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  • No. 16 Penn State pulls away from Temple, 27-9, at Lincoln Financial Field

    No. 16 Penn State pulls away from Temple, 27-9, at Lincoln Financial Field

    Penn State walked into Lincoln Financial Field for the first time in over a decade as heavy favorites over Temple and left having satisfied expectations in a 27-9 win on Saturday.

    While the Owls scored first and continued to run stride-for-stride with No. 16 Penn State, they came back to earth in the second half. They faltered under Penn State’s Big Ten pressure and lost to a ranked opponent for the 13th straight time.

    “All in all, I thought our kids battled all day long against a good team,” Temple coach K.C. Keeler said. “I told them it was more about us playing clean than anything else, and we didn’t play clean enough.”

    Lincoln Financial Field turns into Beaver Stadium East, Meek Mill’s walkout, and more from Temple vs. Penn State

    Early goal-line defense

    On the first play from scrimmage, Penn State quarterback Rocco Becht went long to Koby Howard for 56 yards, good for the team’s longest pass this season. Suddenly, the Nittany Lions stood 9 yards away from six points.

    After a Carson Hansen rush brought the visitors 4 yards closer, Penn State was flagged for an illegal forward pass. On third-and-9, Becht was sacked for a loss of 6 yards. Penn State then missed a 33-yard field goal attempt.

    Temple quarterback Jaxon Smolik (14) runs the ball during the second quarter.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    After a three-and-out, the Owls’ second possession ended when Tony Rojas picked off Jaxon Smolik and returned it 13 yards to Temple’s 5-yard line. The Nittany Lions were in prime position, but they gained just 2 yards before Becht decided to throw on fourth-and-goal. The Owls closed all windows and forced an incomplete pass at their front door.

    “We almost knew every play they ran and kind of knew what was coming,” Temple linebacker Curly Ordonez said.

    The scariest close call came at the start of the second quarter. Becht launched a rocket to Chase Sowell in front of the end zone. Temple cornerback Adrian Laing broke up the pass, and Penn State settled for a 31-yard field goal.

    But the pressure in the red zone dwindled as the second quarter rolled around.

    Becht settles in

    Becht completed just one of three passes in the opening quarter — that 56-yarder in the first minute. The Nittany Lions largely kept the ball in Hansen’s hands for their 11 first-quarter plays on offense.

    But Becht, the Iowa State transfer, looked more comfortable in the next 15 minutes, and it translated to the score sheet.

    A look back at the Temple-Penn State football series

    With the game tied, 3-3, Penn State began its final drive of the first half at its own 17-yard line with 1 minute, 57 seconds remaining. Becht completed four straight passes as the Nittany Lions marched to Temple’s 44. After a 12-yard rush by James Peoples, Becht took back over and connected with Benjamin Brahmer from 23 yards out to take a 10-7 lead.

    The drive lasted 1:49, so Temple didn’t have much time to respond, and Penn State scored all 27 of its points unanswered. Backed by a cagey offensive line, Becht looked calm and comfortable in the pocket and finished 268 yards and three touchdowns on 21-of-27 passing. Brahmer, a senior tight end, was Penn State’s leading receiver with five catches for 79 yards and two touchdowns.

    Penn State quarterback Rocco Becht finished with 268 passing yards.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Jaxon Smolik takes the reins

    In last week’s 38-14 win over Rhode Island, Smolik and Ajani Sheppard split reps, and neither created much separation in coach Keeler’s eyes in the battle for the starting role.

    But on Saturday, Keeler went to Smolik to start and stayed there. While Temple went three-and-out on its first drive, Smolik connected regularly on short passes once he settled in. He tallied 59 yards on 10-16 passing.

    Against Rhode Island, Sheppard held a clear edge on the ground, but Smolik flipped that on Saturday. He managed to create positive plays on scrambles and squeak past linebackers for 71 rushing yards on seven carries.

    Matt Campbell and K.C. Keeler once took part in a historic playoff game

    Temple even ran a bootleg play for him, which he executed perfectly. After faking a handoff to Hunter Smith, Smolik burst to his left for 47 yards while most eyes followed his partner.

    Sheppard took the field with Temple down, 27-3, and 7:48 left. He made the most of his time and scored a 3-yard rushing touchdown with 1:56 left.

    But to Keeler, the competition is ongoing.

    “Probably midway through we decided to give Jaxon the ball for the snaps, and Ajani was going to be more of a package guy,” Keeler said. “We’ll evaluate the tape.”

    Temple quarterback Ajani Sheppard scored the Owls’ lone touchdown on Saturday.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Up next

    Temple hits the road for the first time this season to face Toledo on Sept. 19 (3 p.m., CBSSN).

  • This year’s Kennett Square Mushroom Festival celebrates the families who helped build the agricultural capital

    This year’s Kennett Square Mushroom Festival celebrates the families who helped build the agricultural capital

    This weekend is more than just about breaded mushrooms for Gale Ferranto, even if her family’s farm stand continuously boasts one of the longest lines at the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival.

    The two-day annual celebration, featuring educational courses on mushrooms, as well as plates of them fried, grilled, and served in nearly every other method of preparation, is a time for her to reflect on the three generations that came before her, all the way from Italy, to claim a stake in Chester County and its signature crop.

    “Most family-run farms don’t last past two generations,” Ferranto, a lifelong Kennett Square resident and president of Buona Foods, said as hundreds of people milled down the borough’s main drag. ”Here, we have fourth-, fifth-, sixth-generation farms still going strong, and we’re proud of that.”

    This year’s festival, Kennett Square’s 41st, is celebrating that intergenerational work, which grew a pastoral slice of the Philadelphia suburbs into an agricultural mecca: 64% of the country’s mushrooms are grown in Pennsylvania, and the majority of those farms are located here.

