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  • New Epstein files show years of email exchanges with Sixers co-owner Josh Harris

    New Epstein files show years of email exchanges with Sixers co-owner Josh Harris

    Jeffrey Epstein and Sixers co-owner Josh Harris had an ongoing business relationship that included numerous phone calls and at least one visit to Epstein’s home in Manhattan, according to emails released Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The emails do not contain any indication that Harris was involved with sexual misconduct. The records — buried within the three million documents made public Friday as part of the congressionally ordered release of the Epstein files — shed light on a yearslong correspondence that occurred after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea for solicitation of prostitution with a minor, but before his 2019 arrest on child sex trafficking charges.

    Harris and Epstein moved in similar circles among Wall Street financial brokers. Harris, cofounder of the investment firm Apollo Global Management, exchanged multiple emails and phone calls with Epstein between 2013 and 2016.

    Jonathan Rosen, a spokesperson for Harris, noted that many of Epstein’s entreaties over the years went nowhere. He said the Sixers owner “never had an independent relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”

    “Harris sought to prevent Epstein’s attempts to develop a corporate relationship with Apollo,” he said. “As these emails indicate, Harris sought to avoid meeting with Epstein, canceling meetings and having others return his calls.”

    Evidence of one meeting between Epstein and Harris was detailed in earlier records released by the DOJ, and first reported by the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania. Harris is an alumnus of Penn’s Wharton School.

    Exchanges about this meeting, which have not been previously reported, began with a series of emails between Epstein’s and Harris’ schedulers on plans to meet at Epstein’s home in 2013, along with former Apollo CEO Leon Black and billionaire Marc Rowan, apparently to discuss financial affairs and investments.

    “Just reconfirming Leon, Josh and Marc will all go see Jeffrey at his home, 9 East 71st Street between 5th and Madison tomorrow, Tues. Oct. 22nd at 7am for a breakfast meeting,” a scheduler for Epstein wrote in an email from October 2013.

    Rowan, a major University of Pennsylvania donor who also chairs the Wharton School’s advisory board, declined to comment.

    Years later, it would emerge that Black had paid Epstein $158 million for “financial advice” despite the financier’s conviction on sex trafficking charges, leading to his ouster as head of the company.

    It is unclear if the 2013 meeting took place. Harris later apologized to Epstein for having “rescheduled on you a few times.”

    Correspondence between Harris and Epstein carried on.

    Emails from January 2014 then show Epstein’s assistant following up on a request for Harris to pull together a series of organizational documents at Epstein’s request.

    A June 2014 email features Epstein describing a proposed $2.4 million payment apparently from Harris to Black’s former executive assistant, Melanie Spinella.

    Details surrounding the payment, or if it ever occurred, were not clear.

    Later in 2014, Harris’ and Epstein’s schedulers e-mailed yet again to arrange a different visit to Epstein’s home.

    This time, Epstein proposed another breakfast, involving Black, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, tech investor Reid Hoffman, and Ron Baron, the founder of Baron Capital.

    “Jeffrey Epstein would like to invite Josh to breakfast on Dec. 5th at Jeffrey’s home in NY… Bill Gates will be in attendance. The breakfast will be intimate…less than 6 people,” one email invitation read.

    The pair also discussed the meeting directly.

    “Sorry i missed you. Crazy week,” Harris wrote to Epstein in November 2014. “U around any time from now to sunday? Whats this Bill Gates thing about? Tks for thinking about me.”

    “I thought you might like to schmooze,” wrote Epstein in response, asking Harris to call him. “nothing but fun friday 5th breakfast.”

    That meeting does appear to have taken place, based on subsequent emails, with Harris in attendance.

    “Did you have fun at breakfast?” Epstein wrote to Harris, about a week after the meeting was scheduled to take place.

    “Yes very much,” he responded. “Thank you for inviting me.”

    In another typo-laden email, Epstein later bragged to Bank of America president Paul Morris about the breakfast meeting.

    “as you might know I had a recent breadkfst at the hosue with ron baron. josh harris, and billgates,” he wrote in January 2015.

    Epstein’s relationship with Black and Apollo would eventually disintegrate over a legal dispute about his tax and estate planning fees. Harris and Epstein continued to email sporadically until at least 2016.

    In September of that year, Epstein e-mailed Harris again directly asking him to call him about an unspecified issue.

    “Any conversation that you prefer to stay between just us. will. its my financial confessional booth for jews,” Epstein wrote.

    “Will do Jeff,” Harris responded. “Happy to catch up. Thx.”

    Days later, Robert Bodian, managing partner at the Mintz law firm, reached out to Epstein, indicating he was contacting him at “Josh’s request,” apparently regarding a tax issue.

    Staff writer Gina Mizell contributed to this article.

  • The Sixers must address their rebounding problems before it’s too late

    The Sixers must address their rebounding problems before it’s too late

    The 76ers have a rebounding issue.

