We made it to the end of 2025, thanks to you and your readership! . And we are ready to take on 2026 and whatever it brings Philadelphia \u2014 together. Thank you for making the Billy Penn community as vibrant as it is!\u00a0<\/p>\n
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From Meir Rinde:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c$22,000 for dumping a couch? City boosts fines sharply and sues to collect.<\/a>\u201d (April 2025)\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been writing about the vexing problem of illegal dumping and trashy streets in Philadelphia for a number of years now. I\u2019ve occasionally wondered, who is doing all this dumping, and why? What would it take to make them stop? When I heard the city was starting to impose large fines on dumpers and sue them to collect, I decided to delve into who these people are and how the city is tracking them down.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked the city\u2019s Law Department for the list of cases, got the court filings \u2014 including some with surveillance images and police reports \u2014 created a spreadsheet, and started trying to contact the defendants. I quoted a few of them about the circumstances of the dumping incidents, along with police, city officials who oversee sanitation, and anti-dumping activists, and hopefully gave readers a new and different insight into the trash problem and the challenge of addressing it.\u201d<\/p>\n From Nick Kariuki:<\/p>\n https:\/\/billypenn.com\/2025\/04\/28\/running-groups-guide-list-philadelphia-area\/<\/a> (April 2025)<\/p>\n \u201cI had been in awe of Philly\u2019s running community since I moved to the city. As the self-titled \u201cworld\u2019s slowest Kenyan,\u201d my motivation to run generally has to come from chasing a soccer ball, sprinting around the bases in kickball, or trying to catch a SEPTA bus. From Julia Binswanger:\u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/billypenn.com\/2025\/10\/07\/karen-community-association-philadelphia\/<\/a> (October 2025)<\/p>\n \u201cLearning about the city\u2019s Karen population \u2014 a niche refugee community from Myanmar (formerly Burma) living in South Philly, was one of the most impactful stories that I had the pleasure of reporting this year. The story focused on the Karen Community Association of Philadelphia, a small organization founded last March, led by two Karen women and one Penn grad student. The group is dedicated to helping Karen people with translation and social service needs.<\/p>\n \u201cI got to connect with strong Karen women and hear more about the struggles they faced in their home country \u2014 this includes mass displacement, destruction of villages, homelessness and deaths of loved ones. What\u2019s more, I got to learn about how they have found solace and joy in Philadelphia\u2019s community gardens, growing and cooking delicacies from back home. I look forward to following their work into the new year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n From Violet Comber-Wilen:<\/p>\n https:\/\/billypenn.com\/2025\/03\/27\/university-arts-closure-student-impact-stories\/<\/a> (March 2025)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started investigating the UArts closure in February of this year, I was surprised to find that there was still a lot of confusion. The arts school had helped students embed themselves in the Philly area, and gave students, faculty and staff many opportunities directly in the city.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided a follow-up \u2014 a \u201cwhere are these people now?\u201d \u2014 story seemed to be necessary. I wondered how former faculty, students and staff were holding up. My first story in this series<\/a> focused on where deans\/upper-level faculty had ended up. But, engagement with our post about this story on social media revealed another need \u2014 the perspectives of everyone, including students.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom there, I talked to over 10 other students, faculty and staff from UArts. I wrote two <\/a>more faculty-centered pieces<\/a>, and ended the series with a piece focusing on former students<\/a>. There is still a lot of confusion on the school\u2019s abrupt closure, but writing this series of stories taught me a lot \u2014 it\u2019s always important to listen to what our community is telling us, and to amplify those voices. I\u2019m honored I got to tell these stories, and feel it started me on a path of community-centered journalism over my first year with Billy Penn. I\u2019m excited to see what comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n From Heather Chin:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis year kicked off with the stunning news of the Sixers backing out of their Center City arena plans after over two years of fighting local residents, business owners and some local politicians to get city approval. When my editor, Kevin Donahue, called me with the news, we both knew the reaction on the ground would be powerful and immediate<\/a>, and we were right. I spent that Sunday with WHYY colleague Cory Sharber traversing Chinatown to capture community reactions, from \u201cinitial skepticism, dazed elation, then cautious optimism<\/a>\u201d \u2013 it was a microcosm of exactly the kind of hyperlocal and ongoing community-focused reporting that Billy Penn and WHYY strive to provide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA topic of tremendous importance now and into the new year that I want to highlight is the impact of gun violence and the attendant media coverage of it on Philadelphia communities.\u00a0 Bonus sub-categories:<\/p>\n Most engaged with on Instagram<\/p>\n Most evergreen\u00a0<\/p>\n Most watched Reels<\/p>\n Most relevant for 2026\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHeather Chin is Billy Penn’s deputy editor. She previously was a digital producer at the Inquirer and an editor at outlets both print and digital \u2014 from national breaking news service Flipboard to hyperlocal…\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\u201cIt didn\u2019t take too many run group leaders and regulars to convert me into someone who looks forward to the next race in the city, and logging the miles of running<\/a> to get ready for it.
\u201cTo highlight Philly\u2019s running community, I searched out every run group I could find in the city \u2014 and some further out \u2014 to build a map of when and where the groups meet, along with a summary of the group\u2019s vibe. Anyone can use the guide to help find the run crew that\u2019s right for them. It definitely felt like a marathon, not a sprint, and this year I\u2019ll try to actually run with as many as my legs can manage. We\u2019ll also be updating it every so often, as Philly\u2019s run community spreads and thrives across the city<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly Penn already has a partnership with the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting (PCGVR) to bring you weekly Wednesday news briefs in our morning newsletter, but the national conversation around gun violence, including political and neighborhood conversations \u2013 plus new research and local projects \u2013 made it especially relevant this past year.\u00a0
\u201cSo we published a two-part series about Philadelphia\u2019s role in shaping gun violence reporting across the country. The first installment focused on the rising awareness of gun violence as a public health issue<\/a>. This second installment highlighted survivor and journalist voices and collaboration<\/a>. I look forward to continuing to follow these developments into the new year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Heather J. Chin\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"898 articles \u2014 and counting 1,991 new Instagram followers 1,711 new Bluesky followers 2 pop-up town halls\u00a0 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[564,94,69,71,70,31927],"class_list":["post-73619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-featured","tag-history","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-year-in-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}