Craig Kellem, 82, of Philadelphia, former talent agent, celebrated TV producer, show developer, writer, longtime script consultant, author, and “comedic genius,” died Monday, Nov. 24, of complications from dementia at Saunders House assisted living in Wynnewood.
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Kellem moved to New York as a teenager and, at 22, burst onto the entertainment scene in 1965 as a talent scout and agent for what was then called Creative Management Associates. He rose to vice president of the company’s TV Department and, over the next 30 years, served as director of development for late night, syndication, and daytime TV at 20th Century Fox Television, vice president of comedy development at Universal Television, and executive vice president of the Arthur Co. at Universal Studios.
He worked with fellow TV producer Lorne Michaels at Above Average Productions in the 1970s and was a popular associate producer for the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and ’76. He was quoted in several books about that chaotic first season, and his death was noted in the show’s closing credits on Dec. 6.
At Universal Studios, he created and produced FBI: The Untold Stories in 1991.At Universal Television in the 1980s, he developed nearly a dozen shows that aired, including Charles in Charge andDomestic Lifein 1984. In 1980, he developed Roadshow for 20th Century Fox Television.
Mr. Kellem worked for years in New York and Los Angeles.
“He had a lot of energy and ideas,” said his wife, Vivienne. “He had a creative spirit.”
His producing, creating, developing, and writing credits on IMDb.com also include The Munsters Today, The New Adam-12, Dragnet, and What a Dummy. He produced TV films and specials, and worked on productions with Eric Idle, Gladys Knight, Sammy Davis Jr., and the Beach Boys.
“He loved working with writers,” his daughter said. “He was super creative. It was part of his essence.”
Mr. Kellem enjoyed time with his daughter Joelle (left) and his wife Vivienne.
As an agent in the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Kellem represented George Carlin, Lily Tomlin, and other entertainers. His eye for talent, dramatic timing, and sense of humor were legendary.
“My dad’s humor opened hearts, tore down walls, and allowed people to connect with each other’s humanity, vulnerability, and spirit,” said his daughter Joelle. His daughter Judy said: “He was a comedic genius.”
His wife said: “He was a fascinating, funny, loving, and sensitive man.”
Craig Charles Kellem was born Jan. 24, 1943. He grew up with a brother and two sisters in West Mount Airy, played with pals in nearby Carpenter’s Woods, and bought candy in the corner store at Carpenter Lane and Greene Street.
Mr. Kellem and his son, Sean.
“Craig was like a father to me,” said his brother, Jim. “He helped guide my children and was always there for the whole family.”
He graduated from high school in New York and moved up to senior positions at Creative Management Associates after starting in the mailroom. He married in his 20s and had a daughter, Judy.
After a divorce, he met Vivienne Cohen in London in 1977, and they married in 1980, and had a son, Sean, and a daughter, Joelle. He and his wife lived in California, Washington, New Hampshire, and New Jersey before moving to Fairmount in 2017.
Mr. Kellem enjoyed movies, walking, and daily workouts at the gym. He volunteered at shelters, helped underserved teens, and routinely carried dog treats in his car in case he encountered a stray in need. “That’s the kind of man Craig was,“ his wife said.
Mr. Kellem and his daughter Judy operated their own writing consultation business together for years.
His son, Sean, said: “My dad’s personality was big, and he was deeply compassionate toward other human beings.” His daughter Joelle said: “He was an open, sensitive, warm, and passionate human being who believed deeply in the work of bettering oneself and taking care of others.”
His daughter Judy said: “They don’t make people like my dad.”
In addition to his wife, children, and brother, Mr. Kellem is survived by four grandchildren and other relatives. Two sisters died earlier.
A Malvern man who brought a gun and other weapons to a “No Kings” protest in West Chester over the summer — and who was rearrested days later after police found homemade bombs at his house — pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday morning.
Kevin Krebs, 32, said little while pleading guilty to a charge of possessing an unregistered firearm or explosive device. Krebs had been taken into federal custody this fall, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged him earlier this month by information, a process that typically indicates a defendant plans to plead guilty.
The charges against him relate to his conduct in West Chester six months ago. On June 14, Krebs was arrested by local police after other attendees at a “No Kings” protest in the borough told authorities they thought they had seen Krebs carrying a gun.
When police stopped Krebs and searched him, they found a loaded Sig Sauer handgun along with extra rounds of ammunition, a knife, a bayonet, pepper spray, and other weapons, prosecutors said. He also had an AR-15 rifle in his car nearby.
Krebs did not have a concealed carry permit for his handgun, and he was charged with illegal gun possession.
Two days later, police searched his home on Conestoga Road and found 13 homemade pipe bombs, prosecutors said, as well as components used to make detonators, tactical vests, and bullet-resistant armor. Some of the bombs had nails and screws inside, which are often added to improvised explosive devices to increase the amount of shrapnel they can generate.
Krebs was initially charged by Chester County prosecutors, who said his political beliefs or potential motives were not straightforward.
Krebs was a registered Democrat but had previously been registered as a Republican and said online that he voted for President Donald Trump. In online postings, he later said he came to regret that vote, and in the weeks preceding the “No Kings” protest he had been posting violent rhetoric aimed at Trump and police officers.
Before his arrest, Krebs was a licensed electrician and onetime Home Depot employee. His attorneys and relatives previously said he had been diagnosed with autism and Asperger’s syndrome.
Krebs is scheduled to be sentenced in March by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Costello. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Over the span of nearly a decade, the State College Police Department underreported hundreds of rapes in the central Pennsylvania community, leading to highly inaccurate publicly reported crime statistics, Spotlight PA has learned.
From 2013 to 2021, State College police reported a total of 67 rapes in crime submissions to Pennsylvania State Police, when in fact there had been 321 — a 254-case difference — according to a 10-month Spotlight PA investigation.
