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  • Moving beyond supervision: It’s time to rethink juvenile probation

    Moving beyond supervision: It’s time to rethink juvenile probation

    Most people hear the phrase “juvenile probation” and think of second chances. They imagine a young person avoiding detention and getting the support they need to stay on track. It sounds compassionate, reasonable, and like progress. But for thousands of young people in Philadelphia and hundreds of thousands across the country, juvenile probation is not freedom; it’s a trap.

    For many youths, probation is not an opportunity to grow, but feels like walking through life with a countdown clock. Every interaction carries risk. Every mistake, no matter how small, can be interpreted as defiance or as a violation of probation. Instead of stabilizing young people, probation often destabilizes them, pulling them deeper into systems that punish rather than support.

    What is described as a “community-based alternative” becomes a constant reminder that freedom is conditional and fragile.

    Juvenile probation places youth under a long list of conditions that most adults couldn’t realistically follow. There are weekly check-ins, strict curfews, school mandates, drug tests, random home visits, and the constant threat of detention if they mess up.

    Missing an appointment, being late, skipping school during a crisis, or being around a family member who is also under supervision can all be labeled “technical violations.” These violations, while not new crimes, can send a young person straight to juvenile detention or state secure placement.

    The public rarely sees this reality, but young people and their families do.

    We both work at YEAH Philly (Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout), which has worked with more than 300 Philadelphia youth involved in the legal system, and we see the harm every single day.

    Probation doesn’t work the way people think

    A common narrative around juvenile probation is that it was designed to divert youth from incarceration and connect them to guidance and resources. The reality is different.

    Instead of being a short-term intervention, probation has become a default response applied broadly, regardless of a young person’s actual risk or needs. What was meant to be rehabilitative has become expansive, punitive, and deeply entangled with punishment.

    Across the country, more than 150,000 kids are on juvenile probation, many for minor or “status” offenses like skipping school or missing curfew, not violence. Black youth are disproportionately targeted, placed on probation more often, kept on longer, and violated more quickly.

    In a large study of over 18,000 youth placed on probation for the first time, about 15% broke a probation rule without committing a new crime. Black youth, who made up just over half of the group, were written up sooner than white youth and were more likely to be violated at any point during supervision.

    The system claims to be rehabilitative, but the numbers tell a different story. In many states, more young people are punished for technical violations than for new offenses.

    Youth on probation often remember only a fraction of the rules they are expected to follow, yet remain under court supervision for months or years after any public safety benefit exists.

    A Pew Charitable Trusts study found that in one state, after the first 10 months of probation supervision, there were more arrests for technical violations than for new offenses, and Black youth were more likely to be placed on probation rather than diverted to non-court services, even when offense severity was comparable.

    This is what researchers describe as “net-widening,” where more youth are pulled into the system, more rules are imposed, more pipelines to jail and prison, and more opportunities for failure without improved outcomes.

    What we see at YEAH Philly

    (From left) Tayanna Hubbard, Jasmine Brown, and Kendra Van de Water walk during a YEAH Philly nature walk at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia in April 2021.

    Every week, young people come to us terrified of making a mistake. They are trying to navigate a system built on compliance while also surviving poverty, school instability, community violence, and unmet mental health needs.

    We work with teenagers who miss appointments because SEPTA was delayed, or because they have no reliable way to travel across the city. We see youth violated for missing school when the real issue was a lack of clean clothes, food insecurity, or an unsafe home environment.

    We support young people placed on probation not because they caused harm, but because they needed help; help that juvenile probation was never designed to provide.

    These are not failures of individual responsibility; they are failures of a system that confuses surveillance with support and punishment with accountability. Juvenile probation wears the mask of care, but it operates through control and coercion.

    Why probation can’t be ‘reformed’

    Cities have tried for decades to tweak juvenile probation with fewer conditions, shorter terms, or trauma-informed training. While these reforms may reduce some harm, they do not change the core structure of probation itself.

    Juvenile probation still polices adolescence instead of supporting it. It punishes normal teenage behavior, responds to trauma with surveillance, and relies on the constant threat of incarceration to enforce compliance.

    A system built on control cannot be transformed into one rooted in care through policy tweaks alone. There must be a complete overhaul to create something better.

    A group of teens and two police officers meet during the final session of a YEAH Philly pilot program at the Cobbs Creek Recreation Center in June 2019.

    YEAH Philly’s approach through our Violent Crime Initiative and healing-centered youth support model shows what is possible when young people are surrounded by genuine care rather than constant monitoring.

    When youth have trusted adults, access to transportation, meals, basic needs, job opportunities, therapy, mediation, and a safe place to go every day, they grow. They build accountability because they feel connected, not controlled.

    Community-based models across the country show the same results, where healing and restorative approaches reduce reoffending more effectively than supervision ever has.

    People hear “end juvenile probation” and fear it means “end safety.” But abolition does not mean abandoning young people. It means abandoning systems that have consistently failed them.

    Abolition means replacing surveillance with support, punishment with opportunity, control with care, and isolation with belonging.

    Crafting a new vision

    In the coming months, YEAH Philly and the Gault Center, alongside youth, families, and researchers, will launch the Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition.

    The coalition will expose the harms of juvenile probation through youth-led research, hold systems accountable for the trauma they create, elevate community-based accountability models, and push for policies and models that move us beyond probation.

    Our goal is a national blueprint for real public safety rooted in dignity and care.

    Philadelphia has an opportunity to lead the nation in redefining accountability and safety for young people. We can build systems that help youth grow instead of continuing to invest in systems that wait for them to fail.

    Ending juvenile probation is not a radical idea. It is an overdue commitment to young people’s futures.

    It is time to move from supervision to support, and from punishment to possibility.

    The Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition is coming — and this is just the beginning.

    Kendra Van de Water is the cofounder and co-CEO and Mona Baishya is the Violent Crime Initiative research director at YEAH Philly. For more information about the Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition and the forthcoming work, please contact Van de Water (kvandewater@yeahphilly.org) or HyeJi Kim (hkim@defendyouthrights.org).

  • Flamingo fans fight to unseat the mockingbird as Florida’s state bird

    Flamingo fans fight to unseat the mockingbird as Florida’s state bird

    Jim Mooney has launched a high-wattage campaign to elevate the flamingo to Florida’s state bird.

    The Republican has handed out flamingo lapel pins and 11-by-16 prints of flamingo artwork to his 119 colleagues in the state legislature. He sported a suit with a pink shirt, a pink pocket square, and a tie festooned with flamingos to testify on behalf of his legislation.

    But the gangly pink bird must unseat the mockingbird, which has been Florida’s official bird for 99 years, to gain the distinction Mooney says it deeply deserves.

    To accomplish this, the lawmaker is hoping to reach a political compromise with supporters of the sprightly and charming Florida scrub jay, who have torpedoed his legislation in the past. The scrub jay would be honored as the state’s songbird under Mooney’s bill, while the flamingo would become the state bird.

    “It’s unbelievable how this has taken on a life of its own,” said Mooney, a retired high school sports coach and former mayor of Islamorada. “I’m seeing flamingos everywhere I go. Across the state, everywhere I turn around, it’s a flamingo here and a flamingo there. People are sending me texts and letters about it. Everybody is on board for the flamingo.”

    He quickly added, “And the scrub jay.”

    Florida struck a similar deal in 2022 when strawberry growers lobbied the state to honor the strawberry shortcake. Many in the state especially in Mooney’s Florida Keys district — were outraged at the prospect that the key lime pie, the official state pie, could be pushed aside. Instead, state lawmakers just created a new category — state dessert — and awarded it to the strawberry shortcake.

    “There’s room for both, just like there’s room for both the flamingo and the scrub jay,” Mooney said.

    At stake are mostly bragging rights, though supporters also hope to secure more money for the study and conservation of flamingos. The American flamingo is already protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act, but conservationists say it should also be considered a threatened species, offering it even more protection after it was nearly wiped out in Florida in the past century by plume hunters and, later, habitat loss.

    Audubon Florida Executive Director Julie Wraithmell refuses to choose a favorite among the flamingo, mockingbird, and scrub jay — “we don’t choose between our kids” — but hopes the bird competition will lead to them all receiving more recognition.

    “If you’re Team Flamingo, you should put your influence and your support where your loyalty lies and really support Everglades restoration,” Wraithmell said. “If you’re Team Scrub Jay, you need to be paying attention to if the state is appropriating enough funding for upland land management for our parks and preserves.”

