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Penn Museum buries bones of 19 Black Philadelphians, causing dispute with community members

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Penn Museum buries bones of 19 Black Philadelphians, causing dispute with community members


PHILADELPHIA — For decades, the University of Pennsylvania has held hundreds of skulls that once were used to promote white supremacy through racist scientific research.

As part of a growing effort among museums to reevaluate the curation of human remains, the Ivy League school laid some of the remains to rest last week, specifically those identified as belonging to 19 Black Philadelphians. Officials held a memorial service for them on Saturday.

The university says it is trying to begin rectifying past wrongs. But some community members feel excluded from the process, illustrating the challenges that institutions face in addressing institutional racism.

“Repatriation should be part of what the museum does, and we should embrace it,” said Christopher Woods, the museum’s director.

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The university houses more than 1,000 human remains from all over the world, and Woods said repatriating those identified as from the local community felt like the best place to start.

Some leaders and advocates for the affected Black communities in Philadelphia have pushed back against the plan for years. They say the decision to reinter the remains in Eden Cemetery, a local historic Black cemetery, was made without their input.

West Philadelphia native and community activist Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad said justice isn’t just the university doing the right thing, it’s letting the community decide what that should look like.

“That’s not repatriation. We’re saying that Christopher Woods does not get to decide to do that,” Muhammad said. “The same institution that has been holding and exerting control for years over these captive ancestors is not the same institution that can give them ceremony.”

Woods told the crowd at Saturday’s interfaith commemoration at the university’s Penn Museum that the identities of the 19 people were not recorded, but that the process of interment in above-ground mausoleums “is by design fully reversible if the facts and circumstances change.” If future research allows any of the remains to be identified and a claim is made, they can be “easily retrieved and entrusted to descendants,” he said.

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“It will be a very happy day if we can return at least some of these fellow citizens to their descendants,” Woods said.

At a blessing and committal ceremony later at Eden Cemetery, about 10 miles southwest of the museum in Collingdale, Renee McBride Williams, a member of the community advisory group, said she was “relived that finally the people who created the problem are finding a solution.”

“In my home growing up, when you made a mistake, you fixed it – you accepted responsibility for what you did,” she said.

“We may not know their names, but they lived, and they are remembered, and they will not be forgotten,” said the Rev. Charles Lattimore Howard, the university’s chaplain and vice president for social equity & community.

As the racial justice movement has swept across the country in recent years, many museums and universities have begun to prioritize the repatriation of collections that were either stolen or taken under unethical circumstances. But only one group of people often harmed by archaeology and anthropology, Native Americans, have a federal law that regulates this process.

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In cases like that between the University of Pennsylvania and Black Philadelphians, institutions maintain control over the collections and how they are returned.

The remains of the Black Philadelphians were part of the Morton Cranial Collection at the Penn Museum. Beginning in the 1830s, physician and professor Samuel George Morton collected about 900 crania, and after his death the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia added hundreds more.

Morton’s goal with the collection was to prove – by measuring crania – that the races were actually different species of humans, with white being the superior species. His racist pseudoscience influenced generations of scientific research and was used to justify slavery in the antebellum South.

Morton also was a medical professor in Philadelphia, where most doctors of his time trained, said Lyra Monteiro, an anthropological archaeologist and professor at Rutgers University. The vestiges of his since-disproven work are still evident across the medical field, she said.

“Medical racism can really exist on the back of that,” Monteiro said. “His ideas became part of how medical students were trained.”

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The collection has been housed at the university since 1966, and some of the remains were used for teaching as late as 2020. The university issued an apology in 2021 and revised its protocol for handling human remains.

The university also formed an advisory committee to decide next steps. The group decided to rebury the remains at Eden Cemetery. The following year, the university successfully petitioned the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court to allow the burial on the basis that the identities of all but one of the Black Philadelphians were unknown.

Critics note the advisory committee was comprised almost entirely of university officials and local religious leaders, rather than other community members.

