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  • Shapiro strikes a deal, Council micromanages, and Parker gets a H.O.M.E. debate for the holidays | Shackamaxon

    Shapiro strikes a deal, Council micromanages, and Parker gets a H.O.M.E. debate for the holidays | Shackamaxon

    This week’s Shackamaxon is about the mayor’s housing plan, micromanaging tables and chairs, and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s abilities as a dealmaker.

    Not yet H.O.M.E.

    Initially, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s $2 billion proposal to build or restore 30,000 homes seemed like a point of consensus between the administration and City Council. Yet, Parker’s attempt to expand the income limits, particularly for the Basic Systems Repair and Adaptive Modifications programs, has proved to be a sticking point, and the war of words is escalating.

    The mayor has been campaigning for her plan across the city, including at places of worship. She’s cast Council as unwilling to help those who have “paid up and prayed up.” A majority of Council members took issue with that description, insisting all they want to do is ensure the neediest residents have first dibs on the resources.

    Frankly, the temperature in this debate has gotten much too high. Under either side’s plan, income levels will be expanded, and most of the benefit will go to people making less than 60% of area median income.

    Instead of fighting Council over income levels, Parker should have pushed them to allow for more market-rate construction in areas that aren’t in and around Center City. Ironically, the city’s chief housing officer, Angela Brooks, published an article for the National League of Cities that makes the case to do exactly that, citing a Moody’s report that shows that much of the city is undersupplied when it comes to housing and calling for a market-smart response.

    Yet, much of Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy plan is geared toward demand-side support that may help individual households, but won’t reduce the rapid appreciation in housing costs for the hundreds of thousands of families across all income levels who will never apply for or receive any of these benefits.

    Cindy Bass during the first day of Council’s fall session in September.

    Wait outside

    Shackamaxon readers are familiar with Philadelphia’s tradition of councilmanic prerogative, which gives district Council members total discretion over land use and transportation questions within their districts. Typically, this means big civic questions like what to do with a closed middle school, how to renovate an aging library, or whether to proceed with an ambitious street redesign.

    It also means that district members have control over even the most minor of concerns — like whether a restaurant can place tables and chairs outside.

    In most of Philadelphia, you actually need a city ordinance to do this. That’s right. A restaurant or cafe owner can’t just notice it is a nice day and decide to set up outdoor dining. There isn’t even a simple permit system. Installation requires Council approval, which means getting your district Council member’s sign-off. That can be easier said than done.

    After the pandemic demonstrated that expanded outdoor dining can be done without causing an uprising, City Council created a few (what I call) micromanagement-free zones for restaurants, where the process is simplified. (To her credit, 3rd District Councilmember Jamie Gauthier included her entire district.)

    Even then, they must secure a $1 million insurance policy, pay a $227 annual licensing fee, and hire an architect. Yes, an architect must be involved just to put out a few tables and chairs. At Thursday’s City Council hearing, one restaurant owner claimed the process was more difficult than getting his food safety certification. For restaurants outside the designated zones, Council authorization is still required. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage against restaurants that already have the benefits of being located inside a zone.

    At-Large City Councilmember Rue Landau, whose brother, Rich, owns Vedge, has come to the aid of these forgotten eateries. She proposed and passed a bill to expand the “by-right” areas, freeing more businesses from Council’s micromanagement. While the bill should help more restaurants navigate the process, they still face the prospect of waiting months or years for city approval, in a process many entrepreneurs say seems designed to trip them up rather than bring them into compliance.

    Even with the limited assistance on offer, the effort still attracted the ire of 8th District Councilmember Cindy Bass. Bass, one of Council’s most prolific practitioners of prerogative, viewed the bill as an imposition on her right to dictate how things should be done. Even though Landau carved out Bass’ entire district from the legislation, Bass still felt the need to beat up on the proposal at a committee hearing.

    Saudia Shuler (left), dressed as “Saudi Claus,” helps Averie Love, 11, pick out a new bicycle during a 2017 Christmas toy giveaway in front of Shuler’s restaurant in North Philadelphia.

    Favors for fraudsters

    Bass isn’t against all restaurant owners, however. This week, she pushed through a resolution honorarily renaming the intersection of Broad and Pike Streets for Saudia Shuler.

    The North Philly mom and owner of Saudia Shuler’s Country Cookin’ rose to prominence as the “camel prom mom” in 2017 after hosting an extravagant Dubai-themed send-off for her son. The event included three different luxury cars, three different luxury outfits, and three different dates, alongside a camel and sand.

    Shuler told journalists at the time that it all cost just over $25,000. She also held an extravagant toy giveaway later that year, handing out 100 bicycles and 800 presents to local kids.

    Unfortunately, Shuler’s story did not end there. The next year, she was indicted for Social Security fraud. In 2019, she pleaded guilty, admitting to taking nearly $40,000. That means much of her generosity was coming at the expense of taxpayers and Social Security beneficiaries. Somehow, this episode went unmentioned by every member of Council, and her honors were passed unanimously.

    Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks at SEPTA’s Frazer Shop and Rail Yard in Malvern in November.

    Gov. Dealmaker

    After a four-month-long impasse over the state budget, some may have questioned Gov. Shapiro’s credentials as a dealmaker. Yet, this weekend, the ambitious Abingtonian demonstrated his mediation skills, helping to broker a deal between SEPTA and its largest labor group, the Transport Workers Union Local 234.

    The agreement averts a strike that could have started on Monday (or even last Friday, according to a few operators who told me they thought action was imminent that day).

    This is now the third time the governor has come to SEPTA’s rescue, although this time he managed to pass up getting behind a podium at a news conference. For riders hoping to avoid service interruptions, these interventions have been welcome. Still, I can’t help wondering why the Transport Workers Union had an easier time making a deal with Shapiro instead of with Scott Sauer, the first general manager to start his career as a rank-and-file operator.

  • 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5 XRT: Built for the rail trail?

    2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5 XRT: Built for the rail trail?

    2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5 AWD XRT: Off-road electric?

    Price: $57,085. Floor mats added $210.

    Conventional wisdom: Motor Trend likes that the Ioniq 5 XRT offers “proper fun in mild dirt,” that it’s “great as an everyday do-it-all crossover,” with “built-in NACS convenience.” But they lament the “off-road gear brings on-road compromises, using Tesla Superchargers not yet optimal,” and the “price close to high-end Ioniq 5 Limited trim.”

    Marketer’s pitch: “Our fast-charging electric SUV that goes the distance.”

    Reality: The off-road accoutrements are so limited, you might as well get one with more range.

    Catching up: Last week, we tested a Chevrolet Equinox EV, which seemed like a real bargain until we started digging deeper.

    This week we blow another $20,000 and see what we have to show for it.

    What’s new: The Ioniq 5 received a refreshed appearance for 2025. It adds the NACS charging port, allowing easy access to Tesla superchargers, and boosts the size of the batteries across all models.

    The new XRT model is marketed as a more rugged version, slightly lifted and with all manner of cladding and black.

    Unfortunately it still has the Ioniq 5 look, which I find hearkens back to 1980s econohatches, specifically the Mitsubishi-made Dodge Colt/Plymouth Champ.

    Competition: In addition to last week’s Chevrolet Equinox, there are the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Honda Prologue, Kia EV6, Mini Countryman EV, Subaru Solterra, and Tesla Model Y.

    Up to speed: The Ioniq 5 gets to 60 mph as fast as any EV. It reaches the magic number in just 4.5 seconds, according to Motor Trend. Unlike last week’s stripped-down Equinox, the Ioniq 5 offers power aplenty throughout the range of driving, as well as through the range of models.

    Shiftless: I’ve been singing the praises of the Hyundai twisty-stalk gear selector, and that will continue.

    On the road: The Ioniq 5 handled nicely on highways and wasn’t too bouncy for its squared-off shape. Country roads were quite fun, especially in Sport mode.

    The Ioniq 5 did have more than its share of rattles, though, from either the hatchback door or the rear cargo area; the squarish shape of the vehicle is probably a factor here.

    In the rain: EV makers put low-resistance tires on to help with range. I can’t specifically recall having any other EV in the rain, but the Ioniq 5 with its 235/60/R18 all-terrain tires designed for off-ish roading seemed like it would slide on wet roads. Test drive in the rain, if you can.

