Drayage Brokersin Philadelphia, PA

Fans of the Boston Celtics are very much enjoying the ongoing turmoil involving star guard James Harden and his widening rift with Philadelphia 76ers general manager Daryl Morey. Harden, who requested a trade and publicly criticized team management in a very public way while overseas in China, appears poised to burn all bridges with the organization in an effort to get to a new ball club.

Celtics fans are watching the unfolding dumpster fire to see if the situation escalates further. If it does, it could lead to star big man Joel Embiid seeking a trade from the Sixers as well.

Could we see a potential Eastern Conference contender implode well before the 2023 postseason arrives?

Check out the clip embedded above to hear what the host of the “Locked On Celtics” podcast John Karalis has to say about the matter.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Thursday will be dry for most of the daytime hours, but pop-up storms and very sticky air will ramp back up Thursday evening.

Early Thursday, some rain to our south might bring clouds or even showers north to the Shore points.

If the swampy air is not your thing - (maybe you're a glasses wearer or just aren't down for that Florida vibe) - you have a great weekend to look forward to.

A front to our northwest is moving across Thursday night into Friday. This will drop some rain on our area in the wee hours of Friday morning. But after that, winds will bring cool, dry air that actually takes the high temperatures below the seasonal average. Look how the muggy meter just plummets here!

We'll be clearing out with breezy and significantly drier air by Friday afternoon and evening making for a beautiful summer evening around the region.

Book those plans now as you'll want to take advantage of the nice set up.

Saturday looks incredible with low humidity and temperatures below average - with almost a fall feel to the morning.

Here's your 7-day forecast:

Thursday: Sunny, nice. High 87, Low 69

Friday: Warm and pleasant. High 83, Low 73

Saturday: Mostly sunny. High 82, Low 63

Sunday: Sunny and hot. High 88, Low 64

Monday: Hot again. High 91, Low 71

Tuesday: Sun and clouds. High 89, Low 72

Wednesday: Still quiet. High 87, Low 68

NEXT Weather Radars

Hourly Forecast

Get the latest weather info on the CBS News Philadelphia app.

CBS News Philadelphia Staff

The CBS News Philadelphia Staff is a group of experienced journalists who bring you the content on CBSPhiladelphia.com.

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PHILADELPHIA - As teacher shortages continue to be an issue across the country, the School District of Philadelphia is celebrating the success of a new program that launched three recent high school graduates into early childhood careers.

"It’s rare for you to be like, ‘When I was 4-years-old in preschool or daycare I had a male teacher, I had a male role model,’" and sometimes you can’t say you had a male role model in your household," says Mikail Grant. "It does bring me pride and joy to get to spend time with these little kids because they are, they are wonderful."

Grant and fellow Parkway West High School spring 2023 graduates Miyon Jones and Shytina Jones are the first students to complete summer internships through a new partnership between the high school and KenCrest Early Learning Center, which provides early childhood care for the district.

All three secured their Child Development Associate’s Certification, a full-time job at KenCrest, and nine college credits.

The partnership comes at a time when the district says high school seniors pursuing higher education to become a teacher is down 66% in Pennsylvania.

"You are setting the standard for a lot of young people, plus representation matters, not only do we need more educators, but we need more educators of color, particularly black and Latinx, because there’s a big, big shortage," says Superintendent Dr. Tony B. Watlington Sr.

Because of their employment at KenCrest and through a state grant, all three students are able to attend the Community College of Philadelphia debt-free, and they are all planning to start classes this fall.

Parkway West is the only high school in Philadelphia that currently offers an Early Childhood CTE program, and they hope others follow in their footsteps.

"If you think about our youth today, it’s always something negative," says Yenda Hall, a teacher at Parkway West High School. "We have amazing young men and women they just need an opportunity, and all they need is someone to believe in them and give them a chance."

In a series of sweeping moves, Opera Philadelphia, one of the city’s beacons of ambition and artistic innovation, is trimming operations as it plots out potentially bigger changes in response to the post-pandemic slump.

Audiences and philanthropy have not materialized to the extent once expected, so the opera troupe has cut its current annual budget by about 20% (from its originally approved $13.3 million) and eliminated five positions, or about 16% of staff. One production previously announced for the coming season — Joseph Bologne’s The Anonymous Lover — will be postponed a year, and the company will discontinue its paid streaming platform, the Opera Philadelphia Channel.

In addition, the group’s next act will be guided by a new leader. David B. Devan, who will have spent more than 18 years helping to retool the company (13 of them as chief), plans to step down as general director and president when his current contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 season.

Devan says that he arrived at the decision in May after an expected bounce in post-lockdown attendance failed to happen and it became clear the company would need to undergo another huge change.

