARED OF WRONGDOING IN OFF-DUTY SHOOTING

• LA SALLE UNIVERSITY ACCREDITATION IN JEOPARDY

• MAC’S TAVERN FROM “IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY” SET TO CLOSE AFTER 15 YEARS

SEPTA MOVES FORWARD WITH DOOMSDAY BUDGET

The SEPTA Board approved the Fiscal Year 2026 Operating Budget on June 26, 2025, choosing to address a $213 million deficit exactly as they said they would - by cutting services by 45%. The cuts will cancel 32 bus routes, reduce rail services (starting August 24th), and raise fares by 21.5% (starting September 1st). The base fare will also now start at $2.90. Deeper cuts, including five Regional Rail lines and a 9:00 PM rail curfew, will begin January 1, 2026. These measures, motivated by pessimism regarding stalled legislative action to fund the organization, are estimated to save SEPTA money; but without new state funding, the cuts could end up functionally gutting SEPTA, with long-lasting economic and social impacts not just for the Greater Philadelphia area, but for the state as a whole.

PHILADELPHIA NAMED AMERICA’S “MOST WALKABLE CITY” FOR THIRD YEAR IN A ROW

Philadelphia has been named America’s most walkable city for the third consecutive year by USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards, surpassing cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston. The city’s walkability has been attributed to historical sources like William Penn’s 17th-century grid design as well as an emphasis on public squares and green spaces. Such a design is bolstered by the many cultural attractions the city has to offer, historic sites, and a vibrant tradition of street art, according to commentators. Spanning just over two miles between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, Center City’s pedestrian-friendly layout draws nearly 27 million visitors annually for good reason, and is supported by new infrastructure like the Schuylkill River Trail bridge.

DC-33 STRIKE GETS PHYSICAL

On July 2, 2025, the second day of a major strike by nearly 10,000 Philadelphia municipal workers from AFSCME District Council 33 (DC-33), dozens of union members defied a court order by picketing at the locked Northwest Sanitation Convenience Center in Manayunk, creating tensions between strikers and local police. The strike, the first since 1986, has halted trash collection and other services after contract talks with the Mayor’s office fell through, with the union demanding 8% annual raises and better benefits. Residents, caught between supporting the strikers and needing to dispose of trash, faced confusion as strikers blocked entrances to the dump. Some, like Yvette Everett, sought police permission to drop off garbage outside the facility, despite posted “No Dumping” signs. “I had to ask a cop if it was OK because I didn’t know if we were supposed to be doing this or not,” said Everett, according to PBS-WHHY. Court order limited picketers to groups of eight and prohibited intimidating behavior, but strikers, chanting “DC-33” and “no pay, no peace,” clashed verbally with law enforcement on site.

PARKER DEFENDS AGAINST ACCUSATIONS OF CRONYISM

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker refuted claims by striking AFSCME District Council 33 workers that she gave herself a 9% pay raise, clarifying that her 2024 salary of $269,708 reflects a 3.1% cost-of-living adjustment from former Mayor Jim Kenney’s $261,497. However, news outlets noted that Parker had approved significant raises for her aides, with her 2024 budget increasing mayoral office spending by 150%, including a 16% average staff pay hike and up to 32% for key roles like Managing Director Adam Thiel, now earning $310,000. By comparison, the striking union, representing workers averaging $46,000, have demanded only an 8% increase.

SPAT OF ROBBERIES TARGET ASIAN RESIDENTS, POLICE SAY

Philadelphia police are searching for two suspects involved in at least three violent robberies in or near Center City parking lots between June 14-16, attacking a 62-year-old man on the 900 block of Cherry Street, a 27-year-old man on the 800 block of Arch Street, and a 16-year-old boy on the 100 block of N. 9th Street, stealing their wallets and cash after brutal assaults. Surveillance images of the suspects have been released to aid in their capture. "It would appear that these offenders were specifically targeting males of Asian descent, which would make this a hate crime. When we catch these individuals, they will also be charged with ethnic intimidation, along with robbery and related offenses," said Capt. Jason Smith. Anyone with information is urged to contact Philadelphia police at 215-686-TIPS (8477) or submit an anonymous tip online.

SECOND PHILLY UNION HOLDS STRIKE VOTE

AFSCME District Council 47, a union for Philadelphia’s white-collar city workers, has announced plans to hold a strike authorization vote. However, union leadership seemed to indicate that they were hesitant to go on strike, unlike their blue-collar colleagues AFSCME DC-33, already on the picket line. Only one of DC-47’s two municipal locals can legally strike, and while the vote, driven by member interest, wraps up by July 15, the union has extended its expired contract for two weeks to keep negotiations open. Despite a history of solidarity with DC-33, recent statements suggest that differing priorities between unions, as well as existing state regulations regarding the right to strike, could complicate a hypothetical “unified front” between the two labor unions.

UPENN CIVIL RIGHTS CASE ENDS IN DEFEAT FOR TRANSGENDER ADVOCATES

The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from its women's sports teams to resolve its federal civil rights case, conceding that the school violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by allowing transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete. The U.S. Education Department announced the agreement, requiring Penn to restore Division I swimming records and titles to female athletes who lost to Thomas, send personalized apology letters to affected swimmers, and adopt "biology-based" definitions of male and female, prohibiting biological males from competing in female athletic programs moving forward. “The Department commends UPenn for rectifying its past harms against women and girls, and we will continue to fight relentlessly to restore Title IX’s proper application and enforce it to the fullest extent of the law,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. Advocates of transgender rights widely condemned the decision.

GOV. SHAPIRO WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES OF LOOMING CUTS TO SNAP, MEDICAID

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro expressed concerns this week that Trump’s “Big, Beautiful bill” signed yesterday by the president could jeopardize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), potentially leaving 140,000 Pennsylvanians without food assistance. Nearly half a million Philadelphians rely on SNAP, and Pennsyvlania’s administrative costs to support the program without federal assistance are estimated to rise by 52% under the bill, with an additional $564 million increase to cover benefits. Opponents of the bill say it also risks cutting Medicaid access for 500,000 Pennsylvanians, threatens the viability of rural hospitals, and eliminating 26,000 energy jobs, among other consequences. President Trump has denied that the bill will significantly affect the operations of entitlement programs.

POLICE OFFICER CLEARED OF WRONGDOING IN OFF-DUTY SHOOTING

An off-duty Philadelphia homicide detective, Chris Sweeney, was cleared of wrongdoing by the district attorney’s office this week after a 10-month investigation into the fatal shooting of 54-year-old Robert Jones in October 2024. Sweeney shot Jones, a roadside assistant operator, through his car window at a Northeast Philadelphia intersection when Jones approached his vehicle for unknown reasons while stopped at a red light. No weapon was found on Jones or in his car. The decision prompted outrage from his family, who stated they plan to file a wrongful-death lawsuit. Both the District Attorney’s office and the Philadelphia Police Department have yet to comment on the decision.

LA SALLE UNIVERSITY ACCREDITATION IN JEOPARDY

La Salle University in received a warning from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education this week, stating that the school was risking its accreditation. The commission blamed the risk on La Salle’s alleged non-compliance with financial and educational standards. The university, which saw a 28% enrollment drop from 2019 to 2024, has struggled in recent years as operating losses continue to hamper the school’s financial condition. The school specifically saw a 50% decline in net tuition revenue since 2015, and has been drawing heavily on endowments to make ends meet. Despite recent enrollment gains and academic restructuring efforts, including new programs and sports, President Daniel J. Allen expressed surprise at the warning, citing a prior positive review. La Salle remains accredited at this time, and stated that it remained optimistic about the situation given 2025 enrollment projections.

MAC’S TAVERN FROM “IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY” SET TO CLOSE AFTER 15 YEARS

Mac’s Tavern in Old City, a bar opened in 2010 by “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” stars Rob McElhenney (now Rob Mac) and Kaitlin Olson, has closed after 15 years. Management blamed the closure on insurmountable challenges, including burdensome government regulations, lease-renewal issues, lingering impacts from COVID-19, and broader Philadelphia business difficulties. Management expressed deep gratitude to the community that made Mac’s possible.

INTRODUCTION

Ok, to be clear, I’m not serious. I’m not ACTUALLY calling for a bloodbath, no matter how much the thought of throttling some hack with a byline feels like sweet, sweet justice to my caveman brain. For all intents and purposes, I’m journalist, though that may be using the term a little liberally for some tastes.

Forgive my twisted little jest to jolt you awake. Hey, I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy. But I must admit that I do, on occasion, enter into a murderous rage when I see journalists play stupid.

Their malpractice, their lazy, self-serving distortions, ignite a fire in me so hot it could power the Delaware Valley for a decade.

But I haven’t killed anyone (yet). So, the real crime we’re investigating here isn’t murder. It’s the slow, deliberate assassination of truth by ink-stained, cocaine-fueled charlatans who’d sell their souls for a clickbait headline or a handful more viewers tuning in to their program: to use a turn of phrase, feigned ignorance. And if we can’t kill the bastards, we can at least expose them.

‘25 KILL ‘EM ALL

It is easy to dismiss these types, as many do, simply as stupid, but that position to me seems hard to reconcile. For one, there’s the fact that many of these people who call themselves journalists are graduates, with honors, from prestigious institutions like Harvard, Yale, the Columbia School of Journalism, and others.

You also have to consider the fact that they’ve even gotten to the positions they occupy. Sure, it’s possible to fail upward or cheat your way into becoming something prestigious, like a news anchor for a network that broadcasts not just nationally, but internationally (for example, CNN provides syndicated versions of its American broadcasts to 200 countries and territories and in 26 different languages) or the top editor at the Wall Street Journal, the most widely circulated newspaper in the United States, but it doesn’t seem likely.123 These people are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%.

This is what makes the “We got it wrong” act all the more infuriating; I’m not picking on some correspondent for the local high school paper, for Christ’s sakes. These are people who make a lot of money and most definitely know what they’re doing.

