Two Downingtown high school students admitted to drinking alcohol while supervising a football camp at Downingtown East High School last month, district officials said Friday.
The students, who were minors, were removed from the Blue & Gold camp after the district learned about the incident June 18, said Downingtown spokesperson Jennifer Shealy.
The camp, which ran from June 15-19 by the Downingtown East football team’s booster club with the help of high school volunteers, was open to students in first through ninth grades. The club did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Shealy said an adult volunteer “partially responsible” for supervising the students was also removed from the camp.
In a statement, district officials said that “district staff were present and overseeing camp operations at all times, ensuring that campers remained supervised and safe during the camp.”
The district said in the statement that it had “addressed the matter promptly in accordance with district policies and Student Code of Conduct,” but couldn’t comment on specific allegations “or any disciplinary actions that may have occurred.”
In a letter the district said was sent to parents of campers, Downingtown High School East principal Paul Hurley and athletic director Corey Sigle said they were “shocked and deeply disappointed” by those involved in the incident.
“The trust placed in our students by younger campers, families, coaches, and community members makes this behavior especially disappointing,” Hurley and Sigle said in the letter.
Hurley and Sigle also apologized “for not communicating the initial report immediately.” It wasn’t clear when the letter was sent.
The students who admitted to drinking did not have drivers’ licenses and did not drive drunk, Shealy said.
A rare copy of the Declaration of Independence found a new home after South Jersey Democratic power broker George E. Norcross III placed the winning bid of $3.6 million on behalf of his family at an auction on Wednesday.
The document, which was put on sale to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary byCamden County auction house Goldin, is considered to be one of the oldest copies of the Declaration of Independence.
The copy was printed in Exeter, N.H., in 1776 by local printer Robert Luist Fowle, according toPhillyVoice.
Only 11 copies of an Exeter broadside are known to have survived, with two others having been sold in January 2026 and January 2025 by Christie’s auction house in New York for $5.7 million and $2.4 million, respectively, reported PhillyVoice, which was founded by Lexie Norcross, the daughter of George Norcross.
“This one is in tremendous condition, it may have been posted in a tavern or some kind of hall,” Ken Goldin, founder of Goldin Auctions, said to PhillyVoice. “The fact that any of them survived is remarkable.”
Lexie Norcross and Alex Norcross, George Norcross’ son, said in a statement it was a privilege to own such an important historical document, especially so close to the 250th anniversary.
“As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, we are deeply honored to become the stewards of such an extraordinary piece of our nation’s history,” Lexie and Alex Norcross said in a statement. “The Declaration of Independence is far more than a historic document, it is a pivotal document that belongs to the story of every American and a symbol of the ideals that continue to unite and inspire generations.”
According to PhillyVoice, the Norcross family plans to make the document publicly accessible, with Lexie and Alex Norcross saying they are dedicated to preserving it.
“We recognize the responsibility that comes with preserving this remarkable piece of our nation’s heritage and committed to preserving it with the care and respect it deserves so future generations can continue to appreciate its enduring significance,” Lexie and Alex Norcross said.
George E. Norcross III, an insurance executive and major Jersey political boss, is also the owner of two other declaration-related artifacts.
In July 2021, the Norcross family paid $4 million for a copy of the Declaration of Independence, presented to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the 56 signers.
The family also purchased the Proctor-Sang-Newell Collection of Signers of the Declaration of Independence, one of 40 complete sets of the signatures of the 56 signers of the declaration known to exist.
A sign hangs in Ryan Daly’s office at the John A. Lally Athletics Complex in Syracuse, N.Y., with the total number of fans that can pack the JMA Wireless Dome — 35,446.
In November, Syracuse fans will fill the historic college sports venue, hoping one of college basketball’s most prominent programs returns to success.
For Daly, who was hired in April as an assistant under new head coach Gerry McNamara, the number is a reminder of the work that lies ahead.
The Havertown native has climbed the coaching ranks at 28 years old, arriving at Syracuse after serving as an assistant at Albany, Bryant, and Virginia Commonwealth. Daly said none of that would be possible without his Philadelphia basketball roots and the people he met along the way.
“A lot of these opportunities that have come my way have been a result of a lot of people pouring into me,” he said.
A family affair
Growing up in a family of “basketball junkies” sparked a fire in Daly.
His grandfather, Jim Boyle, was the longtime coach of St. Joseph’s before coaching in the NBA and overseas. His father, Brian, played at Hawk Hill under Boyle, then coached at Penn State.
“We are a Philadelphia basketball family,” said his mother, Tracie Daly. “We weren’t on the outside looking in, we were on the inside.”
Ryan’s earliest basketball memory was at 5 years old, shooting on a Fisher-Price hoop at his grandparents’ house in Overbrook.
“I don’t remember a time when basketball wasn’t the only thing I thought about or talked about every day,” he said.
Ryan went to St. Denis School until the seventh grade. Prior to that school year, his family moved to Boston, then State College, Pa., after his dad took a coaching job at Boston University and Penn State, respectively.
Three years later, Ryan and his younger brother Colin approached their parents with a request.
Ryan Daly joined Archbishop Carroll as sophomore and won Catholic League MVP in 2016.STEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer
“They came up to us and said, ‘We want to play basketball in the Catholic League,’” Tracie said.
