Gov. Josh Shapiro revealed new details of what he described as childhood trauma, weighed in on President Donald Trump’s “facade of strength” in U.S. and foreign policy, and promised to work to “bring down the temperature” of political violence in a wide-ranging interview with CBS News Sunday Morning.
Shapiro told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell that Trump’s actions are making Americans less safe, and said he has plans in place should the Trump administration attempt a surge of federal agents here.
“I think what the president is trying to do is show that he can be the dominant figure, that he can dictate behavior, whether we’re talking about Minneapolis or Greenland or Venezuela,” Shapiro said. “This president wants to try and show what he believes to be strength — that I think is a facade of strength and ultimately a veneer of strength.”
Shapiro, who has been promoting his new memoir, Where We Keep the Light, brought a CBS News producer to the synagogue he’s attended since childhood, Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, to discuss his personal journey.
He said he has never received therapy for harrowing experiences as a young boy, namely the fallout of his mother’s unspecified mental health struggles, that shaped his path well into adulthood.
“There were moments where a switch could be flipped and there’d be a lot of yelling and a lot of chaos and a lot of tumult in the house, and you would just want to retreat to your room and try and escape it all,” he said.
He added that the experience led him to public service: “That constant desire to find a solution to someone else’s problem, that’s driven by childhood trauma.”
The interview also touched on Shapiro’s vice presidential vetting, in which Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign asked him if he had been an Israeli agent. “I thought some of the commentary about my wife was not OK,” he said, “and I thought asking me if I was a double agent for the Israeli government was offensive.”
He said he called Harris’ campaign staffers after the interview to take himself out of the running.
And, he addressed the issue of political violence, including the arson attack on the governor’s mansion and the “strange conversation” with Trump that followed. “[Trump] said, you know, being president’s a really dangerous job. And he rattled off other jobs that have a lower fatality rate than presidents. And he said it’s very, very dangerous. Just be careful.”
Shapiro said the incident underscored the need for bipartisanship to “bring down the temperature” on all sides.
Neither Shapiro nor his interviewers made mention of his 2026 gubernatorial opponent, Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. Instead, the conversation appeared to look ahead to 2028, and Shapiro’s potential as a presidential contender.
Still, Shapiro remains noncommittal about running. “That’s a conversation for another day,” he said.
Eleanor Holmes Norton’s campaign filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday, signaling that the 88-year-old will not seek an 19th term as D.C.’s nonvoting delegate in the House.
The lawmaker has faced months of intense public scrutiny about her ability to adequately represent the nation’s capital during an unprecedented period of federal intervention.
The termination filing, first reported by NOTUS, has the practical effect of ending a candidate’s campaign operation, although it does not prevent them from filing to run for office in the future. Her campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The move would bring to a close a three-decade career in which she became known as D.C.’s “warrior on the Hill” and became, to an entire generation of Washingtonians who have known no other House representative, nearly synonymous with the city’s House seat in Congress and its crusade for D.C. statehood.
But her evident decline in recent months and years — appearing less often in public, speaking more haltingly and largely only from scripts, seeming to struggle with candid interactions or to walk without assistance — ignited concerns that she was not the advocate the city needed during a critical time. Her current term ends in January 2027, when she will be 89.
Two D.C. Council members — Robert C. White Jr. and Brooke Pinto — have already launched primary challenges against her, among a host of others. Her closest confidante, Donna Brazile, called on her longtime friend to step aside last year. And an October police case, in which she reportedly fell victim to fraud at her home, as NBC4 reported, only accelerated concerns about her vulnerabilities and mental sharpness as she has aged. A D.C. police report described her as having “early stages of dementia.”
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have unleashed a cascade of efforts to erode D.C.’s already limited right to self-governance while President Donald Trump castigates the city as dangerous and filthy. During his first year back in office, he seized temporary control of local police, surged immigration enforcement, and deployed armed National Guard troops on city streets.
D.C. public officials and politicos began publicly voicing concerns about Norton’s ability to represent the District last year given the tenuous relations between the federal government and the nation’s capital.