    Steady speed: The Smart Cruise Control with curve control feature in the Ioniq 5 felt dumber than advertised. I’ve noticed many test vehicles from all brands slowing on curves while the cruise is set, and it’s a welcome feature, but more than a few times I found myself shouting at the dashboard as the Ioniq 5 suddenly started to slow dramatically from my set speed. The cruise was still engaged, too, so it required me taking complete control and starting from scratch.

    This can all be controlled through the various settings, but I never found one that I thought worked as well as other manufacturers’ offerings.

    The interior of the 2026 Hyundai Ioniq XRT offers plenty of comfort and easy operation.

    Driver’s Seat: The leather-covered seat was geared for comfort but still supportive. It held me in place while not getting fresh. The lumbar bolster was just fine and the seat bottom stretched to my knees, something often lacking at this vehicle size.

    The seat heater operation and some other functions are in a row of silver buttons (yay!) on the console that will help you in yoga class, requiring a sharp contortion just to reach them (boo!).

    Friends and stuff: Sturgis Kid 4.0 blessed the rear seat as comfortable and roomy on a trip to the Sweetest Place on Earth. The flat floor means middle seat occupants won’t feel too bad.

    Cargo space is 26.3 cubic feet behind the rear seats and 58.5 when it’s folded.

    Play some tunes: Sound from the system is pretty good, about an A-, maybe a B+.

    The 12.3-inch touchscreen makes playing tunes and getting to other functions easy enough, and buttons and dials underneath offer a real assist. The home screen has large icons that make navigation swift.

    Keeping warm and cool: I was at first pleased at the HVAC’s use of real buttons underneath the infotainment display. But things were not exactly as they appeared; those were just faux buttons of the highly sensitive touch pad variety. Every time my hand got close, I seemed to adjust three things I didn’t intend to. So the driver’s attention is still stolen away from the driving portion of our adventure and is instead trying to fix things that have been changed by accident.

    Range: The Ioniq 5’s advertised range of 258 miles was about spot on, as determined by our trip to the AACA (Antique Automobile Club of America) museum in Hershey. We used up about 200 miles of range in 180 miles or so of travel — about half of them keeping up with turnpike traffic; those high speeds suck down the juice. (I could slow down, and yet, I don’t.)

    A less expensive SE model would get you beyond 310 miles on a charge. Recharging from 10% to 80% takes as little as 20 minutes.

    Where it’s built: Ellabell, Ga. This was the site of an ICE raid in September. It remains to be seen how long the Ioniq 5 will actually come from there, also considering recent trends in EV sales. Stay tuned.

    The U.S. and Canada supply 29% of the parts; South Korea another 29%; and Hungary, 33%.

    How it’s built: Consumer Reports predicts the reliability to be a 2 out of 5.

    In the end: The Ioniq 5 has always been tied with the Kia EV6 on my list of EV champs; the Kia looks a little less stupid, so I’d probably go that direction. But the Equinox is a strong challenger and is worth a look.

    A lower price and more range makes any of them more attractive.

    Next week: How does the Volkswagen ID.4 compare?

  • Ale Ayiti: Philly’s Haitian Americans celebrate a rare World Cup bid

    Ale Ayiti: Philly’s Haitian Americans celebrate a rare World Cup bid

    The first World Cup I remember was in 1970. I was a kid in Guatemala, and my brothers and I were so excited. It was the year the Brazilian seleção included Pelé, Jairzinho, Rivellino, Tostão, Gérson, and Zé Maria — there may be no more beautiful example of the sport of soccer than what they showed us.

    The Guatemalan team was not in the World Cup that year (or ever 😢), but El Salvador was, and although they were unlikely to advance very far, we felt a lot of Central American solidarity and rooted for them — the underdoggiest of the underdogs.

    I expect to root for the underdog again next year, when Brazil and Haiti take the field in World Cup play in Philadelphia. Brazil is a five-time world champion; Haiti last competed at this level 52 years ago.

    Philly’s Haitian community doesn’t care if it’s a little lopsided.

    “Most Haitians adore Brazil,” the Rev. Dr. Josephys Dafils told me via email, “and now Haiti will face the mighty Brazil on American soil. This is the thrill and magic of soccer. Haitians and Haitian Americans will travel to be part of this historic moment. Many of us will gather for a tailgate celebration outside the stadium, even without tickets, which are extremely expensive. We will bring food, music, vendors, and a traditional Haitian band called rara.”

    Numa St. Louis agreed: “For Haitian Americans, this event is more than just a game; it’s a moment of immense pride and emotion. As a Haitian American and die-hard soccer fan, the feelings that arise from witnessing Haiti step onto the world stage are overwhelming. It represents a long-cherished dream; a chance for a nation often faced with adversity to showcase its talent, passion, and spirit on an international platform.”

    “The joy of supporting Haiti, coupled with the opportunity to share the occasion with Brazilian fans,” he told me via email, “underscores the camaraderie found in the beautiful game.”

    Dafils, who at one time served as a youth soccer coach in Haiti, said that for the national team to make it to the World Cup at all, they had to overcome almost insurmountable obstacles.

    “Armed groups have taken control of nearly 85% of [Haiti’s] capital, as well as major cities across the country. More than one million Haitians have been forced to flee their homes,” he said. “Many people no longer have access to electricity, clean running water, or food. Families are constantly moving from one neighborhood to another in search of safety. [And] amid this dire situation, the Haitian national soccer team has accomplished the extraordinary.”

    An example of that? They had to play all the qualifying matches outside of Haiti.

    Haiti’s Leverton Pierre controls the ball during a CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer match in June against the United States in Arlington, Texas.

    “I have cried tears of joy since Nov. 18, 2025 — the day Haiti qualified for the 2026 World Cup,” Dafils told me. “Nov. 18 also marks the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières in 1803, when Haiti secured its independence from France. The symbolism is profound.”

    St. Louis makes another historic connection: Next year’s tournament will also coincide with America’s 250th anniversary, adding another layer of significance.

    The Haitian community has a long history in Philadelphia. Hundreds of white slaveholders and those they enslaved fled the Haitian Revolution, first arriving in Philadelphia in 1793; many of those enslaved people gained their freedom here in the years between 1793 and 1796. The community grew and saw waves of immigration throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, prompted by political turmoil and natural disasters.

    It’s estimated that some 12,000 members of the community are currently legally residing under temporary protected status.

    Don’t believe Donald Trump’s racist — and absurd — slander against Haitians. We’re not eating pets. | Opinion

    Those Haitian immigrants, like their peers across the U.S., have felt the impact of the singularly ugly lies JD Vance and Donald Trump fabricated about Haitians during the campaign, and after Trump became president, the decision to not renew protected status when it expires in February.

    The shadow of Trump’s immigration policies “loom large” — even over an event like the World Cup match, according to St. Louis.

    “The cancellation of the Temporary Protected Status program threatens to strip many Haitians of their legal ability to remain in the United States, leaving them vulnerable to deportation,” he said. “Furthermore, Haiti is among the 19 countries whose citizens are banned from entering the U.S., which will hinder potential visitors from attending the matches.”

    But he and Dafils always return to the thrill and magic of the World Cup match.

    “It has taken 52 years for Haiti to return to the World Cup. None of us know when we will see this again. I was not yet born in 1974, and I never thought I would witness such a moment,” Dafils said.

    “This match symbolizes hope,” St. Louis said, “a celebration of cultural connections that transcend borders. Even amid political challenges and the looming impact of immigration policies, this gathering promises to foster unity among diverse communities, showcasing the power of sports to uplift and inspire.”

    “As the day approaches, the anticipation grows for what promises to be an exhilarating clash, filled with heartwarming moments, passionate displays, and the acknowledgment of Haiti’s journey,” he added.

    What a beautiful game. Ale Ayiti!

  • New U.S. National Security Strategy slams Europe as greater threat than Russia or China

    New U.S. National Security Strategy slams Europe as greater threat than Russia or China

    Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend perusing the annual National Security Strategy of the United States of America. It generally summarizes the foreign policy direction in which the current administration is headed, and makes for lengthy, dry reading.

    But the new 33-page document is so shocking — even given what we already know about this administration’s behavior — that Americans need to pay attention.

