Local law enforcement leaders in Minneapolis and St. Paul are raising concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violating U.S. citizens’ civil rights, including those of off-duty police officers, as ICE has surged into Minnesota in recent weeks.
Mark Bruley, police chief of the Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Park, said at a Tuesdaynews conference that an off-duty police officer had been “boxed … in” by vehicles driven by ICE agents, who demanded with guns drawn to see paperwork proving the officer hada right to be in the United States. “She’s a U.S. citizen, and clearly would not have any paperwork,” he said.
The officer attempted to begin filming the interaction and her phone was knocked out of her hand, Bruley said. When she identified herself as a police officer, the federal agents “immediately left,” he said.
All of the off-duty police officers who had been targeted by ICE in his city were people of color, Bruley said.
Asked about the police chief’s comments, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday morning that it had no record of ICE or Border Patrol stopping and questioning a police officer and could not verify the information without a name. The agency added that it would continue to look into the claims.
DHS officials have repeatedly said agents are not racially profiling residents but only asking people in the vicinity of enforcement operations for identification.
“I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident,” Bruley said, adding, “if it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.”
At a news conference in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, called the immigration operation “a very professional, prudent and thoughtful law enforcement action.” Bovino is overseeing the federal enforcement effort.
Asked about Bruley’s remarks, Bovino blamed local Democratic leaders, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for obstructing federal officers by urging the public to report them through emergency calls.
“You have a mayor and a police chief [Brian] O’Hara say, ‘Call 911 when ICE or Border Patrol are in the neighborhood,’ and then you wonder why the 911 system is overwhelmed with superfluous calls for assistance when that is not true,” Bovino said. “We’re going to continue to be out in the community, and we’re going to continue to conduct that mission.”
Dawanna Witt, sheriff of Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, said that people were being “stopped, questioned and harassed solely because of the color of their skin” and that the behavior of federal agents was eroding trust in law enforcement.
“We demand lawful policing that respects human dignity,” she said, adding that the surge of ICE agents in Minneapolis was impacting local officers as well as the community. “We will all continue to show up, even though times are hard, even though our law enforcement is exhausted.”
St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry said that city employees had been subject to “traffic stops that were clearly outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do.”
“We watch the news and we see very, very angry groups of people out protesting, but the people that we’re dealing with as police chiefs are the people that are scared to death, that are afraid to go outside,” he said. Not because their status is in question, but because people“are getting stopped by the way that they look, and they don’t want to take that risk.”
Bruley said the news conference was held to draw attention to the conduct of a “small group” of agents who had been deployed over the past two weeks.
“What you won’t hear from any of us today is rhetoric of ‘abolish ICE’ or that there shouldn’t be immigration enforcement,” Bruley said. “The truth is, immigration enforcement is necessary for national security and for local security, but how it’s done is extremely important.”
Thousands of ICE agents and officers have been deployed to Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge, which began in December as what DHS earlier this month said would be the agency’s largest immigration enforcement operation ever.
Minnesota officials filed suit last week challenging the operation’s legality, alleging that “armed and masked DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids” at sites including schools and hospitals. Earlier this month, Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot in her car by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. A week later, an ICE officer shot an undocumented Venezuelan man in the leg during an arrest.
Former Sunday Night Football sidelines reporter Michele Tafoya announced a Republican bid for Senate on Wednesday to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D., Minn.) with the backing of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm.
“For too long, hardworking people have been ripped off by criminals, corporations and career politicians,” Tafoya said in a video announcing her candidacy. “And the people doing everything right are the ones paying the biggest price. Well I’m not going to stay on the sidelines any longer.”
Tafoya cited her work as a television reporter in her campaign announcement, saying the job “taught me about how leadership really works. When leaders are prepared and accountable, teams succeed. When they aren’t, people pay the price.”
Besides her time with NBC’s Sunday Night Football, Tafoya also had stints with CBS and ESPN. Since leaving network television, she has been a conservative commentator with her own podcast and appearances on other right-wing media.
Tafoya enters a crowded primary but is backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and its chairman, Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.).
“From allowing billions of dollars in fraud to vilifying law enforcement, the Walz-Flanagan administration has failed Minnesotans,” Scott posted on social media,referencing the state’s current governor and lieutenant governor.“But change is coming, and Michele Tafoya will lead the way.”
Royce White, a former professional basketball player who challenged Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) in 2024, is also running as a Republican, as are former Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann, former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze, former House candidate Tom Weiler and others.
Tafoya’s announcement made passing reference to the unrest that has gripped the Twin Cities over federal immigration enforcement, noting the “pressure is mounting again” while showing a clip of protesters clashing with law enforcement. She said she would stand with police to combat crime and deport undocumented immigrants,but did not reference the growing tensions between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents.
Tafoyadid not name Renée Good, the 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by an ICE officer earlier this month. Good’s killing sparked further demonstrations and calls from elected officials for federal immigration efforts to end in the city. The Trump administration defended the ICE officer as acting in self defense. Roughly 3,000 people have been arrested as part of the immigration enforcement operation — the largest in the country.
