WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday blocked the United States Postal Service from carrying out changes to its delivery of mail-in ballots, writing that recent policies directed by President Donald Trump ran afoul of legal terms the agency accepted more than four years ago to ensure timely delivery of mail ballots.
In a brief opinion, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan pointed to a settlement agreement reached between the NAACP and the Postal Service in December 2021, after the group sued the government arguing that postal delays threatened to disenfranchise voters. At that time, the agency agreed to “prioritize monitoring and timely delivery of election mail.”
Sullivan, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote that the Postal Service’s proposal, which includes not delivering mail-in ballots in states that decline to hand over voter data to the federal government, violated the settlement agreement, which the parties had agreed would run through the 2028 election cycle.
Sullivan wrote that Trump’s order appeared “designed to exert federal control over who in the United States may be sent a mail-in or absentee ballot in federal elections by the Postal Service.” He wrote that the agency had previously agreed to outline plans before each national election and meet with the NAACP to explain how it would ensure efficient delivery of election-related mail.
While another judge in Washington had declined for now to halt the enforcement of the executive order because new rules for the Postal Service had not been finalized at the time, Sullivan concluded that the agency’s recent proposal could be blocked preemptively because it would violate the prior agreement.
Last week, a judge in Massachusetts struck down the main components of Trump’s order, including the creation of lists of eligible voters and changes to mail-in voting. The ruling from Judge Indira Talwani stated that the Constitution granted authority over elections firmly to the states.
The NAACP, which brought the lawsuit in 2020 amid a spike in voting by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic, had raised concerns about delays in mail delivery. The group argued that the new proposed changes raised fresh worries for coming elections. Among the changes it contested were the addition of new individualized bar codes on mail-in ballots and a plan to reject ballots from states that do not submit a list of eligible mail-in voters to the Postal Service ahead of time.
“The proposed USPS changes would have created unnecessary and unlawful barriers, in direct violation of the USPS’s mandate to prioritize election mail,” Anthony P. Ashton, the NAACP’s senior associate general counsel, said in a statement. “Those barriers could have disproportionately harmed Black voters, who are more likely to rely on mail voting due to long-standing inequities in access.”
“Put simply, the use of mail-in voting helps reduce voter intimidation at the polls and Election Day dirty tricks,” he added.
Postmaster General David Steiner has said on multiple occasions, including to The New York Times this year, that he would follow court orders governing voting by mail.
The agency had argued in filings before the decision that the court could not block the changes until it had finalized its rules and that the changes fell outside the scope of the legal settlement.
The Postal Service has not responded to multiple requests for comment after recent court decisions that partially blocked Trump’s mail voting executive order and the Postal Service’s proposal to impose it.
Under the 2021 settlement, the Postal Service agreed to take extra steps to expedite mail ballots for all even-year federal elections through 2028.
William Hensley, a former election mail specialist at the Postal Service who helped establish those “extraordinary measures” while at the agency, said in an interview that they can include dispatching delivery trucks on extra trips, authorizing local postmasters to pay out employee overtime, and in some cases postmarking and turning around mail ballots locally rather than at regional processing centers.
For this year’s midterm elections, the Postal Service said it will begin enforcing those measures Oct. 27, roughly a week before the midterms.
You open the door to the rental and let in the roaring summer sun, and you’re fully prepared for a relaxing day on beach: Toy Story-themed towel, Cherry Float Coke Zeros, and a thin layer of suntan spray coating everything in the canvas tote bag.
But you could really use a snack.
There’s a lot going on this holiday weekend, and it’s a mess. So the last thing you need is another one.
What you’re looking for is a classic Jersey Shore treat, but ice cream isn’t built for travel and a slice of pizza has too many variables.
You need a “Walking Taco.”
Walking tacos are offered at the Wells Fargo Center.
I’m Tommy Rowan, and I’m once again subbing in for Amy S. Rosenberg. I’m a lifelong Jersey Shore-goer who was raised on visits to the Ocean City boardwalk and Wonderland Pier. I spent my teenage years on the Wildwood boardwalk, my 20s in Sea Isle City, and nowadays I have family in North Wildwood. And maybe it’s because I’m within spitting distance of 40, or because places I once loved are being torn down, I find myself wanting to cram in more of everything.
Which brings us back to the food that moves.
The “Walking Taco” is for people who want to walk and talk, and who want to fit in more and keep moving.
It’s a snack-sized bag of Fritos that’s crushed into pieces, garnished with seasoned ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, and homemade pico de gallo, and eaten with a plastic spoon.
It encourages you to get your steps in, but it’s not quite fast food. That’s why they don’t call it a “Running Taco.”
It’s best eaten on the walk to the beach, but if you’re a “save for later” kind of person, it still works: The bag is self-contained, and yet it’s protected from splashes of sand and saltwater. And it’s an easy disposal: Just crush the bag into a ball and toss it in a trash can.
It’s salty and crunchy and cheesy, but it’s not a true overindulgence.
A cheeky hot dog stand in Sea Isle City has unfound claims to “the original,” but the product can be found up and down the Philly-favored beach towns between Atlantic City and Cape May — and many swap out Fritos for Doritos.
And, honestly, what better way to ring in the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence than with a uniquely American product: a nonrecyclable bag of ultraprocessed salty particles, topped with chemically altered cheese strings, covered in oily animal fat, and topped with what can only be described as a “modern interpretation” of pico de gallo.
It’s America in a fun-size.
📮 What’s your favorite beach snack? And how do you feel about the “Walking Taco?” What are you eating this holiday weekend? Let me know what you think by replying to this email, and your most interesting responses may end up in a future newsletter. Have ideas or news tips about the Shore or this newsletter? Send them here.
😡 We’re in for a dangerously hot holiday weekend. Remember to hydrate.
