For the first time in over two years, Major League Wrestling will return to Philadelphia to host two nights of action at the 2300 Arena as part of the promotion’s 24th anniversary.
“With it being our anniversary this June, we felt like there’s no better place to host it than Philadelphia,” said Court Bauer, the CEO of MLW. “And since fans have been asking for two-and-a-half years for us to come back, we’re like, let’s give them a double shot. Two nights of MLW. Let’s make this as big as we can.”
MLW will visit on June 12 and 13, filming a national television taping of the new season of MLW Fusion and showcasing the promotion’s signature event, Summer of the Beasts.
Fans can expect appearances from MLW world heavyweight champion Killer Cross, Shotzi Blackheart, Matt Riddle, CONTRA Unit, and Don Gato.
“From a matchmaking perspective, as a promoter, it really scratches that itch and gets me thinking creatively in ways that challenges me because you know the bar is going to be high,” Bauer said. “There might be some extreme wrestling. There might be some hard core wrestling. There might be some lucha.”
Although the 2300 Arena has given fans plenty of iconic Extreme Championship Wrestling memories, MLW has its own history at the venue.
Major League Wrestling CEO Court Bauer (center) shown at 2300 Arena in 2021.
The company’s debut event, Genesis, was held at the 2300 Arena in June 2002. Since then, it has operated in major markets, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
“There’s just something special that you can’t really find in another city, that intensity that Philly has for pro wrestling,” Bauer said. “And the 2300 Arena is kind of like the cathedral of pro wrestling in America. There’s no other place that’s held as many great matches and has shed as much blood.”
The last time the promotion was at the 2300 Arena was in February 2024 for MLW’s SuperFight card, which featured an MLW world heavyweight title match between Satoshi Kojima and Alex Kane.
Cardinal O’Hara is heading back to the Catholic League girls’ basketball championship for the first time since 2022.
In a rematch of last year’s semifinal, Cardinal O’Hara overwhelmed Neumann Goretti, 51-33, on Monday night. The Lions lost to the Saints last season, when they played without its two stars in senior guard Megan Rullo and junior forward Brezhae Davis.
“Getting those two back on the court definitely helped,” said Cardinal O’Hara coach Chrissie Doogan said. “Neumann Goretti lost their guards from last year, but they’re a very talented team and play well together. … So it’s just a little bit of added incentive against the team that beat you last year to get back and take care of business.”
Cardinal O’Hara’s Brigidanne Donohue (left) finished with 13 points against Neumann Goretti on Monday.
Rullo led the Lions with 22 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists. Junior guard Brigidanne Donohue added 13 points, and Davis had 10.
For Neumann Goretti (14-10), freshman guard Azzure O’Connor led the Saints with nine points. Junior guard Reginna Baker contributed seven points.
Cardinal O’Hara (20-3) will face Archbishop Carroll at the Palestra on Sunday for the PCL title. The Lions beat the Patriots, 55-30, in the 2022 final.
“It means a lot,” said Rullo, who is committed to Drexel and will join her sister, Megan, there. “Last year was definitely a learning year, not being able to play. So there’s definitely a lot of wanting to get there. I’ve never played at the Palestra, and that’s definitely been a goal of mine. It’s everyone’s goal, so we’re super excited.”
O’Hara dominates
Cardinal O’Hara controlled the game.
Sophomore Catie Doogan sank a three-pointer, followed by a pair of foul shots from Rullo, to give the Lions a 13-6 advantage at the end of the first quarter.
The Lions continued to climb in the second quarter. Neumann Goretti gained some momentum close to halftime as senior Kamora Berry grabbed a defensive rebound, which led to a three-pointer from senior Zion Coston. But a Rullo layup as time expired sent Cardinal O’Hara into halftime with a 10-point lead.
Neumann Goretti played consistent, high-pressure defense on Rullo, who repeatedly drew fouls as she drove to the rim. Rullo shook off the defense and kept her composure. She totaled 13 points from the free-throw line.
