Penn State hockey star Gavin McKenna, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL draft, will be due in court next on March 11, according to Centre County Courthouse documents.
McKenna, who is facing three charges relating to an alleged assault in State College on Jan. 31, was initially set to have his preliminary hearing on Wednesday. He is alleged to have punched a 21-year-old man twice in the face, resulting in a fractured jaw that required corrective surgery. According to police, the incident occurred after a verbal exchange between the two on the 100 block of South Pugh Street in the hours after Penn State’s outdoor hockey game against Michigan State at Beaver Stadium.
The preliminary hearing’s postponement comes less than a week after prosecutors dropped an initial felony charge of aggravated assault. The Centre County District Attorney’s Office and State College Police said in a statement that “a review of the video does not support a conclusion that Gavin McKenna acted with the intent to cause serious bodily injury or with reckless indifference to the value of human life,“ which is the standard for probable cause for aggravated assault in Pennsylvania.
McKenna, 18, now faces a misdemeanor charge of simple assault, as well as charges of harassment and disorderly conduct for engaging in fighting. The simple assault charge carries a maximum of two years in prison, while fines are attached to the three charges. He remains released on $20,000 unsecured bail.
With the preliminary hearing postponed, McKenna is expected to play for the No. 6 Nittany Lions on Friday at No. 2 Michigan, a source confirmed to the Inquirer. That game will mark Penn State’s first action since the alleged assault. Penn State’s regular season ends on March 6, with the Big Ten tournament set to commence on March 11, the same day as McKenna’s preliminary hearing.
Penn State’s Gavin McKenna, who is projected to be the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, has 32 points in 24 games so far as a freshman.
“We are aware that charges have been filed; however, as this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not have any further comment,” Penn State said in a statement on Feb. 4.
McKenna’s adviser Pat Brisson has not commented publicly on the matter.
A native of Whitehorse, Yukon, the Canadian winger is ranked No. 1 on the NHL’s 2026 Central Scouting list among North American skaters. After a new rule was passed granting Canadian Hockey League players NCAA eligibility this season, McKenna left the CHL in the summer to play college hockey.
McKenna, a freshman, is one of the biggest recruits to ever play college hockey and one of the faces of the changing landscape of the sport. He has 11 goals and 32 points in 24 games this season for Penn State, which reached its first Frozen Four in school history last season and entered this season as one of the favorites to win the national championship.
The Internal Revenue Service improperly shared confidential tax information of thousands of individuals with immigration enforcement officials, according to three people familiar with the situation, appearing to breach a legal firewall intended to protect taxpayer data.
The erroneous disclosure was only recently discovered, the people said. The IRS is working with officials from the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and Department of Homeland Security on the administration’s response.
The IRS confirmed the Washington Post’s reporting in a court filing Wednesday afternoon. Dottie Romo, the tax agency’s chief risk and control officer, wrote in a sworn declaration that the IRS provided confidential taxpayer information even when DHS officials could not provide sufficient data to positively identify a specific individual.
But in a controversial decision, Treasury, which oversees the IRS, in April agreed to provide DHS with the names and addresses of individuals the Trump administration believed to be in the country illegally, pursuant to DHS requests.
Federal courts have since blocked the data-sharing arrangement, holding that it violates taxpayers’ rights, though the government appealed those rulings.
Before the agreement was struck down, DHS requested the addresses of 1.2 million individuals from the IRS. The tax agency responded with data on 47,000 individuals, according to court records.
When the IRS shared the addresses with DHS, it also inadvertently disclosed private information for thousands of taxpayers erroneously, a mistake only recently discovered, said the people familiar, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Romo, in her declaration, did not state when the IRS learned of its error. She said the agency notified DHS on Jan. 23, to begin taking steps to “prevent the disclosure or dissemination, and to ensure appropriate disposal, of any data provided to ICE by IRS based on incomplete or insufficient address information.”
She declined to state if the IRS would inform people whose data was illegally disclosed to immigration officials, and said DHS and ICE had agreed to “not inspect, view, use, copy, distribute, rely on, or otherwise act on any return information that has been obtained from or disclosed by IRS” because of the pending litigation.
The affected individuals could be entitled to financial compensation for each time their information was improperly shared. And government officials can personally face stiff civil and criminal penalties for sharing confidential tax information.
Charles Littlejohn, an IRS contractor, pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of President Donald Trump and other wealthy individuals.
Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison. Trump in January sued the IRS for $10 billion in damages related to the Littlejohn leak.
In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said that under the data-sharing agreement, “the government is finally doing what it should have all along.”
“Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense,” the spokesperson said.
There is little evidence that undocumented immigrants have attempted to participate in U.S. elections, nor is there a link between undocumented immigrants and higher levels of crime.
“With the IRS information specifically, DHS plans to focus on enforcing long-neglected criminal laws that apply to illegal aliens,” the DHS spokesperson said.