In the video, Tafoya also took jabs at the state’s Democratic leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz over the state’s multiyear welfare fraud that has become a national scandal. Scammers stole at least hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding for social safety net programs under Walz’s governorship, according to prosecutors. The scandal has damaged Walz’s image in the state, just over a year after he was vaulted into the national spotlight as then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. Republicans assert their downballot candidates will also be able to capitalize on the fraud scandal.
Tafoya also cited keeping trans athletes out of women’s sports and lowering costs for middle-class families as her policy priorities. Her affordability message focused on reducing taxes and bolstering manufacturing.
In what is expected to be a contentious Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Angie Craig is facing off against Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
Klobuchar, who holds Minnesota’s other Senate seat, is considering running for governor in the wake of Walz’s retirement announcement this month. That would leave both of the state’s Senate seats up for grabs.
Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party has historically had a solid hold on the state. Minnesotahas not elected a Republican to the Senate since 2002 or a Republican to the White House since 1976.
But in 2024 President Donald Trump outperformed every GOPpresidential candidate since George W. Bush in 2004 and came within five percentage points of Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Republicans also have a narrow majority in the state House and are one seat away from a majority in the state Senate. Half of the state’s delegation to the U.S. House is Republican, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.
The man’s body was found around 5:45 a.m. after police were called to the property, located on the 3900 block of Conshohocken Avenue.
The man, whom police did not identity, was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:40 a.m.
Kelvin A. Jeremiah, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, said the complex’s doors and windows on the lower floors have been sealed since tenants left the property, though there have been several instances in which individuals managed to enter in an attempt to steal copper wiring from within the structure.
Early Wednesday morning, a 911 call was placed from Brith Sholom by a man who told police that a contractor had gotten hurt on the job and needed assistance, Jeremiah said.
But Jeremiah said the housing authority had not authorized any such work, and no one was permitted on the property at the time.
The housing authority later learned that the man was electrocuted and died after he tried to strip copper wire from the complex’s basement. The body was found next to the switch gears, Jeremiah said.
The CEO suspects the person who called 911 was an accomplice in the break-in, though police are still investigating.
The housing authority’s security cameras were not active during the incident because much of the building’s power is off, and other cameras have been destroyed by bad actors, according to Jeremiah.
He said the individuals might have used a ladder to enter the complex through the third floor.
Just a day earlier, Brith Sholom received a much different sort of attention.
On Tuesday, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker announced that the city’s powerful building trades unions would offer PHA a sizable loan to redevelop the complex, which the housing authority purchased from its former owners in 2024 in order to preserve it.
After PHA acquired the property, it initially told its 111 residents they could remain in their units. But upon discovering some units were damaged beyond repair, officials told those residents they would need to move out and return at a later date.
The Brith Sholom project, when completed, is expected to add 336 affordable units for seniors on fixed incomes, Parker said in her announcement Tuesday.
CAIRO — Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.
It was one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect in October and comes at a time when the U.S. is trying to push the deal forward and implement its challenging second phase.
Among the dead were three Palestinian journalists who were killed while filming near a displacement camp in central Gaza, a camp official said. The Israeli military said the strike came after it spotted suspects who were operating a drone that posed a threat to its troops.
The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, a 13-year-old, his father, and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.
The other 13-year-old who died was shot by troops in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said after receiving the body. In a video circulated online, the father of Moatsem al-Sharafy is seen weeping over his body on a hospital bed.
The boy’s mother, Safaa al-Sharafy, told The Associated Press that he left to gather firewood so she could cook.
“He went out in the morning, hungry,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “He told me he’d go quickly and come back.”
Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit a vehicle carrying the three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesperson.
Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work at the camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 3 miles from the Israeli-controlled area.
He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee. Video footage showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage.
One of the journalists killed, Abdul Raouf Shaat, was a regular contributor to Agence France-Presse, but he was not on assignment for the news agency at the time of the strike, it said.
“Abdul was much loved by the AFP team covering Gaza. They remember him as a kind-hearted colleague,” the news agency said in a statement that called him a “deeply committed journalist” and demanded a full investigation into his death.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 200 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began in 2023, including visual journalist Mariam Dagga, who worked for the AP and other news organizations.
Nearly five months after the strikes on a hospital that killed Dagga and four other journalists, the Israeli military says it is continuing to investigate.
Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international journalists from covering the war. News organizations rely largely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza — as well as residents — to show what is happening.
Nasser Hospital officials also said Wednesday they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.
In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.
More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
A mother’s plea
The first phase of the October ceasefire that paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas militants focused on the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces in Gaza.
The bodies of all but one hostage have been returned to Israel. Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known as Rani, was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. His relatives on Wednesday called again on the government and U.S. President Donald Trump to ensure the release of his remains.
“We need to continue to amplify Rani’s voice, explain about him, talk about him, and explain to the world that we, the people of Israel, will not give up on anyone,” his mother, Talik Gvili, said. She told the AP the family still doesn’t “really know where he is.”
Hamas said Wednesday it has provided “all information” it has on Gvili’s body to the ceasefire mediators, and accused Israel of obstructing search efforts in areas it controls in the Gaza Strip.
The ceasefire also allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food. But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war.
