CLEARWATER, Fla. — After Jhoan Duran finished his throwing program in the BayCare Ballpark outfield, he didn’t head straight for the mound, where he was scheduled to throw live batting practice.
First, he stopped by the empty bullpen.
Duran wanted to reenact the jog he will make every time he comes in to close games for the Phillies this season, to help get in the right head space for facing hitters the first time all spring.
“That’s what I do in the game,” Duran said. “So I wanted to go in live, too.”
It was shortly before noon on a clear Florida day, so Duran wasn’t accompanied by his traditional light show, flames, or crawling spiders on the video board. But it didn’t really matter, because Duran got the results he was looking for on the mound with the 17 pitches he threw.
“I feel good,” he said. “My command is there. I feel it’s there. My breaking ball pitches are moving good. So that’s good.”
The last time Duran had jogged from bullpen to mound, in Game 4 of the National League Division Series, things had not gone so according to plan.
“I feel good,” Jhoan Duran said. “My command is there.”
With the Phillies protecting a 1-0 lead over the Dodgers, manager Rob Thomson called on his closer with two runners on in the seventh inning. He intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani to load the bases for the more advantageous right-on-right matchup against Mookie Betts. But Duran issued his first career bases-loaded walk after Betts held off on an elevated fastball, which tied the game.
After the Phillies were eliminated in extra innings, Duran said he didn’t dwell on the walk or the game at all over the winter. He has learned to have a short memory.
“I don’t think about it too much,” he said. “Because that’s the past. I learned in the minor leagues, if you throw one inning and you do it bad, the next day, you think about that, you don’t throw good that day. So if I do it bad, I forget. I’m ready for the next day. That’s me.”
With 2025 in the rearview, Duran said the number of outings he has each spring can vary, and will depend on how he feels. He doesn’t have the added complication that some of his teammates have, of factoring in preparation for the World Baseball Classic, which will start pool play in less than two weeks.
He was asked to pitch for the Dominican Republic but opted not to participate. He wanted to focus on being ready for the regular season instead.
When he does make that jog for the first time with the lights, it will also mark the Phillies’ first time starting a season with a bona fide closer under Thomson. And having a dedicated ninth-inning pitcher will also impact how the manager deploys the rest of the bullpen this year.
Thomson is leaning toward having designated roles for his other high-leverage arms, rather than just piecing things together based on matchups. Lefty José Alvarado and righty Brad Keller are both potential setup men for Duran.
“When you have a true closer like Duran, that’s the way you should set it up,” Thomson said. “And especially when we have the type of arms that we have. But again, if you give a guy a fifth- or sixth-inning role, and the seventh- and eighth-inning guys aren’t available, well, they’re going to have to pitch in the seventh or eighth.”
“I think it’s probably the best group of arms we’ve had here since I’ve been here,” he said.
Keller signed a two-year, $22 million deal with the Phillies this winter after a breakout season as a Cubs reliever last year. He and Duran coincided in the Diamondbacks organization as minor leaguers between 2015 and 2018. At the time, they were also both starters.
Now their careers have taken them to the back end of the Phillies’ bullpen.
“I think that’s what makes a fun bullpen, right?” Keller said on a recent episode of Phillies Extra, the Inquirer’s baseball interview show. “All different backgrounds, all different personalities, and just all come together, just be a bunch of grinders and a bunch of dogs down there. That’s kind of the mentality that a bullpen takes over. And it’s so fun getting to know these guys and watching.”
Duran is excited for the unit that is shaping up. Also in the group are returning lefty Tanner Banks and righty Orion Kerkering, plus newcomer Jonathan Bowlan, a righty acquired from the Royals in exchange for Matt Strahm. There are several contenders in camp for the final two spots, including Rule 5 pick Zach McCambley and sidearmer Kyle Backhus.
“We talk a lot together, we practice together, too, more and more times,” Duran said. “And it’s great, these guys in the bullpen; great arms, great talent. We have everything in the bullpen.”