Cardinal O’Hara’s Megan Rullo (center) gets fouled driving to the basket against Neumann-Goretti.
“I like being a leader of this team, and I feel like staying composed is something that I have to do in order to lead this team to success,” Rullo said. “We talk about it all the time, just not getting frustrated and matching the intensity level, giving it back a little bit.”
With seconds left in the third quarter, Donohue tossed in a basket to give the Lions a 40-27 lead. They then solidified their win in the fourth with a pair of foul shots from Rullo in the final minute that pushed the Saints’ deficit to 20 points.
Heading to the Palestra
Cardinal O’Hara lost to Archbishop Carroll, 51-28, on Jan. 13. With the stakes much higher, the Lions are looking forward to their chance at redemption.
“We were embarrassed at Carroll a month ago, but they locked in and recommitted themselves … to the success of our program,” Doogan said. “They really locked in on the defensive end. And, honestly, they don’t care who gets the credit. We’re at our best when we have three or four kids all between eight and twelve points. On any given night, it could be all five of our stars.”
Cardinal O’Hara’s Megan Rullo (right) celebrates tossing the basketball with her teammates after beating Neumann Goretti in the Catholic League girls’ basketball semifinals.
Doogan and Cardinal O’Hara are especially excited for the opportunity to compete at Philadelphia’s most historic basketball arena.
“These kids deserve a chance to play at the Palestra,” Doogan said. “It’s something that every Catholic League kid wants, and I put a little bit of pressure on myself to get them there. Carroll’s a really good team. They’re playing well, and it’s going to be a dog fight.”
For one day at least, Donald Trump’s bigoted effort to whitewash history was foiled in Philadelphia.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibits that were removed last month from the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.
Fittingly, the legal rebuke came during Black History Month as Trump tries to rewrite America’s history of slavery, undermine voting rights, and rollback civil rights efforts designed to live up to the Founding Fathers’ vision of a country where all are created equal.
Even better, the ruling came on Presidents Day, a federal holiday first set aside to honor George Washington, who voluntarily gave up power, unlike Trump, who was criminally indicted for trying to overturn an election he lost.
In a poetic touch that feels conjured by Octavius V. Catto or William Still, the Trump administration lost in federal court on a lawsuit brought by the City of Philadelphia, which is headed by its first African American female mayor.
The President’s House exhibit was created to recognize the enslaved people who lived in Washington’s home in Philadelphia while he was president. Like the nearby Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, the President’s House is an essential part of American history.
Trump wants to airbrush the parts of American history that do not fit with his racist record and white supremacist messaging. But understanding how slavery shaped the economic, social, and political forces across the United States is crucial to addressing the systemic racism and inequality that persists today.
Glenn Bergman (right) and Dianne Manning try to prevent a “counterprotester” from removing notes posted by visitors on the walls where the National Park Service removed panels about slavery at the President’s House site on Monday. The woman began ripping down the mostly handwritten signs while the group Avenging the Ancestors Coalition was gathered for an annual Presidents Day observance on the other side of the wall.
U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe called out Trump’s cruel attempt to take the country backward in unsparing terms. She began her 40-page opinion by quoting directly from 1984, George Orwell’s dystopian novel about a totalitarian regime:
“All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.”
She compared the Trump administration’s claim that it can unilaterally remove exhibits it does not like to Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.
“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote. “It does not.”
Rufe, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President George W. Bush, did not buy the Trump administration’s authoritarian argument. “[T]he government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control.”
She added: “The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”
Attorney Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, speaks at the President’s House site Monday, during the group’s annual gathering for a Presidents Day observance.
Rufe dismissed those claims and ordered the federal government to “restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026,” the day before the exhibits were removed.
Initially, Rufe did not set a deadline to restore the displays. But she updated her order, requiring the exhibits to be restored by 5 p.m. Friday.
The Trump administration will likely do everything it can to drag out a resolution.