More than 100 children have died since the start of the ceasefire — including two infants who died from hypothermia in recent days.
Israel targets more sites in Lebanon
Israel’s air force carried out strikes Wednesday on sites in three villages in southern Lebanon that it said were part of the militant Hezbollah group’s infrastructure, including weapons storage facilities.
The strikes came after the Israeli military issued warnings to evacuate the areas, including in the southern village of Qennarit, just south of the port city of Sidon.
Drone strikes also hit cars in the villages of Bazouriyeh and Zahrani, killing two people, according to state-run National News Agency.
The strikes were the latest in near-daily Israeli military action since a ceasefire more than a year ago ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. The agreement included a Lebanese pledge to disarm militant groups, which Israel says has not been fulfilled.
DAVOS, Switzerland — President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that he wants to “get Greenland, including right, title and ownership,” but said he would not use force to do so while repeatedly deriding European allies and vowing that NATO should not try to block U.S. expansionism.
In an extraordinary speech at the World Economic Forum, the president said he was asking for territory that was “cold and poorly located.” He said the U.S. had effectively saved Europe during World War II and even declared of NATO: “It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.”
The implications of his remarks were nonetheless enormous, potentially rupturing an alliance that has held firm since the dawn of the Cold War and seemed among the globe’s most unshakable pacts.
NATO was founded by leading European nations, the U.S. and Canada. Its other members have been steadfast in saying Greenland is not for sale and cannot be wrested from Denmark. That means the Davos meeting could be just the beginning of a larger standoff that may eventually reshape geopolitics worldwide.
A Danish government official told The Associated Press after Trump’s speech that Copenhagen is ready to discuss U.S. security concerns in the Arctic. But the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, underscored the government’s position that “red lines”— namely Denmark’s sovereignty — must be respected.
Trump urged Denmark and the rest of NATO to stand aside, adding an ominous warning.
“We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
Despite that, he also acknowledged: “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be frankly unstoppable. But I won’t do that, OK?”
“I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
Instead, he called for opening “immediate negotiations” for the U.S. to acquire Greenland.
“This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America,” Trump said. “That’s our territory.”
Trump suggests Europe is fizzling while U.S. booms
The president has spent weeks saying that the U.S. will get control of Greenland no matter what it takes, arguing that Washington should be in charge there to counter threats in the surrounding Arctic sea by Russia and China. His Davos remarks articulated what that push for control might entail more clearly than before, however.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said he was encouraged by Trump’s comment about not using U.S. military force but called other parts of the speech “a way of thinking about territorial integrity that does not match the institutions we have.”
“Greenland is part of NATO. Denmark is part of NATO, and we can exercise our sovereignty in Greenland,” Løkke Rasmussen said.
In his remarks, Trump also argued that the U.S. is booming and its economy is strong, in sharp contrast to Europe.
“I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction,” said Trump, who also noted, “We want strong allies, not seriously weakened ones.” He said of European economies, “You all follow us down, and you follow us up.”
Trump turned the Davos gathering upside-down even before he got there.
His arrival was delayed after a minor electrical problem on Air Force One forced a return to Washington to switch aircraft. As Trump’s motorcade headed down a narrow road to the speech site, onlookers — including some skiers — lined the route. Some made obscene gestures, and one held up a paper cursing the president.
Billionaires and top executives nonetheless sought seats inside the forum’s Congress Hall, which had a capacity of around 1,000, for Trump’s keynote address. When he began, it was standing room only. Attendees used headsets to listen in six languages besides English, and the reaction was mostly polite applause.
More than 60 other heads of state are attending the forum. After the speech, Trump met with the leaders of Poland, Belgium and Egypt and again repeated that the U.S. would not be invading Greenland.
“Military is not on the table. I don’t think it will be necessary,” Trump said, suggesting that the parties involved would use better judgment.
Trump said the tariffs would start at 10% next month and climb to 25% in June.
The president in a text message that circulated among European officials this week linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. In the message, he told Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
Even before his speech, Trump’s Greenland ambitions were rankling Europe.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed during his weekly questioning in the House of Commons, “Britain will not yield on our principles and values about the future of Greenland under threats of tariffs, and that is my clear position.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, in his address to the forum, urged rejecting acceptance of “the law of the strongest.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that should Trump move forward with the tariffs, the bloc’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.”
The U.S. stock market, meanwhile, recovered on Wednesday from its worst day since October, as Trump’s talk of Greenland-related tariffs spooked investors.
Trump’s housing plan overshadowed
The White House had insisted Trump would focus his Davos address on how to lower housing prices in the U.S. That was part of a larger effort to bring down the cost of living, which continues to rise and threatens to become a major liability for the White House and Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Greenland instead carried the day, with Trump lashing at Denmark for being “ungrateful” for the U.S. protection of the Arctic island during the World War II. He also mistakenly referred to Iceland, mixing up that country with Greenland four times during his speech and for the fifth time since Tuesday.
When he finally did mention housing in his speech, Trump suggested he did not support a measure to encourage affordability. He said bringing down rising home prices hurts property values and makes homeowners who once felt wealthy because of the equity in their houses feel poorer.