Yet Norton (D) has spent months insisting she would seek reelection, raising concern within a party that has had to reckon with the consequences of geriatric leaders clinging to power for too long. While D.C. does not have a vote in Congress, its representative in the House can introduce bills, serve on committees, and spearhead advocacy efforts.
Her exit from the campaign would set the stage for the first competitive race for the seat since Norton first ran for it in 1990.
One of Norton’s top staffers, Trent Holbrook, recently left his job as her senior legislative counsel to run for her seat. White (D., At large) and Pinto (D., Ward 2), though, remain the candidates to beat. Other candidates include Kinney Zalesne, a former Democratic fundraiser who has raised more than $400,000; Deirdre Brown, a Democratic organizer in Ward 3; and Vincent Morris, who works in communications.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian authorities unveiled a new mural on a giant billboard in a central Tehran square on Sunday with a direct warning to the United States to not attempt a military strike on the country, as U.S. warships head to the region.
The image shows a bird’s-eye view of an aircraft carrier with damaged and exploding fighter planes on its flight deck. The deck is strewn with bodies and streaked with blood that trails into the water behind the ship to form a pattern reminiscent of the stripes of the American flag. A slogan is emblazoned across one corner: “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.”
The unveiling of the mural in Enghelab Square comes as the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and accompanying warships move toward the region. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the ships are being moved “just in case” he decides to take action.
“We have a massive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won’t have to use it,” Trump said Thursday.
Enghelab Square is used for gatherings called by the state and authorities change its mural based on national occasions. On Saturday, the commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard warned that his force is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger.”
Tension between the U.S. and Iran has spiked in the wake of a brutal crackdown on nationwide protests that saw thousands of people killed and tens of thousands arrested. Trump had threatened military action if Iran continued to kill peaceful protesters or carried out mass executions of those detained.
There have been no further protests for days and Trump claimed recently that Tehran had halted the planned execution of about 800 arrested protesters — a claim Iran’s top prosecutor called “completely false.”
But Trump has indicated he is keeping his options open, saying on Thursday that any military action would make last June’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites “look like peanuts.”
U.S. Central Command said on social media that its Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle now has a presence in the Middle East, noting the fighter jet “enhances combat readiness and promotes regional security and stability.”
Similarly, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Thursday that it deployed its Typhoon fighter jets to Qatar “in a defensive capacity.”
The protests in Iran began on Dec. 28, sparked by the fall of the Iranian currency, the rial, and quickly spread across the country. They were met by a violent crackdown by Iran’s theocracy, which does not tolerate dissent.
The death toll reported by activists has continued to rise since the end of the demonstrations, as information trickles out despite a more than two-week internet blackout — the most comprehensive in Iran’s history.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Sunday put the death toll at 5,529, with the number expected to increase. It says more than 41,200 people have been arrested.
The group’s figures have been accurate in previous unrest and rely on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths. That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify the toll.
Iran’s government has put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that a U.S. security guarantees document for Ukraine is “100% ready” after two days of talks involving representatives from Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia.
Speaking to journalists in Vilnius during a visit to Lithuania, Zelensky said Ukraine is waiting for its partners to set a signing date, after which the document would go to the U.S. Congress and Ukrainian parliament for ratification.
Zelensky also emphasized Ukraine’s push for European Union membership by 2027, calling it an “economic security guarantee.”
The Ukrainian leader described the talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as likely the first trilateral format in “quite a long while” that included not only diplomats but military representatives from all three sides. The talks, which began on Friday and continued Saturday, were the latest aiming to end Russia’s nearly four-year full-scale invasion.
Zelensky acknowledged fundamental differences between Ukrainian and Russian positions, reaffirming territorial issues as a major sticking point.
“Our position regarding our territory — Ukraine’s territorial integrity — must be respected,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed a Ukraine settlement with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during marathon talks late Thursday. The Kremlin insisted that to reach a peace deal, Kyiv must withdraw its troops from the areas in the east that Russia illegally annexed but has not fully captured.
Zelensky said the U.S. is trying to find a compromise, but that “all sides must be ready for compromise.”