The Philadelphia Catholic League is one of the top high school basketball conferences in the country, and there is a certain type of DNA that those players possess, Ryan said.
Tracie, Ryan, Colin, and their sister, Keri, moved back to the area before Ryan’s sophomore year, while Brian stayed at Penn State to continue coaching. Ryan and Colin both played for Archbishop Carroll.
“Neither of my boys would’ve been able to develop to the basketball players they were if we hadn’t moved back,” Brian said.
‘Tight-knit community’
Philadelphia basketball became Ryan Daly’s classroom.
Daly grew up hearing stories about Sonny Hill, Speedy Morris, John Chaney, Phil Martelli Sr., and Jay Wright — legends of Philadelphia basketball. Jim Lynam — also known as pop — was another mentor. Those relationships gave him an appreciation for the city’s basketball culture.
“Philadelphia is a special basketball community,” he said. “ … To see so many people coaching and involved with it, it’s one big circle, and it feels like it’s a very small tight-knit community.”
However, his own college recruiting process wasn’t easy.
Daly was a star on his nationallyranked AAU team, the Jersey Shore Warriors, and at Carroll — he won PCL MVP in 2016 — but didn’t receive many scholarship offers. It was a stressful time, he said, but his own experience became one of the biggest lessons in his coaching career.
“It taught me patience with evaluating players,” he said. “You might see them on a really good day, and that’s not really who they are or you might see them on a bad day and they are a lot better than that.”
He committed to the University of Delaware two days before graduating from high school without visiting the campus.
Ryan Daly spent two seasons at Delaware, where he surpassed 1,000 career points.
Daly had two standout seasons at Delaware, surpassing 1,000 career points. He then transferred to St. Joe’s and led the Atlantic-10 and Big 5 in scoring from 2019 to 2021.
Daly briefly pursued a career in the NBA G League, but living out of hotels and being away from his family was not for him. He quickly realized coaching was where he belonged and accepted his first coaching position at Albany when he was 24.
Soaking it in
At Albany, Bryant, and VCU, Daly immersed himself in the coaching profession, working early mornings and late nights and soaking up every piece of information from those he worked with.
He credits Albany head coach Dwayne Killings for teaching him creativity and VCU head coach Phil Martelli Jr., whom Daly followed from Bryant to the Rams, on how to recruit.
Each of those schools helped him develop his coaching philosophy.
One mantra in particular has stayed with him. Martelli Jr. often reminded Daly to “believe further than you can see.”
“When he said that line to me a year and a half ago, it really stuck out to me,” Daly said. “You never know when opportunities are going to come, you just have to be ready for it.”
That philosophy carried Daly to two conference championships and two NCAA Tournament appearances in consecutive seasons at Bryant and VCU.
Relationship-driven sport
Daly’s relationship with McNamara began long before he got the call to join the Syracuse coaching staff.
When Daly was a sophomore at Carroll, McNamara was recruiting his teammate, Derrick Jones Jr. McNamara attended open practices twice a week and often spoke to Daly after practice.
“He took me aside a lot and was like, ‘I don’t understand why coaches aren’t recruiting you; you should have a lot of interest and offers right now,’” Daly said.
Years later, when Ryan was a coach at Albany, they reconnected at a Coaches vs. Cancer event.
“I walked up to him and said, ‘I don’t know if you remember me,’” he said.
McNamara’s response was immediate: “‘Of course I remember you,’” Daly recalled.
While playing for St. Joe’s, Ryan Daly led the Atlantic 10 and Big 5 in scoring from 2019 to 2021.CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
Since then, Ryan and McNamara have kept in touch, texting each other about wins or recruits, while also seeing each other frequently on the road. When McNamara was announced as Syracuse’s new head coach, Daly texted him, saying congratulations. Two days later, Daly received the call from McNamara asking to join his staff.
But leaving VCU was not an easy decision.
“In some sense it was the hardest thing I ever did,” he said. “In some sense, it was a no-brainer.
“The part that was exciting for me was that growing up I remember seeing Syracuse in the Final Four and Sweet Sixteen. The Orange is synonymous with March, and the challenge of bringing them back to that was exciting.”
Brian Daly emphasized to Ryan while growing up that building connections was an important part of life, but also in the sports community. And those relationships are exactly how he has advanced in the profession and ended up at Syracuse.
The last time Syracuse made an NCAA Tournament appearance was in 2021, and it advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. The program won its first and only national championship in 2003, when McNamara was a player on the team.
Soon, 35,446 fans will be able to fill the Dome to see what McNamara and Daly are building in Syracuse.
“I know the fans are diehard supporters, and experiencing people who live, eat, sleep, and breathe Syracuse men’s basketball in the Dome every night, you really can’t ask for anything more as a coach and a player,” Ryan said. “It’s a real home court advantage, and we want to bring that back.”
Local Noise Philadelphia, an old-fashioned Battle of the Bands competition, will be staged over two nights at Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia in August.
Bands or individual artists of all pop genres — from rock to hip-hop, R&B to country — have until July 24 to apply to be one of the acts selected to compete at the Fishtown venue on Aug. 13 and 14.
