Temple University will offer a voluntary retirement program for faculty, the school announced Wednesday.
The move comes as the university attempts to close a budget deficit that stood at $27 million earlier this year but that worsened when the school did not meet projected enrollment targets for its main campus — which president John Fry had said translated to $10 million less in revenue.
“It is important for us to explore strategies that will allow the university to make meaningful changes, as this is key to optimizing the budget and improving our financial results moving forward,” Fry and interim provost David Boardman said in a message to the campus community.
The university did not say how many faculty it hopes will take the offer, but those who are 62 years and older and have at least 10 continuous years of experience are eligible. They must be tenured, tenure-track, or appointed as non-tenure-track under a contract that expires after June 30.
Temple did not immediately provide the number of eligible faculty.
The move also will allow the university to hire new tenure-track faculty over time, Fry and Boardman said.
Fry said the university would fund the program with federal COVID-19 stimulus funds that came in a onetime tax credit reimbursement to businesses that kept employees during that period. Temple last offered faculty a voluntary retirement program in 2023.
Pennsylvania State University last year offered buyouts to its faculty and staff on its Commonwealth campuses as it made plans to close seven of those campuses. More than 380 employees — 21% of those eligible — took the buyout in June 2024.
Also on Wednesday, Temple announced it had tapped Rob Reddy, formerly the vice president for enrollment management at St. Louis University, to serve as interim vice provost for enrollment management. He will begin Jan. 1
Reddy replaces Jose Aviles, who left Temple last month for a new enrollment job at Rutgers University. He has three decades of experience in admissions, financial aid, and veterans’ relations, Boardman said in an announcement to the campus community.
“Rob comes to us with deep experience in the field and a reputation for taking on challenging assignments,” Boardman said.
He previously served as assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management and dean of student financial services at Northeastern University.
The university intends to launch a search for a new enrollment leader in the spring, Boardman said.
Radnor school board officials are now considering a plan for a charter school seeking to open in the fall of 2026on the Valley Forge Military Academy campus.
A group seeking to openValley Forge Public Service Academy Charter School on the site of the closing military school is already equipped with a leadership team and board, but it cannot open as a publicly funded charter school without approval from the local school board.
The group began the formal charter approval process Tuesdayat a Radnor school board meeting with a presentation pitching a nontraditional high school experience that could prepare studentsfor public service jobs.
Liz Duffy, the board president, said the board entered the hearing “with an open mind toward gathering information.”
“And no decisions have been made or will be made on the application today,” she added.
At least one more hearing will follow before the board votes on the proposal. Radnor has never approved a charter school, despite receiving earlier proposals.
The Radnor school board has voted down two previous proposals to add a military-themed charter school to the campus, which the board had argued would serve as a way to subsidize the military academy. The current proposal, The Inquirer has reported, has been in the works since March — months before the private military academy announced it would shut down.
Chris Massaro, a Radnor native who runs a firm that advises educational institutions, had begun working to help the military academy in January and thought a new charter school could be a way to preserve the institution’s legacy.
Massaro said at the hearing Tuesday that he introduced charter school consultant Alan Wohlstetter to the Valley Forge Military Academy Foundation in April and “they got to work” on the plan. Massaro and Wohlstetter are both listed as founders of the potential new school.
The applicants and the foundation are presenting themselves as separate entities that would simply have a landlord-tenant relationship.
“This proposal is entirely new,” said Stephen Flavell, the prospective charter school’s founding CEO. “It has a new mission, new leadership, and a new board.”
He said the school would provide a “uniquely different” experience for students who might not be a good fit for a regular public school.
“This is an ‘and’ for Radnor, not an ‘or,’” he added.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run, and receive per-pupil funding from school districts.
What would the charter school offer?
Organizers said the school would prepare students in grades six through 12 for public service jobs, such as law enforcement, emergency response services, and the military. The entity’s website says its mission is “to provide a rigorous, service-oriented education that emphasizes character, discipline, academic excellence and career readiness.” Applicant spokespeople emphasized providing students with career-path alternatives to four-year college degrees.
The school would cap the number of Radnor School Districtattendees at 25%, andwould alsocater to students from nine other localschool districts, according to the applicant team. “Every student graduates with a diploma plus,” said Deborah Stern, a board adviser for the prospective school. She said the school would give students opportunities to secure college credits or industry-recognized credentials in addition to their high school diploma, alongside connections in the field of their choice.
Would there be any construction?