    The NSS 2025 ignores the real security threats the U.S. faces in favor of praising white nationalist policies at home and demanding our democratic allies adopt the same. It promotes the myth that President Donald Trump can create a stable world by doing “deals” with authoritarian Moscow and Beijing.

    As for Russia’s invasion and brutalization of Ukraine, no word, except for chastising Europe for obstructing Trump’s efforts to force a pro-Russian “peace” plan on Kyiv. No wonder Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov quickly announced that the report was “largely consistent with our vision.”

    The document envisions a world in which Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping dominate the globe in concert, each controlling his own sphere of influence; it labels Trump’s intended control over the Western Hemisphere the “Monroe Doctrine Trump Corollary.”

    The question Trump and Hegseth won’t answer: Why is that flotilla in the Caribbean in the first place? | Trudy Rubin

    In reality, if Trump pursues this megalomaniacal mirage, he will facilitate the efforts of China and Russia to undermine U.S. security, destroy U.S. alliances, and dominate the world.

    What’s so revealing about the NSS is how much it has changed from the 2017 version released after Trump’s first year in office. Back then, the strategy referenced “the revisionist powers of China and Russia [who] want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” Russia, the document added, “aims to weaken U.S. influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners.”

    The security threat from both countries has only worsened since then. What has changed is the personnel around the president.

    Gone are the professionals and knowledgeable advisers (except for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has largely been pushed to the sidelines). Present are the sycophants who flatter Trump’s brilliance and advance the white nationalist MAGA line.

    It’s no wonder there’s no reference to rising Chinese military threats to Taiwan. Or to massive Chinese cyberattacks on our country. One, called Salt Typhoon by U.S. intelligence agencies, has compromised U.S. telecommunications networks; another has penetrated U.S. infrastructure, including water supply plants, electricity grids, and transportation.

    Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

    Yet, in typical contradictory behavior, the Trump administration just halted plans to impose sanctions on China’s Ministry of State Security in response to Salt Typhoon.

    The security plan devotes pages to Trump’s penchant for trade deals and tariffs with Beijing, which it claims will ensure U.S. superiority in advanced technology.

    In another capitulation, however, Trump just agreed that Nvidia can sell advanced H200 chips to China, threatening that very U.S. superiority in advanced technology. Trump apparently wants to avoid displeasing Xi before traveling to Beijing for a summit in April. The president doesn’t want to interfere with his hopes of closing a brilliant trade deal.

    In other words, national security can be ignored when it contradicts the prospect of illusory economic gains — whether it be deals with China or Russia. And the president counts on his brilliance to secure both with his pals Putin and Xi (although he has repeatedly been bested by each of them).

    This fatal flaw is at the heart of NSS 2025.

    Follow the money to understand Trump’s plan for peace in Ukraine | Trudy Rubin

    But the uglier and more gut-wrenching flaw is the document’s attack on Europe, its democratic values, and its support for Ukraine.

    The 2017 NSS read: “A strong and free Europe is of vital importance to the United States. We are bound together by our shared commitment to the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.”

    The “Promoting European Greatness” section of the new NSS echoes Vice President JD Vance’s tirade against European democracies, which I heard firsthand at the Munich Security Conference in February. Rather than speaking about the Russian war on Ukraine that threatens all of Europe, Vance denounced Germany for not inviting the extreme right, neo fascist Alternative für Deutschland party into a governing coalition.

    Vice President Vance attacks Europeans at 2025 Munich Security Conference

    The 2025 NSS contends that Europe is on the verge of “civilizational erasure” because of immigration policies; instead, it promotes (white) nationalist, anti-immigration political parties. It slurs the European Union for its multilateralism (which the United States promoted after World War II, and which brought political and economic stability to the continent).

    And instead of supporting NATO allies as Russia attacks them with drones, cuts their underwater cables, and conducts sabotage and assassinations on European soil, the White House blames the Europeans for “regarding Russia as an existential threat.”

    “Our goal,” the document reads, “should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory.”

    There is something truly sick here.

    President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, in October.

    Trump thinks China and Russia are his potential partners, while Europe is in the way — on Ukraine, on human rights, on warnings about Russia, on its own regulation of technology. Forget about common values or shared commitment to the principles of democracy and the rule of law.

    Unabashed to intervene in domestic European politics, the document calls on Europeans to restore “strategic stability” with Russia, meaning pressure Kyiv into signing a deal that consigns Ukraine to permanent domination by Moscow.

    And the U.S. wants Europe to take over most of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles by 2027, an impossible feat.

    Moreover, the White House is actively promoting as part of its “security strategy” the success of radical white nationalist parties in Britain, France, Germany, and elsewhere that are pro-Moscow and eager to do any and all business with Beijing. In other words, a Europe led by parties that are hostile to American security interests.

    The NSS 2025 envisions an alliance of authoritarian governments and their imitators, including Russia, China, the United States – and far-right European parties that dislike NATO, want to end the European Union, and prefer deals with dictators to defending democracy.

    This is what Trump advocates, although he doesn’t grasp that it would destroy him as well as his country.

    Fortunately, Europe won’t capitulate, nor will our allies in Asia. Nor would most Americans, I believe, if they only knew what the Trump national security policy is all about.

  • Trump says Somalis are ‘garbage’ and wants them to leave America. No one should be surprised by his ignorance.

    Trump says Somalis are ‘garbage’ and wants them to leave America. No one should be surprised by his ignorance.

    Donald Trump let us know exactly who he is when he rode down that escalator in June 2015, declared his presidential candidacy, and said this about Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

    We’ve heard him refer to Haiti, African nations, and El Salvador as “shithole countries.” Last year, he accused Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, of eating their neighbors’ dogs and cats. Trump allows mask-wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to terrorize undocumented immigrants, most recently in New Orleans, as reported by my colleague Will Bunch.

    No one should be surprised he called Somalis “garbage” who “contribute nothing” and should leave America during a cabinet meeting last week.

    “These are people that do nothing but complain,” Trump said. “When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

    Trump talks a really good game about putting America First, but he really means people of color last. An example of that was when he suspended refugee admissions, but then turned around and made an exception for white South Africans.

    Even knowing Trump’s agenda, it’s still upsetting to hear a sitting U.S. president denigrate the roughly 250,000 Somalis in this country.

    He’s talking about law-abiding folks like Salma Hussein. She made headlines in 2022 when she became the first female Somali principal in her school district in suburban Minneapolis, and possibly in the entire state of Minnesota.

    Hussein was born in Somalia, but has lived in America since the age of 7, and is a naturalized citizen. She’s a wife. She’s a mother of two. She’s a good person. “It’s really hurtful, and he’s giving permission to people to be hateful, and that’s really disheartening,” Hussein said.

    I stumbled across some of her social media posts about what’s been happening and decided to reach out. When I got her on the phone last week, Hussein, 37, and I talked about a lot of things, including how a stranger had emailed her saying: “Watch out. You’re not wanted. We’re taking out the trash from our country.”

    Salma Hussein, a Somali American who’s lived in the U.S. since she was 7, said the president is “giving permission to people to be hateful.”

    I shouldn’t even have to write this: Most Somalis are honest, law-abiding people. Many settled in Minnesota during the early 1990s after fleeing their war-torn country. Of the state’s foreign-born Somalis, most are naturalized U.S. citizens. They have every right to live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. They vote. They pay taxes. Trump is their president, too. Some, oddly enough, even voted for him.

    I wish they’d thought longer and harder before voting for Trump, who posted on Truth Social that Minnesota is “a hub of fraudulent money laundering” and announced he was terminating Somalis’ Temporary Protected Status.

    Dozens of Somalis in Minnesota are facing charges in connection with a nefarious scheme to defraud the U.S. government of hundreds of millions in funding that had been set aside to feed hungry children at the height of the pandemic. Still, it’s unfair for a sitting U.S. president to stereotype an entire community for the actions of a subset. “As a Somali American, I’m just as upset about the people in my community who use fraud to make money,” Hussein told me.

    Somalis, who have built a large and influential enclave in Minnesota, are terrified that masked agents from ICE will take them into custody. Some have started carrying their passports. Others refuse to even leave their homes.

    “This kind of dangerous rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.

    It’s textbook Trump — and, of course, MAGA loves it.

    Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) speaks during a news conference, May 24, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

    In New Orleans last week, Trump sicced ICE on undocumented Hispanic immigrants. At around the same time, his agents were also targeting Somalis in Minnesota.