Each act must submit a video performance of an original song through an application portal that can be no shorter than three minutes and no longer than five minutes. That means no 10-minute jams, jam bands!
The ground rules: Applying acts must not already be signed to a record label, either currently or in the nine months prior to July 6, 2026. All band members must be at least 18, and applications must be in by July 24.
The poster for Local Noise Philadelphia.Live Nation
Applicants to the Live Nation contest will have their work assessed by a panel of radio and music industry professionals who will judge them on “originality, musicianship, and presentation.”
Those that make it through that screening process will then compete in the Local Noise semifinals on Aug. 13 and 14, and will be graded and rated by a panel of judges and the live audience. The winners will move on to a final competition at Brooklyn Bowl on Aug. 20, where a winner will be crowned.
The Local Noise Philly champion will receive $5,000, and perform on a side stage during an as-yet-undetermined “major concert” at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden in September. Among the acts playing in the capacious amphitheater that month are Lil Wayne (Sept. 11), Bryson Tiller (Sept. 18), Jason Aldean (Sept. 19), Mt. Joy (Sept. 25), and Gorillaz (Sept. 27).
Five Below has been opening hundreds of new stores in recent years, and this month, the Philly-based retailer is set to add its 2,000th location.
The new store is expected to open in LaGrange, Ga., on Friday, July 17, the company announced this week.
“Reaching 2,000 stores is an incredible milestone for our brand whose mission is to be the destination for the kid and the kid in all of us,” CEO Winnie Park said in a statement. “We know our unique retail concept has a lot of runway ahead with thousands of new stores across the U.S.”
The company’s expansion puts its store counton par with Home Depot and Target. As of the beginning of 2026, Home Depot operated 2,359 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and Target had 1,995 U.S. stores.
Company leaders said in a recent annual report that they see opportunity to grow Five Below’s store count to 3,500 eventually.
Five Below launched its first store in 2002 in Wayne, and most items the business sells cost between $1 and $5. Its offering of toys, gadgets, games, and other itemsincludes slinky toys, crayons, sandcastle buckets, basketballs, and wireless gaming headsets.
“Many of the products we sell can also be found in mall specialty stores, department stores, mass merchandisers and drug stores,” the company’s most recent annual statement notes, but what sets the business apart is their prices, and their “exciting and easy to shop retail environment.”
The Five Below storefront at the company’s headquarters in Philadelphia.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Three years ago, Five Below had 1,350 stores in over 40 states. Then-CEO Joel Anderson, said the company had a plan to triple its store count by 2030. In the last three fiscal years, the company has added between 150 and 227 net stores annually, according to its recent annual report.
Five Below recently eliminated the section of its stores dedicated to items over $5. The company still sells the pricier items but now displays them among other items in the store.
As of January, the company reported having 7,800 full-time employees and 16,800 part-time workers, 24,600 total. The majority work at stores across 46 states.
Heat-related deaths in New Jersey appear to have shot up roughly five-fold over last summer following a holiday weekend with record-high temperatures, prompting advocates to urge the state to do more to protect vulnerable residents.
New Jersey reported 29 heat-related deaths between July 2 — when state data show temperatures in New Jersey peaked at 108 degrees — and July 6, according to state health officials, up from six such fatalities last summer.
Roughly a dozen of the deaths involved people who were unhoused or living in their cars, said Connie Mercer, CEO of the NJ Coalition to End Homelessness.
“Really we had a mass casualty event,” Mercer said.
Mercer and others want the state to expand its network of emergency cooling centers and take other steps to better protect those who are living or working outside from the impact of extreme temperatures.
State health officials did not provide specifics on the recent heat-related deaths, which must still be confirmed by autopsies, but they said most occurred in north and central New Jersey and involved people of all ages, not just elderly residents. Some were found in homes without air conditioning, while others died on the street or in parked cars, they said.
The heat also led emergency rooms to diagnose 132 people with heat-related illnesses on July 3, the highest single-day total in several years. Between July 2 and July 6, more than 350 people sought emergency care for heat issues, state data show.
“This is not a typical summer heat wave and it’s really important that we all take it seriously because it can become life-threatening very quickly,” state health commissioner Raynard Washington said at a July 4 press conference on storm damage and heat impacts.
New Jersey has reported heat-related fatalities in the single-digits for most years since 2000, when there were just two such deaths, according to health department data. Deaths peaked at 11 in 2002 and reached 10 in 2011 but fell to three in 2024.
The recent high death toll underscores the need to do more to protect those who work outdoors, according to state Sen. Joe Cryan (D., Union), who has championed a bill to create a state program to reduce occupational heat stress.
The bill, which has yet to get a hearing, calls for farms, amusement parks, and other outdoor job sites to provide water and shade breaks, and monitor workers for heat stress, among other things.
“Twenty-nine heat-related deaths is a staggering figure for one of the wealthiest states in the nation,” Cryan told the New Jersey Monitor, adding that he is renewing his push for worker protections and believes Gov. Mikie Sherrill “should be leading the charge for it.”
Sherrill’s office declined to comment but pointed to a broadcast interview the governor gave earlier this week about the impacts of the recent extreme weather, in which she said she was open to new ways to better serve the public during storms and heat waves. She said state agencies had sought to warn residents through social media and other channels and noted her office had worked closely with counties to establish cooling centers.