At this point, the prospect of a barely measurable snow Wednesday morning may seem like so much drizzle in the ocean.
However, given that a coating of snow could cover another harvest of stealth black ice in the morning as the snow melt refreezes overnight, motorists and pedestrians might want to exercise a measure of caution.
The forecasts are calling for a half-inch to maybe an inch in the Philly area.
For the record, the official total at Philadelphia International Airport was 14 inches. Of that, 7.5 inches fell on Monday, setting a record for the date. It was No. 16 on the all-time snowstorm list, and the first time in 33 years that a foot or more had fallen so late in the season.
The post-storm issues included contending with scores of downed trees throughout the region. A fallen tree in Radnor Township, Delaware County, still was affecting service on the Norristown High Speed Line.
Service still was still suspended on the Cynwyd Regional Rail line, SEPTA said, and other lines were operating with delays.
Airport operations were getting back to normal, said spokesperson Heather Redfern, flights having resumed Monday afternoon.
As for schools, they were opting for a variety of options from virtual learning (Philadelphia) to two-hour delays (Cherry Hill, Moorestown), to party’s over, get here on time (Upper Darby).
This may be the week of black ice in Philly
Invisible and insidious black ice, a dangerous slipping hazard, in all likelihood will be present through the workweek as the snow melt picks up speed during the day, with highs in the 40s, and temperatures falling below freezing at night.
More light snow, rain, or a snow-and-rain mix is possible Thursday into Thursday night, the weather service said. But odds are the immediate Philly area will see mostly rain, said Eric Hoeflich, a weather service meteorologist in Mount Holly.
After a modest warmup on a dry weekend, some computer models were hinting at more snow early next week as a storm moves east, but “not all the guidance is showing a significant system,” the weather service said in its afternoon discussion. “It’s definitely on our radar,” the agency said, but it doesn’t “appear to have potential for a ‘major’ event.”
In short, anything rivaling the Sunday-Monday storm would be, at the very least, unlikely.
Hoeflich said he spent 30 hours in the Mount Holly office, not leaving until 2 p.m. Monday. He said that the weather service provided air mattresses for him and other staffers and that his colleagues came armed with soft pretzels.
Sarah Johnson, the warning coordination meteorologist, brought pizza. Evidently carbs are a sine qua non of storm forecasting.
The developer of a “boutique data center” will look elsewhere after public outcry and a preemptive board of supervisors vote showed no appetite for the facility in North Coventry Township.
The data center, informally proposed by Envision Land Use, would have been situated adjacent to Route 100 at 299 W. Schuylkill Road, in an industrial lot sitting near a Peco utility substation and a residential development.
But swift and early public discontent — and the township’s leadership— stopped the data center before a formal application was even submitted to the Chester County municipality.
The township’s board of supervisors voted, 3-2, on Monday that they would reject a proposal for the site eyed by Envision Land Use, said Erica Batdorf, the township’s manager. It wasthe first data center to be proposed in North Coventry.
The board’s chair did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Though the developer could still formally submit its plans, it will scrap them for the municipality, said Envision Land Use’s Reiss Rosenthal.
“[With] this much public pushback, we just thought at this time it didn’t make sense to try to go forward with this,” he said.
On Monday, the crowd of roughly 100 residents booed when the supervisors discussed pushing back the vote to a subsequent meeting, Rosenthal said.
The vote follows a growing public pushback of data centers in the region, particularly in Chester County. Last week, East Vincent’s planning commission told the township’s board of supervisors that it should reject a massive data center project there after months of tense public meetings. A proposed project in East Whiteland also saw backlash from residents last month after it sought to expand the footprint of its project.
There are more than 150 data centers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Data centers are buildings or campuses that handle cloud-storage and computing needs of massive corporations, like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Meta.
And though those kinds of corporations are looking at setting up shop in Pennsylvania, at about 17 acresthe North Coventry project would have been smaller than its proposed counterparts in other pockets of Chester County, the developer said. These smaller centers have been around for longer than the ones making recent headlines, Rosenthal said.