Negotiators will return to the UAE on Feb. 1 for the next round of talks, according to a U.S. official. The recent talks covered a broad range of military and economic matters and included the possibility of a ceasefire before a deal, the official said. There was not yet an agreement on a final framework for oversight and operation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russia and is the largest in Europe.
PARIS — The captain of a tanker intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea by the French navy on suspicion of shipping oil in violation of sanctions against Russia was being held in custody on Sunday for questioning.
The ship’s Indian captain, 58, was handed to judicial authorities following the diversion of the oil tanker, Grinch, and its arrival at anchorage in the Gulf of Fos-sur-Mer, the Marseille prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The investigation is being conducted by the Maritime Gendarmerie’s Investigation Unit in Toulon, jointly with the Marseille Ship Safety Centre, on charges of failure to fly a valid flag, according to the statement, which added that the crew, also of Indian nationality, was being kept on board.
“The purpose of the investigation is to verify the validity of the flag flown by the tanker and the documents required for its navigation,” the statement said.
The Grinch came from Murmansk in northwestern Russia and is suspected of being part of the sanctioned Russian “shadow fleet.” A video provided by the French military showed members of the navy boarding the ship from a helicopter earlier this week.
Russia is believed to be using a fleet of over 400 ships to evade sanctions over its war on Ukraine. France and other countries have vowed to crack down.
The fleet comprises aging vessels and tankers owned by nontransparent entities with addresses in nonsanctioning countries, and sailing under flags from such countries.
MINNEAPOLIS — Alex Pretti, the man fatally shot by Border Patrol on Saturday, was a local intensive care nurse dedicated to caring for veterans, according to his family, friends, and co-workers.
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital,” Pretti’s family said in a statement shared with the Washington Post. “Alex wanted to make a difference in this world.”
Pretti, 37, is the third person shot by federal immigration officials in recent weeks.
He was shot outside a popular doughnut shop about a mile and a half from his home by U.S. Border Patrol, according to law enforcement officials. The shooting followed a scuffle between Pretti and Border Patrol agents, andPretti was in possession of a 9mm handgun,according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities believe Pretti was “a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference.
Trump officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem, called Pretti a “domestic terrorist.”
Pretti “came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers,” Noem said.
In the statement, Pretti’s family called the administration’s description of the shooting “sickening lies” and “reprehensible and disgusting.” The family said Pretti was trying to protect a woman who had been pushed down by immigration agents.
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by [President Donald] Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs,” the statement said. “Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
The shooting sparked protests and clashes between demonstrators and authorities near the scene, which state investigators said they were barred from accessing Saturday by federal officials.
Pretti had another physical encounter with immigration officers recently, according to a colleague, Joshua Green, who recalled him coming to work with a bandage on his eye. Pretti said he got a small cut after being struck by an immigration agent, Green recalled.
Pretti cared about human rights, Green said, and mentioned protesting in the wake of the shooting of Renée Good, who was killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Green said Pretti was not easily provoked or angry. “He was a very calm, collected person and always had a good demeanor,” he said. “He always had a smile. This is quite the shock.”
Aasma Shaukat said she hired Pretti for a research position at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System about a decade ago. “Alex was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul you ever met,” said Shaukat, now a physician and clinical researcher at the Manhattan VA Medical Center.
“He was very bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. He wanted to get into the healthcare field, work with patients and be a nurse,” she recalled. “He did wonderful. Did his work really well, was a team player.”
After finishing nursing school, Pretti returned to the Minneapolis VA as an intensive care nurse, she said.
“He wanted to serve the veterans, just had a high sense of duty and thought they were a vulnerable group in the country who needed our help,” she said.
Dimitri Drekonja, an infectious diseases physician at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, said he was impressed when Pretti secured a job in the ICU fresh out of nursing school. “It is a testament to his abilities that he felt ready for it, that he was up for that challenge and wanted to help,” said Drekonja, who worked with Pretti.
Pretti always greeted him by name, Drekonja recalled, and stood out from other nurses for his distinctive beard. They both loved mountain biking and often rode the same trails, he said.
