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  • Moody’s boosts Atlantic City to investment grade a decade after its near bankruptcy

    Moody’s boosts Atlantic City to investment grade a decade after its near bankruptcy

    ATLANTIC CITY — A decade after teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and being taken over by the State of New Jersey, Atlantic City has been given an investment-grade rating by Moody’s Ratings.

    “Today is a tremendous day to start the new year,” Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. said Monday at a livestreamed news briefing. “The city of Atlantic City is officially investment grade.”

    The credit rating of Baa3 puts the city in the lowest long-term investment-grade category, several steps from the top A ratings. But it marks a dramatic rise from 10 years ago, Small noted, when he was sworn in as the City Council president.

    “We had the junkiest junk bonds imaginable,” he recalled. “The city’s finances were not in a good state. Employees were getting paid once a month. People were running to the bank to cash their checks. The outlook was bleak. We even entertained that we were bankrupt. It was a long, drawn-out fight. However, that was then; this is now.”

    Small himself ended 2025 in dramatic fashion: a two-week trial that ended in an acquittal on charges that he physically abused his teenage daughter.

    Small and business administrator Anthony Swan said at the Dec. 31 meetings that Moody’s expressed interest in seeing a stable government and experienced department directors.

    Small was sworn in to a new four-year term on New Year’s Day with his daughter in attendance and said then that the family has begun the healing process. A decision is expected soon by the Atlantic County prosecutor on whether to pursue similar charges against his wife, La’Quetta Small, the city’s schools superintendent.

    The state’s takeover of Atlantic City expired Dec. 1. But another bill is moving through the legislature that will leave the state in charge of Atlantic City finances for another six years. It calls for a “master developer” to oversee major projects, even as the city is trying to regain control over planning and zoning.

    There are other challenges ahead for Atlantic City: New York City approved three casino licenses that could cut a substantial hole in Atlantic City’s gambling revenue and prompt state lawmakers to approve casinos in North Jersey. Casino owners also oppose an effort to ban smoking in the city’s casinos that is now before an appellate court.

    Though the state takeover began a decade ago in hostile fashion, it evolved to a cooperative partnership. Small praised the decision by incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill to keep Jacquelyn Suárez as head of the state’s Department of Community Affairs, which would oversee the next takeover.

    Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. speaks to the media after being found not guilty on all counts of abusing his teenage daughter, on Dec. 18.

    But Monday was a day of triumph for the city.

    Small noted that the city had substantially reduced its debt to $228 million, down from a peak of $550 million, and cut taxes six years in a row. Of that, only $71 million is debt directly incurred by the city; the rest are legacy debts from money owed to casinos from tax appeals. He anticipated announcing a seventh tax cut in the coming weeks.

    “This government gets criticized all the time,” he said. “People say, ‘Oh they’re spinning like drunken sailors, spinning spinning spinning like it’s out of control.’ Ladies and gentlemen, that’s just not true.”

    Business administrator Swan said Moody’s was interested in more than just numbers. “It’s about the stability of the city,” he said. “It’s about how the city is run.”

    Finance director Toro Aboderin called the announcement “an extraordinary milestone.” She said Moody’s asked about “bulkheads, roads, infrastructure.”

    “Restoring Atlantic City to sound financial footing has been our top priority every single day,” she said. “A lot of people talk about Atlantic City and how we’re terrible, how the finances are the worst, and the roads are messy. They say all kinds of things, but we have attained something quite remarkable.”

    Officials hope the vote of confidence from Moody’s will signal to investors and developers to look again at their city, which has some of the most affordable beachfront real estate on the East Coast.

    An investment-grade credit rating signals to financial markets that Atlantic City is a lower-risk borrower, although the mayor emphasized that the city currently has no need to borrow.

  • This Jan. 6 plaque was made to honor law enforcement. It’s nowhere to be found at the Capitol

    This Jan. 6 plaque was made to honor law enforcement. It’s nowhere to be found at the Capitol

    WASHINGTON — On the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the official plaque honoring the police who defended democracy that day is nowhere to be found.