    Supporters have been campaigning for flamingos, one of the state’s most celebrated symbols, for years. But a debate among scientists about whether the wading bird, which on average can stand five feet tall, is native to the Sunshine State has hampered those efforts. Skeptics noted that few were seen in the wild, or outside a zoo, for more than 100 years.

    But Mooney, who has sponsored pro-flamingo legislation for four years, said a new University of Central Florida study may finally settle the dispute. Flamingos are native to the state and “genetically fit for restoration,” according to the study released in December. Audubon Florida also found that more than 101 flamingos landed in the state during Hurricane Idalia in 2023 and didn’t leave.

    The exact number of flamingos in Florida is unknown — the state doesn’t keep track — but residents regularly report sightings, including Mooney, who likes to show everyone he encounters a video of nearly three dozen flamingos serenely feeding in the Florida Bay in early January. A scientist spotted a flamboyance of 125 flamingos in the Everglades in July.

    The proposal, being debated during the current legislative session, isn’t as weighty as some of the other topics Florida lawmakers are expected to tackle, including the cost of property insurance, Mooney said, but is still important.

    “We seldom have bills that make you feel good,” he said. “This bill does, and it also has some real intrinsic value. It shows that our restoration projects are bearing fruit, and that flamingos are here to stay.”

    He was thrilled when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave the birds a shout-out during his State of the State address Jan. 13. “Even the flamingos have returned,” DeSantis said while touting the state’s Everglades restoration work.

    Efforts to elevate the flamingo have overtaken a decades-long pro-scrub jay campaign. The friendly blue-and-white bird has fans among Florida schoolchildren, who have formed clubs and written lawmakers in support of the scrub jay being named state bird. It also has a devoted following among environmentalists who often argue against overdevelopment that would disturb their habitats.

    In 1999, Marion Hammer, the first female president of the National Rifle Association and considered among the most formidable lobbyists in Tallahassee, helped derail scrub jay supporters. They are “evil little birds that rob the nests of other birds and eat their eggs and kill their babies,” she said.

    A northern mockingbird keeps a keen eye out for intruders in 2015 n Houston. After nearly a century on its lofty perch, the northern mockingbird may be singing its last melodies as the state bird of Florida.

    Hammer was on Team Mockingbird and in an op-ed in 2016 noted that they are good parents and also remarkable songbirds, while the scrub jay “can’t even sing — it can only squawk.”

    The scrub jay lets out a soft trill during courtship but is often lumped in with songbirds, like blue jays, that it is related to. Flamingos, meanwhile, make squawky sounds.

    The mockingbird should remain the state bird, just as it has been since 1927, Hammer argued. (It’s also the state bird in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.)

    Hammer couldn’t be reached for comment on the latest bird competition, but the scrub jay also has adversaries among Florida developers. It is at the center of a federal lawsuit filed in 2024 over homeowner rights in southwest Florida, where Charlotte County officials charge a fee to build in the bird’s habitat.

    “The scrub jay has just been commandeered to really violate property rights across Florida, and I just cannot allow it to be elevated to this level,” state Rep. Monique Miller, a Central Florida Republican, said during a committee meeting in December. “I wish these were decoupled because I want to make the flamingo your bird so badly.”

    Jackson Oberlink, a third-generation Floridian, has testified on behalf of the flamingo for the past three years, only to see his hopes dashed. He’s not nearly as optimistic as Mooney that it will succeed this time.

    “Every year, there seems to be a few more flamingo props in a committee room, and it seems like there’s a bit more enthusiasm. And then every year, it kind of peters out,” said Oberlink, the former legislative director for Florida for All, a liberal lobbying group.

    But he’s not ready to give up.

    Oberlink said he became enchanted with the gangly pink birds when he encountered Pinky, a flamingo that was blown into the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in north Florida by Hurricane Michael in 2018.

    “I have a tattoo of Pinky and the St. Marks Lighthouse. So it definitely left a mark on me, and I’ll always be rooting for the flamingo in Florida.”

  • Republicans took control of education. Can Democrats take it back?

    Republicans took control of education. Can Democrats take it back?

    WATER VALLEY, Miss. — A crowd turned out to hear a politician talk big about improving schools, but it wasn’t a Republican railing about transgender athletes or school vouchers or any of the issues the GOP has used to put Democrats into a defensive crouch.

    On this night, the politician taking questions was a Democrat — former Chicago mayor and President Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — talking about reading. For the past several years, Republicans have dominated the education debate with a focus on culture war politics. Emanuel, who is exploring a 2028 presidential run, makes the case for returning to the education part of education: achievement and learning rather than book bans and gender identity.

    That would benefit students and, he says, Democrats, who have not led a national conversation about student achievement since Obama was president. Instead, Republicans have been able to make up ground, capitalizing on anger about school closures during the pandemic and heated fights over transgender rights, race and other subjects.

    Emanuel talks about school achievement with a frequency and urgency rarely heard from Democrats in recent years. And he says both parties have wasted time on education culture wars.

    “This distracts us from the priorities of education,” he said in an interview. Questions around gender identity, he said, affect “less than 1 percent of the population and yet dominate 99 percent of the conversation. … You want to pick a pronoun? Great. Now can we focus on the other 35 kids that don’t know what a goddamn pronoun is?”

    While a dozen or more Democratic presidential hopefuls scramble to carve out their identities in advance of the 2028 election, many of them better known than he is, Emanuel is betting that a renewed focus on education can fuel a Democratic victory — and more immediately, his own prospects.

    As Chicago mayor, Emanuel successfully pushed several school reforms, including a longer school day, and saw graduation rates jump. But he had a contentious relationship with the teachers union and his tenure was marred by a seven-day strike. He also angered many Chicagoans by closing 50 schools. He says he has learned from his mistakes and hopes to take some of his successes national.

    Emanuel traveled to Mississippi this month to examine and promote the state’s success in teaching reading. On fourth-grade tests, the state moved from 49th in the nation in 2013 to ninth in 2024 by focusing on what’s called the science of reading — instruction built on sound-it-out phonics. The state combined that with increased funding, a heavy dose of teacher training and support, and a requirement that third graders pass a reading test to advance to fourth grade.

    Emanuel argues that Washington should use federal dollars to incentivize other states to do the same. And he is proposing renewed federal standards and accountability, ideas that faded a decade ago.

    At the town hall meeting in Water Valley, a tiny town in the north of the state, more than 125 people gathered. There were no questions about race, gender or culture wars, giving Emanuel space to drive home his central thesis.

    “We’ve got a 30-year low in reading scores,” he said. “Has a single governor called for an emergency meeting of the governors association?”

    Left unsaid was that he might run against some of those governors in a 2028 Democratic primary.

    Emanuel brought a film crew with him, and within a day of leaving the state, he had posted video from the visit to his social media accounts.

    Rahm Emanuel in 2023, when he served as U.S. ambassador to Japan.

    An education evolution

    Emanuel likes to hark back to an era when education reform was in vogue. A national movement centered on standards and accountability began in the states and culminated with the bipartisan passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. Schools were required to make progress on annual tests or face escalating consequences.

    Eight years later, Obama continued pressing for accountability with the Race to the Top competition that awarded states with extra federal money for adopting favored policies such as Common Core standards and using student scores to measure teacher quality.

    But by the end of Obama’s tenure, opposition had built to the high-stakes testing that the accountability system was built on. The Race to the Top program ended, and most of the requirements under the 2001 law were reversed. The bipartisan consensus collapsed, and soon the political parties gravitated to their partisan corners.

    Democrats backed increased funding for public schools and racial equity initiatives. They adopted policies in support of transgender students. Today, most Democratic governors continue to focus on new funding — for prekindergarten, community schools, teacher pay, free meals, and other priorities.

    Republicans promoted tax dollars for private school vouchers. During the pandemic, they blamed Democrats for keeping schools closed too long and for requiring measures like masks once school buildings reopened. Conservative parent groups that formed around pandemic issues soon used that momentum to build support for book bans and influence how educators address race and LGBTQ+ issues. GOP legislatures and conservative school boards passed laws and policies restricting how those topics could be dealt with in school.

    Republicans began eating into Democrats’ commanding lead on education issues. In 2006, a Fox News poll found Democrats with a 17-percentage-point lead when asked whom they trust on education issues, though their advantage was not that big in other surveys. By 2022, Republicans had narrowed the gap significantly – som— polls found the parties virtually tied. (Several newer polls have found that Democrats regained their advantage following President Donald Trump’s election.)