They never spoke about immigration operations or politics at work, Drekonja said.
“He was really someone that helped,” Drekonja said. “It’s just impossible to imagine a negative interaction with him. And the fact that he was killed on city streets — as an employee of the U.S. government, by the U.S. government — it’s blowing my mind.”
Pretti was a member of a local nurses’ union, and its sister union, AFGE Council 238, issued a statement that called his shooting “appalling.”
“The murder of our union brother Alex Pretti is an unconscionable act of violence and a betrayal of the values federal workers are sworn to uphold,” AFGE Council 238 President Justin Chen said in a statement.
Pretti was excited about his future, said Shaukat. “Being an ICU nurse is tough — it’s pretty intense. But he was looking forward to getting a place, a car,” Shaukat said.
The shooting “feels so wrong,” she said. “Knowing Alex, he was probably trying to protect or help or shield somebody from the agents. He had not a single mean bone in his body; always spoke about doing the right thing.”
His father, Michael Pretti, told the Associated Press that he had warned his son to be careful. “We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
Pretti attended the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts and graduated in 2011, a university spokesperson said.
Pretti lived in a quiet, tree-lined South Minneapolis neighborhood of single family homes and small apartment buildings, where neighbors gather in the street on lawn chairs with food during the warmer months.
Chris Gray, 41, a special education math teacher, lives in an apartment building near Pretti’s. Gray — who has been patrolling the streets as one of many local volunteers monitoring the federal immigration crackdown — said that while he did not know Pretti well, the shooting felt personal.
“It feels like [these killings] are just what happens now,” Gray said. “That could have been me or anyone. I’ve rarely felt that way, until today.”
A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain, and snow across much of the U.S. on Sunday, bringing subzero temperatures and paralyzing air and road traffic. Power lines were draped in ice, and hundreds of thousands of people in the Southeast were left without electricity.
The ice and snowfall were expected to continue into Monday in much of the country, followed by very low temperatures, which could cause “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” to linger for several days, the National Weather Service said.
Heavy snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread,” weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview. “It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we’re talking like a 2,000-mile spread.”
President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to come. The Federal Emergency Management Agency prepositioned commodities, staff, and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state was bracing for the longest cold stretch and highest snow totals it has seen in years. Communities near the Canadian border have already seen record-breaking subzero temperatures, with Watertown registering minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit and Copenhagen minus 49 F, she said.
“An Arctic siege has taken over our state,” Hochul said. “It is brutal, it is bone chilling, and it is dangerous.”
Storm knocks out power and snarls flights
As of Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, Santorelli said. The number of customers without power topped 900,000, according to poweroutage.us, and the number was rising.
Tennessee was hardest hit with nearly 325,000 customers out, and Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi all had more than 100,000 customers in the dark. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were without power in Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia.
Some 11,000 flights had already been canceled Sunday and more than 13,000 have been delayed, according to the flight tracker flightaware.com. Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, North Carolina, New York, and New Jersey were hit especially hard.
At Philadelphia International Airport, inside displays registered scores of canceled flights and few vehicles could be seen arriving Sunday morning. At Reagan National in Washington, virtually all flights were canceled.
Bitter cold makes things worse
Even once the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will continue, Santorelli warned.
“Behind the storm it’s just going to get bitterly cold across basically the entirety of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, east of the Rockies,” she said. That means the ice and snow won’t melt as fast, which could hinder some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
Along the Gulf Coast, temperatures were balmy Sunday, hitting the high 60s and low 70s, but thermometers were expected to drop into the high 20s and low 30s there by Monday morning. The National Weather Service warned of damaging winds and a slight risk of severe storms and possibly even a brief tornado.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people died as temperatures plunged Saturday before the snows arrived in earnest.
“While it’s still too early to determine the causes of death, it is a reminder that every year New Yorkers succumb to the cold,” he wrote on X.
The Democrat also announced that Monday would be a remote learning day for students in the nation’s largest school system. Other officials across the affected areas also announced that school would be canceled or held remotely Monday.