    Their 24 rebounds in Thursday’s 113-111 victory over the Sacramento Kings were the third-fewest posted by an NBA team this season.

    The Sixers (26-21) can’t brush this off as just an isolated incident. Over the last 11 games, they’ve ranked last in the league in rebounding at 39.5 per game.

    So what is the biggest issue? Effort? Or being undersized?

    Sixers takeaways: Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid to the rescue, Giannis rumors, and more from win over Kings

    The Sixers went with a starting lineup centered on Joel Embiid and four perimeter players in four of their last five games, with Kelly Oubre Jr., Paul George, VJ Edgecombe, and Tyrese Maxey alongside the big man.

    Embiid is a towering center at 7-foot-2. Oubre and George are both 6-8 forwards who have played shooting guard in previous seasons. Edgecombe is a 6-5 shooting guard, while Maxey, an All-Star starter, is a 6-2 point guard.

    The Sixers only have two other rotation players — reserve center Andre Drummond (6-11) and reserve power forward Dominick Barlow (6-9) — taller than Oubre and George.

    Sixers forward Paul George (left) and Sixers guard VJ Edgecombe double team Sacramento Kings forward Domantas Sabonis during the third quarter on Thursday.

    “Well, I think that it’s a few things,” coach Nick Nurse said of the rebounding issue. “Sometimes it’s size and athleticism, whether it’s playing against bigger guys, more athletic, stronger, or whatever. Sometimes it’s just not paying attention to details and getting a body on people.

    “And sometimes, I think it’s defense in general. You give a few [rebounds] and the blood’s in the water. Those guys just seem to get cracked up after they get a couple. And they’re just like, ‘Man, this is an easy way to live tonight. I’m going to really focus on that.’”

    When that happens, the Sixers must put in more effort, and Nurse must devise a strategy to secure more rebounds.

    Joel Embiid hopes the Sixers’ roster remains intact beyond the NBA trade deadline

    Against a player like Sacramento’s Domantas Sabonis, who is a rebounding machine, the Sixers assigned two players to try to slow him down.

    “Those guys were blocking him out in front of them,” Nurse said. “The balls were coming over the head, and got to be somebody else’s.”

    The Sixers might also benefit from giving Drummond more playing time.

    Despite averaging 8.7 rebounds in 19.6 minutes and leading the Sixers in the category, Drummond didn’t enter Thursday’s game until the start of the fourth quarter. At that point, the Kings (12-37) had a commanding 37-18 rebounding advantage.

    Drummond did not play in six of the previous nine games. The Sixers felt 6-8center Adem Bona, an undersized but athletic rim protector, was better suited to back up Embiid in those games.

    Sixers coach Nick Nurse looks to solve his team’s rebounding issue.

    But due to the growing rebounding disparity, Nurse said he might look at Drummond coming off the bench more moving forward.

    “I think that the smaller lineup that we are playing is obviously something to look at as well,” Nurse said. “I think Drummond with big, really big centers like that. [The Kings] played big all night, but they’re also pretty physical. All four of their bigs that they play are physical. And I think that probably called for a Joel, Bona lineup or Drummond, [Jabari] Walker. Just maybe different than what we did [Thursday] because it was difficult to rebound.”

    Honoring the 2000-01 team

    The Sixers will look to extend their home winning streak to three games on Saturday against the New Orleans Pelicans. The game will also be recognized as the 25th anniversary reunion game, celebrating the 2000-01 Eastern Conference championship team.

    Members of the team, which lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, will be on hand for several celebrations in their honor.

    Sixers star Allen Iverson led his team to the NBA Finals in the 2000-01 season.

    “It’ll be great,” George said of the festivities. “Obviously, it’s a tradition here. Being a part of the Sixers family, organization, that group means a lot to the city. It’ll be awesome to kind of share the space, the moment, and play in front of them. We want to represent them the same way that they represented the city.”

  • Sharpies, colored paper, and sandwich boards become resistance art at the President’s House site

    Sharpies, colored paper, and sandwich boards become resistance art at the President’s House site

    The resistance was born on a Friday morning at the Gen. George A. McCall School photocopy machine.

    The copier spat the message out on yellow, purple, and orange paper — page after page amplifying the same sentiment scrawled on each in big black letters: Learn all history.

    In the aftermath of the removal of the slavery exhibit at the President’s House Site on Jan. 22, fourth-grade social studies teacher Kaity Berlin wanted to convert her rage into something productive, she said. She quickly thought of the words on one of her shirts: “Teach all history.” So she gathered some teacher friends, took to the photocopier, and headed to Independence National Historical Park.

    Berlin wasn’t the only one who saw the shallow silver frames at the President’s House as a void screaming to be filled.

