Are Philly Dems ready for November? | Morning Newsletter
📸 And parents spend big on family photo shoots.
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The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Welcome to a new week. We may see rain today, with high temps around 76.
Some Philly Democrats worry the city party isn’t prepared for the general election — and that could cost Joe Biden. And area parents are spending thousands on family photos, but they’re not just doing it for the ‘gram.
Find those stories and much more, below.
— Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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Maybe you’ve heard: It’s a big election year. The stakes are high as President Joe Biden prepares to take on former President Donald Trump.
To keep the White House, Democrats will need a strong turnout in November. But as April saw yet another low-turnout primary election in deep-blue Philadelphia, some city committee members and ward leaders are concerned about the party’s ability to ramp up enthusiasm for Philly voters.
Challenges abound, as politics reporter Julia Terruso writes. They include in-party protest votes, generational and ideological divides (remember when 20 committeepeople got booted from their positions for backing Working Family Party candidates?), and lingering tensions over how the local party is run.
Can they be overcome? Those in charge are presenting a sort of cautious optimism.
“There’s an understanding across the board that whatever family feud is going on in the Democratic Party in Philadelphia, it is gonna be put aside to get President Biden over the hump,” Biden’s Philly campaign lead told The Inquirer. “We’re gonna talk to everybody because we need their help to get out the vote or ultimately, we all lose in November.”
Philly-area parents are trading Instagram for physical photographs of their families via professional, documentary-style shoots meant to capture their lives as they really are, mess and all (albeit with good lighting).
📸 It’s not just nostalgia for the days of home movies, though there’s some of that, too. They see these shoots as a way to replace the ephemeral with the more permanent.
📸 They aren’t cheap, though. One Ardmore photog charges $1,400 for two-hour “family storytelling” sessions.
📸 To parents who can afford it, the expense is absolutely worth it: “Now everything is on the iPhone, and everything can be so curated,” a Haverford mom told The Inquirer. “I wanted something where I could remember the real moment.”
Consumer reporter Erin McCarthy talked to parents and photographers about this growing trend in a digital age.
What you should know today
At Philadelphia’s Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel synagogue, a particular heaviness over the war in Gaza and pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses punctuated this year’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. And Princeton University students announce a hunger strike.
An 18-year-old man was killed, and three other people — including two juveniles — were seriously wounded Saturday evening in a quadruple shooting in Kingsessing.
City workers will clear people living on the sidewalks along a two-block stretch of Kensington Avenue this Wednesday, as part of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s pledge to fight the open-air drug trade and improve quality of life for long-term residents of the neighborhood.
Montgomery County’s new register of wills just touted the clearing of $100 million in inheritance taxes and returns. What’s not clear is how one of the wealthiest and most populous counties in the state developed such a large backlog.
Through its dedicated Transfer Center, Penn Medicine is working to get stroke, heart, and other acute patients transferred to its hospitals as quickly as possible — for the benefit of both their health and its finances.
Malvern-based investment giant Vanguard Group is renewing its effort to get customers to embrace online banking by raising brokerage fees, annoying some longtime clients.
The Sixers still believe they have a bright future, 76ers beat reporter Keith Pompey writes. But they’ve said that after every playoff collapse.
🧠 Trivia time
This Philly-tied actress will join Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday at a campaign event in Montco to discuss women’s reproductive rights.
A) Sheryl Lee Ralph
B) Abbi Jacobson
C) Holland Taylor
D) Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Think you know? Check your answer.
What we're...
🎂 Preordering: Birthday cake (for real, mine is next week!) from these Philly bakeries.
🛩️ Refunding: Airline tickets, thanks to new federal regulations.
🍗 Eating: Our way through University City via this guide.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
The multicultural South Philly neighborhood that runs roughly from 25th Street to Broad, and from Washington Avenue to Moore Street.
Hint: 👉💨
BENITO PEREZ
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Joshua Valocchi, who solved Sunday’s anagram: Southeast Asian Market. The beloved food market at FDR Park just opened for the season this weekend.
Photo of the day
Congrats to everyone who braved the rain for Sunday’s Broad Street Run! (It simply could not be me.)
Your “only in Philly” story
📬 Think back to the night that changed your life that could only happen in Philly, a true example of the Philly spirit, the time you finally felt like you belonged in Philly if you’re not a lifer, or something that made you fall in love with Philly over again — or proud to be from here if you are. Then email it to us for a chance to be featured in the Monday edition of this newsletter.
This mini “only in Philly” story comes from reader Jerome J. O’Neill, who kindly changed the name to protect the unruly stranger involved:
Waiting in line to get a table at Villa di Roma last night, the guy next to me is telling his friends, “Sal is an attitude problem on two legs.” A classic South Philly slash Italian Market moment.
Thanks for starting your week with The Inquirer. See you again tomorrow!
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