Villanova senior forward Brynn McCurry announced Tuesday on social media that she underwent surgery to repair a torn right ACL and meniscus on Sept. 1. She will miss the 2026-27 season.
“I’m walking into this next season of healing with a heart full of peace because this game has given me so much more than it took,” McCurry wrote in an Instagram post. “Basketball has always been such a meaningful part of my story, but it was never the entirety of it.”
Losing McCurry is a major blow to Villanova. While the injury occurred in April and allowed coach Denise Dillon time to fill McCurry’s spot, it will be difficult to fill her workload.
McCurry, a 6-foot-1 forward, was coming off a career-best campaign in which she started 29 of 33 games and was the team’s second-leading scorer with 10.7 points per game. She also won the Big East’s Most Improved Player award.
Projected as one of four returning starters for Villanova, McCurry’s season-long absence will test Villanova’s depth at forward. The Wildcats have solid pieces in their frontcourt, headlined by 6-3 Quinnipiac transfer Anna Foley, and returning starters Jasmine Bascoe, Kelsey Joens, and Kennedy Henry.
Dillon also will have to find a combination to fill McCurry’s minutes. She averaged 26.5 minutes last season, third most on the team behind Henry and Bascoe.
McCurry suffered two prior knee injuries — she tore her left ACL and meniscus during her senior year of high school and tore her right ACL and meniscus before her sophomore season at Villanova. She then tore the UCL in her right arm before the start of her junior year and underwent Tommy John surgery this past April, two days after her third knee injury.
The Wildcats open their season on Nov. 1 in Rome as a part of the Eternal City Tip-Off. They’ll face Notre Dame in their first meeting in eight years.
For anyone who noticed I was gone, I’m back. It was a weird two weeks of flex time — half vacation, including jaunts to a couple of Jersey Shore points (see below) and an OG family reunion in the Hudson Valley, and half working on my biggest investigative reporting project in several years. It’s coming very soon. Stay tuned.
On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, anti-Islamic hate is getting worse
Amina Barhumi (center), the advocacy and policy lead of the Muslim Civic Coalition, prays with members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations outside the Will County Courthouse in Joliet, Ill., where a jury found defendant Joseph Czuba guilty of murder and hate crime charges in February 2025.Nam Y. Huh
The footprints of the World Trade Center’s twin towers are now a memorial attached to a well-attended museum. Osama bin Laden is dead, and the last U.S. combat troops finally left Afghanistan five years ago. But there is one thing that spiked immediately after the attack and never really went away.
In fact, anti-Islamic hate is a bigger force in our politics than it ever was. Republicans, desperate to cling to power in an election when all the cards — including another “dumb war” in the Middle East and sky-high gas prices — are stacked against them, are frantically waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 and the Islamophobia it inspired.
You can see it in Lower Manhattan, where the man who was New York City’s mayor in 2001, Rudy Giuliani, is now saying that the idea of the current mayor — Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim American to hold the post, who was only 9 years old on the morning of the attack — attending the 9/11 memorial ceremony “offends me.” His comments were part of a bigger racist diatribe that somehow tied Mamdani to a Muslim plot aimed at “taking over certain parts of America and certain parts of Europe.”
You can see it in Michigan, where a wave of anti-Muslim hate has surged after an Islamic doctor and public health expert, Abdul El-Sayed, won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. This includes events like “the Christian Crusader March” organized by the Donald Trump-pardoned Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionist Jack Lang, which flooded the city council of majority-Muslim Dearborn with anti-Islam placards and even a Nazi flag.
And you can read all about it when a sitting congressman like Tennessee’s Andy Ogles has no problem taking to the cesspool of Elon Musk-owned X last March to write that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” The fact that the fanatically pro-Trump Ogles lost his GOP primary a couple of months later could have been a warning to his fellow Republicans to dial it back, but few seem to have gotten the memo as Sept. 11, 2026, arrives.
To be clear, I don’t believe Islamophobia is the only permanent scar from the day the United States was attacked by four planes and their 19 hijackers who were followers of bin Laden’s Islamist brand of extremism. It’s been five years — although it feels like yesterday — since the 20th anniversary of the attacks, when I wrote that the fear and loathing of the 9/11 aftermath hadn’t evaporated but instead metastasized.
I could write that exact same column today … so I won’t. The role the attack played in pointing America toward fascism hasn’t changed, but it is striking after five more years that while many overt symptoms of a 9/11 hangover have subsided over the years, the virus of Islamophobia has only grown more persistent.
Prejudice toward Muslims existed, of course, yet it exploded after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the fourth jetliner that crashed in Shanksville, Pa., in ways both large and small.
Large: On Sept. 15, 2001, a Dallas-area neo-Nazi killed a Pakistani immigrant working in a convenience store — the same day a Sikh native of India was also murdered at a Mesa, Ariz., gas station by a man who believed the victim was Muslim. Smaller but not insignificant: Islamic schoolchildren from coast to coast were bullied and slurred by classmates who called them “terrorists” or just “Osama.”
At the highest levels of the U.S. government, there was schizophrenia. Many recall that the president, George W. Bush, visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to insist that U.S. Muslims “love America as much as I do,” had no connection to the foreign extremists, and that “Islam is peace.”
Less well-remembered is the federal operation that targeted thousands of Muslims and South Asians — especially men under the age of 45 — in the weeks immediately after the attacks. They were detained, interrogated, fingerprinted, or subjected to deportation proceedings.