    The exhibit included a series of signs describing what life was like for those enslaved by George Washington at the site and his complicated relationship with the institution of slavery. The exhibit was dismantled last week, several months after President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order requiring the review and potential removal of displays at the national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the United States.

    The city asked a federal justice to order that no more exhibits be removed from the President’s House and that the exhibits that were already removed be kept safe. In a hearing Friday, judge Cynthia M. Rufe didn’t issue a ruling but asked the Trump administration attorney that the exhibits remain untouched so she can review them Monday.

    Over that first weekend colorful signs populated the walls, reenactors donned historic garb and positioned themselves along the red brick pillars with a flourish, some people held giant replica signs of the ones that were removed, and others laid flowers delicately across the facility.

    To Berlin, whose school is a few blocks from the President’s House, posting the colorful signs was just a quick action she could take in her 45-minute prep period.

    “It was just a cathartic way to be like ‘Ugh, this sucks,’” Berlin said.

    But it soon became the first of numerous forms of activism and art that filled the space as more and more Philly-area residents yearned for a similar way to express their opposition to the removal of the plaques.

    Media ranged from cardboard to poster board. Tools included Sharpies and pens. Many of the more informal signs were affixed with painter’s tape to nooks in the brick structure and empty metallic shells where the original signs hung. Some more official-looking signs included QR codes and printed messages balanced on easels. Others were replicas of the signs that were there made with assistance from professional printing services.

    Ted Zellers, a property manager in North Philly, took a more full-body approach to his protest. He found a high-resolution image online of one of the removed signs, titled “Slavery in the President’s House,” got it printed twice, fashioned a sandwich board out of the posters, and became “a living sign,” he said.

    It was an educational tool he could wield, but it doubled as a warning.

    “I hope people will think about what other information is under threat of being disappeared,” Zellers said.

    He expected to be the only person in the park with a sign, but was heartened to see a few dozen others there withstanding the 17-degree air interspersed with sharp winds slicing through the open air exhibit.

    Albert DerMovsesian from Willow Grove, who came to the site equipped with one vertical sign detailing the labor that took place in the house and a horizontal one titled “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” found himself similarly pleased to see so many like-minded others around him.

    In the park he saw little kids writing on pieces of paper pasted to the walls, a woman leaving a sign with the names of those enslaved at the site, and people adorning the structure with flowers.

    “It reminded me that I wasn’t alone,” DerMovsesian said.

    “We don’t need 350 million Malcolm X’s to make the country better,” Zellers said. “We just need a lot of regular people who recognize that they’re part of networks and who can take some action and amplify what’s going on, pass it onm and get other people engaged.”

    The collage of images developed organically, but hearkened back to a long lineage of protest art that has become increasingly prevalent under the Trump administration, said Nicolo Gentile, an artist and adjunct faculty member at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

    Gentile likened the immediacy and style of the displays at the President’s House to the enlarged version of Trump’s birthday card to financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that popped up on the National Mall in Washington last month.

    A new protest art installation referencing the Epstein files and President Donald Trump was installed on Third Street SW along the National Mall.

    The assortment of papers reading “learn all history” gets its power from the relative anonymity of its author, Gentile said, as well as its use of repetition.

    “It starts to create a texture of sound of a greater voice the way that the many voices of a chant during protest does,” he said.

    While Berlin said she doesn’t see herself as an artist, she appreciates the punch of a stark and direct message through signage and art.

    “I do love the impact of a good simple piece,” she said.

    In some cases, political art can be used to “accelerate progress,” Gentile said, but sometimes its best use is halting regression and “to wedge our foot in the door as progress may seem to be closing.”

    “This work seems to be the foot in the door,” he said.

    People leave notes on the spaces at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park.
    Ted Zellers (right) wears a sandwich board with a replica of one of the removed slavery panels as people visit and protest at the President’s House site.
    Ted Zellers (left) wears a sandwich board with a replica of one of the removed slavery panels, joining Jenna and Gregory May (right) protesting at the President’s House.
    People leave notes and political satire cartoons in the spaces at the President’s House.
    People protest at the President’s House site.
    Al DerMovsesian holds replicas of some of the removed slavery panels as people visit the President’s House site.
    The President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.
    The President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.
    Michael Carver portrays Mordecai Sheftall as part of a “History Matters” guide at The President’s House.
    A sign was placed at the President’s House.
    A group of teacher taped posters along the now barren brick walls of the President’s House.
    A single rose and a handwritten cardboard sign (“Slavery is part of U.S. history learn from the past or repeat it”) are inside an empty hearth at the President’s House.
  • Israel reopening Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt on Sunday after long closure

    Israel reopening Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt on Sunday after long closure

    JERUSALEM — Israel said Friday that it will reopen the pedestrian border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt over the weekend, marking an important step forward for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan.

    COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said in a statement that starting on Sunday a “limited movement of people only” would be allowed through the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world.

