Bucks County Sheriff Danny Ceisler terminated his office’s controversial partnership with ICE Wednesday, citing negative impacts on public safety and immigrants’ trust of law enforcement.
The partnership, known as a 287(g) agreement, which enabled 16 sheriff deputies to act as immigration enforcement, was initiated by formerSheriff Fred Harran,the Trump-aligned Republican who Ceisler defeated in November.
Ceisler said Wednesday that he signed two orders, one revoking the 287(g) partnership, and another that prohibited deputies from asking crime victims, witnesses, and court observers about their immigration status.
“Bucks County is home to over 50,000 immigrants … those immigrants are our neighbors,” said Ceisler, a Democrat who took office last week, during a news conference outside of the Bucks County Justice Center Wednesday. “They are our friends. They are taxpayers and they deserve the protection of law enforcement in this community.”
Ceisler’s decision to terminate 287(g) was expected, but his announcement comes amid a nationwide reckoning over federal immigration agents’ deployments to U.S. cities as ordered by the Trump administration. Protests againstU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcementescalated across the country, including in Philadelphia, after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minnesota last week.
Wednesday’s decision “has nothing to do with what’s going on in Minneapolis,” Ceisler said.
Other officials in the region have spoken out directly in response to the Minnesota incident. Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s comments calling ICE “fake, wannabe law enforcement” went viral.
Ceisler, on Wednesday, called Bilal’s comments “completely counterproductive, and said she was the “wrong messenger for them.”
The Bucks sheriff was adamant Wednesday that his order does not make Bucks County a so-called sanctuary jurisdiction, which have been increasinglytargeted by President Donald Trump.
The president announced Wednesday morning that on Feb. 1 he would cut off federal funding to states that have cities with sanctuary policies, which prohibit local law enforcement cooperation with ICE. Ceisler’s directive prohibits sheriff deputies from acting as immigration authorities, but does not cut off the county’s cooperation with ICE.
People and press gather at a press conference announcing the termination of Bucks County’s partnership with ICE.
“Bucks County has not, has never been, and will never be a so-called sanctuary county,” Ceisler said. “Our county has not severed all ties with ICE, nor precluded future partnership with ICE when it comes to dangerous criminals. Instead, we are returning to a level of partnership we’ve been operating under for decades.”
Bucks was the only county in the Philadelphia area that wasn’t named as a sanctuary jurisdiction by the Trump administration last year when it rolled out an initial list of state and local governments in danger of losing funding — which was later deleted. Officials from the other collar counties disputed the designation at the time.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro downplayed concerns about Trump’s Feb. 1 funding threat during a Wednesday appearance at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg.
“We don’t pay attention to the bluster, we pay attention to what’s written in the directive,“ Shapiro told reporters. ”Pennsylvania’s not a sanctuary state. I would anticipate us not losing funding at the state level unless they wanna be punitive.”
The sheriff said that the county Department of Corrections will continue to share information with law enforcement agencies, including ICE. Federal immigration agents will also continue to have access to county jails and honor judicial warrants to hold individuals who are incarcerated for immigration enforcement.
The motivation for the sheriff’s orders Wednesday were in response to “heartbreaking feedback” from Bucks’ immigrant community that they were afraid to report crimes or engage with law enforcement, Ceisler said
“To the members of our immigrant communities, you are safe to call 911, you are safe to report crime and you are safe to come into this courthouse and testify,” Ceisler said.
Heidi Roux, an immigration advocate, said her “community is breathing a collective sigh of relief” by ending the 287(g) agreement, but noted that continuing to partner with local law enforcement is crucial to public safety.
“I believe criminal activity can be addressed while simultaneously supporting the human rights and dignity of our residents,” Roux said.
Heidi Roux, executive director at Immigrant Rights Action, speaks at a press conference about the termination of Bucks County’s partnership with ICE.
The 287(g) affiliation stirred up controversy when then-Sheriff Harran announced the department’s alliance with ICE in April of last year. The agency had 455 agreements with police authorities in 38 states across the country.
Since then the number has exploded, to 1,318 in 40 states, with 11 additional agreements pending as of Monday, according to ICE.
ICE says the program helps protect American communities, a force-multiplier that adds strength to an agency workforce that numbers about 20,000 nationwide. Opponents, however, insist that turning local officers into immigration agents breaks community trust with the police and puts municipal taxpayers at risk of paying big legal settlements.
In Pennsylvania, the number of participating agencies has grown from 39 in September to 52 today.
The growth in Pennsylvania and across the nation has been driven by Trump, who has pumped incentive money into the program as he pursues plans to arrest and deport millions of immigrants.
On Trump’s first day in office in January, he directed the Department of Homeland Security to authorize local police to “perform the functions of immigration officers” to “the maximum extent permitted by law.”
No one had yet been detained under that program, but opponents saw Ceisler’s election as the last chance to stop the Sheriff’s Department’s alliance with ICE, and the Democrat said he would act quickly to end the alliance.
The former sheriff said his only goal was to make the community safer, that the department would not conduct random immigration checks or broad enforcement but “those who commit crimes must face the consequences regardless of immigration status.”
The Democratic-led Bucks County Board of Commissioners warned county employees that they could be personally liable for helping ICE, passing a resolution that said the alliance was “not an appropriate use of Bucks County taxpayer resources.” Democratic Commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie were at Wednesday’s news conference but did not speak.
In October, however, Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey Traugerruled that Harran’s cooperation with ICE was “clearly lawful under Pennsylvania jurisprudence,” and both “reasonable and necessary” in fulfilling his lawful duty to keep the citizens of Bucks County safe.
Ceisler said that terminating the agreement is the first step to regaining trust of the county’s immigrant communities. Next, he said, comes getting out into the communities.
“It’s about letting people know that they are safe,” he said.
The city’s famed Rocky statue has been cleared for installation atop the Philadelphia Art Museum’s iconic steps later this year following an Art Commission vote Wednesday. Four commissioners voted to approve the move, while one disapproved and one abstained.
With final approval granted, Creative Philadelphia, the city’s office for the creative sector, can move forward with its recently proposed plan to once again place the statue in one of the city’s most prominent locations. Since 2006, the statue has sat at the base of the museum’s steps, attracting an estimated 4 million visitors per year, agency officials have said.
“I think people come not because they’re told to — they come because it already belongs to them, and that kind of cultural legitimacy cannot be manufactured,” said commissioner Rebecca Segall at Wednesday’s meeting. “And by that measure, I believe it’s one of Philadelphia’s most meaningful monuments, and I believe we should just get him out of the bushes and put him up top.”
Now, Philly’s original Rocky statue — commissioned by Sylvester Stallone for 1982’s Rocky III and used in the film — will do just that sometime in the fall, per Creative Philadelphia’s plan. Its move to the top of the steps will come following its exhibition in “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments,” an Art Museum program slated to run from April to August that will see the statue displayed inside the museum building for the first time.
Sylvester Stallone’s “second casting” of the Rocky statue version atop the museum steps Jan. 7, 2026. It will return to the actor’s collection once the original statue is relocated.
