The spirits of the pets come first, treading home on soft, shadowy paws, making their way by the light of altar candles and guided by the eternal tie of love.
They are welcomed with offerings of favorite treats and fresh water, and by the careful placement of old toys and worn collars that have become cherished mementos.
It’s a new tradition connected to the Day of the Dead, the ancient Mexican holiday where people honor and celebrate the lives of family members at a time when the wall between worlds melts.
Now, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, people have begun to recognize not just human relatives but those with wings and whiskers, the departed dogs, cats, birds, and other animals that enriched their lives. And who, like family, continue to be mourned and missed.
The souls of pets are said to return on Oct. 27, a few days before the Dia de Muertos on Nov. 1 and 2.
“The day,” said Gerardo Coronado Benitez, manager of the Association of Mexican Business Owners of Philadelphia, “is not about death, but about celebrating and remembering people, keeping memories alive. Of course many people want to keep alive the memories of their pets.”
He is helping organize a big Day of the Dead event at the Italian Market on Nov. 2, where people will be able to place photos of relatives and pets on a community ofrenda ― a decorated altar ― at Ninth Street and Washington Avenue.
A crowd gathers at last year’s Day of the Dead celebration at the Italian Market in South Philadelphia.
Others have set up altars in their homes. These ofrendas may be adorned with traditional marigolds, with candy skulls, paper skeletons, and photographs. But they may also feature a snatch of fur or a whisker left behind.
Genesis Pimentel-Howard created an ofrenda for her cat, Mobi, on a bedroom shelf of the West Philadelphia home she shares with her husband, Yaphet Howard.
It’s hard for her to talk about Mobi, who died suddenly in May at only 4 years old.
He was, she said, an adorable menace. Mobi loved to poke at and play with the couple’s other cat, Sannin, though Sannin didn’t always appreciate the attention.
Mobi sometimes stole food from the trash. And he managed to push over and break Pimentel-Howard’s flat-screen TV. Still, she said, he followed her everywhere. She couldn’t even use the bathroom without him trailing her inside.
“A sweet momma’s boy,” she said. “Always next to me.”
On the ofrenda, Pimentel-Howard placed her grandmother’s pearls. And photos of her family dogs, Ella and Red, and her hamster, Shia LaBeouf. She added a shadow box that holds Mobi’s collar and an impression of his paw.
“I’ll stay up as late as Ican to welcome him,” she said. “I like to think he’ll be around.”
Genesis Pimentel-Howard lights a candle for her late cat, Mobi, beside a lovingly crafted ofrenda in her Philadelphia home on Monday. The altar glows with candlelight, welcoming the spirits of her beloved departed pets. The ritual is part of a growing tradition tied to Día de los Muertos.
The roots of the Day of the Dead go back 3,000 years, to Aztec and Mayan traditions. It is celebrated not only in Mexico but also in wider Latin America and in communities across the United States.
Dogs have always played an important role. The ancients considered them sacred, guides that led souls through the afterlife. They revered the Mexican Hairless dog, the Xoloitzcuintle, or Xolo for short.
It’s a Xolo dog, Dante, that guides Miguel to meet his ancestors in Coco, the popular animated Disney movie. And it’s a song from the movie, “Remember Me,” that has become the soundtrack for countless social media posts about departed pets.
In Philadelphia, the Italian Market festival welcomes all who wish to take part in its Day of the Dead event to South Ninth Street between Federal and Christian Streets from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 2
The Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia also will hold a big Day of the Dead celebration. Everyone is invited to help with final preparations for the ofrenda from 2 to 9 p.m. on Oct. 31, and to come to the Day of the Dead event the next day.
“The animals, that’s family, too,” said María De Los Angeles Hernández Del Prado, the artist who led the creation of the Fleisher’s large, three-part ofrenda, which includes a section devoted to pets. “They’re the same as us, they just don’t talk the same language.”
Pimentel-Howard knew after Mobi died that she would find a way to honor him, along with the other animals she has loved.
“You don’t know what it’s like to lose an animal,” she said, “until you’ve lost one.”
Alycia Marshall, who has been serving as interim president of Community College of Philadelphia since April, was unanimously endorsed for the permanent role Tuesday.
The board of trustees, at an 8 a.m. meeting, approved making an offer of employment to Marshall, who had served as provost and vice president for academic and student success at CCP for nearly three years before stepping into the interim role.
Marshall was among four finalists for the job.
“Congratulations,” Board Chair Harold T. Epps said to Marshall during the Zoom meeting, which lasted about 10 minutes. “You have earned it through a very tough and challenging process. …We look forward to working with you.”
Epps cited Marshall’s “stellar work” through the interim period as a factor in the board’s decision and said she had “the full confidence” of the board.
“I’m a little bit emotional,” Marshall said at the meeting. “I’m very excited. I’m honored. I’m deeply humbled, pleased, ecstatic, and looking forward to the road ahead and the journey ahead.
“I am fully committed to this institution, to our students, most importantly, and to the college community.”
Alycia Marshall
Epps said contract negotiations with Marshall would begin immediately to lead the college, which had an enrollment of 12,400 credit students and 1,381 noncredit students last spring. No terms or salary of her employment were released.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker congratulated Marshall in a statement.
“The Parker administration supports CCP, Dr. Marshall, and the board in its mission,” she said.
Maria Baez, student government president, was on the search committee and said while she liked all four candidates, Marshall was her first choice.
Alycia Marshall speaks at a Community College of Philadelphia forum where she appeared as one of four finalists for president. She got the job Tuesday.
“As a student, I see her passion for the students,” Baez said. “I see how connected she is with the students. Her heart is for the students.”
Junior Brainard, co-president of the faculty and staff union, said: “As a union, we are looking forward to Dr. Marshall finally making good on the agreement we signed back in March,” referring to a contract agreement. “That includes SEPTA passes for all students, smaller class sizes, and improvements to health, safety, and working conditions that will be figured out through various committees.”
During a finalist forum, Marshall addressed free SEPTA passes for students. While the college couldn’t offer the benefit to all students — it would cost about $2 million — a pilot will begin in the spring at the college’s West Philadelphia site, she said.
Brainard said the college has to do better. The pilot only serves half the students at the West Philadelphia site and just 3% of the student body, he said.
Marshall said in an interview Tuesday afternoon that the goal is to find alternative funding sources and expand the program to the entire college.
She said among her priorities will be increasing and strengthening transfer partnerships, with the recently announced program with Cheyney University, an historically Black college in Delaware and Chester counties, as a model.
