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yarnfeet40-blog · 5 years

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The Linc - Dallas Goedert had the best single-game grade of any tight end in 2018

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Rookie Dallas Goedert owns the best single-game performance by a tight end from the 2018 season - PFF While Goedert’s season-long performance is impressive for a rookie, there’s one game in particular that stands out, as it happened to be the highest-graded game by a tight end in 2018. Who was it against? You guessed it—the Dallas Cowboys. In the Eagles Week 14 trip to Dallas, tensions were high in an overtime thriller, as the two NFC East rivals were jockeying for first place in the division entering the final stretch of the season. Despite the Eagles losing 29-23 in overtime, Goedert made a name for himself on the playing field this time by posting a 94.6 overall game grade across 31 total snaps.

NFL Trade Rumors: Eagles “open” to moving Nelson Agholor - BGN The Philadelphia Eagles are “open to moving Nelson Agholor” in a trade, according to NFL insider Jason La Canfora. The phrasing here is key. La Canfora is not saying the Eagles are actively shopping Agholor; he’s just saying they’re willing to hear offers for him. This rumor passes the sniff test. Agholor’s projected $9.4 million cap hit for the 2019 season isn’t a convenient number for the Eagles. It’s hard to imagine he’s back at that rate.

The QB Scho Show #15: We’re Dumb Animals, We Never Learn Anything - BGN Radio Michael Kist is joined by Mark Schofield to break down all the silly nonsense sprouting forth from the NFL Combine measurements. Kyler Murray is big enough to play QB, we guess? Daniel Jones has big hands, that’s great! What we look for from the QB Class on the field in Indy & more!Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Eagles left some level of doubt on a Jason Peters return in 2019 - PhillyVoice In 2017, Peters was indeed a dominant player before he tore his ACL, which Roseman pointed out. In 2018, he was still an above average tackle, but certainly far from dominant, and I believe the difference between Roseman’s comments this year and last year reflect that. Peters may very well return (and in January, I personally thought he would), but Roseman left some window of doubt on Wednesday.

Some RB Talk - Iggles Blitz If he’s willing to come back for a cheap, short-term deal, that would make some sense for both sides. Ajayi won’t get a big deal from anyone since he’s coming off a torn ACL. If he stays in Philly, he knows the offense and knows they will spread the ball around. He could then try to hit the market in March of 2020 and land a big deal from someone at that point. Ajayi will turn 26 in June and he’s only had 562 career carries. Zeke Elliott has 868 carries (and more than 1,000 touches!). Ajayi has a lot of tread left on the tire. The flip side of that is that Ajayi has knee issues. That will limit his value, with the Eagles and other teams. Regardless of whether Ajayi comes back, the Eagles need to see about adding young talent at the position

Eagles excited to enter ‘fluid’ part of offseason - PE.com How active can the Eagles be in free agency? “I expect us always to be aggressive in every aspect. That’s kind of who we are,” Roseman said. “With that, obviously there come risks. We’re not going to be risk-averse. If there’s an opportunity to improve our football team, we’ll do that. We have the flexibility. We’re not going to use the cap as an excuse, but we’re also going to try to be smart about it.”

NFL experts predict Nick Foles’ 2019 team, Eagles’ QB plans - ESPN In$ider Mina Kimes: I like veteran Tyrod Taylor as an option to compete with Sudfeld. Keenum makes sense, depending on the cost, but I can’t shake the memory of him getting obliterated by Philadelphia in the playoffs. I think Bridgewater will look for a better starting opportunity.

In a Familiar Place at the NFL Combine, Mike Mayock Adjusting to His Unfamiliar Role - MMQB This still has Jacksonville written all over it to me. The Jaguars picking up Calais Campbell’s option and restructuring, rather than cutting, Marcel Dareus are clear signals that Tom Coughlin, GM Dave Caldwell and coach Doug Marrone aren’t turning the page on the core that got them to the AFC title two Januarys ago. All they need is a quarterback who can win now. And Nick Foles sure showed he could do that working with the Jags’ new offensive coordinator, John DeFilippo, in Philadelphia in 2017. What’s more, word around the campfire is that Jacksonville didn’t work a trade out for him over the last couple weeks because the brass felt like no one else was that serious about trading for him with the franchise tag attached. Maybe the Redskins or someone else muck this one up, but it sure seems like Foles is headed for North Florida.

24 Notable NFL Trade Candidates - Spotrac Nelson Agholor, WR, PHI, 25: A solid receiver, but clearly now not a top threat. His $9.3M salary for 2019 puts him in a tough spot for any team. He’s a potential release candidate if a trade partner can’t be found. His $9.387M 5th-year option becomes fully guaranteed on March 13th. Trading him leaves behind $0 of dead cap to the Eagles.

Expect Howie Roseman and Eagles to be aggressive this offseason - Inquirer The Eagles have about $6 million in space, if they roll over their savings from last season, with the cap projected to be about $190 million. But they could end up with more than five times that amount with restructurings. That could give Roseman room to re-sign some of the Eagles’ own free agents, although the market could price them out on Graham, Darby, and Tate. Hicks, who is coming off another injury-riddled season, could be more affordable. The Eagles stand to recoup compensatory draft picks with Foles and other free agents likely to part, but Roseman said that won’t keep them from being players in free agency. “We understand the cost-effectiveness of draft picks, especially when you have good players on your team and you’re paying them,” Roseman said. “We’re just trying to balance and make sure that we’re also not shortsighted enough to say, ‘Hey, the hit rate in the fourth round is only 20 percent to get a starter. Here we have a starter that we can get at a really good price.’”

The Dallas Cowboys Have Some Big Contract Decisions to Make - The Ringer Stephen Jones said on Tuesday that the team is eyeing new deals for Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Demarcus Lawrence, and Amari Cooper. Can Dallas afford to keep its four stars—and if so, at what cost?

Why won’t Dave Gettleman squash the never-ending Odell Beckham rumors? - Big Blue View It seems, though, that the relationship between Beckham and the Giants is a fragile one. It isn’t hard to believe what Gettleman said about not wanting to endlessly have to put the end to whatever rumors the media can come up with. It also isn’t hard, though, to believe that the GM is keeping his options open. He wants options. In the event something happens and Beckham goes Antonio Brown on the Giants, Gettleman is leaving himself room to make a move without saying he went back on his word. Even if he won’t say any of that, either.

9 people who should replace Jason Witten on ‘Monday Night Football’ - SB Nation No. 3 — Peyton ManningIf Peyton can be lured away from Nationwide ads he’d be the biggest name ESPN could get. Not only is he smart, but he’s funny — and we need more fun in the booth for the premiere game of the week.

Bryce Harper reportedly ends insanity by signing mega-deal with Phillies - The Good Phight Bryce Harper is just a man. A 26-year-old man who is a former NL MVP, a six-time all-star in seven years, who will likely hit his 200th career home run in 2019. He is a man the Phillies have watched bash their pitching since his debut in 2012, slashing .271/.378/.519 against them in that time and hitting the most home runs in their park than he has hit anywhere else outside Washington, D.C.

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Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2019/3/1/18245897/eagles-news-dallas-goedert-best-single-game-grade-any-tight-end-2018-season-beast-philadelphia-ertz

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yarnfeet40-blog · 5 years

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Eagles injured reserve list now up to eight players

The Philadelphia Eagles’ injured reserve list has a new addition. Destiny Vaeao is the latest player to end up on IR.