Dave Barbalace of BSI Construction said the applicant team would pursue a $2.4 million renovation that would take six to seven months to “repair, refresh, and modernize” the building.
The renovation would include making the restrooms on the first floor bigger, a new roof, walkway repairs, and an Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible ramp, he said.
When would the charter school open?
The applicant team said the school would be readyto open in September 2026 if it is approved by the Radnor School District.
The school would have 50 students per grade, starting with just sixth through eighth grades in the fall and adding another grade each year through 12th grade..
A few students have already pre-enrolled, according to the applicant team.
What feedback has the proposal gotten?
Jim Higgins, a lifelong Radnor resident who grew up across the street from the military academy, told the school boardhe did not support the prior two charter school proposals but is supportive of this one.
“I care personally about what happens to the property, so I’ve been watching it,” said Higgins, who previously worked as a CEO and principal of a North Philadelphia charter school and has two kids in the Radnor school system.
“I did not support the other charter applications. I thought they were the wrong people. There wasn’t a community investment. I’m excited by this one,” he added.
Jibri Trawick, a member of the applicant team, said the team has done over 35 outreach events and collected 115 petition signatures, though not all are from Radnor residents since the school would serve the region. The applicants also have 18 letters of support from local businesses and organizations, Trawick said.
One person at the hearing expressed concern about young students sharing a campus with college students, and another questioned what was different between the proposed school’s programming and the existing options for students at Radnor’s district schools and the Delaware County Technical School.
Michael Kearney, a Wayne resident, expressed concern over whether the applicant team was planning for the unexpected expenses that come with using an aged building.
“I caution you that we don’t get too excited about what is a great idea and ignore the uncertainty and risk that are inherent in the proposal,” he said.
What comes next?
This hearing was designed for the charter school team to present its project, and a second hearing set for Jan. 20 is designed for the board, the school district’s administration, and its solicitor to question the applicant team.
The school board has to make a decision byMarch 1.
If Radnor rejects the application, the groupcould reapply, and ultimately could appeal to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Eduard “Teddy” Einstein, a beloved professor and mathematician, was biking home from a haircut when a driver killed him earlier this month.
Einstein, 38, was struck and killed by the 18-year-old driver on Dec. 3 while riding his bicycle on Providence Road in Upper Darby. No charges have been filed in Einstein’s death, according to Upper Darby police, but an investigation is continuing, and police said the driver cooperated with police at the scene of the crash.
The West Philadelphia husband and father of two young children, Charlie and Lorcan, was known for his sharp wit, encouraging students, and scouring cities for the most interesting, and spiciest, foods. Einstein was, above all else, dedicated to his family.
“He didn’t need much more than me and the boys. It was like he was my home, and I was his,” Einstein’s wife, Ruth Fahey, 45, said. ”That’s kind of how we agreed that we would move around the country together as a family, and it was wonderfully freeing.”
Teddy Einstein (left) reading a book to his son while the family cat plays with his arm. Einstein was a devoted husband and father who covered the lion’s share of storytelling and bedtime, but especially cooking, as he was an avid chef who liked trying new recipes, his wife Ruth Fahey said. Einstein was killed on Dec. 3, 2025, while riding his bike in a bike lane when he was hit by a driver on Providence Road in Upper Darby, Pa.
Born in Santa Monica, Calif., Einstein graduated from Harvard-Westlake School before receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Pomona College, a master’s in mathematics from University of California, Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He would go on to hold postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught, and most recently completed a three-year teaching term at Swarthmore College.
“He loved mathematics and wrote a first-rate thesis,” said Einstein’s Ph.D. adviser, Jason Manning. “Many mathematicians, even those who write a good thesis, don’t do much after graduate school. But Teddy’s work really accelerated during his postdoc at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he was doing even more exciting work when he passed.”
His colleagues describe a mathematician working at, to put it simply, the intersection of algebra and geometry. Building on the work of mathematicians before him, including modern geometric breakthroughs in years past, Einstein studied abstract 3D shapes that cannot be visually represented in the real world. Work like that of Einstein and others contributes to a tool chest of solutions that scientists can use to study physics, neuroscience, and more.
“It is a terrible loss, especially to his family,” Manning said. “But also to his part of the mathematics community.”
Teddy Einstein (right) holds his second-born, Lorcan, soon after he was born.
As his term at Swarthmore ended earlier this year, Einstein had been working on research that was seven years in the making, Fahey said. This would help springboard him into the next chapter of his career.