The governor also announced a new heat-health website during a July 4 press conference and urged residents to look out for each other during the extreme temperatures.
“Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in America, and this is the hottest stretch we’ve seen in over 14 years. And the heat is hitting all of us — not just seniors, not just people with underlying conditions. People of all ages,” Sherrill said.
Advocates like Mercer said extreme temperature was only part of the problem. The recent deaths were preventable, she said, a result of systemic policy failure. New Jersey needs to do more to create affordable housing and support shelters, and to invest in emergency sites to keep people cool on dangerously hot days, she said.
“Quality shelter in a variety of forms would make sure that not too many people died horrible deaths out in the sun,” she told the New Jersey Monitor.
According to the most recent annual point-in-time count, more than 13,700 people in the state were considered homeless in 2025.
Heat-related illnesses occur when the body can’t properly cool itself, according to the health department, and the higher the temperature, the greater the risk. Infants, older adults, and people with chronic health conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular issues and respiratory diseases are most in danger, it notes.
Kelvin Boddy, director of healthy homes and communities with the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, said the recent fatalities underscore the need for a statewide “code red” alert system for extreme heat, like the “code blue” warnings now in place for deep freezes.
As it is, Boddy said a handful of urban centers have instituted comprehensive responses to heat events, with designated cooling centers and clear strategies to communicate these options to residents. A pilot program adopted last year and backed by $2.5 million in state funds calls for similar programs in the five counties with the highest homeless rates: Essex, Burlington, Hudson, Union, and Mercer.
Work on the pilot is progressing slowly however, Boddy said, and the need for cooling services stretches statewide. “Clearly, as we saw with the recent statewide heatwave, this is needed outside the five counties,” he told the New Jersey Monitor.
Mercer said the code red program, while well intentioned, is not enough to address the need. “It’s a joke,” she said.
DETROIT — The Phillies haven’t had a Home Run Derby champion since 2006, when Ryan Howard blasted 23 total to take the crown.
This year, at Monday’s competition at Citizens Bank Park, they will have double the chance. Because for the first time in the 41-year history of the Derby, the Phillies have a pair of teammates competing against each other. Kyle Schwarber announced Friday that he would officially be joining Bryce Harper in the event.
“I just wanted to make sure pretty much getting through that series in Cincinnati, make sure everything was good healthwise, and everything’s been trending the right way. So that’s when we pretty much made a decision to do it,” Schwarber said.
Schwarber and Harper have competed in the same Derby before in 2018, although they were representing different teams. With Harper in his final year with the Nationals and Schwarber playing with the Cubs, the future teammates found themselves in the final round together in Washington D.C. Harper bashed 19 homers to narrowly best Schwarber’s 18.
Schwarber hopes that this year ends with another rematch.
“I think it would be awesome, especially in Philadelphia, where our fans obviously are going to get the opportunity to really show out what they’re capable of and what we’ve seen for years and years of just pure electricity,” he said. “So I think it would be a pretty cool ending there if that could happen. But we’ll see what happens.”
Schwarber hit his league-leading 32nd home run on Wednesday against the Reds, which broke Mike Schmidt’s franchise record for most before the All-Star break.
Bryce Harper said he didn’t really want to do the Derby again, but decided to participate for the fans.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
The fact that Harper has already won the Derby made him reluctant to compete again, but he said that he wanted to do it for Phillies fans. He officially announced his participation on Thursday night.
“I wasn’t really looking forward to it, to tell you the truth,” Harper said. “I didn’t really want to do it, but being able to do it for the fans, and doing it at home kind of took me to the point where I wanted to do it.”
Another thing initially holding Harper back was not having someone to throw to him. In 2018, Harper’s father pitched to him, but he needed to find someone else this year since his father hasn’t thrown in a while. He settled on Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel, who crossed paths with Harper as a coach on the U.S. World Baseball Classic team this year.
Ebel happened to play a role in Schwarber’s All-Star Game MVP-winning performance last year. While he didn’t participate in the 2025 Derby, Schwarber still launched the most memorable home runs of the week. In the first-ever “swing off” to break the ninth-inning tie between the National League and American League in the All-Star Game, Schwarber hit three homers on three swings with Ebel pitching to him.
Phillies assistant hitting coach Rafael Pena will pitch to Schwarber on Monday.
The format of the Derby will look different compared to the last time Harper and Schwarber participated in 2018 and 2022, respectively. Rather than rounds based on timers, each participant will have a set number of swings. In Round 1, the maximum is 20 swings, while Round 2 and the final round will have 15 swings each.
“The clock, I really liked. I know a lot of guys didn’t like it because they got tired or got worn down from it. I didn’t see it that way,” he said. “I think the clock on it kind of brings that theater part to it.”
He also presented an idea to MLB where in the bonus round, the players would be able to use aluminum bats to see how far they could hit. (The children who traditionally shag balls in the outfield during the Derby would have to be removed for that part, of course.) The league declined.
