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  • Vineland educator is named new Camden superintendent, the first Hispanic to lead the district

    Vineland educator is named new Camden superintendent, the first Hispanic to lead the district

    A veteran Vineland educator has been named the state-appointed superintendent to oversee the Camden school system, state Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer announced Wednesday.

    Alfonso Q. Llano Jr. was selected after a national search that began in June. He will begin heading the troubled South Jersey school system starting March 1.

    He will be the first Hispanic superintendent to lead the district. Demographics in Camden have shifted in recent years, and 56% of its traditional public school students are now Hispanic, 42% are Black, and 1.2% are white.

    Dehmer made the long-awaited announcement at the monthly state Board of Education meeting in Trenton. The board unanimously approved the appointment.

    “I’m honored for the opportunity to serve the Camden City School District,” Llano said. “Together, we’re going to work through transparency and tough times. We’re going to achieve great things.”

    Llano will receive an annual salary of $260,000 under a three-year contract.

    In Vineland, he was the highest-paid superintendent in Cumberland County with an annual base salary of $206,000.

    Davida Coe-Brockington, a longtime Camden educator who has served as the interim superintendent during the search, will remain in that role until Llano takes over. She was not a candidate for the job.

    Llano succeeds Katrina T. McCombs, whose contract was not renewed after a group of city leaders, including Mayor Victor Carstarphen, called for her ouster. The group said Camden schools needed “a new vision for leadership.” McCombs left Camden in July for a state role after seven years as superintendent.

    Reactions to Llano’s hiring

    Carstarphen and other officials praised Llano’s appointment in a statement released Wednesday. The mayor lauded the state “for identifying someone who will bring meaningful change for Camden’s students.”

    “I am confident he will be an excellent leader who prepares our students for the future and always puts our students’ academic interest first,” Carstarphen said.

    N’Namdee Nelson, president of the Camden City Advisory School Board, said: “We want to ensure that every child in the school district has access to a great school.”

    Others, like former longtime school board member Jose E. Delgado, wished Llano well but were less optimistic. He said the selection of a Hispanic superintendent was “long overdue.”

    “He’s stepping into a very dysfunctional environment that will require a wide array of fiscal, administrative, and educational skills,” Delgado said.

    Llano inherits a district with declining enrollment — it currently has about 5,532 students — low test scores, and a high dropout rate. There have been modest gains since the state seized control of the district in 2013.

    The changing educational landscape in Camden poses the biggest challenge. Thousands of students have left the city’s traditional public schools for Renaissance and charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run and now lead the district’s enrollment.

    Camden is the only district in New Jersey with three school types. Charters enroll 3,236 students, and Renaissance schools have 6,664 students.

    Last spring, McCombs cited the declining enrollment in part for a $91 million budget deficit. She cut more than 100 positions and laid off teachers and support staff in a massive restructuring.

    Camden Education Association president Pamela Clark, who represents more than 1,000 teachers and support staff, said she hopes to meet with Llano soon to discuss concerns about possible layoffs and school closures.

    “I will continue to advocate fiercely to protect my members’ jobs and school closures, and I hope the new superintendent brings fairness, transparency, and unity to our city,” she said.

    Llano’s past work in Vineland and Trenton

    Llano has been superintendent of the Vineland district in Cumberland County since 2021. His five-year contract was set to expire in June.

    During a meeting in June, the Vineland board was bitterly divided over whether to renew his contract. The board must give six months’ notice if it plans to terminate a superintendent. The motion to not renew it failed, and it was unclear what direction the board would pursue.

    In Vineland, Llano oversaw a diverse district of more than 10,200 students enrolled in 16 schools. About 63% of the students are Hispanic, 14% are Black, and 18% are white. About 17.4% of its students are multilingual learners.

    Vineland has some of the same issues as Camden schools — low test scores and chronic absenteeism. The majority of the students in the sprawling 68-square-mile community are economically disadvantaged.

    Llano also spent 10 years in the Trenton school system, most recently as the interim schools chief for nearly a year prior to moving to Vineland. He previously was the district’s chief academic officer for six months. He also was an assistant superintendent and principal in Trenton.

    According to his LinkedIn profile, Llano also had stints in the Readington Township and Howell Township school districts in a career spanning 27 years.

    He is pursuing a doctoral degree in education at Seton Hall University. He holds master’s degrees from New Jersey City University and Kean University, and a bachelor’s degree from Rowan University.

    Interim State-appointed Camden school Superintendent Davida Coe-Brockington.

    Coe-Brockington said Llano’s reputation precedes him and that she was looking forward to working with him to “focus on the progress we’ve made in the district and focus on creating better outcomes for the students and families of Camden City.”

    It was unclear Wednesday whether Coe-Brockington would remain in the central office when Llano takes over or return to Creative Arts High School, where she has been principal since it opened in 1999.