🏖️ Pumped up. Sand-pumping operations are expected to begin next week in Ocean City, while replenishment of the Seven Mile Island Beaches will reportedly begin toward the end of the summer. Avalon’s beaches are up first, with work scheduled to start in mid-August, followed by Stone Harbor in October.
🛵 Take a number. A reminder that New Jersey is now taking appointments for e-riders to register their e-bikes, per a new state law (which doesn’t seem to affect visitors from Pennsylvania). We have a full look at the confusing law here.
🎃 Halloween in July? Spirit Halloween is getting a head start on the spooky season and listing seasonal job openings on its website, including for pop-up stores at the Shore in May’s Landing, Rio Grande, and Egg Harbor Township.
🏫 Stretching out. Dominique Dawes, a former Olympian who founded a chain of gymnastics schools, is planning to open a new location in South Jersey this fall. The new school is part of the former gold medalist’s expansion into the greater Philly region.
🇺🇸 The Declaration. Two days before the country’s 250th anniversary, on July 2, Avalon is hosting a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. And then a few days after, on July 8, Cape May is planning its own public reading and reenactment. Both are worth checking out.
👻🦀 Ghost crabs! Every Thursday between 8 and 9 p.m., the Nature Center hosts a ghost crab hunt on the beaches of Cape May. So grab a flashlight and watch the translucent crustaceans scurry in the spotlight. Preregistration is required.
🌭 Hot Dog Tommy’s in Cape May. No. 1, fantastic name. No notes. And No. 2, helluva chili cheese dog.
🎥 Beach movies. Catching a flickoutdoors at the Shoreis underrated. Ocean air, salty breezes, and overpriced ice cream cones coalesce to create the most perfect conditions to take in a picture. Cape May and Margate show movies on the beach, Sea Isle utilizes the Band Shell in Excursion Park, and Wildwood hosts at Byrne Plaza.
🧢 Card show. If you’re looking for an escape from the heat this weekend, the Sports Card, Toy, Comic & Collectibles Show will be trading in childhood treasures and autographed memorabilia at the Wildwoods Convention Center on the boardwalk.
🎸 Free tunes in Atlantic City. On Wednesday, Bayou Blues guitarist-vocalist Tab Benoit is playing Mardi Gras on the Boardwalk, a New Orleans-themed concert series at Kennedy Plaza. The free show starts at 7 p.m.
🥡 Delicious takeout. Craig LaBan is a big fan of the General Tso’s at China Sea of Absecon. He went inland for his latest list of places to eat at the Shore.
Shore snapshot
Jason Kelce takes a selfie with fans at his annual fundraiser in Sea Isle City.
After starting last year’s fundraiser with tear-away shorts and a Speedo, Jason Kelce was comparatively reserved this year for his entrance at his and wife Kylie Kelce‘s sixth annual “Shore Birds” event at the Ocean Drive in Sea Isle City. The event benefits the Eagles Autism Foundation.
I hope the next milestone after the Semiquincentennial is easier to pronounce and simpler to spell.
🧠 Trivia time
On June 27, 1958, this civil rights leader addressed a convention of Quakers in Cape May in a little remembered episode in this cultural icon’s extraordinary life.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Wonderland Pier and the unmistakable value boardwalk rides bring to the Jersey Shore, which is what made Joseph Farley’s recent submission jump out.
The station wagon seemed to bulge like in a Willie the Worm cartoon; where endless hordes of Mickey Mouse types invade a building. Our family of ten filled the seats with the baby on mom’s lap. It was 1955, the tires were near bald and Dad kept a gallon of water handy to feed the radiator should it geyser in heavy traffic. We left Cheltenham, PA for Wildwood already singing, “On the Way to Cape May.” My pockets bulged with the contents of my piggy bank, my life’s savings. It was a six-hour trip, four of them spent in Dorothy, a town on the Tuckahoe Road, enjoying lunch while Dad made repairs to the car.
That night I choose to ride the “Salt & Pepper Shaker” on Morey’s Pier; a scary ride that took you into the stars. At the top, it flipped upside-down. All the coins in my pockets fell out, clanking off the girders to oblivion. This broke ten-year old, turned moocher, still had a glorious vacation. I returned home brown as a berry with a tale that became family lure, a “feel sorry for dad story” that still brings sympathetic sighs every time I tell it.
Send us your Shore memory in 200 words! Tell us how the Shore taps into something deep for you, and we will publish them in this space during the summer.
✌️ That should do it. Amy’s back from vacation next week, so I’ll see ya at the rest stops.
— Tommy
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In January 2025, Matthew Turnbull sat in the crowd as a fan to watch as Eddie Alvarez headlined KnuckleMania V at Xfinity Mobile Arena, then known as the Wells Fargo Center. Despite a tough loss in his hometown, Alvarez, a Kensington native and former UFC champion, received a hero’s welcome from the crowd.
“It was one of the craziest sporting events I’ve ever been to live,” Turnbull, a Northeast Philly native, said. “The energy in the building, especially for the main event when Eddie was fighting, I never experienced anything like it. I mean, there’s no one bigger than Eddie. I already saw the best come out of the area. So I’m just going to follow his footsteps.”
Over a year later, with a ring set up in the middle of Stateside Live! for open workouts, Turnbull hit mitts with Alvarez as he prepared for his own Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship debut Friday at the same venue.
“Bare Knuckle was never on my radar, but then I saw the Eddie Alvarez main event and I was like, ‘This is incredible,’” Turnbull said. “And then they hit me up, and I was like, ‘Why not?’ … There’s no lies. You can do the talking and all the fun aspects of getting eyes on you, but when you get into there, it’s nothing but the truth. And I’m a big fan of the truth.”
Matt Turnbull (left) working out with Eddie Alvarez at BKFC open workouts at Stateside Live!
