Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

Category: News

Latest breaking news and updates

  • Search warrant FBI served at elections office near Atlanta seeks records tied to the 2020 elections

    Search warrant FBI served at elections office near Atlanta seeks records tied to the 2020 elections

    ATLANTA — The FBI on Wednesday searched the election office of a Georgia county that has been central to right-wing conspiracy theories over President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, acting just one week after the Republican leader predicted prosecutions over a contest he has baselessly insisted was tainted by widespread fraud.

    The search at Fulton County’s main election facility in Union City sought records related to the 2020 election, county spokesperson Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said. It appeared to be the most public step by law enforcement to pursue Trump’s claims of a stolen election, grievances rejected time and again by courts and state and federal officials, who found no evidence of fraud that would have altered the outcome.

    It also unfolds against the backdrop of FBI and Justice Department efforts to investigate perceived political enemies of Trump, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

    Trump has for years focused on Fulton, Georgia’s most populous county and a Democratic stronghold, as a key example of what he claims went wrong in the 2020 election. His pressure campaign there culminated in a sweeping state indictment accusing him and 18 others of illegally trying to overturn the vote.

    An FBI spokesperson said agents were “executing a court authorized law enforcement action” at the county’s main election office in Union City, just south of Atlanta. The spokesperson declined to provide any further information, citing an ongoing matter.

    Corbitt-Dominguez said a warrant “sought a number of records related to 2020 elections,” but declined to comment further because the search was still underway.

    The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

    Trump has long insisted that the 2020 election was stolen even though judges across the country and his own attorney general said they found no evidence of widespread fault that tipped the contest in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor.

    The president has made Georgia, one of the battleground states he lost in 2020, a central target for his complaints about the election and memorably pushed its secretary of state to help “find” enough votes to overturn the contest.

    Last week, in reference to the 2020 election, he asserted that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.” It was not clear what in particular he was referring to.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That case was dismissed in November after courts barred Willis and her office from pursuing it because of an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor she had hired to lead the case.

    The FBI last week moved to replace its top agent in Atlanta, Paul W. Brown, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a nonpublic personnel decision. It was not immediately clear why the move, which was not publicized by the FBI, was made.

    The Department of Justice last month sued the clerk of the Fulton County superior and magistrate courts in federal court seeking access to documents from the 2020 election in the county. The lawsuit said the department sent a letter to the clerk, Che Alexander, but that she had failed to produce the requested documents.

    Alexander has filed a motion to dismiss the suit. The Justice Department complaint says that the purpose of its request was “ascertaining Georgia’s compliance with various federal election laws.” It also says the attorney general is trying to help the State Election Board with its “transparency efforts under Georgia law.”

    A three-person conservative majority on the State Election Board has repeatedly sought to reopen a case alleging wrongdoing by Fulton County during the 2020 election. It passed a resolution in July seeking assistance from the U.S. attorney general to access voting materials.

    The state board sent subpoenas to the county board for various election documents last year and again on Oct. 6. The October subpoena requested “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.” A fight over the state board’s efforts to enforce the 2024 subpoena is currently tied up in court.

    The Justice Department sent a letter to the county election board Oct. 30 citing the federal Civil Rights Act and asking for all records responsive to the October subpoena from the State Election Board. Lawyers for the county election board responded about two weeks later, saying that the records are held by the county court clerk. They also attached a letter the clerk sent to the State Election Board saying that the records are under seal in accordance with state law and can’t be released without a court order.

    The Justice Department said it then sent a letter to Alexander, the clerk, on Nov. 21 requesting the documents and that she failed to respond.

    The department is asking a judge to declare that the clerk’s “refusal to provide the election records upon a demand by the Attorney General” violates the Civil Rights Act. It is also asking the judge to order Alexander to produce the requested records within five days of a court order.

    The State Election Board in May 2024 heard a case that alleged documentation was missing for thousands of votes in the recount of the presidential contest in the 2020 election. After a presentation by a lawyer and an investigator for the secretary of state’s office, a response from the county and a lengthy discussion among the board members, the board voted to issue a letter of reprimand to the county.

    Shortly after that vote, there was a shift in power on the board, and the newly cemented conservative majority sought to reopen the case. The lone Democrat on the board and the chair have repeatedly objected, arguing the case is closed and citing multiple reviews that have found that while the county’s 2020 elections were sloppy and poorly managed there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing.

  • Cabin fever sets in for Philly parents snowed in: ‘It’s an emotional regression to that terrible time’

    Cabin fever sets in for Philly parents snowed in: ‘It’s an emotional regression to that terrible time’

    On the second day her kindergartener was off from his Philadelphia public school because of snow, Karen Robinson shut herself away in her Fairmount home, hoping to take a 15-minute meeting for an important work project.

    Her husband had put up a baby gate to signal to 5-year-old Sam that mom was briefly off limits.

    Naturally, “my son crawled under the baby gate to come find me,” said Robinson, whose son attends Bache-Martin Elementary. “If I’m working, he wants to be right next to me.”

    For thousands of Philadelphia parents, Wednesday was day three of school buildings being shut — a real snow day on Monday, and virtual school Tuesday and Wednesday.

    Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. gave beleaguered parents a reprieve Wednesday afternoon, saying schools would re-open for in-person learning Thursday. But the week was tough for many to navigate.

    For parents who rely on hourly work, or jobs that have no remote flexibility, the inclement weather-forced school changes have meant either foregoing pay or figuring out childcare arrangements that are often costly, complicated, or both.

    But for others, the cabin fever is real. Many are getting into existential angst territory — and conjuring up memories of the pandemic, as parents juggled work and online school, often feeling they were failing at both.

    North Philadelphia mom Asjha Simmons’ son attends a charter school that’s been closed — no virtual learning — since Monday.

    Simmons runs her own business, so is able to be flexible with her schedule and stay home with her son. But she’s getting antsy.

    “I feel forced to be in the house and it’s killing me,” Simmons said. “I would rather be in the gym than in the house. And I don’t even go to the gym.”

    Simmons’ son, who’s 12, relishes the down time since “he has every screen known to man on,” she said. She keeps the snacks coming, and it’s all good. (He was less than thrilled when Simmons made him shovel snow, she said.)

    Leigh Goldenberg said she was having uncomfortable flashbacks to the pandemic, when her daughter completed virtual kindergarten.

    “For me, it’s an emotional regression to that terrible time,” said Goldenberg. “And I feel for the people that didn’t build up that muscle before.”

    Virtual school with a fifth grader is much easier than virtual school with a kindergartener, said Goldenberg, whose daughter attends Kirkbride Elementary in South Philadelphia. Her daughter spent 30 minutes on Tuesday completing schoolwork, and managed to keep herself busy socializing with friends online and outside, a short walk away in their neighborhood.

    Goldenberg is trying to keep things in perspective — this is not forever, this is not the pandemic.

    But, she’s still frustrated.

    “All the suburban schools around us went back already, but here in the city, we’re stuck with a giant pile of snow at the end of our street, and it feels pretty unfair,” she said.

    Coral Edwards was prepared for Monday’s snow day, but when the district announced a virtual day Tuesday, she began to panic.

    “I was like, oh my gosh, there’s a real possibility the entire rest of the week will be virtual,” said Edwards, who lives in Graduate Hospital and has a seven-year-old son who attends Nebinger Elementary and a four-year-old daughter in a private prekindergarten program.

    Her daughter’s pre-K is reopened Wednesday with a two-hour delay. And that means dropoff time came when Edwards would have needed to be helping her first grader with virtual learning. So instead, she paid to send both children to Kids on 12th, a Center City school open the full day, so she can get her work done as a marketing consultant and leadership coach.

    The scramble has also summoned up emotions and frustrations she last experienced during the pandemic, when her son was 1 and his daycare shut down. While she acknowledged that she is “incredibly privileged,” she said the fact that parents like herself are in such a bind speaks to a larger systemic problem with childcare, Edwards said.

    “There’s literally no one to help us,” she said. “There’s just no systemic support whatsoever.”

    Streets are being plowed, SEPTA is running, and trash is getting picked up, “but there’s nothing in press conferences about how we’re supporting parents and students,” Edwards said. “The schools are like, ‘we have this virtual learning environment’ — are we just supposed to pull another parent out of our butts?” she said.

    Edwards’ husband works in-person as a research physician running a lab, and the burden of childcare logistics falls to her.

    “There’s a lot of rhetoric about supporting parents, and raising women up, … but when push comes to shove, something about our kids’ childcare is changed or tightened, it falls on those people,” she said.

    Hannah Sassaman, a West Philadelphia parent of a district fourth grader and ninth grader, is making it through.

    “We had another fourth grader live here for 24 hours randomly. I think they went to school? My ninth grader seems to be going to school. We’re just lucky we don’t have little kids,” said Sassaman.

    But the storm has Sassaman thinking: how is it that New York, which got a foot of snow in some neighborhoods, had kids back in its (much larger) public school system by Tuesday?

    “The questions that I have knowing that the storm was coming for over a week,” Sassaman said, “is what could the administration have done to help resource our sanitation workers and the rest of our incredible city servants to really focus on what it would take to get our kids back in schools, our teachers and the other staff back in their buildings safety to support not just the economy, but also all of the important supports and services kids access at schools every day?”

  • Ten people die in NYC’s frigid cold, raising questions about the city’s preparedness

    Ten people die in NYC’s frigid cold, raising questions about the city’s preparedness

    NEW YORK — One man was discovered under a layer of snow on a park bench in Queens. Another was found just steps from a Manhattan hospital. Yet another was pronounced dead on the ground beneath an elevated train line in the Bronx.

    Each is among a growing number of people — at least 10, as of Tuesday — who died after being exposed to the bitter cold that has persisted in New York City since late last Friday.

    Their causes of death are still under investigation, but some showed signs of having succumbed to hypothermia. Officials said several victims were believed to have been living on the streets. At least six of the fatalities came early Saturday, as the temperature in the city fell to 9 degrees.

    With the frigid weather expected to continue, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city was adding homeless outreach workers, opening new warming centers, and instructing hospitals to limit discharges “to ensure that people who have nowhere to go are kept indoors.”

