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  • 5 takeaways from the Senate hearing where Fauci refused to answer questions

    5 takeaways from the Senate hearing where Fauci refused to answer questions

    For almost three hours Wednesday, Republican senators grilled Anthony S. Fauci with dozens of questions at a hearing focused on the origins of the covid-19 pandemic and whether Fauci previously lied under oath to Congress. Again and again, the 85-year-old former government scientist gave the same response.

    “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” Fauci said. He delivered variations of that answer more than 100 times.

    Fauci was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate’s government oversight committee by its chairman, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who has spent years alleging that Fauci participated in a cover-up of the possible origins of the covid-19 pandemic. Paul has also blamed Fauci for inadvertently sparking the pandemic – noting that Fauci’s agency previously funded coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak was first detected in late 2019 – and has called for him to be put in prison.

    Fauci has denied the allegations in repeated appearances before Congress, most recently in a combative 2024 hearing. Infectious-disease experts have also insisted to Paul and other Republicans that while Fauci’s former agency, the National Institutes of Health, funded virus research in Wuhan, the work could not have caused the pandemic.

    Fauci said Wednesday that he refused to testify because he believed Paul was seeking to wrongly trap him.

    “The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something – anything – that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said, before announcing his plan to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

    Here are five takeaways from the hearing.

    Republicans tore into Fauci

    Senate Republicans did not miss their chance to lace into Fauci. They inquired. They mocked. They goaded. At times, they flat-out insulted. Beyond asking about covid-19’s origins, senators accused Fauci of mishandling pandemic guidance and accused him of using his growing profile during the pandemic for personal benefit.

    Paul, a longtime adversary of Fauci, was visibly frustrated with Fauci’s nonanswers. Paul warned the former official that it was against the law to obstruct an investigation and threatened “repercussions” for Fauci’s unresponsiveness. When Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, asked to make a comment, a back-and-forth led to Paul removing the lawyer from the room.

    It was the first of many tense moments.

    “Nothing says honesty like taking the Fifth, huh, Doc,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said, leaning forward in his seat. The senator grew heated in his questioning, raising his voice and pointing with both hands as he accused Fauci of enriching himself.

    A Hawley staffer propped up an image of a magazine cover for which Fauci posed in September 2020. “You became a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar,” Hawley said.

    Fauci leaned forward, looking down at the table in front of him, hands fidgeting in his lap, glancing up occasionally at the senators accosting him.

    At one point, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) asked audience members to stand up if they had disagreed with or been harmed by policies such as mask requirements and school closures. More than a dozen stood. Moreno asked Fauci to turn around and look at them. Fauci turned to confer with his lawyers, then faced forward again.

    Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) adopted a warmer tone toward Fauci than his colleagues did. “I know you’re invoking your Fifth Amendment right, which you have the right to be able to do constitutionally,” he said. “Thanks for coming to be a part of this.”

    Democrats defended Fauci – mostly

    Democrats portrayed Fauci as a hero and said the GOP attacks were baseless. They also criticized Republicans for attacking public health officials like Fauci while supporting the Trump administration’s cuts to public health research and funding.

    Sen. Gary Peters (Michigan), the committee’s top Democrat, called Paul’s efforts biased. “One-sided investigations designed to validate predetermined conclusions do not serve the American people,” Peters said.

    Fauci and other public health officials have saved lives, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). “Today, we are demeaning and degrading their lifesaving service,” he added.

    One Democrat struck a different note.

    Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) was not going to attack Fauci, he said, but he wouldn’t defend him, either. Instead, Fetterman shared a regret: that the lab-leak theory came to be seen by some as a right-wing conspiracy theory, preventing people like himself from taking it seriously.

    “I hope … the next time our nation’s facing something like this, we are not … as I might have been, blinded by the partisan idea that maybe the truth might come from a side that’s different than you are,” Fetterman said.

    The hearing shows how divisions have calcified

    Wednesday was the latest example in a years-long trend: Congressional lawmakers have been unable to work together on a probe of the pandemic’s origins.

    A House investigation of the government’s pandemic response began in early 2023 with the top Republican and Democrat pledging to work together. It descended into partisan bickering and dueling reports about what the investigation found, and whether Fauci was personally culpable.

    In the Senate, a bipartisan plan to set up a commission investigating the nation’s covid response repeatedly stalled out. Democrats have accused Republicans of promoting conspiracy theories about Fauci’s role and other aspects of the response, while GOP officials say liberals and the media have not been sufficiently transparent about mistakes that government officials made.

    Paul, particularly, has long vowed to hold Fauci accountable for his “crimes” – a claim that Fauci and his allies say made it impossible to cooperate with him Wednesday.

    Paul’s threat to hold Fauci in contempt raises new legal questions

    The chairman said his committee plans to hold a vote next week on whether Fauci was in contempt of Congress. But he and his colleagues acknowledged legal uncertainty about how to proceed, complicated by President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon for Fauci before Biden left office.

    Lankford asked Paul if there is guidance on whether Fauci could be held in contempt for refusing to answer questions after making an opening statement. Lankford noted a 2013 episode in the House in which an IRS official made an opening statement and then invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions about whether her agency had wrongly targeted conservative groups. The GOP-led House concluded that the official had waived her Fifth Amendment rights by making an opening statement, and she was ultimately found in contempt.

    “Are we dealing with the same issue here?” Lankford asked.

    Paul said that was among the legal questions lawmakers would consider. He added that the courts may need to settle whether, with “a presidential pardon that offers you complete immunity, you can still claim that you need protection” in a congressional hearing.

    “Dr. Fauci isn’t liable for anything as long as he tells the truth,” Paul added.

    Some past congressional witnesses have also repeatedly pleaded the Fifth. Martin Shkreli, a controversial pharmaceutical investor, refused to answer questions in front of a House Oversight Committee hearing in 2016, annoying lawmakers with his smirking. While lawmakers discussed holding Shkreli in contempt of Congress, they ultimately did not.

    Regina Wallace-Jones, the head of the Democratic fundraising engine ActBlue, also repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during a congressional hearing last month in which Republicans pressed her on the platform’s process for vetting foreign donations.

    “It is the only reasonable response to a proceeding that from the beginning has been about harassing a political opponent’s fundraising platform, not genuine oversight,” she wrote in The Washington Post.

    House Republicans have threatened to hold ActBlue in contempt.

    Evolving perceptions of Fauci

    Fauci was initially seen as a unifying figure, particularly in the early days of the pandemic as Americans looked for answers – and the highly visible doctor provided them in TV interviews, podcast appearances and other forums.

    About 8 in 10 Americans in April 2020 said they trusted Fauci to provide reliable information on the pandemic, including similar shares of Republicans and Democrats, according to polling by KFF, a nonpartisan health care research and polling organization. But within two years, only about 5 in 10 Americans had trust in Fauci, a decline driven by plunging GOP support: Just one-quarter of Republicans said they trusted the doctor, according to KFF.

