Dyresha Harris is a Halloween enthusiast. Every year, Harris, 43, of Cobbs Creek, and her partner, Eo Trueblood, go all out. Over the years, they’ve decorated the house with everything from a 20-foot scary robot, a reenactment of the Netflix show Stranger Things, and as an underwater cave.
And every year, Harris hears the same things from her proud Philly neighbors: “See,” they say, “you don’t have to go out to the suburbs to have a good Halloween.”
This year, Harris, who works as a summer camp director, is making sure of it. She’s organized the West Philly Fright Registry, a webpage and map dedicated to everything “Wicked in West,” as it advertises, with a directory of nearly 100 businesses and homes offering tricks or treats, decorations, or Halloween events for families.
Screen image of the West Philly Fright Registry website, which maps out nearly 100 homes and businesses for families to enjoy on Halloween.
“Halloween is the only American holiday that has this element of interacting with your neighborhood and specifically going door-to-door interacting with the folks who live all around you. And no one does creativity, joy, and community quite like the folks in West do!”
To make the point, Harris biked up and down the neighborhood cataloging all the homes and businesses worthy of Halloween shout-outs, making sure to get their permissions before adding them to the directory.
Mind you, this is no directions-scrawled-on-the-back-of-a-Halloween-napkin map that Harris has created. A map legend with ghoul and pumpkin icons highlights what spots will be decorated and handing out candy treats. The directory highlights special neighborhood Halloween events, with times and details.
“I thought a map would be a fun way to hype each other up, promote block pride, and showcase the creativity of our neighborhood while helping trick-or-treaters get the most fun out of their Halloween season,” she said.
Delaware County’s homeless services, already overextended and stretched to its limits, are slated to lose two shelters and a much-needed rental assistance program at the end of the month as a result of the ongoing budget impasse in Harrisburg.
The closures, though likely temporary until state lawmakers set aside partisan disagreements to approve a budget, would mark a major blow to a system some say is on the brink of collapse in one of Pennsylvania’s most populous counties.
Delaware County officials have attempted to stave off suspensions in critical social services for the first few months of the budget impasse by dipping into their coffers. According to officials, the county typically spends $12 million a month on homeless shelters and other services for children and youth, mental health needs, and substance use disorders.
Now out of options to pay for these critical supports, the county has notified local service providers that they won’t be able to help them any further. Only a budget can restore funding.
“We had hoped the impasse would be resolved much sooner and had fully funded our providers through September, but unfortunately can no longer fully fund providers without the funds from the state,” county spokesperson Mike Connolly said.
Men’s dorm at Life Center-Eastern Delaware County in Upper Darby on Friday.
The Community Action Agency of Delaware County, which operates three shelters and a rental assistance program, among other services, has no choice but to make cuts to its services or even close, its executive director Ed Coleman said.
Life Center, a shelter that has room for about 50 people, has gradually cut its capacity by half. Wesley House and Family Management Center, which have a combined capacity to house more than 110 people, are slated to close by the end of the month. Plus, CAADC’s rental assistance program, which helps approximately 270 families a year, will be paused until the state budget is passed.
Remaining homeless shelters, such as Breaking Bread in Upper Darby and the Salvation Army in Chester, have already seen a surge in people seeking assistance in recent weeks as Wesley House Shelter and Family Management Center wind down operations.
“We’re at capacity. We have no more room,” said James Stephenson, who leads the Salvation Army’s 40-person facility.
Mental Health Partnerships, which provides services for people with mental health conditions or substance use disorders, has been assembling a weekly working group with local shelters and county government to prepare for a winter with at least one emergency shelter, in anticipation of more shelter closures, said its president and CEO, Jeannine Lisitski. Mental Health Partnerships officials have already begun seeing more people on the streets around Delaware County as part of their street outreach there due to the diminishing number of places that people can go to stay warm in these cooling months.
“There’s a real crisis in Delaware County brewing now,” Lisitski said.
‘It’s childish for people to be so politically divided’
With no state budget in sight, public schools, counties, and service providers that help Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable have been forced to find ways to keep their doors open as they await reimbursement from the state. School districts have had to make up more than $3 billion in expected state payments, while some counties have had to lay off staff or take out major loans.
But the issues are particularly dire in Delaware County, where the budget impasse is just the latest blow to the threadbare safety net that has only been further stretched in recent years.
Delco had the fourth-highest eviction rate in Pennsylvania in 2022, at 11.5%, according to a study by PolicyLink and Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.
The persistent issue pushed Delco officials and dozens of other stakeholders to convene the following year to find ways to help the more than 300 people already facing homelessness and the 100 families on wait lists for shelters in the county, as well as all those in danger of losing housing.
Breaking Bread, which until recently could serve 25 people, can take in only eight after moving back to its original building, which is in need of repairs and has limited space.
And the county’s adult and family services agency, which contracts with shelter providers, saw a loss of $1 million in funding.
Lisitski said Mental Health Partnerships — which serves Delaware County, the other three collar counties, and Philadelphia — has already taken out a significant amount of credit to continue operating. And she has grown deeply frustrated with the state government that leaders have not been able to come together to achieve a budget deal.
“I’m really disgusted, I have to say. I hold myself to a very high standard as a CEO and as a leader. I would not leave my post if I did not take care of every program. I would not leave for the day until I resolved everything,” she said.
