LONDON — A prince, an ambassador, senior diplomats, top politicians. All brought down by the Jeffrey Epstein files. And all in Europe, rather than the United States.
The huge trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice has sent shock waves through Europe’s political, economic, and social elites — dominating headlines, ending careers, and spurring political and criminal investigations.
Former U.K. Ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson was fired and could go to prison. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a leadership crisis over the Mandelson appointment. Senior figures have fallen in Norway, Sweden, and Slovakia. And, even before the latest batch of files, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of King Charles III, lost his honors, princely title, and taxpayer-funded mansion.
Apart from the former Prince Andrew, none of them faces claims of sexual wrongdoing. They have been toppled for maintaining friendly relationships with Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender.
“Epstein collected powerful people the way others collect frequent flyer points,” said Mark Stephens, a specialist in international and human rights law at Howard Kennedy in London. “But the receipts are now in public, and some might wish they’d traveled less.”
The documents were published after a public frenzy over Epstein became a crisis for President Donald Trump’s administration and led to a rare bipartisan effort to force the government to open its investigative files. But in the U.S., the long-sought publication has not brought the same public reckoning with Epstein’s associates — at least so far.
Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said that in Britain, “if you’re in those files, it’s immediately a big story.”
“It suggests to me we have a more functional media, we have a more functional accountability structure, that there is still a degree of shame in politics, in terms of people will say: ‘This is just not acceptable, this is just not done,’” he said.
British repercussions
U.K. figures felled by their ties to Epstein include the former Prince Andrew — who paid millions to settle a lawsuit with one of Epstein’s victims and is facing pressure to testify in the U.S. — and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, whose charity shut down this week.
Like others now ensnared, veteran politician Mandelson long downplayed his relationship with Epstein, despite calling him “my best pal” in 2003. The new files reveal contact continued for years after the financier’s 2008 prison term for sexual offenses involving a minor. In a July 2009 message, Mandelson appeared to refer to Epstein’s release from prison as “liberation day.”
Starmer fired Mandelson in September over earlier revelations about his Epstein ties. Now British police are investigating whether Mandelson committed misconduct in public office by passing on sensitive government information to Epstein.
Starmer has apologized to Epstein’s victims and pledged to release public documents that will show Mandelson lied when he was being vetted for the ambassador’s job. That may not be enough to stop furious lawmakers trying to eject the prime minister from office over his failure of judgment.
American associates
Experts caution that Britain shouldn’t be too quick to pat itself on the back over its rapid reckoning with Mandelson. The U.S. has a better record than the U.K. when it comes to declassifying and publishing information.
But Alex Thomas, executive director of the Institute for Government think tank, said, “There is something about parliamentary democracy,” with its need for a prime minister to retain the confidence of Parliament to stay in office, “that I think does help drive accountability.”
A few high-profile Americans have faced repercussions over their friendly ties with Epstein. Most prominent is former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who went on leave from academic positions at Harvard University late last year.
Brad Karp quit last week as chairperson of top U.S. law firm Paul Weiss after revelations in the latest batch of documents, and the National Football League said it would investigate Epstein’s relationship with New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, who exchanged sometimes crude emails with Epstein about potential dates with adult women.
Other U.S. Epstein associates have not yet faced severe sanction, including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who exchanged hundreds of texts with Epstein; Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who accepted an invitation to visit Epstein’s private island; and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who discussed visiting the island in emails, but says he never made the trip.
Former President Bill Clinton has been compelled by Republicans to testify before Congress about his friendship with Epstein. Trump, too, has repeatedly faced questions about his ties to Epstein. Neither he nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing by Epstein’s victims.
European investigations
The Epstein files reveal the global network of royals, political leaders, billionaires, bankers, and academics that the wealthy financier built around him.
Across Europe, officials have had to resign or face censure after the Epstein files revealed relationships that were more extensive than previously disclosed.
Joanna Rubinstein, a Swedish U.N. official, quit after the revelation of a 2012 visit to Epstein’s Caribbean island. Miroslav Lajcak, national security adviser to Slovakia’s prime minister, quit over his communications with Epstein, which included the pair discussing “gorgeous” girls.
Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have set up wide-ranging official investigations into the documents. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a team would scour the files for potential Polish victims, and any links between Epstein and Russian secret services.
Epstein took an interest in European politics, in one email exchange with billionaire Peter Thiel calling Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union “just the beginning” and part of a return to “tribalism.”
Grégoire Roos, director of the Europe program at the think tank Chatham House, said the files uncover Epstein’s “far-reaching” network of contacts in Europe, “and the level of access among not just those who were already in power, but those who were getting there.
“It will be interesting to see whether in the correspondence he had an influence in policymaking,” Roos said.
Norwegian revelations
Few countries have been as roiled by the Epstein revelations as Norway, a Scandinavian nation with a population of less than 6 million.
The country’s economic crimes unit has opened a corruption investigation into former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland — who also once headed the committee that hands out the Nobel Peace Prize — over his ties with Epstein. His lawyer said Jagland would cooperate with the probe.
Also ensnared are high-profile Norwegian diplomat couple Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul, key players in the 1990s Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Juul has been suspended as Norway’s ambassador to Jordan after revelations including the fact that Epstein left the couple’s children $10 million in a will drawn up shortly before his death by suicide in a New York prison in 2019.
Norwegians’ respect for their royal family has been dented by new details about Epstein’s friendship with Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who is married to the heir to the throne, Prince Haakon. The files include jokey exchanges and emails planning visits to Epstein properties, teeth-whitening appointments, and shopping trips.
The princess apologized Friday “to all of you whom I have disappointed.”
The disclosures came as her son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, stands trial in Oslo on rape charges, which he denies.
My assignment that day was pretty typical for a newspaper photographer: show the reader what the person a reporter is profiling looks like. And maybe what they do and where they do it.
Newly-inaugurated Mayor Joi Washington at Media Borough Hall.