    The announcement followed statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ali Shaath, newly appointed to head the Palestinian administrative committee governing Gaza’s daily affairs, that it would likely open soon.

    While COGAT said the passage will open in both directions on Sunday, Shaath said the first day will be a trial for operations and that travel both ways will start Monday.

    Israel as of Friday agreed to allow up to 150 people to leave each day — 50 medical patients with two family members, an official familiar with the situation told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing diplomatic talks. Up to 50 people who fled during the war can return daily, the source said.

    Roughly 20,000 sick and wounded Palestinians need treatment outside Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. Gaza’s health system was decimated in the war, rendering advanced surgical procedures out of reach.

    COGAT said both Israel and Egypt will vet individuals for exit and entry through the crossing, which will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents. In addition to screenings at the crossing, Palestinians leaving and returning will be screened by Israel in the adjacent corridor, which remains under Israeli military control.

    The crossing has been under a near complete closure since Israel seized it in May 2024, saying the step was part of a strategy to halt cross-border arms smuggling by Hamas. It was briefly opened for the evacuation of medical patients during a short-lived ceasefire in early 2025.

    Israel had resisted reopening the crossing, but the recovery of the remains of the last hostage in Gaza on Monday cleared the way to move forward. A day later, Netanyahu said the crossing would soon open in a limited and controlled fashion.

    Thousands of Palestinians inside Gaza are trying to leave the war-battered territory, while tens of thousands who fled the territory during the heaviest fighting say they want to return home.

    The reopening is one of the first steps in the second phase of last year’s U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, which includes challenging issues ranging from demilitarizing Gaza to putting in place an alternative government to oversee rebuilding the mostly destroyed enclave.

    Netanyahu said this week that Israel’s focus is on disarming Hamas and destroying its remaining tunnels. Without these steps, he said that there would be no reconstruction in Gaza, a stance that could make Israel’s control over Rafah a key point of leverage.

    More deadly strikes in Gaza

    Palestinians in Gaza on Friday mourned friends and relatives who died earlier this week in Israeli strikes, which have slowed but not stopped since the return of the remains of the final hostage held in the territory.

    Three Palestinians were laid to rest in traditional Islamic funeral rites. Men gathered to pay their final respects, carrying the shrouded bodies through the streets before praying over them.

    Israel’s military said four people were killed in airstrikes Friday in central Gaza, saying they were armed and approaching troops near the ceasefire line dividing Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

    The most recent deaths Friday are on top of the 492 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began in October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. It maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

  • Judge chastises Trump administration attorney in hearing over dismantled President’s House exhibits

    Judge chastises Trump administration attorney in hearing over dismantled President’s House exhibits

    Attorneys for the City of Philadelphia and President Donald Trump’s administration sparred in federal court Friday over the abrupt removal of slavery-related exhibits from the President’s House on Independence Mall.

    The hearing centered on the city’s request that the judge order that no more exhibits be removed from the President’s House and that the already-removed exhibits be protected as the effort to return them is litigated.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration is “fighting” to restore the panels, City Solicitor Renee Garcia told reporters after the hearing.

    “I want to be very clear that we want those panels back up, but we also do not want anything else to come down,“ Garcia said.

    Judge Cynthia M. Rufe wasn’t ready to issue a ruling after the daylong hearing in the courthouse across the street from the historic site. On Monday, she wants to visit the President’s House and ensure that the removed exhibits being stored in a National Park Service storage facility adjacent to the Constitution Center are not damaged. She asked the federal government to maintain the status quo until she makes her decision.

    But with the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration being planned for the site in dispute, Rufe said she would not let the case drag into the spring or summer.

    The George W. Bush-appointed judge chastised the attorney representing the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory in den Berken, for talking out of “both sides of his mouth” and making “dangerous” arguments.

    The federal government argued the injunction request was invalid on procedural grounds, and that the removal was lawful because, in den Berken said, “the government gets to choose the message that it wants to convey.”

    “That’s horrifying to listen to,” Rufe said. “Sorry. That’s not what we elected anybody for.”

    The judge asked the assistant U.S. attorney to imagine Germany removing a monument for the American soldiers who liberated the Nazi concentration camp Dachau in an effort to erase the crimes of the Holocaust. “What are we doing here? Are we speaking truth and justice?” Rufe asked.

    In another notable exchange, the judge read Trump’s posts from then-Twitter in 2017 in which he lamented the removal of statutes of confederate leaders.

    “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” Trump wrote. “You can’t change history, but you can learn from it.”

    Rufe asked the assistant U.S. attorney to reconcile that sentiment with Trump’s directive to remove slavery-related exhibits.

    “Is this a desire to change history?” the judge asked.

    In den Berken declined to respond or opine on the motivations of the president or decision-makers at the Department of Interior, and returned to procedural arguments.

