New life in the new year | Morning Newsletter
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The Morning Newsletter
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Good morning. It’s a sunny, breezy Saturday with a chilly high near 33.
Today, I’m highlighting the Philadelphia region’s first babies of 2025. Plus, there’s news on how Pennsylvania leaders are reacting to a blocked deal between a Japanese company and Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, more on Howard Eskin’s abrupt departure from 94.1 WIP, and all the details on Center City Restaurant Week.
— Paola Pérez (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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What you should know today
Two members of a New Jersey family that built a troubled affordable-housing empire, including Philadelphia’s aging Brith Sholom House, have been sentenced to federal prison for mortgage fraud.
A 43-year-old Philadelphia man slashed another man’s head with a box cutter on a SEPTA bus early Friday morning after the two got into a verbal altercation that turned violent, police said.
Radio host Howard Eskin forcibly grabbed a female Audacy employee during an altercation last month, creating a commotion after a remote broadcast, sources told The Inquirer.
A man was killed and a woman injured after being struck by a SEPTA bus at Front Street and Washington Avenue, Friday night.
With wintry weather in the forecast for Monday, how will Philadelphia-area school districts decide what to do? They don’t all follow the same calculus — especially now that virtual learning has become more routine in the wake of the pandemic.
Dave McCormick took the oath Friday as Pennsylvania’s junior senator, bringing a new voice to Capitol Hill and giving Republicans a Senate seat in the state after two years of sole ownership by Democrats.
President Joe Biden blocked a Japanese company’s $15 billion bid to purchase Pennsylvania’s U.S. Steel on Friday. Here’s what state officials are saying about the decision.
Political leaders in Delaware County gathered outside the Darby Township police station Thursday to condemn hatred after an apparent road rage incident involving a cofounder of a local fencing company and volunteer firefighter.
The Lower Merion School District has selected a New Jersey superintendent as its next leader, district officials announced Friday.
The Giant Heirloom supermarket in Market East closed its doors for good over the holidays, ending the grocer’s gamble on the rapidly developing Center City neighborhood.
The city’s most affordable night out is back this January with Center City District Restaurant Week, offering discounted meals at some of Philadelphia’s priciest dining spots. Here’s the scoop.
Like the rest of the globe, Philadelphians Tuesday night were counting down the final seconds of 2024, toasting to the new year and watching fireworks displays. Some (like me) probably just went to sleep not long after the clock struck midnight. Big or small, all kinds of life events took place across the city, including the act of new life itself.
As the first babies of the year were born, they entered a world that had just taken its own new breath of life of sorts. At Main Line Health, four were delivered — one at each of its four hospitals — all within the first hour of Jan. 1, “a rare occurrence,” Valerie Russ reported. Last year, we saw another rare event when twin boys born about 40 minutes apart were also born in two different years — one in 2024 and one in 2023.
Reading about these special area newborns sparked joy and hope, and not just because they are so adorable. It reaffirmed the sense of renewal that inevitably follows the dawn of a new era. I felt compelled to reflect on time passed, and simultaneously look forward to what lies ahead. I spent part of my holidays grieving the loss of my grandfather, while also celebrating birthdays and expressing gratitude. Life, like every season, always comes full circle. And while winter in particular can be a struggle, we know spring is coming again.
It’s cool to know the exact moment when you officially emerged into tangible existence. This is especially true if you can attach a fun accolade like “2025′s first baby” at a given hospital, if you like astrology and want to explore your full “birth chart,” or if you want to brag that you technically don’t have to share a birthday with your twin. So welcome to the universe, little ones. I’d impart our handbook to navigate Philly like a true local, but you won’t need that just yet.
In December, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker signed a law that bans motor vehicles from stopping in the city’s designated bike lanes at all times.
Two neighborhood associations want to prevent the installation of concrete curb separators on Spruce and Pine bike lanes. This is where two Philadelphians, Barbara Friedes and Emily Fredricks, were struck and killed in 2024 and 2022, respectively.
But in a column for The Inquirer, Duncan Adkins says concrete barriers are the only way to really protect cyclists, and points to Hoboken, N.J., as a densely populated place where this strategy has worked.
“If Hoboken can achieve zero traffic fatalities, why can’t Philadelphia?” Adkins writes.
Read on for Adkins’ perspective on protecting pedestrian accessibility and why he says it’s one of the city’s great civic advantages.
❓ Pop quiz
Penn classics professor Emily Wilson is back in the spotlight this month over her groundbreaking translation of which epic tale?
A) Legend of Olympus
B) Aeneid
C) The Iliad
D) The Odyssey
Think you know? Check your answer.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan in this sing-along biographical film
ACME KNOWN OPULENT
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.
Cheers to Samuel Moch who correctly guessed Friday’s answer: Philly Goat Project. The nature-focused nonprofit is hosting goat-feeding tree-cycling events on Jan. 4, 11, and 18.
In case you missed the spectacular scenes from the 124th Mummers Parade, you can also go backstage with staff photographer Tom Gralish to see what last-minute rehearsals were like at the Convention Center to make all the striking displays of color and dance come together.
Check out the photo gallery to catch the Fancy Brigades in their preparatory moments ahead of their finale for the nation’s longest continuously running folk parade.
Somewhere on the internet in Philly
In response to a beautifully handcrafted, Phillies-inspired shirt by a creative fan, one user on X says: “genuinely no city has sports obsessed artists like philadelphia and we are all greater for it.” We truly do have some of the best around.
Over in another corner of the web, the ACME on Passyunk Avenue saw quite the action recently between a vandalized store sign and warnings about a tow truck prowling the parking lot.
And on The Inquirer’s Instagram, Philadelphians are discussing how well the Daily News predicted what the city would look like in 2025. It seems we got something right: “I mean to be fair I did just get this paper on my mini tv.”
👋🏽 Let’s do this again tomorrow with the latest news.
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