Police, the arts, and Kenney’s budget proposal | Morning Newsletter
And, a look at our post-pandemic immune systems.
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The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Hello, readers of the Inquirer Morning Newsletter.
First: Mayor Jim Kenney proposes using federal coronavirus relief to begin the process of returning the city to normal.
Then: Due to pandemic precautions, most of us haven’t been sick in a year, and it’s been glorious. But now what?
And: Nearly half of Pennsylvania nursing home staff declined coronavirus vaccines.
— Tommy Rowan (@tommyrowan, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
In Philadelphia’s first-ever virtual budget address on Thursday, Mayor Jim Kenney offered a first look at the city’s post-pandemic financial outlook.
Kenney’s $5.2 billion budget proposal uses $575 million from the federal coronavirus relief law to begin the process of returning the city to normal. The mayor offered an optimistic view of the path forward for a city jolted by the pandemic and torn by gun violence, but added that despite the federal aid and new investments, the city’s finances are still in perilous shape.
Read on for Kenney’s proposal for how to navigate recovery over the next year from reporters Sean Collins Walsh and Laura McCrystal.
Kenney said police would be flat-funded under his budget proposal. It’s not that simple.
Funding for the crippled arts and cultural sector still lags behind pre-pandemic levels for the most part in the proposal.
Businesses see modest tax relief to support an economic recovery from the pandemic in the proposed budget.
And here’s how the budget process works.
This year, most of us kept our distance, regularly scrubbed and sanitized our hands, and properly wore our masks. And as a result, we didn’t get sick.
But now the day is coming when some combination of vaccines and natural immunity will bring COVID-19 cases way down, and ”normal” life will be a legit possibility. What then?
Reporter Stacey Burling spoke with immunologists and other physicians about the pandemic’s effect on our immune systems.
Am I eligible to get vaccinated? Know the requirements for Philly, Pa., and New Jersey.
Where can I get a COVID-19 vaccine in the Philly area? Use our lookup tool.
Here’s how to prepare for a vaccine appointment.
What can I do once I’m fully vaccinated? Here’s a full breakdown.
Can I go on vacation yet? This is how to know what’s safe.
What you need to know today
Only 52% of staff at Pennsylvania’s nursing homes opted to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to a long-awaited survey released Thursday by the state Department of Health, despite how hard-hit the facilities were by the pandemic.
Transgender girls in sports. Abortion. Voting laws. Vaccine passports. Those are some topics attracting the most vocal attention from Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers, underscoring the extent to which the post-Trump GOP is energized by cultural fights amid Democratic control in Washington.
Some of the poorest people in Pa. could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in food stamps, Wolf administration officials and anti-hunger advocates say, if two amendments on next month’s primary election ballot get passed.
New Jersey advocates are seeking extended services for special education students who missed school because of the pandemic.
The man killed in a triple shooting that also injured a 6-year-old boy in Southwest Philadelphia on Wednesday night was the boy’s father.
President Biden wants to crack down on “ghost guns.” So, what exactly is a ghost gun, and are they illegal in Pennsylvania or Philadelphia? And how could President Biden’s executive action regulate them? Here’s what you need to know.
The minimum wage at the nine Marquis & Co. restaurants, including HipCityVeg, will rise to $15 an hour, effective July 1. The raise was announced amid an acute shortage of restaurant workers and in a time of reassessment in the industry about wages and working conditions.
Through your eyes | #OurPhilly
Just don’t hurt your neck, @thewildlifeofcarlos.
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
💍 Last week, columnist Maria Panaritis wrote about finding a stranger’s engagement ring on a Delaware County sidewalk, leading her to a discovery about her long-deceased mom and dad. And readers responded. The result is a collection of touching stories about their own long-gone family members who live on through trinkets that were left behind.
🏈 Asante Samuel was a four-time Pro Bowl cornerback with the Eagles and Patriots. Now he’s a proud parent whose son A.J. is expected to get taken in the first couple of rounds of this month’s draft.
🎢 It’s normal to feel emotional about the vaccine. Here’s why it’s a rollercoaster.
Opinions
“My feeling of racial belonging started changing when ‘kung flu’ went from joke to popular vernacular during the COVID-19 pandemic last year. It lurched when my college roommate told me how a random white woman hurled racist insults at her and her daughter while they were shopping one day. As the wave of anti-Asian crime swelled in early 2021, I became increasingly concerned. These people around the country being assaulted and attacked with increasing levels of violence looked like me, like my family,” writes Annette S.L. Evans, a defensive firearms instructor, advocating for more self-defense tools in AAPI communities.
Philadelphia’s Nicetown neighborhood was torn apart by a highway project 60 years ago. Columnist Will Bunch asks: Does Biden’s infrastructure plan offer a ray of hope?
Pulling troops out of Afghanistan, writes columnist Trudy Rubin, will advance a Taliban takeover and return of Al Qaeda, while endangering all Afghans who support democracy.
What we’re reading
The former municipal golf course at FDR Park, which closed at the end of 2019, became the city’s best new public park and an indispensable natural refuge for many locked-down South Philadelphians over the past year. But the city already has other plans for it, leaving PhillyMag to wonder what should happen next.
Tracii Show Hutsona and Derrell Hutsona published popular videos on their YouTube channel, Homeless Millionaires. They showed off the expensive cars they drove, the jets they chartered, the celebrity perks they scored, and the fancy properties in Southern California they may or may not have lived in. But this life was built on millions of dollars in stolen funds, writes the New York Times.
In 1974, John Patterson was abducted by the People’s Liberation Army of Mexico — a group no one had heard of before, writes The Atlantic. The kidnappers wanted $500,000, and insisted that Patterson’s wife deliver the ransom.
Jennifer Tran and Eric Griffin of Fairmount showed up outside John’s Roast Pork on their wedding day. “I knew I had to eat super carefully, and there’s no easy way to eat cheesesteaks very carefully,” the bride said.