So, why do they get it wrong? And who and what exactly am I talking about?

Well, the phenomenon I’m attempt to describe could be attributed to any number of journalists or stories out there, but right now, I’m talking about Jake Tapper.

Tapper is a widely-respected journalist. He hosts a show on CNN, has published 6 best-sellers, and was once described as “perhaps [CNN’s] most respected anchor,” which may or may not be saying very much depending on your perspective.4

Tapper has done some very valuable work and coverage; I don’t seek to diminish his accomplishments. However, he is most definitely guilty of feigning ignorance.

In a 2020 interview, Tapper aggressively shot down claims from Lara Trump that President Biden was suffering from cognitive decline, as shown below:

These days, though, Tapper has changed his tune. In fact, he’s gone as far to publish an entire book, titled “Original Sin,” about how Biden’s mental frailty was covered up by the media and by the administration. The book, which was an instant sensation upon release and quickly became a New York Times #1 best seller, was a dramatic 180 on the positions he had so zealously and self-righteously defended prior.

To his credit, Tapper has apologized to Lara Trump for the interaction above.5 But this series of events brings to mind the phenomenon I’ve noticed across the media spectrum I think deserves to be pointed out - the tactical use of “feigned ignorance.”

Much of the denial in the media regarding Biden’s cognitive abilities relied on the fact that there was no positive evidence to support it. To an extent, this was true: there was no “smoking gun” medical report or test result indicating that Biden had been diagnosed with anything. Biden had a stutter growing up, which, possibly reappearing in his old age, could easily explain the origin of a number of his gaffs as president (though not all of them). And you also had to consider that many of the people shouting that Biden was a dementia-riddled geezer were much of the same crowd who had claimed Obama wasn’t an American citizen in 2008; their credibility wasn’t exactly outstanding.

However, the press also didn’t do very much to investigate if these claims, which first cropped up as early as 2020, were true.

Let’s try a contrived thought experiment: police receive a report from a local asshole that someone was robbed or murdered or stabbed; they should, in theory, investigate the crime, regardless of who reports it, and its veracity. But if they refuse to investigate, and instead simply claim “there is no evidence of a crime,” we would rightly dismiss them as fools and probably call for heads to roll.

The media dismissed circumstantial evidence - the bizarre behavior Biden exhibited while President and reports in passing of concerns from people within the administration - without investigating further, choosing instead to take the administration at their word, which was that Biden was healthy as a horse. The responsibility of reporting and challenging such claims was then left to right-wing hacks on Fox News and YouTube. As it turns out, the hacks were right.

By any measure, it was a massive failure on the part of the press.

But the performance of “ignorant journalist” makes a lot more sense when you realize it’s exactly that - a performance. It seems pretty bad to say that you didn’t know what was happening when you get paid six figures (or more) to do exactly that, but once you understand it as a strategic, deliberate move to manipulate public opinion, it begins to have a certain pragmatic logic to it that typically ends with relatively little professional or social repercussions for those involved.

For starters, it’s an easy method to mitigate responsibility. It’s one people at the center of public scandals use all the time - for example, a CEO might claim they didn’t know about unethical practices in their company, pointing to subordinates instead.

By shifting blame, journalists attempt to shift your anger from them to their source. “The source lied to me, but I told you these lies because I trusted them. Sorry!”

This helps them maintain their public image and paint themselves as ignorant or even incompetent, rather than malicious or complicit.

But of course, like a CEO, journalists are still responsible to their customers or audience, even if the falsehoods or mistakes didn’t come from them directly. That said, if they were real journalists, they presumably would have done their due diligence to fact-check and critique the claims at hand (as they frequently do with claims from honest stories that actually challenge government authority - just look up “Gary Webb” or “CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy”) rather than accepting them at face value, or at least provide a countering point of view.

Either way, it’s extremely disingenuous.

Take, for example, what could possibly be considered the case study in feigned journalistic ignorance.

SHOCK AND AWE

In the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, the Washington Post’s editorial board and reporters (among other outlets) published piece after piece supporting the invasion, echoing Bush Administration claims about Iraq’s WMDs and the threat Saddam Hussein posed to world peace. They were not alone in this, but they were definitely one of the biggest culprits.

"It is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction," said one Post article in 2003.6

Former Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks later stated that:

“The paper was not front-paging stuff. Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?”7

Of course, post-invasion, when the claims about Iraq’s WMDs were now plainly false for all to see, the Post formally acknowledged an “overreliance” on official sources and a failure to critically analyze their reports. But, they deflected blame by emphasizing the intelligence community’s failures, rather than their own lack of skepticism and rigor.

In 2004, the Post’s editorial staff went as far as make a miserable little formal apology for its coverage, stating that it "did not pay enough attention to voices raising questions about the war."8 But, of course, the damage was already done.

The Post, who, like a happy little drummer boy, had been beating the drums of war right up until the point that bombs began to rain down over Baghdad, now claimed that they were victims, misled by the same faulty intelligence as the government. They framed their role as passive, rather than actively complicit, in pushing a flawed narrative that many people in high places stood to benefit from. This, of course, made the Post out to be good guys (or at least, the innocent guys), and ignored their failure to challenge any of their anonymous sources or highlight dissenting voices that piped up, such as UN inspector Hans Blix who publicly and loudly contradicted WMD claims long before the invasion.

Perhaps Dick Polman for PBS/WHYY put it best:

“….mainstream outlets (led in those days by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the TV networks) behaved not as watchdogs, but as lapdogs.”

The blatant falsehood of the premise for the invasion of Iraq and its widespread acknowledgment by both media and government sources easily makes it the most convenient example to point fingers at, but it’s far from the only one. In fact, it happens quite a lot; and now, as we know, it has happened again with the media’s coverage of President Biden’s mental decline. It’s a systemic issue: media as a machine that amplifies lies for profit or power.

And why, why do these so-called truth-seekers play dumb when the stakes are sky-high?

Journalists like Jake Tapper and the Washington Post’s war-drumming scribes don’t just stumble into falsehoods; they’re tethered to a system where access is king and criticism comes with a leash. Piss off the wrong suit, and your pipeline to a “senior official” scoop dries up faster than a Baghdad oasis. The FBI, the Pentagon, the White House - they dangle exclusive leaks like catnip, but only if you play nice. Cross them, and it’s not just a personal problem; your whole outlet might pay. Take NBC, cozy with its parent company Comcast, which thrives on government contracts and regulatory nods. If their newsroom hammers the FBI too hard, those juicy exclusives for their police procedural scripts or defense contractor ad dollars could vanish. Same went for the Iraq War cheerleaders - question the WMD narrative, and you’re locked out of Rumsfeld’s briefings, left scooping crumbs while your rivals feast. It’s a devil’s bargain: feign ignorance, parrot the line, and keep the access flowing. “Who benefits,” you ask? Who doesn’t?

The answer to “Cui bono?” is the power brokers, always. The Bush administration needed a war; the media delivered. Biden’s team needed a hail mary; Tapper & friends obliged. Every dodge, every “we didn’t know,” helps cement the agenda - and pad the pockets - of the elite, whether it’s defense contractors cashing in on Iraq’s chaos or networks raking in ratings from a opaque presidency, it doesn’t matter.

The government gets its megaphone, corporations keep their bottom line, and journalists cling to their bylines while the public lies prone, choking on their tall tales.

Journalists may view the strategy of the simple white lie or taking shortcuts to publish a story as harmless. It’s not.

Governments get it wrong all the time, whether it’s the result of an ulterior motive or genuine mistake. Journalists therefore have an duty to question the claims a government makes.

In the case of the invasion of Iraq, these “white lies” led to the deaths of approximately 100,000 innocent civilians and created yet another failed state in the Middle East that neither effectively cares for its people nor prevents widespread violence against them.

In the case of Biden, it helped get a person who was apparently not cognitively well enough for the job elected to the highest office in the land and ran interference as other people in the administration made decisions on behalf of a President who couldn’t.

Where will it end? I don’t know, but I can tell you when - probably not any time soon.

Until we demand journalists trade their white lies for hard truths, we’re all just pawns in their next war or election.

WHEN EVERYTHING IS RECORDED, EVERYTHING BECOMES A PERFORMANCE,

AND when it comes to performances, there is a concept that exists called “playing to the gallery.” Typically when people refer to the phrase, they mean it in a strictly poetic sense. They mean that you shouldn’t create art you think other people will like, but that you should create art that you like and the suitable audience will follow, more or less.

I guess I’m using it a little more liberally here. No longer limited to the artists and musicians of the world, the idea of “the gallery” seems to have grown and contorted to encompass our entire lives. What did we expect? Technology has enabled us to make our lives one big performance. We curate vacation photos, edit our selfies, post videos of all the concerts we go to, stack our LinkedIn profile with bullshit accomplishments, blah blah blah, all in the effort to make it seem as if we are living the dream. Rarely, if ever, though, are we living the dream.

The concept of a “performative life” is far from a novel idea; in the 20th century, French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about methods of social surveillance and their influences on human behavior in his book Discipline and Punish, and others had played the idea even before him.

However, the social surveillance Foucault described in 1975 - essentially, the ways society and institutions indirectly force us into following certain behaviors and norms - is not exactly the same as what we see today. The performance has taken on a new, more dominating dimension.

In his book, Foucault drew on the idea of a “panopticon,” the name of a conceptual prison design from the 18th century by Englishman Jeremy Bentham. In Bentham’s own words,

“The Building circular – an iron cage, glazed – a glass lantern about the size of Ranelagh – The Prisoners in their Cells, occupying the Circumference – The Officers, the Centre. By Blinds, and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed from the observation of the Prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of invisible omnipresence. – The whole circuit reviewable with little, or, if necessary, without any, change of place.”

