SAN ANTONIO — Victor Wembanyama had to watch the visiting team become champions, again.
The Wemby era of the NBA is fully underway, with the 7-foot-4 French star unanimously winning the Defensive Player of the Year award this season, finishing third in the Most Valuable Player balloting and making first-team All-NBA for the first of what could be many, many times if all goes according to his plan.
But the ultimate moment has escaped his grasp for the second time in three years. In 2024, he tearfully watched the U.S. celebrate winning Olympic gold at the Paris Olympics — and now, he relived that moment by seeing the New York Knicks celebrating their first championship in 53 years by winning Game 5 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio on Saturday night.
“This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,” the 22-year-old Wembanyama said. “I can’t tell you exactly what the lesson is, but we’re learning from that, for sure. I’m learning more than any other time in my life before.”
His numbers in the finals: 26 points, 11.2 rebounds. 3.6 blocks per game. They were good, just not good enough.
And his series, fairly or unfairly, will also be remembered for some mistakes: The turnover that led to Jalen Brunson’s go-ahead free throw in New York’s Game 2 win (a game where Wembanyama missed a jump shot to win at the buzzer); and missing a pair of crucial free throws with 1:47 left in Game 4, the one where the Spurs wasted a 29-point lead and lost by one in what became the biggest collapse in finals history. The Spurs wasted double-digit leads in all four losses, including a 16-point cushion in what became the season finale.
“The margin of error is very thin,” Wembanyama said. “Our domination stints are absolute. We absolutely dominated for most of the series. But our errors, our mistakes, are punished so hard that we can’t have ups and downs like this. … The ups are OK. The downs are the reason we lost.”
It’s only Year 3 for Wemby. It’s not like every star wins right away.
It took Michael Jordan seven seasons to win his first championship. LeBron James needed nine years. Jerry West needed 12 years for his one and only title. John Stockton and Karl Malone never got one. Charles Barkley, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony didn’t get one, either.
“He’s definitely the future of this league, man,” Knicks legend Larry Johnson said during the series when asked about Wembanyama. “He’s a heck of a ballplayer.”
Wembanyama knows the history, knows that it took some of the greatest to ever touch a ball several years to win a title.
Doesn’t mean he likes it.
“It’s painful. It’s painful,” Wembanyama said. “But I’m not running away from that. I’m using it to fuel me. … I’m not satisfied with not winning. But as I said, this is the biggest lesson of my life. As a team, there’s no better experience than what we just lived.”
His numbers are like almost nothing the game has ever seen before. There have been four seasons in NBA history where someone had 150 blocks, 150 assists and 100 3-pointers. Chet Holmgren did it for Oklahoma City in 2023-24, and the other three instances are all from Wembanyama — who has hit those totals in each of his first three seasons.
“I think for a lot of people, this team seems to be ahead of schedule,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday on NBA TV. “I don’t think they feel that way. I’m amazed at Victor. Not just his play on the floor, but he’s such a curious young man. He’s a pleasure to talk to. He’s very worldly. I mean, he’s got amazing interests off the floor. He’s really dedicated to his craft and he’s got such a bright future ahead of him.”
SAN ANTONIO — Knowing New York had waited 53 years to see the Knicks hoist the NBA championship trophy, owner James Dolan didn’t even wait to be handed the 30-pound gold-plated prize.
He grabbed it and lifted it skyward with a yell.
“I want to say something to New York,” Dolan shouted. “Hey New York! I’m sorry it took so long! But here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again!”
The New York Knicks are champions of the NBA for the first time since 1973, beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games for this title. The clincher came Saturday night in a 94-90 victory, the Knicks’ fourth comeback win of the series.
Some will say it’s the first “major” professional sports championship for New York in more than 14 years; that would be true when counting only Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL, and the NBA, though it would be wrong to ignore the New York Liberty’s run to the 2024 WNBA title and New York City FC winning the MLS Cup in 2021.
But as far as the teams that have been part of the city’s fabric for generations and generations, yes, this 14-year drought is finally over. The New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 2012, capping the 2011 season.
The Yankees — the most decorated team in U.S. major pro sports history — haven’t won a World Series since 2009. The Mets haven’t brought a World Series title to New York since 1986. The Rangers last hoisted the Stanley Cup in 1994, the Islanders in 1983. The New York Jets haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1969.
None of that matters, at least not right now. The Knicks — who won 13 consecutive games at one point in this playoff run and rallied from 29 points down to win Game 4 of the finals at MSG — are the toast of the town.
“Of course I’ve never seen anything like it, because it’d never happened before,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said of the Game 4 comeback in an interview on NBA TV on Saturday. “But it’s been amazing.”
The Amazin’ Knicks, indeed.
A third title, finally
It took them 80 years — the Knicks won the first game in NBA history in 1946, three years before what was then the Basketball Association of America started being known as the National Basketball Association — but the franchise has now become the ninth that can say it has at least three championships.
Boston has 18, the Los Angeles Lakers have 17, Golden State has seven, Chicago has six, San Antonio has five, and Philadelphia, Detroit and Miami all have three.
Welcome to the club, New York.
“I enjoy watching these guys,” Knicks legend Larry Johnson said. ”The Garden is back. … It’s back like when we played and made our little run. The city is behind us.”
It’s a franchise that has gone through 24 different coaches and more than 400 players since what was, until now, the most recent championship season. Some of the game’s biggest superstars called Madison Square Garden home and couldn’t end the title drought, names like Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Bernard King, and Carmelo Anthony.
The Knicks lost a Game 7 in the 1994 finals to Hakeem Olajuwon and Houston, then made a miracle run to the 1999 finals in a shortened season only to lose to San Antonio in five games — the first of what became five championships for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs.
“We didn’t get it done. … I always say the third time is the charm,” former Knicks guard John Starks said.
Starks was right. It took the Knicks 27 years to get back to the finals, had the Spurs again standing in their way, and to fully flip the script, it was New York prevailing in five games.
MSG, a banner is coming
And finally, the world’s most famous arena — which has raised banners for Billy Joel, Elton John, and Harry Styles more recently than it had hoisted one for the Knicks — will be adding to the collection swaying from the rafters. If it follows form from the others, the banner will only have the Knicks logo, then “2025-26 World Champions” beneath that.
A simple message. Getting to the place where the Knicks could say those words again, that wasn’t so simple.
“There are a couple of franchises that are pretty iconic just because of the history that they have, the location that they’re in, sometimes even the building that they’re in,” said Knicks coach Mike Brown, who won this title in his first season with the club. “New York is definitely one of the few that you could say that to in all three facets.
“Everybody goes through their ups and downs. I don’t really think much about the tough times that they had, because everybody has tough times, including individuals. You just want to try the best you can to be a part of whatever you can to bring joy to the city, to the organization. At the end of the day, the chips are going to fall how they fall. I feel blessed, fortunate, lucky, to be a part of what is going on now.”
It is, to put it mildly, an interesting organization. Dolan — who rarely speaks publicly — isn’t afraid of clashes, even including ones with former Knicks greats like Charles Oakley, who was at road games in this title run but has remained away from MSG for years. Leon Rose, the team’s president, typically doesn’t make himself available to reporters either. There is an absolute mystique around the team and how it operates.
It has not always worked. Over a 25-year stretch that ended with the 2021-22 season — not that long ago — the Knicks had the worst record in the NBA. In the four years since, starting with the acquisition of Jalen Brunson from Dallas, the Knicks have the NBA’s fifth-best record.
And this year, as Frank Sinatra said, the Knicks are king of the hill, top of the heap. Some in the fan base grumbled when the Knicks declined to hang an NBA Cup championship banner after beating San Antonio for the in-season tournament title earlier this season. Turns out, the Knicks were just waiting for something better.
So, the 53-year wait is over. It was a very different league, and a very different game, in 1973.
There were 17 teams in the NBA that season, barely half of the 30 that there are now. Teams called Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City-Omaha, and Seattle home then; the league has expanded many times since, adding 13 teams in nine different states, plus Canada and the District of Columbia.
The top salary in the league then was about $380,000, or roughly $2.9 million in today’s dollars. There was no 3-point line then, no multi-billion-dollar television deal, no international players.
The Knicks flew home on a United Airlines flight from the 1973 title clincher in Inglewood, Calif., and officials at Kennedy Airport expected what was then called a “rabid” crowd of fans present to greet the plane. They braced for “hundreds” of people that day.
This celebration might be a little bigger.
“To have the fans that we have in New York City and be able to bring home a championship after all these years is absolutely amazing,” Brown said. “It’s a surreal feeling.”
SEATTLE — The revolution begins with a poetry reading.
Last month, a journalist turned organizer named Andrew Engelson invited friends and fellow Pacific Northwesterners to a small club in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood for an evening of verse, in which his guests would ponder what it means to be from “Cascadia,” the bioregion stretching from Northern California, through Oregon and Washington, into British Columbia.
