WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that Democrats would “find a reason to impeach me” if the GOP lost control of Congress — using the prediction to pressure lawmakers to unify behind a narrow set of electoral priorities to win the 2026 midterm elections.
“You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump said. “I’ll get impeached.”
The remark was a rare acknowledgment of Trump’s political vulnerability as Republicans prepare to face a Democratic Party buoyed by a string of off-year election victories, favorable polling, and voter anxiety over an economy now fully under Trump’s stewardship. The warning framed the midterms not onlyas a referendum on his agenda, but as a test of his legacy.
Trump addressed the representatives at the start of an all-day policy forum for House Republicans inside the Kennedy Center, a performing arts building recently renamed in his honor. The setting in the heart of Washington underscored how far Trump has come since Jan. 6, 2021, exactly five years ago, when rioters stormed the Capitol and set off years of criminal prosecution and political isolation.
In an address meant to energize his party, Trump conceded that his agenda has struggled to break through with voters. He complained that Americans had quickly moved past his record on illegal immigration and that the press had paid little attention to his push to pressure drug companies to cut prices, which has yielded wins, albeit limited, for some consumers.
He urged House Republicans to focus their messaging on drug prices, transgender athletes in women’s sports and cracking down on violent crime — issues he argued could sharpen contrasts with Democrats and mobilize voters ahead of 2026. And he instructed Republicans to set internal disputes aside and focus on a disciplined message he believes can carry them in November.
He also used the moment to defend Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who has struggled to manage an ideologically divided conference with a razor-thin majority without Trump’s interference.
“He’s as tough as anybody in the room actually,” the president said. “But you can’t be tough when you have a majority of three.”
“You can’t be Trump,” he said, appearing to mock his own confrontational style. “You make 10 enemies, 20 enemies and that’s the end of that.”
The endorsement came at a critical moment for Johnson, who is trying to unify his unruly conference behind a second legislative package after passing a sweeping tax and immigration effort — dubbed by Trump the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Trump also urged House Republicans to reclaim healthcare from the Democrats as a political issue and to pass a voting ID law, while urging conservatives to remain “flexible on Hyde” a signal to lawmakers who have stalled negotiations over abortion language.
“You got to be a little flexible. You got to work something,” Trump said. “We’re all big fans of everything but you got to have flexibility.”
Since returning to the presidency, Trump has continued to minimize the violenceof the riot, calling the insurrection “a day of love” and ultimately fulfilling his promise to pardon participants charged with misdemeanors and felonies. On Tuesday, he again downplayed his role.
Across town, House Democrats marked the anniversary with a hearing featuring lawmakers, Capitol Police officers and Pamela Hemphill, a rioter who entered the Capitol and later rejected a pardon from Trump.
“Once I got away from the MAGA cult and started educating myself about January the 6th, I knew what I did was wrong,” she said. “When Donald Trump pardoned us I rejected the pardon. Accepting that pardon would be lying about what happened on January 6. I am guilty.”
Republicansmeanwhile refocused on their agenda Tuesday,which the party is seeking to anchor on Trump’s economic agenda. That effort has been complicated by his decision to deploy U.S. forces to Venezuela and seize control of the country’s oil assets, a move that has resonated with some hawkish Republicans and members of both parties critical of Nicolás Maduro, but concerned others who fear the president’s “America First” base will lose patience with his interventionism.
Trump argued the action would lower energy costs.
“Got a lot of oil to drill,” he said.
Trump’s address lasted for more than an hour and included everything from jokes about FDR’s disability to an aside about first lady Melania Trump’s distaste for his dance moves.
“I think I gave you something,” he concluded. “It’s just a road map. It’s a road map to victory.”
LONDON — Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is facing a backlash from governments around the world after a recent surge in sexualized images of women and children generated without consent by the artificial intelligence-powered tool.
On Tuesday, Britain’s top technology official demanded that Musk’s social media platform X take urgent action while a Polish lawmaker cited it as a reason to enact digital safety laws.
The European Union’s executive arm has denounced Grok while officials and regulators in France, India, Malaysia, and Brazil have condemned the platform and called for investigations.
Rising alarm from disparate nations points to the nightmarish potential of nudification apps that use artificial intelligence to generate sexually explicit deepfake images.
Here’s a closer look:
Image generation
The problem emerged after the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.
It snowballed late last month when Grok, which is hosted on X, apparently began granting a large number of user requests to modify images posted by others. As of Tuesday, Grok users could still generate images of women using requests such as, “put her in a transparent bikini.”
The problem is amplified both because Musk pitches his chatbot as an edgier alternative to rivals with more safeguards, and because Grok’s images are publicly visible, and can therefore be easily spread.
