The atmosphere may be ready to engage in some regressive behavior, with August-like downpours in the weekend outlooks.
The National Weather Service has posted a flash-flood watch in effect from 11:59 p.m. Saturday through noon Sunday for the entire region, except for Chester County, with heavy showers possible.
“We have plenty of moisture coming up from the south,” said Frank Pereira, meteorologist with the federal Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md.
The center has the I-95 urban corridor from central Virginia through Philadelphia with an enhanced probability of “excessive rainfall.”
Widespread heavy rain amounts aren’t likely, said Pereira, but hefty totals could occur in a short period of time.
The weather service office in Mount Holly said rainfall rates of two inches an hour would be possible.
Fortunately, after a week’s respite from the episodic rains that so characterized July and August, setting off record numbers of flood warnings, the weather service notes that levels are low in the region’s major waterways.
“The bigger concern with this event will be flash flooding,” the weather service said, the familiar likes of flooding along roads and near the smaller streams.
While the downpours may evoke August, these would be a shade different in that they wouldn’t be driven by daytime heating, said Paul Fitzsimmons, meteorologist in the Mount Holly office. The sun is getting weaker, the days shorter.
Setting off the rains would be an approaching cold front from the west and a warm front migrating northward.
The rains could get an extra kick from very warm decks of clouds about two miles above the surface, said Pereira.
“You have this very deep saturated warm layer,” he said. “This increases the efficiency of the rainfall,” along with producing larger raindrops.
In any event, Saturday should be dry during the day, as should most of Sunday afternoon. On the plus side, drought conditions continue to recede.
Is the drought officially, absolutely over in the Philly region?
After 16 consecutive months of below-normal precipitation in Philadelphia heading into July, the totals at Philadelphia International Airport are above normal for the year.
In the latest interagency U.S. Drought Monitor update posted Thursday, most of the region was categorized as absolutely drought-free, a big change from just last week.
All of Philly was drought-free. Last week, the entire city was designated as “abnormally dry” — the least-serious tier on the monitor’s scale.
In Chester County, which had been under a state drought “warning” last month, 90% of the county was considered to be in the clear, an increase of 37% from the previous week.
The Phillies are exactly where we probably should have expected them to be, which is exactly where they were a week ago. That is, four games behind the Braves with 15 to play heading into this weekend’s three-game series in Atlanta. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, believe it or not. Treading water is as important as making up ground.
Right now, the Phillies number one goal shouldn’t be winning the National League East. It should be avoiding the Braves in the wild-card round. The NL playoff picture has changed considerably with the Dodgers winning seven straight and the Braves losing four of six.
Now that L.A. has a 3½-game lead over Atlanta for the NL’s second bye, it’s looking increasingly likely that the eventual NL East division champs will end up hosting a best-of-three series against the No. 6 seed. Which means the Phillies should be just as focused on maintaining or growing their current 3½-game lead over the Padres, who entered Friday with a half-game lead over the Diamondbacks for the NL’s final playoff spot.
Some folks will scoff at the idea of the Phillies fearing the Braves in an October series. But best-of-three is barely a series. This isn’t about fearing the Braves. It’s about fearing Chris Sale.
Last weekend, the Phillies took their latest dose of medicine from one of the game’s all-time greats when Sale held them to two runs in six innings of a 5-2 Braves win. Atlanta’s presumptive Game 1 starter is not a problem the Phillies are magically going to solve just because the leaves are falling off trees.
The Braves are 3-0 in Sale’s three starts against the Phillies this season and they’ve won five of his seven since joining the team in 2024. His numbers should make you gulp. In his last five starts against the Phillies dating back to May of last season, Sale has allowed a grand total of four runs in 31 innings. He has struck out 40 of the 118 batters he has faced. That’s 33.9%.
Bryce Harper is one of the Phillies with bad career numbers against Chris Sale. He has just two hits in 18 at-bats against the lefty (.111).Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
In a longer series, the Phillies would have a clear starting pitching advantage over the Braves. Grant Holmes and Tyler Mahle have both had some success against the Phillies, most recently holding them to a combined two runs in 12 innings of last weekend’s series. Holmes has allowed just five runs in 20⅔ innings against the Phillies over the last two seasons, while Mahle held them scoreless in seven innings and 5⅔ innings in two of his three starts prior to last weekend (albeit dating back to 2021). Regardless, the Phillies would have a significant advantage in three of the first four games of a five-game series.
In a three-game series, Sale in Game 1 is a monumental equalizer of the odds. They’d much rather take their chances against the Cubs, who would presumably start Clay Holmes and Shota Imanaga, followed by a spin of the roulette wheel in Game 3.
A sigh of relief
Now, about that bullpen …
Give interim manager Don Mattingly credit for getting Alex McFarlane back on the mound in the eighth inning on Wednesday. The 25-year-old right-hander got ground balls from three of the four Astros batters he faced to deliver an 11-7 lead to Jhoan Duran in the ninth. McFarlane didn’t record a strikeout but threw strikes on 12 of his 15 pitches. This wasn’t exactly a high-leverage situation, at least not compared to the last time he walked off the mound. But it was a situation where a true set-up man gets the ball, and Mattingly gave it to him. Which is exactly what the Phillies manager should be doing.
