Philadelphia-area fraudsters victimized scores of immigrants; how Pa. Dems who lined up behind Biden are feeling | Morning Newsletter
Plus, the first change Danielle Outlaw made as Philly’s top cop.
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
It’s another rainy one in Philly, continuing what’s been a wet week. I hope that doesn’t dampen anyone’s Valentine’s Day plans (or anti-Valentine’s Day plans). As far as the news is concerned, we have a story about fraudsters claiming to offer help to immigrants seeking citizenship, and another on what backers of former Vice President Joe Biden are thinking now; and my colleague caught up with new top cop Danielle Outlaw after her first few days on the job.
— Josh Rosenblat (@joshrosenblat, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
Ana Molina was a fixture in the Philadelphia region’s Spanish-speaking community. Her largely word-of-mouth, cash-only immigration services business had occupied a Northeast Philly storefront since 2001. Molina was born in Peru and became a U.S. citizen in 1987. She assured clients that as a lawyer, she could help them navigate intimidating immigration laws.
It turns out that Molina was not a lawyer. And she’d go on to steal thousands of dollars from unsuspecting immigrants.
With so many undocumented workers scared of being deported, their desperation to stay in the United States legally has fueled an already burgeoning industry of fraudulent immigration-services providers. Complaints in Pennsylvania skyrocketed last year, but even so, experts say crimes of this type are still grossly underreported.
Much of the state’s Democratic establishment has spent months lining up behind Scranton-born ex-VP Biden. But after the hometown favorite has stumbled in the first two contests of 2020, they’re confronting a new reality, my colleagues report. Some are holding firm with Biden, hoping that he can salvage his campaign in South Carolina. Others are deeply troubled about his campaign but remain unsure about other more moderate options, as well as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has spent an unprecedented amount on ads in the Keystone State.
🗳️Interested in how Pennsylvania is shaping the 2020 election? We’re launching a new email newsletter covering the nation’s ultimate battleground state. Sign up and don’t forget to pass it along.
Since taking over the department on Monday, people kept pointing out to Outlaw that her black nail polish technically violated the department’s instructions about appearance. So she changed the rule to allow for more stylish nails. And in one of her first interviews since becoming the first black woman to be Philly’s top cop, Outlaw told my colleague Chris Palmer that her rule change reflects the broader change she believes is needed in policing.
“It’s the small things that allow us to feel not only welcome, but supported,” she said. “It’s one thing to recruit me and say, ‘Oh, yes, we want you.’ But if there’s no support system in place to say, ‘Not only do [we] want you, but we celebrate you and we recognize that you bring [something] different’ ... we’re not going to get the people that we say that we want.”
What you need to know today
The future of the troubled Philadelphia oil refinery is pitting Democrats against one another. And U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday tentatively approved the sale of the refinery to a Chicago firm, closing the door on more than a century of oil refining in South Philadelphia, and potentially radically altering the city’s landscape, my colleague Andrew Maykuth reports.
William McSwain, the U.S. attorney in Philly, evoked the memory of President Abraham Lincoln to compare Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner to slave-holders who sparked the Civil War and to Southern segregationists who opposed civil rights.
Three patients with advanced cancer were treated at Penn in the first U.S. clinical study of human gene editing. They suffered no serious side effects, but they also didn’t benefit, according to results published last week.
A hospital that has served as a health-care safety net for poor families in West Philly for over a century is facing closure.
An impoverished disabled veteran said she was denied federally subsidized housing solely because she is a medical marijuana patient. A panel of three Pennsylvania judges will hear her appeal today.
A former Temple frat president’s sexual assault trial began yesterday.
Through your eyes | #OurPhilly
The melding of eras is one of my favorite things about Philly. Thanks for capturing it, @tominphilly.
Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!
That’s interesting
🤣“I know that people don’t expect me to use the language on stage that I use, but that’s just in a long line of things they’re not expecting, which, to begin with, is that I’m even standing," said an 88-year-old stand-up comedian from East Oak Lane.
🚮We answered all your trash questions. (No. your questions aren’t bad, they’re literally about garbage.)
📝A traveling pop-up of 500,00 true, anonymous stories from across the country is in Philadelphia until Sunday. Stop by to read stories that range from “I farted!” to deep tales of heartbreak, writes columnist Helen Ubiñas.
🚶As other cities make stretches of busy streets car-free, Philly is focusing on other ways to decrease congestion.
🏀The Sixers made a major lineup change, and it paid off in their win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
📱College students created a tool that can help their peers find mental-health resources.
Opinions
“The responsibility for the safety of children in schools lays with Mayor Kenney. So far, Kenney has been mostly silent, letting [Superintendent William R.] Hite [Jr.] and the Board of Education be the face of the crisis. But both the superintendent and the school board members serve at the pleasure of the mayor.” — writes the Inquirer Editorial Board about shaking up the School District of Philadelphia and Board of Education because of the asbestos crisis.
Columnist Trudy Rubin writes about the worst Syrian refugee crisis ever and whether anyone will help.
Overdose prevention sites don’t increase crime, write Brittany Salerno and Jeanmarie Perrone. And, they promote public health. Salerno is a research coordinator in emergency medicine at Penn’s medical school. Perrone is a professor of emergency medicine at the school and the director of the Penn Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy.
What we’re reading
With cafe closures and service changes, Philadelphia Magazine explores whether Philly’s all-day cafe’s will stick around. Or, are morning-to-night restaurants too hard to sustain?
There are a lot of black-owned bars in Philly, and Billy Penn offers its 10 favorites.
A small town in California made national news when Delta dumped fuel over its elementary school. The town’s mayor is 26 years old and had just been appointed to the position a week earlier, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Your Daily Dose of | Things to do
This weekend is the Philly Home and Garden Show, but if you’d rather meet a sloth, I don’t blame you. The “Survival of the Slowest” exhibition opens at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on Saturday. Hey, why not do both? If you want to get these recommendations straight to your inbox every week, you can sign up for our free email newsletter.