The Eagles waived/injured Vaeao on Tuesday in order to make room for cornerback Dexter McDougle on the 53-man roster. With Vaeao going unclaimed on waivers, he reverted to Philadelphia’s injured reserve list.

Vaeao reportedly suffered a quadriceps injury during the Eagles’ win over the Giants on Thursday Night Football.

Despite playing the sixth most snaps (40.8%) of any Eagles defensive lineman this season, Vaeao hadn’t been very productive. The 2016 undrafted free agent signing only had two tackles, two quarterback hits, one sack, and one tackle for loss. By comparison, Treyvon Hester — who was recently called up from the practice squad — already has three tackles and one quarterback hit while playing in just 6.8% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps.

Still, losing Vaeao means the Eagles now have just three full-time defensive tackles on the 53-man roster: Fletcher Cox, Haloti Ngata, and Hester. And Ngata is still dealing with a calf injury; the 34-year-old was limited during Wednesday’s practice.

The Eagles can always have Michael Bennett and Brandon Graham play interior snaps. It’s also possible Tim Jernigan, who is now eligible to be activated from the non-football injury list, returns at some point this season.

Speaking of potential returns, here’s a look at the players on injured reserve and when they’re eligible to be activated. Keep in mind the Eagles can only designate two of the following players to return. Players eligible to return to game action from injured reserve must miss a minimum of eight weeks, but they can begin to practice again after just six weeks.

WR Mack Hollins - Eligible to be activated after Week 8

TE Richard Rodgers - Eligible to be activated after Week 8

WR Mike Wallace - Eligible to be activated after Week 10

S Rodney McLeod - Eligible to be activated after Week 11

RB Jay Ajayi - Eligible to be activated after Week 13

DT Destiny Vaeao - Eligible to be activated after Week 14

I’ve excluded cornerback Elie Bouka and linebacker Paul Worrilow from the list here because the Eagles aren’t going to be using their two return spots on those fringe roster guys.

It should also be noted Ajayi isn’t going to be able to return from his ACL injury.

Wallace seems like the most obvious candidate to come back. His recovery timeline from a fractured fibula (non-displaced) should allow him to return at some point. Not to mention the Eagles could use the deep threat he presents.

It’s unclear if McLeod might be able to return if the Eagles go on a deep run. Philadelphia might try to hold out hope for that possibility. If they determine it’s unlikely, the Eagles could always activate Hollins to give them more depth at receiver and on special teams.

The Eagles won the Super Bowl while having a lot of significant names on IR last season. With the 2018 campaign not even halfway over, Philadelphia has already placed eight players on the potentially season-ending list.

Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2018/10/18/17993836/eagles-injured-reserve-list-eight-players-destiny-vaeao-philadelphia-rodney-mcleod-mike-wallace-nfl

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yarnfeet40-blog · 5 years

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Drexel grads pitch Amtrak on new sign: Vintage-style romance with efficiency of new technology

Most of the company’s boards are in restaurants, hotels, and offices, where they straddle the line between art and information. They cost a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars apiece, depending on their size and degree of customization. The team designed their first one in 2015 at the request of the Philadelphia-based chain Honeygrow. The salad and stir-fry spot wanted to show order numbers and other messages in a way that wouldn’t “over-tech” its restaurants, where customers already use screens to order.

Oat Foundry has since sold more than 50 of the devices to a variety of clients, including the new Shakespeare & Co. on Walnut Street, a bar at Chicago’s Wrigley Field and a museum in Azerbaijan. The vintage-styled signs grace three Starbucks cafés in Mexico and Central America and corporate offices in Hong Kong and England.

If Amtrak took Oat Foundry up on its offer, the 30th Street board would be the company’s first train station commission.

It would not, however, be the firm’s first departure board.

For Nolita Hall, a bar that sits in the flight path of San Diego International Airport, Oat Foundry created a novel take on the travel icon, integrating flight data into a display.

“The whole ceiling is a skylight, and you can see the bellies and the tails of these landing aircraft. Our split-flap sign queries a flight tracker API, pulls real-time flight tracker data, and puts it on the sign,” Kuhn said. Along with beer and cocktail specials, the huge sign behind the bar shows “what plane is landing, when it’s landing, where it had taken off and what airline.”

The flip display is Oat Foundry’s main product, but the company has also built an industrial-scale coffee brewing machine, a plant specimen scanner for Morris Arboretum, and other custom engineering projects.

Last November, one of the displays did make a brief appearance in 30th Street Station. On this occasion, the romance was highly calculated. Instead of announcing train delays, the miniature display helped a man propose to his girlfriend. Kuhn stood nearby and used his phone to change the sign to, “She said yes!”

Split-flap displays were invented by the Italian company Solari Udine in the 1950s and were widely used in train stations and airport terminals for decades. They’re rare now, but they’re still associated with the drama and suspense of travel. Part of that association comes from the flurry of rapid flapping sounds that announces the launch, or delay, of a journey.

Kuhn attributes the signs’ popularity in part to their mid-century modern design vibe, an aesthetic that has surged in popularity as of late. They’re also examples of the mechanical aesthetic that gave way to the era of ubiquitous televisions, and now, digital screens.

“People like it because it’s complex and because it’s real,” he said. “It’s very tactile and engages, at least, the auditory senses and visual senses.”

“How it works is sort of just beyond the realm of standard comprehension,” Kuhn explained. “You know that there’s motors in there, you know that there’s gears of some kind or belts of some kind, and flaps. But the fact that it’s so many going at once — it has this enormity to it that is enticing and romantic.”

The three-dimensional, moving displays provide respite from the computer monitors and phones that are continually shining information at our faces, he said.

“Every day we’re inundated by screens. If I asked you, how many screens have you seen today, it’s an impossible question to answer. You wake up, you look at a screen. You’re at your laptop all day. Your car now has a screen in it. You passed dozens on the way to and from wherever you’re headed. Even billboards now are screens. There’s some kind of fatigue component with that. It doesn’t matter what’s on the screen really anymore. You don’t want to look at it,” Kuhn said.

He contends his company’s boards provide the best of both worlds: the allusions to train stations and to mid-century design and engineering, and the convenience of control via a cell phone or computer.

“You get to retain that nostalgia, but you don’t have to subscribe to some kind of big transportation background or technical background,” he said.

Source: http://planphilly.com/articles/2018/12/07/drexel-grads-pitch-amtrak-on-new-sign-vintage-style-romance-with-efficiency-of-new-technology

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yarnfeet40-blog · 5 years

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Thousands could be deported as government targets asylum mills’ clients

NPR’s Planet Money has learned that more than 13,500 immigrants, mostly Chinese, who were granted asylum status years ago by the U.S. government, are facing possible deportation.

As the Trump administration turns away asylum-seekers at the border under more restrictive guidance issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Executive Office for Immigration Review are considering stripping asylum status from immigrants who won it years ago.

Immigration officials are moving against these immigrants in a sweeping review that federal authorities say is related to a 2012 investigation into asylum mills. During that probe, federal prosecutors in New York rounded up 30 immigration lawyers, paralegals and interpreters who had helped immigrants fraudulently obtain asylum in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens. The case was dubbed Operation Fiction Writer.

