From Vegas to Philly, still reeling. Mourning Tom Petty. Dire stop-and-frisk study | Morning Newsletter
Local residents describe the chaos they lived through in Vegas. Our music critic reflects on Tom Petty. The Supreme Court hears an important gerrymandering case today.
Good morning. A day after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, we're still reeling and searching for answers. On top of that, one of my favorite musicians — Tom Petty — has died. There's a puppy below to help ease some of our collective pain, but at times like these, even puppies don't really cut it. This is the Inquirer's Morning Newsletter. It's free to sign up to get it in your inbox every weekday. If you have thoughts, ideas, or feedback, please email me, tweet me @JS_Parks, or reach our social team on Facebook.
— Jessica Parks
» READ MORE: From Philly to Vegas, lives changed forever
They heard the pops of gunfire. They saw the curtains billowing through the shooter's window, 35 stories above their heads. And in the day after America's worst mass shooting in recent history, Franco Salerno and Wendy Ianieri grappled with horror and shock and remorse.
"You feel guilty, being this close," Ianieri said Monday evening, in the hotel room in Vegas that no longer felt like a vacation from their home in Warrington. "[As if] there could have been something you could have done. You feel sick."
As dozens were being killed and hundreds wounded, other vacationers from the Philadelphia area opened their rooms for strangers to hide, used their own bodies to shield their children, and were nearly crushed in the mad rush of people trying to escape the raining bullets.
Philadelphia is holding a vigil tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at Thomas Paine Plaza, and more vigils and speeches, memorials and details are sure to follow in the coming days.
In the wake of a tragedy like this, what can you tell the kids? Advice from a therapist
Time and blood loss are so important in trauma care that researchers are now recommending EMTs be brought to the scene as soon as possible — even before the threat is fully neutralized.
In targeting a country music festival, the shooter struck at the heart of American culture, music critic Dan DeLuca writes.
Stu Bykofsky, a gun owner himself, writes a thoughtful column about how the shooting has him rethinking which guns should really be legal to own.
One of the country guitarists who performed at the festival that night, Caleb Keeter of the Josh Abbott Band, has also changed his stance on gun control. "I cannot express how wrong I was," he wrote on Twitter, describing his near-death experience and how "useless" his crew's handguns were in that scenario.
The shooter's brother, weeping, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "there was no reason, no warning" to hint that the quiet retiree was amassing weapons for mass murder.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY
After initial reports of his death proved premature, a spokeswoman confirmed around midnight that rock superstar Tom Petty had died. Music Critic Dan DeLuca writes that Petty was not a pioneer or a stylistic trailblazer, but lived true to the feistiness and defiance in his songs.
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case today on legislative redistricting that could have major implications for Pennsylvania, home to the notoriously gerrymandered district that's come to be known as "Goofy kicking Donald Duck."
A startling new analysis of Philly police data found that mostly black neighborhoods drew 70 percent more stop-and-frisks than non-black areas, yet yielded less contraband.
A former Philadelphia Municipal Court judge admits he took a $90,000 payment to drop out of a 2012 primary race against U.S. Rep. Bob Brady. But will he testify, and what would that mean for Brady? Unclear.
In 1984, a 14-year-old girl was molested and murdered in Bensalem. It took police 3 decades to find her killer — longer than the sentence just handed down by a judge.
American Airlines names a new VP to head operations at its Philly hub. She's the first woman to hold the role.
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THAT’S INTERESTING
td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}Once one of Camden's finest addresses, Cooper Street went through some of the same vicissitudes as the rest of Camden, but now is on the upswing, columnist Kevin Riordan writes.
Herbie Hancock's show at the Kimmel on Wednesday promises to make the audience part of the act.
After a year of big ups and big downs, Bleacher Creatures emerges from bankruptcy with a new owner, a pared-down product line and renewed focus.
When it comes to medical issues, people are always saying "be your own advocate." But what does that really mean? This 26-year-old found out the hard way when she tested positive for the BRCA2 breast cancer mutation.
OPINIONS
“If you are offended at the kneeling say so, and then ask yourself, how do I make this better so a grown man doesn’t have to kneel down in front of all of America just to be heard?”
— Singer Lauren Hart, who performs the anthem at Flyers games, has conflicting feelings about protests during the national anthem.
President Trump is wrong, Helen Ubiñas writes: Our unity is shattered, and our bonds are broken by violence in this country every single day.
Our smart devices were made by humans and may have been endowed by their creators with certain inalienable biases. For example, why are Siri, Cortana and Alexa all female? And why does Google Translate attach male pronouns to doctor, and female pronouns to nurse?
WHAT WE’RE READING
John McPhee, author of the 1966 classic The Pine Barrens, gets profiled by the New York Times Magazine.
People used to travel around Fairmount Park in a trolley. Now, some of the line has become a trail for runners and mountain bikers. Curbed Philadelphia has a look at the trolley's past, present and future.
A poignant look inside Tom Petty's last big tour, from Rolling Stone.
For some Penn students, homework involves creating viral BuzzFeed quizzes, The Daily Pennsylvanian reports.