    But the rising death toll has also prompted questions about whether Mamdani’s nascent administration could have done more to protect the city’s most vulnerable residents ahead of the Arctic blast and the snowstorm that hit early Sunday.

    One of the victims, a 52-year-old man living in Queens, was found Sunday morning with discharge papers in his pocket showing he had been released from Elmhurst Hospital, a city-run facility, on Friday, according to State Senator Jessica Ramos.

    By the time of his release, the city had already activated its Code Blue protocols, a set of extreme weather policies that include precautions meant to ensure homeless patients are not released back onto the street.

    It was not immediately clear if the man, who is originally from Ecuador, had been living outside at the time of his death. Inquiries to City Hall, the Department of Homeless Services, and the city’s public hospital system were not returned.

    The city has yet to release the names of any of those who died during the storm.

    Studies have shown that around 15 people suffer from cold-related deaths in New York City each year. But homeless advocates said they could not remember another storm in recent memory that resulted in so many deaths outside in such a brief period.

    “The fact that this many people have passed away shows the city needs to do a much better job of making people feel safe when they come inside,” said David Giffen, the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. “It’s not that most of the people on the streets are unaware of the shelter system, but that they’ve had experiences there that make them not want to return.”

    In the lead-up to the storm, city-contracted outreach teams fanned out across the five boroughs, attempting to coax residents to accept placements in shelters, transitional housing or even heated buses. Mamdani and his deputies have repeatedly urged New Yorkers to look out for those in need of help.

    “Extreme weather is not a personal failure, but it is a public responsibility,” Mamdani said on Tuesday. “We are mobilizing every resource at our disposal to ensure that New Yorkers are brought indoors during this potentially lethal weather event.”

    The city’s social services commissioner, Molly Wasow Park, said at least 200 people have voluntarily accepted shelter since the storm began. She said the city has also moved to involuntarily hospitalize a handful of people, including those who were wet, inappropriately dressed or “unable to acknowledge that there are real dangers.”

    Ramos said the man discovered on the park bench was wearing only a thin jacket. His body appeared to be frozen when it was found by police under a layer of snow on Sunday morning.

    “It’s devastating to know the government could have done more and didn’t,” she said. “There are real questions here that demand answers.”

  • Philly schools return to in-person learning Thursday

    Philly schools return to in-person learning Thursday

    After three days out of school buildings, Philadelphia public students and staff will be back to in-person learning Thursday.

    Officials announced the call Wednesday afternoon.

    Archdiocesan high schools and city parochial schools will also be back to traditional classes Thursday, officials said.

    In the aftermath of a significant winter storm and sub-freezing temperatures, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. gave students and staff a full snow day Monday, with no learning or teaching obligations.

    Cabin fever sets in for Philly parents snowed in: ‘Are we just supposed to pull another parent out of our butts?’

    He pivoted the district’s 125,000 students to virtual instruction Tuesday and Wednesday as conditions remained tricky to navigate.

    Temperatures are expected to dip even lower Thursday, and many side streets and sidewalks aren’t clear, but officials have said they prioritize in-person learning when conditions are safe for students and staff.

    “School District and City of Philadelphia officials have been working around the clock to clear snow and ice from roads and walkways to support a safe return to in-person learning,” Watlington wrote in a message to families and staff Thursday.

    Any students arriving late because of weather-related challenges will not have their lateness counted against them, the superintendent said. The same goes for staff not able to make it into work on time because of weather-related commuting challenges.

    Yellow bus service will operate as usual, though delays might occur, Watlington said.

    After school activities are on, the central office will be open, and the school-selection deadline has been extended from Wednesday to Friday so families can confer with school counselors they may have had difficulty reaching because of the snow closures.

    Philadelphia’s school board meeting, also scheduled for Thursday, will also happen in person. Board members and members of the public have the chance to participate virtually, as well.

  • DA Larry Krasner forms coalition of progressive prosecutors committed to charging federal agents who commit crimes

    DA Larry Krasner forms coalition of progressive prosecutors committed to charging federal agents who commit crimes

    District Attorney Larry Krasner on Wednesday announced the formation of a new coalition of progressive prosecutors committed to charging federal agents who violate state laws.

    Krasner joined eight other prosecutors from U.S. cities to create the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach, a legal fund that local prosecutors can tap if they pursue charges against federal agents.

    The abbreviation for the group, FAFO, is a nod to what has become one of Krasner’s frequent slogans: “F— around and find out.”

    The move places Krasner at the center of a growing national clash between Democrats and the Trump administration over federal immigration enforcement and whether local law enforcement can — or should — charge federal agents for actions they take while carrying out official duties.

    It is also the latest instance in which Krasner, one of the nation’s most prominent progressive prosecutors, has positioned himself as Philadelphia’s most vocal critic of President Donald Trump. He has made opposing the president core to his political identity for a decade, and he said often as he was running for reelection last year that he sees himself as much as a “democracy advocate” as a prosecutor.

    Krasner has used provocative rhetoric to describe the president and his allies, often comparing their agenda to World War II-era fascism. During a news conference Tuesday, he said federal immigration-enforcement agencies are made up of “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis.”