The federal government says the people convicted during Operation Fiction Writer had helped more than 3,500 immigrants, most of them Chinese, win asylum. Authorities accused them of dumping boilerplate language in stories of persecution, coaching clients to memorize and recite fictitious details to asylum officers, and fabricating documents to buttress the fake asylum claims.

In the years after the prosecutions, immigration officials have been reviewing those asylum cases to determine which clients lied on their asylum applications and therefore should be deported.

One of those rounded up during Operation Fiction Writer cooperated with authorities on the investigation. The man, who asked that we call him Lawrence, helped the government between 2011 and 2014. He says that he worked for lawyers who reassured their clients that they would be fine if they fabricated their claims of persecution in China and that those clients were just heeding legal advice.

He is in hiding now because of the government’s escalating demands that he continue cooperating — this time against those former clients. Planet Money spoke with him on Skype but does not know his exact location.

Lawrence, a Chinese immigrant himself, says the government pressured him in the past couple of years to help review asylum cases he may have worked on as an employee at more than one law firm. He helped with that effort initially but has backed away as the number of people the government is targeting has skyrocketed.

Lawrence says that he didn’t have a problem helping law enforcement arrest lawyers in 2012, but that he feels very different about helping law enforcement punish immigrants years after they won asylum.

“Because targets are different,” he says. “Those Chinese immigrants — those clients … their attorney just tell lie to them, to do that.”

The way Lawrence tells it, he is fighting a larger battle now against government agencies that are mixing up what is legal with what is right. He wants no part in helping the government use the letter of the law to strip asylum from people who won it years ago — even if that means he has to remain in hiding.

Lawrence says his disappearance will make it much harder for immigration officials to possibly deport thousands more people back to China, a country that he says does not treat people who had sought asylum kindly.

An unprecedented review

In a written statement, USCIS confirmed the substance of Lawrence’s story — that immigration officials are now reviewing 3,500 asylum cases handled years ago by the people convicted during Operation Fiction Writer. Immigration authorities also confirm that they are reviewing the asylum cases of more than 10,000 family members who were granted what is called “derivative asylum status.”

Therefore, in total, more than 13,500 immigrants who were granted asylum before December 2012 could lose it.

At the time the prosecution was announced in 2012, officials in the Obama administration, including then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, decided not to criminally prosecute any clients.

Today, “USCIS, ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor and the Executive Office of Immigration Review are reviewing these cases to maintain the integrity in our nation’s asylum system and to ensure that the original asylum grant was lawfully obtained,” says Katherine Tichacek, a spokeswoman for USCIS, in a written statement.

It isn’t unusual for immigration officials to review the case of a former client whose lawyer has been convicted of asylum fraud. But immigration lawyers say they have never seen officials systematically review old asylum cases on a scale like this in ICE’s history.

It is hard to say exactly how many of the cases handled by the guilty lawyers were in fact fraudulent. Fact-checking each requires confirming claims and stories that allegedly happened years ago, in other countries with separate legal systems.

Tichacek explained that when an old asylum case is flagged during this review for potential fraud, lawyers at ICE will file a motion to reopen the case with the Executive Office of Immigration Review. If an immigration judge grants the motion, the asylee is granted a hearing. The judge will then reaffirm the grant of asylum or terminate asylum status.

“The agencies are reviewing each case file and making lawful determinations in accordance with due process of law,” says Tichacek.

Someone whose case is “reopened” can pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend against the allegations, even if there was no fraud.

An immigrant’s struggle in New York — and an opportunity

In July 2005, Lawrence boarded a plane from China to New York City. In his mind back then, there was no question how his new life in America would turn out. “I think I would become millionaire … or something like that,” he says. “I always quite have a lot of confidence in myself.”

But Lawrence remembers his first year in the U.S. as a horrible year. He fell into a miserable string of odd jobs working illegally in the Flushing area — at a window and door company, at a glass factory and elsewhere.

Then in January 2007, he saw an ad in the paper: An immigration law office right next to Chinatown needed a Chinese translator. He faxed his résumé over, and they called him up immediately to ask him when he could start.

It turned out that the tiny law office specialized in asylum cases. Lawrence soon would learn that he had dropped into a world with huge stakes.

Asylum is a fast, direct path to staying in the country. It is hard to win, but if you do, you get immediate permission to work. You’re also eligible for a green card within a year — and then citizenship five years after that.

For years, the Chinese have won more asylum cases than immigrants from any other country. About 22 percent of the 20,455 individuals granted asylum in 2016 were Chinese immigrants, according to the most recent figures from USCIS. The next largest group is immigrants from El Salvador (10 percent) and then immigrants from Guatemala (about 9 percent).

The lawyer who ran the immigration office Lawrence joined back in 2007 was named Ken Giles. Lawrence says Giles’ law office had only three desks, crammed into a tiny room. Everything that happened, Lawrence says, happened out in the open.

“I realized this is open secret in Chinese immigrant community … many Chinese people making asylum fraud,” he says.

According to Lawrence, a client would walk in and tell the office manager that he or she would like to try for asylum because that is what a friend or relative suggested.

“The office manager would talk to the client about what kind of claim they should pursue and what kind of story they should make up, what kind of fake document they should provide,” says Lawrence. “And [the manager] made up those stories. She wrote them down and asked those client to copy it in their own words.”

One reason Chinese immigrants have been successful at winning asylum is because the most common stories submitted by Chinese applicants fit neatly into the criteria asylum officers and immigration judges use to grant asylum.

In the U.S., before you can get asylum, the government wants to hear a story from you — a story about “a well-founded fear of persecution.” That persecution has to be based on your race, religion or political opinion, or on some “particular social group” you belong to — and it has to have been targeted specifically against you.

Central American immigrants have had a tougher time for years getting asylum based on claims that they are fleeing criminal gang violence because it’s harder to prove that a threat is targeted or that the government is doing nothing to stop it. Chinese immigrants don’t have that problem — their most common asylum stories involve being targeted by the government.

The claims have fallen into three buckets: persecution under the country’s family planning policies, persecution by the government based on the person’s religion — usually Christianity or their membership in the spiritual sect Falun Gong — or persecution by the government based on the person’s activism in favor of democracy.

(Sally Deng for NPR)

Inside the asylum mills

The way Lawrence tells it, he watched and learned the ins and outs of the asylum fraud business in Ken Giles’ office. About a year and a half later, he says he ended up at an even bigger operation: A law firm run by a woman named Feng Ling Liu.

Like Ken Giles, Lawrence says, she focused almost exclusively on asylum cases. Lawrence compared the office to a factory, with each worker having a designated task, whether it be translating, coaching or story-writing.

Lawrence says he started as a story writer at Feng Ling Liu’s firm. He would begin with certain details about a client that were actually true and weave them into a larger drama of government persecution. Lawrence learned that the stories had to be vivid and tell tales of great suffering. And only certain kinds of suffering, the kind that checked off the correct boxes, would do: targeted persecution, by the government, that was based on religion, politics or China’s family planning policy.

Lawrence estimates he wrote 500 to 600 fake stories for clients over the course of a couple of years. He compiled a massive study guide for coaches to use with clients. And he made the law firm’s interpreters collect field data for the guide — profiling asylum officers by what the kinds of questions they tended to ask and the answers they seemed to prefer.