    It’s not on display at the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren’t publicly known, though it’s believed to be in storage.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has yet to formally unveil the plaque. And the Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking to dismiss a police officers’ lawsuit asking that it be displayed as intended. The Architect of the Capitol, which was responsible for obtaining and displaying the plaque, said in light of the federal litigation, it cannot comment.

    Determined to preserve the nation’s history, some 100 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have taken it upon themselves to memorialize the moment. For months, they’ve mounted poster board-style replicas of the Jan. 6 plaque outside their office doors, resulting in a Capitol complex awash with makeshift remembrances.

    “On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021,” reads the faux bronze stand-in for the real thing. “Their heroism will never be forgotten.”

    Jan. 6 void in the Capitol

    In Washington, a capital city lined with monuments to the nation’s history, the plaque was intended to become a simple but permanent marker, situated near the Capitol’s west front, where some of the most violent fighting took place as rioters breached the building.

    But in its absence, the missing plaque makes way for something else entirely — a culture of forgetting.

    Visitors can pass through the Capitol without any formal reminder of what happened that day, when a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building trying to overturn the Republican’s 2020 reelection defeat by Democrat Joe Biden. With memory left unchecked, it allows new narratives to swirl and revised histories to take hold.

    Five years ago, the jarring scene watched the world over was declared an “insurrection” by the then-GOP leader of the Senate, while the House GOP leader at the time called it his “saddest day” in Congress. But those condemnations have faded.

    Trump calls it a “day of love.” And Johnson, who was among those lawmakers challenging the 2020 election results, is now the House speaker.

    “The question of January 6 remains — democracy was on the guillotine — how important is that event in the overall sweep of 21st century U.S. history,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and noted scholar.

    “Will January 6 be seen as the seminal moment when democracy was in peril?” he asked. Or will it be remembered as “kind of a weird one-off?”

    “There’s not as much consensus on that as one would have thought on the fifth anniversary,” he said.

    Memories shift, but violent legacy lingers

    At least five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by police while trying to climb through a window toward the House chamber. More than 140 law enforcement officers were wounded, some gravely, and several died later, some by suicide.

    All told, some 1,500 people were charged in the Capitol attack, among the largest federal prosecutions in the nation’s history. When Trump returned to power in January 2025, he pardoned all of them within hours of taking office.

    Unlike the twin light beams that commemorated the Sept. 11, 2001, attack or the stand-alone chairs at the Oklahoma City bombing site memorial, the failure to recognize Jan. 6 has left a gap not only in memory but in helping to stitch the country back together.

    “That’s why you put up a plaque,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D., Pa.). “You respect the memory and the service of the people involved.”

    Police sue over plaque, DOJ seeks to dismiss

    The speaker’s office over the years has suggested it was working on installing the plaque, but it declined to respond to a request for further comment.

    Lawmakers approved the plaque in March 2022 as part of a broader government funding package. The resolution said the U.S. “owes its deepest gratitude to those officers,” and it set out instructions for an honorific plaque listing the names of officers “who responded to the violence that occurred.” It gave a one-year deadline for installation at the Capitol.

    This summer, two officers who fought the mob that day sued over the delay.

    “By refusing to follow the law and honor officers as it is required to do, Congress encourages this rewriting of history,” said the claim by officers Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges. “It suggests that the officers are not worthy of being recognized, because Congress refuses to recognize them.”

    The Justice Department is seeking to have the case dismissed. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others argued Congress “already has publicly recognized the service of law enforcement personnel” by approving the plaque and displaying it wouldn’t alleviate the problems they claim to face from their work.

    “It is implausible,” the Justice Department attorneys wrote, to suggest installation of the plaque “would stop the alleged death threats they claim to have been receiving.”

    The department also said the plaque is required to include the names of “all law enforcement officers” involved in the response that day — some 3,600 people.

