The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Wake up, it’s Sunday.
Feeling some whiplash from the weather? Today’s high will be near 36, but at least the sun is out.
Many who answered the call to extinguish the SPS Technologies blaze were volunteer firefighters. Our main story spotlights their accounts of the chaos and disaster in Abington, all while Pennsylvania faces a critical shortage of volunteer firefighters.
— Paola Pérez (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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SPS Technologies’ 105-year presence in Montgomery County was decimated in a four-alarm fire that started Feb. 17 and ended five days later.
The crews that extinguished the blaze were members of nearly 80 fire companies, many of them unpaid volunteers who work everyday jobs. It was a grueling effort as they searched for workers amid intense explosions and scorching heat.
Thankfully, no one on site was injured or left unaccounted for.
But the Keystone State is in need of more volunteer firefighters. It has around 30,000 today, compared to around 300,000 back in the 1970s. A lack of staffing and funding leaves communities big and small in a critical situation.
In their own words: “It’s a lack of manpower,” said Vincent McGurl, assistant chief of the Roslyn Fire Company. “The numbers are really going down. It’s a dying thing.”
Continue reading Jesse Bunch’s report on the drop in volunteer firefighters, and an inside look at their efforts on the front lines of the fire that destroyed the historic factory.
What you should know today
A patient who came to a hospital emergency room in Montgomery County is Pennsylvania’s first confirmed measles case this year amid a national surge of the highly contagious virus, according to health officials.
A Delaware County man who prosecutors say killed a man in a targeted “execution” in Norristown will face a judge on murder and gun charges.
The contracts of faculty and staff at Community College of Philadelphia expired last year, and after months of bargaining for new ones, the college employees could go on strike soon.
Collingswood residents are mourning the permanent closing of a Wawa in the downtown that initially had been described as temporary.
Pennsylvania and Delaware County officials came up with $20 million in February to keep Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital open. We explain where the money came from.
New Jersey’s status as a “sanctuary state” has emerged as a major issue in the race to win the governorship, with at least one Democratic candidate standing with Republican candidates who say they’ll end the policy. Candidates also had mixed reactions to the dismissal of Democratic power broker George E. Norcross III’s racketeering charges.
Dave Frankel, a popular TV weatherman on WPVI channel 6 who later became a lawyer, died Wednesday after a long battle with a neurodegenerative disease.
Three days before President Donald Trump took office, Montgomery County was awarded millions of dollars in federal funding to combat homelessness. One month later, the county’s top Democratic officials say the money is nowhere to be found.
A star trumpeter hired by the Philadelphia Orchestra just last August is leaving.
🎤 Now I’m passing the mic to columnist Stephanie Farr.
As I walked through Philadelphia City Hall last week, a woman was singing with gusto in the exterior north corridor about how she “Don’t have to worry about Betty no more.”
She wasn’t singing for money, just for herself and the acoustics. In that moment, it felt like City Hall was as much hers as it was the mayor’s or City Council’s.
During my nearly 18 years in Philly, I’ve wandered through City Hall’s courtyard and corridors countless times, attended news conferences in the Mayor’s Reception Room, and covered civil cases in the building’s courtrooms.
But I’ve never taken a tour of City Hall, even though it’s long been on my Philly bucket list. Last Friday, I finally checked it off.
Join Farr on her adventure through what one staff member called “the quintessential hidden gem for Philadelphians.”
❓Pop quiz
SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) leverage federal dollars to allow qualified individuals and families to buy much-needed groceries.
More than __ households in Philadelphia are SNAP participants.
A) 15%
B) 20%
C) 30%
D) 50%
Think you know? Check your answer.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: From Bowling Green State to the Eagles
COFFEE STROLL
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.
Cheers to Maureen Goldsmith who correctly guessed Saturday’s answer: Colman Domingo. Philly’s presence will be palpable at tonight’s Academy Awards thanks to the West Philly native, as well as the epic Doylestown-set drama The Brutalist.
From a classroom of the future imagined by high school students to a real stinker of a plant, check out some highlights from the Philadelphia Flower Show, now in its 196th year.
🎶 Today’s track goes like this: “Getting ink stains all over my hands again / But I’ve forgotten how I used to write my name / I guess it’s just growing pains.”
👋🏽 Thanks for starting your day with the Inquirer. Take care.