Despite the homer he surrendered to Ronald Acuna Jr. last weekend, Alex McFarlane remains the Phillies’ greatest hope in the eighth inning.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The underdiscussed aspect of McFarlane’s welcome-to-the-bigs moment against Ronald Acuna Jr. and the Braves on Sunday was the fact that he was on the mound at all. Mattingly easily could have pivoted after McFarlane allowed a one-out single to Mike Yastrzemski and a double to Drake Baldwin to bring Acuna up as the tying run in a 4-1 game with a base open. He had a lefty warming and Braves lefties Matt Olson and Michael Harris due up after Acuna. Conventional baseball wisdom says you don’t put the tying run on base. Still, it said something about the Phillies’ estimation of McFarlane that he both remained on the mound and challenged Acuna Jr. throughout the seven-pitch at-bat.
It also says something that Mattingly didn’t flinch after McFarlane allowed a three-run, game-tying home run to Acuna.
“I don’t think you learn anything yet,” Mattingly said after the Phillies’ eventual 5-4 loss. “I think we see how he responds. I feel about the way he’s going to respond. When everything’s going good it’s pretty smooth sailing. Everybody’s going to struggle, what happened to him today is going to happen to everybody if you play long enough. So we’ll see. I think he’ll be fine. He’s been a kid that’s handled everything. The disposition’s been good.”
The Phillies are doing exactly what they should be doing with McFarlane. The first goal is to get to the postseason with an eighth-inning option that is something better than a flip of the coin. The second goal is to get there with somebody who actually gives them a significant advantage like the one they have in the ninth inning with Duran. On both counts, McFarlane is their best hope. Overwhelmingly so. There is nothing like exposure therapy for a big-league reliever. There will be plenty of big spots in October. The Phillies need McFarlane to become a guy who thrives in them.
The Eagles are back! Ahead of Sunday’s season opener against the Commanders, Olivia Reiner and Jeff Neiburg preview the matchup, break down the biggest storylines and share what to watch for when Philly kicks off its new season.
Never mind the 85-degree heat and 65% humidity. If you focused on everything else — Sánchez vs. Sale; Game 1 of seven, albeit over two weekends; a jam-packed ballpark — you might have sworn this was October.
Instead, call it what it was: a dress rehearsal.
Because even if the Phillies don’t run down the Braves for the division crown — and it got considerably more difficult after a 5-2 loss Friday night that widened the deficit to five games with 21 to play — they remain firmly in postseason position after 2½ torrid weeks in August.
“It’s not the way we wanted to start the series,” said Alec Bohm, who doubled and homered against Braves ace Chris Sale in only the Phillies’ fourth loss in 19 games. “Obviously we understand it’s a big series, and if we come in here and have a really good series, we can shake some things up a little bit, put ourselves in a really good spot.”
At minimum, these four games and three next weekend in Atlanta will gauge how the Phillies match up against the National League’s elite. And after one game, two familiar concerns arose:
Bullpen.
Defense.
Take the first one first. Cristopher Sánchez gave up three runs in the second inning but battened down the hatches and got through six. The Phillies cut into the Braves’ lead and were trailing, 3-2, in the eighth when Orion Kerkering ran in from the bullpen.
Three batters later, it was 5-2.
With one out, Kerkering got ahead of pinch-hitting Mike Yastrzemski but was unable to put him away. He walked him on six pitches, then hung a sweeper to Mauricio Dubón.
“Just a breaking ball that sat there,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “It looked like the first [pitch], he got him [for a called strike], then threw another one. Probably didn’t want it to be on that side of the plate.”
In the playoffs, it might’ve been Jonathan Bowlan on the mound in that situation. But Mattingly didn’t want to use Bowlan after the big righty pitched on back-to-back days this week in Arizona.
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
Besides, Kerkering remains among the high-leverage arms in the Phillies’ stable. They will need him next month, just as they did the last three postseasons.
There will be angst about Kerkering until there isn’t. As a rookie in 2023, he had a hand in the tide-turning bullpen meltdowns in back-to-back games in Arizona in the NL Championship Series. Last year, he made the ill-fated throwing error that ended the season at Dodger Stadium.
Mattingly wasn’t here for that. Even so, he has ridden the Kerkering coaster. Through two months, the righty scarcely allowed a run. He struggled to throw strikes after the All-Star break, but seemed to be back on track until allowing five runs in his last four appearances.
“I think his stuff’s good,” Mattingly said. “The biggest trouble for me has been a little bit of the walks and just not making the pitch when he needs it. But I like his stuff. He’s one of our better arms in almost any situation.”
Sánchez stumbled in the second inning, allowing a leadoff walk to Lane Thomas and a single to Dubón. But the Braves didn’t score until Bryce Harper overran Austin Riley’s soft one-out single through the right side.
Maybe the Braves would’ve broken through anyway. But instead of the bases being loaded with one out, Thomas scored on the play. Two more runs came in on a groundout and Ronald Acuña Jr.’s two-out single.
But there will be uneasiness about the Phillies’ defense until there isn’t.
In spite of it all, and amid the challenge of facing Sale, the Phillies had chances to tie the game.
