Helen Ubinas

1 week ago | inquirer.com | Luis F. Carrasco |Luís Carrasco |Helen Ubinas |Sabrina Vourvoulias

Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.), addressed his colleagues in Congress about the events of last week, when he attempted to ask questions at a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. On June 12, the Mexican American senator was jostled, shoved and forcibly removed from the news briefing by several security officers, who pushed him first to his knees and then to the ground as they handcuffed him in the hallway outside the room.

2 weeks ago | inquirer.com | Helen Ubinas

Not to brag, but Bad Bunny and I have the same taste in books. When I began exploring the topic of Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia in my last column, one of the first people I knew I needed to speak with was historian Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, author of Puerto Rico: A National History. Published last year and now out in paperback, the book is a deep and highly readable account of the island.

1 month ago | inquirer.com | Helen Ubinas

This isn’t the column I expected to write while waiting for the verdict in the trial of former Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial in the fatal shooting of Eddie Irizarry. Dial, a white officer, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2023 killing of Irizarry, a Puerto Rican man who was shot six times in the first six seconds of a traffic stop in Kensington. When the jury started its deliberations, I was steeling myself to write about how the system had let us down — again.

1 month ago | inquirer.com | Helen Ubinas

There’s nothing wrong with putting your money where your mouth is — if you’re actually saying something useful, and if it’s your money. And yet here in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in America, our elected officials are blowing millions of our taxpayer dollars on public relations dressed up as public information. As my Inquirer colleagues Ryan Briggs and Sean Collins Walsh reported in the kind of story that should make any hardworking Philadelphian scream, Mayor Cherelle L.

1 month ago | inquirer.com | Helen Ubinas

I can’t help but wonder what lyrics Qidere Johnson — a Philadelphia rapper known for his powerful verses condemning gun violence — would have penned about this moment. Since his death on May 11 — Mother’s Day — a pall has hung over his favorite corners of the city like a storm cloud: heavy with grief, thick with sorrow, and stretching all the way from the North Philly neighborhood where he grew up to City Hall.