Penn believes it has all the right pieces to be a competitive women’s basketball program in the Ivy League.
Now the Quakers just have to put it all together.
After a season in which Penn lost in the first round of the conference tournament for the third straight year, the Quakers find themselves only a month away from opening tip at the Palestra with plenty of questions still left to answer.
Having to reinvent the offense to make up for the loss of first-team All-Ivy forward Stina Almqvist — who led the team in total minutes, points, and rebounds — coach Mike McLaughlin recognizes that the starting rotation needs a lot of ironing out .
Penn will miss the production of Stina Almqvist, who led the team in total minutes, points, and rebounds.
“I think we need a little more in the post. … We need to see who’s going to be three, four, and five in that rotation,” McLaughlin said. “ … That is the area that I need to see more of because that’s been inconsistent so far.”
Katie Collins, last year’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year, is the only other front court player to log significant minutes for Penn — and is preparing to adapt to playing next to a more traditional center in Tina Njike.
“Little different from last year with Katie and Stina,” McLaughlin said. “They could both play inside and out. Katie is going to need to adapt a bit because Tina’s ball skills away from the basket are not where Stina’s were.”
With McLaughlin believing Njike to be capable of playing only 20 minutes a game because of her physical style of play, the team will have to find valuable minutes from players eager to make an impact.
Katie Collins (center), last season’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year, will be relied on even more in her sophomore season.
Kate Lipatova, a 6-foot-3 stretch forward from Moscow, rounds out the frontcourt group alongside fellow international freshman Ari Paraskevopoulou (Greece).
“[Lipatova] hasn’t played, unfortunately, she got hurt 10 minutes into practice, and will be out at least a couple more weeks, which is going to impede her growth,” McLaughlin said. “She had a nice preseason. … This is definitely a setback.”
Figuring out the rotation
Point guard Mataya Gayle is set to take center stage for the first time with the Quakers. After being a strong No. 2 to Almqvist in 2024 and former first-team All-Ivy forward Jordan Obi in 2023, Gayle will be Penn’s go-to player when it comes to scoring.
“This kid is ready,” McLaughlin said. “She’s going to have a huge year. She’s going to score it, she’s going to assist it, you’re going to see her rebound the ball better, you’re going to see her in big spots being significantly further along.
“I think for someone with her stature after the first two years, she’s taken massive growth, [and] I just love where the kid is mentally — I just think she’s doing it the right way.”
Which players get to fill out the rotation, besides Gayle and Collins, is still up in the air. Stalwart guards Saniah Caldwell and Abby Sharpe, who played significant minutes last year, are battling injuries already — leaving the door open to establish a larger rotation of guards.
“If we can add 10 players that can actually get out there and play at our level every day, I think this team has a chance” of competing for a championship, McLaughlin said.
Roster overturn and injuries will always lead to uncertainty. Gayle, though, is confident that this is the roster that will bring Ivy glory back to the Palestra.
“This is the most excited I’ve been about a season — I see us taking this to the next level,” Gayle said. “We’ve had a lot of team conversations, internal work, and I think we are all on the same page this year, which is obviously winning an Ivy League championship.”
Penn guard Mataya Gayle (right) enters as one of the team’s leaders on offense.
With the season growing closer by the day, McLaughlin feels as though this squad has the ability to rise to the occasion by the end of the season.
“If a couple of these kids take a bigger step before we get to league play, anything can happen from there,” McLaughlin said. “ … We have a ways to go to get to where we were last year, but our ceiling couldn’t be higher.”
Shay Barker wouldn’t describe his relationship with his older brother Ryan as instant best friends. They fought as children and were competitive with each other, but Shay secretly wanted to do whatever his big brother was doing.
“I was kind of like a crybaby as a kid, and he was the one who just found that super annoying,” said Shay, three years younger than Ryan. “We would get in a lot of fights and stuff. But I’m a lot more mature now. I don’t really get upset about things. I think that’s probably the biggest reason why we’re so close now: We connect on a different level than we used to.”
Part of their connection also stems from the bond that the two Chester County natives share in the same sport.
Ryan is the starting kicker at Penn State. The redshirt sophomore, once a preferred walk-on, is now on scholarship. Shay, a senior at Kennett High School, will also head to a high-major program to kick and punt next fall. He earned a scholarship offer to Syracuse and made his pledge in June.
Ryan is considered one of the best to come through Kennett’s program. He holds the school record for longest field goal (45 yards) and was the first in program history to play Division I football. With the Nittany Lions this season, Ryan’s longest field goal is 49 yards, and he ranks eighth on Penn State’s all-time list in extra-point percentage (98.6%), while carrying the top percentage (86.7%) in field goals made in program history.
Shay felt he had high expectations to live up to. He has been compared to Ryan before. But Shay brushed those comments to the side because the only way to silence those remarks is on the gridiron.
The 6-foot-2, 190-pounder is ranked among the top 10 high school kickers in the country, according to 247Sports. He has kicked field goals as far as 63 yards in practice, and his in-game career-long is 44 yards. So far, Shay has made 8 of 10 field goal attempts for a 7-2 Kennett team.
“Kicking has brought us closer than I ever thought we would be,” Ryan Barker said. “It’s such an individualized thing that we’re both trying to work just as hard as each other to get better at whatever we need to improve on, and to be able to have each other there for the mental and physical aspect, it’s just awesome. I love helping him. I love coaching him, and I can see that he’s listening.”