    Makeshift memorials emerge

    Lawmakers who have installed replicas of the plaque outside their offices said it’s important for the public to know what happened.

    “There are new generations of people who are just growing up now who don’t understand how close we came to losing our democracy on Jan 6, 2021,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, which was opposed by GOP leadership but nevertheless issued a nearly 1,000-page report investigating the run-up to the attack and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

    Raskin envisions the Capitol one day holding tours around what happened. “People need to study that as an essential part of American history,” he said.

    “Think about the dates in American history that we know only by the dates: There’s the 4th of July. There’s December 7th. There’s 9/11. And there’s January 6th,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.), who also served on the committee and has a plaque outside her office.

    “They really saved my life, and they saved the democracy, and they deserve to be thanked for it,” she said.

    But as time passes, there are no longer bipartisan memorial services for Jan. 6. On Tuesday, the Democrats will reconvene members from the Jan. 6 committee for a hearing to “examine ongoing threats to free and fair elections,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York announced. It’s unlikely Republicans will participate.

    The Republicans under Johnson have tapped Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia to stand up their own special committee to uncover what the speaker calls the “full truth” of what happened. They’re planning a hearing this month.

    “We should stop this silliness of trying to whitewash history — it’s not going to happen,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D., N.Y.), who helped lead the effort to display the replica plaques.

    “I was here that day so I’ll never forget,” he said. “I think that Americans will not forget what happened.”

    The number of makeshift plaques that fill the halls is a testimony to that remembrance, he said.

    Instead of one plaque, he said, they’ve “now got 100.”

  • Eva Schloss, 96, stepsister of Anne Frank and Holocaust educator

    Eva Schloss, 96, stepsister of Anne Frank and Holocaust educator

    LONDON — Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96.

    The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Ms. Schloss was honorary president, said she died Saturday in London, where she lived.

    Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Ms. Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice.

    “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend, and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding, and resilience through her tireless work for the Anne Frank Trust UK and for Holocaust education across the world,” the king said.

    Born Eva Geiringer in Vienna in 1929, Ms. Schloss fled with her family to Amsterdam after Nazi Germany annexed Austria. She became friends with another Jewish girl of the same age, Anne Frank, whose diary would become one of the most famous chronicles of the Holocaust.

    Like the Franks, Eva’s family spent two years in hiding to avoid capture after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. They were eventually betrayed, arrested, and sent to the Auschwitz death camp.

    Ms. Schloss and her mother, Fritzi, survived until the camp was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. Her father, Erich, and brother Heinz died in Auschwitz.

    After the war, Eva moved to Britain, married German Jewish refugee Zvi Schloss, and settled in London.

    In 1953, her mother married Frank’s father, Otto, the only member of his immediate family to survive. Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15, months before the end of the war.

    Ms. Schloss did not speak publicly about her experiences for decades, later saying that wartime trauma had made her withdrawn and unable to connect with others.

    “I was silent for years, first because I wasn’t allowed to speak. Then I repressed it. I was angry with the world,” she told the Associated Press in 2004.

    But after she addressed the opening of an Anne Frank exhibition in London in 1986, Ms. Schloss made it her mission to educate younger generations about the Nazi genocide.

    Over the following decades she spoke in schools and prisons and at international conferences and told her story in books including Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank.

    She kept campaigning into her 90s. In 2019, she traveled to Newport Beach, Calif., to meet teenagers who were photographed making Nazi salutes at a high school party. The following year she was part of a campaign urging Facebook to remove Holocaust-denying material from the social-networking site.

    “We must never forget the terrible consequences of treating people as ‘other,’” Ms. Schloss said in 2024. “We need to respect everybody’s races and religions. We need to live together with our differences. The only way to achieve this is through education, and the younger we start the better.”

    Ms. Schloss’ family remembered her as “a remarkable woman: an Auschwitz survivor, a devoted Holocaust educator, tireless in her work for remembrance, understanding and peace.”

    “We hope her legacy will continue to inspire through the books, films and resources she leaves behind,” the family said in a statement.

