Phillies get to Syndergaard and beat the Mets

NEW YORK - Minutes before the first pitch Thursday night, the enormous Citi Field video board showed Noah Syndergaard in the Mets dugout. He pulled a hooded sweatshirt over his head to reveal his No. 34. He adjusted his flowing blond hair under his hat. The fans began to cheer.

Eleven of his first 14 pitches zipped at 98 mph or faster. Syndergaard struck out the first three Phillies hitters. One of the game's most dominant pitchers fired triple-digit fastballs on the corners against a sluggish lineup.

That is why a 6-4 Phillies win could qualify as their best, less than three weeks into the season. Tommy Joseph cracked a double on a 100-mph heater. Maikel Franco ripped a 99-mph fastball to end his hitless streak.

The Phillies capitalized on New York's blunders. They did not render Syndergaard human - he still whiffed 10 and walked none in seven impressive innings - but they forced him to work.

"It's a good confidence boost," Joseph said.

The Phillies won even when Aaron Nola lasted just five innings. Joely Rodriguez emerged to throw perhaps the team's two best innings of relief all season. He retired all six Mets he faced on 17 pitches, with three strikeouts.

They won with a new closer, too. Hector Neris notched the save with a perfect ninth. Joaquin Benoit, who had two chances as closer, returned to a setup role. Is this a closer-by-committee situation?

"I don't want to name it anything," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. "You hear it a lot these days, about how pitchers are being used differently with different teams. I just look at it like this: It's nice to have two guys I trust in the eighth and the ninth. I trust both of those guys. I just seized the opportunity to try it tonight."

These two teams looked so unequal a week ago at Citizens Bank Park. But late Thursday night, the Phillies bused home with a series win in Queens. It was their first series victory over the Mets in more than a calendar year.

Without their two regular corner outfielders, the bottom of the Phillies lineup dented Syndergaard in the second inning. Aaron Altherr, a late addition to the lineup because Michael Saunders felt sick, singled on a 99-mph fastball. He stole second. He scampered home when Joseph shot a double down the right-field line.

Freddy Galvis put a 100-mph fastball in play, and a routine grounder created chaos when Jay Bruce flipped it to no one at first base. Andrew Knapp, the backup catcher, slashed a first-pitch, 91-mph change-up to left for a double that plated another run.

The Phillies, an inning after appearing helpless, had gained a three-run lead.

Syndergaard used 114 pitches in seven innings. The Phillies, before Thursday, led the majors with an average of 4.06 pitches per plate appearance this season. They were 27th last season, at 3.81 pitches per plate appearance. The patience has not yet translated to a proficient offense. But on Thursday, it challenged Syndergaard.

"That, in itself, is a tough chore," Mackanin said. "We made him work. We scored early on him. It was great to see. He's a bulldog. He was still throwing 98 in the seventh inning. We just took advantage of some mistakes he made. I give the guys a lot of credit for battling him and not being intimidated."

Joseph, whose slump rivaled Franco's, raised his batting average by 49 points with three hits. Franco doubled, homered, and walked. He was 0 for his previous 22 before the scorched double, which sailed over Yoenis Cespedes' head in the third inning to score the Phillies' fourth run.

Conclusions are not wise after 14 baseball games, and definitely not after one impressive inning from a pitcher. The Phillies, for 3 hours and 14 minutes, proved just that.

mgelb@philly.com

@MattGelb

Read more by Matt Gelb

Philly schools to add teachers, save against federal cuts with new city money

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Armed with a $65 million annual windfall, thanks to the city’s reassessment of commercial properties, the Philadelphia School District will invest in more teachers and sock money away against a possible loss of federal education dollars.

The school system plans to hire 66 teachers, officials told the School Reform Commission at Thursday's hearing on the district’s proposed $2.9 billion 2017-18 budget, to eliminate virtually all split classes — those where students from different grades learn in the same classroom with one teacher.

The district will also  hire 47 teachers to end leveling in grades kindergarten through 3. Through that process, some schools now lose educators in October if enrollment is under projections. Students and staff describe that process as enormously disruptive. In total, the district will spend $13 million on the extra teachers.

“Leveling has been a long nightmare for teachers and students and principals in the district,” said SRC member Christopher McGinley, a longtime educator.

