HARRISBURG — In the race for Pennsylvania governor, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity still has a lot of work to do.
With a little more than ninemonths until Election Day, the state Republican Party-endorsed candidate must convince top GOP donors that her campaign is worth investing in, making the case that she can motivate voters — andbeat popular incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Garrity announced earlier this month that from August through December, her campaign raised nearly $1.5 million — almost as much as the 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, raised in the entirety of his campaign. But the amount is only a fraction of the $30 million war chest Shapiro has built up over the last few years.
Republican insiders for months have said privately they see the race against Shapiro, a Democratic governor with consistently high approval ratings and a rising national star, as one they have slim chances at winning in November.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (right) listens to Stacy Garrity, the 78th state treasurer, at the Forum Auditorium in Harrisburg, Pa., on Jan. 21, 2025. It was the day she was sworn in.
Still, they’re hoping that Garrity, a retired U.S. Army colonel who in 2024 broke the record for receiving the most votes in a state-level race — a record previously held by Shapiro — will be able to deliver a high enough level of excitement among Republican voters in Pennsylvania to drive them to the polls, where down-ballot races for control of the U.S. House and state Senate are also on the line.
Some GOP insiders have pointed to Garrity’s limited early fundraising haul as make-or-break for the state’s whole Republican ticket — and the political future of Pennsylvania.
“This is the Democrats’ first real opportunity to gain a trifecta in Pennsylvania that could lock up Pennsylvania from being a ‘purple’ state to a solid blue state every election here onward,” said Matt Brouillette, who leads Commonwealth Partners and its political action committees, which often contribute to Republican candidates and are largely funded by Pennsylvania’s richest man, Jeffrey Yass.
Brouillette leads the Commonwealth Leaders Fund, a powerful PAC that sat out the 2022 gubernatorial race that the PAC saw Mastriano as unable to win. Brouillette said in an interview earlier this month that the fund still had yet to decide whether it will invest in Garrity’s campaign.
There isn’t a specific number Brouillette said he wants to see her raise before he chooses to get involved in the governor’s race, but he is overall “encouraged to see Stacy solidifying support for her candidacy.”
“Stacy is going to have to attract national investment the way Josh has,” Brouillette said. “Our donors won’t be sufficient. Stacy is going to have to be competitive nationally to make this a race.” (After publication of this story, Brouillette said the PAC would invest in Garrity’s race, but did not disclose a dollar amount.)
As 2028 inches closer, Shapiro’s national reach continues to grow — and with that, he has been able to flex his fundraising skills across the country. He will publish his first book on Tuesday, a memoir called Where We Keep the Light, in what is largely seen as a telltale sign that a candidate is considering a presidential run. He has promised to use his influence in Pennsylvania to support Democrats down the ballot, including in four congressional districts the party hopes to flip in the midterms — and deliver Democrats a majority in the U.S. House.
Campaign finance filings detailing who contributed to both Shapiro and Garrity’s campaigns won’t be available until next week. Shapiro broke fundraising records in the 2022 race, and is on track to do the same again this year.
Still, Garrity has been rolling out a number of endorsements from top Pennsylvania Republicans, including on Friday from U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R., Pa.), who is running for reelection in one of the districts Democrats hope to flip. But she has yet to receive Trump’s support or endorsement, and was not mentioned by Trump when she attended his most recent Pennsylvania rally.
The hesitancy appears to have extended to the lieutenant governor’s contest. Garrity still has yet to announce who she would like to be her running mate. Only a few candidates have announced their candidacy for lieutenant governor so far, and the state GOP is expected to endorse Garrity’s pick at its February meeting.
A spokesperson for Garrity’s campaign said she is “humbled by the outpouring of support she’s received from supporters all across the commonwealth, including from members of the Commonwealth Partners’ leadership,” who share her vision for the state and frustrations with Shapiro.
“No moment crystalized this support more than when the PAGOP took the unusual step of endorsing Treasurer Garrity’s campaign so early, which served as the catalyst for the momentum she’s building to defeat Josh Shapiro this November,” said Garrity’s spokesperson, Matt Benyon, in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Republican Party declined to comment.
Garrity will host a kickoff fundraiser in Philadelphia on Wednesday, said Bob Asher, Garrity’s finance chair.
As for her fundraising numbers since December, Asher said, with a smile: “Stay tuned.”
Grassroots support vs. Shapiro’s war chest
In announcing her first haul, Garrity’s campaign said 97% of her contributions came from Pennsylvania residents, and 75% of the contributions were under $100. Shapiro, for his part, boasted that the $30 million in his campaign coffers came from all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, as well as financial support from all 50 states.
A large number of small-dollar campaign contributions can suggest grassroots support — translating to an energized voter base on Election Day — for a candidate that big-dollar or corporate political action committee funds can’t capture. But the bigger the war chest, the more a candidate can spend to get their name on the airwaves.
Other GOP insiders are pointing their fingers at the state Republican Party, using Garrity’s early fundraising numbers as proof they are not doing enough to back her up in the race against Shapiro and that they’re setting themselves up for failure in November.
For Jim Worthington, the owner of the Newtown Athletic Club and a Bucks County GOP power player, Garrity’s early struggles are a result of failings by the state GOP to plan ahead and invest in mail voting.
“It’s an indictment of the party,” Worthington said. “I understand why some people are hesitant to give money. They’re looking at the tea leaves and saying, ‘Look, we lost the year.’”
“It’s going to be difficult for Stacy, and I feel bad because she is a hell of a candidate,” he added.
State Treasurer Stacy Garrity greets supporters after a campaign rally in Bucks County on Sept. 25, 2025. The GOP gubernatorial candidate visited the Newtown Sports & Events Center, in one of Pennsylvania’s top swing counties.
Worthington said anytime he talks to national Republicans in Washington or Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where he’s a member, he mentions Garrity’s race as one in which they should invest.
At the very least, he argues, top Republicans should help Garrity in an effort to ensure Shapiro doesn’t “have a cakewalk right into 2028,” as speculation continues to surround Shapiro about his political aspirations. Worthington said he even brought this up directly to Vice President JD Vance, the GOP’s expected 2028 successor to Trump, at Vance’s holiday party.
As for Garrity, Worthington said he believes she can win, calling her “an excellent candidate” with a hard work ethic.
“Make no mistake, it’s gonna be a tough go,” Worthington added. “But I’m 100% sure she can win.”
A man is dead, and three others are hospitalized after a shooting inside a North Philadelphia house early Monday morning.
The Philadelphia Police Department responded to a report of a person with a gun on the 1700 block of North Croskey Street at around 4:15 a.m. Upon entering a home on the block, officers say they found four adult male shooting victims.
One man, estimated to be in his 50s, was found with a gunshot wound to the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel at 4:23 a.m., according to police.