    The coalition announced Wednesday includes prosecutors from Minneapolis; Tucson, Ariz.; and several cities in Texas and Virginia. It was formed to amass resources after two shootings of U.S. citizens by federal law enforcement officials in Minnesota this month.

    Renee Good, 37, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE officer on Jan. 7 as she appeared to attempt to drive away during a confrontation with agents. The FBI said it would not investigate her killing.

    People visit a memorial for Alex Pretti at the scene in Minneapolis where the 37-year-old was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol officer.

    Then, on Saturday, Alex Pretti, 37, was killed after similarly confronting agents on a Minneapolis street. Video of the shooting, which contradicted federal officials’ accounts, appeared to show Border Patrol agents disarming Pretti, who was carrying a legally owned handgun in a holster. They then shot him multiple times. Federal authorities have attempted to block local law enforcement from investigating the shooting.

    Krasner said that, despite Vice President JD Vance’s recent statement that ICE officers had “absolute immunity” — an assertion the Philadelphia DA called “complete nonsense” — prosecutors in FAFO are prepared to bring charges including murder, obstructing the administration of justice, tampering with evidence, assault, and perjury against agents who commit similar acts in their cities.

    “There is a sliver of immunity that is not going to save people who disarm a suspect and then repeatedly shoot him in the back from facing criminal charges,” Krasner said during a virtual news conference Wednesday. “There is a sliver of immunity that is not going to save people who are shooting young mothers with no criminal record and no weapon in the side or back of the head when it’s very clear the circumstances didn’t require any of that, that it was not reasonable.”

    Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner attends an event at Independence National Historical Park on Dec. 21, 2025.

    How will FAFO work?

    The coalition has created a website, federaloverreach.org, and is soliciting donations.

    Prosecutors who spoke during the news conference said those donations would be toward a legal fund that would allow prosecutors to hire outside litigators, experts, and forensic investigators as they pursue high-profile cases against federal agents.

    “This will function as a common fund,” said Ramin Fatehi, the top prosecutor in Norfolk, Va., “where those of us who find ourselves in the tragic but necessary position of having to indict a federal law enforcement officer will be able to bring on the firepower necessary to make sure that the federal government doesn’t roll us simply through greater resources.”

    The money raised through the organization will not go to the individual prosecutors or their political campaigns, they said Wednesday.

    Scott Goodstein, a spokesperson for the coalition, said the money will be held by a “nonpartisan, nonprofit entity that is to be stood up in the coming days.” He said the prosecutors are “still working through” how the fund will be structured.

    Krasner said it would operate similarly to how district attorneys offices receive grant funding for certain initiatives.

    Most legal defense funds are nonprofit organizations that can receive tax-deductible donations. Those groups are barred from engaging in certain political activities, such as explicitly endorsing or opposing candidates for office.

    Goodstein said the group is also being assisted in its fundraising efforts by Defiance.org, a national clearinghouse for anti-Trump activism. One of that group’s founders is Miles Taylor, a former national security official who, during the first Trump administration, wrote under a pseudonym about being part of the “resistance.”

    Demonstrators from No ICE Philly gathered to protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, office at 8th and Cherry Streets, on Jan. 20.

    ‘Who benefits?’

    In forming the coalition, Krasner inserted himself into a national controversy that other city leaders have tried to avoid.

    His approach is starkly different from that of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a centrist Democrat who has largely avoided criticizing Trump. She says she is focused on her own agenda, and has not weighed in on the president’s deportation campaign.

    Members of the mayor’s administration say they believe her restraint has kept the city safe. While Philadelphia has policies in place that prohibit local officials from some forms of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has not targeted the city with surges of ICE agents as it has in other jurisdictions — such as Chicago and Los Angeles — where Democratic leaders have been more outspoken.

    Parker and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel have at times been frustrated with Krasner’s rhetoric, according to a source familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications.

    Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel speaking ahead of a July 2024 press conference.

    That was especially true this month when Krasner hosted a news conference alongside Sheriff Rochelle Bilal. The pair made national headlines after Krasner threatened to prosecute federal agents — something he has vowed to do several times — and Bilal called ICE a “fake” law enforcement agency.

    Bethel later released a statement to distance the Police Department from the Sheriff’s Office, saying Bilal’s deputies do not conduct criminal investigations or direct municipal policing.

    The police commissioner recently alluded to Parker’s strategy of avoiding confrontation with the federal government, saying in an interview on the podcast City Cast Philly that the mayor has given the Police Department instruction to “stay focused on the work.”

    “It is not trying to, at times, potentially draw folks to the city,” Bethel said. “Who benefits from that? Who benefits when you’re putting out things and trying to… poke the bear?”

    As for Krasner’s latest strategy, the DA said he has received “zero indication or communication from the mayor or the police commissioner that they’re in a different place.”

    “I feel pretty confident that our mayor and our police commissioner, who are doing a heck of a lot of things right,” he said, “will step up as needed to make sure that this country is not invaded by a bunch of people behaving like the Gestapo.”

  • Huge landslide leaves Sicilian homes teetering on cliff edge as 1,500 people are evacuated

    Huge landslide leaves Sicilian homes teetering on cliff edge as 1,500 people are evacuated

    ROME — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visited a southern town in Sicily on Wednesday that has been left teetering on the edge of a cliff after days of heavy rains from a cyclone triggered a huge landslide that brought down properties and forced the evacuation of over 1,500 people.