    A three-way collaboration

    Friday’s hearing marked the first time the City of Philadelphia and Trump’s administration have gone head-to-head in court during his second term.

    The city sued Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron, and their respective agencies Jan. 22 while Park Service employees were dismantling educational exhibits about slavery at the President’s House.

    The President’s House, which opened in December 2010, seeks to inform visitors about the horrors of slavery and memorialize the nine people George Washington enslaved there while he resided in Philadelphia during the early years of the United States. All information at the site is historically accurate.

    The exhibits were dismantled after increased scrutiny from the Trump administration. Last year, Trump and Burgum issued orders calling for content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” to be reviewed and potentially removed.

    Garcia argued the removal of exhibits violated federal law and an agreement between the federal government and the city, and caused imminent harm.

    “The contents of the removed panels are critical context to share the stories of the individuals enslaved at the president’s home and their fight for freedom” Garcia said.

    The President’s House exhibition was the results of yearslong collaboration between the city and the federal government that spanned multiple presidential and mayoral administrations, Garcia said. Two former mayoral chiefs of staff testified to the city’s extensive work alongside the National Park Service.

    “I could not imagine that anybody would decide, after all that it took, together, and that we always had each others back, that they would over night tear it down,” said Everett Gillison, chief of staff under former Mayor Michael Nutter. “It boggles my imagination.”

    Valerie Gay, the city’s chief cultural officer, also testified to the historical importance of the site to Philadelphians and to visitors for the upcoming 250th anniversary celebrations.

    The city’s lawsuit has been supported by Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democrats in Pennsylvania’s state Senate, who filed briefs in support of the requested injunction alongside a coalition of residents who advocated for historical acknowledgment of the enslaved people living in Washington’s house, Avenging The Ancestors Coalition, and the walking tour company The Black Journey.

    Michael Coard, attorney and founding member of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, at President’s House in Philadelphia.

    The President’s House was also a partnership with the public, said Cara McClellan, the attorney representing the coalition and The Black Journey

    It was advocacy by coalition leader Michael Coard in the early 2000s that kickstarted the process to recognize the nine enslaved people who lived in Washington’s house through exhibits on the site, McClellan told Rufe. The design was the result of multiple public meetings, with the participation of thousands of Philadelphians.

    Yet the exhibits were removed without public input, notice, or reasoning, the attorney said.

    “This is like pulling pages out of a history book with a razor,” McClellan said. ”History does not change based on who is in political office.”

  • With ‘extreme cold’ expected Saturday, one Mummers band has already pulled out of the String Band Spectacular

    With ‘extreme cold’ expected Saturday, one Mummers band has already pulled out of the String Band Spectacular

    A month after dangerous winds led Mummers string bands to cancel their New Year’s Day Parade competition, one string band says it’ll be too cold to play a makeup show Saturday.

    “With extreme cold predicted for this weekend, our top priority is the health and safety of our members, and the forecasted conditions may put them at risk,” the Avalon String Band said on Facebook.

    The band was set to join other groups at the 2026 String Band Spectacular at Lincoln Financial Field Saturday afternoon.

    The Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association scheduled the event after the string bands canceled their New Year’s Day performances this year, when high winds destroyed props and sent five people to the hospital.

    Musicians with the Uptown String Band arrive on buses for the Mummers Parade Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026, after the String Band competition was suspended because of high winds that destroyed props and caused injuries during morning setup. The bands still marched and played their music, but did not carry props, and were not judged. The Uptown theme was “From Script to Screen.”

    Saturday a coastal “bomb cyclone” is expected to douse New Jersey and Delaware with snowfall, though forecasting models say Philadelphia won’t get hit. However, stinging winds and Arctic air will push temperatures down to zero Saturday morning, with windchills dipping as low as 10 degrees below 0.

    It’s unclear whether other bands will follow the Avalon String Band’s lead. A total of 14 bands make up the Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association, according to its website.

    Gift Share How the Eagles and other Philly pro sports teams stepped up after weather halted the Mummers Parade

    Twelve organizations are set to perform Saturday, said Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association President Sam Regalbuto Friday afternoon. He said workers are getting the stages and props ready.

    “Everyone’s on board,” Regalbuto said. “Everyone’s here. We’re good to go.”

    The event will begin a 2 p.m. Saturday with the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus singing the national anthem. The event will be broadcast on WDPN-TV (MeTV2) at 8 p.m. and will be streamed on WFMZ.

  • Catherine O’Hara, Emmy-winning comedian of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘SCTV’ fame, has died at 71

    Catherine O’Hara, Emmy-winning comedian of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘SCTV’ fame, has died at 71

    LOS ANGELES — Catherine O’Hara, a gifted Canadian-born comic actor and SCTV alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin’s harried mother in two Home Alone movies and won an Emmy as the dramatically ditzy wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, died Friday. She was 71.

    Ms. O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,” according to a statement from her representatives at Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available.