The proposed site would have been a 120,000 square-foot three-story building, making it relatively small compared with the sprawling plans in East Vincent and East Whiteland, which would both exceed a million square feet.
Plans for the site say that it would have preserved and added trees and that its proximity to the Peco station would have required minimal additional power supply.
The proposed project would have been within the township’s residential zoning district that has an industrial overlay. It would have had six full-time employees.
“We were kind of surprised that this ended in a vote already,” Rosenthal said. “We thought it was possibly going to be a little bit more down the line, after we were able to meet with the neighbors as well as show our hands on what we were actually planning on doing.”
Burford (née Grasso) played volleyball at Rowan from 2010 to 2014 before entering coaching and spent the last two seasons as head coach at Catholic University. She previously held assistant coaching roles at Goucher College, Delaware State, and Frostburg State.
“This program has always meant so much to me because of my experience here as a student-athlete, alum, and student-assistant coach,” Burford said in a news release. “I’m truly excited by the work Deana did to shape Rowan volleyball into the culture and program it is today and feel so lucky to be a part of it again.
“Returning to my alma mater and being part of this program feels like a full-circle moment, and I’m excited to work with a group of strong, talented young women as we continue to grow together.”
The Profs were 25-6 and 7-1 in the New Jersey Athletic Conference last season. Rowan lost to Stockton in the semifinals of the NJAC tournament 11 days after Jespersen’s death.
“Coach [Jespersen] instituted a strong culture of family and togetherness, and I’m confident that Coach [Burford] will build upon that similar philosophy to lead our program to success on and off the court,” Rowan athletic director Shawn Tucker said in the release.
Swarthmore College President Valerie Smith will step down in June 2027 after concluding her 12th academic year in the job.
Smith, the highly selective liberal arts college’s first African American president, said in a message to campus that she decided to announce her decision now to give the school time for “a thoughtful, seamless transition.”
“Serving as Swarthmore’s 15th president has been one of the great privileges of my life,” she said.
Smith, 70, didn’t say specifically why she is choosing to leave the presidency, but it will be at the end of her current contract, which had been extended in 2024. An attempt to reach her for comment Tuesday was not successful.
“These are tumultuous times,” Smith wrote. “Like many institutions, we are navigating new pressures, including unprecedented threats to our very mission. We will continue to face these challenges together, thoughtfully and deliberately. In doing so, we reaffirm Swarthmore’s enduring value.”
The college said it would launch a search for Smith’s successor and already had chosen a search firm.
“This is a pivotal moment for the college and for higher education more broadly, and the board recognizes how consequential this search will be in shaping Swarthmore’s future,” said Harold “Koof” Kalkstein, a 1978 graduate and chair of the school’s board of managers.
A scholar of African American literature and culture, Smith came to Swarthmore in July 2015 from Princeton, where she had been dean of the college and a professor of literature and English.
Smith steered Swarthmore through COVID-19, various student protests — including a pro-Palestinian encampment that was erected on campus in 2024 — and more recently, funding threats from the federal government. Swarthmore had feared that the federal government would increase the excise tax on its endowment earnings, but the school actually ended up not having to pay at all under new rules announced last year.
In 2021, the college decided to stick with a plan to partner with an organization that places retired military personnel on campus as visiting faculty members despite pushback.
“I ultimately drew from the College’s mission and my fundamental belief that critical to the liberal arts is our ability to engage in the exchange of diverse and often opposing views, not to shut them out,” Smith wrote at the time.
When she arrived at Swarthmore, she said her plan for dealing with a student body known for its activism was to listen carefully, craft a careful and well-researched response, and communicate.
“It’s critically important to maintain open dialogue with students,” she said at the start of her presidency in 2015.
“She has modeled integrity, intellectual curiosity, compassion, and empathy, all in service of our shared mission,“ Kalkstein said. ”Swarthmore is forever stronger thanks to Val’s leadership.”