Nonprofit group AI Forensics said in a report that it analyzed 20,000 images generated by Grok between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1 and found that 2% depicted a person who appeared to be 18 or younger, including 30 of young or very young women or girls, in bikinis or transparent clothes.
Musk response
Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, responded to a request for comment with the automated response, “Legacy Media Lies.”
However, X did not deny that the troublesome content generated through Grok exists. Yet it still claimed in a post on its Safety account, that it takes action against illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, “by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.”
The platform also repeated a comment from Musk, who said, “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
A growing list of countries are demanding that Musk does more to rein in explicit or abusive content.
Britain
X must “urgently” deal with the problem, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said Tuesday, adding that she supported additional scrutiny from the U.K.’s communications regulator, Ofcom.
Kendall said the content is “absolutely appalling, and unacceptable in decent society.”
“We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls.”
Ofcom said Monday it has made “urgent contact” with X.
“We are aware of serious concerns raised about a feature on Grok on X that produces undressed images of people and sexualised images of children,” the watchdog said.
The watchdog said it contacted both X and xAI to understand what steps it has taken to comply with British regulations.
Under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, social media platforms must prevent and remove child sexual abuse material when they become aware of it.
Poland
A Polish lawmaker used Grok on Tuesday as a reason for national digital safety legislation that would beef up protections for minors and make it easier for authorities to remove content.
In an online video, Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, speaker of the parliament, said he wanted to make himself a target of Grok to highlight the problem, as well as appeal to Poland’s president for support of the legislation.
“Grok lately is stripping people. It is undressing women, men, and children. We feel bad about it. I would, honestly, almost want this Grok to also undress me,” he said.
European Union
The bloc’s executive arm is “well aware” that Grok is being used to for “explicit sexual content with some output generated with childlike images,” European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said
“This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe. This is not the first time that Grok is generating such output,” he told reporters Monday.
After Grok spread Holocaust-denial content last year, according to Regnier, the Commission sought more information from Musk’s social media platform X. The response from X is currently being analyzed, he said.
France
The Paris prosecutor’s office said it’s widening an ongoing investigation of X to include sexually explicit deepfakes after officials receiving complaints from lawmakers.
Three government ministers alerted prosecutors to “manifestly illegal content” generated by Grok and posted on X, according to a government statement last week.
The government also flagged problems with the country’s communications regulator over possible breaches of the EU’s Digital Services Act.
“The internet is neither a lawless zone nor a zone of impunity: sexual offenses committed online constitute criminal offenses in their own right and fall fully under the law, just as those committed offline,” the government said.
India
The Indian government on Friday issued an ultimatum to X, demanding that it take down all “unlawful content” and take action against offending users. The country’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology also ordered the company to review Grok’s “technical and governance framework” and file a report on actions taken.
The ministry accused Grok of “gross misuse” of AI and serious failures of its safeguards and enforcement by allowing the generation and sharing of ”obscene images or videos of women in derogatory or vulgar manner in order to indecently denigrate them.”
The ministry warned failure to comply by the 72-hour deadline would expose the company to bigger legal problems, but the deadline passed with no public update from India.
Malaysia
The Malaysian communications watchdog said Saturday it was investigating X users who violated laws prohibiting spreading “grossly offensive, obscene, or indecent content.”
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said it’s also investigating online harms on X, and would summon a company representative.
The watchdog said it took note of public complaints about X’s AI tools being used to digitally manipulate “images of women and minors to produce indecent, grossly offensive, or otherwise harmful content.”
Brazil
Lawmaker Erika Hilton said she reported Grok and X to the Brazilian federal public prosecutor’s office and the country’s data protection watchdog.
In a social media post, she accused both of generating, then publishing sexualized images of women and children without consent.
She said X’s AI functions should be disabled until an investigation has been carried out.
Hilton, one of Brazil’s first transgender lawmakers, decried how users could get Grok to digitally alter any published photo, including “swapping the clothes of women and girls for bikinis or making them suggestive and erotic.”
“The right to one’s image is individual; it cannot be transferred through the ‘terms of use’ of a social network, and the mass distribution of child pornography by an artificial intelligence integrated into a social network crosses all boundaries,” she said.
A Philadelphia man whose murder conviction was overturned because of its connection to disgraced former homicide detective Philip Nordo is now a suspect in two new homicides, and he was arrested this weekend after authorities say he committed yet another violent crime.
Arkel Garcia, 32, had been on the run since November, when police said he beat an elderly acquaintance to death inside an apartment complex in the city’s Stenton section. Authorities described that crime as a robbery, and issued an arrest warrant for Garcia on murder charges.
Weeks after that, authorities in Florida said they were seeking to question Garcia in connection with another killing there, on Nov. 28 in St. Lucie County. The sheriff’s office said a victim — whom it did not identify — died from blunt force trauma and smoke inhalation after a residence was intentionally set ablaze. Authorities did not provide many additional details about the crime, but said Garcia was considered a person of interest “based on evidence recovered at the crime scene and witness interviews.”
