The Streets Department on Tuesday is removing snow that has piled up around City Hall, and the operation requires street closures on nearby blocks, the agency said.
With the region expected to remain in a prolonged deep freeze, there is no chance the snow piles will melt anytime soon. And weather forecasters say the region might be hit with another storm this weekend, so the city is eager to get rid of the existing snow.
The “lifting operation” includes the removal of snow using dozens of vehicles, including excavators and loaders, the department said Tuesday.
The city already has been conducting lifting operations in North Philadelphia, removing snow from Girard Avenue and nearby neighborhoods since Sunday evening, the department said.
Three people were found dead Monday at a Bucks County home where a man barricaded himself for hours before being taken into custody, police said.
Police in Northampton Township said they responded around 2:15 p.m. to a home on the unit block of Heather Road for a well-being check and were confronted by a man armed with a knife.
The South Central Emergency Response Team responded to the scene and later took the suspect into custody, police said, adding that there was no danger to the community.
Police released no other details about the victims or the man who was in custody.
A neighbor who asked not to be named said that earlier in the day, police several times tried to communicate over a loud speaker or megaphone with a man inside the house.
“We just want to talk to you. Come out. We just want to talk,” the neighbor recalled the police saying to the man. “But nobody came out.”
The neighbor said a couple possibly in their 80s have lived in the home for decades and had a son and a daughter. The son, possibly in his 50s, has moved in and out of the home several times over the years, the neighbor said.
At 3:17 p.m., the Northampton Township Police Department posted an alert on Facebook asking the public to avoid the area of Heather Road and Second Street Pike because of police activity.
The neighbor said officers from several other police agencies responded to the scene. There were two armored vehicles and several ambulances included as part of the response.
“It seems like they kept coming and coming and coming,” the neighbor said.
Around 7:35 p.m., the neighbor said some police officers had left, but many were still at the scene.
A Virginia teen who admitted in court that he wanted to join ISIS pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted murder and related offenses for a stabbing attack last year on a Florence Township police officer, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said Friday.
Fasihullah Safar, 17, of Alexandria, Va., was charged as an adult and will be sentenced to 18 years in prison under a plea deal, Bradshaw said. He is scheduled to be formally sentenced on March 26 in Superior Court in Mount Holly.
The police officer who was stabbed several times in the chest was wearing a ballistic vest that prevented more significant injuries, Bradshaw said.
On March 21, 2025, Safar, who was 16 at the time, was driving a stolen vehicle when he intentionally caused a crash with another vehicle, Bradshaw said. A Florence police vehicle responding to the scene was then struck multiple times by Safar’s vehicle.
Safar’s vehicle became inoperable on Route 130 near Station Road. When officers arrived, Safar charged them while armed with a knife, Bradshaw said. Besides the officer who was stabbed, suffering a laceration to his torso and facial injuries, two other officers sustained minor injuries. During the struggle, Safar also cut himself.
In court, Safar admitted that in the months before the confrontation, he had begun following the Islamic State organization, Bradshaw said. Safar had indicated on social media that he planned to join the group.
Safar admitted that he shouted “Allahu akbar” during the confrontation with police, and that he intended to kill one of the officers, Bradshaw said.
Prior to the violent encounter with police in Florence Township, he was being sought by authorities, including the FBI, after he allegedly trespassed at a school in Fredericksburg, Va., causing the local district to close all schools.
A school resource officer approached Safar, who then fled and later allegedly stole a vehicle.
One report later said Safar had been investigated by the FBI after the teen allegedly posed on social media with what appeared to be a firearm.
A 60-year-old man has been accused through an indictment of drugging and sexually molesting two men who at different times rented a room from him at his home, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said Wednesday.
Craig M. Cardella, of Mansfield Township, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at his arraignment in Superior Court in Mount Holly. He was charged by indictment in December with multiple counts of kidnapping, aggravated criminal sexual contact, and related offenses.
Robert M. Perry, Cardella’s lawyer, declined to comment Wednesday evening.
The charges involved two victims during separate time periods, Bradshaw said.
In late 2024, a man renting a room from Cardella contacted Mansfield Township police and said he awakened at night to find Cardella in bed with him, holding a mask over his mouth and nose and touching him sexually, Bradshaw said.