“Many of our students have transportation issues and perhaps reasonably cannot drive the 25 miles to Cheyney University,” she said. “So Cheyney at CCP is going to provide opportunities to complete a bachelor’s while staying on our campus. It’s symbolic of where I would like to work together with faculty, staff and the administrators and the board … on really strengthening those pathways.”
She cited workforce development and strengthening partnerships with K-12 schools, too, including expanding dual enrollment opportunities and reaching into areas of the city that the college currently is not penetrating enough.
When Marshall was named as interim, Epps cited her “academic and organizational leadership, along with her extensive expertise in STEM, her focus on mentoring and serving underrepresented student populations.”
Marshall, 51, received her bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, her master’s in teaching from Bowie State University, and her doctorate in mathematics education from the University of Maryland.
A native of Maryland, she started her career as an adjunct professor at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, near Annapolis, and later became a full tenured professor and chair of the mathematics department.
She was promoted to associate vice president there and founded the African American Leadership Institute and spent a total of nearly 23 years at the Maryland community college. She’s also a rising presidents fellow with the Aspen Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at creating thought leaders in their fields to address critical challenges.
Alycia Marshall, then interim president of Community College of Philadelphia, speaks at commencement in May.
At a campus interview session for the job, Marshall said she would lead both internally and externally, focusing on faculty and staff satisfaction as well as building relationships with funders and donors.
She said she has already met more than 20 City Council members and state legislators.
Marshall acknowledged that an employee satisfaction survey she commissioned when she became interim president showed low morale and promised to address it “through ensuring transparency and frequent communication.” The results of that survey haven’t been publicly released.
Marshall said that over the last six months, she learned to be comfortable not knowing what will happen next. After a board meeting earlier this month, a consultant who is the liaison to the presidential search committee said on a still-active microphone that Marshall had not been well-received on campus.
Marshall said at the interview session that she did not agree with that and that she has developed relationships with people across the college.
“If you have worked directly with me, you will know I am here for the students and I am here to support faculty and staff,” she said.
Marshall, who maintains a residence in Maryland, said she would move to the city full time if selected for the job.
The other finalists for the job were: Jesse Pisors, former president of Pasco-Hernando State College in Florida; Jermaine Wright, vice president for student affairs at City University of New York-Lehman College; and Lisa Cooper Wilkins, vice chancellor of student affairs at City College of San Francisco.
NEW YORK — Big East commissioner Val Ackerman was finished with her introductory remarks Tuesday morning, and it was time to take a photo. She invited the 11 men’s basketball coaches onto the Madison Square Garden court, and there was new Villanova coach Kevin Willard, hugging St. John’s coach Rick Pitino, whom he has known for years and worked under at Louisville.
Willard made the rounds. There was Ed Cooley, whom Willard later called one of the best tactical offensive coaches in the sport.
Villanova freshman point guard Acaden Lewis said he hasn’t seen Willard smiling quite like he has over the last two days in New York.
“It feels good to be back home, especially back in the Garden,” said Willard, who played at Pittsburgh when the school was a Big East member and coached 12 seasons at Seton Hall. “I missed the Big East tournament. I missed the battles that we had in here.”
Media day means preseason poll day, and if the other programs are onto something, Willard’s Wildcats will need to make some kind of run at that conference tournament in March to avoid Villanova missing the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive season. The Wildcats were picked to finish seventh in the preseason poll of the league’s 11 head coaches. It’s a two-horse race at the top, with Pitino’s Red Storm getting seven first-place votes, three more than Connecticut.
“To be honest with you, I don’t even know who’s on anyone’s team,” Willard said when asked about his team’s preseason ranking.
That has to make voting hard, right?
“I didn’t vote,” Willard said. “I don’t know who voted for us. I think someone did.”
Someone must have, but Willard’s response — and his abstaining from the voting process — speaks to the meaningless nature of these preseason exercises that have become even more useless in the transient world of college basketball. Villanova brought with Willard a freshman point guard, Lewis, and junior guard Tyler Perkins, one of its two returning scholarship players from last season’s roster.
Villanova’s new coach, Kevin Willard, watches his team during an open practice at the Finneran Pavilion on July 28.
The rest of the Wildcats mostly are unknown to Villanova season ticket-holders, let alone opposing programs that haven’t had any need to dig into rival rosters at this part of the calendar. No Villanova players made it onto the three preseason all-conference teams.
Willard was asked what he thought about the two-headed race at the top of the conference and mentioned, again, that he didn’t really know who was on either team. He was also asked what he thought those St. John’s-UConn games might be like later this season.
“I don’t care,” he said jokingly to a reporter. “I don’t. I’m not playing in them, why do I care what they’re like?
“I didn’t know this was St. John’s-UConn. It’s the V,” he said, pointing to the Villanova banner behind him.
While the event was “like riding a bike” to Willard, representing Villanova on the annual preseason stage was new. His first look at his roster against real competition came Sunday in an exhibition against Virginia Commonwealth, and the Wildcats won, 70-51. They play again Friday in an exhibition at Virginia before opening the season for real Nov. 3 against No. 8 BYU in Las Vegas.
Villanova will play 11 nonconference games before it opens Big East play on Dec. 23, when Willard will make his first trip as Wildcats coach to his old stomping grounds at Seton Hall, which was picked last in Tuesday’s poll.
By then, a lot more will be known about his new-look team — and the rest of the Big East, for that matter.
“I actually watched a podcast yesterday while I was waiting for dinner, and it’s kind of comical,” Willard said. “Preseason polls now, I don’t know how anyone ranks anybody. No one literally has any idea how these kids are all going to fit together, play together. No one’s really dove through people’s schedules to see what’s going on. There’s so much that goes into this. Like, KenPom, how can you have KenPom rankings? It doesn’t make any sense.
“I just don’t get it. This time of year, I just think you have to play basketball and see how everybody is.”
The Villanova women’s basketball team was picked to finish fourth in its preseason poll Tuesday morning.
The Wildcats trail defending national champion UConn, Marquette, and Seton Hall.
Villanova’s Jasmine Bascoe, a first-team all-conference selection last season after collecting 16.2 points and 4.5 rebounds per game, was named a preseason first-team selection.
The Eagles snapped a two-game losing streak with a win on the road over the Carson Wentz and the Minnesota Vikings — but in some cases, that wasn’t enough for them to climb this week’s NFL power rankings. Here’s where they landed after improving to 5-2 on the season …
ESPN: Third
ESPN moved the Birds up two spots, to third, after the win. And Tim McManus shouted out Moro Ojomo as the Eagles’ most underrated player so far this year. Ojomo had two tackles, including a third-down sack, in the 28-22 win over the Vikings.