In a new piece, the “war on terror” historian Spencer Ackerman chronicled how agents went through a Brooklyn neighborhood known as Little Pakistan, dropping cards under doors with instructions such as: “This is the FBI. This is the INS. This is the NYPD. We need to talk. I have questions. Call me. ASAP.” It’s believed that thousands found the post 9/11-climate so hostile that they left Little Pakistan … and the United States.
Islamophobia has managed to both persist and change over the last quarter century. Certainly one can’t imagine Trump going to a mosque and acknowledging that Islam is a peaceful religion; the man who entered national politics by calling for — and partially enacting — a “Muslim ban” just last month labeled Democratic candidates in the midterms as “jihadists.” Today, the fish stinks from the head, and those middle-school punks who called their classmates “terrorists” are all grown up and running for office in November.
To some extent, it’s one step up and one step back for American Muslims. The stunning success of Mamdani, who’s more popular than ever after eight months in City Hall, and the rise of El-Sayed and other mostly progressive young Muslim American politicians is a next chapter of immigrant success that seems to have rattled the ancient U.S. hierarchies around race and religion.
But mostly it feels like Republicans — seeing that the crowd doesn’t want to hear the new stuff like the Iran war or data centers — have reverted to playing the hits, like railing against “men in women’s sports” in a desperate bid to get an unearned encore.
That’s pathetic yet predictable, but one thing I find appalling is that a news media that ought to know better keeps going along with this malarkey. That includes grilling every Democrat who appears on TV about what they think about a Turkish American Twitch streamer named Hasan Piker, even as most voters have never heard of Piker while some subjects of these inquisitions have never met him.
Last week, CBS News — purchased by a pro-Trump billionaire who put the over-her-head conservative opinion writer Bari Weiss in charge — ran one of the most irresponsible pieces of journalism I’ve ever read, implying there was something sinister about El-Sayed’s anodyne early 2020 social media comments that America should take the coronavirus seriously because it had killed (at that time) as many people as died on 9/11. One CBS staffer told the website Status that the dubious hit piece on El-Sayed was “shameful,” adding, “The racism is overt.”
The staffer was being kind.
Someday — hopefully in my lifetime — there’ll be a U.S. president who won’t only call Islam a religion of peace, but will also stop dropping bombs on Muslim countries. Until then, demagogues are going to demagogue, but the media needs to be calling out the racists, not empowering them. If we keep giving in to our worst instincts, then — as folks used to say 25 years ago — the terrorists will have won.
Yo, do this!
One reason my two-week hiatus passed so quickly was that I immersed myself (and thus finished too quickly, perhaps) in this month’s riveting audiobook, Housewives of the Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery by the Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany. The book tells the story of how the majority of Americans came to doubt the Warren Commission’s official story of John F. Kennedy’s 1963 murder in Dallas through the persistence of very average citizens — including the three middle- or nearing-middle-age women of the 1960s at the center of Tiffany’s compelling narrative. This is not “another Kennedy assassination book,” but rather a robust and much-needed tale about regular folks successfully challenging their government to do better that resonates in the Trump era.
I did somehow find time to make the short drive (90 minutes from Center City Philadelphia) to Long Branch, N.J., for a Bruce Springsteen pilgrimage centered on a visit to the new and impressive Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music. It was just our luck that our tickets were for the day afterthe Jersey rock icon stunned fans with a surprise visit there (and also popped on stage that night at Asbury Park’s Stone Pony). But the collection of artifacts — amplified by a film and listening booths, and illuminating not only Springsteen’s 60-year career, but the artists from soul, country, and early rock ‘n’ roll who inspired a legend — is well worth the trip. Augment the day, as we did, with a trip to Asbury Park’s revived boardwalk and a drive-by of Bruce’s childhood homes in nearby Freehold. Bonus: Springsteen’s remarkable “Land of Hope and Dreams” show that wrapped up his 2026 tour at Philadelphia’s Xfinity Mobile Center in May was recorded for a full-length film that begins streaming Wednesday!
Ask me anything
Question: Given the current outbreak of measles in Pennsylvania and the start of the school year, how long will it be until the first case of polio is diagnosed? — @mcsween66.bsky.social via Bluesky
Answer: Hopefully a long time, or never, although polio has not been completely eradicated and there was a case earlier this year in Rockland County, N.Y. (here’s a good explainer of how that happened and what it means). Experts are right to be worried if low U.S. vaccination rates persist. But right now I’m more worried about something else that your question hints at: a stunning lack of information about the measles outbreak in Lancaster County, which seems to have caused two deaths, and which I know much more about from reading an article in the Atlantic than from our public health officials. At the core of this seems to be the politics of a Democratic governor in Josh Shapiro and a Trump-y GOP, including the elected county coroner in Lancaster County as well as in Washington. Public health is way too important to get tangled up in political spin.
What you’re saying about …
My question from late August about transgender politics in the November election drew a spirited response from readers, most of whom agree with me that Democrats should openly embrace transgender rights and not either run away or equivocate on the issue. The most passionate response came from Zoë Sparks, a transgender woman, who wrote it would be best for Dems if they “stood up boldly, made it an issue of civil rights, pointed out that history, statistics, science, and medicine are all on our side and MAGA has only fake history, fake statistics, pseudoscience, and quack medicine in their favor …” But Arlene Stach argued that it’s commonsense politics to support keeping transgender athletes who were born with male biology out of women’s sports. She wrote, “If the Democrats think this will win for them, they are mistaken!”