The most recent incident occurred Sunday afternoon, when police said Garcia, back in Philadelphia, shot a 34-year-old man in the arm inside a residence on the 5200 block of Germantown Avenue. Another man, age 37, then stabbed Garcia, police said, and began struggling with Garcia over his firearm, at which point the gun went off and struck Garcia.
Responding officers found Garcia suffering from gunshot and stab wounds in a nearby parking lot and took him to a hospital, where he was to be treated before being arraigned on murder charges. He had not been arraigned as of Tuesday afternoon.
The string of crimes occurred about a year after Garcia was released from prison after the collapse of his earlier murder case — an outcome prosecutors said was necessary because of Nordo’s misconduct.
In 2015, a jury had found Garcia guilty of fatally shooting Christian Massey, a 21-year-old man with special needs who was killed in Overbrook over a pair of Beats by Dre headphones. Garcia was sentenced to life in prison.
But four years later, District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office charged Nordo with raping and sexually assaulting male witnesses he met on the job. And as part of that investigation, prosecutors said they uncovered emails and recorded phone calls showing that Nordo had pursued secret sexual relationships with key witnesses while seeking to compile evidence implicating Garcia.
A confidential informant who spoke to Nordo about the Garcia case later told The Inquirer Nordo sexually assaulted him and also failed to protect his identity in the neighborhood. The informant was later convicted of killing someone after he said he was threatened because of being labeled a snitch.
In 2021, prosecutors persuaded a judge to overturn Garcia’s murder conviction in the Massey killing, and Krasner’s office declined to retry him.
But Garcia was not released from prison right away. After being found guilty of Massey’s murder, he fought with a sheriff’s deputy in the courtroom and was later convicted of aggravated assault. A judge sentenced him to five to 10 years in prison for that crime, and he remained incarcerated for it until he was paroled in October of 2024.
(Nordo, meanwhile, was convicted of sex crimes in 2022 and sentenced to 24½ to 49 years in prison.)
Late last year — while Garcia was still on parole — police said he fatally beat 68-year-old David Weinkopff inside an apartment on the 4900 block of Stenton Avenue. Weinkopff was wheelchair-bound, authorities said, and neighbors told police they’d seen Garcia going into and out of the building before the crime.
About two weeks after a murder warrant was issued in that case, authorities in Florida announced they were seeking to question Garcia over a homicide in Fort Pierce, a coastal city about an hour north of West Palm Beach.
Detectives there believe Garcia may have come to the area to visit estranged relatives, but are not sure how or why he killed the 51-year-old victim found dead on the 600 block of South Market Avenue. By the time authorities said they were seeking to question Garcia, they said he may have been attempting to return to Philadelphia by bus.
Still, Garcia remained on the lam until Sunday, when police said he got into an argument with several people inside a residence in Germantown.
Witnesses said the episode turned violent when Garcia fired his gun, according to Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore, and officials said Garcia was the only one with a firearm.
Vanore said Garcia was expected to face charges including aggravated assault, illegal gun possession, and reckless endangerment — in addition to the murder charges he will face for the killing on Stenton Avenue in November.
A relative of Massey’s, who asked not to be identified to discuss Garcia’s new arrest, said she and her relatives had felt “let down” by the system — and were heartbroken that Garcia, whom she still believes killed Massey, had been freed to hurt other people.
“This is a violent individual,” she said. “How is that not clear?”
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Abortion will remain legal in Wyoming after the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that two laws barring the procedure, including the country’s first explicit ban on abortion pills, violate the state constitution.
The justices sided with the state’s only abortion clinic and others who had sued over the abortion bans passed since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Wyoming is one of the most conservative states, but the 4-1 ruling from justices all appointed by Republican governors was unsurprising in that it upheld every previous lower court ruling that the abortion bans violated the state constitution.
Wellspring Health Access in Casper, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund and four women, including two obstetricians, argued that the laws violated a state constitutional amendment ensuring competent adults have the right to make their own healthcare decisions.
Voters approved the constitutional amendment in 2012 in response to the federal Affordable Care Act. The justices recognized that the amendment wasn’t written to apply to abortion but said it’s not their job to “add words” to the state constitution.
“But lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly address this issue,” the justices wrote.
The ruling upholds abortion as “essential healthcare” that shouldn’t be subject to government interference, Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
“Our clinic will remain open and ready to provide compassionate reproductive healthcare, including abortions, and our patients in Wyoming will be able to obtain this care without having to travel out of state,” Burkhart said.