Uri Monson, the district’s chief financial officer, said the district would also set aside more than $17 million annually to cover costs now paid for by federal Title II money. The Trump administration has proposed eliminating that program, which now pays for teacher training and early-literacy programs.

If the school system’s spending on its own schools increases, payments to charter schools go up, so Monson said some of the money must also be set aside to cover those costs.

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said he had another priority for the budget: contracts for the district’s teachers and principals. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has been without a contract for almost four years and without a raise for five; the principals’ union voted down a pact last year.

“It’s important to invest in fair contracts, and we are committed to doing that,” Hite said.

There has been a cry from teachers to allocate the entirety of new city money annually to a new labor contract, a suggestion that has been roundly rejected by the district.

The district still projects a massive deficit — $714 million over five years. Without course correction, it will have to cut programs.

Beyond information about how it plans to use the new money, there were scant details about the budget. SRC Chairwoman Joyce Wilkerson said City Council and the public would get the full picture in early May, when details are completed.

Students, teachers, and members of the public told the SRC they want a budget that emphasizes classroom spending and gives educators a new contract.

A number of students spoke about a lack of adequate staff to help students learning English.

Benxin Lin attends Furness High School in South Philadelphia, where more than half of the students are English-language learners. Being an immigrant is hard, especially with limited staff to assist, he said.

“Sometimes, I have to wait for days to get help,” Lin said.

Hite said that help would be forthcoming.

“There’s a variety of resources that we’re trying to push out to schools that have significant needs,” the superintendent said. Some will get additional bilingual assistants, some will get climate managers, and others conflict-resolution specialists.

There will be some additional counselors, too, Hite said — some schools now have more than 700 students and just one counselor. Next year, the central office will provide money for those to get a second.

Frustrated teachers also sounded off on the budget, calling for the district to settle a pact soon.

“Teachers that can leave this district have bailed for greener pastures,” said Alan Foo, a teacher at Bayard Taylor Elementary School in North Philadelphia.

The school system, he added, was “bleeding talent.”

Though Thursday marked the only formal SRC hearing on the nearly $3 billion budget, the commission limited speakers on the topic, citing a policy that prohibits more than six speakers on any side of one issue.

Karel Kilimnik, a retired city teacher, said the district was furthering an adversarial relationship with the public by doing so.

“You make decisions with our tax dollars,” said Kilimnik.

The SRC is set to adopt a budget at the end of May. The district goes before City Council to present the spending plan May 10, and the public can address City Council on the subject May 17.

Read more by Kristen A. Graham

Future of revamped health care bill remains dubious in House

WASHINGTON (AP) - Eager for a victory, the White House is expressing confidence that a breakthrough on the mired Republican health care bill could emerge in the House next week. The chamber's GOP leaders, burned by a March debacle, are dubious and signs are scant that an emerging plan is gaining enough votes to succeed.

During a White House __news conference on Thursday, President Donald Trump said progress was being made on a "great plan" for overhauling the nation's health care system, though he provided no details.

"We have a good chance of getting it soon," Trump said. "I'd like to say next week."

The White House optimism is driven largely by a deal brokered by leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group aimed at giving states more flexibility to pull out of "Obamacare" provisions. A senior White House official acknowledged that it was unclear how many votes Republicans had, but said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has told the White House that a vote could come together quickly.

Yet GOP lawmakers and aides to party leaders, conservatives and moderates alike were skeptical that the House would vote next week on the health legislation. They cited the higher priority of passing a spending bill within days to avert a government shutdown, uncertainty over details of the developing health agreement and a need to sell it to lawmakers.

Trump said he planned to get "both" a health care deal and a spending bill.

Many Republicans also expressed doubts that the health care compromise would win over enough lawmakers to put the bill over the top, especially among moderates. The bill would repeal President Barack Obama's health care law and replace it with less generous subsidies and eased insurance requirements.

"Every time they move the scrimmage line, you risk losing other people who were 'yes' but this changes them to a 'no,'" Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., said Thursday of attempts to win over one end of the GOP spectrum without losing votes from the other side. The Staten Island centrist said he remained a no vote, partly because the legislation would increase Medicaid costs for New York City's five boroughs.

