The most powerful labor leader in America is facing declining membership and the most hostile presidential administration in memory. He says that he’s an “optimist.” But should he be?
With more than 1.6 million members, AFSCME is the nation’s biggest union of public employees, and one of the most politically powerful—and now, one of the most threatened. We spoke to Lee Saunders, the president of the union, about trying to survive the “battle” of the vicious new Trump era.
Monday night, I wrote about the lawsuit a Packers fan had filed against the Bears. Russell Beckman, a Wisconsin resident who is also a Bears season ticket holder, is suing the team because, he claims, they prevented him from going on the field in his Packers gear.
Today is Philadelphia’s annual Broad Street Run, the largest 10-mile road race in the country. It’s a straight shot down a relatively downhill street, which means a lot of people run it in costumes. Forrest Gump is popular, as is Rocky Balboa. Today I saw runners dressed as the Founding Fathers, Power Rangers and…
Roger Goodell spoke about weed on Mike & Mike on Friday, and surprise: He’s against its use. The NFL commissioner said he didn’t want marijuana usage to be “something that we’ll be held accountable for some years down the road.” According to Goodell, the NFL’s medical advisors “haven’t really said” that allowing…
Last night, the Pirates’ Gift Ngoepe became the first African-born player to appear in a major-league game. He came in to play second in the top of the fourth and hit a single off Jon Lester in his very first at-bat in the bottom of the inning. Later, he walked and helped turn the game-ending double play in the…
When Rick Ankiel’s long, strange career ended in 2013, he was left with a .240 batting average in almost 2,000 at-bats, a 3.90 ERA over 242 innings, and a place in the record books next to Babe Ruth as the only other player to start a playoff game as the pitcher and hit a home run in the postseason as a position…
Ron Adams and I were juniors in high school when the Philadelphia sports world was consumed by the 1999 NFL Draft. Who would the Eagles take with the No. 2 pick: Ricky Williams or Donovan McNabb?
Mike Cation heard a moan, and figured it was just two people in the stands talking loudly. The tennis announcer, working the USTA Pro Circuit’s Sarasota Open on Tuesday, looked at the crowd and saw everyone looking around. Then it became clear: This wasn’t two people talking. This was two people fucking.
Since its February release, Jordan Peele’s social thriller Get Out has stuck in our minds in many ways. It’s inspired memes, deep-dive essays and communal jokes about Ben Carson being trapped in The Sunken Place. It’s also still breaking records. Besides being the highest grossing feature debut for an original…
In a 16-minute, boring-as-hell interview with CNBC’s Suzy Welch, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, looking spiffy-casual in jeans and a button-front, tried his best to sound like a normal person, talking about his dad and leadership and Tom Brady (who he said was a hard worker, “not a great natural athlete”).…
Aww hell. The Miami Heat blew out the Wizards tonight to finish their season at 41-41, but they missed the playoffs by a hair as the Pacers and Bulls both won tonight. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is usually good for a fairly even-keeled postgame interview, but tonight he gave just the saddest speech after the loss. It…
Two nights ago, while I was trying to shove a plate of slightly burnt asparagus into a Ziploc bag, slap some Bandaids on my ankles, and figure out how to get to the Passover dinner I was inappropriately late for, I got a Snapchat. It was a life-altering Snapchat, the kind I imagine is reserved for DJ Khaled, or an…
Sami Grisafe just might be the best quarterback in the history of women’s football. In 2000, she became the first female to play quarterback in a Varsity Division I high school game for Redlands High School in California. She played professionally for the Chicago Force of the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA) and Team…
There is one reason why building workers in New York City can make a living wage: the Service Employees International Union’s 32BJ local. The union is the size of a small city, it’s vocal, and its president wants a wholesale reimagining of Democratic party politics in the Trump era.
Craig Breslow is a little surprised that the media has made such a big deal out of his offseason reinvention. After a decade of pitching effectively in the major leagues, 2016 saw him demoted to the minors in May and released by two different teams before the season’s end. The way he looked at it, if he didn’t want to…
“Writing was the solution to every problem—financial, emotional, intellectual,” writer Ariel Levy says at the beginning of her new memoir The Rules Do Not Apply. That sentence is a concise description of Levy’s excitement upon starting work at New York magazine in the late ’90s, but it also works as an explanation for…
It’s honestly surprising that this doesn’t happen more often with remote interviews from subjects’ houses.
Yesterday, besuited Nazi Richard Spencer got kicked out of CPAC for his “repugnant” views, which a CPAC spokesman claimed have “nothing to do with conservatism or what we do here.” Shortly prior to this, Spencer called a heckler “a moron who can’t dress.” Can Richard Spencer dress, though? Seems like maybe not?
Perhaps you imagine that enlightened lawmaking will bring our nation’s rampant inequality problem under control. History tells us the prognosis may be much, much more grim. We spoke to the author of one of the scariest books we have ever read.