Those missing cases were instead classified as sex offenses, a category with lower penalties and one that is treated with less urgency by law enforcement. In response to Spotlight PA, the department conceded it had been using an outdated definition of rape until late 2022 — despite the federal government announcing a change to it in 2012, and that update being subsequently implemented by thousands of police agencies across the U.S. in 2013.
Under the old definition, “a vast array of violent, degrading, abusive sexual assaults were excluded from the data that are used to inform the public about the prevalence of rape,” said Lila Slovak, director of the Women’s Law Project’s Philadelphia office.
Crime statistics in a place like State College, nicknamed “Happy Valley,” are particularly important because it is a college town. Most Pennsylvania State University students live off campus, and federal law requires the school to report only crimes that occur on its premises, on its property, and in public places right next to it.
State College Police Chief John Gardner told Spotlight PA that he was not aware until 2022 that the FBI had updated its definition of rape. He learned when a department records supervisor that year completed a training and implemented the change. Gardner’s predecessor, Tom King, who retired from the department in 2016, said he learned about the incorrect reporting only when contacted by Spotlight PA this summer.
But the department had never acknowledged the longstanding error or disclosed it to the public until approached by Spotlight PA about potential data discrepancies. The department calculated the number of affected cases after Spotlight PA requested a review.
“The inaccurate reporting was not done intentionally,” said Gardner, who is retiring at the end of this year. “The minute we found out about it, we made the correction, and we’re open to sitting down and talking to you about it. We owned it.”
“We want to make this community safe and want people who live here to feel safe,” he said.
The police department is located on the first floor of the borough building in downtown State College.
Pennsylvania State Police share crime statistics from local departments, including State College, with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, known as UCR. Those figures influence numerous aspects of life in a community and help governments decide where to deploy resources and direct public funds.
Criminologist Eli B. Silverman, professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said accurate data are also key to good policing and maintaining trust with the community.
“When crime statistics lose their credibility, the public loses confidence in the police and is less inclined to report crime,” Silverman said. “This, in turn, further diminishes the effectiveness of [a] police organization.”
Over the course of Spotlight PA’s investigation, the newsroom found other potential issues with the department’s handling of reported rapes.
For years, rape cases were habitually described as “assaults” in internal police records, Spotlight PA found. The newsroom also questioned whether factors other than the new definition made previous rape numbers appear low, especially as top officials in the department did not seem clear on how crime reporting works, and at times offered confusing or incorrect information.
Additionally, Spotlight PA identified a case in which two victims reported rapes and the police recorded only one. One police official told reporters that rapes are counted by incident, not by victim — going against well-established FBI rules and indicating a violation separate from underreporting.
Police appear to be “trying to minimize the extent of sexual assault in State College,” Cassia Spohn, a criminologist and professor at Arizona State University, told Spotlight PA. “Doing so can produce a false sense of security among potential victims, leading eventually to an increase in victimization and a decline in public safety.”
Before this investigation was published, Spotlight PA sent a detailed list of findings to police officials and State College borough.
In response, the department offered a joint statement from Gardner, King, longtime State College Borough Manager Tom Fountaine, and State College assistant police chief Matthew Wilson, expressing “a great level of dissatisfaction.”
“The information presented appears to be more representative of an op-ed article than an objective reporting piece. The information you provided for our review is largely misleading and omits perspectives from community stakeholders,” the statement said in part. Read the full response here.
‘I don’t recall’
For more than 80 years, the FBI defined rape as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” That meant only forced attacks involving penetration of the vagina by a penis were considered rape.
This left out things like forced oral or anal sex, and sex acts that were committed against someone’s will but without force. Attacks on men or boys were also not counted.
That longstanding definition was “narrow, outmoded and steeped in gender-based stereotypes,” the Women’s Law Project wrote in a 2001 letter to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.
In 2012, the FBI announced it would broaden its definition of rape to “ensure justice for those whose lives have been devastated by sexual violence,” then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at the time.
“This new, more inclusive definition will provide us with a more accurate understanding of the scope and volume of these crimes,” Holder added.
Leading national organizations for police and sheriffs backed the change, as did women’s organizations and anti-rape groups.
Under the new definition, rape is: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
John Derbas, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI, told Spotlight PA that by 2015, 15,000 law enforcement agencies across the nation had adopted the reform.
David Hendler, who oversees records at the Abington Township Police Department in Montgomery County, said both he and his predecessor knew about the change when he started working in the department in 2013. Officers talked about it among themselves, he told Spotlight PA.
“Every cop I knew knew about it,” Hendler said.
Yet King, who led State College police from 1993 to 2016, said word never reached him. He was not aware that State College police were incorrectly reporting rapes until Spotlight PA contacted him this summer, he said.
“I don’t recall it. In 2025, as we sit here talking about it today, I don’t recall,” King said in an August interview. He questioned who within the department might have been contacted by Pennsylvania State Police, which ensures that law enforcement agencies across the state submit crime data that go to the FBI.
“Whoever they addressed it to, I don’t recall ever seeing any direction from the State Police to make a change, or being aware that it was changed,” said King, who became the interim police chief in neighboring Ferguson Township in October. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t. We’re talking about 12 years ago.”
A spokesperson for Pennsylvania State Police told Spotlight PA the agency alerted local police departments about the change. A December 2012 notification “outlined the new definition and instructed agencies to report offenses accordingly, starting in January 2013,” Myles Snyder wrote in an email. After that, “the responsibility for ensuring correct and timely reporting lies solely with contributing agencies,” he added.
A five-paragraph notice was sent via the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Assistance Network, or CLEAN, a platform police departments use to communicate with other agencies, on Dec. 27, 2012 — less than a week before the new requirement took effect, according to a document obtained through a public records request.
State police have “the highest level of confidence in this communication system,” Snyder said when asked if the notice reliably reached all of the roughly 2,000 local law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania.