They left a runner on third base in the fifth inning and Arraez on second after a leadoff double in the sixth. Bohm grounded out before Edmundo Sosa and Bryan De La Cruz — righty hitters who were in the lineup to offer a platoon advantage against Sale — struck out.
“He did what all the greats do and found his way out of it,” Bohm said. “Made pitches. Sometimes you’ve got to tip the cap. We did enough to get to him, but we didn’t get the big hit when we really needed it.”
Maybe next week in Atlanta. Or next month. This wasn’t the postseason yet. As Sánchez said through a team interpreter after the Phillies lost for only the third time in 17 games when he starts at home, “You feel it here when it’s a playoff game.”
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
It doesn’t feel like that. Not yet.
“We’re not in, not guaranteed anything,” Mattingly said, “so every game’s pressure at this point, pretty much the rest of the way.”
Convicted former Philadelphia labor leader John Dougherty was released Friday afternoon from a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, his lawyer said, capping a surprise outcome that was the result of President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the remainder of Dougherty’s six-year prison term.
Dougherty’s lawyer, George Bochetto, said he was released around 3 p.m. Attempts to reach Dougherty for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
For much of the past year, Dougherty had been petitioning U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl to release him on house arrest so he could provide care for his gravely ill wife. But Schmehl had repeatedly denied those efforts.
Trump’s decision to commute Dougherty’s sentence instead will result in a more sweeping form of relief: His conviction will remain intact, but he will not be subject to any monitoring or house arrest, and he will no longer have to pay about $1.6 million in restitution to the union he was convicted of defrauding.
Bochetto called Trump’s decision “a magnificent gesture of compassion.” And he said it came after he’d been in regular communication with White House staff members about the dire and longstanding health challenges faced by Dougherty’s wife, Cecilia.
A White House official said Friday that those circumstances figured into Trump’s decision — particularly because Dougherty’s father-in-law, who had been serving as the primary caretaker, died last year.
Bochetto said there was “absolutely no reason” to keep Dougherty behind bars while his wife’s health was continuing to decline.
Dougherty, while testifying before Schmehl earlier this year, said he had done everything he could from prison to lift his wife’s spirits — mailing her letters, routinely calling her, and even singing to her over the phone.
But he said he was desperate to get home and help her manage a set of challenges that have left her paralyzed and largely nonverbal. He said his adult daughters and private aides were struggling to provide the type of intensive, round-the-clock care she requires.
“I just want to take care of Celia,” he said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office had opposed Dougherty’s efforts to be released. A spokesperson said the office had no comment on Trump’s decision to set Dougherty free.
Beyond caring for his wife, it was not immediately clear Friday what Dougherty’s future might hold — or whether he’d use his newfound freedom to try to return to the political stage.
Before he was prosecuted, Dougherty was a bona fide power broker while running Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which he turned into the biggest independent source of campaign money in Pennsylvania. That funding helped elect mayors, City Council members, and members of Congress. It also helped bolster the judicial candidacy of Dougherty’s brother, Kevin Dougherty, who won a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2015.
Even if John Dougherty did want to seek a return to the spotlight, it would have to come from a different perch.
Not only is Local 98 under new leadership, Dougherty’s convictions on counts of bribery and embezzlement make him ineligible to hold an elected union office for 13 years under U.S. Department of Labor laws.
Labor leader Ryan Boyer, who replaced Dougherty as chair of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, said he nonetheless expected Dougherty to end up back in the mix in some fashion.
“If I know John the way I know John,” he said, “he’s not going to sit on his hands.”
Staff writers Sean Collins Walsh and Maggie Prosser contributed to this article.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest update Friday on the toll of measles outbreaks nationally continued to omit two measles-related deaths reported last week in Pennsylvania, extending an unusual standoff between federal and state health authorities.
The agency instead placed an asterisk in a column where, if reported, the Pennsylvania deaths would be recorded as the first in the nation this year. A note below stated that ”available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles.”
The omission marked a clear departure from the agency’s normal operating procedure, as President Donald Trump’s administration and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro continue to clash over how the deaths were characterized.
States report to the CDC cases and deaths for dozens of infectious diseases, such as hepatitis, influenza, and measles. The CDC has long compiled the data into reports that help epidemiologists monitor outbreaks and risk, and can inform lawmakers’ efforts to improve public health policy.
In a rare break from that norm, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked the CDC’s newly appointed director, Erica Schwartz, to omit the Pennsylvania deaths, according to Reuters.
The move escalated a spat between Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, and Shapiro, which began when the governor announced the deaths last Tuesday at a news conference in Lancaster County.
Shapiro accused Kennedy of spreading vaccine misinformation that has contributed to declining measles vaccination rates, and Kennedy suggested that Shapiro’s office had fabricated the deaths to win political points.
Public health experts warned that the ongoing political controversy sows doubt in what was designed as an unimpeachable health resource — national disease surveillance — and detracts from the ultimate public health goal of limiting the spread of illness.
“Every data point is a broken family, a mother crying, a future that’s lost. Instead of grieving that and making sure it never happens again, you’re debating the mechanism of death,” said Brian C. Castrucci,an epidemiologist and president and CEO of de Beaumont Foundation, a community health philanthropy outside Washington, D.C.