The clinic opened in 2023 as the only facility of its kind in the state, almost a year later than planned after an arson attack. A woman who admitted breaking in and causing heavy damage by lighting gasoline that she poured over the clinic floors pleaded guilty and has been serving a five-year prison sentence.
Attorneys for the state had argued before the state Supreme Court that abortion can’t violate the Wyoming constitution because it is not healthcare.
Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, said in a statement that the court ruling disappointed him. He called on state lawmakers meeting later this winter to pass a constitutional amendment banning abortion that would go before voters this fall.
“This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question, but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself. It is time for this issue to go before the people for a vote,” Gordon said.
Such an amendment would require a two-thirds vote to be introduced as a nonbudget matter in the monthlong legislative session that will be devoted primarily to the state budget. But it would have wide support in the Republican-dominated statehouse.
One of the laws overturned Tuesday sought to ban abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape or incest. The other law would have made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on abortion medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
Abortion has remained legal in the state since Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens in Jackson blocked the bans while the lawsuit challenging them went ahead. Owens struck down the laws as unconstitutional in 2024.
Last year, Wyoming passed additional laws requiring abortion clinics to be licensed surgical centers and women to get ultrasounds before having medication abortions. A judge in a separate lawsuit has blocked those laws from taking effect while that case proceeds.
Thirteen states currently ban abortion completely after the North Dakota Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling and upheld that state’s abortion ban in November.
The Philadelphia Police Department on Tuesday released the name of the officer who shot and wounded a knife-wielding man on New Year’s Eve in Strawberry Mansion: Nicholas Jones.
Jones, 26, a four-year veteran of the department, shot 31-year-old Keith Freeman once in the chest, police said.
Jones and another officer — whose name has not been released — were called to a house in the 1800 block of North Bailey Street, police said, after a 911 caller had reported hearing a woman screaming.
A 9-year-old child opened the door, police said, and inside the officers saw a 30-year-old woman lying on the floor. Standing over her, knife in hand, they said, was Freeman. The woman had not been injured.
According to police, Jones and the other officer told Freeman to drop the knife. Instead, police said, Freeman leapt over a sofa and charged the officers, and Jones shot him.
Freeman was taken to Temple University Hospital for treatment. He was charged with aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person.
Freeman and the woman know one another, police said.
A police spokesperson said Tuesday that Jones has not previously been involved in an on-duty shooting. He has been placed on administrative duty, as is customary, pending an internal investigation.
WASHINGTON — Republican Doug LaMalfa, a seven-term U.S. representative from California and a reliable vote on President Donald Trump’s agenda, has died, reducing the GOP’s narrow control of the House. He was 65.
A former state lawmaker and rice farmer, LaMalfa had more than a dozen years in Congress, where he regularly helped GOP leaders open the House floor and frequently gave speeches. His death, confirmed by Majority Whip Tom Emmer and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson, trims the Republicans’ margin of control of the House to 218 seats to Democrats’ 213.
“I was really saddened by his passing,” Trump said.
The president said he considered not giving the speech to honor LaMalfa but decided to go ahead with it “because he would have wanted it that way.”
Trump said the late congressman “wasn’t a 3 o’clock in the morning person” like other lawmakers he would call in the wee hours to lobby for their votes.
“He voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump said. “With Doug, I never had to call.”
Details surrounding LaMalfa’s death were unclear.
David Reade, a former chief of staff of LaMalfa’s from the state legislature, became emotional remembering LaMalfa, who he said was committed to his district and proud of his family and Christian faith.
“One of my great memories of Doug is that, you know, he would show up at the smallest events that were important in people’s lives in this district,” Reade said in a phone interview. “Whether it was a birthday, it was, you, know, a family gathering, it was the smallest organization in his district, and he would drive literally hundreds and hundreds of miles to be there.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, must call a special election to replace LaMalfa, his office said. The election could happen as late as June, when California will hold its primary for the 2026 midterm.
Hudson, the NRCC chairman, called LaMalfa “a principled conservative and a tireless advocate for the people of Northern California.”
“He was never afraid to fight for rural communities, farmers, and working families,” Hudson said. “Doug brought grit, authenticity, and conviction to everything he did in public service.”
First elected to Congress in 2012, he was a regular presence on the House floor, helping GOP leadership open the chamber and offer his view local and national affairs.
C-SPAN in a recent compilation said he gave at least one set of remarks for the record on 81 days in 2025. Only two other lawmakers spoke on the House floor more frequently.
WASHINGTON — Five years ago outside the White House, outgoing President Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters to head to the Capitol — “and I’ll be there with you” — in protest as Congress was affirming the 2020 election victory for Democrat Joe Biden.
A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.
On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree to a shared history of the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.
Instead, the day displayed the divisions that still define Washington, and the country, and the White House itself issued a glossy new report with its own revised history of what happened.