    Some of that was fueled by relentless criticism of Fauci in conservative media, which blamed him for pandemic policies that were increasingly viewed as too harsh. It was also driven by President Donald Trump, who empowered Fauci in early 2020 and followed his advice on imposing shutdowns and other measures, before distancing himself from the doctor later that year and repeatedly criticizing his guidance.

    “I didn’t mind him, I didn’t find him to be bad personally, as a person,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday. “But I didn’t agree with what he was saying or what he was doing.”

    Fauci has previously said that Trump soured on him as the pandemic stretched on and the 2020 presidential election drew closer, with Trump telling the scientist to be more optimistic about the virus’s risks in his media appearances.

    Fauci still retains more trust than some current leaders.

    Fifty-four percent of Americans in February said they were confident that Fauci had provided the public with trustworthy medical information, according to a February poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. That exceeded the level of trust in current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was at 38 percent.

  • Congo says the death toll in fastest-growing Ebola outbreak has passed 1,500

    Congo says the death toll in fastest-growing Ebola outbreak has passed 1,500

    BUNIA, Congo — Ebola has killed more than 1,500 people in eastern Congo in the fastest-growing outbreak of the disease, data released Thursday showed, marking a 50% increase in around a week as the emergency continues to outpace response efforts.

    As of Tuesday, 3,442 cases had been recorded, with 1,521 deaths, according to the latest government update. The sharp rise since last week partly reflects a backlog of cases and deaths that had not yet been confirmed or recorded, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

    The outbreak, declared on May 15, has been linked to the Bundibugyo virus, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments. Delays in contact tracing, difficulties accessing affected areas, mistrust from communities, and violence by armed groups and some residents have hampered the response, the Africa CDC said.

    The outbreak is mostly concentrated in eastern Congo’s remote Ituri province, which accounts for nearly 90% of cases, but there have been others confirmed in five provinces, including one of the country’s largest cities, Kisangani.

    Neighboring Uganda declared itself free of Ebola on Tuesday following the discharge of the country’s last patient in mid-June.

    Ebola is rare, but highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.

    Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said Thursday that 63% of confirmed deaths in the last two weeks occurred outside of treatment centers.

    Kaseya said this is largely due to the “unsafe handling of infected bodies” by residents. Traditional burial practices in some communities involve touching the bodies of the deceased, which can be highly contagious.

    The restrictions that health authorities have placed on such funerals, along with widespread misinformation asserting that the deadly virus isn’t real, have angered some residents and led to attacks on health facilities.

    In Ituri’s Nyakunde health zone, international partners supporting the Ebola response had to temporarily relocate after a July 15 attack on a hospital and a treatment center, sparked by a patient’s death.

    Officials say the relocation of these partners, including Africa CDC and Mercy Corps, has disrupted surveillance, contact tracing, and supplies.

    Désiré Duabo, chief medical officer for the health zone, said foreign aid groups and agencies had provided much of the supplies, equipment, and operational support, and warned that the small stocks left are “almost depleted.”

    Attacks such as the one in Nyakunde are causing anxiety among health workers and making it difficult for them to carry out their duties, said Pierre Akilimali, the Ebola response incident manager at the National Public Health Institute of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

    “They are working amidst risks of infection as well as risks to their personal safety,” he said.

    Local health officials say security has since stabilized and are urging partners to return, with Africa CDC saying teams could redeploy as soon as next week.

    The latest outbreak has killed more people at a quicker rate than any previous outbreak, including in 2014-2016 when 28,000 cases were reported, of which over 11,000 people died. That outbreak took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

    The World Health Organization says the global risk of spread remains low because Ebola does not travel through the air, making it much harder to spread than respiratory viruses. Cases detected outside the affected region have so far been quickly identified and contained without leading to sustained transmission, the agency said.

    In Congo, however, the risk of the spread remains “very high,” according to the WHO.

  • Lawmakers will investigate Iranian attack that killed 6 U.S. troops

    Lawmakers will investigate Iranian attack that killed 6 U.S. troops

    Democratic lawmakers announced Thursday that they are opening an investigation into the Iranian drone strike that killed six U.S. service members in Kuwait earlier this year, citing doubts over the objectivity of the military’s internal review of the attack.

    In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Rep. Pat Ryan (D., N.Y.) — along with almost a dozen other House and Senate Democrats — cited recent reporting by the Washington Post and other media outlets scrutinizing the March 1 strike, saying they want answers to whether the military had adequate protections in place before the attack and whether the troops received proper medical care afterward.

    “The need for this investigation goes beyond the Shuaiba attack — it’s about taking accountability and protecting our service members,” Ryan, an Army and Iraq War veteran, said in a statement to the Post. He was referring to Port Shuaiba, the facility along the Persian Gulf where the deadly strike occurred. “It’s our job as members of Congress to force [Hegseth] to give us real answers and make sure something like this never happens again.”

    Reached for comment, the Pentagon did not address whether it would cooperate with lawmakers’ investigation, saying in a brief statement that “as with all Congressional correspondence, we will respond directly to the sender.”

    It was just the second day of Operation Epic Fury, the name the Trump administration has given the conflict, when an Iranian Shahed drone crashed into the center of an Army operations center at Port Shuaiba. Dozens of service members were injured in the attack along with the six who died.

    In the months since, survivors have alleged that military leaders failed to take appropriate action after being warned the facility lacked adequate defenses. Some have said, too, that troops wounded in the strike faced considerable difficulty obtaining treatment.

    Military officials have contested both assertions.

    As the Post reported this month, several soldiers who were at Port Shuaiba have said they doubt the Army’s internal review will hold anyone accountable. Citing a U.S. official familiar with the review, the Post also reported that the initial findings did not assign fault for the attack or address any punitive action.

    The Army has shared its findings with the families of some of the fallen service members but has not released that information publicly.

    In their letter to Hegseth, lawmakers questioned the seriousness and independence of the Army’s internal review, citing other reporting by the Post that revealed the task was assigned initially to a midgrade officer within the affected unit instead of an outside investigator.

    The matter was later elevated to a more senior officer at U.S. Army Central, the affected unit’s parent command. Outside observers have said they were skeptical of the move, noting that it still left the review to be overseen by personnel in the same chain of command.

    The lack of an independent investigator, coupled with new concerns about the Pentagon’s transparency and recordkeeping, raise questions about “whether investigations into service member casualty incidents will be conducted objectively,” Warren wrote in the letter.

    Citing Democrats’ concerns about the Defense Department’s “failures to provide service members that sustained injuries in this war with adequate care and its inability to honestly and openly inform the American people about the consequences of this war,” the lawmakers have chosen to pursue answers on their own, the letter says.

    They requested a response from the Pentagon by Aug. 12.

  • 18 new restaurants that opened in the Philly suburbs this summer

    18 new restaurants that opened in the Philly suburbs this summer

    An eclectic crop of new restaurants has opened over the last several months across the Philadelphia suburbs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Some — like the three sports bars in Camden County alone — are breathing new life into familiar addresses. Others mark ambitious first ventures.