Odes to volcanoes, woods, and rivers would help the audience reach the same conclusion he has: The region might be better off leaving the United States.
Engelson and his group, Cascadia Democratic Action, are trying to drive conversations that could lead to 2028 ballot measures in Washington and Oregon on secession if things don’t improve. The effort is hardly an outlier in these Disunited States, where frustration on the left and right has created small but vocal collections of Americans so fed up with feeling disempowered that they’re talking about redrawing state lines or dissolving them altogether.
“The salmon don’t pay attention to the 49th parallel,” Engelson said, referring to the U.S.-Canada border. “I have way more in common with someone in Vancouver, B.C., than someone in Arkansas.”
Separatism is “in the zeitgeist,” said Ryan Griffiths, a Syracuse University political scientist who wrote the 2025 book The Disunited States: Threats of Secession in Red and Blue America and Why They Won’t Work.
Activists in Texas and California continue to push independence. Lawmakers in inland California have pitched splitting the state in two or three. Organizers in southeastern New Mexico want to join Texas.
Republican lawmakers in Indiana approved legislation last year inviting conservative counties in Illinois to become Hoosiers. A state senator in West Virginia followed suit in late 2025, inviting 30 border counties from Virginia and Maryland to join the Mountaineers.
North of the 49th parallel, conservative Alberta is moving toward a referendum in October asking: Do you want to stay in Canada or have a separate, binding referendum to secede?
The people Griffiths interviews often sound remarkably similar, he said.
“Whether they’re libertarian or conservative or liberal,” he said, they complain that government is “in their face, it’s dysfunctional, and it’s distant.”
One of the most successful of those efforts is, like Engelson’s, based in the Northwest, but on the opposite end of the political spectrum. The Greater Idaho movement, a 6-year-old campaign to move a large swath of rural, conservative Oregon into neighboring Idaho, has won support in 13 county ballot measures and turned a once-fringe idea into a subject of state capital debate.
“Our system is not quite functioning the way it’s supposed to,” said Matt McCaw, a spokesperson for Greater Idaho.
Greater Idaho proponents argue that their movement reflects frustrations that date to Oregon’s earliest days. At the 1857 meeting to draft Oregon’s founding document, 59 of the 60 delegates came from west of the Cascade Mountains.
Today, eastern Oregon makes up roughly two-thirds of the state’s land mass but only 10% to 15% of its population. Lawmakers from Portland and the Interstate 5 corridor dominate policy debates and have pushed through gun laws, environmental regulations, and tax changes that many in rural Oregon oppose.
As western Oregon transitioned from an economy built on timber, farming, and manufacturing to one driven by technology and services, the disconnect has grown.
“They just don’t understand us on the other side of the mountains,” said Dan Joyce, the county judge in Malheur County, Ore., whose voters were among the earliest and strongest supporters of Greater Idaho.
Semir Dzebo, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University who worked on a 2025 study on Greater Idaho, said public polling conducted through the study showed that the effort was less a partisan fight than an economic one.
In other parts of the world, efforts to redraw boundaries are often rooted in long-standing ethnic, linguistic, or national identities tied to particular places, such as Scotland in the United Kingdom or Catalonia in Spain. Since the Civil War, America has felt “inoculated” against separatist movements, Dzebo said, “because it rests on a civic understanding of nationalism, that there’s no particular ethnicity that is ‘American.’”
But as electoral politics have become more polarized, and as the gap between the rich and everyone else has grown, the sense of a shared American identity has eroded.
“What propels these movements is when that sense of feeling different really comes with economic consequences,” Dzebo said.
In that regard, the Greater Idaho movement and the Cascadia secession effort are cousins. McCaw doesn’t think elected leaders in the Oregon capital represent him. Engelson feels the same about Washington, D.C.
Cascadians argue that people are often bound more closely by geography, ecology, and regional economies than by national borders, particularly when the borders stretch so far in every direction. Engelson said Washington and Oregon progressives could get more value from their tax dollars if they formed their own smaller political unit and paid for priorities such as universal healthcare and free college tuition.
A number of states are already engaging in a form of “soft secession,” by conducting multistate public health efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic or forming compacts to address climate change.
But none of the secessionist movements are close to achieving their goals.
The Constitution provides a mechanism for changing state boundaries with the approval of legislatures in both affected states and Congress. But that tends to go only one direction. Neither Virginia nor Illinois has responded to the overtures of its neighbors.
Oregon Democrats have declined to meet with proponents of Greater Idaho, and neither President Donald Trump nor Oregon’s lone Republican Congress member, Cliff Bentz, has answered calls for help. And voters in two of the counties that initially embraced the idea have since backtracked.
The Cascadia movement faces an even larger obstacle. In the 1869 case Texas v. White, the Supreme Court ruled that the nation was “indestructible” and that states could not unilaterally secede. The court left open the possibility that a state could leave through “revolution” or with the consent of the other states but rejected the idea that a state could simply vote its way out.
Hugh Spitzer, a retired University of Washington law professor who began studying separatist movements in law school, laid out a possible path through a treaty negotiated by the president and ratified by two-thirds of the Senate. But that would take decades and require momentum driven by more than a single political moment.
Engelson said the second Trump administration had convinced him that conversations about separation could no longer remain theoretical.
“We’re in an abusive relationship with the federal government,” he said. “Divorce is a valid response.”
Lincoln Financial Field has been renamed “Philadelphia Stadium” for the duration of the event. In addition to five group stage games, the city will host a Round of 16 game on July 4.
On Friday night, the U.S. national team got its World Cup started with a bang: a 4-1 win over Paraguay on home soil.
// Timestamp 06/14/26 10:15pm
Philadelphia was the star in its World Cup debut
Ecuadorian fans react at a missed scoring chance against Ivory Coast during Sunday’s World Cup match. David Maialetti / Staff Photographer
It took 96 years, but the most sacred version of the beautiful game came to Philadelphia.
Both the city and the match met the moment.
Extra public transportation, hydration stations, and modest traffic framed an evening of graceful and powerful football, the kind every other nation reveres except ours.
Amid the spectacle of team jerseys, flags, and team benches covered by vibrant roofs identifying the sides in national colors, the grass was the star. The stadium’s normal turf is a ragged Bermuda thatched with 5% plastic to withstand the cleated NFL rhinoceroses who usually play there.
For the World Cup, it was transformed into a flawless pitch, golf-course quality ryegrass and bluegrass, the sort of surface you could imagine Jason Kelce lying on his back and making snow angels.
Viewed through an international lens, even a soccer game this insignificant still was the most significant sporting event in the history of the city. A town that has seen two World Series titles and a Stanley Cup won within its borders has never hosted anything that riveted folks on six of the continents.
What comes close? Maybe Rocky Marciano, when he knocked out Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952, and won the heavyweight championship. Maybe not.
Long wait at NRG Station following Philly World Cup match
Soccer fans wait to enter NRG Station outside Lincoln Financial Field following Sunday night’s World Cup match.Michelle
Hundreds of soccer fans waited outside NRG station, a bottleneck at the turnstiles not appearing to break apart anytime soon. Fans chatted in Spanish, sat on plantersm and leaned against yellow gates waiting for entry into the train station.
A SEPTA worker who asked not to be identify said there were already almost 1,500 fans in the platform, so people had to weight until it clears out.
Meanwhile, Ubers to City Hall were ranging between $70 to $78 a ride. On a normal night, they’d run about $15.
Fans hurry to their cars, trains, and buses as storms move into Philly
Fans wait outside SEPTA’s NRG Station near the stadium following Ivory Coast’s victory over Ecuador Sunday night.Michelle Myers
Fans hustle to their cars in South Philly as lighting can be seen in the distance.
For subway riders trying to move closer to the station, the wait might be lengthy, as hundreds of of Ecuadorian fans await by the doors for their turn to get it.
The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch for Philadelphia and the surrounding counties Sunday evening that will remain in effect until 1 a.m. Monday morning.
Along with lightning and rain, forecasters say wind guts up to 60 miles per hour are possible, as is quarter-sized hail and potentially a tornado.
Over at FIFA’s Fan Festival at Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park,, crowds walked along Girard Avenue and Kelly Drive up to Fairmount to access rideshare pickup zones and the Philly PHLASH.
Crowds are funneled to these roads to stay on main thoroughfares, where many impromptu street vendors awaited to sell water and snacks and merchandise. Ice cream trucks also took this as a hint to set up shop.
At Pennsylvania and Fairmount, SEPTA had additional 32 and 48 Busses waiting as additional transportation and were waiting to fill up in order to take the maximum amount of passengers. A total of 4 buses were at the intersection waiting to take passengers at one point.
Police were stationed at various exits and intersections near the festival.
Ivory Coast defeats Ecuador in first-ever Philly World Cup match
Ivory Coast’s Amad Diallo is congratulated by teammates after scoring the lone goal in a 1-0 victory over Ecuador Sunday in Philly.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Amad Diallo will go down in the annals of Philadelphia sports history as the first goalscorer in a World Cup hosted in the City of Brotherly Love. More importantly, his first-time shot in the 90th minute sealed three points in Ivory Coast’s Group E opener against Ecuador on a beautiful night for soccer inside Lincoln Financial Field.