Fahey said the day he was killed, Einstein was biking back from a fresh haircut to impress his potential new employers at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Mr. Einstein’s work ethic matched his appetite for camaraderie. He fed grad students out of his tiny Cornell kitchen and hosted a weekly trivia night. That is where he met Fahey. “He just loved to entertain with food,” she said.
Every week, he cooked for Fahey and the boys, from his prized favorites of Korean short ribs and fried chicken to testing out falafel recipes. A keg of home-brewed beer was always in the house so that Einstein could share his creations with friends. Fahey said his most recent yeast yield is still waiting to be processed.
Maddie Adams-Miller, who took Einstein’s math classes in her freshman year at Swarthmore, said her funny and wise math teacher never wanted to see a student fail.
“I loved talking to my friends from high school and telling them I had ‘Professor Einstein’ for math. Teddy always wore funny T-shirts to class and made a lot of jokes,” said Adams-Miller, now a senior. “When I was taking his course, I was struggling with my confidence and was not performing my best academically. Teddy reached out to me to offer support and genuinely wanted me to succeed in his class.”
Teddy Einstein (left) holds his eldest son, Charlie, while he walks down a flight of steps wearing the usual safety gear that he wore while riding his bike. The precautions Einstein took to bike safely weren’t enough to stop a driver from crashing into him on Providence Road in Upper Darby earlier this month, leaving his wife, Ruth Fahey, and their two sons without a father.
An avid cyclist who biked everywhere and advocated for safer streets, Einstein was killed doing one of the activities he loved most. Philly Bike Action, an advocacy organization that Einstein and his wife frequented and his friend Jacob Russell organizes for, shared that he was hit by the driver while riding in an unprotected bike lane and wearing a helmet and high-visibility clothing.
“But there will never be a helmet strong enough or a clothing bright enough to make up for dangerous infrastructure. All Philadelphians deserve the freedom to travel without fear of tragedy,” the group said in a statement.
Russell believes safety improvements will not come solely from attempting to change laws or behavior, but rather by changing the road infrastructure, so that even “when mistakes happen, there aren’t tragedies,” he said.
A screenshot, dated July 2024, from Google Maps showing the intersection where Teddy Einstein was killed on Dec. 3, 2025, in Upper Darby, Pa.
Providence Road, where Einstein was hit and where he biked weekly, is considered a dangerous road by local planning commissions, appearing on the Regional High Injury Network map as a thoroughfare where multiple people have died or been seriously injured in vehicle, pedestrian, or bicycle crashes. Delaware County is currently in the process of onboarding most of its townships onto a “Vision Zero” plan to end all traffic fatalities by 2050 — similar to Philadelphia’s own Vision Zero.
The Delaware County Planning Commission said the county does not own the roads, which are overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or specific municipalities; however, officials are “actively working to obtain additional funding for further safety improvements, and are continuing to work with our partners in our 49 municipalities on either our Vision Zero plan or to help them develop their own,” said Delco spokesperson Michael Connolly.
Fahey said she won’t rest until Providence Road’s lack of safety is addressed and will continue campaigning for safety improvements in Philadelphia.
A GoFundMe has been set up for Fahey to help fund efforts to protect Einstein’s legacy as a teacher and advocate, as well as to invest in campaigns to make streets safer, with an emphasis on the road where Einstein was killed. It has already raised more than $60,000.
In addition to his wife and children, Einstein is survived by his parents, K. Alice Chang and Thomas Einstein, and siblings, Michael Einstein and Lily Einstein. The family encouraged people to donate to Fahey’s GoFundMe to honor Einstein’s legacy.
A former corrections officer at Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting a female prisoner inside her cell last year — a violent attack that occurred while the victim was in protective custody because of ongoing mental health issues, prosecutors said.
Michael Jefferson, 43, said little as he entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson. He is scheduled to be sentenced in April and faces a maximum penalty of life behind bars.
Jefferson was charged earlier this year with crimes including aggravated sexual abuse and deprivation of rights for attacking a prisoner inside the detention center on the 700 block of Arch Street on July 6, 2024.
Prosecutors said Jefferson entered the woman’s cell, where she had been sleeping; placed his hands on her shoulders and told her not to say anything; then pinned her down and sexually assaulted her.
The victim reported the assault to other guards the next morning, once Jefferson’s shift was over, prosecutors said. Evidence supported her account of having been sexually abused, prosecutors said, and showed she had been physically injured during the attack.