There is no time to waste in ending this racist charade.
The country is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is a national embarrassment that the President’s House exhibits are missing while the city expects 1.5 million visitors this year.
Philadelphia is the birthplace of America. It is here that the founders declared their independence from King George III. Their list of grievances against the king echoes some of Trump’s abuses.
Judge Rufe’s order struck a blow for telling the truth, something Washington would appreciate.
“It is not disputed that President Washington owned slaves,” Rufe wrote. “Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history.”
Somewhere, the enslaved who labored at the President’s House smiled.
Say their names: Ona Judge, Hercules Posey, Moll, Giles, Austin, Richmond, Paris, Joe Richardson, Christopher Sheels, and William Lee.
Penn’s graduate student workers have reached a tentative agreement on a first union contract, averting a strike.
The two-year tentative agreement includes increases to wages among other benefits.
“I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish with this contract,” Clara Abbott, a Ph.D. candidate in literary studies and member of the bargaining committee said in a statement. “We won a historic contract that enshrines gains for grad workers.”
Research and teaching assistants at the university voted to unionize in 2024. The union, which represents about 3,400 graduate student workers, is known as Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania (GET-UP) and is part of the United Auto Workers (UAW). The union has been negotiating with the university since October 2024 for a first contract.
In November, the union’s bargaining members voted to authorize a strike, if called for by the union. In January, they set a strike deadline, announcing that they would walk off the job on Feb. 17 if they had not reached a deal.
A deal was announced in the early morning hours Tuesday.
While tentative agreements had been reached on a number of issues, some remained without consensus ahead of the final bargaining session on Monday before the strike deadline. Those sticking points included wages, healthcare, and discounts on SEPTA passes.
“We are pleased to announce that a tentative agreement has been reached between Penn and GETUP-UAW,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. “Penn has a long-standing commitment to its graduate students and value their contributions to Penn’s important missions. We are grateful to all the members of the Penn community who helped us achieve this tentative agreement.”
A date to vote on the ratification of the tentative agreement has not yet been announced.
The deal comes as earlier this month Pennsylvania state senators and representatives and Philadelphia City Council members addressed letters to the university’s president and provost, urging them to come to an agreement with the student workers and avoid a strike.
“A strike at the University of Pennsylvania would seriously disrupt life for the tens of thousands of Philadelphians who are students, employees, and patients at Penn,” the letter signed by City Council members reads. “As such, we strongly urge the Penn administration to avert a strike by coming to a fair agreement that meets the needs of graduate student employees prior to February 17th.”
Monday’s bargaining session brought tentative agreements on sticking points that included wages and healthcare coverage.
If ratified, the tentative deal would provide graduate student workers with an annual minimum wage of $49,000, which the union has said is a 22% increase over the previous standard. For those paid on an hourly basis, the minimum hourly rate would be $25. Those rates would go into effect in April and a 3% increase would be provided in July 2027.
The deal would also create a fund with $200,000 annually from which graduate student workers could seek reimbursements to cover up to 50% of their dependent’s health insurance premiums.
Ahead of the Monday bargaining session, other tentative agreements had come together around leave. The university agreed to give six weeks of paid medical leave, as well as eight weeks of paid parental leave.
The university and the union had also recently reached a tentative agreement that would create an annual $50,000 fund to help international graduate student workers with expenses associated with reinstating or extending visas.
What would have happened in the event of a strike?
Graduate student workers in the bargaining group teach and conduct research at the university.
Classes, research, and other academic activities would have continued during a strike, according to the university spokesperson. Penn published guidance on how to continue this work in the event of a work stoppage or other disruption.
Striking graduate student workers would not have been paid throughout a work stoppage, but would have continued to be covered by their health insurance for the time being, according to a university statement.
If others employed at the university who are not in the bargaining group chose to join the work stoppage, they would not have been paid and could have faced consequences “up to and including separation from that position, depending on the circumstances of the refusal to work,” according to a university statement.