    Here are 18 of them, from Phoenixville to Gloucester Township to Wilmington.

    Pennsylvania

    Academy Grill (424 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington): Michael Sloane and Jay Rosenthal’s group, Fine Line Dining, has transformed the former Cantina Feliz into a polished white-tablecloth destination. Jeffrey Power, longtime chef at the erstwhile Dettera in Ambler, oversees a menu of house-made pasta, seafood, and steaks.

    Bluebird Distilling has reopened with a new neo-Neapolitan pizzeria and restaurant.Photos courtesy of Ed Newton

    Bluebird Distilling & Dough House (100 Bridge St., Phoenixville): Bluebird Distilling has expanded its flagship into a full restaurant built around cocktails and neo-Neapolitan pizza. Chef Devon Migeot, formerly of Zahav and Laser Wolf, makes dough with Italian stone-ground flour and bakes bread in-house. The $2.2 million renovation also added an expanded bar and dining room.

    Noah Clifford (left) and Sofia Siano working the pastry case at the Buttery in Bryn Mawr.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer

    The Buttery Bryn Mawr (836 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr): The Malvern bakery-cafe opened its Main Line expansion with 82 indoor seats and daily service from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The menu includes sourdough breads, pastries, Turkish eggs (poached eggs cooked in garlicky yogurt with a drizzle of spicy butter), sandwiches, and seasonal lunch dishes, plus grab-and-go foods after the kitchen closes at 3 p.m.

    Cleavers (103 Squire Dr., Newtown Square): The Center City cheesesteak shop grand-opened its second location last month at Ellis Preserve, offering cheesesteaks, chicken cheesesteaks, burgers, sandwiches, fries, and milkshakes.

    The Coffee Station (1117 Smithbridge Rd., Glen Mills): The Delaware County breakfast-and-lunch operator took over the former Meghan’s Restaurant, which had occupied the building for 27 years. The menu includes omelets, pancakes, breakfast sandwiches, burgers, hoagies, wraps, soups, and salads. Other locations are in Morton and Garnet Valley.

    Tabletop and tableside cooking are offered at Ogyu Japanese BBQ.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    Ogyu Japanese BBQ & Bar (60 Greenfield Ave., Ardmore): Restaurateur Sam Li’s upscale yakiniku restaurant occupies the former Iron Hill Brewery. Customers grill premium Wagyu and other meats on tabletop burners, choosing from fixed-price packages or à la carte selections. The dramatically remodeled space includes black-and-gold finishes, marble-paneled walls, a large bar, and private dining rooms.

    Upper Darby’s Tina Fey offers Jimmy Fallon a slice of Pica’s pizza on the “Tonight” show in 2014.Lloyd Bishop / NBC

    Pica’s Italian Market (1101 Sussex Blvd., Broomall): After closing its landmark Upper Darby dining room earlier this year, the Pica family soft-opened this mostly takeout shop in a Delco light-industrial park, carrying the restaurant’s signature square pizzas, sandwiches, prepared foods, and other Italian specialties. Pica’s, which hit the national radar in 2014 when locally raised Tina Fey sampled its pizza on the Tonight show, traces its roots to Frank Pica Sr.’s West Philadelphia pizzeria. There’s a West Chester location, too.

    P.J. Whelihan’s (2920 S. Eagle Rd., Newtown): The regional sports-bar chain took over the former Iron Hill Brewery at the Village at Newtown with its signature wings, burgers, sandwiches, salads, and American entrees, backed by numerous televisions and a broad draft-beer selection. Most of Iron Hill’s existing layout was retained.

    Pomelo Rooftop Terrace at the Brandywine, 165 King of Prussia Rd., King of Prussia.The Brandywine

    Pomelo Rooftop Terrace (165 King of Prussia Rd., Radnor): This expansive rooftop bar and lounge atop The Brandywine hotel in Radnor (with 136 seats, inside and out) will grand-open Aug. 8 with chef Michael Davies’ menu of shareable plates (e.g. oysters, scallop crudo, a smash burger, grilled branzino, lion’s mane mushroom cake), raw bar, botanical-focused cocktails, wine, and beer. Weekend brunch begins Aug. 22.

    Porter (34 E. Butler Ave., Ambler): This newcomer is in the former Gypsy Blu space on the first floor of Ambler’s historic former Wyndham Hotel, offering contemporary American cooking in a candlelit, vintage-inspired dining room. Menu includes oysters, pasta, risotto, seafood, and meat dishes. Gaslight, a separate craft-cocktail bar with small plates, is upstairs.

    Rick’s Tavern (201 W. Seventh Ave., Conshohocken): Chef Derek Davis runs the show at Rick and Gale Mahoney’s modern tavern on the rebuilt site of Pizza Time Saloon and Old Time Saloon. The two-story restaurant honors those neighborhood institutions with wood-fired pizza while adding house-made pasta, cocktails, private-event space, and live music upstairs on Friday and Saturday nights.

    The bar at the Scratch Kitchen by Gallo’s, 575 Horsham Rd, Horsham.Michael Klein / Staff

    The Scratch Kitchen at Gallo’s (575 Horsham Rd., Horsham): The Harvey family, owners of Gallo’s Seafood in Northeast Philadelphia, is behind this casual, roomy neighborhood restaurant in the former Farm & Fisherman Tavern. Chef Bob DeLange, the owners’ son-in-law, combines seafood dishes from Gallo’s with burgers and bar food inspired by Harv’s Burger Bar, Gallo’s adjoining Northeast Philadelphia tavern.

    The exterior of 333 Belrose in Radnor’s St. Davids’ area.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer

    333 Belrose (333 Belrose Lane, Radnor): The longstanding contemporary American restaurant has reopened under chef Ross Essner after an extensive renovation that flipped the positions of the bar and main dining room.

    Yume Sushi in the Shoppes at English Village, 1460 Bethlehem Pike, North Wales.Michael Klein / Staff

    Yume Sushi (1460 Bethlehem Pike, North Wales): This Japanese restaurant has opened in the Shoppes at English Village, down the row from Trader Joe’s. Co-owner and head chef Kevin Wan brings about a decade of sushi experience to the venture. The menu centers on sushi, sashimi, rolls, and Japanese-Asian fusion dishes.

    New Jersey

    Flying Pig Tavern & Tap (1300 Blackwood-Clementon Rd., Gloucester Township): The sprawling former Favorites off-track-betting building has come up as the fifth unit in a growing group. Menu of pizzas, burgers, wings, tacos, and entrees shares billing with live bands, darts, shuffleboard, and a covered tiki bar. A sixth location is planned for the former Andalusia Bar & Grill space in Bensalem.

    Home Team Tavern (267 S. Black Horse Pike, Mount Ephraim): Greg D’Alesio has turned the former Mount Ephraim Bar & Grill into a compact, sports-themed neighborhood tavern. Its scratch kitchen serves pizzas, burgers, wings, sandwiches, and elevated bar food, alongside draft cocktails and beer.