Soccer turned football
The Barkers grew up in a soccer family.
Their mother, Sally, used to visit her parents’ native England during the holidays. In the early days of their relationship, her future husband came along. The two decided to go to a championship match a tier below the Premier League, and “my jaw hit the floor,” Chris Barker said.
From the atmosphere to the game itself, Barker was hooked and became a supporter of Manchester United. The Barkers even named Ryan after Ryan Giggs, one of the most decorated footballers of all time, who spent the majority of his career with United.
And it didn’t take long for Ryan Barker to pick up the sport.
Shay, Sally, Ryan, and Chris Barker together on the field at Penn State.
“We have video of Ryan barely walking but kicking a soccer ball,” his father said. “Ryan went on to achieve a lot of success in soccer. We thought that was going to be the pathway. We thought that soccer would be their ticket to maybe a scholarship in college. But little did we know that there’s an influx of Europeans now in the American collegiate soccer system, and it became pretty clear early on that it was going to be a lot more competitive for our boys to earn a scholarship, let alone play at a high level.”
Both brothers started soccer around age 3. They played for the Delaware Rush Football Club in Hockessin and the Southern Chester County Soccer Association in Kennett Square. However, before Ryan entered high school, he sat on the idea of kicking in football.
One day in the summer, he asked his father to drop him off at Kennett’s football field. He brought a football and tried to kick a field goal. After each attempt, he would jog over to the ball to do it again. A custodian at the school saw Ryan and went to find coach Lance Frazier to tell him, “‘There’s a freshman on the field kicking 50-yard field goals,’” Frazier recalled.
“I’m like, ‘Get out of here, that’s not possible,’” said Frazier, in his eighth season as Kennett’s head coach. “I go up there and I see this tall, slender kid. I can hear him before I can see him, because he’s kicking the [stuff] out of the ball. … I knew he was going to have to make a really big decision here in the future: Is he a soccer player or is he a football player?”
Through three years, Ryan played on Kennett’s soccer team and kicked for the football team. In his senior year, he decided to put his full commitment into kicking. He had some interest from smaller soccer programs to play collegiately, but he wanted to go Division I.
Football could give him that opportunity.
“That was probably one of the most difficult decisions that I ever had to make for myself,” Ryan said. “Just in terms of soccer being my first love and playing it for 17 years. … When I realized I could potentially play Division I football, that was kind of the main factor in my decision.”
Kennett’s Shay Barker kicked his longest field goal of 41 yards last season.
Shay’s journey was a bit different. He started to fall out of love with soccer in the eighth grade. Due in part to a growth spurt, Shay had patellar tendinitis in his knees, which made it painful to run. He decided to try kicking as a freshman while learning alongside his brother, then a senior.
“He had seen how fun it was for his brother to play on Friday nights and to be part of the football team at school,” their mother said. “I think he was really excited to join [Ryan] and kind of be his understudy.”
Kicking came naturally to Shay, but he was uncertain what he wanted from the sport. Then, something changed.
Carving his own path
During his junior year, Shay competed in a few camps and showcases through Kohl’s Kicking, a program for athletes who play specialized positions of kicker, punter, and long snapper to gain exposure to college coaches. He had a rough showing during the January showcase, which led him to question whether this was what he wanted to do.
“Growing up, Shay always wanted to go to hang out with his friends,” his mother said. “He wanted to play this sport, this club. Last winter, he said, ‘I think I’m going to try to play basketball my senior year.’ [Chris and I] would look at each other like, ‘What is he talking about?’ He just could not say no. … The biggest question mark was maybe not whether he could do it, but whether he would choose to do it because of the sacrifice.”
Shay and Ryan Barker shown together while they played at Kennett High School.
That performance fueled his desire to get better.
Shay began seeing a personal trainer to get stronger and sought out advice from Ryan, who reminds his younger brother that “the only kick that matters is the next one.”
In June, Shay attended a camp at Syracuse, where he won the field goal competition and backed up to about 58 yards. He also was a finalist in the kickoff competition.
A few days later, Syracuse came calling to offer Shay a full ride.
“They saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself,” Shay said. “I was kind of an underdog a lot of my career. I just got in the right mental space and did what I needed to do. … I’m honored to have this opportunity, especially coming from a small school like Kennett, where not many kids get these kinds of opportunities. I just want to make the most of it.”
And even when Ryan and Shay aren’t together, they are still competing.
Last year, when Penn State faced Southern California on Oct. 12, Ryan hit the game-winning field goal in overtime to secure a 33-30 win for the Nittany Lions. Later that evening, Shay hit a career-long 41-yard field goal against Unionville.
Ryan and his younger brother Shay during a Penn State football game.
“That was probably one of the proudest and special moments for us as parents,” their father said. “Both our boys, at their various levels, did something quite remarkable on the same day.”
Shay has hopes of surpassing Ryan’s program record. Last weekend, he broke his career-long with a 44-yard field goal against Avon Grove. He told his big brother about those aspirations and has his support.
“Ever since I went to college, Shay is finally able to find his identity and what he brings to the table in terms of football,” Ryan said. “It’s great seeing him succeed. He, without a doubt, has the capability to beat that record, so I hope that he gets that opportunity.”
Frazier believes Ryan and Shay could be the next brother duo to kick in the NFL.