When my neighbor told me during last month’s snowstorm that I had to shovel the sidewalk around my house, I thought she was joking. It’s my first winter in the city. It didn’t snow much where I grew up, so the whole idea of shoveling snow was foreign to me. Call me naive, but I assumed the city would do it. Or my landlord. But no. Evidently, it was my responsibility. I guess that’s why there was a shovel in the shed. I remember seeing it when I moved in and wondering when, if ever, I had shoveled before.
Well, I was about to make up for lost time. My house sits on a corner lot, which means I pay for the great light it got with extra sidewalk that now had to be shoveled. I tried to convince myself and my partner, whom I forced to help me, that it would be a fun family adventure. A little bit of exercise in the fresh air. Honestly, how long could it take? 15 minutes, max, I thought to myself as I strapped my 4-month-old baby, who is basically an 18-pound kettlebell, to my chest and got to work.
Within minutes, my baby was asleep, the steady digging and chucking motion of shoveling lulling him even as it shredded back muscles I never knew I had. At least one of us was at peace. An hour into the job, with the end still nowhere in sight, my 11-year-old neighbor waddled over and asked if she could do my stairs for me. Was she acting out of goodwill, or had she heard me hacking up a lung through her double-pane bedroom window? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care. “You sure can,” I said.
She knocked on my door to let me know she was done. She didn’t ask for any money, but I gave her $10 anyway. I probably would’ve given her $100 if she’d asked. That’s how desperate I was not to have to shovel anymore. This is what economists call demand.
And it was clear this past Monday, when it snowed again, that word had gotten out about me, because not one, not two, but three kids offered to shovel for me. Except this time, they wanted to be paid. And they already had a price in mind: $30 to do the remainder of my sidewalk.
Snow caps the roof of a birdhouse outside a home in Wallingford, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, a day after a blizzard swept through the Philadelphia region.
But I had already spent two hours doing the majority of it. Between the three of them, it would probably take about six minutes to do the rest. That’s an hourly rate of $300. Were they shoveling my sidewalk or representing my company in court?
Obviously, that was an absurd amount of money for a small amount of work. I should’ve refused to pay, if only to teach these kids a lesson about hard work and economic fairness. On the other hand, I was sleepy. I’m a new parent. I didn’t want to shovel anymore.
So, yes, I paid them $30, and I would do it again. Was it highway robbery? Definitely. But the richest I ever felt in my life was the moment I tossed that stupid shovel back into the shed and locked the door.
Paul F. Engstrom, 89, formerly of Ambler, Montgomery County, celebrated pioneer in cancer prevention, education, and treatment, former chair and professor emeritus of the hematology and oncology department at Fox Chase Cancer Center, retired vice president of cancer control and senior adviser to the president at Fox Chase, Army veteran, and mentor, died Friday, Dec. 26, of Parkinson’s disease at Normandy Farms Estates in Blue Bell.
The son of a small-town doctor, Dr. Engstrom accompanied his father on house calls in Minnesota when he was young and assisted sometimes on routine procedures. Later, after earning his medical degree at the University of Minnesota, he excelled at identifying cancer-related health problems and creating solutions.
Starting in the 1960s and ’70s, Dr. Engstrom noticed large gaps in cancer prevention programs and treatment strategies. So he compiled comprehensive clinical care guidelines for cancer doctors and hospitals around the world, forged sustainable oncology research networks and community education partnerships, and established one of the country’s first cancer prevention and control programs at Fox Chase.
“Most doctors and oncologists in the 1970s were training to treat cancer, not necessarily to prevent it,” former Fox Chase colleague Carolyn Fang said in a 2018 story for Fox Chase’s Forward magazine. “He was one of the first to recognize that prevention was important.”
In 1991, Dr. Engstrom told the Daily News: “Changing the behavior of the public is only part of my job. We must change the physicians, too.” In 2000, he told The Inquirer: “Nowadays, the trend is toward identifying high-risk individuals and treatments we can give to prevent cancer from ever starting.”