Police said the three other men were transported to Temple University Hospital and are in stable condition at the time of writing. None of the victims have been identified.
A 48-year-old man suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. A second man, 46, sustained two gunshot wounds to the stomach. Both are listed as in critical but stable condition.
The third man, 54, who was shot once in the right shoulder, is in stable condition.
Police recovered two firearms and found several spent shell casings inside the home where the men were found. No arrests were made, and no motive has been established as of publication.
Tips and information about this incident can be shared with PPD’s tip line at 215-686-8477.
This morning’s quadruple shooting comes during a January that saw some of the lowest numbers of homicides in Philadelphia in more than a decade, according to police data.
JERUSALEM — The remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, Israel’s military said Monday, clearing the way for the next phase of the ceasefire that paused the Israel-Hamas war.
The announcement that the remains of Ran Gvili had been found and identified came a day after Israel’s government said the military was conducting a “large-scale operation” in a cemetery in northern Gaza to locate them.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “an incredible achievement” for Israel and its soldiers, telling Israeli media that “I promised we would bring everyone home and we have brought everyone home.” He said Gvili, who was killed during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war, was among the first to be taken into Gaza.
The return of all remaining hostages, living or dead, has been a key part of the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase, and Gvili’s family had urged Israel’s government not to enter the second phase until his remains were recovered and returned.
Palestinian children receive donated food at a community kitchen in Nuseirat, in central Gaza Strip, on Saturday, Jan. 24.
Netanyahu’s office said Sunday that Israel would open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Palestinians see as their lifeline to the world, once the search for Gvili was finished. It has been largely shut since May 2024, except for a small period in early 2025.
Israel and Hamas had been under pressure from ceasefire mediators including Washington to move into the second phase of the U.S.-brokered truce, which took effect on Oct. 10.
Israel had repeatedly accused Hamas of dragging its feet in the recovery of the final hostage. Hamas said it had provided all the information it had about Gvili’s remains, and accused Israel of obstructing efforts to search for them in areas of Gaza under Israeli military control.
Israel’s military had said the large-scale operation to locate Gvili’s remains was “in the area of the Yellow Line” that divides the territory.
The Oct. 7, 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as “Rani,” was killed while fighting Hamas militants.
Palestinians receive donated food at a community kitchen in Nuseirat, in central Gaza Strip, on Saturday, Jan. 24.
Before Gvili’s remains were recovered, 20 living hostages and the remains of 27 others had been returned to Israel since the ceasefire, most recently in early December. Israel in exchange has released the bodies of hundreds Palestinians to Gaza.
The next phase of the 20-point ceasefire plan has called for creating an international stabilization force, forming a technocratic Palestinian government and disarming Hamas.
Palestinians killed in Gaza
Israeli forces on Monday fatally shot a man in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the body. The man was close to an area where the military has launched the search operation for Gvili, the hospital said.
Another man was killed in the eastern side of Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, which received his body. The circumstances of his death were not immediately clear.
More than 480 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire since Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. 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.
Israel’s top court considers petition to open Gaza for international journalists
The Foreign Press Association on Monday asked Israel’s Supreme Court to allow journalists to enter Gaza freely and independently.
The FPA, which represents dozens of global news organizations, has been fighting for more than two years for independent media access to Gaza. Israel has barred reporters from entering Gaza independently since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, which triggered the war, saying entry could put both journalists and soldiers at risk.
The army has offered journalists brief, occasional visits under strict military supervision.
FPA lawyers told the three judge panel that the restrictions are not justified and that with aid workers moving in and out of Gaza, journalists should be allowed in as well. They also said the tightly controlled embeds with the military are no substitute for independent access. The judges are expected to rule in the coming days.
MINNEAPOLIS — President Donald Trump softened his tone Monday on the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, touting productive conversations with the governor and Minneapolis mayor as he sent the border czar to take charge of much of the enforcement effort. Some federal agents were expected to leave as soon as today.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he spoke by phone with Trump, who praised the discussion and declared that “lots of progress is being made.” Frey said he asked Trump in a phone call to end the immigration enforcement surge and that Trump agreed the present situation cannot continue.
The mayor said some agents would soon leave and that he would keep pushing for others involved in Operation Metro Surge to go.
Among those who are expected to depart was senior Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the operation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Bovino has been at the center of the administration’s aggressive enforcement surge in cities nationwide. His departure marks a significant public shift in federal law enforcement posture amid mounting outrage over the fatal shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents.
Bovino’s leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates, and congressional Democrats.
Criticism has increased around Bovino in the last few days after his public defense of the Pretti shooting and disputed claims about the confrontation that led to his death.
The border czar, Tom Homan, will take charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota.
Judge hears arguments on crackdown
A federal judge heard arguments Monday over Minnesota’s challenge to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, posing skeptical questions to both sides about the effort that has led to two fatal shootings by federal officers.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez is considering whether to grant requests by the state and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to temporarily halt the immigration operation. She said the case was a priority, though she issued no immediate ruling.
Menendez questioned the government’s motivation behind the crackdown and expressed skepticism about a letter recently sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The letter asked the state to give the federal government access to voter rolls, to turn over state Medicaid and food assistance records, and to repeal sanctuary policies.
“I mean, is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Menendez asked. She noted that the federal requests are the subject of litigation.
Lawyers for the state and the Twin Cities argued that the situation on the street is so dire as to require the court to halt the federal government’s enforcement actions.
“If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said.
Brantley Mayers, counsel to the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general, said the government’s goal is to enforce federal law. Mayers said one lawful action should not be used to discredit another lawful action.
“I don’t see how the fact that we’re also doing additional things that we are allowed to do, that the Constitution has vested us with doing, would in any way negate another piece of the same operation, the same surge,” Mayers said.
Menendez questioned where the line was between violating the Constitution and the executive’s power to enforce the law. She also asked whether she was being asked to decide between state and federal policies.
“That begins to feel very much like I am deciding which policy approach is best,” she said.
At one point, while discussing the prospect of federal officers entering residences without a warrant, the judge expressed reluctance to decide issues not yet raised in a lawsuit before her.
“I can’t be the global keeper of all things here. Like, presumably that will be litigated,” she said to the state’s attorney.
In other developments, Trump said he had a “very good” call with Gov. Tim Walz about the latest shooting and that they are now on a “similar wavelength.” It was an abrupt shift from Trump, who frequently derides Walz for his actions on immigration issues in Minnesota.
Trump also said he would send border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. The president’s statement comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Bovino, who has become the public face of the crackdown, answered questions at news conferences over the weekend about Pretti’s shooting. Trump posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him.
Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their request in an effort to restore the conditions that existed before the administration launched Operation Metro Surge on Dec. 1.
The lawsuit asks the judge to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.
Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said Minnesota “wants a veto over federal law enforcement.” They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Sunday that the lawsuit is needed because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”
During a briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that a trio of “active investigations” and internal probes of the shooting were underway by federal agencies.
Leavitt said that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were investigating the shooting and that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was “conducting their own internal review.”
Leavitt said at the briefing that she has not heard Trump commit to release body camera footage from federal immigration officers involved in the shooting and killing of Alex Pretti.
Leavitt later said that the administration is talking with members of Congress about requirements to have federal immigration officers wear body cameras.
Leavitt said the shooting and killing of Pretti by a federal immigration officer “occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota.”
Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other elected Democrats “were spreading lies about federal law enforcement officers,” Leavitt said at the White House briefing.
Other state implications
The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.
“If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorneys general wrote.
Menendez ruled in a separate case on Jan. 16 that federal officers in Minnesota cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including people who follow and observe agents.
An appeals court temporarily suspended that ruling three days before Saturday’s shooting. But the plaintiffs in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, asked the appeals court late Saturday for an emergency order lifting the stay in light of Pretti’s killing.
The Justice Department argued in a reply filed Sunday that the stay should remain in place, calling the injunction unworkable and overly broad.
In yet another case, a different federal judge, Eric Tostrud, issued an order late Saturday blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to Saturday’s shooting. Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty asked for the order to try to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect.
A hearing in that case was scheduled for Monday afternoon in federal court in St. Paul.
“The fact that anyone would ever think that an agent of the federal government might even think about doing such a thing was completely unforeseeable only a few weeks ago,” Ellison told reporters. “But now, this is what we have to do.”
Winter weather can upend even the best-laid travel plans, but one less thing to worry about is losing money if your flight is canceled: U.S. airlines are required to provide refunds.
A monster storm started to wreak havoc across parts of the country over the weekend, with 12,200 weekend flights and counting canceled. Forecasters warned that catastrophic damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Here’s a guide for winter travelers as flight disruptions pile up:
Keep an eye on weather forecasts
When airlines expect bad weather to create problems for flights, they often give travelers a chance to postpone their trips by a few days without having to pay a fee. Search online for your airline’s name and “travel alerts” or similar phrases to look for possible rescheduling offers.
American Airlines, for example, said it is waiving change fees for passengers impacted by the storm and adding extra flights around the country in an effort to help passengers reach their destination after the storm passes.
Use the airline’s app to make sure your flight is still on before heading to the airport.
Cancellations can happen hours — or even days — before departure time. Consider American and Delta Air Lines: By midday Saturday, each carrier had canceled more than 1,000 of its scheduled Sunday flights, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.
Oklahoma’s largest airport suspended all flights Saturday, while Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, a major hub, saw more than 700 departing flights canceled and nearly as many arriving flights called off. Flight disruptions also were stacking up at airports in Chicago; Atlanta; Nashville; and Charlotte, N.C.
Disruptions continued to intensify on Sunday.
My flight was canceled, now what?
If you’re already at the airport, get in line to speak to a customer service representative. If you’re still at home or at your hotel, call or go online to connect to your airline’s reservations staff. Either way, it helps to also research alternate flights while you wait to talk to an agent.
Most airlines will rebook you on a later flight for no additional charge, but it depends on the availability of open seats.
Snow is plowed in the East Falls section of Philadelphia on Monday.
Can I get booked on another airline?
You can, but airlines aren’t required to put you on another carrier’s flight. Some airlines, including most of the biggest carriers, say they can put you on a partner airline, but even then it can be a hit or miss.
Am I owed a refund?
If your flight was canceled and you no longer want to take the trip, or you’ve found another way to get to your destination, the airline is legally required to refund your money — even if you bought a non-refundable ticket. It doesn’t matter why the flight was canceled.
The airline might offer you a travel credit, but you are entitled to a full refund. You are also entitled to a refund of any bag fees, seat upgrades or other extras that you didn’t get to use.
When will I get my refund?
If you paid with a credit card, a refund is due within seven business days after you decline an offer from the airline for another flight or a voucher, and within 20 calendar days if you paid for the ticket with a check or cash, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
What else will my airline cover?
U.S. airlines aren’t required by the Transportation Department to compensate passengers for meals or lodging when an airline cancels or significantly delays a flight during an “uncontrollable” event like bad weather.
Each airline, however, does have its own policies for assisting passengers who are stranded by a so-called “controllable” flight cancellation or long delay. These include disruptions caused by maintenance issues, crew shortages, or computer outages that halt operations. The Transportation Department can hold airlines accountable for these commitments and maintains a website that lets travelers see what each airline promises if a major disruption is their fault.
Other tips
If the weather forecast is troubling, Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, suggests looking into booking a backup flight. Some airlines stand out as potential backups, Potter says, because they let customers get a full refund as long as they cancel within 24 hours of booking.
The customer service phone lines will be slammed if flight cancellations and delays start stacking up during a bad storm. If you’re traveling with someone who has a higher frequent-flyer status, call the airline using their priority number. Another trick: Look up the airline’s international support number. Those agents can often rebook you just the same.
After Philly’s biggest snow in 10 years, a very big chill is coming
A person (okay with photograph but no name given), shovels on Flora Street in Brewerytown on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026 in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, 9.3 inches of snow fell, the most in a decade.
For the Philly region Monday it wasn’t so much a matter of digging out from the heftiest snowfall in a decade, it was more like a chipping, shaving, scraping, expletive-inducing, and ice-chunk hurling operation.
Public transportation appeared to be getting back on track, and major roads were open for business with speed reductions removed, thanks to crews working through the weekend.
But expect some side streets in the city and elsewhere to remain fit for sleigh rides this week and trash pickup to be delayed. City offices will be shut down again Tuesday, as will Philly school buildings, with Camden and more calling for a snow day or opting for remote learning.
And if you’re stepping outside, get used to that underfoot crunching sensation. The removal operation isn’t going to get much help this week from the atmosphere. It’s about to turn about as frigid as it ever gets around here. New Jersey officials are warning of “historic” demands on energy.
“We’re going to be in the freezer all week,” said Mike Gorse, meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly. Philly may have its first zero-degree reading in 32 years later in the week.
It’s as if after recent wimpy winters, the Arctic is reacquainting with Philly and much of the rest of the East.
And did we mention another snow threat for the weekend?
“There’s a chance,” said Marc Chenard, meteorologist with NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center in iced-over College Park, Md., who was among those who had to chuck some frozen boulders before leaving for work Monday morning. “I had to chip it and carry it in pieces,” he said. Sound familiar?
New Jersey and Philly officials expect increased energy demands amid cold
The snow may have stopped falling but officials in Philadelphia and New Jersey say the concerns over the extreme weather and impact on energy grids in the region remain.
The thousands who lost power during the snow storm in New Jersey had it restored by Monday, according to New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill.