Another statue will be installed at the bottom of the Art Museum’s steps, though what statue that will be has not yet been determined. Last month, chief cultural officer Valerie V. Gay said the spot would not be filled with another Rocky statue, leaving Philadelphia with sculptures of the Italian Stallion at both the top of the Art Museum steps, and in Terminal A-West of Philadelphia International Airport.
As part of the original statue’s installation in the fall, Creative Philadelphia plans to develop a shuttle service for visitors with mobility limitations that will take passengers from the bottom of the steps to the top. The service, referred to as the “Rocky Shuttle,” will be run by the Philadelphia Visitor Center, and will operate similarly to the Philly Phlash bus service, which arrives at 15-minute intervals, Creative Philadelphia officials said.
Additionally, the statue will be placed on a pedestal roughly 14 feet back from the edge of the top step, next to where a small installation depicting Rocky’s shoe prints is currently embedded in the museum’s stone walkway, Marguerite Anglin, the city’s public art director, said Wednesday. The project has a budget of $150,000 to $250,000, though final costs were not available, she added. In its proposal last month, Creative Philadelphia indicated the project would cost about $150,000.
Wednesday’s vote came following about an hour of discussion, during which some Art Commission members raised concerns over whether moving the statue would strengthen the relationship Philadelphians have with art or increase attendance at the museum. Commissioner Pepón Osorio said many visitors have indicated they were coming to see the statue because it represents Rocky, and not because it is a work of art.
“I don’t think that people see it as a work of art,” he said. “People see it as an iconic structure.”
Debate over the statue’s merits has been going on since before it first arrived in town for the filming of Rocky III in 1981. In 1980, local artist and then-Art Commission member Joseph Brown referred to the statue as “unnecessarily strident,” and indicated the Rocky franchise didn’t lend any particular cachet to Philadelphia’s cultural standing. Inquirer columnist Tom Fox, meanwhile, in 1982 called the statue a “monument to schlock, chutzpah, and mediocrity.”
Public opinion has also been divided. In a September Inquirer poll, 46% of respondents said no Rocky statue belongs at the top of the steps, but the one at the bottom should stay. Roughly 20% said the city should not have a Rocky statue at all.
Now, however, with the installation plan approved, it appears the debate can continue with Rocky once again atop the Art Museum’s steps. As part of approval, Creative Philadelphia agreed to undertake community engagement efforts examining the public’s interpretation of the statue.
“This really isn’t, for us, about getting the statue up there and then we move on,” Gay said. “This really opens the door to how public art can be used in civic discourse, in the ethos of our city right now, to think about both contemporary [times] and the past, as well as how we think about the future.”
Tourists pose with the original Rocky statue in July 2022. The statue will move to the top of the steps in the fall.
Melanie Smith pulled grueling hours alongside FBI agents and other prosecutors as she prepped dozens of witnesses to prove that a Virginia sheriff had accepted $75,000 in bribes from wealthy business owners and undercover agents. Just over a year ago, the jury returned a guilty verdict against former Culpeper County sheriff Scott Jenkins in an astounding 90 minutes.
V. Grady O’Malley built one of the most complicated cases of his 47-year Justice Department career to prove that a New York businessman who owned a chain of nursing homes had failed to pay more than $38 million in employment taxes, then laundered the money by bouncing it from account to account. The defendant, Joseph Schwartz, pleaded guilty.
Just months after the defendants were sentenced, President Donald Trump pardoned them as he wielded his executive power to grant clemency to a host of convicts — many of them politically connected — outside of the traditional pardon-application process.
Jenkins was pardoned the day before he was set to begin his prison sentence, his entire punishment erased and the restitution he owed taxpayers wiped out.
“The president has the authority to grant a pardon, but when you have a strong case, and it is a good case, and you are holding elected officials accountable for wrongdoing, it is frustrating,” Smith said in an interview. “You put a lot of time and energy into these cases. It was a righteous case. The fact that the pardon happened before he went to prison, it undermines one of the purposes of the criminal justice system.”
White-collar and public corruption cases are among the most resource-intensive for the Justice Department to pursue. Prosecutors, FBI agents, and other specialists often work for years to build such cases, following money trails and interviewing scores of witnesses before they even file an indictment.
More than half a dozen experienced prosecutors interviewed for this story, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said Trump’s clemency acts have eroded faith among current and former Justice Department employees that the cases they devote years to prosecuting will lead to accountability.
Calculating the amount of government resources poured into prosecuting a single case is next to impossible. But the cost can often run to millions of dollars when factoring in salaries and travel expenses, prosecutors said. On top of that, witnesses might require transportation to court and accommodation for the duration of the trial, paid for by taxpayers, the prosecutors noted.
Some complex cases can take years to investigate before charges are filed, with prosecutors interviewing dozens of witnesses before grand juries to build their cases. Years typically pass before those cases reach a trial date.
And once the trial arrives, prosecutors can spend upward of 80 hours a week preparing witnesses and getting exhibits ready. A long trial can involve more than 1,000 exhibits that need to be prepped and reviewed.
“To bring a case to trial is just an incredible effort and use of department resources,” said John Keller, the former acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. “There’s an intensity of experience and effort and emotion that doesn’t come at any other stage of the case. It’s the pinnacle of the practice.”
During Trump’s two terms, multiple defendants whose cases Keller has tried and supervised have received pardons. He said the pardons sting, but prosecutors are focused on their cases and trials, and do not allow a potential presidential act of clemency to influence how they approach a case.
“There’s a feeling that, if a jury or judge has reached a verdict after hearing all the evidence, it’s even more of a slap in the face to have clemency handed down,” he said.
During the first year of his second term, Trump has pardoned some of the most high-profile public corruption and white-collar defendants prosecuted during President Joe Biden’s administration, as well as some prosecuted during his own first term and some under earlier administrations.
Among them: former Republican congressman George Santos of New York, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, former Tennessee state senator Brian Kelsey, and Trevor Milton, the former executive chairman of electric trucking company Nikola. One of the defining acts of Trump’s return to office has been his sweeping pardons of more than 1,500 people convicted in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including those who assaulted police officers.
Trump has defended his use of the pardons, saying the people to whom he granted clemency had been pursued by what he considers a corrupt and overzealous Justice Department under Biden. But the attorneys interviewed said they investigated each case scrupulously and apolitically to ensure a fair prosecution.
“It’s personally upsetting because of how much time I invested in this case — the time traveling, the late nights looking through documents and prepping for witness interviews,” said Jacob Steiner, a former Justice Department employee who prosecuted the Santos case. “Beyond and more important than the personal aspect, it’s really disheartening that someone who lied to the public and stole a lot of money just gets to walk free and not have to pay back his victims.”
Reality television star Todd Chrisley speaks as his daughter Savannah Chrisley looks on during a news conference on May 30, 2025, in Nashville. Todd Chrisley and his wife, Julie, were pardoned in May after being convicted in 2022 of bank fraud and tax evasion.