He broke the hearts of a pro-Ecuadorian crowd of 68,274 who sang, cheered and for some even cried to take part in a game that is arguably the biggest sporting event the venue has ever held.
Next up for Ivory Coast, a trip to Toronto to face Germany on Saturday (4 p.m., Fox29), before making their return to Philadelphia to take on World Cup first-timers Curacao on June 25 (4 p.m., FS1).
Ecuador is also back in action this Saturday against Curacao in Kansas City (8 p.m., FS1)
Thousands of cheering fans bathed in stadium lights at Lincoln Financial Field could been seen through a gap between stadium walls from across the street at Stateside Live!
Inside the food court a sea of yellow shirts populated the tables and bars. As Ivory Coast scored, a small but rowdy crew cheered loudly, pumped fists in the air and slapped each other as Ecuador fans sighed.
“Ivory Coast! Ivory Coast! Ivory Coast!” the crew chanted inside, through the doors and out on the patio. They passed two people dressed in green and orange, the two groups screamed excitedly at each other, and the original chanters went on their way through the patio.
Fans also celebrated Ivory Coast’s 1-0 victory outside FIFA’s Fan Festival at Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park.
With the final whistle, thousands of people – some cheering after an Ivory Coast win, others with their heads hung low after the Ecuadorian loss – walked in calm crowds to the exit.
Within half an hour, crowds walked back to their cars, rideshare pickup zones, and SEPTA and PHLASH bus stops with no issue.
As opposing teams fans walked by each other they shook hands, laughed, and went about their night. Just an hour before, Lemon Hill was shaking with horns blasting and fans screaming.
Now the neighborhood is returning to a calm quiet, before the party eventually picks up again during the next World Cup match.
A resounding “No” echoed through the stadium as Ecuadorian fans covered their faces in disbelieve as Ivory Coast took a 1-0 lead in their World Cup matchup in South Philly.
Ivory Coast fans, scattered across the stadium amid a sea of yellow, screamied with emotion after Amad Diallo’s strike.
Ecuador and Ivory Coast remain scoreless, but fans remain confident
Ahmadou Dia holds the Ivory Coast flag above him at FIFA Fan Festival on Sunday, June 14, 2026.Henry Savage
With the score still 0-0, Ecuador and Ivory Coast fans at FIFA Fan Festival were just as confident as they started the match.
“The first half was 50-50 in terms of possession. It was a great first half,” said Ivory Coast-born Philadelphian Ahmadou Dia. “But the second half, we will for sure beat them.”
At halftime, crowds at Fan Festival flocked to the bathrooms, food vendors, and interactive exhibits to pass the time as DJs on the main stage kept the remaining crowd jumping.
Martin Alfaro, who has Honduran heritage, said he’s cheering for Ecuador, as Honduras doesn’t usually qualify for the World Cup. While Ecuador didn’t seal the deal in the first half, he’s optimistic they’ll score in the second. But, if they do, he’s preparing for the entire Ecuadorian fan section to “lose their minds.”
“I love that it’s 0-0 still, and I think, we’re hoping for a goal, but I’m afraid that if Ecuador does score, everyone’s going to lose their minds celebrating,” Alfaro said.
Ecuador fans also flood famed German beer hall in Philly
Soccer fans watch Ecuador take on the Ivory Coast at Brauhaus Schmitz on South Street Sunday.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
With the score still zero-zero the Caddick family eagerly watched the screen and rang red, black and yellow cowbells at Brauhaus Schmitz on South Street when Ecuador closed in on the net.
Karina Caddick, a 56-year-old Horsham resident, was born in Ecuador, just outside Guayaquil, a port city and the country’s largest metropolis. She moved when she was only one year old, but her family instilled in her the importance of soccer to the national culture.
To watch her native country’s team compete on her home country’s soil is quite special, she said.
“It’s unbelievable that we’re able to watch here,” Caddick said. “To be in Philadelphia and see all the yellow shirts, it’s incredible.”
Seeing all the Ecuador fans on the train into the city on Sunday and exploring the tourist attractions around Center City and Old City was especially inspiring, she said.
“It’s cool. It’s like what are the odds that Ecuador is playing in the city that we live,” said 23-year-old Kayla Caddick, a recent Temple graduate and Old City resident.
Not everyone gets the hype.
“Why does everyone like soccer so much,” one young man asked his friend as he walked down South Street outside Brauhaus.
For those with familial attachments to one of the participating countries outside the U.S., the answer is obvious.
“Soccer is everything to Ecuador. It is the main sport. It’s their spirit. It’s what calls them,” said Karina Caddick.
At the World Cup, picking $20 beer over $20 chicken tenders
The price of concessions at Lincoln Financial Field for Sunday’s World Cup match.Michelle My
With fries and beer in the $20 range, fans are having to pick between eating or drinking at the stadium.
For Ecuadorian resident Sebastian Muller, 49, the idea of spending $19.49 on chicken tenders feels ridiculous, and paying almost $7 for a water that will cost him less than a dollar back home, even more.
Beer on the other hand, he couldn’t do without.
He put aside his hunger and bought a $20.85 craft beer.
“Prices are really high, but I still had to buy the beer,” Muller said. “It’s tradition, you can’t watch a match without the beer.”
The sentiment resonated with Jared Chiliquinga, 31, and his brother Rommel, 41.
They came from New Jersey and are used to the MetLife Stadium food prices, they said.
“I usually pay $10 for a can,” Jared said. “But what we can’t watch the game without beer, even if we have to pay more than $50 for two cans,” Rommel added.
The siblings opted for no water or food so they don’t miss out on the beer.
Cynthia Argueta, 29, was not into following their steps, but also didn’t want to give up on the beer.
The New Jersey resident spent nearly $40 to buy herself a hot dog, a bottle of water, and a beer.
“The hot dog tastes very basic,” Argueta said. “but I am starving so I have to eat, and they don’t let you bring water so I have to buy it here.”
Philadelphia finally gets its big World Cup moment, and looks amazing
Soccer fans cheer at Lincoln Financial Field with the Philly skyline in the background. Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
IRVINE, Calif. – As the minutes ticked down toward kickoff, I was sitting in my hotel room while on the road covering the U.S. team. Then a moment came that I’ve been waiting years to see.
Soccer fans cheer during the national anthems before the World Cup match between Ecuador and Ivory Coast.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
I still remember the day 15 years ago when FIFA punched the U.S. in the gut and gave the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Though it didn’t take long to learn how much alleged bribery and corruption there was, that specific moment is still vivid in my mind, especially for those of us who’d gathered at Tir na Nóg in Center City to watch the announcement.
It would be another eight years before the combined bid of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico finally prevailed to bring the 2026 tournament here, in 2018. And Philadelphia wasn’t picked as a host city until four years after that, in 2022.
Now, another four years later still, the culmination has finally arrived.
Ecuador takes the field ahead of their World Cup match against Ivory Coast in Philadelphia. David Maialetti / Staff Photographer
I know not everything has gone perfectly, including the last few days for residents around the Fan Fest site. But I could tell in recent months that on the whole, the city was really embracing this moment on the global stage that’s unlike any there’s been before.
I could tell that despite all the challenges posed by brutal visa rules for visitors and exorbitant ticket prices for everyone, Philadelphians were ready to open their arms and welcome the world to town.
Now the world is finally here, and the party is only just beginning.
Referee Francois Letexier gives Ivory Coast’s Seko Fofana (6) a yellow card during Sunday’s game against Ecuador. Matt Rourke
The referee for this game, François Letexier of France, is one of the sport’s top officials. He has done lots of big games in his career, including in the French league, the Champions League, the Olympics, last year’s Club World Cup, and the 2024 European Champions League final.
But he wasn’t supposed to be doing this game.
It was originally signed to England’s Michael Oliver, who would also know plenty of Ecuador and Ivory Coast’s players from his years in the Premier League. But FIFA announced on Friday that Oliver is injured.
The announcement said it’s a minor injury, and Oliver won’t be sidelined for long. But it’s still a reminder that the referee has to run just as much in the heat and humidity as the players do.
Letexier has a notable side job away from soccer: he’s a court officer in the French city of Rennes, where he lives. (Maybe he’ll find South Philadelphia a little familiar in a certain way.)
FIFA selected 52 referees, 88 assistant referees, and 30 video officials from around the world for this World Cup. Eight are from the U.S., with Philadelphia’s Kathryn Nesbitt among the assistants.
And as you may have heard, Somalia’s Omar Artan had to withdraw from the tournament after the U.S. government barred him from entering the country. Though FIFA notably did not reassign him to games in Canada or Mexico, it announced Sunday that he’ll get his full tournament pay.