  • An attempted package theft in Feltonville turned into a police shootout

    An attempted package theft in Feltonville turned into a police shootout

    Philadelphia police are searching for a man they say tried to steal a package from the front steps of a Feltonville home, then exchanged gunfire with both the homeowner and responding officers before fleeing Sunday evening.

    Security camera footage from a home in the 400 block of East Rockland Street shows a man approaching the front steps and attempting to take a package, police said. The homeowner, a 50-year-old man, came outside carrying a handgun and confronted him, police said.

    The homeowner fired a shot into the ground, police said, prompting the man to run. As he fled, the man fired a gun at the homeowner, they said.

    Officers who had been called to the area after reports of a crowd and a person with a weapon on the 4900 block of D Street heard the gunfire and ran toward it, police said. When they encountered the man, police said, he fired his weapon at one of the officers, and the officer fired back.

    The man escaped, police said. Officers later recovered a .40-caliber handgun and a jacket on Rockland Street.

    Police described the suspect as light-skinned with a stocky build, and a possible goatee. He was last seen wearing a brown coat, black pants, and gray sneakers.

    Police ask that anyone with information about the man or the shooting call or text police at 215-683-1866.

    The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

    The officer who fired his weapon has been placed on administrative duty, as is customary, pending an internal investigation, police said. His name has not been released.

  • Reputed Black Mafia leader Lonnie Dawson is out of prison. Here’s what to know about his case.

    Reputed Black Mafia leader Lonnie Dawson is out of prison. Here’s what to know about his case.

    After more than 40 years behind bars, reputed former Black Mafia leader Lonnie Dawson has been freed from prison, ending a decades-long legal drama that includes state and federal convictions for crimes, including drug trafficking and murder.

    Dawson’s release, though weeks old, went viral on social media in recent days thanks to video clips appearing to show his first moments as a newly free man. The widely shared video shows a man exiting the gates of a prison and immediately kneeling on a sidewalk in prayer.

    Dawson, also known as Abdul Salim, was freed from SCI Smithfield in Huntingdon County on Dec. 22 following a successful petition under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act, his attorney, David B. Mischak, told The Inquirer. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections confirmed Dawson’s release date, noting that he had been held in that state prison for three months before he was freed. The bulk of his incarceration, however, was served in federal prison.

    “Mr. Dawson has spent the majority of his adult life behind bars,” Mischak said in a statement posted to his law firm’s website. “After more than 40 years of incarceration, Lonnie Dawson is grateful for the opportunity to live out his remaining years with dignity and peace.”

    Dawson’s path to release was a long and circuitous one that stretches back to a 1975 murder of which he was twice convicted at the state level — and sentenced to life. In the 1980s, federal convictions on drug distribution and related charges followed, leading to a staggering 134-year federal sentence. Here is how The Inquirer and Daily News covered it:

    https://www.newspapers.com/article/philadelphia-daily-news/188400141/

    Article from Aug 10, 1982 Philadelphia Daily News (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) <!— –>

    The murder of Herschell Williams

    In November 1975, a purported drug dealer and Black Mafia member named Herschell Williams — also known as the “Jolly Green Giant” due to his 6-foot-6 frame — was gunned down near his Mount Airy home. Shortly after the murder, Dawson, along with fellow reputed Black Mafia members Roy Hoskins and Joseph Rhone, were arrested in connection with the slaying while driving on the Schuylkill Expressway, reports from the time indicate.

    Investigators later linked Williams’ murder to a dispute over cocaine, and authorities alleged that Hoskins and Rhone carried out the shooting while Dawson, whom they said ordered the killing, served as the getaway driver, The Inquirer and Daily News reported. Several months later, both Dawson and Hoskins were convicted of murder in separate cases and sentenced to life in prison, while Rhone, who jumped bail following his arrest, remained a fugitive.

    The convictions stuck until July 1978, when the state Supreme Court ordered new trials due to legal errors during the initial proceedings. Following their arrests, both men had been questioned by then-Detective Michael Chitwood, and Dawson’s conviction was overturned in part because his attorney was not allowed to cross-examine Chitwood. Dawson alleged Chitwood had fabricated a confession used during the trial, according to Inquirer reports.

    The retrial, however, did not work out in either man’s favor. Dawson, for his part, was again convicted in August 1982 and later sentenced to life for a second time, despite having maintained at trial that he was busy giving one of his children a haircut about 20 blocks away at the time Williams was killed, according to Inquirer and Daily News reports.

    https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer/188400725/

    Article from Dec 14, 1982 The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) <!— –>

    A federal conviction

    As Dawson awaited retrial in the Williams case, more legal issues were added to his docket. In April 1982, an FBI affidavit alleged that Dawson and Hoskins quickly took over the Black Mafia after the state Supreme Court overturned their convictions, and revealed that both had been investigated over the past year by federal authorities.