Treasury and Justice Department spokespeople declined to comment, citing agency policies not to comment on active litigation. The Office of the Deputy Attorney General is monitoring the ongoing litigation, but the office is not making any decisions on the matter, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.
When the IRS began conversations with DHS over data sharing shortly after Trump returned to the White House, senior IRS employees warned administration officials that the program was likely illegal and could sweep up misidentified people, the Post has reported.
During early meetings on the project, one agency staffer asked immigration authorities how many people with the same name may live in the same state, according to one of the people, illustrating how easy it would be for the Trump administration to inadvertently breach taxpayers’ privacy, including those who are not targets of immigration investigations.
The IRS’s privacy department was largely sidelined from the talks, two of the people said, and its IT department took over implementing the data sharing. That team had largely been taken over by officials from Trump’s U.S. DOGE Service, the White House’s “efficiency” office charged with shrinking the federal government.
Treasury officials justified the data-sharing agreement by arguing immigration enforcement was pursuing individuals who had violated criminal statutes, though immigration violations are generally civil, not criminal.
Under the arrangement, DHS would provide the IRS with the name and address of a taxpayer. The IRS would then cross-reference that information with its confidential databases and confirm the taxpayers’ last known address.
Immigration officials said the procedure was necessary because DHS lacked reliable information to locate individuals the Trump administration wanted to detain and deport, according to numerous IRS and DHS officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
“This allegedly unauthorized viewing involves personal information that taxpayers provided to the IRS pursuant to a promise that the IRS would prioritize keeping the information confidential,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in a November order. “A reasonable taxpayer would likely find it highly offensive to discover that the IRS now intends to share that information permissively because it has replaced its promise of confidentiality with a policy of disclosure.”
St. Joseph led Fordham by 15 points on Tuesday night at Hagan Arena. After a crushing loss to George Mason three days earlier, the Hawks were on the verge of forcing a blowout against a team that had won just three Atlantic 10 games entering the contest.
Then the Rams began mounting a comeback and the Hawks had no chance to stop it. After knocking down 50% of its shots in the first half, St. Joe’s went mute as it made 7 of 24 shots (29.17%) in the second. Guard Austin Williford, who finished with a career-high 19 points, scoring 17 in the first 20 minutes, did not get another bucket until four minutes remained in the game.
Guard Jaiden Glover-Toscano scored all of his 10 points in the first half. The stagnant offense resulted in a 68-64 loss.
“Obviously the second half was not one of our better efforts offensively,” coach Steve Donahue said. “I thought we competed at a high level. Guarding was very physical, but we did not do a good job handling that in the second half, and allowed their physicality to just take us out of our rhythm.”
However, St. Joe’s (15-10, 7-5 A-10), which is now riding a two-game skid, is still in contention for a coveted top-four seed to earn a double bye in the conference tournament next month.
Game-changing moment
St. Joe’s attacked Fordham’s zone with ease for the first 20 minutes of play. Glover-Toscano scored 10 points in the first 14 minutes.
Then Williford, who has become a regular in the starting lineup, made a layup and nailed three consecutive three-pointers. His play made up for scoring leader Derek Simpson not scoring a bucket in the first half.
“I think he’s got a great future ahead of him,” Donahue said. “Even he’ll say the second half wasn’t his best, it wasn’t our best, and it got us tonight.”
St. Joe’s coach Steve Donahue says his team was making “uncharacteristic” errors in Tuesday’s loss to Fordham.
St. Joe’s success ended after Fordham (13-12, 4-8) switched up its defenses in the second half. The Rams made it difficult for the Hawks to run their offense. They ended the second half with nearly as many turnovers (six) as field goals (seven).
“That’s a sign we’re not in rhythm or there’s no synergy in the offense.” Donahue said. “When you take one with 10 or 12 [seconds] left there, you’re kind of open. We’ve done that to ourselves a few times this year. My job is to get us out of this.”
The A-10 race
St. Joe’s dropped its second straight game in a similar fashion. The Hawks allowed George Mason to snag a win after holding a second half lead on Saturday. In that loss, they shot 29.03%, despite grabbing 20 offensive rebounds.
After winning seven of eight before Saturday’s loss, St. Joe’s looked poised to earn a fourth-place finish, which is the final spot for a double bye in the A-10 tournament.
Now, Davidson, Duquesne, and Dayton all trail St. Joe’s by a game in the standings. The Flyers and Wildcats face another on Sunday, while Duquesne plays on Saturday. There’s a chance there could be a three-way tie for fourth place by the end of this weekend.
With six games remaining, Donahue is looking to get St. Joe’s back to how his team was playing in January.
“This is A to B. This is the stuff we talked about. Now we’ve got to live it,” Donahue said. “We were uncharacteristic [on Tuesday] in some ways. In particular, on the offensive end. For the next eight days, you have to do a great job.”