“That’s my commitment. I want the same commitment from our elected officials. And it’s childish for people to be so politically divided,” she added.
Separately, the federal shutdown is poised to delay funds from the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, which help about 300,000 Pennsylvanians pay their heating bills, as well as the distribution of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
At Wesley House, which can serve an average of 50 children at any given time, families like Grayson’s are scrambling to find temporary housing.
The 52-year-old has been living in Wesley House for almost seven months after caring for his terminally ill mother drained the family’s finances and led his family of four to be evicted. He asked that his full name be withheld to protect the identity of his two young children, as not everyone knows the family became homeless this year.
“This is people’s last resort. This is the last stop before being on the street,” Grayson said of the room with four bunk beds he shares with his family. “I feel like we’re being kicked while we’re already down.”
With news of Wesley House’s closure, Grayson and his wife are working with social workers to get rapid rehousing so as not to disrupt their children’s lives, but it’s a race against time in between the three combined jobs the couple is working.
John Weis, Life Center of Delaware County’s lead case manager (left) assists client Joseph Wallace Friday.
For Heather Schearer, her several months living at Life Center were a necessary step up in her recovery process. She had been unhoused for about five months earlier this year, and was sleeping in her car until it got too cold. When approached, she agreed to stay at Life Center until she eventually was connected to longer-term provider Mental Health Partnerships for its rapid rehousing and peer support programs, she said.
“[Politicians] don’t want to get their boots on the ground, take your ties off, and sit and talk,” Schearer said. “It’s the little things that matter that will get you to the next step.”
According to Community Action, similar scenes are playing out at Family Management Center, which can serve an average of a little more than 30 children at any given time. And while the most significant service reductions in homeless services are not scheduled for another week, the impacts of cuts are already visible across Delaware County.
Lisitski, of Mental Health Partnerships, which provides street outreach around Delaware County, said staff have already seen “a lot more people” than usual living on the street.
When shelters close like this, it becomes a “life-and-death situation” for people who are unhoused, she added. If the people who access critical services — usually people who are homeless, have substance use disorder, or have serious mental health conditions — cannot do so, she said, it will result in their being jailed, institutionalized, or, in the worst cases, dead.
In anticipation of the added need for housing due to the impasse, Mental Health Partnerships is working with Delaware County officials, faith-based entities, and other local groups to prepare emergency shelter space from December through April. It is also taking a line of credit to stay afloat.
But loans are not a viable option for all service providers.
Coleman, of Community Action, said even if the nonprofit could be approved for a line of credit, leaders have no way of knowing how much to ask for since they don’t know when a budget will be passed. Then there would be the question of interest.
“There’s no way [shelters] can afford to pay back interest on a loan, and the interest on a loan cannot be charged to a grant, so it would just be money lost to them,” he said.
Without a state budget, local government is the nonprofit’s last hope. Upper Darby, where Life Center is located, has awarded Life Center $120,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds, which will become available Jan. 1, according to officials there.
It’s much-needed money, but only one thing can help Community Action’s two other shelters stay open.
“We’re hoping that the legislators can do their job and pass a budget so the county doesn’t have to deal with some unfortunate situations,” Coleman said.
The Eagles picked the perfect way to head into the bye week, unleashing a running attack that looked a lot like the one from the Super Bowl season. Saquon Barkley ran for 150 yards, Tank Bigsby added 104 more, and the Birds flattened a Giants team that had manhandled them two weeks ago.
“I think the O-line did a really good job of dominating up front,” Barkley said after the 38-20 victory. “Creating space for us. It’s cool to see Tank get out there and make some big plays. I’ve never been part of a game, I don’t think so, of having two 100-yard backs. So it was great to see him go out there and make plays, especially to see him finish the game for us.”
Barkley added: “For sure, we definitely saw how they celebrated when they beat us last time.” It is never wise to poke the bear, but it is especially unwise to poke the bear when you know you will be seeing the bear again in 17 days, David Murphy writes.
The Eagles head for a week off with a 6-2 record, but games against the Packers and Lions await after that. At least the offense finally seems to be rolling under coordinator Kevin Patullo, Marcus Hayes writes.
Eagles edge rusher Jalyx Hunt sacks Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart on a third-down play Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.
The Giants were the more physical team when they battered the Eagles, 34-17, on Oct. 9. The Birds made sure that did not happen again on their home turf. They sacked Jaxson Dart five times Sunday as the defensive line came through with an especially strong game.
“We were more physical than them today,” linebacker Zack Baun said. “That was the mentality we wanted to come out with. We came out with it and we sustained it throughout the whole game.”
Defensive tackle Jalen Carter, who was held out of the first game vs. the Giants, picked up his first sack of the season. Outside linebacker Jalyx Hunt brought energy off the edge from the jump, Jeff McLane writes in his grades on the game.
Union midfielder Jesús Bueno celebrates his penalty-kick goal with goalkeeper Andre Blake (right) on Sunday night in Chester.
The Union saw a 2-0 lead against the Chicago Fire disappear in short order Sunday night. Luckily for them, they had Andre Blake in goal. When the 2-2 game went to penalty kicks, Blake stopped a shot by the Fire’s Jack Elliott, then got a break when Joel Waterman’s shot bounced off the top of the goal. Penalty-kick goals by Frankie Westfield, Milan Iloski, Tai Baribo, and Jesús Bueno lifted the Union to a playoff-opening victory at Subaru Park.