Meanwhile, experts and economists are warning that Trump’s Greenland tariff threat could disrupt the U.S. economy if it blows up the trade truce reached last summer between the U.S. and the EU.
Promoting the ‘Board of Peace’
On Thursday, Trump plans to attend an event focused on the “Board of Peace,” meant to oversee a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. It could possibly take on a broader mandate, potentially rivaling the United Nations. Some European nations have so far been non-committal about participating.
“You know, the United Nations should be doing this,” Trump said Wednesday of his efforts to halt the fighting in Gaza and other conflicts around the world.
In early January, a giant sinkhole formed at an intersection in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of North Philadelphia after a water main break. Just two weeks earlier, the city reopened a section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Center City that had been shut down for two months due to a sinkhole. Last summer, some residents of Point Breeze in South Philly also waited two months for a sinkhole on their block to be repaired.
Laura Toran is a hydrogeologist and professor emeritus of environmental geology at Temple University. The Conversation U.S. asked her what causes sinkholes, whether Philly is particularly prone to them, and why repairs can take so long.
What are sinkholes and how do they happen?
A sinkhole is a hole that opens up in the ground due to some change in the subsurface.
There are two categories of change that create sinkholes. One type is associated with carbonate rock. This is a type of rock that can develop caves because the rock dissolves when underground water is even slightly acidic. When the bridge over one of these caves collapses, a sinkhole occurs.
The second type is associated with water supply or sewage pipes buried underground. The sediment next to the pipes can erode or wash away when there is a leak in the pipes. That leaves a gap, and if the collapse at the surface becomes big enough, it becomes a sinkhole.
What do we know about the sinkholes in West Oak Lane and on the Schuylkill River Trail?
West Oak Lane experienced two recent water main breaks. Debris from the flowing water made it hard to get to the leak.
Fixing a big leak is a complex job. You have to stop the leak, clear out the debris, get the parts for repair, do the pipe repair, then repair the road. This example also shows that repair teams need to look around to see whether other sections of pipe might be aging and repair them while they have a hole opened up, so you don’t want to rush the job.
The sinkhole on the Schuylkill River Trail late last year, which took two months to fix, was also the result of a pipe leak. The water department had to get involved in the repair, alongside the parks and recreation department. I should point out that the city has a limited budget for pipe repair. As one of the oldest cities in the country, Philadelphia has a lot of work to keep up with.
That said, I would rather try to fix a pipe leak than a carbonate rock sinkhole. With the cavities in carbonate rock, you don’t really know how big they are, and a typical solution is to fill them with concrete. Sometimes you have a much bigger cavity than your supply of concrete.
Is Philly prone to sinkholes?
The Philadelphia region has both types of sinkholes. Within the city, there isn’t carbonate rock present, but just outside the city, such as the King of Prussia area, we see carbonate rock that is subject to sinkholes.
The sinkholes that occur in Philly are where pipes leak and the surrounding soil gets washed away. Because we have the right geology for sinkholes in our region and we have an extensive water network that is aging, sinkholes are somewhat common.
Can nearby residents know when a sinkhole is forming?
We have a map of carbonate rock in the state, but not all carbonate rock develops sinkholes. Where and when in the carbonate rock a sinkhole is likely to develop is unpredictable.
Sinkholes in Philadelphia tend to also be unpredictable because the driving factor is happening underground and out of sight. We don’t know when a pipe leak is going to occur. Sometimes there is a sagging at the surface before a bigger hole opens up. Sometimes we see the leak before the sinkhole occurs. But not all leaks or sagging ground will lead to a sinkhole, and there won’t necessarily be any warning.
That said, it is important to report leaks and sagging ground so that they can be investigated before getting worse. Report leaks to the Philadelphia Water Department by calling their emergency hotline at 215-685-6300.
If we could replace all the aging infrastructure in the city, we would have fewer sinkholes. However, that would be costly and disruptive, so it really isn’t practical. In the meantime, the city just has to fix new sinkholes as they occur.
Laura Toran is a hydrogeologist and professor emeritus of environmental geology at Temple University.
This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article here.
Apalosnia Watson, 39, was arrested Jan. 14, nine months after Syvir Hill drowned in her home. She was charged with third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child, court records show, and was released from custody on a $500,000 unsecured bail bond as her case progressed.
Philadelphia police officers arrived at the house on the 900 block of East Schiller Street on April 15 to find medics performing CPR on an unresponsive 1-year-old, according to the arrest warrant. Watson had left Syvir and two other children alone in the bath and had gone downstairs to get food from the microwave, she told the officers that night. On her way down to the first floor, she heard “flipping in the water,” and when she returned to the second-floor room, the toddler was motionless, facedown in the water. The foster parent attempted CPR and called 911.
“I don’t want to go to jail,” Watson told the officers on the scene, according to the police report. “It happened so fast.”
S. Philip Steinberg, a Schatz Steinberg & Klayman defense attorney representing Watson, said that Watson did not act with malice, which is required for a murder charge.
“It’s a tragic accident but one that Ms. Watson would not have any criminal liability for,” Steinberg said.