Ahead of the tentative agreement on Monday, hundreds signed a pledge indicating that they are employed at Penn and would not do the work of those on strike or assign it to others in the event of a work stoppage.
So-called AI deepfakes — pictures of a real person manipulated with technology, sometimes with “nudify” features that can turn clothed images pornographic — are prompting concern among parents in the Philly region.
📱 Deepfake incidents have been reported in recent months in the Main Line’s Radnor Township School District and in Bucks County’s Council Rock School District. Both led to criminal charges against students who made sexually explicit videos of their classmates.
📱 Schools say they are limited in their ability to police students off campus, and that they have no role in criminal investigations. But parents want them to do more to protect students who are targeted.
📱 Notable quote: “They kept saying, ‘This is off campus,’” the parent of a deepfake victim told The Inquirer. But “my daughter could not walk around without crying and feeling ashamed.”
At 275 years old, Pennsylvania Hospital’s Pine Building is the United States’ oldest charteredhospital — and older than the country itself.
The building at Eighth and Pine Streets is still in active use as a medical facility. Come this spring, its long history will be honored with a museum, too.
The Pennsylvania Hospital Museum will feature a restored medical library, surgical amphitheater, and apothecary, as well as archival objects describing the history of the hospital and the care it delivered.
Among the items on display: a “tonsil guillotine,” anatomical casts once used in place of cadavers, and a preserved tumor from 1805.
In other cultural news: The Circle Theatre in Frankford, built in 1929 for what was once the largest movie theater chain in the country, is now officially recognized as historic.
What you should know today
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibits that the National Park Service removed from the President’s House last month.
Police on Monday released images of a distinctive vehicle that left a 9-year-old boy injured in a hit-and-run that happened over the weekend in Southwest Philly.
The Philadelphia School District released details about $2.8 billion in modernization projects proposed for schools in each City Council district. Plus, the city’s teachers union has significant concerns with the district’s sweeping facilities plan, and has taken them to a Council committee.
La Salle University’s loyal baseball community restored the program after it was cut in 2021. Now they say it’s time to get the Explorers “back on the map.”
Frederick Wiseman, the documentarian behind the controversial, 1968 Northeast High-filmed High School, has died at 96.
Time may be a flat circle, but that doesn’t stop us from wondering why. A reader asked through Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for answering questions, why there are so many chicken bones on the sidewalks and streets of Philadelphia.
Two architects appear to bebehind Philadelphia’s chicken-bone temple.
First are animals, who forage through trash looking for the final scraps left on discarded bones. Whether they discover drumsticks by ripping through trash bags on the street or from dumpster diving, these animals likely drop the bones wherever they finish with them.
Theculprits most likely to blame are rats, followed by raccoons and opossums, said Rich Foreman, the owner of Dynamite Pest Control in West Philly.
While it’s unclear if rats have a particular taste for fried chicken, the animals are among the least-picky eaters around and will take advantage of any food source, from human scraps to cannibalism. And Philadelphia is seemingly a good place to be a rat, being declared the eighth-rattiest city in the United States in 2025 by the pest-control company Orkin, measured by tracking its new residential rodent treatments.
Adrian Jordan, Vector Control Crew Chief, works keeping the rat population under control, in Philadelphia, Friday, March 7, 2025.
Foreman sees the chicken-bone problem all over the city, as with some restaurants in Port Richmond that called Dynamite when they saw their trash all over the street. He is confident animals were behind the mess, and said he has “never seen” humans do anything of the sort.
Foreman said the city’s twice-weekly trash pickup initiative has not helped, since it means an additional day of easily accessible trash on the street for animals.
He said the best way for people to prevent critters from going into their garbage for bones is to get large, durable trash cans.
“And make sure you put the lid on it,” he said.
Residents with trash arriving at garbage dump site at Caldera Road and Red Lion Road in northeast Philadelphia. AFSCME District Council 33 workers enter their second week on strike, Tuesday, July 8, 2025.