    In the wake of the pandemic, scores on national math and reading exams slid to a 30-year low.

    The Trump administration repeatedly cites this data in making the case for closing the Education Department and for backing school choice policies. Now, some Democrats are arguing that their party needs its own response to the slide.

    “It is deeply frustrating to me as a Democrat that we completely ceded this issue,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president for social policy, education, and politics at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. “We have absolutely no ideas on the table.”

    In the 2024 presidential election, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who took his place on the ticket, put forward only vague education goals. One day before the election, the Center for American Progress, a leading Democratic think tank, published a set of education recommendations. Even then, there was not much about student achievement.

    Jared Bass, senior vice president for education at CAP, said the group is now working on a new set of proposals that will squarely address academics.

    “There’s a real sense of humility within the party. We used to be the party that was trusted on education,” he said. “We need to get it right.”

    Even with a hunger for action among Democrats, Emanuel’s ideas are likely to face pushback inside his party and beyond. Many progressives argue that racial inequity and racism are to blame for the low achievement rates of many students of color, and they may resist leaders who want to pivot away from those topics. Teachers unions, who are active in the Democratic Party, strongly oppose the accountability systems that rely on standardized testing that Emanuel hopes to bring back.

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a longtime power in the Democratic Party, said she would oppose a return to accountability systems that too often, in her view, devolved into blaming teachers. Still, she agrees that Democrats need a new vision.

    “Democrats are all too reactive and as a result they have lost ground on education,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”

    A new Race to the Top

    Emanuel is betting that while other Democratic presidential candidates concentrate on standing up to Trump, voters will want a candidate more focused on their daily concerns.

    On his trip to Mississippi, Emanuel toured an elementary school in Hattiesburg, crouching beside children’s desks to peek at their work and hearing from the principal about what has succeeded. And he met with Jim Barksdale, whose $100 million donation beginning 25 years ago set Mississippi on its path to a new reading program.

    “When do we get to geek out?” he asked Barksdale as they took seats in his living room with a trio of people involved in education in Mississippi. He turned to the group and asked, simply, “How did you do it?”

    After a long conversation about the reading program, Barksdale told Emanuel that a lot of people say they want to learn from Mississippi’s success. “They say, ‘I’m all for it. How’d you do this?’” he said. “And then they don’t do it because it costs money.”

    “It also costs guts,” Emanuel replied.

    Emanuel, long known as a partisan brawler, says he is ready to fight for this.

    In an interview, Emanuel sketched the outlines of the federal program he would like to see. He suggested a new version of Obama’s Race to the Top that would incentivize states to adopt science of reading curriculums — what Mississippi uses — and other policy changes.

    The program, he said, also could encourage high schools to offer more college courses, and he favors a policy he advanced in Chicago requiring all seniors to have a plan for college, trade school or the military to graduate from high school. He also wants to incentivize states to replicate Chicago’s promise of free community college for students who graduate from high school with a B average.

    States would have to adopt these types of changes to get the new federal money, he said. He contrasted that approach with the unprecedented $130 billion in COVID funding that went to K-12 schools under the Biden administration, which Emanuel slammed as having too few requirements. For instance, the program was sold as a way to reopen schools, but districts were not required to reopen.

    He argues that the No Child Left Behind system was too test-driven, but that the country “overcorrected.” The right answer, he said, lies somewhere in between.

    As for the culture wars, he is trying to stay far away. He dismisses some of the racial equity efforts that swept through schools, mocking San Francisco’s effort to rename schools, including one named for Abraham Lincoln.

    He also opposes allowing trans athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, saying it’s not fair to other competitors. But he said he does not know whether he would, if elected president, pull federal funding from schools that resist, as Trump has done, and he said he is not interested in discussing the finer points of these policies. The entire debate, he said, has been a “dead-bang loser” — both politically and for the young people involved.

    As Democrats begin to rethink their positions on education, they will need to weigh whether Emanuel’s prescriptions are the right ones and also whether he is the right messenger for them. For now, though, Emanuel is one of the few people making this case.

    At the town hall meeting, a questioner asked what he had done right and wrong as mayor, and Emanuel replied that he mishandled his relationship with the teachers union at first, specifically by unilaterally canceling a scheduled pay raise.

    “It created a lot of animosity,” he said, describing his first term as “hand-to-hand combat.” He said he should have tried to work with the union president to find a solution together.

    “You can’t drive reform if people don’t feel part of it,” he said. “That’s like 101, and I screwed it up — Mr. Smarty Pants over here. And I learned a lot.”

  • Sixers need to hang on to Kelly Oubre Jr. — at least through the end of the season

    Sixers need to hang on to Kelly Oubre Jr. — at least through the end of the season

    People are asking: How long will Kelly Oubre Jr. remain in a 76ers uniform?

    If the Sixers are wise, the answer is at least through the end of the season.

    The 30-year-old swingman’s contract expires at the end of June. However, his name has been repeatedly mentioned in recent trade reports. And that could continue ahead of the Feb. 5 trade deadline as teams look to upgrade rosters and slash salaries.

    But at this point, the Sixers will be hard-pressed to find someone able to do what Oubre provides.

    The squad is starting to show glimpses of why it has received Eastern Conference championship-contender hype. And Oubre’s ability to adjust to his ever-changing role is a reason for that.

    The Sixers are still struggling with inconsistency at the NBA’s halfway mark. How will they address it?

    The Sixers dropped to 24-20 after Saturday afternoon’s 112-109 loss to the New York Knicks at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

    Before that tilt, they defeated the Houston Rockets, 128-122, in overtime Thursday night at home. Oubre played a significant role in the victory, finishing with 26 points on 10-for-14 shooting along with four rebounds, three assists, and one block while starting alongside Paul George, Joel Embiid, VJ Edgecombe, and Tyrese Maxey.

    It was the first time the Sixers employed that starting lineup.

    Coach Nick Nurse said before Sunday’s game that they would stay with it for a while. And had another solid performance, finishing with 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting, along with seven rebounds, three assists, and two steals.

    His remaining as a starter is understandable, given that it was a lineup they were expected to unveil at the beginning of the season. But George missed the first 12 games with left knee injury management. Then Oubre was sidelined 22 games from Nov. 17 to Jan. 5. While those two were injured, power forward Dominick Barlow proved to be a solid fifth starter.

    But Oubre is a more experienced, more versatile player, and has been noted several times before as the team’s X factor. His ability to play shooting guard, small forward, and small-ball power forward gives the Sixers a variety of rotation options.

    Sixers guard Kelly Oubre Jr. has been noted several times before as the team’s X factor.

    While he starts at small forward, Oubre moves to shooting guard in a lineup that features George, Barlow, Embiid, and Maxey when Edgecombe is out of the game. And in his first game back from a sprained left knee ligament on Jan. 7, he played power forward in a small-ball lineup with Maxey, Quentin Grimes, Jared McCain, and Adem Bona.

    “He plays both ends, right?” Nurse said of his impact as a versatile player. “I think that’s the main thing. He’s been pretty effective on both ends, and the other probably main thing is he’s in about his 10th year. He’s got a lot of stuff under his belt. A lot of minutes. A lot of games, too. That helps, too. ”

    All-Star cornerstones, Embiid, Maxey, and George, along with rookie-of-the-year candidate Edgecombe, have deservedly received a lot of credit for the team’s being viewed as a contender.

    Embiid had scored at least 30 points in four consecutive games. While the 7-2 center is not where he once was defensively, he’s showing glimpses of being a 2023 MVP and seven-time All-Star. Embiid is averaging 33.3 points, 10 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 0.7 blocks while shooting 58.3% on three-pointers in those games.

    Meanwhile, Maxey, who was named an All-Star starter on Monday, is averaging a league-third-best 29.9 points, a second-best 2.1 steals, and 12th-best 6.8 rebounds this season. He was also fourth (147) in made three-pointers.

    Sixers mailbag: Will Joel Embiid make the All-Star Game? Will Jared McCain be here after the trade deadline?

    George’s average of 15.4 points is below his career average of 20.5 points. But the nine-time All-Star has thrived at times as a facilitator and an elite defender. And it’s not uncommon for him to provide the bulk of the scoring during third-quarter stretches.