“A seventh-round pick in the 2023 draft out of Texas, Ojomo tends to get second billing at defensive tackle behind the Georgia duo of Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis. But Ojomo has been key in making up for the departure of Milton Williams to the Patriots this offseason.”
The Birds are up one spot following Sunday’s win, which proved to the Ringer’s Diante Lee that the Birds can still be unstoppable when they want to be.
“A string of three-and-outs in the first half against Minnesota made me nervous that Philadelphia’s offense was going to melt down again, but halftime seemed to awaken an aggression in the passing game that Eagles fans have been begging for. Quarterback Jalen Hurts finished the game with a perfect passer rating thanks to deep throws on play action and trusting his receivers in one-on-one matchups.
“If Philadelphia can actually play this well for more than a half at a time, they will be the best team in the NFC again.”
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni smiles during the fourth quarter of his team’s win over the Vikings.
Fox Sports: Sixth
Fox Sports’ Ralph Vacciano kept the Birds at sixth after their win over Minnesota, but he’s not too confident in them staying there over the rest of the season.
“Jalen Hurts rediscovered his arm and his receivers, but this Eagles team still can’t run and struggles on defense,” Vacciano wrote. “It’s getting harder to justify having them way up here, but they’re still sixth for now.”
The Birds stayed steady at sixth, nestled in between the Packers and the Rams for the second week in a row.
“This was the kind of offensive game we really hadn’t seen from the Eagles this season,” Eric Edholm wrote. “Jalen Hurts was dealing, especially with downfield shots, and getting the ball to his best playmakers. A.J. Brown had two TDs and the dagger catch to end it, while DeVonta Smith had more than half the Eagles’ net yardage. Things still aren’t churning up front in the run game behind a remixed offensive line, but when the aerial attack hums like this, it’s not as critical. Defensively, the Eagles had a few slip-ups and didn’t defend the perimeter of the field well enough, but they forced two INTs of Carson Wentz (including a Jalyx Hunt pick-six) and held Minnesota to 1-for-6 in the red zone. Job well done.”
The Eagles defense celebrates after linebacker Jalyx Hunt’s pick-six against the Vikings.
Pro Football Talk: Sixth
The Birds are up two spots to sixth in Pro Football Talk’s power rankings, just behind the Denver Broncos, thanks to their strong offensive performance in Minnesota.
“The mini-bye turned the offense around,” Mike Florio wrote.
The lowest ranking for the Eagles is at CBS Sports. They moved the Birds up just one spot, to 11th, after the win over the Vikings. But they’re still the highest-ranked team in the NFC East.
“Jalen Hurts showed against the Vikings that he can still throw it for big plays when needed,” Pete Prisco wrote. “But they do need to get the running game going.”
Barry Leonard, 87, formerly of Philadelphia, celebrated crimper, longtime innovative owner of the Barry Leonard Crimper & Spa in Center City, unisex beauty salon groundbreaker, fashion and marketing trendsetter, haircutting mentor, and Army veteran, died Sunday, Oct. 12, at his home in Hallandale Beach, Fla. The cause of his death has not been disclosed.
Born in Philadelphia to a family of hairstylists, Mr. Leonard swept the floor at his father’s beauty salon in West Philadelphia as a boy and, in 1955, became the first male to graduate from the beauty culture curriculum at Murrell Dobbins Career and Technical Education High School. He went on to help rewrite state statutes to allow unisex beauty salons in the 1970s, wow the marketing world with innovative ads that featured Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, Santa Claus, and the Wolfman, and own high-end shops in the old Marriott Hotel on City Avenue and then on Chestnut Street for 43 years.
A proponent of what he called “natural haircutting,” Barry Leonard, Crimper, counted politicians, musicians, actors, and other celebrities as well as local residents as his regulars, and most of them were fine with waiting months for an appointment. He moved his bustling salon from the Marriott to 1527 Chestnut St. in 1972, relocated to 1822 Chestnut in 1995, and retired to Florida in 2005.
In the early 1970s, he saw that men appreciated hair care, too, and he successfully challenged an old state law that required separate locations for male and female haircuts. So unisex salons became common in the 1980s and ’90s.
Mr. Leonard is shown styling the hair of Annie Halpern, his future wife, in this 1985 photo in the Daily News.
“Hair,” he told The Inquirer in 1973, “is the only part of the body that can be changed readily and allows the individual to play his role as he feels it at that particular moment — protest, freakiness, sensuality, anything.”
His New Age salon featured wicker furniture, hanging plants, big pillows, Japanese koi, and free coffee, fruit, and wine. He charged $12.50 per cut in 1973 and $25 in 1991. Sometimes, he booked 75 heads a day, his wife, Annie, said.
Most often, he consulted with customers before the cut, assigned the job to an assistant stylist, and checked back when the work was done. Over his career, he told his wife, he likely attended to more than 1 million customers. In 1991, he told The Inquirer: “My general philosophy is to make people happy.”
He also created and distributed do-it-yourself manuals for those who couldn’t get appointments and introduced computerized styling technology in the 1980s so clients could design their own cuts on video screens. “I’m a firm believer that nothing lasts forever,” he told the Daily News in 1977. “But right now, I’ll stay the way I am. It’s really a matter of the world catching up with me.”
This then and now photo appeared with a story in The Inquirer in 1973.
He was featured often in The Inquirer, Daily News, Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Business Journal, and other publications, and writers dubbed him the “top hair gun” in Philadelphia, “the dashing haircutter,” and “Philadelphia’s leading proponent of hair as art.” He dabbled in selling franchises, endorsed a new Japanese hair-straightening process, and hosted runway-style hair shows and crimper workshops.
Women told him his beauty advice changed their lives. Men said his haircuts improved their sex lives.“I was the image changer,” he told The Inquirer in 2002.
In the late 1960s, Mr. Leonard gave local advertising whiz Elliott Curson a haircut, and Curson, delighted with the result, suggested rebranding Mr. Leonard as “a crimper,” British slang for hairdresser. What followed was a hugely successful ad campaign and a friendship that lasted more than 50 years.
One of their first ads featured the phrase: “When I come out of Barry Leonard’s, I won’t look like my mother.” Curson said: “He had that look, the outfit, and the vision that worked so well.”
Mr. Leonard and his wife, Annie, married in 1986.