Having accomplished that task, I headed out looking for something else to photograph in the snow, and ended up at a pedestrian passage way.
As I made a picture of a person silhouetted in the corrugated metal culvert, the first thing I thought of was an old friend and photo editor Joe Elbert who famously said there are four categories in the “hierarchy” of newspaper photographs, lowest to highest: informational, graphic, emotional, and intimate.
In just a few hours I had knocked out his “lower” two types.
I made a few pictures that report “just the facts” without much flavor or fanfare. Then I found a visually appealing scene and waited until I could turn it into a well composed, interesting image. Graphic, even.
Joe was the photo editor at the Post from 1988 through 2007. Under his direction the paper won four Pulitzer Prizes, and many other awards, all for work that epitomizes that highest category of intimate photographs.
It’s easy to feel nostalgic for those “glory days,” but I mourn that almost an entire section of the newspaper is now gone.
Post photographers were still creating those most intimate images of Joe’s hierarchy. They were still making the reader feel something that allows us to connect with lives beyond our own, to empathize, and to care.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
February 2, 2026: A light-as-air Elmo balloon rolls along a sidewalk in Haddonfield, propelled by the wind as Sunday’s heavy snow starts to turn to ice and sleet. January 26, 2026: The President’s House in Independence National Historical Park hours Jan, 22, after all historical exhibits were removed following President Trump’s Executive Order last March that the content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. be reviewed. The site, a reconstructed “ghost” structure titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010), serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America.January 19, 2026: A low-in-the-sky winter sun is behind the triangular pediment of the “front door” of the open-air President’s House installation in Independence National Historical Park. The reconstructed “ghost” structure with partial walls and windows of the Georgian home known in the 18th century as 190 High St. is officially titled, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010). It is designed to give visitors a sense of the house where the first two presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams, served their terms of office. The commemorative site designed by Emanuel Kelly, with Kelly/Maiello Architects, pays homage to nine enslaved people of African descent who were part of the Washington household with videos scripted by Lorene Cary and directed by Louis Massiah. Deepika Iyer holds her niece Ira Samudra aloft in a Rockyesque pose, while her parents photograph their 8 month-old daughter, in front of the famous movie prop at the top of the steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Iyer lives in Philadelphia and is hosting a visit by her mother Vijayalakshmi Ramachandran (partially hidden); brother Gautham Ramachandran; and her sister-in-law Janani Gautham who all live in Bangalore, India.January 5, 2026: Parade marshals trail behind the musicians of the Greater Kensington String Band heading to their #9 position start in the Mummers Parade. Spray paint by comic wenches earlier in the day left “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” shadows on the pavement of Market Street. This year marked the 125th anniversary of Philly’s iconic New Year’s Day celebration.Dec. 29, 2025: Canada geese at sunrise in Evans Pond in Haddonfield, during the week of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. December 22, 2025: SEPTA trolley operator Victoria Daniels approaches the end of the Center City Tunnel, heading toward the 40th Street trolley portal after a tour to update the news media on overhead wire repairs in the closed tunnel due to unexpected issues from new slider parts.December 15, 2025: A historical interpreter waits at the parking garage elevators headed not to a December crossing of the Delaware River, but an event at the National Constitution Center. General George Washington was on his way to an unveiling of the U.S. Mint’s new 2026 coins for the Semiquincentennial, December 8, 2025: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge and pedestrians on the Delaware River Trail are reflected in mirrored spheres of the “Weaver’s Knot: Sheet Bend” public artwork on Columbus Boulevard. The site-specific stainless steel piece located between the Cherry Street and Race Street Piers was commissioned by the City’s Public Art Office and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and created and installed in 2022 by the design and fabrication group Ball-Nogues Studio. The name recalls a history that dominated the region for hundreds of years. “Weaver’s knot” derives from use in textile mills and the “Sheet bend” or “sheet knot” was used on sailing vessels for bending ropes to sails. November 29, 2025: t’s ginkgo time in our region again when the distinctive fan-shaped leaves turn yellow and then, on one day, lose all their leaves at the same time laying a carpet on city streets and sidewalks. A squirrel leaps over leaves in the 18th Century Garden in Independence National Historical Park Nov. 25, 2025. The ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is considered a living fossil as it’s the only surviving species of a group of trees that existed before dinosaurs. Genetically, it has remained unchanged over the past 200 million years. William Hamilton, owner the Woodlands in SW Phila (no relation to Alexander Hamilton) brought the first ginkgo trees to North America in 1785.November 24, 2025: The old waiting room at 30th Street Station that most people only pass through on their way to the restrooms has been spiffed up with benches – and a Christmas tree. It was placed there this year in front of the 30-foot frieze, “The Spirit of Transportation” while the lobby of Amtrak’s $550 million station restoration is underway. The 1895 relief sculpture by Karl Bitter was originally hung in the Broad Street Station by City Hall, but was moved in 1933. It depicts travel from ancient to modern and even futuristic times. November 17, 2025: Students on a field trip from the Christian Academy in Brookhaven, Delaware County, pose for a group photo in front of the Liberty Bell in Independence National Historical Park on Thursday. The trip was planned weeks earlier, before they knew it would be on the day park buildings were reopening after the government shutdown ended. “We got so lucky,” a teacher said. Then corrected herself. “It’s because we prayed for it.” November 8, 2025: Multitasking during the Festival de Día de Muertos – Day of the Dead – in South Philadelphia.November 1, 2025: Marcy Boroff is at City Hall dressed as a Coke can, along with preschoolers and their caregivers, in support of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s 2017 tax on sweetened beverages. City Council is considering repealing the tax, which funds the city’s pre-K programs.
Steve Frates of Ocean View, N.J., was driving along Route 9 in Cape May County on a recent bitter cold day and noticed something strange: dead robins lying by the side of the road.
Lots of them.