Bentham’s prison design was ingenious in that was structured to be functionally all-seeing. The way he envisioned it, guards could monitor all prisoners at all times; of course, for practical reasons, the guards couldn’t watch all prisoners at all times, but the prisoners would never know when the guards were or weren’t watching them. Such a design, at least in theory, would keep the prisoners on their best behavior at every hour of the day, unless they wanted to risk punishment.

Foucault leveraged this design as a metaphor for society and power. He believed that social structures and institutions acted like the panopticon’s watchtower, motivating people to follow social guidelines and norms - to “act normal” - as we never know who might be watching. Through this structure, we become prisoners, self-policing and conforming to society’s rules, subservient to institutional power. And we do it without anyone even having to tell us so, out of fear that should we deviate from our act and have the bad luck of being spotted by a guard, he will proceed to give us a good beating while all the other prisoners watch.

Building on his metaphor of the panopticon, we have seen in modern times a beautiful marriage between the indirect dynamics of power Foucault described (social rules and structures) and direct power (surveillance cameras, online tracking, etc.) in modern life.

Technology has enabled randoms online to reinforce social etiquette from thousands of miles away, provoke waves of online harassment against a given target, make private information public, and maintain records of every perceived indiscretion like it’s a felon’s rap sheet - “the internet is forever.” Even with CCTV cameras on every corner, in the event there isn’t one, a person can whip out their phone and blast whatever scene they happen to capture to whoever happens to have nothing better to do than watch it.

People raised in the 21st century are acutely aware that in the modern age we are probably being watched, recorded, and monitored at any given moment, even if we don’t know exactly how or why. We even do it to ourselves - remember Snapmaps?

(And you better believe people like the NSA and FBI are holding onto those receipts, too.)

In more recent years, dozens upon dozens of books, think pieces, movies, etc. have scrutinized aspects of the surveillance society, in a variety of different ways. I won’t rehash all that here.

I’m just trying to plot a prison break.

An easy example of how we play to the gallery, and how we can stop, is to start with is how common disclaimers are now. For better or for worse, disclaimers and warnings have become an accepted part of modern American society. The widespread use of disclaimers likely owes its origins to the legal battlegrounds of the 20th century, with waves of negligence lawsuits (both of a frivolous and legitimate nature) reinforcing the idea that companies have a responsibility to help consumers use their products safely.

Naturally, companies really like their money, and so they devised a method to keep it: warn consumers of almost any adverse effect that could occur by using a product incorrectly, and pre-empt any future hypothetical lawsuits. Often, this ventures into the absurd - think of things like the warnings on your space heater reminding you not to drop it in the bathtub, or the “CAUTION: Contents may be hot” message printed on the side of your coffee cup.

Well, yes, I sure hope the coffee is hot - that’s why I ordered it.

This trend has had downstream effects on society at large, to the point where you likely encounter dozens of disclaimers daily, both legal and colloquial.

You might have seen it on places like TikTok where, instead of being used by a billion-dollar corporation, the layman has now turned to using (sometimes rather dubiously) these disclaimers, maybe in the form of warnings like “This is not financial advice!!!!11!!” to preface their video on why you should invest in the next big meme stock. However, I would probably argue that if you take your investment advice from TikTok and end up losing big, disclaimer or no disclaimer, you probably deserve it.

Regardless of whether they’re done out of fear of legal consequences or simply to pre-empt any negative social reaction, they’re still done out of fear - and people seem to use them a lot. Disclaimers have slowly creeped into any and every facet of modern life as a method to mitigate any potential responsibility or blame.

One of my favorite comedians, Noel Miller, is a case study in this phenomenon. Miller’s comedic style could be described in a number of different ways: dark, unhinged, maybe even “edgy.”

But as much as I love Miller, I’m not a fan of his overuse of disclaimers in his bits and his videos. Miller has a recurring bad habit in his videos where he prefaces or follows every politically sensitive joke with something along the lines of “remember, this is satire” or “we’re just joking, folks.” Even after many years of doing shows and podcasts, he still seems to be a victim of playing to the gallery.

I find this type of disclaimer annoying for several reasons:

1. Explaining a joke (or explaining that a joke is a joke) almost always kills the momentum of whatever you’re doing.

2. The “please don’t strike my video, YouTube overlords!”-style bit can be done tastefully, but just like any joke, it gets old after a couple times.

3. Adding a disclaimer anytime you talk about something potentially politically sensitive weakens the joke. It makes it seem like you’re bailing on the bit; stand behind it!

There’s nothing wrong with doing this type of thing occasionally, and plenty of comics have. But once you start to do it all the time, it makes you - and your jokes - look weak. Are you afraid of your audience? Do you think that they’re not sure if you, a professional comedian, are joking?

It doesn’t make sense. So, why then, does he choose to do this? And, maybe more importantly, why the fuck have I bothered making this detour to some random YouTuber in an article about surveillance?

I’m not inside Miller’s head, but if I had to guess, it’s because Miller is acutely aware of the panopticon. Besides hosting his regular comedy podcast, he also has a solo project called “The Company Lot.” On “The Company Lot” podcast, Miller, who was a software engineer prior to his comedy career taking off, frequently discusses aspects of “surveillance capitalism” and ponders the question of whether we’re headed towards a Big Tech dystopia, infused with the comedic elements he’s known for. He’s even referred to the book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” by Shoshana Zuboff, as his personal “bible.”

Miller knows that he’s being tracked all day every day, especially as a celebrity. He’s not exactly A-list, but he is still at a level where much of his personal life is also his commercial life.

All it takes is one clip out of context and the next thing you know, his tour dates are canceled, his advertisers drop like flies, and other influencers stop collaborating and messaging with him. That all is to say, the modern use of disclaimers like Miller’s is one born out of fear. He wants to make it abundantly clear what his positions are, even to the lowest common denominator. That said, I understand why Miller does it - in fact, I don’t blame him at all - but I can’t support it.

Me? I refuse to live a fearful life. I’m not gonna censor myself or add fifty disclaimers in the event some viewer can’t parse what I’m saying. Parse this: suck my balls.

Anytime you censor yourself, you are playing to the gallery. What does it mean to play to the gallery? It means being the someone someone else wants you to be, or, in other words, to be inauthentic. Being inauthentic, even to yourself, is dishonest. I really hate dishonesty.

Of course, it’s easy to say “stop censoring yourself;” it’s another thing to do it.

Most people who censor themselves like Miller aren’t doing it because they enjoy it; they are doing it because they are aware of the very real consequences that can stem from saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and having the wrong person hear it. This has been amplified to the nth degree via the online space.

Even I am guilty of “playing to the gallery” sometimes, though I try very hard not to. On here, I scan lines and revise them if I think that, in malicious hands, they could be taken uncharitably and used against me somehow. I water down points, claims, and explanations to make them as expressly clear as possible as to what my intentions are lest someone tries to manipulate and stretch my words like putty to serve an agenda. I have avoided topics that I have wanted to write about because I fear I will be misunderstood or disparaged; not on the merits of anything I would actually write or think, but because of what people will imagine I am writing or thinking based on their preconceived notions. Labels hold power. And once you have one, they can be very hard to get rid of. Evolutionarily, humans have become very sensitive to judgement lest they fuck up and get kicked out of the tribe; it’s natural, then, that there is so much paranoia and fear in our society today if literally anything you do or say holds potential for ridicule and shame permanently and worldwide.

There’s nothing wrong with writing like this in principle; in my opinion, writing is generally best when the writer writes for clarity. However, it doesn’t strike me as healthy to be constantly paranoid about whether everything you say or do will be taken out of context and blasted across the internet, disparaged for claims you never made, or suffer damaged relationships because someone jumps to conclusions, or maybe afraid you’ll get fired from your job because Edna in HR doesn’t even know what “satire” means; yet, many people seem to be.

The solution? Stop giving a fuck. Tear down the watchtower in your head.

If people misunderstand you, that’s not your problem - not really. Not everyone needs to understand you. If they’re genuinely interested in understanding what you were trying to say, have a dialogue and attempt to explain in a way they might comprehend better; who knows, you might make a new friend from it. But if they’re only interesting in dunking on you to generate likes and their own ego, or if they clearly ignore all the cues you’ve given as to your intentions with something, ignore them. At the end of the day, you cannot control what other people think or say, especially if they have a motive to make you look stupid. As for the job stuff, maybe don’t put those tweets about buttchugging the keg on your public Twitter profile.

I refuse to create a SparkNotes™ version of myself. I refuse to censor myself or slap a warning label across my metaphysical forehead. You either get it, or you don’t. It’s cool either way.

Do yourself a favor. Release yourself from the mental labor of constantly self-censoring and just be who you are. And once you do it, it will empower other people to do it, too. This doesn’t mean to speak without a filter and say anything that comes to mind - a little decorum, please - but don’t live in fear. The world could probably benefit from a few more people brave enough to speak their mind.

Follow us on Twitter at @phillyfreepress or email us at phillyfp@proton.me.

Memorial Day 2025

Want the memorial day experience without blowing off your own hand trying to light fireworks that shoot directly into the shingles of your neighbor’s roof? Worry not, as there are a plethora of events this weekend in which to safely celebrate and honor our fallen servicemen and women.

Strap in, you wild-eyed patriots and sun-soaked lunatics, for Memorial Day weekend 2025 in Philadelphia. From riverside carnivals to solemn salutes, this city’s still got life in it yet, and here’s the quick rundown:

• Jersey Shore Free Toll Frenzy: On May 22, the Atlantic City Expressway throws open its gates, tolls be damned, luring you to the shore’s sun-bleached debauchery. Check the fine print and gun it to the boardwalk for the memorial day spectacular before the weekend swallows you whole.

• National Constitution Center: At 525 Arch Street, the Constitution Center stretches its hours from May 24-26, 2025, for a celebration of patriotism. Flag ceremonies, a giant flag folding, and talks on America’s stone-hewn monuments will make your heart thump like a war drum. Admission varies, so check their site and dive in.