Sixers center Andre Drummond dunks against the Hornets on Saturday.
Like many of his Sixers teammates, Andre Drummond had a lost season in 2024-25. The 32-year-old center is fully recovered from a turf toe injury now, though. Drummond pulled in 13 rebounds in 16 minutes of action Saturday night as the Sixers improved to 2-0 by beating the Charlotte Hornets.
“That’s what I’ve been paid for my entire career,” Drummond said. “It doesn’t take much for me to get to that point where I want to get every rebound.”
Rookie VJ Edgecombe is off to a flying start for the Sixers, and back home in the Bahamas, his friends and former coaches are following every move.
Edgecombe already has made an impression on Joel Embiid, who says: “Whether shots are going in or not, [he] always plays the right way, makes the right plays.”
The Sixers struggled to stop the Hornets’ dribble penetration, something Nick Nurse is sure to address in practice this week.
Missouri quarterback Matt Zollers rolls out to pass during the second half against Vanderbilt.
Former Spring-Ford High star Matt Zollers got an opportunity to play Saturday after Missouri quarterback Beau Pribula went down with a dislocated left ankle. Zollers completed 14 of 23 passes for 138 yards and a touchdown in a 17-10 loss to No. 10 Vanderbilt.
Evan Simon completed 24 of 35 passes for 265 yards and five touchdowns as Temple outlasted host Tulsa, 38-37, in overtime.
Trevor Zegras (right) celebrates his game-tying goal in the third period against the Islanders on Saturday.
He’s on a roll: Trevor Zegras scored twice, then added a goal in the shootout as the Flyers beat the Islanders.
On this date
A Phillies fan waits during a rain delay in Game 5 of the 2008 World Series. The game was suspended for two days.
Oct. 27, 2008: The Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays battled to a 2-2 tie in Game 5 of the World Series before a storm prompted a rain delay that lasted two days. The game resumed on Oct. 29, when Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske to seal a 4-3 victory, clinching the second world championship in Phillies history.
We compiled today’s newsletter using reporting from Jeff McLane, Olivia Reiner, Jeff Neiburg, Marcus Hayes, David Murphy, Jackie Spiegel, Keith Pompey, Gina Mizell, Jonathan Tannenwald, Owen Hewitt, Colin Schofield, Dylan Johnson, and Sean McKeown.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
Have a great Monday. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in Tuesday’s newsletter. — Jim
A.J. Brown stood on the sideline with a kelly green hoodie pulled over his head, which was also wrapped in a towel. The Eagles led the New York Giants, 31-13, late in the fourth quarter, despite the absence of their No. 1 wide receiver.
But it wasn’t the passing game, nor Brown’s replacements, that had the offense looking its most efficient this season. It was the resurrection of running back Saquon Barkley and the ground attack that carried the torch.
Eagles receivers other than DeVonta Smith had just one catch for 3 yards by the time quarterback Jalen Hurts dropped back on third-and-6 with just over six minutes remaining. But Hurts went to Jahan Dotson even though he had no separation against man coverage, on the type of jump ball that Brown has mastered the art of catching.
And he’d probably like to see Hurts throw to him more often.
But Dotson was the target on this 50-50 opportunity, and he made the best of it, hauling in the 40-yard heave for a touchdown. Brown, out with a hamstring injury, raised his right arm and pumped his fist. He hung back near the bench reserved for receivers and greeted Dotson with a smile and a handshake after his score.
“It’s tough when you’re missing not only the best receiver on your team, but one of the best receivers in the league,” Dotson said of Brown, who missed his first game of the season. “We have this motto in our room: There’s no drop-off, no matter who goes out there.”
Make no mistake, the Eagles need Brown if they are to make a deep postseason run and repeat as Super Bowl champions. Sunday’s lopsided 38-20 win might suggest otherwise, because a balanced offense scored its most points and gained its most yards.
But the Giants offered the perfect remedy. They had embarrassed the Eagles just 17 days earlier, but a perfect storm of a short turnaround following a choke job to the Denver Broncos, untimely injuries, and an offense still wandering in the identity wasteland contributed to an uncharacteristic loss.
The Eagles should have taken advantage of the Giants’ run defense deficiencies in the first meeting. They got behind, and Hurts and the drop-back passing game couldn’t compensate. But Eagles coaches wanted to establish the run two weeks later, and Barkley’s 65-yard touchdown dash on the second play from scrimmage meant they could stick with it and open the playbook.
A diversity of run calls and directions — and even personnel — helped spring Barkley for 150 rushing yards on 14 carries and reserve Tank Bigsby for 104 yards on just nine carries.
“That’s my all-time favorite way to win,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said during his postgame speech in the home locker room at Lincoln Financial Field.
It was a vintage performance in a Sirianni era full of rushing records. The Eagles’ 276 yards on the ground ranked second in the last five years (behind 363 yards vs. the Green Bay Packers in 2022) and their 8.4 yards per carry were first over that span (ahead of an 8.2 average against the Giants, also in 2022).
Sirianni’s Eagles with Hurts at quarterback are normally at their best when the run offense is humming. He was never going to abandon the cause with Barkley as his bell cow and the offensive line, despite injuries, superior to most.