    Ms. O’Hara’s career was launched with the Second City comedy group in Toronto in the 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator — and her Schitt’s Creek costar. The two would be among the original cast of the sketch show SCTV, short for “Second City Television.” The series, which began on Canadian TV in the 1970s and aired on NBC in the U.S., spawned a legendary group of esoteric comedians that Ms. O’Hara would work with often, including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, and Joe Flaherty.

    Ms. O’Hara would win her first Emmy for her writing on the show.

    Eugene Levy (from left), Annie Murphy, Daniel Levy, and Catherine O’Hara, cast members in the series “Schitt’s Creek,” pose for a 2018 portrait.

    Her second, for best actress in a comedy series, came four decades later, for Schitt’s Creek, a career-capping triumph and the perfect personification of her comic talents. The small CBC series created by Levy and his son, Dan, about a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought Ms. O’Hara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the center of cultural attention.

    She told the Associated Press that she pictured Moira, a former soap opera star, as someone who had married rich and wanted to “remind everyone that (she was) special, too.” With an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent and obscure vocabulary, Moira spoke unlike anyone else, using words like “frippet,” “pettifogging” and “unasinous,” to show her desire to be different, Ms. O’Hara said. To perfect Moira’s voice, Ms. O’Hara would pore through old vocabulary books, “Moira-izing” the dialogue even further than what was already written.

    Ms. O’Hara also won a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for the role.

    At first, Hollywood didn’t entirely know what to do with Ms. O’Hara and her scattershot style. She played oddball supporting characters in Martin Scorsese’s 1985 After Hours and Tim Burton’s 1988 Beetlejuice — a role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel.

    She played it mostly straight as a horrified mother who accidentally abandoned her child in the two Home Alone movies. The films were among the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas setting made them TV perennials. They allowed her moments of unironic warmth that she didn’t get often.

    Her co-star Culkin was among those paying her tribute Friday.

    “Mama, I thought we had time,” Culkin said on Instagram alongside an image from Home Alone and a recent recreation of the same pose. “I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you.”

    Meryl Streep, who worked with O’Hara in Heartburn, said in a statement that she “brought love and light to our world, through whipsmart compassion for the collection of eccentrics she portrayed.”

    Roles in big Hollywood films didn’t follow Home Alone, but Ms. O’Hara would find her groove with the crew of improv pros brought together by Christopher Guest for a series of mockumentaries that began with 1996’s Waiting for Guffman and continued with 2000’s Best in Show, 2003’s A Mighty Wind, and 2006’s For Your Consideration.

    Best in Show was the biggest hit and best-remembered film of the series. She and Levy play married couple Gerry and Cookie Fleck, who take their Norwich terrier to a dog show and constantly run into Cookie’s former lovers along the way.

    “I am devastated,” Guest said in a statement to the AP. “We have lost one of the comic giants of our age.”

    Born and raised in Toronto, Ms. O’Hara was the sixth of seven children in a Catholic family of Irish descent. She graduated from Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute, an alternative high school. She joined Second City in her early 20s, as an understudy to Gilda Radner before Radner left for Saturday Night Live. (Ms. O’Hara would briefly be hired for “SNL” but quit before appearing on air.)

    Nearly 50 years later, her final roles would be as Seth Rogen’s reluctant executive mentor and freelance fixer on The Studio and a dramatic turn as therapist to Pedro Pascal and other dystopia survivors on HBO’s The Last of Us. Both earned her Emmy nominations. She would get 10 in her career.

    “Oh, genius to be near you,” Pascal said on Instagram. “Eternally grateful. There is less light in my world.”

    Earlier this month, Rogen shared a photo on Instagram of him and Ms. O’Hara shooting the second season of “The Studio.”

    She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, a production designer and director who was born in Yardley; sons Matthew and Luke; and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara, and Patricia Wallice.

  • The arctic cold persists, and so does Philly’s snowpack. Both may even go away some day.

    The arctic cold persists, and so does Philly’s snowpack. Both may even go away some day.

    It looks like the Philly region will evade any snow generated by that coastal “bomb cyclone” during the weekend, but the disruptive snowpack on the ground continues to melt at a glacial pace. Maybe ever slower.

    “For now, it’s not budging,” said David Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist who is an international expert on snow cover.

    And, ironically, that has a whole lot to do with what happened in the hours right after the snow stopped around 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

    Add one of the more signifiant Arctic cold spells in Philadelphia’s period of record, and the entire region has endured a white and wintry week rarely experienced around here.

    As of Friday morning, the official snow depth at the airport still was 6 inches, about two-thirds of what was measured when the storm ended five days before.

    For perspective, the depth was 6 inches five days after a snowstorm in 2016 — after 22.4 inches had fallen.

    The cold won’t be as harsh during the workweek, but a thaw isn’t imminent, and some snow is possible Wednesday.