Scavenging animals was the conclusion that the Search Engine podcast reached in a 2024 episode investigating the cause of the chicken bones littering the streets of New York City. Other cities have reported the same problem, including Chicago, Miami, and Washington.
And yet, anecdotal evidence from residents demonstrates that human activity clearly contributes to the problem.
Jessica Griffith has become the David Attenborough of abandoned chicken bones, documenting and appreciating the beauty of what she encounters in the wild. More than 10 years ago, when she lived in South Philly, Griffith, 46, would notice the chicken bones frequently on walks with her dog. She started photographing them and posting the pictures to Facebook, finding the bones everywhere, including a pile on a SEPTA train.
“It was just bizarre to me. Just a phenomenon,” she said.
Jessica Griffith snapped this picture of some discarded chicken bones on the Broad Street Line in 2013.
Her documentation gathered a following, and people started to send their own submissions. Griffith received pictures from all over the globe — people in Seattle, Las Vegas, South Korea, Sweden, and the Dominican Republic all had their own pictures of discarded chicken bones to share.
When Brian Love, 53, walks his miniature pinscher, Ziggy, through the Gayborhood, he often sees other people smiling at his dog. But then he realizes it’s because Ziggy is carrying a chicken bone in his mouth.
Love has complained to his friends about constantly needing to tussle with Ziggy over what the dog sees as a treasure. He has watched people toss chicken bones on the ground, and recently came across a pile of four bones on a mound of snow. Love wishes his neighbors would just use trash bins.
“It’s your food that you’ve literally just had in your mouth. Throw it in the trash,” he said.
Stephanie Harmelin, 43, has the same problem with her dog in West Philly, and she said she accepts the bony sidewalks as part of living in a city. She has seen aggressive squirrels rifling through trash, but also has come across bones at street corners and under park benches that appear to have been dropped by humans.
She said part of the problem is educational. Once, Harmelin pulled her dog away from a bone on the street, and two fellow walkers asked her why.
Harmelin explained how chicken bones are unsafe for most dogs to consume. Cooked bones splinter when a dog chews on them, and the sharp fragments may cause life-threatening damage as they pass through the dog’s digestive track.
One woman was shocked, and said she had not realized chicken bones were potentially dangerous to dogs when she had tossed them to the ground before.
Theo Caraway of Philadelphia walking his dog Cooper, 6 months, Shitzu/Poodle wearing his Eagles jersey along Kensington at Ontario Street on Philadelphia, Friday, September 5, 2025.
Harmelin has had similar conversations with others who were not aware of the hazards bones create. Now, she is less likely to be frustrated at whomever has dropped the chicken bone on her street corner.
“We’re trying to assume what other people know and intend, but we can’t,” she said.
Even if more people get the message, though, it appears you will still be as likely to find a chicken bone on the street as a fallen leaf.
Although they’re a gross nuisance of a sidewalk adornment, Griffith doesn’t really mind them. She said they are more of a curiosity that make Philly what it is, in a small way.
She has been staying there only for a few months, but Samantha Robinson knows why her grandparents loved their Elkins Park end-unit townhouse and the neighborhood.
“Everybody says hello,” she said. “Everybody looks out for each other.”
Her mother, Kerry Rosenthal, said her dad “really liked the wall space and the lighting. Being an end unit made it easier for my mom to grow things.”
Rosenthal said it’s possible to walk through the neighborhood and think you’re in a rural area until you hear the commuter rail train nearby .
Her parents — Beverly Green, a writing teacher, and Stephen Green, an attorney — bought the condo in the gated Breyer Woods development in 2011, expecting to renovate it so they could age in place. The Greens died in October.
The back porch with a permanent gas grill.
The 2,936-square-foot house, built in 1993, has three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and two half bathrooms.
The main level has a living room with a working gas fireplace, a deck, and a dedicated home office that could serve as a fourth bedroom.