Up next
The Hawks will visit St. Bonaventure (14-10, 3-8) on Feb. 18 (7 p.m., ESPN+).
Two United States Olympic stars will make their debut at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Wednesday.
Jordan Stolz, the American speedskating phenom whose dominance has been compared to Michael Phelps, is set to compete in the men’s 1,000-meter race at 12:30 p.m. Philadelphia time on NBC.
Stolz, 21, enters the race as the gold medal favorite, and is expected to be among the top competitors in the 500, 1,500, and mass start, a long-track race in which everyone starts together and the top three finishers make the podium.
The Wisconsin native holds the world record in the 1,000-meter race (1:05.37), which he set in 2024, and plans to wear the same pair of skates when he takes the ice at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.
United States snowboarder Chloe Kim is trying for her third straight women’s halfpipe gold medal.
More than 140 miles to the north, U.S. snowboarder and Princeton grad Chloe Kim continued her quest for a third straight Olympic gold medal by making it through the halfpipe qualifiers early Wednesday morning.
The halfpipe finals begin Thursday at 1:30 p.m.
Figure skating duo Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who already won a gold medal in the team event, will compete in the free dance event beginning at 1:15 p.m. on USA Network. They sit in second place behind the French team of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.
NBC’s TV coverage will have live events from noon to 5 p.m. Philadelphia time on weekdays and starting in the mornings on the weekends. There’s a six-hour time difference from Italy and here. The traditional prime-time coverage will have highlights of the day and storytelling features.
As far as the TV channels, the Olympics are airing on NBC, USA, CNBC, and NBCSN. Spanish coverage can be found on Telemundo and Universo.
NBCSN is carrying the Gold Zone whip-around show that was so popular during the Summer Olympics in 2024, with hosts including Scott Hanson of NFL RedZone. It used to be just on Peacock, NBC’s online streaming service, but now is on TV, too.
Every event is available to stream live on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. You’ll have to log in with your pay-TV provider, whether cable, satellite, or streaming platforms including YouTube TV, FuboTV, and Sling TV.
On Peacock, the events are on the platform’s premium subscription tier, which starts at $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year.
As a general rule, our schedules include all live broadcasts on TV, but not tape-delayed broadcasts on cable channels. We’ll let you know what’s on NBC’s broadcasts, whether they’re live or not.
NBC
Noon: Freestyle skiing — women’s moguls final (tape-delayed)
In the rotunda of the Finneran Pavilion late Tuesday night, the longest tenured Villanova player paused to crane his head toward the ceiling, toward the national championship, Final Four, and Big East championship banners that hang there in V formation, like a flock of birds in flight. On this Wildcats team, he’s the one whose name is called last in the pregame introductions.
He’s the one everyone knows a little better than everyone else on the roster. For a program once accustomed to having its stars stay for three years, four years, sometimes even five, it has to be jarring that Tyler Perkins, a junior who transferred from Penn in 2024, is the closest thing to a keeper of that flame.
“I take pride in it,” he said. “Last year, I was able to learn a lot about this place from guys like Eric Dixon, Jordan Longino, guys who have been here for three years, five years. I was able to pick their brains. Just walking these halls, looking at these banners, it makes you hungry. You want to bring it back to this place.”
The whole idea of a player recognizing and appreciating a particular program’s history and culture seems quaint in this era of college basketball. It certainly doesn’t have the pull and power that it once did.
Tyler Perkins (right) is interviewed by Andy Katz after Villanova’s 77-74 win against Marquette at the Finneran Pavilion on Tuesday.
Now, paying players is an above-board course of action, athletes pass through the transfer portal like it’s an open doorway, and the story that played out at the Pavilion on Tuesday, in Villanova’s 77-74 victory over Marquette, showed just how much everything has changed.
Perkins pretty much saved the Wildcats, now 19-5 and on track for their first NCAA Tournament appearance in four years, from losing a Big East game to a lesser opponent. He scored a team-high 22 points, hit three late three-pointers to help ’Nova quickly wipe out a nine-point deficit, grabbed six offensive rebounds, and blocked a three-point attempt by the Golden Eagles’ Adrien Stevens on the game’s final possession.
It was the kind of performance that a savvy upperclassman — Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, Collin Gillespie, Dixon — once would have delivered for Villanova … except in this case, the savvy upperclassman is a kid who has been on campus less than two years, and he was having a lousy defensive game until he snuffed Stevens’ shot at the end.
“Once he figures out he can affect the game without shooting or having to shoot, that’s when he’s going to take a monster step,” Wildcats coach Kevin Willard said. “And he’s starting to get there. He is.”
Willard is so certain that Perkins will become a great player that, after the Wildcats’ win over Seton Hall last week, he didn’t back away from comparing him to Hart — a first-team All-American and a national champion at ’Nova, a nine-year NBA vet and an invaluable piece of a New York Knicks team that could reach the Finals.