    That, however, only came to light after Dawson, Hoskins, and several others were arrested following a high-speed car chase on I-95 in which a car was riddled with bullets in an apparent attempt to kill a federal informant, Inquirer and Daily News reports from the time indicate.

    The informant, Lawrence D. Simons, who said he was a member of the Black Mafia, was unharmed in the chase, which concluded after his would-be killers crashed their vehicle into a tree, the Daily News reported.

    Federal grand jury indictments followed, with Dawson and his alleged cohorts facing a lengthy list of charges, including obstruction of justice, conspiracy, drug, and gun counts. Authorities alleged Dawson was the Black Mafia’s leader, and said the group was linked to drug trafficking throughout Philadelphia and Delaware County, The Inquirer reported.

    After a three-week trial, Dawson was found guilty on a number of counts, and sentenced to a 134-year prison sentence and $230,000 in fines — though a later appeal dropped that sentence to 65 years and $100,000. Hoskins faced a similarly stiff penalty.

    U.S. District Judge Louis C. Bechtle in his ruling referred to both men as “major drug manufacturers” who were a “danger to the community.” The sentences, the Daily News reported at the time, were the harshest ever imposed by a federal judge in the Philadelphia area for drug trafficking.

    Dawson in court denied he was involved in a major drug ring and called the charges “a bunch of malarkey,” the Daily News reported.

    https://www.newspapers.com/article/philadelphia-daily-news/188400368/

    Article from Dec 21, 1984 Philadelphia Daily News (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) <!— –>

    ‘Ain’t calling too many shots now’

    While Dawson was imprisoned in the early 1980s, a report from the Daily News alleged that he remained in control of drug sales in Philadelphia — particularly in North Philadelphia, Germantown, and Mount Airy. An unnamed FBI source told the People Paper that despite Dawson being jailed, his drug trafficking activity did not slow down, and said he regularly met with organized crime figures to orchestrate sales.

    The Daily News later reported that Dawson was placed in administrative segregation in prison. The move, an unnamed associate told the paper, diminished Dawson’s alleged stature in the drug trade, and as a result, he “ain’t calling too many shots now.”

    In late 1984, Dawson responded to the Daily News’ reporting directly in a letter to the paper in which he denied controlling drug sales anywhere. While in prison, he said, he had never met with organized crime figures to discuss drug manufacturing or sales, and said claims were floated by reporters “in hope of getting some type of promotion and/or attention.”

    “Why must I be the sacrificial lamb?” Dawson wrote. “Why?”

  • Michael Reagan, political commentator and son of Ronald Reagan, dies at 80

    Michael Reagan, political commentator and son of Ronald Reagan, dies at 80

    Michael Reagan, a longtime political commentator for radio, TV and print media, and the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, died Jan. 4 from cancer, a conservative group affiliated with the former president said Tuesday. He was 80.

    A longtime Republican like his father, Mr. Reagan espoused conservative opinions, advocating antiabortion views, stressing adherence to Christianity and expressing skepticism about green policies. Like many in his party, he was initially a critic of President Donald Trump, describing him as an “egomaniacal billionaire” and a “political train wreck” who had little chance of winning in 2016. When Trump defied the odds and won, Mr. Reagan embraced him, decrying the “liberal media” that he said hated Trump.

    But Mr. Reagan’s political outspokenness and his famous father appeared to overshadow his lifelong struggle with scars suffered during a tumultuous childhood. He first heard at the age of 4 that he had been adopted, and he was sexually molested at the age of 7 by a camp counselor – experiences that molded his political views and prompted him to turn to religion for solace.

    Mr. Reagan kept the molestation a secret for decades, partly out of fear that revealing it could ruin his dad’s political career. Mr. Reagan finally told his father in 1987, as the president was nearing the end of his second term and when Mr. Reagan was writing a memoir. The book was going to contain the story, so Mr. Reagan felt compelled to tell his father beforehand.

    “Now here I am at the ranch. Dad’s standing in front of me with his belt buckle on, and it looks like a brand new pair of cowboy boots. Nancy’s on my left side. Nancy and Dad say, ‘So what’s in the book we don’t know about?’ I had to tell Dad, and I couldn’t look at him,” he recalled in a later interview.

    “The hardest thing was telling him the act. It was not enough to tell him, ‘Geez, Dad, I was molested,’ but the act … that was the toughest thing. I got all done. My dad looked at me and said, ‘Where’s this guy? I’ll kick his butt.’ My dad didn’t walk away, didn’t say he hated me. I thought to myself, Why didn’t I do this years ago? But I couldn’t have years ago. God brought me to the right moment in 1987.”