The two already have Sept. 4, 2027, circled on their calendars, when the Nittany Lions host the Orange at Beaver Stadium. This journey isn’t what Shay would have expected, he said, but kicking has given him the chance to play college sports, while forming a lifelong bond with his brother.
“It’s definitely something I don’t take for granted,” he added. “I wouldn’t be here without Ryan.”
The West Philly Tool Library, where members can borrow from several thousand different tools and attend classes learning how to use them, is moving from its home of the past 15 years.
Its landlord on South 47th Street near Woodland Avenue has chosen not to renew its lease, and the library will have to move by the end of November.
Executive director Jason R. Sanders said that the tool library has been receiving below-market-rate rent since moving in and that the organization was not upset with its landlord for raising the rent beyond what the tool library could afford.
“We’re very grateful and want to dispel that,” Sanders said.
The tool library’s leadership is scouting options for a new home. Wherever the library goes, it will likely need to perform repairs and retrofitting before it can open again. Sanders said that work plus moving costs would likely exceed $50,000.
Tools cabinets inside the West Philly Tool Library last week.
Asking for money is something Sanders and the library have always sought to avoid. They run a purposefully tight operation, with $20 annual memberships, volunteer staff, and minimal grant funding.
Sanders said the organization started in 2007 as a few friends who shared tools with their neighbors to make DIY home repairs. They never imagined to have the reach the library does now, with over 1,300 active members and even more coming through its classes.
The library offers nearly every kind of household tool imaginable, from mundane screwdrivers and pliers to jackhammers and power washers. Its classes teach attendees about plumbing and electrical work, as well as sewing and date-night woodworking projects. It aimsto help people live more safely and healthily in their homes, Sanders said.
“We want to live within our means and support the community with the support we receive. So it’s kind of an unprecedented thing for us to ask for that, and I think people understand that we’re asking in a time of need,” Sanders said.
Alan Hahn works on a charcuterie board during a woodworking class at the West Philly Tool Library on Friday, Oct. 10.
Sanders said that particularly over the last few years, the library has become a sort of “community hub” that means more to West Philly than just a place you can grab a hammer.
“It blows me away,” Sanders said about the support the library has received.
Beginning later this week, the library will host volunteer days for those willing to help prepare for their move. The library is also accepting donated construction materials for renovations like drywall and wiring.
The tool library is hosting a fundraiser event on Oct. 25, with pumpkin carving, food and drink, and a raffle from local businesses and artists.
Megan Heiken recently bought a home near the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital, once a center for people with developmental disabilities that now operates as a popular haunted Halloween attraction.
A new plan to convert Pennhurst into a massive data center has outraged and mobilized local residents, as well as people in neighboring communities in an area known for rolling hills, farms, and an overall rural character.
Heiken launched an online petition urgingher Chester County neighbors and East Vincent Township officials to “work together toward a solution that preserves the Pennhurst property, honors its history, and protects the environment and quality of life for all who live, work and visit here.”
The petition had 1,825 signatures as of Friday.
“I made this move to be out in an area with more space, more nature,” Heiken said. “The fact that the owner just wants to plow it over and swap in a data center is kind of alarming.”
Her sentiments are widely shared. The board of supervisors and planning commission in East Vincent have hosted public meetings on the issue that stretched for hours as residents from Spring City to Pottstown voiced objections.
Data centers require a large-scale way of cooling computing equipment and are often dependent on water to do that. The amount of water they use can be about the same as an average large office building, although a few require substantially more, according to a recent report from Virginia, which has become a data center hub.
Steve Hacker, of East Vincent, told the board that his well had already gone dry, as has his neighbor’s, even before a data center has been built. He’s concerned about where the data center would get its water.
State legislators and local governments are scrambling to rewrite local laws as most have no local zoning to accommodate data centers or regulate them.
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1.3 million square feet
Pennhurst‘s owner has not yet filed a formal application to develop the site, but an engineering firm has submitted a sketch of a preliminary plan to East Vincent Township to develop 125 acres for use as a data center.
The land is owned by Pennhurst Holdings LLC, whose principal is Derek Strine.
Strine deferred comment to a spokesperson, Kevin Feeley.
“Pennhurst AI is aware of the concerns expressed by the residents of East Vincent Township, and we are committed to working through the Township to address them,” Feeley wrote in an email. “What we propose is a facility that would be among the first of its kind in the United States: a state-of-the-art data center project that would address environmental concerns while also providing significant economic investment, jobs, and tax rateables as well as other benefits that would directly address the needs of the community.”
Feeley said Pennhurst AI plans to continue “working cooperatively with the Township.”
The sketch calls for five, two-story data center buildings, a sixth building, an electrical substation, and a solar field. Together, the buildings to house data operations would total more than 1.3 million square feet.
The plan states that a data center is an allowable use within the Pennhurst property because the land is zoned forindustrial, mixed-usedevelopment. Township officials have agreed a data center would be allowed under that zoning.
The grounds are bordered by Pennhurst Road to the west. The Schuylkill lies down a steep gorge to the east and north. The property is near the border of Spring City, which is just to the south.
A view of the entrance to the Halloween attraction at the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital grounds in East Vincent Township, Chester County.
What’s Pennhurst?
Pennhurst State School and Hospital, known today as Pennhurst Asylum for its Halloween attraction, has had a long and troubled history. It opened in 1908 to house individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It became severely overcrowded by the time it closed in 1987.