    Zvi Schloss died in 2016. Eva Schloss is survived by their three daughters, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

  • DA Larry Krasner takes more shots at Trump as he’s sworn in to third term amid major drop in crime

    DA Larry Krasner takes more shots at Trump as he’s sworn in to third term amid major drop in crime

    When Larry Krasner was sworn in to his second term as district attorney four years ago, Philadelphia was in a public safety crisis: Murders and shootings were at an all-time high and the homicide clearance rate was at a historic low.

    On Monday, Krasner was inaugurated to a third, four-year term in remarkably different circumstances. The city in 2025 recorded the fewest homicides in 59 years, and police are solving killings at the highest rate in more than 40 years.

    Krasner, 64, took the oath of office alongside his wife, former Common Pleas Court Judge Lisa M. Rau, and one of his two sons inside the grand auditorium of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

    More than two dozen city judges, as well as City Controller Christy Brady, were also sworn in.

    Krasner is now one of the longest-serving district attorneys in modern Philadelphia history. Lynne M. Abraham, the tough-on-crime Democrat who in the 1990s was dubbed “deadliest DA” by the New York Times because she so frequently sought the death penalty, is the only other top prosecutor in the city to serve more than two terms.

    Krasner cruised to reelection in November after handily defeating former Municipal Court Judge Patrick F. Dugan with about 75% of the vote. Krasner’s campaign often focused more on attacking President Donald Trump than specifying what, if anything, he might do differently with another four years.

    He struck similar tones on Monday.

    Across a nearly 20-minute speech, Krasner did not lay out a coming agenda, saying that was “not for today,” but instead recounted what he said were his accomplishments over the last eight years: building what he said was a more morally intact staff, investing in forensic advancements to help take down violent gangs, and providing grants to community organizations.

    “It will be headed towards more safety. It will be headed towards more freedom,” he said of his office in the next four years.

    And he took a few shots at Trump.

    “Sometimes people ask me, ‘Why are you talking about Trump so much? Why do you keep bringing up Trump?’” he said.

    While City Council members and state lawmakers have “tremendous power,” he said, “they don’t have the obligation, as I just swore in front of you, to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States from someone … whose intent is, without question, the overthrow of democracy in the United States of America.”

    District Attorney Larry Krasner displays a political cartoon by Pat Bagley during a news conference in August 2025 to lament President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to D.C. streets. Bagley is staff cartoonist for the Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City, Utah.

    He also noted that Trump has not deployed the National Guard to Philadelphia, as the president has done in other Democratic cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and seemed to acknowledge Cherelle L. Parker’s hotly debated strategy of avoiding confrontation with Trump.

    “If that has any part in the reality that we have not seen Trump’s troops, Trump’s tanks in the City of Philadelphia — I don’t know if it does or not, but if it has anything to do with that, then I’m glad, and I intend to work closely, always, with other elected officials.”

    Parker, who earlier congratulated Krasner in her introductory remarks, stared ahead stoically during his comments about Trump.

    Krasner ended by promising to continue making Philadelphia safer, and then returned to one of his favorite themes.

    “We all got to this point of achievement together, and this is no time to retreat. It is no time to surrender. It is time to push on so that Philadelphia goes from being known as chronically violent to being known as consistently safe for decades to come,” he said.

    “And if anybody — including the guy in D.C. — doesn’t want that, if they want to F around, then they’re gonna find out.”

  • Hegseth censures Kelly after Democrats’ video warning about following unlawful orders

    Hegseth censures Kelly after Democrats’ video warning about following unlawful orders

    WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday announced that he is issuing a letter of censure to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona over the lawmaker’s participation in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders.

    Hegseth said that the censure was “a necessary process step” to proceedings that could result in a demotion from Kelly’s retired rank of captain in the U.S. Navy. Kelly’s office had no immediate comment.

    The move comes more than a month after Kelly participated in a video with five other Democratic lawmakers in which they called on troops to defy “illegal orders.” President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York called Hegseth’s action against Kelly “a despicable act of political retribution.”