    Thirsty Turtle Tavern (270 White Horse Pike, Barrington): This new concept from SAS Restaurant Group in the former Chuck Lager space features an open kitchen, burgers, pizza, sushi, cocktails, draft beer, and an outdoor patio behind garage doors. It operates daily; weekday happy hour and weekend brunch are expected to begin in the fall.

    Delaware

    Ezme (625 N. Market St., Wilmington): Chef Antimo DiMeo and the Bardea Restaurant Group opened this coastal Mediterranean restaurant across from Bardea Food & Drink. Inspired by cuisine from Turkey, Greece, and the Aegean coast, the menu encompasses mezze, raw-bar dishes, handmade breads, grilled seafood, and fire-driven preparations accented with herbs, citrus, and spices. Both à la carte and tasting-menu formats are available.

  • The way out of Trump’s failed Iran war | Editorial

    The way out of Trump’s failed Iran war | Editorial

    Much like the rest of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, the latest outbreak of hostilities has produced nothing but death, destruction, and disorder. The current flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz makes the Schuylkill Expressway look fast, Tehran retains its capacity to terrorize its neighbors with cheap drones, and more American service members and civilians in the region have been killed or wounded.

    Last week, the Trump administration brain trust devised a horribly creative means of adjusting this abysmal cost-benefit ratio: blaming the latest U.S. losses on some other war. The Pentagon now categorizes four of the service members killed in the region and more than 200 of those injured as casualties not of the Iran conflict, but of unspecified “overseas operations.” This is based on the notion that the U.S.-Iranian ceasefire and memorandum of understanding ended the war, which it obviously didn’t.

    This accounting trick is an insult to the troops and their families. But the impulse behind it is correct in one sense: It’s time to actually cut American losses and end this misbegotten war for good.

    Five months after the United States joined Israel in waging war on Iran for the second time in as many years, the effort has achieved none of the administration’s various stated aims. Iran continues to be ruled by an oppressive theocratic regime with nuclear ambitions and proxy forces that menace its neighbors.

    Trump’s war on the media is really a war on the truth | Editorial

    The Islamic Republic is, in some respects, stronger than before, having shown it can fight the most powerful militaries in the region and the world to a standoff. At the same time, it now wields a weapon that may be more effective than a nuke: its ability to rattle the global economy by strangling oil and gas shipments through the strait.

    Trump, meanwhile, is under pressure from his vulnerable allies (and business partners) in the Gulf, congressional Republicans staring down a midterm shellacking, and dwindling supplies of munitions. Sure, he can keep threatening to resume the American onslaught to the extent of committing war crimes. But the president has already done more than his share to prove the ultimate inefficacy of both the rhetoric and the bombs.

    Rather than risk the lives of more Americans and others, and spend more billions to no avail, the administration must accept the necessity of a tactic it has largely avoided: multilateral diplomacy.

    What John Fetterman forgot about his U.S. Senate seat | Editorial

    Trump himself has shown intermittent glimmers of understanding this, having periodically groused about the refusal of NATO and other allies to come to America’s aid in the war. Such complaints also revealed the president’s fundamental misunderstanding of the transatlantic alliance, which exists to deter rather than further military aggression, and the nature of international relationships, which rely on the sort of mutual respect to which Trump has laid waste.

    It was the hard work of diplomacy that forged the Obama-era agreement among the world’s major powers to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb, subject to verification by United Nations inspectors, until Trump unilaterally withdrew from the pact during his first administration. The peaceful transit through the Strait of Hormuz that prevailed before Trump’s war likewise rested on broad compliance with international maritime law.

    A lasting peace and resolution of the U.S.-Iranian standoff over the strait and the nuclear question may not be possible even with the benefit of broader international cooperation. But they will be impossible without it.

  • This La Salle rower built an app that’s changing the way athletes train — and the future of rowing

    This La Salle rower built an app that’s changing the way athletes train — and the future of rowing

    La Salle rowing coach Ivo Krakic had a problem.

    The app he was using to track his rowers’ stroke length and the amount of force they were using from the team’s ergometer rowing machines stored the information in different locations. Krakic wanted it on one screen.

    Eventually, Krakic contacted and paid the app’s developer to make the fix — which caught the attention of one of his rowers.

    “I was like, ‘Dang! My coach is paying $500 for something I could have done in 20 minutes,’” said Will Tran, a senior who primarily rows in the second varsity eight boat. “There’s a real gap in the market here. I used the app as well. I know I could improve this in so many different ways.”

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    Tran, a computer science major, decided to build his own app.

    The final product became known as RowIQ. The app is an all-encompassing data ecosystem that uses artificial intelligence to pinpoint where and how rowers can improve. The app processes data from Concept2 ergometer rowing machines, smartwatches, and RowIQFuel — Tran’s nutrition app. In the future, RowIQ will also be able to collect data from on-water rowing monitors.

    “We have hundreds of thousands of data points that no one ever looks at,” Tran said. “In rowing, these races are sometimes won by a hundredth of a second, so you need that 1% sometimes. Actually, a lot of the time you need that 1%. What we’re aiming to do is give rowers a complete picture of their training with data that’s never been seen before.”

    Will Tran displays the training app he created. In the last two months, the RowIQ has received over 1,000 downloads.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    The app also allows rowers to create groups, so coaches have access to their entire team’s data in one location. Tran noted that this feature lets coaches “see trends in less than a second,” allowing them to understand areas of improvement and create lineup decisions with ease.

    “It gives you really good data feedback on your [rowing] curve, how you’re rowing, and essentially what you’re doing and how you’re transferring your power,” Krakic said. “We’re able to match the guys indoors and then transfer that onto the water. We’re lucky to have it. It puts us ahead a little bit.”

    In the last two months, the app has received over 1,000 downloads. More importantly though, the app boasts impressive user retention. Tran noted that top users are logging over 200,000 meters per week on the app.

    Yin and yang

    For the first few months of RowIQ, Tran worked alone. But while he tinkered with the app’s coding, Tran found that he had little time to dedicate to RowIQ’s marketing, so he put together a small team. Fittingly, they all have a background in rowing.

    A few members from Penn’s lightweight crew team are developing a telemetry system to fully integrate RowIQ’s data into one central location. Meanwhile, former Harvard lightweight rower Zarret Mills is working as a consultant for the app.

    One of the most important members of the team has been Sergej Čipak, a former La Salle rower who moved back to his home country of Serbia to pursue electrical engineering. Tran and Čipak spent one year as teammates at 20th and Olney.

    “You spend a lot of time together, even when you’re not like racing or training,” Čipak said. “You’re eating together. You go to parties together. So I really grew close with Will over some time. Will has a very interesting personality. He can be kind of cold sometimes and give not-detailed-enough instructions. But I think we have some kind of dynamic that makes us really productive.”