The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office conducted a postmortem exam the day following Syvir’s death, but the cause and manner of death remained pending for months. On Dec. 4, the office ruled that the cause of death was drowning and the manner of death was homicide.
A spokesperson for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said charges were brought shortly after the homicide investigation was reopened following the ruling on the manner of death.
Death investigations can vary in how long they take due to a number of factors, saidJames Garrow, a Philadelphia health department spokesperson.
“Above all, our priority is to conduct thorough and accurate investigations,” Garrow said in a statement.
The long gap between the exam and the medical examiner’s ruling concerns A.J. Thomson, a Zafran Law Group attorney representing Syvir’s biological mother in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in October against Watson and two child-welfare agencies.
Thomson filed a second lawsuit in November, asking a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge to compel the medical examiner to make a ruling. That suit accuses Lindsay Simon, the city’s chief medical examiner, of refusing to perform her mandatory public duty, “blocking the family’s ability to settle the estate, pursue insurance and benefits, and understand the cause and manner of death.”
Judge Sierra Thomas Street ordered Simon on Dec. 11 to certify the cause and manner of death within 10 days.
Thomson credited the lawsuit with pushing the medical examiner’s office to issue a finding, which ultimately came before the judge ruled.
The lawsuit from Syvir’s biological mother accuses Tabor Children’s Services and Northeast Treatment Centers of failing when they placed Syvir in the home and did not remove him even though visit notes showed a varying number of children living in the crowded house.
At the time of Syvir’s death, multiple other children lived in the home, including the 4-year-old and 2-year-old who were also in the bathtub, Hill’s 4-month-old sister, and a 17-year-old, according to the police report.
The lawsuit further alleges that after Watson left the children alone in the bath, the 2-year-old told Syvir, “you are not my brother,“ and held the toddler’s head underwater. The police report makes no such claim. The accusation comes from a child’s interview with investigators from the city’s department of human services, Thomson said.
The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into the Great Valley School District in Chester County for a policy allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports teams.
The probe — one of 18 investigations announced last week into transgender sports policies in K-12 districts and colleges nationally — comes after President Donald Trump threatened last year to strip federal funding from schools that recognize transgender students.
“Time and again, the Trump Administration has made its position clear: violations of women’s rights, dignity, and fairness are unacceptable,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement. “We will leave no stone unturned in these investigations to uphold women’s right to equal access in education programs — a fight that started over half a century ago and is far from finished.”
District officials said at a school board meeting Tuesday that they’re cooperating with the investigation and working with lawyers to prepare a response.
Numerous Philadelphia-area school districts have policies allowing transgender students to play on sports teams aligned with their gender identities, including Philadelphia. But Great Valley appears to be the first on the administration’s radar.
Great Valley was one of the first Pennsylvania school districts to pass a policy supporting the rights of transgender students in 2016 — seeking to provide those students “equal opportunity to achieve their maximum potential,” including by participating in sports “in a manner that is consistent with their consistently asserted gender identity.”
It was unclear whether any transgender girls currently play sports at Great Valley. A district spokesperson provided a statement Wednesday saying the district was “committed to serving all students in our community with dignity and respect” but declined to comment further.
After declaring the country would “recognize two sexes, male and female,” Trump issued an executive order in February seeking to end the participation of transgender women in women’s sports.
The president invoked Title IX, the landmark civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in programs that receive federal funding.
But how that law applies to transgender students and their rights has been hotly debated. The U.S. Supreme Court last week heard two cases challenging laws in West Virginia and Idaho requiring that participation on sports teams for girls be based on “biological sex.”
In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, the Human Relations Act specifies that discrimination based on gender identity is a form of prohibited sex-based discrimination.
Courts have also protected the rights of transgender students. In 2018, judges in the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against students in the Boyertown Area School District who said their privacy rights were violated by sharing bathrooms with transgender students.
Last year, a U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia rejected a lawsuit from a Quakertown student who said her equal protection rights were violated by having to race against a transgender female student in the Colonial School District.
Great Valley “takes its obligations under Title IX and all federal civil rights laws seriously,” the district’s school board president, Rachel Gallegos, said at a board meeting Tuesday. “We also take our responsibility to comply with the legal rulings from federal courts in this jurisdiction and to provide the protections afforded our students by Pennsylvania statutes just as seriously.”
Much of the Trump administration’s focus on transgender issues to date has been at the collegiate level. The NCAA last year announced it would ban transgender women from competing, and the University of Pennsylvania struck a deal with the administration over the past participation of transgender athlete Lia Thomas on its women’s swim team.
The Great Valley investigation appears to have been triggered by a former school board president, Bruce Chambers, who filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights last March, objecting to the policy.
Chambers, who served on the board from 2009 to 2012, said Wednesday that OCR notified him last week that his complaint was under investigation, the same day it made its public announcement.
The district’s policy “discriminates against girls, because the trans people can use whatever bathroom they want, use whatever locker room they want … join any team they want, or activity,” Chambers said. He said he “gave the board three chances” before filing the OCR complaint.
If the board rescinds the policy, “that will solve the whole thing,” Chambers said.
Kristina Moon, senior attorney with the Education Law Center, a Philadelphia-based group that advocates for transgender students, said the Trump administration appears to be trying “to intimidate school districts” into complying with its policy goals.