    “Mark Kelly is a hero and a patriot committed to serving the American people,” Schumer said on social media. “Pete Hegseth is a lap dog committed to serving one man – Donald Trump.”

    In November, Kelly and the other lawmakers — all veterans of the armed services and intelligence community — called on U.S. military members to uphold the Constitution and defy “illegal orders.”

    The 90-second video was first posted from Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s X account. In it, the six lawmakers — Slotkin, Kelly and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan — speak directly to U.S. service members, whom Slotkin acknowledges are “under enormous stress and pressure right now.”

    The Pentagon announced that it began an investigation of Kelly late in November while citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court martial or other measures.

    While all six lawmakers served in the military or the intelligence community, Hegseth made clear in previous remarks that Kelly was the only one facing investigation because he is the only one of the lawmakers who formally retired from the military and is still under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.

    Kelly said that the investigation was part of an effort to silence dissent within the military.

    “This is just about sending a message to retired service members, active duty service members, government employees — do not speak out against this president or there will be consequences,” Kelly told reporters in mid-December.

    In his post Monday, Hegseth charged that Kelly’s remarks in the video and afterward violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice provisions against conduct unbecoming an officer and violating good order and discipline.

    Kelly, along with some of the other Democrats in the initial video, have also sent out fundraising messages based off the Republican president’s reaction to their comments, efforts that have gone toward filling their own campaign coffers and further elevating their national-level profiles.

    In recent months, Kelly — whose name has frequently been mentioned as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender — has made several trips to South Carolina, traditionally an early primary state that kicked off its party’s nominating calendar in 2024. Appearing with his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, at events calling for stricter gun control measures, Kelly met during those trips with local lawmakers, stakeholders whose early support can be critical as national-level hopefuls attempt to make inroads in the critical state.

    Hegseth said Monday that “Captain Kelly’s status as a sitting United States Senator does not exempt him from accountability, and further violations could result in further action.”

    Todd Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate general, said that this is a “novel” situation that raises legal questions.

    One issue, according to Huntley, is whether Kelly’s comments fall under the constitutional protections of the speech or debate clause.

    The clause is intended to protect members of Congress from questioning about official legislative acts, and a 1968 Supreme Court decision wrote that the provision’s intent was “to prevent legislative intimidation by and accountability to the other branches of government.”

    Huntley also said that while the type of process Hegseth is using here, known as a retirement grade determination, is fairly routine, “as far as I know, they’ve always been based on conduct during the individual’s active duty service, even if it only came to light after retirement.”

    “So, I don’t know if conduct totally after retirement would fit the requirement for such a determination,” he added.

    According to Hegseth, Kelly now has 30 days to submit a response to the proceedings that will decide if he is demoted. The decision will be made within 45 days, Hegseth’s post added.

  • ‘It is a promise’: Newly elected Chester County officials and judges take their oaths of office

    ‘It is a promise’: Newly elected Chester County officials and judges take their oaths of office

    A new slate of Chester County elected officials are taking office after they were officially sworn in at a ceremony over the weekend surrounded by friends and family.

    Four officials in the county’s row offices — clerk of courts, controller, coroner, prothonotary — and three magisterial district justices took their oath of office Saturday at the Chester County Justice Center.

    “I’ve found, in this line of work, when you’re finding people to run for office, it’s quite difficult to get the good people to do it,” county commissioner Josh Maxwell told the incoming officials. “It sometimes attracts maybe the wrong people. I’m so excited to be here today because we have a lot of good people who rose their hands — maybe a higher bar than we typically have in the county.”

    Sophia Garcia-Jackson (facing camera) hugs the Honorable Alita Rovito after being sworn in as the coroner during the ceremonial administration of oaths, for elected officials and magisterial district judges, at the Chester County Justice Center on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.

    Taking office was an entirely Democratic slate of officials, upholding the political shift in the county that began in 2019, when Maxwell and Commissioner Marian Moskowitz were the first Democrats in history elected to their seats. Democrats saw wins again in 2023, with Maxwell and Moskowitz winning re-election.