She said the relative brevity of outages was due to utilities having workers at the ready “to make sure that if you lost power, they restored it as quickly as possible, knowing how cold it was going to get.”
Still, Sherrill said the state and utilities were preparing for “historic demand” expected Tuesday as a result of the expected temperature drop, which will continue throughout the rest of the week.
Sherrill said her administration has been in touch with PJM Interconnection, the state’s grid operator, to prepare for the surge in demand.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy has issued emergency ordersthat will allow PJM and other grid operators across the country to allow additional resources to stay online and help meet energy demands.
Like New Jersey, the Philadelphia region was also spared major outages Sunday.
But Office of Emergency Management Director Dominick Mireles asked the public to prepare for the potential overload of the energy grid and heating grid as the temperature could feel as though it were in the negatives with the wind chill.
Mireles suggested sealing drafts in homes, lowering the thermostat, even if by a few degrees, and switching to more energy efficient items. Something like doing laundry in non-peak hours could help relieve some of the strain on the grid, he said.
“To prepare in the event that you do lose power, you can do things like try to keep your devices charged and use flashlights instead of candles,” he said.
Philadelphia digs out from storm while planning for frigid temperatures
As Philadelphia continues to dig its way out of the weekend winter storm that dropped more than 9 inches of snow on the city, officials are turning an eye to the frigid forecast that is expected to stick around until next week.
“If you don’t have to go outside, do not. If you do not have to drive, please don’t,” Mayor Cherelle L. Park said at news conference Monday.
Parker’s warning came amid the city’s continued snow emergency that is to remain in effect until further notice. Streets Department workers are continuing snow-removal efforts, and had melted about 900 tons of snow with a snow melting machine over the past 10 hours, Parker said. But there was no timeline for the cleanup’s completion, and it could be complicated by the cold weather, Carlton Williams, director of the Office of Clean and Green Initiatives.
“We’re about to hit a deep freeze., and so whatever we don’t get could possibly freeze, and it makes it that much more difficult for us to plow frozen material,” Williams said.
Officials asked Philadelphia residents to help with cleanup efforts by, among other things, not shoveling snow from their sidewalks into the street. Parker also reminded motorists to not park their cars on snow emergency routes, and noted that roughly 350 vehicles had been towed from those routes on Sunday alone.
“This slows down our response, and it delays us from being able to clear this emergency,” Parker said. She added that residents who believe their car was towed from a snow emergency route can call 215-686-SNOW for further information.
Dominick Mireles, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management, said the city was making preparations for the cold weather to come. The city, he said, expects high demands on its energy and heating infrastructure during the cold snap, and anticipates that the frigid temperatures could have impacts on the city’s water mains.
The Philadelphia Water Department, meanwhile, remains in an “enhanced operational posture” due to the prolonged cold, commissioner Benjamin Jewell said. He asked that if residents see a water leak or experience a service interruption, they can contact the department at 215-685-3600.
The city will also continue to run its warming centers, with daytime service at select libraries, and nighttime service at select recreation centers, said Crystal Yates Gale, deputy managing director for Health and Human Services. The warming centers will operate until the freezing conditions end, she added.
“Humans are not meant to be outside in those conditions,” she said.
Philadelphia school buildings won’t be open Tuesday as road conditions remain rough in many places after the weekend’s significant winter storm.
After Mayor Cherelle L. Parker told residents city offices and courts would be closed Tuesday, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. affirmed the call for schools “out of an abundance of caution.”
The district sent students’ Chromebooks home with them Friday, allowing for a possible day of virtual learning Tuesday. Though Monday is a true day off, Watlington warned that if the snow required any further changes, he would pivot to virtual instruction.
City offices and courts will remain closed Tuesday as Philadelphia continues to recover from the weekend storm, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said at a Monday news conference.
“Despite the tireless work involved in our intergovernmental response, we are not out of the woods, Philadelphia,” Parker said.
The closures are part of a continuing snow emergency declared in the city late Saturday. That snow emergency has not yet been lifted, and will continue until further notice, Parker said.
Watch: Mayor Parker offers updates on snow aftermath
// Timestamp 01/26/26 1:56pm
Camden schools to be closed Tuesday
Camden City School District schools and offices would be closed Tuesday, citing “unsafe conditions on streets and sidewalks” following Sunday’s storm.
“This additional closure will allow our Facilities Department more time to fully clear sidewalks and school grounds and ensure safe access to our buildings,” the district said in a statement.
PennDot has ‘plenty of salt on hand’ as road cleanup continues
SEPTA 27 bus along Ridge Avenue heading to Wissahickon Station Monday.
Gov. Josh Shapiro lauded the efforts of PennDot workers during the weekend’s storm at a Monday news conference, noting the department was “busy all across the commonwealth” due to the inclement weather hitting essentially all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
“Everybody felt an impact,” Shapiro said. The widespread nature of the storm, he added, was an unusual element, with snow totals surpassing 12 inches in some areas of the state.
PennDot secretary Mike Carroll said the department’s response to the storm was a team win, aided by agencies including the Pennsylvania State Police and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
“Folks across the spectrum did their part to help us really successfully deal with what is a very large winter storm these days,” Carroll said. “We’ve had a tremendous response to this storm.”
Prior to the storm’s arrival Sunday, PennDot issued vehicle restrictions for state roads that limited travel, and officials asked travelers to refrain from driving unless absolutely necessary. Shapiro said Monday that it appeared drivers had heeded those warnings, and asked that Pennsylvanians continue to stay home to allow cleanup to continue.
“Being off the road, being home today, is going to continue to allow PennDot to go out and clean up the last remaining roads and make sure that any of these spots that are wet won’t freeze up,” Shapiro said.
PennDot officials previously said that the department’s District 6, which encompasses the Philadelphia area, had roughly 70,000 tons of salt on hand to deal with the storm’s impacts. Bucks County, where Shapiro and Carroll spoke, started with roughly 14,000 of salt, and were down to an estimated 9,000 tons, though exact figures were not immediately available.
An additional 15,000 tons of salt were due to arrive in Bucks County this week, and officials said they anticipated no supply shortages.
“The department has plenty of salt on hand,” said PennDot assistant district executive for maintenance Tom Rogal. “We will not have any issues receiving and maintaining salt.”
Cheltenham and Upper Darby schools will be virtual Tuesday
The Cheltenham and Upper Darby school districtswill have virtual instruction Tuesday, as officials said road conditions were still too poor following the storm.
“After consulting with my team, many roads remain unpassable and are likely to refreeze after dusk, making bussing on Tuesday too risky,” CheltenhamSuperintendent Brian Scriven told families in a message Monday afternoon.
In Upper Darby, Superintendent Dan McGarry told families Monday afternoon that “unfortunately, we are going to need another day to continue to remove snow and ice.”