📮 This week’s question: The passage of Labor Day means it will be Election Day in what will feel like the blink of an eye. Democrats seem all but certain to gain at least the handful of seats needed to retake the House, but the Senate is up for grabs. Do you think Dems will win at least 51 Senate seats, and why? What are the key races? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “a Democratic Senate” in the subject line.
Backstory on the mysterious masked men of Dover
Police officers form a line to block protesters near Eastney Beach, in Portsmouth, England, on Sunday.PA
The myth that nothing ever happens on Labor Day weekend was punctured repeatedly in 2026, including the gruesome Miami crash of a cargo jetliner that killed five people on the ground and an armed man lunging at Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton at a campaign event. But the weekend’s most puzzling and arguably most alarming news was barely covered on American television: the sudden appearance in two British port cities — Dover and Portsmouth — of hundreds of black-clad, right-wing male protesters, their heads covered in balaclavas, there to cause chaos and protest the arrival of migrant boats.
The mysterious men — eventually tied to a self-proclaimed Christian group called the Patriot Platform, led by a former associate of the anti-Islamic, far-right political activist Tommy Robinson — attempted to block lifeboats carrying migrants from landing, and also tried to blockade their buses once on shore, while snarling local traffic as Dover’s famed white cliffs loomed in the background. The protests were a dramatic public illustration of the rising tide of right-wing reaction — much of it xenophobic rage over refugees — that has increasingly roiled politics in the United Kingdom, posing a threat to the milquetoast, inept Labour government.
But, in the spirit of the U.K.’s most famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, the real mystery along the British seacoast was the dog that did not bark. Although police did eventually restore order in the two port cities, the authorities were painfully slow to respond to such a large-scale civil disturbance, and few or no arrests were made. That’s in stark contrast to the frequent images over the last year of grandmothers and other peaceful, placard-carrying protesters getting dragged away by British bobbies when protesting for a free Palestine.
The reaction from the government of new Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham was equally languid. A Burnham spokesperson, pressed by a reporter for a political response, would only call the shocking protests “an operational matter for the police to set out their response to the protests on the ground. So I will leave them to respond to that.” Winston Churchill, who (despite his many flaws) famously promised to fight fascists “on the beaches,” must have been spinning in his grave.
Speaking of Nazis, the protests and the sudden police embrace of pacifism coincided with a regional victory in a battered former industrial corner of eastern Germany for the extreme right AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party, the unholy heirs to Adolf Hitler’s legacy. This weekend’s echoes of Western Europe’s failed appeasement of the Nazis in the late 1930s are almost as troubling as the thuggish extremism itself. The coddling needs to end, or else we are condemned to repeat the absolute worst of our past.
What I wrote on this date in 2016
The protests in South Dakota, led by its Indigenous people, against the Dakota Access oil pipeline that erupted in the late summer of 2016 were a peak moment of 2010s political activism, and a lost cause (the pipeline opened the following year, after Donald Trump became president) that was totally worth fighting for. On this date 10 years ago, I was crusading — also unsuccessfully — for the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) to drop its roughly $192 million investment in the pipeline owner. I wrote, “Pennsylvania doesn’t have a great track record of environmental leadership — but there’s no reason why that history can’t be altered.”
I’ve mentioned it before in this space, but no one has done more to keep the tradition of the great American sports columnist alive than The Inquirer’s Mike Sielski. Last week he published a remarkable — and remarkably timely — deep dive into the case of a then-19-year-old from Pennsylvania Amish country whose addiction to online sports gambling and social isolation led him to make a bomb threat against the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The case was hardly an isolated incident, but the hallmark of an alarming trend: the growing number of threats not just against major sporting events but individual athletes, as more and more people — especially vulnerable young men like the one Sielski chronicles here — get addicted to the ubiquitous, heavily advertised betting sites. The piece is a reminder that great storytelling doesn’t need to be a dying art — but also that in-depth journalism requires time and your support. You provide that — and get some great reads in return — when you subscribe to The Inquirer.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
LONDON — The United Kingdom on Tuesday banned trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, where it says “settler terrorists” are carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, in a significant toughening of Britain’s stance toward a longtime ally.
France and Canada announced they would take similar action in an attempt to prevent expanding settlements and growing violence from making it impossible to establish a future Palestinian state.
Israel responded angrily and said it would close the British consulate in Jerusalem.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the settlements and bar companies from providing services for the settlements, including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate, and advertising.
“I do not believe the British people want us supporting the occupation by accepting products from settlements in our shops and supermarkets,” Miliband said.
In a joint statement, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank “pose a direct and urgent threat” to the two-state solution. They said they decided to act “before it is too late.”
The economic impact is likely to be limited, since the settlements produce only a small amount of largely agricultural exports. But the move is a symbolic expression of displeasure with Israel by some of its closest allies, and it offers a new sign of the Israeli government’s growing isolation as a result of the Gaza war.
Miliband said that he feels “a deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community.”
“We will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution,” he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned the “despicable” move. He said Israel would expel U.K. representatives from a joint military center monitoring the Gaza ceasefire and end U.K. training of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank. In addition, Israel barred entry to a dozen British lawmakers and other U.K. citizens whom Sa’ar said were “involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.”
Settlements have expanded under Netanyahu
Under the ultranationalist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, settlement construction in the West Bank — seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — has surged. Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
The international community overwhelmingly considers such construction to be illegal. Britain and other countries have voiced particular concern about the E1 settlement project approved by Israel, which would effectively cut the territory in two.