Dr. Engstrom was adept at organization and collaboration, former colleagues said in online tributes. He recruited other cancer experts to Fox Chase and established cutting-edge programs for cancer screening, smoking cessation, and education at hospitals, schools, private companies, and other organizations.
He taught clinical science classes, secured vital grants from the National Cancer Institute and other groups, and made seminal clinical trials available to many more patients. “He was really aware of the need to integrate the community into this work.” Fang said in 2018.
Dr. Engstrom joined the old American Oncologic Hospital in Philadelphia in 1970 and oversaw its merger with the Institute for Cancer Research in 1974 to become the Fox Chase Cancer Center. He was named vice president of cancer control and continuing education in 1984, and head of community cancer program activities in 1989.
Dr. Engstrom (center) earned many awards over his long career.
He was also vice president for population science and held the Samuel M.V. Hamilton endowed chair in cancer prevention. He specialized in treating gastrointestinal cancers and neuroendocrine tumors. Heretired in 2018 but continued as a special adviser to the Fox Chase president.
He cofounded the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and was a fellow of the American College of Physicians and longtime member of the American Association of Cancer Research and other groups. He served on many boards and earned a clinical care achievement award in 2013 from the Association of Community Cancer Centers.
Dr. Engstrom edited, wrote, or cowrote hundreds of research papers and lectured around the world. He was drafted into the Army in 1967, rose to the rank of major, and served three years as head of hematology and oncology at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu.
Dr. Engstrom (left in the photo) appeared in many print advertisements for the Fox Chase Cancer Center, such as this 1995 ad in The Inquirer.
“Medicine is a great career,” he said in 2018. “It is still the most satisfying and the best opportunity to do well, but most importantly to do good.”
Paul Frederick Engstrom was born May 28, 1936, in St. Cloud, Minn. He played football and basketball, ran track, played trombone in the high school band, and sang in the school chorus.
His father was the only doctor in Belgrade, Minn., and Dr. Engstrom knew early he was going to be a doctor, too. He earned a bachelor’s degree at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and completed a public health fellowship at the California Department of Health during medical school.
He met nurse Janet Johnson during a procedure in a Minnesota hospital in 1960, and they married in 1961. They lived in Hawaii while he served in the Army and in Ambler until recently, and had daughters Karin and Maria, and a son, David.
Dr. Engstrom met his wife, Janet, when she was an intensive care unit nurse.
Dr. Engstrom and his wife enjoyed the orchestra, ballet, and theater in Philadelphia. He liked to garden, read, and travel. He was thrifty, his wife said.
He followed many of the local college and professional sports teams, especially the Eagles, and sang in the choir at Christ’s Lutheran Church in Oreland. He survived prostate cancer and remained a lifelong learner.
At the end of the event, the moderator, 21st Ward Leader Lou Agre, allowed the candidates to ask one another questions. Their choices offered hints as to which of their rivals the candidates view as most threatening.
Dr. Ala Stanford, who appears to be the strongest candidate among the non-elected officials in the race, questioned the accomplishments of State Sen. Sharif Street, who is seen by many as a frontrunner after being endorsed by the Democratic City Committee and building trades unions.
The 3rd District covers about half of Philadelphia and is, by some measures, the bluest seat in Congress. The Democratic primary is May 19.
The forum was initially scheduled to be held in-person at the Polish Legion of American Veterans’ Adam Kowalski post in Roxborough, but it was moved to Zoom due to the blizzard on Sunday and Monday.
Here are the issues the candidates debated Monday night.
She began the candidate-on-candidate questioning on Monday by asking Street for instances in which his work has helped constituents in tangible ways, setting up a juxtaposition with her record.
“In a time when the people are asking for new leadership, they’re asking for innovation, they’re asking for not the same politics as usual … can you tell the people a time when the seas were rough and you stepped up and delivered for them that they felt it?” Stanford asked, adding: “Can you share what you can do during the chaos that people can feel — and where was it during COVID?”
Physician Ala Stanford (left) and State Sen. Sharif Street at a December forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee.
