Kai Wonder was preparing for graduate school when everything changed. Just as they were getting ready to pursue a master’s degree in social work, their mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was given less than a year to live. In the process of grappling with their anxiety about death, Wonder began to research the
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For residents of West Philadelphia, spring is a season for the senses. As trees and flowers break into full bloom, some of the city’s greenest neighborhoods reach their most beautiful state. The air feels fresh, the sun seems brighter than ever, and the community is rejuvenated. But there’s an unwelcome companion that also emerges at
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Part I Jay Arzu was front and center with Leslie Richards, searching for answers. He wanted to know why Philadelphia’s transit expansion had slowed to a bumper-to-bumper crawl over the years. As he watched other major cities pour resources into ambitious projects to improve their public transportation infrastructure, he wanted to understand what had derailed
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If there’s one thing all Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates can agree on, it’s that Mayor Jim Kenney botched the water crisis that wasn’t. On the heels of a near-crisis that called into question Kenney’s emergency response and the City’s ability to protect its drinking water system, the candidates to succeed Kenney in office gathered Wednesday night
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In his classroom at Lankenau High School, veteran teacher Matthew VanKouwenberg points out to his students the connection between average daily temperatures across Philadelphia and tree canopies, noting that the lack of tree cover can leave some neighborhoods — often poor, often majority-minority — overheated in summer. VanKouwenberg, who teaches chemistry and environmental science at
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A community meeting Thursday night to discuss the future of Philadelphia’s FDR Park turned into a tense and unproductive affair, demonstrating the significant gaps that exist in the City’s efforts to satisfy the disparate groups who use its hundreds of acres to picnic, play and commune with nature. Protesters advocating for civic leaders to save
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In a city with a long history of woeful recycling rates, Dyvert is trying to make a difference. The Philadelphia-based company aims to boost the circular economy by improving the messaging found around waste, recycling and compost bins to make them more effective and efficient. Its products offer public facilities the ability to display commonly
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For the first time in its six decades operating Philadelphia’s public transit system, SEPTA is planning to overhaul its bus routes. After more than 30 in-person and online public meetings across the city’s neighborhoods this fall to detail and discuss the proposed changes, the message from residents and riders has been loud and clear: Go
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In the years since Brad Lidge closed out the 2008 World Series for the Phillies, he and his wife, Lindsay, have established themselves in Boulder, Colorado, where Lindsay has become an advocate for the beauty and benefits of wildflowers and native flora. As the owner and grower of Reverie Fields, Lindsay designs bouquets and other
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When Regina, 66, an Upper Roxborough resident for 30 years, went to vote in the 2020 election, she rode the bus a mile and walked an easy block to her polling place in the Cathedral Village senior living center. But if she wanted to vote in person this November, she would first have to take
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