    Michael Edward Reagan was born on March 18, 1945, in Los Angeles. Born to unmarried parents John Bourgholtzer, an Army soldier, and Essie Irene Flaugher, his birth name was John Charles Flaugher. The Reagans changed his name after adopting him. Mr. Reagan often joked that he was born German but became Irish at 3 days old, referring to the Reagans’ Irish roots.

    Mr. Reagan first learned he was adopted from his 8-year-old sister Maureen. When Mr. Reagan asked their mother, actress Jane Wyman, what the word “adopted” meant, she first gave a stern look to Maureen before telling her son that he had been chosen so he was special. “Let’s not ever talk about it again,” Wyman told her children.

    But when Mr. Reagan went to boarding school a few years later and told a classmate that he was special, he was bullied.

    “He comes back to me, ‘You were not chosen; you’re illegitimate,’” Mr. Reagan said in a 2008 interview. “So the kids started teasing me in school that I wasn’t a real Reagan. I was the ‘Bastard Reagan,’ the illegitimate Reagan.”

    Mr. Reagan didn’t understand what “illegitimate” meant. So he consulted the Bible, and found a verse that said “all the illegitimate children and their children until the 10th generation will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.”

    “I closed the Bible. This is like 1951. [I] didn’t reopen the Bible until 1978.”

    The pain pushed him toward self-hate and anger. His parents’ subsequent divorce and the crime he suffered at the hands of a child molester exacerbated the negative emotions. As a high school student, he told himself he was condemned and blamed himself for his molestation.

    “I thought I was living a lie because no one knew what I had done. I questioned my sexuality, I stole money from my parents to buy prostitutes trying to convince myself I was straight,” he said in 2012. “I just didn’t know … I thought my birth parents gave me away because they knew I would be evil and I thought the Reagans would give me back if they found out.”

    He briefly attended Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, and attempted to follow his parents into acting, but ultimately became better known for the radio shows he hosted, starting in the late 1980s in Los Angeles, where he briefly rubbed elbows with conservative talk show star Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Reagan attributed Trump’s rise to his ability to cater to the millions who tuned into conservative radio talk shows.

    Mr. Reagan became a frequent presence on television, radio and print as a political commentator, working as an analyst for the right-wing news outlet Newsmax during his final days.

    Although Mr. Reagan repeatedly expressed dismay over Trump’s haphazard style of politics earlier in Trump’s political career, Mr. Reagan’s opinions appeared to veer increasingly closer to those of Trump.

    Mr. Reagan initially denounced the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, calling them “wrong” and saying that they had “soiled [Trump’s] legacy forever.” But a year later, he was describing those arrested for allegedly participating in the events that day as “political prisoners.”

    In 2024, he wrote a column titled “Democrats: The Enemy of Democracy.”

    “While our streets and campuses are crawling with [left-wing protesters] and pro-Palestine vandals, Democrats are still yammering about the ‘insurrection’ of Jan. 6 and worrying about the existential threat Donald Trump supposedly poses to our democracy,” he said.

    That year, Mr. Reagan welcomed Trump’s reelection, praising the president for building a broad coalition that included “blue-collar workers, blacks and Latinos” – those who have not traditionally voted Republican.

    “With his historic political comeback and his MAGA movement, Trump has created the Republican Party of the future,” Mr. Reagan wrote in November 2024.

    In his private life, Mr. Reagan cherished his relationship with his wife, Colleen, whom he married in 1975 after a short marriage to Pamela Putnam that ended in 1972. Mr. Reagan has publicly thanked his wife for persuading him to turn to religion. Survivors include his wife and two children.

  • Donkey’s Place’s walrus bone was stolen from the bar. Staff want it back.

    Donkey’s Place’s walrus bone was stolen from the bar. Staff want it back.

    Rob Lucas Jr. is not exactly sentimental about the 27-inch walrus penis bone that for decades has adorned the bar he inherited from his father.

    But on Dec. 29, a patron was captured on video stealing the Donkey’s Place oddity, Lucas said, and it’s not something he takes lightly.

    He wants his walrus penis bone back on his bar stat.

    “I do have a credit card, but I can’t get the information from my credit card company unless I file a police report and that would mean going down to the police station and spending hours,” he said Wednesday. “We’d rather just get it back.”

    The provenance of the bone is unknown to Lucas, third-generation owner, who grew up in the local cheesesteak spot and bar.

    His grandfather, Leon “Donkey” Lucas, a heavyweight boxing contender in the 1928 Summer Olympics, opened the bar more than 80 years ago.

    In Camden for 75 years, Donkey’s Place serves cheesesteaks – and so much more

    Donkey’s got a major boost in 2015 when Anthony Bourdain featured it in an episode of his travel food show Parts Unknown. Bourdain said “the best cheesesteak in the area might well come from New Jersey,” referring to the Donkey’s Place staple served on a seeded Kaiser roll.