Turnbull describes his fighting style as “controlled chaos.” He got his start after he was kicked off Franklin Towne Charter’s high school wrestling team. Afterward, his coach recommended training in jujitsu, which led to him competing in the Philly area-based MMA promotion Art of War Cage Fighting. Three months ago, Turnbull successfully defended his featherweight championship with a submission win against Ryan Yapsam.
Now, he’s focused on bare-knuckle fighting, which comes with a different training regimen.
“We’re just using our hands and trying to get used to conditioning our hands for bare knuckles without hurting them in the process,” Turnbull said. “So training with hand wraps as opposed to gloves and doing hand strengthening techniques that I wouldn’t do when I’m going to have a pair of gloves on my hands when I fight. But the discipline is still there. It’s just a little bit different of a path than I’m used to.”
Turnbull has been training with Alvarez out of his gym, Underground Kings MMA in Newtown.
Eddie Alvarez has been an inspiration for Matt Turnbull’s fighting career.
“In order to do this sport, one of the leading things you need is toughness,” Alvarez said. “You need to be able to take a shot and take damage and keep going. There’s guys who are very technical boxers who don’t do well here. You’re going to take damage. You’re going to get hurt. You got to be able to overcome. You got to be able to keep going in the face of adversity.
“Matt Turnbull is that guy. He’s that guy that keeps going, no matter what is going on. He’s built for it. For him, it’s just about honing his skills in boxing. Over the last two months, I’ve never seen a guy grow so much in one sport. So I’m excited to see his showing on July 3.”
Turnbull originally was scheduled to compete against fellow Philly native Pat Sullivan, who recently pulled out of the fight. The two share some bad blood, including an altercation at open workouts that resulted in Sullivan allegedly biting Turnbull in the back of the head.
“We’re not going to talk about [someone] who pulls out from a fight because he realized he bit off more than he can chew,” Turnbull said. “Now, I’m fighting Brandon Honsvick. … He’s not as big as a name because he’s not a clown like that. So he doesn’t have a bunch of eyeballs on him and stuff like that. But he’s a much more skilled fighter and someone more deserving of being in the ring with me.”
Matt Turnbull posted a photo of a scar on the back of his head, following his altercation with Pat Sullivan at BKFC’s open workouts at Stateside Live!
Sullivan still will compete on the card against a new opponent, Colin Reeser. Meanwhile, Turnbull is set to make his debut against Honsvick on the night before Independence Day in the birthplace of America at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
“If you’re from Philly, you dream of fighting in that arena,” Turnbull said. “That’s what the goal is. And to be able to do it, especially after people like Eddie, it’s a lot of pressure. So it’s an exciting thing for me.
“I think I embody what it is to be a Philly fighter. My Instagram name is thephillyfighter. So I try to embody the rawness of it, the intensity, the leave it all in the cage or in the ring mentality, not turning down opportunities or opponents, believe in yourself, and keep fighting until the end.”
A unique — and formerly crumbling — historic property in North Philly is poised for new life.
The twin mansion on the 2200 block of West Tioga Street is almost 130 years old. The Conkling-Armstrong Terra Cotta Co. had the building constructed near its factory to show off its products to potential customers: late-19th-century developers and architects. Elaborate details and decorations make it one of a kind.
But the building has been vacant for a while and fell into disrepair. Now, a local developer has big plans to reimagine it.
Keep scrolling for that story and more in this week’s edition:
The Conkling-Armstrong Houses weren’t safe to walk through when Brian Wise, an affordable housing developer, got a hold of them. He’s since spent $1 million to lay the groundwork for redevelopment.
His plan is to build 12 apartments in each of the roughly 5,000-square-foot houses that make up the twin mansion. And he wants to build two additions in the back to fit more apartments.
Wise plans for most of the homes to go to low-income tenants who use Philadelphia Housing Authority vouchers to help pay their rent.
Philly’s zoning board gave Wise the green light last month, but he still needs approvals from the Philadelphia Historical Commission.
Keep reading to learn more about the developer’s plans for the site and the historical legacy of the company behind the Conkling-Armstrong house.
Beautiful views come at a premium at the Shore. And Shore homeowners want to make sure they’re getting the most out of their investment.
As Laura Glantz, partner at a Jenkintown-based architecture firm, told my colleague, “When a view is one of a property’s greatest assets, every design decision should work to celebrate and preserve it.”
When Katie and Randy Zakreski rebuilt their home in Strathmere, they wanted to optimize views of the ocean on one side and the bay on the other.
That meant installing as many windows and glass doors as possible on every floor. They don’t mind not having much wall space for pictures, since the views act as dynamic wall furnishings.
Views dictated the layout of their home inside and out. They have five exterior decks from which to look around.
Coming up the driveway of this Schwenksville home, you can’t really see the house. All that’s visible is solar panels on the roof, peeking out from behind trees and a meadow.
Homeowners Marla Hexter and Larry Cohen take caring for the environment seriously. They’ve got two electric vehicles, a geothermal heating and cooling system, and those solar panels.
They also have two wildflower meadows in their front yard. The meadows replaced their typical lawn and extend from their frog pond to the curb. They’re beacons for admiring neighbors, some of whom ask for tips for creating their own meadows.
The wildflowers attract pollinating insects and 17 bird species.
Hexter and Cohen grow vegetables and added a house specifically to welcome bats.
Shoutout to Bruce R. and Merrily T. for knowing that.
―
Does your town let you keep chickens in your backyard? Collingswood is one of the local places that ban the animals.
Some residents there have been fighting for years to have chickens and the fresh eggs they lay. But they’ve got reason to hope that this year will be different.
Try to stay cool and enjoy the rest of your week.
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Construction is underway on a mixed-use apartment building facing York Road in Jenkintown.
Plans for the new building, which will sit at the intersection of Route 611 and Cherry Street across from Dunkin’, include 40 apartments and a ground-floor commercial space.
The four-story structure also includes a parking garage with 48 spaces. Eight of those will be reserved for the retailer, developer and owner Vincent Celenza said.