Frates was even more startled when one flew into his Ford F-150 and died. The 72-year-old retired telecommunications manager wondered what was happening.
“I noticed when it was really cold that I would see flocks of birds alongside of the road as I was traveling up and down Route 9 and the Garden State Parkway,” Frates said. “I would see a lot of birds that had been hit. I’d never seen anything at that scale. This was at a level I’ve never experienced before.”
The winter has been hard on the region’s animals, wiping out 95% of the woodcocks in Cape May Point, fostering frostbite on opossums in Philadelphia, and freezing turtles in place in ponds.
Experts say the animals are well adapted to survive the cold, but this winter has been especially harsh, producing a frozen snowpack that keeps animals from digging for food, and a prolonged cold that has pushed some to the brink.
About 200 woodcocks have died in the area of Cape May Point since the Jan. 25 snowfall that froze under a prolonged cold spell. These were found likely seeking food near the edge of homes.
Woodcocks are starving
Mike Lanzone, a wildlife biologist and CEO of Cellular Tracking Technologies, has been busy the last two weeks helping to gather hundreds of dead woodcocks in Cape May Point and West Cape May. His company makes products that track birds via GPS and other technology.
He described a devastating die-off for the woodcocks, which depend on finding food by probing the ground to extract worms and invertebrates. They have been unable to penetrate the snow and ice, causing starvation.
“They were losing a lot of muscle mass, and they weren’t able to eat anything,” Lanzone said. “We started seeing them die off. First it was just a few. Then 10. Then 15. Then 40. Then almost 100 woodcocks.”
Lanzone said about 254 woodcocks had died as of Thursday.
“There was at least a 90-95% die-off,” he said. “That is what we know for sure. At least in Cape May Point and West Cape May.”
Lanzone said the woodcocks were being taken to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia to be examined.
Jason D. Weckstein, associate curator of ornithology at the academy, said such die-offs have happened before. He will examine the birds and, using chemical signatures in their bodies, determine where they were born.
“They’re dying because they’re starving,” Weckstein said. “They can’t feed. Most of those birds were super emaciated and just died.”
Robins are desperate
Chris Neff, a spokesperson for New Jersey Audubon, said the robins that Frates saw along the side of the road had been driven there in search of food.
“Birds are congregating along the melted edges of roads searching for bare ground on which to find food and even meltwater to drink,“ Neff said. ”Birds are desperate to consume enough calories each day during this extreme weather, and this makes them bolder, meaning they may not fly off when a car approaches if they have found something to eat.”
American robins, he said, travel in large flocks. When their food is exhausted, a few will take off in search of the berries of American holly and Eastern red cedar. The rest will follow en masse, followinga path that might lead them across a road.
The chances of collisions with cars become much higher.
Neff advises that people should slow down if they see birds congregating along a road and keep an eye out for any that might fly across.
“Like deer,” Neff said, ”if one darts across the road, there are sure to be more following.”
A grebe that was rescued amid the harsh winter weather and taken to the Wildlife Clinic at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, where it is being fed and cared for until an open water source can be found for it to be released.
Opossums and other animals
Sydney Glisan, director of wildlife rehabilitation for the Wildlife Clinic at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Northwest Philadelphia, characterizes the severe winter conditions as a critical “make it or not” period for local wildlife.
Some animals, such as deer, are well adapted to the cold and can eat fibrous bark and twigs to survive. Other species, however, struggle.
She said Virginia opossums found in Philadelphia, despite being a native species, have physical attributes that “do not really work for this type of weather.” She has treated multiple opossums for frostbite. The latest patient arrived Friday.
They are susceptible, she said, because their ears, tails, and paws have no fur for protection. Often, tails or fingers need to be amputated.
Residents often find them curled up and immobile, mistakenly believing the animals are dead when they are actually just trying to stay warm or are in a state of shock.
The weather also affects aquatic birds like grebes, which become stranded on land because they require open water to take off and cannot walk well on ice or ground.
Even squirrels struggle, as the ice prevents them from digging up cached food, Glisan said.
Glisan advises the public to be cautious about intervening for wildlife such as birds. She notes that even well-intentioned acts, such as providing heated birdbaths, can result in hypothermia if a bird’s wet feathers subsequently freeze in the air.
“As much as it might sound rude, I always say doing nothing is the best thing that you can do,” Glisan said. “I recommend helping by not helping.”
Reptiles and amphibians
Susan Slawinski, a wildlife biologist at the Schuylkill Center, said the danger for reptiles and amphibians comes as lakes and ponds freeze over. Aquatic species such as green frogs, painted turtles, and snapping turtles overwinter at the bottom of ponds.
There, the animals survive by slowing their metabolisms enough to eliminate the need to eat or surface for air. However, prolonged cold poses a specific danger as ponds freeze solid to the bottom. Those hibernating will perish.
The Schuylkill Center uses a bubbler in its Fire Pond to maintain a gap in the ice to let in oxygen.
Despite the risks, Slawinski emphasizes that native wildlife is historically resilient, though mortality is an unfortunate reality for animals that select poor hibernation spots.
For example,thegray tree frog uses glucose to create a natural “antifreeze” that prevents its cell walls from bursting in freezing temperatures.
“Native wildlife is very good at adapting to cold temperatures,” Slawinski said. “There have been colder winters, longer winters before. Unfortunately, there is always going to be a mortality risk.”
Accompanying one of the more-enduring snowpacks in the period of record, ice has continued to build in the Philadelphia region’s waterways, and all indications are that it’s going to intensify in the next three days, perhaps significantly.
With temperatures expected to fall to single digits by Saturday night and wind gusts up to 55 mph, the region is about to experience an assault from a “cold air gun,“ said Alex Sosnowski, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc.
The combination, plus the below-freezing temperatures at least through Monday and the ongoing cold spell that began last month, will not only deepen the ice cover but will make it more uniform by freezing over breaks in the ice.
“You’re going to see the ice-over become more extensive,” Sosnowski said.