The victim, who was not identified in court documents, later sued Jefferson, describing the attack as a rape and saying it occurred while she was housed in isolation and on suicide watch.
Her lawyers have accused the Bureau of Prisons of failing to protect her from Jefferson, in part because they said another officer either ignored the assault or was improperly absent from his post when it occurred.
The detention center can house up to 950 prisoners, most of whom are either awaiting federal trial or serving short sentences after being convicted.
The man who walked through the streets of Kingsessing and shot people at random in 2023, killing five and wounding five others in one of Philadelphia’s deadliest mass shootings, pleaded guilty Wednesday to multiple counts of murder and was sentenced to decades in prison.
Kimbrady Carriker, 43, admitted that on the evening of July 3, 2023, he calmly walked through a Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood dressed in body armor and wearing a ski mask, and pointed his AR-15-style rifle at seemingly random passersby — then pulled the trigger.
He killed five people: DaJuan Brown, 15; Lashyd Merritt, 21; Dymir Stanton, 29; Ralph Moralis, 59; and Joseph Wamah Jr., 31.
Five others were injured: a 13-year-old boy he shot multiple times in the legs, and a mother who was driving with her 2-year-old twins and 10-year-old niece when he fired more than a dozen bullets into her car.
Wamah was killed first in the early morning of July 2, targeted in his home for reasons that remain unclear. Carriker returned to Wamah’s block nearly two days later, armed with the same gun, and shot the others.
Carriker’s admission to the killings marks the end of the legal saga in a shooting that shocked the city, shattered families’ lives, and traumatized a community.
“This was 14 minutes of terror for the residents of the Kingsessing neighborhood,” Assistant District Attorney Robert Wainwright said of Carriker’s carnage.
Prosecutors say surveillance video showed Kimbrady Carriker, dressed in a ballistic vest and ski mask, walking through Southwest Philadelphia shooting people at random on July 3, 2023.
Carriker’s attorneys had been expected to argue at trial that he was legally insane when he gunned down his victims, and that he should be housed in a secure psychiatric facility for most of his life, not state prison.
Carriker suffered from “severe delusions and religious preoccupations” and “had a fixed illusion that he was working for the National Security Agency,” said Gregg Blender, assistant defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
Even after he was arrested, taken to Norristown State Hospital, and medicated, he believed that he had done something wrong only because the “National Security Association personnel did not come and rescue me,” Blender said he told doctors.
Prosecutors disagreed that Carriker was legally insane and said his actions were deliberate and he should spend the rest of his life in state prison. But as they prepared for trial, an expert hired by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office interviewed Carriker and agreed with defense lawyers that he did not appear to know that what he was doing that night was wrong.
Prosecutors did not want to risk that a jury might find Carriker not guilty by reason of insanity, Wainwright said. So they offered Carriker the opportunity to plead guilty to five counts of third-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, and gun crimes. They asked a judge to sentence him to 37½ to 75 years in prison.
On Wednesday, Carriker agreed.
Police gather evidence near 56th Street and Chester Avenue after the mass shooting on July 3, 2023.
Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson sentenced Carriker to the agreed-upon decades behind bars. The judge said that, in his 15 years of handling homicide cases, this was the worst he had seen, but that he would respect the deal reached by prosecutors and Carriker’s defense team.
“It traumatized an entire community,” the judge said of the shooting. “It traumatized an entire city.”
Survivors of the shooting, and loved ones of the people who died, spoke emotionally in court Wednesday of the devastation of that July night, and the lasting impact on their lives.
The father of Joseph Wamah Jr., consumed by the trauma of finding his son’s dead body inside his home, died earlier this year. His daughter said he could not mend his broken heart, and spiraled into a health crisis.
Jonah Wamah, the father of Joseph Wamah, one of the victims in the Kingsessing mass shooting, spoke of the impact of losing his son in June 2024. He died earlier this year, in September, after his family said he could not recover from the grief of his son’s killing.
“He faded in front of my eyes,” Jasmine Wamah said of her father.
Other family members spoke of being hospitalized for their mental health, of looking after children without fathers and caring for kids with bullet scars in their legs.
Odessa Brown spoke of holding her 15-year-old grandson as he bled out from his injuries.
“When DaJuan was born, he was given to me and I held him in his arms,” she said. “And that day, I held him when he was on the ground, dying, praying, asking God, please save my child.”
Ralph Moralis’ daughter, Taneisha Moralis, said that, at six months pregnant, she can’t stop thinking about how her child will never know their grandfather.
