The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Happy fall, y’all. The fall equinox starts tonight, ushering in the Halloween season and an October chill. Dayside, though, looks damp and breezy. Meanwhile, a nor’easter is threatening to hit the region later this week.
Today, we start with a deep dive into mental illness in the trades, and what Philadelphia’s unions and industry leaders are doing about it.
And, we look at SEPTA’s pivot to an upbeat approach in its effort to secure more funds from Harrisburg.
Plus, Cheltenham football coaches were held for trial for failing to report a player’s locker room assault, and more news of the day.
— Tommy Rowan (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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The construction trades constitute a workforce that is deeply woven into Philadelphia’s civic identity.
Roughly 121,000 people across the Philadelphia metropolitan area work in construction. Politicians court their support. The city celebrates the buildings, roads, and public projects they build.
But under all that civic pride and remarkable growth are hardhats with heavy hearts: A work force for which traumatic events come with the territory. Take this past April, when three construction workers died as a result of a parking-garage collapse.
It all amounts to a mental health crisis roiling the construction industry.
Reporter Abigail Covington has the full story.
After another high-wire financial rescue from the state, SEPTA leaders are determined to flip their script in the transit funding debate.
They’re no longer warning of calamity. Now, they’re showing what the system could be with more investment.
“I wanted to get away from the doom and gloom message,” SEPTA General Manager Scott A. Sauer said in an interview with The Inquirer.
Reporter (and video superstar) Tom Fitzgerald will fill you in.
What you should know today
A district judge ruled Monday that four former Cheltenham High School football coaches presided over a “cone of silence” last year by failing to report that one of their players had been beaten by his teammates in two locker room assaults.
Pennsylvania has recorded nearly 800 cases of measles this year, officials said Monday.
Flights into Philadelphia International Airport were grounded for much of the day Monday due to a stop instituted by the Federal Aviation Administration that impacted hundreds of flights in the Northeast in the wake of equipment outages.
Swarthmore College has renamed the former Trotter Hall and its adjacent lawn for two Black scholars who feature prominently in its history.
Philly laws conflate drag shows with strip clubs — a definition similar to that in southern states. City Council wants to change that.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike has begun work on a $90.5 million project to widen a section near an I-95 interchange in Bucks County as part of an overarching plan to rebuild the toll road, which opened in the fall of 1940.
Quote of the day
Camille Joseph left Haiti for a better life in Philadelphia. His family wonders why he was fatally shot in Nicetown.
🧠 Trivia time
This NFL Hall of Famer is in Eagles’ fans’ crosshairs for comments he made about quarterback Jalen Hurts during Sunday’s win over the Tennessee Titans.
A) Tom Brady
B) Deion Sanders
C) Jerry Rice
D) Drew Brees
Think you know? Check your answer.
What we’re...
🎸 Hyped for. Fall pop music season is underway. From Phoebe Bridgers, to AC/DC, to Gorillaz, and Doja Cat, here are 30 pop music concerts you cannot miss this autumn.
⚾ Preparing for. A fifth straight postseason is in sight for the Phillies. But there are plenty of questions going into the final homestand of the regular season.
🫶 Learning more about. Nakashima, Noguchi, and Asawa are artists who helped shape the American mid-century aesthetic, and changed the way Americans thought of design. A Barnes exhibit wants to showcase their art without forgetting their trauma.
🦅 Tipping our cap to. After 12 seasons and 805 NHL regular-season games, former Flyer Kevin Hayes announced his retirement from professional hockey.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: On the day that tests revealed Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert sprained an MCL and will miss multiple weeks, the team announced the signing of this fan-favorite name from the past.
CZAR ET HZ
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.
Cheers to Carol Basile, who correctly guessed Monday’s answer: Gillie da King. The Eagles hype man is back with a new dance video, this time set to Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk.”
Photo of the day
And we end today with a wonderful fireworks shot from staff photographer Elizabeth Robertson, who captured this scene from a Delaware River ferry during the weekend. Feels fitting that a fireworks display should help close out the summer season.
👋 Thanks for spending some time today with The Inquirer.
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