A two-car attached garage leads directly to the laundry room.
The living room has a working gas fireplace.
The upper level primary suite has vaulted ceilings and multiple closets.
The finished walk-out basement has a half bath and kitchenette and opens to a second private deck.
Community residents have access to a tennis court and can join the adjacent student center at the Elkins Park campus of Drexel University, which has a clubhouse and gym.
The kitchen.
The house is a short walk from the Jenkintown SEPTA station, and a supermarket is less than a half-mile away.
The house is listed by Frank Blumenthal at Keller Williams Real Estate Tri-County for $499,000.
If you own a business in Philadelphia and you’re looking for financing, one little known resource is the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. or PIDC. Don’t be put off by the word industrial. The public-private organization was formed as a nonprofit by the City of Philadelphia and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce to provide financing to all sorts of businesses to create jobs and revitalize neighborhoods.
For example, Milk Jawn, an ice cream shop in East Passyunk used PIDC financing to help with its expansion.
“PIDC was our first type of institutional financing,” said Amy Wilson, Milk Jawn’s founder. “Our early growth was friends and family and some crowdfunding. PIDC then helped fund our build out and kitchen construction.”
The organization says it’s focused on helping companies expand, and many different types of businesses would qualify for financing.
“PIDC is Philadelphia’s partner for business growth,” said Kevin Lessard, a senior vice president at the organization. “We help businesses, nonprofits, and developers overcome barriers to expansion by providing financing and real estate solutions that make starting, staying, and scaling in the city possible.”
To qualify for a loan through PIDC, your business must be located within the city, have operated for at least two years, and earn at least $100,000 in annual revenues. Special considerations may be made based on what the funds will be used for (i.e. building in a low-income area) or whether you’re a “disadvantaged” business owner. Personal guarantees and collateral are also normally required.
Loans can be used for equipment and property as well as working capital needs and “soft” costs like legal, accounting, permits, and appraisals. One of the more popular uses of the loans is for commercial real estate financing, where financing can be used to acquire and renovate property or to fund new construction.
Philly success stories
For Alexander Sherack, a co-owner of Korea Taqueria, an eatery with several locations in Philadelphia, PIDC financing fit the kind of deal he was looking for.
“We needed a property that was zoned commercial and mixed-use plus working capital so it wasn’t a typical path for a traditional bank loan,” he said. “We went with PIDC because it helped us replace rent with ownership — and our property turned out to be a hidden gem.”
Businesses can apply online and will then go through an underwriting and due diligence process which usually includes submitting financial reports, bank statements, and tax returns, along with a business plan and forecast. Corporate documents such as bylaws and articles of incorporation are also required. Once the loan is received, there’s ongoing reporting and other compliance requirements, which include regular submission of financial information and updating any major changes in the business.
Kia Jones owns Past Your Bedtime childcare in West Philadelphia and used PIDC financing for both working capital and renovations.
“The staff there made it very easy,” she said. “Any questions that I had, they were right on it.”
Pros of PIDC loans
PIDC funding can be a great bridge to a traditional bank loan. Some applicants who may find themselves turned down for a bank loan may still be able to receive funding from the PIDC.
PIDC takes more of a holistic, mission-driven approach. If a traditional bank turns you down, PIDC may still structure a deal — particularly if your project creates jobs or revitalizes neighborhoods. Getting PIDC involved may also encourage traditional banks to offer additional funding both now and in the future.
PIDC loans generally have much lower interest rates than a traditional bank loan. Milk Jawn’s Wilson, for example, accessed a special 0% interest program in early 2022 through PIDC, a major cost savings in a time of rising interest rates. (This was part of a one-time pandemic relief program.)
Finally, the PIDC provides education, support, and networking programs to help their community of borrowers manage and grow their businesses. And the connections can pay off.
“We were able to meet partners of the PIDC,” Jones said. “One partner program called Boost Your Business got us a $50,000 forgivable loan. The organization is also very familiar with city grants and other local funding options.”