Monteiro and other researchers challenged the idea that the identities of the Philadelphians were lost to time. Through the city’s public archives, she discovered that one of the men’s mothers was Native American. His remains must be repatriated through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the federal law regulating the return of Native American ancestral remains and funerary objects, she said.

“They never did any research themselves on who these people were, they took Morton’s word for it,” Monteiro said. “The people who aren’t even willing to do the research should not be doing this.”

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The university removed that cranium from the reburial so it can be assessed for return through NAGPRA. Monteiro and others were further outraged to discover the university had already interred the remains of the other Black Philadelphians last weekend outside of public view, she said.

Members of the Black Philadelphians Descendant Community Group, which was organized by people including Muhammad who identify as descendants of the individuals in the mausoleum, said in a statement they are “devastated & hurt” that the burial took place without them.

“In light of this new information, they are taking time to process and consider how best to honor their ancestors at a future time,” the group said, adding that members plan to offer handouts at Saturday’s memorial with information they have gathered on the individuals in the mausoleum.

“To balance prioritizing the human dignity of the individuals with conservation due diligence and the logistical requirements of Historic Eden Cemetery, laying to rest the 19 Black Philadelphians was scheduled ahead of the interfaith ceremony and blessing,” the Penn Museum said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Woods said he believes most of the community is happy with the decision to reinter the remains at Eden Cemetery, and it is a vocal minority in opposition. He hopes that eventually all the individuals in the mausoleum will be identified and returned.

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“We encourage research to be done moving forward,” Woods said, noting the remains of the Black Philadelphians were in the collection for two centuries and, along with his staff, he felt the need to take more immediate action with those remains.

“Let’s not let these individuals sit in the museum storeroom and extend those 200 years anymore,” he said.

Even if all the crania are identified and returned to the community, the university has a long way to go. More than 300 Native American remains in the Morton Cranial Collection still need to be repatriated through the federal law. Woods said the museum recently hired additional staff to expedite that process.

Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.



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Pennsylvania-born indie rockers Tigers Jaw return with new album release

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Pennsylvania-born indie rockers Tigers Jaw return with new album release


The chorus for the song “Primary Colors” was something Walsh wrote years ago, with the song’s outro originally being used as a verse.

“And something just wasn’t quite clicking, and everything that I tried felt kind of forced,” Walsh said. “We were all just like, ‘Yeah, there’s something here, but it’s not quite doing what I think it has the potential to do.’”

The band then started toying with the dynamics between the verses and the chorus.

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“It just unlocked something for me in the idea where I was like, ‘Wow, this kind of quiet, loud, quiet, loud format really works well with this song,’” Walsh said. “So yeah, it just transformed it instantly into an idea that felt a lot stronger.”

The album was recorded with Grammy-winning producer Will Yip, a relationship still budding from their 2014 album, “Charmer.” Collins said the new album’s sound is “as true as we could be to playing the record live.”

“I wasn’t as tied to the tones that have classically been Tigers Jaw because I think at this point, I’ve just come to this realization that no matter what, if we’re making it, it is Tigers Jaw,” Collins said.

The new album has a “palpable energy” that shares the same spirit as their earlier records, Walsh said. And while “tastes evolve,” the band followed “what feels good.”

“This is the best representation of the band at the time, and it’s almost like a snapshot of us as artists, as people, as a creative entity over this time in our career,” he said.

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“Lost On You” is out now through Hopeless Records and is available on vinyl, CD and various streaming platforms.

“Lost On You” was released on March 27, 2026, through Hopeless Records. The album is available on vinyl, CD and various streaming platforms.

On April 16, Tigers Jaw will perform at Union Transfer at 8 p.m. They will be supported by Hot Flash Heat Wave and Creeks, the solo project of Balance and Composure vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons, who is from Doylestown, Pennsylvania.