    Donkey’s ambience has not changed much since Bourdain’s visit. It has the feel of a bar where everyone knows your name, cozy and packed to the gills with random decor, from beer memorabilia, boxing gloves, a megalodon tooth, and of course, the walrus penis bone, also known as a walrus baculum, for the citizen scientists.

    Lucas grew up with the megalodon tooth and walrus bone but never learned what they actually were until he took the bar over from his father about a decade ago and endeavored to take stock of what he had on his hands.

    Since then, the bone has been a great conversation piece — patrons guess what it is and pose for photos with it — and just another part of the local cheesesteak spot’s charm.

    It’s why the waitress working a Dec. 29 shift didn’t think anything of the three men’s interest in the bone. Lucas said they spent a few hours at the bar while the waitress juggled patrons and the grill that’s within sight of where the patrons were sitting.

    “They weren’t wasted or anything, but they had some sandwiches, bought some merchandise, and then walked out with the walrus bone,” he said.

    But after paying their tab, Lucas said security footage shows one of the men wrapped the bone in a large pashmina-like scarf and walked out.

    Little is known about the men. Lucas said they told the waitress they’d come to the area for HiJinx Fest, the two-day dubstep, electronic music festival, held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center across the river. Lucas said the man who took the bone claimed he was a traveling tattoo artist, originally from Cleveland.

    By Wednesday, Donkey’s Bar had posted a public plea on its TikTok account, asking for help in finding the bone, sharing screenshots of the trio walking out of the restaurant, bone in scarf.

    @donkeysplacecamden

    We want our “bone” back! Please help!

    ♬ original sound – Donkeys Place Camden

    The local response has been swift so far and one of downright indignation. Lucas said some tattoo friends have circulated the story and NJ Advance Media published an article about the search. Lucas imagines internet sleuths will do their own digging, though he does not want to get anyone in trouble.

    “They could mail it back if they want,” he said of the trio. No questions asked.

  • John Langdon, innovative award-winning graphic designer, has died at 79

    John Langdon, innovative award-winning graphic designer, has died at 79

    John Langdon, 79, formerly of Philadelphia, innovative award-winning graphic designer, painter, writer, and longtime adjunct professor of typography at Drexel University, died Thursday, Jan. 1, of complications from a heart attack at French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

    Mr. Langdon was a lifelong artist and wordsmith. He originated ambigrams in the early 1970s and created distinctive logos for corporate clients, artists, musicians, and others. Ambigrams are words or designs that retain meaning when viewed from different perspectives, and his work influenced countless other designers and typographers who followed.

    “They also present familiar concepts in an unfamiliar way,” he told The Inquirer in 1992, “and thus stimulate the reader’s imagination.”

    On his website, johnlangdon.net, Mr. Langdon described his work as “making abstract concepts visual, almost always through the design of words, letters, and symbols.” He called it “words as art” and said: “I specialize in the visual presentation of words.”

    His designs were featured in more than a dozen solo shows in galleries and museums in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware, and in more than 50 group exhibitions around the country and Europe. He created six ambigrams for author Dan Brown’s best-selling book, Angels & Demons, and Brown named his fictional protagonist, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, after John Langdon.

    “John’s art changed the way I think about symmetry, symbols, and art,” Brown told The Inquirer in 2006.

    What’s in a logo? More than meets the eye, by John Langdon

    Mr. Langdon’s own book about ambigrams, Wordplay, was first published in 1992 and updated in 2005. He also wrote the forwards of other books and articles for journals and newsletters. He said he had a “particular interest in word origins” in an interview on his website.

    He was featured several times in The Inquirer and wrote an op-ed piece in 2014 about the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new logo. He opened the article with: “Please, beloved Philadelphia Museum of Art, before you print one piece of stationery or a single promotional flier, reconsider your new logo.”

    Mr. Langdon’s work was featured in The Inquirer in 2006.

    In 1996, he began painting what he called his “visual-verbal meditations and manipulations” on canvas. “My paintings still involve symmetry and illusion, a bit of philosophy, and a few puns thrown in for good measure,” he said on his website.

    He cocreated the Flexion typeface and won a 2007 award from the New York-based Type Directors Club. He spoke often about design at colleges and high schools, and to professional societies. He gave a TEDx talk about font and the future of typeface at Drexel.

    Douglas Hofstadter, a professor at Indiana University who coined the term ambigram in 1984, told The Inquirer in 2006 that Mr. Langdon had a “very strong sense of legibility but also a marvelous sense of esthetics, flow, and elegance.”

    Born in Wynnewood and reared in Narberth, Mr. Langdon graduated from Episcopal Academy in 1964 and earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. He worked in the photo-lettering department of a type house and for a design studio in Philadelphia after college, and began freelancing as a logo designer, type specialist, and lettering artist in 1977.