Street began by saying that, as the top Democrat on the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee in Harrisburg, he boosted Stanford’s work during the pandemic by pressuring insurance companies to reimburse her fledgling organization, which provided testing and vaccinations for thousands of Philadelphians in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
“Independence Blue Cross was not moving forward with the reimbursement rates for the Black COVID Doctors Consortium,” Street said. “I spoke with you, and I helped, and I reached out to them to make sure that [the Medicaid plan] Keystone First would begin to pay the reimbursement in an immediate way.”
He also said his office distributed food to constituents and helped process rent rebates during the pandemic.
In the run-up to the 2020 election, Street, as chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party at the time, repeatedly fought in court against President Donald Trump’s campaign over election administration issues. In her question, Stanford asked Street to focus on what he delivered for his constituents — “not that you sued Donald Trump 20 times and won every time, because how do the people feel that?”
“Donald Trump wanted to challenge people’s ability to vote in some of the most vulnerable communities,” he said. “I went to court, I stopped him, and I made sure that they had the right to vote, and that was why we were able to pass the vote to remove him from office.”
Street and Rabb clash over hate-crime legislation
When it was his turn to pose a question, Street pressed Rabb on why the progressive was opposed to hate-crime legislation, an issue the two had sparred over at a forum last week.
“You and I have worked to fight for regular folks, for disadvantaged people, for a long time. I was shocked that you … want to prevent hate-crimes legislation,” Street, a centrist Democrat, said to Rabb. “I’ve heard from so many trans women of color, who are most likely to be victims of hate crimes, and they don’t understand.”
Rabb responded by saying that Street’s line of attack was “shameful and unnecessary.”
“I know you want to win. I just thought you would do it with honor,” Rabb said. “I am an active member of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus. I am the father of a queer son. I represent an active queer community. … To use this as a political punching bag is just — man, it’s beneath you.”
At the end of the forum, Street clarified that he has no doubts about Rabb’s commitment to the LGBTQ community.
At a December candidates forum in Mount Airy, (from left) State Reps. Morgan Cephas and Chris Rabb and physician David Oxman.
“I had a policy dispute about hate crimes,” Street said. “I did not mean to question your commitment to the trans community or to your kid.”
The dust-up got in the way of a meaningful debate over hate-crime laws, which increase sentences for people convicted of crimes that prosecutors prove were motivated by prejudice against particular groups.
Such laws are common across the country, but they have long faced criticism from the libertarian right, which fears that such regulations could be used to target citizens for political views. The laws have also faced pushback from some on the progressive left, who contend that they contribute to mass incarceration.
“Politicians tout hate-crime laws as proof they care about the marginalized,” Rabb wrote in an op-ed for PennLive last fall. “In reality, the main outcome is more policing, more prosecution, and more incarceration.”
Street said last week that people who oppose hate-crime laws on the “far left … don’t want to address the antisemitism on the left or the right.”
The Pennsylvania House in 2023 approved a bill to expand the state’s law that criminalizes ethnic intimidation to include sexual orientation and disability status. Rabb voted for the bill, which ultimately died in the Senate amid GOP opposition, but said he had “considerable reservations.”
“We should collectively focus on structural violence and hatred that has been cultivated by the very institutions that have been asked to address this legislation,” Rabb said at the time.
Cephas presses Stanford about her government contracts
Cephas, who represents a West Philadelphia district and chairs the Philadelphia delegation to the state House, questioned how much money Stanford’s nonprofit organization has made from government contracting since the onset of the pandemic.
“You oftentimes quote that you, as a private citizen, came in and saved Philadelphia from COVID, and, you know, there are a number of people on this [Zoom] call that stepped up during COVID,” Cephas said, noting that she worked with Stanford to set up clinics in her district during the pandemic.
“We all did it in our own individual capacity, and we didn’t receive government contracts for it. … How much in government contracts did you receive during the COVID-19 period?”