Real talk
As helpful as the organization can be, business owners shouldn’t expect to get immediate funding.
Sherack recommends starting early and “building a transaction timeline” into any agreement where property is being purchased.
“Don’t assume quick money,” he said. “Submit your documents fast and press for clarity on timing so you don’t lose the deal.”
Wilson agrees and said she had to get a loan from a family member while she waited for the application process to complete.
“We’re a mission-driven lender using public and public-private capital, so every deal requires careful underwriting and a clear path to economic impact,” Lessard said. “Unlike conventional lenders, we tailor each financing package to the business.”
The University of Pennsylvania is getting $7.8 million over the next two years to study an overlooked aspect of human health: the lymphatic system.
Often described as the body’s sewer system, its main job is to maintain the body’s balance of fluid and filter out waste. Millions of Americans live with dysfunction in the system, often unknowingly.
The time to diagnose some lymphatic disorders is at least five years, said Maxim Itkin, an interventional radiologist who directs Penn’s center specializing in lymphatic disorders.
He’s even had a patient who experienced unexplained symptoms for 50 years before getting treatment.
“Right now, most healthcare providers simply aren’t equipped — or trained — to recognize lymphatic dysfunction, and the tools they need are virtually nonexistent,” said Kimberley Steele, a program manager at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the federal agency organizing the research effort.
That’s why the government, through ARPA-H, is investing $135.7 million toward research headed by 11 institutions in the U.S. and Canada, including Penn, to improve detection of issues in the lymphatic system.
With its slice of funding, the team at Penn will develop ways to image the network and identify hidden signs of disease.
An inside look
Similar to plumbing, fluids in the lymphatic system can be flowing, obstructed, or leaking.
Doctors are able to “close” these leaks and even “open” obstructed areas, but the problem is knowing when those procedures are needed.
Existing contrast agents — substances used to increase visibility of tissues during imaging — for the lymphatic system are largely considered obsolete and offer poor resolution, said Itkin, who is leading the Penn project, which started last October.
When he began researching the system 20 years ago, he “started to realize that it’s of enormous importance, and it’s forgotten primarily because nobody can image [it] and do interventions,” he said.
Maxim Itkin, an interventional radiologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, found a way to track the flow of lymphatic fluid using X-ray imaging equipment.
Itkin and his team have come up with ways of imaging by injecting dye into lymph nodes and tissues and tracing the dye’s location. This has enabled him to diagnose hidden conditions and develop new treatment methods.
The ARPA-H funding will allow them to go even further, developing imaging agents that focus on the parts of the lymphatic system in the liver and gut — organs that generate the majority of the network’s flow in the body.
These will be used for CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans.
One of the imagingcandidates is designed to be swallowed and absorbed in the intestine, so doctors can see the lymphatic system in the gut. The second imaging agent will be administered via IV to show the system in the liver.
“It was my dream to see the lymphatic system from inside by itself,” Itkin said.
They’ll be using an approach called AI-driven multi-omics, where AI will analyze samples for unique molecules being excreted by the lymphatic system in the liver.
Penn and several other funded groups are working with the New York-based nonprofit Lymphatic Education and Research Network to help with research and patient recruitment.
Current funding is for two years, with the potential to extend for another three years.
Itkin says seeing the lymphatic system in the liver will be a thrill.
Every year, Ramadan seems to catch me by surprise. Maybe it’s because the month-long holiday’s start date fluctuates 10 to 12 days following the lunar calendar. Or maybe it’s my disbelief that another year has come and gone. No matter the reason, Ramadan always comes back around when I need it the most.
For many Muslims, the holy month is one of spiritual renewal. It’s a month where we get to practice patience, abstinence, gratitude, and charity. This year, the month of observance runs from the evening of Feb. 17 to March 19, which means no food and drink — yes, even water — for about 12 to 14 hours for 30 days.