A search warrant was obtained for Cardella’s home and a safe was discovered in a closet that contained two bottles of chloroform, along with prescription sleep medication, medical masks, a camcorder and digital storage devices, Bradshaw said.
Prosecutors allege that Cardella used the chloroform to prevent his victims from waking while they were being molested.
Anyone who believes they were victimized by Cardella can contact Detective Ken Allen at allen@mansfieldpd.org.
A Wilmington native who died while being held as a prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II has been positively identified through analysis of his remains, U.S. military officials said this week.
Army Lt. Col. Louis E. Roemer was taken prisoner in the Philippines when the Japanese captured the island fortress of Corregidor in May 1942 after American forces lost the Bataan Peninsula, according to historical news accounts.
He remained a POW in the Philippines until late 1944, when the Japanese began to move prisoners as an American invasion force retook the occupied territory.
Roemer may have survived transport on two Japanese “hell ships” — which had reputations for inhumane conditions and cruel treatment — that were both attacked by Allied forces, only to die afterward of an illness, reportedly on Jan. 22, 1945. He was 43.
He had been loaded in Manila onto the transport ship Oryoku Maru, destined for Japan. However, U.S. carrier-borne aircraft attacked the Oryoku Maru, and it eventually sank in Subic Bay on Dec. 15, 1944.
Roemer was then transported to Formosa, now known as Taiwan, aboard the Enoura Maru. While that ship was docked at the Port of Takao in Formosa and still loaded with prisoners of war, it was hit by Allied aircraft on Jan. 9, 1945. Approximately 400 Allied POWs were killed.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the Japanese reported that after the Enoura Maru was attacked, Roemer was placed aboard the Brazil Maru, bound for Moji, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Roemer reportedly died of acute colitis during the last stage of transport, the Japanese reported.
“However, since historical and contemporary evidence indicate that the Japanese government-reported Brazil Maru casualties list contains errors, he conceivably could have died at any point during this December 1944 to January 1945 POW transport, including the Jan. 9 attack on the Enoura Maru,” the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said.
In 1946, a U.S. military search-and-recovery team exhumed a mass grave on a beach at Takao in Formosa and recovered 311 bodies. Attempts to identify the remains were unsuccessful, and they were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.
In 2022 and 2023, remains linked to the Enoura Maru were disinterred from the Punchbowl for analysis. Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said. Scientists also used mitochondrial, Y-chromosome, and autosomal DNA analysis.
Roemer was officially accounted for on July 28, 2025, the agency said Wednesday. The announcement was made after Roemer’s family received a briefing on his identification.
Roemer will be buried in Pittsburgh, the agency said.
According to historical news accounts, Roemer was one of three brothers who served as high-ranking military officers during World War II. He was born in Wilmington and graduated from the University of Delaware in 1922 with a chemical engineering degree. He was inducted into the Army through the ROTC.
Before the war, he was assigned to the Chemical Warfare Service on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines under Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright.
Japan attacked the Philippines just hours after Pearl Harbor. On April 9, 1942, American and Filipino forces surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula, and Corregidor fell about a month later.
Roemer was subjected to the notorious Bataan Death March, which led to the death of thousands of POWs.
His family did not know what had happened to him until December 1942, when they were notified by the U.S. War Department that he was a prisoner of war in the Philippines.
Roemer was able to send a couple of postcards to his family through a system facilitated by the International Red Cross, and on one occasion a freed POW was able to communicate a message to Roemer’s family he had heard through a POW “grapevine.”
Col. Louis D. Hutson wrote to Roemer’s wife, Mary, and said Roemer “was in very good health and quite cheerful and he asked in case I were returned to the States before he returned that I write you and send you and his boys and his mother all his love,” the Wilmington News Journal reported on March 30, 1945.
At that point, Roemer had already been dead for at least two months.
His family did not learn about his death for about five more months.
Roemer was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star Medal with V device and the Legion of Merit award.
“Colonel Roemer saved hundreds of lives during the famed Bataan Death March, but it was for his service before the surrender of American troops that he was decorated,” a 1947 News Journal article said.
Another news story relayed an account by Sgt. Alfred Torrisi, who said that during the Bataan Death March, Roemer “often slipped out of camp at night into the jungle to get wood for charcoal, from which he made the only soothing medicine available for the sick men.”