    Colleen Farnsworth of Ardmore and her son Ambrose Farnsworth, 4, touch the mushrooms in the mushroom exhibition during Kennett Square’s 41st Mushroom Festival on Saturday. Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

    Recycling sustains mushroom farming

    By its very nature, Ferranto said, mushroom farming is forward-thinking. Farms, like her family’s, rely on agricultural byproducts that otherwise would be discarded.

    “Recycling is a pillar of everything we do,” she said. “It’s an important message to pass on to younger generations doing this work, because what we’re doing now is shaping the environment of farmwork to come.”

    In the nearby exhibit tent, Richie Forte explained that work to festivalgoers, some from as close as Delaware County, and others who traveled from as far as British Columbia to learn about mushrooms.

    Forte, who’s been in the mushroom business for 30 years, following his father’s lead, walked visitors through the growing process, from spawn planted in soil to cardboard cartons placed on supermarket shelves.

    He said he couldn’t be happier answering questions about a crop he’s been handling since he was a teenager. His father, he said, did the same volunteer work for many past festivals.

    “In a world of private equity and big business, the fact that Kennett Square can still maintain this small, hometown feel is amazing,” he said.

    “You get to a point in your life where you look around you, at the fabric of a community like this, and you realize it’s responsible for giving you everything you have.”

    It’s a family affair

    The farmers running the festival stands weren’t the only ones reveling in generational tradition. The event, and its signature, knit mushroom hats, have become an annual tradition for countless families in the region.

    Rhiannon Betts has been driving up from Cecil County, Md., every summer for the festival for 21 years, and she and her family previously ran in the 5k race that accompanies it.

    This year, Betts brought her boyfriend, Aidan Ward, with her to experience something that was integral to her childhood.

    “This has always been an event that seems to put families first,” she said. “No matter what we have going on in the summer, we have to make it out here for this.”

    For Corlan Blyskal and his wife, Emily, this year’s festival was the hopeful beginning of a new family tradition: The King of Prussia couple, decked out in homemade mushroom hats, brought their 10-month-old son, Knox, with them for their first visit to the event.

    The self-described “mushroom-obsessed” couple gave their son his first bite of a raw mushroom, straight from the source.

    It was a big hit.

  • Eagles place rookie tight end Eli Stowers on injured reserve

    Eagles place rookie tight end Eli Stowers on injured reserve

    Eli Stowers won’t be making his regular-season debut any time soon.

    The rookie tight end, a second-round pick out of Vanderbilt, was ruled out for Sunday’s season opener against the Washington Commanders with quadriceps and hamstring injuries. He has been placed on injured reserve, requiring him to miss at least the next four games.

    Stowers had been dealing with a hamstring issue since the last week of training camp, but the quadriceps injury is a new development. After he reported discomfort in his leg, digital imaging showed that he had sustained a quadriceps strain that will sideline him for the next several weeks as he undergoes treatment and rehabilitation.

    On Friday, Stowers had been optimistic about his availability for Week 1. He said after practice that it was “the plan” for him to play against the Commanders. However, he was listed as questionable to play on the final injury report released later that afternoon.

    Stowers had a relatively quiet training camp and preseason performances. He finished with three receptions for 12 yards in two games, as he was sidelined for the final preseason game. Still, the rookie tight end was pleased with his development in various areas throughout the summer.

    “With the playbook, the route tree, the schemes, the blocking schemes, pass blocking, really every single aspect,” Stowers said Friday. “Special teams. I think training camp was a really good learning experience for me, and I was really encouraged to see me get better in every single aspect, because that’s really what my goal was.”

    With Stowers sidelined, Makai Lemon could be the only Eagles rookie to contribute in a non-special-teams role on Sunday.

    Eagles first-round draft pick Makai Lemon could become the only Eagles rookie to contribute in a non-special-teams role on Sunday.

    Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    The Eagles will have three tight ends at their disposal on game day — Dallas Goedert, Johnny Mundt, and EJ Jenkins. They do not currently have a tight end on the practice squad. Stowers joins fellow tight end Grant Calcaterra on injured reserve.

    Additionally, the Eagles elevated Britain Covey from the practice squad to the game-day roster. The Eagles communications department listed Lemon as their first-string punt returner on the depth chart that was released Tuesday, but could turn to Covey, 29, as he has returned punts over the last four seasons.

    Last year, Covey had 11.3 yards per punt return, which was above the league average of 10.2.

  • Lincoln Financial Field turns into Beaver Stadium East, Meek Mill’s walk out, and more from Temple vs. No. 16 Penn State

    Lincoln Financial Field turns into Beaver Stadium East, Meek Mill’s walk out, and more from Temple vs. No. 16 Penn State

    “We are” chants rang throughout Lincoln Financial Field, replacing the Eagles’ chants that would take over in less than 24 hours, and the stadium that typically would be engulfed in midnight green was temporarily blanketed in white as No. 16 Penn State made the trip to Philadelphia to face Temple.

    Saturday’s game was the first time the teams faced off in a decade, renewing a 95-year-old rivalry. In their last meeting in 2016, the Owls lost by seven at Beaver Stadium.

    This time around, Temple suffered a similar fate — losing, 27-9, as Penn State improved its all-time record against the Owls to 41-4-1.

    From a Penn State takeover to a Meek Mill appearance, here’s everything you might’ve missed on Saturday at the Linc:

    Meek Mill leads Temple out of the tunnel

    The familiar sounds of Meek Mill’s “Dreams and Nightmares” track was heard throughout the Linc as Temple made its way onto the field. From the Jumbotron, fans could see the Philadelphia rapper front and center, leading the Owls out of the tunnel as red smoke and pyrotechnics covered one side of the field.

    This came just a few days after the North Philly native partnered with the university to welcome high school seniors and Temple students to the Dream Chasers Summit, at the Liacouras Center.