In Atlanta, prosecutors and federal agents spent years investigating reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. The couple were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion in 2022 after a nearly three-week jury trial. The Justice Department then defended the conviction during appeals. But after a public campaign from the Chrisleys’ daughter, who spoke at the Republican National Convention and socialized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, the president granted the reality stars a pardon in May.
In New York, prosecutors and federal agents spent roughly two years investigating the online black market Silk Road before indicting its creator, Ross Ulbricht, on charges related to the sale of drugs and other illegal goods on the platform. It took another two years before the case went to trial in 2015, resulting in convictions on seven counts and a sentence of life in prison. Trump pardoned Ulbricht on his first full day in office.
“I couldn’t believe it was a complete and total pardon,” said one law enforcement official who worked on the Silk Road case.
Santos, the Chrisleys, Ulbricht, and others who received pardons from Trump have said they deserved forgiveness because they were prosecuted at the hands of a corrupt Justice Department or were innocent and wrongly convicted.
Every recent president has exercised the pardon power to benefit his allies, but legal experts say that Trump’s use of clemency has bucked every norm of a largely undefined process. Typically, Justice Department employees vet tens of thousands of applications, only recommending to the president people who have completed their sentences and showed contrition. Trump, however, has pardoned criminals without any such vetting, people familiar with the process said, sometimes granting clemency to convicts who have not started their sentences or admitted wrongdoing. Trump and his allies have pointed to Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter as an example of how Trump’s predecessors politicized the pardon.
O’Malley, who retired in 2023 and described himself as a supporter of the president, said he was flummoxed over Trump’s pardoning of Schwartz, the nursing home magnate. He said that sifting through the more than 100 accounts Schwartz set up to evade taxes had required a lot of effort, and that the prosecutors and agents assigned to the case did “yeoman’s work.”
The Washington Post reported that Schwartz paid two lobbyists, right-wing provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, $960,000 to help secure a pardon from Trump. (Schwartz must still complete a sentence on state charges in an Arkansas prison.)
“I think the president was misled as to the reasons why [Schwartz] should be pardoned,” O’Malley said. “I can’t see anyone accepting an application and alleging that he somehow deserves to be pardoned unconditionally and completely in this case. Something had to be said to the president. Whether he was paying attention to it or not, I don’t know.”
O’Malley continued: “I was stunned and angered. The $5 million in restitution was vacated. It was a strong case. I do not indict cases on a wing and a prayer.”
In December — less than a month after Trump pardoned Schwartz — the Internal Revenue Service decided to present O’Malley with an award for his work on the Schwartz case. O’Malley said he declined to attend.
Raquel Pacheco began recording on her phone Monday as she opened her front door to the pair of police officers standing outside.
They told her they had questions about a Facebook comment she had written.
“Is that your account?” one officer asked. The other held out his phone, showing a message Pacheco had written days earlier about the mayor of Miami Beach, where she lives.
Pacheco had left the comment about a post from Mayor Steven Meiner, calling his city a “safe haven for everyone.” Meiner, who is Jewish, contrasted Miami Beachwith “places like New York City,” where he accused officials of discriminating against Jews and “promoting boycotts” of Jewish and Israeli-owned businesses.
In a series of replies, Pacheco called him racist and criticized his actions toward a number of communities, including Palestinians and LGBTQ people. She said she felt his words of welcome were superficial.
At her door, the officers told Pacheco they were looking for the commenter because that person’s words could “probably incite somebody to do something bad,” her video shows. Pacheco refused to answer their questions without an attorney present, and the officers left within minutes.
Heart racing, Pacheco shut her door and texted her recording of the exchange to three friends who practice law. She struggled to comprehend why the officers were sent to question her – a private citizen who once ran for elected office, knew the mayor and other local officials, and had deep faith in American values. Where the officers saw a comment that could incite violence, Pacheco saw an expression of her right to free speech, she said.
“If we can’t hold this line, we are screwed,” Pacheco, 51, told The Washington Post.
The Miami Beach Police Department on Tuesday evening told The Post that detectives had “conducted a brief, consensual encounter” to make sure there was no safety threat to the mayor or the community. They assessed the social media posting, the department said, to be cautious, citing “recent national concerns regarding antisemitism.”
Meiner said in a statement Tuesday evening that the situation was “a police matter,” adding that he was “a strong supporter of the State of Israel” and its “right to defend its citizens.”
“Others might have a different view and that is their right,” Meiner wrote. “In this situation, our police department believed that inflammatory language that is false and without any factual basis was justification for follow-up to assess the level of threat and to protect the safety of all involved.”
The now-public tussle over Pacheco’s Facebook comment, which was first reported by the Miami Herald, is another salvo in a battle between activists across the country and authorities whom they accuse of stifling speech about divisive political topics, all against the backdrop of political violence that has rocked the country. In recent years, people have faced suspensions, firings and other punishments for social media posts about the Israel-Gaza war, the assassination attempts against President Donald Trump and the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Pacheco, who has lived in Miami Beach since 2004 and has run for local elected office three times as a Democrat, said she voted for Meiner in 2023. But she started speaking out against the mayor when he began addressing issues such as crime and homelessness by taking a page from “the Trump playbook,” using measures that she saw as laden with cruelty, Pacheco said. Her criticism often took the form of Facebook posts and comments, alongside advocacy work in the community.
Miami Beach voters elected Meiner to his office, which is nonpartisan, a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed. Since then, the city has experienced a deepening rift among residents, including between Meiner and his constituents.
In March, the mayor tried to end the lease of a local cinema after it screened “No Other Land,” a movie made by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that shows Israelis bulldozing a town in the West Bank. Meiner described the documentary at the time as a “false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people.” He backpedaled his efforts against the theater after a fraught, nine-hour city commission meeting.
Pacheco referenced the incident in the comment that led police to her doorstep.
On Jan. 6, Meiner’s official Facebook account published the post about Miami Beach being a welcoming place. It featured a photo of the mayor with the following text: “Miami Beach is a safe haven for everyone. We will always stand firm against any discrimination.”
Pacheco replied: “‘We will stand firm against any discrimination’ – unless you’re Palestinian, or Muslim or you think those people have a right to live.” She added: “Careful your racism is showing.”
The next day, the mayor’s post was shared on a community Facebook page, where Pacheco again responded.
“The guy who consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians, tried to shut down a theater for showing a movie that hurt his feelings, and REFUSES to stand up for the LGBTQ community in any way (even leaves the room when they vote on related matters) wants you to know that you’re all welcome here,” she wrote, alongside three clown emojis.
It was this comment that police showed her when she opened her door Monday, Pacheco said.
“This is freedom of speech, this is America, right? I’m a veteran,” she told the officers, according to her recording of the two-minute conversation.
“And I agree with you 100 percent,” one officer responded. “We’re just trying to see if it’s you, because if we’re not talking to the right person, we want to go see who the right person is.”
Pacheco, who said she served in Connecticut’s Army National Guard from 1993 to 1999, said the officers told her she was not going to jail and that they were “just here to have a conversation.” Later in the video, anofficer tells Pacheco: “I would think to refrain from posting things like that, because that can get something incited.”
After the brief exchange, Pacheco sat in disbelief.
“There were cops at my door because of something I said,” Pacheco told The Post on Tuesday. “It felt like such a foreign, alien feeling.”
In the day since the officers’ visit, she has retained an attorney and made public records requests about the situation. Should it escalate, she said she was “prepared to sue.” While she described herself as progressive, she said she is “conservative when it comes to the Constitution,” a document she had come to revere since moving to the United Statesfrom Portugal in the 1980s. She said she strongly sees Monday’s interaction at her home as a violation of the rights guaranteed by it.
“I’m not one to stand down,” Pacheco said. “I don’t do well with bullies.”
And the next time she sees a social media post from her mayor, or other elected officials for that matter, Pacheco said she knows what she will do: open the comment section, type her thoughts and hit send.
Rosemont College’s accrediting body has asked the school for information on its student records and finances and policies “to ensure truthfulness in public relations announcements.”
The private, suburban liberal arts college has until Tuesday to submit a report to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, according to an announcement on the accrediting body’s website.
Rosemont announced last spring that it was planning to close for good in 2028 and that nearby Villanova University is purchasing its campus. The college’s enrollment for thefall semester stood at 428, down about 45% from last year.
The freshman class of 21 students is just a quarter of the size of last year’s first-year enrollment. And it will be the last freshman class to enter the 104-year-old Catholic college.
It’s unclear what prompted Middle States to ask Rosemont for the report; the body doesn’t elaborate on its posted actions. Rosemont President Jim Cawley did not respond to a request for comment.
The questions are a likely indicator that more action is coming, which could be as basic as accepting the college’s report, or could be more serious, such as an accreditation warning. Colleges need accreditation to keep their students eligible for federal aid.
Middle States also asked Rosemont to provide evidence of “fair and transparent policies and procedures regarding the evaluation and acceptance of transfer credits, policies and procedures for the safe and secure maintenance and appropriate release of student information and records, including student athletics” and “full disclosure and financial information … that includes realistic enrollment and budget projections and the assumptions on which they are based, is adequate to support educational purposes and programs.”
The college in 2022 received a warning from the commission that its accreditation could be in jeopardy because it did not appear to be meeting requirements around planning, budget and academic assessment. But in 2023, the warning status was removed and the school’s accreditation was reaffirmed through 2028-29.
It could become increasingly challenging for the school to operate as it enrolls fewer students each year until its closure. Another hit could come next year, when NCAA sports are discontinued and more athletes may transfer. Under the merger agreement, Rosemont is expected to receive some financial support from Villanova through 2028.
Rosemont was one of 13 colleges The Inquirer examined in 2024 and found was in poor financial health, using an index developed by a finance executive at a small college in Illinois. The school had reported operating losses for five straight years through June 2023.
The group helping to revitalize Kennett Square’s Birch Street has two new projects in the works, including a restaurant and cocktail lounge. Also this week, a vacant office building in Exton has been converted to a new use, a Coatesville native is appearing on the new season of a reality TV show alongside Donna Kelce, plus why The Inquirer’s Craig LaBan says this West Chester restaurant is one to watch.
A rendering depicts the proposed exterior of Opus, a new restaurant and cocktail lounge slated to open in the summer.
A new restaurant and cocktail lounge is coming to Kennett Square this summer. Opus will take over the two-story space at 201 Birch St., which is adjoined to 14-room boutique hotel Artelo. The restaurant space was most recently occupied by Hank’s Place while the Chadds Ford institution rebuilt its longtime home, which was flooded by Hurricane Ida in 2021.
The 6,000-square-foot building will have a two-story terrace with outdoor dining and serve New American cuisine.
Opus is the latest development from Square Roots Collective, which has been helping to revitalize Birch Street for the past decade, including through projects like The Creamery, the former dairy turned family-friendly beer garden.Another of its nearby projects, The Francis, is set to open this year. The boutique hotel at 205 S. Union St., also in Kennett Square, will have eight rooms in a reimagined 18th-century home.
Scores of demonstrators protesting the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer gathered across the region over the weekend, including a rally in West Chester on Sunday that drew about 1,000 attendees. (Daily Local News)
County officials are reviewing findings from an investigation into an error that excluded independent voters from poll books during the November election. Officials said they will develop a plan following their review so that similar errors don’t happen again. The county will present findings and its response at the Board of Elections meeting on Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.
PennDot is hosting two public meetings in the next week regarding plans for what it’s dubbed the U.S. 30 Eastern Project Area, which includes alternative routes for the Route 30 mainline and the Reeceville Road, Route 340, and Route 322 interchanges, as well as revised alternatives for the Norwood Road and Route 113 interchanges. The construction is part of a larger project to upgrade 14.5 miles of the Coatesville-Downingtown Bypass to reduce traffic congestion, improve safety, and accommodate future development. The first meeting will be held virtually tomorrow at 6 p.m. There’s a second in-person meeting on Tuesday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Pope John Paul II Regional Catholic Elementary School in West Brandywine Township.
Four police officers were injured last week when responding to a call on the 400 block of Main Street in Atglen Borough. The officers detained Jon Marcos Muniz, who allegedly fired a handgun into two occupied apartments and barricaded his front door. No other injuries were reported. Muniz is facing a number of felony and misdemeanor charges.
M. Patricia Muller was selected as chair of Kennett Township’s Board of Supervisors last week, making her the first woman in the township’s history to hold the role.
Heads up for drivers: Newark Road in West Marlborough Township will be closed Monday through Friday next week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for tree removal. Norwood Road in EastCaln Township will be operating as a single lane with flaggers next Monday through Friday for sewer line work. Peco will be doing electrical work along Happy Creek Lane and Copeland School Road in West Bradford Township as part of a $450,000 infrastructure project to improve reliability and reduce outages, including from storms. Work is scheduled to take place January through April and will impact both roads and some residential yards.
A vacant office building at 319 N. Pottstown Pike in Exton has been transformed into “hotel-apartments” with 24 studio and eight one-bedroom units. The group behind it plans to market The Flats On 100 to consultants and visitors of nearby employers, such as Vanguard and QVC, and sees it as a potential model for the region’s empty office buildings.
Also in Exton, retailer Nordstrom Rack plans to open a 30,000-square-foot shop at Main Street at Exton this fall.
Could popular HBO series Mare of Easttown return for a second season? Kate Winslet seems to be ready for the Delaware County-set show, created by Berwyn native Brad Ingelsby, to return, and recently indicated filming could start as early as 2027. While the award-winning actor is on board, nothing official has been announced yet.
Coatesville native and figure skating icon Johnny Weir made his debut on the fourth season of Peacock reality TV show The Traitors last week. Weir is joined on this season of challenge-meets-eliminations-style show — hosted by Alan Cumming at his castle in Scotland — by Donna Kelce, Tara Lipinski, and a slew of reality TV personalities. The first three episodes dropped last week. Catch up on what happened here. (Warning: Spoilers!)
The GameStop at 1115 West Chester Pike in West Chester shuttered last week as part of a mass closure by the gaming retailer.
🏫 Schools Briefing
Reminder for families: There are no classes Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Avon Grove School District is considering adopting a new textbook, myPerspectives, from Savvas Learning Company for sixth through eighth grade English Language Arts students next school year. The public can review the textbook, which was put to the school’s education committee for consideration earlier this month, and provide feedback during a 30-day period through early February. The proposed change comes as part of the district’s regular curriculum review cycle, said Jason Kotch, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.
Tredyffrin/Easttown School District has released its 2026-27 preliminary budget proposal, which includes a $14.9 million operational deficit. The district’s board and administration say they plan to close the gap through “a combination of increases in the property tax rate, expenditure reductions, or the use of existing reserves.” It will host budget workshops on March 9 and April 13, with plans to adopt the budget in June. The board will not vote on a tax rate before June 8. See the preliminary budget here. The district is also hosting a special school board meeting tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. at Conestoga High School to discuss the school board director vacancy. And from Jan. 20 to 26, there will be an open registration period for all new kindergarten and first grade students planning to start school in September.
Octorara Area School District is hosting a “kindergarten readiness” event tomorrow from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Octorara Primary Learning Center in Atglen for families with children eligible for kindergarten next school year.
West Chester Area School Districtstudent registration for the 2026-27 school year is open.
The Boardroom Restaurant & Bottle Shop in Phoenixville recently underwent an update and reopened Monday after a more than weeklong closure.
🎳 Things to Do
👭 Steel Magnolias: Tickets are going fast for this adaptation of the popular 1989 film taking center stage for its monthlong run at People’s Light. ⏰ Wednesday, Jan. 14-Sunday, Feb. 15, days and times vary 💵 Prices vary 📍 People’s Light, Malvern
🍔 Taste of Phoenixville: Now in its 24th year, the annual fundraiser will bring together over 20 food and drink vendors. There will also be live music and a silent auction. ⏰ Thursday, Jan. 15, 6 p.m. 💵 $150 📍 Franklin Commons, Phoenixville
🌿 Winter Wonder: While Christmas may get most of the attention, Longwood Gardens’ conservatories will be filled with colorful plants throughout the remainder of winter. The gardens are open daily except Tuesdays. ⏰ Friday, Jan. 16-Sunday, March 22 💵 $17-$32 for non-members, free to members 📍 Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square
🎭 Broadway at the Colonial Theatre: Several Broadway stars, including area native Amanda Jane Cooper, who played Glinda in the North American tour of Wicked, will perform. ⏰ Sunday, Jan. 18, 7 p.m. 💵 $30-$65 📍 The Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville
Situated in a wooded stretch of East Goshen, this Colonial, along with several others in its cul-de-sac, has a unique access point: Locksley Covered Bridge, which was erected in the 1960s. The four-bedroom, two-and-half-bath home features a family room, living room, dining room, and eat-in kitchen, which has granite countertops and a wood-burning fireplace. There’s a screened-in porch off the dining room, with skylights and brick flooring, which leads to the backyard, where there’s a patio and play set.
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This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Federal investigators pieced together a timeline for the deadly helicopter crash that killed two longtime friends in Hammonton, N.J., last month.
The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report on Wednesday detailing the helicopter crash that led to the deaths ofpilots Kenneth Kirsch, 65, from Carneys Point, and Michael Greenberg, 71, of Sewell. Their aircrafts collided midair on Dec. 29. The two had been known to enjoy their flights together for years.
According to preliminary data, Kirsch and Greenberg started their flight session at the Vineland-Downstown Airport, departing at 9:48 a.m. The pilots, in separate aircrafts, flew in parallel paths to Hammonton Municipal Airport, arriving 10 minutes later.
Investigators are still trying to determine what happened next;there is no preliminary real-time GPS data on their subsequent flight out of Hammonton Municipal Airport.
The preliminary report confirmed Kirsch and Greenberg flew out of the Hammonton airport and collided at 11:24 a.m., almost an hour-and-a-half after they arrived at the airport.
During that time before their final flight, the two men stopped by Apron Cafe, a breakfast spot overlooking Hammonton Municipal Airport’s runway, the owner told The Inquirer. Minutes after they left, Apron Cafe patrons and staff could see one of the helicopters spiraling, engulfed in flames in the distance.
“I looked up, and I could see in the distance the one spiraling down, and then I see the other one coming down,” said the cafe’s owner, Sal Silipino. “It was hard to believe that they were crashing.”
While no data from the aircraft is available, surveillance video captured the fatal crash as it happened, according to the NTSB. The helicopters flew close together shortly before the accident.
Slightly staggered from one another, and heading in the same direction in what investigators liken to a “formation flight,” the helicopters “converged until they contacted each other.”
Investigators say one helicopter immediately began a tumbling descent to the ground, while the other pitched up sharply before leveling out. However, shortly after leveling off, the helicopter began spinning clockwise before descending rapidly to the terrain.
Kirsch was flying an Enstrom F-28A helicopter, and Greenberg, an Enstrom 280C. Both were operating the aircraft for personal flights.
The crash site was 1.5 miles southwest of Hammonton Municipal Airport and included a 1,211-foot debris path, with paint chips, main rotor blades, and the tail cone of one of the helicopters.
Kirsch’s aircraft was found split in half with the tail cone only held together by one tail rotor control cable, according to the report. There were no signs of fire in Kirsch’s helicopter. Major sections of Greenberg’s aircraft were destroyed by a post-impact fire, with the tail cone relatively intact.
The wreckage was recovered and retained for further examination by the NTSB. Investigators noted these were preliminary details, and the cause of the crash is yet to be determined.
A typical NTSB investigation can last one to two years.
As the September evening inched along, the line of residents waiting their turn for the microphone held steady. Filing down the auditorium aisles at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, they were armed with questions about a new gas plant slated for their community.
Sitting quietly in the audience was John Dudash. For decades he’s lived in Homer City, a southwestern Pennsylvania town that was once home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the state. The plant, which shares its name with the town, closed nearly three years ago after years of financial distress.
Dudash, 89, has lived in the shadow of its smokestacks — said to be the tallest in the country before they were demolished — for much of his life. At its peak, the Homer City power plant employed hundreds of people and could deploy about 2 gigawatts of energy, enough to power 2 million homes.
It was also a major source of air pollution, spewing sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which pose serious health risks. Today, Dudash wonders if the pollution might have exacerbated the lung issues that claimed his wife’s life six years ago.
The proposed gas plant, expected to be up and running in 2027, will replace the old coal-fired power station, but with more than double the energy output — 4.5 gigawatts of energy. The new plant also will have the potential to emit 17.5 million tons of planet-heating greenhouse gasses per year, the equivalent of putting millions of cars on the road.
And it will serve a new purpose: Rather than primarily sending electrons to the regional grid to power homes or businesses, the new power plant will exist mainly to feed data centers planned on the site.
As the hearing wore on that September night, Dudash, a conservationist, did not stand to speak; instead, he sat quietly, taking mental notes. The next morning, he emailed two staffers at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
“First of all, the project will not be stopped,” he began, with resignation. He went on to offer a few caveats — among them, advice about air monitoring.
His letter reached the agency alongside more than 550 comments on a key air permit for the proposed plant, a testament to the project’s complexity. After the permit was approved Nov. 18, Dudash’s prediction began to look remarkably accurate — though the Homer City plant still has about a dozen additional permits awaiting approval before the project can be completed, including one that would impact several acres of wetlands and hundreds of feet of a local stream.
Though it is among many energy sites popping up to power the artificial-intelligence boom across Pennsylvania, the Homer City facility is unique for its size, its advertised economic potential — the owners have promised the project will generate more than 10,000 construction-related jobs — and for its likely environmental impact. It has earned the backing of President Donald Trump, who called it “the largest plant of its kind in the world,” a distinction its owners could not verify. There was a buzz in town in late October when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, visited, though it was unclear what drew him to Homer City.
“I don’t really trust the people who are coming in to build and run the place,” Dudash said. “I do not agree with the artificial-intelligence portion of it.”
“They’re going to have to sacrifice the environment for these jobs,” he added. “In Appalachia, we’ve been doing that for years.”
The Homer City proposal
When the old plant sputtered to a close in 2023, it left the surrounding community — which was built on the local abundance of coal — in search of an economic lifeline. Now, the data center boom sweeping the country brings promise of such a rebirth for communities like Homer City — though this promise is one that some experts say may be less than billed. And, it comes with risks.
The new power plant will be much larger than its predecessor and is permitted to emit more than twice as much of some pollutants as its predecessor did. The data center, or centers, it powers would also consume a tremendous amount of water — perhaps more than its host townships can spare, some fear.
Homer City, Pa., once a vibrant thoroughfare during coal’s heyday, was completely empty of pedestrians on an afternoon in 2024.
Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity and has the potential to offer a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry. Though some in the community are sanguine about the promise of jobs, expertssay the reality for many living around data centers may fall short. Some are left wondering exactly who the new plant is for — them or some faraway tech companies.
The Homer City project is far from alone in its emergence: The nonprofit Fractracker has identified 39 planned data centers in the works across Pennsylvania. Tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are moving in, alongside others intrigued by the state’s rich legacy of power production, deep natural gas reserves, and generous subsidies. In July, Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, from eastern Pennsylvania, held a conference in Pittsburgh during which companies announced more than $90 billion in data center investments and related energy infrastructure.
This tech boom largely has bipartisan support, including from Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who said at a June press conference that he is committed to “ensuring the future of AI runs right through Pennsylvania.” Legislators in Harrisburg, meanwhile, are introducing bills that would both spur the burgeoning industry and give it guardrails.
The extent to which the Homer City facility’s owners have lobbied for supportive legislation is not clear. The company’s lobbying registration with the Pennsylvania Department of State goes back only to January 2025. It has, however, spent at the local level. In November, for instance, the company gave a community nonprofit $25,000 for a holiday food drive. It also urged state utility regulators, who are drafting a policy on data centers, to issue one that does not saddle data centers with costs that might “push” them out of state.
The Homer City proposal is the brainchild of the same private equity owners that closed the plant in 2023 — after years of financial difficulty and two bankruptcies. Two firms own close to 90% of the plant, with New York City-based Knighthead Capital Management holding the vast majority of that. It’s part of a wave of private equity investment in the data center industry. In March, the owners, operating under an LLC called Homer City Redevelopment, toppled the plant’s signature smokestacks. A few weeks later, they announced that the plant would reopen with a data center customer, or suite of customers, to be announced as soon as 2026.
Critics fear the new plant will require a lot more water than its predecessor. The supercomputers that data centers house whirr away around the clock, and need to be routinely cooled down. Some data center companies have introduced recycled water into their systems. Homer City Redevelopment has not said if their data center clients will be among them.
How to handle the water
In 2014, U.S. data centers used 21.2 billion liters of water, enough to fill nearly 9,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. That number tripled by 2023, with the vast majority of the water consumed by “hyperscale,” or large, facilities like Homer City. In states like Colorado, where water use has, for decades, been meticulously planned and negotiated, data centers are threatening to strain such finely tuned systems.
Dudash, the longtime Homer City resident, is concerned about a similar fate. “I’m not sure how they’re going to handle the water,” he told Capital & Main after the September hearing.
The power plant has, since 1968, been allotted an uncapped amount of water from Two Lick Reservoir, a 5 billion gallon, dammed-off portion of a creek that the plant’s former owners built explicitly for its use.
The power plant shares the water with a utility that serves two local communities — Indiana Borough and the broader White Township — as part of a 1988 drought management plan to prevent and respond to catastrophic weather conditions. The borough of Homer City gets its water from Yellow Creek, a tributary of Two Lick Creek, which serves the reservoir and picks up the slack in the event of a drought.
“Should the Two Lick Creek Reservoir be emptied, [the water utility] would not be able to provide sufficient water to protect public health and safety in their service area,” the drought management plan reads.
In 1985, the delicate system between Two Lick and Yellow Creek was strained when the then-Homer City plant drew so much water from the reservoir that it led to a drought. “Had a significant rainfall not occurred … the reservoir may have faced total depletion,” the drought management plan reads.
A report from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shows that the water utility drawing from Two Lick has, in recent years, routinely used nearly half its allotted amount. But critics fear that allocation could be at risk once a data center opens and starts drawing water.
Robin Gorman, a spokesperson for Homer City Redevelopment, told Capital & Main that it plans to leave cooling and water-use decisions to its data center clients, making it unclear how much water will be needed to keep all the computers running, or where that water would come from.
Rob Nymick, Homer City’s former borough manager, who serves as manager of the Central Indiana County Water Authority, told Capital & Main that he is confident local municipalities can share water resources with the planned gas plant. But the data centers could be a different story.
“I do know that data centers do require a tremendous amount of water,” Nymick said. “That’s something we probably cannot provide.”
Nymick said that community officials are operating with “limited knowledge,” and that during the handful of meetings they have held with Homer City Redevelopment, “The only thing that they wanted to discuss is the actual power plant.”
Eric Barker, who grew up in Homer City, attended the September hearing with restrained optimism. “The power plant was a source of pride and is a source of pride for the community,” he said. “There’s not too many large employers in Indiana County,” he added.
But he found little comfort at the September hearing.
The Department of Environmental Protection “seemed woefully, woefully, comically underprepared,” Barker said, citing a response he received to a question about the types of pollutants that would increase under the new Homer City proposal, compared to what was emitted by the old plant. Barker was told the agency would look into it and get back to him.
“Some questions and concerns were raised at the public meeting regarding the plan approval about matters beyond the limited scope of the meeting,” said Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Tom Decker in a statement. “Interested parties are encouraged to look to the DEP’s extensive website, including its community page dedicated to the Homer City project, for resources addressing such questions and concerns.”