    Which ethnic minority Trump will single out next for harassment is anybody’s guess. The only thing we can be certain of is that they will be from a Black or brown community.

  • The Trump regime murders that aren’t on video | Will Bunch Newsletter

    There’s this idea in the sports world that when your team wins a championship like the Super Bowl, fans can’t really complain about whatever happens in the next season or two. The author of that maxim has obviously never been to Philadelphia, which is experiencing a 1776-level revolt over the Eagles’ three-game losing streak and the increasingly erratic play of the Super Bowl MVP, quarterback Jalen Hurts. So much for brotherly love, pal.

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    Trump’s body count is a lot higher than two men on a wrecked ship

    A malnourished child receives treatment at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, in May.

    You might have thought it would have happened when hundreds of men — in apparent conflict with a judge’s order, and often based on nothing more than a misreading of their tattoos — were shackled and flown to a notorious El Salvador torture prison.

    Or maybe it would have been making billions of dollars on crypto investments or real-estate deals with foreign dictators while running the government. Or pretending that climate change doesn’t exist. Or pardoning hundreds of bad guys, including those who launched an insurrection against the United States on Jan. 6, 2021. Even the president’s friendship with the world’s most notorious sex trafficker wasn’t exactly it.

    No, the thing that finally caused the mainstream media to go all Watergate all the time on Donald Trump and his Pentagon chief was a lot more simple, if harder to stomach: the early September murder by drone strike of two men — their identities still unknown to the world, or most of it — clinging to a piece of ship-wreckage in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela.

    Flip on the favorite show of the Beltway set — MS Now’s Morning Joe — and there practically is no other story than the second attack on the seemingly helpless victims of an initial drone strike that killed their nine comrades. The media is demanding to learn what did self-proclaimed “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth know about the strike, and when did he know it. Commentators are calling the killing a war crime at best, a murder at worst. An unnamed lawmaker who saw a video of the second strike told reporters that the film is nauseating.

    Pressure on the Trump regime to release this 45 or so minutes of footage of the boat attack is intensifying, and it’s not hard to understand why. It’s a bit like 2020’s video of the excruciating cop murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which made a problem that activists had been talking about for decades — police brutality — so real for everyday folk that millions took to the streets.

    Likewise, people have been calling Trump names — including the “f-word,” fascist — ever since the Manhattan real-estate mogul descended the escalator at Trump Tower to run for president in 2015. But somehow the mental image of men reportedly begging to be saved seconds before an admiral gives the order to obliterate them has captured the angry imagination in a way that past Trump outrages did not. No wonder Trump has flip-flopped on releasing the video.

    Look, I’m glad the media and Congress, including some Republicans, are finally taking seriously the idea that major felonies are being committed in Trump World. Still, the two men killed in what’s called the double-tap strike came after nine other people had already been blown up, in an attack against civilians of a nation America is not at war with, who were accused of committing a crime — drug trafficking — that is not a capital offense.

    There is no legal, let alone moral, justification for this attack — and it was the first of a series of drone strikes that have killed at least 86 people. There’s a strong case that every one of these is a war crime. It’s just that the killing of the two men clinging to debris appears even more egregious.

    This highlights an even weightier issue. From Day One of Trump’s second term, there has been a callous indifference to human life — a hallmark that the current U.S. government unfortunately shares with many other authoritarian regimes throughout history. But the media, and the watchdogs, have struggled to convey this reality with so many of the deaths taking place off camera.

    So far, the worst crime has been the rash move back in the first weeks of the new administration by Trump’s billionaire then-ally Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — a once-thriving $34-billion-a-year agency that funded food, medicine, classrooms and other aid in developing nations.

    The Musk team labelled USAID as inefficient and out of whack with Trump’s new priorities like curbing immigration. This despite the fact that experts saw the American agency as the best projector of “soft power” around the globe as it saved literally millions of lives, especially for children under age 5.

    “We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed ‘public man-made death,’ which, he observed, has been perhaps the most overlooked cause of mortality in the last century,” Atul Gawande, a surgeon who worked with USAID in the Joe Biden years, wrote last month in the New Yorker. Gawande estimated that the wanton destruction of USAID programs that offered vaccines and fought AIDS and infectious disease outbreaks caused 600,000 needless deaths in the first 10 months of the Trump regime, with millions more to come.

    This week, the philanthropic Gates Foundation reported that for the first time in the 21st century, mostly preventable deaths of children under age 5 are rising instead of falling, and the main culprit is cuts in development aid, led by the United States. “We could be the generation who had access to the most advanced science and innovation in human history,” the billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said, “but couldn’t get the funding together to ensure it saved lives.”

    The MAGA comebacks to cries that Trump is a fascist dictator often claim that innocent people aren’t getting slaughtered as happened under Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong or other historic despots. The truth is that the regime’s cruelty-is-the-point demagoguery is inevitably becoming a death cult, epitomized by Musk’s chainsaw DOGE shtick. The murder happens in small batches, on boats off South America, and it also happens in big lots in places like famine-plagued South Sudan, as children die from aid cuts to badly needed health centers.

    And increasingly, Trump’s death cult is taking root here at home, from the 25 humans, and counting, who’ve died in ICE’s overcrowded detention centers this year, to individuals like Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, who was struck by cars while running away from immigration agents who raided a Home Depot parking lot in Southern California. This is before we know the full and likely lethal impact of alarming health policy changes from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health and Human Services Department, and the toxic anti-vaccine culture he promotes.

    We should be just as outraged by the deaths that take place out of sight, in dusty and remote places on the other side of the world, as by two premeditated murders captured in a MAGA snuff film. Understanding the nature of Trump’s cult of death is critical for folks to find the courage to rise up and stop this before it gets much, much worse.

    Yo, do this!

    • The one thing that truly sets MS Now’s Rachel Maddow apart from her peers as an opinionated late-night cable-news host is her love for history, and her ability to put today’s crisis in the context of what came before. In her second life as a top podcaster, Maddow’s sweet spot has become America before, during, and immediately after World War II, and what memory-holed stories from that era tell us about today. Her new audio series, Burn Order, is about immigration, paranoia and demagoguery — not now, but in the unconscionable internment of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s. Two episodes in, it’s her best podcast yet.
    • I’ve never really kept my promise to include great restaurants and bars in this space, but here goes. During last week’s fairly frantic journalistic sojourn to New Orleans, I took one night off and grabbed a beer in what might be the greatest American dive bar, Jake and Snake’s Christmas Club Bar. This shotgun shack of a watering hole in the middle of an otherwise residential street has to be seen to be believed, both on the ramshackle outside and in the dark interior pumping 1950s rockabilly and lit only by — what else? — Christmas lights. There is no better way to kick off your holiday season.

    Ask me anything

    Question: All things considered, the U.S. has weathered this first year of the second Trump regime OK. But three more years of this? Any guesses as to what happens between now and then? — Shawn “Smith” Peirce (@silversmith1.bsky.social) via Bluesky

    Answer: Weathered? Just barely. But I do exit 2025 slightly more optimistic than I began the year, thanks to the size of the No Kings protests and the growing resolve of citizen resistance to immigration raids. What happens in the next three years? I think 2026 will be pivotal. Trump will surely look at his sagging polls and double down on dictatorship, which could include misguided foreign wars, more aggressive use of troops at home, and efforts to somehow nullify next November’s midterms. I also think these will fail, which means a Democratic Congress in 2027 and 2028 that will certainly impeach Trump and restrain his worst impulses. If not, I may be writing this newsletter from my prison cell.

    What you’re saying about…

    The question I posed here two weeks ago about the John F. Kennedy assassination was a good, evergreen topic ahead of a long break. Maybe it was my boomer-heavy readership, but all but one respondent didn’t believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. “I also saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live television, another searing memory,” wrote Laura Hardy, who was 8 in 1963. “Nothing ever added up in my mind. Still doesn’t. Was it the Russians? The CIA? The mob?” The one naysayer was Armen Pandola, who argues that “JFK was a fairly conservative Democrat at the time…Where is the motive?”

    📮 This week’s question: This has been asked before, but it’s still the most important thing going. Trump is appearing in public with a bruised, bandaged hand, prone to weird digressions or outbursts. So what is the deal with his health? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Trump’s health” in the subject line.