Lawrence says he started rationalizing his behavior at this point: “Sometime I justify in this way: I say, ‘Okay, I’m helping people. I’m helping those lower-class Chinese people to get their status in United States. They don’t really commit crime. … What they want, just find a job here and work in the Chinese restaurant.’ ”

Around November 2010, Feng Ling Liu’s office fired Lawrence. He says they were tired of dealing with his part-time schedule. So a few months later, Lawrence found himself back at Ken Giles’ office, helping out with a few asylum cases.

It was spring 2011. That was when Lawrence met Zhenyi Li, an immigrant who had run out of ways to stay in the U.S. when her aunt told her, “go do asylum.”

“It felt like people all around me were doing it — people I worked with, people in my circles,” says Li. “From what I could tell, applying for asylum to stay in this country was just a normal thing to do.”

To Lawrence, Li was like a jackpot client. She was young, 29, and college-educated. Also Li had chosen to get an abortion back in China and had gone to church occasionally while growing up.

These were useful facts Lawrence could play with in her application. Within days, he had crafted a lurid asylum story for Li, recounting a brutal abortion forced by the Chinese government and a violent crackdown on Li’s Christianity.

Today, when Lawrence revisits this story, he starts laughing.

“I wrote so many ridiculous cases on daily basis,” he says. “For those asylum officers and those immigration judge, they are buried by this kind of fake story every day, so they don’t know what real story should be looking like.”

When Li first read the story, she wanted to laugh. “I thought, ‘This isn’t my story. It was not me,’ ” she says. “It was so exaggerated. So made-up. This was not my life.”

Li was granted asylum on June 28, 2011, on her first try.

Investigators make their pitch

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Lawrence got a phone call from the FBI. He would soon learn, he says, that the FBI had been tailing him for more than a year. The agents told him that a big raid was coming and that there was nothing Lawrence could do to stop it. They told him he could either join his colleagues in prison, or he could help the FBI.

He says he agreed to cooperate immediately.

“I just felt so depressed for what I did for the last couple years,” he says. “And then I all of sudden find, find a chance to tell everything. To outburst it.”

He gave the bureau a detailed picture of all the people involved in pumping out fraudulent asylum applications in Chinatown and Flushing. He pored over photo books to identify suspects. He turned over his study guide, which plainly laid out every step of the fraud from story-writing to evidence-fabrication to interview prep.

(Sally Deng for NPR)

He went back into the asylum mills wearing a hidden camera, making 16 secret recordings in all. His goal was to catch as many people as possible. One of his first targets was Ken Giles. And Lawrence helped flip three more people who became cooperating witnesses.

One of them was Li, who says the agents offered her a deal.

“They said that they wouldn’t prosecute me if I cooperated. And they offered to help me with immigration. They said they would tell immigration officials I helped the FBI,” says Li. “They said I might not be better off if I cooperated, but that I certainly wouldn’t be worse off.”

In 2014, Feng Ling Liu was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. She could not be reached for comment. Ken Giles pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and was sentenced to two years in prison.

In a recent interview, Giles maintains he never advised a client to lie on an asylum application.

“I never told anybody to pretend to be anything. Never,” says Giles. “That’s a lie. That is a lie.”

If there was coaching by anyone else in his office, Giles says he wouldn’t know because he doesn’t speak Chinese. But he says he pleaded guilty because he felt like he had no choice.

As for Lawrence, he discovered that cooperating witnesses don’t get to just start over.

The federal government decided to charge him with three felonies — two counts of immigration fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud — which meant it would be much harder for him to ever become a U.S. citizen. He faced a maximum of 25 years in prison, but the judge gave him credit for his cooperation and he was sentenced to just six months probation.

A new beginning ends

Lawrence later left New York City and moved to the Southwest, hoping to start over — but in the fall of 2014 he learned that Operation Fiction Writer hadn’t ended for him. Lawyers at ICE tracked him down and said they needed his help on just a few more cases: They wanted him to help identify former clients that he knew had lied on their asylum applications.

Operation Fiction Writer had been about nailing the industry. Now, Lawrence realized, the government was moving in on the customers.

It’s not clear exactly when this new phase of the investigation began in earnest. Immigration officials say they started to review client cases in 2014.

But it was a 2015 Government Accountability Office report about Operation Fiction Writer that caught the attention of Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia — the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, demanding that she review and reopen each of the thousands of asylum cases related to Operation Fiction Writer to determine which clients had lied on their applications.

Tracy Short, the lawyer on staff with the House Judiciary Committee, took the lead on this issue for Goodlatte. He left the committee to become the new principal legal adviser for ICE under President Trump in early 2017 and now commands an army of more than a thousand lawyers inside the Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of litigating all removal cases for the government.

That may explain why Lawrence says phone calls from ICE began intensifying in early 2017.

First, immigration officials told him that they had about 20 more client cases they needed his help on. Then in March 2017, Lawrence got another phone call from the agency: “They say they got 200 cases.”

Three months later, ICE was on the phone again. This time, they said they needed him to cooperate on 2,000 more cases.

Lawrence says he wasn’t interested and was determined to move on with his life.

“I was so scared, and I refused,” Lawrence says. “I say, ‘No — I couldn’t help you. I don’t really want to help you.’ ”

Immigration officials wouldn’t confirm whether or not they had asked Lawrence to return to these cases. And while it’s true he once made a living lying, this part of this story checked out: The government was indeed undertaking a massive review of client cases from Operation Fiction Writer.

Lawrence says he knew that if he really wanted out, he would need to find a way to disappear. So he fled. Planet Money spoke with him on Skype but does not know his exact location.

Meanwhile the government’s review has marched forward. In a joint statement from USCIS and ICE, immigration authorities said, “[A]s agencies dedicated to upholding lawful immigration we will continue to shine a light on acts of fraud wherever they exist. When our government turns a blind eye to these actions, the American people, law-abiding benefits[-] and protection[-] seekers and our rule of law all suffer.”

Cooperation becomes ammunition

In December 2016, more than five years after winning asylum, Li — the immigrant Lawrence helped who had become a cooperating witness in Operation Fiction Writer — got a piece of mail from USCIS. It read: “Notice of Intent to Terminate Asylum Status.”

At that time, Li was waiting for her green card. The document informed her that she would have to go through her asylum interview again, and that this new interview would be based on her original asylum story — the one story she already had confessed to the government was a puffed-up lie.

The cooperation agreement Li had signed in 2012 says the FBI would put in a good word for her with ICE, if she requested. She hadn’t yet made that formal request to the FBI, and in the meantime, immigration officials had gotten ahold of every self-incriminating statement she made while cooperating with the investigation.

In fact, USCIS detailed those statements in the notice they sent her: “On October 22, 2012, you provided testimony to the FBI on the Giles law firm. You testified that Mr. Giles and his office workers created your asylum claim and that your entire asylum story was fabricated by the Giles law firm.” The document then outlines her testimony in detail.

The FBI had promised to help her with immigration officials if she wanted, but it was precisely her cooperation with the FBI that gave immigration officials the evidence they needed to deport her — as well as her husband, who received derivative asylum status.

“Yes, I did trick the government,” Li says. “But in the end, the government tricked me back.”

