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  • Nor’easter is likely to cause significant flooding at the Shore, and winds may gust to 60 mph

    Nor’easter is likely to cause significant flooding at the Shore, and winds may gust to 60 mph

    With moderate flooding already has been reported at the Jersey Shore, along with wind gusts to 50 mph, the beach towns were left to wonder Friday what may happen when the extraordinary early-season nor’easter gets closer.

    And forecasters were warning that the storm almost certainly would overstay its welcome.

    “It could be slow to pull out,” said Lee Robertson, a lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. “We really may not be out of the woods until Monday.”

    In a major shift, strong winds and signifcant rains were expected during the weekend all the way to Philadelphia, where winds could gust to 45 mph.

    Updated computer-model runs were favoring a storm track closer to the coast than previously anticipated, said Bill Deger, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc., which would increase both the flooding and the wind potential. Beaches already have endured a long-duration assault of onshore winds, he added.

    “Our beach is going to suffer,” Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. said at a Thursday afternoon briefing. “We’re going to see a lot of beach erosion.”

    The more westward track also would increase the potential for weekend rainfall throughout the region during a time typically busy with hayrides, corn mazes, and other autumn activities, Deger said. “Mother Nature looks like it isn’t going to cooperate very much,” he said.

    He said the nor’easter could even become a “bomb cyclone,” a term for an especially intense storm.

    Potentially road-closing moderate flooding was forecast Friday into Saturday for the Jersey Shore. If the storm tracks further west, some places could see “major flooding,” said the weather service’s Robertson.

    A flood warning was in effect for the Jersey Shore towns until 2 a.m. Saturday, and flood advisories along the Delaware River until 4 a.m. Friday.

    Chances were excellent both would be extended. The storm, which was gaining strength off the Southeast coast Thursday afternoon, could take its good old time as it travels northward, which would increase the duration of flooding and the strongest winds.

    In addition, a high-wind watch was in effect at the Shore from 6 p.m. Friday into Saturday afternoon, with gusts that could reach 60 mph.

    Expected timing of the storm impacts

    Very much subject to change, the government’s National Ocean Service predicted oceanfront high tides at Atlantic City at or near moderate flood levels at 7 p.m. Friday and at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday.

    Warning that what was anticipated was more than “nuisance flooding,” Small said the critical periods in Atlantic City would be a few hours before and after the high tides.

    In the back bay areas that are a chronic source of flooding in Ocean City, tides are forecast to hit moderate levels at 8 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Monday.

    At moderate levels, some roads become impassable, and building damage is possible, the weather service said.

    In Philly, minor flooding was forecast along the Delaware River for at least five consecutive high-tide cycles, which occur roughly every 12 hours, starting at 1 a.m. Friday.

    In Atlantic City, Small said he expected the streets to fill with up to a foot of water.

    Scott Adams, the city’s emergency chief, said the duration of the winds and waves were prime concerns. “It’s not a one-two punch,” he said.

    Just how much rain the storm would generate in the region was uncertain. The rains likely would reach the Shore late Friday and the immediate Philly area sometime Saturday afternoon, Deger said.

    The winds were likely to peak Friday afternoon into the evening; however, that would depend on the career of the storm.

    The beaches should get a break Saturday as the winds become more northerly than onshore, Deger said, which would at least slow the erosion, but the strong winds likely would continue.

    Isn’t this early for a nor’easter?

    Coastal storms of this magnitude typically occur later in the fall and winter, as colder air from the north country interacts with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Storms form on frontal boundaries of warm and cold air.

    In this case, a major player is an area of higher pressure, or heavier air, centered over eastern Canada that has been exporting cold air southward. That has kept temperatures several degrees below normal in Philly this week.

    It is working in tandem with the storm, providing the necessary cold air to contrast with the warm waters. In addition, winds circulate clockwise around centers of low pressure, so it also was generating winds from the northeast, which is why they are called nor’easters.

    Meanwhile, the intensifying storm also was generating winds from the northeast; winds circulate counterclockwise around centers of cyclones.

    The high may be as impressive as the storm, said Steve Decker, atmospheric science professor at Rutgers University. In data dating to 1979, it might be the strongest high over Quebec on record.

    He noted that while a nor’easter did develop in mid-September last year, “it was quite weak.” All indications are that this one won’t be.

    Incidentally, this was to be the last weekend of open swimming in Atlantic City, but if you were hoping to take a dip, better wait until Memorial Day.

    Small announced the beach would be closed, and all the equipment has been moved out of harm’s way.

    Besides, the water might be a little rough.

  • Here’s what we know about Ed Sheeran’s tour stop at the Linc: Planned protests, late start, no openers announced

    Here’s what we know about Ed Sheeran’s tour stop at the Linc: Planned protests, late start, no openers announced

    Is the Ed Sheeran concert scheduled for Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field going to go on?