At the FIFA Fan Festival, an Ecuadorian singer and good vibes
Ecuadorian fans watch Sunday night’s World Cup match at the FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill Park.Henry Savage / Staff
Ecuadorian singer Johann Vera commanded center stage at FIFA Fan Festival on Sunday, performing directly before the 7 p.m. kick off between Ecuador and Côte d’Ivoire at Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia.
In Lemon Hill, Vera roared to the crowd, “¿Listos?” and received resounding cheers of joy in return from the crowd. Fans blared horns across the sea of thousands of yellow jerseys, showing an exceptional turnout for Ecuadorian fans. Small pockets of bright orange jerseys signaling Côte d’Ivoire fans made their presence known among the crowd.
“I thought there were more Ivorians in Philadelphia but I guess not,” said Swann Nemin, a Temple University student from Côte d’Ivoire, visiting Fan Festival with her two Ivorian friends Ornella Kouame and Naïke M. and their friend, Phoebe Mattes, who they joke isn’t from Côte d’Ivoire but is “Ivorian by preference.”
The World Cup brought the friend group together to dance and celebrate in a festival of people from all over the world. “I feel like it’s not only people from Ecuador but also people from South America that are cheering for Ecuador, in the same way that people from all over Africa are repping Côte d’Ivoire,” Nemin said.
“We’re just really happy to be out here celebrating,” Kouame said. “Even if we don’t win, honestly, we’re just here to dance.”
Aleyda Alvarado, a Fishtown resident originally from Mexico, said that while Mexico isn’t playing tonight and she admits she isn’t the biggest soccer fan, the World Cup gets her and her friends out to celebrate the heart of soccer.
“Everyone is here from different countries, but during the World Cup, we’re all just fans,” Alvarado said before kick-off. “That’s how soccer bring people together, and what makes me love it.”
After the 5 p.m. SEPTA Orange Line express was taken out of service at Race-Vine because a door wouldn’t close, the 5:15 local train was inundated with Ecuador enthusiasts when it hit the City Hall.
The cars were full to bursting by the time they hit Walnut-Locust, yellow jerseys shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest, men and women alike. As the train pulled out a song arose, full throat and deafening in the hot, cramped subway car:
“¡Vamos, vamos ecuatorianos, esta noche tenemos que ganar!”
Or:
“Let’s go, let’s go Ecuadorians, tonight we have to win!”
As the throng exited up the stairs of NRG Station, their hearts and voices swelled again.
Giant Lincoln Financial Field signs on stadium’s roof also covered
Normally there are two giant Lincoln Financial Field signs facing skyward on the roof of the Linc. As Fox's cameras show, they had to be covered for the World Cup, along with everything else. pic.twitter.com/eNCitublcd
At the Linc, issues with expensive tickets purchased on resale websites
Jayden Quezada, 17, and his parents came to Philadelphia from Bensalem hoping for an Ecuadorian victory. But they were turned away at the door.
“They said there were problems with our tickets because they weren’t on the FIFA app,” Quezada said. “We have been trying to fix it for the last four hours.”
Last night, the trio spend $4,350 to get three tickets through the TickPick app. But, by the time they arrived to the stadium at 1 p.m., the tickets were yet to be transferred to their FIFA app.
As his mom passed on the phone, trying to reach a TickPick representative, Quezada fears his parents won’t be able to see their national team.
“They have been the biggest fans since before I was born and they don’t get to go back often because of work,” Quezada said. “We are probably going to try to get a refund but missing the game would be really sad because we were looking forward to feeling the Ecuadorian pride.”
The Quezada’s weren’t the only ones struggling. In a line of over 50 people, fans waited for help with their failed tickets.
Spanish speakers Monica Rojas, 22, and her friend Jose Avil, were concussed on what to do after the ticket office explained the problem with their ticket in English.
The pair drove two hours from New York, after buying a pair of tickets on Stubhub for $2,000 including parking.
After a FIFA volunteer interpreter intervine, the pair found out their tickets had been refunded, despite having a fifa confirmation email.
“I don’t know what we are doing to do,” Avil said. “It feels defeating, now all we have is the tickets and the desire to watch them.”
‘I’m actually an Eagles fan’: World Cup fans hit the tailgating lots in Philly
Three months from now, the South Philadelphia Sports Complex will be covered in Eagles green as fans hit the tailgating lots to prepare for their home opener in September. But, for now, the lots surrounding the temporarily renamed Philadelphia Stadium were engulfed with fans from Ecuador getting ready for Philly’s first World Cup match.
Although the environment looked a little different from Philly’s typical football Sundays, the tailgating culture was still alive and well on a more international level.
“I’m actually an Eagles fan,” said 18-year-old Ecuador native Natalia Vegas. “I’ve been here a couple times to watch the football games. I’ve tailgated once. It’s also crazy. Everybody is so prideful to be Eagles fans. So it’s kind of the same thing, being prideful as an Ecuador fan.”
With Ecuador facing off against the Ivory Coast for the first of six matches in Philly, both international and local soccer fans came in hordes to witness the historic sporting event making its way to the city.
“It’s been amazing,” said Ivory Coast native Abdoul Ouattra. “Everybody has been really nice to me. I’ve seen a bunch of Ecuadorians. I thought I was going to be intimidated but they were quite welcoming and said whatever happens, we’re friends. So, I love that.”
There is no length Ecuadorian native Pacho Flores wouldn’t go for his national team.
Despite living in New York City, Flores, 62, and his family of eight paid $650 dollars each to watch “La tri” play in Philly.
“It’s the most beautiful thing in the world,” Flores said. “We have to follow the team to every game. It’s a blessing to have them play so close.”
Despite the 90 degree weather, Flores and his son, Alex, danced wearing a thickly knit Diablo Uma masks — an indigenous protective spiritual figure from the highlands of Ecuador— to represent his native town of Cañar.
“It’s not that hot inside the mask, and it’s worth it because we have to win, at least 3 to 0,” Alex said wiping sweat of his for head. “Either way, we will still live the team,” Flores added.
No matter the score, the family won’t have too much time to celebrate. They leave New York City tomorrow morning to pack for the next Ecuadorian game in Kansas City Saturday against Curaçao.
Out front of Stateside Live, a group of Ecuador fans dressed in regional traditional clothing held their own mini flash mob ahead of the first World Cup match in Philly.
Among the dancers was 22-year-old Juliana Padilla, who stepped in last minute to join the flash mob from New York. After days of practicing, Padilla was excited to finally show off Ecuador’s culture ahead of the team’s World Cup match.
“We wanted to represent Latin America,” Padilla said. “We’re wearing the regional, traditional gear. We wanted to bring it to the people here to feel connected with their roots.”
Four hours ahead of tonight’s Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador match at a rebranded Linc, Ecuadorian fans arrive at NRG station chanting: “Let’s go Ecuadorians for we must win tonight.”
Four hours ahead of the Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador match, Ecuadorian fans arrive at NRG station chanting: “Let's go Ecuadorians for we must win tonight.” Via @PhillyInquirerpic.twitter.com/ls3vuiKdKs
Thunderstorms in Philly could interrupt tonight’s World Cup match
Ecuadorian fans flood Lincoln Financial Field Sunday night for the city’s first-ever World Cup match. David Maialetti / Staff Photographer
Severe thunderstorms could make their way through the Philadelphia region later this evening, potentially catching the tail end of tonight’s World Cup match between Ivory Coast and Ecuador.
The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch for Philadelphia and the surrounding counties Sunday evening that will remain in effect until 1 a.m. Monday morning.
The most organized swath of thunderstorms are expected to move through the area between 9 p.m. and midnight, potentially bringing severe gusty winds and heavy rain, according to Jessica Storm, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Mt. Holly office.
A tornado is also possible, as it isolated hail up to the size of a quarter.
FIFA will pause play if there is a lightning strike within eight miles of the stadium. The match will remain paused for 30 minutes, with any subsequent lightning strikes resetting the clock.
The FIFA Fan Fest at Lemon Hill Park in Fairmount would also be forced to close if lightning is detected within an eight-mile radius. Fans would need to exit the grounds and move to a safe location, FIFA said in a statement, and could re-enter after 30 minutes if no additional lightning is detected.
IRVINE, Calif. — Since the game ended at 2 in the morning Philadelphia time, you might have been asleep when Australia’s win over Turkey ended.
Then again, if you’re enough of a soccer diehard, you might well have stayed up to be sure you watched all four of Saturday’s games live.
Regardless, the Socceroos’ 2-0 upset in Vancouver blows the United States’ group wide open. Now those two teams have three points each, with the U.S. in first place on goal difference by +3 to +2. (That’s what made Gio Reyna’s late strike in the 4-1 win over Paraguay actually important, not just a cherry on top.)
It also makes Friday’s U.S.-Australia game in Seattle an even bigger deal than it already was. American fans have been waiting ever since the draw to watch their team in one of the nation’s best soccer cities, and now the game has huge stakes.