The Pennsylvania Department of Healthreported the two deaths to the CDC the morning of Aug. 25, and professional staff at the CDC “did not express any concern regarding the information,” Neil Ruhland, a department spokesperson, said in an email.
He described the communication that followed as an extension of the department’s ongoing communications around the state’s outbreak:
The next day, the state health department discussed the details of each case with CDC professional staff. The CDC requested records containing identifiable information, which the health department did not share, consistent with its past practices.
Shapiro has cited state privacy laws, and the need to protect the privacy of the families involved to ensure community trust, with limiting his ability to release more information.
Instead, the health department asked the CDC for a case report form to provide de-identified information. The health department says it has not yet received that form.
Pennsylvania health officials have a measles outbreak response meeting with the CDC every other week, and most recently met on Tuesday.
“CDC professional staff have repeatedly made it clear that it has been supportive of DOH’s measles outbreak response,” Ruhland said.
The CDC’s website says the agency plans to update its measles death count once it has completed its review of Pennsylvania’s cases. But officials have not said what additional information they need from Pennsylvania or when they expect to complete their review.
The agency did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Joshua Sharfstein, a physician who served as Maryland’s Health Secretary from 2011 to 2014, said he has never heard of the CDC omitting disease surveillance data reported by states.
“I wouldn’t say it’s off the table for the CDC to want more information,” but the way the agency went about it in Pennsylvania’s case is unusual, said Sharfstein, who also served as Baltimore’s health commissioner and currently works as a health policy professor at Johns Hopkins University.
He said he would expect the agency to report Pennsylvania’s data, while alerting officials they are looking for more information. “It’s supposed to be a collaborative relationship,” Sharfstein said.
Pennsylvania officials initially provided no additional information to the public about the two people who had died, other than they were unvaccinated Lancaster County residents.
The state’s decision to call the deaths measles-associated came after the state health department’s “epidemiology team thoroughly investigated and verified both individuals tested positive for measles,” Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen said in a statement.
Pennsylvania defines a measles-associated death as deaths of people where evidence of measles is present, even when the disease may not be assessed by the coroner as the immediate cause of death.
An alert about measles is posted in the window of a medical clinic in Lancaster.Gillian McGoldrick / Staff
Lancaster County’s coroner, Stephen Diamantoni, added confusion last week when he contradicted the state’s account.
Diamantoni, a physician and elected Republican, said his office was investigating one death involving a newborn and said postmortem testing showed the infant had a measles infection acquired before birth. But he said he did not believe measles contributed tothe child’s death.
The child died shortly after birth of a lacerated spleen with trauma to the torso, Diamantoni said. He did not know what caused the lacerated spleen or trauma.
He later said measles was noted on the infant’s death certificate as a significant condition “contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause,” because the baby tested positive for measles.
On Friday, he said a 6-week-old Amish infant who was being treated for a deadly genetic disorder had died of measles in mid-August. He said he did not know if the case was the second measles-related death Pennsylvania reported, saying that he reported the death to the CDC on Friday.
Pennsylvania’s health department said it was aware of the information the coroner reported Friday and had “no new measles-associated deaths to report at this time.”
Shapiro reshared a news article about the death on X. In his post, he blamed Kennedy for creating “a firestorm of conspiracy theories that denied these families’ pain, invaded their privacy, and undermined public health.”
“It’s long past time for RFK to stop playing games with people’s lives, report these deaths accurately on the CDC dashboard, and heed the guidance of actual medical experts so people get accurate information to discuss with their trusted healthcare providers and can best protect themselves and their children against this deadly disease,” he wrote.
Kennedy fired back, highlighting the Lancaster coroner’s disclosures, in another X post later on Friday: “The facts emerging now demonstrate why CDC waited for the evidence rather than allowing political grandstanding to dictate its reporting.”
Politicizing public health
Fixating on whether a patient died “because of” or “with” measles inevitably politicizes the issue and does not benefit people’s health, Jake Scott, a clinical associate professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University, wrote in an opinion piece published online by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Measles usually kills through the complications it causes, such as pneumonia, encephalitis, secondary bacterial infections, and pregnancy complications, he wrote.
“A death tally that can be altered by officials whom it embarrasses will not be trusted by anyone, including the officials who edited it,” Scott wrote.
Diamantoni, Lancaster’s coroner, told The Inquirer earlier this week he did not want “to be dragged into a political fray.”
“Our role in our office is not political in any way. We’re focused on determining the cause and manner of death, and using objective and scientific methods to do that,” he said. “We’ve worked hard to be sure that the information we’re providing is based on objective things.”
More than a week into the controversy, lawmakers continue to take political jabs.
“I am disgusted the Trump administration is putting Pennsylvania families at risk by spreading dangerous misinformation and politicizing these tragic deaths,” U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Phila.) said in a statement.
Pennsylvania’s highest-ranking federal lawmakers — U.S. Sens. John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Dave McCormick, a Republican — did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about the state’s standoff with the CDC. McCormick voted to approve Schwartz as the new CDC director; Fetterman voted against.
U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks), the only federal GOP lawmaker in the Philadelphia region, also did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, the Republican who represents Lancaster County and who blasted Shapiro last week for not providing more information about the measles-associated deaths.