There have been marked increases in attacks by settlers on Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian towns, Israeli military operations, and checkpoints that choke freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” Miliband said. He said there had been “houses bulldozed, roads and public infrastructure destroyed, families displaced from their homes.”
The ban on trade will be in place in six to nine months, Miliband said. He said Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden have pledged to “support further action.”
The Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, and Norway have either banned goods from settlements or are in the process of doing so, he said.
Miliband also tightened Britain’s embargo on weapons sales to Israel for use in Gaza to include arms “that materially contribute to the occupation” of Palestinian territories.
Move follows U.K. recognition of a Palestinian state
In a change of Britain’s position, Miliband said Tuesday that the U.K. regards Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and not just the settlements, as illegal.
The new position is likely to be welcomed by many Labour voters and lawmakers, who have urged the government to go further in sanctioning Israel and supporting the Palestinians.
But some expressed concern that the sanctions could boost support for Netanyahu, who is facing a tough battle for reelection in October, or lead to attacks on British Jews. The U.K.’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said it was “a dark day for British Jews.”
Opposition Conservative Party foreign affairs spokesperson Tom Tugendhat said that “turning Israel into a pariah will risk sectarian division in our own country and risk a further rise in antisemitic violence on our own streets.”
Announcement sparks anger in Israel
Before Miliband’s announcement, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s hard-line public security minister and a settler leader, called on Netanyahu to recognize Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic known in Argentina as the Malvinas.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the ban “a grave miscalculation, a decision that will fall on the wrong side of history.
“In the current context, it would be a gross interference in the democratic elections of a sovereign nation,” he said.
The move was also criticized by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a longtime supporter of the settlements, who said that it was “discrimination against the Jewish people.” He said the U.K. could face “repercussions or retaliations” from the U.S. if it imposed the sanctions.
Several U.S. states have laws banning contracts or investments with businesses that boycott Israeli firms, including those based in the West Bank.
Burnham’s office said he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and set out “the U.K.’s commitment to working toward peace and security in the region” and achieving a two-state solution. There was no word on how Trump responded.
Miliband, whose parents came to the U.K. as refugees from the Nazis, told lawmakers he spoke “as a proud British Jew” and supporter of Israel.
“Our argument is not with the people of Israel, with whom the U.K. has unshakable bonds,” Miliband said. “Our argument is with the conduct of its government.”
Property tax breaks from Lumberton Township are part of the redevelopment agreement for Lumberton Village, a $77-million project of 857 proposed residential units on undeveloped farmland and wooded acreage in the relatively small town.
National homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc.’s project, which the Burlington County town maintains is an essential part of its commitment to affordable housing, is scheduled to go before the Township Land Development Board on Thursday at 7 p.m. for preliminary and final site plan approval.
Despite requiring board approval, the Horton project is viewed as a lock because of the affordable housing component, Township officials said at a community meeting.
“We’re stuck. We’re under court order. We have to proceed,” the Township affordable housing lawyer, Michael Herbert, of the Parker McCay firm, told residents at the May meeting in Bobby’s Run School. Herbert said the property at Newbolds Corner and Eayrestown Roads has been part of the township’s affordable housing plan for many years.
Lumberton Village would include 506 market-rate townhouses, 179 senior citizen townhouses, 92 affordable family apartments, and 80 age-restricted affordable apartments.
A 30-year Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program for the 172 affordable and age-restricted apartments and a five-year tax abatement/exemption plan for the 179 age-restricted market rate units are included in the township redevelopment agreement, which was signed in August.
The project would increase the number of housing units in the town by about 17%. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimated that Lumberton had 5,036 housing units in 2024, when the population was estimated at 12,882.
Under the plan, not all of the 412 acres that D.R. Horton purchases at the Lumberton site would be used for development. The Burlington County Commission in June approved spending up to $3.73 million to buy and preserve 226 acres at the southern end of the property under the Farmland Preservation program.
A traffic light will be installed at one of the development’s two entrances on Eayrestown Road. D.H. Horton’s traffic consultant, Shropshire Associates LLC of Atco, projects that the residential development will generate 449 trips during the weekday morning peak hour and 435 trips during the afternoon peak hour.
70and73.com is a hyperlocal news site focused on South Jersey, including the communities of Cherry Hill, Evesham, Mount Laurel, Voorhees, Medford, Medford Lakes, and Moorestown.
We have never had so many ways to speak. Yet rarely has speaking felt so fraught.
A defining feature of this moment in history is its extraordinary capacity for speech. Social media offers direct pathways to audiences. Generative tools can now help us refine our own voices. The barriers to speaking have never been lower.
But the expansion of our ability to speak has not necessarily strengthened the conditions for free expression or led to more meaningful exchange. The same technologies that connect us to vast audiences also keep us within communities of shared views. And even as avenues for expression have multiplied, many Americans feel less certain that they can speak freely.
Just 54% say they feel “very” or “mostly” free to express their political views without government interference or punishment. Asked to think back 10 years, 72% said they had felt that free. Looking ahead 10 years, only 42% expect to. While some among us may feel this more or less acutely than others, the pessimistic outlook holds across a host of different demographic and partisan groups.
There may be more ways to speak than ever, but Americans are increasingly uncertain about participating in our nation’s public conversation. This should alarm us all.