Agencies like the State College Police Department have to acknowledge receipt of every message sent over CLEAN, he said. It is not optional, and “lives depend on it.” The messages are kept for 10 years, Snyder told Spotlight PA, so Pennsylvania State Police cannot verify who, if anyone, confirmed receipt of the notice.
In 2014, statewide data showed a 12% increase in rapes for the 2013 annual report, Snyder said. That indicated that submitting agencies were recognizing and using the new offense classification rule.
No one from Pennsylvania State Police or the FBI told the department it had missed the memo and was reporting erroneously, Gardner said in a joint interview with King and Fountaine.
State police are legally bound to collect data from local departments, and those agencies must use the FBI’s definitions for crimes. The agency checks on two things for UCR compliance: that a police department submits data, and that the numbers add up, Snyder said.
Between 2016 and 2023, Pennsylvania State Police logged 65 instances of local departments being out of compliance. The agency did not provide information on why, but two chiefs told Spotlight PA it was because their departments did not submit any numbers. The violations, which came with the threat of losing some state grant funding, were deemed fixed by state police as long as the departments began filing monthly.
“Submitting agencies are solely responsible for the accuracy of their information,” Snyder told Spotlight PA.
Both State College police chiefs told Spotlight PA that they did not intentionally disregard the FBI mandate to report rapes accurately. “I know with absolute confidence that had I received that notification … we would have made the change,” King said.
“When crime statistics lose their credibility, the public loses confidence in the police and is less inclined to report crime,” Criminologist Eli B. Silverman told Spotlight PA. “This, in turn, further diminishes the effectiveness of police organization.”
A late revelation
The department, with 53 sworn officers today, serves over 57,000 residents in State College and neighboring College and Harris Townships. Its jurisdiction borders Penn State’s University Park campus, which has its own police force. However, many of the university’s nearly 49,000 undergraduate students live, work, and recreate off campus — so State College police regularly interact with students.
During a typical academic year, 75% of rape victims are Penn State students, Lt. Chad Hamilton, State College police detective supervisor, said.
For years, rape numbers reported by State College police were consistently low, hovering in single digits for the most part. When the department reported its 2021 crime statistics to UCR, police claimed that there was not a single rape that year.
It turns out that there were at least 30.
But instead of rapes, those cases were submitted to the Uniform Crime Reporting system as sex offenses. These are considered a “part two” crime, a category that the FBI collects less information about and rarely mentions in its regular announcements about crime in America.
In police speak, part one crimes are the most severe offenses: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, human trafficking. They are high priorities for law enforcement, often bringing with them pressure to make arrests and clear cases. These are considered indicators of the level of crime occurring in the country, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook.
Rape cases should never go into part two crime counts, Spohn, the criminologist, told Spotlight PA. Sex crimes under the part two category include acts like fondling or indecent exposure, she said. The category does not include sex crimes involving penetration. “The UCR handbook is pretty specific,” she said.
But by its own admission, the State College Police Department did exactly that — incorrectly reporting at least 254 part one crimes as part two ones.
“It’s not like we weren’t reporting,” Wilson told Spotlight PA in a February interview. He said the police department was not calling these incidents rapes, but it was calling them sexual offenses. “I don’t see it as a huge deal,” he said.
Three years ago, a longtime staffer, Alecia Schaeffer, took over as records supervisor. That is the position ultimately responsible for reviewing each incident, ensuring the coding follows the rules, and submitting monthly reports to the state.
Schaeffer — who was trained and certified on Uniform Crime Reporting in 2002 — got a refresher course in December 2022, bringing back with her an urgency to update the police department’s practice.
Spotlight PA repeatedly requested to interview Schaeffer. The borough and department refused, saying they generally do not make staff available to the media.
Gardner said he was in the conversation following Schaeffer’s training but remembered “very, very little” about it — “other than the fact that she learned through training that … all these offenses were to be coded as rapes,” he said.
Fountaine, who oversees State College police in his role as borough manager, said he became aware of this change when the department was first contacted by Spotlight PA.
Experts told Spotlight PA that the way rapes are labeled matters for victims and communities.
“It’s not just about how it shows up in statistics, it’s about how people think about what’s happened to them, how other people think about what’s happened to them, how the community thinks about what’s happened to them,” said Anne Ard, former executive director of Centre Safe, a State College-based organization that supports survivors of sexual violence.
Department officials say the way the cases were coded had no impact on how police handled them.
However, between 2013 and 2023, State College police’s rate of arrests for rape was double that for sex offenses, according to a Spotlight PA analysis of data submitted to UCR.
State College police said that driving any investigation is the strength of evidence, the victim’s wishes, and input from the district attorney’s office.
“It doesn’t matter to us what is coded. It’s going to be thoroughly investigated to the best of our abilities,” Wilson told Spotlight PA.
Other potential issues
King, the department’s former police chief, told Spotlight PA that incidents of sexual violence were “very, very, very high priorities for the department.”
King said that the department applied for grant funding to address sexual violence, and that it created specialized investigative units and response teams as far back as 2006. Officials communicated with the public “over and over again” on the significance placed on these crimes, King said.
The department, with 53 sworn officers today, serves over 57,000 residents in State College and neighboring College and Harris Townships.
But throughout its investigation, Spotlight PA identified other potential issues with the way State College police handled rape cases.
One issue is the accuracy of State College’s rape numbers unrelated to the definition change.
Because the new rape definition was broader, the FBI anticipated a rise in reported rape figures nationwide — as much as 41.7% in 2013, it said. In State College, however, it saw a 222% increase for 2013. Between the years 2013 and 2020, the revised definition produced an average annual increase of 384%.
Spotlight PA asked the department about the discrepancy, whether factors other than the new definition affected the low 2013 rape count, and if the inconsistency raised concerns about previous UCR reporting.