“Seeing a ball go way up into the third deck or over Ashburn Alley completely or off a scoreboard, I think would have got a lot of eyes on it in a way that they’ve never had, besides the steroid era,” Harper said. “People want to see that kind of homer, right? You want to see Sammy Sosa putting it through the windows in Milwaukee, and people putting it over the wall in Fenway, hitting the Citgo sign or whatever it was. I think fans want to see that, so I think it’d have been pretty cool to have that opportunity.”
But even if aluminum bats won’t be involved, the Derby this season will involve Harper and Schwarber competing against Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker, Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, Yankees first baseman Ben Rice, Royals outfielder Jac Caglianone, and Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras.
As for who the hometown crowd will back?
“They’d root for both of us,” Schwarber said. “I think they’d definitely root for both of us. I think it’d be just a straight cheer factory, so it wouldn’t be anyone against anyone, so I think it’d be pretty cool.”
Lower Merion’s police department is investigating a string of itinerant burglaries that have occurred in the township in recent weeks.
Officials believe burglars are targeting high-value homes that appear to be unoccupied and are taking small valuables and jewelry. The incidents have been consistent with “burglary trends” reported across the region, the police department said in a statement on Thursday.
“Summertime is burglary season,” Lt. Michael Keenan of the Lower Merion Police Department said.
Keenan said the Lower Merion Police Department has seen several burglaries over the last three weeks, but declined to say where in the township they had taken place. The crimes have been consistent with previous patterns of burglaries by individuals whodrive to wealthy neighborhoods in the Philly area, steal from empty homes, and flee, Keenan said.
The police department has said the crimes “may be connected to the South American Theft Group.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation has described “South American Theft Groups” as groups of foreign nationals who overstay visas in the U.S. and commit crimes, including burglaries, often using rental vehicles and fake IDs and documents.
Officials say leaving one’s home vacant for long periods of time can put it at risk for burglaries. Lower Merion’s police department is encouraging residents to use a home alarm, keep lights on timers, make sure mail and packages aren’t piling up outside, and leave a car in the driveway, if possible, when away from home for an extended period of time.
“Make it look like you’re there,” Keenan said.
The Lower Merion Police Department offers programs for residents to help secure their homes. Officers will conduct security inspections around residents’ homes while they’re out of town through the township’s Vacant Home Program. All Lower Merion residents are also eligible for a free home security survey through the Home Security Assessment Program.
The police department has encouraged residents to report suspicious behavior by calling 911.
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.
Record jet fuel costs — including a 5 cents-a-gallon boost due to a leak and fire at Delta Air Lines’ Monroe Energy plant in Trainer, Delaware County — have been passed along on to airline customers, and Delta has still been able to boost profits, chief executive Ed Bastian told investors at its quarterly investor call Friday.
At Trainer, “we’re back up to about 75%” of full capacity, but production will remain slow through the third quarter, boosting costs another 5 to 7 cents a gallon, Bastian said.
Delta’s fuel costs averaged $3.93 a gallon — the highest ever, the company says — in the three months ending June 30. That’s up from $2.25 a gallon a year earlier.
World fuel costs spiked after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, and Iran retaliated against U.S.-allied Arab oil suppliers and shippers, reducing exports from producers from several large oil-producing nations through the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite higher revenues and products, Delta shares fell 2% in morning trading to around $87 and closed at $87.39. The stock hit an all-time high of $95 June 30 before Iran and the Trump administration agreed to a truce, which has since been suspended amid new attacks.
Delta, which is based in Atlanta, burned 1.12 billion gallons of fuel in the past quarter, up from 1.11 billion a year earlier. The Monroe Energy facility in Trainer produces more than 8 million gallons of jet fuel and other products a day when operating at peak capacity.
Despite the Trainer slowdown and the Iran conflict’s effect on global tanker traffic, Delta expects its fuel prices have peaked and will fall to around $3.15 a gallon by September, Bastian told investors.
Delta bought the Trainer refinery from ConocoPhillips in 2012 to make the company less vulnerable to sometimes-volatile jet fuel costs.
The complex, which employs 500 United Steelworkers members and managers and hundreds of union tradespeople, is configured to maximize jet fuel for Delta’s East Coast operations and trades other products — gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil — for jet fuel in other markets.
Delta employs 100,000 worldwide, and Bastian says it continues to hire as it sells new services. Delta sold more “premium” services to passengers than main-cabin service in the second quarter, a reversal from its historical pattern.
“We are still in the early stages” of further segmenting travel into new premium travel classes, Bastian told investors.
Corporate-business travel continues to rise, and customers have been willing to pay higher prices. Delta ticket revenues jumped 13% compared to last year, while passenger-miles were only up 1%.
Transatlantic and domestic U.S. travel has risen, while U.S.-Mexico travel is down over previous years, Delta officials told investors.
International traffic will grow faster than U.S. travel as Delta continues to add new airports, especially in East and Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Bastian predicted. The company will have to cut costs in the U.S. and Europe. Delta’s shift to new Boeing 787s that are built for more premium travelers and more cargo will help.
A big challenge, he added, is finding enough airplanes to meet the demand.
Nothing about T.J. Colaiezzi screamed “tech CEO.” He was a former gym manager from Delaware County who had dropped out of college and could not write code. But with $27 million in venture capital in the bank, his AI-powered start-up took a risky marketing gamble in the South Philly stadium complex that announced his big ambitions.