    Edgecombe is averaging 15.6 points, a league 11th-best 1.5 steals, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.2 assists. The 20-year-old shooting guard’s elite potential was on full display in the Sixers’ season-opening victory over the Boston Celtics.

    That night, he scored 34 points to help lead the Sixers to victory. It was the third-highest scoring debut in NBA history behind Chamberlain’s 43 points on Oct. 24, 1959, and Frank Selvy’s 35 on Nov. 30, 1954.

    Concurrently, Oubre averaged 14.6 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.1 steals, and shot 38.3% on three-pointers while continuously adjusting his role depending on who was playing or who the Sixers were playing against. The one constant thing is his defending the opposing team’s best perimeter player.

    Championship-caliber teams are built with players like Kelly Oubre Jr.

    Nurse was asked before Saturday’s game where he thinks Oubre has improved the most as a defender.

    “Listen, I think there are a couple of things, but probably at the top would be just his overall reading of situations,” Nurse said. “Just having a feel for anticipating what might happen next and getting involved in that and breaking that up. But he’s also been much better on the ball. He’s been much better in screen-and-roll. Stuff like that.”

    The New Orleans native has starred in all of his roles in addition to doing countless other things that go unnoticed on a stat sheet.

    As good as Embiid, George, Maxey, and Edgecombe are, championship-caliber teams are built with players like Oubre.

    The only benefit of trading him at this time is perhaps shedding his salary. Oubre’s expiring $8.3 million contract would help them gain salary cap relief and avoid the luxury tax. The squad is currently more than $7 million over the luxury-tax threshold. That’s why his name has been mentioned in reports.

    Don’t look now but the Sixers have turned a dire situation into a hopeful one behind their new Big Four

    But, night now, they can’t afford to let him go if contending for a title this season is truly the goal.

    The number of realistic available better options is slim. Even if they find a player as good, it will take the new person a while to adjust to the Sixers’ system. And Oubre’s ability to adapt is a primary reason why the team is starting to live up to expectations.

    With Embiid’s extension kicking in next season and Grimes becoming an unrestricted free agent, it may make sense for Oubre and the Sixers to part ways after the season.

    The way he’s been playing this season and elevated his stock during his Sixers’ three-year tenure, Oubre could become too costly to re-sign.

    It may make sense for the sides to part ways after the season.

    You can’t trade that away at this time.

  • A bigger, more electric Philly Auto Show follows a volatile year for the industry

    A bigger, more electric Philly Auto Show follows a volatile year for the industry

    Volatility. Tariffs. EV rebates. Affordability.

    These are the buzzwords surrounding the automobile industry as 2025 gives way to 2026. But you probably won’t hear too much about them at the 2026 Philly Auto Show, where beginning Saturday the Auto Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia shines up the best and lets thousands of visitors check everything out, with only the pressure of other visitors waiting for their turn.

    Show enthusiasts who’ve been missing the big events from pre-pandemic days will have a reason to smile. The show will cover almost 700,000 square feet, five more brands are joining in at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and the electric vehicle ride program will have doubled.

    “It’s wonderful to be able to fill the building again,” said Mike Gempp, executive director of the dealers association, which puts on the show. “You gotta wear comfortable shoes, for sure.”

    The added nameplates you’ll see will be Genesis, Lincoln, Lucid, Polestar, and Volvo. This allows the footprint to grow quite a bit since all of last year’s makes are back, making the largest number (27) since 2020.

    The redesigned 2027 Kia Telluride three-row SUV is one of the main attractions among new vehicles at the 2026 Philly Auto Show.

    The latest vehicles are the main draw, of course. Some that are attracting interested buyers, Gempp says, are: the redesigned 2026 Subaru Outback SUV; the reborn 2026 Honda Prelude Hybrid sports coupe, last seen long before hybrids were a big thing, in 2001; the redesigned Ford Maverick hybrid small pickup; and the 2027 Kia Telluride.

    Other attention-getting vehicles expected at the show include the Chevrolet Corvette, Ineos Grenadier, Jeep Recon, Lotus Emira, McLaren 750S, and Subaru BRZ tS.

    Coming off a steady rise in sales — up 3.3% in the nation and 1.2% in the region, Gempp said — the industry has been fighting tariff and EV rebate uncertainty since the Trump administration took office. But just over 16.3 million vehicles were sold in 2025, according to Cox Automotive, the highest number since the pandemic arrived.

    The Subaru Outback has become an iconic SUV in the United States. The redesigned 2026 model will be on display at the Philly Auto Show Saturday, Jan. 31, through Sunday, Feb. 8.

    EVs: The future and the present

    Despite the end of rebates, electric vehicles may still be an attractive proposition in 2026. Manufacturers have new EV models coming to market, Cox Automotive executive analyst Erin Keating said, and without rebates to lower the prices, dealers will have to make them attractive to consumers.

    “I really wouldn’t count EVs out,” Keating said, especially as more are coming to the used market.

    EVs will figure into the show heavily. The indoor E-Track allowing visitors to ride in 20 different kinds of EVs is doubled in size and now features eight brands: Cadillac, GMC, Lucid, Kia, Polestar, Tesla, Toyota, and Volvo.

    But the E-Track is not all EVs, as there will be plug-in hybrids to ride in as well, like the Kia Sportage, Toyota RAV4 and Prius, and Volvo XC60.

    Gempp sees the E-Track as a chance to teach visitors about the different kinds of powertrains available in modern vehicles.

    Now that EVs are not as big a focus for manufacturers, Gempp sees technological innovations as a major area of industry attention. He points to the Lincoln Nautilus, with a 48-inch screen running pretty much the width of the entire dashboard.

    The Lincoln Nautilus shows how far screens have come in modern vehicles, with a 48-inch touchscreen spanning the dashboard. It will be on display at the 2026 Philly Auto Show, now that Lincoln is back at the show.

    Switch to hybrids

    Gempp sees hybrids drawing renewed attention from manufacturers. There’s no plugging in these models, just electric motors and batteries that supplement the engine, taking advantage of braking energy and adding that back into the power supply, saving fuel in the process.

    “The manufacturers are refocusing on hybrids, and pulling away from concentration on EVs that we saw in the last few years because the incentives have gone away, because the penalties for carbon credits have gone away, there’s very little incentive for manufacturers to introduce or sell EVs” said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions in Chester Springs.

    All that refocusing is needed as the industry outlook grows cloudy. With tariffs and subsequent price adjustments, along with general economic uncertainty, Keating expects sales to fall to 15.8 million, while Fiorani is a little more optimistic that they’ll be just under 16.2 million.

    Affordability remains as the final question mark.

    “The biggest thing weighing down the economy going forward is how tariffs of ’25 will affect pricing in ’26,” Fiorani said. “We’ve already seen the manufacturers of all products absorb these costs as much as they can so we’re going to start seeing some of these costs being pushed onto the consumer.”

    Show events

    But we can take our minds off all that at the auto show, enjoying some of the exhibits that take the event beyond sitting inside stationary vehicles.

    Here are some of the other attractions planned:

    Camp Jeep will be back

    The lines are generally long at the 30,000-square-foot space, where visitors can ride in a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, Grand Cherokee L, Compass, or Gladiator over a track that adds a breakover log crawl and a 25-degree wedge to an 18-foot mobile hill and stair climber. Nearby, Kiddie Camp Jeep will give future customers a chance to maneuver mini Jeep ride-on toys.

    Stellantis will host outdoor drive events

    Unlike the indoor tracks, here licensed drivers 18 and up are able to choose from 10 Stellantis vehicles to test drive around Philly: Alfa Romeo Giulia and Tonale PHEV, Dodge Durango SRT, Ram 1500 and 2500, Chrysler Pacifica, FIAT 500e, and Jeep Wrangler, Gladiator, and Grand Cherokee.

    The Antique Automobile Club of America display at the 2023 Auto Show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

    Unusual autos and antique cars draw fans

    Exotics Row will feature the kinds of cars most of us only dream about, and classics displays from Antique Automobile Club of America and Delaware Valley Triumphs bring back memories of what neighborhood streets once looked like.

    Buick will showcase the first-ever concept vehicle, the Y Job, built in 1938. It premiered plenty of groundbreaking features, like a power convertible top, power door locks, automatic transmission, and retractable headlights.

    Heroes Highway is added this year

    In this new area, meant to celebrate first responders, kids of all ages can enjoy an interactive display of police, fire, and rescue vehicles. Qualified first responders will be able to enter the show for free on Feb. 6.