A 1968 documentary Suffer the Little Children highlighted abusive and neglectfulpractices, and resulted in legal actions and a landmark disability rights ruling in 1978 that declared conditions as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
The last patient left Pennhurst in 1987, and the facility sat abandoned until it was purchased in 2008 and converted into a Halloween attraction despite protests from various advocacy groups.
The Halloween attraction has continued and operators say it shows sensitivity toward those once housed at Pennhurst. Separately, visitors can take historical tours of the exteriors of 16 buildings and learn about people who lived and worked there. The site also has a small Pennhurst history museum.
A view of the vacant buildings on the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital grounds in East Vincent Township, Chester County.
Contentious meetings
In recent months, East Vincent officials have raced to draft an ordinance that would govern data centers by limiting building heights, mandating buffers, requiring lighting, noting the amount of trees that can be cut down, and other restrictions.
At two contentious meetings in September, residents and the board of supervisors argued about the draft ordinance’s specifics. Residents said the ordinance did not incorporate some community-suggested safeguards aimed at preserving the township’s rural character.
Residents asked how much water the data center would consume, how much power it would need, and how much noise it would generate.
Pennhurst’s zoning was changed in 2012 from allowing onlyresidential development to permitting industrial and mixed-use buildings. Township Solicitor Joe Clement told residents that it is difficult for the municipality to argue that a data center would not fit within that zone.
“If there’s a use that is covered by the zoning ordinance, we can’t stop that use,” board vice chairMark Brancato explained at a Sept. 18 meeting.
Officials said the draft ordinance was not specifically aimed at the Pennhurst site but was meant to broadly govern any data centers proposed in the township.
“What we’re trying to do is to come up with a set of reasonable guidelines, guardrails, and conditions in the new zoning ordinance that will … provide as much protection as we possibly can for the residents,” Brancato said. ”We are committed to protecting and preserving the rural character of the township.”
Township meetings, some of which have lasted hours, have been marked by raised voices and emotional appeals.
“Our whole community is kind of anxious about the thought of this new data center,” Gabrielle Gehron, of Spring City, said during one meeting. “I’m confused about whether we are or not doing something to prevent that from happening.”
Pa. State Rep. Paul Friel, and State Sen. Katie Muth, both Democrats from East Vincent, have spoken at meetings. Muth noted that Strine received a $10 million grant and loan package from the state in 2017 to prepare the site for “a large distribution facility” and other industrial structures, new office development, and the renovation of six existing buildings for additional commercial use, amid ample open space, according to a funding request provided by the governor’s office.
Muth fears Strine is paving a path to clear the data center for development and sell the property — after benefiting from tax dollars.
“These are not good things to live next to,” Muth said of data centers.
The board tabled the draft ordinance on Sept. 22 after receiving legal advice that they still had time to incorporate more residents’ concerns.
Beyond Pennhurst
Other municipalities in Pennsylvania face a similar issue: Most don’thave existing zoning for data centers. However, state law mandates that municipalities must provide zoning for all uses of land — just as state and federal officials are ramping up plans to embrace the centers.
Plymouth Township is dealing with pressure as Brian J. O’Neill, a Main Line developer, wants to turn the Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill into a 2 million-square-foot data center that would span 10 existing buildings. The Plymouth Township Planning Commission voted against the project given resident backlash. The plan goes to the zoning board later this month.
And Covington and Clifton Townships in Lackawanna County in the Poconos are also dealing with zoning issues and widespread opposition regarding a plan to build a data center on 1,000 acres.
Clashes between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and members of targeted communities continue to intensify as the Trump administration gleefully condones a dangerous mix of heavy-handed enforcement tactics and zero accountability.
Recent examples of intimidation, harassment, and excessive use of force by ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have been piling up, ranging from a praying minister being shot in the head with a pepper ball to a woman allegedly taunted to “do something” before an officer opened fire.
Americans who care about the rule of law — whether they support mass deportations or not — must speak out against the inhumane theater of cruelty put on by Donald Trump’s secret police.
Yet, beyond the daily outrage of immigrants being disappeared off the street, or citizens detained without reason by jeering masked thugs, there is another insidious level to the administration’s anti-immigrant efforts.
From the moment Trump came into office, he has shut down or obstructed the country’s legal immigration pathways. No shots have been fired in this cold war, but the long-term economic damage will leave most Americans worse off.
Starting in January, the administration froze the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, leaving more than 100,000 highly vetted immigrants who had already been approved for resettlement stuck in limbo.
According to reports, the program will restart in 2026, but the cap will be lowered from the 125,000 set under President Joe Biden to 7,500. Not only that, but many of those limited slots will be reserved for white South Africans.
You have to give it to white supremacists in the administration; they are not subtle.
The refugee freeze may not be the largest cut to legal immigration, but it is the most significant, said David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“All these people who would have been here with a path to permanent residence and citizenship — it’s just gone,” he told me. “Over the next four years, it’s basically the equivalent of half a million people who are going to be lost as a result of that decision.”
Refugees are fleeing from persecution, have gone through extensive background checks, and likely waited for years for a chance to come to the U.S. — all of which is meaningless to an administration for whom a foreigner is just an “illegal” who hasn’t overstayed their visa yet.
Federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection walk north on North Clark Street in the River North neighborhood of Chicago in September.
And, if and when Trump leaves office, the system itself will be damaged, atrophied after years of disuse and partner agencies that have moved on.
The administration has also ended all humanitarian parole initiatives launched during the Biden years, which allowed some immigrants who had a sponsor in the U.S. and who passed a background check to come to America for a period of two years to live and work lawfully.
International students, long a wellspring for high-skilled workers in the U.S. and a major revenue driver for colleges and universities, have also been targeted by the administration. As the new academic year began in August, the number of international students declined by almost 20% from 2024. Difficulties getting visas, fears of getting caught up in the wider immigration crackdown, or ending up in jail for saying the wrong thing played a part in the drop, according to reports.
These are no idle concerns. The best and brightest around the world can quickly find validation for their worries in what happened to Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained after leading pro-Palestinian protests, or Tufts doctoral candidate Rumeysa Öztürk, who spent six weeks in custody over an op-ed she wrote for her student newspaper.
There are also travel bans targeting 19 countries and a proposal to charge a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas for skilled workers. Meanwhile, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency tasked with overseeing legal immigration, including legal permanent residence and citizenship applications — is being weaponized against the people it’s meant to serve.
The agency will now have armed special agents engaged in immigration enforcement, even as its backlog hits an all-time high and fee-paying applicants face worsening delays for USCIS services.
It’s going to be some time before the full economic effects of mass deportation, plus legal immigration being throttled so aggressively, manifest themselves, but the math is clear. The consequences of Trump’s legal immigration crackdown will not play out in the streets, but around people’s kitchen tables.
“It’s going to mean less economic growth for the United States,” the Cato Institute’s Bier said. “You’re reducing business creation and entrepreneurship and innovation, which drives improvements in economic growth over the long term.”
With less economic growth, it means lower living standards for the U.S. population, Bier added. “It’s a bleak picture.”
Much as the reality of who’s being targeted for deportation puts the lie to the administration’s claims that they are focusing on “criminal” immigrants and “the worst of the worst.” So the gutting of legal immigration removes all doubt over what this is really about, or for whom it’s really for.
Ray the Nubian goat has come a long way since a parasite threatened to take his life, leaving him with three legs but not dampening his spirit. Now he’s in need of a wheelchair.
As a jolly middle-aged goat, 7-year-old Ray loved taking long strolls around Awbury Arboretum, supporting people in bereavement with hoofshakes and kisses, and taking children with cerebral palsy on rides.
The wagon was his biggest job, and he took it seriously, said Karen Krivit, the director of Philly Goat Project, an East Germantown nonprofit that provides community wellness through nature connection. So much so that he hid his pain.
“Goats tend to hide their injuries,” Krivit said. “Ray was determined to keep from showing any pain and just trying to pull his head high and be with everybody else.”
Philly Goat Project’s annual Christmas Tree-Cycle feeds old trees to goats.
Ray had been battling a parasite infection common among outdoor animals, Krivit said. But, as often happens for hisbreed, he was resistant to the medication. As his veterinarian team continued trying for a cure, a slight limp alerted the Philly Goat Project staff that his condition had worsened.
The parasite affected his bone density, causing one of his femurs to break in three places. A big problem for any goat due to their rough-and-tumble nature.
The place Ray had called home since he was 3 months old rallied around him, raising money for a titanium plate to secure the bone in place. But his anatomy once again worked against him.
With Ray standing at a little over 3 feet tall, his natural lanky composition would have made it hard for the plate and the screws to hold onto the bone. The titanium plate could have collapsed his bone in another area, causing additional damage, Krivit said.
“We were able to eliminate the parasite, but not in time enough to save his leg,” she added. “The safest long-term plan was amputation.”
For tall animals in particular, it’s hard to thrive on three legs, Krivit explained. The biggest challenges since the amputation in May have been teaching him how to move around by himself and reintegrating him into his herd of 13 goats.
“Humans tend to be mean to each other if you look different or act differently; it’s the same with goats,” Krivit said. “But humans can use their voices and talk about it; goats can only be mean and exclude another goat. Not being rejected is vital to his survival.”
Ray was placed in a nearby separate stall. His brother Teddy never stopped looking out for him.
Ten thousand dollars and months of rehabilitation later, Ray has a severe limp, but can now stand up and lie down by himself. The herd has accepted him back, but he seems to feel left behind when they go on long walks, often bellowing as the other goats head out without him.
“Because he is moving his body in three legs instead of four, he is at risk for hurting himself further if he goes on a long walk, making it harder for him to stay connected to the herd,” Krivit said.
So Ray needs a wheelchair.
For goats, that involves a metal harness with a wheel on each side of the goat, mimicking a leg. But they are expensive.
The Goat Project needs $2,000 for a custom-made wheelchair for Ray, physical therapy, and proper fitting.
For Krivit, leaving her beloved otherwise-healthy goat without a wheelchair is not an option. She is hoping to raise enough money at the group’s annual GOAToberFest to get him a chair.
The Oct. 18 event will take place at the Conservatory at Laurel Hill West Cemetery, and tickets run for $75, with free snacks, drinks, and goodie bags.
Until then, she hopes folks can see in Ray a symbol of resilience.
“A wheelchair is the missing link for him to safely go on walks that will support his body and his spirit to not be left behind,” Krivit said. “If Ray can be resilient and he can survive this, I hope that gives people hope in their times of adversity.”