    The row offices oversee essential government services residents regularly interface with — from maintaining criminal and civil court records, to monitoring the county’s financial contracts, to investigating the circumstances of sudden deaths — and operate under four-year terms. Magisterial district judges handle traffic cases, and minor criminal and civil cases, for six-year terms.

    The slate of row officials includes:

    • Clerk of Courts: Caroline Bradley
    • Controller: Nick Cherubino
    • Coroner: Sophia Garcia-Jackson
    • Prothonotary: Alex Christy

    And the county’s new magisterial judges are:

    • Anthony diFrancesca
    • Joe Heffern
    • James C. Kovaleski
    James C. Kovalski’s family helps him don the judges robe after he was sworn in as a magisterial district judge during the ceremonial administration of oaths, for elected officials and magisterial district judges, at the Chester County Justice Center on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.

    “Those of you taking the oaths … are amongst the people who will help Chester County continue to be a place where so many want to live, work, and raise their family,” Moskowitz told the officials.

    During the ceremony, the judges donned their robes and the row officers took their oaths with their partners, parents, and children nearby. Dozens of supporters lined the benches in the courtroom, and elected officials received a standing ovation when all the oaths had been administered. (Those supporters got a nod, too, with Maxwell noting that public service comes with long hours, personal sacrifice, and difficult decisions. “No one serves alone,” he said.)

    The oaths of office were administered by Commonwealth Court Judge Stella Tsai, Court of Common Pleas Judge Alita Rovito, and Magisterial District Judge Nancy Gill.

    Caroline Bradley (right) has just been sworn in as clerk of courts by the Honorable Stella Tsai (left) during the ceremonial administration of oaths, for elected officials and magisterial district judges, at the Chester County Justice Center on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.

    “The oath you have taken is more than a formality, it is a promise to the people of Chester County, a promise to uphold the law, to treat every resident with fairness and dignity, and to carry out your duties with independence, integrity and care,” Maxwell said. “Those values matter deeply, especially at the local level, where government has its most direct impact on all our lives.”

    This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.

  • A man who broke windows at JD Vance’s home in Ohio has been detained, the Secret Service said

    A man who broke windows at JD Vance’s home in Ohio has been detained, the Secret Service said

    A man who broke windows at Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home and caused other property damage was detained early Monday, the U.S. Secret Service said.

    The man was detained shortly after midnight by Secret Service agents assigned to Vance’s home, east of downtown Cincinnati, agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. He has not been named.

    The Secret Service heard a loud noise at the home around midnight and found a person who had broken a window with a hammer and was trying to get into the house, according to two law enforcement officials who were not publicly authorized to discuss the investigation into what happened and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The man had also vandalized a Secret Service vehicle on his way up the home’s driveway, one of the officials said.

    The home, in the Walnut Hills neighborhood, on hills overlooking the city, was unoccupied at the time, and Vance and his family were not in Ohio, Guglielmi said.

    The Secret Service is coordinating with the Cincinnati Police Department and the U.S. attorney’s office as charging decisions are reviewed, he said.

    Vance, a Republican, was a U.S. senator representing Ohio before becoming vice president. His office said his family was already back in Washington and directed questions to the Secret Service.

    Walnut Hills is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods and is home to historic sites, including the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

  • Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, ends his bid for a third term as Minnesota governor

    Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, ends his bid for a third term as Minnesota governor

    ST PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, is ending his bid for a third term as governor amid President Donald Trump’s relentless focus on a fraud investigation into child care programs in the state.

    Less than four months after announcing his reelection campaign, Walz said Monday that he could no longer devote the energy necessary to win another term, even as he expressed confidence that he could win.

    Walz said in a statement Monday that he “can’t give a political campaign my all” after what he described as an “extraordinarily difficult year for our state.”

    “Donald Trump and his allies – in Washington, in St. Paul, and online – want to make our state a colder, meaner place,” Walz said, referring to the Trump administration withholding funds for the programs. “They want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors. And, ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in America to raise a family.”

    Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is considering running for governor, according to a person close to her. The person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Klobuchar has not made a final decision.

    Around a dozen Republicans are already in the race. They include MyPillow founder and chief executive Mike Lindell, an election denier who is close to Trump. They also include Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring; Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator from Chaska who was the party’s 2022 candidate; state Rep. Kristin Robbins, of Maple Grove; defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor Chris Madel; former executive Kendall Qualls; and former Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann.

    Walz is a military veteran and union supporter who helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.

    Vice President Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate after his attack line against Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance — “These guys are just weird” — spread widely.

    Walz had been building up his national profile since his and Harris’ defeat in November. He was a sharp critic of Trump as he toured early caucus and primary states. In May, he called on Democrats in South Carolina to stand up to the Republican president, saying, “Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner.”

  • Maduro appears in court, says ‘I was captured’

    Maduro appears in court, says ‘I was captured’

    NEW YORK — Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro declared himself “innocent” and a “decent man” as he pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a U.S. courtroom on Monday.

    “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country,” Maduro told a judge.

    Maduro was making his first appearance in an American courtroom Monday on the narco-terrorism charges the Trump administration used to justify capturing him and bringing him to New York.

    Maduro, wearing a blue jail uniform, and his wife were led into court around noon for a brief, but required, legal proceeding that will likely kick off a prolonged legal fight over whether he can be put on trial in the U.S. Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it was translated into Spanish.

    The couple were transported under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they’ve been detained to a Manhattan courthouse.

    The trip was swift. A motorcade carrying Maduro left the jail around 7:15 a.m. and made its way to a nearby athletic field, where Maduro slowly made his way to a waiting helicopter. The chopper flew across New York harbor and landed at a Manhattan heliport, where Maduro, limping, was loaded into an armored vehicle.

    A few minutes later, the law enforcement caravan was inside a garage at the courthouse complex, just around the corner from the one where Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records. Across the street from the courthouse, the police separated a small but growing group of protesters from about a dozen pro-intervention demonstrators, including one man who pulled a Venezuelan flag away from those protesting the U.S. action.

    As a criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime — including the right to a trial by a jury of regular New Yorkers. But he’ll also be nearly — but not quite — unique.

    Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of state.

    Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.

    Venezuela’s new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the U.S. return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with President Trump and “respectful relations” with the U.S.

    Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed U.S. hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.

    The U.S. seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela temporarily, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that it would not govern the country day to day other than enforcing an existing ” oil quarantine.”

    Trump suggested Sunday that he wants to extend American power farther in the Western Hemisphere.

    Speaking aboard Air Force One, he called Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long.”

    He called on Venezuela’s Rodriguez to provide “total access” to her country, or else face consequences.

    Trump has suggested that removing Maduro would enable more oil to flow out of Venezuela, but oil prices rose a bit more than 1% in Monday morning trading to roughly $58 a barrel. There are uncertainties about how fast oil production can be ramped up in Venezuela after years of neglect and needed investments, as well as questions about governance and oversight of the sector.

    A 25-page indictment made public Saturday accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.

    Maduro has retained Barry J. Pollack, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer known for securing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s release from prison and winning an acquittal for former Enron accountant Michael Krautz.

    Pollack, a partner at the law firm Harris, St. Laurent & Wechsler, negotiated Assange’s 2024 plea agreement — allowing him to go free immediately after he pleaded guilty to an Espionage Act charge for obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets.

    Krautz, acquitted of federal fraud charges in 2006 after a hung jury the year before, was one of the only Enron executives whose case ended in a not-guilty verdict. Nearly two dozen other executives were convicted of wrongdoing in connection with the energy trading giant’s collapse.

    Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been under U.S. sanctions for years, making it illegal for any American to take money from them without first securing a license from the Treasury Department.