    Backstory on an all-too fitting venue for Trump’s Pa. speech

    The Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pa.

    Donald Trump may be constitutionally ineligible to run again for president — no seriously, he can’t — but that factoid apparently isn’t stopping the 47th POTUS from campaigning in the critical swing states. Why else did Trump choose Pennsylvania — a state he visited a gazillion times as a candidate — as the location for a major speech on the economy, to convince citizens that what they are seeing in supermarket aisles is not what’s happening? I can’t even imagine what Trump will say Tuesday night, but I was stunned to learn the regime’s choice of venue: The Mount Airy Casino Resort, the former honeymoon haven in Mount Pocono.

    It’s not just that Trump is touting economic security in a casino, which seems way too fitting in an America where so many folks have decided that the only way they’ll ever get rich is through gambling, whether that’s a get-rich-quick investment in crypto or meme stocks, or by an addiction to the betting sites like DraftKings that are devouring the sports world. Or that the backdrop might remind people that Trump was the rare entrepreneur who drove his own Atlantic City casinos — supposedly a license to print money — into bankruptcy.

    The real problem is that the Mount Airy Lodge is the epitome of the real Trump economy: Public corruption. Like Trump’s real-estate empire, the original Mount Airy Lodge fell on hard times in the 1990s, and its longtime owner died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1999. The supposed savior was the state’s headlong rush into casino gambling and northeastern Pennsylvania’s landfill magnate Louis DeNaples, long dogged by allegations of ties to Scranton’s organized crime family. In 2008, DeNaples was indicted on four counts of perjury tied to his casino permit application; ultimately the politically connected businessman turned over the casino to a trust chaired by his daughter and saw the charges dropped. But the Mount Airy Resort Casino remains dogged by controversy, including a recently proposed $2.3 million settlement with its table-games dealers who accused the owners of years of wage theft.

    But Trump considers DeNaples “a close friend,” and the Mount Airy casino nabbed a $50 million federal bailout loan during the COVID-19 pandemic in the final year of Trump’s first term. Five years later, is there a positive story about the Trump economy that can be told from this stage of dropped felony charges, alleged wage theft, and government largesse for the well-connected? Don’t bet your nest egg on it.

    What I wrote on this date in 2015

    Ten years ago, I was fascinated by the decades-long political rise of Vermont senator and then-White House hopeful Bernie Sanders. This left-wing curmudgeon and relic of the 1960s didn’t capture the White House but changed America, for good. On Dec. 9, 2015, I touted my Amazon Kindle Single e-book about Sanders (The Bern Identity…it’s still available!) and offered highlights. I wrote: “Politics mattered then, before Chicago and Kent State and Watergate and all the cynicism, and the unvarnished, authentic voice of Bernie Sanders is bringing that feeling back for many.” Read the rest: “5 things I learned writing an e-book about Bernie Sanders.”

    Recommended Inquirer reading

    • Did I mention that I went to New Orleans? I wrote two columns from the scene of Homeland Security’s immigration raid that the Trump regime has branded “Catahoula Crunch” in a gross homage to the Louisiana state dog. The first piece looked at Day One of the operation — the Big Lie behind the raids that claim to target criminals but instead go after day laborers, usually without criminal records — and the fear that pervaded the Latino community. The second column was a much more hopeful look inside the growing citizen resistance, as I profiled the everyday folks who are taking risks to blow whistles, chase cars, and generally impede Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
    • Last week — if you could somehow make it through the sickening bromance between Donald Trump and FIFA, the world governing body of soccer — we finally learned the key groupings and early-stage matches of the 2026 men’s World Cup finals across the United States as well as our now frenemies Canada and Mexico. You won’t be surprised to know that The Inquirer’s soccer writer extraordinaire Jonathan Tannenwald was all over the key developments. We learned who the U.S. team will play: Paraguay, a to-be-determined European qualifier, and Australia, in a June 19 Seattle match I still want to attend if I can start a GoFundMe (kidding…maybe) for the astronomical ticket prices. The Philadelphia matches include perennial contenders France and Brazil as well as a Curaçao-Ivory Coast showdown that I’m excited for because I might be able to afford it. The World Cup is going to be one of the biggest stories of 2026, and you know the Inquirer will cover this like an Italian center back. This alone will be worth the price of a subscription, so what are you waiting for?

    By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer‘s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

  • Trump may have shut down the border to asylum-seekers, but he can’t end immigrants’ hope

    Trump may have shut down the border to asylum-seekers, but he can’t end immigrants’ hope

    JUÁREZ, Mexico — Carolina was living in Colombia as a refugee when her 15-year-old son disappeared. Almost a year after her boy went missing and she mourned his loss, she got a call from an international number.

    Her son was alive 3,000 miles away in this historic Mexican city once known as “the Pass of the North,” nestled along the Texas border.

    “I was so happy, but I didn’t know how to get here, without knowing anything, without money, with nothing,” she told me when I met with her recently at an immigrant shelter in Juárez. “I sold my house and came here alone.”

    After a harrowing three-month journey during which she made her way across seven countries, survived two kidnappings, and endured beatings and sexual assault, she reunited with her son on Jan. 10.

    They tried to get an appointment to cross the border through U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app — part of a program launched by the Biden administration to allow people to come to the U.S. legally while they waited for their asylum or other immigration case to be processed.

    Carolina and her son were still trying when President Donald Trump ended the program the day of his inauguration.

    They’ve been stuck in shelters ever since.

    Speak to immigrants at the border, and what happened to Carolina is sadly common. Some people are luckier, some less so, but no one comes out unscathed from their journey. And while some are willing to see their dreams deferred, there are and will continue to be more people who see coming to the United States as the only way out of a desperate situation.

    Visiting the border nearly 10 months after Trump took office and essentially ended the ability to seek asylum in the United States, you see what many Americans — even some begrudging critics — credit the president with doing.

    Trump has been brutally effective at limiting border crossings. The quiet downtown streets and plazas, the nearly empty shelters in both El Paso, Texas, and its sister city of Juárez in Mexico, are a testament to that fact. Only a few years ago, thousands of immigrants crowded sidewalks and shelters here, straining the region’s spirit of hospitality.

    Today, the immigrants left behind are the vulnerable among the vulnerable, advocates said. People who are unable to move out or move on, stuck in shelters with the hope that Trump’s “hard heart will soften,” as one woman told me.

    My own heart was not hard enough to dash her dream. Perhaps it should have been.

    The last thing immigrants need is for some well-meaning dope to ignore the facts for short-term comfort. They had enough of that during the Biden administration.

    A large “Welcome to Mexico” sign hung over the Bridge of the Americas is visible as President Joe Biden talks with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in El Paso, Texas, in 2023.

    Good intentions

    Under President Joe Biden, about six million people were allowed entry to pursue asylum applications and other immigration cases, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

    I believe that all things being equal, the U.S. has no trouble absorbing these immigrants. Call me cynical (I prefer pragmatic), but our economy runs on cheap labor and consumer spending — six million people give you both. It gives you adults who are willing to do the work Americans won’t, and kids who will go to school and graduate for the jobs there aren’t enough Americans for.

    But the problem is the president can only do so much. The executive can allow people to remain in the country under some sort of limited parole, it can direct enforcement toward higher priority targets, such as immigrants with criminal records, but it cannot grant legal status.

    Only Congress can do that, and legislators have decided there is no major issue they can’t shrug off as intractable and call it a day.

    So the Biden administration opted to let people in — regardless of whether they had a good asylum case — knowing full well that just as one president could open the door for immigrants, another could slam it in their faces.

    Biden himself shut that door halfway as the 2024 presidential election neared, but the political damage had already been done, because the administration at no point made the argument for why it was doing what it was doing.

    As desperate people who wanted a better life clustered at the border — partly because of the pent-up demand that grew under pandemic restrictions Trump put in place — Biden could have made a moral argument, or laid out the economic benefits of immigration. He could have done more than introduce immigration reform shortly after taking office, and then just as quickly give up on it.

    Instead, it was never clear what Biden wanted other than not to be seen as the bad guy.

    His administration’s humanitarian intentions, coupled with incessant fear-mongering on the right, paved the way to where we are today.

    Flags from North, South, and Central America line the left side of the chapel inside the Casa del Migrante in Juárez, Mexico, in November.