Krivit hopes their upcoming annual GOAToberFest can help get Ray a wheelchair.
Lower Merion Township’s effort to limit where guns are sold violates state law, Commonwealth Court ruled Thursday.
In a case that holds major implications for the power of local governments across Pennsylvania, the court threw out the township’s zoning ordinance that sought to block holders of federal firearms licenses from operating in walkable downtown areas and residential neighborhoods.
The question at the heart of the case was whether the ordinance regulated land-use decisions, the bread and butter of local government, or the sale of firearms, which only the state can do.
A majority opinion, signed by five judges, said the township’s ordinance violated state law that prohibits local governments from regulating guns because its requirements went beyond geographic limits.
“The Township’s ordinance here is clearly intended to regulate the sale of firearms, rather than to regulate zoning,” wrote Judge Matthew Wolf in the opinion. “It is a gun regulation, not a zoning regulation.”
In a statement, Todd Sinai, the Democratic president of the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners, said the township was considering its legal and legislative options.
“We, of course, are disappointed in the Commonwealth Court’s decision today. It is a fundamental and important right of municipalities to be able to zone the location of uses to best serve their residents and property owners,” Sinai said.
Frustrated with the lack of gun-control measures out of Harrisburg, advocates and officials have sought to use local ordinances to limit gun sales and where guns can be carried, and to ban certain firearms. Philadelphia has fought for years for the ability to enact gun laws. But ordinances passed by Philly and other cities, including Pittsburgh, have largely been struck down by courts.
One strategy that has had limited success is the use of zoning ordinances to limit the locations of firearms-related activities, such as shooting ranges or gun stores. The Lower Merion case was seen by some as a test on how far zoning can go to bypass state preemption.
“The Commonwealth Court has reaffirmed once again that local forms of government cannot regulate firearms and ammunition in any manner,” said Joshua Prince, an attorney with Civil Rights Defense Firm who filed the lawsuit.
Lower Merion can appeal the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which would have to agree to hear the case, but the ruling delivered a blow to gun-control advocates who had hoped Lower Merion’s ordinance could be replicated elsewhere in the state.
“The decision to treat firearm operations as different within zoning than any other business is unusual and concerning,” said Adam Garber, the executive director of CeaseFire PA.
The ruling, he said, creates a road map for how municipalities can zone firearm stores but also puts the impetus on the state to address gun regulations, something lawmakers in Harrisburg have refused to do.
The township approved the zoning rules for firearms dealers in 2023 after the opening of Shot Tec, a gun training facility and seller in Bala Cynwyd, sparked community outrage. The zoning rules established a set of criteria for sellers to operate under and said they could open only in strip malls and industrial-use areas.
The township argued that, while local governments are not allowed to regulate firearms, they have broad power over zoning and land use.
Grant Schmidt, the owner of the Bala Cynwyd shop, sued after the zoning ordinance impeded his ability to open a second location in his home.
He responded to the news of the ruling Thursday with a gif of Ric Flair cheering. His business, which offers training and education on firearms in addition to buying, selling, and storing them, has had four locations in five years. He said he hoped he could now focus on expanding his business rather than fighting local policies.
“Now I’m looking to just grow and be normal and invest in my staff more,” Schmidt said.
The litigation focuses on the requirements Schmidt had to adhere to for his most recent Rock Hill Road location, which is within one of the four districts that were zoned for businesses that require a federal gun license. The ordinance went beyond restricting place and imposed 12 additional requirements, such as installing smash-resistant windows, an alarm system, and internal video surveillance.
Montgomery County Court found that all but three requirements were preempted by state law. Following Schmidt’s appeal, Commonwealth Court struck down the remaining requirements and the place restrictions.
Lower Merion argued that other businesses, such as medical marijuana dispensaries, animal hospitals, and funeral homes, are subject to compatible conditions to operate. These types of requirements are “traditional local land use control not specific to firearms,” the township argued, according to the majority opinion.
To make its case, Lower Merion cited a previous, non-precedential decision by Commonwealth Court that allowed Philadelphia to limit gun shops to specific zoning districts.
The difference between the cases, Wolf wrote, is that Philadelphia limited the location of the gun shops but said nothing about how they need to operate. Lower Merion went a step further to restrict how gun shop owners “conduct their business.”
Two judges, Renee Cohen Jubelirer and Lori Dumas, disagreed with the majority’s analysis, saying the decision “strips the Township of its traditional power over land use and zoning.”
“Contrary to the Majority’s conclusion, none of the provisions of the ordinance at issue here regulate the ownership, transportation, or transfer of firearms, ammunition, or ammunition components,” Jubelirer wrote in the dissent.
Correction: An original version of this story incorrectly identified the gif sent by Schmidt. It featured Ric Flair.
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New York’s Brevet Capital Management revealed its vision for 1341 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. to the Pennsport Civic Association on Wednesday night, showing a soaring tower on Delaware River with 620 units and promising a dramatic revision of public space in the area.
In addition to the tower and small retail building just to its west, the developer’s representatives outlined possible future phases that could include two additional towers.
“The retail building is constructed as a placeholder,” Meredith Trego, a zoning lawyer with Ballard Spahr, said at the Pennsport Civic Association meeting. “But the idea is in a future phase that a one-story building would go away, and a new tower could go in its place.”