    A big year for Philly history

    Route ’26 showcases the events surrounding Philadelphia and American history, marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Events on display include Wawa Welcome America, the 2026 MLB All-Star Game and All-Star Week festivities, and TED Democracy: Founding Futures at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

  • These prophets of economic doom are worried about another collapse

    These prophets of economic doom are worried about another collapse

    Dean Baker has earned a reputation for predicting economic catastrophe, and he tries to follow his own advice.

    After the economist warned of a stock bubble in the late 1990s, he rebalanced his investments to reduce exposure to the market. Several years later, he became concerned that soaring home values would fall to earth, so he and his wife sold their condo in Washington.

    He was right both times: The dot-com bubble burst in March 2000, and D.C.-area home prices crested in 2006 before slumping toward the depths of the Great Recession in 2009.

    Now Baker, who’s a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has that foreboding feeling again.

    Investment in artificial intelligence has propelled the stock market to record highs, but he’s shifting his investments to be less exposed to what he considers to be an AI bubble edging closer to popping. “I don’t make a point of coming up with a negative forecast,” he said. “I just try to have open eyes on the economy, and sometimes I see something that other people don’t.”

    Baker is among a select group of people with track records of foreseeing major economic train wrecks. These proven prophets of doom are winning attention in online posts and media interviews, as more people begin to wonder if the AI boom is too good to be true. That’s giving economic groundhogs like Baker a chance to spread their market wisdom more widely or actively cultivate big new audiences.

    Michael Burry, whose mid-2000s bet against the housing market inspired Michael Lewis’ 2010 book, The Big Short, triggered headlines across financial news outlets in November when his hedge fund Scion Asset Management disclosed it was betting that the stock prices of AI darlings Nvidia and Palantir will fall significantly over the next few years.

    The same month, Burry, who didn’t respond to a request for an interview, started a Substack newsletter that often predicts an AI-catalyzed market implosion. It has more than 195,000 subscribers and is called Cassandra Unchained, after the princess of Greek myth cursed to foresee the future but to always be ignored.

    “OpenAI is the next Netscape, doomed and hemorrhaging cash,” Burry wrote in a post on X last month that was viewed more than 2 million times, likening the maker of ChatGPT to a casualty of the dot-com bubble. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

    Although voices of caution are having a moment, that doesn’t mean they’re winning the argument. James Chanos, the founder and managing partner of Kynikos Associates, who bet on the fall of energy giant Enron, said in an interview that market contrarians are often disregarded.

    Short-sellers like himself are often viewed “as the village idiots or Dr. Evil,” he said, either wrongheaded or trying to manipulate the market. “There’s kind of no in-between,” said Chanos, who prefers to see himself and others as “financial detectives” hunting for bad actors, fraud or froth that should be cleared away.

    A 2025 Harvard and Copenhagen Business School study of the beliefs of market experts during periods of boom and bust suggests that questioning market optimism is a good idea. “Optimism portends crashes: the most bullish forecasts predict the highest crash risk,” the authors found. In most cases, the authors said, “optimism remained unchecked until well after the crash.”

    Other economists have identified key factors that indicate a crisis could be around the corner. A 2020 study of postwar financial crashes around the world by economists at Harvard, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Copenhagen Business School found that “crises are substantially predictable.” When credit and asset prices grow rapidly in the same sector — conditions the researchers term a “red zone” — there was a probability of about 40% of a financial crisis starting in the next three years, they concluded.

    A tech-fueled surge in share prices over recent years has driven the total value of the stock market to far outweigh U.S. economic input, an imbalance that has come before previous downturns. But a report issued Jan. 9 by Goldman Sachs Research said many features of past bubbles are absent.

    Corporate debt is relatively low in historical terms, and most of the S&P 500’s 18% returns last year came from increased profits, not investors marking up valuations, the report said. Double-digit earnings growth is “providing the fundamental base for a continued bull market,” wrote Ben Snider, chief U.S. equity strategist. The report forecast that U.S. stocks would continue to grow in value this year.

    When Andrew Odlyzko — an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Minnesota who has studied economic bubbles and has a history of recognizing warning signs before a crash — started getting calls from journalists asking about a potential AI bubble in 2024, he dismissed the idea. At the time he reasoned it wouldn’t be systemically devastating if a big company like Google, Microsoft, or Meta made an expensive technological bet that flopped.

    But things have changed in the past year and a half, Odlyzko said. “Now the investments are exceeding the capacity of these platform companies to finance them out of their cash flow, and they are drawing in other sectors of the economy,” he said.

    He pointed to Meta’s recent deal to develop a $30 billion data center project in Louisiana, in which the project’s debt is held in a separate entity off Meta’s books. Such deals remind Odlyzko of the creative financing that led to the Great Recession in 2007.

    “If — or more precisely, I’m pretty confident when — things collapse, the spillover effects will be much more substantial, much more deadly,” he said.

    Today’s rush to build AI data centers also reminds Odlyzko of the 19th-century railway mania in Britain, a bubble of speculation on new railroad infrastructure. Both frenzies are creating “big infrastructure … that’s actually drawing on other parts of the economy,” he said.

    Chanos makes comparisons between today’s AI fever and the 1990s tech boom, as both bull markets have centered on big ideas: AI today and the internet’s beginnings decades ago. In the short term, many early internet businesses cratered, even though the technology worked out in the longer term.

    Artificial-intelligence technology “is real and probably will be very important, but lots and lots of companies that claim they’re a great business … are probably not going to be great businesses,” Chanos said.

    What’s different is that it’s now much easier for retail investors to jump into the stock market with the rise of stock-trading apps like Robinhood. Chanos said he’s “seeing more and more speculation in terms of retail investors who only know markets that generally go up, and if they go down, they go down for just a short period of time.”

    Baker is one of those retail investors who’s preparing for the worst, as he has before — although he hasn’t always had perfect timing. He pulled back his portfolio a couple of years before the dot-com bubble burst in March 2000 and sold his D.C. condo in 2004, about two years before home prices started falling in the region.

    Although discussion about predicting market slumps often frames the events as bad, Baker thinks an AI crash could do the U.S. some good.

    A slump could lead to a reallocation of resources in the economy, perhaps toward other sectors like manufacturing or healthcare, he said. “There’s all sorts of things you could better use those resources for if the AI really doesn’t make sense,” Baker said.

  • They’ve outsourced the worst parts of their jobs to tech. How you can do it, too.

    They’ve outsourced the worst parts of their jobs to tech. How you can do it, too.

    Artificial intelligence is supposed to make your work easier. But figuring out how to use it effectively can be a challenge.

    Over the past several years, AI models have continued to evolve, with plenty of tools for specific tasks such as note-taking, coding, and writing. Many workers spent last year experimenting with AI, applying various tools to see what actually worked. And as employers increasingly emphasize AI in their business, they’re also expecting workers to know how to use it.

    “I think 2025 was just a taste of what’s to come. Folks were figuring out how to deploy AI for productivity,” said Wade Foster, CEO of workflow automation platform Zapier.

    The number of people using AI for work is growing, according to a recent poll by Gallup. The percentage of U.S. employees who used AI for their jobs at least a few times a year hit 45% in the third quarter of last year, up five percentage points from the previous quarter. The top use cases for AI, according to the poll, was to consolidate information, generate ideas, and learn new things.

    The Washington Post spoke to workers to learn how they’re getting the best use out of AI. Here are five of their best tips. A caveat: AI may not be suitable for all workers, so be sure to follow your company’s policy.

    Automate your inbox

    Managing your email is a pain. And while email providers offer tools to help, AI can do even more, Foster said.

    Create an AI agent or use an AI app that can sort, organize, and prioritize your inbox based on simple commands. Think of it as creating a complex set of rules that automate which folders emails go to, how they’re labeled, and whether they’re marked as urgent. Instead of creating a rigid list of keywords or contacts, use natural language to identify topics or issues you need to track.

    AI can also automatically draft responses to specific types of emails you regularly get. For example, AI can draft a response directing people to the career website anytime someone asks about job openings, Foster said.

    “You can get pretty darn close to an automated inbox,” he said.

    To automate, you’ll need tools by services like Zapier, which offers limited free versions and premium options, or SaneBox and Superhuman, both of which have tiered pay options.

    Create a personal assistant

    AI can be particularly useful in getting you up to speed, prioritizing tasks, and tracking progress, several workers said.