Earlier in the week, icing temporarily stranded a vessel on the Delaware River that was delivering much-needed salt supplies to Philly. (They did eventually get here.)
The U.S. Coast Guard was using a 175-foot-long cutter to break up ice on a portion of the river channel that runs from the mouth of the ice-covered Delaware Bay — where Cape May-Lewes Ferry service was disrupted this week — to Trenton.
As of Friday morning, the craft had been ramming ice for 45 hours since the freeze began at the end of last month, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Matthew West said.
So far, however, the ice hasn’t reached crisis levels, said Ryan Mulvey, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. For ship traffic on the river, it’s been more a matter of “road work ahead” rather than ”road closed.”
“We’re open as usual,” he said. “I think the largest ships help with breaking up some of the ice flow.”
One thing is certain, meteorologists are warning: The ice factory is going to be in full production mode until Tuesday.
And, ironically, even as precipitation deficits and drought conditions persist, flooding potential is a source of concern.
The short-term outlook for icing in the Philly region
A key to melting, said Sosnowski, is having a sequence of daily average temperatures above freezing, not just daytime highs above 32 degrees. Nights also have to warm up.
The prospects of that happening aren’t looking good for the next several days. Officially, Friday was the 12th consecutive day of a snowpack of at least 5 inches at Philadelphia International Airport, the seventh-longest such stretch in records dating to the winter of 1884-85.
Daily average temperatures have been below freezing every day since Jan. 23.
Highs on Saturday and Sunday, even in the city, may struggle to reach 20 degrees, with lows in single digits Sunday and Monday mornings.
A promised warmup during the workweek wasn’t looking as toasty on Friday as it was earlier in the week. Monday’s temperatures were forecast to top out in the 20s, and no daily average temperatures are forecast above freezing through Friday.
Some rain or snow also is possible Wednesday, said Nick Guzzo, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. A storm is possible next weekend, but computer models continue to disagree with each other, and themselves.
To erase the snowpack, the region could use a warm, moist air mass and rain that would produce “river rises” that would help break up the ice, the weather service says.
But not too much rain.
The long-term outlook: Flooding concerns amid a drought
Moist air preceding a rainfall all but erased the snowpack with a historic melt. When that air came in contact with the snow, it condensed, releasing latent heat that sped up the melting.
Rain followed, and liberated ice jams led to destructive flooding along the Delaware and the Susquehanna Rivers and a presidential disaster declaration.
NOAA’s Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center is well aware of the potential and is monitoring conditions, said senior hydrologist Johnathan Kirk.
“That’s what we have to watch for,” said Sosnowski, who well remembers 1996.
“It is going to take one of the more mild-mannered thaws to avoid ice-jam flooding,” he said.
A mild thaw is possible, Sosnowski said, but “the odds are stacked against it. It’s been so cold for so long.”
Dirty Franks says ’25 and up’ — and the regulars reclaim the bar: B+
Dirty Franks banning 24-year-olds and under sounds, on paper, like the plot of a generational culture war. In reality, it’s a dive bar doing what dive bars have always done: protecting the room.
The catalyst? A fake ID featuring Ben Franklin that successfully scanned. Over the past year, Franks has been overrun by increasingly bold fake IDs, TikTok-fueled crowds, and behavior that doesn’t match the unspoken social contract of a place where regulars expect to sit, talk, and not babysit a bar.
This isn’t about hating young people. It’s about a bar that has never been a college bar suddenly being treated like one. Quantity over quality, as owner Jody Sweitzer put it. More bodies, same money, harder nights.
The temporary 25-plus rule is blunt, maybe even unfair to the responsible 22-year-olds who just want a cheap beer and a dart board. But Philly bars have always operated on feel as much as fairness. When something’s off, you fix it first and argue about it later.
And by most accounts, it worked. The room is calmer. Regulars are back. People can sit again. Staff aren’t playing bouncer-scanner-detective every five minutes, trying to outsmart IDs that look like they came straight out of a CIA prop department.
Is it sustainable? Probably not. Is it extremely Philly to say “we’ll relax when the nonsense stops”? Absolutely.
Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 140th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Phil’s handlers said that the groundhog has forecast six more weeks of winter. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)
Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, condemning Philly to six more weeks of this: D
Six more weeks of winter doesn’t mean snowflakes and cozy vibes in Philadelphia. It means gray piles of ice that never melt, sidewalks that double as obstacle courses, and that specific kind of cold that seeps through gloves.
Phil seeing his shadow wasn’t news. The snow is still here. The side streets are still a mess. The wind is still disrespectful. And now we’re being told to mentally prepare for another month and a half of bundling up just to take out the trash.
Phil’s track record doesn’t help his case. He’s been wrong more often than right, but somehow still gets the power to set the emotional tone for an entire region. And the tone this year is simple: exhausted, sore, and deeply over it.
We don’t hate Phil. We just resent him for reminding us that winter in Philadelphia isn’t a season: It’s a long, drawn-out test of patience, balance, and civic infrastructure.
Six more weeks? Fine. We’ll survive. But we’re not happy about it.
Heavy equipment clears snow and ice from South Broad Street near Tasker Street in South Philadelphia, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
Philly sends in ‘snow ambassadors’ because the cleanup still isn’t done: C
At this point, the storm itself is old news. What isn’t: frozen crosswalks, ice-packed corners, and a city that still feels stuck in cleanup mode.
So now comes the next phase of winter in Philadelphia: improvisation.
The city is deploying 300 “snow ambassadors” to manually chip away at ice piled up at crosswalks and corners. We’re well past the point where plows and salt were enough, and if the choice is between stubborn ice lingering for weeks or sending people out with tools to break it up, the latter is the only real answer.
But it also says a lot about how this cleanup has gone.
The city is now in hand-to-hand combat with the leftovers of a storm that dropped 9.3 inches and then immediately locked them in place with days of deep cold. The fact that crosswalks still need this level of attention, days later, underscores how uneven the original response was, especially on side streets and pedestrian infrastructure.