Torrisi said Roemer was in charge of hospital service at the Cabanatuan prison camp, where “practically everyone was a patient.”
A 22-year-old man was charged with sexually assaulting a woman in her 90s during one of four home break-ins last year in Montgomery County, authorities said Thursday.
John Vernon Gray of Telford was arrested Jan. 10 and was charged with rape and related offenses. He was being held without bail at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.
The four nighttime break-ins occurred around Towamencin Township and involved four women who Gray allegedly believed were living alone, authorities said.
On May 10, around 2:25 a.m., a 79-year-old woman was awakened by a man trying to enter her house on Dock Drive through her bedroom window, authorities said. She screamed and scared him away.
About an hour later, a man entered a residence in the Dock Woods Senior Living Community and sexually assaulted the occupant, a woman in her 90s, authorities said.
On Nov. 8, two more break-ins occurred. Police responded around 3 a.m. to a home on Dock Drive where a 72-year-old woman reported being awakened by a man in her bedroom who attempted to lift her nightgown, authorities said. The woman screamed and the man fled.
About 30 minutes later, a man entered a residence on Crosshill Court in Towamencin Township through a rear sliding glass door, entered the bedroom, and touched a 46-year-old woman, authorities said. The man fled when the woman screamed for her husband.
David Zandstra, the former Marple Township pastor acquitted last year in the 1975 murder of an 8-year-old girl in Delaware County, has died, and a federal lawsuit has been filed alleging misconduct by two Pennsylvania State Police investigators in the case.
The lawsuit said the 85-year-old Zandstra, who lived in Georgia, “has passed and his family seek redress for this extreme and immoral prosecution.”
No further information about his death was included in the complaint. The Delaware County Daily Times, citing his death certificate, reported that Zandstra died Dec. 15 at a hospice, and the cause of death was skin cancer.
Mark Much, one of Zandstra’s lawyers during the trial but who is not an attorney on the lawsuit, said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday night that “Zandstra passed away last month, peacefully, and surrounded by his loving family.”
Much said that Zandstra “was a God-fearing man, unsuspecting and trustful of law enforcement, naive of their unscrupulous interrogation tactics, all in the name of ‘solving’ a cold case.”
The defendants in the lawsuit, filed Jan. 10 in Philadelphia, are Andrew Martin and Eugene Tray, who were the most recent state police investigators for Gretchen Harrington’s murder.
Gretchen Harrington, 8, was found dead in 1975.
Tray declined to comment on the lawsuit. Martin could not be reached for comment.
The plaintiff is Margaret Zandstra, the administrator of the estate of David Zandstra, who allegedly had his civil rights violated by the defendants, the lawsuit states.
Zandstra, who was held in custody for 18 months, was found not guilty in January 2025 by a Delaware County jury of murder and kidnapping in the killing of Gretchen Harrington. The jury took about an hour to deliberate after a four-day trial.
In 2023, Zandstra was charged after he confessed to driving Gretchen to a secluded section of Ridley Creek State Park and beating her to death. The lawsuit says the investigators “illegally coerced an admission of guilt from Mr. Zandstra, a then-83-year-old stroke and cancer survivor.”
Mark Much argued during the trial that state police investigators had coerced and manipulated Zandstra into confessing to a crime he did not commit. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime and DNA found on Gretchen’s clothing belonged to two unidentified men and one unidentified woman.
Testimony during the trial revealed that before Zandstra’s confession, the state police had developed several other suspects in the decades since Gretchen’s body was found.
The lawsuit provides alleged details about what the investigators did before finally going after Zandstra.
“These Defendants caused evidence of the alternative suspects and Mr. Zandstra’s exclusion as a contributor of DNA to be withheld until the eve of trial, after Mr. Zandstra had been incarcerated and his cancer had returned and gone untreated,” according to the complaint.
Zandstra was the pastor at Trinity Chapel in Marple Township, a Christian reform church near the Harrington family home. On Aug. 15, 1975, Gretchen was last seen walking to the church for the final session of vacation Bible school before disappearing.
Her unclothed body was found two months later near a walking trail in Ridley Creek State Park. An autopsy revealed she died from blunt-force trauma to the head.