    Helen Lee Kupp, cofounder and CEO of virtual community and nonprofit Women Defining AI, said she built an “AI chief of staff” at the beginning of the year to prioritize tasks. She speaks to Claude voice mode in the mornings, which then structures her day. To build it, she asked the bot to create an AI assistant and provided a list of parameters and attached work documents. She then edited the instructions and pasted it into a Claude Project, generating a customized bot she can reuse.

    “It’s really nice in the morning to be able to dump whatever’s on my brain and have a first draft of here’s how we think of priorities,” she said.

    Another option: Build a daily briefing agent that sends an email with a to-do list and important updates from your email and calendar, Foster said. To do this, make a custom GPT (you’ll need ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 a month) by clicking “explore GPTs” on the sidebar and then “create.” To automate your briefing, connect ChatGPT to your email and calendar, but beware of security and privacy risks. Prompt it to email you every morning with specific details around the information you want, Foster said. You can also create a daily to-do app. You may need additional tools or a hosting service to do this, but ChatGPT can provide instructions.

    To avoid giving ChatGPT access to your accounts, manually upload your calendar, task list, or select communications and prompt it to prioritize from there.

    Build what you need

    To solve specific problems, several workers said they built custom apps and tools using chatbots and simple commands to generate code, a concept known as vibe coding. Michael Frank, co-founder and CEO of agentic AI risk platform Radiant Intel, said he’s used Claude Code and app builders like Google Antigravity to build an app that aggregates local news for him. But people can build apps to help them learn a new skill or provide feedback on their work to improve, he said. Think about your mistakes or time-intensive tasks and build something for that, he said.

    “These are not going to radically transform anyone’s life, but can it make you 5, 10, or 15% more productive? Absolutely,” he said.

    Lee Kupp said she’s used AI platform Gumloop, which has a limited free option and doesn’t require coding knowledge, to build an AI agent that monitors a Slack channel for website feedback and logs problems into a tracker. For Alexander K. Moore, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Replit and Claude Code helped him quickly build customized webpages to more efficiently conduct surveys.

    You can also build a customized dashboard on Claude to track sales, customer satisfaction, the performance of a product or feature, or other key metrics, said Jhalak Rawat, chief operating officer at manufacturing AI start-up Soff. Tell it to provide action items to improve them. Use the dashboard to help get your next promotion, she added.

    “It’s a good way to show the work you do,” she said. And “it takes one prompt, which takes 10 minutes to write.”

    Warm your cold intro

    Before pitching a new client or connecting with a new colleague or other professional contacts, use AI to find commonalities to break the ice, Rawat said.

    She uses Comet, Perplexity’s AI browser, to find commonalities between her and another person based on their LinkedIn profiles and information available on Google. She once was able to connect to the CEO of a company she wanted to target because Comet told her that he was a pizza lover who once led a pizza company — a detail buried in a podcast. That tasty tidbit provided a way to warm her cold intro. This can also help when people are trying to meet new contacts for a career switch.

    Enhance your meeting notes

    Meeting notes and transcriptions from video meeting providers usually fall by the wayside, several workers said. But they’re more likely to refer to their notes if they actually take them.

    So they use Granola, an AI-powered notepad that enriches meeting notes without an AI bot showing up as a participant (there’s an option to notify others it’s in use). It transcribes the meeting and follows the structure of your notes, adding detail and action items. You can even write notes before the meeting or ask questions about a meeting or explore trends within your meetings. Foster said he’s used it to identify topics for social media posts within his conversations. Granola can also coach people, he said.

    “People take it as face value,” he said. “With AI, it has a neutrality to it.”

    One bonus tip: Make your AI chatbots less sycophantic, which Moore says results in straightforward feedback. In ChatGPT, go to personalization options by clicking your name in the lower left corner of the screen. In the “custom instructions” and “more about you” sections, emphasize accuracy, clear reasoning, and explanation over flattery, praise, and agreeing with you. Tell it to push back and be blunt. Moore offers a sample prompt on his Substack post, “Tell me the truth! or How to get your AI to stop telling you what you want to hear.”

    The toughest part about learning how to effectively use AI at work is starting, workers said. But once you get going, it gets easier.

    “Don’t overthink it,” Lee Kupp said. “Pick one [large language model] and get started.”

  • A former industrial site making up 10% of Kennett Square could become housing — after it’s decontaminated

    A former industrial site making up 10% of Kennett Square could become housing — after it’s decontaminated

    One of Kennett Square’s last remaining sizable undeveloped parcels could get hundreds of townhomes and apartments — once contamination cleanup of a former industrial site passes muster.

    But even with the OK from state and federal environmental officials, it would be years — and require more sign-offs at the municipal level — before the developer eyeing a residential complex at the former National Vulcanized Fiber site could break ground.

    And the site’s owners face headwinds beyond the governmental approval, as some borough residents worry that the site is not safe for homes.

    Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, agencies that have to ultimately green-light the land as safe for people to live on, sought to assuage those concerns Tuesday during a town hall that explained the processes for cleanup and the standards the developer would have to meet for any homes to be built.

    It was the latest update regarding a proposed residential complex that would feature 246 townhomes and 48 apartments, located at the 22-acre lot on 400 W. Mulberry St., not far from the historic district of the borough, on a plot of land that has languished for almost 20 years.

    It’s one of the largest untouched parcels in the borough, making up at least 10% of Kennett Square, which is one square mile. Developers project the residential complex would increase the population of the 7,000-person borough by 15%.

    The site, which housed National Vulcanized Fiber from the late 1890s until it shut down in 2007, was purchased by its current owner in 2009 and has been the subject of cleanup efforts for more than a decade after the land was found to be contaminated with so-called forever chemicals.

    “It feels like the cart was put before the horse for the public,” one resident, Sarah Hardin, said during Tuesday’s meeting. “I think it’s the fact that we’re all feeling like this was guns a-blazing forward, and we would like to know that all the proper environmental steps are taken.”

    The former National Vulcanized Fiber in Kennett Square on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. Once an industrial site, the property’s current owner is seeking to eventually turn it into a residential development. But first, the property has to be decontaminated that satisfy state and federal requirements.

    What’s the history of the site?

    For more than 100 years, National Vulcanized Fiber ran operations on the property, creating a slew of products with vulcanized fiber — a durable, flexible, lightweight plastic-like material that was used to make anything from trash cans to computer circuit boards.

    Production of those items led to contamination of the site; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were identified in the 1980s, after contamination spread into Red Clay Creek. That prompted the EPA to become involved, said Amanda Michel, the agency’s PCB coordinator for the region.

    The chemicals are probable carcinogens, linked to liver and breast cancer, melanoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The chemical is also associated with birth defects, developmental delays, and immune system dysfunction.

    Remediation began after the chemicals were found in the 1980s, and NVF folded in 2007. Rockhopper LLC purchased the property two years later and began cleaning the site, eyeing future residential development.

    Along with the federal cleanup, in 2010 the owners began a voluntary state cleanup process — which is aimed at redeveloping contaminated, vacant, and unused parcels into productive uses — to target the other chemicals found on the site.

    In both cases, the owners have to demonstrate, through sample testing, that contamination has been lowered to a threshold acceptable for human health or that they have the proper barriers in place to prevent exposure.

    “Until that happens, there will not be a residential occupant at this property,” said Jonathan Spergel, an environmental lawyer representing Rockhopper.

    What is the developer proposing?

    Under the proposed development, the property would have 104 stacked and 38 unstacked townhomes, along with 48 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. The owners said the project would comprise affordable and market-value units. A proposed rezoning ordinance would require 15% of the homes to be affordable.

    That component was critical for Kennett Square officials, Mayor Matt Fetick said in an interview last week.

    “It’s our best opportunity to have an affordable component,” he said.

    Alongside those homes, the property would have roughly 732 parking spaces, and 50 would be added to Mulberry Street.

    To offset feared bottlenecks, the property’s proposed plan would have five driveways to distribute traffic flow.

    The site’s developers estimate that the property would bring in $382,000 for the borough and more than $830,000 for the school district each year.

    Another portion of the site serves as a baseball field at the high school, and no further development is planned there, the property’s owners said in 2024.

    The project is helmed by Rockhopper LLC, which is led by two development firms, Delaware Valley Development Corp. and Catalyst City. They brought in Lennar, a home-building company, in 2021. Lennar has done at least two similar projects, remediating industrial lots in Phoenixville and in Bridgeport for residential use, a representative said previously.

