When real-life terrors affect where you trick-or-treat; The Phillies introduce Joe Girardi | Morning Newsletter
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Leaving your neighborhood for Halloween isn’t necessarily new. But for families in neighborhoods where children have been victims of recent gun violence, it means more than just finding whoever is giving out the biggest candy bars. Also, the Phillies introduced their new manager yesterday. And it sounds as if Joe Girardi is glad to have landed in Philadelphia. But he has a tough task ahead of him.
— Josh Rosenblat (@joshrosenblat, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
Following separate shootings that left a 2-year-old dead inside her own home and an 11-month-old baby badly injured after being shot four times while in a car, some families in Philadelphia’s 25th Police District are choosing to leave their neighborhood for trick-or-treating. The 25th is where the two recent child shootings happened; it contains the neighborhoods of Hunting Park, Feltonville, and Fairhill, and parts of Kensington.
Leaving your neighborhood for safety reasons or simply to find the biggest candy bars is not a new concept. But a different neighborhood doesn’t guarantee a happy trick-or-treating experience, especially when you might be seen as “outsiders.”
The Phillies formally introduced Joe Girardi yesterday as the franchise’s 55th manager. The former catcher is the first manager the Phillies have hired since 1952 who previously managed a team to a World Series victory, which he did with the Yankees in 2009. That was part of a decade in New York that ended following the 2017 season. But he might have a tougher task ahead of him with the Phillies.
Girardi said that he felt Philadelphia was the right fit for the next chapter of his managerial career. “I’m well aware of the passion for the great game of baseball here,” Girardi said. “The passionate fans of the Phillies were great — they were not easy to play against — and I want it to be that way for many years to come.”
The Berks County Residential Center now holds enough children to fill a day-care center, according to the nonprofit group that works to represent undocumented immigrant families held there. Berks is one of three places in the U.S. where the federal government confines undocumented families. Today, the center holds about 22 families. It’s about 75 miles northwest of Philadelphia and has 96 beds.
The population at Berks has surged, as has the pressure from pending local and national elections, which offer leverage to activists who have demanded that the center be closed.
What you need to know today
Some parents kept their children home from a North Philly elementary school yesterday and held a protest outside the school because they believed the Philadelphia School District waited too long to address asbestos issues found there. Some also said that they thought the district had handled high-profile cases at schools with lower concentrations of poor children differently than at their kids’ school.
A group of 13 state attorneys general — including those from Pennsylvania and New Jersey — sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking it to scrap a proposed rollback of accident prevention protections. In its request, the group cited the Philly refinery explosion this summer.
Only three presidential candidates showed up to take questions from formerly incarcerated people in Philadelphia yesterday. One was New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who slammed his opponents’ no-shows. “Where are you?” he asked. "Seriously. This is a major national crisis.”
Philly’s Mazzoni Center is offering trans workers a “breakthrough” benefit that could be a model for other employers.
After news came out that Liberty Property Trust — which built both Comcast towers and initiated the reinvention of the Navy Yard — was bought by a San Fransisco-based warehouse giant, its share price soared.
Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly
Keep those fall pics coming, friends! Awesome shot, @denisewalksphilly.
Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!
That’s Interesting
On the roof of a haunted hotel in Western Pennsylvania rests a record-setting Ouija board. But now there’s a challenger for the Guinness Book of World Records title for the “World’s Biggest Ouija Board.” Is it still the biggest? Yes. No. Goodbye.
Instead of protesting their employers, workers are choosing to focus on bigger targets, such as American Airlines.
Giving circles are groups where people pool their money for charity. And they’re getting more popular.
A former Philadelphia mayor is now promoting a marijuana company.
YMCAs have a new goal: To become America’s best charity.
Opinions
“My case proves that medical decisions should be made by patients and their doctors — not by a third-party using a checklist. My condition didn’t check all their boxes and the insurer negated my cardiologist’s experience and judgment." — Ross Waetzman, a man who had two heart attacks in one night after being denied surgery by his insurance provider. He argues that Pennsylvania should pass legislation to fix that problem.
President Donald Trump thanked the wrong groups when he credited Russia and others for helping the U.S. take down an ISIS leader, The Inquirer’s Trudy Rubin writes.
The Inquirer Editorial Board gives its endorsements for how you might vote on next week’s ballot questions.
What we’re reading
Philadelphia Magazine offers 10 ways the city can prepare for climate change.
The Guardian asks: Why do people hate vegans?
Believe it or not: Spotify has saved the music industry, Fortune writes.
Your Daily Dose of | The UpSide
We went back through The Inquirer’s archives to find a story originally published in 1990 about a Tastykake model. A girl was promised a doll if she didn’t complain for the duration of an hours-long photo shoot. She didn’t complain, but never got that doll. Fast forward 40 years and she again posed for Tastykake. That time, there was one major difference.