    While the indictment against Maduro says Venezuelan officials worked directly with the Tren de Aragua gang, a U.S. intelligence assessment published in April, drawing on input from the intelligence community’s 18 agencies, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.

    Maduro, his wife, and his son — who remains free — are charged along with Venezuela’s interior and justice minister, a former interior and justice minister, and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader who has been criminally charged in another case and remains at large.

    Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings, and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included a local drug boss’ killing in Caracas, the indictment said.

    Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, resulting in additional monthly bribes, with some of the money going to Maduro’s wife, according to the indictment.

  • A Chesco town lowered taxes. That’s pretty unusual — but may not be something others can copy.

    A Chesco town lowered taxes. That’s pretty unusual — but may not be something others can copy.

    It was something of a lucky confluence of factors in West Bradford Township that led to residents seeing a reduction in their property taxes going into the new year, as other communities in the state see hikes.

    A number of loans that were refinanced during record-low interest rates at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, plus long-term lease agreements that brought the municipality more money, eventually equaled “substantial savings,” said Justin Yaich, town manager.

    Savings in hand, the township decided they’d give it back to residents, he said, rather than funding “another pet project or another program.”

    In the budget, passed last month by the town’s board of supervisors, West Bradford set its property tax millage for a 0.25 mill — a 50% reduction in the tax for residents. For a home worth roughly $300,000, residents will now pay $75 a year, down from $150.

    It comes as Philadelphia’s collar counties and municipalities have faced tightening budgets and have had to hike taxes after years of stagnation.

    It’s unusual, John Brenner, executive director of the Pennsylvania Municipal League, said of West Bradford’s reduction.

    “There have been increases, and I’ve seen a number of them from municipal leaders throughout the Commonwealth — cities, boroughs, townships,“ Brenner said. ”You’re seeing counties raise taxes that haven’t in a long, long time. So that tells you the environment we’re in.”

    Local governments are fairly limited in how they can levy taxes under state law, with the biggest portion of revenue coming from “the beleaguered property tax,” Brenner said. Schools and the county take from that same source, with local municipalities usually taking far less.

    “Local government is not a business,” Brenner said. “It’s a provider of services, and those services cost money, and somebody has to pay for it.”

    But in West Bradford, it was years of planning and a flurry of factors, Yaich said. It started in 2019, when the town purchased the former Embreeville State School and Hospital, an abandoned 900,000-square-foot psychiatric hospital that had been deteriorating for more than two decades. A developer had sought to transform the property into a high-density residential complex, which saw community pushback and years of litigation.

    To purchase the site for roughly $23 million to turn it into 200 acres of open space, the township — for the first time — levied a real estate tax. (Residents already paid property tax to Downingtown Area School District and the county but previously did not pay the town.)

    But early in 2020, West Bradford refinanced its outstanding debts, renegotiated some lease terms, and began to hold other costs consistent. Over the years, it culminated in the township being able to reduce the real estate tax, Yaich said.

    The board’s philosophy is to do its core responsibilities — taking care of roads and infrastructure, caring for the open spaces and parks, running trash and recycling programs — and make sure there’s enough leftover for new programs or capital improvements, Yaich said. But anything beyond that, return it to the taxpayers, rather than figure out how to spend it, he said.

    It is easier to spend money than it is to trim, Yaich added, noting that the township faces rising costs and shrinking revenue sources: Cable providers, who once were paying $300,000 to the township in a year to put their lines in, are dwindling as people turn to streaming services. With more electric vehicles, fewer people are filling up at the pumps, meaning less liquid fuels money for the township, too. It’s rare, and unlikely to be replicated in a few years, to cut costs for residents like this, he acknowledged.

    As other town managers call and ask Yaich how to emulate him, he tries to dispel the magic.

    “We’re in a unique situation that we were able to do it,” Yaich said. “There’s no magic sauce or magic potion that we’re doing here that other places aren’t doing. It’s just that we were set up at the right time in the right place, and we acted when things were favorable to us and we were fortunate.”

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