• Museum of the American Revolution: Down at 101 S. 3rd Street, this museum’s a time machine to the Revolutionary chaos, running special programs May 24-26, 2025. Character actors breathe life into the past, discovery carts flaunt war-era relics, and kids craft memorial ribbons. Veterans, active military, and Blue Star Families get in free, while others pay a small fee to witness history’s pulse.

• Eastern State Penitentiary: At 2027 Fairmount Avenue, the crumbling walls of this haunted prison turn somber from May 23-25, 2025. Reflect on the military’s mark on inmates and guards through exhibits that cut like a shiv. Admission’s not free, so bring cash (and don’t forget to tip the ghosts).

• Palmer Cemetery Memorial Day Ceremony: Saturday, May 24, at 10:30 a.m., Elm Tree Post 88 unleashes a gun salute at 1410 E Palmer St. Honor the fallen, then scarf down food and drinks with the living. No cost to mourn, just show up.

• Perkasie Memorial Day Parade and Service: Bucks County’s got a rager on Saturday, May 24, at 9 a.m., starting at 7th and Market streets in Perkasie. A parade storms through, ending at Menlo Park with rifle salutes, patriotic tunes, and veteran tributes that hit like a freight train. Free, but bring your respect.

• Laurel Hill Cemetery: At 3822 Ridge Avenue, Philly’s first Memorial Day bash in 1868 gets a revival on Sunday, May 25, from noon to 2 p.m. Wreath-laying, honor guards, patriotic music, and fresh gravestones for unmarked veterans stir the soul. Refreshments flow, but the weight of history’s heavier. Free to attend.

• Doylestown Memorial Day Parade: Monday, May 26, at 10 a.m., Doylestown’s 157th parade—one of the nation’s oldest—marches from Central Bucks West High School at 375 W. Court Street. It snakes through town to Doylestown Cemetery for a 30-minute service honoring the fallen. No charge, just your heart on your sleeve.

For a more comprehensive view of events in the Greater Philadelphia Area, feel free to visit here for more information.

Police officer convicted in fatal shooting

The jury in the trial of Police Officer Mark Dial spat out a mixed verdict in the 2023 Kensington killing of Eddie Irizarry, a 27-year-old caught in the crosshairs of Officer Mark Dial’s six-shot frenzy during a traffic stop gone bad. Found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, possession of an instrument of crime, and reckless endangerment, Dial dodged the heavier third-degree murder and official oppression charges. Dial, eyes wet, swore on the stand that he thought Irizarry’s knife was a gun aimed to end him. Irizarry’s kin, raw with grief, said that night should’ve ended with a ticket, not a body bag. The DA, Larry Krasner, nodded grimly, calling the conviction fair and just, while the streets outside, imbued with the passion of police protests past, slackened with a sigh of relief. Dial, a felon stripped of his badge, faces sentencing in July, his fate now dangling like a cigarette in the wind.

Tap in to Clark Park

On a lighter note, the Parks on Tap caravan rolls into Clark Park this week like a rogue carnival of booze and revelry. This ain’t your grandma’s picnic - grab your posse, your weirdos, your fellow hipsters, and dive headfirst into a sprawl of cold brews, grub, and lawn games under the open sky. It’s a fleeting oasis of community and camaraderie, with a slice of the proceeds going to keep this patch of green from turning into another soulless parking lot. No mercy, no regrets.

The event is from May 21-25, 4-10 p.m., at 4300 Baltimore Ave. Visit https://www.universitycity.org/event/parks-on-tap-in-clark-park/ for more information.

Got Flowers?

Out in the wilds of Germantown, the yearly Celebration of the Roses tumbles into the summer and exploded in full splendor at the Wyck Historic House, daring you to stare into their thorny souls. Bring your kids for some chaotic crafts, roam the Wyck Heritage Roses like a mad botanist, and stumble through the ancient house on free tours that smell of dust and history. Take in the buzz of local vendors hawking their wares, a beer tent sloshing with liquid courage, and food trucks dishing out greasy salvation. It’s a fleeting, sun-soaked madness, and you don’t want to miss it. If you did, though, there’s always plenty more for you to explore.

Want to know more? Visit wyck.org for more information.

Devon Horse Show

If you’re willing to make the trek out to country, the Devon Horse Show & County Fair HAS ARRIVED. A multi-breed gladiatorial arena where riders from every corner of this spinning rock chase glory and gold. The air’s electric with the snorts of beasts and the cheers of the crowd, while the County Fair sprawls like a medieval court: pop-up eateries slinging gourmet chaos, fair food stands dripping with grease and nostalgia, and boutique vendors peddling wares for the soul. It’s a wild, sprawling spectacle; bring your hearts - and your wallets.

May 21-June 1, 23 Dorset Rd, Devon, PA. Want to know more? Visit devonhorseshow.net.

Philly Ward Leader Sentenced to House Arrest

Former ward leader Stephen Jones was sentenced to a month in prison and two decades of house arrest this Thursday, following his conviction on sexually assaulting a minor in 2023.

This past February, Jones was convicted on four charges, including aggravated indecent assault of a person under 13, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault of a person under 13. Jones was previously the leader of the 59th ward in West Philadelphia.

According to the presiding judge, the factors of Jones’ advanced age and his stage four lung cancer led to a sentence primarily composed of house arrest, rather than the years in jail the prosecution had requested.

The Decline of Western (Pennsylvanian) Civilization

Penn State’s trustees unleashed a gut-punch vote to shutter seven of their 19 branch campuses - DuBois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre, and York - slashing away like a bad Friday the 13th sequel. The 25-8 decision, coming in after a nearly two-hour hot-blooded public debate, represents the desperate attempt to outrun the demographic cliff and financial quicksand swallowing higher education whole.

Enrollment at these campuses, a measly 3,000 students - less than 4% of Penn State’s pride - has cratered 43% in a decade, with no salvation in sight as birth rates plummet and the state’s pool of youth goes up in smoke.

Trustees like ex-Penn quarterback Matthew McGloin, torn but resolute, backed the closures as a grim necessity for the greater good. The campuses will limp on until spring 2027, giving students a chance to finish or scatter, maybe with gas cards or “navigation coaches” to ease the sting. Beyond that, the future’s a hazy gamble - repurposing plans for these ghost campuses are vague, leaving over 500 employees and thousands of students staring into the void. So much for the old college try.

Krasner, the sequel

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner secured a decisive victory in the Democratic primary on May 20, 2025, defeating former Municipal Court Judge Patrick Dugan by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, positioning him for a third term in November’s general election, as no Republican candidate has filed to run. Krasner’s win was driven by strong support from black political leaders, including State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, and State Sen. Sharif Street, as well as a strategic campaign that nationalized the race by positioning himself as a staunch opponent of President Donald Trump, linking Dugan to Republican interests despite Dugan’s Democratic affiliation.

Krasner’s campaign emphasized his progressive record, highlighting a 40% reduction in the jail population and a historic drop in homicides, which resonated with voters in Black and progressive neighborhoods like Northwest and West Philadelphia. Despite Dugan’s significant financial backing from building trades unions and support in conservative Northeast Philadelphia, low voter turnout and Krasner’s robust coalition of black and progressive voters proved insurmountable. This victory underscores Krasner’s enduring popularity in Philadelphia, bucking the trend of progressive prosecutors losing ground elsewhere, and sets him up to potentially become only the second Philadelphia DA in nearly a century to serve more than two terms.

Prison Oversight Board Comes into the World Screaming

The same day, Philly’s voters cast their ballots to birth an independent Prison Oversight Board, a desperate stab at taming the city’s hellhole jails. It’s a quiet condemnation the system, and a beacon of hope for reform junkies screaming for accountability in a city where the cages are a plentiful.

World Heritage Week’s Historical Rave

From May 18–24, Philly, the first U.S. World Heritage City, threw a 10th-anniversary bash like a psychedelic history lesson. Tours of crumbling Stuart monuments, food markets, and brainy lectures swirled together, a cultural ice cream sundae toast to the city’s revolutionary soul.

Philly’s Green Dream Deferred

Bartram’s Mile Trail, that Schuylkill-kissing stretch of urban Eden, remains sealed off like a crime scene after a chromium spill from July 2024. Industrial neglect has left this mile-long escape tainted, dirt paths and river views now off-limits to Philly’s restless wanderers. Bartram’s Garden stands helpless, waiting for the DEP’s elusive “green light” while bureaucrats in suits play hot potato with “responsibility.” The trail, meant to stitch the city’s heart to Grays Ferry Crescent, is a casualty of progress gone sour, its closure a sorry reminder of urban realities. Tests hint at lingering poison, but deliver no clear verdict.

For now, Bartram’s Mile stays a ghost town.

Local Rapper LGP QUA Shot Dead

Qidere Johnson, better known professionally as LGP QUA, was shot and killed on Sunday in Philadelphia’s Juniata Park neighborhood. Johnson had collaborated with the likes of will.i.am and French Montana, and was friends with rapper Meek Mill. Mill responded to the news on social media, saying: “Shit will make you different. Prayers to your family, and let's collect some of them guns. Shit sad out here." Police are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator(s). Anyone with details regarding the incident can contact the Philadelphia Police Department tip line at 215-686-8477.

The Goomba South Philly Takeover

The Italian Market Festival returns to South Philly’s vibrant 9th Street on Saturday, May 18, 2025, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., promising a spirited celebration of Italian-American culture, community, and culinary delights. Expect live music, local artists, and a smorgasbord of activities at this pay-as-you-go event, drawing crowds to the 900 block of South Street for a day of family-friendly fun. With the city buzzing from recent political dramas, this festival offers a tasty escape - grab a cannoli, soak in the vibes, and maybe leave the debates to the meatballs.