And Charlotte Clark, the girlfriend of Dymir Stanton, said she struggles to get up each day to care for their daughter, who was only 3 when her father was killed.
“I am still yearning for him from my soul. It makes me crazy,” she said, shaking.
She said she hoped Carriker would rot in prison for what he took from her family.
Nyshyia Thomas misses her son, DaJuan, every day. At the sentencing of her son’s killer on Wednesday, she said: “I will never get to see his face as a grown man. I will always just know the child.”
A killing spree
Carriker’s killing spree began shortly after midnight on July 2, when he showed up at Wamah’s home on the 1600 block of South 56th Street. He shot multiple bullets through the door, then walked in and shot Wamah nine times.
It remains unclear why Carriker targeted Wamah. Police did not know he had been killed until days later.
Nearly two days later, just before 8:30 p.m., Carriker returned to that block with the same rifle and a semiautomatic handgun. First, he fired 18 shots into the Jeep of Octavia Brown, a young woman driving her 2-year-old twins and 10-year-old niece to a family barbecue.
One of the toddlers was shot multiple times in the leg, and the other twin was grazed by a bullet. Glass shards exploded into Brown’s face and eye. The boys survived their injuries, but the family was traumatized. Brown said Wednesday that her son still has pain in his legs from the shooting.
As nearby police rushed to the scene, Carriker walked south down 56th Street, coming across 13-year-old Ryan Moss and shooting him multiple times in the legs. His friend, DaJuan Brown, was on his grandmother’s porch and ran out to help his friend. DaJuan and a responding officer found the boy screaming for help behind a car.
As DaJuan ran home for help, Carriker shot him multiple times, killing him.
Carriker continued on, next shooting Moralis as he got out of his car. Then, as he reached Greenway Avenue, he came to face Lashyd Merritt leaving his home, and shot him. Both men died.
Carriker then turned up South Frazier Street, where he shot and killed Dymir Stanton. Stanton’s brother, Kaadir, shot at Carriker in self-defense as he tried to get to his brother.
Philadelphia police responded to a sprawling scene nearly a mile long. Officer Ryan Howell ran toward the sounds of gunfire, then found Carriker in a dark alleyway. The gunman quickly surrendered.
Police Officer Ryan Howell’s body worn camera footage showed how he found Kimbrady Carriker surrendering in a narrow alleyway.
‘I am sorry’
Prosecutors said Carriker told Howell “good job” as he took him into custody, and said, “I’m out here helping you guys.” Law enforcement sources have said Carriker told police that the shooting spree was an attempt to help authorities address the city’s gun violence crisis, and that God would be sending more people to help.
Carriker’s attorneys said he was profoundly delusional and did not understand the impact of his actions.
Blender, of the defender association, said Wednesday that there was nothing he could say to comfort to the victims’ families — or the relatives of Carriker, who live with their own guilt.
“He was under a mental health disease that prevented him from understanding what was going,” Blender said. “It is not an excuse. It is not to justify this horrific, horrific behavior.”
Later in the sentencing, Carriker, dressed in a red jumpsuit, attempted to apologize.
“All I ever wanted to do was help my community. I never meant to cause this harm,” he said. “I am sorry for the pain I have caused. I would take it back, but I can’t, so I will say that I am sorry and maybe one day you can forgive me.”
After the hearing, the heartbroken families poured into the streets.
A man who said he was like a father to Carriker said: “All families are hurting. If there’s anything that we could ever say, it’s that we are sorry that this happened.”
And the loves ones of the victims left with little comfort. Wamah’s sister did not get the answer to the question that she says haunts her every day: “Why?”
When she asked Carriker in court, he said nothing.
Ne’siyah Thomas-Brown, left, sister of Da’Juan Brown, and, Odessa Brown, right, grandmother, outside the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice, in Philadelphia, December 17, 2025.
There will be no Christmas miracle for trolley riders.
The Center City trolley tunnel will remain closed at least through the end of December, SEPTA said Wednesday. Officials did not offer a precise reopening date but were hopeful service would resume in January.
The tunnel has been closed since the beginning of November for repairs to its overhead catenary wire system. In October, damage caused two separate incidents in which trolleys were stopped and hundreds of riders were evacuated inside the tunnel.
“We want to make sure that we don’t reopen before we feel that the risk has been reduced as low as possible that we could have another event in the tunnel,” said Kate O’Connor, SEPTA’s assistant general manager of engineering, maintenance, and construction.
