🏀 Goodbye, cheap seats | Morning Newsletter

Good morning, Philly. It’s really turning into fall, with crisp, clear skies and highs only in the 60s expected.

Today, we start with a report from the nosebleed section of the Xfinity Mobile Arena, where it will cost you a lot more to see the Sixers this season.

Then, we have a scoop on the Philadelphia School District’s efforts to regain students it lost — in a way one principal said is “cooking the books.”

Plus, two prosecutors threaten to quit DA Larry Krasner’s office, and more news of the day.

— Laura Benshoff (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

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A few years ago, a group of friends and I threw a surprise birthday party that involved going to a Sixers game. We felt OK about the cost of a last-minute weeknight outing because the tickets, at least, were dirt cheap. (And hey, the Sixers won that night!)

Not anymore.

With the addition of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to the lineup, the cost of sitting in the upper decks looks a lot different this year. Last season, the cheapest ticket for a home game was $24 on average. This season, it’s $131.

That has some fans weighing the price of excellence. “You almost want them to not be that good, so you can go to the games,” joked 65-year-old Mary Alice Pattershall.

The Inquirer’s Jason Lo and Ximena Conde have the full rundown on LeBron-flation.

At the end of September, the School District of Philadelphia was scrambling to track down thousands of students it expected to show up but didn’t.

Several Philly public school principals now tell The Inquirer that those efforts went even further: just before an important funding deadline, the district re-added students who had moved out of the country or never showed up at all to their rosters. More students mean more state and federal funding.

“They’re just cooking the books,” one principal said of district officials.

“This is bad,” a second principal said.

District officials said in a statement that 2,000 students citywide were wrongly dropped from school rolls this year, and that 720 were re-added as a correction.

But some school-level officials balked at this description.

Read on for Inquirer education reporter Kristen Graham’s full scoop.

Nearly two dozen employees have exited Our Lady of Lourdes in Camden after Virtua Health switched a staffing provider for the emergency room, according to former employees.

The Inquirer’s Sarah Nicell reports that includes longtime leaders of the department such as Dr. Al Sacchetti.

The University of Pennsylvania is the lead in a $26 million study to identify the early signs of what diseases?

A) COPD and lung cancer

B) Breast and ovarian cancers

C) Strokes and dementia

D) ALS and frontotemporal dementia

Think you know? Check your answer.

🦖 Spotting. Toddler-sized, 300-pound concrete dinos dot yards in Northwest Philly. The Inquirer’s Henry Savage dug up their backstory.

🍷 Swigging. Thanks to a liquor-license change a decade ago, more Philly restaurants are selling bottles of wine to-go. Food writer Kiki Aranita reports this move adds some fizz to their bottom lines.

🍭 Checking out. Candy aficionados are flocking to a Rittenhouse store that has a wide selection of imported treats, writes food editor Jenn Ladd. Get your Bubs and your dizzy skulls, too.

Hint: The Waterdogs are the Philadelphia team in this league.

AISLE GRUESOME REPLACER

Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.

Cheers to Jay Novick, who correctly guessed Monday’s answer: Saquon Barkley. The Eagles running back had to visit the medical tent for a hamstring injury just minutes into Sunday’s losing game against the Rams.

A change of perspective on our fair city to send you off on your day.

👋 Have a great Tuesday.

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