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Can ‘North Beach’ revive Atlantic City’s Boardwalk?; Philly weekend gun violence escalates | Morning Newsletter

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The Hard Rock Casino, Ocean Casino, and  Steel Pier, in Atlantic City, are involved in the New North Beach partnership, Friday, June 14, 2019.  VERNON OGRODNEK / For The Inquirer
The Hard Rock Casino, Ocean Casino, and Steel Pier, in Atlantic City, are involved in the New North Beach partnership, Friday, June 14, 2019. VERNON OGRODNEK / For The InquirerRead moreVERNON OGRODNEK

    The Morning Newsletter

    Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

This morning begins with some sad news. After a particularly violent weekend in Philadelphia, 26 people were shot and four were killed in at least 16 separate shootings across the city — including in Southwest Philly, where six people were hit with bullets during a graduation party. Police Commissioner Richard Ross told reporters the department is “ramping up patrols,” but needs the public’s help in solving and curbing city gun violence. And, on a much lighter note, the north end of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk is hoping its new name will signal a new era for the mile-long stretch, and casinos, businesses, and tourist stops are buying in.

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— Oona Goodin-Smith (@oonagoodinsmith, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

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Some call it the Inlet, some call it Uptown. But local casinos, businesses, and tourist destinations alike are hoping everyone will soon know the one-mile stretch along Atlantic City’s Boardwalk as “North Beach.”

The new name is part of a push to draw visitors north on the Boardwalk, adding more events, free concerts, and a block party to kick off what the project’s partners hope marks a new era in America’s Playground.

Over the course of the past weekend in Philadelphia, there were 16 shootings, 26 victims and four people killed as shots were fired at a playground, deli, graduation party and seemingly everywhere in between.

The weekend’s gun violence brings the city’s total homicides for the year to 146, up 8 percent compared to the same period a year ago and one ahead of the comparable total in 2017. A recent study from Temple University found that by count of victims, Philadelphia has seen, on average, the equivalent of nearly two mass shootings every month for the last 11 years.

At the Einstein Medical Center, a traveling portrait exhibit memorializes the lives lived by young Philadelphians before they were fatally shot.

Slap on the sunscreen, Philly: Pool season has officially begun.

While this week’s thunderstorms may limit outdoor water fun to puddle hopscotch and avoiding a second, unexpected shower on your commute to work, this summer’s steamy forecast suggests the potential for many future days at the pool. And with 72 free indoor and outdoor city pools in commission, the options are plentiful.

As part of her pop-up newsroom, columnist Helen Ubiñas will also be hanging poolside all summer long to hear and share your stories, right from your neighborhood swimming hole.

What you need to know today

  1. Climate change could be a factor behind an uptick in a flesh-eating bacteria infection that can occur after handling or consuming seafood, Cooper University researchers say.

  2. President Donald Trump said Friday that he asked the chief executive of Lockheed Martin to keep open the Coatesville Sikorsky helicopter facility, which recently announced plans to close and eliminate 465 jobs by the end of the year.

  3. After nearly a year of effort following a massive water main burst near Juniper and Sansom Streets in Center City, the Philadelphia Water Department says it’s wrapping up repairs and aims to reopen the area soon.

  4. Challenging Uber to do better for Pennsylvania’s disabled customers, a national disability rights organization is suing the company to require more wheelchair-accessible rideshare vehicles in the Keystone State and across the country.

  5. It happened again. Four days after 14 people were trapped for hours in a sweltering elevator car, another elevator failed in the same Philadelphia high-rise, trapping a restaurant employee for more than an hour.

  6. In the legal battle over allowing a supervised injection site in Philadelphia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has asked a judge to rule in the case without a trial, while former Gov. Ed Rendell says he believes the federal government has better things to do than sue a nonprofit aiming to open the site — which he sees as a live-saving measure to stem the tide of deaths during the city’s opioid crisis.

  7. Environmental hazards in Chester and Philadelphia made the national stage last night. In the “Toxic America” season finale episode of CNN’s United Shades of America, host Kamau Bell sat down with Inquirer reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker to discuss their award-winning “Toxic City” investigation and the hazards found in Philly’s schools.

Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly

Looking good, Girard Estate. 💯Thanks for the photo, @philly_jawnings.

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!

That’s Interesting

  1. If your bedtime ritual is incomplete without a weighted blanket, essential oils, and tracked by your Fitbit, you’re not alone. For years, the answers to insomnia were pills like Ambien and Lunesta, but now the commercialization of sleep is trending in a different direction.

  2. After her father was gunned down on a West Philly street corner, Nadira Branch vowed to get the education he never could. Thirty years later, she’s a two-time Fulbright scholar and teaching her son to follow in her footsteps.

  3. Accio believers: This Philadelphia pastor is bringing new Muggles to church by preaching sermons about scenes from Harry Potter that “illustrate important biblical truths.”

  4. When Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry was asked during the NBA Finals about his definition of pressure, he went straight back to his roots in North Philadelphia, explaining what his mother and grandmother had to endure to feed him, his brother, and his cousins. And it’s Lowry’s North Philly legacy that continues to grow with the addition of a NBA championship.

Opinions

“When you’re incarcerated, [officers] can tear down anything you’re wearing to search for contraband items; they regulate your phone calls describing you as an ‘inmate’ calling from a ‘correctional institute’— you feel your humanity get stripped away every day that occurs. There comes a time when you don’t feel like you have it anymore. When I left prison, I felt like a Martian — like I really didn’t belong.” - Aspiring criminal justice mentor Raymond Jordan on returning to society after prison.

  1. It’s been four years since Donald Trump descended on the escalator at his New York City hotel to announce his presidential campaign, and it’s past time to turn off the runaway escalator of empty outrage that has since followed, writes columnist Will Bunch.

  2. Visiting 16 local shops in 10 hours, columnist Maria Panaritis tagged along on a Dietz & Watson cold-cut delivery truck to memorialize a slowly dying part of Americana: the neighborhood deli.

What we’re reading

  1. Thrown into the “Twilight Zone of taxes,” Philadelphia Magazine’s Christine Speer Lejeune tells the headache-inducing tale of how the city nearly sold her house without telling her.

  2. Not quite Northern Liberties or Fishtown, and not Kensington or Fairhill, either, an untouched triangular plot of land sits at the highly developed intersection of Cecil B. Moore and Germantown Ave. It’s called Sunflower Philly, it belongs to the community, and a neighborhood group is working to keep it that way, Philadelphia Weekly explains.

  3. On the Delaware Bay, horseshoe crabs — harvested by biomedical companies for their blood — are over fished, and, conservationists told the New York Times, that’s causing irreparable damage to migratory bird species which are now going hungry.

Your Daily Dose of | Destination

Once known for its root beer plant, condensed milk factory, and intersection of railroads, the changing borough of Malvern has now become a vibrant “destination for restaurants.”