Calling them “ambassadors” doesn’t change the reality: This is a workaround. A necessary one but still a sign that the system didn’t fully deliver the first time around.
That said, credit where it’s due. The city didn’t just shrug and tell people to wait for a thaw. It adjusted. It added manpower. It acknowledged that what’s left isn’t just inconvenient but dangerous. And focusing on crosswalks and ADA ramps is exactly where the effort should be right now.
This isn’t a win. It’s a course correction.
Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber celebrates his solo home run with teammate J.T. Realmuto against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, in Philadelphia.
Phillies spring training hope (and the kids knocking): A
This is the part of the calendar where Philly collectively exhales.
Spring training is just getting started, and already the Phillies feel lighter. Not because anything’s been won. Not because the roster is flawless. But because February baseball is where optimism still gets the benefit of the doubt.
Clearwater represents a reset. New grass. Fresh routines. The annual illusion that this version of the team will be the one where everything clicks at the right time. It doesn’t matter how last season ended, spring training always feels like permission to believe again.
And for the first time in a while, the kids are actually coming. Justin Crawford looks like the opening-day center fielder. Andrew Painter is finally healthy enough to matter again. Aidan Miller is looming. The Phillies’ farm system has spent years as a drip-feed; now it feels like a faucet that might finally turn on.
That matters for a team that’s been built around a veteran core for so long. Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber anchoring things in Clearwater feels familiar in the best way, but the real intrigue is whether the next wave can actually stick. Whether this spring is the start of something sustainable, not just another “run it back.”
Spring training is baseball’s softest sell. No standings. No scoreboard pressure. Just story lines, roster battles, and enough sun to trick you into thinking October is guaranteed. Philly knows better than to fully trust it, but we still show up every year.
Because hope is part of the ritual. And for now, it’s earned.
If nothing else, pitchers and catchers reporting means one undeniable thing: Winter is losing leverage, and baseball is back in the conversation. Around here, that’s worth an A all by itself.
A rolling video screen above the admissions counter at the West Entrance at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, features a “youse should visit” slide and a new logo. The name change was eventually reversed back to its original – Philadelphia Museum of Art – but the griffin was kept.
The Art Museum walks it back (somewhat): B+
Four months after trying to rename itself the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has decided to do what Philadelphians do best: Stop pretending and call it what everyone was calling it anyway.
But this wasn’t a full rewind. The museum kept the updated look — the bold fonts, the sharper visual identity, the griffin logo pulled from the building’s roofline. The feedback was clear and consistent: People who know the institution (members, donors, staff) felt alienated by the name change.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art isn’t just branding; it’s muscle memory. You don’t casually swap that out without expecting pushback. But surveys also showed that the broader public didn’t hate the new look itself. So the museum split the difference.
It kept the visual refresh. It dropped the name change, which felt unnecessary and confusing. And it signaled, intentionally or not, that listening matters more than doubling down.
Philly gets its own Monopoly board, and the arguments have already started: A
A Philadelphia edition of Monopoly is coming this fall, and honestly, the game itself almost feels beside the point. The real action is happening now, in the collective act of imagining what would, and absolutely would not, be allowed on a Philly board.
The gaming company behind the project is soliciting public nominations for landmarks, businesses, and nonprofits, which means we’re about two seconds away from the most Philly fight imaginable: not about what belongs on the board, but what deserves Boardwalk money and what gets stuck near Baltic Avenue out of spite.
Picture it. Pass GO at City Hall. Community Chest immediately fines you for blocking a crosswalk. Chance card sends you directly to SEPTA delays — do not collect $200. Jail is the Roundhouse. Free Parking is somehow still under construction.
Some squares feel obvious: the Art Museum steps, LOVE Park, Independence Hall. Others are going to be chaos picks. Wawa utilities. Delco railroads. A corner bar that hasn’t changed since 1987 somehow costing more than Center City. Someone will nominate their neighborhood dive and mean it sincerely. Someone else will nominate their rowhouse just to prove a point.
And that’s where this gets interesting. A Philly Monopoly board isn’t really about the game. It’s about which places people think matter, and which ones they’ll argue should’ve made the cut.
‘We’ll shew ya whereta gew in the snew’: Visit PA leans into accents — and Philly winter energy: B+
If you’re going to tell Philadelphians to leave the house in February, you’d better sound like someone we trust. Preferably someone who says “youse.”
The Pennsylvania Tourism Office seems to get that, according to WHYY. Its new winter “Snow Day Hotline” is staffed by prerecorded Philly and Pittsburgh accents, plus live comedians during select hours.
Call the number and you’re greeted by exaggerated but affectionate regional voices walking you through things to do around the state, from museums to indoor hangs. It’s intentionally old-school, phone only, no app.
The Philly side of the operation is handled by comedian Betsy Kenney, whose accent isn’t natural but feels familiar anyway: a composite of neighbors, aunts, and the person behind you in line at Wawa explaining why something is “not worth it, but also maybe worth it.” The advice isn’t groundbreaking. The delivery is the point.
So when a highly accomplished Jeopardy! champion (16-game winner, nearly half a million dollars in earnings) visibly struggled to pronounce “Schuylkill” on national television this week, Philly collectively leaned forward and went, here we go.
To Scott Riccardi’s credit, he got the answer right. The river that runs through Pottsville, Reading, and Philadelphia? Yes. Correct. No notes. But the pronunciation (Skol-kull) sent Ken Jennings into referee mode, which is never where you want to be when the clue involves Pennsylvania geography.
For the record (again): it’s Skoo-kl. Two syllables. No drama. No extra letters pronounced.
Riccardi walks away with a B: smart, successful, and close enough to get partial credit. But full points are reserved for anyone who can say Schuylkill on the first try without breaking eye contact.