    Temperatures are forecast to drop deep into the single digits Saturday morning, flirting with records. It is not due to get into the 20s until Sunday, when backlash winds from the potent coastal storm are expected to drive wind chills below zero.

    Those winds may contribute to significant flooding at the Shore, where they could gust to 50 mph.

    About last Sunday in Philly

    About 7.5 inches of snow had fallen officially by 11:30 a.m. Sunday at Philadelphia International Airport, more in some other places, when it yielded to several hours of sleet that accumulated 2 to 3 inches, coating the snow with a sparkling, icy veneer.

    “You can’t help but recognize the beauty of it,” said Robinson, a Rutgers University geography professor and keeper of the Rutgers Snow Lab.

    While it may be an aesthetic pleasure, especially at night under the full “snow moon” rising this weekend, it has had a profoundly chilling effect on cleanup efforts.

    The sleet, liquid that freezes before it lands, literally put an ice cap on the snow. “Ice pellets are tougher to melt,” said PennDot’s Thomas Rogal, a maintenance supervisor for the Philadelphia district. In a melting race, a homely sleet ball wouldn’t have a chance against a six-sided snowflake.

    On Sunday, said Rogal, the sleet was a game-changer for the road crews. Instead of just plowing, crews were “scraping the road surfaces,” he said. Sleet added a stubborn stickiness to the mass of frozen material.

    It also contained about as much liquid as several inches of snow, said Robinson.

    The surprisingly cold temperatures, in the lower 20s and teens, inhibited the effectiveness of salt on Sunday. “The material just didn’t function,” said Rogal.

    In the city, the glacial mass has been especially disruptive, a royal, inconvenient pain for people living on side streets, for street crews, for anyone who has tried shoveling, and for the schools.

    In addition to the snow and ice challenges, the cold has stressed aging heating systems in the public schools, once they reopened.

    A thermometer in a Central High School classroom on Friday read 39 degrees. That’s colder than the normal high for the date in Philly — outdoors.

    When will all this go away?

    Philly hasn’t had a stretch of days like this in which the temperature has failed to reach 30 degrees since 1979, according to records tracked by the Pennsylvania state climatologist.

    And it likely is going to finish in the top 10 for consecutive days in which readings didn’t get past freezing, said Mike Silva, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.

    Low temperatures Thursday and Friday morning, 13 and 11, respectively, were several degrees above the forecasts. That probably was related to the winds at the airport, he said.

    It also may be related to the sleet, said Robinson: Ice doesn’t have quite the same chilling effect as fresh snow.

    Conditions Saturday morning — clear skies and lighter winds — should be more conducive for daytime heating (we use the term loosely) to radiate into space. Morning lows could approach the record of 3 degrees, set in 1948.

    Some moderation is expected with the workweek, but not much. “We were hoping to get to the mid-30s,” said Sliva, but “it looks like we may barely get to freezing.”

    Even at those temperatures, some melting should occur.

    The total daily solar energy beaming toward Philly now is about 30% higher than it was on Jan. 1, according to NASA’s calculations, and the sunrise-to-sunset time is increasing by about two minutes a day.

    Even the cold has a bright side, said PennDot’s Rogal. Potholes, it turns out, have something in common with a lot of humans: “They aren’t particularly fond of this weather.”

    “The freeze-thaw is what always gets us,” he said. “We’re actually in better shape when the cold sets and stays.”

    Even if it snows next week — “There’s a couple of systems that could affect us,” said Silva — based on 150 years of official record-keeping for Philly, it is going to warm up and the ground will reappear.

    Eventually.

  • Jalen Hurts selected to take part in Pro Bowl Games

    Jalen Hurts selected to take part in Pro Bowl Games

    After missing out on the original NFC roster, Jalen Hurts was named to the Pro Bowl as an alternate on Friday, replacing Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.

    Hurts, the 27-year-old Eagles quarterback, has earned Pro Bowl honors twice before, in 2022 and 2023. He had been listed as a fifth alternate when the original Pro Bowl rosters were released in December.

    The Eagles now have five players expected to compete in the revamped, flag football-centric event on Feb. 3 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, including Zack Baun, Jalen Carter, Cam Jurgens, and Cooper DeJean. Quinyon Mitchell was named to the original roster, but the Chicago Bears’ Nashon Wright was announced as his replacement on Monday.

    Sean Mannion needs to be a Jalen Hurts whisperer. Play-calling is only part of that.

    Hurts is coming off an inconsistent season, just one year removed from earning Super Bowl MVP honors. His 64.8% completion percentage ranked 16th in the NFL among 33 qualified passers, while his +.01 expected points added per drop back ranked 12th, according to Next Gen Stats. Expected points added per drop back measures the average amount of expected points added on drop backs by a quarterback.