But Brown’s absence, at least for one week, allowed the Eagles to focus more on getting Barkley back on track. It meant having one less potent mouth to feed in the pass offense, but also one that can be vocal about his hunger.
“Obviously, any time you lose a player like A.J. for a game, it changes some things as far as how you go about putting guys in different positions,” Sirianni said. “But if you have faith in the guys that you have that are backing him up, whether that’s receiver or O-line, you’ve still [got to] go about doing what they can do the best, but also putting them in a position to make plays.”
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts completed 15 of 20 passes for 179 yards and four touchdowns on Sunday against the Giants.
Hurts still dropped back to throw. But Smith was far and away his primary target, catching six of nine passes for 84 yards. Barkley was next with four grabs, with one coming on the oft-neglected screen pass. Tight end Dallas Goedert had three receptions with two resulting in red zone touchdowns.
Overall, Hurts completed 15 of 20 passes for 179 yards and four touchdowns. There were still struggles against pressure and four sacks that appeared to fall on him more than anyone else. But it was a methodical day after an explosive aerial showing against the Minnesota Vikings last week.
“It’s definitely a different rhythm, because you get a flow of playing with A.J. and Smitty and Dallas and you have your crew,” Hurts said, before adding: “But when we are able to run the ball like we did, it creates more of a balance and free will of how we attack people.”
Aside from three victory-formation kneels, and one Tush Push, the run-pass ratio was an equal 50-50. Offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo had maybe his best play-calling day, and mixed in variety with Hurts under center, run-pass options, and outside runs on gap schemes.
Offensive linemen Landon Dickerson and Jordan Mailata said the game plan called for more diversity in the running game. Sirianni countered that claim. “That doesn’t mean we haven’t had them in,” he said.
Whatever the case, not getting to them before required patience from Barkley and the O-line after weeks of frustration.
“I think it’s just being professional,” Barkley said of finally breaking loose. “Knowing that every week’s not going to be how you learn to be sometimes, but you can’t lose faith.”
It could be a lesson for Brown, who has expressed his disappointment with the passing offense, both publicly in interviews and cryptically on social media. Few have objected when he has stood in front of microphones and, in so many words, said he wants the ball. He should. He’s one of the best receivers in the NFL.
Even his post on X after the Tampa Bay Bucs game last month — when he quoted Scripture about not being listened to — was understood by many because he and Hurts had mainly failed to hook up in Tampa.
But Brown’s most recent post — “using me but not using me” — after he caught four passes for 121 yards and two touchdowns in Minnesota probably took whatever discontent he may have to uncharted territory within the Eagles organization.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, shown before his team’s win on Sunday, is unlikely to move A.J. Brown ahead of next week’s trade deadline.
He is well-liked in the locker room, by the coaching staff, and the front office. But every player is expendable. The Eagles are unlikely to trade Brown ahead of next Tuesday’s deadline. There’s an astronomical dead-money hit, and Howie Roseman would need blockbuster compensation to even consider it.
The Eagles general manager also isn’t known for trading players in their prime who are crucial to winning titles. Brown may not be pleased with whomever — most likely, Hurts — but it makes little sense for him to want to be moved. At least now.
Hurts, to his credit, went out of his way to praise the receiver several times during his Wednesday news conference last week. But it would behoove the quarterback to make Brown happy on the field and off. His success raises all ships.
“I think the best is yet to come,” Hurts said when asked about Sunday’s run offense explosion.
He sounds like he knows something. Getting Brown more involved would help.
It was just 17 days ago that the Eagles lost for the second straight time, lost to the New York Giants by 17 points at MetLife Stadium, lost in so humiliating a fashion that their All-Pro right tackle called out the play-calling as predictable and their star wide receiver admitted that with more than 11 minutes left in the game he had already resigned himself to defeat. It was bad.
Two seasons before, it had been worse. Two seasons before, the Eagles had lost back-to-back games to the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys, and those pathetic performances triggered the kind of midseason change that reveals a franchise’s leadership has started to panic. The defensive coordinator was demoted. A Bill Belichick acolyte was promoted. And what began as a pebble rolling down a hill turned into an avalanche: six losses in seven games, a head coach whose job was in jeopardy, a collapse whose psychological residue remained on this team for a long time.
Maybe, after their 38-20 victory Sunday in their rematch against the Giants, the Eagles can assure everyone that they’ve scraped away the last of that sticky stuff from 2023. Their Super Bowl win in February took care of most of it, but burping up that late lead against the Denver Broncos on Oct. 5 and getting manhandled by Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo four days later brought up all those bad memories again. The Eagles were 4-2 but reeling, still formidable but vulnerable, and it was fair to wonder whether they could straighten themselves out over their two games before their bye week.
They did. They won a challenging road game against the Minnesota Vikings, then handled an inferior opponent Sunday. Now they enter their 15-day break with a 6-2 record, with a stranglehold on the NFC East, and — despite several injuries to key players, despite the ever-present mist of controversy around A.J. Brown — without the worry that their season was spiraling out of control.
“I don’t think from an inside perspective there was ever any like, ‘Oh man, this is like ’23,’” coach Nick Sirianni said. “You know what I mean? But were there lessons learned in ’23? Absolutely. We continue to try to learn lessons from ’24 and ’25.