Source: https://whyy.org/npr_story_post/thousands-could-be-deported-as-government-targets-asylum-mills-clients/

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Eagles vs. Giants fourth quarter game thread

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Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2018/10/11/17965734/eagles-vs-giants-2018-fourth-quarter-score-updates-31-13-odell-beckham-jr-saquon-barkley-leave-field

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Exhuming A Pyramid Of Petrol Along The “Golden Mile”

The Atlantic pyramid gas station with its nighttime lighting as it appeared when new, 1964. | Image courtesy of the Earl Oakes Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania

An unusual sight began to rise on the edge of Philadelphia in 1964. It was a pyramid, a unique form for a decidedly ordinary function: automobile gas and service station. This modern temple of petrol, resembling the set of a Sixties-era science fiction TV show, was the work of renowned mid-century architect Vincent G. Kling. His growing firm was hired by the Atlantic Refining Company to create a stunning visual statement that would serve as a symbol of progress for Atlantic. The gas station inadvertently became the gateway to a stretch of remarkable contemporary development on the edge of the Main Line that we know today. It would also become one of the first battlefields in the country for the preservation of modern architecture.

Architectural Acumen at the Pump

Atlantic was no stranger to bold, architectural statements. At the beginning of the service station boom freestanding structures were replacing haphazard pumps installed outside existing businesses. Atlantic spared no expense when it hired Joseph F. Kuntz to create terra cotta temples to the petroleum industry in the early 1920s. Each were made of blocks glazed to resemble Mount Airy granite. Some were adorned with tile mosaics depicting scenes of motoring. Many of these Neoclassical temples were circular. They were beautiful, but not especially practical. All are now lost, except for one that was rescued from demolition and is now used as a gazebo on the campus of the Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware.

Atlantic’s architecture evolved as enclosed service bays became a necessity and land along America’s “gasoline alleys” grew in value. Although still detailed, Atlantic stations of the late 1920s became simpler and more standardized. By the 1940s, Atlantic had adopted the so-called “ice box” form popular with nearly every large oil company: rectangular flat-roofed forms with white porcelain enamel paneling covering the facades.

The last remaining “temple-style” Atlantic station stands on the campus of the Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware. | Photo: Greg Prichard

The City Avenue Atlantic “ice box” gas station as it looked in 1952 when Alfred DeCurtis began sole proprietorship. | Image courtesy of Bob DeCurtis

An “ice box” was exactly the type of building that Atlantic employee Alfred DeCurtis requested at 1 East City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd in 1952. Before World War II, DeCurtis was sole proprietor of gas stations in the city. After the war he worked successfully for Atlantic’s business division. DeCurtis enjoyed being a business owner and wanted to go back to running a station. Because of his success at the company, Atlantic obliged. DeCurtis took over proprietorship of the three-bay station at one of the main entry points to the leafy neighborhoods of the Main Line in 1952. It was just over a decade later that the company would choose that corner for its greatest architectural experiment since the days of its terra cotta temples.

The Birth of Bala Cynwyd’s “Golden Mile”

Lower Merion’s mid-century modern mecca was actually rooted in the period of its earliest European settlers. The plot where the Atlantic station stood was located at the western end of a storied family’s historic compound, one that for generations claimed no less than a mile of frontage on City Avenue. Its owners, the Roberts family, was one of the oldest and most prominent in Lower Merion. Residences of the Roberts clan lined the north side of City Avenue from Conshohocken State Road all the way to the Schuylkill River, dominated by the original stone mansion known as “Pencoyd.” The mansion, built on property deeded to them by William Penn in the late 17th century, had been expanded substantially in phases, including once from designs by Allen Evans of Furness & Evans. The Roberts family founded the nearby Pencoyd Iron Works along the Schuylkill River in 1852. George B. Roberts, sixth generation owner of the Pencoyd mansion, was president of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1880 to 1897.

The Roberts family’s continuous use of the Pencoyd property as an estate and farm allowed a majority of the land to stay open while other sections of Lower Merion were heavily developed, thanks in large part to the access that George B. Roberts’ railroad provided to the region. The death of George’s son, T. Williams Roberts, in 1962 sealed the farm’s fate. The family home of over 250 years was sold by his estate in 1964. The once-prosperous farm then became known as the “Golden Mile,” an immense development opportunity timed well to coincide with the completion of the adjacent Schuylkill Expressway in 1960. The Expressway’s exit to City Avenue/Route 1 turned the former farm into the region’s most desirable stretch of real estate. Both sides of City Avenue were built up rapidly with hotels, residential towers, and restaurants to draw both locals and vacationers. WFIL (later WPVI) commissioned Vincent Kling to design its circular studio building on the Philadelphia side directly across from George Howe and Robert Montgomery Brown’s 1952 WCAU headquarters on the Lower Merion side.

The original home of the Roberts family, Pencoyd, was a series of additions beginning with the original house (center) built in 1684-90. Descendants owned the property for 280 years. It was demolished in 1964. This photograph shows the home in 1915. | Image: From The Architectural Record, Vol. 37, No. 4

Lower Merion Township has always been a place rooted in its traditions, from the stone remnants of the 18th century mills to the European-inspired baronial estates of industrialists. In the 20th century, the city continued its trendsetting architectural reputation by becoming a bastion for modern architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, experimented in affordable housing with his Suntop Homes in Ardmore. Modern houses sprung up across the sprawling landscapes of Gladwyne and Penn Valley, including the home Vincent Kling designed for his own family in 1950. At that time, Kling was still establishing his firm and was just a few years away from designing some of Center City’s mid-century landmarks like the Municipal Services Building and Penn Center. After a long career, his firm’s mark was left in Lower Merion almost as much as Center City. Lankenau Hospital, Harriton Senior High School, and a smattering of ultra-modern residences were products of Kling’s office.

Kling’s practice contributed several landmarks along the Golden Mile, including a chapel at the Episcopal Academy (now part of the St. Joseph’s University campus) and the WFIL TV studio. The 1949 “ice box” Atlantic gas station at the corner of Conshohocken State Road was suddenly outdated with the rise of a sleek, new neighbors on the old Pencoyd Farm. Kling was evidently the natural choice to devise a completely new concept in service stations, something eye-catching to stand at the entrance to the area’s newest architectural magnet.

A Pyramid Rises on City Avenue

Alfred DeCurtis learned to be a salesman while attending Overbrook High School. His charisma led him to become one of the area’s most successful newspaper salesmen, as recalled by his son Bob. That experience trained him well for being sole proprietor of the station in Bala Cynwyd, which was one of the most profitable in the region under his watch. Its prime location near all the trappings of Main Line wealth and education would have been the obvious explanation, yet DeCurtis thought location had nothing to do with it. He would tell people that he could be just as successful with a gas station at the end of a dark alley. Atlantic had an elite “million gallon club” for those who could dispense that much fuel in a year. DeCurtis would routinely hit the two million mark. “That should’ve been Turnpike material,” his son says. Atlantic’s choice to make the City Avenue station its flagship was not a difficult one.

Kling’s office finalized the plans for the building at the end of 1962 and submitted them to Lower Merion Township’s building department. The business remained open as construction commenced and continued into 1964. The ceremonial opening took place on December 3, 1964, and Atlantic made sure every local news outlet was there to cover it. Bob DeCurtis remembers that plastic “Diana” cameras and film were given out as gifts to the first few hundred customers of the pyramid. The supplies were depleted in half a day.