    What are residents’ concerns?

    On Tuesday, residents shared stories of loved ones who lived near the site who have been diagnosed with cancer. They worried that the developer could skew data to move the project forward. They wondered why there had been no urgency to clean it up before.

    Officials said the developer has to work with an independent environmental professional and their agencies had been on site throughout the cleanup process.

    Corey Barber, who lived near the site for 20 years and moved out of the area after her cancer diagnosis in 2021, worried what construction on the site would bring.

    “People are going to believe that they’re going to get cancer from the dust kicking up,” she said.

    Charla Watson, who lives right by the property, said there was distrust because the community has not seen the work the developer says is happening.

    “It’s just been a wasteland,” she said. “Everything looks the same the day they moved out of there.”

    What comes next?

    The developer is going through two processes simultaneously. As it cleans up the property to get the necessary state and federal approvals for residential development, it is also working at the municipal level for the land to be rezoned so it can build the residences.

    The borough is advertising a change to the ordinance that would rezone the land.

    If the ordinance is approved, the developer could formally start developing the land — which would come with at least another year of planning and meetings.

    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.

  • Sixers appeared to be on unlucky side of crunch-time officiating — again

    Sixers appeared to be on unlucky side of crunch-time officiating — again

    Nick Nurse assumed Tyrese Maxey felt contact from the New York Knicks’ Landry Shamet and tried to draw a whistle in the shooting motion.

    But Maxey would not bite when asked if he believed he was intentionally fouled when he hoisted an off-balance three-pointer with the 76ers trailing by three points and 5.8 seconds remaining Saturday.

    “Nope,” the Sixers’ All-Star guard said. “I should have just taken one more dribble and shot it regular.”

    For the second game in a row, it appeared the Sixers were on the unlucky side of crunch-time officiating. That Maxey moment — plus three others — helped create a finish that was both frenetic and interrupted by multiple stoppages in play for review.

    Gift Share Sixers takeaways: Joel Embiid dominates, third-quarter woes return, and more in loss to Knicks

    Although the Sixers overcame a missed goaltending call in Thursday’s overtime victory over the Houston Rockets, Saturday’s calls (or no-calls) remained under the microscope in the aftermath of the Sixers’ wild 112-109 loss to the rival Knicks in a nationally televised game at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

    Sixers coach Nick Nurse says he believed there could have been a foul call on the errant three-point shot attempt from Tyrese Maxey in the waning seconds of the game.

    “I think he was [fouled],” Nurse said when asked about the Maxey play. “No big deal. … Usually when [the opponent is] up three and you need three, teams are going to foul. But they didn’t [call it].”

    Joel Embiid, meanwhile, was not afraid to speak his mind at his locker following the game. He believed he also had been intentionally fouled upon collecting the rebound after Knicks All-Star Jalen Brunson missed two free throws with five seconds to play, keeping the Sixers’ deficit at three points. Embiid threw his arms up in disbelief when Brunson knocked the ball free, and New York’s OG Anunoby collected it as the final six-tenths of a second ticked off.

    “I got fouled, for sure,” Embiid said. “Thought Tyrese got fouled, too. Two games in a row, but it’s whatever.”

    When asked about both potential intentional fouls, crew chief Tony Brothers told pool reporter Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadelphia that “During the game, we did not observe any illegal contact on the play.”

    Do the Knicks now know what to do to beat the Sixers going forward this season? It’s a fair question.

    Those were not the only instances when the officiating became a storyline. With the Sixers trailing, 110-107, and 33.3 seconds remaining, Brunson was initially called for an off-ball foul for making contact with Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe ahead of an inbounds pass. Edgecombe flexed and screamed in celebration, but a coach’s challenge by the Knicks’ Mike Brown overturned the call to a foul on the Sixers rookie — a result Brunson acknowledged was “very satisfying.”

    Sixers guard VJ Edgecombe (left) thought he received a foul call which was later determined to be Knicks ball in the fourth quarter.

    “They [said] you can’t play defense with your hands on nobody,” Edgecombe said of the explanation he received following the video review. “I guess I’ve got to play defense with my ‘eagles’ out and stand like this [with arms spread] the whole time. … I can’t touch nobody.”

    Then, with 9.9 seconds to play, Sixers veteran forward Paul George was called for a foul at the rim that was overturned by a coach’s challenge by Nurse. Had the no-call on George been correct within the flow of the game, however, the Sixers could have immediately initiated their offense against a Knicks defense that was not set. There was also apparent contact from Embiid on Shamet away from the play, although Brothers said officials “did not observe any proximate foul during replay review.”

    Those officiating moments arrived after a chaotic basketball sequence when the Sixers scored five points in less than five seconds to make it a one-possession game. Maxey hit a pull-up three-pointer with 37 seconds remaining before Edgecombe got tied up with Brunson to force a jump ball. Brunson then fouled Edgecombe, who hit both free throws to make the score 110-107 ahead of those players’ collision before the ensuing inbound pass.

    Tyrese Maxey was the subject of a pair of questionable calls by officials in back-to-back games last week.

    And those whistles — or, non-whistles — came less than two days after a different officiating crew missed a goaltending call on a Maxey layup attempt off the backboard against Houston, which would have given the Sixers a lead in the final seconds of regulation.

    After the game, crew chief John Goble said, “By rule, a goaltending would have to be called on the floor in order for that play to be reviewed. In real time, the officiating crew felt it was a good blocked shot.”

    “It happens, man,” Maxey said after that game. “We’re all human.”

    It surely was much easier for Maxey to be forgiving when the Sixers still pulled off the overtime victory. Yet after Saturday’s defeat, Maxey’s team could not solely blame the officiating.

    They stumbled through another third quarter, when a stagnant offense allowed the Knicks to build a 17-point lead. The Sixers were outrebounded, 53-38, leading to a 26-4 Knicks edge in second-chance points in a direct callback to the 2024 first-round playoff series between these two teams. And down the stretch, the Sixers allowed Shamet and Anunoby to get free for clutch three-pointers to quell their rally attempt.

    Still, the NBA’s Last Two Minute report from Thursday’s game revealed that the officials were incorrect in not calling goaltending on that driving Maxey attempt against the Rockets.

    Saturday’s report might be even more of a doozy.

    Follow the Inquirer’s complete coverage of Sixers basketball right here!
  • How Jamie Gauthier charted a new path to power in Philadelphia City Hall

    How Jamie Gauthier charted a new path to power in Philadelphia City Hall

    When Mayor Cherelle L. Parker unveiled her much-anticipated plan to address Philadelphia’s housing crisis last year, there was predictable criticism from the political left. Activists said the proposal drafted by the moderate Democrat would not do enough for the city’s poorest residents.

    Less predictable was that a majority of City Council stood with them.

    Even the Council president, a centrist ally of the mayor, sided with a progressive faction that just two years ago had been soundly defeated in the mayor’s race — but whose new de facto leader in City Hall has proven adept at building alliances across the ideological spectrum.

    At the center of that shift was Jamie Gauthier.

    The second-term Democratic lawmaker from West Philadelphia has solidified herself over the last year as a leading voice on Council and a counterweight to Parker. She has worked within the system as opposed to trying to break it, maintaining relationships with power players who disagree with her on policy.

    She counts Ryan N. Boyer — the labor leader who is Parker’s closest political ally — among those who consider her a “thought leader.”

    “Over the last year, what you saw,” Boyer said, “is her modulate her positions to become more practical.”

    Gauthier has generally voted with progressives, including last year when she opposed the controversial Center City 76ers arena proposal. But she has also endeavored to be a team player, at times compromising on ideological battles to focus on priorities in her district.

    Last year, she voted for Parker’s plan to cut taxes for businesses and corporations when other progressives opposed it, because her main priority was securing housing funding. She has not opposed some tough-on-crime efforts in the Kensington drug market, instead allowing her colleagues who represent that area to dictate the policy there.

    She says she is trying to use her political capital where it matters.

    “Why would I take a protest vote and tank a relationship with a colleague when I’m going to need them later?” she said. “I want to win.”

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier talks with news media following a special session of City Council on March 24, 2025.

    The fact that Gauthier is a district Council member who represents a large swath of the city west of the Schuylkill also gives her cachet with colleagues. Council has a long tradition of honoring how members want their own neighborhoods to be governed.