Deputy District Attorney Geoff Paine said during the trial that two state police investigators interviewed Zandstra after a woman who was a lifelong friend of Zandstra’s daughter told police in 2022 that he had groped her at a sleepover at his home in 1975, days before Gretchen’s disappearance. At the time, Paine said, the woman was the same age as Gretchen and looked like Gretchen.
Much told the jury that another suspect who was investigated was Gretchen’s sister, Zoe Harrington, who in 2021 claimed to have killed her sister with a rock during an incident involving her father, who was also a pastor, and members of the congregation he led.
Much said the state police at one point considered Harold Harrington, Gretchen’s father, a potential suspect. Harold Harrington died in 2021.
The prosecutor told the jury that Zoe Harrington’s confession wasn’t credible because she had a history of mental-health illness.
According to the lawsuit, Andrew Martin, one of the defendants, went to the first assistant district attorney in Montgomery County to seek a court order to allow a secretly recorded conversation between Zoe Harrington and her father, who was in poor health at the time.
After several interviews with Zoe Harrington — including with another state trooper who is not named as a defendant — Martin signed an application to the court for a wiretap authorization on Aug. 9, 2021, according to the lawsuit. The next day, however, Zoe Harrington allegedly backed out because she said she was too afraid.
The lawsuit states that when Martin and Tray provided their sworn affidavit supporting the arrest of Zandstra, they summarized their August 2021 activity in the investigation as: “On Aug. 9, 2021, investigators conducted an interview of Zoey HARRINGTON (sister of Gretchen HARRINGTON) relative to this investigation. Zoe HARRINGTON related that ZANDSTRA was the minister at the time, and his daughter was Gretchen’s best friend.”
The lawsuit also says the state police had another suspect, Richard Bailey, who was investigated in 2017. Bailey was a convicted child rapist and kidnapper, who was seen a mile from where Gretchen disappeared on the day she was abducted. Bailey died in state prison in the 1990s.
A 16-year-old boy died Monday evening after he was found with a gunshot wound inside a Chipotle restaurant bathroom in an off-campus residential building used by Temple University students.
Around 5:15 p.m., police responded to a report of a shooting victim inside the Chipotle on the ground floor of the The View at Montgomery apartments on Montgomery Avenue at 12th Street.
The victim, who was shot in the chest, was found in the bathroom by an employee, police said. The teen was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:24 p.m.
Police on Tuesday identified the teen as Khyon Smith-Tate, of the city’s Hartranft section.
Chief Inspector Scott Small said the teen was in the bathroom with at least one other juvenile when he was shot. Police found one spent shell casing inside the bathroom, Small said.
“The place was very crowded with customers as well as employees,” but music was being played loudly so it was unclear if anyone heard the gunshot, Small said.
A possible suspect wearing all dark clothing and a backpack was seen on surveillance video fleeing the restaurant, Small said.
A person of interest was detained a few blocks away, Small said. No arrests were reported.
Temple University officials issued a statement notifying the university community about the shooting.
“The loss of life to gun violence is a profound tragedy and there are no words that can make sense of it. Our thoughts are with the victim’s family and loved ones,” John Fry, the university’s president, and Jennifer Griffin, vice president for public safety and chief of police, said in a joint statement.
Jeffrey Rosen has stepped down as president and CEO of the National Constitution Center after 12 years of leading the private, nonprofit institution.
The center made the announcement Friday on the social media platform LinkedIn.
Rosen will remain as CEO emeritus. Vincent Stango, who has been serving as executive vice president and chief operating officer, has assumed the role as interim president and CEO. The center will conduct a national search for the top leadership position, a spokesperson said Monday.
“It has been an honor to serve the National Constitution Center and to work alongside such an extraordinary board and staff in advancing this mission,” Rosen said in a statement.
“As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, I am proud to pass the baton to Vince and our exceptional leadership team who are fully ready to guide the Center’s next chapter,” Rosen said.
“As CEO Emeritus, I’m looking forward to devoting more time to scholarship, writing, and public engagement around the enduring ideas of the Constitution and the American experiment. This seems like the right time to do that given the exciting programs we have in place for America 250,” Rosen added.