The First Amendment protects our right to speak, but free expression also depends on venues where people can actually use that right. In recent decades, we have invested enormously in technologies that increase the quantity of expression while neglecting the places — whether civic institutions, public spaces, or so-called third places — where we cultivate social trust. The spaces where constitutional rights grow into habits of forthrightness, curiosity, listening, and mutual respect; where we learn to recognize one another as participants in a shared civic life.
The First Amendment gives us the framework. It’s up to us to foster the spaces where it comes to life.
Critical infrastructure
Our civic institutions are part of the critical infrastructure of free expression. They create opportunities for discovery and encounters that enrich our understanding. Museums invite us into the complexity of the past, revealing the stories, context, and perspectives that give history texture and meaning. Universities bring competing ideas into conversation and subject them to scrutiny, an aspiration that has always been messier in practice than in principle. Libraries give us the freedom to follow our curiosity, pursue knowledge on our own terms, and venture beyond the familiar. Where they still exist, local newsrooms surface stories that might otherwise go untold.
None of these institutions gets it right every time. But their value lies partly in creating environments that welcome people in while making room for the friction that meaningful inquiry inevitably produces: disagreement, challenge, surprise, and sometimes a change of mind.
The same technologies that connect us to vast audiences also keep us within communities of shared views.
The information economy generated enormous investment in the technologies that have reshaped our civic life. But investment in the institutions that help us make sense of these changes has not kept pace.
Philanthropy has an important role in this work. It can invest where markets won’t and governments can’t. It can absorb the risk that comes with genuine experimentation in new approaches to civic learning and engagement. It can identify and bring to scale emerging, community-led models that renew the institutions, relationships, and face-to-face experiences that remain essential to democratic life, even as more of our lives move online. And it can help institutions lower barriers and welcome new audiences.
A new partnership between the National Constitution Center and Knight Foundation is one effort to put these ideas into practice. On Wednesday, the center will host its inaugural First Amendment Day, inviting visitors to explore our expressive freedoms through history, conversation, creativity, and civic engagement. They will have opportunities to exercise their own rights, encounter the perspectives of others, and join conversations about the changing landscape of speech being shaped by new technologies. Later that evening, Govs. Josh Shapiro (D., Pa.) and Spencer Cox (R., Utah) will discuss free expression and civic dialogue at the Kimmel Center. And to ensure this special programming is available to as many people as possible, admission is free to all.
The goal is not simply to teach what the First Amendment says, but to practice the culture it makes possible.
Philadelphia has a rich history of civic discourse and debate. It is here that these ideas took root. The Civic Decade ahead, as we celebrate the 250th anniversaries of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, offers us a chance to invest anew in our institutions of self-government. Building a culture of free expression should be part of that work.
We have more ways to speak than any generation before us. We must be just as ambitious about nurturing the spaces that remind us not to take our First Amendment rights for granted.
Julie Silverbrook is the chief content and learning officer of the National Constitution Center. John Sands is vice president of information and society at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
A controversial Gloucester Township development plan for 743 residential units on the site of the nation’s first African American-owned, 18-hole golf course is scheduled before the zoning board on Wednesday.
Freeway Golf Course was purchased by four Black businessmen in 1967 and saw the last round of golf played in November 2015. The 154-acre property at 1858 Sicklerville Rd. was offered for sale in 2016.
Hamilton-based US Home LLC, doing business as Lennar, filed with the township as the developer of the $292 million project. Lennar Corp. is a national homebuilder founded in 1954 with national headquarters in Miami. Lennar is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The property owner is Black Horse Properties LLC of Blackwood, according to the application.
Some neighbors have banded together to oppose the development, posting their objections on the Friends of Freeway Facebook page. A post on Saturday with the agenda of the 7 p.m. meeting says “Don’t let this builder determine the fate of OUR community! He’ll make millions and leave us to deal with the mess.”
“We have our research, we have our facts, we have our attorney and planner! The last thing we need is your attendance,” according to the page, which also featured photos of wildlife asking: “We are taking their homes. Where will they go?”
The proposed development would be “a mixture of 177 single-family detached homes with an average sales price of $497,000, 67 (now 63) age-restricted single family detached homes with a sales price of $469,000, along with 222 traditional townhouse units and 168 stacked townhouse units with estimated sales prices of $430,000 and $365,000, respectively,” according to Lennar’s plans.
Estimated monthly rent for the 113 affordable housing rental apartments would be $1,240.
A fiscal-impact analysis by Richard B. Reading Associates submitted with the application states that the Freeway Pointe development would add 2,086 residents and require $1,698,000 in municipal services, which would be offset by the estimated $2,542,230 in municipal tax revenue from the homeowners.
The financial study also expects that 214 students would live in Freeway Pointe and attend the Gloucester Township School District and 101 students would attend the Black Horse Pike Regional School District. The higher costs from the new students would be more than offset by property taxes, according to the analysis.
70and73.com is a hyperlocal news site focused on South Jersey, including the communities of Cherry Hill, Evesham, Mount Laurel, Voorhees, Medford, Medford Lakes, and Moorestown.
A new home for the 76ers and Flyers is scheduled to open in 2030, and now we have our first glimpse of what the new arena might look like.
The teams released the first renderings of the privately funded arena Tuesday that will be built at the former site of the Spectrum, next to where Xfinity Mobile Arena sits.
The new design features inspiration from the Spectrum, the former home of both teams from 1967 to 1996. The renderings show the facade will be composed of three stacked and cantilevered “bands,” a nod to the Spectrum’s exterior.