Trump, during a lengthy morning speech to House Republicans convening away from the Capitol at the rebranded Kennedy Center now carrying his own name, shifted blame for Jan. 6 onto the rioters themselves.
The president said he had intended only for his supporters to go “peacefully and patriotically” to confront Congress as it certified Biden’s win. He blamed the media for focusing on other parts of his speech that day.
At the same time, Democrats held their own morning meeting at the Capitol, reconvening members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack for a panel discussion. Recalling the history of the day is important, they said, in order to prevent what Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) warned was the GOP’s “Orwellian project of forgetting.”
And the former leader of the militant Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, summoned people for a midday march retracing the rioters’ steps from the White House to the Capitol, this time to honor Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the Jan. 6 siege and its aftermath. More than 100 people gathered, including Babbitt’s mother.
Tarrio and others are putting pressure on the Trump administration to punish officials who investigated and prosecuted the Jan. 6 rioters. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack, and he is among more than 1,500 defendants who saw their charges dropped when Trump issued a sweeping pardon on his return to the White House last year.
“They should be fired and prosecuted,” Tarrio told the crowd before they arrived at the Capitol, confronted along the way by counterprotesters, and sang the national anthem.
The White House in its new report highlighted the work the president has already done to free those charged and turned the blame on Democrats for certifying Biden’s election victory.
Echoes of 5 years ago
This milestone anniversary carried echoes of the differences that erupted that day.
But it unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, particularly after the U.S. military’s stunning capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Trump’s plans to take over the country and prop up its vast oil industry, a striking new era of American expansionism.
“These people in the administration, they want to lecture the world about democracy when they’re undermining the rule of law at home, as we all will be powerfully reminded,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on the eve of the anniversary.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, responding to requests for comment about the delay in hanging the plaque honoring the police at the Capitol, as required by law, said in a statement on the eve of the anniversary that the statute “is not implementable,” and proposed alternatives “also do not comply with the statute.”
Democrats revive an old committee, Republicans lead a new one
At the morning hearing at the Capitol, lawmakers heard from a range of witnesses and others — including former U.S. Capitol Police officer Winston Pingeon, who said as a kid he always dreamed of being a cop. But on that day, he thought he was going to die in the mayhem on the steps of the Capitol.
“I implore America to not forget what happened,” he said, “I believe the vast majority of Americans have so much more in common than what separates us.”
Also testifying was Pamela Hemphill, a rioter who refused Trump’s pardon, blamed the president for the violence and silenced the room as she apologized to the officer sitting alongside her at the witness table, stifling tears.
“I can’t allow them not be recognized, to be lied about,” Hemphill said about the police who she said also saved her life as she fell and was trampled on by the mob. “Until I can see that plaque get up there, I’m not done.”
Among those testifying were former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who along with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the two Republicans on the panel that investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win. Cheney, who lost her own reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, did not appear. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi urged the country to turn away from a culture of lies and violence that she said sends the wrong message about democracy.
Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who has been tapped by Johnson to lead a new committee to probe other theories about what happened on Jan. 6, rejected Tuesday’s session as a “partisan exercise” designed to hurt Trump and his allies.
Many Republicans reject the narrative that Trump sparked the Jan. 6 attack, and Johnson, before he became the House speaker, had led challenges to the 2020 election. He was among some 130 GOP lawmakers voting that day to reject the presidential results from some states.
Instead, they have focused on security lapses at the Capitol — from the time it took for the National Guard to arrive on the scene to the failure of the police canine units to discover the pipe bombs found that day outside Republican and Democratic party headquarters. The FBI arrested a Virginia man suspected of placing the pipe bombs, and he told investigators last month he believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen, authorities say.
“The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on Jan. 6,” Loudermilk said in a social media post. “My Select Subcommittee remains committed to transparency and accountability and ensuring the security failures that occurred on Jan. 6 and the partisan investigation that followed never happens again.”
The aftermath of Jan. 6
At least five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police while trying to climb through the window of a door near the House chamber, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later, some by suicide.
The Justice Department indicted Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack.
Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last month that the riot at the Capitol “does not happen” without Trump. He ended up abandoning the case once Trump was reelected president, adhering to department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump, who never made it to the Capitol that day as he hunkered down at the White House, was impeached by the House on the sole charge of having incited the insurrection. The Senate acquitted him after top GOP senators said they believed the matter was best left to the courts.
El Carnaval de Puebla, one of the biggest yearly celebrations of Mexican culture in Philadelphia and on the East Coast, is not returning in 2026.
For the second year in a row, the current immigration policies have overshadowed the festival that commemorates the Battle of Puebla traditionally celebrated on May 5, but not for the reasons one might expect.
“We are not scared of ICE; it is not fear that drives us,” said Edgar Ramirez, founder of Philatinos Radio and a committee member for San Mateo Carnavalero. “Many of the people who attend the carnival are second or third generation, but we are living at a time where the feeling of rejection is palpable, and it is not a suitable environment.”
A group of children dress up for the 2019 Carnaval de Puebla.
El Carnaval de Puebla has been a long-standing tradition for the city since 2005, stopping only during the pandemic, the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency in 2017, and last year following his reelection, as concerns for attracting immigration enforcement actions arose.
Since Trump’s reelection, the number of immigrants in federal detention facilities has increased beyond 65,000, a two-thirds increase since he took office last January.
Such uncertainty over when ICE might strike puts festival attendees at risk, making it harder to find sponsors and generate enough revenue to pay for city permits and requirements to hold the event, said committee member Olga Renteria.
“It’s hard to ask people to invest when there is no certainty that the carnival will be able to drive the success of previous years,” said Renteria, who noted that over 15,000 people attended the carnival in 2024. “The carnival is about family, sharing, drinking, enjoying yourself, and right now, any excuse is good enough to arrest someone; one incident is enough.”
For the community, this feels like a loss of space, both literally and figuratively.
A group of Carnavaleros march on Broad Street during the 2019 Carnaval de Puebla.
Longtime carnival attendee Alma Romero looked forward to seeing people in traditional attire, dancing andparading on Washington Avenue, triggering memories of her home in Puebla once a year.
“The carnival would have been good to lift our spirits, just as the Day of the Dead celebrations did,” Romero said, referring to the Ninth Street Corridor festivities in November that commemorate loved ones who passed away. “Without it, it feels like a sense of pride and unity is missing; now we just carry it in our hearts.”
After having attended the parade at all 19 past El Carnaval de Pueblaevents in Philly, Karina Sanchez, too, feels that sense of loss.
“I understand it’s important for the community to feel safe, but it’s sad to see us shrinking ourselves,” Sanchez said. “When that sentimentgrows, it is not a loss just for us, but for Philadelphia as a whole.”
Currently, there are no plans to replace El Carnaval de Puebla, but there is hope among many for a return.
“We have to come back,” Ramirez said. “We must because we are part of this city too, and things have to get better at some point.”
The parade that included horses arrives at the 18th annual El Carnaval de Puebla at Sacks Playground on Washington Avenue on April 30, 2023. El Carnaval de Puebla falls on Mexico’s “Day of the Children” and is one of the city’s biggest celebrations of Mexican culture. The celebration featured a parade, traditional games, food, live music and dancing.
Sweeping changes to the United States’ childhood vaccine schedule announced Monday by federal officials will decrease the number of recommended childhood immunizations from 17 to 11.
Outraged pediatricians and infectious disease experts say the move will increase cases of preventable illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths. Among the vaccines affected is an immunization for rotavirus whose co-inventor, Paul Offit, directs the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Now, vaccination for the serious gastrointestinal illness is among those no longer universally recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The guidance change also affects immunizations for flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B. The CDC now recommends them for children at high risk of serious illness, or when parents of otherwise healthy children decide with their doctor to give their child vaccines for these diseases.
The CDC’s move is the latest in a chaotic upheaval of the nation’s vaccine policy overseen by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“I think the goal of RFK Jr. is to make vaccines optional,” said Offit, a longtime critic of Kennedy, saying the anti-vaccine activist “is doing everything he can to make vaccines less available, less affordable, and more feared.”
Other experts said the decision was made without transparency and had little scientific backing. It comes at a time when more Americans are refusing vaccines; in Pennsylvania kindergarteners’ measles vaccination rates have dipped below the critical 95% threshold required to prevent the disease from spreading widely.
The Infectious Disease Society of America called the move “the latest reckless step in Secretary Kennedy’s assault on the national vaccine infrastructure that has saved millions of lives.”
Ronald G. Nahass, a New Jersey-based physician and IDSA’s president, said in a statement that Kennedy’s actions “put families and communities at risk and will make America sicker.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics, a leading professional medical society, said it would continue to recommend that all children be vaccinated against rotavirus, hepatitis, and other diseases removed from the CDC’s routine immunization list.
Under the new guidelines, the CDC will continue to recommend that all children get vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough or pertussis, haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, human papillomavirus or HPV, and chickenpox.
The agency will also recommend that children at high risk for serious complications receive vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, dengue, and two meningococcal diseases.
Previously, an independent committee that advises the agency in November recommended delaying hepatitis B vaccines for newborns.
“This framework empowers parents and physicians to make individualized decisions based on risk, while maintaining strong protection against serious disease,” said Mehmet Oz, a physician and administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in a statement.
Federal officials said that insurance will continue to cover vaccinations, the Associated Press reported.