    All for nothing

    It took Helen, her husband, and their 3-month-old baby three months to travel from Ecuador to the Casa del Migrante shelter in Juárez, which is run by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ciudad Juárez.

    Like Carolina, Helen — who remains concerned about the status of her potential immigration case — would speak with me only on the condition that her last name not be used.

    Helen and her husband, both in their early 20s, arrived in October of last year after leaving their home because of growing gang violence. “You couldn’t have any peace anymore,” Helen said.

    The family crossed the dangerous jungle and rode through Mexico on the freight train known as “the beast.” She saw a man die, falling under the wheels of the cars.

    While her husband goes out to work odd jobs, she takes care of their daughter. The routine gets to her, she said. Once a month, they’re able to go out and splurge on a meal, even as they’re afraid to walk the city’s streets.

    Her daughter has now lived most of her life inside a shelter, but Helen told me they will continue to sacrifice.

    “We are waiting to cross. Whatever it takes,” she said.

    Across town at the Vida shelter, Carolina, 53, is torn about what to do.

    Her journey to Juárez began 14 months ago. Distraught over her son’s disappearance, she went back to her native Venezuela to be with her mother.

    When Mexican officials informed Carolina that her son was alive, she left Venezuela on Oct. 20, 2024, and traveled across Central America. She was kidnapped twice, Carolina said. Once when she crossed the Guatemalan border into Mexico, and again when she got to Juárez in December.

    “The one here was the worst. The one here was rape, beatings. I still can’t fully touch myself here,” she said, grimacing as she moved her hand along her left breast. “They left me with nothing.”

    Although she’s grateful for all the help she’s received, she said, it’s coming up on a year of living in shelters, and the uncertainty is becoming overwhelming.

    Her son is going to high school, and sometimes works with a handyman. She sells donated used clothing in front of the shelter and cleans houses, but work is sporadic.

    “I tell my son we should go back,” Carolina said. “He says he came here for a future.”

    Her mother calls and tells her she doesn’t have food, she said. She trusts that God has a plan and things will work out accordingly — even if it means returning home to struggle there — but there must be a point to her journey.

    “You go hungry, you grow tired, it’s raining, you see corpses. You spend sleepless nights, running from people who want to rob you, kill you,” she said.

    “Do you know what it’s like to go through what I went through and not be able to cross?”

    President Donald Trump during a July tour of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility in Ochopee, Fla.

    No turning back

    Many immigrants who are still in shelters, and those who have decided to remain in Mexico, are in a state of flux, waiting for the opportunity to cross the border.

    Trump may have succeeded in curtailing illegal immigration through a mix of enforcement, deterrence, and cruelty, but it is unsustainable. While he may be able to delay the inevitable — especially if he manages to crash the economy and there are fewer jobs for immigrants to fill — eventually, people will return.

    “Listening to people’s stories, we’re really at a critical moment,” said Alejandra Corona, who heads Jesuit Refugee Services in Juárez, a nonprofit that serves the migrant community. “The world is broken, and there are no options.”

    You see it in the eyes of parents who are deeply wounded because they cannot provide for their families even in the most basic ways, Corona told me, and the reasons why are far from simple.

    “It’s not just, ‘Oh, I lost my job,’” she said. “It’s, ‘I had a job, but couldn’t afford to pay off the gang member or the cartel. I stopped paying for protection and had to flee. I was discriminated against, I’ve never had a passport, I’ve never been to school, I’ve never had access to my rights. I do not exist, and no one wants to see that I don’t exist.’”

    The lesson to be drawn from the border today is that immigrants may not be as visible, but they haven’t gone away.

    If Democrats capture the presidency in 2028, they will likely not follow the Trump administration’s amoral ruthlessness, but they cannot repeat the Biden administration’s aimless permissiveness, either.

    Everyone suffers under the current seesaw approach to immigration, where an immigrant can come here “the right way” under one administration, only to see things turn out wrong under the next. Trump has tried — successfully and unsuccessfully — to kill programs for immigrants established under Presidents George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Biden.

    Whether or not you support immigration, the whims of an individual — even if it’s the president — are no substitute for the legislative process.

    The United States is a nation of immigrants. America has thrived economically and culturally thanks to this fact. On immigration, it’s Congress, as representatives of the people, who must determine the who and how, the when and where, that makes the most sense for the country.

    Until then, immigrants will be ready and waiting — and praying for a softer heart in the White House.

    More from the border: At the border, fear and uncertainty as Trump seeks to remake the immigration court system

  • Marra’s goes and the Rail Park grows as Philly communities change | Shackamaxon

    Marra’s goes and the Rail Park grows as Philly communities change | Shackamaxon

    This week’s Shackamaxon is all about how cities change, whether some like it or not.

    Meno Italiano

    Like so many of my neighbors in South Philadelphia, I had been meaning to go back to Marra’s on East Passyunk Avenue for a while when I heard the news of its imminent closure. The classic Italian restaurant was just two years shy of a century’s worth of business when the owners found an interested buyer in Dan Tsao, the owner of Chinatown’s EMei.

    In an interview with my colleague Michael Klein, Marra’s owners blamed a lack of parking for contributing to their decision to close and potentially relocate. Given their location on a thriving and increasingly renowned dining corridor, some have expressed skepticism about this diagnosis. To me, however, it rings true in a different way.

    After all, when Marra’s initially opened, parking would not have been much of a concern. Their customer base, like much of the customer base for the new restaurants on the corridor, would have lived nearby. The pizzeria was part of an extensive Italian American community that came to be synonymous with South Philadelphia during the 20th century. Over the years, the center of gravity for this lively community moved to places like Cherry Hill, where people get around by driving, not walking. This means that, over time, many existing businesses have become more dependent on the ease of parking.

    Marra’s is not the only neighborhood institution to fall victim to this phenomenon. While many still call it the “Italian Market,” the stalls on Ninth Street are now more likely to be occupied by Asian and Latino entrepreneurs. When I first moved to South Philly in 2011, I’d regularly hear older residents conversing with each other in Sicilian. That’s much less common today.

    I call this process suburbanization. As more members of a community live and work outside the city, it becomes harder to maintain the institutions that helped forge their identity in the first place. After all, who wants to fight for a parking spot in South Philadelphia when there’s unlimited free parking at the many Italian restaurants closer to home?

    Rey Azteca Mariachi performs in 2024 below the then-new banner welcoming shoppers to Ninth Street in South Philadelphia.

    Fight displacement, not change

    Marra’s and South Philadelphia are hardly alone when it comes to managing suburbanization. The same phenomenon affects Chinatowns across America, including Philadelphia’s own. Szechuan and Cantonese cuisine are now available throughout the region, just like traditional Italian fare. The largest Chinese restaurant in the city is now Northeast Philadelphia’s China Gourmet, not a Chinatown banquet hall. This is why so many business owners feared the possibility of a Sixers arena on Market Street. They felt fans would be more interested in General Tso’s chicken and bubble tea than the authentic fare that defined the neighborhood. Meanwhile, they’d also take up parking spots that would otherwise be used by their own patrons.

    Suburbanization even affects places of worship. During the debate over bike lane parking in Center City, I talked to Tim Geiger — then interim pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church on Spruce Street — about why his congregation was so reliant on parking spaces. The answer was clear: They had gone through the suburbanization process decades before South Philadelphia or Chinatown.

    While Geiger told me he encourages congregants to walk, use paid parking, or take transit, it can be a hard sell when so many can attend services closer to home, at a church that offers free parking.

    For many people, this process is a reason to abhor or prevent change. They cite the increase in residential density in and around Center City, the work of groups like the Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corp., and civic interventions like the Schuylkill River Trail as catalysts for gentrification. At a recent City Council meeting, members of the Committee on Public Property and Public Works echoed these sentiments, expressing a concern that a proposal to turn an abandoned railway viaduct into an expanded Rail Park and pedestrian pathway could drive out low-income residents.

    This is the wrong way to conduct public policy.

    After all, the South Philadelphia neighborhood that hosted Marra’s hasn’t seen a massive shift in its built environment. It has changed significantly anyway.

    Santiago Uribe and his golden retriever Koda take a walk along the Rail Park in 2019.

    Whose community?