Over three seasons, with the Phillies slugging their way to a World Series, the Eagles racing to another Super Bowl, and a Sixer winning MVP, hometown crowds looked up at scoreboards with ads for his little-known company, LifeBrand. And as Colaiezzi wooed investors from the VIP suites, he sold an underdog story fit for the Philly fanbase and the broader cultural moment.
LifeBrand, he said, was a safeguard for the cancel culture era, with software that could scour years of social media in seconds and flag compromising posts. Users could purge past mistakes with a click and potential employers could avoid making a hire that might later prove embarrassing. Colaiezzi secured support from sports icons like Phillies legend Jimmy Rollins, as well as current and former Eagles.
“Catch all your cringeworthy social media posts with LifeBrand,” Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith said in a LifeBrand commercial that showed a photo of a “#wasted” tailgater posted carelessly online.
Now Colaiezzi, 45, is facing accusations of fraud that no artificial intelligence tool can erase.
Hundreds of pages of court documents and internal company records reviewed by The Inquirer, as well as interviews with a dozen people involved with LifeBrand, tell the story of how a fledgling CEO won over deep-pocketed athletes and business owners, and then — following a series of admitted missteps and alleged misspending — was forced to sell the tech company once valued at $137 million for next to nothing.
T.J. Colaiezzi posed for a portrait in the LifeBrand offices on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in West Chester, Pa.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
In two lawsuits, including one filed last month in Delaware Chancery Court, investors say Colaiezzi squandered their money on a stadium-sized marketing blitz, hired unqualified friends at inflated salaries, and pocketed $6 million to finance a lavish lifestyle, including a $4.8 million home in Ocean City, N.J., and a powerboat. Both lawsuits allege that a prominent regional bank and an enthusiastic securities broker helped facilitate Colaiezzi’s deception.
Federal regulators are showing interest in the case, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) questioning at least one LifeBrand investor in March, according to correspondence reviewed by The Inquirer. An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the Eagles, Phillies, and Sixers claim LifeBrand owes them a combined $6.2 million in unpaid marketing bills, court records show. And some LifeBrand employees are still owed paychecks from before the company’s collapse.
To the financiers who sued him, LifeBrand amounted to a “Ponzi-like” endeavor focused more on attracting capital than generating revenue. To Colaiezzi, it was a genuine effort that came up short.
In multiple interviews with The Inquirer — granted, he said, against the advice of his attorney — Colaiezzi characterized the lawsuits as fallout from former partners who are jockeying for the last scraps of his assets. Those same investors, he said, did not object to his marketing campaign or salary decisions until the company went under.
Colaiezzi acknowledged making mistakes but denied that any of them amounted to fraud.
“I was always the first to admit I was not a tech executive,” he said. “I ran health clubs for a living. And I thought I was surrounding myself with the right people.”
His $6 million stock cash-out was one of those admitted mistakes. But he maintained it was a lawful transaction that took place three years before LifeBrand failed and was never concealed from investors.
The first investor lawsuit, filed in 2024, reached a settlement in March. Attorneys for the plaintiffs — among them former Eagles Brent Celek and Todd Herremans — declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Meanwhile, a chorus of other backers who saw their capital vanish but have not taken Colaiezzi to court say that the CEO lured them with hollow promises and misled them about LifeBrand’s prospects long after the company began to collapse.
“I will never go as far as saying this should be on American Greed,” said investor John Cerasani, referring to the CNBC docuseries about white-collar criminals. “He’s not a con man. But it was 100% reckless behavior with other people’s money.”
An autographed Michael Vick jersey in the LifeBrand offices on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in West Chester, Pa.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
From gym manager to tech CEO
The son of an IRS official and a homemaker, Colaiezzi went to Springfield High School, where he played lacrosse and built replicas of Victorian furniture. He became a volunteer firefighter, tried to open a deli, and dropped out of Pennsylvania State University before settling in the fitness industry.
He started cleaning gyms and ascended to regional manager, overseeing LA Fitness and Crunch Fitness locations. It was there, fielding complaints about things that personal trainers and other employees had posted online, that he got the idea for LifeBrand.
Colaiezzi saw a market full of people getting fired over old Facebook posts and pro athletes apologizing for the flippant tweets they made as teens. Companies wanted ways to vet prospective employees. The need for protection was urgent — a firewall against the damaging effects of a careless post lingering somewhere in the internet’s bottomless memory. Even the dating scene, riven by partisan politics, could benefit from an online cleanup.
After raising seed money from family and friends, Colaiezzi hired a Prague-based development company to build the software that made LifeBrand a reality.
His big break came in 2020, when he won a virtual pitch competition hosted by Kevin O’Leary from the hit show Shark Tank, who called Colaiezzi a “strong entrepreneur with every question answered.” The start-up won just $10,000 but earned something better than a cash prize: credibility.
Colaiezzi leveraged the pitch competition win into a Series A investor drive, securing over $27 million by the end of 2021, surpassing expectations.
He once told an interviewer that he wouldn’t sleep until he sold the company or until every investor was paid back. One financier, Nick Guiffre, a retired CEO of a manufacturing company, said he saw “the eye of the tiger” in Colaiezzi — a man who could make good on his word.