    He taught typography and logo design classes at Moore College of Art and Design from 1985 to 1988 and at Drexel from 1988 to his retirement in 2015. In an online tribute, one student said he was “one of my favorite teachers of all time.”

    He was interested in Taoism and inspired by artists Salvador Dalí and M.C. Escher, and authors Edgar Allan Poe and Ogden Nash. “In the early ’70s, I tried to do with words what Dali and Escher did with images,” he said in a 2006 interview posted on Newswise.com.

    John Wilbur Langdon was born April 19, 1946. He played high school and college soccer and drew caricatures of classmates for the Episcopal yearbook.

    After college, he took painting and drawing classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the old Philadelphia College of Art. He married Lynn Ochsenreiter, and they had a daughter, Jessica. They divorced later.

    Mr. Langdon enjoyed vacation road trips and told stories of hitchhiking around the country in the 1960s. He followed the Phillies, was interested in genealogy, and traced his family back to the Founding Fathers.

    Mr. Langdon stands with his daughter, Jessica.

    He lived in Darby, Woodbury, Wenonah, and Philadelphia before moving to California in 2016. “He was jovial, social, and amusing,” his daughter said. “People said he was clever, and everyone liked him.”

    He told The Inquirer in 2006: “It may seem counterintuitive, but the more ambiguity you invite into your life, the more things make sense and become understandable.”

    John Langdon: A true man of letters for ‘Angels & Demons’

    In addition to his daughter and former wife, Mr. Langdon is survived by a brother, Courtney, and other relatives.

    A memorial is to be held later.

    Mr. Langdon lived in Darby, South Jersey, and Philadelphia before moving to California in 2016.
  • The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is shutting down

    The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is shutting down

    The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will fold after nearly a century. The paper will cease operations entirely — both its digital and physical versions — on May 3.

    The announcement comes on the heels of years of declining ad revenue and internal strife within the newsroom, including a yearslong labor strike.

    With the paper’s closure, there are concerns that Pittsburgh could become a news desert, leaving locals without a range of diverse and credible outlets to turn to in an age of increasing misinformation.

    The Post-Gazette was led by former Inquirer senior vice president and executive editor Stan Wischnowski. He resigned from The Inquirer in 2020 after a controversy following a headline after the murder of George Floyd.

    Block Communications, the paper’s owners, released a statement Wednesday about the shutdown, citing “continued cash losses” that were “no longer sustainable.” About 150 union, nonunion, and management employees are impacted.

    The owners added that the paper has lost more than $350 million in operational funds over the last 20 years.

    The paper’s union, meanwhile, said the closure was a result of “losing a nearly decade-long attempt to bust unions at the paper.”

    Andrew Goldstein, current president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said in a statement that “instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh.”

    A Zoom announcement

    Post-Gazette staff said they found out about the paper’s closure via a companywide prerecorded Zoom announcement just moments before the news went public. Multiple reporters told The Inquirer that no company representatives spoke live during the video and that there was no opportunity provided for follow-up questions or discussion.

    In a leaked recording of the Zoom announcement obtained by Pittsburgh’s KDKA Radio, a spokesperson asked staff to continue to publish under “business-as-usual conditions” for the paper’s remaining months. The spokesperson added that Block Communications would “of course” give the Post-Gazette the opportunity to break the news of the closure first.

    News desert concerns

    Block Communications, the family-owned multimedia company based in Toledo, Ohio, owns several broadcast news stations, the Post-Gazette, and the Toledo Blade, the Post-Gazette’s sister newspaper. The Blade is unaffected by the shutdown, owners said.

    Earlier this week, the company also announced the closure of City Paper, the Pittsburgh alt-weekly that first published in 1991, “effective immediately.”

    The closure will leave the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as the region’s last major newspaper. The Tribune-Review is a digital-only publication. Other specialized publications, including the New Pittsburgh Courier and Pittsburgh Business Times, also remain.

    Tim Franklin, the founding director of the Medill Local News Initiative, a research and development project designed to bolster local news sustainability, said the closure was “startling,” given the paper’s size and the region’s market size. Pittsburgh is considered a competitive news market.

    “Even in this economic climate, it’s unusual to see a metro daily newspaper shutter,” he said. “This may be the first metro newspaper closure since the Tampa Tribune in 2016,” which was acquired by the Tampa Bay Times on May 3, 2016, and ceased publication.

    Franklin says the Post-Gazette’s closure symbolized a deepening crisis in local news nationwide, which has led to almost 150 newspaper closures in the past year, according to Medill data, or an average of more than two closures a week.

    According to the Medill State of Local News Report, the country has lost nearly 40% of its newspapers in the past 20 years.