City Politics Are Off to the Races as Primary Election Looms

As the City of Brotherly Love gears up for its primary election, voters are set to head to the polls on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., to choose party nominees for key local offices. With tensions high amid recent political controversies, including Senator John Fetterman’s alleged health concerns and the state Senate’s polarizing transgender sports ban, Philadelphia’s primary promises to be a critical battleground for Democratic and Republican hopefuls alike. Political observers note that turnout in this Democratic stronghold could shape the city’s leadership and signal broader trends for the 2025 midterm cycle, while voters brace for a heated campaign season. To learn more about ballot questions and who’s running, read the Inquirer’s guide here.

Philadelphia Population Growth Lags Behind Peer Cities

Philly remains the 6th most populated city in the United States as-of 2025, but this reign may not last for much longer. According to estimates, Philadelphia gained approximately 10,500 residents between 2023 and 2024, or an increase of 0.7%. Such a growth rate puts Philadelphia lower than the national average, about 1% growth for cities with more than 50,000 residents. Additionally, Philadelphia’s population still remains below pre-pandemic levels by about 1.9%. Meanwhile, San Antonio, which has experienced remarkable growth since 2000, has grown by 6.4% since the pandemic. San Antonio is now gunning for 6th place, a mere 50,000 residents behind Philadelphia.

The Unraveling of Sen. John Fetterman

Recent concerns about Senator John Fetterman, the Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, came to head once again as questions of his competency were raised this past week, in response to a May 8th Philadelphia Inquirer article. The article seemed to corroborate initial allegations that Fettermen is out of control and incompetent to serve. The Inquirer article reported Fetterman had launched into an unprovoked, angry outburst during a meeting with Teacher’s Union representatives on earlier in the month. A few weeks earlier, a New York Magazine article made waves after it depicted the Senator’s office as a frightening landscape and portrayed Fetterman as utterly disengaged from his senatorial duties. The concerns mostly center on allegations of erratic behavior and potential psychiatric issues stemming from his 2022 stroke. Former and current staffers, including ex-chief of staff Adam Jentleson, have expressed worries about Fetterman’s failure to follow his post-stroke recovery plan, including missing important medical checkups and not taking prescribed medications, with some describing the office as a toxic work environment. Fetterman has dismissed these claims as a “hit piece” from disgruntled former staff, asserting that he is following his doctors’ protocols and remains fit to serve. But his absence from Senate duties and strained relationships with colleagues have fueled speculation about his future in office.

Woman found floating in Schuylkill allegedly murdered husband, attempted to kill son

The body of Tonya Dupree was found floating in the Schuylkill river last Saturday morning, near the intersection of Ridge Ave and Midvale. Earlier that morning, Dupree’s son reported that she had arrived at his job at a UPS warehouse in Upper Dublin Township. When he came outside to meet her, she brandished a handgun. Dupree’s son managed to take the weapon in a struggle, but Dupree managed to flee the scene. After reporting the incident to police, Upper Merion law enforcement arrived at the Dupree home in King of Prussia to perform a welfare check, where they found Robert Dupree, Tonya’s husband, dead in bed from multiple gunshot wounds. Tonya’s body was spotted in the river shortly afterward. The city has not yet released a cause of death for Mrs. Dupree or any further details regarding the case, though it is suspected she committed suicide.

Bill Banning Transgender Athletes Passes PA House Floor

In a controversial move, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a bill banning transgender girls and women from competing in female sports at public schools and colleges, with five Democrats joining Republicans in support. The legislation, backed by President Trump's executive order, faces an uphill battle in the Democratic-controlled House and opposition from Governor Josh Shapiro, who has previously criticized such bans as discriminatory. Critics, including the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, argue the bill addresses a non-issue, as only one transgender student is currently recorded as competing in the state.

City DHS in Troubled Waters

In a shocking development, state regulators have downgraded the Philadelphia Department of Human Services’ (DHS) license and launched an investigation after allegations that DHS employees spied on a state probe into child abuse at the city’s Juvenile Justice Services Center (JJSC). DHS staffers allegedly accessed confidential child welfare data to monitor the investigation, prompting the state to revoke its full access to the statewide child-abuse database and restrict it to read-only status. Amid ongoing concerns about overcrowding and chaotic conditions at JJSC, where teens reportedly face dire circumstances, this scandal raises serious questions about DHS’s oversight and accountability as the city grapples with its juvenile justice crisis.

At a cost of $48 million, 650 foot bridge connects Center City to Grays Ferry

Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River Trail is set to expand with the grand opening of the “Christian to Crescent” segment this Saturday, May 17, 2025, at 10:30 a.m., connecting Center City to Grays Ferry via a massive $48 million cable-stayed pedestrian bridge. The half-mile extension, a decade in the making, links Christian Street to the Grays Ferry Crescent, offering cyclists and pedestrians a scenic, off-road route along the Schuylkill River, with vistas visible from I-76. The bridge will officially open to the public starting on Saturday, May 17th.

No modifications have been made to his article except for formatting.

I was in a general store on Highway 43, perhaps 40 miles north of Mobile, and I was learning about the Cajuns of Alabama. Alabama Cajuns, not Louisiana Cajuns. Absolutely no relationship. No French patina, no grandma’s recipe for cuisson de chevreuil, no subscriptions to Réalités or schoolgirls singing, “Frère Jacques.”

He parked his rusty old Plymouth in the red Alabama mud and walked across the highway into the general store. He was rather ordinary looking and if the police had been looking for him they would have described him as a male caucasian, 5 feet 7 inches, 160 pounds. He asked for a loaf of white bread. The grocer gave him the bread, the man paid for it and left without saying a word. The screen door creaked shut and we were alone in the store.

The grocer - who also had brown hair and brown eyes and was, in fact, darker than the man who bought the bread - looked at me and said softly:

“That was one of ‘em.”

“That guy there?”

“Yessuh. He’s one of ‘em. A Cajun.”

“He looks white to me.”

“Yeah, he looks white. But he ain’t. He’s got them little black speckles around his forehead. That’s about the only nigger he’s got left in him, I guess, but it’s there. You just got to know where to find it.”

“You mean you can tell a Cajun every time?”

“Wellsuh, I don’t care to brag, but I do believe I can. Of course, I know ‘em all by name anyhow. But once in a while, I’ll git some from Calvert and on down the way, ones I ain’t never seed before. An’ I can tell with them, too. You can tell when you been in this kinda business for as long as I been. You just know.”

Then we could see that another car had pulled up and the grocer said, “Hush now, we got another one.”

This was an old man with light brown skin and a flat, broad nose and very bright blue eyes. He came into the store and he bought a pack of Camels. He left, like the other man, without saying a word.

“You see that?” the grocer asked. “He’s one of ‘em, too.”

The grocer chuckled. “Yessuh. His name is Reed and he is kin to that other feller. But that other feller, he won’t admit to it. They is both Reeds and they live back toward Reed Chapel aways. If you take that little side road over there and go in for a few miles, you’ll see a whole bunch of ‘em there. Yessuh, they is all Reeds. But if you git to know ‘em, you’ll see that the light-skinned ones don’t have an awful lot to do with the dark-skinned ones, even though they is kin. A light-skinned man, he don’t need no darkie kin. Fact is, none o’ these people admit to bein’ part nigger. If you listen to the way they tell it, they is all white.”

This was my first introduction to the Cajuns of Alabama. It happened three years ago. It was not until quite recently that I learned that the grocer on Route 43 (no longer in business) was a Cajun himself and that in his efforts to be “white,” he had become something of a Cajun-baiter, a man who had learned to deny his own ancestry because he found it more convenient to live with a lie than admit that 120 years ago one of his ancestors had been a Negro. The Cajuns are a people without a race and they have the great misfortune to live in a state where you must have a race so you’ll know where to go.

In 1850, a census talker looked at a Cajun family and said they were mulatto; in 1870 another census taker looked at the same family and said they were white. In 1960, the census takers were still confused. Of the 15,732 people they counted in Washington County, 10,066 were classified as white, 5,021 were classified as Negro and 285 were classified as “other.” But it would seem clear to anyone that there are more “others” than the census takers so classified, for until just this past fall, there were three kinds of school in Washington and upper Mobile counties - one for whites, one for blacks, and one for people in-between. Two of the so-called Cajun schools remain open even today and there are probably 700 youngsters from Cajun families now going to a school system under court order to integrate. But whether physical integration will undo the hurt that Alabama has inflicted on them remains to seen.

Since Cajuns do not officially exist, nobody knows how many of them there are. Some local guessers say 2,500; others say it might be four times that, especially if you count those who have left Cajun country and now live in Mobile or New Orleans or Pensacola, quietly and apprehensively, wondering when some Grand Inquisitor will find out that more than a century ago, an ancestor married an Indian or someone of mixed parentage.

But almost all the Cajuns live in a 175-square-mile area in upper Mobile or lower Washington counties, within 50 or 60 miles of downtown Mobile. They live in tarpaper shacks or, if they have a little more money, one of the small cabins common to remote backwoods areas of the South. The Cajuns are poor, even by the standards of rural Alabama. Nobody keeps records on them (you can’t keep records on something that doesn’t exist), but the Cajuns themselves estimate that 25 per cent of the families (which range between 7 to 10 members on the average) live on $1,000 a year or less.1

They are sick. Cajun men suffer from a chronic hyper-ventilation syndrome; too much air in the lungs because of the short, nervous breaths they take. The men also complain of “the bellyache” and high blood pressure, and doctors treat them for ulcers. When a doctor told me that, I was incredulous. “How does one manage to get ulcers in the piney woods?” I asked.

“It’s easy,” the doctor said. “You just grow up in a tarpaper shack and when you are old enough to crawl, they let you outside. So you go outside and maybe you sit by the roadside and you see cars slow down and you hear people say things like, ‘Oh, look at that nigger with the red hair.’ They do that for 10 or 15 years and soon you find that you hate Negros for even existing and you hate yourself because you don’t think you are a Negro; but white people who look like you say you are. You are all alone, then. Then your stomach begins to hurt and it hurts till the day you die.”