    As of Friday afternoon, it appears that it is. But later than initially announced.

    The start time for the concert, initially advertised at 5:30 p.m. to accommodate openers has now moved to 8 p.m., per the concert listing on the ticket resale site Ticketmaster.

    The enormously popular British singer-songwriter’s Loop Tour has been in crisis since earlier this week when rapper Macklemore was dropped as an opener over pro-Palestinian comments he made during two shows at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sept. 4 and 5. He performed his 2024 song “Hind’s Hall,” about pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia University, showing footage from the war in Gaza and shouting out “Free Palestine.”

    Macklemore was dropped from the tour under pressure from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft by promoters Messina Touring Group, who told Rolling Stone that several venues “will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup.”

    Those venues include Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., which Kraft owns, and Lincoln Financial Field, where Sheeran’s tour is scheduled to resume on Saturday.

    All of Sheeran’s opening acts — Finneas, Danish pop artist Lukas Graham, Irish band Beoga, and Irish singer Aaron Rowe — have since quit in solidarity with Macklemore.

    Given the late start, it is unlikely that any opening acts will be added to the Philadelphia stop. The least expensive tickets on the resale site which were priced at $91 on Thursday were available at $66.30 on Friday afternoon.

    Ed Sheeran performs during filming for the Graham Norton Show, at BBC Studioworks 6 Television Centre, Wood Lane, in London, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, to be aired on BBC One on Friday evening. (Jas Lehal/PA via AP)Jas Lehal

    “Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave [Sheeran] an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues,” Macklemore’s Monday social media post reads.

    In a statement obtained by USA Today Sports, Kraft acknowledged his decision that Macklemore’s “participation in the Sept. 25 and 26 concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”

    “Too many lives have been lost, and there has been too much suffering,” he wrote, “but only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate.”

    The Linc is owned by the city, but its day-to-day functions and events are managed by the Eagles. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the respective owners of the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons decided to not host the Sheeran concert if Macklemore was not removed from the bill, and that “Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie would soon reach the same conclusion, as the owners traded phone calls and prepared to address the situation.”

    The Eagles did not respond to the Inquirer’s request for comment on whether Lurie played any role in the decision to drop Macklemore. The Philadelphia mayor’s office and Messina Touring Group did not respond to requests for comments either.

    On Tuesday, Sheeran took to social media to say that he was in touch with venue owners, promoters, and activists to “find a mutual resolution for all.”

    He respects Macklemore’s “strength of purpose to stand up and shout for what he believes,” he said, but found it hard to “build bridges” with venue owners and promoters because of the way the rapper “conveyed part of his message” during his shows at MetLife.

    Not removing Macklemore, Messina representatives said in a Monday statement, would “result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans.”

    Local grassroots organizations have spoken out in protest of Macklemore’s removal from the tour lineup.

    The local office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, published an open letter on Wednesday to the Philadelphia Eagles, City of Philadelphia, Lincoln Financial Group, and other groups.

    The group criticized the decision to remove Macklemore from the “Loop Tour,” calling it a violation of free speech.

    “This is about more than one artist or one concert,” the organization stated. “It raises serious questions about free expression, public accountability, and whether advocacy for Palestinian human rights can become grounds for exclusion from a major venue operating on publicly owned property.”

    FILE – Macklemore performs at Austin City Limits Live during the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas on March 17, 2023. (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP, File)Jack Plunkett

    The group has submitted a right-to-know form with the state’s office of open records, requesting information about which party told the Messina Touring Group that Macklemore was no longer able to perform.

    A coalition of pro-Palestinian protesters announced Friday they will rally outside the South Philly stadium an hour before Sheeran’s concert.

    Adi Chattopadhyay, a West Philly resident who intends to participate in the demonstration, said the protest is to combat the silencing of pro-Palestinian advocacy and the suppression of freedom of speech.

    The rally, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, will include speakers from Writers Against the War on Gaza, the Boycott Cooknsolo Coalition, and Shut Down Day & Zimmermann, according to a statement.

    New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft watches warm ups prior to the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)David Zalubowski

    Regarding the expected protests in South Philly on Saturday, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little said in a statement: “As with all large events at the stadium complex, the Philadelphia Police Department is working closely with venue and event organizers to help ensure the safety of concertgoers, employees, and neighborhood residents.”

    “PPD routinely monitors large events and assesses staffing needs to ensure an appropriate police presence. The Department will continue to monitor the event and make any necessary adjustments based on public safety needs.”

    Staff reporter Maggie Prosser contributed to this article.

  • 💧🏛️ Can you find the Philly icon inside this week’s Pillars?