    The landslide in Niscemi, a town in the southwest of the island, spanned 2.5 miles. Images showed cars and structures that had fallen 20 yards off the newly formed cliff, while many other homes remain perched perilously on the cliff edge.

    Civil protection crews have created a 150-meter wide “no go zone” in the town, which is just inland from the coastal city of Gela.

    “The entire hill is collapsing onto the plain of Gela,” civil protection chief Fabio Ciciliano said. “To be honest, there are houses located on the edge of the landslide that obviously can no longer be inhabited, so we need to work with the mayor to find a permanent relocation for these families.”

    Authorities have warned that residents with homes in the area will have to find long-term alternatives to moving back since the water-soaked ground was still shifting and too unstable to live.

    The federal government included Niscemi in a state of emergency declaration on Monday for three southern regions hard hit by Cyclone Harry and set aside an initial 100 million euros ($120 million) to be divided among them. Sicilian regional officials estimated on Wednesday the overall damage to Sicily stood at 2 billion euros.

    Meloni took a helicopter tour of the landslide area and met with local, regional, and civil protection officials at the town hall. She vowed that the initial emergency funding was just the first step in addressing the immediate financial needs of displaced residents and that more was coming.

    In a statement, her office said the government was committed to helping residents find alternative housing and to restoring road access, utilities and school activities in town.

    “The situation is complicated by the fact that, as long as the landslide remains active, it is impossible to identify the exact area to be treated and therefore to establish the methods of intervention,” it said.

    Niscemi was built on a hill on layers of sand and clay that become particularly permeable in heavy rain and have shifted before, most recently in a major 1997 landslide that forced the evacuation of 400 people, geologists say.

    “Today, the situation is repeating itself with even more significant characteristics: the landslide front extends for about 4 kilometers and directly affects the houses facing the slope,” warned Giovanna Pappalardo, professor of applied geology at the island’s University of Catania.

    The latest landslide, which began on Sunday with Cyclone Harry thrashing southern Italy, has revived political mud-slinging about why construction was allowed on land which, because of its geological makeup, had a known high risk of landslides.

    Renato Schifani, the center-right regional president of Sicily, acknowledged such questions were legitimate. But he noted he had only been in office for a few years and said the main issue was an institutional response to help residents immediately affected.

    Elly Schlein, the opposition center-left Democratic Party leader, called on the government to reallocate 1 billion euros approved for its controversial bridge from Sicily to the Italian mainland and direct it toward storm-hit regions, since the bridge project is currently tied up in court challenges.

  • Safety board releases initial findings in Bristol nursing home explosion that killed three people

    Safety board releases initial findings in Bristol nursing home explosion that killed three people

    Peco responded to the smell of gas at the Bristol Health & Rehab Center more than two hours before an explosion that killed three people and injured at least 20 others just days before Christmas. Yet in initial findings released Wednesday, federal investigators said the public utility company did not fully stop the gas flow to the facility until an hour and a half after the catastrophic blast.

    According to an investigative summary released by the National Transportation Safety Board, a maintenance director at the nursing home reported the odor coming from the basement boiler room around 11 a.m. A technician with Peco responded by 11:50 a.m. and identified the source — a leak in the gas meter valve.

    The technician called for backup to assist with the repair, and a meter services technician arrived about 1:20 p.m. The explosion occurred less than an hour later, at 2:15 p.m. A Peco emergency crew fully isolated the gas at 3:50 p.m., as first responders were pulling victims from the rubble.

    The NTSB’s initial findings provide the most concrete timeline yet of what happened in the lead-up to the Dec. 23 tragedy that rattled Lower Bucks County and raised questions about the actions of both the public utility company and the nursing home’s operator.

    Peco spokesperson Candice Womer said in a statement Wednesday that the company has begun reevaluating response protocols and prioritizing the movement of indoor gas meters to the outdoors, in an effort to meet “the highest standards of safety and reliability.”

    The initial findings do not fault or exonerate any parties in the blast, and NTSB officials said the investigation remains ongoing.

    Investigators work the scene at Bristol Health & Rehab Center the day after the explosion

    Carin O’Donnell, an attorney with Stark & Stark who is representing victims in a lawsuit, said the initial findings demonstrated that Peco gambled with everyone’s safety by not shutting off the flow of gas to the facility sooner.

    “Clearly, Peco knew there was a leak, and rather than terminate the gas, they sent their repairmen in while the gas line was still pressurized,” O’Donnell said. “It’s like sending them in with a lit cigarette and a match.”

    At least two separate lawsuits alleging negligence have been filed against Peco and Saber Healthcare Group, the Ohio-based nursing home operator that runs the facility.

    Residents and staff told The Inquirer they had detected a heavy gas odor inside the 174-bed facility early that morning, yet no building-wide evacuation order was given to residents.

    During interviews, NTSB officials heard from people in the facility that the smell could be detected from the basement up to the second floor of the building.

    The safety board did not address whether an evacuation should have been done. Investigators noted the Peco foreman and the meter services technician had “had less than 1 year of experience in their current roles.”