Coping with the storm
In Corinth, Miss., where power outages were widespread, Caterpillar told employees at its remanufacturing site to stay home Monday and Tuesday.
“May God have mercy on Corinth, MS! … The sound of the trees snapping, exploding & falling through the night have been unnerving to say the least,” resident Kathy Ragan said on Facebook.
University of Georgia sophomore Eden England said there was a thin layer of ice on the ground of the campus in Athens and a mist fell as she walked with friends from the campus dining hall to her residence hall.
“It is definitely a little deserted but plenty of people chose to stay on campus,” England said.
Recovery could take a while
Nashville and the surrounding area saw ice accumulations of half an inch or more, with icicles hanging from power lines and overburdened tree limbs crashing to the ground.
In Oxford, Miss., police on Sunday morning used social media to tell residents to stay home as the danger of being outside was too great. Local utility crews were also pulled from their jobs during the overnight hours.
“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early Sunday. “Trees are actively snapping and falling around our linemen while they are in the bucket trucks.”
Tippah Electric Power in Mississippi said there was “catastrophic damage” and that it could be “weeks instead of days” to restore everyone.
The Tennessee Valley Authority provides power to some utilities across the region, and spokesperson Scott Brooks said the bulk power system remains stable but overnight icing had caused power interruptions in north Mississippi, north Alabama, southern middle Tennessee, and the Knoxville, Tenn., area.
Icy roads made travel dangerous in north Georgia, where the Cherokee County Sheriff’s office posted on Facebook, “You know it’s bad when Waffle House is closed!!!” along with a photo of a shuttered restaurant. Whether the chain’s restaurants are open — known as the Waffle House Index — has become an informal way to gauge the severity of weather disasters across the South.
MINNEAPOLIS — In dueling news conferences, federal and state officials offered starkly different messages Sunday about the immigration crackdown that has swept across Minneapolis and surrounding cities, with both claiming the moral high ground in the wake of another shooting death by federal agents.
“Which side do you want to be on?” Gov. Tim Walz asked the public. “The side of an all-powerful federal government that could kill, injure, menace, and kidnap its citizens off the streets, or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing witness to such government,” a reference to the shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday in Minneapolis.
At the same time, in a federal office building about 20 miles away, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, the public face of the crackdown, again turned blame for the shooting to Pretti.
“When someone makes the choice to come into an active law enforcement scene, interfere, obstruct, delay, or assault law enforcement officer and — and they bring a weapon to do that. That is a choice that that individual made,” he told reporters.
The competing comments emerged as local leaders and Democrats across the country demanded federal immigration officers leave Minnesota after Pretti’s shooting, which set off clashes with protesters in a city already shaken by another shooting death weeks earlier.
Video contradicts administration statements
Video shot by bystanders and reviewed by the Associated Press appears to contradict statements by President Donald Trump’s administration, which said agents fired “defensively” against Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, as he approached them.
Pretti can be seen with only a phone in his hand as he steps between an immigration agent and a woman on the street. No footage appears to show him with a weapon. During the scuffle, agents appear to disarm him after discovering that he was carrying a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, and then the agents opened fire several times. Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.
In the hours after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti attacked officers, and Bovino said he wanted to “massacre law enforcement.”
Bovino was more restrained Sunday, saying he would not speculate about the shooting and that he planned to wait for the investigation.
Relatives say they are heartbroken
Pretti’s family said they were “heartbroken but also very angry” at authorities. Relatives were furious at federal officials’ description of the shooting.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand, and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed,” the family statement said. “Please get the truth out about our son.”
Pretti was shot just over a mile from where an ICE officer killed 37-year-old Renee Good on Jan. 7, sparking widespread protests.
A federal judge has already issued an order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting, after state and county officials sued.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the lawsuit filed Saturday is meant to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect. A court hearing is scheduled for Monday in federal court in St. Paul.
“A full, impartial, and transparent investigation into his fatal shooting at the hands of DHS agents is nonnegotiable,” Ellison said in a statement.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which investigates police shootings, told reporters Saturday that federal officers blocked his agency from the scene of the shooting even after it obtained a signed judicial warrant. On Sunday morning, bureau officers were working at the scene.