Cianey Brown, 16, receives an immunization last month during the School District of Philadelphia’s sixth annual Back-To-School Bus Tour stop at Marcus Foster Memorial Stadium. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Measles outbreak continues
Public health leaders, doctors, and epidemiologists say that finding a path forward has become an increasingly partisan issue at a time of rising vaccine hesitancy.
Medical experts will be tasked with trying to rebuild trust in health authorities in order to contain a rapidly spreading outbreak.
“How can any American citizen begin to make decisions about their health right now, in the milieu of misinformation and falsehoods we’ve created?” said Castrucci, de Beaumont’s CEO. “We have to get back to a point where at least the data can be trustworthy.
As of Friday, there have been 577 measles cases in Pennsylvania, including 115 reported within the last week, according to the state health department’s online measles dashboard.
Only South Carolina has reported more measles cases than Pennsylvania so far this year, according to the CDC’s measles webpage. There have been 3,134 cases nationally this year, the agency reported in its latest update Friday.
Pennsylvania’s measles-associated deaths remain an asterisk.
Inquirer staff writers Sam Janesch and Aubrey Whelan contributed to this article.
A Philadelphia charter and its former CEO have agreed to pay nearly $4 million to resolve claims they discriminated against Black students in the school’s admissions lottery.
Franklin Towne Charter High School, in the Northeast, deliberately fixed its 2023 lottery to exclude students from certain majority-Black ZIP codes, Franklin Towne administrator Patrick Field told The Inquirer that year. The order to shut out those students came from Joseph Venditti, a longtime Franklin Towne CEO, who has since left the school, Field said.
The U.S. Department of Justice brought the case against Franklin Towne and Venditti after Field’s allegations surfaced.
U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced the settlement Friday.
“Racial discrimination has no place in school admissions,” Metcalf said in a statement. “Selecting or excluding students because of their race is illegal and violates the agreements schools sign when they accept federal grant money.”
Despite signing off on the settlement, neither Franklin Towne nor Venditti admitted wrongdoing.
“Defendants deny the United States’ allegations,” court documents read.
Public schools are prohibited by federal law from discriminating against students based on race or national origin; Franklin Towne violated the federal False Claims Act by its actions, Metcalf’s office said Friday.
Franklin Towne — a public charter school funded by taxpayer dollars — must pay $3.6 million, and Venditti $275,000 from his private funds, as part of the settlement.
Part of the money will go to the U.S. government, and part to Field, whose suit raised the issue of the improprieties.
Field and Venditti could not immediately be reached for comment.
Franklin Towne’s CEO, Brianna O’Donnell, said in a statement that the school had settled allegations about past enrollment practices that “do not reflect how the school is being led or operated today.”
“We have taken the necessary steps to address this matter while maintaining our full commitment to serving our students, families, faculty and staff,” O’Donnell said, noting that the school’s operations were “continuing as normal.”
Federal officials said the school “has made significant governance changes, including replacing the Chief Executive Officer and hiring an independent third party to conduct all future admissions lotteries at the school.”
The revocation hearing’s goal, the board said at the time of the vote, was not necessarily to close Franklin Towne, but to effect change. Board officials said the only tool they possess under Pennsylvania law to trigger a public accounting of serious allegations of impropriety is a revocation hearing, which includes witnesses and evidence before an independent hearing officer.
Franklin Towne filed suit against the board, objecting to its choice of hearing officer for the revocation proceedings, which have not yet begun.
Reginald Streater, the school board president, said in a statement that the charter school’s office’s “serious concerns” about Franklin Towne admissions data over several years led to the revocation notice of the school. It’s still pending, Streater noted.
“The board is committed to striving for fair and equitable access to public education for all Philadelphia students,” Streater said in a statement. “We will continue to uphold the standards and requirements that apply to all public schools and to take action when there are concerns about compliance with those requirements.”
Staff writer Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman privately rejected the concerns of leaders at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who requested a meeting to talk about vaccine policy and Medicaid cuts, speculating to an aide that they “just want free trips to DC,” according to a new report that sparked another wave of criticism aimed at the first-term senator.
The report from The Wall Street Journal details several meetings or events that while routine for many senators in Washington Fetterman frequently tried to get out of, including the meeting with CHOP and a funeral for three York County police officers who were killed while on duty.
Claims that Fetterman is not fully performing the role of a U.S. senator have plagued much of his nearly four years in office. His former staffers have publicly and privately said he often cancels meetings at the last minute, including with constituent groups and Pennsylvania officials who would normally be considered allies.
As he increasingly attacks his own party, the Pennsylvania Democrat has instead appeared regularly on conservative media. He’s prioritized meetings and events about Israel, whose war in Gaza had been a flashpoint in his break with former Democratic allies and supporters, and he does not make regular public appearances across the state he represents.
Among the new revelations in The Wall Street Journal story is an interaction the senator had with Yechiel Leiter, the Israel ambassador to the U.S. last year.
After Fetterman said he wanted to craft a Senate resolution that would require his colleagues to vote on whether the war in Gaza was a genocide, Leiter suggested Fetterman instead write an op-ed about why he supported Israel, The Wall Street Journal reported. Leiter’s embassy later “sent over drafted points for Fetterman to consider,” but Fetterman’s staff withheld them from him out of concerns that writing the op-ed based on the talking points “risked violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” according to the report.