    Meek Mill’s Dream Chasers Summit returns to Temple University after 13 years

    Temple reflects on the past

    Although the record against the Owls leans heavily in Penn State’s favor, Temple did shock the world in 2015 — the teams’ last matchup at the Linc. Temple’s defense dominated a game in which Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg was sacked 10 times.

    The Owls entered that game as a seven-point underdog and beat the Nittany Lions, 27-10, in front of a crowd of mostly blue and white. Temple alumnus Ron Fries attended the game, and after the upset, Fries, 55, knew he had to become a season-ticket holder.

    Temple players celebrate the last time they beat Penn State, a 27-10 victory in 2015 at Lincoln Financial Field.DAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer

    “I went to that game and a couple other games that year, but being at that game and just the energy — the Penn State energy left and the Temple energy that was there, which was outnumbered a lot,” Fries said. “But the folks that stayed, it was tremendous, and that’s why I became a season-ticket holder.”

    An upset wasn’t in the cards this time around, but a lot of fans were optimistic beforehand.

    ”I’m hopeful that they’re able to produce something positive,” Fries said. “I would be ecstatic if they won like they did 11 years ago, but if they don’t, I just want to see something positive come out of them against a big program like Penn State.”

    Penn State linebacker Tony Rojas (left) reacts after a first-quarter interception against Temple on Saturday.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Beaver Stadium East

    Like the Penn State-Temple game in 2015, Temple fans were outnumbered at home.

    ”It looks like it’s been a pretty big whiteout here in the parking lots,” Penn State alum Joe McGoldrick, 26, said before the game.

    Penn State flags were plentiful at tailgates in the sports complex parking lots, and fans in blue and white jerseys were out in droves through Lots D to M as students from State College were being bussed in. Shrines to the Nittany Lion could be seen at every turn — including at “Ernie’s Tailgate,” a tradition dating to 1977, when Tim Ernst was a freshman at Penn State.

    Ernst, who graduated in 1981 and got his master’s in 1993, started the tradition from his dorm room. Since then, he said he’s attended every Penn State home game, and he isn’t thinking of stopping anytime soon.

    “We’re excited for the new coach; we’re excited for our new team,” Ernst said. “Rocco Becht, our quarterback, we’re very excited to have him on board. College football is challenging with all the transfers taking place and all that, but we’re going to have a very good year this year.

    “I think we’re going to make the playoffs, and we’ll see where it goes from there. And I don’t want to say any bad words about [James] Franklin but it was time to make a change. [Penn State coach Matt] Campbell has been saying all the right things. He believes in the [Joe] Paterno way where education is important, making these young boys into men is important. And that’s what Joe Paterno always emphasized.”

    The Penn State takeover continued inside the stadium, as thousands of fans traveled to see Campbell improve his record to 2-0 as Penn State’s coach after a 45-0 win over Marshall in Week 1.

    ”Penn State isn’t coached by James Franklin anymore, thank God,” McGoldrick said. “I was there at the game last week, they looked very good against Marshall. I think they’re just going to do the same thing they did last week. I think they’ll have a home-crowd environment. So, that’ll help too.”

    A neighborhood rivalry

    As the ocean of blue and white jerseys swarmed the tailgating lots, one Temple fan, Michael Kiedaisch, wasn’t worried.

    “The sea of red is on the way,” Kiedaisch said.

    Kiedaisch, whose 18-year-old son, Brian, attends Temple, made the trip down from Newtown, Bucks County, with his family to watch the game and cheer on the Owls — but there was one issue. Kiedaisch’s neighbor, Art Krysko, also made the trip. And his family — including his 19-year-old daughter, Madelyn, and 21-year-old son, Joey, who attend Penn State — were cheering for the rival team.

    “We had kids,” Krysko said. “And they went to different schools. And we’re a little [ticked] about it.”

    Temple Owls quarterback Jaxon Smolik (14) runs upfield during the second quarter in Saturday’s game against Penn State at the Linc. Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    The competition between the two started as soon as they left their neighborhood.

    “When we left the neighborhood, he blew the stop sign and tried to lose me on the drive down because I’m supporting Temple and he’s supporting Penn State,” Kiedaisch said. “So that’s how the day started. But we’re set up and ready to go now.”

    However, if Penn State took an early lead, Michael’s brother, Carl Kiedaisch, had a backup plan.

    “We have Penn State shirts at halftime to put on in case it gets ugly,” Carl said.

    Penn State leaves happy

    Penn State led, 10-3, at halftime but vibes still were high on the main concourse for Temple fans as the band performed near the student section. Fans bobbed their heads, talked to friends, and cheered along as they prepared for the second half.

    And as soon as the third quarter started, “[Expletive] Penn State,” chants erupted from the crowd.

    The band put on a show at halftime.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    However, it was short-lived after Penn State scored another touchdown, putting them up, 17-3. From then on, Penn State ran away with the 27-9 win — leaving many Nittany Lions fans happy.

    “I thought the stat line was pretty good all around,” said 22-year-old Penn State alumnus Colin Crissey. “It didn’t look pretty on the field, necessarily, but the numbers don’t lie, and they look pretty good. I thought Penn State somewhat sleepwalked in the first half. I don’t know if that’s the travel. I don’t know if that’s your first away game with a new coach or whatnot. Scoring right there at the end of the half really changed the mood.”

    Meanwhile, Temple fans started to leave the stadium in the third quarter — leaving the student section fairly empty by the end of the game.

  • Charli XCX’s ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ tour opener in South Philly was an electrifying, existential dance party

    Charli XCX’s ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ tour opener in South Philly was an electrifying, existential dance party

    Charli XCX spent over a decade in the electro pop trenches before suddenly blowing up big time in the Brat summer of 2024.

    So it’s not a surprise that the British singer, who said “all of my albums work in opposites” and “repel against each other,” would react to long-time-in-coming viral success with a stylistic about-face and pause for self-reflection.