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the lawsuit, saying claims that the federal government would destroy evidence are “a ridiculous attempt to divide the American people and distract from the fact that our law enforcement officers were attacked — and their lives were threatened.”
The Minnesota National Guard temporarily assisted local police at Walz’s direction, officials said, with troops sent to the shooting site and a federal building where officers have squared off daily with demonstrators.
But Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Sunday morning on CBS’ Face the Nation that “it’s back to just the Minneapolis police responding to calls.”
No evidence that Pretti brandished gun
O’Hara said he had seen no evidence that Pretti brandished the pistol, and that the crackdown was exhausting his department.
“This is taking an enormous toll, trying to manage all this chaos on top of having to be the police department for a major city. It’s too much,” he said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was among several Democratic lawmakers demanding that federal immigration authorities leave Minnesota.
In a statement, former President Barack Obama called Pretti’s death a “heartbreaking tragedy” and warned that “many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.”
He urged the White House to work with city and state officials.
“This has to stop,” Obama said.
Federal officials have repeatedly questioned why Pretti was armed during the confrontation. But gun rights groups noted that it’s legal to carry firearms during protests.
“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights,” the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said in a statement. “These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed.”
Minnesota businesses issue letter urging cooperation
“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the open letter reads.
CEOs that signed the letter included 3M CEO William Brown, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening, Target incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke, UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Helmsley, and others.
Before the letter, most of the biggest Minnesota-based companies had not issued any public statements about the enforcement surge and unrest.
But the issue has become more difficult to avoid. Over the past two weeks protesters have targeted some businesses they see not taking a strong enough stand against federal law enforcement activity, including Minneapolis-based Target. Earlier in January a Minnesota hotel that wouldn’t allow federal immigration agents to stay there apologized and said the refusal violated its own policies after a furor online.
“In this difficult moment for our community, we call for peace and focused cooperation among local, state and federal leaders to achieve a swift and durable solution that enables families, businesses, our employees, and communities across Minnesota to resume our work to build a bright and prosperous future,” the letter reads.
It may not approach their magnitudes, but Sunday’s snow-and-ice cold brew is expected to bear eerie similarities to some of Philly’s historic winter storms and perhaps rival them for disruption.
By 7 a.m., up to 3 inches had been reported around the region, with heaviest amounts to the south where the snow started earlier.
Officially, at Philadelphia International Airport, 1.6 inches had been measured, already making this the city’s biggest official total of the month. But Center City trumped it at 1.8.
From 8 to 10 inches was expected around the city before the snow mixes with sleet and possibly freezing rain during the afternoon, said Nick Guzzo, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly. All that is subject to change, of course.
As for the potential mixing, “pick your poison,” said Guzzo’s colleague Mike Lee.
The office has posted winter storm warnings for the entire region, joining offices from New Mexico to Maine.
A crew from northern Illinois works to restore power at Broad Street and Warren Avenue in Malvern after the February 2014 ice storm.
The precipitation is due to shut off early Monday, but by then it may be a case of welcome to ice station Philly.
Nothing that falls is going to melt, as temperatures will get no higher than the 20s Sunday and may not see 30 for the rest of the week
Affirming their faith in the forecasts, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have declared emergencies. If you have plans the next few days, don’t count on them happening, and some kids might be able to put off homework for a few days.
Perhaps of more interest to some parties, Pennsylvania announced that all its liquor stores will be closed Sunday, and the Girl Scouts have pushed back their cookie-sale dates all the way to the spring equinox. (At least some of the bars and churches may be open.)
How much for Philly?
On Saturday, the National Weather Service was sticking with 8 to 10 inches for the immediate Philly area, said meteorologist Amanda Lee, with less to the southeast. AccuWeather Inc. was calling for 6 to 10 inches.
A lot of that would fall during a “front-end thump,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Elizabeth Glenny. Once the mixing begins, accumulation rates would back off.