The National Constitution Center is known for awarding the annual Liberty Medal, which has been given to such notable figures in recent years as Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine; legendary boxer Muhammad Ali; and then-Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony M. Kennedy.
The center, located at the north end of Independence Mall, was the stage for the only 2024 presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and has held talks with Supreme Court justices, including in September with Amy Coney Barrett.
Jeffrey Rosen (left), then-president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, speaking during ceremonies as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was awarded the 2022 Liberty Medal.
Stango has been with the National Constitution Center for 26 years.
“I’m grateful for the trust our Board of Trustees has placed in me, privileged to work with colleagues whose dedication and talents I admire tremendously, and enormously thankful to Jeffrey Rosen for his 12 years of extraordinary service and the legacy he leaves behind,” Stango said in a statement.
In a 2014 Inquirer interview, Doug DeVos, a board member and president of Amway, said Rosen was picked for the job because of his background as a constitutional scholar and his network of friends at the highest legal levels, including Ginsburg.
“He had the skills to engage people in conversation, and really that was the piece that set him apart. He doesn’t do it in a way that says: ‘Hey, I am really smart. Let me tell you everything I know. It’s more like, ‘Let’s talk,’” DeVos said.
Rosen graduated from Harvard University and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
He was legal affairs editor at the New Republic and found himself interviewing members of the Supreme Court. Rosen was an early advocate for Ginsberg, and she credited him with helping her get the 1993 nomination from President Bill Clinton to the high court.
He is the author of several books, most recently “The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America.“
Another lawsuit has been filed on behalf of victims of the explosion at a Bucks County nursing home just before Christmas that left three dead and about 20 people injured.
The plaintiffs, Joseph Juhas Sr. and MaryAnn Schnepp, were residents of Bristol Health and Rehab Center when an explosion just after 2:15 p.m. on Dec. 23 ripped through the main building and caused an intense fire. The spouses of the victims also are named as plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, names as the defendants PECO Energy Company and its parent company, Exelon Energy, and Bristol Health and Rehab Center LLC, and its parent company, Saber Healthcare Group. The former operators of the nursing home also are named as defendants.
“Joe and Maryann suffered serious life-changing injuries because of the negligence of the defendants,” said Brian Fritz, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs. “We plan on holding all of them responsible for their lack of action in dealing with the well-documented gas leak and conditions that led to this tragic event.”
On Monday, a lawsuit was filed alleging negligence in the nursing home explosion.
Exterior of Bristol Health & Rehab Center after the Dec. 23 fatal explosion. The photograph taken Christmas morning, Thursday, December 25, 2025.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation — including by the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates pipeline accidents.
The lawsuit alleges that the nursing home defendants “proceeded as business as usual in the face of a natural gas leak, which presented a clear and obvious threat to the safety and well-being” of the residents.
The nursing home defendants “recklessly and with callous disregard continued to supply cigarettes and lighters to the residents during the scheduled smoking sessions throughout the day while they knew or should have known that such activity could cause any gas manifestation from the gas leak to explode,” the lawsuit alleges.
In an interview with the Inquirer, Susie Gubitosi, 71, a resident who is blind and uses a wheelchair, said that just after 2 p.m. that day, she returned inside the building after joining several other residents on the patio for a cigarette break. Gubitosi said she was waiting inside for a staffer to help her with a task when the explosion occurred.
According to the lawsuit, MaryAnn Schnepp suffered traumatic brain injury, intracranial bleeding, laceration to her scalp requiring staples, a collapsed lung, and broken bones, including broken ribs.
Joseph Juhas Sr. also suffered traumatic brain injury, intracranial bleeding, and bone fractures, according to the lawsuit.
The scene at Bristol Health and Rehab Center on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Bristol Township, Pa.
Zach Shamberg, chief of government affairs for Saber Healthcare Group, said in an email: “We continue to cooperate with the ongoing investigation, and we cannot comment on pending litigation.”
A spokesperson for Peco said in an email: “We are a party to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation. We are fully cooperating with the NTSB and according to the NTSB rules, we are not permitted to comment on this matter.”
The age and condition of the gas line running to the nursing home remain unclear, but Peco has said that it has about 742 miles of substandard gas lines across the state that need to be replaced — accounting for roughly 5% of its gas service, but 82% of leaks, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