    As usual, Council members expressed their skepticism about the park proposal by putting their thoughts into the mouths of residents who conveniently were not there to express their opinions themselves. Jeffery “Jay” Young and Quetcy Lozada, in particular, were concerned that there hadn’t been enough community engagement, or that the park would serve as a playground for wealthy residents, leaving the rest of the city behind.

    Paul Levy, the former head of the Center City District, is heading up the planned expansion of the Rail Park. Levy said the plan is to unite neighborhoods and offer a useful amenity, not to push anyone away. Unlike Councilmember Young’s plans to demolish the Cecil B. Moore Library, the Rail Park has already earned the support of local civic associations. Center City District held 15 meetings to gauge community reaction to the idea.

    It is a process that’s already been successful for the Center City District’s other big projects, Dilworth and Sister Cities Parks. Both serve as urban oases for families across Philadelphia thanks to thoughtful programming and design choices. Levy told me to think in three concentric rings: community involvement in design, community involvement in programming, and a comprehensive housing and development plan for the surrounding neighborhoods.

    That’s a lot more thought than obstructionists like Young and Lozada likely put into their opposition.

  • Life during wartime in New Orleans as feds terrorize Latinos who saved a city

    Life during wartime in New Orleans as feds terrorize Latinos who saved a city

    KENNER, La. — When the day New Orleans had feared for weeks finally came on Wednesday, it began with a lie as wide as the meandering Mississippi River.

    A port city somehow dubbed the Big Easy despite its centuries of big trouble woke up to a frigid blast of Arctic air and a claim from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that local immigration raids it’s named the “Catahoula Crunch” would narrowly target “criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to sanctuary policies …”

    Within a couple of hours — in raids that were, in fact, wildly untargeted — SUV caravans bearing masked, green-uniformed U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents stormed into parking lots and at suburban Home Depots and Lowe’s, blitzkrieged Latino restaurants and a car wash on a busy strip near the airport, and cruised neighborhoods looking for roofers to arrest.

    On a hunch, I drove to a Home Depot here in Kenner at lunchtime and found them: a platoon of maybe 15 masked Border Patrol officers in olive-drab uniforms and dark baseball caps wrapping up a sweep of the parking lot, strutting past the piled-up orange shopping carts and ignoring a film crew shouting, “Why are you here?”

    Ricardo Ramírez, a 50-year-old construction worker and a U.S. citizen, had just pulled into the Home Depot lot to return some items when, as he told me a few minutes later, one of the officers came up to him and barked, “Which country? Are you a citizen?” Ramírez carries his passport because “it’s so crazy what’s going on that I have to, just because I look Spanish” — and was surprised when the officers moved past without asking to see it.

    But at that moment, just two miles away in a suburban subdivision in North Kenner, citizen volunteers raced to find another 12-agent Border Patrol team raiding a two-story home with white siding and green shutters. As an agent trained a sniper rifle on them, two Latino workers who’d been replacing a metal roof damaged in a recent hurricane stood atop the home, hands in the air.

    Zoe Higgins, a 33-year-old social worker who volunteered with the group Unión Migrante to track the immigration raids and watched the tense drama, told me, “I could only imagine how they were feeling, and I was filled with anger.” But as more and more citizens and some journalists crowded the narrow, one-way Louisiana State Drive, they saw the agents leave — the rooftop workers spared, but two other crew members handcuffed and whisked away, destination unknown.

    This is life during wartime in America in 2025, as an iconic U.S. city that celebrates itself as a boiling gumbo pot of Spanish-style architecture, Louisiana French, and spicy Creole culture suddenly finds itself under a terrorizing siege from the same federal government that promised billions so “New Orleans will rise again” after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago.

    Heard about Los Angeles? Heard about Chicago? Heard about Charlotte, N.C.? The 10-month-old Donald Trump regime has stumbled into a playbook for the xenophobic mass deportation drive it promised voters in 2024 — an “American Counter-Revolutionary Guard” of around 250 masked Border Patrol officers, led by the arrogance and telegenic evil of their commander, Greg Bovino, rampaging the Lowe’s parking lots and back alleys of one U.S. city before caravanning in their black SUVs to terrorize the next.

    Ricardo Ramírez, a 50-year-old construction worker, talks about being questioned by Border Patrol agents at a Home Depot parking lot in Kenner, La., on Wednesday.

    I flew from Philadelphia into Greater New Orleans Tuesday afternoon, just in time for the launch of the so-called Catahoula Crunch, because I wanted to see what it looked and felt like when the U.S. government sends a commando squad to wage war on one of its own cities. That meant spurning the beignets and darkened French Quarter jazz clubs of my 10 prior visits here and instead embedding on Williams Boulevard in Kenner, where former Pizza Huts are now taquerias with twinkling white lights and mariachi-style music is pumped into the markets.

    This is the New Orleans tourists only see speeding past in their airport Ubers, where in low-slung brick homes under the constant roar of jet engines, the Latino community has nearly tripled since 2000 — swelled by Mexican and Central American workers who labored around-the-clock on the massive post-Katrina reconstruction. That narrative of communal pride has been swamped by a palpable fear that this week pervades Kenner, where nearly a third of residents are Latino, yet the police chief is pro-immigration raids.

    By the end of the day, observers tallied around 12 to 14 apparent arrests. There was no evidence that any of these people were on the list of 10 most-wanted actual criminals Homeland Security pictured along with Wednesday’s launch — catnip for the Fox News audience clinging to the delusional Big Lie that Team Bovino is only targeting bad guys.

    How an ICE shake-up will bring Chicago-level terror to Philly | Will Bunch

    Instead, his secret police just swarmed wherever they could find the most brown-skinned people — the Home Depot lot, a white van filled with contractors, Mexican restaurants — and acted like the gun-toting officer in the recent movie Civil War who famously asked, “What kind of American are you?”

    In Bovino’s past operations, only a fraction of those arrested and facing deportation had criminal records — just 44 out of 370 in last month’s Charlotte op — and there was no evidence that Louisiana’s “Catahoula Crunch” would be any different.

    The Rev. Jane Mauldin, a Unitarian minister and immigration watchdog, outside a home worksite that was raided by Border Patrol agents on Wednesday.

    Yet, the real terror in Kenner is what you don’t see — a vibrant community that overnight has vanished underground.

    Shoppers who enter the Latino-oriented Ideal Market on the Williams strip are greeted with a sign: “STOP: NO ICE ACCESS IN THIS BUSINESS.” Yet, at midmorning Wednesday, there was just one shopper in the entire supermarket, outnumbered by workers stocking bins of green and yellow plantains and glistening produce that looked utterly untouched.

    “A lot of people are staying home, not going out,” Ramírez, the worker questioned by Border Patrol, told me. “We work in construction, and we are shorthanded. We know people don’t want to go to work. They are afraid.”

    Several local volunteers shared the same thought: that these “papers, please” random raids and the families hiding behind closed blinds and locked doors remind them of the stories they’ve read about Jews who lived in constant fear of Nazi raids in the 1930s and ‘40s.

    “I keep thinking about Anne Frank, who was kept alive with her family by a good friend named Miep,” said the Rev. Jane Mauldin, a Unitarian minister who was one of the volunteers who raced to the North Kenner raid on the roofers, referring to the Jewish teen who eventually died in a German concentration camp in 1945, and her Dutch protector. “I keep in my head saying, ‘What would Miep do?’”

    School attendance is down, and church pews are empty. Volunteers are collecting food for families that have suddenly gone into a COVID-level lockdown, and almost everyone who is out and about has a friend or coworker who abruptly went into hiding when they heard Border Patrol had targeted New Orleans.

    Father Luis Duarte, a 33-year-old immigrant from Colombia, talks about plunging attendance at St. Jerome Catholic Church, in Kenner, La., where he is pastor, as federal immigration raids begin on Wednesday.

    “There is a good friend of mine who hasn’t left her house in a week,” Mauldin said. “Her children are not going to school because of the fear … And she has all the right papers, but she’s not a citizen, so there is a possibility that she could be kidnapped and taken away and never see her children again.”

    The Rev. Luis Duarte, the 33-year-old Colombian-born priest at St. Jerome Roman Catholic Church in Kenner, told me that attendance at weekend Masses offered in Spanish has plunged, and a family that for weeks had been planning a joyous quinceañera for their daughter’s 15th birthday called it off. “They are fearful,” he told me, adding, “Not fearful because they are criminal, but because they are Hispanics.”

