Mourning Nick | Morning Newsletter
And our 2022 Dining Guide.
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Expect a foggy morning that’ll turn into a sunny day. Temps will reach the low 70s.
Last week’s shooting outside of Roxborough High School is still shaking the city and is a stark reminder of the city’s unrelenting gun violence crisis. Today’s lead story brings you the heartbreaking funeral of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde.
If you see this 🔑 in today’s newsletter, that means we’re highlighting our exclusive journalism. You need to be a subscriber to read these stories.
— Taylor Allen (@TayImanAllen, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
A few hundred of Nicolas Elizalde’s loved ones, classmates, teammates, and members of the wider Muslim community lined a West Philadelphia mosque for his funeral Wednesday.
Necessary context: Nick was gunned down outside of Roxborough High School after five shooters unleashed more than 60 bullets toward a group of football players after an afternoon scrimmage.
Nick, who wasn’t a target, was shot once in the chest as he walked toward the locker room and died a short time later. Three of his teammates and another teen, ages 14 to 17, were also injured.
Just hours before the service, police released photos of the teens they believe were involved in the shooting. Nick’s mother, Meredith Elizalde, released a statement pleading for the shooters and whoever is harboring them to turn themselves in.
“My son was innocent,” she said. “My only child. The only thing that I had in my life. You are robbing him of justice.”
Reporter Ellie Rushing details mourners’ prayers for that justice.
What you should know today
Creative Philly announced a new survey for public input on an “African American” statue, a move away from the original plan for a Harriet Tubman statue.
Three major medical associations are urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate recent threats of violence against CHOP and other children’s hospitals that provide care to transgender children.
Here are the main things you need to know about SEPTA’s new safety plan.
K. Barry Sharpless, a Philly native, won his second Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Local coronavirus numbers: Here’s your daily look at the latest COVID-19 data.
It’s that time of year. Philadelphia’s restaurant revival is here. The industry may still be in the midst of its pandemic recovery, but dining rooms are packed.
The demand for reservations at top destinations is booming and diners are clamoring to eat inside like it’s 2019.
Today we launched 2022′s Dining Guide equipped with our resident food critic and columnist Craig LaBan’s Top 10 restaurants, new restaurants in the city and the suburbs, your reader’s choice picks, and so much more.
For our subscribers we have special guides like LaBan’s 6 more essential restaurants, 15 resilient restaurants which reinvented themselves in the face of the pandemic, and cocktails that have a distinct Philly spirit. 🔑
Notable quote: “We are celebrating the people who are fueling the ongoing restaurant renaissance that stretches from Baltimore Avenue all the way to Camden, from Kensington and Fishtown, and well into Ardmore and the burbs,” said Jamila Robinson, our food editor.
Peruse this year’s guide and use it to plan your next evening out.
The voting process in Pennsylvania has become highly political, and the state election law has some gray areas.
The patchwork of mail voting rules stems from 2019, when the legislature and the governor passed a bipartisan overhaul of the state’s election law and allowed no-excuse mail voting for the first time.
Examples: Act 77 doesn’t say whether counties should be able to contact voters who have submitted their ballots with mistakes and allow them to fix them.
The law also doesn’t mention ballot drop boxes or how they should be regulated.
Courts have rules on some of these issues and the Department of State issued guidance on some unsettled areas.
With two major statewide contests on the ballot this November, governor and U.S Senate, the threat of litigation seems likely.
Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso and Katie Meyer break down the legal challenges and the best way to vote by mail to avoid confusion.
What we’re ...
📰 Reading: About how Planned Parenthood will launch its first mobile abortion clinic.
🌳 Sharing: This opinion piece as to why the redesign of FDR Park is city planning that we should get behind.
🧈 Questioning: Butter boards. My knee-jerk reaction is that this is gross but feel free to defend it and try to convince me otherwise.
🧩 Unscramble the Anagram 🧩
Hint: a downtown dive bar
ACORN STARVE’S
Think you know? Send your guess our way at morningnewsletter@inquirer.com. We’ll give a shout-out to a reader at random who answers correctly. Today’s shout-out goes to Andy Sides, who correctly guessed Eastern State Penitentiary as Wednesday’s answer.
Photo of the Day
That’s your Thursday. I’m off for my morning run 👟. See you tomorrow.