Lou Turk’s, a Delaware County strip club with more than 50 years in business, announced it will change its name to the Carousel Delco.
Lou Turk’s rebrands, Delco shrugs: A
Only in Delco could a strip club rebrand spark genuine cultural concern. Not about the name, but about whether Mother’s Day flower sales would survive.
Lou Turk’s, Delaware County’s lone strip club and one of its most stubborn institutions, announced it’s changing its name to the Carousel Delco. The response was immediate disbelief, light outrage, and a collective understanding that no one is actually calling it that. Ever. This is Gallery/Fashion District math.
Stephanie Farr laid it out perfectly: Lou Turk’s isn’t just a business, it’s a landmark. A place that exists in the Delco imagination as much as it does off Route 291, wedged between a Wawa and an Irish pub like it was placed there by a zoning board with a sense of humor.
The new name raises questions (mostly “why?”), but Delco culture is resilient. The club can swap signage, management, and branding buzzwords all it wants. It will still be Lou Turk’s. And more importantly, it will still sell flowers on Mother’s Day, preserving one of the county’s most unhinged and beloved traditions.
We’ll show you a photo taken in the Philly-area, you drop a pin where you think it was taken. Closer to the location results in a better score. This week is all about shiny, classic, and infamous automobiles! Good luck!
Round #19
Question 1
Where is this show room?
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ClickTap on map to guess the location in the photo
ClickTap again to change your guess and hit submit when you're happy
You will be scored at the end. The closer to the location the better the score
Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
This photo was taken during the 2022 Philly Auto Show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. This year’s show runs until February 8, once again at the Convention Center. Organized by the Auto Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia, it spans nearly 700,000 square feet.
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Question 2
Where is this famously frozen car?
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Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
When you walk into Koselig Nook, Aracelis Mullin wants you to feel a wave of calm. She intentionally designed the teahouse that way: From its welcoming furniture to its lighting, its green paint, its scents, it is meant to be a relaxing third space, a stopping point between work and home, where people can gather, craft, focus on wellness, or anything between. Don’t forget to take off your shoes. (Really. It’s a rule.)
Koselig Nook, a late-night teahouse, plans to open in Exton, at 333 E. Lincoln Highway, later this month. The business is relocating from Coatesville, where it opened in 2024, to be more central for customers within the county and traveling from Philly.
“The whole idea and the purpose is to bring the people out of their houses and to enjoy another place where they can network or just spend some time or talk,” Mullin said.
Named for the Norwegian term encompassing contentment and coziness, Koselig Nook’s seating is meant to be secure and comfortable — with plush, downy pillow seating and blankets, oils, and low lighting, inviting people to lounge.
So much of today’s gathering culture revolves around bars and drinking, Mullin said. Though sober options are opening in metropolitan areas, like Philadelphia, people in the county have fewer places — especially places open later, she said.
That’s the gap Koselig Nook seeks to fill, she said.
“I think there’s a big need for third places that are more calm; for introverted people, they can come and network, too, little by little, but they don’t have the pressure of society saying, ‘Hey, do you want to drink?’” she said.
Instead, customers can sit and study or work from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for $25 on Tuesdays through Fridays. Students spent a lot of time holed up in the Nook’s Coatesville location during finals week in December, Mullin said.
In the evenings, from 7 to 11 p.m. for $35 on Friday and Saturday, people can go somewhere that is not about drinking.
During various events offered week to week, people can come to workshops where they junk journal, cutting up pictures and pasting them into notebooks, or take a meditative break surrounded by gongs and chimes and singing bowls in a sound bath session, or spend time with a medium. You can pick up letters from a pen pal in another country or pen your own, facilitated through Koselig Nook. You can silently read your own book and then, in a formal discussion, chat about it with other readers, trading recommendations.
Some make events out of it. For one 24-year-old’s birthday, she and her friends journaled together, sipping their tea, and had a sound bath.
Others come alone and leave with connections: During a full moon ceremony, only two of the 15 women who came knew each other. By the end, “they all shared their phone numbers. … It was amazing,” Mullin said.
The business traces its lineage to when Mullin’s daughter, Victoria, was living in California in 2020. She frequented a teahouse where customers could reserve time and sit and enjoy themselves during the evening hours. After Mullin visited herself, she felt compelled to bring something similar to the East Coast. She picked the brains of the owners.
With her background — she ran a traveling tea party business for young girls and a birthday party business in Thorndale — Mullin embraced their model; her teahouse is reservation-only. There is unlimited tea, and a selection of premade snacks. Everything is provided without extra charge once you are in the Nook. Socks only.
“I wanted to have that community place where the people come and gather, regardless of what your politics and your religion, so we did it. I was scared to death,” she said.
She expected to have to go a bit more slowly in Chester County, for people to understand the business. But she was met with a lot of enthusiasm.
“The people are so in need of this that they love it,” she said.
OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Marie Crawford was immediately charmed in 2021 when she and her soon-to-be-surfer husband Rich moved into their historic house in the literal shadow of Gillian’s Wonderland Pier.
They’d come from Blue Bell, Pa., to live year-round by the ocean, and landed with an amusement park right up the street.
“The ball drop, that was what we heard from my house,” she said, referring to the 130-foot-high Drop Tower ride. “It was, ‘Ah, ah, ahhhhhhhh,‘” she said, imitating the screams she would sometimes hear.
Jack Gutenkunst, left, Marie Crawford and her husband Richard with Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft coated wheaten terrier, walk along Plaza Place, in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
“It was so beautiful and romantic. On our porches, we would hear the ocean, not the amusement park. There were families, babies in strollers, coming up the street, flowing up to Wonderland. We were kind of ambassadors.”
Now, more than a year after the closing of Gillian’s, the residents are faced with the possibility of a seven-story hotel they fear will block their sun, bring traffic to their streets, and threaten the small-town charm they found in their little pocket of Ocean City.