Rendering of an apartment complex at Route 611 and Cherry Street in Jenkintown set to open next year.
Some Jenkintown residents have previously voiced concerns about parking permit arrangements for new apartments, arguing that charging for the spots encourages occupants to use free street parking instead.
But Jenkintown Borough Manager George Locke said he’s heard some argue that no-cost parking permits could present a different problem: “[An] owner might just work the cost of parking into all leases and that might negatively affect those who chose not to drive and use public transportation instead.”
Celenza said he hasn’t decided yet how to handle parking permits. “That was one of [the borough’s] concerns,” he said.
An older building on the site, Helweg Funeral Services Inc, was demolished earlier this month.
Celenza bought the land in 2022 from the trust of the Helweg family funeral home’s owner, Mary Welham Wurmstedt, according to property records.
Newspaper archives indicate the Helweg funeral home had operated on the property since at least the 1930s. Helweg’s has merged with another funeral home and is now located two miles down the street in Abington.
Celenza went through several rounds of planning with Jenkintown, which requested fewer apartments and a wider sidewalk on Cherry Street, Locke said. Celenza agreed to those requests in the final plan submitted last summer.
Construction is underway on a new 40-apartment complex and commercial space at Old York Road and Cherry Street in Jenkintown.
The developer will also add a small public area with two benches on a back corner of the property at Cherry and Johnson Streets.
The apartment complex, named 459 Flats, is set to open in June 2027, Celenza said.
Average rent for the apartments, which range from studios to two-bedroom units, will be about $2,400 per month.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
The floor of David Dormond’s workshop is scattered with wooden planks, shaving piles, and machines that scream “DO NOT TOUCH!” In the middle of it all sits a 40-foot-long, 3500-pound wooden boat that looks like it could hold an army.
That’s because it’s meant to. Well, sort of.
It’s a Durham boat, named because the design was used to transport iron from Durham Ironworks in Bucks County to Philadelphia. It is better known as being the model of boat George Washington used to cross the Delaware with his Patriot troops on Christmas in 1776.
At the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, David Dormond is replicating the boat Washington used to cross the Delaware River, June 18, 2026.
“The moment Washington decided to use these boats to cross the Delaware and storm Trenton changed the tide of the [Revolutionary] War,” said Dormond, who is the director of the Seaport Boat Shop at the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM). “It was one of the pivotal points for the U.S. in gaining our freedom.”
Dormond and his team have built a full-scale replica of the Durham boat to be displayed in Washington Crossing Historic Park. Authenticity was at the forefront of its construction, with Dormond committed to making the boat as historically accurate as possible.
The wood for the replica was sourced locally, including cedar from Medford, N.J., and white oak for the framing from Reading.
David Dormond and his team have spent more than a year constructing the boat in the Seaport Boat Shop at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia.
“The reason we do that is to keep things just the same as they would’ve been in the 1700s,” Dormond said. “When they were building these boats, they weren’t bringing lumber in from across the country, they were using what they had available to them, so we follow in that tradition.”
Nearly every part of the boat was handmade by Dormond and his team, down to the bolts holding the wood together. They steam-bent the frames and used 18th-century-style spokeshaves and batten strips to help shape the boat like they would have in Washington’s day.
But this boat, now on display in Washington Crossing Historic Park, isn’t just for viewing. Visitors will be able to board the ship and see how grand it was in height and length, but also how cramped the 8-feet-wide interior was for the 2,400 soldiers that crossed the Delaware.
Most of the boat was handmade, with emphasis on using 18th-century materials to make it as period-accurate as possible.
The park currently has four Durham boats that sit on the water and are used for historical reenactments. This new boat will be parked on land along the waterline, and will be the first that visitors can walk onto and interact with directly.
“We were talking about some of the things that people are interested in learning about when they come to the park, but that they can’t necessarily experience. [And] people often asked about the Durham boats,” said Jennifer Martin, director of Friends of Washington Crossing, who collaborated on the boat project with ISM.
Martin said civilian support played a vital role in the Revolutionary War, and part of that was boat-building.
“This was trade work. This is something that was passed on and learned,” she said. “I think that there’s an art to handcrafting things and getting people to understand that life was very different in the 18th century.”
At the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, David Dormond is replicating the boat Washington used to cross the Delaware River, June 18, 2026.
Planning for the build started two years ago, with full-time construction beginning in spring 2025. The plans were made by a designer in Maine in the 1960s; Dormond and his team modified them to be truer to what they know of boat-building processes of the 1700s.
Dormond has built boats at ISM for almost 13 years, and this one is “one of the bigger vessels that we’ve done,” he said. The shop cycles between larger construction projects and simpler boat restorations, commissioned by both institutions, like Washington Crossing, and private customers.
“It’s a part of our history, so it’s neat to bring back and share that with the public and create something that will be a landmark for visitors at the park for years to come.”
The Durham boat project is part of a larger revitalization of the riverside at Washington Crossing Historic Park for America’s 250th. This includes a new ADA-accessible trail complete with signs with original artwork that depicts the history being taught.
At the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, David Dormond is replicating the boat Washington used to cross the Delaware River, June 18, 2026.
The park has also invested greatly in a Williamsburg-style experience for the roughly 10,000 field trip students that visit every year. Activities such as hands-on butter churning, gardening, blacksmithing, woodwork, quill handwriting, and soldiers drills give visitors a glimpse into 18th-century living.
“When people come to the park, a lot of our programs are free,” Martin said. “We wanted to be really intentional with creating more of these living history, immersive learning opportunities that people could experience every day that they come to the park.”
Though the shop’s team has some finishing touches to make, the boat is currently on display at Washington Crossing Park, ready for visitors amid the nation’s 250th anniversary.
It will be officially completed and installed by the end of July. It will be posted in the park indefinitely, with Dormond and his team assisting with any maintenance needs to keep it preserved for many years, and visitors, to come.