“I always like our process off of a bye week and during a bye week. That’s my job as a coach. We’ve still got a lot of things to fix and clean up, but that’s what this week will be about: the players resting, looking at stuff themselves, and then us really grinding it out this week to put ourselves in a position to move on through the rest of the season.”
It would be easy to argue that the Eagles are mentally tougher now than they were then; that they have a more talented, more cohesive collection of players; that Sirianni is a better head coach with a better coaching staff; that Jalen Hurts is a better quarterback. All those assertions are true, but they can feel intangible and opaque. The explanations for why a team regresses (as the Eagles did late in the 2023 season), improves (as they did in 2024), or stabilizes itself (as they’ve done over their last two games) often come down to the schematic and tactical adjustments that the team tries to make. They come down to concrete changes in the way the team does things.
Take one example that went awry. When the Eagles decided in December ‘23 that they needed a new defensive coordinator, when they replaced Sean Desai with Matt Patricia, they failed to take a vital factor into consideration. Patricia’s defensive scheme was a lot of things, but simple wasn’t one of them, and there was little chance that the players would learn it well enough in time to thrive within it.
“I still remember we used to come in here before games, and he’d have an entire greaseboard — it looked like a 15-foot-long greaseboard — and the entire thing was written up with all the calls,” Eagles center Brett Toth said after Sunday’s game. “And to see that, it’s like, ‘Wow.’ That’s tough on anyone to try to switch to midseason.
“It’s a very hybrid defense. Anything with the Patriots is going to be very complex, high-IQ stuff. To have to learn and install that in the middle of the season, it’s a huge ask. This is chess. Football is 11-man chess.”
Now take another, more recent, more successful example: the Eagles’ use, at long last, of under-center snaps and play-action passes. There’s no getting around the fact that their offense has been more dynamic overall — and their running game back to its old dominant self against the Giants — partially because putting Hurts under center allows Kevin Patullo to call a wider variety of plays. They didn’t have to rewrite the playbook. A new wrinkle was all they needed.
“It’s not necessarily that you stick a guy under the center or you’re playing from the shotgun or you’re in a pistol,” said Hurts, who over his last two games has completed 34 of his 43 passes for 505 yards and seven touchdowns. “It’s about what you’re doing when you’re under center, how we’re leveraging what we do, how we’re leveraging the guys, what spots are we putting guys in when we’re in these different positions. We just want to continue to build off it.”
Seventeen days ago, the idea that the Eagles would be building off anything heading into their bye seemed tenuous at best. The defending champs had staggered. The Giants had embarrassed them. And the memory of that awful ending to 2023 was fresh again. Now? It seems deeper in the distance, and they have a chance to make sure it stays there.
Joel Embiid has played alongside All-Stars and future Hall of Famers as a 76er.
So the 2023 MVP and seven-time All-Star has become a good talent evaluator during his decade-plus with the franchise. And he knows that rookie guard VJ Edgecombe has a chance to be a special player.
“Whether shots are going in or not, [he] always plays the right way, makes the right plays,” Embiid added. “I think tonight he had eight assists, so letting the game come to him. In Boston, he made shots; he attacked. I thought tonight, he was a little shy — not shy, but he wasn’t attacking enough. He’s just got to keep going.
“He’s got space. Attack. He’s way too athletic for someone to be in front of him. Then, once he jumps, you’ve got no chance.”
Sixers guard VJ Edgecombe finished with 15 points on 6-for-15 shooting against the Hornets. He also had six rebounds and a team-high three steals to go with his eight assists.
Edgecombe finished with 15 points on 6-for-15 shooting. He also had six rebounds and a team-high three steals to go with his eight assists.
While impressive, his scoring was a drop-off from the 34 points scored Wednesday in a season-opening 117-116 victory over the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. The performance placed him in the same rarified air as Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain and future Hall of Famer LeBron James.
It was the third-highest scoring debut in NBA history behind Chamberlain’s 43 points on Oct. 24, 1959, and Frank Selvy’s 35 on Nov. 30, 1954. Edgecombe’s 14 first-quarter points set a record for the most in the opening period of an NBA debut, surpassing James’ 12 points on Oct. 29, 2003.
But to Edgecombe’s credit, Saturday’s decreased scoring output had a lot to do with not forcing anything while Embiid had the hot hand. The 7-foot-2, 280-pounder scored five of the Sixers’ first seven points and nine of the first 18. He finished with 20 points on 7-for-11 shooting in 20 minutes, 7 seconds. Embiid played only the first 4:58 of the second half because he was on a minutes restriction.
Sixers guard VJ Edgecombe lays up the basketball for two of his 15 points against the Hornets.
“You’ve got to keep being aggressive, but also letting the game come to you,” Embiid said. “And that’s what he did tonight. Every night, I said it after the first game, every night — it might be Tyrese [Maxey]. It might be me. It might be him. It might be someone else, but you’ve still got to play the right way.
“Some nights, you’re not going to score. How else are you going to contribute? He’s doing it defensively and sharing the ball.”
Milestone for Nurse
Friday’s victory marked Nick Nurse’s 300th win as an NBA coach. In 556 regular-season games, the 58-year-old has a 300-256 record in eight seasons with the Sixers and Toronto Raptors.
Nurse went 227-163 with one NBA title during five seasons with the Raptors. He’s 73-93 since being hired by the Sixers on June 1, 2023.