The Spectrum was home of the Sixers and Flyers until 1996. It was demolished in 2010.
“To build our future where Ed Snider and the Spectrum made history makes this project truly special,” Comcast chairman Brian Roberts said in a statement.
A plaza outside the arena will feature over a half-acre of outdoor space. The renderings show an expansive footprint that includes food and beverage pavilions, along with a giant screen outside the stadium.
“The first-look renderings reflect fan feedback and stakeholder input on the arena experience, public spaces and amenities,” the teams said in a statement. “Fan surveys, focus groups, community engagement, and public review will continue throughout the design and approval process.”
Stateside Live!, previously known as Xfinity! Live, sits near the new stadium site on 11th Street and just underwent a $15 million expansion. It is expected to remain open.
The location of the yet-to-be-named new arena. Steve Madden
In addition to the Sixers and Flyers, the arena will also be home to the yet-to-be named WNBA team slated to begin playing in Philly in 2030.
The stadium will be co-owned by Comcast and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Sixers. Comcast owns the naming rights of the new arena but hasn’t announced a name. It’s unclear how much the new arena will cost, but it will be the largest fully privately funded project in the city’s history, according to a Comcast spokesperson.
“Philly fans deserve the best arena in the world, and we are excited to partner with Comcast to deliver just that,” 76ers managing partner Josh Harris said in a statement.
The new arena is scheduled to open in 2030. Courtesy of the Philadelphia 76ers and FlyersHow the new arena might look for Flyers fans arriving for a game. Courtesy of the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers
The Sixers’ original plan was to build a new $1.3 billion stadium on Market Street in Center City, a contentious idea backed by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker that secured legislative approval in 2024.
Weeks later, the project was canceled after the Sixers struck a deal with Comcast to build a new arena in South Philly.
The new arena still needs regulatory and legislative approval before the start of construction, which is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2027.
Parker’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but the city shared the renderings on social media along with the comment, “Get excited Philly fans!”
Ryan Boyer, the head of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council praised the project’s job creations. “Beyond the construction jobs themselves, this is the kind of investment that opens doors for new contractors, suppliers, and small businesses throughout the city of Philadelphia.”
That announcement came before the Sixers abandoned their Center City stadium idea and decided to remain in South Philly. For now, the focus is on the new arena.
“We see [this location] as a unique opportunity to connect the retail affiliated with the arena, to the retail that we have in Stateside Live! and the expansion of that effort,” Comcast Spectacor chairman and CEO Dan Hilferty told The Inquirer in April.
Beyond the new retail, restaurant, and outdoor activation space included in the new arena’s plan, there is an opportunity for the four teams (five once the WNBA comes to town) to work together to further develop the sports complex, according to Phillies CEO and managing partner John Middleton.
“Having four major professional sports teams together in one destination creates an energy and sense of community that is unmatched anywhere in the country,” Middleton said, adding the new arena “represents an exciting next chapter for South Philadelphia and creates important opportunities” to realize the potential of the sports comlex space.
The arena is expected to feature an outdoor plaza with food pavillions. Courtesy of the Philadelphia 76ers and FlyersThe new arena will sit in the South Philly sports complex at the former site of The Spectrum. Courtesy of the Philadelphia 76ers and FlyersA renderings also show a giant screen outside the arena. Courtesy of the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers
Over the summer, Comcast and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment upgraded and donated storefronts for use as pop-up retail stores and other temporary activations to take advantage of the city’s busy calendar.
Last month, the companies extended the leases of four pop-up retail stores along Market Street, and both continue to work with the mayor’s Market East Advisory Committee on a master plan for the corridor, according to a Comcast spokesperson.
Like every American who lived that fateful day, I can vividly remember where I was on Sept. 11, 2001.
I was in the middle of chairing a hearing as a city civil service commissioner when my administrative assistant burst into the room. She told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. I postponed the hearing immediately.
But unlike millions of Americans who were frozen in place watching the heartbreaking visuals of the second plane hitting the second tower, I was already on the phone with the Philadelphia Police Department, the Philadelphia School District,and the Human Relations Commission.
I knew there would be an immediate backlash against the Arab and Muslim American community.
Like every other minority community in this country’s history, our community knew too well the playbook that isdeployed following a tragedy. The provocations from talking heads on television, the incendiary questions expedited by the broader 24/7 media landscape, even the inflammatory comments made by elected officials —the very people who weresupposed to protect us.
I could see it coming. In America, we always search for an enemy to blame, and sadly, on Sept. 11, 2001, Arab and Muslim Americans were the ones unfairly blamed.
In those first few days, thanks in part to our partners in law enforcement and our wider community outreach, we managed to head off the worst of it for the Arab and Muslim American community in Philadelphia. We had some threats and attacks on stores, and some people were targeted with violence. But even thoughthat was horrific and traumatizing, in comparison to others, inPhiladelphia our community was surprisingly fortunate.
Across the country, Arab American businesses and mosques were literally burned to the ground. Arab Americans were arrested, and some were held for a long period of time without charge. Other Arab Americans —and those perceived to be Arab — faced targeted violence and,horrifically, a few people were murdered.
These serious hate crimes and attacks by both lone actors and, sadly, also the government, were widely underreported by the media, then and now. Our community still feels that pain every day.
We weren’t even given the time to mourn the tragedy ourselves,including the many victims on 9/11 who themselves were Arab and Muslim Americans.