Conceptual model of the pyramid showing an early version of Kling’s design. | Image courtesy of the Lawrence S. Williams Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia

The pyramid’s design was further visualized by architectural renderer Earl Oakes. | Image courtesy of the Lawrence S. Williams Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia)

Atlantic promoted the gas station in local media as a way to celebrate the 50th anniversary year of the company’s use of freestanding service stations. In an Inquirer article from April 30, 1964, Kling said about its design, “All too often the architecture of the American street intersection is nothing but a tabloid of signs, and there comes a time when you can’t out-neon any longer. In designing the new Atlantic service center we have made the function speak out in place of a bunch of signs.” This was a decade before Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas, which introduced the idea that oversized signage could act as a defining architectural element. The pyramid’s corporate identity was relatively understated, with only small “Atlantic” text angled downward from the pyramid’s peak. As Kling told the Inquirer in 1993, “Instead of a great big sign saying, ‘I’m here to peddle gas,’ you have a building with some aesthetic posture. You have a big roof with tiles instead of a big sign with neon lights. Let the architecture say ‘I’m here to pump gas.’ It’s an educated way to do a plebeian thing.” At night, the shapes and material elements created an even more dramatic look, with lighting pointed upward at the pyramid’s roof of overlapping tiles.

Although the shape of Kling’s building was inventive, its use of materials was an unexpected callback to the previous generation. The tiles covering its roof were actually overlapping white porcelain enamel panels, the same architectural building block that covered the flat vertical facades of every “ice box” service station of the past. From the ground level it was the station’s full-glass first floor that made it appealing. Selling things was not the building’s primary function, but the all-glass first story facade made the small retail space approachable and the service garage activity visible to all. The garage (or “lubritorium”) was accessed via huge sliding glass doors about 20 feet in width. Bob DeCurtis remembers the effort it took to move them and the enormous weight that he feared would someday crush his fingers. “In the winter you moved them 50 times a day.”

The building’s unusual shape was drawn in detail for these building permit drawings. | Images courtesy of the Lower Merion Township Building & Planning Department Archives

Kling, explaining why he thought the pyramid plan was ideal for a service station, said in an Inquirer article from July 1993, “The triangular shape of the gas station came out of my desire to respond to cars coming off the street diagonally to get gas. [The shape] also allowed the attendant to easily monitor all the pumps from a central location–remember they had to pump all the gas themselves in those days. Once the triangular plan was set, the pyramidal roof was a natural outgrowth.” While Kling recalled that the pyramid’s intent as a prototype for possible future Atlantic stations, the company was cautious and evidently skeptical of the architect’s thinking.

Kling denied rumors that the design was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark Beth Shalom synagogue in Elkins Park, which also featured a segmented pyramidal roof and sharp angles. Yet, that didn’t keep some from calling the service station “Temple Beth Arco.” Arco was the corporate identity that Atlantic adopted in the late 1960s.

On the inside, the service area took up the rear of of the pyramid and contained four lifts. The front of the building, in the foremost “point” of the equilateral triangle, contained a small waiting area with no concessions except for four vending machines selling cigarettes, Coca-Cola, coffee, and candy. From a small mezzanine level above, station management could keep an eye on both sections.

Flashy and (Mostly) Functional

Working in a pyramid proved to be a challenge for Alfred DeCurtis and his employees. Kling told a reporter for the Inquirer in April 1964 that the pyramid “made possible excellent internal space utilization of the building, and permitted the best possible use of the driveway space surrounding the structure.” As much as Bob DeCurtis loved the building, he does not agree. Thinking back to those days, he doesn’t understand how such a shape could have been considered effective by Kling or Atlantic.

The striking porcelain panels of the roof presented another challenge. Bob DeCurtis remembers that the reflection of the morning sun blinded shoppers leaving the Penn Fruit supermarket next door. A remedy was quickly sought, similar to the controversy that forced alterations to curved metal panels on Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles four decades later.

A consequence of the pyramid’s dramatic nighttime lighting was that it attracted swarms of insects, which, in turn, brought hungry birds that nested in the sign at the pyramid’s peak. Predictably, these unwelcome tenants required Bob DeCurtis and his colleagues to wash the pristine roof with a hose frequently.

Aerial photograph circa 1965 of City Avenue’s new pyramid. Kling’s office was also responsible for the design of the station’s islands, lamp posts, and utility shed. | Image courtesy of the Lawrence S. Williams Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia

Bob DeCurtis recalls that the station became somewhat of a suburban version of the Wanamaker eagle, a landmark that was easy to describe and spot, which also made it the perfect backdrop for news stories. “Because Channels 6 and 10 were right down the street, not only did we take care of the staff and the stars, but also their vehicles for gas and repairs. So we became the place for those folks to come out and speak to a gas station guy during the gas crisis.” When the Penn Fruit store next door became an Acme, the driveway connecting the two lots was closed off in order to avoid future gas lines from interfering with the use of Acme’s lot.

Changes came swiftly over the succeeding decades, especially when the profitability of food marts became as much a focus of gas stations as the sale of fuel. The pyramid presented Arco’s corporate architects with a challenge: its unusual shape didn’t match the regimented rectangular forms of all of its other buildings. Freezer cases did not fit well into the triangular interior, for example. The enlarged retail space also forced a reduction in the rear service area.

Atlantic retained ownership of the site throughout the DeCurtis family’s time as sole proprietors of the station. The company retook control in 1986. Two years later the company became part of Sun Oil, which was focused on rebranding all of its stations with the Sunoco name. The peak of the pyramid was covered with new A-Plus Mini Mart signs, and its all-glass first floor was mostly enclosed with exterior walls.

Rallying Around a Local Landmark

Sun Oil’s June 1991 application for a permit to demolish the pyramid did not go unnoticed. Lower Merion Township’s Board of Historical Architectural Review (HARB), chaired by architect Robert DeSilets, made their opposition to the application known. The pyramid had been included in Lower Merion surveys of historic resources since 1985, although no ordinance had yet been passed to protect the resources the survey identified. HARB discussed the station’s fate during several meetings in 1991, and members met with representatives of the company to explore different pump locations that could potentially spare the pyramid while serving the corporation’s needs.

The pyramid had lost some of its integrity due to the needs of the company. Here it is seen in 1988. | Image courtesy of the Lower Merion Township Building & Planning Department Archives)

What’s most remarkable about the attempt by DeSilets and HARB to save the building is just how “new” the service station was at the time. Not even 30 years after its opening, members of the community were advocating for its preservation, very likely making it one of the first mid-century modern buildings in the region to be fought for by the architectural community. The effort even predated the creation of the U.S. chapter of Docomomo, the international organization advocating for the preservation of Modern architecture. In 1993, DeSilets told the Inquirer, “A building doesn’t have to be old to be historic… The whole placement on the property, the look, it was very modern, radically different.”

Despite the outcry, there was little the Township could do since the building was not in a locally designated historic district, and an inventory of individually protected resources in Lower Merion was seven years away. Members of the DeCurtis family, who had worked on that corner for nearly 35 years, were flattered by the preservation effort, but Bob DeCurtis knew that the shape of the building was not functional. From a business perspective, DeCurtis understood the position of a company spokesman who, in 1993, told the Inquirer, “If you go into any A-Plus food store you can see there is a logical process to everything, the way traffic flows. That station is now a makeshift, jury-rigged food market.” Consistency, rather than uniqueness, was the company’s goal in the 1990s. “If you go into one (A-Plus) in Pennsylvania it should look just like one in New York. We don’t want 15 differently designed buildings so people will be confused,” said Paul Durkin, company spokesman for Sun Co., Inc., in an Inquirer article from May 1993.