During Tuesday’s postgame media availability, Willard playfully chided Perkins for his mostly poor defense against Marquette, then pointed out that Hart’s all-around game is what made him such a headache when Willard, while at Seton Hall, was coaching against him.
“I tell the story all the time,” Willard said. “One of the last times we played against him, I called timeout, and I cursed out my team. I was like, ‘Can somebody please stop Josh Hart?’ And he hadn’t taken a shot. He hadn’t taken a shot, and they’re all looking at me like, ‘Well, he’s not shooting.’ He’s got three steals. He’s got four offensive rebounds. He’s got five assists. And he didn’t take a shot. That’s why he’s in the NBA.
Villanova coach Kevin Willard believes Tyler Perkins shares many of the same qualities as former Wildcats guard Josh Hart.
“He” — he tipped his head to the right, toward Perkins — “can do that. He just has to figure it out at times, ‘I don’t need to shoot the ball to be out here and be effective.’ Because he does so many other things.”
Perkins has met Hart just once — last September, when Hart and Jalen Brunson returned to campus to record an episode of their podcast, The Roommates Show. Their on-paper profiles are practically identical. Both are from the Washington area.
They are about the same height (6-foot-4) and roughly the same weight (210-215 pounds). The biggest difference, at the moment anyway, might be that the conditions that allowed Hart to develop over his four seasons at Villanova, from 2013 to 2017, are harder to replicate. These days, it takes a welcoming atmosphere; a rewarding athletic, academic, and social experience … and, of course, a big, fat check.
"It's February basketball. You're going to have to grind and find ways to win. Watching Marquette's last five games, Shaka's done a great job with that group, especially on the defensive end. But we found a way, that's all that matters." -Coach Willard
Make no mistake: The money is and will be the major motivator for keeping a promising basketball player on any campus. A program that wants to keep a star into his senior season is going to have to pony up accordingly. But those first two factors still matter some, at least some of the time, and apparently to Perkins.
“I don’t really care about all the extra stuff that’s going on in college basketball right now,” he said. “I find joy in playing the game, and I felt like this place was the most comfortable place for me to play.”
Imagine the comfort he’ll feel a year from now, two years from now, three, if he can stand inside the Pavilion, look up at that ceiling, and see a banner he helped to hang.
Philly Valentine’s Day weekend musical options include Diana Krall and the R&B Lovers Tour in Atlantic City, Eric Benet at City Winery, Stinking Lizaveta at the Khyber, La Cumbia Del Amor at Johnny Brenda’s, Marshall Allen at Solar Myth, Langhorne Slim in Ardmore, and a road trip to see Boyz II Men. What could be more romantic?
Thursday, Feb. 12
Lazyacres / Bowling Alley Oop
Philly songwriter Josh Owens doesn’t seem to have a fully functioning keypad. His dreamy indie pop band Lazyacres’ EP is called Nospacebar. He’s playing South Street hotdog nightclub Nikki Lopez with Attic Posture, Bowling Alley Oop, and Dante Robinson. 8 p.m., Nikki Lopez, 304 South St., @nikkilopezphilly
Big Benny Bailey, with Ben Pierce and Shamir Bailey, plays the Fallser Club in East Falls on Friday.
Friday, Feb. 13
Big Benny Bailey
The winning Black History Month programming at the Fallser Club continues with Big Benny Bailey, the duo of South Philly songwriters Shamir Bailey and Ben Pierce. It’s a bluegrass, folk, and country project that promises to be another compelling adventure from the multitalented Shamir, who released his 10th album, Ten, last year. He has a GoFundMe going to get his screenplay Career Queer made into a feature film. Reese Florence and Lars open. 8 p.m., Fallser Club, 3721 Midvale Ave., thefallserclub.com
Umphrey’s McGee
The veteran jam band, which formed at the University of Notre Dame and called its 1998 debut album Greatest Hits, Vol. III, released its latest improvisatory adventure, Blueprints, in 2025. 8 p.m., Fillmore Philly, 29 E. Allen St., thefillmorephilly.com
The Knee-Hi’s
Chicago’s self-described “female fronted garage glam rock band existing as a living love letter to rock and roll” tops a bill with Ione, Star Moles, and Thank You Thank You. 8 p.m., Ortlieb’s 847 N. Third St., 4333collective.com
Boyz II Men
Shawn Stockman, Nate Morris, and Wanya Morris usually stay close to home on Valentine’s Day weekend. This year is a little different, with the Boyz on the road on the “New Edition Way” tour with New Edition and Toni Braxton. The trio of R&B stars will arrive in Philly at the Liacouras Center on March 15, but on this heart-shaped weekend, they’re in New Jersey. 8 p.m., Prudential Center, 25 Lafayette St., Newark, prucenter.com
Iron & Wine
Sam Beam, who leads Iron & Wine, has a free-flowing new album coming Feb. 27, called Hen’s Teeth. “I’ve always wanted to use that title,” he said in a statement. “I just love it. To me it suggests the impossible. Hen’s teeth do not exist. And that’s what this record felt like: a gift that shouldn’t be there but it is. An impossible thing but it’s real.” Noon, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., xpn.org
Diana Krall
Jazz pianist Diana Krall makes two date-night stops in the region this weekend. On Friday, the vocalist, whose most recent album, This Dream of You, is named after a Bob Dylan song, is in Bethlehem. On Saturday, she’s down the Shore. 8 p.m. Wind Creek Event Center, 77 Wind Creek Blvd, Bethlehem, windcreekeventcenter.com, and 8 p.m., Ocean Casino Resort, 500 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, theoceanac.com
Diana Krall performs in Bethlehem on Friday and Atlantic City on Saturday.