Many other Philadelphia-area districts have yet to announce Tuesday plans. The Philadelphia School District is expected to make an announcement at 3 p.m.
Scriven said Cheltenham administrators were “hopeful schools will return to normal operations as soon as possible,” and would communicate any additional schedule changes before Wednesday.
An inflatable Elmo ball rolls along a sidewalk Sunday.
Will Philadelphia schools be in session Tuesday, or give students and staff another day to dig out of the significant snowfall dumped on the region this weekend?
The district sent students’ Chromebooks home with them Friday, allowing for a possible day of virtual learning Tuesday. Though Monday is a true day off, Watlington said if the snow causes any further changes, he would pivot to virtual instruction.
At least one district has already announced plans for Tuesday. Haddon Heights, in South Jersey, will have a two-hour delay. Upper Darby school officials said they will call Tuesday plans “as soon as we are able to assess district facilities.”
Philly has a shot at breaking its 32-year zero-less streak
Yerome Rillera and his 9-year-old son, Kersey, sled down the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum in Philadelphia Monday.
It was up to 27 degrees at noon at Philadelphia International Airport on Monday, but it looks like it’s not going to make it to 30, and this is going to be the warmest of the next several days.
In fact, temperatures may have trouble getting out of the teens until the weekend, and Philly has a shot at reaching zero for the first time in 30 years later in the week.
The forecast lows will be in the single digits all week, and down to 1 above on Friday, the National Weather Service says.
Mike Gorse, meteorologist in the Mount Holly office, said the stubborn snow cover “absolutely” would increase the chances of the airport reaching zero for the first time since January 1994.
Snow is ideal for daytime heating (such as it is) to soar into space after sunset. Clear skies and light winds would further enhance the cooling.
State of emergency in N.J. ends, all major highways cleared
New Jersey achieved “black top” on all state highways and interstates Monday morning as crews continued to treat highways, according to New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill.
The New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and Atlantic City Expressway had also been cleared and will continue to be treated through the evening. Speed restrictions have been lifted.
But while the roads were no longer piled high with snow, Sherrill urged common sense for those who have to drive.
“These are wet roads, and the temperatures are below freezing, so be careful on bridges, on off and on-ramps,” she said.
So far, 85 bus lines connecting New York and Philadelphia are operational and most of the train lines should come online by the afternoon, though on a weekend schedule.
Sherrill said a state of emergency, which allowed New Jersey to access additional plows, salt, and other necessary equipment, ended at noon.
Speed limit restored on all major roadways across Philly region
Cars enter and leave Philadelphia on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge Sunday.
All speed and vehicle restrictions have been lifted on all interstates and major highways across the Philadelphia region, PennDot announced Monday.
Speed restrictions on U.S. 30 and U.S. 202 in Chester County were lifted at noon, while restrictions on interstates and other major state highways were removed earlier in the morning.
PennDot said it would continue to treat roadways until all travel lanes and shoulders are clear.
Connor Phan shovels out his car in the East Falls section Philadelphia Monday.
Anyone who has been out shoveling Monday can attest to the fact that not all snowfalls are created equal when it comes to getting their remains out of the way.
This one was especially challenging because it was chock full of ice chunks, the result of the harvest of sleet that feel after Sunday’s snow ended. Moving it required varying degrees of chipping, shaving, and boulder-hurling. Another challenge in this instance was the weight of it all.
Officially, 9.3 inches of snow was measured at Philadelphia International Airport, but given how much liquid was in the snowpack, the weight likely would have been similar to a snowfall of 12 to 15 inches of well-fluffed snow.
The snow-and-sleet melt at the airport came to about 1.1 inches. An inch of water over a square foot weighs an estimated 5.2 pounds.
On a 200-square-foot driveway — a 10 by 20 — what fell Sunday weighed about 1,144 pounds. On a 100-square-foot sidewalk — 5 by 20 — that would be 572 pounds.
In this case, given all the ice, it probably felt like more.
Trash trucks with plows clear Midvale Avenue near Ridge Avenue on Monday.
You can (likely) take your trash cans in if you’re expecting pick up Monday, as a slate of municipalities in Chester County are delaying trash and recycling collection services after the area was blanketed in snow this weekend.
Here’s a look at the delays municipalities have advertised online:
Avondale: Trash pick up moved to Tuesday.
Caln: Shifted by one day through the week, beginning Tuesday for Monday customers.
Kennett Square: Trash pick up moved to Wednesday.
East Brandywine: Trash pick up moved to Wednesday.
East Bradford: Trash pick up moved to Saturday.
East Caln: Trash pick up canceled this week.
East Fallowfield: Trash pick up moved to Saturday.
East Goshen: Shifted by one day through the week, beginning Tuesday for Monday customers.
Easttown: Trash pick up moved to Tuesday.
Elverson: Trash pick up moved to Wednesday.
Sadsbury: Shifted by one day through the week
Spring City: Trash and recycling delayed until Tuesday and Wednesday.
Upper Uwchlan: Trash and recycling for Monday will be delayed until at least Tuesday, but the township may have further updates.
Uwchlan: Trash pick up moved to Wednesday.
West Chester: Shifted by one day through the week.
West Goshen: No collection Monday; the township will provide updates on collection for Tuesday.
West Whiteland: Trash pick up moved to Wednesday.
Westtown: Shifted by one day through the week, beginning Tuesday for Monday customers and Friday for Thursday customers.
Three people die while shoveling snow in Lehigh County
In Lehigh County, about 60 miles northwest from Philly, at least three people died on Sunday attempting to clear snow, said the Lehigh County Coroner’s Office and Forensics Center in a statement Monday.
The National Weather Service recorded 11.8 inches of snow at the Lehigh Valley International Airport over the weekend.
The three who died ranged in age from 60 to 84, according to the statement. All were shoveling snow or using another method to remove snow before experiencing a medical emergency.
The coroner’s office isn’t disclosing more information about the people who died out of respect for the families, Coroner Daniel Buglio said in the statement.
Miguel Estevez with Independent Construction clears the steps in the East Falls section of Philadelphia Monday. Connor Phan gets a start digging his car out. Residents begin to dig out on Calumet Street near Ridge Avenue Monday.
// Timestamp 01/26/26 8:28am
More cancellations at PHL
Crews deice a Delta plane as snow falls at Philadelphia International Airport Sunday.
At least 134 flights have been canceled going into or out of Philadelphia International Airport Monday, an improvement from the 641 flights canceled during Sunday’s storm.
The airport also reopened all its security checkpoints Monday morning, according to a spokesperson. American Airlines is asking its passengers to use A-West, B-C and F ticketing Monday. A-East is closed for American passengers only.