Both chiefs emphatically defended those figures.
Spotlight PA asked the department to review cases between 2005 and 2012 to ensure compliance with the FBI’s legacy rape definition; to allow the newsroom to do so; or to make the records supervisor available for either an interview or written responses to questions. Officials declined.
Without an independent review of investigative files and records, questions about the department’s crime reporting accuracy could not be fully answered.
But one case sheds light on the long-term consequences of the department’s errors.
‘I was raped’
Standing in a parking lot by her dorm building on a summer night in 2019, Lexi Tingley, barely a freshman at Penn State, texted her mother. It was 2:44 a.m., and the worst had happened.
“Mommy.”
“I think I need to go to the ER.”
“I was raped.”
“I’m scared.”
Tingley’s mother knew the lot; she had dropped her daughter off there recently for summer sessions. Frantically, she drove Tingley and her friend, who had also been raped that night, to Mount Nittany Medical Center. Tingley was examined, was tested for sexually transmitted diseases, and met with a State College police officer at the hospital.
Tingley’s statements became the experiences of “victim 1” in the police report. Her friend, Hanna Friedenberger, was victim 3 in the report. Another friend, victim 2, witnessed the crimes and had a panic attack, but was not assaulted. (Both Tingley and Friedenberger spoke to Spotlight PA and agreed to be named.)
Both Tingley and Friedenberger said they were raped at the Legend, a student rental complex three blocks from campus. Police took both their statements.
But State College police records show that one of the rapes was not accounted for.
Lexi Tingley, left, and Hanna Friedenberger, right
The department keeps an internal crime log, a set of records detailing every call it responded to in the last 20 years. It’s the first draft of crime statistics that would be reviewed, cataloged, and corrected if needed before submitting to the Uniform Crime Reporting system. The log contained one rape for the day that Tingley and Friedenberger were attacked.
Wilson, the assistant police chief, said in an August email that rape cases are counted per incident, not per victim — although FBI rules say cases should be counted by the number of victims. Wilson, whose responsibilities include overseeing the department’s records operations, did not respond when Spotlight PA sought additional clarity. Wilson will become the police chief for State College’s neighboring Ferguson Township in 2026.
UCR data for that month, August 2019, show three rapes reported by State College police.
However, Gardner said in an email that there were two other rapes that month that were not related to Tingley and Friedenberger. That means the department should have reported four rapes to UCR.
In an interview, Gardner told Spotlight PA that the UCR data for August 2019 included both Tingley and Friedenberger. “You report victims to UCR, OK, we don’t do it by incident. Do you understand?”
Gardner insisted the department handled the case properly, and said he did not know the source of the discrepancy.
There is another notable problem.
The internal crime log reviewed by Spotlight PA contained four pieces of information for this incident. The time the call was received was 3:49:44 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2019. The outcome of the incident, called disposition, was “ECA” or exceptional clearance of an adult — commonly used for when prosecutors declined to file charges, as happened in the women’s case.
Additionally, there was a description and a code.
When State College police officers file incident reports, they describe the calls they respond to — for example, “burglary” or “traffic stop.” The actual criminal violation that resulted would be recorded as a four-digit code. In State College’s system, for example, 0210 is code for forcible rape. Coders in the records department — not officers — are responsible for doing that.
In Tingley and Friedenberger’s case, the report was coded 0210, referring to rape. But the description — crucial for any layperson not familiar with State College police coding to understand the nature of a case — said “assault earlier.”
For at least a quarter-century, State College police have held daily media briefings where reporters were handed daily law incident summaries, or what the department calls a press log. These documents include the description, but not the case code, of each incident.
Between 2005 and 2021, State College police in these logs described 110 cases that were ultimately classified as rapes as “assault” or “assault earlier.” That is four out of every five rapes recorded by the department during that period.
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Asked how residents or reporters who attended these briefings would be able to distinguish rape cases from physical fights because they were lumped together under the title of “assault,” Gardner said the officers in charge would note if any case was sexual in nature.
“It’s serious,” he said an officer in that situation would say, arguing the vagueness protected victims’ privacy.
That approach leaves the quality of State College crime data to chance.
This happened when the department provided its 2009 crime log to an open-records requester this February, which was later posted online. The requester asked for the type of crime for each incident and received the crime log with the incident description listed but not the numeric case code.
No rapes were listed in the 161 pages that State College turned over. If incident codes had been included, the log would show two cases of rape that year.
Gardner serves as the police department’s Right-to-Know officer. He told Spotlight PA that the code was not given to the requester because the person did not specifically ask for it.
Spotlight PA submitted a Right-to-Know request asking for the same information as the original requester, and did not ask for the 4-digit code. But police provided both the data and the code to the newsroom.
An open records request for 2009 State College police data posted online (top), and an open records request made by Spotlight PA for the same information (bottom).
It is impossible to determine if Tingley and Friedenberger’s case was unique. The newsroom cannot determine if undercounting rape victims by using the incident count was an isolated incident or a more prevalent problem. State law does not allow public access to police investigative files, and State College police refused Spotlight PA’s request to review them.
Tingley and Friedenberger, already heartbroken over the outcome of their case, would not find out until contacted by Spotlight PA that State College police had undercounted their rapes in public crime data.
Tingley, now 24, said it is hard to separate the rape and what followed. The treatment she received from law enforcement — a “false promising,” as she called it — was “equally painful” as the worst thing that has happened to her.
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ChristianaCare and Virtua Health have ended merger negotiations that would have created a healthcare system with more than $6 billion in annual revenue and business in four states, the two nonprofits announced Thursday.
The nonprofits, the largest in South Jersey and the largest in Delaware, had disclosed a preliminary agreement to join forces in July. ChristianaCare and Virtua did not share specific reasons for dropping the idea.