    Duarte was one of many who spoke of the unbelievable irony that the very people who came to the United States with hammers and 16-hours-a-day energy to rescue New Orleans in its darkest hour, after flooding from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina swamped thousands of homes and killed 1,833 people, are now seeing their new world turned upside down by the same U.S. government that vowed to rebuild the Crescent City.

    Duarte said his parishioners have told him of yard signs that welcomed the 2005 influx in Spanish — the same language government agents are now using to profile those they seek to handcuff and whisk away. “So when I see what’s going on now …” the priest said, then paused. “Yeah, why?”

    Yeah, why? This feels like a domestic Vietnam in reverse: We saved the town in order to destroy it. You can glean clues from the way Bovino and his cosplay tin soldiers preened for the prearranged cameras on Canal Street Wednesday afternoon, or the twisted name for his operation. The Catahoula leopard dog is the official state canine, revered by Louisiana’s early settlers for their ability to herd cattle and hunt down wild boars. The “crunch” is the sound of jaws ripping flesh. It’s a terrible echo for a place that once sicced bloodhounds on its enslaved people.

    The cruelty was the point in 1825. The cruelty is the point in 2025. The day laborers outside Lowe’s, just wanting to hammer shingles onto your roof, are the modern-day Christians thrown to Bovino’s cowardly lions in a Roman circus for Fox News couch potatoes. Same as the Somali Americans in Minneapolis, whom Trump was slandering on Wednesday as “garbage.” The worst Americans can revel in the latest model of white supremacy while their Dear Leader is robbing them blind and stashing the profits in crypto or the Trump Plaza Kazakhstan or whatever.

    But every day, more and more people are catching onto the scam and asking what Miep would do. “This hits very deep and very personal for many of us — in my neighborhood, almost every roof had to be replaced,” Mauldin said. “The men who were willing to go on the roof in 100-degree heat in September 2005 were not white, not Black — mostly, they were the Latino men who rebuilt this city.”

    Hours later, I stood at the busy corner of Elysian Fields and St. Claude with a dozen protesters amid a nonstop cacophony of cars responding to one of their signs: “Honk If Your Ancestors Were Immigrants.”

  • White is the 2026 Pantone Color of the Year. They say the choice isn’t political.

    White is the 2026 Pantone Color of the Year. They say the choice isn’t political.

    In a colorless move that, Pantone says, speaks to our collective longing for calmness, a clean slate, serenity, and focus, the New Jersey-based global color authority named Cloud Dancer — a billowy, balanced white — as its 2026 color of the year.

    The blank hue’s uncluttered vibe, Pantone says, plucks us out of the day-to-day crazy of our newsfeeds, AI-generated madness, and hustle culture.

    White, says Pantone Color Institute’s vice president Laurie Pressman, offers relief and respite. White noise silences the cacophony of worry rattling around in our overstimulated brains. The color gives us permission to think, refocus, and chart a new future.

    The pause between the doing, white is the be-ing.

    “White speaks to the value of measured consideration and quiet reflection,” Pressman said. “It represents a future free of toxicity and excess … contentment and peace, unity, and cohesiveness. It’s ethereal. White embraces the clouds.”

    Sweet dollops of whipped cream are white, meringue is white. Fluffy mashed potatoes are white, too.

    A fresh pair of Air Force 1s, patent leather go-go boots, a clean tee, a crisp button-up. A voluminous bridal gown. We ski in winter white.

    Mikado crop top with organza ball-gown skirt, limited edition ($1,150) at David’s Bridal, with pearl-drop earrings ($1,300) at Rosnov Jewelers. (Michael Bryant/Staff Photographer)

    White is fly.

    “In fashion and interior design, white is in our comfort zone,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “It’s natural and organic. It’s about sustainability.”

    White is ethereal. She’s dreamy. She represents new beginnings. I’m overwhelmed, too. I would love to drop my precepts and jump into a world of my own making. Architectural white shirts and black pants are my grown woman fashion go-to.

    I get it.

    But y’all, white is the color of the year in 2026.

    As a Black woman living in Trump’s America, I can’t help but wonder if Pantone’s choice of Cloud Dancer was much more of a nefarious harbinger than they perhaps realized.

    No, I don’t think Pantone is low key promoting whiteness or advocating for a white savior.

    Cloud Dancer, the 2026 Color of the Year, is billowy like this curtain blowing in the wind.

    Rather, to me, Cloud Dancer is a subliminal acknowledgment of the power structure emerging in America, especially her politics. The Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in universities and the federal government; its attempts to whitewash American history; its deportation of undocumented (and documented) brown immigrants; its adoption of white supremacist values: It all points to an America that values white lives more than others.

    Fashion and style always gives us clues to the future. So, I asked Pantone if they were tapping into something that perhaps they weren’t even aware of?

    “Absolutely not,” Pressman said, her tone pleading with me to stop with the correlation. “Pantone is not political.”

    Pantone is not political, true. But its trend forecasters keep their manicured fingers on the pulse. And in this moment I’m unable to ignore Ku Klux Klan robes are white, too.

    COY is always right

    Pantone’s Color of the Year is rooted in fashion. Its early picks – oceanic Cerulean in 2000; orange Tiger Lilly in 2004; and golden Mimosa in 2009 – influenced clothing, accessories, and makeup. As we moved deeper into the millennium, COY was the trendy choice for Kitchen Aids, accent walls, and Post-it notes.

    In the last decade, however, color of the year has come to define our collective moods more than just our fashion aspirations.

    It’s the aura hovering over the world, indicative not just of the life we have, but the one we want. The colors have become a peek into the energy of the feelings driving tomorrow’s zeitgeist.

    That became crystal clear in 2016, the first year Pantone chose two colors — a pink Rose Quartz and a baby blue Serenity. The dual hues were a nod to the emerging blurring of gender lines.

    In 2021, Pantone chose two colors again: Ultimate Gray and Illuminating Yellow.

    A year into the pandemic, we were emerging from a 2020 into a hopeful 2021, Pressman explained.

    The 2023 color, Viva Magenta, spoke to the vibrant post-pandemic life we craved.

    The Pantone Color of the Year is Cloud Dancer. The soft white represents a clean palette, a fresh start, shift and change.

    And its 2025 pick was Mocha Mousse, the color of espresso martinis, expensive wood, and me. It made such good sense in a year Black girl magic was at its peak.

    Things took a quick turn after. According to a New York Times study, 319,000 Black women have left both public and private sector jobs in 2025, the result of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting and DEI Initiatives.

    A clean slate

    A key reason why Pantone chose white is because, Pressman said, people are craving blank slates.

    “People have gotten to a point where they see what’s happening isn’t working for them anymore,” Pressman said. “They want something different, new, authentic.”

    Cloud Dancer hit that nail on the head.

    The Trump administration is dismantling the Department of Education, killing funding for the arts, scrubbing civil rights departments in federal agencies, and decimating medical research, replacing vaccine recommendations with unsubstantiated claims about Tylenol.

    Debris is seen at a largely demolished part of the East Wing of the White House, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Washington, before construction of a new ballroom. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

    The violent crimes of Jan. 6 protesters have been pardoned. The president has ripped out the East Wing of the White House.

    All clean slates and new beginnings. But for who?

    Cloud Dancer, Eiseman said, is a throwback to classic fashion, citing Coco Chanel and Audrey Hepburn. Sure, fashion of the “Golden Era” was glamorous. These women were undeniably well-dressed, but it was also a time when white gloves and girdles were the norm, and equally glamorous Black women like 1940 Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel was forced to sit in a segregated section during the Oscar ceremony because her white colleagues didn’t want to sit next to her.

    When the conversation turned to the yin (black) and yang (white) of fashion, I wondered aloud if, maybe this could have been a year when Pantone chose two colors: black and white. Perhaps this could signify harmony.

    Crickets.

    Pantone’s Color of the Year image of the Cloud Dancer.

    Later, I realized Pantone didn’t pick the cooperative vibe up, because it just wasn’t there.

    I’m not ready to wave the white flag yet. In the midst of all this, white remains a shade of hope, purity, and freedom. It’s the color of the Suffragist movement. Pantone’s is simply yet another canary in the coal mine which means I have a lot of work to do.

    I can’t afford to have my head in the clouds.