    The result is her new album Music, Fashion, Film, which gives its name to the tour that launched at Xfinity Mobile Arena in South Philadelphia on Friday with a hyperkinetic performance in front of a deliriously excitable opening-night crowd.

    On its surface, the Music, Fashion, Film album appears to be a turn away from the Dionysian “Club Classics” culture of its predecessor into something more serious-minded and self-consciously mature.

    The image on the album cover — and on the $50 T-shirts selling on the concourse — is not of the trendsetting pop star, but a group shot of three titans in their fields — Velvet Underground cofounder John Cale, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, and movie director Martin Scorsese.

    Instead of the neon green that lit up Brat summer, the cover shot — and all Music, Fashion, Film imagery — is in black and white.

    The album’s lead track, “Rock Music,” which she opened with Friday, Charli, 34, appears to be putting club culture in her rear view.

    “Me and my friends,” she sings. “Yeah, we’re on to the next. I think the dance floor is dead / So now we’re making … Rock Music.”

    And truth be told, she is — some of the time.

    For most of the first and last thirds of the 100-minute show — which included 29 songs, with the briefest of breaks for exhortations like “Philly, this is the Music, Fashion, Film tour, are you [expletive] with me!” — she was accompanied by a three-piece band that included Morrisville, Pa., native Chris Greatti on guitar.

    Charli XCX at the Leeds Festival in England in August. The British pop star opened her “Music, Fashion, Film” tour at Xfinity Mobile Arena in South Philadelphia on Friday night.Courtesy of the Artist

    Music, Fashion, Film songs like “Wink, Wink,” “Persona,” and “2007” kicked into gear with overdriven guitars and hyper-pop-processed production that upped the adrenaline level.

    And Charli — whose given name is Aitchison and whose stage name comes from a teenage online screen moniker meaning “Kiss Charli Kiss “ — fully embraced the rock aesthetic, striking poses that made her look like an Italian neorealist film star in the black-and-white image on the video screens.

    But for all of their brash rock and roll presentation on a three-tiered stage topped by a facsimile of a smoke-emitting giant speaker — and no shortage of pyro going off throughout the show — the Music, Fashion, Film songs are actually introspective and soul-searching.

    Not in a navel-gazing, overly earnest way though. Charli XCX couldn’t bore you with self-pitying clichés about the perils of pop stardom if she tried.

    Instead, she’s droll and sharply observant and self-aware about a lack of fulfillment from fame. Along with Cale, whose recorded voice was heard on Friday from their collaboration on “House,” from the Wuthering Heights soundtrack released this year, Charli is a also a super fan of his Velvets bandmate Lou Reed.

    And several Music Fashion, Film songs display a deadpan dark wit that show she has more in common with Reed than an appreciation for black leather.

    Most amusing was “Card Declined,” a song about the failure of retail therapy to come through and transform your essential self when you need it most. “Let’s go shopping,” she sang on Friday. “I’ll buy a handbag. I’ll buy some shoes … a personality, a whole backstory … Card declined.”

    Equally astute and self aware were “Persona,” “Wink, Wink” — in which she vowed ”I’m not a bad girl anymore, I promise” — and “Camera,” about being addicted to growing up in public, to a dangerous degree.

    Charli played 13 songs from Music Fashion, Film, and included a few older cuts, such as “Party 4 U,” from 2020’s How I’m Feeling Now and the title song from her 2014 EP Vroom, Vroom.

    And the surprise of the evening was “Stay Away,” pulled from True Romance, the debut album that brought her to Philadelphia for her first-ever U.S. performance at a Making Time party at Voyeur in the Gayborhood in 2012.

    In the lead up to Friday’s show, Charli gave fans fashion tips on social media, saying the dress code is “whatever you want but if you want to commit I’d just get an old T-shirt and rip it to shreds and wear that.”

    Charli XCX at the Lollapalooza in Chicago in July. The British pop star opened her ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ tour at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in South Philadelphia on Friday night.Courtesy of the Artist

    Many women, men, girls and boys took heed, usually pairing the distressed garment with something black leathery, and most leaving Brat gear at home.

    And before the show, Charli also teased the tour’s vibe, which she said is “50% party, 50% existential crisis tbh.”

    The songs from the new album carried the existential theme. Though to be honest, they were delivered with so much energy that the buzz in the room never let up.

    But the unadulterated partying — and the shrieks of delight and singing along to every single lyric — really cut loose on the Brat songs that made up the meat in the middle of the show. With the band mostly out of sight, bass-heavy beats thumped as the general admission dance floor pulsated.

    Like a boss, Charli prowled the catwalk and writhed on the ground. She was followed around by a coterie of what I counted as 14 associates, who were more like fashion-model voguers than dancers.

    It was difficult to tell how many people were onstage at any one time because flashing strobes seemed to go off every millisecond. The group of planning-ahead fans next to me were better prepared than I, having arrived with Charli-esque sunglasses to wear when necessary.

    The show got back to existential business at the end. First, with “SS26,” a lovely pop song with a sobering point of view that cast doubt on art’s ability to make a difference.

    “Spring, Summer, ’26, when the world is gonna end, no hope for any of it,” she sang. “We’re walking on a runway that goes straight to hell, nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion, or film.”

    That was followed by the closing, “No One Lasts Forever,” which also closes the album. It’s a song about seizing the day and embracing the here and now, ‘’cause nothing gonna last forever.”

    On Friday, Charli put that point across musically as an inviting pop rock song. But then, as on the album, she handed off the mic to the voice of Canadian director David Cronenberg, recorded in conversation with her.

    As a trancelike beat throbbed behind him, and Charli and dancers posed motionless on the elevated stage, Cronenberg spoke about how art can live forever, but artists can’t.

    When everybody’s time is up — including the pop star being celebrated in that very arena on Friday — Cronenberg’s looped voice repeated 27 times, “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever.”

