North Philly Killing Draws National Attention

Kiesha Jenkins | Facebook

Good morning, Philadelphia. Here’s what you need to know today.

The killing of Kiesha Jenkins has quickly become a national story.

Jenkins, a 22-year-old trans woman, was shot and killed early Tuesday in North Philadelphia. Police have said they don’t know if her identity was the reason for her killing, but news outlets like BuzzFeed, Heavy, and the Advocate note her death comes during a year that has seen what they call an “epidemic” of killings of trans people.

“Jenkins becomes the 20th transgender woman confirmed murdered in the U.S. in 2015, highlighting why trans advocates continue to decry an ‘epidemic’ of transphobic violence,” the Advocate reports. “The vast majority of the women killed this year have been transgender women of color. By comparison, 12 transgender women were murdered in all of 2014.”

Philly hosted the pope. Are we ready to handle the Super Bowl now?

Philadelphia’s travel and tourism experts believe the recent papal visit was a success — proving the city can plan and handle logistically difficult events. Now they’ve got their eyes on other big prizes, CBS3 reports. “Are we going for a Super Bowl now?” Meryl Levitz, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, asked Tuesday. “Because people really see that as a huge international event.”

Before the city’s restaurants recoil in alarm: Super Bowl attendees like to eat a lot of food, and they’re willing to fork out a fair amount of cash to do it. No word on if football fans like to eat pecan-encrusted salmon atop basmati rice, however.

Archbishop Chaput is in Rome for a gathering of bishops helping shape the church’s future rules on marriage.

The gathering is known as a “synod” and could be contentious. “For some staunch conservatives, … the synod has raised the possibility that there could be attempts to whittle away at church doctrine – such as the indissolubility of marriage – that may be out of kilter with modern life,” The Guardian reports, while progressives are talking about “allowing some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion after a period of penance.”

Chaput is known to be a conservative on such issues. “Few subjects are more sensitive or more urgent than renewing the health of today’s families, the focus of the current synod,” Chaput said in his weekly column at CatholicPhilly.com. “If the first day’s interventions were a sign, delegates at this synod will have no trouble being frank.” The gathering is expected to continue for three week.

Gov. Tom Wolf, trying to break Pennsylvania’s budget stalemate, has put forth a new tax proposal.

The tax plan “would increase the personal income tax from 3.07 to 3.57 percent and impose a tax on natural gas drilling,” TribLive reports. But, “Wolf made key concessions by withdrawing his proposal to raise the sales and cigarette taxes. He stuck by a campaign pledge to levy an extraction tax on shale-gas drillers. He reduced his two-year revenue plan from $5 billion to $3.7 billion.” The Pennsylvania House is expected to vote on the proposal today.

The S.S. United States may be headed to the scrap heap. (No, this is not a metaphor.)

The ship — once the fastest ocean liner in the world — has been docked in South Philly for years as supporters try to raise funds (and prospects) for its preservation. But those efforts may be at an end: the New York Times reports that without a major influx of funding by month’s end, the non-profit group that owns it “will have no choice but to negotiate the sale of the ship to a responsible recycler.” It currently costs $60,000 a month to dock and maintain the ship.

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