How a Community Fridge Built … a Community

Jane Ellis opened one of the city’s first community fridges at the start of Covid. Two years later, Germantown’s two free-to-all pantries testify to the power and promise of mutual aid

By Ethan Young

Michael E. Mann is Coming For Your Climate Doomism

One of the most famous — and famously attacked — climatologists in America is now the founding director of Penn’s new climate change institute. He has a few things to say to those who doubt we can still save the earth

By Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

Mr. Schmidt Goes to Washington

Former City Commissioner Al Schmidt’s testimony this week before the Jan. 6 committee was a reminder that maybe integrity isn’t dead yet

By Larry Platt

Art for Change: The Philadelphia Observer

In the next in our series with Forman Arts Initiative, documentarian Glenn Holsten talks about his four decades of weaving together the city’s stories of community, creativity and civic potential

By Blake Bradford

Diversity For the Win

For first-year IBX CEO Greg Deavens, diverse hires and tackling health equity is smart business.

By Larry Platt

The Citizen Recommends: We Are Not Like Them

Jo Piazza and Christine Pride’s new Philly-based novel is about a cross-racial friendship tested by the police shooting of a young Black teen. But really, it’s a way to start the hard conversations we need to have

By Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

The Doctor Will See You in the Barbershop

Jefferson Health CEO Steve Klasko is rethinking the very delivery of medicine, taking on the racial health gap, trying to get our eds and meds to focus on equity...and still deejaying

By Larry Platt

“A Massive Amount of Heartbreak”

A combination of the contagious Delta variant and high numbers of unvaccinated people is causing Covid cases to rise again. A critical care physician at Penn Medicine helps us understand how worried we should be—and what we can do

By Katherine Rapin