The winner will be in the driver’s seat to take first place. And if the U.S. prevails, it will only need a draw against Turkey in the June 25 finale back in Los Angeles to win the group.
Curacao players celebrate after scoring during the World Cup Group E soccer match between Germany and Curacao in Houston, Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)Eric Gay / AP
If you just saw Curaçao score a tying goal against Germany, you need to understand just how wild it was.
CURAÇAO SCORES ITS FIRST-EVER FIFA WORLD CUP GOAL 🇨🇼
The island nation, a former Netherlands territory, is the smallest country ever to qualify for a World Cup by both population (just over 150,000 people) and land mass (171 square miles).
Germany, by contrast, is a four-time World Cup champion and three-time European champion.
Curaçao’s squad is built mainly of players in global diasporas who have family roots on the island. None of the 26 men play in the world’s five best domestic leagues: the top divisions in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France. They pulled off an upset in qualifying too, with a scoreless tie at Jamaica (including Union goalkeeper Andre Blake) on the last day that clinched their World Cup ticket.
Germany, by contrast, has 25 of its 26 players in those circuits — and the other one plays for a bit team in Turkey after many years in the League and Bundesliga.
As I was writing this post, watching the game on TV while on the road covering the U.S. team, Germany just retook the lead. But I promise, those big sections of Blue Sharks fans at the stadium in Houston are having the time of their lives. And everyone around North and Central America who appreciates Curaçao’s underdog story is rooting for them.
What to know if you’re going to the FIFA Fan Festival
Soccer fans gather to watch Mexico play South Africa on a giant screen during the opening day of the FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Philadelphia.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
A crowd packed with thousands of cheering fans, the 60-foot-wide screen playing the latest fiery matchup, and dozens upon dozens of food vendors await the FIFA Fan Festival, the cheapest and most immersive way to enjoy the 2026 World Cup in Philadelphia.
The Fan Festival is open daily to 15,000 fans, for free, to roam the million square feet of festival grounds that have transformed quaint Lemon Hill into an almost unrecognizable extravaganza of global soccer.
The main spectacle is the 60-foot screen that takes over the main stage in Lemon Hill, where the majority of fans will congregate to watch the match. But, throughout the festival are multiple smaller screens playing the game, so fans don’t miss a moment when they roam for food, fun, or the bathroom.
“Even if you’re not a soccer fan, you can still come out and have a great time,” said Michael DelBene, executive producer of FIFA Fan Festival for Philadelphia Soccer 2026. “You can come and listen to music or eat delicious food, or shop.”
The festival is intended for fans of all ages and promises to be kid and family friendly.
An active Union player finally played in a World Cup game
Scotland’s Lawrence Shankland (20), and Haiti’s Danley Jean Jacques (17) battle for the ball during the World Cup Group C soccer match between Haiti and Scotland in Foxborough, Mass., near Boston, Saturday, June 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)Martin Meissner
Halfway through the Union’s 17th season, midfielder Danley Jean Jacques became the first active player from the club to play in a World Cup.
Jean Jacques started for Haiti on Saturday night against Scotland in Foxborough, Mass., in what was also Haiti’s first men’s World Cup game since 1974 and Scotland’s first since 1998.
Haiti lost the game, 1-0, but played well, outshooting Scotland 15-9 and holding a majority of the possession. Jean Jacques was often at the center of the action, with four tackles, two clearances, one interception, eight duels won in 12 contested, and 44-of-53 passing.
The 26-year-old from the small coastal town of Petit-Goâve is in his third season with the Union. He has been a regular with Les Grenadiers since 2023, earning his 31st cap for the country in this game.
Jean Jacques is the third active Union player to be on a World Cup team. The first was right back Olivier Mbaizo, who made Cameroon’s squad four years ago but did not play.
Members of the Ivory Coast national football team react while watching the Sixers Stixers drum line perform following their practice at Subaru Park in Chester, Pa. on Friday, June 12, 2026Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The waterfronts of Chester and Wilmington are roughly 5,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Abidjan, the Ivory Coast’s largest city. But, for at least three weeks during the FIFA World Cup, the Ivorian men’s national team will call the banks of the Delaware River home.
Les Éléphants hosted an open training session at Subaru Park on Friday evening, two days before they begins their World Cup campaign with a match against Ecuador at Philadelphia Stadium (aka Lincoln Financial Field) on Sunday (7 p.m., FS1).
Ivory Coast is the only nation scheduled to play at the Linc twice during the World Cup’s group stage, and it is the only team that will stay and train in the Delaware Valley during the tournament.
The team has set up its base camp at Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington and will train at Subaru Park in Chester.
Ivory Coast’s open training session Friday evening was the second free event it has staged for the Philadelphia community. Les Éléphants beat Union II, 2-0, in a tuneup friendly on Monday that was open to the public.
Ecuador fans take over the Art Museum steps before World Cup kickoff
Ecuadorian soccer fans show support for their national team ahead of Sunday’s game against Ivory Coast.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
After decades living in New Jersey, Ecuadorian native Magaly Moreira, 60, said she had never seen such a display of her country’s people.
“It fills me with happiness, pride, and so much joy,” Moreira said, Ecuadorian flags painted on her face. “It’s our opportunity for us and the players to represent Ecuador.”
She was one of thousands of Ecuadorians attending “El banderazo Ecuatoriano” outside the Art Museum. An event organized by group +593 (the country’s international calling code) that made fans put aside the traditional “Ecuadorian hour” to show up more than on time to support their team.
“Ecuador, Ecuador, Ecuador, vamos Ecuador,” resounded through the Rocky steps as the fans chanted, many sporting the Ecuadorian soccer jersey.
Defeating the heat, a crowd of all ages — from newborns to seniors — cheered and danced to the traditional highland dance “Zapateando Juyayay,” showcasing pride for their country, waving flags, and hugging each other with hope.
With a broken leg and dragging a wheelchair, Darío Galarza and his friend Marco Gallardo flew in from Ecuador two days ago to support their home team. They did not expect to see such an outpouring for their national team.
“The U.S. is accessible for us because we share the same currency and it isn’t far, but we didn’t expect to see so many people,” Gallardo said.
For Galarza, skipping the World Cup wasn’t an option. After undergoing surgery for his leg last month, he made it a point to be as recovered as possible to fly to Philadelphia.
“I guess it’s true, you will always find an Ecuadorian in every corner of the world,” Galarza said. “At least I knew it was going to be me because I wasn’t missing this for the world.”
As a man inside a guinea pig costume began a conga line around the Rocky statue, 77-year-old Ecuadorian Francisco Castellanos couldn’t help but reflect on the wonder of seeing so many Ecuadorians together and the weight of representation.
“There are so many of us here that now we must win,” Castellanos said. “Whatever it takes,” he added, as the crowd erupted chanting the Ecuadorian national anthem.
Everything you need to know about the World Cup in Philly
The first World Cup game in Philadelphia is Sunday night.
Nine nations will compete in five group stage matches over the next two weeks, plus two more in a knockout game on July 4. Here’s what you need to know about those countries — and what those fans need to know about Philly …
Former Union announcer JP Dellacamera will call Philadelphia’s first World Cup game.Fox Sports
The first of six World Cup matches will take place Sunday night in Philadelphia, with Ivory Coast taking on Ecuador (7 pm., FS1) in Group E action.
Group E also includes Germany, which most experts predict will make it out of the group stage. So tonight’s match could be an early look at who finishes in second place (no offense to Curacao, the smallest country to ever qualify for the World Cup, edging out Iceland).
It seems like Ivory Coast will be the natural team for fans in the Delaware Valley to root for, outside the U.S. It’s the only country scheduled to play two matches in Philadelphia (they’ll take on Curacao on June 25), has made Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington it’s home away from home, and is training at Subaru Park in Chester.
VALLADOLID, Spain — As Pope Leo XIV prepared last month to issue a major statement about the perils of artificial intelligence, he briefly turned his attention to an evening WhatsApp message about a car part.
One of the pope’s close friends, Armando Jesús Lovera, had sent Leo an image of a flashing sign on his car’s dashboard warning about the state of the vehicle’s catalytic converter.
“What’s going on with the Citroën?” the pope texted back.
“It’s dying,” Lovera responded.
“Is it running or is it stopped somewhere?” the pope asked.
Lovera informed “Bob” — the name he uses for the pope in his contacts — that he was on the way back to his home city in Spain after an event to promote his new book, From Roberto to Leo, about their friendship.
“How much further do you have?” the pope asked, in an exchange Lovera showed me on his phone. Then the pope implored his friend to “keep a close eye on the engine temperature” and to “drive carefully.” Finally, the Holy Father signed off with a word of fatherly advice to Lovera, an editor at a Catholic publishing group, whom he has known for decades.
“Sometimes at low speed it doesn’t run well,” the pope wrote. “But at a higher speed, the oil flows normally.”