Up next
The Sixers (2-0) will entertain the Orlando Magic (1-2) at 7 p.m. Monday at Xfinity Mobile Arena. After facing Orlando, the Sixers will play Tuesday night at the Washington Wizards.
Gilbert Rolle Jr. and his youth basketball team gathered in Freeport, the Bahamas, on Wednesday, the night before traveling to the nearby Abaco Islands for a tournament.
They were all locked in on a front-room television showing the 76ers’ season opener at the Boston Celtics, where one of their own was making his much-anticipated NBA debut.
It felt like a full-circle moment for Rolle, because the last time he traveled to this tournament, a seventh-grade VJ Edgecombe was with him. Now, there were outbursts of cheers whenever Edgecombe scored for the Sixers, making it feel like “every shot was a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … moment,” Rolle said.
Edgecombe’s historic NBA debut — his 34 points were the most in a Sixers rookie’s first game in franchise history, and the most scored in any NBA debut since Wilt Chamberlain’s 43 with the Philadelphia Warriors in 1959 — dazzled those who follow the sport.
But for those with roots on the tiny island of Bimini, who watched Edgecombe grow into this player and man, the pride cannot be overstated.
“It was like, ‘Wow, it was just so inspiring,’” said Rolle, a coach and principal at Gateway Christian Academy. “Because this isn’t somebody we just know. This is somebody who sat in our schools, that we watched him play in the park, walked through the community. We know, know, know, know him. …
“It was so personal, and it was amazing.”
When asked how Edgecombe was ready to make such an instant impact at basketball’s highest level, Rolle and others reached by The Inquirer by phone pointed to the 20-year-old’s maturity and confidence. Those qualities were shaped by Edgecombe’s childhood circumstances, when his family spent time living with a generator for power in their home. And on the basketball court, he played against older kids.
In every way, Rolle said, Edgecombe was “always a notch above his age.”
Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe passes against the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Leano Rolle saw this in Edgecombe from the beginning. They are such close friends that they consider themselves cousins or brothers. As kids, they started playing basketball together barefoot on a neighborhood dirt lot, with a makeshift hoop made of a crate and two-by-fours.
When Edgecombe went through his pre-draft process earlier this year, Leano Rolle was still by his side. The night before Edgecombe was selected third overall by the Sixers, tears of disbelief and joy fell from the corners of Leano Rolle’s eyes as he stared at the ceiling while lying in a New York City bed.
“I texted [Edgecombe] and told him how proud of him I was,” Leano Rolle said. “It was so amazing because, where we’re from, you wouldn’t expect nothing to happen like that.”
But the younger Rolle is chasing his own basketball dreams at Southwest Mississippi Community College, and Wednesday’s practice overlapped with the start of the Sixers-Celtics game.
When a team manager alerted Rolle that Edgecombe had 14 first-quarter points, he was in shock. He kept checking his phone for box scores and Instagram dunk highlights as he moved from practice to a mandatory pep rally, convinced that Edgecombe was about to get 50 points.
When Rolle finally returned to his room, Edgecombe called him and their other best friend for a postgame chat.
“Just talking and laughing and telling him how he did,” Rolle said. “Letting him know he went out there and did well, and did what he was supposed to do.”
Also watching that night was LJ Rose, the general manager of the Bahamian national team. He did not realize that Edgecombe took 25 shots against the Celtics, because “he was just flowing.”
Rose, who is also the general manager of the University of Miami’s men’s basketball team, remembers first learning about Edgecombe from a local media member named John Nutt. Nutt persuaded Buddy Hield, the fellow NBA Bahamian and former Sixer, to invite a young Edgecombe to his basketball camp.
“He held his own,” Rose said of Edgecombe. “And ever since then, he’s kind of been on the radar.”
Sixers center Joel Embiid fires a pass to VJ Edgecombe on Saturday.
That buzz only grew when Edgecombe joined the senior national team for an Olympic qualifying tournament last summer. He played alongside NBA players Hield, current Sixer Eric Gordon, and Deandre Ayton, the first time Edgecombe had been surrounded by teammates with more credentials and experience.
Still, Edgecombe “showed up Day 1 and he asserted himself,” Rose said, a testament to Edgecombe’s “everyday” work ethic and temperament. Rose went back to the Houston Rockets, where he was an international scout at the time, and told general manager Rafael Stone, “Hey, we have one.”
“He did not get rattled when he got overseas,” Rose said. “And it was a new environment. Some adversity was coming, but he just kind of kept on plugging away. And I think that just goes back to, it’s the everyday. His consistent grind and just coming from where he’s come from.”
Even during this dramatic life transition to the NBA, Edgecombe has remained connected to those Bimini roots.
Leano Rolle is planning to visit Edgecombe in Philly for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Gilbert Rolle texts Edgecombe at least once per week and said any impromptu phone call would be answered with a, “Hey, what’s up?”
When asked late Saturday — after totaling 15 points, eight assists, and six rebounds in the Sixers’ comeback win over the Charlotte Hornets — about the support he has felt from back home in recent days, a grinning Edgecombe said, “Yeah … I’ve heard from a lot of people.”
Because Edgecombe is still the “humble spirit” that Gilbert Rolle watched cry “as if somebody died” after losing in that Abaco Islands tournament as a seventh grader. To Rolle, that visceral reaction cemented how seriously Edgecombe took the sport.