Saturday, Feb. 14
The R&B Lovers Tour
This package tour gathers together stars of 1990s silky pop R&B and soul, with featured sets by Keith Sweat, Joe, Dru Hill, and Ginuwine. 8 p.m., Boardwalk Hall, 2301 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, boardwalkhall.com.
Eric Benet
The R&B love man, formerly betrothed to Halle Berry, and now married to Prince’s ex-wife Manuela Testolini, was a regular hitmaker in the 1990s and 2000s, topping the charts with “Spend My Life With You” with Tamia in 1999. Last year saw the release of his album The Co-Star and a holiday collection. 6 and 9:30 p.m., City Winery Philadelphia, 990 Filbert St., citywinery.com/philadelphia
Stinking Lizaveta
Cozy up to your honey while listening to high-volume doom jazz by the power trio named after a character in Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. The band consists of drummer Cheshire Augusta and guitarist brothers Yanni and Alexi Papadopoulos, whose 1996 debut album Hopelessness and Shame, recorded by Steve Albini, has just been issued on vinyl for the first time. 8 p.m., Upstairs at the Khyber Pass Pub, 56 S. Second St., @upstairsatkhyberpasspub
La Cumbia Del Amor
Philly cumbia klezmer punk band Mariposas Galacticas joins forces with Baltimore-based cumbia ska outfit Soroche and DJ Pdrto Criolla for a dance party celebrating “radical love in all its forms.” 9 p.m., Johnny Brenda’s, 1021 N. Franklin St., johnnybrendas.com
Philly Gumbo
Long-standing rhythmically adept party band Philly Gumbo is now in its 47th year. Fat Tuesday is coming up this week, and the band’s bons temps rouler repertoire is deep. This should be a Mardi Gras dance party to remember. 7 p.m., 118 North, 118 N. Wayne Ave., Wayne, 118Northwayne.com.
Marshall Allen at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia in April 2025. The Sun Ra Arkestra leader plays with his band Ghost Horizons on Saturday at Solar Myth.
Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons
The indefatigable Sun Ra Arkestra leader is back at the former Boot & Saddle with a version of his Ghost Horizons band that includes DM Hotep on guitar, Joe Morris on bass, and Matthew Shipp on piano. 8 p.m., Solar Myth, 1131 S. Broad St., arsnovaworkshop.org
Sunday, Feb. 15
Marissa Nadler
Folk-goth guitarist Marissa Nadler creates dreamy noir-ish soundscapes that have won her a following with folkies and metal heads. Her latest is the haunting New Radiations. 7:30 p.m., MilkBoy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., milkboyphilly.com
Langhorne Slim
Bucks County’s own Langhorne Slim turns up the volume on The Dreamin’ Kind, his most rocked-out album, produced by Greta Van Fleet bassist Sam F. Kiszka. That album follows 2021’s Strawberry Mansion, named for the Philly neighborhood where his grandfathers were raised. Get there early for Laney Jones and the Spirits, the Nashville quintet whose raucous 2025 self-titled debut is full of promise. 7 p.m., Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, ardmoremusichall.com
The Blackbyrds
The Washington jazz and R&B band, which formed when its members were students of trumpeter Donald Byrd, scored a smash with 1975’s “Walking in Rhythm.” Its music is familiar to hip-hop fans through “Rock Creek Park,” which was sampled by MF Doom, De La Soul, and Wiz Khalifa, among many others. 5 and 8:30 p.m., City Winery Philadelphia, 990 Filbert St., citywinery.com/philadelphia.
Shareholders of Camden-based American Water Works and Bryn Mawr-based Essential Utilities, which owns the Aqua water and sewer companies, voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to merge and create a combined company with nearly $30 billion in yearly water and sewer sales.
More than 99% of the 161 million American Water shares that were voted were cast in favor of the deal, the company told the Securities & Exchange Commission. Essential’s online proposal to merge was approved by around 95% of voting shareholders.
The planned combination of these rivals, which have competed for more than 100 years to manage water and sewer for the small number of U.S. communities that allow for-profit operators, still needs approval from state public utility commissions.