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Pennsylvania court upends mandatory use of life-without-parole for second-degree murder

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Pennsylvania court upends mandatory use of life-without-parole for second-degree murder


What to Know

  • Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court says the state cannot automatically give life without parole for felony murder without weighing each defendant’s culpability in the killing.
  • The high court on Thursday ordered a new sentencing hearing for Derek Lee over a second-degree conviction, but paused it for four months to give state lawmakers time to consider legislation in response.
  • Pennsylvania law has made people liable for second-degree murder if they participated in an eligible felony that led to death. Life with no possibility of parole has been the only possible sentence.
  • The court says the current rule treats a lookout the same as the person who kills.

Pennsylvania’s high court on Thursday overturned the use of automatic life sentences without parole for people convicted of second-degree murder, saying it violates the state’s constitutional ban on cruel punishment when imposed without a closer look at the defendant’s specific role and culpability.

The court majority ordered resentencing in the case of Derek Lee, convicted of a 2014 killing in Pittsburgh, but the decision also has implications for others among the roughly 1,000 other inmates currently serving similar second-degree murder sentences.

The court’s order was put on hold for four months to give the General Assembly time to “consider appropriate remedial measures.” In a footnote, the justices said they were ruling on Lee’s sentence and not addressing “questions of retroactivity.”

Prison reform groups hailed it as a landmark decision, while the Allegheny County district attorney’s office said it will follow the court’s order.

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Pennsylvania law has made people liable for second-degree murder if they participated in an eligible felony that led to death, and life without parole has been the only possible sentence.

“The mandatory penalty scheme of life without parole for all offenders convicted of second degree murder fails to assess individual culpability regarding the intent to kill, and mandates the same punishment regardless of that culpability,” wrote Chief Justice Debra Todd in the lead opinion. She characterized it as not distinguishing “between the lookout, and the killer who pulls the trigger.”

The state high court’s decision comes after years of advocacy to undo mandatory life without parole sentences both in Pennsylvania and nationally. Nazgol Ghandnoosh of the Washington-based Sentencing Project said she counts 11 states and the federal system as having such laws for that kind of crime, sometimes called felony murder. Several states — California, Colorado and Minnesota — have moved away from that sentencing framework in recent years, she said.

Justice Kevin Dougherty noted in a separate opinion that unlike those convicted of first-degree murder, defendants serving life without parole for second-degree murder have “never been found by a judge or jury to have harbored the specific intent to kill” and may not have had “any involvement whatsoever with the actual killing. He or she does not even have to expect or foresee that a life may be taken.”

Lee’s lawyers had wanted the court to rule that life without parole sentences are unconstitutional for all second-degree murder convictions in Pennsylvania, said Quinn Cozzens, a staff attorney for the Abolitionist Law Center, which helped represent Lee. Instead, the court ruled that trial judges must examine the individual circumstances of a defendant’s case to decide which sentence is most appropriate, including the potential of life without parole.

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The state’s public defenders’ association said the ruling will generate new post-conviction litigation and require them to do more investigation as well as develop “strategic litigation” to get the decision to apply retroactively.

A jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder but acquitted him of first-degree murder in 44-year-old Leonard Butler’s shooting death. Butler was shot in a struggle over a gun with Lee’s codefendant, Paul Durham.

Prosecutors argued it should be up to state lawmakers and the executive branch to address the policy issues surrounding second-degree murder sentences. Todd wrote that while the district attorney’s office “acknowledges that there may be persuasive arguments why a non-slayer should not be held to the same degree of culpability as the slayer, it stresses that these are policy decisions for the General Assembly.”

Cozzens urged lawmakers to “address this constitutional violation, given that the court granted them the opportunity to do so.”

Rep. Tim Briggs, a suburban Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the state House Judiciary Committee, said he planned to engage with Senate Republicans on potential legislation in response.

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Briggs said he wanted to have decision apply retroactively, to give people serving life “for being the getaway driver” to “have the opportunity to have their facts looked at again.”

“I think inaction leaves a lot of this up to the courts to decide. I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” Briggs said. “We have a policymaking role here.”

Justice Sallie Mundy wrote that Lee “willingly participated in an armed home invasion and robbery, and purposefully engaged in assaultive behavior in the form of tasing and pistol-whipping the victim.” She said Lee and Durham “arguably kidnapped the victims by forcing them into the basement” and it will be up to the county judge to decide if Lee’s life-without-parole sentence is appropriate.