Armando Jesús Lovera in Valladolid, Spain, at the local headquarters of the Augustinian order.Gianfranco Tripodo for The New York Times
Lovera, 52, and Leo, 70, have been close friends since they lived together for seven years in Peru, in a formation house, a live-in community for Catholics considering a life dedicated to the faith. Leo, then a missionary priest known by his pre-papal name of Robert Prevost, ran the house.
Over the decades — as Lovera moved to Spain and Prevost became a bishop, cardinal and then pope — the two have stayed tight.
Lovera and his family visited the pope for five days in July, and they will join the pope again in Rome this August, Lovera said.
“To play tennis,” he said, “to feed the fish.”
This past weekend, as Leo began his weeklong visit to Spain with a tight schedule of events, he found time to send his old friend a greeting in a text message. “We said hello,” Lovera said.
Lovera, left, and the future Pope Leo in Orlando, Fla., in 2000.Armando Jesús Lovera via The New York Times
Originally from a Roman Catholic family in Iquitos, a town in the Peruvian part of the Amazon, Lovera moved to Colombia with the goal of becoming an Augustinian missionary. There, in 1991, he first met the man who would become Leo; soon after, Lovera moved with other Augustinians into the formation house, in Trujillo, Peru.
Leo taught the small, tight-knit group spiritual exercises and also how to manage money — “because you cannot give what you don’t have,” Lovera said, in an interview at the vast Augustinian headquarters in Valladolid, the city where he lives, a two-hour drive north of Madrid.
“He used to tell me that a community isn’t made of superheroes, but of brothers who decide together what is best,” Lovera added.
The two shared a love of music, mathematics and long road trips.
“We’ve been travel buddies,” said Lovera, who became the group’s driver, even though he didn’t have a driver’s license. The future pope filled their long hauls with car talk, expounding on how to drive cars through flooded streets. When he once spent the night at the Lovera family’s modest home, they had no bed to offer him, only a sofa.
It was so hot and humid that the future pope elected to sleep in a rocking chair. “My mother was dying of embarrassment,” Lovera recalled.
The future pope officiating the church wedding of the Loveras in Trujillo, Peru, in 2013.Armando Jesús Lovera via The New York Times
Leo left Peru in 1999 after being elected to lead the Augustinian Order in the Midwest, and soon after, Lovera decided to leave the missionary track. Community living, he decided, wasn’t for him, and he wanted to do more to protest against the economic policies of the Peruvian government at the time. He also didn’t take well to an order to travel to Rome to study the teachings of St. Augustine: “I wanted to be more independent,” he said.
Lovera said Leo had talked to him about the change and, instead of giving him a teacher’s lecture, had offered a friend’s understanding.
“Don’t feel obligated,” Lovera recalled his friend telling him, emphasizing that a holy life could be lived in different ways. Mostly, Lovera recalled, they joked about the Y2K bug that people at the time feared would wipe out the world’s computers at the turn of the millennium.
Soon after, Lovera moved to Spain for a job with a Catholic publisher. Leo later became the global leader of the Augustinian Order, a job based in Rome that required constant international travel, including to Spain, where he visited Lovera.
Lovera would often visit Chicago and catch up with the future pope’s family, including Leo, who happened to be there in November 2004. At that meeting, Lovera told his friend about a young Peruvian woman in Spain who had caught his eye. But when he had asked her out, Lovera explained, she had told him only that she would think about it — and mentioned a teddy bear that she coveted.
“I told him, ‘I have to find a teddy,’” Lovera recounted. The men hit the road, driving to malls looking for the right stuffed toy, finally finding what Lovera was looking for in a Target near New Lenox, Illinois.
The Loveras with Pope Leo at the Vatican in 2025.Armando Jesús Lovera via The New York Times
Back in Spain, the woman accepted the gift but initially rejected Lovera. He persisted, though, and they eventually married in a civil ceremony with the future pope as their witness.
In 2010, Leo landed in Spain for meetings with Spanish Augustinians, and Lovera picked him up at the airport. It was the day of the final of the soccer World Cup, and the future pope — a professed Real Madrid fan — decided that they should pull over to watch the match. In a pizza bar, they watched Spain defeat the Netherlands with a late goal in overtime, and both men chanted, “I am Spanish,” with the crowd, Lovera said.
For Lovera, the pope was his co-pilot. In 2012, for instance, Leo drove with Lovera to check out a house in Valladolid that Lovera and his wife wanted to buy. “I have never stopped consulting him,” Lovera said.
In December 2013, after the Loveras’ civil wedding, Leo married the couple in a church in Trujillo, and he later traveled to see them after the birth of their two daughters, whom he baptized. The girls, now 9 and 11, don’t quite understand that he is pope, Lovera said, and “see Roberto as part of the family.”
Once they reached school age, Lovera began to call his friend from the car when driving to pick the girls up from school, he said. When Leo became pope, those frequent calls became texts, but they remained in regular contact, Lovera said.
Last May, he asked the pope’s permission to write a book about their friendship, and the pope approved. “I trust you. You are my friend,” the pope said, according to Lovera.
In October, they posed together with the published book, which highlights their efforts to build solidarity among marginalized Peruvians in a time of upheaval.
Last month, Leo mentioned to Lovera that his brother, John Prevost, still called the pontiff from Chicago for information technology support.
“And Roberto says, ‘John, I’m the pope,’” Lovera recalled.
“‘Oh, sorry, pope,’” the pope’s brother responded, according to Lovera. “‘My computer is broken.’”
On his own calls to the pope, Lovera said that he didn’t talk about tech or politics or about the church’s future. Instead, he said, “I talk about cars!”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino is now 64, and he’s five years removed from the criminal justice system.
The onetime alleged head of Philadelphia’s underworld is also enjoying a second act that few could have predicted: podcaster, social-media personality, and cheesesteak entrepreneur.
To start, family friend Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri gave him a mic and camera for a new second act — complete with cheesesteaks.
As Merlino opens his cheesesteak shop on the Wildwood boardwalk, The Inquirer’s Mike Klein dives into the world of “MobTube” and how Merlino’s new career fits into the true-crime subculture.
Through July 19, Lemon Hill will be bumping with activity as thousands of people gather to party and watch World Cup games for free.
But residents in the area, who were given a little more than three weeks to prepare, say this once-in-a-lifetime experience is all happening at their expense.
In their own words: “Everybody’s feeling pretty resentful, maybe cautiously optimistic, but also just not feeling respected as residents,” said one Fairmount resident and local neighborhood group organizer.
Traffic issues: There is confusion surrounding road closures and parking limitations, pushing drivers onto narrow side streets and making it harder for residents to find parking spots near home.
The city’s response: Officials say they are adding signage, adjusting traffic controls, and working with rideshare companies to address access issues. “More work remains to be done,” said Councilmember Jeffery Young.
Independence Blue Cross launched a policy designed to move care into lower-cost surgery centers and away from hospitals and clinics that can generate payments twice as high for the same treatment.
A former Philadelphia police officer who pepper-sprayed several people on I-676 during the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder has pleaded no contest to assault and related crimes.
Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity lawfully refused to pay more than $1 million in security upgrade bills for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s private home, the attorney general’s office said Friday.
🎤 Here’s my colleague Tommy Rowan with a look back at the Philadelphia Music Festival.
Remember Made in America? Have you been to the Roots Picnic?
Today we take for granted that Philadelphia has an international reputation for hosting major music festivals.
But in a post-World War II America, the city simply wanted to create something for the kids that offered a distraction from war, and also helped celebrate Philly’s legendary music scene.
Leaders called it the Philadelphia Music Festival. The Inquirer, which sponsored the event, called it a “symposium of the arts.” Here’s the story.
❓Pop quiz
Herr’s just debuted three new limited-time, Philly-inspired flavors.
Which of the following is NOT one of the new flavors?
Cheers to Elinda F. Kiss who correctly guessed Saturday’s answer: Mole Street. The historical holdout in the heart of Center City is getting redeveloped and losing its affordable houses.
P.S. Shoutout to Elinda and others for kindly pointing out some missing letters in that puzzle. “Must be a typo or I did not have enough coffee,” Jim Diamond said (LOL). 😅 Sorry about that, and thanks for being good sports.
Members of the Ivory Coast national soccer team react while watching the Sixers’ drum line perform following their practice at Subaru Park on Friday. Ivory Coast is the only team with a base camp in the Delaware Valley during this summer’s World Cup.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
One more musical thing: The new Bruce Springsteen museum is a giant scrapbook that validates New Jersey’s role as a music incubator, columnist Inga Saffron writes.
👋🏽 Thanks for starting your day with The Inquirer. Have a great one.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
Andy L. was a 19-year-old philosophy student at the University of Southampton, in England, when he first experienced a general malaise that left him with persistent headaches and feeling like he had a constant hangover.
A visit to the university’s health clinic yielded a normal blood test; the doctor suggested Andy’s ailments were due to a bumpy transition to university life.
