A Bizarre Rochelle Bilal Mystery Emerges

Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal (photo courtesy of Rochelle Bilal’s office)

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A Bizarre Rochelle Bilal Mystery Emerges

There’s been a whiff of something not quite right surrounding Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal since she became sheriff. (See here and here for examples of said whiff.) And now, just one month into Bilal’s second term, there’s a new bit of bizarreness.

Sleuthing Inquirer reporter William Bender has discovered that though there were dozens of nice headlines about Bilal on her campaign website as of last week, all sourced to local news outlets, there’s “one snag,” as Bender puts it: “No one can seem to find any of the supposed news stories.” The headlines didn’t actually seem to connect directly to any real news stories.

Bender tried to get a comment out of Bilal. She didn’t respond. And her spokesperson referred Bender to the manager of the Rochelle Bilal campaign. And get this: The spokesperson told Bender she didn’t know who the campaign manager was. By Friday morning (Bender ran his story just this morning), the “link to the 31 phantom news headlines had been removed from Bilal’s main campaign site,” he writes. Then the headlines went back up, with the addition of this caveat:

Public Disclaimer: While we endeavor to keep the information up-to-date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information provided.

Sometimes there’s just a Philly story that is just so Philly. And this would be one of those.

Philly Gets Six FIFA World Cup Matches

We already knew that Philadelphia was going to be one of the American host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. And on Sunday, we learned that Philadelphia is getting six matches, all to be played at Lincoln Financial Field.

The dates are as follows:

Sunday, June 14th
Friday, June 19th
Monday, June 22nd
Thursday, June 25th
Saturday, June 27th
Saturday, July 4th

Yes, the last match played here will be on the Fourth of July. During the 250th anniversary of America celebrations. This will already be pandemonium. But can you imagine if the United States plays the July 4th match?!

MetLife Stadium in New Jersey gets the final match.

The only bad news? Dallas gets nine matches, the most of any host city.

By the Numbers

2: Restaurants left in the once-thriving Neshaminy Mall, which is up for sale. It’s operating with a vacancy of more than 50 percent. Estimates say the owners could get about $25 million for the property. If you haven’t seen this documentary about the long, slow death of malls, it’s worth checking out.

5: Women Mayor Cherelle Parker just appointed to five high-ranking positions at City Hall. She must have been watching the Grammys last night, where women positively dominated in nominations, wins, and performances. (Sorry, Stevie, but the Tony Bennett thing was kind of weak in comparison.)

0: States bordering (or even close to) Pennsylvania that have a minimum wage that is lower than or equal to that of Pennsylvania’s. And New York and New Jersey boast minimum wages that are more than double Pennsylvania’s measly $7.25-an-hour. Imagine working a 40-hour week and making $290. A new report argues that raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania to $15 would boost the overall state economy.

Local Talent

No, Adam Blackstone, the local super-musician I told you about last week, didn’t win either of the two Grammys he was up for on Sunday. They would have been his first. But he did have his name uttered by none other than Oprah Winfrey, which is a win in its own way. Winfrey was introducing the big in-memoriam Tina Turner tribute, and when she did, she said, “Tonight, to honor Tina Turner, her memory — with her own empowering voice, joined by Adam Blackstone, this is Fantasia Barrino.” (I’m guessing Blackstone, who played bass during the Tina Turner tribute, must have been musical director of the number. He does that sort of thing. And if he wasn’t, I’d be pretty pissed if I were one of the other people in the band who didn’t get acknowledge by Oprah!)

Oh — and, of course, Pride of Berks County Taylor Swift broke yet another record.

And from the No-Mo-JoJo Sports Desk …

Tyrese Maxey, fresh off being named an All-Star for the first time, scored a career-high 51 points in the Sixers’ big 127-124 win over the Jazz on Thursday night. For Saturday night’s game, Ben Simmons was in our house with the visiting Nets. Would he actually play? Would the crowd give him hell? No Embiid again — there’s something wrong with his meniscus, and he’s gonna have surgery — and Tobias Harris and Nic Batum were out, too. We started Tyrese, Marcus Morris Sr., Kelly Oubre Jr., Paul Reed and Danuel House. We did not, um, have a good start and were down 38-22 to end the first quarter. Gulp. It didn’t get better, and Coach Nurse got himself teed up in the second. Hey, look — there’s Simmons!

Philly boos Ben Simmons 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/UH8rhi1Zmg

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 4, 2024

But fan derision didn’t put points on the board. At the half: 67-51 Nets. At least Ben hadn’t scored. (And he had three fouls.) Another terrible showing, and a 136-121 loss. Did we mention Pat Bev got his ass tossed?

Patrick Beverley ejected from the game pic.twitter.com/cTVvBEdJvp

— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) February 4, 2024

At least Ben never did score. The Sixers play again tonight, still at home, against the Mavs, 7 p.m.

One bit of good local sports news: The Union finally worked things out with Alejandro Bedoya. The team captain and all-around good guy will have a combined playing/front-office role in the coming season.

Any College Hoops News?

On Thursday night, Drexel, leading the Coastal Athletic Association, lost a tough match with Monmouth, 67-62. On Friday, the Penn Quakers lost to the Brown Bears, 70-61. In a Saturday City Six matchup, St. Joe’s Hawks came from six back at the half to beat the La Salle Explorers, 88-82. Over in the Ivy League, Penn rebounded from a slow start at Yale, then slipped behind again for a 74-58 loss.

In Sunday’s games, Temple mounted a valiant second-half comeback against the Tulane Green Wave, forced overtime — and got clobbered in it, for a 92-80 loss — the Owls’ seventh in a row. And in the weekend’s final game, Providence paid a call on Villanova and were down 26-16 at the end of a low-scoring first half in which stalwart Wildcat Eric Nixon only scored two points.

James Naismith, watching Providence/Villanova pic.twitter.com/Nf4aowDd40

— Wes Ball-o-suknia (@walkrightier) February 4, 2024

‘Nova ran that up to 36-16 early in the second half, as the Wave was stone-cold and the ‘Cats’ defense was hot. The Friars got it down as low as 12 but were never really in it. Final: 68-50 ‘Nova. No City Six games on the schedule for tonight.

All Philly Today sports coverage is provided by Sandy Hingston.