    And what that translates to — he and Charli were arguing — is the artistic license to be inspired and create in the moments that we’re here. That thought was boiled down to three words “Oblivion is Freedom,” which were spelled out on the video screens, and also on a T-shirt sold at the merch table.

  • How these four history-making House speakers are trying to protect the future of American democracy in their states

    How these four history-making House speakers are trying to protect the future of American democracy in their states

    Addressing the crowd packed into Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia on Thursday, Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton and three other Black House speakers from around the country outlined the steps they’re taking in their state legislatures to safeguard the future of American democracy under President Donald Trump’s administration.

    McClinton hosted the three House speakers — Delaware House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown, New York House Speaker Carl Heastie, and Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch — for the discussion on America’s progress toward its founding ideals 250 years ago. Each of the speakers, including McClinton, are the first Black person or Black woman to lead their chambers.

    The event was moderated by WURD radio host Solomon Jones. Attendees from around the city, including at least two high school classes, packed Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Society Hill, which is on the oldest property continuously owned by African American people in the United States since 1791.

    House Speaker Joanna McClinton (left) hosts an America 250 Conversation at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church on Thursday. Others reflecting on America’s history and path to inclusion for Black Americans are, from left, moderator Solomon Jones, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, New York House Speaker Carl Heastie, and Delaware House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    The three blue-state leaders from Illinois, New York, and Delaware have enshrined voting protections into state law under the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that dismantled some federal protections.

    “When we talk about voting, it’s very personal,” said Welch. “When I first got elected to the state House in 2012, I won my election by 36 votes … Eight years after winning the election by 36 votes, I became the state’s first Black speaker. You can’t tell me every vote doesn’t count.”

    Similar legislation has yet to become law in Pennsylvania, where the General Assembly is split, with Democrats controlling the House and Republicans controlling the Senate.

    McClinton, the first woman and first Black woman to lead the Pennsylvania state House, said she was jealous of her blue-state neighbors, as Pennsylvania Democrats are vying for control of the state Senate in November. The state House passed a bill to expand voting access to include same-day voter registration in a bill titled the Leroy Irvis Voting Rights Protection Act to memorialize the late Pennsylvania House speaker, who in 1977 became the first Black person to lead any state legislature since Reconstruction. That bill has yet to be called up for a vote by the GOP-controlled Senate.

    “I know I’m not supposed to be envious of my neighbors,” McClinton joked from the table set up in front of the church pulpit.

    Joanna McClinton has carefully wielded her power as Pa. House speaker. Now she’s speaking out for home care workers.
    House Speaker Joanna McClinton hosts an America 250 Conversation at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church on Thursda. She hosted three other state House speakers from around the country at the event, reflecting on America’s history and path to inclusion for Black Americans.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Each of the leaders acknowledged the ways Black Americans were purposely excluded from many of America’s liberties by the nation’s founders, progress in broadening civil rights since then — and how their state governments are trying to safeguard those protections under Trump’s administration. They each expressed concern about voting access, immigration, healthcare, and their state-level efforts to protect them through legislation.

    “State legislatures have power,” McClinton said, noting Pennsylvania’s increased investments in public education and a focus on Black maternal health. “We are not in charge of ICE, we are not in charge of the president, but we do have power, and we do good work.”

    In New York, Heastie said state lawmakers included protections in this year’s state budget to discourage U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from appearing near polling places as Trump ramps up his efforts against noncitizen voting that advocates fear will discourage American citizens from going to the polls.

    Each of the legislative leaders encouraged the young people in attendance to get involved in their local government, expressing hope for the future.

    “I look at pictures of my late aunt and uncle back in the ’60s and ’70s and I see them at protests,” Minor-Brown said. “When I see those pictures, I look at our young people today and know that’s the direction that we’re going in. That’s where we’re at right now, and that’s what brings me hope that we’re going to get to a better place. I know we will, because our young people are so energized and ready to move and ready to close these gaps.”

    McClinton also noted the ways the Trump administration has tried to rewrite history just a few blocks away from Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church at the President’s House Site, where officials swapped panels detailing the brutality of slavery for ones that sanitize George Washington’s history as an enslaver.

    “We see the fact that this federal administration continuously out an eraser and says, ‘Oh that didn’t happen, that’s not how it occurred,’” McClinton said. “We, in this moment, have to recommit to the promise of this nation.”

    During Thursday’s panel, the speakers fielded questions on a number of current events, including about the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. McClinton recalled her experience in college at the time, and said that America is at risk of another terrorist attack due to Trump eroding the nation’s image in the rest of the world.

    “Thank God we’ve not had another attack … But we have to also recognize that our policies are impacting our perception around the world,” she said.

    Several Pennsylvania Republicans were quick to seize on her comments on the eve of the anniversary as insensitive and trying to blame America for the terrorists’ actions.

    Earlier in the week, McClinton presided over a ceremonial session of the state House in Independence Hall, the same place where the Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago, and the building that also served as Pennsylvania’s first statehouse.

    Joanna McClinton, speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, along with members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives convened a special session at Congress Hall on Wednesday in Philadelphia. The gathering commemorates the 250th anniversary of America and Pennsylvania’s Constitution.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    She stood at the rostrum, leading the same room where in 1787 the nation’s founders decided that enslaved Black people would only be counted as three-fifths of the number of white residents when tallying America’s population to calculate congressional representation.

    “We are in a day where ‘We, the people’ should mean what it says, finally,” McClinton said Thursday. “But starting with the inception of this country, it did not mean all of us. ‘We, the people’ meant white men who owned a certain amount of property.”

  • Unhoused men called this Franciscan friar a saint, street messiah, and the ‘Mayor of Front Street’

    Unhoused men called this Franciscan friar a saint, street messiah, and the ‘Mayor of Front Street’

    People told me about a great street messiah, so I set out to find him.