But even after another normal blood test nine months later, the malaise continued. Then anxiety set in. After a panic attack, Andy returned to the doctor, who was now more emphatic that the problem was psychological. Andy was not convinced. After graduation, he hitchhiked from Britain to Ethiopia, a trip that gave him confidence he could function even as his health deteriorated.
At age 25 he began experiencing jabbing pain in his bladder after urinating. A physician said it was probably a mild urinary tract infection or, perhaps, a bladder spasm. Drink plenty of water, the doctor advised.
The following year, Andy awoke with pain in his perineum, the area that extends from the base of the scrotum to the anus, and he felt a lump deep in the tissue. His general practitioner sent him to a urologist, who diagnosed Andy with “atypical Peyronie’s disease,” a condition where plaques — sometimes painful — form in the deeper tissues under the skin of the penis, causing it to bend during erections.
The diagnosis came as a relief at the time: “I thought: ‘Oh, good, something they can give a name to,” said Andy, who spoke on the condition of partial anonymity given the sensitive nature of his medical condition.
That relief would not last. Follow-up tests over the years involved MRIs using Caverject, a drug injection into the penis that induces an erection so clinicians can assess vascular function and more clearly view the anatomy.
“It was an unpleasant experience,” Andy said. “Walking around the hospital and then in the MRI machine for 45 minutes with an erection.”
Still, the test ruled out cancer. But Andy knew his various symptoms did not fully align with Peyronie’s, partly because his pain was constant.
That was just the start of Andy’s medical odyssey — a sometimes surreal quest that led him to more than 100 doctor appointments that included urologists, gastroenterologists, psychologists, and rheumatologists. He also saw an andrologist focusing on men’s reproductive health, sexual function, and urology problems.
His physical symptoms — and extensive medical research — left him certain something biological was wrong. But the medical establishment often disagreed, leaving him questioning his own sanity and wondering if he was doomed to a life of unrelenting pain even while building a successful career and family.
“I have the feeling that I am made up of two people traveling in different directions,” he wrote in his journal. “The person who feels ill and alone, and the person with some momentum behind them.”
Constant pain
Despite the pain, Andy’s life went on. He worked as a software engineer at the BBC, where he met his future wife. The couple had three children. During this period, from about 2004 to 2010, Andy said he experienced perineal pain “all the time.”
It grew so intolerable that Andy asked his doctor about the viability of cutting out the aching lumps in his perineum. His doctor strongly advised against it.
In 2010, he saw yet another urologist. This doctor’s note described Andy’s “constant pain … which feels like someone is pulling … his penis with a wire.” In response, the urologist told Andy it was time to stop fixating on his condition.
“I strongly reassured him he does not have a serious medical condition, i.e. cancer, however, clearly he has a debilitating problem because he is very preoccupied with it,” the doctor wrote, adding that Andy had “a phenotype for chronic pain.” Finally, the doctor suggested a book on alternative healing called Teach Us to Sit Still — which, the clinician noted, he had never read.
Further demoralized, Andy did not see another specialist for five years. He began running, which offered distraction, and threw himself into work, including leading a digital consultancy and building an analytics business with his brother. He started drinking wine every night to sleep.
In 2014, he sold his analytics company and, with new private medical insurance, “embarked on another fruitless expedition” for a diagnosis. He also tried a range of treatments — various antidepressants, psychotherapy, beta-blockers, acupuncture, and a pain clinic — with little or no success. He saw a new urologist who said his condition “can’t be Peyronie’s,” but additional specialists could not find anything conclusive.
Andy grew so weary of feeling ill with no explanation he remembers thinking, “How long can I go on?”
A simple question
Then Andy began losing weight — about 14 pounds in a few months — and experienced intermittent diarrhea. He was referred to Tom Creed, a consultant gastroenterologist in Bristol.
Creed said it was clear Andy had been “traumatized” both by his painful symptoms and his experience in the medical system. “Nobody was really listening to him, and it struck me from the get-go that this was a genuine story, and he was really struggling,” Creed said.
Creed ordered a colonoscopy, which he described as “very unexciting” until the end, when a bit of low-grade inflammation in the rectum caught his eye.
“I thought, ‘it doesn’t look quite right,’” so he removed a tissue sample for biopsy. The pathologist identified something curious: a granuloma in the rectum — a foreign body surrounded by inflammatory cells.
That’s when Creed asked Andy a question no doctor ever had: “Have you traveled anywhere exotic?”
It turned out he had: nearly 30 years ago Andy spent a gap year teaching in Tanzania, where he washed and swam every day in Lake Tanganyika.
“That was the moment the penny dropped for me,” Creed said. He remembered something from medical school and, thinking it was a long shot, sent the tissue off for another test and ordered blood work to look for antibodies that could confirm a rare condition he had never seen in a patient.
Results validated Creed’s hunch: Andy had been suffering from schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms, for nearly three decades.
“Suddenly [there was] a unifying diagnosis,” Creed said.
Schistosomiasis is a “neglected tropical disease,” according to the World Health Organization, most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, where parasitic worms live in certain freshwater snails that inhabit lakes and rivers. The worms infect people by burrowing into human skin as larvae, then traveling through veins into the bloodstream. There, they pair up, migrate to the liver, bowels, or bladder, and adult females start pumping out eggs — hundreds of them — which can lodge in various organ tissues, triggering an immune response. Humans pee or poop the eggs back into the water, where the cycle begins again.
Andy had urogenital schistosomiasis, said one of his doctors, Mike Brown, a consultant physician at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. In this disease, worms can take a “wrong turn” and wind up in the genital tract, where they can get trapped in the tissue and cause the kind of pelvic pain Andy experienced, Brown said. If left untreated, the eggs continue to penetrate the tissue lining, causing inflammation and scarring that can result in kidney failure, bladder cancer, and infertility in women. Brown said that adult worms can survive for 30 years or more and continue to produce inflammation-triggering eggs.
When Andy got the phone call confirming the diagnosis, he was stunned. At 47 years old, he could finally see the path of his illness. He remembered a diagnosis of malaria in 1993 while he was living in Tanzania and spiked a 102 degree fever. The malaria test was negative, but the doctor insisted, “What else could it be?” This, Andy now believes, was most likely the acute phase of schistosomiasis.
“When Creed called, he thought he was giving me bad news, but I was over the moon,” Andy said. “Having a diagnosis overruled any feeling of unease about the parasites living inside of me.”
Following treatment with the drug praziquantel, the high level of antibodies in Andy’s blood decreased. “It’s an easy parasite to kill with the drugs,” said Brown, the tropical disease doctor. But even though the worms are dead, eggs already in the tissue remain and can cause ongoing problems.
For Andy, now 51 and a tech consultant living with his family in Bristol, that means continued pelvic pain and a higher risk of bladder cancer, among other issues. But his headaches and malaise are gone, and he gained back the weight he had lost. “In terms of hardship, this all pales in comparison to battling against the misapprehension that I was suffering from an imaginary condition.”
These days, Andy just wants to raise awareness about the disease to prevent others from suffering.
“What happened to me happens to countless people in Africa,” he said.
Indeed, the WHO estimates that more than 93% of people requiring treatment for the illness live in Africa.
“Hundreds of thousands die every year, often from organ failure or bladder cancer. Many more are subjected to chronic illness,” Andy said.
“But despite its prevalence,” he said, “schistosomiasis is a disease that most people in the developed world have never heard of.”
Rachel Zimmerman is a journalist and writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her book “Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide” was published in 2024.
From horses giving way to cars and the invention of television, to the election of more than a dozen presidents, World War II, and even the sale of sliced bread — the 45 Chester County centenarians who gathered for an annual luncheon this week have watched the world remake itself time and time again.
“I saw a lot of things. A lot of wars, and a lot of popes. There’s a lot of good things,” said Anne Caporale, who will turn 100 in July. “I got married, had a family. I had a good life.”
The annual luncheon celebrated Chester County’s group of centenarians — a total of 57 residents reaching or surpassing the milestone. Tuesday’s celebration saw a dozen who would turn 100 this year, plus quite a few returning attendees, including 108-year-old Evelyn Fair, who still writes poetry.
“You are the builders, the teachers, the parents, the neighbors, and the foundation of the Chester County community,” Josh Maxwell, chair of the board of county commissioners, told attendees. “Every single comfort and freedom we enjoy today is a direct result of the hard work, sacrifice, and grace you poured into the world decades and decades ago. We are walking today on paths that you have all cleared.”
Meet some of Chester County’s longest residents.
Henry Jacks, 104
Henry Jacks, 104, enjoys the annual centenarian luncheon hosted by the Department of Aging. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Henry Jacks moved to South Coatesville when he was 4 years old, and has called it home ever since. He’s witnessed “quite a bit of change.”
He remembers watching deliveries come by horse and wagon and recalls the hard days of the 1930s during the Great Depression (“cost of living wasn’t as bad as it is now,” he noted). Jacks joined the Army in 1940 during World War II, serving in the 92nd Engineers Regiment, and was stationed in Africa and Italy. He came back home to have three children, a boy and two girls.