    After starting part-time, Čipak’s role with RowIQ has grown exponentially. While Tran focuses on more big-picture endeavors, Čipak leads the app’s development. With the app’s success, Tran has been able to compensate Čipak — something Tran did not think he “would ever be doing at 22.”

    “It’s a yin, yang,” Tran said. “On one side, it’s awesome that someone pays for their apartment and their food via your idea and creation. It’s such a wonderful feeling to be able to provide that for someone and do it through something that you are so passionate about.

    “And then the other side of it is, I never want to go to sleep and I never want to get outworked because this person is relying on me, and I feel an obligation to always be on, always be working, always progressing. I never feel off. Sometimes I’m with my girlfriend and I say I’m present, but I’m not. I’m thinking like, ‘Shoot, we got to pay Sergej his monthly paycheck so he can pay his rent and buy his groceries.’”

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    While Tran is adjusting to the added pressure of managing employees, Čipak is working full-time for a company that is not aligned with the career path he expected to pursue in Serbia. Still, he is on board with RowIQ for the foreseeable future.

    “We just crossed 1,000 users a few days ago, so I mean it’s really exciting,” Čipak said. “I never really worked on something like this in my life, and I do plan on keeping on working on this.”

    Can’t tell this kid no

    In the tech world, “college dropout” is somewhat of a lauded title.

    Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to run Facebook full-time; Bill Gates did it before him, leaving Cambridge to co-found Microsoft; and Jack Dorsey left NYU a semester before his graduation to move to California, eventually starting Twitter.

    The list goes on and on.

    Today, chasing the AI boom, tech venture capital firms like Y Combinator and Antler are known to provide college students with hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their startups. Meanwhile, industry giants like Palantir and Elon Musk’s xAI encourage students to ditch their formal education to work for them instead. Tran is no exception to this pressure.

    Will Tran, a rising senior at La Salle, has spent this summer growing RowIQ in the area.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    “I’ve seriously debated taking this fall semester off,” Tran said. “Like genuinely — we’re continuing to close deals with high school clubs, college clubs, recreational clubs. We’re onboarding probably 70 new athletes a day from clubs. It’s huge, and I don’t know if I will have the time in college to do schoolwork, be a Division I athlete, be a boyfriend, and run RowIQ at the same time.

    “I have seriously debated taking the fall off and joining some sort of Y Combinator, coming back to school later. Do I think I’m going to do this? Probably not.”

    Tran has already sacrificed opportunities to focus on RowIQ. This summer, he turned down an internship offer from a data analytics company. For now, even if the balancing act can seem impossible at times, Tran will try to have it all at La Salle.

    “You can’t really tell this kid ‘no’ or ‘you can’t do it,’” Krakic said. “The more you say ‘don’t do this’ or ‘it’s not possible,’ the more he tries to prove you wrong.”

  • Avalon shut down a live band at Gully’s at 8 p.m. Now the tavern is fighting restrictions on its liquor license.

    Avalon shut down a live band at Gully’s at 8 p.m. Now the tavern is fighting restrictions on its liquor license.

    AVALON, N.J. — For Three and One singer and guitarist Gus Thompson, 25, the music died on Dune Drive shortly after 8 p.m. on Friday, July 17.

    “We noticed the police out front,” the band’s front man said in a phone interview, recalling the night at Avalon’s new bar and restaurant with a patio for live music and other events. “Our set was ending very soon, so we didn’t think much of it. The owner said we’re being shut down. He said no more music.”

    The band was scheduled to play until 10 p.m., and had finished the early set with Thompson’s original song “No Idea,” but Avalon’s restrictions on Gully’s and all other bars in town prohibit any outdoor music after 8 p.m.

    Out in the crowd, Kate Nunan was incensed. At 8:36 p.m., she posted a picture of the band breaking down its setup in the Facebook Group Seven Mile Shenanigans, and wrote, “WTH is wrong with Avalon??? Shutting down a band at 8:30 because of a noise complaint??”

    The outrage has only grown, spilling over into a July 22 council meeting, with residents expressing concern that Avalon, long a place of late nights and live music, but now increasingly a place of private clubs and multimillion-dollar houses, was in danger of losing its small businesses and essential character.

    Has Avalon become too exclusive for the people who live there?

    Gully’s has appealed the special conditions of Avalon’s liquor license to the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, saying the ban on outdoor music after 8 p.m. is “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”

    At the council meeting, locals like Merri Jones, who said she was a second-generation graduate of Avalon Elementary, stuck up for Gully’s, which replaced the Black Cactus restaurant with a restaurant touting “old school beachy vibes.” (Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan praised its “clothesline of candied bacon.“)

    The hanging candied bacon served over grits and Gully’s blooming potato on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “They’re a breath of fresh air,” she told the council, which had been cautioned by Nicole Curio, the municipal solicitor, not to respond to comments about Gully’s since the liquor license restrictions were now a legal action with the state ABC, a division of the Office of the Attorney General.

    “It’s just a couple more hours to let them make their money,” she said. “We support it. A lot of locals do as well.”

    But neighbors on the 100 block of 27th Street, which has Gully’s at one end and Wawa on the other, and regularly idling 18-wheelers making deliveries to both, pleaded their case about the noise from Gully’s, including the amplified music and games like its Monday Minnow Races announced over a loudspeaker.

    Larry Hayes said he lives 450 feet from Gully’s, but the sound is causing an “unreasonable disruptive intrusion into our quiet enjoyment of our home.” The Avalon noise ordinance restricts any amplified sound that’s audible more than 50 feet away, he noted.

    The patio at Gully’s on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “We want to be good neighbors,” said neighbor Matt Tumasz. “We love the idea that there’s a family restaurant. But when you have a five-piece band playing and blasting music, and speakers that are 15 feet in the air, it’s just a little bit out of control.”

    Gully’s owner Beth Pearce did not respond to several messages from The Inquirer.

    On Facebook, Pearce posted: “From the beginning, our goal has been simple: to create a place where neighbors, families, visitors, and friends can come together and make memories.

    “We have tremendous respect for the role of our local officials,” she wrote. “We remain committed to working collaboratively, being good neighbors, and contributing positively to our community.”

    At the council meeting, she noted that several council members had patronized Gully’s with their families (and one admitted to being a fan during the council meeting).

    “The hope is we’re going to elevate all businesses,” Pearce said. She pledged to try to “figure out what the appropriate sound level is.”

    The exterior of Gully’s on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Avalon, N.J.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “I think we can find something where we can thrive together,” she said. “All we’re asking for is the same conditions as similar businesses within the district.”

    In an email, Avalon administrator Scott Wahl noted that the special conditions that permit outdoor music only between noon and 8 p.m. were adopted in June by council and apply to all seven holders of liquor licenses in Avalon, including the Union League, which took over the Whitebrier last year.

    Still, Wahl said, “I believe the Borough Council will attempt to revisit the issue to balance the interests of the business community and the residential community.

    “I think it’s fair to say both sides want to figure this out collaboratively,” he said.

