Philadelphia

Thirty-one years after starting in a church parking lot, Philadelphia's Mid-Autumn Festival drew thousands to Chinatown Saturday, with ICE's local office sitting just two blocks from the celebration. Organizers say some restaurant workers are skipping shifts out of fear, even as agents keep showing up to eat.

— via WHYY, Emily Neil

A $50 million workforce hub is coming to North Philadelphia, pairing job training in skilled trades and health care with a basketball center. Groundbreaking is set for fall 2027, backed by a $500,000 state investment and 20% of funding already raised quietly.

— via WHYY, Jassmyn Nesmith

PGW is spending $1.1 million to swap 27 valves at nine stations, cutting methane venting there in half. But even the utility admits the fix trims its total climate pollution by just 1.3%, since most emissions come from gas burned in homes, not pipelines.

— via WHYY, Sophia Schmidt

About 100 ACT UP activists swarmed Philadelphia's City Hall, warning new Medicaid cuts could be deadly for HIV-positive people. The nearly $1 trillion rollback adds work requirements, strips funding from clinics like Planned Parenthood, and ends a CDC prevention program that's sent over $200 million to community groups since 2020.

— via WHYY, Andrew McGurl

A vacant Wilmington storefront is now a gathering place for artists who had nowhere else on Union Street to connect. One filmmaker found the studio space he'd long imagined, and used it to screen his own film to a crowd.

— via WHYY, Johnny Perez-Gonzalez

New federal Medicaid rules take effect Jan. 1, forcing up to 300,000 New Jersey adults to prove work, school or volunteer hours every six months instead of yearly. State officials warn most people simply won't manage the paperwork and will lose coverage even if they still qualify.

— via WHYY, David Matthau

In two Pennsylvania towns, residents are fighting to keep their hospitals open as rural healthcare collapses nationwide. A five-year Pennsylvania experiment to fund hospitals differently didn't save some of them, and now AI-powered mobile units are rolling in to bring exam rooms and labs straight to patients instead.

— via WHYY

Former staff say the oldest natural history museum in the country didn't just lose visitors after the pandemic, it chased new ones. A $3 million art gallery and a push to shed its "dinosaur museum" image came at the expense of the programs that once packed the building.

— via WHYY, Alan Yu

City Council may soon ban landlord “junk fees”: charges for trash, internet or pool access that renters say exist mainly to pad owners’ profits. Tenants at two West Philly buildings have already stopped paying a $25 monthly fee, part of a broader push that also targets AI-run property management.

— via WHYY, Aaron Moselle

ICE agents detained three related family members in front of a Norristown school bus stop last Friday, protesters say, part of roughly 500 detentions in Montgomery County since January 2025. About 75 people rallied this week demanding school districts adopt policies to shield immigrant students.

— via WHYY, Emily Neil

Student volunteers gutted four vacant Brewerytown rowhouses down to the studs, the first step in a Pope Leo XIV-inspired initiative that will turn 26 properties into homes for buyers earning up to $98,150 a year. More construction, including a 19-unit building near Sharswood, breaks ground this spring.

— via WHYY, Aaron Moselle

Every one of 22 waterways tested across the Delaware River watershed came back contaminated with microplastics, including the river itself and the Schuylkill. The watershed supplies drinking water to 14 million people, and researchers say the findings suggest no stream or lake in the region is truly clean.

— via WHYY, Zoë Read

WHYY has officially taken over WPSU, keeping public broadcasting alive for 1.5 million people in central and northern Pennsylvania after nearly two years of negotiations and an FCC sign-off. Penn State steps back, local donors step in, and the call letters stay the same.

— via WHYY

Una niña de 15 años salió por la ventana a las 3:18 a. m. para encontrarse con un contacto de Snapchat. Horas después, la policía rastreó el teléfono hasta la Base Aérea de Dover y halló a la adolescente en el sótano de un militar de 27 años acusado ahora de violarla.

— via WHYY, Cris Barrish

A get-in seat at a Titans game runs about $30. For the Eagles, it's roughly $300: among the priciest in the NFL, and stadium size doesn't explain it.

— via WHYY, Jaysa Dold

Pennsylvania is on pace to lose over 43,000 federally backed affordable rentals by 2036, a quarter of the state's supply, as tax-credit protections expire faster than new units get built. Philadelphia alone could see nearly 8,000 units at risk, including almost 1,000 apartments tied up in a stalled deal.

— via WHYY, Aaron Moselle

Philadelphia's port could lose ship traffic to rivals in New York and New Jersey unless it moves faster on its own $3 billion expansion plan, the city controller warns. Her report says a deeper shipping channel and new terminals alone won't cut it without matching upgrades to roads and rail.

— via WHYY, Meir Rinde

A century-old symphony that bombed at its 1941 Philadelphia premiere now closes a Wilmington program, while hippos behind glass headline a 21-and-up date night in Camden. Plus six blocks of Haddon Avenue fill with more than 60 authors and roughly 275 publishers for Collingswood's 24th book festival.

— via WHYY, Tonya Pendleton

WHYY says it's building something it calls "a trusted space for unbiased news" alongside education and local storytelling. The outlet lays out its own social responsibility pitch, from giving voice to the unheard to supporting lifelong learners.

— via WHYY

The Trump administration is dismantling "Housing First," the decade-old federal approach to homelessness, in favor of treatment-focused, temporary shelter. Nonprofits say the shift could strand sick, elderly and disabled people on the street, and one Louisville shelter is already weighing converting most of its 200 permanent apartments into short-term units.

— via WHYY, Laura Ungar and Geoff Mulvihill