    Gauthier, who leads Council’s housing committee, has used the influence to make West Philadelphia something of a testing ground for left-of-center policy. Plenty oppose what they see as draconian restrictions on real estate development in her district.

    Others see a progressive champion, and some political observers think Gauthier could amass enough support to run for mayor one day. She doesn’t deny that she has thought about it.

    But for whatever politics Gauthier can navigate in City Hall, she knows she can rise only if she is successful at home.

    ‘Not just a lone actor’

    When Parker took office, Council was in a moment of upheaval. Council President Kenyatta Johnson was the new leader of the chamber, and several prominent voices were gone after they had resigned to run for mayor themselves.

    One was Helen Gym, who was seen as the leader of Council’s left flank. There were questions about who would fill the void once Gym was gone.

    Gauthier, 47, an urban planner by trade, did not come up through an activist movement in the same way Gym did, and was a bit more reserved in her style.

    But she carries the mantle for the same theory of governance: that lawmakers should prioritize the vulnerable, and that what is good for business is not necessarily good for everyone else.

    That set Gauthier on an ideological collision course with Parker, a former Council member who ran for office on a promise to uplift the middle class, a group the mayor believes has been too often ignored.

    It came to a head in the fight over Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative.

    Parker wanted to set unusually high income eligibility thresholds for some of the programs so that middle-class families could unlock government subsidies they may not otherwise qualify for. A significant portion of Council, meanwhile, wanted the money to go initially to Philadelphians most vulnerable to displacement.

    Parker was clear-eyed about who was leading the charge.

    “Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, she may be comfortable and OK with telling Philadelphia homeowners, working-class Philadelphians, that they have to wait and there is no sense of urgency for them,” Parker said in a December interview on WHYY. “But that is not a sentiment that I support or agree with.”

    Gauthier is quick to point out that she did not work alone, and that one member of a 17-member body cannot accomplish much. Alongside Councilmember Rue Landau, a fellow Democrat and a housing attorney by trade, Gauthier worked for months to win over her colleagues.

    In the end, Council approved a version of the housing initiative closer to Gauthier’s vision.

    Gauthier didn’t think Parker helped her own cause. A “line was crossed,” she said, when Parker took the fight outside City Hall and to the pulpit. Amid negotiations with Council, the mayor went to 10 churches on one Sunday in December to lobby for support, saying her vision was to not “pit the ‘have-nots’ against those who have just a little bit.”

    Mayor Parker’s second year saw big wins and signs of tension in Philadelphia City Hall
    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to the crowd at The Church of Christian Compassion in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. Parker visited 10 churches in Philadelphia on Sunday to share details about her HOME housing plan.

    To Gauthier, the divisiveness was coming from the mayor’s office.

    “I wish the mayor and her administration were more open to other people’s ideas, were more OK with disagreement on policy issues, and more aware of Council as a completely separate chamber of government,” Gauthier said, “as opposed to a body that works for her.”

    That is a candid assessment of the relationship between Parker and City Council from Gauthier. Few lawmakers from the mayor’s own party have criticized her publicly.

    Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker holds a press conference regarding her first budget flanked by members of city council in her reception room, Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday, June 6, 2024. Council members from left are Kendra Brooks, Jamie Gauthier, council president Kenyatta Johnson, and Quetcy Lozada.

    State Rep. Rick Krajewski, a West Philadelphia Democrat and a progressive who has worked closely with Gauthier, said the fight over H.O.M.E. showed that Gauthier has learned “the diplomacy required to be an effective legislator.”

    “It was a good example of not being afraid of a conflict that felt important to stand up for,” he said, “but then to not just be a lone actor, but organize with other colleagues and allies.”

    Gauthier’s most important ally was Johnson, who negotiated directly with Parker through the process and controls the flow of legislation in the chamber.

    The two go back years. Before Johnson was Council president, he made a point of welcoming new members, a gesture that has always stuck with Gauthier. They worked closely to secure funding for gun violence prevention. And Gauthier said that since Johnson took the gavel, he has been more open to working with progressives than his predecessor was.

    She was also key to Johnson’s ascent. When he was locked in a tight battle for the Council presidency, it was Gauthier who became the ninth Council member to commit to voting for Johnson, allowing him to secure a majority of members and the presidency.

    He does not talk about that publicly. What he will say is that he works in partnership with Gauthier because she understands “the bigger picture in terms of how we move forward as the institution.”

    “I consider her to be a pragmatic idealist,” Johnson said. “She wears her heart on her sleeve, and she really believes in actually doing the work.”

    Creating a testing ground in West Philly

    When Gauthier first ran for office in 2019 against a member of one of Philadelphia’s most entrenched political families, she ran as a good-government urbanist. She railed against councilmanic prerogative, the city’s long tradition of allowing district Council members final say over land-use decisions in their areas.

    She was also supported by real estate interests, some of whom now have buyer’s remorse.

    After Gauthier pulled off a shock win, she arrived in Council and quickly aligned with the progressive bloc. Through her first two terms, she has used councilmanic prerogative often, and has voted with her district Council colleagues so that they can do the same.

    She admits that it is an effective tool for accomplishing her goals quickly.

    Carol Jenkins, a Democratic ward leader in West Philadelphia, said Gauthier’s use of councilmanic prerogative is “part of her maturation.”

    “That’s the power you have,” Jenkins said.

    City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier in her district near 52nd Street and Cedar Avenue in Philadelphia on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025.

    Gauthier has at times used the power in ways that the city’s urbanists and development interests can get behind. She has quickly approved bike lane expansions. And she recently was the only district Council member to allow her entire district to be included in legislation that cuts red tape for restaurants that want to offer outdoor dining.

    However, her most notable use of councilmanic prerogative has been in housing policy, and some developers say her district is now the most hostile to growth in the city.

    In Gauthier’s first term, she championed legislation to create what is known as a Mixed Income Neighborhood overlay. In essence, it requires that developers building projects with 10 or more units in certain parts of her district make at least 20% of their units affordable. That is defined as accessible for rental households earning up to 40% of the area median income.

    For Gauthier, it’s a tool to slow the rapid gentrification of her majority-Black district.

    But developers say that growth has slowed significantly in the areas covered by the overlay since it took effect in 2022. Some have said they avoid seeking to build in the 3rd District entirely. The only major project currently in the works in the area is a parking garage.

    A look at the biggest development projects in Philly

    Ryan Spak, an affordable housing developer who said he considers Gauthier a friend, has been among the most outspoken critics of the overlay. He said while Gauthier’s “moral compass is pointed in the right direction, her policies don’t math.”

    “You would never ask a restaurant to give away its ninth and 10th meal for 40 cents on the dollar, with no additional discounts or benefits,” he said, “and expect that restaurant to survive.”

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier reads out a citation honoring Rapper Mont Brown during a street naming ceremony for the Southwest Philadelphia native at the 13th Annual Stop the Violence Kickback Block Party at 55th Street and Chester Avenue, in Southwest Philadelphia on August 17, 2024.

    Gauthier said she has made adjustments, and she championed legislation to accelerate permitting and zoning approvals. The mandate, she said, is necessary because the market won’t build enough affordable housing on its own.

    “As untenable as it is to them that they can’t make the numbers work, it’s untenable to me that people can’t afford to live here,” Gauthier said. “So we can come together and we can fix that. But I’m not going to move from my position that we have to demand affordability.”

    Mayoral buzz, but no ‘stupid campaigns’

    Gauthier is one of several names that have been floated in political circles as potential candidates for mayor in 2031, which would be Parker’s final year in office if she runs for and wins a second term. Several of her Council colleagues, including Johnson, are seen as potential contenders.

    “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that mayor could be interesting one day,” Gauthier said. “I also don’t believe in stupid campaigns. So I would never do that if I didn’t think I had a path.”

    Boyer said he has counseled Gauthier to pursue moderate policy and avoid being “label-cast” as far left. He said Philadelphia is not Chicago or New York, and he doesn’t see the city electing an uber-progressive to be the mayor any time soon.

    “Philadelphia has always been a real center-left community,” Boyer said, “and just because you’re the loudest isn’t the most popular.”

    The left may have other plans. Robert Saleem Holbrook, a progressive activist, said that Gauthier would be an “ideal candidate” for higher office and that the city’s leftists would back her.

    Probably.

    “So long as she stays true and supportive of progressive ideals,” Holbrook said. “You can’t compromise on your way up.”