Stanford noted that she initially launched the Black Doctors Consortium with her own financial resources to serve neighborhoods that were not being reached by existing healthcare and government institutions. She said her first $1 million city grant for testing came months after she began her work.
In 2020 and 2021, Stanford’s groups received $2.5 million in grants and contracts from the city, state, and federal governments, according to Stanford campaign manager Janée Taft-Mack. That money covered costs including supplies, staff, mobile medical units, personal protective equipment, and facility rentals, Taft-Mack said.
Since then, Stanford hascontinued partnering with government agencies to address healthcare inequality. She has opened the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity in Swampoodle and secured a $5.38 millioncontract for the Black Doctors Consortium to work at Riverview Wellness Village, the city-owned drug recovery home.
The total amount Stanford and her organizations have received for work since 2021 was not immediately clear.
Philly’s most famous culinary offering has proven politically hazardous over the years, such as when John Kerry catastrophically asked for Swiss cheese while visiting Pat’s King of Steaks during the 2004 presidential election.
This year’s congressional hopefuls were better prepared than the Massachusetts senator.
Agre, the moderator whose ward includes much of Roxborough, interjected to insist that Dalessandro’s served up the best steak sandwiches in the city.
At a candidate’s forum on Feb. 9 at the Church of the Holy Trinity, (left to right) Alex Schnell, physician Dave Oxman, State Sen. Sharif Street, physician Ala Stanford, State Rep. Morgan Cephas, and Pablo McConnie-Saad.
Cephas said she orders Cooper Sharp at Angelo’s Pizzeria. Stanford’s go-to is American from Dalessandro’s. Street, a vegetarian, said he gets non-meat cheesesteaks from Hip City Veg and enjoys the cheese they use. (Mozzarella, per Hip City’s website.)
And Rabb shouted out the cheesesteak egg rolls from Black Dragon, a West Philadelphia establishment offering a “unique fusion of Black American cuisine presented with the familiar aesthetics of classic Chinese American takeout,” according to its website.
Still tense from the previous questions and perhaps a bit peckish, the candidates declined Agre’s offer to deliver closing remarks.
Staff writers Max Marin and Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
Vince Tacconelli didn’t set out to open another Tacconelli’s — or even a bar — in South Jersey. He saw a gap, and it wasn’t pizza.
“If you’re in the Maple Shade area on a Thursday night at 8 o’clock, there’s nowhere to get a proper cocktail,” said Tacconelli, 33, a fifth-generation member of the pizzeria family. “We always end up going into Philly.”
The repeated frustration has led Tacconelli to a new business venture. “I’m trying to build the cocktail bar I want to go to,”he said.
Vince Tacconelli behind the bar at Bar Tacconelli, 461 Route 38, Maple Shade, on Feb. 21, 2026.
Bar Tacconelli — an Italian-leaning cocktail lounge and bottle shop with late-night hours — opened in late February about four minutes from the Maple Shade pizzeria he owns with his father, Vince. The concept is aimed at locals who might otherwise cross the bridge.
The opportunity, he said, came together “pretty organically.” Christine Zubris, a friend who owned Route 38’s Versi Vino, a strip-mall wine bar between the Cherry Hill and Moorestown Malls, told him that she was stepping away after five years.
Capocollo bombette at Bar Tacconelli, 461 Route 38, Maple Shade, on Feb. 21, 2026.
“I kind of jokingly said to my father, ‘Let’s take it — let’s get our first liquor license,’” he said. “At first, we laughed. But I kept putting it out there. And sure enough, it fell onto my lap.”
Tacconelli partnered with Greg Listino, whom he met through restaurant-equipment supplier Rosito Bisani, and Listino’s wife, Stacey Lyons, who operates Attico cocktail bar in Center City. The three of them had joked for years about opening a bar, Tacconelli said. “Next thing you know, they’re on board.”
Bar Tacconelli during a preview dinner on Feb. 21, 2026.