He was a Boy Scout leader, the first Black mail carrier in Coatesville, a city council member, and a judge of elections. He still sings in the church choir. (His advice: “Treat people right. Go to church.”)
“So many changes that I’ve seen in the days,” he said. “I remember when I first saw TV; one of the neighbors had one, and all of the kids used to watch through his window. I’ve seen from the horses, to the cars, to the jet airplanes. And it’s been a wonderful life.”
Letitia Hemphill, 103
Letitia Hemphill, 103, at Tuesday’s luncheon. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Letitia Hemphill started her working life at the candy counter at the former F.W. Woolworth’s five-and-dime in her hometown of West Chester. Though her father remarked she wasn’t good at math, she’d go on to have a long career using her skills while filling the registers and doing the end-of-day count in a department store and later at the treasurer’s office.
She retired in 1986 but had trouble sitting still.
“I got bored of not working,” she said.
She started cleaning houses. It was something she’d always done: help her mother clean in the morning, and then go to the park in the afternoon. She kept up the tradition with her two grandkids and her two great-grandkids, whom she babysat for 14 years.
An active life has been key to Hemphill, who did 10 years of ballroom dancing and more than 20 years at the gym.
“Keep your body moving and keep your mind moving,” she said.
She keeps her mind active by painting landscapes in watercolor, a hobby she took up in 1995.
Hemphill was born in West Chester to a stonemason father and a stay-at-home mother. Once, someone asked Hemphill if she had a lot of friends. With 11 brothers and sisters, she remarked she didn’t need any.
When she journeys through West Chester, she points out all the stores that have changed over time.
Still, Chester County is “beautiful,” and much of her family is still around to keep her moving: two children, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Joseph Donia, 100
Joseph Donia, 100. There were 45 centenarians in attendance at Tuesday’s luncheon.Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Up until last year or so, Joseph Donia’s hobby was building boats. He constructed a 20-foot wooden cabin cruiser from scratch. He had it for 40 years.
“The only reason I sold it — my wife couldn’t get on it anymore,” he said.
He had a lifelong love of boats, and spent five years at sea for the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II. His time in service was the only time he wasn’t living in West Chester, where he bought a house and raised three kids. He also has six grandkids and three great-grandkids.
His most recent project was a 35-foot sailboat. It’s still sitting behind his West Chester home, but he’s given it to his son to finish.
It kept the 100-year-old active — something he advises.
Eleanor Hammond, 101
Eleanor Hammond, 101, enjoys Tuesday’s annual luncheon. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Eleanor Hammond has always been a fan of creative pursuits: a voracious reader who knitted and sewed. She stitched her daughter’s wedding gown, and, perhaps more memorably, a jacket for her husband.
“He insisted I make him a jacket because I sewed for everyone else. He picked out the material; looked like Liberace. It was horrible,” she said. “I wouldn’t go out with him when he wore it.”
A graduate of Coatesville High School, Hammond would go on to work there until she was 81, in the principal’s office. She was once a disciplinarian, and truancy officer. She’s watched the county change over time, marveling at the amount of development. And, less positively, the traffic.
“The way to get here, I used to zip here,” she said. “But I can’t do that now.”
Still, she likes it, and the changes that have come with time.
“I’ve been here a long time. Everything about it is beautiful. The people are friendly, and it’s a beautiful place,” she said.
And as much as she loves home, she recommends travel. If you don’t know the language, be nice, smile, and “use your arms” to convey your meaning.
Anne Caporale, 99
Anne Caporale, who turns 100 in July.Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Anne Caporale graduated alongside Hammond at Coatesville High School. She went on to raise six kids, and has 10 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren.
“We have quite a group,” she said. “I love them.”
She has found Chester County to be a good place to live and “wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
She lives at home, right by one of Downingtown’s high schools, which she loves because “the kids are great.” She still does her laundry and cooks every day. The luncheon Tuesday was a treat for her. “Let somebody else do the cooking,” she said.
Keeping active is the secret, she said.
“I know we’re here for a reason, but I don’t know it. I don’t question it,” she said.
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The Urban League of Greater Philadelphia is opening a free clinic in West Philadelphia for people without health insurance. The $8 million Center for Well-Being will also offer workforce development, housing, and other services, Urban League officials announced Friday.
The clinic will be open to all Philadelphia residents and expects to serve residents of eastern Delaware County as well, Urban League president Darrin W. Anderson Sr. saidat Friday’s kickoff event.
“Across Philadelphia, too many residents continue to face barriers to good health, economic mobility, stable housing, quality jobs, and the resources needed to thrive. These challenges are deeply interconnected and require more than isolated solutions. They require a comprehensive community center approach,” Anderson said.
The Urban League acquired the building in March for $1.6 million — attracted by the proximity to the Market-Frankford El and its parking lot, both of which make the building accessible to people outside the immediate neighborhood. With internal demolition about half finished, the center is expected to open in the first quarter of next year.
U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans secured $1.2 million in seed money for the Urban League of Philadelphia’s Center for Well-Being in West Philadelphia. He spoke Friday at an event announcing the project.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer
The center — in a former Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia building — will employ around 30 people when it is fully operational, said Chetan Panda, vice president of community and economic impact for the Urban League.
The hires for the 4,500-square-foot clinic with eight exam rooms will include a medical director this fall, he said.
The project’s funding comes from a federal tax credit program designed to encourage private investment in economically distressed neighborhoods.
Finanta, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution and credit union in Philadelphia, arranged the financing.
Three years ago, U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat retiring at the end of his current term,secured $1.2 million in seed money for the project.
The role of free clinics
The Urban League modeled its free clinic on those in Cherry Hill, Phoenixville, and West Chester. The city’s numerous free primary care clinics are only open periodically, as opposed to being open daily.
Philadelphia has 110,000 people without insurance, according to Panda. Many of them earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, yet don’t have access to insurance through their jobs. Their jobs pay too poorly for themto afford insurance on the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange, Panda said in an interview Thursday.
The clinic will refer people who have Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance to the federal health clinic closest to them. In West Philadelphia, that could be Spectrum or PHMC at the former Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia.
Urban League of Greater Philadelphia officials, politicians, and other supporters sign a beam that will be used in the the refurbishing of the the Urban League’s planned Center for Well-Being.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer
Federal clinics, known as federally qualified heath centers, have a sliding payment scale for people who don’t have insurance. “We see that a lot of uninsured people forgo care at the FQHCs because they don’t want to pay the sliding scale. That’s a cost burden,” Panda said
When they need care, they often seek it in high-cost emergency departments, he said.
Free clinics rely on nearby hospitals for some of their staff and for donated services, such as X-rays and other diagnostic tests. Penn Medicine will support the new clinic in West Philadelphia, just as it does existing federal health centers, said Richard Wender, Penn’s chair of family medicine, who was at Friday’s event.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct Chetan Panda’s title to vice president, and with the correct name of Community Volunteers in Medicine in Chester County.
Chess is being played throughout Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, bringing together people of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels. Players gather in parks, community recreation centers, and cafes. It doesn’t matter what language you speak. In chess, the only language that matters is the game itself.
South Philly residents Michael Tlacopicl (second from left) and Brett Screiber (left) play a game at Capitolo Rec Center in Philadelphia.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerDan Webb and Johanna Mudry share a kiss after a game during an Open Streets event at 13th and Walnut Streets.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerChess players meet in Rittenhouse Square to play. The organizing group, Rittenhouse Chess, started in 2021 amid the chess boom that surrounded “The Queen’s Gambit” and the pandemic.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerMike Donahue moves his rook during a casual game at Rittenhouse Square. Donahue, a student at the Philly Improv Theater, has been a part of the Rittenhouse chess community for two years.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerFans watch as women’s grand master Jen Shahade and former Sixers GM Daryl Morey take on Kat Reeves and Matthew Iacoviello in a hand and brain game during the Rittenhouse Chess Club Charity Blitz Tournament at Queen & Rook Game Cafe.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerWomen’s grand master Jen Shahade studies the board during a hand and brain game in the Rittenhouse Chess Club Charity Blitz Tournament. A hand and brain game is where one player announces the piece, and their teammate moves that piece to a location they determine. Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerDavid Sherman (from left), Paul Pinto, Francisco Boschetti, and Kat Reeves play a simul match against women’s grand master Jen Shahade during the Rittenhouse Chess Club Charity Blitz Tournament. A simul match is one in which one player plays multiple chess games simultaneously.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer
Alex Carson, a content creator, prepares his live stream before competing in the Rittenhouse Chess Club Charity Blitz Tournament. Carson started his online career in April, streaming his chess matches on YouTube and Twitch.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerAndre Scott, 7, holds a plush Charizard as he competes in the Rittenhouse Chess Club Charity Blitz Tournament at Queen & Rook Game Cafe on June 7. Scott started playing chess when he was 5.Isaiah Vazquez / For The InquirerTwo players shake hands at end of a game at Rittenhouse Square.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer
