Late last month, Fed officials grew concerned that the Justice Department was preparing a criminal case against them when they received two casually worded emails from a prosecutor working for Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. The messages sought a meeting or phone call to discuss renovations at the central bank’s headquarters, according to three people familiar with the matter, who like most others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation.
The emails, sent Dec. 19 and Dec. 29, camefrom Assistant U.S. AttorneyCarlton Davis, a political appointee in Pirro’s office whose background includes work for House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky), the people said.
The messages struck Fed officials as breezy in tone.
“Happy to hop on a call,” one of the missives read in part.
The casual approach generated suspicions at the Fed. Chair Jerome H. Powell, who by that point had sustained months of criticism from President Donald Trump and his allies over the central bank’s handling of interest rates, retained outside counsel at the law firm Williams & Connolly. Fed officials opted not to respond to Davis, choosing to avoid informal engagement on a matter that could carry criminal implications, according to a person familiar with the decision.
That led Pirro, a former Fox News host and longtime personal friend of Trump’s, to conclude that the Fed was stonewalling and had something to hide, according to a Justice Department official familiar with the matter.
“The claim that, ‘Oh, they didn’t think it was a big deal’ is naive and almost malpractice,” the official said. “We gave them a deadline. We said the first week of January.”
The investigation centers on the Fed’s first large-scale renovation of its headquarters on the National Mall since it was built in the 1930s and whether proper cost controls are in place. Powell testified to Congress in June about the scope of a project that had ballooned to $2.5 billion in costs, up from about $1.9 billion before the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump, his aides and some congressional Republicans have sought to cast the renovation as overly luxurious and wildly over budget, claims that Powell has strenuously disputed. Fed officials have said that the economic disruptions following the pandemic triggered a jump in the price of steel, cement and other building materials.
Powell and the Fed’s defenders say the renovation claims are being used to pressure the independent central bank to lower interest rates, as Trump has called for, andpotentially to bully Powell into resigning.
The emails from Davis to a Federal Reserve lawyer did not indicate the existence of a criminal investigation because prosecutors had not yet opened one, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. There was no FBI involvement when Pirro’s office opened a fact-gathering inquiry in November, and the bureau remains uninvolved, according to two other people familiar with the matter.
In the emails, Davis asked “to discuss Powell’s testimony in June, the building renovation, and the timing of some of his decisions,” a Justice Departmentofficial said. “The letter couldn’t have been nicer,” that official said. “About 10 days after that, we sent another, saying, ‘We just want to have a discussion with you.’ No response through January 8.”
“We low-keyed it,” the official added. “We didn’t publicize it. We did it quietly.”
The subpoenas were served the next day. They seek records or live testimony before a grand jury at the end of the month.
Powell publicly disclosed the probe Sunday evening in a video statement, saying the Fed had received subpoenas “threatening a criminal indictment.”
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” he said.
In a post on X, Pirro said the outreach had been benign, writing: “The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s. None of this would have happened if they had just responded to our outreach.”
Conducting an investigation without using the FBI is an approachPirro’s office has used on at least one previous occasion. In August, one of the prosecutors now assigned to the Fed inquiry, Steven Vandervelden, was tasked with reviewing numerous complaints that the D.C. police, under then-Police Chief Pamela A. Smith, had been incorrectly categorizing some crimes to paint a rosier picture than the reality on the ground.
That inquiry relied on voluntary interviews with more than 50 police officers and other witnesses, as well as cooperation from the mayor’s office and the police department’s internal affairs unit, according to a seven-page report Pirro and Vandervelden issued at its conclusion. The report recommended changes to police practices while saying the classification issues did not rise to the level of criminality. No subpoenas were issued in that probe, according to a person familiar with the matter, and the report does not mention any.
But Smith announced her resignation shortly before the report was released.
Philadelphia students are performing the best they have in math in years, showing steady improvement since the pandemic.
Still, just a quarter of city third through eighth graders passed Pennsylvania math assessments, with 25.1% of students scoring proficient or advanced on the 2024-25 exam, up from a 22% pass rate the prior year and 18.9% in 2016-17.
That means the district surpassed the school board’s goal of a 22.2% pass rate for last school year — but fell well below the 2029-30 target of 52% proficiency.
Philadelphia students still lag Pennsylvania averages considerably, though — for the 2024-25 year, 41.7% of students in grades three through eight statewide passed math tests.