    Zachary Shamberg, chief of government affairs at Saber, cast the NTSB’s initial findings as exculpatory. He said in a statement that facility staff “acted promptly” while “Peco technicians unsuccessfully attempted to repair their gas line.”

    In the aftermath of the tragedy, Peco initially reported arriving at the facility around 2 p.m. and later changed the timeline to “hours” before the blast that occurred just after 2:15 p.m.

    First responders encountered chaos. People ran from the partially collapsed nursing home, many bleeding and injured. Police and firefighters helped others escape from the wreckage while contending with a second blast and fire that ignited after the initial explosion.

    Two people were pronounced dead in the aftermath of the blast: Muthoni Nduthu, 52, of Bristol, who worked at the facility as a nurse for over a decade, and a resident at the facility whom police identified as Ann Ready. Another resident, 66-year-old Patricia Merro, died two weeks later from her injuries.

    The sisters of Felistus Muthoni Nduthu-Ndegwa speak at her funeral at St. Ephrem Church in Bensalem. The 52-year-old nurse was killed in an explosion at Bristol Health and Rehab.

    The nursing home, previously known as Silver Lake, had been acquired by Saber Healthcare Group and renamed Bristol Health & Rehab Center three weeks before the explosion.

    Under the facility’s previous operator, the Cincinnati-based CommuniCare Health Services, the nursing home had been cited repeatedly for substandard care and facility management.

    Federal regulators gave the facility a one-star rating, and CommuniCare was fined more than $418,000 in 2024, records show, due to ongoing violations. Two months before the explosion, state inspectors cited the facility for lacking a fire safety plan, failing to maintain extinguishers, and having hallways and doors that could not contain smoke.

    A representative for Saber said last month the company had begun addressing those problems after taking over the facility in early December.

    After the blast, Peco tested the ground outside the nursing home and detected gas in the ground. The safety board said it continues to analyze physical evidence gathered from the scene and did not provide a timeline on delivering a final report.

  • Rubio defends Trump on Venezuela while trying to allay fears about Greenland and NATO

    Rubio defends Trump on Venezuela while trying to allay fears about Greenland and NATO

    WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a full-throated defense Wednesday of President Donald Trump’s military operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, while explaining to U.S. lawmakers the administration’s approach to Greenland, NATO, Iran, and China.

    As Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered starkly different readings of the administration’s foreign policy, Rubio addressed Trump’s intentions and his often bellicose rhetoric that has alarmed U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere, including demands to take over Greenland.

    In the first public hearing since the Jan. 3 raid to depose Maduro, Rubio said Trump had acted to take out a major U.S. national security threat in the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s top diplomat said America was safer and more secure as a result and that the administration would work with interim authorities to stabilize the South American country.

    “We’re not going to have this thing turn around overnight, but I think we’re making good and decent progress,” Rubio said. “We are certainly better off today in Venezuela than we were four weeks ago, and I think and hope and expect that we’ll be better off in three months and six months and nine months than we would have been had Maduro still been there.”

    The former Florida senator said Venezuela’s current leaders are cooperating and would soon begin to see benefits. But he backed away from remarks prepared for the hearing that Washington would not hesitate to take further military action should those leaders not fully accept Trump’s demands.

    “I can tell you right now with full certainty, we are not postured to nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time,” Rubio said. “I think it would require the emergence of an imminent threat of the kind that we do not anticipate at this time.”

    He said Venezuela soon will be allowed to sell oil that is now subject to U.S. sanctions, and the revenue would be set aside to pay for basic government services such as policing and healthealthcare proceeds will be deposited in a U.S. Treasury-controlled account and released after the U.S. approves monthly budgets to be submitted by Venezuela, he said.

    Pushback against skepticism from Democrats

    Republican senators, with few exceptions, praised the operation in Venezuela. Among Democrats, there was deep skepticism.

    They questioned Trump’s policies in Venezuela and their potential for encouraging moves by China against Taiwan and Russia even more so in Ukraine, as well as his threats to take Greenland from NATO ally Denmark and his insults about the alliance’s contributions to U.S. security.

    Rubio played them all down.

    He said the uproar over Greenland within NATO is calming and that talks are underway about how to deal with Trump’s demands. The Republican president insists the U.S. needs Greenland to counter threats from Russia and China, but he recently backed away from a pledge to impose tariffs on several European countries that sent troops to the semiautonomous Danish territory in a show of solidarity.

    “I think we’re going to get something positive done,” Rubio said.

    Rubio dismissed criticism that Trump was undermining the alliance, while repeating the long-running American complaint that member nations need to boost their defense budgets.

    “NATO needs to be reimagined,” Rubio said. “I just think this president complains about it louder than other presidents.”

    He said China’s stated goal to reunify Taiwan with the mainland would not be affected by any other world event, including the Maduro operation.

    “The situation on Taiwan is a legacy project” that Chinese President Xi Jinping has made ”very clear that that’s what he intends to do and that’s going to be irrespective anything that happens in the world,” Rubio said.

    As Trump once more threatens Iran with military action, Rubio said there was no current plan to attack. Asked about the potential for a change of government in Tehran, Rubio said that would require “a lot of careful thinking” because it would be “far more complex” than ousting Maduro.