After the brief preservation battle, the building was razed in the summer of 1993. Kling, then 77, said to the Inquirer, “It feels bad to see it go. I thought it was a milestone marker in the history of gas stations.” Sun Oil asked Bob DeCurtis, who had reversed his father’s career path by moving from the service station to the company’s corporate structure, if he wanted to take the ceremonial first strike with a sledgehammer, but he couldn’t bring himself to take the swing.

The site of the pyramid remains a very popular Sunoco station. | Photo: Greg Prichard

Bala Cynwyd’s “Golden Mile” on the north side of City Avenue continues to see changes well into its second half-century. The WCAU television studio designed by George Howe and Robert Montgomery Brown, in continuous use by Channel 10 from 1952, was recently vacated when the network’s operations moved to the new Comcast Technology Center. Down the road, the 1955 Lord & Taylor store designed by the architectural wing of Raymond Loewy’s firm may soon see the wrecking ball to make way for new residential buildings. Kling’s WFIL/WPVI studio on the Philadelphia side was demolished in 2010.

Bob DeCurtis still recalls the pyramid fondly, which his wife, Susan, remembers as the “pineapple.” He recently found himself in the neighborhood and decided to make a stop at the station, which still operates as a popular Sunoco. “I pulled in, parked, and stood there, roughly where the point (of the pyramid) would have been. When you were working full-service, we all stood at the point that faces the island to wait for customers to come in. It took me a couple minutes to get my bearings, but [I thought] ‘it’s the same sky, the same shopping center, it’s the same city… it was a very nice feeling that I went home, so to speak.”

City Avenue could be seen as the Main Line’s version of the Las Vegas Strip, which famously reinvents itself with each new generation. As mid-century buildings in the suburbs struggle to prove their architectural merits, it is worth remembering the fight to save a little petrol pyramid that stood as a gateway to the Main Line.

The author would like to thank Bob DeCurtis, Bruce Laverty, Curator of Architecture at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, and William Whitaker, Curator and Collections Manager of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania for their insight and assistance in researching this article.

About the author

Greg Prichard is Lower Merion Township’s staff historic preservation planner. He is a graduate of the Historic Preservation Planning master’s program at Cornell University and a board member of both the Philadelphia Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Radnor Historical Society. He operates Prichard Design & History Studio, an independent business specializing in interpretive signs for historic sites. Prichard has lectured about various topics including the train stations of the Main Line, discoveries from the Lower Merion Township Building & Planning Department archives, and the story of the 19th century Philadelphia photography studio operated by his ancestors.

Source: https://hiddencityphila.org/2019/02/exhuming-a-pyramid-of-petrol-along-the-golden-mile/

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Police Search For 4 Armed Men For Saturday Morning Home Invasion In Frankford

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — It was a terrifying wake up call for homeowners in Frankford on Saturday when four armed men stormed into their home. Officials say around 6 a.m. they were called to the 4600 block of Worth Street for reports of a home invasion.

Police would declare the incident a barricade situation, SWAT Officers were also called to assist police.

The homeowners were able to run out unharmed.

When SWAT officers gained access to the house the intruders were gone, making off with a cell phone.

Police say they have not been able to track the phone.

An investigation is ongoing, anyone with information contact Philadelphia Police.

Source: https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2019/07/27/police-search-for-4-armed-men-for-saturday-morning-home-invasion-in-frankford/

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Find entrepreneurial ‘collaboration and collision’ at 1776 at Ambler Yards

Although working from home has its advantages, after a while the allure of working in slippers wears off and you realize that talking to your dog is not, in fact, a sufficient substitute for human interaction. Especially when it comes to building a business.

A key element of launching a successful startup or working remotely is collaboration. That’s why many business professionals and entrepreneurs utilize the benefits and resources of coworking spaces.

Like many traditional coworking spaces, 1776 at Ambler Yards offers core features like private offices, dedicated and mobile desks, as well as access to great event spaces and jacked-up conference rooms. But, unlike others, 1776 also serves as a business incubator where startups can launch and grow their companies.

“Because we’re a business incubator, it feels a lot different than a traditional business park. There, you go in, work and go home,” said Ben Bergman, 1776 community manager and campus manager of Ambler Yards. “At 1776, we encourage collaboration and collision. There are people from disparate backgrounds coming together to help each other out on their separate business ventures.”

Part of the national 1776 network, 1776 at Ambler Yards made itself at home within the 250,000-square-foot Ambler Yards campus — repurposed from a chemical plant — in January 2018.

As its name implies, 1776 at Ambler Yards features a natural meadow and a central yard with outdoor patios and room for outdoor gatherings. The campus is peppered with vintage buildings restored into bright, open-concept workspaces. Other tenants around the campus include Phenom People, Kupper Engineering, Mulhern & Kulp Engineering, MPD Chemicals, GEO Chemicals as well as FisherUnitech and Rule4.

As a facilitator of learning and collaboration, 1776 at Ambler Yards provides regular community lunches. It also hosts in-depth event programming for entrepreneurs, including office hours with successful serial entrepreneurs and members of the business community, and Mastermind Group, a peer-to-peer mentoring concept designed to aid in problem-solving via input and advice from other members.

Additionally, 1776 has used its space to play host to important conversations, most recently partnering with the Montgomery County LGBT Business Council to host a workshop on LGBTQ cultural competency.

The many perks of membership at 1776 at Ambler Yards include:

Six conference rooms throughout the Ambler Yards campus that are free for 1776 at Ambler Yards members

Lightning-fast internet

Fully stocked kitchenette with complimentary grind-to-cup coffee and beers on tap

Great lunch options on campus with Feine Cafe (opening soon) and nearby, like Lucky Well, Gypsy Blu, Dettera, Arpeggio and Banh Street, or grocery options from Whole Foods and Weaver’s Way Co-op

Access to the campus fitness room (at no charge), including the lockers and showers. For the serious fitness enthusiast, Crossfit Kanna is onsite (charges apply)

Complimentary campus shuttle bus to Ambler Train Station coordinating morning and evening train schedule

The outdoor Beer Garden @ Ambler Yards will start back up in Fall of 2019

Membership options are flexible and available short-term. People can choose to have access to the space five, 12 or 20 days out of the month, or go all in with 24/7 access.

“If you’re a small business owner and you want to have somewhere to hang your hat, we provide an opportunity where you don’t have to commit to long-term lease,” said Bergman. “Its a 60-day commitment, there’s no build out, and the amenities are taken care of for you.”

In celebration of Technical.ly’s Office Trends editorial calendar month, 1776 at Ambler Yards will waive its $99 activation fee for the month of December and offer a free day of coworking to try out the space.

Below, see some more photos that show off the 1776 at Ambler Yards space.

One of the Mastermind sessions, where members from different companies brainstorm through problems.

One of the main spaces in 1776 at Ambler Yards.

The fitness room, which is included at no additional cost to monthly membership.

The Ambler Yards campus.

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Source: https://technical.ly/philly/2018/12/06/find-entrepreneurial-collaboration-and-collision-at-1776-at-ambler-yards/

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Charges Filed Against Kensington Mattress Store Owner Accused Of Distributing Meth To FBI Informant

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Charges have been filed in the high-profile raid of a Kensington mattress store. The man now charged pleaded guilty years ago to lying to a grand jury investigating a fire that killed two Philadelphia firefighters.