Despite the questions that followed, the department, on the whole, signaled satisfaction with the Homer City plant’s air permit application at the hearing. “What’s being proposed is what we consider state-of-the-art emission controls,” said Dave Balog, environmental engineering manager at the department’s northwest regional office.
Environmental nonprofits Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, Clean Air Council, the Sierra Club, and Earthjustice countered in a 44-page comment on a draft of the key air permit that the application does not incorporate the best tools for mitigating pollutants such as ammonia, which is known to cause respiratory issues and other health risks. The Department of Environmental Protection agreed with Homer City Redevelopment’s analyses of its best available technology, and the permit was granted.
‘We’re fighting for our survival’
As Homer City’s smokestacks imploded and fell to the ground last March, leaving only a gray cloud, Dudash wondered what particulates might be in the dusty mix. While there were rumors in town that asbestos might be among them, the Department of Environmental Protection told Capital & Main that the site was inspected for the substance before it was demolished and none was found.
Still, coal dust, fly ash, and silica particulates are all possible during such implosions, an agency representative said. In the months since, residents have complained of repeated blasts from the site rattling their houses. As of January, the blasts occurred daily.
But the particulates that drift from the old plant during the blasts may pale in comparison to the carbon dioxide emissions the new power plant is predicted to release. The key air permit the Department of Environmental Protection issued to the facility allows it to release up to 17.5 million tons of the heat-trapping gas per year — the equivalent of putting 3.6 million gas-powered vehicles on the road annually. In 2010, according to federal data, the plant emitted just over 11 million tons of greenhouse gasses. In 2023, when it was operating at a fraction of its capacity, it emitted 1.3 million.
In their comment to regulators, the nonprofit environmental groups said that the carbon dioxide emissions would be triple those of any polluting facility in the state, representing 6% of Pennsylvania’s total emissions. The new plant will also emit sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, two classes of respiratory irritants, but at rates lower than the old plant. The nonprofit Clean Air Council condemned regulators’ issuance of the air permit, calling it a “death sentence.” Along with PennFuture and the Sierra Club, the council appealed the permit in December.
The owners said the emissions from the new plant will result in a 35%-40% reduction in carbon dioxide compared to the old plant, but the calculation does not account for the new plant’s larger size. Instead, it is per-megawatt hour, meaning per unit of energy generated. Natural gas is less emissions-intensive than coal when burned, but because the Homer City plant will generate more than double the energy of its predecessor, its overall emissions profile is expected to be higher.
As the state grapples with extreme weather events such as flooding due to global warming, locking in carbon emissions is the wrong direction to go, the environmental nonprofits argue. On an annual basis, the plant will be permitted to emit hundreds of tons of respiratory irritants like particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, and dozens of tons of formaldehyde, a carcinogen. It will also emit health-harming compounds like toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene.
Additional emissions are likely to come from the natural gas drilling that will be required to power the site.
In 2024, Nymick told Capital & Main that the borough was struggling to find a new economic engine. “We’re fighting for our survival,” he said at the time. Data center industry advocates contend that the data center gold rush will be a boon for communities like Homer City, where boarded-up storefronts line the main street.
“For every one job in a data center, six jobs are supported elsewhere in the economy,” said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group, at a hearing in the state Capitol in October.
The smokestacks of the former coal-fired Homer City Generating Station crumble in a planned demolition to make way for a new natural gas-fired power plant in Homer City, Pa., in early 2025.
Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at nonprofit think tank the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the reality isn’t that rosy. The average data center employs as few as 10 people and as many as 110, per his own calculations based in part on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The computers inside them can generally run on their own with limited maintenance.
Even in a rural county like Indiana, O’Leary said, “One hundred is a rounding error. It just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they’re paid $200,000 a year. It’s not enough to make a significant change in the status of the local economy.”
In a recent report on the data center boom in natural gas economies in Appalachia, O’Leary said gas-powered data centers represent the combination of “three non-labor-intensive industries” — fracking, power plants, and data centers. “Stacking [them] on top of each other does not alter the underlying dynamic which ties them together.”
Ron Airhart, a former coal miner and executive assistant to the secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, is more optimistic about the economic potential of the new Homer City facility.
Still, he concedes that it will never be what the old plant was. “Yes, building a gas-fired power plant is going to create a lot of construction jobs, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But once it’s done, how many actual employees are you going to have working there?”
He quickly added, “But, I’m glad they are doing something with the old power plant there.”
Gorman told Capital & Main that Homer City Redevelopment and its construction partner, Kiewit, are planning to hire from local unions and building trades. They foresee 10,000 construction jobs. They also anticipate the site will create 1,000 “direct and indirect” permanent jobs, including those hired at the facility itself and those brought aboard for supportive positions, such as suppliers.
“From start to finish, the Homer City Energy Campus will be developed in partnership with skilled local craftsmen and will bring quality, good-paying jobs back to the Homer City community,” Gorman said.
O’Leary said the jobs numbers such as those projected by the Data Center Coalition are inflated, similar to the employment projections made before the fracking boom in rural Appalachia. He said such projections are a detriment to communities, in part because taxpayers shoulder the cost of subsidies to attract the industry to the state, such as a sales and use tax exemption for data centers that Pennsylvania codified in 2021. Gov. Shapiro has estimated that the credit will expand to about $50 million per year for the next five years.
Local residents are also burdened with rising utility bills. The surging demand for electricity is straining the region’s power supplies, increasing what utilities pay for electricity. New power plants coming onto the grid must install transmission equipment, the costs of which they share with consumers. These economic factors, in sum, could outweigh the benefits of the new jobs the data center creates, O’Leary said.
Earlier this year, the grid operator for the region that encompasses Pennsylvania, PJM, saw electricity prices surge by roughly 1,000% from two years ago. Some of that cost is expected to be passed onto customers.
“We have a problem, and that problem is real, and it is exponential electricity load growth causing exponential price increases for consumers,” said Patrick Cicero, former consumer advocate for the state of Pennsylvania and now an attorney for the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, at the October hearing in Harrisburg.
“In the context of Grandma vs. Google,” Cicero said, referring to older residents faced with high bills, “Grandma should win every day. That should be the policy statement of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Federal and state lawmakers are still determining how and whether to regulate the additional costs that data centers pass onto consumers, including for fees associated with transmission throughout the grid. A bill that would create such a process while establishing renewable energy mandates for data centers is now being weighed by Pennsylvania representatives.
Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, predicts such costs add complications for data centers, and has argued that their demand as a whole is overblown. Supply chain delays spurred by surging demand for turbines, including those that Homer City will be using, could also create additional costs and lag times, he said.
“If there is an AI bubble and it bursts,” he said, “you would have built all this capacity that wasn’t needed.”
Homer City’s owners said the plant is better positioned than others in the industry since it isn’t starting from scratch.
“Much of the critical infrastructure for the project is already in place from the legacy Homer City coal plant, including transmission lines connected to the PJM and NYISO power grids, substations, and water access,” Gorman, the spokesperson, said.
Communities on the front lines of these projects would be the first hurt by a project that fails to materialize.
But in Homer City, it’s clear that there’s an appetite for the promise of a new, job-producing industry, regardless of hurdles.