The Durham boat is on display at Washington Crossing Historic Park, 1112 River Rd., Washington Crossing, Pa. washingtoncrossingpark.org
This holiday weekend, tourists are coming from far and wide to visit the city and to tour Independence National Historical Park. But at the embattled President’s House Site tourists will not be seeing the complete version of history. So we asked them what they thought.
And heading into this historically hot weekend, we looked at mid-summer temperature changes throughout the years and learned that July in Philly has become 4.4 degrees hotter since 1940 on average.
Plus, we missed a link to the top story in yesterday’s newsletter about how different this year’s July Fourth celebration will look — and how much more it will cost taxpayers. You can read that story here.
An influx of tourists visiting Philadelphia in the lead-up to the city’s Semiquincentennial festivities find themselves confronted with large gaps of brick wall at the President’s House site, where exhibits about slavery were removed by order of President Donald Trump.
The gaps are evidence of the partisan battle playing out over how to tell the complicated story of America’s founding.
Ahead of the 250th, both Philadelphians who have been engaged in the fight to protect historical exhibits, and tourists who have wandered through the President’s House for the first time, have lamented the Trump administration’s changes to the exhibit, which was largely dismantled by the administration earlier this year.
Tourists told The Inquirer that the missing panels, such as those that discuss the brutality of slavery, do a significant disservice to understanding the full picture — even the ugly parts — of U.S. history.
Over the past 85 years, the average July temperature in Philadelphia has risen 4.4 degrees, according to an analysis of historical weather data.
Philadelphians sweated through Julys in the 1940s, brooding over World War II as temperatures averaged in the mid-to-upper 70s, including nighttime lows.
But today, we swelter under average July temperatures of around 80 degrees — and those nighttimes have become warmer.
Last summer, police scoured the basement of the crumbling Olney house at the center of a sprawling investigation into the disappearance of at least two women. But last year, drugs — not missing women — were their focus, despite pleas from concerned relatives.
Peco and its workers union, IBEW Local 614, resumed bargaining for a new contract Wednesday morning, with three days to go before a strike deadline.
Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro will attend 250th celebrations across Philly in the coming days, and he said he plans to share his optimism for America’s future amid deep concerns that President Donald Trump has led the nation astray from its founders’ design.
Bucks County approved its first paid parental leave policy. Full-time employees with at least one year of service will now be able to take up to eight weeks of consecutive leave.
A developer has plans to turn a church at South 42nd and Pine Streets into 35 apartments, some with affordable rents.
In 1978, a professional soccer team launched in Philly with rock star owners.
Peter Frampton, Paul Simon, and Rick Wakeman of Yes — and rock executives like Rolling Stones manager Peter Rudge and music agent Frank Barsalona — had stakes in the Philadelphia Fury of the North American Soccer League.
But the Fury couldn’t make soccer happen in Philly until the Union arrived in 2010. Reporter Matt Breen has the full story.
🧠Trivia time
This Founding Father believed in Philadelphia’s prosperity and insisted that the Federal Bank be headquartered in the city.
🍸 Drinking. The water ice martini, garnished with a pretzel stick, has the energy of a South Philly summer distilled into a cocktail.
🎡 Considering. Columnist Jenice Armstrong traveled to Washington, D.C., to check out President Trump’s “America’s Great State Fair.” She left underwhelmed.
🏀 Waving goodbye to. Kelly Oubre is leaving the 76ers. He reportedly agreed to a two-year, $17 million deal with the Indiana Pacers.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: This singer has been recruiting Philly area “soldiers” for her concert on the Fourth of July.
Cheers to Rich and Lucie Lipko, who solved Wednesday’s anagram: Barrington. A Tennessee-based packaging company is closing its plant in the Camden County borough.
Photo of the day
Attendees relax and enjoy their free hoagies at Independence Mall.
Sandwiched between the ocean and bay, Katie and Randy Zakreski’s Strathmere home has stunning views from nearly every window. When they were planning a complete rebuild in 2023, optimizing those views was top of mind.
Working with architect James Chadwick and Oliver Home Builders, they built a three-story, three-bedroom house with the garage on the first floor. From the bedrooms on the second floor, they see dunes on the ocean side and marshland on the bay side.
The open-concept third floor includes the kitchen, dining room, and living room, where glass windows and doors offer vast water views. A fourth-floor loft that serves as Randy’s office is also surrounded by glass.
“We decided we’d give up picture space and wall space to have as much glass as possible on each floor,” Katie said. “It feels like the outside is inside.”
Randy Zakreski’s office opens up to a view of the ocean.
It’s why many people dream of owning a Shore house — to witness sunrise and sunset over the water, spy on local wildlife, and enjoy the ever-changing views of the ocean and bay.
“When a view is one of a property’s greatest assets, every design decision should work to celebrate and preserve it,” said Laura Glantz, partner at Asher, Slaunwhite + Partners based in Jenkintown.
From the earliest stages of planning, the home’s floor plan, windows, doors, decks, and outdoor spaces are carefully positioned to optimize the views. That often includes creating a seamless relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces.
The Zakreski home in Strathmere has several decks to see the ocean and the back bays.
For the Zakreskis, it influenced the entire layout of their house. Abundant ocean and bay views are also visible from their five exterior decks — two in the front and three in back.
“At night, especially after daylight savings time, we’re making dinner and out back you see this orange ball as the sun is setting,” Katie said. “It takes your breath away.”
Optimizing views from the inside
Many homeowners enjoy their Shore homes year-round. Designing interior spaces to maximize views ensures they can appreciate the beauty of the Shore in every season and all weather.
The orientation of a waterfront home can dramatically influence its natural light. Oceanfront homes facing north or northeast greet the day with morning sunshine and sunrises, while bayfront homes facing south or southwest enjoy sun-filled afternoons and colorful sunsets.