The White House official and most lawmakers and GOP congressional aides who spoke were not authorized to discuss the internal process publicly and insisted on anonymity.

An outline of a deal has been crafted by Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who heads the hard-line Freedom Caucus, and New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur, a Tuesday Group leader. Vice President Mike Pence also played a role in shaping that plan, Republicans say.

It measure taking shape would deliver a win to moderates by amending the GOP bill to restore Obama's requirement that insurers cover specified services like maternity care. But in a bid for conservative support, states would be allowed to obtain federal waivers to abandon that obligation.

In addition, states could obtain waivers to an Obama prohibition against insurers charging sick customers higher premiums than consumers who are healthy - a change critics argue would make insurance unaffordable for many. To get those waivers, states would need to have high-risk pools - government-backed insurance for the most seriously ill people, a mechanism that has often failed for lack of sufficient financing.

"It looks to me like we're headed in the right direction," Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., a Freedom Caucus member, said Thursday. He said that assuming the outline is translated into legislative text he backs and is added to the health care bill, he would now support the legislation and believes most of the Freedom Caucus' three dozen members would also back it.

The Tuesday Group has roughly 50 members. They don't necessarily vote as a bloc, and it is unclear how many colleagues MacArthur would bring with him to such an agreement.

The White House is anxious to pass legislation quickly, partly because Trump will likely hit his 100th day in office without having signed a major piece of legislation.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, budget chief Mick Mulvaney said he was surprised at "the toxicity levels" that have divided the GOP over health care and hoped lawmakers' two-week break would prove "healing."

But House GOP leaders face the same problem that's plagued them for seven years of trying to concoct a plan for repealing Obama's 2010 law: The party's conservatives and moderates are at odds over how to do it. With Democrats solidly opposed, Republicans can lose no more than 21 House votes to prevail, and Ryan short-circuited a planned vote last month because more than that would have defected.

That was a major embarrassment to Ryan and Trump, and House leaders are loath to bring a revised health care bill to the House floor unless they are convinced it would pass.

Ryan sent a mixed message about the bill's prospects in remarks Wednesday to reporters in London.

"It's difficult to do. We're very close," he said, adding, "It's just going to take us a little time."

___

Associated Press writers Julie Bykowicz, Catherine Lucey, Andrew Taylor and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

Lawmakers revisiting requiring those on Medicaid to work

WASHINGTON (AP) - A simple question - should adults who are able to work be required to do so to get taxpayer-provided health insurance? - could lead to major changes in the social safety net.

The federal-state Medicaid program for low-income and disabled people covers more than 70 million U.S. residents - about 1 in 5 - including an increasing number of working-age adults. In a break from past federal policy, the Health and Human Services Department under Secretary Tom Price has already notified governors it stands ready to approve state waivers for "meritorious" programs that encourage work.

Separately, an amendment to the still-stuck House GOP health care bill would allow individual states to require work or training for adults, with exceptions such as pregnant women, or parents of a disabled child.

Yet a surprising number of working-age adults with Medicaid are already employed. Nearly 60 percent work either full- or part-time, mainly for employers that don't offer health insurance, says the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Most who are not working report reasons such as illness, caring for a family member, or going to school.

Geraldine Stewart, a Medicaid beneficiary from Charlotte, North Carolina, questioned the impact of a work requirement on older adults. Stewart was incapacitated by painful problems with her feet, now relieved by surgery covered under the program. In her early 60s, she was able to return to part-time work as a home health aide after treatment.

"To do work anywhere, I have to have my feet," said Stewart. "I really hope that they do not force anyone who has a medical condition to work to have to pay for those services. I don't think it's been researched properly."

The debate over work requirements for safety net programs isn't new. With Medicaid, it doesn't break neatly along liberal-conservative lines.

On the political right, some say the idea is flawed because a person who refuses to work will still be able to get free treatment by going to a hospital emergency room. Others say Medicaid was established by law as a health program, and work requirements would compromise that original mission.

"It's a policy that comes out of a misunderstanding of the situation facing low-income families," Jason Helgerson, head of New York's Medicaid program, said of work requirements. "People need health care to function in the work force. Threatening that, in my view, does not help in any meaningful way."