At the September hearing, many in the crowd wore neon shirts with union logos — a signal of the region’s fierce pride in its industrial past, and deep thirst for an economic boon. After an evening peppered with skepticism over the plant, Shawn Steffee, a business agent at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, stepped to the microphone.
“Everybody speaking about jobs,” he cried, “there will be jobs, and there will be local jobs.”
As he walked away, the room filled with applause — the loudest of the night.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that starting Feb. 1 he will deny federal funding to any states that are home to local governments resisting his administration’s immigration policies, expanding on previous threats to cut off resources to the so-called sanctuary cities themselves.
Such an action could have far-reaching impacts across the U.S., potentially even in places that aren’t particularly friendly to noncitizens.
Two previous efforts by Trump to cut off some funding for sanctuary jurisdictions were shut down by courts.
Trump unveiled the concept this time late in a speech Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, without offering specifics.
“Starting Feb. 1, we’re not making any payments to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities, because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens and it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come,” he said. “So we’re not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities.”
Back in Washington, Trump was asked by reporters what kind of funding would be affected on Feb. 1: “You’ll see,” he said. “It’ll be significant.”
There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Courts have rejected the idea before
In an executive orders last year, the president directed federal officials to withhold money from sanctuary jurisdictions that seek to shield people in the country illegally from deportation.
A California-based federal judge struck it down despite government lawyers saying it was too early to stop the plan when no action had been taken and no specific conditions had been laid out.
In Trump’s first term in office, in 2017, courts struck down his effort to cut funding to the cities.
Some of the details are tricky
The Justice Department last year published a list of three dozen states, cities and counties that it considers to be sanctuary jurisdictions.
The list is overwhelmingly made up of places where the governments are controlled by Democrats, including the states of California, Connecticut and New York, cities such as Boston and New York and counties including Baltimore County, Maryland, and Cook County, Illinois.
That list replaced an earlier, longer one that was met with pushback from officials who said it wasn’t clear why their jurisdictions were on it.
The administration has been threatening funding in specific places
The federal government has moved to halt funding for a variety of programs in recent weeks and is already facing legal challenges.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has warned states that have refused to provide data on recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program money that they’ll be docked administrative funds. A court fight over the request for information was already underway before the threat came. Money hasn’t been stopped yet.
The U.S. Department of Health and Social Services said last week that it was halting money from five Democratic-led states for daycare subsidies and other aid to low-income families with children over unspecified suspicions about fraud. A court put that on hold
The administration has tried to use additional financial pressure against Minnesota, a state where it has also sent a wave of federal officers in an immigration crackdown. The Agriculture Department has said it’s freezing funding in the state — but without laying out many details.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also told Minnesota last week that it intends to withhold $515 million every three months from 14 Medicaid programs that were deemed “high risk” after rejecting a corrective action plan it demanded because of fraud allegations. The amount is equivalent to one-fourth of the federal money for those programs. State officials said Tuesday that they’re appealing.
It’s a longstanding question: Where does South Jersey start? Is the dividing line the same as where Eagles fans stop and Giants fans begin? Is it based on your area code? Is there someother sign that you’ve crossed from the North to the South?
The Inquirer is posing that very question to readers, along with one other hotly debated item: Is there such a thing as Central Jersey?
A high-end gym is taking over the former Buy Buy Baby space in the Ellisburg Shopping Center. Club Studio Fitness is expected to open a 30,240-square-foot gym in spring 2027. Club Studio Fitness, the boutique-style gym from parent company LA Fitness, is known for its premium amenities like cryotherapy and red-light therapy, a juice bar, stretch stations, and locker rooms, in addition to its fitness and wellness offerings. Memberships at Club Studio Fitness’ only other New Jersey location, in Edgewater, range from $189 to $249 per month.
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the township is hosting two service events in the coming week. On Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m., volunteers will help with trail maintenance throughout Croft Farm. And on Monday, kids 11 to 17 can participate in a youth leadership workshop with the police department. Advanced registration is required.
Two Cherry Hill residents are among the 2026 Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal recipients, awarded by Camden County. Artist Giselle Brown and Col. Ted Gallagher, director of veterans affairs for Camden County, will be recognized alongside nine other recipients next Wednesday. Brown is a 17-year-old whose work has been recognized at the local, state, and national level, and Gallagher is a decorated 28-year military veteran who went on to work at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services before joining the county.
Broadway show Suffs is currently in town and has two South Jersey connections, one far less obvious than the other. The touring musical, which is at the Academy of Music through Sunday, was created by playwright, composer, and actor Shaina Taub, whose mother is a Cherry Hill native. It follows the suffrage movement and centers on South Jersey Quaker activist Alice Paul, who was born in Mount Laurel. The Inquirer’s Rosa Cartagena dives into what inspired the Tony Award-winning production.
Washington, D.C.-based Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies has named a new principal to its Cherry Hill office. Braxton Plummer will help grow the government relations firm’s practice throughout New Jersey and the region.
Park Royal Orthodontics recently opened at 921 Haddonfield Rd. at Towne Place at Garden State Park. The practice offers orthodontic care for all ages.
A clarification: We notedin last week’s newsletter thatAppliances Outlet will be moving into the space occupied by Whole Hog Cafe and Wine Legend. Appliances Outlet will only take over part of the space, and neither of the current businesses are slated to close.
🏫 Schools Briefing
There are no classes Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
There will be a preschool information session next Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at West’s new auditorium.
Chick’s Deli got a shout-out from BestofNJ.com as one of the best sandwich shops in New Jersey. The website noted specialty sandwiches like the chicken cheesesteak with broccoli rabe and sharp provolone “really shine.” It also suggested trying the mushroom cheesesteak.
🎳 Things to Do
♒ Napkin Wars: Battle of the Zodiac!: Represent your zodiac sign during this fun “napkin war” party, where three DJs will spin tunes. ⏰ Saturday, Jan. 17, 9 p.m.-2 a.m. 💵 $19.03 📍 Vera
👩⚕️ Game Plan for Wellness: Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital’s community health expo will include wellness stations and tables, healthcare screenings, cooking and exercise demos, and more. ⏰ Sunday, Jan. 18, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. 💵 Free 📍 Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital
🧁 Valentine’s Day Cupcake Decorating: Registration opens tomorrow for this event geared toward kids in sixth through 12th grade. ⏰ Sunday, Feb. 8, 2-3:30 p.m. 💵 Free 📍 Cherry Hill Public Library
The kitchen island has cabinetry which contrasts with the slate-gray cabinets throughout the rest of the space.
Located in the Olde Springs neighborhood, this four-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom home blends classic and modern design elements. Its first floor features include a dining room, a multipurpose room with a tiled fireplace, a laundry and mudroom, and an open-concept kitchen and living room. The kitchen has a large island with white cabinetry that contrasts with the slate-gray cabinets throughout the rest of the space and matches the subway tile backsplash. It opens into a two-story living room. The bedrooms are upstairs, including a primary suite with a double vanity and soaking tub.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