President Donald Trump is joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in September.
Vaccine policy around the world
Offit spent 26 years developing a rotavirus vaccine after treating children with the illness during his medical residency in Pittsburgh — including one patient who died. Rotavirus causes vomiting and diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and is particularly dangerous for young children. There are two vaccines available, one of which Offit helped to develop.
“I try not to take this personally,” he said of the new federal guidance.
“But what we hadn’t eliminated was the virus,” he said.
HHS officials said that their review of worldwide vaccination policies found that the United States vaccinates for more diseases than other developed countries.
But, they said, many countries that recommend fewer vaccines still achieve “strong child health outcomes” and “maintain high vaccination rates through public trust and education rather than mandates.”
Denmark may have better health outcomes, but it also has a national healthcare system, a lower childhood poverty level, and free childcare, Offit noted in a recent blog post.
And, he said, Denmark — which does not recommend routine rotavirus or RSV vaccination — sees children hospitalized from those viruses at higher rates than the United States.
“Denmark is nothing to emulate. They should be emulating us,” Offit said.
Likewise, AAP president Andrew Racine said in a statement that America is a “unique country” with different health risks and public health infrastructure than Denmark.
“This is no way to make our country healthier,” Racine said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said that the state will “continue to rely on evidence-based guidance” including vaccine recommendations from the AAP.
“RFK Jr. is once again trying to sow chaos and confusion among parents — but know this: these changes at the federal level do not affect Pennsylvanians’ access to vaccines in our Commonwealth,“ he said in a statement. ”Pennsylvanians should continue to consult with their doctors and make informed decisions based on the best scientific evidence.”
New Jersey’s Acting Health Commissioner Jeffrey A. Brown said in a statement that the state sets vaccine requirements for school and childcare, and that those have not changed despite shifts at the federal level. He added vaccines in the state remain covered by insurance and the state is committed to protecting residents’ health.
“Federal efforts to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for all children in the United States are not supported by the available data nor the consensus of public health and medical experts,” Brown said. “Instead, deterring participation in vaccination risks leaving children vulnerable to serious and preventable infections.”
Changing public attitudes
In a December survey, the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that more than a third of 1,006 Americans polled were more likely to trust the American Medical Association, a leading professional medical society, over the CDC if the two conflicted on vaccine policy.
At the time of the survey, the CDC had recently changed its website to suggest — against decades of evidence showing otherwise — that there could be a link between vaccines and autism.
Asking the public to make their own decisions on whether to vaccinate their children can make people vulnerable to misinformation, Annenberg director Kathleen Hall Jamieson said in an interview with The Inquirer last week.
“The public doesn’t have time to do research on its own, on average, and in the process, they can get lost in a mire of misinformation and confusion very easily,” she said. “It’s easy to think one is doing one’s research when one is way down the rabbit hole.”
In the poll, the preference to trust the AMA over the CDC held true across political parties and was particularly pronounced among older Americans. The only age group more likely to accept the CDC over the AMA in the event of conflicting vaccine advice was 18- to 29-year-olds.
“The fact that, as the CDC began to change statements, the public shifted its trust to other organizations on consequential issues — that’s a statement that says the public intelligence is real,” Jamieson said.
The AAP’s Racine reiterated Monday that the society will continue to publish its own vaccine recommendations and help physicians to advise parents.
“Your child’s pediatrician has the medical training, special knowledge, and scientific evidence about how to support children’s health, safety, and well-being. Working together, you can make informed decisions about what’s best for your child,” Racine said.
Offit cautioned parents against avoiding vaccinations, as high rates do not just protect healthy children — they’re also vital for children with immune disorders who cannot be vaccinated.
And, he said, parents shouldn’t discount the risks of hospitalization or death from vaccine-preventable diseases.
“There’s this sort of myth of invulnerability — you never think it’s going to happen to you, until it happens to you,” he said.
ALTADENA, Calif. — “DANGER: Lead Work Area” reads a sign on a front door of an Altadena home. “May damage fertility or the unborn child. Causes damage to the central nervous system.”
Block after block, there are reminders that contaminants still linger.
House cleaners, hazardous waste workers, and homeowners alike come and go wearing masks, respirators, gloves, and hazmat suits as they wipe, vacuum, and power-wash homes that weren’t burnt to ash.
It’s been a year of heartbreak and worry since the most destructive wildfires in the Los Angeles area’s history scorched neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people. Two wind-whipped blazes that ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, including homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship. Rebuilding will take years.
The disaster has brought another wave of trauma for people afraid of what still lurks inside their homes.