Scores are slightly stronger in the lower grades. Overall, 33.7% of Philadelphia third graders passed the state test, compared to 27.4% the prior year. The board’s third-grade target is 57.5% for 2029-30; it was 28% last year, a nod to prior performance.
Officials said the jumps are due in part to the new math curriculum the district adopted in 2023-24.
The school board devoted its full Thursday night progress monitoring session to examining math goals. The highlighted findings include:
Attendance correlates with math scores
Students’ attendance generally correlates to their math performance. Of pupils who attended school 90% of the time or more, the highest percentage of students were at or above benchmark (29%) and the lowest percentage needed the most intense interventions (24%).
The reverse is true for students who are considered “chronically absent” — those who attend school less than 80% of the time. In that category, more than half of students — 52% — needed intense interventions, and just 7% scored proficient or above.
Improvements for students learning English
English language learners’ math skills are improving, as measured by Star tests, which the district gives periodically throughout the school year to measure student learning.
The math proficiency of third grade English learners, for example, was up year-over-year as marked by the winter Star exam. This school year, 23% of English learners passed the test, compared with 18% at the same point in 2024-25.
Slight improvements for students with disabilities
Students with disabilities scored lower. Overall, 11% of students with disabilities passed the winter Star exam, up slightly from 10% last year.
Focus on early math skills
Officials said gains were made in part because of a focus on building foundational math skills.
Students in kindergarten and first and second grades all saw jumps from fall to winter in mastering skills such as numeral recognition, addition to 10, and subtraction to 10, as measured by Star tests. The district showed significant gains in third grade performance this year.
Washington — The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors on Friday tried to step up pressure on the operator of the nation’s largest electric grid to take urgent steps to boost power supplies and keep electricity bills from rising even higher.
Administration officials said doing so is essential to win the artificial-intelligence race against China, even as voters raise concerns about the enormous amount of power data centers use and analysts warn of the growing possibility of blackouts in the Mid-Atlantic grid in the coming years.
“We know that with the demands of AI and the power and the productivity that comes with that, it’s going to transform every job and every company and every industry,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. “But we need to be able to power that in the race that we are in against China.”
Trump administration says it has ‘the answer’
The White House and governors want the Mid-Atlantic grid operator to hold a power auction for tech companies to bid on contracts to build new power plants, so that data center operators, not regular consumers, pay for their power needs.
They also want the operator, PJM Interconnection, to contain consumer costs by extending a cap that it imposed last year, under pressure from governors, that limited the increase of wholesale electricity payments to power plant owners. The cap applied to payments through mid-2028.
“Our message today is just to try and push PJM … to say, ‘we know the answer.’ The answer is we need to be able to build new generation to accommodate new jobs and new growth,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.
Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, and Wes Moore of Maryland appeared with Burgum and Wright and expressed frustration with PJM.
“We need more energy on the grid and we need it fast,” Shapiro said. He accused PJM of being “too damn slow” to bring new power generation online as demand is surging.
Shapiro said the agreement could save the 65 million Americans reliant on that grid $27 billion over the next several years. He warned Pennsylvania would leave the PJM market if the grid operator does not align with the agreement, a departure that would threaten to create even steeper price challenges for the region.
PJM wasn’t invited to the event.
Grid operator is preparing its own plan to meet demand
However, PJM’s board is nearing the release of its own plan after months of work and will review recommendations from the White House and governors to assess how they align with its decision, a spokesperson said Friday.
PJM has searched for ways to meet rising electricity demand, including trying to fast-track new power plants and suggesting that utilities should bump data centers off the grid during power emergencies. The tech industry opposed the idea.
The White House and governors don’t have direct authority over PJM, but grid operators are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is chaired by an appointee of President Donald Trump.
Trump and governors are under pressure to insulate consumers and businesses alike from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s data centers. Meanwhile, more Americans are falling behind on their electricity bills as rates rise faster than inflation in many parts of the U.S.
In some areas, bills have risen because of strained natural gas supplies or expensive upgrades to transmission systems, to harden them against more extreme weather or wildfires. But energy-hungry data centers are also a factor in some areas, consumer advocates say.
Ratepayers in the Mid-Atlantic grid — which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already paying billions more to underwrite power supplies to data centers, some of which haven’t been built yet, analysts say.
Critics also say these extra billions aren’t resulting in the construction of new power plants needed to meet the rising demand.
Tech giants say they’re working to lower consumer costs
Technology industry groups have said their members are willing to pay their fair share of electricity costs.
On Friday, the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents tech giants Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, said it welcomed the White House’s announcement and the opportunity “to craft solutions to lower electricity bills.” It said the tech industry is committed to “making investments to modernize the grid and working to offset costs for ratepayers.”
The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric companies, said it supports having tech companies bid — and pay for — contracts to build new power plants.
The idea is a new and creative one, said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based energy markets and transmission consultancy.
But it’s not clear how or if it’ll work, or how it fits into the existing industry structure or state and federal regulations, Gramlich said.
Part of PJM’s problem in keeping up with power demand is that getting industrial construction permits typically takes longer in the Mid-Atlantic region than, say, Texas, which is also seeing strong energy demand from data centers, Gramlich said.
In addition, utilities in many PJM states that deregulated the energy industry were not signing up power plants to long-term contracts, Gramlich said.
That meant that the electricity was available to tech companies and data center developers that had large power needs and bought the electricity, putting additional stress on the Mid-Atlantic grid, Gramlich said.
“States and consumers in the region thought that power was there for them, but the problem is they hadn’t bought it,” Gramlich said.
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly and The Washington Post contributed to this article.
Think you know your news? There’s only one way to find out. Welcome back to our weekly News Quiz — a quick way to see if your reading habits are sinking in and to put your local news knowledge to the test.
Question 1 of 10
Erin Andrews’ coat at the Eagles-49ers game stole the show. What was it made of?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Andrews’ coat appears to be a completely faux fur $950 statement piece from the brand Auter. Despite the internet haters, the jacket was seemingly functional and fashionable for a 30-degree and windy wild-card game at Lincoln Financial Field.
Question 2 of 10
Food writer Kiki Aranita says this little treat, with roots in Mexico and China, is the talk of the town right now:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The story of Mexican conchas and Chinese bo lo bao predates “little treat culture” by hundreds of years. Crackled, cookie-like crusts sit on top of round, fluffy milk bread, sometimes filled with cream or jam, or custard and char siu, or vibrant red Cantonese roast pork. Versions of the treats are available across Philly.
story continues after advertisement
Question 3 of 10
Wawa is closing a store on Drexel University’s campus after it was remodeled to test this concept:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The location was remodeled in 2023 to test the new store format, a digital-only concept that required customers to order all items on a touch screen, with no shelves of products to browse. The pilot was not a success, leading to the store’s planned closure, said a company statement.
Question 4 of 10
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed a bill, despite near-unanimous legislative support, that would’ve allowed a legal carveout for:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
New Jersey's Milltown is struggling to continue its Groundhog Day celebrations because of a lack of access to live groundhogs. A bill to carve out exceptions for groundhog imports was vetoed. Gov. Phil Murphy said the bill was inappropriate, citing public safety concerns, including rabies.
Question 5 of 10
A $150 million streetscape project will transform South Broad Street’s Avenue of the Arts by adding more:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
A $150 million streetscape project will transform South Broad Street’s Avenue of the Arts with trees, public art, traffic calming, and redesigned medians and sidewalks, starting this month.
Subscribe to The Philadelphia Inquirer
Our reporting is directly supported by reader subscriptions. If you want more journalism like this story, please subscribe today.
Eagles fan and content creator Robert Williams III kept the faith all season by cranking out parody songs about the Birds. His videos have caught the attention of celebrities ranging from Questlove to Hall and Oates. What artist does he find himself covering more times than not?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Williams (also known as Billy Soul) puts on a strawberry blond wig and spoofs songs like the 1984 Billy Joel hit: “For the Longest Time.” He says his Joel covers seem to perform the best. “My favorite genres of music are hip-hop and R&B so those parodies are easy to me,” Williams said. When I’m doing Billy Joel, I’m challenging myself.”
Question 7 of 10
A Philadelphia woman’s fliers around the region seeking help went viral. She was asking for someone of which trade to perform what act?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The flier said: “Seeking: Experienced Witch to Curse My Ex.” The woman set up an email — for serious inquiries only. Experts say wishing a curse on your ex is part of a tradition dating back to antiquity.
Question 8 of 10
Restaurant scalping is a growing trend nationwide that business owners would like to stop. A Philly restaurant took to social media, announcing it had canceled someone’s reservations and wanted to ban them after they were caught trying to flip reservations for a profit. What restaurant was it?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Mawn’s owners, Phila and Rachel Lorn, took to the restaurant’s Instagram to lambaste a woman attempting to sell coveted dinner reservations on the “Buy, Sell, Trade” section of Philaqueens, a private Facebook group with 75,000 members. “Eww. Gross … Don’t play with us,” the owners wrote on Mawn’s Instagram story, sharing a screenshot of the Facebook post that included the seller’s name. “All 11 of this person’s reservations are canceled.”