    💧🏛️ Can you find the Philly icon inside this week’s Pillars?

    It’s Friday — time to play our new word game Pillars, presented by Eric The Puzzler. This week, we have three new word games to test your puzzle-solving skills and your knowledge of Philly food, neighborhoods, and icons.

    By now you know the drill: Pillars is a game that asks you to find connections between pairs of words. Solve both pairs, and you’ll get a two-word phrase with a distinct Philly flair. Watch the video below to learn how it goes. From there, head over to Pillars to play. We update the game every Friday, and previous puzzles are always available in the Pillars archive.

    Here’s one last tip: Since every final answer forms a phrase you know from around Philly, you can work backwards if you get stuck. Solve the pink Pillar but stuck on the blue one? Look at the pink answer to see if it’s part of a common Philly phrase. From there, see if that answer makes sense for the Blue pillar.

    Play Pillars, a free weekly word game from The Philadelphia Inquirer
    Video: Play Pillars, a free weekly word game from The Philadelphia Inquirer
  • A Lincoln High parent and Mayfair resident want a judge to halt the move of Kensington HS students to a Northeast Philly school

    A Lincoln High parent and Mayfair resident want a judge to halt the move of Kensington HS students to a Northeast Philly school

    A Lincoln High parent and a Mayfair resident are attempting to block the planned relocation of Kensington High School students to the former Austin Meehan Middle School in the Northeast.

    Harold Brown, a Lincoln parent, and Peter McDermott, who is active in Mayfair civic life and Democratic politics, filed suit Thursday against the Philadelphia School District, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., and the city itself in Common Pleas Court.

    Kensington High School teachers brace for a challenging year amid asbestos remediation measures

    While the former middle school has been used as a swing space since it closed in 2022, Brown and McDermott say that moving 400 Kensington High students and 90 staff there will create student safety concerns because the campus is already overpopulated. Meehan is adjacent to Lincoln High and Northeast Community Propel Academy, both of which are overcrowded, with student bodies that exceed the capacity of their respective buildings.

    The relocation, they argue, also violates the terms of a 2018 community benefits agreement that allowed the school district to build Propel.

    Brown and McDermott want a judge to halt the move before school begins for students on Monday.

    The district ordered Kensington relocated to the former Meehan site, more than seven miles away on Ryan Avenue, over asbestos concerns. A contractor working on a new HVAC system for Kensington this summer disturbed asbestos, then tracked it throughout the school, officials said.

    District administrators initially believed they could fix the asbestos issues in time for school to start; after urging from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, they decided to relocate staff and students through the end of the calendar year.

    The district last year spent $11 million to place trailers at Lincoln, which houses over 2,000 students in a school built for 1,200.

    City Councilmember Mike Driscoll last week raised worries about adding students from another high school to the Lincoln-Propel campus, and the district said it would prepare and share a school safety plan before classes began.

    “The absence of a disclosed and tested plan prevents families from evaluating whether defendants can safely supervise two separate high-school populations and a K-8 population in the same immediate campus area,” the suit says.

    The suit suggests students be moved instead to Penn Treaty High or Roberto Clemente Middle School. (The district had initially planned to move Kensington students and staff into Clemente, then judged that building did not have enough room.)

    Moving Kensington to Meehan will overtax the campus on multiple levels, the suit said, from congestion and personnel to security and transportation.

    “For Plaintiff Brown’s son and the existing Lincoln student body, adding another complete high-school population to an already over-capacity campus will predictably diminish teacher access, disrupt orderly transitions and arrival and dismissal, reduce access to shared services and activities, and materially impair the quality and continuity of the students’ daily learning and overall school experience,” the suit said.

    Brown and McDermott also say the district has failed to live up to several promises made in the community benefits agreement — including demolishing Meehan, sprucing up fields, and replacing fencing. Those things have not been done, the suit says.

    Philadelphia School District officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

  • Letters to the Editor | Aug. 16, 2026

    Letters to the Editor | Aug. 16, 2026

    Legal equality

    In his recent column on the lawsuit settlement at Haverford College, Jonathan Zimmerman problematically champions the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.” But I agree with those critics who argue that definition runs afoul of international human rights law, denying Jews equal protection of the legally binding International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which both respect the right to collective national self-determination. Just like anti-Palestinian discrimination that denies Palestinians the right to self-determination is morally and legally indefensible, denying Jews and Israelis their equal and parallel right to self-determination and their collective identity is also a violation of international human rights law. To the extent that it entails discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity and Israeli nationality and origin, it also violates U.S. civil rights law, which colleges and universities are legally obligated to respect. We can simultaneously support free speech and freedom from discrimination, harassment, and abuse without excluding Jews and Israelis.

