Home from the hospital after 200 days | Morning Newsletter
And, a hail Mary.
The Morning Newsletter
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Hello, distinguished readers of The Inquirer Morning Newsletter.
First: This man finally made it home after more than 200 days in hospitals and rehab centers battling infections, pneumonia, a collapsed lung, and other life-threatening ailments related to COVID-19.
Then: The family of Mary Hallahan McMichan, the woman behind the country’s oldest all-girls’ Catholic high school, is speaking out against the archdiocese for shutting it down.
And: How do people feel about going at least a whole summer without mixed drinks to go in Philly? Reactions are mixed.
— Olayemi Falodun (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
Not too long ago, 60-year-old grandfather and outgoing union tile setter Mike Santucci was on a ventilator.
But more than six months later, Santucci no longer needs it and can walk on his own, after a COVID-19 diagnosis that saw him battle a number of life-threatening setbacks.
But last week, vaccinated family and friends gathered at the Santucci house to welcome him home after being a patient for more than 200 days in hospitals and rehabs at Fox Chase.
Reporter Aubrey Whelan has more on this harrowing road to recovery.
A member of the Hallahan family is speaking out for the first time to criticize Philly’s archdiocese for closing the high school that bears a relative’s name, and the family is furious.
John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls’ High School, named in memory of Mary Hallahan McMichan’s brother, has been an institutional pillar of education in the city for girls for more than 110 years, but Hallahan’s declining enrollment and shaky finances led to the closing of the nation’s oldest diocesan all-girls’ high school, according to the archdiocese overseeing its operation.
However, Bill Hallahan, Mary Hallahan McMichan’s great-nephew, who is gutted by the decision, said that the archdiocese is breaking its agreement with McMichan is “downright dirty.”
Reporter Kristen A. Graham has more details on a family’s fight to keep a founder’s dream alive.
Reopening resources
Track the latest data on cases in the region.
Here’s what experts feel safe doing — and what they don’t.
What you need to know today
Restaurant owners and arts patrons shared their thoughts about a summer without cocktails-to-go after the state Senate did not act on the House-passed legislation ahead of a looming break.
Access to medication that can trigger an abortion was made available during the pandemic through telehealth appointments, instead of only through in-person appointments. Whether that continues will be decided after a review by the FDA.
A local financial salesman and his lawyer are at odds over advice that was sought and given regarding Par Funding.
By the end of the week, New Jersey is looking to be the first state in the nation to have an official anti-hunger advocate who will coordinate with all federal food insecurity programs.
The city announced the first winners of its incentivized vaccine lottery program, which will feature three drawings for the lottery, with residents winning at least $1,000 and as much as $50,000.
Through your eyes | #OurPhilly
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That’s Interesting
“One cannot express in paint the meaning of a bomb,” the artist himself said of trying to capture it in abstract art. So did he pull off expressing the force of an atomic bomb? Not quite, per our review of the complex exhibition currently at Ralston Crawford exhibition at Brandywine.
The Phillies played Sunday’s series finale in New York against the Mets without Bryce Harper after he was hit by a pitch on Saturday afternoon.
Opinions
“In a government so finely tuned to service the needs of the super-rich, it took an illegal act — the self-appointed whistleblower who sent individual IRS returns of the wealthiest Americans to ProPublica — to show the public how low their effective tax rate really is,” columnist Will Bunch writes of our inability to tax the rich in order to make America a fair and livable place for the middle class.
Philly’s councilmembers told us what their big priority for the fall will be, and how they’ll use the summer to prepare to hit the ground running in September when Council is back. From introducing legislation on community land trusts in the fall to reducing burdens on local businesses, this is what they said. And we’ll be checking back with them in the fall to see how their plans matched up to reality.
Pennsylvania’s science curriculum needs to be revised to handle climate change better, writes science professor Michael E. Mann.
What we're reading
A retired Inquirer journalist has built an African American art collection through treasure hunting at mom-and-pop auction houses and estate sales throughout the Philadelphia area, WHYY reports.
The music industry has seen sales spike due to song-inspired TikTok dances going viral, but Black creators are staging a strike over the lack of credit they receive for their works, TechCrunch reports.
It’s time to get lit this summer with fireworks as July Fourth nears, but NPR reports that pandemic closures and shipping delays are leading to a supply shortage.
Those who’ve been saving a lot of money amid the pandemic are probably hurting the U.S. economy, according to the Atlantic.
Your daily dose of | Baby toads
In the dwindling days of the breeding season for toads in Roxborough, volunteers are making sure the thumbnail-sized creatures don’t slip past their fingertips as they scour the roads, catching, collecting and releasing them into the wooded habitat surrounding the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.