    Three and One will be back at Gully’s this Friday. Thompson said the owners initially assured them the usual 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. gig would be fine but have since asked them to play from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

  • Is Bradley Cooper really from Jenkintown? We investigate.

    Is Bradley Cooper really from Jenkintown? We investigate.

    Unlike Philadelphia — a city, county, and school district all in one — the collar counties are a mesh of townships, boroughs, and informal neighborhoods.

    That geographical maze, along with the centuries-long evolution of the U.S. Postal Service, means some suburbanites are not even sure what town they live in.

    Which may explain why one of Montgomery County’s most famous sons, former Daily News contributor Bradley Cooper, is often reported to be from Jenkintown, but he is not.

    He is from Abington Township and, like many Abingtonians, he has been living a lie.

    Where is Bradley Cooper from?

    Cooper grew up not in Jenkintown, but a mile away in the unincorporated Abington community of Rydal, in a house his parents bought before he was born, property records show.

    In the 1980s, he attended Rydal Elementary, where he played a mime, according to a playbill shared on social media.

    The Oscar-nominated actor later enrolled at Germantown Academy, a private school in Whitemarsh Township whose reunions he still attends.

    Cooper is known to call nearby Jenkintown his hometown from time to time — maybe because the borough is more well-known, and because that is what his childhood mailing address was. His reps did not return a request for comment this week.

    Some Abingtonians don’t know where they live

    But unlike people who grew up in the tiny enclave, Cooper could not have attended Jenkintown School District or participated in its National Geographic-famous Color Day.

    “As someone who grew up in Jenkintown and loved cute boys and is about the same age as Bradley Cooper, I can tell you he is not from the Borough of Jenkintown,” writer Lauren McCutcheon said.

    Many Abingtonians think they live in J-town, borough manager George Locke has said — so much so that his staff starts resident service calls by asking for an address. Otherwise they could spend 45 minutes on the phone, Locke said, before realizing the caller is in Abington.

    Residents of unofficial neighborhoods like Glenside, or towns that span counties like Telford, may be more aware of their official designation. Some Glensiders attend school in Cheltenham, while others attend Abington School District.

    For people without a kid in public school, an invisible municipal boundary may not matter much day to day. But it matters for local elections and during tax season.

    Nye Stevens, a longtime Postal Service expert for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service, said mailing addresses can also affect people’s insurance rates, which are often based on zip code instead of municipality.

    And a zip code across two towns is nothing, Stevens added — some people get their mail from another state.

    Bob O’Brien of Wyncote used to think his practice, Relief Counseling & Art Therapy, was located in Jenkintown — until the tax bill from Abington arrived.

    “It was confusing,” O’Brien said — especially since there is a Jenkintown post office in the same building.

    “How it got this way, I’m not sure,” he added.

    The demands of mail delivery

    U.S. post offices began primarily as a pickup service in cities until the agency introduced home delivery in the late 1800s.

    Then cars expanded the suburbs, townships shifted, and assigned post office locations grew increasingly messy.

    “As townships grow, post offices seem farther away,” a New York Times headline about South Jersey observed in 1997.

    The U.S. has also closed tens of thousands of post offices in the last several decades, Stevens said, which may mean losing a mailing city that reflects where people actually live.

    A map shows the city limits of Waterloo, Iowa, in yellow, while a blue line shows the boundaries of the “Waterloo” zip code.U.S. Census Bureau

    Around 1990, some in Congress tried to fix the issue with a bill requiring the Postal Service make zip codes match municipal boundaries if towns request it.

    But such a change would “absolutely ruin the postal system,” Stevens said. “You can’t have a post office for every little borough.”

    The bill failed, and years later, the Postal Service was routinely rejecting zip code change requests, Stevens wrote in a 2006 Congressional Research Service report.

    “Some communities that lack delivery post offices complain that the need to use mailing addresses of adjacent areas robs them of a community identity,” he noted in the report.

    But at the end of the day, “zip codes are basically a delivery system. They’re not a neighborhood recognition system,” Stevens said this week.

    As for Bradley Cooper, the confusion around his addresses in the Philly suburbs has not ended.

    He supposedly owns an estate in New Hope. But he really lives in Solebury Township.

    This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.

  • The Phillies do ‘need some help’ by trades. But they also need some from Bryce Harper and his teammates.

    The Phillies do ‘need some help’ by trades. But they also need some from Bryce Harper and his teammates.

    Help!

    I need somebody …

    Help!

    … not just anybody …

    Help!

    … you know I need someone …

    Helllllllllllllp!

    Nine losses in 12 games over a span of 14 days will have an effect on people, especially when the trade deadline is bearing down.

    It caused Bryce Harper to channel John Lennon.

    “I think we need some help,” Harper told reporters in Miami — and that was before the Phillies gagged a 6-0 lead into an 8-6 loss Wednesday, the worst gut punch at the worst time.

    The Phillies must go through the Dodgers. To do it they’ll need to find a lefty reliever at the trade deadline.

    OK, before we continue: Harper isn’t wrong.

    Everyone can see that the Phillies need, at minimum, a right-handed hitter, a late-inning reliever, and another starting pitcher. The front office is aware; 29 other teams know it, too.

    Some of it is the consequence of bad luck. The Phillies’ most expensive offseason additions — right fielder Adolis García and reliever Brad Keller — went down with season-ending injuries. Mostly, though, it’s an indictment of Dave Dombrowski’s Jenga-tower roster that a team with a $317 million luxury-tax payroll has so many holes.

    And, well, take it away, Bryce.

    “I think we’ve proved pretty much all year, we’ve done a pretty good job, but any time you can get some help in here and reinforcements, I think it helps,” he said. “… I think obviously everybody knows what we need. We need both [hitting and pitching].”

    Bryce Harper (left) and Brandon Marsh have struggled at the plate since representing the Phillies in the All-Star Game.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    Harper shared that opinion during All-Star week and reiterated it to MLB.com and The Athletic a few days ago. But because his latest comments were on camera, and because the deadline is Monday, his words were amplified.

    So, can the Phillies get everything they need?

    “I don’t know,” Harper said. “We’ll see. I mean, that’s a Dave question.”

    As in Dombrowski, who irritated Harper after last season by wondering if he was still elite. They talked it out in spring training, and as owner John Middleton said, “I’m confident that everything’s behind us now.” Clearly it isn’t. As long as Harper hits and Dombrowski builds a contending roster, they will co-exist. But Harper’s cry for help, five days before the deadline, likely annoyed the front office.

    In reality, there’s only so much help available on the trade market, with right-handed bats especially scarce.

    Entering play Wednesday, 22 teams were no worse than 3½ games out of a wild-card spot. Within that extreme seller’s market, neither Mike Trout nor Byron Buxton is willing to waive no-trade rights. Buxton (hip) went on the injured list Wednesday, and two more available right-handed bats — Spencer Steer of the Reds and the Giants’ Casey Schmitt — suffered major injuries this week.