The children complain of the bellyache too, but the doctors aren’t sure if it is nerves or just because they don’t drink milk or fresh fruit and green vegetables very often. Some Cajun children have never tasted lettuce or eaten a plum; some of them think a banana is a luxury item. A few weeks ago, Cajuns told me that green vegetables were probably being served more often, but that milk was still not plentiful. “If you are trying to make ends meet on twelve hundred dollars a year and you have 13 children,” one mother said, “you find you can’t afford milk.”

The diet problem is sometimes forgotten in the more serious complaint of hookworm. Three years ago, Cajuns and the few people around them who care about them, told me that at least two-thirds of the children got hookworm from walking barefoot through human waste outside their shacks. Recently, when I visited the Cajuns, I heard estimates that as many as 80 per cent of the children had hookworm. Alabama comes to the rescue in such cases, providing medicine in clinics to kill the hookworm. But neither Alabama nor the Federal Government has done anything about the basic condition of life which causes the disease and so the barefoot children will get hookworm over and over again.

What is an Alabama Cajun? Why is he poorer, more neglected and abused than either the poor whites or Negros around him?

The story starts in the early days of the 19th century. A former slaved named Daniel Reed decided to leave the island of Santo Domingo, then the scene of considerable turmoil between the French and the Spanish. He came to Washington County, Alabama, and decided to settle there. His reasons for staying are not entirely clear, but perhaps it was because he was taken by a light-skinned slave girl called Rose, who was owned by a large land-owning family named Gaines.

Daniel worked, and he bought Rose from the Gaines family. We do not know how much he paid. And as Rose bore him children, he bought them, too. The Washington County Record Book G—still on file in the courthouse at Chatom—shows that he paid $525 for his son, George. Few of Reed’s ancestors alive today have read the entry, but it is there on page 198:

“Know all men by these presents that I, Young Gaines...in consideration of the sum of five hundred and twenty-five dollars paid to me by Daniel Reed...do hereby give, grant, bargain, sell and convey unto Daniel Reed his son, George, for the sum aforesaid...”

Daniel Reed was no stranger to the powers that be in the Alabama Territory. After he had been married to Rose about a year, he found it was not enough that he had purchased her. He had to get her freedom in writing from the General Assembly and he did it in 1818, as recorded in the territorial records:

“Be it enacted by the Legislative Council and House of the Alabama Territory in General Assembly convened...that Daniel Reed, a free man of color, be and he is hereby authorized and empowered to emancipate, set free and discharge from the bonds of slavery his Mulatto slave, Rose...”

Two years after he freed Rose, Daniel was back, petitioning and winning from the Legislature the right to emancipate his first two children. This is recorded of page 642 of a 1,066 page “Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama” by Harry Toulmin, Esq., published in 1823.

Daniel built a log house for Rose in the piney woods about 45 miles northwest of Mobile, near what are now the villages of Deer Park and Vinegar Bend. Rose gave him eight children, five of them girls. They lived in the cabin Daniel built and they tended the cattle he bought. He died 1844 and his will is recorded on page 69 of Washington County Deed Record B:

“I, Daniel Reed...do make this to be my last will and testament, being in my proper mind. After paying my just debts, first, I give and bequeath unto my dearly beloved wife, and all my lands and tenements, also my hogs and cattle, also sheep and horses. I also give and bequeath her all my household and kitchen furniture. I give unto my dearly beloved daughter, Emeline Reed, eight heifer calves...I also bequeath unto my son, William Reed, my blacksmith tools...”

This is proof that Daniel purchased and freed all of his children. It is proof that he was a man of industry. By any standard if a former slaved can spend more than $3,000 to buy his wife and children and set them free, his a formidable man indeed.2 The Reeds who now live in southwestern Alabama don’t seem to know much about Daniel.

Rose proved more than able to hold her own after Daniel died. There were many cattlemen in southwestern Alabama then, and the Reed place, with the pens Daniel had built, became a place where cattle were brought from all over the in the spring of each year. The white cattlemen, traders and soldiers of fortune who came through, were somewhat different from those followed them in later years. Not only could they appreciate the beauty of Rose’s dark-skinned daughters, but they saw no reason to avoid matrimony, either. Peter Cole, Willis Daugherty, John Harris and Needham Bryant, all of them white, married Eliza, Emeline, Julia and Matilda, respectively (Lucretia Reed never married).

The three sons, George, William and Reuben Reed, married three sisters, Ellen, Lovinda and Emeline Weaver. These women were Negro and there is no indication that any of these marriages were anything but successful.

Today, 150 years after the marriage of Daniel and Rose, the descendants of the reeds, the Coles, the Daughertys, the Harrises and the Bryants live in a bleak rural ghetto of red clay. They scorn the whites who say they are tainted with Negro blood; they detest the Negroes with whom they are identified. They cannot accept what they are and cannot become what they want to be—which is pure, unadulterated, Anglo-Saxon white. They have become a people of beauty who cannot see that beauty; a people with a heritage they choose to ignore or refuse to accept. Alabama has set them apart and now they are beset by grave problems of illiteracy, health, and the gathering clouds of a genetic nightmare. For the Cajuns could not marry the whites and would not marry the Negroes, and so they married each other, cousin to cousin, generation after generation. There are retarded and deformed children among the Cajuns—children not frequently seen in the schoolyard, but there in the shacks just the same.

While the Reeds, the Harrises, the Daughertys, the Coles and the Bryants were raising the big families common to American life in those days, Alabama was beginning to formulate laws, policies, customs and traditions on race relations to reassure whites that people of “tainted” blood would be kept at a distance, thus preserving the flow of Anglo-Saxon civilization as we know it in the deep South. But it is interesting to note that the Federal census-takers who ventured into the trees to count noses were not in agreement as to what kind of noses they were counting. Were the Cajuns white or weren’t they?

On Sept. 20, 1850, a census enumerator named Abner Womack (he normally worked as an assistant U.S. marshal) found Rose Reed living in the cabin Daniel had built for her 30 years before. At this point, Daniel had been dead six years. Living with Rose were her son, Rueben, two daughters, Matilda and Eliza, and four grandchildren. Womack sized them up and recorded all of them as “mulatto.”

Twenty years passed. In July of 1870 a census enumerator named T.J. King found Rose reed again. She was then well into her nineties (King recorded her age as 95) and she was living with her son-in-law, Needham F. Bryant, and his family in another section of Washington County. King, like Womack before him, recorded Rose as “mulatto.” But he decided that everybody else—including Rose’s daughter Matilda—was white. Here is King’s record:

Apparently King was not terribly concerned with whose blood was in whom. Bryant was white; his wife, the daughter of Rose and Daniel was light enough to pass for white, and the children were white. But this sort of color blindness would soon become rare in Alabama.

Fifteen years before Appomattox, the Alabama Legislature saw fit to classify a mulatto as anyone who was one-half white and one-half black. Two years later, in 1852, the Legislature extended the term mulatto to the fourth generation from the original “Negro blood.” By the eighteen-seventies, the tradition of racism was abuilding and the carpet-baggers were busy in the South, seeing to it that wounds opened during the Civil War would not soon heal.

The Reed clan was growing. Generally speaking, women found it easier than men to marry outside the Cajun community and new names (and new blood) were being added. But as its sense of isolation from both whites and Negroes grew, it turned increasingly inward. Marriage records of the late 19th century are filled with instances of Reed marrying Weaver; Reed marrying Reed. The names appear in both the white and the Negro marriage books in the Washington County courthouse. Some of the Cajuns, anxious to be affiliated with the dominant white society rather than the oppressed Negro, began insisting to clerks that they be listed in the white book. If they were white enough, they made it, thus taking a step toward establishing themselves in a race. The darker Cajuns found the label “Negro” thrust on them. Members of the same thus found themselves classified in two races and inevitably, the lighter members pulled away from the darker members. The Cajuns were literally ripped apart by Alabama’s policy of segregation.

In all probability, the first few generations of descendants of Rose and Daniel married whites with some frequency, since there is relatively little evidence of Negro ancestry apparent today. The Cajuns also believe that there was a great deal of intermarriage between those early ancestors (who were not yet called Cajuns) and the Indians who lived north of Mobile, who were Choctaw.

Then, in 1886, something happened to infuse new blood into the people of mixed parentage who lived in upper Mobile and Washington counties, but it is virtually impossible to assess its importance. Some Cajun say it was very important. Some of them claim they are descended from Apache Indians.

The Apaches, of course, were a Western, not an Eastern tribe. By the eighteen-eighties, the Apaches had become a sizable problem for the United States Cavalry. Geronimo, after breaking with Cochise, decided to bolt the White Mountain Reservation in Arizona, and he led his Chiricahua Apache warriors into banditry. Between 1881 and 1886, Geronimo and his braves were blamed for the deaths of 100 American settlers in New Mexico and Arizona. The cavalry finally caught up with him in the Sonora Mountains of Northwest Mexico. The Apaches were relocated several times before their permanent settlement at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. At one point, they were taken to Fort Stoddert, a dusty encampment just outside Mount Vernon, Alabama, about 30 miles due north of Mobile. Geronimo was the first illustrious visitor Fort Stoddert had received since Aaron Burr had been kept prisoner there, 80 years before, suspected of treason. Burr was at Fort Stoddert for just two weeks; Geronimo was there longer. His braves grew restless. A lot of them made their way past indifferent Army sentries and headed for the tall pines, an area inhabited by many Reeds and Weavers. The story is that when Geronimo left Stoddart, he had fewer braves with him than when he went in. It is impossible to say just how many Apaches started living with Cajun women. Traditionally, the Cajuns have been a religious people and their sensuality has always been curbed by a sense of propriety and a belief in the solidarity of family life. But the visual evidence today of Indian blood is there for anyone to see. On Highway 96, the two lane strip that runs across the top of Mobile County from Mount Vernon to Citronelle, you find many people with the prominent cheekbones and the chiseled faces associated with the Indian look. Sometimes, the people in Cajun country show trace of all three racial types; their good looks are striking.