“It’s just another example of maximizing, pushing,” said Rich Crawford, Marie’s husband, who programs music for his family’s Christian radio station, WDAC, located in Lancaster, Pa. In his 60s, Rich fell in with Ocean City’s surfing crowd and unexpectedly grew to love his little community.
The Crawfords’ neighborhood of 100-year-old homes and 153 trees is called Plaza Place, which is one block each of Pelham Place, Plaza Place, and the north side of Seventh Street, between Wayne Avenue and Atlantic.
Across Wayne Avenue, toward the ocean, was Wonderland. On a clear day, a red ball of sun creeps up above the boardwalk and peeks into their little neighborhood.
On Pelham Place, residents each also own a two-foot- wide stretch of land across the street from their houses, a quirk of their deeds originally designed to prevent the rooming houses on Plaza Place that backed up against Pelham Place from using Pelham as an alleyway for their trash. There are dedicated gardeners on the streets who turn those strips into showpieces.
The sun sets behind the Ferris wheel on the final day for the beloved Wonderland Pier in Ocean City Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.
Neighbor Barb Doctorman, whose family owns the Islander store on the boardwalk, said she used to take her children up on the Ferris wheel and peer down at their neighborhood. So lush, it looked like a forest, she said.
“I looked up the impact of a high-rise,” said Doctorman. “We’re going to lose some sun. The airflow is going to be totally changed from what it was. There’s a heat radiant that comes off it.”
Her husband, Doc, said: “We want something up there, but we know there could be more of a draw to that boardwalk than just the hotel.”
Marie Crawford (left) holds the leash of Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft-coated wheaten terrier, while standing with her husband Richard (center) and neighbor Jack Gutenkunst at the end of Pelham Place in Ocean City.
The land is owned by developer Eustace Mita, who has proposed Icona in Wonderland, a 252-room hotel that would preserve the Ferris wheel, carousel, and some kiddie rides.
So far, the city has not declared the site in need of rehabilitation, as Mita has requested, or otherwise moved to rezone the area to allow a hotel.
Merchants have begged the city to allow the hotel, and described how their businesses have suffered since the closure of Wonderland. Some residents have clung to the idea that an amusement park can return, though those numbers are dwindling.
Marie Crawford, her husband Richard, right, along with Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft coated wheaten terrier, and their neighbor Jack Gutenkunst, walk past a sign against the development of a hotel at the site of the old Wonderland Pier on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
In Plaza Place, the opposition is less sentimental, more practical. They fear traffic, and the shadow from a neighboring seven-story hotel. Like residents in other towns who fought dunes, they fear the loss of the ocean breeze, or a shift in wind patterns that will affect surfing at the popular Seventh Street Beach.
“It’s got that old feel to it, and everybody’s house is different,” said Marie Crawford, who bought her Craftsman Colonial on the north side of Pelham for $905,000 in 2021. She estimates it’s worth $2.5 million now. There are about 60 homes in the Plaza Place civic association.
The association is one of several groups that are prepared to go to court if the city tries to change the zoning to allow a hotel, without going through a thorough master plan process, said Jack Gutenkunst, the Plaza Place Association president.
While Wonderland brought thousands of people on a summer night, the pier itself had no parking. So people parked elsewhere and excitedly walked through their neighborhood on their way to the rides. People on their porches called out, “Have a blessed evening,” and chatted the night away, said Crawford. The hotel proposal calls for parking underneath the structure.
A sign stands near the historic neighborhood behind the old site of the Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Residents are against the development of a hotel at the boardwalk site.
Crawford stressed that it’s not a case of selfish NIMBY, Not In My Backyard. Despite Ocean City’s decades-old pattern of replacing single-family homes with duplexes, there are nearly 1,400 homes over 100 years old still left in Ocean City, said Bill Merritt, president of Friends of OCNJ History & Culture.
Being a block from the boardwalk, and living in a beach town, does not mean the neighborhood’s purpose is primarily hospitality, said Crawford. Its distinct, increasingly rare Jersey Shore character deserves to be valued, she said.
“It’s height. It’s chaos. It’s the change in culture,” she said, when asked what specifically worries her about the hotel. “It’s a transient population coming through here for three nights at a time. That’s in the hospitality district. We are not the hospitality district.”
The neighborhood behind the old Wonderland Pier site on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Residents are against the development of a hotel at the boardwalk site.
The demolish-and-rebuild mania that took over a lot of the rest of the island has mostly left Plaza Place alone, though residents acknowledge that is also a threat to their way of life. They also fear a hotel will prompt Plaza Placeans to sell.
“It’s a Norman Rockwell painting, it just is,” Councilman Keith Hartzell says in the documentaryPlaza Place: The Enigmatic Street, a locally made short film about the neighborhood. “It’s right here in Ocean City, and you kind of don’t expect it, when there’s two streets away a bunch of duplexes.”
Hartzell, who is running for mayor against incumbent Jay Gillian, the former owner of Wonderland who sold to Mita, says he hopes to negotiate with Mita over height, parking, and other issues before considering any kind of zoning allowance or rehabilitation designation. A city council-appointed subcommittee tasked with assessing the boardwalk’s usage as a whole is holding a public meeting at 10 a.m. on Feb. 7 at the city’s library.
The residents of Plaza Place worry about the survival of the hidden little neighborhood by the beach they fell in love with. “The neighborhood is so beautiful and so old,” said Marie Crawford. “If the hotel goes in, the dramatic change that will be for all of us with the traffic, the tone of the neighborhood — you’re going to see people sell. That threatens the neighborhood. The people won’t want to stay.”
After her frozen car garnered tens of millions of views on TikTok, Tianna Graham is getting a new car for free, gifted to her by Carvana, whose car vending machine tower features prominently in the background of her videos.
Graham, a 24-year-old fifth-grade math teacher at Community Academy of Philadelphia, had a 2016 Honda Civic. The vehicle became thoroughly encased in ice following the snowstorm and arctic temperatures late last month.