“Initially, I was thinking, ‘Well, I better stick around to try to help through that.’ And it dawned on me that reengineering is a five- to eight-year gig of thinking and trying to find solutions, and that it would really be better if someone else did that. I don’t have eight years of CEO left.”

Stephen K. Klasko, Opera Philadelphia board chairman and the former president and CEO of Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, praised Devan’s role as a cheerleader for Philadelphia and opera, the way he quickly steered the company into online presentations when COVID-19 hit, the relationships he has developed for the company with a diverse group of artists, and for being “the single-most optimistic person on the planet.”

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Klasko said he did not try to talk Devan out of leaving.

“It was David’s decision. It was his third or fourth contract and he was ready to move on. I frankly don’t disagree with that. There is a point when anyone who is a leader needs to leave. I’ve always felt that for myself,” he said, referring to his own career path.

Devan, 60, came to the Philadelphia troupe as managing director in 2006 after serving as director of Pacific Opera Victoria in British Columbia. He rose to general director in 2011 and emerged as a kind of merry evangelist for a more than 400-year-old art form. He shortened the troupe’s name (from “Opera Company of Philadelphia”), commissioned and produced works that greatly expanded what could be considered opera, mounted performances in smaller and sometimes funkier spaces around the city, and created a new vehicle: the fall Festival O.

The festival’s initial funding supported a splashy initial O17 with 25 performances over 12 days. It drew listeners, won international awards, and generally impressed critics — a New York Times writer in 2018 called Opera Philadelphia “one of the most creative and ambitious in this country” — and in 2018 the company set out to raise $75 million to fund the company and festival over the next five years.

But donations fell short, with the company raising just $61.4 million over six years.

“There was a lot of research and data suggesting there would be philanthropy to support that [$15 million in annual donations],” says Devan, “and it turned out that wasn’t the case.”

On top of the lower-than-expected donations, COVID and the arts shutdown struck in 2020, damaging attendance. Last year’s O22 festival drew 6,970 ticket buyers, or about half of the number for O19, before the pandemic.

“And so you’ve seen that we have sort of reengineered the festival. We think it will still be important, but at a smaller scale,” says Devan of O23, which opens Sept. 21. “We’re now at a point where [the entire company] annual budget is sitting at $11 million” — down from a high of $18 million in 2017-18 — “and we think that is short-term sustainable.”

Still, Devan says he has no doubts that Introducing more new works and doing less of the traditional repertoire by Puccini, Mozart, Verdi, and Donizetti was the right move.

“One hundred percent yes,” he said. “I think it was absolutely vital that Opera Philadelphia develop a unique artistic voice for itself. It’s created an artistic point of view within the company that will stand it in good stead moving forward.”

The opera company is far from alone in struggling for audiences. Only 15% of performing arts groups in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties reported that attendance for the season that just ended was back to or exceeded that of 2019, according to a recent Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance/PA Humanities survey.

Red ink has begun to appear on the company’s ledgers — two $800,000 deficits in the last two fiscal years. During that time, opera has become more expensive to produce, says Klasko.

“It’s tough out there,” says Klasko. “We by and large have a very loyal subscriber base. In the mass-market things [traditional opera], we fill up the seats.” But for more cutting-edge projects, “we have to depend on philanthropy.”

One major change being contemplated is a potential strategic partnership or merger with another institution. Devan says he believes that both are worth considering, though nothing specific is being explored right now.

“There could be mergers with companies in other locations. There could be mergers with folks that have a new-work practice. There could be mergers of things that might not even look like they necessarily belong, outside of opera.”

Investigating those possibilities will be the work of the next general director. A search committee of board members, music director Corrado Rovaris (who has just signed a contract extension through May 31, 2027), and other opera leaders will be looking for someone who “has a view toward the future of opera in Philadelphia post-COVID,” says Klasko, and who can “take advantage of the fact that so much of our philanthropy comes from outside of Philadelphia.”

Also on the wishlist for a new general director’s vision:

“How do we become an incredibly integral part of Philadelphia in a couple of ways — in the whole downtown scene, which needs some work, and the equity piece? How can opera affect people in underserved areas?”

Devan, who plans to stay in Philadelphia and develop an arts consultancy, says that at one point a few years ago he had planned to remain at Opera Philadelphia until it had achieved stability. He once dreamed of raising money for an endowment to gird the annual budget.

He’s proud that the Opera Philadelphia he leaves behind will be “in step with contemporary urban life,” he says, and has “the future of the form as part of its DNA.”

Moreover, the company now is “tethered to a community, both operatic and Philadelphia. That’s something that I think we created. And so that’s good.”