Across the country, more than 1,000 flights have been canceled Monday, according to Flight Aware, with airports near New York City and the Washington, D.C., experiencing the brunt of the delays.
Travelers are encouraged to check with their airlines for the latest flight information.
A trash truck with plow clearing Midvale Avenue in the East Falls section of Philadelphia Monday.
Trash and recycling collections are suspended in Philadelphia on Monday. Collections will be one day behind for the rest of the week.
Areas of the city that receive two trash collections per week, like Center City, South Philadelphia, and North Philadelphia, will only have one this week. Residents should expect collection delays as the crews navigate the snow and ice.
Residents who can’t wait until collection to hold their trash can drop them off at one of the city’s six sanitation convenience centers, open Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
SEPTA riders board the 47 bus at Eighth and Market Streets Sunday.
After shutdowns across the system Sunday, SEPTA said it planned to gradually restore service Monday.
Service on all Regional Rail, bus, Access, and Metro routes T and G remained suspended Monday morning.
When it is safe to do so, Regional Rail will operate on a Saturday schedule, while bus and Metro will operate on a Monday schedule.
PATCO trains are operating on a delayed snow schedule Monday, with service every 15 to 20 minutes.
NJ Transit service on all light rail systems resumed Monday morning. The agency planned to gradually ramp up bus and Access Link service throughout the day, as road conditions allow.
Pedestrians try to navigate Gay Street as snow falls in West Chester, Pa. Sunday.
It officially snowed 9.3 inches in Philadelphia, according to the National Weather Service.
The service said 9.1 inches of snow and sleet was topped with an additional 0.2 inches overnight. That’s officially the most snow to drop in Philadelphia since a January 2016 blizzard, which dropped 22.4 inches onto the city.
Allentown ended with 11.8 inches, while Trenton ended up with 8.9 inches.
Here are totals from across the region as of 8 p.m. Sunday, so they don’t include whatever was added by freezing rain overnight.
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Snow-covered cars line Cresson Street in the East Falls section of Philadelphia on Monday.
Across the Philadelphia region, the ground remains covered with a mixture of snow and sleet, all given a shiny finish with some overnight freezing rain.
The melt is going to take its good old time.
Temperatures Monday are expected to be in the upper 20s, with wind chills making it feel at times closer to 0 degrees.
Then, it’s going to turn colder.
Highs in Philly will struggle to reach 20 degrees Tuesday through Saturday, with overnight lows in the single digits.
“We’re going to have a rather glacial snowpack for the foreseeable future,” said Alex Staarmann, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
The next several days should be dry, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. Some talk is brewing about a storm threat late next weekend or early in the week, but that can wait for another day.
All things considered, a trauma-free snow day in Philly
David Friedman (center) pulls his sons Noah, 5, (left) and Zachary, 3, after they went sledding at the Society Hill Towers Sunday.
For the abject unpleasantness of the weather Sunday, the region for the most part appeared to be trauma-free.
That probably had something to do with the fact that it was indeed, Sunday,and that the storm may have set an unofficial record for a pre-event drumbeat.
Computers had been on to something big happening for about a week, at one point suggesting historic amounts of snow for Philly. The anticipation and anxiety evidently were major boons to local supermarkets — where carb shortages and human stampedes were reported — and hardware stores.
In the end, the storm did unfold pretty much as the late-week forecasts suggested, with a thump of heavy snow in the morning with several inches accumulating.
One not-so-mild surprise was the cold, with temperatures during the day Sunday several degrees below forecasts.
The cold had a benefit: It resulted in a dry, powdery snow, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. That robbed the region of that postcard look as the moderate winds were able to shake it off the trees, but it also reduced the power-outage potential.
For those who have endured long power outages, it very likely was worth the aesthetic deprivation.
When the snow turned to sleet during the late morning, temperatures were still in the teens, and the ice balls accumulated on the snowpack, adding unwanted weight.
The ice also will add endurance to the snowpack, meteorologists said. Snowflakes can out-melt ice anyway. So forget the yard work for a while.
// RelatedLink Text: Top January storms URL: https://www.inquirer.com/weather/philadelphia-snow-top-10-january-snowfall-totals-snowstorms-history-20260124.html
Hours of percussive sleet layered a nasty icing on Philadelphia’s biggest snowfall in 10 years Sunday, and it may be some time before bare ground resurfaces in the region, if not normality.
“We’re going to have a rather glacial snowpack for the foreseeable future,” said Alex Staarmann, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
This is not the stuff of postcards.
Michael Thompson (right) and Jonathan Ahmad clear snow Sunday in Old City.
Officially 9.1 inches of snow was measured at the unusually quiet Philadelphia International Airport, with similar amounts reported at some locations in the neighboring counties, as temperatures were stuck in the teens around Philly. Skippack, Montgomery County, reported just over a foot. For Philly, it also was a record for a Jan. 25.
Late in the morning, the snow flipped over to sleet, which continued in the evening and added to accumulations through the region, including an additional 2.5 inches at the weather service Mount Holly office.
Sleet — liquid that freezes before it lands — counts as snow in official measurements. In some places it fell at the rate of 0.5 inch an hour, the weather service said, an extraordinary rate for sleet.
And shovelers beware: That mess may weigh as much as a foot or more of pure snow. Besides, we may be out of practice. This was the most snow since the 22.4 inches of Jan. 22-23, 2016.
Along with sleet, some freezing rain — liquid that freezes on contact with a surface — was possible Sunday night, said Nick Guzzo, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
However, only scattered power outages, a function of the unusual behavior of a potent but peculiar storm that wrought a familiar set of disruptions and inconveniences.
At the airport, 651 of 672 flights were canceled Sunday, said spokesperson Heather Redfern, with the last departure at 10:30 a.m.
SEPTA suspended Regional Rail and bus service at 2 p.m. Sunday. Schools decided preemptively to close on Monday. Speeds were reduced on highways. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker advised everyone to stay in their houses and out of their cars.
Luis Nova digs his car out of his plowed-in space in an otherwise empty parking lot at the Westmont PATCO station in Haddon Township onSunday. Nova left his car there last Friday, and was in Philadelphia all weekend helping friends move and going to a goodbye party. He spent the morning sledding with friends in Clark Park in West Philadelphia, Nova said. “I knew what I was signing up for and was ready. I left all my equipment to get myself out. I spent four years in Rochester [New York] so I have a little experience with this. The only thing I’m missing is the kitty litter I usually keep in case I have to put it under the tires.”
Malls and other businesses called it a day. Blue Mountain decided to suspend ski operations until Monday at noon — and when was the last time a ski outfit shut down because of snow, of all things?
All things considered, a trauma-free day
For the abject unpleasantness of the weather Sunday, the region for the most part appeared to be trauma-free.
That probably had something to do with the fact that it was indeed, Sunday,and that the storm may have set an unofficial record for a pre-event drumbeat.