The combined companies’ sales are concentrated in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In suburban Philadelphia, Aqua serves West Chester, northern Delaware County, parts of Lower Bucks, and Main Line communities. American Water serves Abington, King of Prussia, Norristown, Phoenixville, and nearby towns.
New Jersey American Water serves towns along the PATCO rail line in Camden County, in northern and central Burlington County, and in Shore communities such as Absecon and Ocean City. Aqua New Jersey has customers in the three suburban South Jersey counties and at the Shore.
American Water’s 14 million U.S. customers include systems in 12 other states, and on 18 U.S. military bases. Essential has around 3 million customers, including systems in six other states,and Pittsburgh-based Peoples Gas, which serves 750,000 in western Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
American Water is already the nation’s largest private operator of water and sewer systems, and the deal will make it a larger player in competition with Florida-based NextEra Water Group and France-based Veolia’s U.S. operations, among other private systems that have been seeking to expand.
A separate vote on an Essential executive pay package drew some opposition, with 85%approving.
That package included more than $17 million in severance compensation and stock grants for departing Essential CEO Christopher H. Franklin, plus medical benefits and up to three years’ professional assistance helping him land another job, plus millions more for his four top deputies.
The merged company’s larger size, as big as many of the leading natural-gas companies that dominate utility stock-index funds, will boost its visibility to investors, John C. Griffith, the American Water chief executive who will run the combined companies, said in announcing the deal last fall.
The companies disclosed the approvals Tuesday afternoon and said more details on the vote and their plans would come later this week.
Deal backers say the combination should enable Griffith to cut management costs, boost profits, drive up the share price, and could ease pressure to keep raising water rates.
Regulators in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are weighing the company’s latest rate increase requests. American Water’s New Jersey affiliate is asking the state Board of Public Utilities for an average 10% water and 8% sewer rate hike on Jan. 16 for 2.9 million customers, which it said would fund improvements to aging water and sewer systems. Customers would pay an average of $18 more a month.
Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission said last month that it would consider the company’s request to boost water and sewer rates on 2.4 million customers by an average 15%, or $20 a month.
Critics had urged Essential to seek rival buyers to drive up the share price and shareholder profits from the sale, noting that both stocks had dropped after the merger was proposed last year.
Tim Quast, founder of Colorado-based ModernIR, a consultant the companies hired to help explain the merger, said share price declines are now typical, even for merger-target companies like Essential whose shares command a premium from buyers like American Water because index-fund investors such as Vanguard and BlackRock tend not to buy more shares of merging companies until a deal is completed.
Even after long competition from U.S. and foreign utility owners, private water companies serve only about one in six Americans. In recent years, customers of public utilities serving parts of Chester, Delaware, and Bucks Counties have defeated privatization campaigns, though some towns in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have signed on. Pennsylvania also has asked private operators to take over small, troubled public systems.
Earlier this month, the county’s reminder notices, sent to voters who said they would like to receive an annual mail ballot application, reversed the first and last names of voters on the applications. It was not clear how many applications were affected by the error.
“This printing error will not affect the processing of the form,” the county’s voter services department posted on its website. “Whether voters choose to submit their application online or using the paper form, all applications will be processed accordingly.”
It was another blunder for a department that has made administrative mistakes in its elections, with residents telling county commissioners last week the errors were eroding their trust in election safety. It also comes as voters have called for the firing of the director of the department after the office has seen high numbers of turnover.
Counties across the state are sending reminders to voters who said they would like to receive an application to vote by mail. The county became aware of the mistake on Feb. 4, after it mailed out the applications earlier that week.
County officials alerted the Pennsylvania Department of State that day, a spokesperson for the agency said.
“We agree with county officials that there is no need to reissue the applications,” the spokesperson said in an email.
A county spokesperson referred to the voter services statement.
More than 52,000 county voters cast their ballots by mail in November.
November’s error followed another omission in May, when the county did not include the office of the prothonotary on its primary ballot, due to a legal misinterpretation from the county’s solicitor.
The issues come as the department’s director, Karen Barsoum, has been accused of fostering a toxic workplace, leading to unusually high turnover. The independent investigation found no evidence of that, the lawyers who penned the report said last week.
The investigation found no evidence of malfeasance in the election blunders, but rather that lack of training, poor oversight, and staffing challenges compounded to cause the pollbook error.
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To be loved is to be known — or, better yet, to inspire a 3,233-piece custom Lego set.
Gene Gualtieri is devoted to Friday Saturday Sunday. Almost every Friday since 2021, the Fitler Square resident has lined up at 4:30 p.m. to score the same seat at the first-floor bar of Chad and Hanna Williams’ acclaimed Rittenhouse Square restaurant, where he is known to house a full roast chicken — bones and all — and order off-menu sherry martinis from bartender Paul MacDonald. It’s a ritual that has inspired a tattoo on Gualtieri’s bicep: “B9,” code for bar seat no. 9.