On Tuesday, federal agents swarmed R&R Mattress Factory Outlet on the 2400 block of Kensington Avenue.

Richard Knellinger, who records show is the store’s owner, is accused of distributing meth to a confidential informant with the FBI.

Federal Agents Raid Philadelphia Mattress Store, Sources Say Investigation Deals With Narcotics

In an unrelated case, Knellinger, according to records, pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury investigating a deadly 2012 inferno at the Old Buck Hosiery Warehouse.

Knellinger owned an adjacent building and the wall collapsed onto the warehouse killing Lt. Robert Neary and firefighter Daniel Sweeney.

Efforts to reach his lawyer Saturday night were unsuccessful.

Source: https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2019/02/09/charges-filed-against-kensington-mattress-store-owner-accused-of-distributing-meth-to-fbi-informant/

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An Italian Food and Drink Festival is Hitting East Passyunk Next Month

Annual Italian street festival La Festa will take place all day next Sunday, June 2.

The free all-ages festival got its start in 2010 with the aim of honouring Festa della Repubblica (Italian National Day), and replicating the festivities that take place in Italy on the holiday each year. This year, La Festa will take place on East Passyunk Avenue between Broad and Moore streets in South Philadelphia from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. According to the festival’s organizers, the event’s footprint this year is nearly double what it’s been in years prior, allowing for more festivities than ever before.

“La Festa ... is back bigger and better than ever,” La Festa Director Saverio Nestico said in a recent press release. “We [will] present even more music, more food, more shopping and more family fun.”

Keep an eye out for two stages showcasing live music, over two dozen food and drink vendors, wine-making demos, and fun for the kids (that means: moonbounces, age-appropriate games, trampolines, and more). Plus, the festival is home to an annual spaghetti-eating contest, participation in which is open to the public.

Organizers say they hope the festival allows residents of South Philly, which has a large Italian-American population, to honor Italian culture. All attendees are invited to visit the History of Italian Immigration Museum, located at 1834 East Passyunk Avenue, during the event.

The festival is a project of Filitalia International and Foundation and the East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District. Proceeds of the event will go to Filitalia International and The History of Italian Immigration Museum

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Source: https://philly.eater.com/2019/5/21/18634607/la-festa-italian-street-festival-east-passyunk-spaghetti-eating-contest

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Camden Diocese hosts vigils to pray for sexual abuse victims and the church

The Oct. 5 vigils will be at St. Joseph the Worker in Haddonfield, the Church of the Incarnation in Mantua, St. Andrew the Apostle in Gibbsboro, Christ the Good Shepherd in Vineland, St. Katharine Drexel in Egg Harbor Township, and Our Lady Star of the Sea in Cape May.

Source: http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/clergy-sex-abuse-camden-diocese-prayer-vigial-20180927.html

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Game Recap | Behind Redick's Perfect 10, Team Leaves Shanghai With Win

Snapshot:

JJ Redick’s shooting performance Friday in Shanghai was quite literally a Perfect 10.

There really isn’t much more of an apt way to describe it.

Coming off the bench for the third time in as many pre-season games, the 13-year veteran knocked down all 10 of his attempts from the field in the 76ers’ (3-0) 120-114 win over the Dallas Mavericks (1-1) in the opener of the NBA China Games series. Seven of his baskets were three-pointers.

The most notable of the bunch came late in the first half, on a heave from the corner. Not only did Redick make the shot, he was drew a foul in patented fashion, too, and converted the ensuing free throw.

The four-point sequence gave the Sixers their first lead since the opening two minutes of play, and set the club on course to successfully erasing what had once been a 15-point deficit.

Redick ended the evening with a game-high 28 points in 21 minutes. He also added four assists.

“You wished those games would count in the regular season,” said Redick, who was questionable going into Friday’s game because of gastroenteritis. “It was just one of those days, I could tell doing my pre-game shooting, the ball was just getting to my pocket really easy. When you have that feeling, it just feels effortless, it’s not a lot of wasted motion. I just felt if I could get a clean look, it was going to go in.”

That’s indeed what happened.

“The way he shot it, that is an elite JJ Redick performance, even by his standard,” Brett Brown said.

For the second time in as many outings, Landry Shamet got into the act in a productive, positive way. With some stellar sharpshooting of his own, this year’s no. 26 overall pick contributed to the Sixers’ comeback cause.

He notched 16 points before the break, en route to finishing with 18 points overall, and along with Redick, accounted for 35 of the Sixers’ 64 points by halftime.

The Sixers hit 16 triples Friday, relying on the longball to build a lead as large as 12.

Joel Embiid set a pre-season high by scoring 22 points (8-17 fg), and has now reached the 20-point mark in all three of his exhibition appearances. He brought down 10 boards as well to earn his second double-double of the fall.

Ben Simmons had a good night, with nine points (3-4 fg), 10 assists, and nine boards in 27 minutes, while Markelle Fultz tallied four points (2-7 fg), three assists, and three steals.

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Notable Nuggets:

Showing Shanghai Some Love

After the Sixers took part in an entertaining, competitive game Friday in front 18,000 engaged fans at a sold out Mercedes Benz Arena, the team’s appreciation for its host city was on full display.

“Thank you very much,” Brett Brown said to a group of local Chinese reporters. “You have a beautiful city.”

The head coach’s two starts echoed those sentiments.

“The fans have been amazing, and tonight was great,” said Joel Embiid, who, according to Ben Simmons, threw out the idea that the NBA should do All-Star Games in China.

“This is my second time back this year,” Simmons said.

The reigning Rookie of the Year called the Chinese fans some of the best he’s ever played in front of.

“I think it’s always a great opportunity for the team to come out here, great bonding experience, and obviously show the fans the way we play.”

Game Speak

With 90 seconds to go in Friday’s first quarter, the Sixers were in a tough place, trailing by 15 points, 35-20, and in need of a spark.

While JJ Redick and Landry Shamet would eventually help turn the tide of the game back in the Sixers’ favor, Brett Brown acknowledged afterwards there are some things his group needs to clean up.

“I thought our defense was really being challenged by Dallas. They forced into some uncomfortable situations. I think the main thing that we take away from tonight defensively is that we fouled too much. We have to do a better job of basically moving our feet and showing our hands.”

All said and done, Dallas was awarded 40 foul shots.

Defining the “P” in “MVP”

Following Friday’s game, Brett Brown was asked about Joel Embiid’s ambition to win this year’s MVP award. This was Brown’s response:

“Wanting to be MVP? That’s ‘Most Valuable Person.’ He is our leader. That’s what interests me the most, is cultivating Joel, and Ben [Simmons], as leaders. That’s MVP - ‘Most Valuable Person.’”

‘Gram of the Game:

It was an instant viral classic, after the big man inadvertently bopped a fan on the head.

Up Next:

The Sixers and Mavs will do it again, this time on Monday at 8:00 AM EST in Shenzhen. Considered one of China’s leading tech hubs, the city is located about eight hours driving time (two hours flying) farther down the country’s eastern coast from Shanghai. The contest will close out both the 2018 NBA China Games, and the Sixers’ pre-season schedule.

Source: https://www.nba.com/sixers/news/game-recap-behind-redicks-perfect-10-team-leaves-shanghai-win

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