Open floor plans allow light to pass through without obstruction. Layouts that include a main living area and kitchen with a wide, sweeping view of the horizon, make it feel like you’re outside while sitting on the couch or at the kitchen table. The most compelling views are often found from upper levels of the home.
Katie and Randy Zakreski’s back deck looks over the inland waterway, and glass doors from the kitchen to the exterior provide views from the inside.
When Mary Simmonds and Richard Stewart rebuilt their bayfront home in Avalon in 2021, they hired Clermont-based Blane Steinman Architects and J.G. Popper Custom Builders. The floor plan included an open concept with high ceilings to capture as much light as possible.
“We are not boaters, but there’s something special about being on the bay,” Simmonds said. “We have a bay view on two sides of the house, and we can see the sun rise.”
The home features plentiful windows and sliding glass doors to three water-facing decks. The living room on the second floor, oriented for a dramatic bay view, is Simmonds’ favorite spot to relax. Stewart prefers reading in the sunroom, which also enjoys spectacular views of the bay.
The sunroom of Mary Simmonds and Richard Stewart’s home, where Stewart prefers to spend time, has windows on all sides, as shown in this 2023 photo.
Window and glass door placement are key for optimizing views. The size and placement of windows should balance daylight, privacy, and visibility of outdoor features. Sliding glass doors can serve as a huge picture window with an unobstructed view to the world outside.
Carefully composed windows should frame the landscape as one would frame a work of art, making the surrounding environment an integral element of the room itself, Glantz said.
“There are companies who make glass that turns opaque with just the press of a button, so you don’t even need blinds,” said Mallory Oliver Stampone, president of Oliver Custom Home Builders in Strathmere. “But it’s very expensive.”
When houses are built very close together, as is often the case at the Jersey Shore, side walls just feet from the next-door neighbor’s house can have limited windows. The Zakreskis have decorative shutters for privacy.
Large lift-and-slide door systems with minimal frame profiles are often employed to blur the boundary between inside and out, allowing the landscape to become the focal point, Glantz said.
An Andersen Weiland Liftslide door system is an example of how to use large panes of glass in a Shore home so water views are fully enjoyable even from the indoor living spaces.
Maximizing outdoor views
Outdoor spaces, including decks, balconies, and porches, create additional opportunities to enjoy beachy surroundings.
As with the home’s orientation, outdoor spaces facing the ocean will enjoy morning sun while those facing the bay will catch sunsets.
“We’ve seen a definite shift from maximizing the size of a deck to maximizing the experience of being on it,” said Jodi Lee, senior vice president of marketing at Virginia-based Trex Co., which makes decking products. “Rather than simply building larger decks, homeowners are creating thoughtfully planned spaces that optimize sight lines while supporting multiple activities.”
Mary Simmonds and Richard Stewart on their balcony in Avalon in 2023.
Those features include multilevel layouts, built-in seating, strategically placed planters, and designated zones for dining, entertaining, and relaxing.
Homeowners can employ railings made with glass slats or panes, stainless steel rod systems, and cables, which are less obstructive. Be sure cable systems include components that won’t rust, and for safety, be sure kids can’t climb on them.
Landscaping should enhance the setting without blocking views. Some homeowners prefer a natural look with native plants and trees. Avoid planting trees that may obstruct the view as they grow larger.
This photo shows an example of cable railings, which can keep an outdoor living space safely cordoned off without taking away from visibility of the surrounding nature.
“Thoughtful planting strategies can frame desirable views, soften transitions between architecture and nature, provide privacy where needed, and direct attention toward key focal points,” Gantz said. “Hedges, shrubs, and carefully composed planting beds can create outdoor spaces that are as welcoming and thoughtfully scaled as the rooms within the home.”
Benjamin Pinckney, 46, has dreamed of becoming a physician assistant since just after his 20th birthday.
He had been targeted by a drive-by shooter in Jacksonville, Fla., and hospitalized with two gunshot wounds. During his weeklong hospitalization, he said, a physician assistant changed the course of his life by visiting his hospital bed each day and warning him that Black men with gunshot wounds often end up paralyzed — or worse.
“I used to run the streets, you know, on the wrong sides of the track,” Pinckney said. “He made me promise that I would never come into his ER that way again. That was the last conversation we had, right before I was discharged.”
His goal since then has been to become a physician assistant. Pinckney, who spent most of his career working for New York City’s Department of Sanitation and as an Army Reserve medic, recently took a step toward achieving it. In May, he graduated with departmental honors from Lehman College with a Bachelor of Science degree.
After moving from New York to Prince George’s County, Md., he’d planned on applying for physician assistant school this year. But now, he’s worried his dream may be thwarted by new student loan rules.
Starting July 1, the amount of money graduate students will be allowed to borrow from the federal government will be capped. The new student loan limits are part of the GOP’s tax-and-spending legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
The caps are intended to curb the cost of higher education and student loan debt, according to the Trump administration.
But critics widely agree the new limits are too low, especially for students allowed to borrow only $20,500 a year in federal loans due to the law’s controversial definition of a “professional degree.” On June 24, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Department of Education from enforcing that definition. Still, for many students, the new caps won’t cover the combined cost of tuition, housing, and living expenses.
This could leave hundreds of thousands of students who borrow money for graduate school each year at the mercy of private lenders with higher interest rates and fewer repayment options.
Some experts and students also worry that the limits will threaten efforts to diversify the healthcare workforce by deterring minorities and people from low-income households from applying to graduate programs. A drop in incoming students could worsen existing rural and primary care shortages, they argue.
Many politicians and loan experts have acknowledged that the cost of higher education needs to be addressed. But the new federal loan limits are “just not going to achieve that goal,” said Todd Pickard, president of the American Academy of Physician Associates, one of several organizations that have sued the Department of Education over the rules.