    The homeless men simply called him Zave, short for Xavier de la Huerta.

    In the 1980s, he ran St. Joseph’s Shelter for homeless men where Front Street meets Kensington Avenue, beneath the rumble of the Market-Frankford El. He was a Franciscan friar assigned to nearby St. Francis Inn, the soup kitchen that survives on donations and still serves meals each day to homeless people, those who are unemployed, people battling substance use, struggling seniors, poor children, and anyone else with nowhere to turn.

    The Franciscans have both priests and brothers, such as Zave, with the order saying it is dedicated to serving God where they are most needed. Guests don’t shuffle through a buffet line carrying plastic trays; instead, they sit at tables while volunteers deliver meals, restoring a measure of dignity of which they may have known very little.

    The neighborhood itself foreshadowed what has made Kensington known today beyond its borders, through YouTube videos focused on exploiting images of poverty and the opioid crisis for clicks.

    Once called “The Workshop of the World,” Kensington was one of America’s great manufacturing neighborhoods, home to textile mills, carpet factories, and the John B. Stetson Hat Co., which employed 5,000 people before it closed in 1971.

    As factories evaporated, jobs vanished, families left. Investment in the neighborhood dried up and poverty settled over streets lined with crumbling rowhouses and inoperable, abandoned cars.

    Before meeting Zave in 1989, I imagined him as a stern schoolmaster. The homeless men called him the “Mayor of Front Street,” and spoke of him with such reverence that I pictured a towering authority figure in a black cassock with half-glasses sliding to the edge of his nose.

    I had been talking with the men on the corner when a crowd suddenly gathered around a little man about 5-foot-5 wearing a bright red knit cap with a white pom-pom. The huddle of people trailed him like pigeons chasing breadcrumbs.

    “Who’s that?” I asked.

    “That’s Zave,” they said.

    Brother Xavier de la Huerta opens the entrance gate so that people in need can access St. Francis Inn, in Kensington, in November 2011.Octavio Duran

    I crossed the street, finding someone who seemed half my size, barrel-chested with a gleeful, disarming smile. He unlocked the shelter, empty during the afternoon before residents returned for the evening.

    The building that housed St. Joseph’s Shelter was a narrow rowhouse that had once been Joe’s Bar, its name still preserved on the tile floor. Eight army barracks beds lined one wall. A small sitting room served as the heart of the house, where the men argued, laughed, mourned, and tried to help one another survive substance use and life on the streets.

    I asked Zave what inspired him to dedicate his life to homeless men. Surely this had been his calling. He laughed.

    “This is my assignment,” he said. “It’s where the Franciscans sent me.”

    Brother Xavier de la Huerta listens to a homeless woman explaining how she needs assistance, outside St. Francis Inn in November 2011.Octavio Duran

    I later visited his sister, who lived near my Maryland home. She described her brother as a gentleman with innate kindness. When he stayed overnight at her home the first time, he asked her to replace the bed in the guest room because it was too comfortable. He rarely watched television because he lived upstairs at the shelter among the men, so he enjoyed viewing the old shows on his sister’s box.

    She also told me a childhood story about a faithful dog who waited for young Zave at the school bus stop every afternoon. Neighbors were amazed at the canine’s devotion, but eventually learned the source.

    On the walk home, Zave stopped at the butcher shop to collect discarded bones and carried them home for the waiting pup.

    One homeless man who had spent a decade on Philadelphia’s streets described Zave to me in the most glowing terms.

    Brother Xavier de la Huerta (right) shares a laugh with Brother Fred Dilger at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., in June 2014.Octavio Duran

    “Brother Xavier, he’s like a saint,” he said. “He’s good people. Very good people. He’d take the coat off his back to give it to somebody. I feel like it’s Christmas whenever I see him; that’s the glow he has. I don’t know how somebody so little can do so much.”

    One of the men I met at the shelter eventually entered drug treatment, moved into a halfway house, found sobriety, and rented an apartment. Another quiet soul Zave saved.

    When I visited Zave again, he looked exhausted.

    “What happened?” I asked.

    “I broke one of my own rules,” he said.

    He had agreed to hold one resident’s money so the man wouldn’t spend it on drugs.

    “At 2 o’clock this morning,” Zave said, “he came pounding on the door demanding it back.”

    There was no complaint in his voice, just another day.

    Last year, Zave, now 90, celebrated 60 years as a Franciscan brother and now lives quietly in his order’s retirement home, the St. Lawrence Friary in Beacon, N.Y. He retired in 2016 after suffering a stroke, completing 37 years of Front Street duty.

    Thirty years of newspaper reporting for major newspapers has introduced me to presidents, governors, celebrities, athletes, and thousands of fascinating people. Few taught me more about the meaning of a life than the little friar in the red knit cap.

    Muhammad Ali once said, “The service you do for others on this earth is the rent you pay for your room in heaven.”

    Zave’s heavenly home is paid off.

    Gerard Shields is a Kensington native and author of “The Front Row: Recording American History from Reagan to Trump.”

  • This off-the-menu butter chicken cheesesteak comes by way of Pakistan — and Northeast Philly

    This off-the-menu butter chicken cheesesteak comes by way of Pakistan — and Northeast Philly

    Butter chicken has taken an indirect route to South Street’s Pronto Pizza: from its roots in North India to a Pakistani family kitchen in Northeast Philadelphia, then into an Italian American pizza shop and, finally, onto a roll.

    At Pronto, just off Broad Street, it’s a secret menu item. Owner Umair Cheema tops chopped marinated chicken with Cooper Sharp and butter chicken sauce based on his mother Asma’s recipe. The $12 sandwich is Cheema’s addition to a citywide assortment of cheesesteak variations that includes versions made with oxtail and salmon.