They issued identical statements: “After thoughtful evaluation, both organizations have determined that they can best fulfill their missions to serve their communities by continuing to operate independently.”
It wasn’t obvious to industry insiders what advantages combining the two systems would have brought other than more revenue and the potential for some relatively small savings from greater scale.
Both systems are financially solid. Virtua has a AA- credit rating from Standard & Poor’s. The S&P rating for ChristianaCare is two notches higher, at AA+.
ChristianaCare explored an acquisition of Crozer Health in 2022, but decided not to go through with the deal. It won a May bankruptcy auction with a $50.3 million bid to assume Crozer leases at five outpatient locations in Delaware County. It has since opened 15 medical practices at those locations.
ChristianaCare previously acquired the shuttered Jennersville Hospital in Chester County and turned it into a micro-hospital. It plans two more micro-hospitals for Delaware County.
The five-hospital Virtua system had $3.24 billion in revenue last year. ChristianaCare, with three full-scale hospitals, had $3.3 billion in revenue in the year that ended June 30, 2025.
Temple University plans to increase its patrol officer ranks by 58% over five years after a study assessing staffing levels showed the school was below the middle tier of a framework that rates law enforcement agencies.
The university currently has 77 sworn officers — 50 of them patrol officers — and president John Fry pledged to add 29 patrol officers, one detective, six sergeants, and one lieutenant. That would increase the overall number of sworn officers to 114.
Temple president John Fry said safety was his first priority. Now he plans to increase patrol officers by 58% over five years.
No target has been set for how many officers will be hired per year, but those discussions are underway, said Fry, who named public safety a top priority when he started in November 2024.
The university’s declaration comes amid a particularly difficult time for police hiring, with departments nationally — including the Philadelphia Police Department — continuing to face shortages. Temple has been working for several years to attract more officers, including increasing salaries and benefits, adding signing and retention bonuses and higher contributions to retirement accounts, and hiring an associate director to focus solely on hiring, recruitment, retention, and training. The department also moved to 12-hour shifts to give officers more days off.
Yet, the number of sworn officers has decreased from 81 in March 2024 to the current 77, despite additional hires being made, including four new officers from the Temple University Municipal Police Academy in October.
“We must, and we will, deploy ever more compelling and creative incentives to make Temple’s Department of Public Safety a destination employer for law enforcement in our region,” Fry said. “Our plan is to look closely at what we are doing in the areas of recruitment and retention over the next several months and see what improvements can be made.”
Temple plans to hire former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey’s 21CP Solutions company to assist, including with how best to recruit and retain more officers, Fry said. The university had hired Ramsey to assess safety following the shooting death of student Samuel Collington in November 2021 and has implemented almost all of the 68 recommendations from his report released in April 2023.
The staffing study was one of the final recommendations that Temple had to complete.
Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey speaks at a press conference on the Temple safety audit his firm completed in April 2023.
New bike patrol officers
In addition, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel has committed to providing six bike patrol officers and a sergeant assigned to Temple, beginning Jan. 5. That’s up from the current four officers and supervisor, who were not always the same personnel.
“The ability to have relationships and collaborations … will be better because it’ll be a consistent group,” said Jennifer Griffin, Temple’s vice president for public safety.
“The ability to have relationships and collaborations … will be better because it’ll be a consistent group,” Jennifer Griffin, vice president for public safety at Temple University, said about the city’s six bike patrol officers that will be dedicated to Temple.
Members of the Temple University Police Association, the officers union, have complained for years of inadequate staffing. In a social media postabout a year ago, the union said the department had lost more than 50 officers since 2022.
But Andrew Lanetti, president of the union, said he is pleased with the direction outlined by Fry.
“From our talks here in the past few days, I am happy with where we’re going in the future,“ he said. ”I believe this is going to be a very positive experience and it’s going to help our community a lot.”
University and union officials already have been discussing ways to recruit and retain more officers, and a more positive working relationship between the union and the university could help move the needle on hiring and retention.
“We’re going to work together and our goal is all the same,” Griffin said. “We want a safer Temple and a safer community.”
Budget woes
The move also comes as the university attempts to close a budget deficit, made worse this fall when the school missed enrollment projections for its main campus that translated to about $10 million in lost revenue.
“It will be a challenge,” Fry said of the new police officer hiring, “but it’s a priority, so we will meet that challenge.“
He said money for the new staffing will be built into the university’s five-year budget plan.
Temple last February hired safety and security consulting companies Healy+ and COSECURE, ancillary businesses of the Cozen O’Connor law firm, to conduct the staffing study. They used a tiered framework “to assess the capacity and effectiveness of law enforcement agencies,” Temple said. The university declined to release the full report, citing its proprietary information.
“Temple is positioned below the middle tier of the framework, meaning the department is presently staffed to meet the essential public safety and emergency response needs of our community,” Fry said. “However, additional personnel would allow the department to organize and coordinate its activities to focus on additional proactive and community engagement activities that would position it higher in the consultant’s framework.”
With the additional police officers that Temple plans to hire, the school would rise from just below the third of five tiers in the consultant’s rating system to the second tier, Fry said. The second tier, he said, connotes “higher levels of proactive enforcement, more presence, more mitigation strategies, and then more outreach, more community engagement.”
Public safety is extremely important as the university plans to release its strategic plan and campus development plan early next year and as Fry seeks to spur economic development along the Broad Street corridor, from Temple’s new Terra Hall location in Center City to the health campus in North Philadelphia.
“There’s going be a campus development plan, which clearly is going to put more activity on this campus, which means we’re going to have to support our police,” Fry said.
Potential investors, he said, are watching.
“When they’re about to commit significant investment, they want to know the area is safe,” he said.
‘Hold ourselves accountable’
Former Temple president Jason Wingard pledged to increase the police force by 50% the month that Collington was killed, and those numbers never materialized. In fact, the number of officers dropped.
