This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Philly’s wooderfront will never be the same. The Port of Philadelphia announced major expansion plans this week, with the help of $837 million in state, federal and private funding. PhilaPort CEO Rich Lazer said the expansion includes a new auto and container cargo space, another docking berth and new cranes and equipment. 

Penn only ranks 7th on U.S. News & World Report’s list of top colleges – but its graduates rate No. 1 in 10-year alumni salary rankings, according to the website Visual Capitalist. Of the 15 top schools surveyed, Penn graduates had the highest median salary a decade out, at $151,000 annually, $20,000 more than No. 2, MIT.

By the end of the month, only six nicotine vape manufacturers, including Juul and Vuse, will be allowed to sell products in Pennsylvania. Disposable vapes, vape juice and e-cigarettes will soon be illegal in the commonwealth under a new law that takes effect on Oct. 19. The move to crack down on vaping – targeting illegal products and youth usage – means many retailers will have to stop selling the products or risk getting caught up in the smoke. 

Long gone are the days of substitute teachers rolling a television cart into a room as the day’s lesson plan. Pennsylvania school districts continue to grapple with a substitute teacher shortage, with 80% of districts in a PA Principals Association survey reporting a lack of pinch-hitting instructors. While that figure is down from 82% last year, fewer retirees and part-time workers are willing to return to the classroom, leaving districts across the commonwealth in a bind.  

Pitt is among nine U.S. universities the federal government is investigating for potential visa fraud. Vice President J.D. Vance said the schools are “using these visas way too much” to bring foreign researchers to campus, potentially undercutting the pay (such as it is) of American scholars. International student populations are already on the wane, winnowed by the Trump administration’s harsher immigration policies – including a proposed new $70,000 fee for student work visas.

Over the summer, the Philadelphia Police Department received a tip about an unsolved murder in the city, which would be welcome news in most cold cases. The problem? It was a false tip submitted by Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude, raising more questions about the adverse impacts of artificial intelligence. According to the company, Claude Haiku 4.5 submitted the false murder tip when it was instructed to complete tasks on randomly chosen websites. Anthropic reportedly discovered the incident more than two months after it occurred, which Philadelphia police said was “unacceptable.”