Indoor air quality after wildfires remains understudied, and scientists still don’t know the long-term health impacts of exposure to massive urban fires like last year’s in Los Angeles. But some chemicals released are known to be linked to heart disease and lung issues, and exposure to minerals like magnetite has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Ash in the area is a toxic soup of incinerated cars, electronics, paints, furniture, and every other kind of personal belonging. It can contain pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead, or other heavy metals.
Many people with homes still standing are now living with the hazards left by the fires.
People forced back into their Altadena homes
Nina and Billy Malone considered their home of 20 years a safe haven before smoke, ash, and soot seeped inside, leaving behind harmful levels of lead even after professional cleaning. Recent testing found the toxin is still on the wooden floors of their living room and bedroom.
They were forced to move back home in August anyway, after insurance cut off their rental assistance.
Since then, Nina wakes up almost daily with a sore throat and headaches. Billy had to get an inhaler for his worsening wheezing and congestion. And their bedroom, Nina said, smells “like an ashtray has been sitting around for a long time.” She worries most about exposure to unregulated contaminants that insurance companies aren’t required to test.
“I don’t feel comfortable in the space,” said Nina, whose neighbors’ homes burned down across the street.
They’re not alone.
Data shows dangerous lead levels still in homes
According to a report released in November by the Eaton Fire Residents United, a volunteer group formed by residents, six out of 10 homes damaged from smoke from the Eaton Fire still have dangerous levels of cancer-causing asbestos, brain-damaging lead, or both. That’s based on self-submitted data from 50 homeowners who have cleaned their homes, with 78% hiring professional cleaners.
Of the 50 homes, 63% have lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard, according to the report. The average lead levels were almost 60 times higher than the EPA’s rule.
Even after fires were extinguished, volatile organic compounds from smoke, some known to cause cancer, lingered inside of people’s homes, according to a recent study. To mitigate these risks, residents returning home should ventilate and filter indoor air by opening windows or running high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers with charcoal filters.
Zoe Gonzalez Izquierdo said she can’t get her insurance company to pay for an adequate cleanup of her family’s Altadena home, which tested positive for dangerous levels of lead and other toxic compounds.
“They can’t just send a company that’s not certified to just wipe things down so that then we can go back to a still contaminated home,” Gonzalez said, who has children ages 2 and 4.
Experts believe the lead, which can linger in dust on floors and windowsills, comes from burned lead paint. The University of Southern California reported that more than 70% of homes within the Eaton Fire were built before 1979, when lead paint was common.
“For individuals that are pregnant, for young children, it’s particularly important that we do everything we can to eliminate exposure to lead,” said pediatrician Lisa Patel, executive director for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and a member of the climate group Science Moms.
The same goes for asbestos, she added, because there is no safe level of exposure.
“We have to live in the scar”
People who lived in the Pacific Palisades, which was also scorched, face similar challenges.
Residents are at the mercy of their insurance companies, who decide on what they cover and how much. It’s a grueling, constant battle for many. The state’s insurer of last resort, known as the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, has been scrutinized for years over its handling of fire damage claims.
Homeowners want state agencies to enforce a requirement that insurance companies return a property to prefire condition.
Julie Lawson won’t take any risks. Her family paid about $7,000 out of pocket to test the soil in their Altadena home, even though their insurance company had already agreed to pay to replace the grass in their front yard. They planned to test for contaminants again once they finished remediating the inside, the process of making a home contaminant-free after a fire. If insurance won’t cover it, they’ll pay for it themselves.
Even if their home is livable again, they still face other losses — including equity and the community they once had.
“We have to live in the scar,” she said. “We’re all still really struggling.”
They will be living in a construction zone for years. “This isn’t over for us.”
Challenges and mental health toll
Annie Barbour with the nonprofit United Policyholders has been helping people navigate the challenges, which include insurance companies that resist paying for contamination testing and industrial hygienists disagreeing on what to test for.
She sees the mental health toll it’s having on people — and as a survivor herself of the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Northern California, she understands it.
Many were at first joyful to see their houses still standing.
“But they’ve been in their own special kind of hell ever since,” Barbour said.
Now residents like the Malones are inspecting their belongings, one by one, fearing they may have absorbed toxins.
Boxes, bags, and bins stuffed with clothes, chinaware, and everything in between fill the couple’s car, basement, garage, and home.
They have been painstakingly going through their things, assessing what they think can be adequately cleaned. In the process, Nina is cleaning cabinets, drawers, and floors and still finding soot and ash. She wears gloves and a respirator, or sometimes just an N95 mask.
Their insurance won’t pay to retest their home, Billy said, so they’re considering paying the $10,000 themselves. And if results show there’s still contamination, their insurance company told them they will only pay to clean up toxins that are federally regulated, like lead and asbestos.
“I don’t know how you fight that,” said Nina, who is considering therapy to cope with her anxiety. “How do you find that argument to compel an insurance company to pay for something to make yourself safe?”