Fry said what is different this time is that he has specified the exact numbers that will be added over a distinct time frame.
“This is not something we’re just sort of speculating about,” he said. “This is based on a professional study. … We’ll be able to hold ourselves accountable.”
The university already has made a host of changes that were recommended by Ramsey in the 2023 report. They include more foot patrols and security cameras and increased technology in the communications center.
The university in 2024 touted a decrease in aggravated assaults, robberies, and thefts in its patrol zone. Despite improvements, Temple has continued to face safety challenges in its North Philadelphia neighborhood, including large groups of juveniles that sometimes gather on or near campus — a challenge in other areas of the city, too.
And a student was shot and killed by another student near off-campus housing inFebruary.
Since high school, Jared McCain has shared his life on TikTok for his fans. He didn’t expect just how many haters also would come his way.
On Wednesday, McCain, in partnership with Penn Medicine and the Sixers’ Assists for Safe Communities initiative, spoke with students at Level Up Philly about protecting his own mental health.
“Putting myself in different positions helps me with my mental health, and helps me understand what people can go through,” McCain told The Inquirer. “Now, when I go through it, I understand what to do or what not to do. Being in the league is amazing, and now that I’m in, I guess, my real profession, it’s cool that I get to help out around the city, people around me, and people in my DMs, whoever it is, that I can just help out and try and direct them in the best way possible.”
Since entering the NBA in 2024, McCain has experienced the highs of a successful debut and the lows of his season-ending meniscus tear and his season-opening finger injury this year.
As he worked his way back into the lineup, McCain said there’s a huge mental aspect to his recovery that fans may not see. He relies on his friends and family and also works with a psychologist to process those struggles.
“The expectation is, you come back right away, first game, and play exactly how you are. But for me, I was just trying to get out there and feel comfortable enough to jump again and jump off my left leg again,” McCain said. “You’ve done it a million times in training and to be prepared for a game, but it’s never going to replicate actually going and subbing into a game and going full speed.”
“That’s where I’ve got to get off social media sometimes, in the first few games. Even when I’m not playing the best right now, I know it’s going to come back to me, but I always just stay true to myself. I know it’s going to click and I know it’s going to come back as long as I continue to work hard.”
McCain doesn’t run his own Instagram anymore, and he’s never on X, which he believes is “the worst” platform. But he still loves TikTok and tries to keep basketball off his For You page.
But he told the students at Level Up Philly that despite the hate he can get for his TikTok videos, he wants to keep it going to make a positive impact. Negative comments often can overshadow the positive ones, so McCain learned to refocus on the good he was doing instead of falling into the negative.
Students at Level Up Philly listened to Sixers guard Jared McCain talk about his about mental health during an event partnership between Penn Medicine and the Sixers’ Assists for Safe Communities initiative.
Level Up Philly is a youth community center in West Philadelphia that serves as a home base for hundreds of students across the city to work on homework, learn new skills, or hang out with friends.
Pastor Aaron Campbell, affectionately called “Unc” and even “Dad” by the students, is the executive director of the center. Level Up Philly supports students from 10 to 25 years old.
More than 40 students came to hear McCain, Campbell, and Penn Medicine emergency doctor Malik Sams talk about mental health. A number of students at Level Up Philly have witnessed gun violence, and Campbell said 15 students at Level Up have been killed in the last three years.
“There is arguably a human rights crisis in Philadelphia,” Campbell said. “We have seen a significant drop in homicides. We’ve seen solutions for the violence, but now there’s another element. The elephant in the room is the PTSD, the psychological impact, and that is also part of what I will call a human rights crisis in Philadelphia, so we have to talk about mental health.”
Students eagerly shared their stories and asked McCain questions, and Campbell loved that the collaboration between the Sixers and Level Up could help the students feel more empowered to speak up about their mental health.
McCain said one of the biggest lessons he’s learned is not to judge, because everyone is going through something that he might not see. Getting to meet the students at Level Up was another way for McCain to gain perspective that he can take with him.
“I was privileged, and I was able to grow up in an environment where a lot of this stuff didn’t happen that these kids go through,” McCain said. “To be able to hear stories of people, of what they’re going through, and people passing in their family, it definitely it humbles you, and you can understand more of what people go through on a day to day, and what they can be projecting at you when something happened at home. Just hearing it has helped me, and it can literally help me in my mental health struggles.”
The Los Angeles Rams (11-3) take on the Seattle Seahawks (11-3) tonight on Amazon’s Thursday Night Football in a game likely to have a huge impact on the NFC playoff race, but might not matter much to the Eagles (9-5).
The Rams enter the game as the NFC’s No. 1 seed and in first place in the NFC West because they defeated the Seahawks in Week 11. The San Francisco 49ers (10-4) are close behind both teams and still have a fair shot of winning the division.
The Eagles, who play the Washington Commanders (4-10) Saturday night, enter Week 16 as the No. 3 seed. A lot would have to happen for the Birds to either move up or down before the season ends. So tonight’s Rams-Seahawks game will have more impact on the team the Eagles could face in the first round of the playoffs than whether the Birds could sneak back into the No. 1 spot.
Here are all the various playoff implications of tonight’s game, and how it could impact the Eagles:
NFC playoff picture
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A Rams win all but clinches the No. 1 seed
If the Rams win tonight, they’ll have a 90% chance of clinching both the NFC West and the No. 1 seed, according to the New York Times.
A win means the Seahawks would need to completely overtake the Rams in the standings. That would require the Seahawks winning their final two games (against the Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers) and the Rams losing their final two (against the Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals).
The only other team with a realistic chance to overtake the Rams as the No. 1 seed would be the Chicago Bears (10-4). The Bears defeated the Rams back in September, so Chicago would come out on top if the two teams are tied when the season ends.