In a recent letter to governors, HHS Secretary Price and Seema Verma, the new head of Medicare and Medicaid, suggested that work itself can be good for health. "The best way to improve the long-term health of low-income Americans is to empower them with skills and employment," they wrote.

Liberals are relishing the contrast if Trump pursues tax cuts for the wealthy while putting the poor to work. "The Republican focus is backwards," said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Work requirements are under discussion in a number of states, and the first test for the Trump administration could come on a pending waiver application by Kentucky. The proposal from Republican Gov. Matt Bevin would allow the state to suspend coverage for able-bodied adults who don't comply. Job training and caring for a disabled relative would count toward fulfilling the obligation. "Medically frail" people dealing with certain conditions, from substance abuse to cancer, would be exempt.

For Bevin, getting federal approval is key to continuing a Medicaid expansion launched by his Democratic predecessor to take advantage of then-President Barack Obama's health care law. Nationwide, the future of the expansion is uncertain with Republicans committed to rolling back Obama's law. Work requirements could entice GOP-led states to expand their programs and cover more low-income adults.

That may be more symbolism than real change, said Robert Rector, a social policy expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"I consider it misleading to suggest you are going have a meaningful work requirement in a medical program, because that's the most difficult area to do it in," said Rector. "If an individual doesn't perform, and then they get sick, it's just not going to be enforced."

Advocacy groups representing the poor may go to court. "Medicaid is a medical assistance program," said Jane Perkins, legal director the National Health Law Program. "We do have a problem" with making work a condition of eligibility.

Others are worried that work requirements could become barriers for people down on their luck.

In small-town Paris, Tennessee, Medicaid beneficiary Mayela Stephenson said, "I wasn't afraid of work."

Now in her mid-50s, she worked factory jobs most of her life before becoming disabled due to nerve and bone problems. Even with her disability, Stephenson said she had to get legal help to force the state to grant her Medicaid.

Although she agrees that able-bodied people should work, Stephenson said she has concerns that those with health problems will get hurt.

"How would one measure someone's disability as to what degree that person would be able to work?" she asked. "It would have to be based on each individual's circumstance. You would have to go case-by-case, and how on earth will they do that?"

Top national security official to leave Justice Department

WASHINGTON (AP) - The official leading the Justice Department's investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign had ties to Russia's meddling in the 2016 election is leaving her position next month.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary B. McCord told the staff of the department's national security division this week she is leaving to pursue other opportunities.

Her departure leaves a major vacancy at a time when several key positions within the department remain unfilled. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' picks for deputy and associate attorney general - the No. 2 and No. 3 officials at the Justice Department - await Senate confirmation, and the Trump administration has not announced other top political appointees. A month after Sessions sought the resignations of the nation's U.S. attorneys, their replacements are not yet in place.

A longtime federal prosecutor, McCord had been acting as head of the national security division since October. The unit oversees cases involving terrorism, espionage, cybercrime and other national security threats. She joined that unit in 2014 after working in the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Columbia for 20 years.

In her memo, McCord did not reveal what she plans to do next, aside from spending time with her family.

---

Everything is happening so fast — or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies — but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We're launching a newsletter to explore just that. Sign up here.

Published: April 20, 2017 — 4:48 PM EDT

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Trump's Wall Streeters want to take over transport, energy finance

The Wall Street veterans who are starting to set policy at the Trump White House hope to change how America finances roads, rails and bridges, ports and airports, pipelines and cables, schools and clinics, and other costly projects we all rely on.

They’re looking at giving Washington more power to build bigger stuff, instead of state and local elected officials — and at steps that would likely both speed construction times and boost finance rates.

One thing you can bet won't change is who, in the end, pays for public projects: That would be us. The American public. Who else?

President Trump "wants wins now,” and “infrastructure” sounds like a winner, writes Thomas G. Doe, boss at Municipal Market Advisers, a Connecticut-based bond firm, in a note to clients last week after Trump’s top policy guys aired their priorities — not in congressional hearings, but at bond-industry gatherings.

The Trump administration’s preference for private finance, Doe writes, “can be attributed to a key player in the restructuring of the municipal industry: D.J. Gribbin, special assistant to the president for infrastructure policy."