While people understandably want to know how many inches of snow are going to land, that is almost always difficult to answer, meteorologists say, especially in a storm of this nature.
In this case, snow amounts are dependent on a coastal storm that had not yet formed Saturday and on what might happen in parts of the atmosphere that are not well-observed.
Temperatures in the bottom 5,500 feet of the atmosphere over Philly are expected to remain below freezing, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines, but computer models insist that a warm layer in the higher atmosphere would result in the changeover.
That warmth would be imported from the Atlantic Ocean by the strong onshore winds from the northeast generated by the storm — it’s not for nothing that these things are called nor’easters.
Another wild card would be if the snow is heavy enough that it could survive the warm layer and delay the changeover.
But the mixing of sleet, which is liquid that remains frozen in its trip through the atmosphere, and freezing rain, liquid that freezes on contact, is inevitable, forecasters said.
Freezing rain atop a snowpack is especially dangerous because it adds weight to vulnerable and snow-burdened power lines and tree branches. Sleet is polite enough to bounce off hard surfaces, but since it is pure ice, it is slower to melt.
Said the weather service’s Mike Lee, the mixing “just means we’re getting a different blend of horrors.”
Remembrance of Philly storms past
Mike Lee said that about 1.5 inches of liquid precipitation — the amount of melted snow and ice — was expected to fall during the storm, and whatever landed was certain to participate in becoming a massive block of ice.
And it is close to what fell during Philly’s last double-digit snow, the 22.4 inches of Jan. 22-23, 2016.
Market Street near 13th is mostly pedestrian traffic as snow falls over the region on Jan. 23, 2016.
In mid-March 1993, a foot of snow accumulated rapidly during a blizzard, followed by several hours of sleet and a flash freeze during the early morning. It created what a weather service meteorologist famously called an “Arctic landscape.”
The landscape Monday may be similar, but with one important difference.
That March storm occurred near the equinox, when the sun was about 50% stronger than it is this time of year, according to NASA data, and days were close to two hours longer. (Yes, those days are coming.)
The temperature bottomed out at 11 degrees Saturday morning, the lowest reading of the season at Philadelphia International Airport, and into the single digits outside the city.
Most airlines have canceled flights departing Sunday from Philadelphia International Airport. By late Saturday afternoon, there were 502 canceled flights into or out of the airport, according to the city.
Temperatures are expected to get no higher than the mid-20s Sunday and Monday. And then it’s going to get colder, with daytime highs no better than the low 20s, and nights in the single digits.
Philly’s biggest snow in five years has an icy finish, and it isn’t going anywhere soon
George Lynch, 11, slides on his stomach down 2nd Street in the Society Hill neighborhood Sunday.
Hours of percussive sleet layered a nasty icing on Philadelphia’s biggest snowfall in five years Sunday, and it may be some time before bare ground resurfaces in the region, if not normality.
This was not the stuff of postcards.
Officially 7.4 inches of snow was measured at unusually quiet Philadelphia International Airport, with similar amounts reported in the neighboring counties, as temperatures didn’t get out of the teens during the day anywhere near Philly.
And shovelers beware: That mess may weight as much as 18 inches of pure snow. Besides, we may be out of practice. This was the most snow since the 81 inches of Feb. 2-3, 2021. Incidentally, that snowfall was the biggest in five years, in what has been a generally snow-deprived decade.
Forecasters say it is unlikely that the precipitation would flip back to snow, but some additional accumulation was possible, since sleet — liquid that freezes before it lands — counts as snow. In some places it was falling at the rate of 0.5 inches an hour, the National Weather Service said, an extraordinary rate for sleet.
Some freezing rain — liquid that freezes on contact with a surface — was possible Sunday evening, said Nick Guzzo, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
However, widespread power outages were unlikely, a function of the unusual behavior of a potent but peculiar storm that wrought a familiar set of disruptions and inconveniences.
A pedestrian walks under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge Sunday.
A far-reaching winter storm blanketed the Mid-Atlantic in an icy brew of snow and sleet Sunday, with preliminary totals nearing a foot in parts of New Jersey.