The towering project, with its limited parking, is legally possible due to the unique zoning incentives available along the central Delaware riverfront.
In exchange for building as high as they want, the developers must meet a variety of requirements including paying into the city’s housing trust fund, providing public space, and upgrading, maintaining, and extending a rundown stretch of the Delaware River Trail down to Reed Street.
The first tower would be more than 380 feet tall, and renderings show possible future towers that would be even taller. To be allowed to build that high for future buildings, the developer would have to meet the city’s exacting requirements again, including by paying more into the housing trust fund (and they could not encroach on trail space).
Conditions on the pedestrian- and bike-friendly river trail have deteriorated below Washington Avenue. The infrastructure has not been maintained to the level it is farther north.
An encampment of homeless people has settled along this portion of the trail, although its residents have been moved around several times in sweeps orchestrated by the city, Delaware River Waterfront Corp., and property owners.
Another sweep is planned for Tuesday, the developer’s representatives said at the Pennsport meeting, and additional signage and fencing are planned to limit access to the property.
But currently the encampment is largely along the public access bike and pedestrian trail itself, not private property.
“Everyone knows that’s only going to last so long until we get density back there, people [will probably be] living back there,” said Matt McClure, a zoning lawyer representing Brevet. “That’s why we need an active use.”
A rendering of the proposed tower discussed at the Pennsport Civic Association meeting Wednesday night.
Brevet’s team said they would provide additional public space with the initial tower, including on disused piers that jut into the river. Currently they do not plan to build structures on the piers but turn them into publicly accessible green space.
Residents also asked that the developer address traffic conditions on Columbus Boulevard, which is a high-speed roadway that is unsafe for pedestrians.
“Big projects generate focus on improvements,” McClure said. “Hopefully it generates dialogue on making things better” on the boulevard.
The biggest applause of the night came when an attendee urged the developer to add more parking than the 187 spaces currently proposed within the tower. Another 100 spaces are available in an existing surface lot, although that is also the site for a possible third future residential tower.
The developer’s representatives tempered hopes for a greater share of parking in future development, while not ruling it out.
“So for future phases, if there’s a need for additional parking, we could incorporate that,” Trego said. Based on what they’re seeing in developments throughout the city, she added, garages are not as full as expected.
A rendering of the highly theoretical future two towers the developer has discussed as a possibility for the site.
Plans for the first tower have mostly smaller units — 50% one-bedroom units and 35% studios — but the developer said that could change.
“As we study this further, if there is desire for larger units, we can always make room for that,” said Milton Lau, a project architect with the firm Perkins Eastman.
Brevet expects to begin building in summer 2026, with an 18- to 24-month construction timeline for the first tower.
This is Brevet’s first real estate project in Philadelphia, although the company has built other developments in Florida, Texas, and California.
A New York developer is planning a 620-apartment development at 1341 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. in South Philadelphia.
The 36-story project from Manhattan-based Brevet Capital Management makes use of multiple zoning bonuses to allow a taller, denser project than would otherwise be legal.
In exchange for those development benefits, the developer will pay into Philadelphia’s Housing Trust Fund and upgrade and maintainthe Delaware River Trail belowWashington Avenue, where its conditions currently get much rougher.
The zoning was changed before the pandemic to allow developers to build taller in exchange for extending the trail, but Brevet would be the first to do so.
“To me the most exciting aspect of this project is that they will be paying for and constructing the waterfront trail along their property,” said Matt Ruben, chair of the Central Delaware Advocacy Group, which has long pushed for responsible development on the riverfront.
“That’s one of the most important and consequential public benefits a developer can provide” in this area, said Ruben, who has not seen renderings of the buildings.
Jack O’Brien, who posts in JackPhillyRE’s Substack, first reported the latest project for this parcel in advance of a Wednesday night meeting with the developers before the Pennsport Civic Association. The permit with Brevet executives listed as owners was pulled on July 3 of this year.
“We are pleased to see the first major investment in Pennsport’s historically underutilized waterfront,” said Patrick Fitzmaurice, president of the Pennsport Civic Association. “We look forward to neighbors safely enjoying the waterfront with the proposed retail and recreational plans.
The project is designed by the international architecture firm Perkins Eastman, with its Philadelphia office listed, and is called Wharton Piers in plans filed with the city. The developer is represented by Matt McClure and Meredith Trego of the law firm Ballard Spahr.
Although no parking is required, the developer is providing 187 parking spaces on floors two to four of the housing tower. Over 10,000 square feet of commercial and office space will be on the ground floor, with amenity space on level five.
A small, neighboring one-story building will include 20,650 square feet of retail space.
A screenshot from plans filed with the city shows how the housing tower proposed on the right dwarfs the small retail building proposed on the left.
Previous proposals for the property
The property at 1341 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. has had multiple development proposals over the years. Most recently, in 2023, New York-based Silverstein Properties proposed 612 apartments and 500 parking spaces across two towers.
Before the pandemic, it was the site of a 2,000-unit project that would have spanned 10 buildings. That plan, from Maryland-based developer Jeffery Kozero called Liberty on the River, drew widespread skepticism and went nowhere.
Kozero’s company at that time, K4 Associates LLC, is still listed as the permit holder. His proposal was met by backlash from the Central Delaware Advocacy Group and other neighborhood organizations.