Gribbin's experience is with really big builders: Australia-based Macquarie Capital, which invests around the world in infrastructure projects (and owns Philadelphia’s Delaware Investments); Koch Industries, whose owners are leading Republican donors; and HDR, the big engineering and construction company with offices in Philadelphia and dozens of other cities.

Gribbin works closely, Doe notes, with Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president who now heads Trump’s National Economic Council. A New York Democrat, he's a natural candidate to build political bridges to liberal and labor Congress members.  

Cohn, Gribbin, Treasury Secretary (and Goldman Sachs veteran) Steve Mnuchin, and Commerce Secretary Wibur Ross, the buyout king, are the “Four Horsemen” who could restructure infrastructure finance to better serve corporate America “under the guise of efficiency, savings, and jobs for the middle class,” according to Doe.  

One Cohn target: muni bonds' long-standing exemption from federal income taxes, which has survived a century of attacks by laissez-faire Republicans and socialist-leaning Democrats. Canceling it could help raise cash to fund the tax cuts the party has promised corporations and wealthy taxpayers.

Even if Congress won't kill "The Exemption" outright, the promised high-end tax cuts would make muni bonds less attractive to investors — especially in low-credit states such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, whose borrowing is extra expensive. (These are also among states that could lose billions to another Republican proposal: to cut federal tax breaks for state and local taxes.)

"A reduced tax rate and streamlined tax laws would severely crimp demand" for muni bonds as we know them, utilities analyst Ryan Connors, managing director at investment bank Boenning & Scattergood in West Conshohocken, told me. 

Trump's Wall Street allies don't all "openly" articulate their preference for private finance instead of tax-free local bonds — but have made it "evident in the policies put forth for consideration," writes Municipal Market Advisers' Doe.

Projects could instead be fronted by private, taxable, higher-rate bonds, which advocates hope will finance more "public-private partnership" (P3) arrangements that would build projects free of state and local restrictions, faster than traditional muni financing.

Trump's early economic adviser, maverick economist Peter Navarro, failed to win quick support for direct tax credits to draw private money to public infrastructure projects, notes George Friedlander, managing partner at New York-based Court Street Group, which advocates state or regional "infrastructure banks" instead of a big, national effort.

Maybe Infrastructure Investment Trusts, similar to real estate investment trusts, could attract profit-hunting private investors to finance transport and energy projects, suggests Scott Crowe, chief investment officer at BNY Mellon's $10 billion-asset CenterSquare Investment Management real estate unit in Plymouth Meeting.  

For all their possible management advantages, privately financed infrastructure will still require fat and repeated public funding subsidies to pay investors back — whether from tolls, bond sales, or federal “seed” money, Doe reminds us. 

For an extreme example of what can go wrong when public projects rely on private financing, Doe suggests socialist Venezuela, "where a default on the state-owned oil company’s debt could place the country’s assets in the hands of a foreign government."

The rapid inflation of U.S. college and medical costs also shows what can go wrong when massive public financing is applied to privately run industries.

Doe worries that centralizing infrastructure can lead to reckless spending: The “idiosyncratic” system of local funding has at least given taxpayers “a defense against corporate abuse, disruptive lobbying, egregious borrowing, and loss of local control."

Everything is happening so fast — or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies — but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We're launching a newsletter to explore just that. Sign up here.

Read more by Joseph N. DiStefano

A 'Rocky' landmark in Kensington demolished

The Kensington storefront recognizable to fans of the Rocky movie franchise as Adrian's fictional pet store was unceremoniously demolished Thursday, according to a city tour guide.

Ben Caplan, who routinely leads tourists to the movie's filming locations throughout the city, said that when he took sightseers to 2146 N. Front St., he found construction workers dismantling the three-story building.

"I was getting ready to tell these people, 'Well, hey, across the street is the --,' and then I looked over and saw a big bulldozer," said Caplan, who has been giving Rocky tours for just over a year.

Four of the seven Rocky movies — including Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky V, and Rocky Balboa — shot scenes in the building's first-floor commercial space. In the film, the store was home to the pet shop where Adrian worked and where the title character bought two turtles, Cuff and Link, as well as a 140-pound bull mastiff, Butkus.