Issues began earlier this fall after SEPTA changed the size of the brass sliders that hold chunks of carbon that rub off and coat the wires carrying electricity to the trolleys. The carbon coating helps the trolleys move smoothly.
A 3-inch slider, left, and a 4-inch slider, which coats electric powered wires with carbon to reduce friction. When they fail, trolleys are stranded.
The switch from 3-inch to 4-inch sliders was meant to prolong their lifespan and lower maintenance costs, but it proved to do the opposite. Inside the tunnel, where there are more curves on the tracks and more equipment holding the wire to the ceiling, the new sliders and carbon burned through more quickly.
SEPTA had tested the 4-inch sliders before the change was made, but observed no issues,O’Connor said. The tests proved to be too limited, she said, and did not adequately measure how the sliders would work across an entire fleet.
SEPTA changed back to the 3-inch slider, but because the overhead wires were now damaged, the once-reliable sliders began to wear out more quickly, too.
“We could hear the rubbing on the brass” after less than a day, said Jason Tarlecki, SEPTA’s deputy chief engineer of power.
Trolley slider parts are on display as Jason Tarlecki, acting SEPTA chief engineer of power, talks with the news media at the 40th Street trolley portal (rear) Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.
SEPTA determined it needed to replace the tunnel’s roughly five miles of overhead copper wiring, Tarlecki said, after the excess wear left it “shattered and raw” in sections.
Those repairs have taken longer than originally projected. According to SEPTA officials, supply-chain issues stemming from the pandemic have created longer wait times for new parts. New wiring needs to build up a carbon coating over time, and SEPTA has been running trolleys along the system during the closure for the patina to develop. And the transit authority has been conducting tests, like experimenting with reduced-speed zones and readjusted wire tension, to ensure that the issue does not arise again.
On Thursday morning, City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and State Rep. Rick Krajewski (D., Philadelphia) plan to lead a canvass pushing for SEPTA and the city to help riders during the closure of the tunnel.
“I know how challenging and frustrating it’s been for the tens of thousands of West and Southwest Philadelphians who rely on the trolley to get to school, work, and other essentials. [Market-Frankford Line] riders dealing with crush crowds and drivers stuck in trolley diversion gridlock are suffering too. … Only a sustainable investment from our state government can solve the root cause of this problem: SEPTA’s aging infrastructure,” Gauthier said in a statement.
Even once the tunnel does reopen and service returns, the slider saga might not be over. O’Connor said that it was possible SEPTA would close the tunnel again occasionally, possibly for a weekend, as it continues to replace sections of the wiring.
SEPTA trolley operator Victoria Daniels approaches the end of the tunnel, heading toward the 40th Street Trolley Portal Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, after a tour to update the news media on overhead wire repairs in the closed tunnel due to unexpected issues from new slider parts.
A federal judge on Wednesday tossed a proposed class-action lawsuit by Jefferson Health patients accusing the Philadelphia area’s largest health system of allowing Facebook’s third-party tracking technology, Meta Pixel, access to private patient information.
District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe rejected the request and dismissed the lawsuit, writing in an opinion that the plaintiffs had “ample opportunity to identify any defects or issues” over the last two years.
“They have not identified any discovery or new evidence to justify such delay, nor have they explained how counsel’s due diligence did not determine the limitations of Plaintiffs’ claims,” Rufe wrote.
The judge noted that the attorneys also missed the deadline to file for class certifications and did not respond to discovery requests.
Attorneys David Cohen and James Zouras of the Stephan Zouras firm, who filed the complaint, did not respond to a request for comment.
The original lawsuit was filed in 2022 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvaniaon behalf of RobertStewart and Nancy Murphy, who said they suspected that their health information had been compromised when they started seeing Facebook ads related to medical issues, such as diabetes, kidney stones, and smoking cessation, that they had discussed with Jefferson providers through the patient portal.
The lawsuit says Jefferson patients were tracked on the health system’s public-facing homepage, as well as within a password-protected portal where doctors and patients communicate.
Jefferson denied in legal filings that it used Meta Pixel on its patient portals. It acknowledged using third-party tracking technology on its public-facing websites, which do not contain private medical information.
Jefferson did not respond to a request for comment.
In April, Cohen and Zouras asked the court to replace Stewart and Murphy with a third patient, Cathryn Thorpe, as the named plaintiff representing the patients in the class action.
The attorneys said Stewart and Murphy would remain members of the proposed class of harmed patients.
Jefferson’s attorneys argued in court filings that the request to replace the named plaintiffs was an admission that there was “no live controversy” and the suit should be tossed out.