On Tuesday, Graham reached out to Carvana, hoping she could leverage the car tower’s inadvertent virality in her videos to get a discount on a new car. Carvana soon responded, eager to help.
When Graham, a Fishtown resident, arrived at the facility on Friday afternoon with her mom and sister, she said, she expected Carvana would offer her some percentage off one of their cars.
Replying to @✨mrs.corby.nails✨ THANK YOU @Carvana MORE COMING SOON!!! I’m so incredibly grateful for this!!!! after all the details get sorted out, i’ll post a full update! and a big thank u to my lovely friends and family who have been helping me through this!
She was stunned to see a bright blue 2022 Honda Civic descend from the car vending machine with a big bow on it, school supplies inside, and an ice pick, “which I guess I do need,” Graham said with a laugh.
Carvana spokesperson Hayley Pollack confirmed Friday the car will be free for Graham once all the paperwork is finalized.
“I was shocked, in disbelief,” Graham said of learning the car would be free. “It’s a beautiful car.”
Tianna Graham in front of the car Carvana is gifting her.
The car is used and has about 28,000 miles on it, Graham said. She expects to have it in her possession next week based on initial conversations with Carvana, she said.
She plans to take it for a spin for the first time next weekend to drive to Ocean City, Md., for a National Federation of the Blind convention, she said. Graham, whose sister is blind, said she is currently pursuing her graduate degree to become an orientation and mobility specialist to help blind people learn to use canes.
“All things do happen for a reason,” Graham said she learned from this experience. “Anything bad that is happening, something good can always come out of it.”
MUSCAT, Oman — Iran and the United States held indirect talks in Oman on Friday, negotiations that appeared to return to the starting point on how to approach discussions over Tehran’s nuclear program. But for the first time, America brought its top military commander in the Middle East to the table.
The presence of U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the American military’s Central Command, in his dress uniform at the talks in Muscat, the Omani capital, served as a reminder that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships were now off the coast of Iran in the Arabian Sea.
President Donald Trump said the United States had “very good” talks on Iran and said more were planned for early next week. But he kept up the pressure, warning that if the country didn’t make a deal over its nuclear program, “the consequences are very steep.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to reach a deal on the program after earlier sending the carrier to the region over Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands of others detained in the Islamic Republic.
Gulf Arab nations fear an attack could spark a regional war that would drag them in as well.
That threat is real — U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone near the Lincoln and Iran attempted to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz just days before Friday’s talks in this sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.
“We did note that nuclear talks and the resolution of the main issues must take place in a calm atmosphere, without tension and without threats,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later told journalists.
“The prerequisite for any dialogue is refraining from threats and pressure,” he added. “We stated this point explicitly today as well, and we expect it to be observed so that the possibility of continuing the talks exists.”
The U.S., represented by U.S. Mideast special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, did not immediately comment on the talks. Araghchi said diplomats would return to their capitals, signaling this round of negotiations was over.
On Friday evening, in a display of force, the U.S. military published photos on X of the Lincoln carrier group sailing in the Arabian Sea with aircraft flying overhead, with the message “Peace through Strength!” The The carrier and accompanying warships arrived in the Middle East at the end of January as Trump threatened attacks on Iran over the killing of protesters.
Iran’s top diplomat offers a positive note
Araghchi offered cautious optimism as he spoke in a live interview from Muscat on Iranian state television. He described Friday’s talks as taking place over multiple rounds and said that they were focused primarily on finding a framework for further negotiations.
“We will hold consultations with our capitals regarding the next steps, and the results will be conveyed to Oman’s foreign minister,” Araghchi said.
“The mistrust that has developed is a serious challenge facing the negotiations,” Araghchi said. “We must first address this issue, and then enter into the next level of negotiations.”
Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who oversaw multiple rounds of negotiations before Israel launched its 12-day war on Iran in June, called the talks “useful to clarify both the Iranian and American thinking and identify areas for possible progress.”
Still, Oman described the talks as a means to find “the requisite foundations for the resumption of both diplomatic and technical negotiations” rather than a step toward reaching a nuclear deal or easing tensions.
The talks had initially been expected to take place in Turkey in a format that would have included regional countries as well, and would have included topics like Tehran’s ballistic missile program — something Iran apparently rejected in favor of focusing only on its nuclear program.
Before the June war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The U.N. nuclear watchdog — International Atomic Energy Agency — had said Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that wasn’t armed with the bomb.
Friday’s talks saw in-person meetings at a palace near Muscat’s international airport, used by Oman in earlier talks Iran-U.S. talks in 2025. Associated Press journalists saw Iranian officials first at the palace and later returning to their hotel before the Americans came separately.
It remains unclear just what terms Iran is willing to negotiate at the talks. Tehran has maintained that these talks will only be on its nuclear program. However, the Al Jazeera satellite news network reported that diplomats from Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar offered Iran a proposal in which Tehran would halt enrichment for three years, send its highly enriched uranium out of the country and pledge “not initiate the use of ballistic missiles.”
Russia had signaled it would take the uranium, but Iran has said ending the program or shipping out the uranium were nonstarters.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the talks needed to include all those issues.
“I’m not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we’re going to try to find out,” he said.
The U.S. slaps new sanctions on Iran’s energy sector
Shortly after Friday’s talks, the Treasury and the U.S. State Department announced a new round of sanctions on Iran targeting its energy sector, imposing penalties, including freezes on assets in U.S. jurisdictions, on 14 oil tankers in a so-called “shadow fleet” that the U.S. says are used to try to evade sanctions, as well as on 15 trading firms and two business executives.
“Time and time again, the Iranian government has prioritized its destabilizing behavior over the safety and security of its own citizens, as demonstrated by the regime’s mass murder of peaceful protestors,” the State Department said. “The United States will continue to act against the network of shippers and traders involved in the transport and acquisition of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products, and petrochemical products, which constitutes the regime’s primary source of income.”