    Last weekend, the Red Sox dealt Connelly Early, a 24-year-old lefty with six quality pitches and five years of club control, for infielder Curtis Mead, who was having a breakout season for the Nationals after getting designated for assignment in March. And even before Mead broke his wrist in his first game, rival scouts agreed that Boston overpaid to gain access to a right-handed hitter.

    It’s clear what the Phillies need at the trade deadline. Do they have the prospect capital to get it?

    There’s a larger supply of available starting pitching. The Phillies scouted Giants lefty Robbie Ray last weekend and Mets righty Clay Holmes’ two injury rehab starts in the minors. They reportedly sent scouts to observe the Blue Jays’ Kevin Gausman, the Nationals’ Foster Griffin, the Mets’ Freddy Peralta, and others.

    But the Phillies really need offense. They’re tied for last in the majors in on-base percentage (.303), including a worst-in-the-majors .279 mark and .639 OPS from their right-handed hitters.

    And even if there was a high-impact bat available, the industry consensus is that they lack upper-level talent in the farm system to anchor such a swap.

    In that case, no matter what Dombrowski does before 6 p.m. Monday, Harper’s plea for help must extend to his teammates, too. Because although he’s right about the need for reinforcements, it’s really the stars — three hitters, in particular — that must shine brighter.

    Phillies shortstop Trea Turner has made seven errors since the All-Star break.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    Trea Turner

    After winning the batting title and finishing fifth in the National League MVP race last season, Turner is playing at less than replacement level, according to Baseball-Reference’s WAR calculation.

    Turner’s value is dragged down by his defense. He has seven errors since the All-Star break and leads the majors with 19, a striking regression from the best defensive season of his career last year.

    Lately, the Phillies hold their breath on every grounder to shortstop.

    Help!

    “He’s just in a place where he’s searching, and he’s too internal with his thought process,” infield coach Bobby Dickerson said this week on The Inquirer’s Phillies Extra podcast. “The ball’s put in play, and he’s thinking more about what to do with his body than engaging with the ball. … You can see he’s a step late, not as aggressive, not as decisive.

    “Right now he’s in a bad place. And it puts us all in a bad place, really. We just need to get him back to what he can do, and it’s my responsibility to get it done.”

    What if the Phillies’ most impactful addition was a resurgent Trea Turner? He’s working to make it happen.

    Not coincidentally, Turner’s problems in the field have come in the midst of his career-worst season at the plate.

    Through June 15, he was batting .216 with a .268 on-base percentage and a .595 OPS. The last six weeks have been better. In his last 35 games, Turner is batting .296 (43-for-145) and slugging .524 with eight homers.

    A midseason position change isn’t under consideration. So, as the Phillies try to fix Turner’s defense, they need at least a high level of production at the plate.

    Turner, as intelligent and self-aware as any player, often overthinks his struggles. Dickerson wants him to “be an artist instead of a scientist.”

    “He wants answers scientifically a lot of times,” Dickerson said. “The more scientific he is, the more he locks himself up. … We had his confidence flying high last year. He felt real confident. Now, he’s almost anticipating, don’t mess up. We’ve got to get it right.”

    Phillies outfielder Brandon Marsh has struggled since starting the All-Star Game.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    Brandon Marsh

    It took only 19 days for the Phillies to climb from the 9-19 start that got Rob Thomson fired to the .500 mark.

    Marsh batted .381 during that stretch.

    Kyle Schwarber hit 32 homers before the All-Star break, and yes, Harper was elite. But there wasn’t a more consistent Phillies hitter than Marsh, who played himself not only into the lineup against lefties but also into the cleanup spot for Don Mattingly.

    But Marsh is 5-for-43 with one homer since the break. He stopped hitting lefties, too, and was on the bench last week against the Dodgers’ Eric Lauer and the Yankees’ Ryan Weathers, hardly Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal.

    Help!

    All-Star outfielder Brandon Marsh relegated to platoon role (for now) as the Phillies seek more production against lefty pitching

    “I was talking to some guys around the All-Star Week, and I was like, ‘Would you rather be an All-Star or win a World Series?’ And the answer is easy. You’d rather win a World Series,” said Marsh, 4-for-30 against lefties since June 25. “… If that means having to take a step back and be more of a role player, then that’s what I’m going to be.”

    Actually, the Phillies need Marsh to be a costar again.

    Because Dombrowski could trade for, say, Lane Thomas from the Royals to split time with Marsh as part of a triple-platoon in the outfield. But it would be easier if the Phillies could count on Marsh every day and add lefty-hitting Daulton Varsho from the Blue Jays or Jake McCarthy from the Rockies, or righty-swinging Jo Adell from the Angels or Taylor Ward, if the Orioles sell.

    “I do believe that [Marsh] is going to be a guy that can be an everyday guy,” Mattingly said. “Something we talked about is understanding how to hit lefties and what you need to do. Understanding ball movement, what do you want to hit, where does [the swing] have to start. He’s a guy that, honestly, at the big league level has really not had the opportunity to continue to do that.

    “But at some point, we’re trying to win games. We need to be better against lefties.”

    Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper is 8-for-43 (.186) with 16 strikeouts since the All-Star break.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    Harper

    Help me if you can, I’m feeling down …

    … and I do appreciate you being ’round

    Help me get my feet back on the ground

    Won’t you please, please, help me?

    Harper’s candor is refreshing. He speaks his mind, even when it ruffles feathers.

    “I mean, Dave’s been doing this a while,” Mattingly told reporters Wednesday. “He’s never really backed away from trying to get guys. We’re going to try to get better at the deadline.”

    What makes Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber such unique stars? We asked each about the other.

    Asked if he was bothered by Harper’s comments, Mattingly, whose son, Preston, works under Dombrowski as general manager, said he only was concerned with what they implied.

    “If you say something about our team,” Mattingly said, “then you’re saying something about one of our players that you don’t like.”

    “Bryce is Bryce,” Mattingly continued. “He’s going to say what he wants. I’m not really concerned about it. I take it kind of with a grain of salt, knowing how players are over the years.”

    But Harper also isn’t satisfied with how he has swung the bat lately. He’s 8-for-43 (.186) with 16 strikeouts since the break, even after homering in the first inning Monday and tripling home a run in the fifth inning Wednesday.

    As Harper likes to say: “Not enough.”

    The Phillies need more, even if help is on the way.

  • Main Line psychiatrist stripped of her medical license

    Main Line psychiatrist stripped of her medical license

    A Main Line psychiatrist has lost her medical license after a state investigation found she had sex with a young patient for years, all while prescribing him a revolving mix of up to 12 medications, including highly addictive psychotropic drugs, without proper evaluations.

    Amy Mazza MacIntyre, a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist in Bryn Mawr, started treating a then-17-year-old cancer survivor in 2004 when he was a senior at Lower Merion High School.