“It’s my seat,” said Gualtieri, 57, an engineer. “This feeling of hospitality and being welcomed [at the bar] … it’s a social hub for me.”
So when Gualtieri’s 21-year-old son, Leo, needed a Christmas present for his father, everyone from his aunt Claire to his older brother Sam had the same idea. What if, Leo recounts them wondering, there was a way to shrink Friday Saturday Sunday so it fits in your house?
The resulting gift — a 1½-foot-tall replica of Friday Saturday Sunday’s facade and its ground-level Lovers Bar, constructed out of more than 3,200 Legos — doesn’t skimp on the details. Leo recreated everything, down to the discolored patches of sidewalk out front.
A figurine of bartender Paul MacDonald shows off a Lego version of his Fibonacci sequence wheel to a miniature of Gene Gualtieri inside a Friday Saturday Sunday replica his son built out of Legos.
Friday Saturday Sunday (Leo’s version) comes with Lego figurines of the Williamses, bartender MacDonald, and his father that can be posed to sit in one of the bar’s 13 tiger-print chairs. There’s a petite version of the Fibonacci carousel MacDonald uses to perfect his mixology, plus miniatures of the bar’s gargoyle- and raven-shaped pour spouts, mermaid caryatids, and towering citrus bowls. In honor of restaurant’s Michelin star, Leo even included a tiny and perfectly rotund Michelin Man.
Leo stored the pieces in a repurposed Seinfeld Lego set box that he wrapped in a rendering of the finished design. When Gualtieri opened it on Christmas morning, he cried. The finished version inspired a similar response from others after Gualtieri and the restaurant posted photos on Instagram at the end of January.
Leo Gualtieri made custom packaging for the Friday Saturday Sunday Lego set he got his father Gene for Christmas.
“This is so beautiful I wanna cry,” commented one person. “Top 10 most impressive things I have ever seen,” wrote another.
Leo’s dad concurs. “I was pretty blown away,” Gualtieri said. “At first glance, it looks like a Lego set you’d get a store.”
A replica built brick by (plastic) brick
Recreating Friday Saturday Sunday was a labor of love for Leo, a self-described former Lego kid currently finishing up his senior year at Emerson College as a comedy major. As a child, Leo was fixated on building an ever-expanding amusement park out of the plastic blocks alongside his dad. It was an obsession that served him well this holiday season.
To reconstruct the restaurant, Leo first had to create a rendering of the bar and its exterior in Brick Link, Minecraft-esque software that lets users build and source their own custom Lego sets. Leo said he spent roughly 100 hours translating all the tiny details into Lego form, working first off images of the facade from Google. When those weren’t precise enough, he said, Leo begged MacDonald to send him photos of all the minutiae, from the glassware to close-ups of the light fixtures.
A replica of the Lovers Bar at Friday Saturday Sunday, built out of more than 3,200 custom Legos by Leo Gualtieri.
“It was addicting … I would work on it in class,” said Leo while on Zoom with his father, who scoffed at the admission. “Time would pass much faster because I was locked in.”
Once the rendering was complete, Leo and his mom spent $1,500 on the Lego pieces, sourced from 13 different Lego resellers across Japan, Spain, and the Netherlands. To find a realistic version of Chad Williams’ beard and apron, Leo had to commission custom blocks from an Etsy seller.
After Christmas, Leo spent the remainder of his winter break from college building mini Friday Saturday Sunday, developing calluses from clicking the bricks into place. Dad, Leo said, wasn’t much help.
Hanna Williams, co-owner of Friday Saturday Sunday, holds Lego characters of herself and Gene Gualtieri, whose son Leo spent over 100 hours creating a miniature version of the restaurant out of the plastic blocks.
“He tried to build some chairs,” Leo said of his father. “I don’t think he’s cut out for it.” (Gualtieri agreed. Leo, he admitted, gets his dexterity from his mother.)
Every time he looks at the replica, Gualtieri said he discovers new details, like how the bottles mimic the exact ones behind MacDonald’s bar. Hanna Williams, Friday Saturday Sunday’s co-owner, felt the same when Gualtieri sent her progress updates on the build out.
Hanna Williams, co-owner of Friday Saturday Sunday, and Gene Gualtieri, a regular at the restaurant, pose with Lego action figures of themselves created by Gene’s son Leo.
“I think [Leo] might know every inch of the bar better than me,” she said. Williams especially loves her Lego dopplegangër: “A high bun, bangs, and tattoos? That’s so me.”
Williams is used to her restaurant being the recipient of the highest order of affection. In the decade since she and her husband revamped Friday Saturday Sunday from a classic fine-dining restaurant with excellent mushroom soup into cozy bar for walk-ins with a top-floor tasting menu that melds Caribbean, Asian, and soul food influences, the restaurant has earned a Michelin Star, a James Beard Award, and a spot on the World’s 50 Best North American restaurants. Just last week, Friday Saturday Sunday won an award for excellence in hospitality from the Tasties, Philly’s homegrown culinary honors.