There’s also the 49ers, who face Philip Rivers and the Indianapolis Colts Monday night. The 49ers split their two games against the Rams this season, but San Francisco would currently win a tiebreaker with a better divisional record.
A Seahawks win would also benefit the 49ers
The Seahawks will clinch a playoff berth with a win tonight and Seattle would immediately become the NFC’s top playoff seed, at least for now. The Rams would drop to the No. 5 seed.
Waiting in the wings are the 49ers, who defeated the Seahawks back in September and would be in position to steal the division and the No. 1 seed.
The Seahawks and 49ers are scheduled to face off in Week 18 at Levi’s Stadium, and a Seattle win tonight makes it more likely that game will end up deciding both the NFC West and the No. 1 seed.
Eagles could face the loser of tonight’s game first in the playoffs
If the Eagles do end up the NFC’s No. 3 seed, they’ll host the No. 6 seed at the Linc during the wild card round of the playoffs.
It’s looking likely the No. 6 seed will be the team that finishes third place in the NFC West, which is currently the 49ers. But the division is so tight, anything can happen over the next three games, so whichever team loses tonight increases their chances of facing the Birds on the road in a wild card game.
The Eagles basically have no shot at the No. 1 seed. What about No. 2?
While it remains mathematically possible for the Eagles to still end the season as the NFC’s No. 1 playoff seed, the odds are not in the Birds’ favor.
But what about the No. 2 seed? That’s how the Eagles entered the playoffs last season, and their postseason run ended with a Super Bowl victory.
The current No. 2 seed is the Chicago Bears (10-4), who are essentially two games up on the Eagles because of the Birds’ loss to Chicago last month on Black Friday. So there are two main scenarios where the Eagles can overtake the Bears:
Eagles end the season 12-5 (winning their final three games), Bears end the season 11-6 (losing two of their final three).
Eagles end the season 11-6 (winning two of their final three games), Bears end the season 10-7 (losing their final three).
There are some less-likely scenarios where the Eagles could win a tiebreaker in the event of a three-way tie also involving the Rams or Seahawks, which Wharton professor Deniz Selman breaks down here:
#Eagles playoff scenarios, now expanded to include all possible finishes from 12-5 to 9-8.
In Week 16, Eagles would clinch…
NFC East with: [PHI win] *or* [DAL loss] *or* [PHI tie + DAL tie]
If the Packers end up winning the NFC North, the Eagles would need to end the season a half-game up to secure the No. 2 seed, thanks to Green Bay’s tie against the Dallas Cowboys earlier this season (Unless the Eagles tie one of their final three games, but we won’t worry about that until it happens).
In the unlikely event the Lions overtake both and win the division (the New York Times gives them a 5% chance), the Eagles hold the tiebreaker thanks to their Week 11 win at the Linc.
The good news is the only way the Eagles would drop to the No. 4 seed is if they lost their final three games and either the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-7) or the Carolina Panthers (7-7) won out, since they face each other twice in the final three weeks of the season.
NFC East standings
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The Eagles will officially clinch the NFC East and a playoff spot with a win Sunday or a Cowboys’ loss to the Los Angeles Chargers (10-4). But there’s still a long-shot chance Dallas could still overtake the Eagles in the division.
Even if the Cowboys manage to win their final three games — at home against the Chargers and on the road against the Commanders and New York Giants (2-12) — they would still need the Eagles to lose out to overtake the Birds in the standings.
Even for dedicated bargain shopper, there are times where a splurge makes perfect sense. In the wine world, one of these occasions is holiday gifting, so this week we are taking a break from our usual recommendations of wines under $25 to flag this Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon as a prestige wine suitable for high-end gifting.
There are a number of reasons why wines make great presents. Fine wines are beautiful objects that are easy to wrap and just as appropriate for wine-loving colleagues or clients as for family and friends. They also have a special resonance at this time of year, in that each bottle offers the promise of a memorable experience that is best shared and can spread the warmth and conviviality of the season.
Not every wine store will carry a wealth of options over $50 per bottle suitable for someone very special, but most have at least a handful to choose from. These tend to cluster in the two most giftable of wine categories — big reds and bubbles — due to their reputations for excellence. Many wine styles can come in such a wide range of prices that no one can be sure what price was paid. Then there are “blue chip” categories, which have a special cachet and always cost more, especially when they come from a top-of-the-line winery.
Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon has the most gravitas of all American wines and is rarely found under $50. Dark, rich, and velvety, top-notch wines like this example make the quality of their ingredients and craftsmanship known with decadent flavors of black cherries and touches of both vanilla and chocolate. What distinguishes the fine craftsmanship of wines like this one, though, is not a specific taste per se — it’s the way the flavors and textures reverberate on the palate for minutes after each sip. Wines like this one, from a steakhouse-famous winery, make a perfect gift for red wine lovers who deserve a little touch of luxury in their lives.
Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Caymus cabernet sauvignon
Napa Valley, California; 14.6% ABV
PLCB Item #87541, on sale for $79.99 through Jan. 4 (regularly $89.99)
Also available at: Total Wine in Wilmington and Claymont, Del. ($74.97; totalwine.com), Canal’s in Berlin, N.J. ($85.99; canalsofberlin.com), and Total Wine in Cherry Hill ($86.97)
The nation’s nursing shortage is straining hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities. Yet as this well-known crisis reaches a critical point, a quieter one threatens to make it worse: the growing shortage of nursing faculty. Without enough educators to train the next generation of nurses, efforts to expand the nursing workforce will fall short.
A survey by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing last year found nearly 1,700 faculty vacancies in 808 schools nationwide. As a result, thousands of capable and motivated future nurses are turned away each year — not for lack of talent or drive, but because nursing schools do not have enough faculty to educate them. In 2024, more than 65,000 qualified applicants were not accepted into entry-level undergraduate nursing programs nationally. Expanding the educator pipeline is a critical piece of the solution to issues such as understaffing at hospitals and burnout among nurses facing increasing workloads.
