The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Rise and shiny, Philly. It’s Sunday, and conditions should be near perfect for the Philadelphia Cycling Classic.
As the busy Shore summer winds down, we racked our brains, asked experts, and solicited ideas from readers for ideas to improve the experience for all.
Also in today’s newsletter, a father fights to prevent the replacement of a play area that memorializes the life of his child.
And a new lawsuit alleges that unpaid fuel made it possible for some Freedom Fuel stations to sell gas at such low prices.
Scroll along for these stories and more.
— Paola Pérez (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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Should Ocean City stay dry? Do we need more trains? Why aren’t Atlantic City concerts fully funded?
Shore reporter Amy Rosenberg wrestled with these and many more questions and possibilities on how the Jersey Shore could transform for the betterment of everyone. Here’s a preview of the suggestions she compiled:
🐶 More dog beaches and dog hours. “Are dogs so bad?” Rosenberg writes. “What if every town, or every island, had a beach dedicated to dogs and their owners?”
🚴 Expand bike lanes and redesign roads to calm traffic, to protect cyclists and pedestrians alike (see also: leave the cars off the island).
🎟️ Eliminate beach tags (or at least make them reciprocal).
What you should know today
Federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury to look into at least one former Philadelphia fire official who allegedly facilitated a brazen overtime abuse scheme.
Police are investigating after two masked men, one with an AR-15-style rifle, robbed a man in Center City early Friday.
A jury convicted a Philadelphia man of murder and related charges in the 2021 killing of his pregnant girlfriend.
In a federal lawsuit, a petroleum distributor alleges that a company that bought its gas and sold it to some Freedom Fuel Network stations never paid for $4 million worth of gasoline sold at several locations.
The Camden school district has dropped its longtime mandatory school uniform policy at its five high schools.
Cheltenham school district parents, students, and school board members marched across town Saturday morning to show their support for students in the wake of alleged hazing incidents.
Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have clashed over what the state has disclosed about two deaths associated with a growing measles outbreak, and the consequences of Kennedy’s longtime anti-vaccination activism.
The creation of a sandpit play area in a Chester County playground was one way in which Ryan Leithead coped with the tragic, unexpected loss of his son, Cayden. He died at just 7 days old in 2022.
In Leithead’s own words: “I spent the first year after he died kind of focusing on this — right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s how I grieved. So it’s a memorial built by his father.”
That memorial is now at risk of being swept up in proposed renovations, which officials say could involve moving the sandpit and replacing the memorial. In a recording shared with The Inquirer, a township supervisor could also be heard saying that designers felt that a sign dedicating the pit to Cayden was “depressing.”
Leithead is not against the renovations, but said that the idea that Cayden’s Corner would be impacted in any way feels like he is losing his son again.
🎤 Here’s Tommy Rowan with a look back at the “weird” game between the Phillies and Cubs that set a record that still stands.
Newspapers weren’t kind when describing the windy-day matchup.
In Philly, The Inquirer called it a “weird” game. In Chicago, the Tribune described the Aug. 25, 1922, game between the visiting Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs as a “comedy of runs, hits and errors.”
The two teams accounted for 49 runs, the most ever recorded in a Major League Baseball game.
More than 100 years later, record-keepers call it baseball history.
❓Pop quiz
More than 150,000 people have signed a petition to rename an airport after Dolly Parton in what state?
A) California
B) Kentucky
C) Pennsylvania
D) Tennessee
Think you know? Check your answer.
What we’re ...
🐟 Hungry for: Lots of delicious fish at Bastia.
🧠 Finding: The “bridge” between words in this week’s Pillars game.
🏡 Learning: How a homeowner transformed a “total dump” in South Philly, in our latest installment of “How I Bought This House.”
🤩 Looking up at: The newly restored coffered ceiling at 30th Street Station.
🚰 Recalling: How O’Brien’s Water Hole in Manayunk provided much-needed hydration to racers on “The Wall” for 20-plus years.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: Representative of Pennsylvania’s first senatorial district
AVAIL LINKS
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.
Cheers to Matthew Carlyle, who correctly guessed Saturday’s answer: Victory Brewing. The brewery company’s large taproom on the Parkway closed last week after the health department flagged a series of “imminent hazards.”
GIF of the day
🏁 Whether you’re spectating or pushing pedals, happy Philadelphia Cycling Classic Day. I hope you have a thrilling time.
🎶 Today’s song goes like this: “I don’t need a lot just a little / But can you see a world where we meet in the middle?”
👋🏽 Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Inquirer. Take care.
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