“It’d be like if you had a hangnail and I cut your whole arm off instead of just taking care of your hangnail,” Pickard said. “The treatment doesn’t match the problem.”
‘A rock and a hard place’
Students working toward what the law describes as “professional degrees” — including trainee doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and chiropractors — will be allowed to borrow up to $200,000 total, and no more than $50,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the median cost of attending a public medical school is nearly $300,000 over four years, while the median cost of a private medical school education exceeds $400,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The caps were set even lower for those pursuing other “graduate” degrees, who face a $100,000 borrowing limit for federal loans over the course of their degree programs. The annual limit for this category of students is only $20,500. Students pursuing physical therapy, physician assistant, and nursing degrees were originally included in this group. But according to new guidance issued by the Department of Education on June 29, some of these students will at least temporarily be able to borrow up to the higher limit, according to The Associated Press.
The Department of Education, which has been sued by clinician trade groups and about two dozen states over the new rules, did not respond to questions for this article.
As the law was written, a physician assistant student who completed their degree within the average two to three years would not have been eligible to borrow the full $100,000. Meanwhile, physician assistants typically start their careers with an average debt of $112,000, meaning some could be forced to finance their education with higher-interest private loans.
“I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place,” said Olivia Trull, 24, who is scheduled to begin the physician assistant program at Northwest University in Kirkland, Wash., this summer. The 28-month program costs $137,000, with about $62,000 in tuition and fees estimated for the first year, she said. That doesn’t include living expenses.
Before the court order, Trull said she qualified for the maximum annual allotment under the new rules of $20,500 in federal loans during her first year of graduate school. The balance would need to be financed through a private lender.
She anticipated she would need up to $100,000 in private loans to finance her graduate degree and would face loan payments of more than $3,000 a month when she was done.
“I have to actually sit down and have a conversation with myself,” Trull said, to consider “if I want to be drowning in debt for the next 10 years of my life.” One private bank offered her a loan with an interest rate of nearly 14%, she said.
Pinckney, who said he finished his undergraduate degree with about $10,000 in federal student loan debt, said some of his friends who have already applied for private student loans have been quoted interest rates as high as 13%. Meanwhile, interest rates for federal loans for graduate students, which are set annually, are currently about 8-9%. Federal loans also offer more flexible repayment options than private loans typically do.
In May, 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education over the new rules. The complaint described the law’s “professional degree” definition as “arbitrary and capricious.”
In a separate federal lawsuit filed in June, the American Academy of Physician Associates and the PA Education Association alleged that the new rules deny students the loan amounts needed to attend physician assistant schools. They argue that PA students should be able to access the higher loan limits available to students in medical school and other professional degree programs. (While “physician assistant” and “physician associate” typically refer to the same role, the AAPA adopted the title “physician associate” in 2021 because of “concern that ‘assistant’ does not reflect the important role of PAs in delivering high-quality healthcare to patients.”)
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have contended the cost of graduate school is too high across the board. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, speaking before a House committee in May about the new limits, said, “It is our overall goal to bring down the cost of college and education.”
Indeed, some experts acknowledge that the new limits may be helpful in bringing down costs. The federal Grad PLUS loan program, established by Congress 20 years ago, did not cap the amount graduate students could borrow in federal loans. That program was eliminated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“There is considerable evidence that people borrowed more than they really needed to go to school,” said Sandy Baum, a higher education economist and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
Already, some graduate programs have lowered tuition prices, Baum said. In May, for example, the University of California-Irvine announced it would lower the cost of its MBA programs by tens of thousands of dollars to fall below the new federal lending thresholds.
And yet Baum doesn’t anticipate many other schools will follow suit.
“I don’t think we’re going to see some dramatic decline in prices,” she said. “I think some programs could close down because they can’t manage.”
‘Tears have been shed’
The new lending limits will also disproportionately affect Black students, Baum said, because they have historically borrowed more than white and Hispanic students.
For some students who borrowed money to finance their undergraduate degrees, the new limits will hit especially hard. Under the new rules, they will be subject to a lifetime limit of $257,000 in federal student loans.
“There will be students who can’t enroll,” Baum said.
Andrei Robu, 26, a medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina, leads the Financial Literacy Interest Group on the Charleston campus. He said many of his peers are worried that the lending limits will make the student body less diverse.
He is also concerned that, because the demand for acceptance into medical school is already so high, schools could prioritize entrance for students from wealthy backgrounds and “still fill up their classes.”
“That’s just not what we want in our physician workforce,” said Robu, who isn’t subject to the new rules as a current student. “We want to represent the population of the country at large.”
Jasmine Vasquez, 26, who has been accepted into the physician assistant program at South College in Atlanta, decided to defer her enrollment until 2027, partly to see if her financing options change. She is worried about taking on too much debt from a private bank.
“Tears have been shed multiple times,” said Vasquez, who is due to give birth in September. “It’s nothing that’s within my control.”
Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute for Student Loan Advisors, expects the new rules will force some graduates into bankruptcy when they can’t afford to repay private loans.
First, though, she expects enrollment numbers to drop and some graduate programs to close because they can’t recruit enough students. Completion rates will also drop, she expects, as students run into federal loan limits partway through their degree programs.
Beyond that, she predicts healthcare graduates will seek jobs in high-paying specialties, exacerbating shortages in rural and underserved communities.
“They’re going to go where they can make the most money,” Mayotte said.
Benjamin Pinckney wants to go to graduate school to become a physician assistant. But he worries new federal student loan limits may force him to borrow money from a private bank at a higher interest rate. (Erica S. Lee for KFF Health News)
Pinckney said he is “not really sure” what the future holds. He paid for most of his undergraduate education by working while he was in school, but that’s typically not possible for full-time physician assistant students.
He has considered applying to a biomedical science graduate program instead, which he estimated would cost about $30,000 — an amount that’s “a lot more doable,” he said. It would allow him to potentially work in a lab or in pharmaceuticals, he said. It’s still aligned with medicine, he said, but it wouldn’t help him realize his goal of working with patients.