Rufe could not square how the patients’ case was too problematic to serve as named plaintiffs but they couldstill remain members of the class. She denied the request and dismissed the lawsuit.
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Donald Trump paid his respects Wednesday to two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.
Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar’s and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard.
Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Mich., a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed. Three other Iowa National Guard members were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.
They were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
Returning to Joint Base Andrews after the transfer, Trump said it was a “beautiful event for three great people. And they’re now looking down and their parents and wives and all of the people that were there were, I mean, were devastated but great people, great people.”
The return of service member remains
Trump observed several dignified transfers at Dover in his first term and has said it was “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.
There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, keeping all thoughts to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the politicians and other dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.
Trump, wearing an overcoat against the chill and brisk wind, joined the other attendees in a salute that was held as each of the American flag-draped transfer cases was carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military cargo plane and loaded into a dark, unmarked van nearby.
He gazed straight ahead as each case passed in front of him, though he turned to look after the first one was placed inside the vehicle. The remains were taken to the on-base mortuary for processing before they are released to the families.
At the start of the transfer, Trump and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined several others from the military at the open rear of the cargo plane, where all but Trump bowed their heads. The president looked inside the plane. Trump then stood alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when the group joined the official party.
Before Trump joined the others, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who flew up with Trump, dabbed her eyes with a tissue.
Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes
Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy. Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, was escorting him back to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.
Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.
The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the U.S. in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.
Sakat’s family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.
Trump’s reaction to the attack in Syria
Trump has vowed retaliation, and the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, has said the attack is under active investigation. The U.S. military said the gunman was killed in the attack.
Before this attack, the most recent instance of U.S. service members being killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.
Saturday’s deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
The Trump administration said Tuesday it was breaking up one of the world’s preeminent earth and atmospheric research institutions, based in Colorado, over concerns about “climate alarmism” — a move that comes amid escalating attacks from the White House against the state’s Democratic lawmakers.
“The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado,” wrote Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget on X. “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
The plan was first reported by USA Today.
The NCAR laboratory in Boulder was founded in 1960 at the base of the Rocky Mountains to conduct research and educate future scientists. Its resources include supercomputers, valuable datasets, and high-tech research planes.
The announcement drew outrage and concern from scientists and local lawmakers, who said it could imperil the country’s weather and climate forecasting, and appeared to take officials and employees by surprise.
NCAR’s dismantling would be a major loss for scientific research, said Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at NCAR and an honorary academic in physics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Trenberth, who joined NCAR in 1984 and officially retired in 2020, said the research center is key to advanced climate science discoveries as well as in informing the climate models that produce the weather forecasts we see on the nightly news.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that the state had not received information about the administration’s intentions to dismantle NCAR.
“If true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked,” said Polis. “Climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science. NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”
The action comes as Republicans have escalated their attacks on Polis and others in the state for their handling of a case involving Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who was convicted in state court on felony charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. President Donald Trump announced last week that he is pardoning Peters, who is serving a nine-year sentence, but it is unclear whether Trump has that authority, because she was not convicted in federal court.
In a joint statement, Colorado’s two Democratic senators, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, and Rep. Joe Neguse (D., Colo.) slammed the move and vowed to fight back against it.
In his social media post, Vought said that “any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location” — but did not specify further.
“The Colorado governor obviously isn’t willing to work with the president,” said a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The official declined to cite any specifics about how Polis is refusing to cooperate, from the administration’s perspective, but denied that the move was in response to the state’s refusal to release Peters from prison.
The facility “is not in line with the president’s agenda,” the official added, noting that it had “been on the radar” of the administration “for a while.”
The National Science Foundation, the federal science agency that funds the center, was blindsided by the announcement, according to a person familiar with NSF operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. But they said facilities managers at NSF will need to be involved in moving assets or capabilities. An NSF spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about the plan to dismantle NCAR.
Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which oversees NCAR, said it was aware of reports to break up the center but did not have “additional information about any such plan.”
“Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters,” Busalacchi said.
An internal email obtained by the Washington Post, sent Tuesday night, emphasized the critical work NCAR does for “community safety and resilience.”
Busalacchi wrote that the news had come as a shock, and the institution had reached out to NSF for more information. “We understand that this situation is incredibly distressing, and we ask that you all continue doing what you have done so well all year — provide support for one another as we navigate this turbulent time,” Busalacchi wrote.