They took over the 60-seat space this spring. Lyons designed it with a soft industrial look: an exposed black ceiling with visible ductwork warmed by sculptural pendant lights casting an amber glow. Along one wall, a run of plush, channel-tufted banquettes in muted green sits beneath heavy drapery, while sliding barn-style wood doors lead to a semiprivate room.
The 12-seat bar has been expanded from the Versa Vino days and now includes a drink rail with room for eight.
Lyons leads the extensive bar program. Italian wines join eight beers (including a pilsner created by Haddonfield’s Kings Road) and a cocktail list organized into four sections: “Essenziale” and “Frizzante” cover classics and easy, bubbly spritzes, while “Dal Giardino” introduces more culinary, Italian-inspired creations and “Rustico” leans into spirit-forward, amaro-driven cocktails. There’s also an eight-bottle wine dispenser next to the racks of wines for sale.
Sicilian tomato pie at Bar Tacconelli, 461 Route 38, Maple Shade, on Feb. 21, 2026.
Tacconelli runs the compact kitchen. There is no pizza, aside from wedges of Sicilian tomato pie — a deliberate choice given the proximity to the pizzeria. “I don’t want to take away from that,” he said. “It actually helps us. Instead of rushing people out, we can say, ‘Head over to the bar — we’ll call ahead, get you a drink.’”
Tacconelli’s Maple Shade location opened in 2003 on Lenola Road, across from Moorestown Mall, and moved in 2014 to its current home on Main Street. Father and son — the fourth and fifth generations — opened a Haddon Township location in 2023. Those South Jersey restaurants are owned separately from the landmark Tacconelli’s, which began baking pizzas in 1948 in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond section.
Chicken cutlet under a bed of arugula, roasted cherry tomatoes, and parmesan at Bar Tacconelli, 461 Route 38, Maple Shade, on Feb. 21, 2026.
At Bar Tacconelli, the food skews small and shareable: baked oysters, chicken cutlet with lemon-parmesan arugula, meatballs, shrimp cannelloni, grilled prawns in salmoriglio, and capocollo bombette — the Pugliese fried meat roll stuffed with caciocavallo and pancetta. Most dishes land in the $14-to-$18 range; lamb chops, four for $24, are an outlier.
The pricing is intentional. “I don’t want this to be an occasion place,” he said.
Lounge seating at Bar Tacconelli, 461 Route 38, Maple Shade, on Feb. 21, 2026.
It’s open from Wednesday through Sunday, with late-night service — potentially until 1:30 or 2 a.m. — aimed at another local shortfall.
“When I get out of work at 9:30, I have nowhere to eat,” Tacconelli said. “I want a place you can come, hang out, have a Negroni, get something real to eat.”
Live music, DJs, happy hour, and late-night menus are planned. Tacconelli also saw the liquor license as strategic — keeping it out of a chain’s hands — but the broader goal is to give South Jersey diners a reason to stay put.
“There are a lot of young professionals around here who don’t want to go into Philly every time,” he said. “I want to be a destination for them.”
Bar Tacconelli, 461 Route 38, Maple Shade. Hours: 4 to 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 to 10 p.m. Sunday.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Las Vegas Raiders are planning to keep star edge rusher Maxx Crosby despite the trade talk around the five-time Pro Bowl pick, general manager John Spytek said Tuesday.
“Maxx is an elite player. I’ve been very upfront from the start since I got here, that we’re in the business of having really good players on the team, and we need a lot more of them,” Spytek said at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
Crosby has been rehabilitating from left knee surgery he underwent three days after the regular season ended, as speculation about his status has persisted following an NFL-worst 3-14 record for the Raiders and the firing of coach Pete Carroll after just one year on the job.
Crosby said earlier this month he doesn’t want out and that the unsubstantiated reports suggesting he does make him laugh. His future with the club that drafted him in the fourth round out of Eastern Michigan in 2019 became a subject when he was placed on injured reserve with two games left against his wish, preferring to play out the season. Crosby, who has 69½ sacks in seven years, had a career-high 28 tackles for loss in 2025.