Mr. Leonard liked to wear a work shirt, vest, blue jeans, boots, designer glasses, and turquoise jewelry to work. His own hair flowed down to his shoulders when he was young. He told the Daily News in 1977: “Anybody can be where it’s at. But I’m where it’s going to be.”
He was a member of Intercoiffure America and participated in its competitive showings in New York and elsewhere. He was included in a display called “Movers and Shakers” at the now-closed Philadelphia History Museum.
“He would meet you once and have an impact on the rest of your life,” his wife said. “Everybody loved him. He was passionate and compassionate.”
Barry Leonard was born Jan. 27, 1938, in Philadelphia. He grew up in Wynnefield and Bala Cynwyd, and served in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division for two years after high school.
Mr. Leonard (second from right) celebrated his 80th birthday with his children.
He wore a traditional tie and jacket, and cut hair with his father and in a few local shops before opening his place at the Marriott in 1962. He also spent some time working in London and first heard the word crimper there.
He married Charlene Brooks, and they had daughters Karen, Susan, and Elizabeth and a son, Brett. After a divorce, he met Annie Halpern at a party in 1983. They went to a Neil Diamond concert on their first date in 1984, married in 1986, and moved from Center City to Florida in 2005.
Mr. Leonard was an avid boxing fan, and he knew his way around the popular Blue Horizon venue on Broad Street. He had a summer home in Longport, N.J., and enjoyed time at Gulfstream Park racetrack in Florida.
He was spiritual and loquacious, his wife said. He had favorite witty quips, and his family and friends refer to them as “Barryisms.”
This article about Mr. Leonard’s fashion sense was published in the Daily News in 1977.
He attended all kinds of galas and benefits, and doted on his children. “He gave me my first shag” haircut, a longtime friend said on Facebook. Another friend said her neighbor cut her hair once. “The results were not good,” she said. “Barry fixed me.”
They called him “one of a kind,” “truly the best around,” and a “mentor and a friend.” His wife said: “He was the love of my life.”
In addition to his wife, children, and former wife, Mr. Leonard is survived by eight grandchildren and other relatives. A brother died earlier.
A celebration of his life is to be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, at Gulfstream Park, Third Floor, Flamingo Room, 901 S. Federal Highway, Hallandale Beach, Fla. 33009. RSVP to blcrimper@aol.com.
This ad by Mr. Leonard and Elliott Curson appeared in The Inquirer in 1982.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court in Philadelphia to overturn an order that has, for the moment, blocked authorities from deporting pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil — the latest development in a complex legal saga that began when the administration was seeking to crack down on anti-Israeli college campus protests earlier this year.
During a hearing before a three-judge panel in a Center City courtroom, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign said the earlier order, issued by a federal judge in New Jersey, was “indefensible” for several reasons — including that it was issued in the wrong jurisdiction, and that it was effectively helping Khalil’s lawyers improperly “fragment” the various legal proceedings against him and seek venues that might issue favorable rulings.
Khalil’s attorneys, however, said the judges should uphold the lower court’s ruling because the government had illegally targeted the 30-year-old for removal over his political views — something they called a clear First Amendment violation and a situation that could have wider implications amid Trump’s push to increase deportations.
Speaking outside the courthouse after the hearing, Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was born in Syria, told a crowd of supporters he planned to continue his legal fight to remain in the United States.
“This shows how my case is actually just a test for everyone’s right’s here across the country,” he said. “Not only one place, not only for specific people, for immigrants or documented or undocumented people, it’s for everyone across the country.”
Eric Hamell, of West Philadelphia, holds up a sign saying Free Mahmoud Khalil during a rally outside the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
The case against Khalil began in March, when he was arrested by immigration authorities at Columbia University, where he had recently completed a master’s degree and had become a prominent figure at pro-Palestinian protests. Authorities detained Khalil and then pushed to deport him, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio citing an obscure legal statute in contending that Khalil’s rhetoric and continued presence in the country could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.
Khalil’s lawyers quickly challenged the administration’s actions in court — first in New York, where he lived and was arrested, then in New Jersey, where he was detained in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.
Within days, however, Khalil was transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he was held for more than three months (he was living there this spring when his wife, an American citizen, gave birth to their son in New York).
The issue of where Khalil was located was something Ensign, the government attorney, said was important for the appellate judges to consider: Because Khalil was primarily detained in Louisiana, Ensign said, any legal challenge seeking to have him released should have taken place in that jurisdiction.
And in Ensign’s view, that meant the June ruling by a judge in New Jersey that ordered Khalil released — and temporarily blocked his deportation — should be overturned.
Several judges appeared skeptical of the jurisdictional aspect of Ensign’s argument. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, pointed out that authorities were moving Khalil to various jurisdictions over a weekend — and suggested attorneys couldn’t be forced to wait until the work week to file emergency challenges to what they viewed as wrongful detention.
“The lawyers didn’t know” where Khalil was, Bibas said. “They had to do their best.”
The judges seemed more receptive to another of Ensign’s arguments: That Khalil is currently the subject of a complex web of legal cases, with various claims being weighed in various courts.
In addition to the matter being argued in Philadelphia on Tuesday, his immigration case remains pending in Louisiana because of a separate issue: In September, an immigration judge there ruled that Khalil be removed to Syria or Algeria because he failed to disclose information about his past work with pro-Palestinian groups on his green card application.
While his attorneys have appealed that ruling, the appellate panel on Tuesday questioned whether it was appropriate for different jurisdictions to be weighing different aspects of his various cases — particularly when many of the legal issues in them are generally similar.
Circuit Judge Thomas M. Hardiman asked whether doing so would give Khalil a “second bite at the apple” to challenge rulings that don’t go his way.
It remained unclear Tuesday how or when the judges might rule.
Khalil, meanwhile, said outside the courthouse afterward: “We are in the fight until the end.”
When it opened in 1973, Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School was a source of deep pride for East Germantown, the kind of state-of-the-art educational facility that only suburban kids had at the time.
But on Saturday, when police found Kada Scott’s corpse buried in a shallow grave in the woods of the long-ago vacated school grounds, ending a two-week search for the missing23-year-old Mount Airy woman, the Rev.Chester H. Williams saw only decades of failure.
“It’s a disgrace,” said Williams, a pastorwho runs a neighborhood civic group. “We were very hurt to hear that this happened.”
Community members gather for a candlelight vigil in memory of Kada Scott on Monday at Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School.
On top of the shock, Scott’s kidnapping and murder has renewed animus in some quarters aboutthe Philadelphia School District‘s failure to repurpose the blighted property, one of dozens of schools shuttered by the district over the last 20 years.