    He noted that the increased military presence in the Middle East — an aircraft carrier and accompanying warships arrived this week — is “to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel.”

    More details about the raid in Caracas

    The Republican committee chairman, Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, offered new details on the operation in the Venezuelan capital, saying it involved “only about 200 troops” and a “firefight that lasted less than 27 minutes.”

    “This military action was incredibly brief, targeted and successful,” Risch said, adding that the U.S. and other nations may have to assist Venezuela when it seeks to restore democratic elections.

    ”Venezuela may require U.S. and international oversight to ensure these elections are indeed free and fair,” he said.

    Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the committee’s top Democrat, questioned whether that operation was worth it, considering most of Maduro’s top aides and lieutenants still run the Venezuela and the economic situation there remains bleak.

    “We’ve traded one dictator for another, so it’s no wonder that so many of my constituents are asking, why is the president spending so much time focused on Venezuela instead of the cost of living and their kitchen table economic concerns?” she asked. “From Venezuela to Europe, the United States is spending more, risking more and achieving less.”

    Call for eventual democratic elections in Venezuela

    Rubio delivered his strongest statement yet of support for democracy in Venezuela, while concerns persist that the administration’s stabilization efforts are narrowly focused on oil and U.S. national security interests.

    “What’s the end state? We want a Venezuela that has legitimate democratic elections,” said Rubio, who met Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado at the State Department after the hearing.

    Machado reiterated her intention to return to Venezuela. “Dear Venezuelans, we are moving forward with firm steps,” she posted on X. “I will return to Venezuela very soon to work together on the transition and the building of an exceptional country.”

    Before that, Rubio faced tough questioning from Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) about cooperating with interim leaders who had been part of Maduro’s authoritarian government. Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, is now the acting president.

    The U.S. has said its demands for Rodriguez include opening Venezuela’s energy sector to U.S. companies, providing preferential access to production, using oil revenue to purchase American goods, and ending subsidized oil exports to Cuba.

    Neither Rodríguez nor her government’s press office immediately commented on Rubio’s remarks. She said Tuesday that her government and the U.S. “have established respectful and courteous channels of communication.” So far, she has appeared to acquiesce to Trump’s demands and to release prisoners jailed by the government under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

    In a key step to the restoration of diplomatic relations, the State Department said it intends to begin sending additional diplomatic and support personnel to Caracas to prepare for the possible reopening of the U.S. Embassy, which shuttered in 2019.

    Fully normalizing ties, however, would require the U.S. to revoke its decision recognizing the Venezuelan parliament elected in 2015 as the country’s legitimate government.

  • A Montco woman who defrauded FEMA of $1.5 million in Hurricane Ida relief money was sentenced to 5 years in prison

    A Montco woman who defrauded FEMA of $1.5 million in Hurricane Ida relief money was sentenced to 5 years in prison

    A Montgomery County woman was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for defrauding the government of more than $1.5 million intended to aid victims of Hurricane Ida, the 2021 storm that tore through the region and left thousands of properties damaged and the Vine Street Expressway submerged in murky floodwaters.

    Jasmine Williams, 34, apologized for her conduct, saying in court that she was embarrassed by her actions and would never make similar mistakes again. In the years after her crimes, she said, she gave birth to a daughter, who is now 2, and she said becoming a mother has helped her see the errors of her past.

    “My past is who I was — and who I am today, I’m a different person,” Williams said.

    Still, U.S. District Judge Kelley B. Hodge said Williams made a series of decisions to benefit herself at the expense of others — calling it a “fleecing” of people who were truly in need of government help.

    “Everybody has struggles, everybody has to do something to survive. What you engaged in was driven by greed,” Hodge said. “You may say not 100%. But you got used to it. You liked it. You enjoyed it.”

    In addition to Williams’ prison term, Hodge imposed a four-year term of supervised release.

    Ida made landfall in Louisiana in August 2021 as a Category 4 hurricane, and went on to carve a destructive path over the Appalachians and through the Mid-Atlantic. Federal authorities believe it caused nearly 100 deaths and tens of billions of dollars in damage, and Philadelphia officials estimate that 11,000 properties in the city were damaged.

    The region was hit by tornadoes, significant downpours, power outages, and widespread flooding, including in parts of Center City and on Boathouse Row, Manayunk’s Main Street, and the Vine Street Expressway.

    Months after the storm subsided, then-President Joe Biden freed up funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to go toward storm relief. That’s when Williams began her scheme to target those funds, prosecutors said.

    On social media, prosecutors said, Williams posted that she could help people fill out applications for federal aid — even if they had suffered no harm from the storm.

    She helped people complete applications for properties they did not own or that were not damaged, prosecutors said, and drafted fake documents — including false emergency room bills and home repair estimates — to help their paperwork pass through FEMA’s screening process.

    In exchange, prosecutors said, she told applicants they had to pay her half of what they received. And in all, prosecutors said, she helped about 150 people file false registrations, causing FEMA to distribute about $1.5 million in fraudulent reimbursements. She pleaded guilty last year to more than two dozen charges, including wire fraud and mail fraud.