While our country mourned the thousands dead in New York, we as Arab Americans also had to mourn our place in American society,which has never recovered. It was the way the country changed after 9/11 that has been so difficult for our community. It was a transformation that hit every American, but it felt targeted at us.
The response to 9/11 fundamentally shifted what the U.S. stood for. We were dragged into two devastating wars, first in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq. Those conflicts took hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghan and Iraqi lives and thousands of our own soldiers.
Then came the Transportation Security Administration, a government organization that utilized racial profiling in what never once felt like “random” checks.
The Patriot Act expanded government spying into the private lives of all Americans, but particularly Arab and Muslim Americans, who faced extraordinary government surveillance.
Other law enforcement agencies followed, with their own prejudiced practices, especially the New York Police Department, whichstarted sending undercover agents into mosques to record worship services. Their “Demographic Unit” went to gatherings, restaurants, and clubs to survey the community. They made lists of our businesses and started infiltrating student groups.
On top of that, the federal government started the NSEERS program, forcing thousands of men visiting the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries to be fingerprinted and registered like criminals. No terrorists were found among those profiled.
We also now know the extent to which the government used torture against mainly Arab and Muslim prisoners at black sites, and most notoriously at Guantánamo Bay. We now know that many of those prisoners were innocent and had nothing to do with 9/11, let alone al-Qaeda. That didn’t stop theCIA and its contractors, all of whom escaped justice for their role in the torture program, from using waterboarding and extraordinary rendition on these prisoners, all while denying their basic rights.
After 9/11, if you were Arab or Muslim, there was no such thing as being innocent until proven guilty anymore.
Even now, more than a dozen men are still sitting in Guantánamo Bay without ever facing a trial, due in part to the very torture program the government once tried to say was necessary.
And in the decades since, some things have gotten worse.
There continue to be travel bans targeting people from predominantlyArab and Muslim nations.
Groups in places like Texas are trying to ban Sharia law — a grotesque, Islamophobic distortion that pretends Sharia is a legal system challenging the Constitution rather than a set of guidelines for moral and ethical conduct in a religious context.
And attempts to silence and censure Arab American voices, particularly on issues like Palestine, continue at universities, corporations, and state capitals across the country.
It hasn’t all been dark, though.
The pressure our community has faced since 2001 has made us stronger in a lot of ways. It forced us to build real, lasting ties with our religious allies, especially our Jewish and Christian neighbors. That’s how the Interfaith Center of Philadelphia got its start.
The author (seated at right) watches Gov. Tom Wolf sign “The Pledge to Combat Bigotry,” a public commitment to speak out against bigotry toward Muslims and Arabs, in Harrisburg on Sept. 30, 2015.Courtesy of Marwan Kreidie
It solidified our political presence, too.
Now, we have more leaders than ever standing up for our inclusion in the city and the state. Many elected leaders have rallied to support us, and our community has the greatest number of people elected to local, state, and federal offices we’ve ever seen.
By working together with allies to make the U.S. freer, and toprotect the importance of what it means to be an American citizen, Sept. 11 showed the resilience of our community.
I could not be prouder of that.
Twenty-five years ago, even as those terrorists tried to break us, and others inside our own country tried to divide us, America prevailed.
We nearly lost our democracy on that fateful day, as our democratic system was hijacked in the name of “security.” But we, as Americans, came together.
And today we must continue to live the words of the great Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Marwan Kreidie teaches political science at West Chester University and is the executive director of the Philadelphia Arab-American Development Corps.
President Donald Trump threatened to ban the sale of Canadian Bombardier jets unless they are built in the United States, as Canadian retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods came into effect amid an escalating trade war between the countries.
“NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!” Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday that also urged people to “BUY AMERICAN.”
It was not immediately clear how Trump would restrict the sale of the jets. The White House did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment.
The president’s comments mark the latest escalation in the ongoing tit-for-tat trade feud between the U.S. and Canada. Just after midnight on Tuesday, Canada’s countertariffs of up to 50 percent on $20 billion worth of U.S. imports came into effect. The levies apply to a vast range of products, including steel and aluminum, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, plastics and electronics.
The move came in response to the U.S. imposing 50 percent tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods last month. After trade talks between the two sides faltered, Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed that Canada would retaliate “dollar for dollar.”
In his Monday post, Trump said that if Bombardier wanted access to the U.S. market, “they must build here, and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank.’”
In a statement that did not directly address Trump’s comments, Bombardier said it had sites in nine U.S. states and Washington D.C., and noted that it manufactured its wings in its Texas facility, and flight-control components in California.
It added it worked with about 2,800 American companies across 47 states and that it “values its great partnership with American companies and its U.S. employees.”
The Quebec-based firm has previously said it employs more than 3,000 people in the U.S.
Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette said she had contacted Bombardier’s chief executive to offer “our full support.”
“Quebec will not allow anyone to dictate where our companies must produce in order to access a market. We will defend our companies, our workers, and our expertise with resolve,” she said in a post on X.
U.S.-Canada relations have deteriorated drastically during Trump’s second term. In addition to the trade war, Trump has threatened to make Canada the 51st state and signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.
WASHINGTON — Republicans appeared to have a firm grip on the Senate heading into the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term. But with less than two months until Election Day, control of the chamber is now up for grabs.
Democrats have found themselves competing in states that once seemed beyond their reach as President Donald Trump’s slipping approval ratings and voters’ dissatisfaction with the economy create a difficult political environment for Republicans. But races Democrats once counted on winning have also become more complicated.