“He’s not only talented, but he worked for this and he wanted this,” Rolle said. “This was something that he put his mind to do. And every opportunity he had, he went and got up extra shots. Any opportunity he had to get better in his game.
“To see him crying from losing a game, to on TV playing and breaking records, I’m like, ‘He deserves this.’”
And now, Gilbert Rolle has direct evidence of Edgecombe’s hard work to pass along to his current crop of young players. That is one component of the Edgecombe chatter that spread throughout the Bahamas into the weekend, as those close to the rookie revel in his instant success.
And if Edgecombe continues this torrid start to his NBA career?
“The people back home are ready to name the island after him one day,” Leano Rolle said. “That’s VJ Island.”
There’s a military saying that “piss-poor planning means piss-poor execution.”
Unfortunately, the execution of how the Trump administration is using America’s military to conduct its counter-drug operations in the Caribbean Sea has had poor planning.
First, 100% of fentanyl comes across the U.S.-Mexican land border — usually carried by U.S. citizens — while almost three-quarters of U.S.-bound cocaine sails via the Pacific Ocean.
The residual cocaine begins a Caribbean transit, but only 3% is en route to our water borders. Most sail to Central America or Mexico for land transport to America. The first five small vessels our military has struck, killing 32, were in the transit zone for cocaine destined not to the United States, but for islands that forward it to Europe and West Africa.
As a result, the administration’s current approach in the Caribbean makes any meaningful interdiction of drugs headed to America unlikely in what is an already tough hunting ground: 100,000 or more vessels — including unregistered or unbeaconed watercraft — are normally at sea in the Caribbean. I experienced this vast challenge while supporting a U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) onboard my ship, understanding why the Coast Guard’s interdiction rate hovers between 7%-15%.
Moreover, drug cartels recruit vulnerable U.S. citizens to be the primary “mules” for fentanyl because they are less likely to be inspected at legal U.S. border crossings. That is where substantial interdiction must occur if the administration is serious about stopping drugs from coming to the United States.
Similarly, the cartels elicit the impoverished — such as poor fishermen — to do their seaborne smuggling. Criminals? Yes. “Narco-terrorists”? According to the administration, yes, after President Donald Trump designated eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).
Just as it did for al-Qaeda and ISIS, an FTO designation makes drug-runners and carriers “unlawful combatants” in a “Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC).”
Also, like them, to be legally labeled as an FTO, the drug cartels must: 1) exhibit “politically motivated violence,” 2) execute a combination of frequent and/or severe hostilities, and 3) have an extensive command and control structure.
However, the administration’s two principal justifications for meeting these three criteria were the number of U.S. drug overdose deaths (80,000 last year) and that the cartels’ violent activities are undermining the stabilization of the Western Hemisphere.
The appropriateness of these justifications has consequences for military commanding officers: U.S. and international law forbid them to use deadly force against both American and international civilians. Operational officers go through rigorous training regarding this “principle of distinction.”
Moreover, since the Navy operates on the “public commons” of the seas, it issues the Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations that makes it clear it is “manifestly illegal” to comply with “an order directing the murder of a civilian [or] a noncombatant.”
Adm. Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command overseeing the counter-drug interdictions, recently resigned, reportedly because he deemed the strikes as possibly illegal.
It’s unquestionably disconcerting to be given a new legal interpretation of “political violence” and “severe hostilities” that suddenly changes who has always been a “civilian” into a “combatant.”
It’s disquieting because it’s already tough “out there” in terms of ensuring wise judgment. For example, in 1988, a Navy cruiser in the Persian Gulf shot down an Iranian airliner with the loss of 290 civilians because it had mistaken it for a fighter plane in peacetime.
A few years later, as I entered the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian warplane took off from a nearby airfield and headed for my ship. My crew was well-trained, with missiles ready if “hostile intent” was determined. It flew low overhead — the first time the Iranian military had done so — then continued on its way, much as Chinese warplanes have done.
If this is a hemispheric war — and not peacetime — Congress should constitutionally “declare war” rather than an abrupt renaming of civilian drug runners as “narco-terrorists.” Otherwise, the sudden denial of “civilian-ship” after years of legal and moral training places our military leaders’ judgment into its own legal and moral quandary.
This is especially pertinent coming after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent admonition to senior military leadership that there should be “no more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”
This followed the secretary’s removal of the head of each service’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps (the military’s legal branches), as well as his closure of the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, established to minimize civilian casualties in military operations.
Finally, with a tenth of all deployed U.S. Navy combatant forces now dedicated to drug interdiction — a nuclear submarine, a three-ship amphibious ready group, and five surface combatants — there is a cost to warfare training. We should be focused on our responses to threats from sophisticated subs, missiles, ships, aircraft, and space — especially as coordination is jammed and cyberattacked within a carrier battle group of ships.
Losing this type of training has come when warfare readiness is already poor: 40% of the U.S. attack submarine fleet is out of commission for repairs — double the Navy’s target rate, overall amphibious ship readiness for war is just 41%, and while surface combatant readiness has risen, it is only 68%.
If, as reported, the less adept — although deadly — Caribbean operation is intended as a prelude to force Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office, the American people should know why their military men and women are sailing in harm’s way.