Rose Reed was a powerful woman and while she lived, the Reed clan rallied around her, a matriarchy content with raising cattle and chopping down the tall pines that then grew in such abundance. She made her last public appearance at a summer outing in 1875—she reckoned then she was at least 110 years old—and died two years later. Her will, still in the Washington County courthouse, was probated in 1878, and while some of the language may be that of her clerk or lawyer, Rose Reed’s dynamism is there, too:

“Almighty God the Giver and Taker of all things that be, Thy Righteous will have won for all men to die and afterwards to Judgement.

“First, I commend my spirit to God who gave it, my body to my friends to be buried in a Christian burial ground, Amen.

"Touching my worldly estate that God has pleased to bless me with. First, after all my burial expenses are paid, it is my will and my wish that my stock of cattle and hogs be equally divided among my several children viz.: Judy, Eliza, George, Matilda, Rubin, Emeline and William.

“My further wish and wish is, my dwelling, land, and premises, and kitchen, and tenements be appraised and for one of my children to take it at the appraised value and pay the other heirs a proportional share of the appraisement. It is my further will and wish that whatever my above named children or grandchildren may have heretofore received shall not be charged against them in the division of my estate. It is my will and wish that my children make this division among themselves, but if any dispute should arise among them to choose three disinterested men and let them make the divisions for them. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, affixed my seal this 19th day of September, 1873.”

The Cajuns who now live in Southwestern Alabama sometimes speak of “Aunt” Rose but her memory is fast vanishing. Aunt Rose wasn't as white as she might have been and the Cajuns have difficulty in seeing what advantage there is in claiming a relationship.

Alabama's preoccupation with the definition of racial purity continued and now the Cajuns, with no Aunt Rose to turn to, were confronted with an accumulation of legal mumbo-jumbo that turned hard-working ranchers and woodsman into outcasts. It was toward the end of the 19th century that the Reed Clan began being called Cajun. The name, it seems, was a product of the mind of Alabama State Senator L. W. McCrae, who once saw the Louisiana Cajuns and concluded the people he knew back home ought to have the same classification.

In 1896, Alabama redefined its statute on mulattos once again, extending it down to the fifth generation from a Negro ancestor. Finally, in 1927, the legislature changed the term to mean any person descended from a Negro, no matter how many generations removed. Repeatedly, the Cajuns were reminded of who is white and who was almost white. They were reminded during the nineteen-thirties, when well-meaning churchwomen came up from Mobile, women determined to bring the word of the Lord to a people who suffered a hurt every time a flower-hatted female went by in a Model T and said, “There's one of them.”

One of the most graphic rebuffs came 38 years ago, when Mrs. Barbara Young, a direct descendant of Rose and Daniel Reed, tried to get her children into a white school in upper Mobile County.

Judge J. Blocker Thornton described why anybody descended from Rose Reed was not eligible to go to a white school:

“Rose Reed’s offspring of 1/2 black and 2/2 White will be 1/2 of the 1/2 black portion, or 1/4 black: The offspring of the 1/4 black and 4/4 white will be the 1/2 of the 1/4 black or 1/8 black: The offspring of 1/8 black and 8/8 white will be 1/2 of the 1/8 black or 1/16th black: the offspring of the 1/16th black and the 16/16 white will be 1/2 of the 1/16th black or 1/32nd black: The offspring of the 1/32nd black and the 32/32 white will be 1/2 of the 1/32nd black or 1/64th black. If we take for granted this analysis be true, these children are 1/64th black and 63/64th white, or going back to the starting of this analysis, out of 63 white ancestors, one, or the 64th ancestor, was Negro.”

Mrs. Young had maintained that Rose Reed was half Choctaw and half white, and that Daniel Reed was in reality a Spanish sailor. Whatever they were, Judge Thornton felt pretty clearly that Mrs. Young's children would be out of place in a white school.

U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the contrary, the white / black / people-in-between school system in Alabama was totally intact until last September. Then the counties were placed under court order to desegregate immediately. Three years ago, only a few Cajuns were escaping the segregated system by going to the Murphy or Vigor high schools in Mobile, provided they were white enough to pass inspection. Now most of the Cajun children have been integrated into schools in their area but the whole business remains in a state of flux. Some white parents are talking about starting private schools to “protect” their children and one has already commenced operation in the First Baptist Church in Mount Vernon. When I first visited Reed’s Chapel school early in 1967, I found it did not teach chemistry, physics, Spanish, French, German, agriculture, home economics, automobile mechanics or any other vocational skill. Now I find that as of last fall, it has begun to offer chemistry but still no physics; Spanish (but no one elected to take it) and still no vocational courses, except for a survey which tells children about what the opportunities are in many vocations or professions—although no actual training is offered in anything.

In 1967, one out of every two students did without books at Reed's Chapel school. The school spokesman now says that about 20% of the students do not have all the books they need, although every student has something. As in 1967, the school is still providing hot lunches and for 30 cents, a youngster gets 3 ounces of meat (frequently a wiener), peas and/or cabbage slaw, milk, Jello or maybe a canned peach. This is, in some instances, the best meal he is apt to get. The school may close next fall as integration efforts continue.

Although some Cajuns display unbounded hatred for the Negro, and I was told three years ago that Cajun children would—if forced to integrate—have a bad time with the blacks, it has not worked out that way. In the integrated high school in Citronelle, for example, Cajun youngsters are reportedly doing well.

Contrary to what some of their critics say, Cajun young people do not present much of a problem to the keepers of the peace. A deputy sheriff said that the most serious offenses seem to be sipping a little moonshine now and then or drag racing on back roads. Nor do their elders cause trouble. A check of welfare records show few Cajun names, few instances of family desertion by the head of household. Cajun families remain close; they have to. My first visit to a Cajun school was a vivid experience. I parked my car on the rim of a recreation area. Eyebrows went up; few outsiders visit the Cajuns. About 30 children suddenly rushed out the door for an exercise period. They lined up and the teacher called the roll. Half of them answered to the name of Reed. Then it was lunch time and more children came out. White children, brown children, tan children, golden children, blonde children with kinky hair, dark children with straight hair, thick noses and thin noses and noses in between, red hair and freckles with a hint of Africa, a hint of Apache, a hint of some 19th century white man who needed a wife more than he did assurances of racial purity in his children. Tectonic blue eyes looking at me over Indian cheek bones, bright of eye and bursting with life; beautiful children.

And the women. On the road to Citronelle, a dark blonde with green eyes and golden skin and white teeth. When they are 17, they are the most beautiful women anywhere. If they were in London or Paris or even New Orleans, aging businessmen would stare reverently and college boys would know how Gaugin felt when he hit Tahiti. But this is not London. This is the red dirt of Alabama, where Cajun girls marry early and families of a dozen are not uncommon. Soon the green-eyed, dark-skinned blonde on the road to Citronelle will not be 17 anymore but 25, and the lopsided diet of cornbread and sowbelly will take its toll. The soft arms become very hard indeed.

“Some of them Cajun gals, they is kind of cute, if you know what I mean,” a white business man told me. They look damn good when they're young but as but when they get to be 25 or so, most of them is ugly as sin. I don't know why. I suppose it's because them people don't know how to live and that is why they is where they is.” Said another white man, a lawyer in the Washington County seat at Chatom: “They ain't so bad. Why most of them are 15/16 white, anyhow.”

Confronted daily by a white establishment than never tires in it's relentless pursuit and detection of racial tarnish, the Cajuns have become a clan that is prideful when it is turned inward, defensive and even ashamed when it deals with outsiders. It is patently racist on the subject of Negroes. At a Catholic Church in the Cajun area, I went looking for the priest, Father John C. Crotty. “He ain't here now,” says a dark-eyed girl who's great, great grandfather might have been an Apache Warrior. “I think he's with the niggers. He's got a nigger church over by Chastang. He don't come around here much. Mostly he stays with them.”

The Negros who live near the Cajuns generally avoid them because they seem to take comfort in being black, because in Alabama being black is surely more secure than racial anonymity.

“The Cajuns is something,” said a Negro lumberjack. “They ain't white and they ain't black. They ain't nothing.”

Some whites in Alabama have real compassion for the Cajuns. There are other whites in Alabama who say they have compassion.

“Gracious me, yes,” said a white banker. “Why we had one of them in my class in high school and we treated him just like he was white, too. Of course, nobody bothered with him after school; you couldn't expect us to. And the girls stayed away from him. But outside of that, we treated him just like he was one of us. There's more integration in the South than the Yankees understand.”

The banker even produced a high school paper he had written on the Cajuns back in 1932 and his conclusion evidenced on the depth of his understanding.

“Our problem,” he wrote, “is to keep them from intermarrying with our whites of low mentality—to keep them from wandering off to new fields and posing as white. Just how this can be avoided has not been decided—in my opinion there is no solution; just trust the next decade will not see them multiply as fast as the last.”

The paper received a grade of A; and to this day the banker has a reputation as a man who really understands the Cajuns. Indeed, his name was given to me by a source who had never met him but knew of his expertise. And yet somehow, the white banker and people like him have failed to bring out the best in the Cajuns. Somehow, they don't seem to take much pride in their identity. I saw a boy in the woods one day. He had red hair and blue eyes and would have been a hit in Dublin.

“Hi,” he said. “Where you going?”

“Oh, I thought I’d just walk a ways towards McIntosh.”

He walked with me for a while along Highway 35. He said he knew where the big fish were in the Tombigbee River. Trying hard to be matter of fact, I asked him if he had ever heard of Rose and Daniel Reed.

“Never did,” he said. He turned and vanished into the woods.

For employment, the Cajuns continue to get most of theirs in the piney woods, where they chopped down trees for the big paper companies, such as Star and International, north of Mobile. A non-Cajun will make a contract to supply wood for the paper mills. He will subcontract the job out to a Cajun and perhaps even rent him power equipment and trucks for a good price. Other times, a Cajun will use his own beat-up truck.

