Biden’s surge continued on Super Tuesday; getting rent control in Philly won’t be easy | Morning Newsletter
Plus, City Council has a new plan to address poverty.
The Morning Newsletter
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After Super Tuesday, it looks like the Democratic primary is still very much a race, with ex-VP Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders emerging as the front-runners. And in Philly, rent control looked like it might be a hot topic for City Council’s new progressives members. But it might actually be serving as a warning about how hard it could be for those councilmembers to push through major policies. Also, there have been more developments regarding coronavirus testing.
— Josh Rosenblat (@joshrosenblat, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
What started as a massive field with over two dozen candidates now looks increasingly like a two-person contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, with the party’s establishment, and voters across the map, rallying behind ex-VP Joe Biden after an early primary surge from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Coming out of Super Tuesday, where 14 states held Democratic primaries for president, Biden was projected to take the most delegates in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. Sanders nabbed the most projected delegates in California (the day’s biggest individual prize), Utah, Colorado, and his home state of Vermont. The political futures of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and billionaire former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg look cloudy.
So what does that mean for Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, for example, who vote late in the primary cycle? It might mean that Pennsylvania’s April 28 primary could arguably be the most important state contest left on the calendar. For more on that, sign up to get our Pennsylvania 2020 newsletter, which debuts today and will hit your inbox every Wednesday to cover how Pa. is shaping who ultimately takes the White House in November.
Rent control was one of the key pieces of Kendra Brooks’ platform that led to her historic win for the Working Families Party. And during her first City Council meeting, she called for hearings on the topic. But now she’s slowing things down.
Brooks plans to host meetings around the city about “community stabilization,” a term she’s now using instead of “rent control” in order to include different types of renter protections and support for long-term homeowners. Brooks’ shift to taking a nontraditional approach even while Council approved her resolution in January calling for hearings may demonstrate the limits of how quickly City Hall’s new progressive members can achieve major policy wins, my colleague Laura McCrystal reports.
What you need to know today
Pennsylvania’s state lab can now test for coronavirus, but its capability is limited. And in Philly, a potential case is being investigated, but the city has not yet had a confirmed coronavirus diagnosis. For more coronavirus coverage, visit Inquirer.com/Coronavirus.
From a business standpoint, coronavirus could have a major impact on Comcast. The outbreak already closed a Universal resort in Japan and this summer’s Tokyo Olympics (for which Comcast-owned NBC has the American TV rights) could be in jeopardy.
Poverty in Philadelphia is not a new problem. But yesterday, City Council announced a new plan to address it, including providing a “basic income” to all Philadelphians.
For years, Pennsylvania medical students practiced pelvic exams on unconscious patients. There’s a chance that could end soon.
A Philly man on death row 23 years for killing a 4-year-old girl is “likely innocent" and was convicted based on flawed, hidden, or corrupt evidence, District Attorney Larry Krasner says.
An aide to Philly’s new sheriff said he was fired after raising concerns about controversial spending practices that have dogged the agency for years and described it as a “slush fund.”
Through your eyes | #OurPhilly
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That’s interesting
🔔Here’s what it takes for restaurant critic Craig LaBan to give a top rating (“four bells”) to a restaurant. Currently, just seven Philly spots have earned it.
🏠A Bucks County roofer is a Trump supporter who renamed his company “Trump Roofing” with the slogan “Make Your Roof Great Again.”
🏀Will Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons ever win an NBA championship together?
🍻When younger patrons ask to get into Dirty Frank’s customer Hall of Fame, the Philly bar’s co-owner jokingly tells them: “I don’t think your liver’s big enough right now. But maybe come back in 20 years and we’ll see.”
🏒Women’s hockey players are looking to grow the pro game beyond “making $7,000” and “sleeping on air mattresses.”
📈The rents for one-bedroom homes in Philly jumped since last year.
Opinions
“And that’s when I saw her. Snow White posed playfully on a bottle of cherry-scented Disney hand sanitizer. Wait — is she mocking me? Had she heard me talk smack all these years about the outdated gender roles of Disney princesses?” — writes columnist Helen Ubiñas about the coronavirus panic and the hunt for hand sanitizer. And she’s not alone as Purell shortages have hit local retail outlets.
On the future of the proposed South Philly supervised injection site, Solomon Jones writes that communities should have the right to reject them. And, opinion writer Abraham Gutman writes about a potential path forward for the site.
Katie Fallow, an attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, writes a list of do’s and don’ts for politicians on social media.
What we’re reading
People in rural Pennsylvania have long had issues accessing the internet. Now, WHYY reports, a group of DIYers is taking the matter into their own hands.
Three men survived 10 days on a shipwrecked sailboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with almost nothing. Outside has the story of how they did it.
Here’s an interesting New Yorker essay about envy and Instagram stalking.
Your Daily Dose of | What were you thinking?
North Wildwood police arrested a 26-year-old Philadelphia man, charging him with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct after he allegedly damaged city property when he hurled himself off a Wildwood seawall before falling through the top of a porta-potty. While we can’t confirm what exactly he fell into, you can use your imagination.