Trump administration official comes to Fetterman’s defense as critics react
Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to The Inquirer about the claims in the report or about the reactions to it.
“John Fetterman is a disgrace,” U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Phila.) wrote on social media in response to the story. “Our state deserves better than a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job.”
U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D., Allegheny) called Fetterman’s behavior “pathetic.”
“[B]etween the laziness, disrespect, and willingness to carry water for a foreign government, it shows us something we already know: this man has no sense of duty,” Deluzio wrote on social media. “He is not up for the high office he was elected to — and we in Pennsylvania will do something about it in 2028.”
Former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb and State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, Fetterman’s opponents in the 2022 Democratic primary, also condemned him.
“This report is horrifying, but not new to many of us in PA. John barely showed up as [lieutenant governor] and is constantly MIA as our Senator,” Kenyatta, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, wrote on social media.
Boyle, Deluzio, Lamb and Kenyatta are among the Pennsylvania Democrats who are considered potential candidates when Fetterman’s seat is on the ballot again in 2028. Fetterman has not said whether he will seek a second term, and he’s rejected speculation that he will switch parties to become a Republican.
A robust Democratic primary is likely either way. Just one out of every five likely Democratic voters have a favorable view of him, an Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll found last month. At the same time, his favorability among Republicans had grown to a higher level than Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Dave McCormick.
Fetterman, meanwhile, has also isolated himself from other Democrats in Washington, according to The Wall Street Journal and other reports this year. The party is looking to capture the Senate majority in the midterm elections this fall — a tall task considering the map of competitive races, but one that could make Fetterman a key swing vote depending on how narrow the majority is for either party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has called Fetterman “an important member of our caucus,” had dinner with Fetterman last month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But Fetterman’s detractors in the party — and his former staffers — have indicated they will continue to put pressure on the senator.
On Friday as the latest story was circulating, an X account claiming to be a group of the senator’s former staffers launched with the message that it would share their experiences.
“It’s even worse than you thought,” the first post stated, calling the latest news “the tip of the iceberg.”
One former staffer with insight into the project, and who spoke with The Inquirer on the condition of anonymity, said it was a legitimate group of former staffers who plan to share real accounts of working for the senator.
The account quickly gained tens of thousands of followers on Friday afternoon, even drawing the attention of a Trump administration official.
“I’m disgusted by anonymous leakers, actually,” Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in a response on X.
Tré Easton, a former legislative director for Fetterman who has frequently criticized him since leaving his staff in early 2025, said it was “sort of extraordinary” to see other former staffers create such an account. He said he is not involved in the effort.
Easton said the claims in the story aligned with his experience working for Fetterman.
“A lot of ink has been spilled about John and his time in office,” Easton said. “What this Journal story captured that these other stories really haven’t is how completely disconnected he is from the work and how he just doesn’t care about it — how he doesn’t care about his constituents and doesn’t care about Pennsylvania in a worthwhile way.”
‘Why do I have to keep having to meet with chop’
The newspaper’s report includes text messages between Fetterman and his staff as they discuss meetings and events that senators would normally attend.
“3 hours??” Fetterman wrote in response to an aide who told him about the length of a funeral last year for three police officers who were killed while serving a warrant in York County, where Fetterman grew up.
Fetterman wrote that the time “may be a nonstarter” and did not attend, the Journal reported.
Discussing the meeting with CHOP officials last September, Fetterman wrote, “Why do I have to keep having to meet with chop,” and an aide responded it was to talk about vaccines and Medicaid cuts, according to the report.
Along with children’s hospitals and health systems nationally, CHOP faces financial pressure from Medicaid cuts starting next year. While the internationally prominent research institution remains financially strong, around half its patients rely on Medicaid for coverage.
During the debate over President Donald Trump’s signature budget legislation, CHOP circulated form letters to federal lawmakers that warned about the potential for the cuts to harm families, asking staff and patient families to sign them in opposition.
Vaccines have also become increasingly political as Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has sought to upend longstanding federal recommendations about the timing and number of immunizations that children receive.
Fetterman has not weighed in publicly about vaccine changes. But he has loudly rejected the Medicaid changes — saying in a statement last year that he was voting “HELL NO” on the Republican bill, which he called “a disaster.”
About two months later, he wrote to an aide while discussing the CHOP meeting that he was not concerned about, the Journal reported.
“I’m convinced they just want free trips to DC,” he wrote.
Asked for comment on Friday, CHOP, in a statement to The Inquirer, did not comment on that text or its relationship with Fetterman in general.
“We value the productive conversations we have with legislators and government officials at a local, state and federal level,” the statement read. “Their decisions have a direct impact on children’s ability to thrive in Pennsylvania and beyond, and we take our role as a voice for children very seriously.”
Staff writer Wendy Ruderman contributed to this article.
Jalen Hurts and the starting offense got the night off after getting plenty of work in two joint practices with the Patriots. Andy Dalton made his second straight start ahead of Tanner McKee. He was once again erratic as a passer. Dalton completed just 3 of 10 passes for 44 yards. He had a couple misfires in which he overthrew Eagles receivers on the first drive. Dalton had a strong throw to convert an early fourth down. But he failed to recognize an unblocked blitz in the second quarter and never looked in sync. He hasn’t done enough to win the No. 2 job.