Moon pointed to a recent OCR investigation into gender neutral bathrooms that was criticized by Denver Public Schools, which said the office didn’t independently verify claims and “issued conclusions using an approach that departs from established investigative practice.”
“If they actually cared about protecting girls … they would not have dismantled the Department of Education and Office for Civil Rights,” Moon said.
In a letter this week to the Great Valley board, the LGBT Equality Alliance of Chester County said there was “no clear federal law or Supreme Court ruling that makes inclusive policies for transgender students unlawful.”
“Great Valley’s current policy reflects a reasonable, lawful approach that protects students from discrimination, aligns with local and state civil rights standards, and has been reviewed with legal counsel,” the alliance said in the letter. “Supporting students’ dignity and safety is not political. It is consistent with our legal obligations and the district’s duty of care to all students.”
Two residents who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting also urged the board to maintain the policy.
“I understand there is a need for all students and not just a minority to feel safe, but I feel assured the board can and will handle all concerns from parents and students with great care,” Christi Largent said. “I look forward to seeing the board stand up for all the students.”
Yvonne St Cyr strained her body against police barricades, crawled through a broken Senate window, and yelled “push, push, push” to fellow rioters in a tunnellike hallway where police officers suffered concussions and broken bones.
She insisted she did nothing wrong. A federal judge sentenced her to 30 months in prison and imposed $2,270 in financial penalties for her actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, declaring: “You have little or no respect for the law, little or no respect for our democratic systems.”
St Cyr served only half her sentence before President Donald Trump’s January 2025 pardon set her and almost 1,600 others free.
But her story doesn’t end there. St Cyr headed back to court, seeking a refund of the $2,270. “It’s my money,” the Marine Corps veteran from Idaho said in an interview with the Washington Post. “They took my money.” In August, the same judge who sentenced her reluctantly agreed, pointing to a legal quirk in her case.
“Sometimes a judge is called upon to do what the law requires, even if it may seem at odds with what justice or one’s initial instincts might warrant. This is one such occasion,” U.S. District Judge John D. Bates wrote in an opinion authorizing the first refund to a Jan. 6 defendant.
The ruling revealed an overlooked consequence of Trump’s pardon for some Jan. 6 offenders: Not only did it free them from prison but it emboldened them to demand payback from the government.
At least eight Jan. 6 defendants are pursuing refunds of the financial penalties paid as part of their sentences, according to a Post review of court records; judges agreed that St Cyr and a Maryland couple should be reimbursed, while five more are appealing denials. (St Cyr and the couple are still waiting to receive their payments, however.) Others are filing lawsuits against the government seeking millions of dollars, alleging politically tainted prosecutions and violations of their constitutional rights. Hundreds more have filed claims accusing the Justice Department, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies of inflicting property damage and personal injuries, according to their lawyer.
People walk from the Ellipse to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., last Jan. 6, the fifth anniversary of the Capitol attack.
The efforts are the latest chapter in an extraordinary rewriting of history by the president and his allies to bury the facts of what happened at the Capitol, sustain the false claim thatthe 2020 election was rigged, and recast the Jan. 6 offenders as victims entitled to taxpayer-funded compensation.
“Donald Trump and the DOJ want taxpayers to reimburse a violent mob for the destruction of the U.S. Capitol. The Jan. 6 nightmare continues,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D., N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the Capitol’s security and operations.
The pro-Trump mob that ransacked the Capitol caused almost $3 million in damage, according to a 2022 estimate by the Justice Department. The losses included smashed doors and windows, defaced artwork, damaged furniture, and residue from gas agents and fire extinguishers.Defendants were sentenced to more than $1.2 million in restitution and fines, according to a tally by the Post.
But the government recovered less than $665,000 of those court-ordered payments, according to a source with firsthand knowledge who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation. Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) are pushing legislation — backed by some law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 — to block government payouts to rioters. Without any Republican cosponsors, the legislation is not expected to proceed.
“The audacity of them to think they didn’t do anything, or to think that they’re right and then get their money back,” said former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, who attended the sentencing of St Cyr and other Jan. 6 offenders. “It’s frustrating and it should not happen. They should have to pay more.”
‘It’s a principle thing’
Stacy Hager, a 62-year-old former warehouse supervisor, made his first trip to Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6 rally. The lifelong Texan wasn’t that interested in politics before, but he was certain that Donald Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
Wearing a Trump hat and waving the Texas flag, Hager took photos and videos of himself roaming through the Capitol. He was convicted on four misdemeanor charges related to disorderly conduct and trespassing; he paid $570 in penalties and served seven months in prison, a punishment he describes as totally unjust and “a living hell.”
Hager still believes, fervently, that fraud marred the 2020 vote and that Trump won, though no new evidence has surfaced to contradict the findings of Justice Department officials, cybersecurity experts, and dozens of judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Hager spent seven months in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Now that he has been pardoned, he is seeking a refund of the $570 in court-ordered penalties he paid.
“You tell me why I shouldn’t be entitled to getting my money back,” Hager said. “The government took money from me for doing the right thing, for standing up for the people’s vote. That’s the reason we were there — for a free and fair election.”