And yet, Williams said, the Lego replica represents an extra-special type of achievement.
“It’s completely overwhelming,” she said. “But at the same time, there’s nothing that could make you feel better.”
I thought the absolute nonsense around the Rocky statue being permanently exalted to the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art couldn’t be any more embarrassing for Philly. Then, the people in charge of these decisions ripped open my eyes, like Mick, to prove me wrong.
On Wednesday, the Art Commission approved a proposal from Creative Philadelphia, the city’s office of arts and culture that maintains and preserves Philly’s art collection, to move the statue of legendary Philadelphia boxer “Smokin’” Joe Frazier from the stadium complex, where it’s been since 2014, to the base of the steps of the Art Museum.
This would normally be a great thing — the Art Museum is in a much more prominent place in the city and Frazier deserves that honor — except that in this case, the Frazier statue is getting the Rocky statue’s leftovers. It’s a bigger smack in the face than a sucker punch in the ring.
Creative Philadelphia didn’t think the nice little cove at the base of the Art Museum steps where the city’s Rocky statue has been displayed since 2006 was good enough for it anymore. So last month — despite an informal Inquirer poll that showed it was the last thing Philadelphians wanted — the commission approved Creative Philadelphia’s proposal to permanently move the city’s Rocky statue to the top of the steps. (There are currently three Rocky statues in Philadelphia; don’t even get me started on that.)
A visitor poses with the Rocky statue atop the Philadelphia Museum of Arts steps.
At the January meeting, commissioner Rebecca Segall said of the Rocky statue: “I believe it’s one of Philadelphia’s most meaningful monuments, and I believe we should just get him out of the bushes and put him up top.”
Creative Philadelphia and the Art Commission decided “the bushes” weren’t good enough for Rocky, but will be good enough for Joe Frazier. They will put the statue of the real legendary Black boxer right there near a shipping container called the Rocky Shop that sells Sylvester Stallone-licensed products, as if it were some Black History Month consolation prize.
I mean, c’mon! Do they even hear themselves?
If any statue belongs at the top of the steps, it’s Frazier’s.
Joe Frazier poses in front of pictures from his career in an undated photo.
In a letter of support for the move of Frazier’s statue, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker wrote that putting it at the Art Museum “affirms Philadelphia’s commitment to honoring real-life achievement alongside cultural mythology.”
But when President Donald Trump’s administration is removing historical facts about slavery from the President’s House Site, why should mythology get top billing?
At this time, we should not be elevating fiction in Philadelphia as the federal government is attempting to erase our facts.
Yes, Rocky is a fictional Philadelphia icon, but Frazier, a former world heavyweight champ, was a real-life inspiration for the character, according to Creative Philadelphia, which mentioned it in its recent proposal.
Frazier, who worked at a Philly slaughterhouse, claimed in a 2008 interview with the Guardian that he’d “go down that long rail of meat and work on my punching.”
“That’s how [Sylvester] Stallone got the same idea for Rocky — just like he used the story about me training by running up the steps of the museum in Philly,” Frazier said. “But he never paid me for none of my past. I only got paid for a walk-on part. Rocky is a sad story for me.”
Joe Frazier
Frazier wasn’t just one of the inspirations for Rocky, he was one of the greatest heavyweight pugilists ever. In 1964, he won the Olympic gold medal in heavyweight boxing with a broken thumb, and in 1970, he won the world heavyweight title. Here in Philly he gave back, purchasing his own gym in North Philadelphia where he didn’t charge rent and trained a new generation of boxers who found community there.
Putting the Rocky statue at the top of the steps is clearly designed to appeal to tourists, but those steps are not just a tourist attraction. They are the very place where Philadelphians go to celebrate and protest.
It’s where the Eagles celebrated their Super Bowl wins and where Live 8 took place. It’s where people gathered during the protests against the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and I saw the lyrics of Woody Guthrie’s “All You Fascists” written on the steps in chalk. It will be the center stage for the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations on July Fourth, and in the center of it all will be the Rocky statue.
The lyrics to Woody Gurthie’s “All You Fascists” written in chalk on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2020.
Did Frazier not suffer enough slings and arrows in his life that even in death, this city is choosing to exalt the fictional character he inspired over the very man himself?
That’s a sad story for Philadelphia.
I understand why those who love and respect Frazier wrote letters of support for his statue’s move from the sports complex to the base of the Art Museum, where it will have more visibility and more people will get a chance to learn about him.
Visitor pose with the Rocky statue at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the proposed location for Joe Frazier’s statue.
But we can and should do so much better to honor Frazier’s story, and Philadelphia’s. It should not have taken moving the Rocky statue to the top of the steps to get Frazier’s at the base, and when it does go there later this year, it should not be overshadowed by a fictional character based, in part, on him.
The truth — especially about Black history in this country — is too important.