After losing more than half a million dollars in LifeBrand, Guiffre, who is not pursuing litigation, said he wished he had done more diligence.
“I don’t want to say I could afford to lose money,” he said, “but some people who put money in early on, it was their 401(k)s. It was their future.”
Colaiezzi filled out the top ranks of his company by hiring people he knew. LifeBrand’s earliest board members consisted of Colaiezzi, his brother, a doctor, and an early venture capital investor. His chief operating officer came from the fitness industry.
He maintains that they were qualified. But, like him, no one had real tech experience.
“I think I was too loyal to people who were with me from the beginning,” Colaiezzi said. “I should have operated it more like a competitive sports team, and not like a family.”
LifeBrand President and CEO T.J. Colaiezzi is shown at his corporate office on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, in West Chester, Pa. Bradley C Bower / For The Inquirer Bradley C Bower / For The Inquirer
The shadow broker
Anthony Falco wanted everyone to know how excited he was about LifeBrand. Maybe too excited, his attorney would later concede in court.
“Dude, this LifeBrand thing is going to [be] f— HUGE,” he texted an investor in 2021. “Signed the Phillies yesterday! Big investors involved. You will thank your little Italian buddy for this someday very soon.”
Falco was a financial adviser and securities broker who worked at Central Pennsylvania-based Mid Penn Bank and Wayne-based Alden Investment Group. But he had a side job consulting for LifeBrand that involved hyping up its prospects to investors, according to the two lawsuits.
Gregarious and well-connected, he was Colaiezzi’s liaison to a world of high net-worth investors and sports influencers. Falco invited him to celebrity golf outings, introduced him to Mid Penn Bank’s CEO, and helped bring on big names like ex-Eagles Celek and Herremans.
“We were banking at TD Bank at one point, and then [Falco] invited me golfing with the CEO of Mid Penn Bank,” Colaiezzi said. “And, you know, why wouldn’t you want to bank with a smaller bank where you got the CEO’s phone number?”
To Colaiezzi, sports were LifeBrand’s ticket to fame.
Between 2021 and 2023, LifeBrand paid millions to the Eagles, Phillies, and Sixers in a deal that included naming rights for a gate at Lincoln Financial Field and access to the Eagles Tunnel Club, a 1,400-square-foot lounge where VIPs could rub shoulders with the home team’s players as they hit the field.
Investors contend both Falco and Colaiezzi deceptively cast these deals as investor partnerships, rather than paid campaigns. According to the lawsuit initiated by the group that included Celek and Herremans, Falco received over a million shares of LifeBrand stock for inducing investors to the company through exaggerated claims, despite telling one that he was not allowed to accept comped shares.
While working out of LifeBrand’s offices, he texted investors that LifeBrand was going to be “a billion dollar company,” hyping up talks with the NFL and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. In another text, Falco said LifeBrand was projected to make $58 million in revenue in 2022. But he also cautioned the investor that “nothing is real UNTIL we see that it is real!!”
LifeBrand’s revenue at the end of that year: $496,005.
In a motion to dismiss the 2024 lawsuit, Falco’s attorney Sean Bellew wrote that his client was at most guilty of being “overly enthusiastic” about LifeBrand and denied misleading anyone.
Both Mid Penn and Alden, which investors in that case accused of failing to supervise Falco, denied wrongdoing. Mid Penn argued in court that it had no formal relationship with the investors and that Falco’s work for LifeBrand was an outside matter. The bank declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Alden argued much of Falco’s work at LifeBrand occurred prior to his joining the firm, which never formally advised any of the investors. Alden nonetheless paid $500,000 in March through its insurance policy to settle the 2024 lawsuit, according to Falco’s FINRA broker check page. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
As for the new lawsuit, Bellew told The Inquirer that Falco never met the plaintiffs who renewed the allegations against him. Falco, he said, was “a victim” of Colaiezzi’s characterizations about the company — same as the other investors.
LifeBrand ads could be seen in the outfield of Citizens Bank Park during the Phillies 2022 World Series run. Matt Slocum
The Hail Mary marketing plan
For a self-made CEO from Delco, seeing his company’s name lit up across three stadiums was glorious. It was also a gamble for a young, unprofitable company. Last year, for example, the Tunnel Club naming rights were acquired by Janney Montgomery Scott, a wealth management and investment advisory firm with more than 100 offices and $1 billion in yearly sales.
Colaiezzi said he told investors about a third of the start-up capital would go toward marketing and said the stadium blitz had their support at the time. He produced text messages from investors who later sued him, which showed them asking for access to VIP seats and praising the buzzy brand campaign.
“There’s not a single email, text, or phone call with any adviser or board member saying ‘you shouldn’t be spending money on this,’” Colaiezzi said. “Everyone was in line until we ran out of money.”
Between 2021 and 2023, records show, LifeBrand spent over $16 million on advertising and marketing contracts — more than half its venture-capital haul.
Colaiezzi said the marketing helped introduce customers to LifeBrand, which scanned millions and deleted tens of thousands of social media posts over those years. He said his sales team used the stadiums to pursue multimillion-dollar contracts with major institutions and companies.
Some investors told The Inquirer they always had doubts about the marketing. Cerasani, a venture capitalist and gambling influencer, had been wooed as a potential investor with sideline tickets and access to the Tunnel Club, with its open bar with premium liquors, and a buffet with shrimp cocktail and prime rib.