Question 9 of 10
This Philly-based comedian went viral on TikTok for her ASMR-style videos, where she whispers about this local favorite:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Of all the things Betsy Kenney thought she might go viral for, whispering about Wawa wasn’t one of them. But the 38-year-old comedian’s Philly “ASMR” videos have taken off on TikTok and Instagram, turning Kenney — who spent more than a decade pursuing a comedy career in New York City — into an unlikely local celebrity. Kenney’s videos have racked up millions of views and even earned an endorsement from Kylie Kelce.
Question 10 of 10
Retro enthusiasts and nostalgia lovers are thrilled about a chain restaurant location in Tunkhannock, a small town in the Endless Mountains of Wyoming County, about 140 miles northeast of Philadelphia. That’s because it was restored to look and feel like versions of this spot did decades ago. Which restaurant is it?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The Pizza Hut location has been in a shopping center parking lot for decades, but was restored into a classic version, complete with the red, angled roof. “No touchscreen kiosks, no sleek redesign, just the classic dine-in Hut experience you thought was gone forever. It’s more than pizza. It’s a full-blown childhood flashback served with breadsticks and a plastic red cup!” a fan wrote on Facebook.
Your Results
You have skipped .
You scored XX out of 10.
The average reader scored XX out of 10
Seems like you’ve been skimming more than reading there, buddy. There’s always next week.
You’ve read some articles (or made some educated guesses) but we wouldn’t come to you first for our local news recaps. Better luck next week!
Do you work here? You’re a local news stan with the latest updates on Philly happenings. Your friends definitely ask you for summaries on what’s going on and it shows.
In 2000, Aaron Deede was an 18-year-old Delaware college student who enjoyed acting and had dreams of becoming a playwright.
But a car accident left him paraplegic with a traumatic brain injury that upended his plans.
“It was a little detour,” Deede said.
Now, at 43, he is returning to college along with four other residents of Inglis House, a nursing facility in Philadelphia’s Wynnefield sectionfor people with severe physical disabilities who use wheelchairsand haveconditions such as multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries, or challenges following strokes.
Deede and three other Inglis residents on Monday started online classes — some may go in person in subsequent semesters — at Community College of Philadelphia, with a fifth student scheduled to start this summer. Inglis pays for the students’ education from a donor-supported fund.
“I love it. I can’t wait,” Deede said Friday during a celebration Inglis held for the new students at its Belmont Avenue complex, giving each of them a backpack to start their journey.
At right is Aaron Deede a resident of Inglis House. He is starting to take classes at Community College of Philadelphia. At left, Jaclyn Monaco, director of Therapeutic Life Enrichment, offers treats during the celebration for students.
Dozens of Inglis residents — who range in age from 18 to their 70s — have taken college classes over the years, and some have earned degrees. Butthis is the largest group to start together since the 1990s, said Jacklyn Monaco, Inglis’ director of therapeutic and life enrichment.
“Things sort of ebb and flow as far as the types of resident who move in and their personal goals,” she said. “Sometimes they’re recreational goals. Sometimes they’re physical goals. Sometimes they’re educational goals. At this point in time we have a lot of younger folks who are really interested in pursuing higher education.”
Nikos Rapach, 21, had been planning to join either the Army or the Coast Guard when he was in a car accident and lost the use of his legs and the mobility of his fingers.
Nikos Rapach, a resident of Inglis House, sets up at his workstation in the computer lab.
“I’m not going to be able to swing a hammer, so I have to start using my brain more,” said Rapach, who is from Hazleton.
He is taking English and trigonometry classes at CCP. He will use the computers at Inglis thathave adaptive technology to assist with note-taking.
“Everything here is a stepping stone for me,” said Rapach, who moved to Inglis in May. “I want to go back home. I want to get a job. I basically want to get my life back on track.”
“Like they say, if you don’t know your history, you are doomed to repeat it,” he said.
Deede, who came to Inglis in 2023, also would like to become a teacher, preferably at the elementary level.
Another resident who is taking classes at CCP aims to become a social worker at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Jeremy Ault, Inglis’ therapeutic education instructor. Another hopes to become an Urdu-to-English translator.