Trust in a commander — or commander in chief — is the military’s most precious asset. And while trust might be the biggest deficit in politics, it is not in warfare.
How and why this Caribbean Sea operation is being conducted — either as a professional drug interdiction operation or as a prelude to an intervention in another country — has endangered this trust.
As the top operational commander’s resignation appears to confirm.
Joe Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral, a former U.S. representative for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District on the House Armed Services Committee, and director for defense policy of the National Security Council staff.
The Top Workplaces program, now in its 17th year of recognizing Philadelphia-area companies that earn high marks from employees, is open for nominations for the 2026 awards at Inquirer.com/nominate.
Any Delaware Valley organization with 50 or more employees is eligible to participate at no cost. Standout companies will be honored in a special section of The Inquirer in September 2026.
To qualify as a Philadelphia Top Workplace, employees evaluate their workplace using a 26-question survey. Companies will be surveyed through April.
The Top Workplaces program returns to the Philadelphia region for 2026.
Energage, the Exton-based research partner for the project, conducts Top Workplaces surveys for media in 65 markets nationwide. For the 2025 awards, over 6,000 organizations in the Delaware Valley were invited to survey their employees. Based on employee survey feedback, 144 earned recognition as Top Workplaces.
“Earning a Top Workplaces award is a celebration of excellence,” said Eric Rubino, CEO of Energage. “It serves as a reminder of the vital role a people-first workplace experience plays in achieving success.”
Anyone can nominate an outstanding company. Nominees can be public, private, nonprofit, a school, or even a government agency. To nominate an employer or for more information on the awards, go to Inquirer.com/nominate or call 484-323-6270.
The frogs are all over social media, playing and prancing in front of the ICE building in Portland, Ore. The demonstrators in big, green inflatable costumes have grown from local oddity tosymbol of the resistance, undermining President Donald Trump’s claim that “war ravaged” Portland is under siege by “domestic terrorists.”
Protests that started with a single amphibian have in recent weeks expanded into full ponds, particularly after a viral video showed officers pepper-spraying a demonstrator through the air-intake of his costume. The frog corps there has been joined by a shark, giraffe, chicken, and raccoon, and during the recent nationwide “No Kings” marches expanded its web-toed footprint to places including Philadelphia.
Demonstrators gather for a ’No Kings’ rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025.
Why has the frog become so popular?
People following the news on the internet and TV see the paramilitary might of helmeted ICE agents arrayed against … frogs. And unicorns. And other dancing creatures.
For demonstrators, it’s a way to make the other side look ridiculous by embracing ridiculousness ― a staple of effective political street theater, said Temple University professor Ralph Young, an expert on protest and dissent.
“Trump saying Portland is occupied by terrorists, it’s so over the top,” Young said. “How do you respond? I guess you put on a frog outfit.”
What has made Portland a center of immigration protest?
Demonstrators oppose Trump’s effort to deport millions of people. And Portland has long been a target of the president, who last weekagain falsely claimed that the city was “burning down.”
He wants to deploy National Guard troops in response to the protests outside the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. An appeals court last week reversed an earlier ruling and said that deployment could proceed.
Wearing animal costumes “dismantles their narrative a little bit,” chicken-suited protester Jack Dickinson told Willamette Week. “[Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the ‘Antifa Army’ and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.”
Laura Murphy, 74, wears a handmade tiara inspired by a Portland, Oregon, protester’s frog costume, on her way to the No Kings protest on Oct. 18 in Philadelphia.
Where did the idea for the frogs come from?
The frogs, Temple’s Young said, come out of a court jester tradition. In ancient times, jesters could speak to the king in ways that might get someone else beheaded. They offered what others might be unwilling to say ― the truth, cloaked in humor.
Since that time there have been many other instances of truth-in-comedy protests.
At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Youth International Party, the Yippies, nominated a 145-pound pig for president. Pigasus, sarcastically named for the winged horse Pegasus, served to protest the political establishment and the sorry choice many voters felt they faced in choosing between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. The pig’s campaign slogan: “If we can’t have him in the White House, we can have him for breakfast.”
Here on trial as part of the Chicago Seven, Abbie Hoffman (left) and Jerry Rubin (right), with beard and headband, helped nominate a pig for president. In center in striped shirt is defendant Rennie Davis. They’re picture here on Oct. 23, 1969, at the Federal Building in Chicago.
The same year, the New York Radical Women attracted huge news coverage at the Miss America pageant when they dumped bras, makeup, and girdles into a “Freedom Trash Can” set up on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The demonstrators were labeled “bra-burners,” though organizers insisted no bras were actually burned.
Have frogs been spotted in Philadelphia?
Yes, including at the recent “No Kings” protest that drew thousands onto city streets. One person carried a sign endorsing “Amphifa,” or “Amphibians Against Fascism.”
Frogs are appearing on posters and T-shirts in a variety of poses: Raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima, with the help of a chicken and a unicorn. And as the subject of the famous Barack Obama campaign portrait, this one captioned not “HOPE” but “HOP.”
So far the ICE field office in Philadelphia has not been the target of sustained protests, though the exterior of the building is now guarded by heavy concrete blocks. The group No ICE Philly plans to hold an all-day, Halloween Eve demonstration on Thursday, complete with costumes, live music, art, and free food.
A demonstrator wearing a frog costume stands outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Is it true the frogs are meant as a biblical reference?