“Maybe this thing will blow over,” he said of the new federal loan limits. In the meantime, he’s holding out hope.
“If I can influence one person’s life, that would be my way of paying him forward for what he did,” he said, referring to the physician assistant who inspired him back in 1999. “It’s very hard to pivot from that dream.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
The common wisdom that “There will never be an American pope” went up in white smoke on May 8, 2025, when Cardinal Robert Prevost, a boy from the South Side of Chicago and a graduate of Villanova University, was elected pontiff and took the name Leo XIV.
Now, on the eve of America’s Semiquincentennial, as if to underscore how much has changed, the American pope has been awarded the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal. Pope Leo accepted the award at the Vatican on April 30. On Friday, in a ceremony at the National Constitution Center on Independence Mall, the pontiff will address the audience live from the Vatican in a speech that will be livestreamed globally.
The medal, according to the center’s interim president and CEO, Vince Stango, will celebrate how “[i]n formal Vatican statements and public addresses, His Holiness has affirmed that peace cannot exist without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression, principles that closely align with constitutional protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
One reason an American pope was long unthinkable is that American principles have not always aligned with Catholic principles. The proud American refusal to establish the Catholic Church as the national religion flew in the face of traditional Catholic teaching that the church should ensoul the body politic.
That was never going to happen in the United States, of course. Not even close. And so the question then became, from the Catholic point of view, what to say about the American model that included the First Amendment, with its coordinated guarantees of the “free exercise” of religion and the nonestablishment of religion by Congress.
Rome’s response has changed over time. In the late 1800s, Pope Leo XIII noted with approval the religious situation of Catholics in the United States, yet cautioned against the error that separation between the church and the civil power was to be the norm. By the 1950s, though, some Catholic thinkers were claiming the American model, in fact, stated the ideal, reasoning that the First Amendment guarantee of “free exercise” is necessary for a person to honor his God-imposed duties.
By now, even though the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) stated that it was leaving the church’s traditional teaching “untouched,” the nonestablishment of religion and a legal guarantee of individual and group free exercise of religion, subject to just limitations for the common good, constitute the norm proposed by the Catholic Church to the world as we know it.
Pope Leo XIV speaks to members of the Spanish Parliament at the Congress of Deputies, in Madrid, on Monday, June 8.
In speaking to the Spanish Parliament on June 8, for example, Pope Leo insisted that laws must respect “freedom of thought, conscience and religion, a fundamental right that protects the most intimate sphere of the person. The freedom upon which the contemporary state is built, if it is authentic, recognizes the religious dimension of the human person.”
In the ceremony on Independence Mall on Friday, Pope Leo will address a nation in which, for the first time in its history, it is becoming socially acceptable to oppose the free exercise of religion for some people. Litigation that threatens to cancel people’s freedom to live according to their conscience becomes more common. The seal of confession, long protected in the United States, is under assault, and the threat is real. In his address to the Spanish Parliament, Pope Leo warned against the withdrawal of that protection, and the warning needs to be echoed in the United States.
It would be one of history’s great ironies for an American pope to call his country back to a principle that his church learned, in part, from America.
Religious liberty is not the only American principle on the American pope’s mind, as his message to the 2026 graduates of his alma mater makes clear. “This being the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, I would invite you to recall in a special way the guiding principles of the foundations of our nation: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”
The principles of the First Amendment are to be cherished, but prior to those principles, the pope has reminded us, are the principles of the Declaration of Independence around which the nation was formed in 1776. And while the declaration does indeed attest to the nation’s commitment to the people’s Creator-given right to liberty, the outstanding principle of the declaration to which President Abraham Lincoln later found the nation “dedicated” since 1776 was that all people are “created equal.”
When Lincoln summoned the American nation to rededicate itself to the equality of all persons, he did so for good reason: Unless we are related to one another as equals, we are related to one another as fractions to wholes. The three-fifths clause of the original U.S. Constitution gave effect to slavery, a grievous injustice removed by the 13th Amendment in concert with the other Reconstruction amendments. These amendments constitutionalized the nation’s earlier commitment to our having been “created equal,” but not everyone is a believer in the equality of all people.
Today, Americans are divided over the declaration and, specifically, the claim that we are “created equal.” Human equality is said by some to be a self-evident lie, and even among those who pay it lip service, commitment to the basic equality of all people is undermined by identity politics, race-based priorities, and blood guilt.
Pope Leo, though, is not in doubt about the equality of all people. In his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, he writes that we are equal in “ontological dignity, which is neither acquired nor earned, nor does it need to be justified.” This immutable and foundational equality is true of all people because we are, without exception, “created in the image and likeness of God.”
And this is another truth Americans need to reclaim.
In order to reclaim it, we need to understand that human equality was never meant to state something empirical or measurable about people. The equality declared by the declaration and celebrated by Lincoln, and fully constitutionalized by the Reconstruction amendments, depends on what is spiritual in a person, represented by the radical Christian judgment that underneath the obvious and often wonderful diversity of people lies a universal sameness in being created in the divine image.
When G.K. Chesterton was asked, “What is America?” he gave a characteristically smart answer that has been debated ever since: “America is a nation with the soul of a church. America is the only nation in the world founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”
Pope Leo XIV meets migrants at the Las Raices center, in San Cristobal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, June 12.
Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo, was formed, in part, in that “church” with its declarational creed. He was also, and first, formed in the Catholic Church, with its commitment to the universal equality of all people.
What the American pope can do now, in a way no other person on earth can, is to remind Americans that the equality to which their nation has been dedicated since 1776 depends on what Christianity has shown the world: that even the least, in worldly eyes, are equals in God’s eyes.
Patrick McKinley Brennan is the chair of Catholic legal studies and a constitutional law scholar at Villanova University.