    Cheema does not skimp. He lightly toasts the Liscio’s roll before adding nearly a pound of a mixture of chicken and melted cheese. Then comes a ladle or two of the rich butter sauce, which comes perilously close to gilding the lily.

    Umair Cheema owns Pronto Pizza, 1347 South St., which previously was LaScala’s Pronto.Michael Klein / Staff

    Cheema, 28, had eaten plenty of butter chicken in Pakistan, but he credits his younger brother, Adil, with inspiring Pronto’s version. After the family moved to Northeast Philadelphia in 2019, Adil routinely asked their mother to cook for him.

    “One day my mom made butter chicken, and I was like, ‘Mom, this is outstanding. This is the kind of butter chicken I eat at restaurants,’” Cheema said.

    A staple entree on Indian restaurant menus in the United States, butter chicken typically features yogurt-marinated chicken in a mild, creamy tomato sauce seasoned with onions, garlic, and spices such as garam masala, turmeric, cumin, and coriander. The dish has proved adaptable to other formats. Chef Reuben Asaram, for example, has incorporated it into his Mexican-Indian “Reubychanga.”

    Pronto is also not the area’s only shop making a butter chicken cheesesteak. Double Down Kitchen at Ridge Hall in Ambler serves one alongside versions made with jerk chicken and bulgogi-marinated rib-eye.

    Owner Umair Cheema pulls a slice of pizza from the oven at Pronto Pizza, 1347 South St.Michael Klein / Staff

    Cheema’s sandwich is part of his effort to broaden the menu at Pronto, which he bought from restaurateur Rob LaScala. He largely retained LaScala’s offerings of pizza, sandwiches, wings, pasta, meatballs, chicken Parmesan, and grilled salmon platters.

    Cheema had not expected to enter the pizza business. After arriving from Pakistan, where his father had worked as a banker, he took a job at Kabobeesh, his aunt’s West Philadelphia restaurant. His father was diagnosed with severe diabetes soon afterward, while his mother found warehouse work.

    “I took charge,” Cheema said. “I was like, ‘Let me deal with all of this now. It’s my time to handle this.’”

    His opportunity came when an uncle learned that Naz’s Pizza in Chester was for sale.

    “He called me and said, ‘Someone is really desperate. They want to sell their pizza shop. I know you have some money saved. If you really want to look into it, I’ll help you out, too.’”

    Barbecue chicken pizza slice at Pronto Pizza, 1347 South St.Michael Klein / Staff

    Cheema drove to Chester the next day and arrived around 3 p.m., hardly primetime at most pizzerias. “I saw people coming in and the phones ringing,” he said. “That means a business is working. So I told my uncle, ‘Everything seems OK. They are short a couple of things, but we can fix it.’”

    Cheema and his uncle bought the shop, and Cheema said sales doubled within six months. They eventually expanded to six shops before dividing the business to pursue separate growth; Cheema sold off the Chester store. Besides the Pronto at 1347 South St., Cheema owns another Pronto in Torresdale, Holme Style Pizza near Holme Circle, and Old English Style Pizza in Olney.

    His most serious setback came in September 2022, when the three-story East York Street building housing Key Pizza, his busiest shop, collapsed. “You couldn’t tell there had been a pizza shop there the night before,” Cheema said. Construction work next door was blamed.

    The roll-up door and some bricks are all that remained of Key Pizza at 2329 E. York St. after its collapse on Sept. 14, 2022.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer

    No injuries were reported, but he lost the business, and the resulting insurance litigation was resolved only recently, about 3½ years later, he said.

    Cheema does not plan to rebuild Key. He is focused instead on Pronto, its catering operation, and potential additional locations. The butter chicken cheesesteak gives him a way to integrate his family’s cooking into the kind of business in which he found his footing.

    “Everybody in Philly knows what a cheesesteak is, and there are so many good places out there already selling cheesesteaks that are famous for them,” he said. “But I wanted to do something different, and something that still relates to Philly.”

  • ‘I’ve waited four years’: Arrest made in 2022 killing of West Philly man after bar fight

    ‘I’ve waited four years’: Arrest made in 2022 killing of West Philly man after bar fight

    Davina Neuson has been haunted for years by questions about the killing of her son Armand Hayes, who was fatally shot outside a West Philadelphia bar in 2022.

    She never understood how the fight that ended her 30-year-old son’s life escalated into murder.

    Now, finally, she may get an answer.

    Lawrence Cary, 44, was arrested in late August and charged with murder and related crimes in connection with Hayes’ killing after the men got into a bar fight the evening of Aug. 15, 2022, according to court documents. He is set to appear Monday before Judge Gregory O. Yorgey-Girdy for a preliminary hearing.

    “I don’t know how to put it into words,” Neuson said. “I’ve waited four years for this moment.”

    Hayes, known by many as “Ace,” was a father of two daughters and beloved by his family, Neuson said.

    He attended Strayer University and Philadelphia Community College and had been working as a compressor operator for Philadelphia Gas Works when he was killed.

    “Ace was a genuinely good person, he had a personality that could light up a room,” Neuson said. “A smile of his was unforgettable.”

    Neuson said she never has been able to stop wondering about his last moments.

    Police investigators said Cary and Hayes got into a physical altercation around 11:45 p.m. in the Asmara Lounge on Haverford Avenue, not far from where Hayes was found laying in the street with multiple gunshot wounds through his body.

    He was taken to nearby Lankenau Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.

    A photo of Armand Hayes.Davina Neuson

    Surveillance footage showed Cary leaving the bar after the altercation and driving in the area of 64th and Vine streets, near where Hayes was found wounded, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

    Investigators later learned that Cary, seated in the driver’s seat of his Chevrolet Trailblazer, fired multiple shots from a handgun out his passenger window when he encountered Hayes, the document says.

    Earlier in the evening, Hayes had told a bartender that Cary had bitten him during the scuffle, according to the document.