Computers had been on to something big happening for about a week, at one point suggesting historic amounts of snow for Philly. The anticipation and anxiety evidently were major boons to local supermarkets — where carb shortages and human stampedes were reported — and hardware stores.
In the end, the storm did unfold pretty much as the late-week forecasts suggested, with a thump of heavy snow in the morning with several inches accumulating.
One not-so-mild surprise was the cold, with temperatures during the day Sunday several degrees below forecasts.
The cold had a benefit: It resulted in a dry, powdery snow, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. That robbed the region of that postcard look as the moderate winds were able to shake it off the trees, but it also reduced the power-outage potential.
For those who have endured long power outages, it very likely was worth the aesthetic deprivation.
When the snow turned to sleet during the late morning, temperatures were still in the teens, and the ice balls accumulated on the snowpack, adding unwanted weight.
The ice also will add endurance to the snowpack, meteorologists said. Snowflakes can out-melt ice anyway. So forget the yard work for a while.
The sleet was likely to yield to freezing rain Sunday evening along and near the I-95 corridor, the weather service said, perhaps adding up to 0.2 inches of ice, especially south and east of the city.
The precipitation was due to shut off during the early-morning hours of Monday. Then, the melt is going to take its good old time.
Temperatures Monday are expected to be in the upper 20s.
Then, it’s going to turn colder.
Highs in Philly will struggle to reach 20 Tuesday through Saturday, with overnight lows in the single digits.
The next several days should be dry, said Kines. Some talk is brewing about a storm threat late next weekend or early in the week, but that can wait for another day.
Staff writer Michael Klein contributed to this article.
President Donald Trump on Sunday insisted his proposed ballroom is a done deal — even as Justice Department lawyers in court present the plans as flexible and subject to federal reviews.
In a lengthy post to his Truth Social platform, Trump said the project could not realistically be reversed because key materials have been lined up, writing that “there is no practical or reasonable way to go back” and declaring: “IT IS TOO LATE!”
The president’s comments contrast with his administration’s position in federal court, where three days earlier Justice Department lawyers told a judge that the ballroom plans can be modified and that the White House intends to wait for two federal advisory panels to review the project before beginning aboveground construction in April. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said he intends to rule in the coming weeks on whether the project may advance.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about how Trump’spost about the ballroom aligned with his administration’s legal argument. Trump and his deputies have said that the ballroom project is personally important to him, and the president wrote Sunday that it is a national security matter.
“Stoppage of construction, at this late date, when so much has already been ordered and done, would be devastating to the White House, our Country, and all concerned,” Trump wrotein a late-morning note that published as much of the United States was under a weather alert connected to a significant winter storm. He also listed materials that he said had either been ordered or were “ready” to be obtained: “All of the Structural Steel, Windows, Doors, A.C./Heating Equipment, Marble, Stone, Precast Concrete, Bulletproof Windows and Glass, Anti-Drone Roofing, and much more.”
The roughly 450-word statement came in between two posts that referenced Minnesota, the site a day earlier of another fatal shooting connected to immigration enforcement that roiled domestic politics and raised the possibility of a government shutdown. Democrats pledged to block a funding package that must be approved by Friday to keep much of the government open, saying that they could not support continued funding for federal immigration enforcement without operational changes.
TrumpinOctober rapidly demolished the White House’s East Wing annex to make way for his planned ballroom addition, prompting criticism from Democrats, watchdogs, and some conservatives who said the administration should have sought public comment before making such significant changes to a building long described as the “People’s House.” The White House has begun construction on the underground elements of the project, deploying workers, construction machinery, and a tower crane, with administration officials saying the work is necessary to protect the president.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit group charged by Congress with helping to preserve historic buildings, sued the Trump administration in December, saying it failed to undergo legally required reviews or receive congressional authorization for the project. The group has asked Leon to pause construction until those reviews take place, arguing that every additional day of work locks the project into place.
“We are fully committed to upholding the interests of the American public and advocating for compliance with all legally required review and approval processes — and an opportunity for the American people to weigh in on a project that impacts one of the most historically significant buildings in our country,” the National Trust said in a statement Sunday following Trump’s post, which also took aim at the group.
The Justice Department has argued that Trump has significant authority to make changes to White House grounds. The department also submitted testimony from an engineer working on the ballroom project who said the planned building can still accommodate significant design changes. The National Trust has submitted testimony from architect William Bates, former president of the American Institute of Architects, who said in a sworn statement that a building’s subterranean infrastructure essentially predetermines critical aspects of what can be built aboveground.
“Altering these conditions after the fact would require major demolition and redesign,” Bates wrote last month.
Leon, who is hearing the case at the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, appeared skeptical of the administration’s arguments and pressed the Justice Department to explain how Trump had the legal right to fund the project using hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations. Publicly identified donors, such as Amazon, Google, and Lockheed Martin, collectively have billions of dollars in contracts before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
The two federal panels set to review the ballroom project — the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission — are now led by Trump appointees after the president removed members named during the Biden administration. White House officials have said they hope to win approval from the panels by March, and the panels’ leaders have signaled support for ballroom construction.
“I know the President wants to get on with this, and we need to let him do his job,” Rodney Mims Cook Jr., the chairperson of the Commission of Fine Arts, said at a hearing last week.
In the 24 hours after an immigration officer fatally shot a protester in Minneapolis, the federal agencies that would typically be involved in investigating an officer-involved shooting have been on the sidelines.
Federal law enforcement leaders in Minnesota haven’t made public statements or appearances. FBI agents and prosecutors in the state are confused about what — if anything — their involvement will be in the investigation, according to multiple people familiar with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
In the apparent absence so far of the Justice Department, Minnesota authorities have vowed to pursue an investigation under state laws into the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse. That has set up a potential legal clash between state and federal authorities. Already, the state has sued the federal government, successfully asking a judge over the weekend to ensure that federal law enforcement officials do not destroy evidence.
The Justice Department’s apparent back seat in the investigation contrasts with how the agency has frequently handled similar fatal officer-involved shootings. Typically, federal investigators would take the lead, deploying FBI agents and Civil Rights Division prosecutors — the department’s experts in investigating use-of-force cases.
That typical federal deployment of resources has not occurred in this case, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions that have not been made public.
“This is extremely out of the norm,” said Bryna Godar, staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, who has studied use-of-force investigations. “Typically, whether or not a shooting is ultimately found to be justified, these types of shootings are taken very seriously.”
Rather than the Justice Department,the Department of Homeland Security, of which the Border Patrol is a part, has taken the lead in the investigation, with the FBI assisting, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter.
That internal probe is at least in partexamining whether Border Patrol agents adhered to protocol when Pretti was shot. Homeland Security doesn’t have independent authority to prosecute crimes, but if its examination finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing, DHS officials could refer the investigation to the Justice Department, the law enforcement official said.