About one month after Trump’s pardon in January 2025, Hager was the first of the Jan. 6 defendants to ask for his money back, court records show. “It’s a principle thing,” Hager said. Among the other defendants seeking refunds: A Utah man who forfeited almost $63,000he made from selling videos recording some of the worst violence at the Capitol. A Georgia teenager who paid $2,200 in fines after heshoved a police officer and sat in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair in the Senate chamber.
While the charges and punishments vary, the defendants seeking refunds share one legal quirk: All of them were appealing their convictions when Trump pardoned them on Jan. 20, 2025. After the pardon, courts vacated their convictions and dismissed their indictments following requests from federal prosecutors, as the Justice Department that once prosecuted the Jan. 6 defendants now takes their side.
It’s routine for a criminal defendant who has paid financial penalties to get the money back if the conviction is vacated and the case is dismissed. But the attack halting the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history pushed the criminal justice system into uncharted territory.
And now, the legal debate over whether certain Jan. 6 defendants should receive refunds is forcing courts to weigh two obscure Supreme Court decisions — 140 years apart — involving a pardoned Confederate sympathizer and a woman convicted but later acquitted of sexually assaulting her children.
Judges who have denied refunds have all referenceda case brought by John Knote, whose West Virginia property was confiscated and sold for $11,000 under a law empowering the Union to seize Confederate property. Citing President Andrew Johnson’s pardon of former Confederates on Christmas Day 1868, Knote asked the court to reimburse him $11,000. The Supreme Court ruled in 1877 that money deposited in the U.S. treasury could not be returned without an act of Congress.
People walk from the Ellipse to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., last Jan. 6, the fifth anniversary of the Capitol attack. The pro-Trump mob that ransacked the Capitol caused almost $3 million in damage, according to a 2022 estimate by the Justice Department.
Jan. 6 defendants, however, are looking to a much more recent Supreme Court opinion — written by liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg — to bolster their argument that the government owes them money. In that 2017 case, Colorado resident Shannon Nelson paid about $700 in penalties before her sexual assault conviction was overturned on appeal. At a later trial, she was acquitted of the alleged crimes against her children. The high court said Nelson was now “presumed innocent” and entitled to a refund.
In approving St Cyr’s request for reimbursement, Bates referred to the Nelson case 39 times. The other D.C. District Court judge who has ruled in favor of refunds for Jan. 6 defendants, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg, also cited the Nelson case in December. “When a conviction is vacated, the Government must return any payments exacted because of it,” he wrote.
Hager returned to Washington this month to gather with other Trump supporters to mark the fifth anniversary. He and other Jan. 6 defendants stay in close touch online.
“We’re like a family,” Hager said, wearing a weathered baseball cap celebrating America’s 250th birthday and a T-shirt proclaiming his love for Jesus Christ. “We have a great bond, the kind that political persecution forms.”
Had gun, would travel
Andrew Taake’s journey through the criminal justice system illustrates one of the most dramatic twists in a Jan. 6 case. He attacked police officers with bear spray and a “whiplike weapon,” according to a plea agreement he signed in 2023. Now he is suing the federal government for $2.5 million, claiming his civil rights were violated by a wrongful prosecution and mistreatment in prison.
Taake was on pretrial release on a pending charge of online solicitation of a minor when he traveled from Houston to Washington, D.C., in January 2021. He attended the “Stop the Steal” rally headlined by Trump and was among the first to breach the restricted area around the Capitol. One of the police officers who said Taake assaulted him with bear spray, Nathan Tate, filed a statement in court that said the experience left “a lifelong scar.”
“He came to the Capitol with multiple weapons,” Tate wrote. “He was not there for peaceful protest. He was there to be violent. He should not be allowed to claim victimhood today.”
Taake pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers using a dangerous weapon. He was sentenced in 2024 to 74 months in prison.
His prison time was cut short by Trump’s pardon. Two weeks later, he was taken into custody by Houston-area law enforcement on the 2016 child solicitation charge. He pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony, was sentenced to three years in prison and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
But because Taake had already served more than three years in the Jan. 6 case, he got credit for time served and did not return to prison, records show. In September, he filed a lawsuit against the federal government that tells a very different story than the plea deal.
In the suit filed in D.C. District Court, Taake claims he used the bear spray to protect a fellow protester and that another officer disfigured his hand by stomping on it. He accuses prosecutors of using false evidence and manipulating him into the plea deal. In prison, he said he was mistreated by medical staff and assaulted by other inmates. “He should be compensated for his pain and suffering because it doesn’t get much worse than that,” said Taake’s lawyer, Peter Ticktin, a longtime Trump ally.
Tate, who now who works as a social studies teacher in La Plata, Md., was shocked to hear about Taake’s lawsuit. “He can say my allegations are false but it’s documented, you can literally see what took place,” he said. “It was real for me.”
In the most far-reaching effort on behalf of Jan. 6 offenders, Missouri lawyer Mark McCloskey is trying to build support for a government-backed compensation panel, similar to the fund that has distributed billions of dollars to families of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. McCloskey attracted national attention in 2020 when he and his wife pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters marching past their home; they pleaded guilty to firearms charges but were pardoned by the Missouri governor.