But building up the nursing faculty ranks involves challenges unique to academia. Many nurses pursue the doctoral education needed to become professors later in their careers, after years of clinical work. Those who do pursue doctoral degrees often have to reduce work hours, resulting in less income, and they have limited access to financial support for their education or loan repayment programs.
Then nurses who go into teaching typically earn significantly less. Practicing nurses can earn up to $40,000 to $50,000 more annually than those in academia. Given this pay gap, and heavy teaching loads and administrative duties for faculty at nursing schools, it is no surprise that many nurses choose the bedside over the classroom.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a steady 6% annual growth in nursing jobs through 2033 — meaning nearly 200,000 new nurses will be needed each year. We simply can’t graduate enough new nurses if there aren’t enough qualified faculty to educate them.
Another growing challenge is the shortage of clinical placements — essential hands-on experiences through which nursing students train. Today, healthcare systems are accepting fewer nursing students for clinical training than they did a decade ago, when educating the next generation was seen as an institutional responsibility. One reason is that healthcare organizations now employ many nurses who are new to practice themselves and may not feel prepared to precept students. There’s also more pressure on healthcare organizations to focus on financial efficiency, with providers caring for more patients to generate more revenue.
This has left hospital nurses and physicians increasingly reluctant to serve as preceptors — mentors who guide nursing students during clinical rotations. Facing intense pressure to meet productivity targets, they worry that mentoring students will slow down patient care, impacting them financially. This shortage of preceptors makes it challenging for students to complete the clinical hours required to graduate.
To address this concern, several Philadelphia-area nursing deans, including myself, are advocating for policy changes that could attract more physicians and nurses to serve as clinical preceptors. We’re meeting with Pennsylvania state leaders in Harrisburg to lobby for tax incentives adopted successfully in several states, such as to provide $2,000 to $3,000 in annual tax relief directly to the nurses, and sometimes the institution, as an incentive to address preceptor shortages.
Simulation learning centers offer another promising strategy to give nursing students hands-on experience without always needing bedside placements. But to truly move the needle on the nursing shortage, universities must also support and invest in educators. At Villanova University, we’re trying to innovate with programs such as the Conway Scholars Program — an accelerated PHD program in which scholars are prepared for and commit to nursing education positions upon completion. This program is unique because students are supported financially to complete the training within three years, in contrast with the typical four-to six-year trajectory.
To patients, the nursing shortage may mean longer time spent in the waiting room and slower care at the bedside. But for those of us in healthcare education, it signals a looming crisis that threatens patient outcomes. We must act now.
Donna S. Havens, PhD, RN, FAAN is the Connelly Endowed Dean and Professor at Villanova University’s M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing. She is a registered nurse and health services researcher focusing on nurse workforce issues.
Soon, you may no longer be able to afford healthcare since Republicans have once again blocked efforts to subsidize the Affordable Care Act.
The most recent government shutdown became the longest in history because Democrats insisted on continuing to fund healthcare while the GOP balked. The Republicans won. America lost.
But don’t despair.
When President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday rolls around on June 14 — which happens to coincide with Flag Day — you will be able to visit a national park for free.
See? Trump really is making America great again.
Kidding aside, most of us aren’t going to mark Trump’s birthday — he hasn’t earned that from us. He can accept all the fake awards he wants, but he’s no hero. He’s a billionaire who has the nerve to claim that “the word affordability is a Democrat scam.” Remember that the next time you’re at the grocery store. Trump promised to bring down costs. It hasn’t happened.
President Donald Trump picks up his FIFA Peace Prize medal before the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, in December.
Trump also said he would fix healthcare. That hasn’t happened either. He said he was going to fix the situation at the border. We now have masked ICE agents terrorizing undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. Entry into America is for sale y’all. As long as you have $1 million to pay for a green card. Make that a gold car with Trump’s image on it. Next up, a Trump platinum card.
The president’s actions remind me of a narcissist whose world begins and ends with himself. This nation, however, is expansive and needs a president who puts the American people first. That’s not what we have with Trump. He demonstrates that over and over again.
His administration’s decision to make entrance at national parks free on his birthday wouldn’t be quite as egregious if it hadn’t also revoked free admission for visitors on not one, but two federal holidays that honor Black history — Juneteenth and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. It feels like just another way to antagonize African Americans who still haven’t gotten over his calling Somalis “garbage” and saying they should leave the country.
But wait, there’s more.
The Trump administration has ordered the Park Service to clear the shelves of its gift shops, bookstores, and concession stands of any merchandise that runs afoul of its anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Employees have until Dec. 19 to get rid of any of the so-called offending merchandise. (Note: Let us know when the fire sale is and we’ll take it off your hands.)
Trump only wants to present a sanitized version of American history: So no mention of slavery and Jim Crow and that sort of thing. But lots of red, white, and blue like he sells in his Trump store.
As with practically everything else he sticks his suspiciously bruised hand into, he’s making a mess of things at the National Park Service.
And I’m not just talking about the way officials have slapped the president’s scowling face on the prized annual park pass. An environmental group is suing him for that. I hope the lawsuit wins. I’d love to get one to give as a present for Christmas but I’m not doing it if his face is on it.
A 2026 America the Beautiful National Park Service annual pass features President Donald Trump’s portrait. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration, saying the pass must have a contest winner photo taken in federal lands, as deemed by federal law.
Healthcare premiums for more than 24 million Americans may soon skyrocket without government subsidies to bring down costs for everyday people. Remember who is to blame when your insurance premiums suddenly spike.
The day can’t come soon enough when Trump is finally out of office for good. That’s when we, the people, can set about undoing all the damage he has done.
And that includes reinstating admission fees at national parks on Trump’s birthday.