    “Today’s news, though, is especially troubling because it highlights a newer, growing trend — the loss of independent, largely family-owned local newspapers,” Franklin said.

    In the past, the bulk of newspaper closures were attributed to large chains closing clusters of outlets. Now, Franklin says, there’s a rising trend in independently owned papers closing. “If even longtime independent owners are hanging it up, that shows the seriousness of the challenges facing the industry.”

    Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said in a statement that she was troubled by the Post-Gazette’s closure, calling it “devastating” for the region.

    “This is a major loss to the people of Pittsburgh when it comes to transparency in government, accountability from our institutions, and learning about what is happening in our communities,” she said.

    Innamorato added that she wasn’t sure if Block Communications pursued other pathways for buyers or alternatives to shutting down both the Post-Gazette and City Paper entirely.

    “But destroying two legacy papers in a week leaves a gaping hole in our local news environment,” she said.

    Block Communications could not be reached for comment as of publication time.

    On social media, readers expressed contempt toward ownership for the decision and concern regarding whom to turn to for local news.

    “This is a huge loss,” one user commented on a Reddit thread about the closure. “Who will do the work of journalism? … Will we all be going off rumors on Reddit and Nextdoor?”

    A complicated past

    The Pittsburgh Gazette Times, a weekly publication, was founded in 1786. It’s regarded as the oldest newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. The paper took on its current form as the Post-Gazette in 1927 as part of a merger between the Gazette Times and the Pittsburgh Post.

    The newspaper’s shutdown comes on the heels of several internal challenges in recent years.

    In 2019, tension grew between the newsroom staff and Post-Gazette publisher and co-owner John Robinson Block regarding his “bizarre” and “violent” behavior toward employees.

    At the time, according to multiple accounts, Block entered the newsroom in an agitated state with his 12-year-old daughter on a weekend night and appeared out of control as he ranted about the newspaper’s union and its employees.

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette employees say they remain on edge after publisher’s ‘bizarre’ and ‘violent’ behavior

    That year, the paper cut its print edition from daily to three days a week, citing declining ad revenue.

    Then came the monumental labor strike.

    In 2022, the Post-Gazette saw significant labor disputes, leading to a Guild-approved strike that lasted three years. During the strike, many of the employees impacted established the Pittsburgh Union Progress, a strike paper that published over 4,000 stories covering community news, the strike, and more.

    In November, a federal appeals court ordered the newspaper to reinstate its 2014 union contract, forcing the return of the striking journalists. The U.S. Third Circuit of Appeals ruled that the paper had illegally removed benefits and would need to restore conditions and return to bargaining.

    Block Communications in its statement about the paper’s closure said that those recent court decisions legally requiring it to follow its 2014 labor contract would make it impossible to keep the paper running.

    Union leaders say it’s a cheap excuse after years of attempted union-busting from company owners.

    “The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Blocks spent millions on lawyers to fight union workers, fight journalists, and break federal labor law,” said NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss. “They lost at every level, including now at the Supreme Court. Pittsburgh deserves better and we will continue to fight to make sure all news companies follow the law and serve our communities.”

    Franklin, with the Medill Local News initiative, says it’s inevitable that some people will say the Post-Gazette’s closure is a “special case” because of its extended labor dispute that threw the paper into turmoil for years.

    “And certainly, that standoff played a role in today’s news,” he said. “But the fact that the Post-Gazette owners saw no other option but closure is chilling.”

    The company’s statement went on to say it regretted how the decision would affect Pittsburgh and its surrounding coverage area.

    The Block family said it was “proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century.”

    As for what’s next, Goldstein with the local guild says readers should stay tuned for more from its journalists.

    “Post-Gazette journalists have done award-winning work for decades and we’re going to pursue all options to make sure that Pittsburgh continues to have the caliber of journalism it deserves,” he said.

  • Ardmore Lululemon burglarized for second time in two years

    Ardmore Lululemon burglarized for second time in two years

    Two burglars broke into Lululemon at Ardmore’s Suburban Square shopping center early Tuesday morning, according to the Lower Merion Police Department.

    In surveillance footage shared by 6abc, two masked suspects are seen using a sledgehammer to smash one of the storefront’s glass doors. The men grabbed an unknown amount of merchandise from the men’s section, including coats, Lower Merion Police Sgt. Ian Thornton said. One man ran out of the store before coming back in to grab more merchandise.

    Authorities told reporters the men loaded the merchandise into a U-Haul, which was last seen on Bryn Mawr and Woodbine Avenues.

    An investigation is underway.

    Lululemon is a high-end athletic-wear retailer with eight stores in the Philadelphia region. The company did not respond to written questions about the Tuesday morning burglary.

    Lower Merion Police Superintendent Andy Block told 6abc that Lululemon merchandise is a “highly sought-after item.”