    Still, Hurts threw a career-high 25 touchdowns while tossing just six interceptions. His 1.3% interception rate tied a single-season career low achieved in 2022. Hurts also became the third Eagles quarterback in franchise history to register a perfect passer rating in a game, when he went 19-for-23 for 326 yards and three passing touchdowns in the Week 7 win over the Minnesota Vikings.

    In his fifth season as the full-time starter, Hurts also rushed less frequently. According to Next Gen Stats, he averaged a career-low 1.7 designed rush attempts per game in 2025 after notching at least 2.3 per game in each of the last five seasons.

    Hurts is set to join the Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott and the Detroit Lions’ Jared Goff to form the trio of quarterbacks on the NFC roster.

  • The Eagles hired a young, green OC in Sean Mannion. Just like they did with Jon Gruden.

    The Eagles hired a young, green OC in Sean Mannion. Just like they did with Jon Gruden.

    Sean Mannion, the Eagles’ new offensive coordinator, is 33 years old, has been a coach — not just an NFL coach, but a coach of any kind — for only two years, and reportedly will call plays next season even though he has never called plays before. If it sounds like the Eagles have entered uncharted territory here, if it seems they’ve brought on board a neophyte who’s too green to succeed in such an important role at such an important moment for the team, rest easy. Mannion’s youth and inexperience are nothing compared to the first OC the Eagles hired during Jeffrey Lurie’s ownership tenure.

    Because that guy, in his first week in town, tried to buy a beer one night at a hotel bar. And got carded.

    “I said, ‘Huh?’” Jon Gruden told the Daily News in February 1995. “I know I look young, but that young?”

    What the Sean Mannion hire as Eagles offensive coordinator says about Nick Sirianni’s future

    Gruden was 31 when Ray Rhodes picked him to oversee and orchestrate the Eagles’ offense. The two of them had worked together in Green Bay, and though Gruden had coached in the NFL for four years — twice as long as Mannion has — he had never been a coordinator or called any plays with the Packers. Plus, Gruden was right. With his boyish face and while wearing his ever-present backward visor at practice, he looked like he might still be in college. He was younger than some of the Eagles’ offensive players, including two starting linemen — center Raleigh McKenzie and guard Guy McIntyre — and quarterback Randall Cunningham.

    “Age is not the issue,” Gruden said back in ‘95. “The issue is, ‘Can you do the job?’ … I’m not one of these guru kinds of guys who thinks he has all the answers. I’m just a guy who tried to learn as much football as he could in hopes that someday I’d get a chance to use it. And this is my shot.”

    Mannion is in a similar situation — a better one, in fact. The notion that he is stepping out from under the safe cover of being the Packers’ quarterbacks coach into the tropical storm of serving as the Eagles’ OC has some truth to it, sure. The pressure that Mannion will feel from Lurie and Howie Roseman will equal or exceed any that the Eagles’ fan base might apply. But he is still accepting a plum job with an organization that won a Super Bowl last year and is coming off a season that was a disappointment by the standard that the Eagles have established for themselves.

    Sean Mannion needs to be a Jalen Hurts whisperer. Play-calling is only part of that.

    They won 11 games. They finished first in their division. They have talent to spare on offense. “If I’m an offensive play-caller,” Fox analyst and former Pro Bowl tight end Greg Olsen said recently on the New Heights podcast, “I’m doing everything in my power to get that job.” This ain’t a bad gig.

    Gruden’s was, or at least it wasn’t as good as Mannion’s. And it’s worthwhile to remind those Eagles fans and observers who either have forgotten or never bothered to familiarize themselves with the team’s history that yes, a relatively lengthy search for a new coordinator is not exactly a new low point for the franchise.

    New owner Jeffrey Lurie (left) and coach Ray Rhodes were viewed with skepticism, and not just in their OC hire.

    When Gruden was hired, Lurie had assumed control of the Eagles just eight months earlier. Rhodes not only had never been a head coach before, but he was the team’s first Black head coach, a distinction that in 1995 presented its own fierce set of pressures, expectations, and obstacles. The Eagles had not reached the Super Bowl in 14 years and had not yet won one. Veterans Stadium was decrepit, a dangerous place to play for its treacherous artificial turf, a horrible work environment for any coaching staff.

    Cunningham’s skill set was not a fit for Gruden’s version of the West Coast Offense — a system based on three-step drops, perfect timing, and precision accuracy on short and intermediate passes — so backup Rodney Peete eventually replaced him as the starter. And still the Eagles went 10-6 in each of Gruden’s first two seasons as their OC, and in ‘96, they ranked fourth in the league in total offense and in passing yards, with Ty Detmer and Peete as their QBs. If Mannion can come close to matching that measure of productivity — even with Jalen Hurts, with Saquon Barkley, with DeVonta Smith, with (presumably) A.J. Brown — he’ll be doing just fine.

    Source: Eagles hire former Bucs OC Josh Grizzard as pass game coordinator