The key is good food and community before and after fasting. And in Philadelphia, that’s easy to find.
Here’s my guide to observing and celebrating Ramadan in the city I call home.
Falafel’s at Cilantro.
What does it mean to fast for Ramadan?
My day begins at 4 a.m. with suhoor, the meal that begins the fast. Typically, I roll out of bed and grab the first thing I can eat (a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, most days) and chug half a liter of water. Once the athan, or call to prayer, chimes on my phone close to 5:40 a.m., I abstain from eating and drinking until after the sun goes down.
After sunset, I break my fast with a date — a spiritual tradition rooted in teaching by the Prophet Muhammed — then dinner and lots of water.
Growing up, this end-of-fast meal, iftar, started with a quick snack that was followed by prayer and dinner. Now as an adult, I’m making my own traditions and breaking my fast all in one go, then praying afterward.
Muhammad Williams and Nyeem P. eat the iftar meal at Masjidullah in Philadelphia in March 2024. Ramadan is observed by Muslims with a month of fasting. The fast is broken each day with a nightly feast, called iftar.
Where can you celebrate in community in Philadelphia?
This year, I’m meal-prepping to save money, making jars of oatmeal and smoothies to start my fast and keep me full and stocking frozen marinated meats to pull out and cook before the athan signals the end of the fast.
Philly’s Muslim-owned restaurants are also celebrating with holiday buffets — think chicken mandi and maqluba at Alamodak or chicken briyani and goat korma at Wah Gi Wah — and special additions, like soups, samosas, and dates.
There are 24-hour establishments to gather with friends for suhoor — consider Plov House in the Northeast for fried meaty turnovers and sweet crepes or Liberty Bell Diner for pancakes, omelets, and waffles around the clock.
Tables filled up around 3 a.m. at the 24-hour Plov House, where diners shared hot teas alongside plates of manti and shurpa soup.
But they are not the only ones offering spreads of delicious foods to break fast in community.
When I moved to Philadelphia, iftars hosted by mosques were my North Star for finding community. I discovered a blend of Philly natives and immigrants from the city’s Muslim diaspora, from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, breaking fast together at mosques, kitchen tables, and 24-hour diners across the city. Ramadan isn’t complete without a mosque iftar.
You could also shake things up and embark on an all-night food crawl — a ritual that’s been a highlight of my Ramadan calendar for four years now. Each year, my friends and I travel to New York City for one night during the holiday month, exploring the city’s late-night food scene from iftar to suhoor.
Last year, I realized that it was possible to crawl in Philadelphia, too, even ifPhilly has only a few establishments open past midnight and a handful of 24-hour diners left. But, as we found out, Ramadan brings a different kind of energy to the night.
What to do if you get invited to an iftar?
I’m a social butterfly, so hosting iftars is something I’m quite good at. I love gathering my community to yap and munch. (Pro-tip: Take it easy and host a potluck — unless you’re insanely talented like my mom, who can still whip up a spread of perfect dishes for over 30 people while fasting.)
Gulab jamun and gajar ka halwa are favorites for the holiday.
One question I hear from my lovely non-Muslim guests: What do I do if I get invited to an iftar? The answer is simple. Eat, a lot. The joy of Ramadan hosting is spending time with loved ones over good food. Seeing my guests enjoy food and company makes the day’s fast worth it.
If it’s a potluck, bring a dish you love to share. That’s what my very cool friend Kelsey McKinney did for an iftar I hosted last year. (Yes, I was fangirling that Philly’s very own gossip queen came to my potluck!) A competitor on The Not-So-Great Defector Bake Off, McKinney baked a spiral pastry that looked like the sun and tasted like herby olives in buttery, flaky puff pastry.
“I could have rolled up with like a bag of delicious pistachios, and it would have been fine,” McKinney wrote. “But the bar for myself is so high! I wanted to bring something celebratory to the Hot Girl Iftar!”
Just remember: Don’t bring alcohol, and use halal ingredients.