Since Lewis closed in 2008, local officials and civic leaders said the sprawling seven-acre campus has become a magnet for squatting, illegal dumping, and other criminal activity. City officials have cited the school district 10 times since 2020 for overgrown weeds, graffiti, and piles of trash that blanketed the property, public records show. And four years ago, the district passed on an opportunity to reverse course on the blight.
A proposal to redevelop the land into new homes, championed by neighborhood leaders like Williams, sat before the school board for approval. But the district abandoned the plan at the eleventh hour without public explanation, which the developer alleged was due to meddling byCity Councilmember Cindy Bass — a contention Bass denies.
“The school district, for some reason, we don’t know why, they put a block on anything being built there,” Williams said.
Map of the former Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School in East Germantown
Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. extended “deepest sympathies” to Scott’s family and friends in a statement, and said the district’s operations and safety departments will review the vacant-property portfolio “to create and maintain safe and healthy spaces in every neighborhood.”
While some call Lewis “abandoned,” the district is careful to call the building “vacant,” one of 20 such properties in the district’s portfolio. It says maintenance and inspection logs are kept about work on vacant properties; details were not immediately available.
The debate over Lewis comes at a crucial time for the district: It is preparing to release recommendations about its stock of 300-plus buildings — and likely add to the list of decommissioned schools-turned-vacant public buildings. The district’s master planning process will contain recommendations for school closures and combining schools under one roof, officials have warned.
Butkovitz, in a report released that year, said district inaction around such structures was dangerous and noted that the schools were magnets for criminal activity.
Just before the pandemic hit in 2020, after years of pushback over Ada Lewis, the school district began accepting applications to redevelop the crumbling middle school. Germantown developer Ken Weinstein was one of three developers to place bids. He sought to buy the property for $1.4 million and build 76 new twin homes, at a density that neighbors felt complemented the surrounding area and resolved concerns about density brought by apartment buildings.
Weinstein said he gathered letters of support from 60 neighborhood residents and elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans and then-State Rep. Stephen Kinsey. The school board seemed eager to move ahead and set a final vote for the proposal in May 2021.
The vote never happened. The only explanation given that day was that “the Board had concern” about “what the long-term plan is for developing schools for the 21st century,” according to a district spokesperson.
According to Weinstein, some school board members received calls from Bass asking them to table the vote. Bass has faced criticism for interfering in development projects, including other proposals made by Weinstein, as vacant properties languished for years in her district. Her district includes the Lewis property andparts of North and Northwest Philadelphia, where Weinstein has focused his development work.
Bass, in an interview Monday, denied meddling in the vote. She acknowledged that she did not support Weinstein’s proposal because of the price of the homes — averaging around $415,000 — which she said would have triggered “immediate gentrification in the neighborhood.” But she said she had no involvement in the board’s reversal.
“That was up to the school district,” Bass said. “I don’t sit on the school board.”
While community groups in her district supported Weinstein’s project in 2021, Bass said she objected to market-rate housing as the sole alternative for East Germantown, arguing that it amounted to the district and developers saying “you should just take any old thing just so it’s not vacant.”
City workers clean up in front of the vacant Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School Monday, just minutes before the start of a community candlelight vigil in memory of Kada Scott.
A tragic turn for the property
In a letter dated Friday, Bass called on the school district to demolish the vacant school, saying she was troubled by the evidence that led investigators to the property during the search for Scott.
“The continued presence of this unsecured and deteriorating structure is simply unacceptable,” the Council member wrote in a statement, noting the site is now associated with “tragic violence.”
Cell phone records and tips from the public first led police to the former Ada Lewis school last week, where they found Scott’s pink phone case and debit card, but nothing else. Then, late Friday, police received a new tip saying that they had missed something on their first search of the grounds, and that they should look along the wooden fence that divides the school from the neighboring Awbury Recreation Center. Officers returned to the property Saturday and found Scott’s body, buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area behind the school.
Prosecutors expect to charge Keon King, 21, with the murder, though police continue searching for others who they believe may have helped dispose of evidence.
Bass took office in 2012,when the school wasalready vacant. She said she pushed the school district for several years to take action, as nuisances piled up at the property. She said shestill hopes that another “institution” could replace Lewis.
“I think that having something that the community wants is not hard to figure out,” Bass said. “This is what the community’s interested in — they’re interested in another institution.”
She said a proposal for a charter school is now in the works, though she said she was unable to provide details.
Julius Peden, 5, and Jaihanna Williams Peden (right), 14, pause at a memorial for Kada Scott on Monday.
A glut of vacant schools
The school district still views Lewis as a potential “swing space” — a building that could be used to house students if another district building is closed due to environmental problems.
There is precedent: The district has used other school buildings for such purposes, like Anna B. Pratt in North Philadelphia, which was also closed in 2013, to house early-childhood programs, and then students from other North Philadelphia schools whose buildings were undergoing renovation.
Still, it remains unclear how much it would cost to bring the Lewis building back to an inhabitable state.
The school system currently has about 70,000 more seats throughout the city than students enrolled. Though officials have said their first preference is to have closed schools reused for community benefit, it’s unlikely that all will be able to serve that purpose. And the timetable will surely be slow.
City officials at times have expressed frustration with the pace at which the district is making decisions about how to manage its buildings. School leaders have said the wait is necessary given the district’s capacity and the need to make correct choices and not rush the process.
Weinstein said the tragedy that culminated at Lewis reflected the conventional wisdom that blight breeds crime.
“There’s always consequences to shutting down a proposal that the community supports,” Weinstein said. “In most cases, nothing bad happens. In this case, something very bad happened.”
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.
The Rev. Carolyn Cavaness is adjusting to her new life as a celebrity.
Any pastor of the historic Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church might get stopped and asked for a picture while walking down the street, as she sometimes does. The church is a national historic landmark, long celebrated for its role as a hub for Black activism and the oldest church property in the United States to be owned continuously by Black people.
But in November, Cavaness, 42, was appointed as the first femalepastor in the church’s 238-year history. She is a fourth-generation A.M.E. preacher from Newark, N.J., and previously led the Bethel A.M.E. Church of Ardmore for 10 years, also serving as its first woman pastor. Cavaness took over for the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, who had left Mother Bethel after 16 years.
“Some days I have this moment where I say, ‘Wow, Carolyn, you are the pastor of Mother Bethel. You’re in the big chair. What if somebody else was in this spot? What would they be doing in this moment?’” she said.