    Noam Schimmel, Albany, Calif.

    Physician’s perspective

    As a pediatrician, I pored over your article about how the Trump administration may be forcing immigrant parents to choose between green cards and benefits for their U.S.-born children.

    Fear is now a more effective deterrent to public benefits than eligibility rules ever were. That’s the reality facing mixed-status families under the revived public charge rule.

    As a physician, I don’t see immigration status in the exam room. I see a baby who needs her 2-month vaccines, a toddler whose growth curve is flattening, a child with asthma who needs a nebulizer covered by Medicaid. All of them happen to be U.S. citizens who are legally entitled to that care regardless of their parents’ immigration status. Yet, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security itself projects that more than 950,000 people will unenroll from or avoid these public benefits not because they are ineligible, but because they are afraid.

    No child should go without medical care because their family is afraid to ask for it. Our responsibility is to protect the children in front of us, not create policies that punish families for seeking essential care. When this rule takes effect on Sept. 18, its consequences will fall hardest on the very children we are entrusted to protect.

    Francisca Bermudez, Merion Station

    Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.

  • Letters to the Editor | June 21, 2026

    Letters to the Editor | June 21, 2026

    Mixed on strategy

    Solomon Jones’ most recent column regarding his lack of concern about Graham Platner’s ethics was dead on. We need a new generation — warts and all — to fight for us and rebuild the Democratic Party. Just look at some of the wins in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, etc. Just look at Andy Kim’s challenge to the “County Line” on ballots and his win. I’m only 73, for God’s sake, and I want to see younger, more progressive candidates get in the trenches and fight for us. I want this country to move forward again, not backward. It’s time to remove the bigots, racists, and sexists who are ruining our country and elect some candidates who can truly make us great.

    Vince McGinley, Haddon Heights

    …

    In his recent column, Solomon Jones states that to fight Donald Trump’s presidency we should look past character and apply the same principles the Trump team has. When did character no longer matter? You never fix a wrong with another wrong; it simply doesn’t work. If character no longer matters, have we hit rock bottom?

    Robert Galasso, Cherry Hill

    End Gaza’s suffering

    I appreciated the recent Associated Press story about the continuing crises in Gaza, even though the content is grim and distressing to read. We needed to be reminded that the suffering is not over. We have been distracted by the crazy, dangerous, and damaging actions by a failed presidency that has allowed Israel to continue its devastation of the people of Gaza. Without international pressure to stop, Israel has continued to kill Palestinian civilians, squeeze them into less and less territory, and resist all but token attempts at providing necessary food, shelter, and medical care to the beleaguered populace.

    Since the U.S. was complicit in prosecuting this tragedy, that gives us considerable leverage to end it. We need to stop being war enablers to become war resisters. If the president is incapable of understanding the urgency, we need to tell Congress to take control and to establish a clear policy that calls for an end to bloodshed, and the initiation of a massive, international effort to relieve and rebuild Gaza.

    We are a great country, we’ve done this before, and we can do it again.

    Norman K. Janes, Haverford

    Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.

  • How much snow, and when will it begin snowing in the Philadelphia region?

    How much snow, and when will it begin snowing in the Philadelphia region?

    As much as two feet of snow could fall in and around Philadelphia in what forecasters are warning could be a “historic winter storm.”

    Philly snow updates: Live coverage, latest closures and timing

    The National Weather Service is forecasting 18 to 24 inches of snow to fall in the city, which would make it one of the top 10 snowstorms in Philadelphia history. Though it’s not expected to top the nearly 31 inches of snow that blanketed Philly over a two-day period during the Blizzard of 1996.

    Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, and eastern Montgomery Counties, and all of New Jersey and Delaware, are currently under blizzard warnings through 6 p.m. Monday. That’s prompted by forecast wind gusts of up to 45 mph, combined with the heavy snow. The western suburbs are covered by a winter storm warming, with slightly lower wind speeds forecast.

    The storm is expected to begin as rain before shifting to snow by midday Sunday. It’s forecast to strengthen overnight, possibly at a rate of more than 2 inches an hour, which would make driving dangerous and nearly impossible.

    The last time the city experienced more than two feet of snow was 2010, when nearly 29 inches fell in early February 2010. Over a five-day period, the city was buried under 44 inches of snow, which thankfully isn’t expected this time due to a warm-up in the middle of next week.

    This time around, the Jersey Shore is expected to be hit hardest, with snowfall totals in and around Toms River forecast to reach as high as 30 inches.

    The National Weather Service puts out forecasts for every few square miles of land in the United States four times a day through a system called the National Digital Forecast Database.

    The maps below display that data. Use it to find how much snow is expected anywhere in the eastern United States. It will show the most recent forecast over the next few days.