Todd’s opinion, citing an advocacy group, said 73% of those convicted of felony murder in Pennsylvania were 25 or younger when the killing occurred and almost 70% are Black people.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also responded to the ruling on X.

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Teen boys in Pennsylvania get probation after using AI to create fake nude photos of classmates

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Teen boys in Pennsylvania get probation after using AI to create fake nude photos of classmates


Lancaster Country Day School in Lancaster, Pa., Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

LANCASTER, Pa. — Two teenage boys who used artificial intelligence to create fake nude photos of their classmates at an exclusive private school in Pennsylvania received probation Wednesday after dozens of victims described the images’ traumatizing effect on them.

The boys were 14 at the time. They admitted this month that they made about 350 images, showing at least 59 girls under 18, along with other victims who so far have not been identified.

Authorities said the boys took images of the girls from school photos, yearbooks, Instagram, TikTok and FaceTime chats in 2023 and 2024, and morphed them with images of adults depicting nudity or sexual activity.

More than 100 students and parents from Lancaster Country Day School were in court to hear victims describe the shock of having to identify their own faces in pornographic photos to detectives. Juvenile proceedings in Pennsylvania are normally closed, but this was opened by the judge, providing an unusual opportunity for the community to be seen and heard.

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The girls described the fallout — anxiety attacks, a loss of trust, problems focusing on schoolwork and a fear that the images may someday surface in unexpected ways.

The two young men stood stone-faced throughout, flanked by their lawyers and parents, as they were called pedophiles, “sick and twisted” and perverted.

“I will never understand why they did this,” one victim told Judge Leonard Brown, saying it “destroyed my innocence.”

One young woman told Brown “how excruciating it is to bring these feelings up again and again.” Another choked back tears as she excoriated one of the defendants for expressing “fake empathy” as girls confided with him about their pain, before it became known that he had been part of creating and disseminating the images. Still another said all of her friends transferred schools, and that she “needed trauma therapy to even walk around my neighborhood.”

The defendants declined several opportunities to comment to the judge, who said he had not heard either boy take responsibility or apologize.

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“This has been a regrettable, long, torturous process for everyone involved,” said Heidi Freese, defense attorney for one of the defendants. “There were very interesting, underlying legal issues surrounding the charges in this case and those will be decided on a different day in a different case.”

Brown ordered each to perform 60 hours of community service, have no contact with the victims and pay an unspecified amount of restitution. If they don’t have any additional legal problems, Brown said, the case can be expunged after two years.

As he imposed his sentence, Brown said that if they were adults, they probably would be headed for state prison. He said they should “take this opportunity to really examine” themselves.

The resolution of the Pennsylvania case comes days after three teenagers in Tennessee sued Elon Musk’s xAI, claiming the company’s Grok tools morphed their real photos into explicitly sexual images. The high school students are seeking class-action status to represent what the lawsuit says are thousands of people who were similarly victimized as minors.

The scandal in Pennsylvania led to a student protest, criminal charges against the two teenagers and the departure of leaders at the school, which says it has about 600 students K-12, class sizes averaging just 12 kids, and “an endowment in excess of $25 million.”

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Nadeem Bezar, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents at least 10 of the victims, said Tuesday he expects to file a claim “against the school and anybody else we think has culpability in these deepfakes being created and disseminated.”

He said he has not yet seen the photos but expects the legal process to determine “exactly when and where and how the school knew, how the boys created these images, what platforms they used to create these images and how they were disseminated.”

As AI has become accessible and powerful, lawmakers across the country have passed laws aimed at barring deepfakes.

President Donald Trump signed the Take it Down Act last year, making it illegal to publish intimate images including deepfakes without consent, and requiring websites and social media sites to remove such material within 48 hours of being notified by a victim.

Forty-six states now have laws addressing deepfakes, with legislation introduced in the remaining four — Alaska, Missouri, New Mexico and Ohio — according to the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

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Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.





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