    “These individuals came to her for one reason: to obtain quick and free money,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Chandler Harris said in court.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruth Mandelbaum said Williams used her illicit profits to pay for a series of extravagant expenses, including vacations to the Bahamas and Thailand, and luxury clothing and jewelry.

    “She wanted to live a lavish lifestyle and she did that on the backs of American taxpayers,” Mandelbaum said.

    Williams’ attorney, Summer McKeivier, acknowledged that Williams had taken advantage of a “get rich quick” scheme. But she said Williams was motivated not solely by greed, but also by a desire to provide financial security for herself and others.

    And she added that Williams, who had no previous criminal record, has now centered her life on being a mother her daughter can admire.

    Williams said: “Being a mother has changed my life in such a dramatic way.”

    Hodge encouraged Williams to continue moving past what she described as a “hustle mentality” and a desire to seek quick cash to fund a glamorous lifestyle.

    “This is not some version of a reality TV show on BET,” Hodge said. “This is real life.”

  • Evonn Wadkins, high school sports star at Simon Gratz and retired Philadelphia Mounted Police Officer, has died at 88

    Evonn Wadkins, high school sports star at Simon Gratz and retired Philadelphia Mounted Police Officer, has died at 88

    Evonn Wadkins, 88, formerly of Philadelphia, retired Philadelphia Mounted Police Officer, basketball and football star at Simon Gratz High School, builder, carpenter, plumber, bus driver, and volunteer, died Sunday, Jan. 11, of complications from a stroke at Bryn Mawr Extended Care Center.

    A gifted athlete with an innate desire to help others and be part of a team, Mr. Wadkins played basketball and football on Philadelphia playgrounds, in youth leagues and high school, and later with adults in semipro leagues and the Charles Baker Memorial Basketball League. He usually scored in double digits for the Gratz basketball team and went head-to-head against the legendary Sonny Hill and Wilt Chamberlain.

    He overcame a severe ankle injury when he was young and retired from the Baker League years later only after age and ailments forced him off the court. He was a “speedy end” on the football team at Gratz, the Daily Journal in Vineland said in 1955.

    His name appeared often in The Inquirer and other local newspapers in 1955 and ‘56, and they noted his 55-yard touchdown catch against Dobbins, 25-yard scoring reception against Vineland, and 44-yard scoring catch-and-run against Northeast in 1955.

    Mr. Wadkins (right) drives with the ball in this photo that was published in The Inquirer in 1956.

    Mr. Wadkins graduated from the Philadelphia Police Training Center in 1963 and spent 11 years patrolling Fairmount Park and elsewhere in the Traffic Division. He transferred to the Mounted Unit — and met Cracker Jack — in 1974, and officer and horse rode the Philly streets together until they both retired in 1988.

    “When he went on vacation, nobody could ride Cracker Jack,” said Mr. Wadkins’ wife, Elaine. “They could groom him. But Cracker Jack wouldn’t let anyone else ride him.”

    He also worked construction side jobs with neighbors and friends, and learned plumbing, heating, and carpentry skills. “Family and friends are still sleeping comfortably on his one-of-a-kind beds more than 40 years later,” his family said in a tribute.

    He drove a school bus for the School District of Philadelphia for 10 years in the 1980s and ’90s, and made friends with many of the students. He moved with his wife to Goochland, Va., 35 miles northwest of Richmond, in 1998.

    Mr. Wadkins and his wife, Elaine, married in 1959.

    He joined the Goochland chapter of the NAACP and volunteered at the Second Union Rosenwald School Museum. At the Second Union Baptist Church, he mentored boys and young men, and supervised the media ministry.

    He was serious about community service. “He never met a stranger,” his wife said.

    Evonn LeFrancis Wadkins was born June 4, 1937, in Philadelphia. He was the fifth of six children and earned his high school degree at night school after leaving Gratz early.

    He met Flora Elaine Poole at Gratz in 1954, and they married in 1959. They set up house in West Philadelphia a few years later and had daughters Evette and Elise, and a son, Evonn.

    This photo of Mr. Wadkins on his horse appeared in the Daily News in 1987.

    Mr. Wadkins, familiar with Fairmount Park from his time on police patrol, liked to share historical tidbits when the family drove through. He loved cars and traveled to Canada with his wife and to Germany with his brother to shop for several that caught his eye.

    He and his family traveled to Florida for a New Year’s party and to South Dakota to fly over Mount Rushmore. He and his wife cruised the Caribbean and toured the United States and Europe.

    He even flew with a friend to two Super Bowls. “He was a man on the go,” his family said.

    Mr. Wadkins liked McDonald’s pancakes and coached a few youth league basketball teams, one to a championship. When asked how he was doing, his usual response was: “Livin’ slow.”

    Mr. Wadkins enjoyed time with his family.

    His wife said: “He was a good provider. He was a great husband.”

    In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Wadkins is survived by five grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, a brother, and other relatives. Two brothers and two sisters died earlier.

    Private services were held earlier.

    Donations in his name may be made to the Police Athletic League of Philadelphia, 3068 Belgrade St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19134; and the Second Union Rosenwald School Museum, 2843 Hadensville-Fife Rd., Goochland, Va.