McKee took over before the half. He was more effective than Dalton, but far from great. McKee was most productive when he got the ball out quickly or to running back Carson Steele. He struggled at times when he went beyond his first reads from the pocket. But he was decisive on schemed-up layups off play-action and misdirection.
In all, McKee completed 16 of 22 passes for 173 yards and two touchdowns. He held the ball too long and took a sack before the half. He also got pressured out of the pocket on third down in the fourth quarter and threw wide of his safety valve.
Rookie Cole Payton didn’t play until the Eagles’ last-gasp possession. He stepped back into a game-ending strip sack.
Eagles running back Will Shipley celebrates a touchdown with center Jake Majors during the second quarter on Saturday night.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Running back: A-
Tank Bigsby was one of several healthy Eagles who didn’t dress after playing in the preseason opener. That meant Will Shipley got the nod in the backfield. He picked up where he left off in a strong joint practice performance. Shipley rushed for 56 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries. He ran with vision and motored 18 yards off the right on his first carry. Shipley kept his legs churning on a later 9-yard rush and on his 5-yard touchdown.
Steele looked nimble with the ball in his hands after short throws from McKee. He hurdled a defender on a 14-yard catch and run in the second quarter. Steele had the Eagles’ longest reception, for 28 yards, in the third quarter. And he scored a go-ahead 20-yard receiving touchdown in the fourth quarter. Steele finished with six catches for 84 yards. It was tougher sledding on the ground. He averaged just 2.8 yards a carry.
Receiver / Tight end — C-
Makai Lemon was still out with a hamstring injury. The Eagles are hoping their top draft pick will be healthy enough for the preseason finale on Friday. Hollywood Brown, like Bigsby, got the night off after playing a week ago. Elijah Moore was sidelined with a neck injury he suffered on Wednesday. Darius Cooper looked better than he did against the Ravens. He had a 25-yard pickup with yards after the catch on a short crosser in the first quarter. Cooper also converted a short fourth down with a 13-yard catch in the soft spot of a zone.
Eli Stowers has yet to pop. It’s still early for the rookie tight end. But it’s clear that he has a way to go as a blocker and a receiver. He had no chance vs. a Patriots edge on an early one-on-one block attempt. But Stowers helped clear out a lane for Shipley on his 5-yard score. He was covered on two targets through the air.
Eagles wide receiver Britain Covey scored on a screen pass before the first half ended.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Receiver Britain Covey scored a 14-yard touchdown just before the half when he navigated into the end zone after a screen pass. Quez Watkins couldn’t reel in a Dalton pass that was catchable. Cameron Latu had some nice moments as blocking tight end. He also had a 14-yard grab. Tight end Stone Smartt caught five passes for 37 yards. Receiver Erik Ezukanma committed a personal foul with a crackback block in the fourth quarter.
Offensive line: B-
Willie Lampkin started at center. He had several impressive moments when he climbed to the second level and bottled up linebackers. Drew Kendall started at left guard. He appeared to hold up as a run blocker, as well, particularly on Shipley’s touchdown. The interior pass protection was also solid when Lampkin and Kendall were in the lineup. They were pulled in the second quarter and are roster locks.
Rookie Markel Bell continued to show promise at right tackle. He helped create a hole on Shipley’s 18-yard tote. The 6-foot-9 Bell still has to work on getting out of his crouch, but he moves well for his size. He got upended at one point, but stayed in the game. Fred Johnson was Bell’s counterpart at left tackle. He didn’t allow any obvious pressure to Dalton’s blindside. It’s unclear if Bell or Johnson has done enough to be the clear swing tackle.
Jake Majors started at right guard and later played some center. He helped lead the way on Shipley’s 18-yarder. But he struggled with a block that led to a tackle for loss on a run play in the first quarter.
The second unit O-line was up and down. Tackles Myles Hinton and Cameron Williams and guards Micah Morris and Michael Jordan kept McKee relatively clean in the pocket. They had more issues in opening holes on the ground for Steele. Williams was the guilty party that allowed the game-ending strip sack of Payton.
Defensive line: B
Ty Robinson notched his second and third sacks of the preseason. He split the center and the left guard and gobbled up Patriots quarterback Tommy DeVito on the first and stunted outside and closed quickly for the second. Robinson is no longer “on life support.” He’ll make the final roster. Defensive tackle Gabe Hall drew a third-down holding penalty after running a twist on the Patriots’ opening series. He had several run stops.
Arnold Ebiketie and A.J. Epenesa started at outside linebacker. Epenesa was effective in setting the edge against the run. They each played just a few series. Jose Ramirez batted a pass incomplete on a naked bootleg in which he was unblocked. Joshua Weru registered a sack with a strong outside rush in the third quarter. In run defense, he got pushed around some when setting the edge.
Rookie Uar Bernard still has a lot to learn. But it’s not like the defensive tackle has looked alien out there. Tarron Jackson teamed up with another Eagles defender for a run tackle for loss in the third quarter. Zion Wilson drew a holding penalty on the first play from scrimmage. He had an early run stop for no gain.