Stephanie Shea, 59, who is from Maryland and has a genetic neuromuscular condition, is taking liberal arts classes with the goal of getting a degree.
“It’s kind of a bucket-list thing,” said Shea, who recently got married to another resident. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to have.”
Founded in 1877, Inglis House currently serves about 180 residents, nearly 40% of whom are involved in educational activities — not just college. Classes are offered at Inglis in subjects such as history, law, science, poetry, and creative writing, as well as foundational skills like reading and personal finance.
Aaron Deed (right) and Nikos Rapach are starting taking classes at Community College of Philadelphia.
Inglis staff accompanied the students to CCP’s campus to take their placement tests, register for classes, and visit’s CCP’s Center on Disability, the office that helps students with disabilities.
“We suggest accommodations based on their needs,” said Lisa Papurt, coordinator of disability services at the center, which typically serves 400 to 500 students with disabilities per semester.
Those services could include extra time for tests or technology to assist with note-taking or assistance in communicating with professors.
Papurt said she is excited to see the Inglis students start their educational journey.
“I hope to be able to support them through getting degrees, graduating, and moving on to a four-year institution,” she said.
When students entered their surprise celebration Friday, Ault, the therapeutic education instructor, told them it was time for them to celebrate.
“I’m so proud of you guys for doing so well this past year,” he said. “You guys have been such a pleasure to teach and be part of your lives really.”
Ault is helping students prepare for entry into college.
“I’m working on my writing skills and grammar,” Rapach said. “Jeremy has been giving me essay prompts to help me be a better writer so that when I get to college, I’m not trying to relearn everything.”
Six Pennsylvania nursing homes closed last year, down from 10 in 2024, according to data provided to The Inquirer by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
None of last year’s closures were in the Philadelphia area. The most recent closure in Southeastern Pennsylvania was at Main Line Health’s Riddle Hospital, which shuttered its very small, 23-bed facility in early 2023. That year, five nursing homes closed statewide.
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
But this year is starting with the loss of a Philadelphia facility. Monumental Post-Acute Care at Woodside, formerly called Bala Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, notified state official last month that the 180-bed facility will close next month.
Officials there could not be reached for comment about why nursing home is closing after 37 years. More than 90% of the facility’s patients had Medicaid insurance for low-income people.
Monumental is among the larger nursing homes to close recently. About half of the nursing homes that closed during the last three years had 50 or fewer beds. The statewide average is 127 beds.
Smaller facilities have a harder time covering their costs.
The county hardest hit by nursing home closures was Allegheny, which is home to Pittsburgh. Four nursing homes closed there. The counties that are home to Scranton and Wilkes-Barre each lost two facilities.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday honoring the civil rights leader’s legacy, is Monday and it brings with it changes to schedules across the Philadelphia region. From government offices and post offices to trash collection and banks, many services will operate on adjusted hours or close entirely.
Here’s what you need to know so you can plan your Monday with confidence.
❌ TD Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Chase bank will be closed.
PHARMACIES
CVS
✅ CVS locations will operate on normal business hours. Call your local store before visiting or view its hours at cvs.com/store-locator/landing.
Walgreens
✅ Walgreens locations will be open for regular business hours. Check your local store’s hours at walgreens.com/storelocator.
TRASH COLLECTION
❌ There is no trash or recycling pickup on MLK Day. But trash pickup will resume a day later than scheduled. To find your trash and recycling collection day, go to phila.gov.
✅ Lowe’s stores are open for normal business hours. Check your local store’s hours at lowes.com/store.
Home Depot
✅ Home Depot locations will be open during normal business hours. Check your local store’s hours at homedepot.com/l/storeDirectory.
SHOPPING MALLS
✅ The Shops at Liberty Place, Fashion District Philadelphia, Franklin Mall, Cherry Hill Mall, and King of Prussia Mall will be open for their regular hours.
Nearly 20 people witnessed an assault in the Cheltenham High football team’s locker room last fall, according to an external investigation commissioned by the school district.
No one tried to stop it, “and several participated freely in it,” Superintendent Brian Scriven told the Cheltenham community in an e-mailed message Thursday. “Several students also filmed the assault.”
The assault — which happened Sept. 3 — ultimately resulted in the cancellation of the team’s season in October and led to the hazing investigation, for which Scriven released the results Thursday night. His message did not include additional details about the assault.