It’s a battle that’s expected to exceed $3.4 billion in spending across all races during the midterm campaign. The implications are huge for Trump’s agenda and his ability to fill administration jobs and open court seats for the remainder of his term, as the Senate is empowered to confirm or block presidential nominees.
Republicans say it’s unlikely for everything to break in Democrats’ favor, but they acknowledge they’re facing a difficult landscape. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told South Dakota’s KELOLAND News last week that he does “worry” about losing the chamber.
“I’m a realist,” Thune said. ”I don’t ever try and sugarcoat things. I think it’s a competitive environment right now.”
Democrats face a scrambled path to the majority
Democrats need to net four seats to win the majority. The original path had been to hold Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire while winning back Republican-held seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio. But things have changed.
“We now have multiple paths for the majority,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said last month. “We found new states — Iowa, Texas — which people a year ago weren’t even paying attention to.”
Some of the states where Democrats were feeling most optimistic at the start of the election cycle, such as Michigan and Maine, have grown murkier.
In Michigan, where there’s an open seat this fall, no GOP candidate has won a Senate race since 1994. But Democrats are struggling to unite behind nominee Abdul El-Sayed. The favorite of progressives narrowly defeated moderate U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in the August primary, and feelings remain raw from a bruising contest that saw nearly $70 million spent against El-Sayed.
Republicans believe Mike Rogers, who lost the 2024 Senate race by fewer than 20,000 votes, has an improved shot against El-Sayed. The Senate Leadership Fund — Senate Republicans’ spending PAC — added $6 million to its Michigan advertising investment after El-Sayed won, bringing their total spending to $51 million, the third-highest total.
Democrats also saw a prime opportunity to finally defeat five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, where Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris won more votes than Trump in 2024.
Progressive Graham Platner easily won the nomination in June, but he left the race the next month over a sexual assault allegation that he denies. Democratic delegates in late July chose Troy Jackson, a lesser-known former state legislative leader, to replace him.
Jackson has been forced to play catch-up. Collins and aligned super PACs have spent almost $80 million so far, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, while Jackson and Democratic-aligned groups have spent and reserved close to $45 million since he became the nominee.
As one path narrowed for Democrats, others widened
Democrats increasingly see a real possibility in Texas, a state that has been an elusive goal for decades, and other GOP-led states including Iowa, Alaska and Ohio.
In Texas, Democrat James Talarico faces state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who ousted four-term incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn to win the GOP nomination. Senate GOP leadership backed Cornyn, seeing him as the stronger general election candidate.
Paxton has been shadowed for decades by legal and ethical questions, including indictments for securities fraud, though he was not convicted.
Talarico and allied groups have spent nearly $30 million on advertising since the May runoff, compared to less than $3 million by pro-Paxton groups. The political fund associated with Trump last week spent $10 million on TV and digital ads to help Paxton — the first major general election investment by MAGA Inc. for the midterms. Senate GOP leaders had petitioned Trump’s political team to spend some of the more than $400 million it had last month to help Paxton.
Democrats have also upped their spending in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina, all states currently held by Republicans. The GOP, meanwhile, is feeling more optimistic about New Hampshire as well as Michigan, while spending more to defend seats in Iowa and Alaska.
The expanded map has upped the anticipated total spending this cycle. AdImpact in June projected $3.4 billion in advertising spending on Senate races, a significant increase from the $2.8 billion the ad spending firm projected in the fall of 2025.
Why more states are in play than expected
Democrats’ path has widened in part because of Trump’s slumping job approval, notably on handling the economy, which was at 32% according to an AP-NORC poll in July — down from 40% in March 2025, shortly after he took office.
Trump’s trade policies and the war in Iran, with its corresponding inflated fuel costs, have added to the economic uncertainty for voters less than two months before Election Day.
“Things still cost too much. And so we’ve got to work on that issue,” Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told The Associated Press. “We understand that and we know that’s real.”
Ohio Sen. Jon Husted heard the concern firsthand at a roundtable last month. Husted is looking to fend off a comeback from former Sen. Sherrod Brown in another key matchup for both parties.
During the discussion on housing, one attendee told Husted that costs were “skyrocketing” in part because of uncertainty around tariffs.
“Uncertainty is the killer to this economy,” said Dean Windham, a real estate developer who previously ran for office as a Republican.
Some Republican Senate candidates have defended Trump’s policies while confronting concerns about their economic impact.
In Michigan, where Trump’s tariffs on Canada have become a central issue, Rogers has backed the president’s approach while leaving room for disagreement.
“President Trump is right to put America First — and tariffs are necessary, but are not a one-size-fits-all solution,” Rogers said in a recent statement.
Republicans believe the math still favors them
Even if Democrats hold every seat they currently control, they would need to flip at least two seats in states Trump carried by double digits in 2024 to win the majority.
Republicans are betting that those underlying advantages will matter more as Election Day approaches — particularly as Trump and the party turn their attention toward mobilizing voters who helped return him to the White House.
Trump told reporters last week that he will “be making a lot of stops” in the last 30 days before the election.
This week, Republicans will hold a midterm convention in Texas, where Trump is set to speak and top Senate candidates including Rogers and Husted are expected to attend.
But Republicans acknowledge they have work to do.
“Politics is local,” Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said. He pointed to Trump’s decision to import beef, which he said made farmers and ranchers “feel just like the administration pulled the rug right off from underneath” them.
“They’re hurt,” Rounds said. “They feel like they’ve been let down.”