Linebacker: C+
Jeremiah Trotter Jr. was in the backfield at the snap and DeVito had no chance to avoid a sack early on. He an additional four tackles before he was taken out in the second quarter. Smael Mondon took a bad angle on an early screen pass. He blitzed once and nearly got home.
Chance Campbell was on the field after Trotter left. He defeated a lead block to make a run stop near the line in the second quarter. He tallied seven tackles. Deontae Lawson showed occasional good instincts against the run. He got cut down on a 20-yard rush up the middle late in the third quarter.
Patriots wide receiver Nick DeGennaro scores a 37-yard touchdown past Eagles cornerback Isaiah Bolden late in Saturday’s preseason game.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Cornerback: D+
Mac McWilliams started on the outside opposite Kelee Ringo. He gave up a number of early catches and whiffed on a tackle attempt in the second quarter. Ringo should have had an interception on the first DeVito pass thrown in his direction. He didn’t give up much else.
Ambry Thomas had brutal back-to-back plays in the second quarter when he slid off a receiver and then got toasted on a go route by Patriots receiver Kyle Williams for a 69-yard touchdown.
Shaun Wade got beat for a 24-yard reception in the second quarter. He punched the ball out for a fumble in the fourth quarter and led the Eagles with 10 stops. Kapena Gushiken came up and made a few strong run tackles from the slot. Isaiah Bolden, who was just signed to the roster a few days ago, got burned on the Patriots’ game-winning 37-yard touchdown. There was no safety help
Safety: C+
Michael Carter II started at safety and played just one series.His versatility has assured him a spot on the team.Rookie Cole Wisniewski played in his first NFL game after missing a few weeks of camp. He looked solid upon first glance and had four tackles. Wisniewski and Andre Sam didn’t get beat in the post. Sam made a number of plays near the box. He’s had a solid summer and could sneak onto the 53, or at least the practice squad.
Maximus Pulley has been one of the more promising undrafted rookies. He didn’t stand out, good or bad, at safety. He’s also a nice special teams performer.
Special teams: B
Ja’Quinden Jackson suffered a serious injury on the opening kickoff of the game. The Eagles running back required medical attention from both teams and eventually had to be placed on a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance to a local hospital. The team later said he had strength and movement in all his extremities.
Kicker Jake Elliott connected on all three extra points. The Eagles’ kickoff coverage was sound. Punter Braden Mann averaged 42 net yards on four boots. Covey muffed his first punt return, but was able to avoid a fumble. He bounced back with a 21-yard return on his next try. In all, Covey averaged 9.5 yards on four returns.
Nick Sirianni shown before the Eagles-Patriots preseason game.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Coaching: C
Nick Sirianni, to no surprise, opted to not dress his starters on both sides of the ball. Patriots coach Mike Vrabel did the same. The Eagles looked more cohesive and prepared than they did a week ago, although it’s difficult to place much stock in the preseason. They still lost another game. Aside from Jackson, there weren’t any apparent significant injuries.
Offensive coordinator Sean Mannion called plays from the booth a week after doing so from the sideline. He favored the ground game with Shipley and the O-line having early production. The dropback pass game left much to be desired, however. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s group was relatively sharp. The front seven was physical and got push and penetration. There were some sloppy moments throughout the game, as was to be expected.
Another round of rain showers is expected Saturday, with potential flooding into Saturday night, but it shouldn’t be as intense as last weekend.
Multiple rounds of rain are possible Saturday, with most of the region expected to see up to an inch of precipitation, according to AccuWeather. A chance of thunderstorms will creep onto the horizon starting after 4 p.m.
While the rain is expected to continue into the night with a chance of flooding on streams and ponds, there likely won’t be devastating flash floods, said AccuWeather meteorologist Matt Benz.
“Certainly, just given the amount of rain that we’ve seen as of late, it doesn’t take a lot of rain to create flooding issues, so there could be some low-end flooding concerns tomorrow,” Benz said.
Most areas across the region received over an inch of rain on Thursday, with some places getting more than three inches.
“While a strong to severe thunderstorm can’t be ruled out completely, the threat for damaging winds/tornadoes/hail is much lower compared to what we saw Thursday,” weather service meteorologists said in a forecast discussion.
Despite the above-normal precipitation over the summer months, the region had experienced 16 consecutive months of below-average precipitation totals leading up to June. Most of the Philadelphia region is classified abnormally dry, with parts of the suburbs in moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Sunday’s rain ended the first seven-day period without measurable rain in Philly in two months.
In addition to Thursday’s rain, a tornado touched down in Dover, Del., toppling trees that closed streets and causing widespread power outages. Power has been restored, but crews were still clearing debris from affected areas in Dover.
Sunday brings another chance of showers on and off throughout the day, especially in the afternoon. Benz advised residents to get their errands done in the morning on Saturday and Sunday to avoid showers.
The forecast is similar for folks headed down the Shore, as Saturday brings an increased chance of rain showers in the afternoon and evening. Sunday should be drier in the morning, but beachgoers could see a chance for afternoon rain showers or thunderstorms, Benz said.
Fair weather is expected to return early next week.