While Cavaness brings a new perspective, she is also focused on honoring the legacy of the 52 pastors and their congregations who came before. She said that the church’s first members knew immediately that they were “a big deal” who would matter greatly to the Black community. Two centuries later, that is still the case.
“Here I am in this 21st century and having to be the caretaker, but also being called to action,” Cavaness said.
“So what becomes our contribution?”
Cavaness spoke with The Inquirer about her first year at Mother Bethel, what it has meant to take on her trailblazing role, and how the church’s tradition of resilience inspires her and the congregation.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Your first sermon at Mother Bethel was an emotional one, about your family’s deep Philly roots and great achievements born out of the Black struggle, even though you were only notified about your appointment just the day before. What do you remember about that day? What have you learned about what Mother Bethel means to people over the past year?
It was surreal. I mean I literally found out less than 24 hours before. But that is being an itinerant preacher [of] Methodist tradition. You’re here to serve.
I had very much the sentiment of “I wish my dad and my grandmothers were here to see this.”
I think about when I walked into the pulpit for the first time, how the congregation stood up. I think about the smiles, the hugs. I think about the flowers they gave me. And the sacred trust that I’ve been given.
The congregation sings as Rev. Carolyn Cavaness (not shown) celebrates her first worship service on Nov. 10, 2024.
It’s been an amazing first year, definitely life-transforming, being entrusted with this national, this international treasure. I have just been captivated by the testament and the hope that she bears.
There’s this connection, this affinity for her. We’ve gotta be intentional about being the light, about being a place of love, sanctuary, refuge, that people feel safe. That’s a real thing for me.
The people I’ve come to know, the smiles, their new sense of hope — it is possible, you know? People have a sense of joy, and you can feel that and see that. Sometimes when you’re a leader, you’re in a vacuum. And so to hear and to see people smiling more, that does something. As a pastor, that’s a gift. You feel that you’re making a difference.
You are the first woman pastor at Mother Bethel A.M.E. How has it felt to hold that distinction, and how have people received you?
People have been very supportive. It’s about building trust and relationships. All I knew, I could only be Carolyn. I can’t be anybody I’m not. I like to laugh, I like to joke. I think I have surprised people by being accessible.
Rev. Carolyn Cavaness holds 2-year-old Kylo Banks as she greets members of the congregation after her first service.
Many people have reminded me, “You know, reverend, you’re a historical figure. Amongst the 53, there’s gonna be that picture of you.” It’s very humbling.
I went to New Orleans and an older gentleman walked up and he said, “Hello, good to meet you. You’re pastor of Mother Bethel.” Fifty years ago, that would have been a different conversation.
I have two twin nephews. They had a women’s history project, and they wrote about me being the pastor of Mother Bethel. My 5-year-old nephews are esteeming me. That was special.
When you were appointed last year, Donald Trump had just won the election, and many of your congregation were fearful of what was to come. What is Mother Bethel’s role during this time?
We are resilient people. This is not the first time that we have had pharaohs and tyrants and dictators.
Here is an institution providing, a way in which government ought to, esteem and affirm and care for [people]. Democracy has ideals, but here, this place, Mother Bethel, is where it’s realized. Where you’re a safe haven and a sanctuary. The principles and the ideals of the Free African Society. We come from that legacy, from that line where we have always taken care. We have always filled a gap. We’ve always been out front.
The Rev. Carolyn Cavaness celebrates her first worship service.
Another has definitely been around how we honor our history and legacy. I was honored to give the eulogy for Ruby Boyd — she was the first African American librarian in the city of Philadelphia. She lived to be 105, and she’s one noted for putting into a book, On This Rock, of Mother Bethel, the history of many of the stained glass window collection, pictures and little vignettes about the pastors. And so in my eulogy, I talked about that we have a responsibility to tell the story and to make it accessible.
This regime of erasure has really amplified my efforts as the spiritual leader and also just how important Mother Bethel is.
What are you looking forward to in year two?
I’m looking forward to the [Semiquincentennial], the 250th. Definitely the larger preservation plan, there are some conversations that we as a congregation are gonna be having about her preservation and how accessible [it is]. And to continue to tell this story.
I think also around community engagement. Just seeing people becoming more strengthened in their sense of witness.
The Rev. Carolyn Cavaness (center) at the Independence Visitor Center during a September Semiquincentennial event.
On Tuesday, Harper — an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing — announced the release of Shapiro’s forthcoming memoir, Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service, which will hit shelves on Jan. 27, 2026.
Shapiro, 52, has worked in some level of government for his entire career: on Capitol Hill as a staffer, in Montgomery County as a commissioner, and in Harrisburg as a state representative, attorney general, and now governor. He has noted that he has never lost an election, going back to his election as student body president his freshman year at the University of Rochester. Along the way, elected officials have whispered about his talents as a politician, orator, and rumored presidential ambitions.
The Montgomery County native has become a key player in the national Democratic Party, touting a brand as a governor of a split legislature in the most sought-after swing state. His administration’s motto is “Get Stuff Done,” which he defines as bringing Democrats and Republicans together to accomplish long-delayed reforms, or restarting residents’ trust by improving their interactions with state government. (Pennsylvania still has not finished its state budget, which was due July 1, as legislators from the Democratic-controlled House and GOP-controlled Senate cannot agree on how much they should spend this fiscal year and causing school districts, counties, and nonprofits to take out significant loans to continue offering services during the 113-day budget impasse.)
Shapiro’s rise through the Democratic Party ranks skyrocketed last year, when he became a front-runner for vice president during Harris’ whirlwind, 107-day presidential campaign, in which she ultimately chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Harris also released a book this year, which includes stories from her interview with Shapiro for the role.
Shapiro, who was born in Kansas City, Mo., before moving to Montgomery County, has credited his upbringing by his parents — his father a pediatrician, and his mother an educator — as laying the foundation for his life in public service. Shapiro has four children and is married to his high school sweetheart, Lori. He and his family still live in Abington Township and split their time between their family home and the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg.
The sense of loss that has permeated 2025 struck again this weekend when we learned of the sudden death of a Philly journalism legend, Michael Days, who guided the Philadelphia Daily News during most of its last dozen freewheeling and Pulitzer-winning years before we merged with The Inquirer in 2017. He was just 72, far too young. The top-line of Mike’s obituary was how, as the first African American to lead a newsroom in America’s founding city, he paid it forward by mentoring the next generation of rising Black journalists. But people like me who worked for him remember him more simply as the wisest and mostempathetic human being we ever had as a boss. He leaves right when the nation’s newsrooms need decent souls like Mike Days more than they ever did.