    The Suburban Square store was targeted in May 2024 during a string of robberies at Lululemon locations in Ardmore and Center City.

    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.

  • Iran army chief threatens preemptive attack over ‘rhetoric’ targeting country after Trump’s comments

    Iran army chief threatens preemptive attack over ‘rhetoric’ targeting country after Trump’s comments

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s army chief threatened preemptive military action Wednesday over the “rhetoric” targeting the Islamic Republic, likely referring to President Donald Trump’s warning that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”

    The comments by Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami come as Iran tries to respond to what it sees as a dual threat posed by Israel and the United States, as well as the protests sparked by its economic woes that have grown into a direct challenge to its theocracy.

    Seeking to halt the anger, Iran’s government began Wednesday paying the equivalent of $7 a month to subsidize rising costs for dinner table essentials like rice, meat and pastas. Shopkeepers warn prices for items as basic as cooking oil likely will triple under pressure from the collapse of Iran’s rial currency and the end of a preferential subsidized dollar-rial exchange rate for importers and manufacturers — likely fueling further popular anger.

    “More than a week of protests in Iran reflects not only worsening economic conditions, but longstanding anger at government repression and regime policies that have led to Iran’s global isolation,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank said.

    Army chief’s threat

    Hatami spoke to military academy students. He took over as commander in chief of Iran’s army, known by the Farsi word “Artesh,” after Israel killed a number of the country’s top military commanders in June’s 12-day war. He is the first regular military officer in decades to hold a position long controlled by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

    “The Islamic Republic considers the intensification of such rhetoric against the Iranian nation as a threat and will not leave its continuation without a response,” Hatami said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

    He added, “I can say with confidence that today the readiness of Iran’s armed forces is far greater than before the war. If the enemy commits an error, it will face a more decisive response, and we will cut off the hand of any aggressor.”

    Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been responding to Trump’s comments, which took on more significance after the U.S. military raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend. But there’s been no immediate public sign of Iran preparing for an attack in the region.

    New subsidy payment begins

    Iranian state television reported on the start of a new subsidy of the equivalent of $7, put into the bank accounts of heads of households across the country. More than 71 million people will receive the benefit, which is 10 million Iranian rials, it reported. The rial now trades at more than 1.4 million to $1 and continues to depreciate.

    The subsidy is more than double than the 4.5 million rial people previously received. But already, Iranian media report sharp rises in the cost of basic goods, including cooking oil, poultry and cheese, placing additional strain on households already burdened by international sanctions targeting the country and inflation.

    Iran’s vice president in charge of executive affairs, Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, told reporters on Wednesday that the country was in a “full-fledged economic war.” He called for “economic surgery” to eliminate rentier policies and corruption within the country.

    More protests

    Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the June war with Israel, its rial currency sharply fell in December. Protests began soon after on Dec. 28. They reached their 11th day on Wednesday and didn’t appear to be stopping.

    Social media videos purported to show new cities like Bojnourd, Kerman, Rasht, Shiraz, and Tabriz, as well some smaller towns, joining the demonstrations on Wednesday.

    The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency offered the latest death toll of 36 for the demonstrations. It said 30 protesters, four children and two members of Iran’s security forces have been killed. Demonstrations have reached over 310 locations in 28 of Iran’s 31 provinces. More than 2,100 people have been arrested, it said.

    The group, which relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting, has been accurate in past unrest.

  • The New York Times lists Philly as the top travel destination for 2026

    The New York Times lists Philly as the top travel destination for 2026

    With the nation’s 250th birthday fast approaching, the New York Times named Philadelphia as the number one travel destination in the world for 2026.

    While noting that there will be no shortage of celebrations for the Semiquincentennial, as the national milestone is known, Philly landed the top spot on the paper’s annual “52 Places to Go” list published each January. Because where else would you want to be this year than the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence?

    “Celebrate the Semiquincentennial with fireworks and themed balls,” the paper wrote, before mentioning just a few of the slew of major events Philly has planned for America’s yearlong birthday bash, including a Red, White & Blue To-Do Pomp & Parade, two new galleries at the National Constitution Center, a grand exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a World Cup match on Independence Day.

    That’s not to mention other big-ticket events coming our way in 2026, like the MLB All-Star Game, a pumped Fourth of July concert with soon-to-be-announced special guests, and TED Democracy talks, plus a host of neighborhood programming.

    With its unmatched Revolutionary bona fides, Philly edged out global travel destinations for the top spot. Like Warsaw, with its gleaming new Museum of Modern Art, and a greener-than-ever Bangkok. Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula and India’s Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve rounded out the paper’s top global spots worth visiting in 2026.

    Compiled yearly by Times editors and reporters, the exhaustive list noted that other original colonies — Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, and New Jersey — will also have stacked Semiquincentennial calendars.

    Whatever.