According to city property records, the building was owned by  Joseph Marks from 1981 until 2011, when he signed the deed over to an Anthony R. Lighty for $1. Neither Marks nor Lighty could be reached to comment.

The storefront, which at one point was occupied by J&M Tropical Fish, was one of several filming locations in the Kensington area, which included the setting for Rocky's apartment, gym, and favorite bar. The building has been empty the last few years.

Before leaving North Front Street, Caplan said he and a couple of tourists grabbed some souvenirs.

"They were scooping bricks into a dumpster," Caplan said. "So me and the two people who were on the tour went over and asked if we could take some bricks. So we'll always have those keepsakes."

Staff writer Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.

Read more by Tommy Rowan

Dancing with the Stars Week 5: Who Went Home on Disney Night?

When DWTS does Disney, they really do Disney. 

Tonight was like when you take a trip to Disneyland, but it's too hot so you just go from air conditioned show to air conditioned show, basking in lights and sparkles and Disney songs and inoffensive princess dancing. In other words, lovely. Add a turkey leg and a Dole Whip and we'll never be happier. 

Unfortunately, that happiness could not last forever. Our precious Erika Jayne was eliminated tonight after last week's Madonna number failed to impress, even though this week's routine was great. The RHOBH star was in the bottom two with Bachelor star Nick Viall, and was ultimately sent home, but we'll never forget her. 

Now, let's talk about tonight's truly incredible (for the most part) dances...

ABC

Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater: 32/40

The judges' scores were all over the place, and we kind of get it. Rashad just didn't seem into it, and after last week's emotional contemporary routine, his Beauty and the Beast routine wasn't as compelling. 

ABC

Nick Viall and Peta Murgatroyd: 34/40 

Pinocchio is our least favorite Disney movie so we hated this. Our hatred has nothing to do with Nick, and in fact he did a pretty good job, but seriously why does anyone like that movie? 

Read

Rashad Jennings on His Emotional Dancing With the Stars Performance: It Didn't Feel Like I Was Dancing

ABC

Erika Jayne and Gleb Savchenko: 32/40

We didn't dislike her Madonna routine last week as much as the judges apparently did, but Erika really did look much happier and much more at ease during her Finding Dory routine. 

ABC

Heather Morris and Alan Bersten/Maks Chmerkovskiy: 34/40

We feel bad for Heather that we're just irritated when she's really good, which she was tonight. It was a perfect Frozen Broadway routine. However, Carrie Anne was kind of right in that we wouldn't have been able to tell that was jazz if we didn't know it was supposed to be. Though we also might not know what jazz is. It's fine. 

(Good news: Maks is back next week!) 

Read

Dancing with the Stars Week 4: Who Went Home After Their Most Memorable Year?

ABC

Bonner Bolton and Sharna Burgess: 30/40 

Fun, but we were paying way more attention to Sharna than to Wreck-It Ralph himself, Bonner Bolton. 

ABC

Normani Kordei and Val Chmerkovskiy: 39/40

Literally all DWTS had to do to make up for subjecting us to Pinocchio was give us a paso doble to Mulan's "I'll Make a Man Out of You," sung live by (actual voice of Shang) Donny Osmond. It also helped that it was damn good. 

Len, we will never understand you and your quest to ruin deserving perfect scores with your nines. 

Photos

Dancing With the Stars' 9 Biggest Feuds

ABC

David Ross with Lindsay Arnold: 29/40 

We're not the target demo for Cars 3, but that was fun. It definitely was more fun than three sevens! Not sure what's going on with the scores this season, but they're weird. 

ABC

Nancy Kerrigan and Artem Chigvintsev: 36/40

This was the most Nancy Kerrigan of all the Nancy Kerrigan dances, and it was perfect, if you ask us. We just really want to see her do something funkier next week! 

Photos

Dancing With the Stars Injuries

ABC

Simone Biles and Sasha Farber: 38/40 

OK, Auli'i Cravalho is a sunbeam contained in a person, so employing her to sing live while you dance feels a little bit like cheating, but that doesn't matter when the dancing (and the dancer) is also made of sunbeams. Simone's finally doing what we imagined she could do on this show, and it's so satisfying. 

Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.