K4 “tried to warp the entire overlay to allow the construction of 10 huge towers that many of us knew would never get built,” Ruben said.
Following the backlash, City Council changed the zoning overlay covering the waterfront in part by allowing developers to build taller in exchange for growing and maintaining the bike path, part of a larger plan.
“It’s ironic that this [new proposal] is the first project that will make use of the new density bonus system,” said Ruben, given that the old K4 project on the same site is the reason the zoning incentive exists at all.
Until recently, the vast vacant lot at 1341 S. Christopher Columbus had been used asan encampment by people who are homeless. Last December, The Inquirer reported that the property was being swept, with the tents and residents removed, at the behest of the property owners.
Today, an established encampment instead lines much of the bike and pedestrian trail below Washington Avenue.
This story has been corrected to make clear that the river bike trail does extend below Washington Avenue and that the developer promises to upgrade and maintain that part of the path.
Gloria Del Piano, 72, of Philadelphia, celebrated designer of silk clothing, fashion accessories, and jewelry, former Italian TV producer and public relations director, energy therapist, Italian translator, voice-over actor, and community volunteer, died Wednesday, Oct. 1, of complications from cancer at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Energetic, artistic, and indomitable, Ms. Del Piano was 31 when she arrived in Philadelphia from Rome in 1984. She had little money and knew little English. But she discovered her skill for silk painting in a do-it-yourself class, and the colorful hand-painted silk scarves, evening wraps, handkerchiefs, handbags, and original jewelry she went on to create turned Gloria Del Piano Accessories LLC into a fashion powerhouse.
In just a few years, she opened a store on Bainbridge Street and contracted with Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nan Duskin, Nordstrom, and hundreds of other fashion outlets to carry her designs in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis, and elsewhere around the country. Locally, her signature scarves and earrings were featured at gallery exhibits, charity benefits, private homes, and fashion shows at Penn’s Landing, Fairmount Park, the Wayne Art Center, and elsewhere.
Many of Ms. Del Piano’s designs were colorful.
Her line of accessories won awards for excellence and creativity at the Philadelphia Dresses the World fashion expos in 1986 and ’87, and she was inducted into the Philadelphia Get to Know Us Fashion Hall of Fame in 1988. The Inquirer, Daily News, Los Angeles Times, and other outlets publicized her exhibits, and a fashion writer for Newsday called her scarves, with flower and bird patterns, “exquisite” in a 1986 story.
Some of her scarves were priced between $220 and $300 in 1986, and a black cape listed in 1988 at $495. In 1993, a gold lace-trimmed handkerchief was $45. A fellow artist exhibited with Ms. Del Piano at a Philadelphia festival and said in a fashion blog: “We watched her tie a scarf so many ways so fast it was like a magic act.”
Earlier, from 1976 to 1984, Ms. Del Piano worked as a program producer and public relations director at GBR-TV in Rome during the station’s glory years. She also did Italian voice-overs, interpretations, and translations for clients of all kinds.
Ms. Del Piano (right) smiles at a model wearing her designs at an event at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park.
She served on the board of the nonprofit Enabling Minds, volunteered in Philadelphia as aCourt Appointed Special Advocate for Children, and raised funds for other organizations she championed. In a Facebook tribute, a friend said she was “bigger than life itself” with “a flare of the Italian opera star and the warmth of the Mother Earth itself.”
Her partner, Wainwright Ballard, said: “She was generous and empathetic. She took care of everyone, including those abandoned or forgotten by others.”
Gloria Del Piano was born Jan. 20, 1953, in Rome. She was artistic as a girl and always interested in spiritual growth and personal transformation. She studied sociology and business administration after high school in Italy, was certified by the Florida-based Barbara Brennan School of Healing in 2000, and led seminars in healing therapy for years.
Ms. Del Piano and her partner, Wainwright Ballard, met in Chestnut Hill.
She married Roberto Borea in 1985, and they divorced in 1992. She met Ballard at the Mermaid Inn in Chestnut Hill, and they spent the last eight years dancing, traveling, and enjoying life together.
Ms. Del Piano doted on her family and friends in the United States and Italy, and returned often to Rome for reunions. She lived in Mount Airy and then a 20-room house in Germantown, and visitors marveled at her eclectic collection of art and antiques.
She enjoyed music, gardening, thrift shopping, and chatting with friends. Friends called her “a philosopher,” “a noble soul,” and “a magician in the kitchen.” She delighted in cooking and entertaining, Ballard said, and always sent guests home with armloads of leftovers.
Ms. Del Piano receives an award from then-Mayor Wilson Goode at a fashion expo in Philadelphia.
Her “fabulous parties” were “fun and adventurous,” a friend said. Ms. Del Piano said on Facebook: “You never know how wonderful what you have is when you have it. It is when you miss it that we realize how lucky we were.”
A friend said her “optimism, tenacity, enthusiasm, kindness, beauty, and elegance will always be with us.” Another friend said: “My life has been made richer having known Gloria Del Piano.”
In addition to Ballard, Ms. Del Piano is survived by a brother, two sisters, and other relatives. Her former husband died earlier.
A funeral mass is to be held at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4, at St. Vincent de Paul Church, 109 E. Price St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19144.
Donations in her name may be made to Unite for Her, 22 E. King St., Malvern, Pa. 19355.
Many of Ms. Del Piano’s designs featured flowers and birds.