    MacIntyre first had sex with him in February 2011, when he was 24 years old. She stopped billing him for treatment around the same time, though she continued to take patient notes for another 2½ years. She continued prescribing him powerful psychiatric drugs while having sex with him through mid-2017, according to an investigation by the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine.

    The board revoked her medical license in May, finding she had engaged in sexual misconduct and inappropriate prescribing in violation of state medical licensing laws. She is appealing the disciplinary board’s decision, which followed lawsuits between MacIntyre and the patient, Justin Kopicki, in civil courts.

    The board’s investigation — based partly on emails, texts, and voicemail messages that MacIntyre sent Kopicki — revealed that she gave him a $5,000 saxophone and a Cartier watch, hired him to work in her office, proposed marriage to him, told him she miscarried his baby, sent him naked selfies, and took him on trips, including to Turks and Caicos and Walt Disney World.

    Kopicki, who is now 39, said in an interview that MacIntyre had “groomed” and manipulated him while prescribing “really large quantities” of stimulants and benzodiazepines, including “Xanax and Klonopin mixed together.”

    “If I refused to go away on a trip with her, or I refused to see her, or I wanted to break up with her, she would refuse to prescribe antianxiety medications until I saw her again,” Kopicki said.

    She also prescribed medications to his mother and father, although they were not her patients, the board found.

    The board’s revocation order refers to Kopicki by his initials, but he gave The Inquirer permission to use his name.

    MacIntyre, 52, did not return calls and emails from a reporter. Her lawyer, Gary Samms, said he advised her to decline comment.

    “Dr. MacIntyre is an excellent, caring and compassionate physician,” Samms wrote in an email last week. “The board decision is being appealed to the Commonwealth Court where we believe we will be victorious.”

    The board revoked her license on May 28 and ordered her to “immediately cease practicing medicine.”

    “By engaging in a sexual relationship with a patient while continuing to prescribe medications without appropriate evaluation or oversight, [MacIntyre] compromised the safeguards that protect patients from harm and undermined confidence in the medical profession,” the board wrote in its revocation order.

    A woman who answered the phone at MacIntyre’s Lancaster Avenue office late last week said she was still practicing but unavailable to speak with a reporter. MacIntyre did not reply to a voicemail message asking whether she was still treating patients. Samms did not reply to a follow-up email on the subject.

    Earlier this month, the state board rejected her emergency request to stay the revocation of her license pending her appeal. She plans to argue her case before a judge on Thursday, Commonwealth Court records show.

    ‘Shifting explanations’

    MacIntyre admitted to sexual misconduct and violating medical licensing laws on three other counts: immoral and unprofessional conduct involving a patient; failure to maintain complete medical records; and fraudulent, reckless, or negligent practice.

    During the disciplinary proceedings, MacIntyre had only disputed claims that she engaged in improper prescribing. However, she argued for lighter discipline, such as probation, on all counts.

    She testified at a state hearing last year that she had been fearful of Kopicki and felt “trapped.” She said the sex was not consensual, but coerced, and that she had feared for her safety and that of her family.

    She said she had repeatedly tried to get a protection-from-abuse court order against the patient but did not qualify for one. (Such proceedings are not public record).

    The board rejected her arguments, citing a lack of evidence to support her “claims of coercion,” “shifting explanations,” and inexcusable actions.

    MacIntyre also cited “personal stressors,” including “family losses, the birth of a child, and her mother’s decline due to early dementia,” the report states.

    While treating Kopicki, she introduced him to her young daughter and was married, state and court records show.

    After contact with Kopicki ended in 2017, she said, she went to therapy to address her “understanding of appropriate boundaries.”

    She also limited her interactions with patients to mostly medication management rather than therapy. And she had not violated any regulations for the last decade, she said, arguing for less severe discipline.

    Kopicki said he provided the state with “thousands of text messages,” dating back to 2011, showing she aggressively pursued him and used medication to control him.

    “She put it in writing so it was extremely difficult for her to be like, `It was him. He’s the aggressor,’” Kopicki said.

    Her lawyer, Samms, said he believed MacIntyre’s appeal of the board’s revocation order to the Commonwealth Court will prevail.

    “There are numerous issues and contested facts that support the doctor’s position,” Samms wrote in an email, declining to comment further due to the appeal.

    First treatment, then sex

    Diagnosed with leukemia at age 4, Kopicki received chemotherapy treatments at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia until age 7, when the cancer went into remission. In high school, he became depressed and anxious. His mother thought his mental health problems stemmed from his cancer history and contacted CHOP, which referred the family to MacIntyre. Then 31, the psychiatrist was considered “relatable to a younger patient,” Kopicki said.

    The board’s order described how her initial therapeutic care morphed into inappropriate sexual contact:

    MacIntyre diagnosed Kopicki with anxiety and agoraphobia at his initial appointment in 2004. She thought he also might have obsessive-compulsive disorder. She started him on medication.

    In 2010, his treatment sessions with MacIntyre “became focused on [Kopicki’s] sexual activity.”

    In early 2011, Kopicki, then 24, expressed feelings for her in an email; the relationship seemed to be crossing professional lines. He was unsure if he should continue treatment with her.

    MacIntyre, then 37, wrote him back, saying she “was sorry if he felt it was best not to meet” and to “let her know if he wanted to be back in touch.”

    During a session a few days later, she told him she “wanted to climb on top on him” and did so, kissing him, the board’s order says.

    They had sex for the first time at his father’s house in early February 2011, and she continued to formally treat him through June 2013, writing patient notes in his medical record, according to the board’s investigation.

    She kept a log of medications she prescribed him through March 2014 and continued prescribing into 2017, the board found.

    When Kopicki tried to cut ties with MacIntyre, he said in the interview, she would change or increase his medications, saying his “mood is out of control.”

    “I trusted her,” he said. “When she was like, ‘You need X, Y, and Z medication,’ I put trust in her.”

    Kopicki said she became very involved with his family, attending dinners and events, including his mother’s wedding in California. She also prescribed medications to his parents.

    In spring 2017, MacIntyre showed up at Kopicki’s father’s house, yelling and demanding to speak with Kopicki. His father called 911, the board found.

    Kopicki cut off all communication with MacIntyre in July 2017.

    ‘Not acceptable’

    Kopicki said he first complained about MacIntyre to the state medical board in 2017, shortly before filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against her in Montgomery County Court.

    His lawyers advised him not to cooperate with the state while the case was in litigation. The state dropped his complaint, he said.

    MacIntyre settled the case with Kopicki in 2020 for an undisclosed amount.

    After the settlement, Kopicki said, he again complained to the board in 2021.

    Later that year, MacIntyre sued Kopicki in civil court for breaching a nondisclosure clause in their settlement agreement that prevented him from discussing her actions with authorities.

    In January, a judge ordered Kopicki to pay MacIntyre $25,000 for violating the agreement, court records show.

    Kopicki, who is now in law school in Oregon, said he intentionally violated the agreement “for the good of the public interest.”

    “This is not acceptable and she needs to be held accountable,” Kopicki said.