Though a pattern of hazing was “not fully substantiated,” Scriven wrote, other troubling findings include: inadequate student supervision in the locker room, “a failure to prioritize student safety by the coaching staff and/or adult volunteers,” no anti-bullying or anti-hazing education for team members, and “a toxic and negative culture within the current football program.”
The team’s head coach, according to a 2025 Cheltenham news release, had been Terence Tolbert, a business teacher at the school and a former semi-professional football player. When reached Thursday, Tolbert declined to comment.
Cheltenham’s football program will be rebuilt eventually, Scriven said, and the district will adopt investigators’ recommendations, including identifying, hiring, and training a “new coaching staff with strong commitment to leading student-athletes in a positive and responsible manner,” and strengthening team supervision.
But, Scriven said, fielding a team in 2026 is not a given for the district.
The superintendent alluded to “a general lack of credibility on the part of many of those interviewed during the investigatory process” and said parent, student, and staff cooperation going forward is crucial.
“Those students who were not involved in this situation are especially important to rebuilding the culture of our program,” Scriven said. “If all of these conditions are met, the district will stand up a football team for the 2026 season.”
It is not yet clear whether the students involved could face punishment or criminal charges. Multiple students have ongoing Title IX and disciplinary matters, which could affect their eligibility to play football. Cheltenham Township police and the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office are both still investigating the incident, according to the district’s message Thursday.
Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article.
A U.S. citizen on her way to a medical appointment in Minneapolis was dragged out of her car and detained by immigration officers, according to a statement released by the woman on Thursday, after a video of her arrest drew millions of views on social media.
Aliya Rahman said she was brought to a detention center where she was denied medical care and lost consciousness. The Department of Homeland Security said she was an agitator who was obstructing ICE agents conducting arrests in the area.
Rahman said that she was on her way to a routine appointment at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center when she encountered federal immigration agents at an intersection. Video appears to show federal immigration agents shouting commands over a cacophony of whistles, car horns and screams from protesters.
In the video, one masked agent smashes Rahman’s passenger side window while others cut her seatbelt and drag her out of the car through the driver’s side door. Numerous guards then carried her by her arms and legs towards an ICE vehicle.
“I’m disabled trying to go to the doctor up there, that’s why I didn’t move,” Rahman said, gesturing down the street as officers pulled her arms behind her back.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security disputed that account in an emailed statement on Thursday, saying that Rahman was an agitator who “ignored multiple commands by an officer to move her vehicle away from the scene.” She was arrested along with six other people the department called agitators, one of whom was accused of jumping on an officer’s back.
The department did not specify if Rahman was charged or respond to questions about her assertion that she was denied medical treatment.
Barrage of viral videos draw scrutiny
The video of Rahman’s arrest is one of many that have garnered millions of views in recent days — and been scrutinized amid conflicting accounts from federal officials and civilian eyewitnesses.
Often, what’s in dispute pertains to what happened just before or just after a given recording. But many contain common themes: Protesters blowing whistles, yelling or honking horns. Immigration officers breaking vehicle windows, using pepper spray on protesters and warning observers not to follow them through public spaces. Immigrants and citizens alike forcibly pulled from cars, stores or homes and detained for hours, days or longer.
Another video shows ICE agents, including Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, detain two employees at a Target store in Richfield, Minnesota. Both are U.S. citizens who were later released, according to social media posts from family members.
Monica Bicking, 40, was leaving the homeless shelter where she works as a nurse when she took a video that appears to show a federal agent kneeing a man at least five times in the face while several other agents pin him facedown on the pavement in south Minneapolis.
Bicking works full time, so she says she doesn’t intentionally attend organized protests or confrontations with ICE. But she has started to carry a whistle in case she encounters ICE agents on her way to work or while running errands, which she says has become commonplace in recent weeks.
“We’re hypervigilant every time we leave our houses, looking for ICE, trying to protect our neighbors, trying to support our neighbors, who are now just on lockdown,” Bicking said.
‘I thought I was going to die’
Rahman said in her statement that after her detainment, she felt lucky to be alive.
“Masked agents dragged me from my car and bound me like an animal, even after I told them that I was disabled,” Rahman said.
While in custody, Rahman said she repeatedly asked for a doctor, but was instead taken to the detention center.
“It was not until I lost consciousness in my cell that I was finally taken to a hospital,” Rahman said.
Rahman was treated for injuries consistent with assault, according to her counsel, and has been released from the hospital.
She thanked the emergency department staff for their care.
“They gave me hope when I thought I was going to die.”
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.”