That typical federal deployment of resources has not occurred after the most recent shooting, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions that have not been made public.
Justice Department officials have said in recent weeks that they only investigate police officers under the civil rights laws involving excessive force if they believe such a probe is warranted. The recent shootings by immigration officers do not necessitate federal criminal investigations, they have said.
Legal experts, however, have noted that while the threshold to charge a police officer is high, the only way to determine if a prosecution is warranted is for the Justice Department and FBI to conduct thorough investigations.
FBI Director Kash Patel, in an interview with Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, said he trusted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and her agency to “do the right thing.”
“I don’t want to comment on their ongoing investigation,” he said.
In the shooting on Saturday, federal agents wrestled Pretti to the ground and secured a handgun he was carrying moments before Pretti was shot multiple times, according to a Washington Post analysis of videos that captured the incident from several angles.
It is not clear from the video whether all the agents realized Pretti had been disarmed. Local officials have said Pretti had a permit to carry the weapon, and Minnesota law allows the open carrying of firearms.
On the day after the shooting, Justice Department officials sought to shift blame for it onto state and local authorities, who they assert have egged on protesters, and deferred the responsibility to investigate to other agencies.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared on Meet the Press Sunday and said the problem was that local police officers were not assisting federal law enforcement in the state.
“I’m very confused why the conversation is about what you’re talking about instead of focusing on what really matters, which is why in one city, in one place we have these problems,” Blanche told NBC’s Meet the Press, suggesting that Minnesota officials had contributed to the tensions that provoked Pretti’s shooting.
The immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region began in early January, despite protests from state officials. The deployment of thousands of federal and immigration agents to the Twin Cities has transformed the region into a center of resistance to the administration’s deportation policies.
Those protests mounted after Jan. 7, when an Immigration Customs and Enforcement officer shot Renée Good while she was in her car. Good and her partner, who was outside the car at the time of the shooting, had been protesting the immigration crackdown.
The FBI briefly opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Good, but closed it and instead focused on investigating Good’s partner and protesters, the Washington Post reported last week. The handling of that investigation prompted about a half-dozen experienced federal prosecutors to leave the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, leaving the office severely understaffed. The FBI agent who initially opened the investigation resigned, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matter.
In the days since, the department has focused its resources on investigating state and local leaders, challenging what Attorney General Pam Bondi has described as “unprecedented judicial activism” in court, and arresting demonstrators, including protesters who interrupted a Jan. 18 church service in St. Paul.
State and local officials have vowed to conduct their own investigation of both the Good and Pretti shootings, but said they’ve been stymied by federal agents denying them access to the scenes.
Late Saturday evening, a U.S. district judge, acting on a request from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, barred the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, or the FBI from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said his agency took the unusual step Saturday of obtaining a search warrant from a state court to access the shooting scene after initial efforts to respond were rebuffed. Federal agents ignored the warrant and continued to deny access to state investigators, he said.
“In my 20-plus years at the BCA, prior to 2026, I had never encountered a situation in which federal authorities blocked BCA access to an incident where there is concurrent federal and state jurisdiction,” he wrote in a declaration filed with the court Saturday night. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty took to social media urging anyone to submit footage they’d filmed at the scene.
Hurdles for possible prosecution
If state authorities determine the shooting was unlawful, they could seek to prosecute agents involved. But any attempt to do so would face stiff legal hurdles.
Any agent charged with state crimes would probably seek to move the case to federal court and claim federal immunity from prosecution.
Officers are shielded from prosecution for many actions taken in the line of duty. Federal officers facing state prosecution can claim immunity based on the constitutional doctrine of federal supremacy. Those protections only apply, however, if a judge deems the agents’ actions to have been authorized by federal law and “necessary and proper” in fulfilling their federal duties.
Local authorities do sometimes move ahead with cases against federal agents, including a recent instance in Virginia that underscores the extent to which such attempts can get bogged down in litigation spanning years.
In 2020, after the Justice Department declined to file charges, state authorities in Virginia secured involuntary manslaughter indictments against two U.S. Park Police officers who fatally shot an unarmed motorist in Fairfax County in 2017.
The case was tied up in litigation over the immunity question for years, and the charges at one point were dismissed by a federal judge. Local authorities were pursuing an appeal of that decision in 2021 when Republican Jason Miyares was elected attorney general. Miyares abandoned the effort in 2022.
ATLANTA — William Foege, a leader of one of humanity’s greatest public health victories — the global eradication of smallpox — has died.
Dr. Foege died Saturday in Atlanta at the age of 89, according to the Task Force for Global Health, which he co-founded.
The 6-foot-7 inch Dr. Foege literally stood out in the field of public health. A whip-smart medical doctor with a calm demeanor, he had a canny knack for beating back infectious diseases.
He was director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later held other key leadership roles in campaigns against international health problems.
But his greatest achievement came before all that, with his work on smallpox, one of the most lethal diseases in human history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pus-filled lesions.
Smallpox vaccination campaigns were well established by the time Dr. Foege was a young doctor. Indeed, it was no longer seen in the United States. But infections were still occurring elsewhere, and efforts to stamp them out were stalling.
Working as a medical missionary in Nigeria in the 1960s, Dr. Foege and his colleagues developed a “ring containment” strategy, in which a smallpox outbreak was contained by identifying each smallpox case and vaccinating everyone who the patients might come into contact with.
The method relied heavily on quick detective work and was born out of necessity. There simply wasn’t enough vaccine available to immunize everyone, Dr. Foege wrote in House on Fire, his 2011 book about the smallpox eradication effort.
It worked, and became pivotal in helping rid the world of smallpox for good. The last naturally occurring case was seen in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated from the Earth.
“If you look at the simple metric of who has saved the most lives, he is right up there with the pantheon. Smallpox eradication has prevented hundreds of millions of deaths,” said former CDC director Tom Frieden, who consulted with Dr. Foege regularly.
Dr. Foege was born March 12, 1936. His father was a Lutheran minister, but he became interested in medicine at 13 while working at a drugstore in Colville, Wash.
He got his medical degree from the University of Washington in 1961 and a master’s in public health from Harvard in 1965.
He was director of the Atlanta-based CDC from 1977 to 1983, then held other international public health leadership roles, including stints as executive director at the Carter Center and senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2012, President Barack Obama presented Dr. Foege with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In 2016, while awarding Dr. Foege an honorary degree, Duke University President Richard Brodhead called him “the Father of Global Health.”
“Bill Foege had an unflagging commitment to improving the health of people across the world, through powerful, purpose-driven coalitions applying the best science available,” Task Force for Global Health CEO Patrick O’Carroll said in a statement. “We try to honor that commitment in every one of our programs, every day.”