What a $10M bribe rumor says about Trump, Middle East peace, and America’s fall
President Donald Trump talks with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Oct. 13 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The thing about being a 79-year-old president is that sometimes you just blurt stuff out, with no filter as to whether your words might be embarrassing, undiplomatic — or potentially incriminating.
Consider the case of Donald John Trump, the 47th U.S. president and the oldest one on the day of his election. Last week, in what may prove to be a fleeting moment of triumph as Trump celebrated a Gaza peace deal that included the release of 20 Israeli hostages, POTUS arrived at an Egyptian resort town for a Middle East summit. He kicked off the day with a one-on-one sit-down with Egypt’s strongman ruler, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
“There was a reason we chose Egypt [for the summit] because you were very helpful,” Trump said as a gaggle of reporters and photojournalists entered their meeting room.
Really? Helpful in what way?
“I want to thank you,” the American president told Sissi, who seized power in a 2013 coup. “He’s been my friend right from the beginning during the campaign against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Have you heard of her?”
Here Trump was pushing, ever so absurdly, for the Nobel Peace Prize, and then he had to spoil it all by saying somethin’ stupid like, you bribed me. Well, he almost spoiled it, if more journalists — aside from MSNBC’s brilliant Rachel Maddow, who seized on the remark hours later — had grasped the potential import of this presidential prattle.
It’s certainly legal, if gross, for Trump to be close pals with Sissi, even if Human Rights Watch reports that the Egyptian dictator is “continuing wholesale repression, systematically detaining and punishing peaceful critics and activists and effectively criminalizing peaceful dissent.” What would not be legal is the Middle Eastern nation interfering in the 2016 election, in which Trump narrowly defeated Clinton in the handful of swing states that tipped the Electoral College.
What made Trump’s comments last week so jaw-dropping is that U.S. federal investigators worked for several years trying to prove exactly that scenario. In August 2024, days after Trump was nominated by the GOP for his second reelection bid, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department investigated a tip that Sissi’s Egypt provided Trump with $10 million the candidate desperately needed in the 2016 homestretch to defeat Clinton. That happened right before Trump, as 45th president, reopened the spigot of foreign aid that had been halted because of Sissi’s human rights abuses.
It’s known that Trump did put $10 million into the campaign, which he listed as a loan. The Post in 2024 offered a tantalizing, if circumstantial, piece of evidence — that the Cairo bank had received a note from an agency believed to be Egyptian intelligence to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million in two, 100-pound bags full of U.S. $100 bills, five days before Trump took the oath of office.
But the investigative trail ran cold. In 2019, then-special counsel Robert Mueller turned the matter over to Trump’s appointees in the Justice Department, who of course didn’t pursue the president’s bank records. Neither — inexplicably — did Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, as the statute of limitations expired in January 2022. That’s where things stood last week before Trump started blathering in Sharm El Sheikh.
One reason I’m writing about this is the sheer frustration that Trump — yes, allegedly, possibly — might have gotten away with bribery to the point where he’s almost bragging about it in public. But I also think the mysterious case of the Egyptian bags of cash speaks to the present, dire American moment in a couple of ways.
For one thing, it casts a light on what’s really behind what Trump hopes will be viewed as the signature achievement of his second presidency. That would be the fragile peace deal that aims to end the last two years of bloodshed in Gaza that started with the Hamas terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023 and has resulted in at least 67,000 dead Palestinians and the utter destruction of their seaside homeland.
How did Trump get a deal that had eluded his predecessor Biden, in a region that has vexed every American president from both parties? It certainly helped that most of the power brokers with the clout and the cash to help end the fighting in Gaza are repressive strongmen — or, as Trump might call them, role models. And they all seem to speak the same language of corrupt back-scratching.
If those bags with $10 million in greenbacks did make their way to Trump in 2017, it looks like small change in today’s cross-Atlantic wheeling-and-dealing. After all, a key go-between in the negotiations — Qatar, which has good relations with Hamas and has hosted its exiled leaders — gifted America a $400 million jet that Trump plans to use not just as Air Force One but in his post presidency, while his regime has promised to protect the Qatari dictators if they are ever attacked.
Another key supporter of the plan is the United Arab Emirates, which also backs the UAE firm that recently purchased a whopping $2 billion in cryptocurrency from a firm owned by Trump’s family as well as the family of Steve Witkoff, the regime’s lead Middle East negotiator. At the same time, Trump’s U.S. government allowed UAE to import highly sensitive microchips used in artificial intelligence.
Witkoff’s negotiation end–game brought in Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who forged close ties during his father-in-law’s first term with Saudi Arabia’s murderous de facto ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who pulled the levers for a $2 billion investment in a hedge fund created by Kushner despite no prior expertise.
Those Saudi ties could prove critical to future stability in the region, and in a joint interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday night, Kushner and Witkoff made no apologies for mixing billion-dollar deals with the pursuit of world peace. “What people call conflicts of interest,” Kushner said, “Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships.”
OK, but those “trusted relationships” are built on a flimsy mountain of cash that could collapse at any minute. Look, I’m thrilled like everyone else that 20 Israeli hostages are finally reunited with their loved ones, and to the extent Trump and his regime deserve any credit, I credit them. But the art of the deal that the president is bragging about is all about the Benjamins — more worthy of applause on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than a Nobel Peace Prize.
Real peace is based on hard work and trust, not Bitcoin — so is it any wonder that the ceasefire is already collapsing with two dead Israeli soldiers and fresh, lethal airstrikes in Gaza? The only thing with any currency among a rogues’ gallery of world dictators is currency, and that transactional stench has fouled everything from Cairo to K Street.
Is it any surprise that a regime whose origin story allegedly includes bags of Egyptian cash would do absolutely nothing when it was told that its future border czar, Tom Homan, was captured on an audiotape accepting $50,000 in a fast-food bag from undercover FBI agents who said they wanted government contracts?
In hindsight, the failure to pursue that report of the $10 million Egyptian bribe opened up a floodgate of putrid corruption, wider than the Nile. It signaled a sick society where everything is for sale — even world peace — but nothing is guaranteed.
Yo, do this!
The 1970s and ‘80s are having a cultural moment right now, and this boomer is here for it! On Apple TV (they’ve dropped the “+,” probably after paying some consultant $1 million for that pearl of wisdom) comes the long-awaited five part docuseries about the life and times of filmmaker Martin Scorsese, the savior who rose from NYC’s mean streets to give us Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and so much more. Watching Mr. Scorsese is going to make the eventual death of the baseball season so much easier to take.