McCloskey said he has advocated for the Jan. 6 fund in four meetings with Justice Department officials, including Ed Martin, the director of a unit tasked with investigating Trump’s political opponents.
Martin, who helped plan and finance Trump’s rally that preceded the rampage through the Capitol, has said publicly that he supports “reparations” for Jan. 6 defendants.
Trump also has expressed support for government payouts. Asked about compensating Jan. 6 offenders in a March 2025 Newsmax interview, Trump said, “Well, there’s talk about that. … A lot of the people in government really like that group of people. They were patriots as far as I was concerned.”
But McCloskey is still waiting for the Justice Department to act. “We have had all positive responses but until President Trump pulls the trigger, it isn’t going to happen,” McCloskey said. “The president needs to take a position on it.”
In December, McCloskey sought to build momentum by posting a photo of himself on social media that he said showed him delivering claims to federal law enforcement agencies from about 400 Jan. 6 clients. The property damage and personal injury claims — a prerequisite to filing lawsuits against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act — describe homes ransacked during arrests, lost jobs, and broken families, McCloskey said.
The White House and the Justice Department declined to comment on McCloskey’s efforts.
Another Jan. 6-related lawsuit against the federal government comes from several leaders of the Proud Boys who were found guilty of engaging in a seditious conspiracy to keep Trump in power despite his electoral defeat. The suit seeking $100 million, filed in federal court in Florida last year, echoes Trump’s claims that the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack was illegitimate and politically motivated.
Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio speaks at the Jan. 6 anniversary rally this month.
The lead plaintiff, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, called for charges against Jan. 6 prosecutors when he addressed the gathering in Washington, D.C., to mark the fifth anniversary this month. “The thing I am searching for,” Tarrio said, “is retribution, retaliation.”
Since Trump returned to office one year ago, many Jan. 6 prosecutors have been fired or resigned. Hager’s prosecutor, Adam Dreher, was demoted to Superior Court last year, he said, in retaliation for his work on Jan. 6 cases. He left the department a few months ago to return to his home state of Michigan and practice law. The Justice Department declined to comment on Dreher’s record.
Dreher was an administrative law judge in Detroit on Jan. 6, 2021. The riot at the Capitol inspired him to come to Washington as a federal prosecutor, he said, just as years earlier, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack moved him to join the military.
“It made me want to be part of trying to help things get back to normal, to hold people accountable and make sure the rule of law was something we could rely on,” he said. “That all we did is being unraveled has been very difficult to watch.”
Hours before leaving office, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday signed legislation that could make it easier for commercial real estate projects in Camden to qualify for hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax incentives.
One planned development that could benefit is the Beacon Building, a proposed 25-story office tower downtown on the northwest corner of Broadway and Martin Luther King Boulevard, The Inquirer previously reported.
Murphy approved the bill and dozens of others on the final day of his second term, shortly before fellow Democrat Mikie Sherrill was sworn in as governor. Another newly signed law authorizes up to $300 million in tax breaks to renovate the Prudential Center in Newark, home of the New Jersey Devils. The hockey team is owned by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Camden-focused law makes changes to the state’s gap-financing program, known as Aspire, which authorizes up to $400 million in corporate tax credits over 10 years for “transformative” redevelopment projects that have a total cost of $150 million and meet other requirements.
To qualify for the incentives, most commercial projects must generate a net positive benefit to the state, based on the Economic Development Authority’s economic modeling. The new law exempts certain projects from that “net benefit test.”
The law applies to redevelopment projects located in a “government-restricted municipality” — as described in the Aspire program’s statute — “which municipality is also designated as the county seat of a county of the second class.” In addition, the project must be located in “close proximity” to a “multimodal transportation hub,” an institution of higher education, and a licensed healthcare facility that “serves underrepresented populations.”
A rendering of the 25-story Beacon Building proposed for the northwest corner of Broadway and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Camden. It would be the tallest building ever constructed in the city.
The site of the proposed Beacon Building is across the street from the Walter Rand Transportation Center and Cooper University Hospital. Rutgers’ Camden campus is also nearby. Lawmakers said projects in New Brunswick and Trenton could also qualify for exemptions under the law.
Development firm Gilbane is leading the project with the Camden County Improvement Authority. Gilbane has yet to announce any commitments from tenants.
Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald (D., Camden), who sponsored the legislation, has said it wasn’t written with a specific project in mind but rather to remove a barrier to investment in South Jersey.
Critics said that the law removes a key safeguard meant to protect taxpayers and that it represented an about-face for Murphy, who earlier in his tenure sought to reform corporate incentive programs.
“Just in terms of the governor signing the bill, this is a massive disappointment,” said Antoinette Miles, state director of the New Jersey Working Families Party.
“Broadly, if there’s a so-called transformative project that can’t pass the net benefit test, maybe it isn’t so transformative,” she said.
Murphy’s office announced the bill signing without commenting on it, though he has previously cheered state investment in Camden. Any Aspire tax incentives must be approved by the state’s Economic Development Authority.
