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📣 Cheering and ‘proving people wrong’ | Morning Newsletter

And the hottest new comedian from Philly.

    by Taylor Allen
    Published 

    The Morning Newsletter

    Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

It’ll be partly sunny with a chance of showers and temps expected to reach the high 70s. Tonight, the region’s Jewish community begins the two-day observance of Rosh Hashanah starting at sundown.

In today’s newsletter:

📣 Determined teens: George Washington High School’s cheerleading team, the city’s first to make it to nationals.

đŸŽ€ Laughs: We’ve got a special comedian to introduce.

đŸ—łïž A Fetterman rally: The Senate hopeful finally held a public event in Philly.

— Taylor Allen (@TayImanAllen, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

This Philly cheer team is the city’s first to make it to nationals. But they’ll need a fund-raising miracle to compete.

đŸŽ€ And now I’m handing over the microphone to education reporter Kristen Graham:

As the reporter who covers the Philadelphia School District, there’s plenty of struggle and controversy to write about on my beat. But there’s also a ton of bright spots, and as soon as I heard about the George Washington High cheer team and their historic quest to get to nationals, I knew I wanted to highlight — and spend significant time — with the team.

This is a talented, smart, diverse group of kids, a relatively new competitive cheer team that’s working hard not just to perfect routines, but to tell their story to the world in hopes of raising $30,000 to make it to Dallas and the spot they earned on a much larger stage than they’ve ever had access to, with far fewer resources than the teams they compete against.

Photographer Heather Khalifa, videographer Jenna Miller, and I spent multiple days in George Washington’s gym, getting to know the team and the coaches and hearing their story. It was an object lesson in what the kids go through — you try spending time in a gym with no air-conditioning on a sweltering summer day, spending hours performing athletic feats I could never do!

I think so often people hear “Philadelphia School District” and have an idea — a mistaken idea — about who the kids who attend the city’s 216 public schools are. I’m always trying to show readers the true, nuanced picture of the city’s school system, and I hope this story is one such look!

Keep reading to see the determination of this historic cheer group.

What you should know today

  1. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman introduced himself as “Jawn Fetterman” to a cheering crowd at his first public campaign event in Philly.

  2. The Pennridge school board released a revised version of a draft policy that focuses on rules for students hanging fliers in school.

  3. Our columnist Elizabeth Wellington wants you to know about the next hot comedian coming out of Philly, TaTa Sherise.

  4. Two scientists at Temple University are fighting over a claim of stolen heart research and a start-up that’s selling for $53 million.

  5. Court documents reveal that seven state attorneys general, including Josh Shapiro, and a court-appointed bankruptcy federal watchdog are opposing up to $94 million in pre-bankruptcy bonuses paid to top executives and other insiders at opioid drug firm Endo International in Chester County.

  6. Local coronavirus numbers: Here’s your daily look at the latest COVID-19 data

❓Pop Quiz❓

On Thursday, I told you about Stephanie Farr’s story featuring Abdul Jabar and his business selling fresh produce and all-natural goods on Cobbs Creek Parkway in West Philly.

Which of these options does he not sell?

A. Sea moss

B. Watermelon

C. Sugar Cane

D. Shea butter

Find out if you remember the answer.

đŸ§© Unscramble the Anagram đŸ§©

Hint: Considered to be the oldest residential street in America

FATELY SHELLER’

We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Send us your own original anagram to unscramble if you’d like. Email us if you know the answer. Cheers to Leslie Offutt who correctly guessed Friday’s answer: Monarch.

Photo of the Day

đŸŽ¶ For today’s Sunday track, I’m listening to “Stuck” by Durand Bernarr and Ari Lennox đŸŽ¶

đŸ‘‹đŸœ That’s all you need to close out your weekend. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, back in your inbox.