The earthy, urban musical equivalent of Scorsese would have to be Bruce Springsteen, who has been marking the 50th anniversary of his breakthrough Born to Run LP with all kinds of cool stuff, capped with Friday’s long-awaited release of the first-ever biopic about “The Boss,” Deliver Me from Nowhere. Staring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen, the film’s unlikely narrative — focusing on the making of 1982’s highly personal and acoustic Nebraska as the rock star seeks release from a bout of depression — sounds like exactly the uplift that America needs right now.
Ask me anything
Question: As someone living in Ireland and looking across the ocean. Trump won’t be in power forever, but how is anyone going to deal with the MAGA crowd that helped elect him? That level of stupidity, hatred and racism cannot be fixed. How is [t]he USA ever going to heal? — Stephen (@bannside@bsky.social) via Bluesky
Answer: That’s a great question, Stephen, and like most great questions there’s no easy answer. Although I’m optimistic that the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election will happen and that the anti-Trump coalition that we witnessed at “No Kings” will prevail, I agree with you that it’s only a partial and temporary fix. I’d fear an Iraq-level resistance could rise up in the regions we call “Trump country.” My long-term solution would be along the lines of what I proposed in my 2022 bookAfter the Ivory Tower Falls: Fix higher education — broadly defined as from the Ivy League to good trade schools — to made it a public good that reduces inequality instead of driving it. And promote a universal gap year of national service for 18-year-olds, to get young people out of their isolated silos. There are ways to prevent the next generation from becoming as stupid or hateful or racist as the Americans who came before them, but it will take time and patience that we seem to lack right now.
What you’re saying about…
Remember the Philadelphia Phillies? When I last saw you here two weeks ago, their annual postseason collapse and the fate of manager Rob Thomson was a hot topic. As expected, there was minimal response from you political junkies, and opinions were split — even before the team defied the conventional wisdom and announced he’ll be returning in 2026. Thomson’s supporters were more likely to blame the Phillies’ inconsistent sluggers, with John Braun asking “who could you hire who could guarantee clutch hits?” Personally, I’m with Kim Root: “I follow the Philly Union, who just won the Supporters Shield — that is all.”
📮 This week’s question: Back to the issue at hand: I’m curious if newsletter readers attended the “No Kings” protest last Saturday, and what you see as the future of the anti-Trump movement. Are more aggressive measures like a nationwide general strike needed, or is the continued visibility of nonviolent resisters enough? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “No Kings future” in the subject line.
Backstory on who the “No Kings” protesters really were
Demonstrators gather for a ’No Kings’ rally in Philadelphia on Saturday.
They clogged city plazas and small-town main streets from San Diego to Bangor on Saturday, yet the more than 7 million Americans who took part in the massive “No Kings” protest — the second-largest one day demonstration in U.S. history, behind only the first Earth Day in 1970 — seemed to mystify much of the befuddled mainstream media. Just who were these people protesting the Donald Trump presidency, and why are they here?
Instead of a journalist, it took a sociologist to get some answers. Dana Fisher — the Philadelphia-area native who teaches at American University and is the leading expert on contemporary protest movements — was out in the field Saturday at the large “No Kings” march in Washington, D.C., collecting data with a team of researchers. She’s shared her early top-line results with me, aiming to both give a demographic and ideological snapshot and also compare Saturday’s crowd with her findings at other recent rallies.
If you were among the 7 million on Saturday, some of this data won’t surprise you. The protesters were, on the whole, older than the average American, with a median age of 44 (compared to 38 for the nation as a whole.) Once again, the “No Kings” participants were overwhelmingly white (87%) with women (57%) in the majority. But it’s also worth noting that men (39%) were more likely to take part than earlier protests tracked by Fisher, and the 8% who identified as Latino is double the rate of Hispanic participation in the 2017 Women’s March.
That last finding may reflect the passions of the “No Kings” protesters, who listed immigration as a key motivation at a rate of 74%, second only to their general opposition to Trump (80%, kind of a no brainer). That certainly jibed with the demonstrators at the rally I attended in suburban Havertown, who again and again mentioned the sight of masked federal agents grabbing migrants off the street as what compelled them to come out.
Fisher’s most telling findings may have been these: The people out in the streets are mad about what they see happening to America, with 80% listing “anger” as an emotion they are feeling, trailed closely by “anxiety” at 76%. Yet few of those who spoke with her team believed that will translate into violence. The number of demonstrators who agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so off track, Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country” was only 23% — lower than other protests her team has surveyed. It seems like the larger the public show of resistance to Trump’s authoritarianism, the more optimism that the path back to democracy can be nonviolent.
What I wrote on this date in 2021
I hate to say I told you so but… On this date four years ago, Joe Biden was still clinging to dreams of a presidential honeymoon after ousting Donald Trump in the 2020 election, but there were dark clouds on the horizon. On Oct. 21, 2021 I warned that sluggish action on key issues was starting to hurt his standing with under-30 voters. I wrote that “while the clock hasn’t fully run out on federal action around issues like student debt or a bolder approach on climate — the disillusionment of increasingly jaded young voters could change the course of American history for the next generation, or even beyond.” How’d that turn out? Read the rest: “From college to climate, Democrats are sealing their doom by selling out young voters.”
Recommended Inquirer reading
I returned from a much-needed staycation this weekend by leaving the sofa and spending a glorious fall morning at the boisterous “No Kings” protest closest to home in Delaware County, which lined a busy street in Havertown. I wrote about how the protests are winning back America by getting under the skin of Donald Trump and the GOP, who can no longer pretend to ignore the widespread unpopularity of their authoritarian project.
Every election matters, even the ones that are dismissed as “off-year” contests. In today’s heated and divisive climate, even what used to be a fairly routine affair — the retention of sitting judges on the state and local level — has taken on greater importance. Here in Pennsylvania, the state’s richest billionaire, Jeff Yass, is spending a sliver of his vast wealth to convince voters to end the tenure of three Democrats on the state Supreme Court. The Inquirer’s Editorial Board is here to explain why that’s a very bad idea. On the other hand, some judges up for retention in the city of Philadelphia — where jurists haven’t always lived up to the promise of America’s cradle of democracy — deserve closer scrutiny. The newsroom’s Samantha Melamed revealed a leaked, secret survey detailing what Philadelphia attorneys think of some of the judges on the November ballot, and it is not pretty. The bottom line is that you need to vote this year, and subscribing to The Inquirer is the best way to stay informed. Sign up today!
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