Every time Cerasani visited, he said, it looked like a private party for LifeBrand executives and Colaiezzi’s close friends, who treated him like “a king.” Rarely did he see prospective clients.
Colaiezzi denied that characterization. But the gap between the marketing spend and the revenue it produced was impossible to ignore. By 2023, the company was losing over $800,000 a month, according to internal financial records reviewed by The Inquirer.
Sales reps would take clients to games and work them for months to close a modest $12,000 sale, Colaiezzi acknowledged. The big institutional contracts were not coming through.
Yet he kept sending optimistic signals to investors.
In an August 2023 email obtained by The Inquirer, Colaiezzi announced that he had just closed a “transformative deal” with a Denver-based education nonprofit — a three-year, $63 million contract that would use LifeBrand’s data to help students at underserved schools.
It is not clear how the client, which has no online presence and no publicly available nonprofit filings, was equipped for a deal of that size. The revenue never materialized, and one investor alleged in court that the deal was fiction.
Colaiezzi said the eight-figure contract was real. He assigned two full-time employees and flew out to meet with leaders, but the nonprofit backed down before the bills were due. If anything, Colaiezzi said, “we got scammed by them.”
Autographed jerseys on the wall in the LifeBrand offices on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in West Chester, Pa.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Bedlam in the bank
In May 2024, a group of anxious investors gathered on a video call to discuss the millions they’d sunk into LifeBrand.
The company was on the brink of collapse. The money was gone. And all that the investors had to show for their backing were memories from the Eagles VIP suite.
As they raised concerns on the call, one investor shared that Colaiezzi had paid himself a $6.17 million stock redemption at a time when the company had little revenue, according to four people who attended the meeting. Outrage erupted.
“It was very obvious that things were going off the rails,” said Dan Ellison, a business owner who had invested in the start-up with his wife. “But no one knew that [Colaiezzi] took $6 million.”
According to Colaiezzi, the 2021 stock redemption was done at the urging of shareholders at the time to dilute his control in the company, and was documented on capitalization tables shared with subsequent investors.
He said he put $3 million back into the start-up to keep it afloat as he pursued a Series B fundraising round that would generate an additional $50 million — money that could finally turn LifeBrand profitable. That never happened.
Simon Wong, an engineer who worked at LifeBrand for a year until he was laid off in May 2024, recalled a workplace without the start-up grind culture. Most employees left each day at 4 p.m., and at 2 p.m. on Fridays, he said. Wong said he believed in the product and saw Colaiezzi as a leader who cared and said “the right things” about his mission.
By May, Wong said, software subscriptions stopped getting paid and paychecks were late — then they stopped entirely.
Colaiezzi agreed to fire himself as CEO, along with his other longtime executives. Then the rest of the board quit, leaving only Colaiezzi to run the company. He begged investors for patience while working with an outside firm to stave off bankruptcy. He laid off the entire staff and then tried to bring some of them back for a slimmed-down version of LifeBrand.
“It kind of felt like we were getting strung along,” said Wong, who said he is still owed pay from most of his final month working at the start-up.
LifeBrand — which Colaiezzi valued at $137 million in 2021 — was sold in August 2024 for $75,000 to Sentiment AI, an acquisition company formed by AI consultancy Global Fusion. Colaiezzi was initially kept on as an adviser, but the future of the company would be in the hands of more seasoned tech leaders. He said most investors agreed to convert their shares into the new venture in exchange for a promise not to sue.
Another group of investors took him to court. And the company’s turnaround effort stalled almost immediately, which Colaiezzi blamed on the litigation.
“It hit a point where people wanted to kind of run or protect themselves,” Colaiezzi said.
T.J. Colaiezzi posed for a portrait in the LifeBrand offices on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in West Chester, Pa.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
‘It’s like I lost my baby’
One day last month, inside the restored 19th-century workshop in West Chester where LifeBrand operated for years, Colaiezzi walked solemnly past whiteboards crowded with years-old strategy notes. Framed Eagles, Sixers, and Phillies jerseys still hung on the wall.
He said in an interview that he feels “a weird obligation” to come to the office every day, while it is still his.
The building, which Colaiezzi purchased for $2.7 million with other investors and leased back to LifeBrand, is under foreclosure. Now he sat alone at a folding table among packed boxes in what used to be a conference room.
“It’s like I lost my baby, you know?” he said. “There was so much great potential.”
Moving on involves finalizing the lawsuits and paying off debt. Lenders and investors have placed liens on Colaiezzi’s Jersey Shore home. Asked if he got in over his head, Colaiezzi said, “Yeah, probably.”
But he is making plans to erase the LifeBrand failure and replace it with a success story.
His next venture, he said, is “a family-first social network” powered by AI.
Parents will be able to upload family histories, recipes, and advice for their children. The idea, he explained, is that children living in a harsh world should be able to get answers to sensitive questions from their own families rather than a remote server.
“The AI will basically learn how Grandpop would answer a question,” he said, “not how ChatGPT would.”
The pitch has already secured $50,000 from investors.
Staff writers Joseph DiStefano, Samantha Melamed, and Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.