    Investigators soon identified Cary using eyewitnesses, surveillance footage, and receipts from the bar marked with his name.

    And in 2023, they learned that a week after the killing, Cary’s Trailblazer had been given a new title and gifted to another man who registered the vehicle in the name of a Bryn Mawr woman. The man asked the woman to do that for insurance purposes, according to the affidavit.

    Neuson, Hayes’ mother, said she did not believe that Cary and her son knew each other before the incident.

    She still cannot comprehend why her son’s life was taken.

    “What hurts the most is knowing his life was taken so suddenly,” she said. “He had so much more life to live, so many more memories to make, so many people who loved him.”

    Many of those people will be present in court as Cary’s case works through the system, Neuson added.

    Cary is being held at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and was denied bail.

  • ‘Tires’ cocreator Steve Gerben on how he became the ‘King of West Chester Golf’

    ‘Tires’ cocreator Steve Gerben on how he became the ‘King of West Chester Golf’

    While Steve Gerben is known for having cocreated one of the year’s most popular Netflix comedy series, his friends and the internet are attempting to crown him with a more ribbing title: The “King of West Chester Golf.”

    The Berwyn-born actor, comedian, and costar of Netflix’s Tires says the nickname is just a joke created by his costar and fellow Pennsylvanian Shane Gillis after Gerben “broke 80″ for the first time, scoring 79 on 18 holes of golf last year. It’s something that fewer than 10% of golfers worldwide reportedly do in their lifetime.

    “I thought I would just get my friend to start videotaping in case it happened on the 18th hole. And then I did it,” Gerben, 43, remembers with fondness. “So Shane saw that video and was making fun of it on his podcast, calling me the ‘King of West Chester Golf.’”

    Gerben’s character on Tires, Will, an anxious go-getter who sees the best in those around him, is not unlike Gerben in real life. Even when receiving praise for his golf prowess or growing television career, Gerben is more comfortable sharing credit with others and not taking the spotlight. And while he downplays his claim to the West Chester golf throne, Gerben does play golf every week in the Philadelphia region — from West Chester courses to the occasional charity event at Ardmore’s Merion Golf Club.

    As his profile has grown with the success of Tires, Gerben continues to live in West Chester, cultivating a life around golfing near home and creating a local television production alongside his best friends.

    “I can’t see myself leaving the area. I really love it here and it’s home,” he said. “Also, just given how I feel about golf, suburbs make way more sense — it’s just scratching the right itch for me.”

    It also helps that the hit show Gerben cocreated with Mechanicsburg-born Gillis and Philadelphia’s John McKeever is filmed in West Chester off East Gay Street, inside an addition to the real-life tire shop of Gerben’s father.

    Tires, which had its season three premiere Aug. 13, follows two cousins, Will (Gerben) and Shane (Gillis) as they run the fictional Valley Forge Automotive Center, named after the previous real-life automotive business of Gerben’s father, which was sold in 2011.

    “I remember after season one, my dad was on the boardwalk and he saw a Valley Forge Auto shirt in one of the stores, and he was just like, ‘This is insane,’ because it’s this company that he had for 20 years, and then gone, and now we brought it back in a way,” Gerben said.

    With Gerben and Gillis on screen, and McKeever as the magic behind the camera, the Tires crew navigates the world of a Pennsylvania small business, rivalries with a national tire chain, and coming to terms with life and romance in your late 30s and 40s.

    Tires was recently renewed for a fourth season. That renewal, along with the suburban life he’s created with his girlfriend and cat, has Gerben doubling down on the Philly region. One factor that now rules his life is golf, and how to keep enjoying the sport that eases his mind and boosts his confidence.

    “Playing golf is a flow state for me. I get out of a perfect golf swing what I’m sure people that meditate get out of meditation or when people feel a piece of art really speaks to them,” Gerben said.

    What started as something to do as a senior at Conestoga High School, joining the Valley Forge Golf Club for $8 after school, has grown into a passion that has seen him playing alongside Eagles players like Jason Kelce and appearing in vlog-style golfing videos with comedian Andrew Santino.

    Golf feels like meeting up with an old flame for Gerben, who essentially gave up on the pastime as he attempted to make it in the East Coast stand-up comedy circuit in the 2010s. That’s where he met Gillis and McKeever, doing open mics at the now-closed Raven Lounge and Helium Comedy Club.

    While Gillis would continue to rise in stand-up comedy, Gerben said he struggled to find footing. Yet, constants in his life were Gillis and McKeever, who reportedly were known to not take on certain projects unless Gerben could be involved.

    But one thing that always sat in Gerben’s back pocket was a script for a show based on his experience working at his father’s Valley Forge tire shop that he initially wrote nearly 15 years before Tires would premiere on Netflix in 2024. Two years later, Tires’ third season debuted in the No. 9 spot on Netflix with 2.4 million views in its opening weekend.

    The success doesn’t get to Gerben’s head, as he’s focused on enjoying life in the burbs and golfing as much as possible, he said. With golf swinging back into his life, the sport brings a chance of pace in a busy work schedule and/ allows Gerben, who has had arthritis since he was 2, to stay active.

    “I feel so unbelievably healthy because I think it’s about like a five- or six-mile walk each golf session, and you’re not even paying attention to that, given you’re doing this thing that you just absolutely love doing, and is a little bit easier on the joints,” Gerben said.

    Gerben also sees golf as a way to meet friends.

    “Golf is just a weird addiction that some people have that cuts across generational barriers because you spend so much time with people on the course who have the same passion as you,” he said.

    In the meantime, Gerben will continue flirting with the idea of starting his own golfing YouTube career, like “Bryan Bros Golf.” But until Tires is wrapped, Gerben said there would be no official online golf career on the horizon.

    Besides, if Gillis finds Gerben’s golf videos, Gerben will never hear the end of it from his best friend, he said.