But what frequently seems to happen is that the cost of renting equipment seems to exceed or equal what the Cajun can expect for his labor. Moreover, even a Cajun with his own equipment will show up with half a dozen of his relatives. If he receives the minimum wage for such labor he must then distribute it among his relatives with the result that Cajuns have actually worked a week for as little as $10 or $15, which may be one reason why they eat a lot of sowbelly in southwestern Alabama.

As for the paper mills, they couldn't get a more profitable arrangement in Bulgaria. The accounting is simple and there isn't so much messy paperwork if a tree falls in the wrong direction and splits a Cajun’s skull open.

In the last few years, the Cajuns have grown more and more dissatisfied with this arrangement. There are now Cajuns working for the Geigy Chemical Corporation near McIntosh, which they say cracked only after maximum effort. A few years back, Geigy wanted them to work with the negroes. They refused and got no jobs.

Cajuns claim they're having a great deal of trouble in getting jobs at the Olin Mathieson plant near McIntosh as well as the Shell plant near Salco. Both organizations have Negroes on the staff.

Now they are coming out of the woods. Now you can see the Cajuns coming down Route 43 for jobs in the Mobile shipyard, where they make more than $3 an hour.

One Cajun looked at me proudly and said: “We have 25 of our people just from the Calcedeaver area in the shipyard.” But then he added, “Of course, there's a lot of work there now. When they start laying off, our people will be the first to go. We don't have the seniority.”

But still they come. You can see them, driving or hitchhiking through Chastang and Bucks, through Creola and Satsuma, down past the Stauffer Chemical Company plant, down past Cold Creek, Sister creek, Chickasaw Creek and Black Bayou, all the way into Mobile to weld and to bring back $100 at the end of a week.

But even when they succeed in the outside world, they do not escape the scorn of others, white and Negro alike.

“The one theng ah ain't able tuh unnerstan iz th’ way them cedduh choppuhs talks Ainglish,” a white lawyer said. “Them cedduh choppuhs got the oddes’ way uh pallaverin ah evuh did see.”

A former worker among the Cajuns summed them up in this way: “If they don't know you, they will tell you what they think you want to hear. They have no reason to trust you. If they like you, they'll die for you. If you cross them once, they will never forget it. Don't expect them to tell you about Rose Reed or the old superstitions. Don't expect them to be understanding about Negroes; there is no reason why they should be. Negroes have organizations helping them. Nobody's helping the Cajuns. The Cajuns will tell you they don't need any help. They are all alone. You know, the blacks sometimes say we can't really understand how it is unless we are black. I think it must be twice as difficult with the Cajuns. They feel a terrible hurt.”

“The point is,” one Cajun told me, “that we have to get our heads out of the sand. If we are ever going to grow up, we have to find out who we are. We have to admit that we are not pure white. That is a terrible thing to have to admit in Alabama. If you write something, you're going to hurt us. Maybe temporarily you will set us back. But in the long run, we must accept the truth and take pride in what we are.” Asked if this meant even accepting the fact that there might be Negro blood in some Cajun families, he said: “Even that.” But another Cajun called me the night before I was going to leave Mobile. He said he was a bright man and devoted to his people. He said: “Say what you want, but if you care about these people, don't say we're colored.”

And so the Cajuns go on, with a 50 per cent illiteracy rate among adults, poverty level wages, mental and physical problems that are becoming worse with each passing year, and a deeply rooted dislike of the black man—a way of thinking thrust on them by the whites which they pass on to the blacks.

The Cajuns are not unique. America's filled with hybrids—people of white, negro, and Indian ancestry. They’re sometimes called half-breeds, sometimes half-niggers, sometimes white trash. America now affords a classic study in group defensiveness; minorities are finding they have to join defense groups and go on the offensive, just to claim their share of the national wealth, their birthright as Americans. But the Cajuns and groups like them are not joiners. They are staunchly independent and so easy for the establishment to ignore. They are small in number, poor, ignorant of what it takes to succeed in this over-organized society and they are alone.

The list of The People in Between is a long one. Tennessee has its Melungeons, New York its Jackson Whites, Delaware its Moors. There are Dominickers in Florida, Croatians in South Carolina, Wesorts in Maryland, and Narragansetts in Rhode island. Some are a white-Negro mix; some are white-Indian; others are mixes of all three. Almost all are set apart from society and are getting the very shortest part of the short end of the stick. No National Association for the Advancement of Colored People cries out for them; no Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith champions their cause.

Perhaps one day the Cajuns of Alabama will be able to take justifiable pride in Rose and Daniel Reed. Perhaps when they find out who they are it won't matter to them so much that America's tradition of social justice as eluded them. Alabama is changing; the Cajuns have more friends than they know. But not as many as they need.

-Robert Severo

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA:

May Day Madness Shuts Down Center City

May Day 2025 went off explosively (figuratively speaking!) in Philly’s concrete jungle, a snarling mob of protesters clogging the city’s arteries in support of labor and denouncing Trump’s recent immigration and economic edicts.1 Cops rerouted traffic like they were herding feral cats, all while the air crackled with protest chants and passion. At the same time, the city council flexed its sanctuary city muscle in defiance, daring the feds to try something. The moment even featured a speech from working-class hero Senator Bernie Sanders. Roads are reopened now, but the city’s message is clear.

Murder Lair Under the Green Lane Bridge

Deep in the iron and concrete guts of Manayunk’s old Green Lane Bridge, cops busted open a hidden freak-kingdom on April 29, 2025, where Roger Gosson, a 61-year-old ex-contractor turned street urchin, built a multi-level shantytown mansion complete with a furnished tent, electric hookup, and barbecue grill.2 Police were chasing whispers of a messy squatter, but instead found a gun tied to the February murder of Joshua Daywalt, another 35-year-old homeless man, shot in the head and dumped in the Schuylkill. Gosson, who lost his business and turned to the streets, now faces murder charges.

Prince Edward Receives Warm Welcome in America

Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, swooped into Philly on April 30, a tweed-clad attraction peddling youth education and U.S.-U.K. bromance.3 He glad-handed schoolkids and local leaders, leaving a trail of polite applause and waving Union Jacks. The city lapped it up, a brief escape from the daily grind. Diplomatic ties are reliably tightened, but the real score was Philly’s ego boost on the world stage. God save the cheesesteak.

Temple Student’s Antisemitic Stunt Ignites Firestorm

A Temple kid flashed a sign reading “Fuck the Jews” at the Barstool on Sansom Street, caught in 4K video.4 Barstool’s owner and Jew himself, Dave Portnoy, launched a heavy-handed and angry internet campaign around the episode, resulting in wide-spread media coverage and a suspension for at least two students. Temple’s brass have formally denounced the incident, but campus still hums with uneasy whispers.

Delco Crime Spree Crashes into Philly Bust

A robbery rampage tore through Delaware County this past weekend like a criminal Tasmanian Devil, leaving a trail of stolen cars, burned rubber, and traumatized citizens in its wake.5 Upon stumbling in Philadelphia County on May 3rd, however, Philly cops spotted their hot car and nabbed the three punks. The streets are once again safe to walk - for now.

Philly Photo Day Snaps the City’s Soul

The TILT Institute’s Philly Photo Day 2025 kicked off May 8, but the week prior was abuzz with amateurs and artistes snapping the city’s grit and glow.6 From the hipster dives to the Old City stoops, every shot’s a love letter to the city in its own way. Community pride surges, but the real art’s in the chaos captured. If only there was a way to make the moment last longer…

Roxborough’s Spring Fest Roars with Chrome and Beer

Roxborough’s Spring Fest and Car Show on May 10 was a greasy, glorious mess. Hot rods gleaming, beer flowing, and neighbors strutting like peacocks. Local shops raked in cash as the Ridge roared with life.7 The community pulse was thumping loudly, drowning out the typical urban snarl. Estimated bigger crowds than last year seem to prove Roxborough’s still got swagger. Keep the engines revving.

Love Your Park Week Digs In

“Love Your Park Week” launched May 10th, with tree-huggers and civic-minded individuals alike scrubbing Fairmount Park’s trails like it’s holy ground.8 Volunteers yanked weeds and swapped stories, park events and cleanups made green spaces gleam. But the fun’s not officially over until May 18th. Dig in and dig out.

Mural Arts Wall Ball Paints the Town Green

Mural Arts’ Wall Ball on May 9 was a glitzy money-maker for Philly’s street art, pulling in deep-pocketed donors and paint-stained dreamers alike.9 The funds aim to fuel the murals that turn blank walls into stories, and the city’s a canvas. Philly’s mural crown stays polished, but the hustle never stops.

Domb’s Economic Warning Rattles City Hall

Allan Domb, ex-Councilmember turned prophet of doom (bit ironic, innit?), screamed on April 30 via editorial that federal cuts and tax hell could gut Philly’s jobs—healthcare, education, the works.10 He’s pushing tax reform like a man possessed, lest Philadelphia become the next Detroit, but how realistic it is for such changes to pass remains to be seen. In junction with proposed SEPTA cuts, such calls have locals spooked. Fight or fold seems to be the only two choices on the table.

Newark’s Airport Chaos Screws Over Regional Travelers

On May 5th, Philly’s TRACON radar went on the fritz, grounding flights out of Newark Liberty International Airport and stranding flyers in a travel nightmare.11 The incident repeated itself just days later on May 9th. Planes diverted, tempers flared, and the region’s air traffic system looking like a circus tightrope walker with too much to drink. Despite assurances from FAA officials, an anonymous air traffic controller told MSNBC that flyers should “avoid Newark at all costs” and “it is not a safe situation right now for the flying public” because of understaffing and outdated infrastructure.12 The outages themselves, like a lame ex-boyfriend, only lasted around 90 seconds, but the damage was done. Philly’s tied to the region’s fate, for better or worse. Next time, drive.