The center is “quite literally our global mother ship,” Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University professor and chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, wrote on X. “Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.”
NCAR plays a unique role in the scientific community by bringing together otherwise siloed specialists to collaborate on some of the biggest climate and weather questions of our time, Caspar Ammann, a former research scientist at the center, said in an email.
“Without NCAR, a lot could not happen,” he said. “A lot of research at US Universities would immediately get hampered, industry would lose access to reliable base data.”
Ammann added that around the world, weather and climate services use NCAR modeling and forecasting tools.
The Colorado-based center draws scientists and lecturers from all over the world, and through its education programs has helped produce future scientists, Trenberth said.
He said he feared not just for the discoveries and data that would be lost if the center were to close, but for the early careers that could also be affected or destroyed.
“If this sort of thing happens, things will go on for a little while,” he said. “But the next generation of people who deal with weather and science in the United States will be lost.”
WASHINGTON — Democratic senators on Wednesday hammered the Federal Communications Commission’s leader for pressuring broadcasters to take ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air, suggesting that Brendan Carr was politicizing an independent agency and trampling the First Amendment.
The FCC chairman refused to disown his comments about Kimmel and, when questioned by Democrats about an agency long considered autonomous, suggested it was not insulated from Trump’s pressure.
“The FCC is not an independent agency,” Carr said.
Carr later sidestepped questions about whether he considered the Republican president to be his boss and whether he had taken orders from Trump or his inner circle.
“President Trump has designated me as chairman of the FCC,” Carr added later. “I think it comes as no surprise that I’m aligned with President Trump on policy.”
Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D., N.M.) noted that the FCC’s website described it as an “independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.”
Soon after, with the hearing still underway, the website changed, removing “independent” from a section describing its mission.
Trump has waged an aggressive campaign against the media in his second term, filing lawsuits against outlets whose coverage he dislikes, and threatening to revoke TV broadcast licenses. On Wednesday, he criticized NBC for an interview with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, saying the network “should be ashamed of themselves.”
“The Public airwaves, which these Networks are using at no charge, should not be allowed to get away with this any longer!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They should be properly licensed, and pay significant amounts of money for using this very valuable Public space.”
The 2½-hour hearing before the Senate Commerce committee repeatedly circled back to Carr’s stance on Kimmel after the late-night host’s comments on slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. At the time, Carr’s vocal criticism and veiled threats were equated with that of a mob boss.
Carr said he was simply enforcing laws holding networks to stricter scrutiny than cable and other forms of media and that “the FCC has walked away from enforcing the public interest standard.”
Democrats insisted he was warping the laws Carr invoked.
“You are weaponizing the public interest standard,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), who told Carr that he should resign.
Republican senators referenced perceived First Amendment violations by the administration of former President Joe Biden, calling Democrats’ free speech arguments disingenuous. GOP members appeared intent on bringing up broadcast spectrum auctions, undersea cable infrastructure, algorithm-driven content, robocalls, and just about anything other than Carr’s statements about Kimmel.
The committee chairman, Sen. Ted Cruz, had previously equated Carr’s comments to those of a mobster and called them “dangerous as hell.” But at the hearing, Cruz (R., Texas) took a far softer stance. He dismissed Kimmel as “tasteless” and “unfunny,” and shifted to criticizing Biden’s administration, a tack that Carr parroted throughout the hearing.
“Joe Biden is no longer president,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D., Minn.) shot back at one point.
The hearing also included the two other commissioners, Olivia Trusty and Anna M. Gomez. Gomez, a Biden appointee, said that the FCC has “undermined its reputation as a stable, independent, and expert-driven regulatory body.”
“Nowhere is that departure more concerning,” Gomez said, “than its actions to intimidate government critics, pressure media companies and challenge the boundaries of the First Amendment.”
Carr was nominated to the FCC by both Trump and Biden and unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times. But he has more recently shown more overtly right-wing views, writing a section on the FCC for “Project 2025,” the sweeping blueprint for gutting the federal workforce and dismantling agencies in Trump’s second term.
Since becoming chairman this year, Carr has launched separate investigations of all three major broadcast networks. After Kimmel’s comments on the September killing of Kirk, who was a Trump ally and leading voice of the right, Carr said: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Cruz was unflinchingly critical at the time, saying “I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”
While Cruz did not repeat those words Wednesday, they were repeatedly invoked by Democrats. Carr did not directly respond to questions from reporters following the hearing about Cruz’s original comments.
“I think the hearing went really well,” Carr said in response.