Philadelphia ranked near the top end of regional totals. A survey of five regional National Weather Service offices showed PHL’s total ranked 103rd of 565 reports made in the last six hours.
The Philadelphia metropolitan region generally received between four and nine inches of snow by early Sunday afternoon, according to National Weather Service reports.
Among the highest totals:
Pottstown – 9.5 inches
Norristown – 8.7 inches
Stowe – 8.5 inches
Lower Pottsgrove – 8.5 inches
New Hanover – 8.5 inches
Use the map and chart below to find preliminary snow totals in your area. Hover over dots on the map to reveal more information, or search for Philadelphia-area totals below.
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Russ Walters skies along Race Street in the Old City neighborhood Sunday. Pedestrians walk in the middle of a plowed but empty Haddon Avenue in downtown Collingswood. Mike Doveton and his daughters. Maya, 10, and Jaydan (hidden), 6, board a PATCO train with their sleds heading out to snow. A pedestrian uses their umbrella as snow falls on Race Street.
// Timestamp 01/25/26 1:41pm
Philly officially has its biggest snow in five years
Julie Cohen makes a snow angel on the snow covered lawn at Independence Mall Sunday.
At 1 p.m., 7.4 inches of snow was measured at Philadelphia International Airport, the biggest snow in five years.
It also pushed the seasonal total to 13.8 inches, also the highest since the winter of 2020-21.
Given how cold it was during the snowfall, the regional totals didn’t show their usual wide variations, and were mostly in the 6- to 8-inch range. It’s possible that another inch could be added to the totals with the slow-accumulating sleet and a possible flip-back to light snow before the precipitation ends.
Some freezing rain also is possible late in the day or evening Sunday.
Two pedestrian brave the weather in Washington Square Park Sunday.
Temperatures at the surface remain in the teens, but sleet has routed the snow throughout the region.
Before the changeover, weather service spotters reported as much as 7 inches of snow. By convention, spotters measure snow before changeovers, since sleet and rain compress the snowpack.
Sleet, which is liquid that freezes on the way to the surface, counts as snowfall, but it accumulates ponderously. A tenth of an inch of liquid will yield about an inch of snow, but it would take three times that to produce an inch of sleet.
The changeover is the result of a layer of warm air in the upper atmosphere imported from the ocean by the onshore winds of a potent coastal storm.
The sleet is due continue this afternoon, and freezing rain also remains a possibility before it all ends late tonight or early Monday, said Nick Guzzo, meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly.
Whereas sleet and freezing rain hold down accumulations, he notes that they slow down the melting process.
Ice cubes take longer to melt than snowflakes.
Be careful shoveling. The whole frozen mess may feel like it weighs as much as 18 inches of snow.
Mike Orazietti takes a break at Wawa from snowplowing in West Chester Sunday.
Five inches or more of snow have fallen in several locations in the Philly region, according to reports from National Weather Service trained spotters.
Here is the current list, which is likely to grow before sleet mixes in the next few hours:
Lehigh Valley International Airport cancels all flights Sunday
ABE is currently closed. Snow Ops continue as long as weather conditions allow for our team to work safely. We encourage travelers to check with their airline for flight delays or cancellations impacting Sunday / Monday's schedule. @69News@mcall@LVNewsdotcom@lehighvalleypic.twitter.com/MyTfQgElWI
Warming centers across Philadelphia will remain open during this storm as part of the ongoing Code Blue declaration, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said a news conference Sunday.
24-hour warming centers are available for use, stocked with water, snacks, blankets, warming kits, and cots, said Crystal Yates-Galle, deputy managing director for health and human services.
Jonathan Ahmad (left) and Michael Thompson clear snow in Old City Sunday.
Carlton Williams, director of the office of clean and green initiatives, debunked a widespread piece of misinformation he said has been circulating online.
No, he said, the city is not handing out free salt, which it needs for roadways and events given the expected icy conditions.
“We must be smart about the work that we’re doing … because this is a matter of life and death if we don’t get this right,” Williams said at a news conference Sunday.
Williams said 4 to 7 inches of snow are expected to fall in the next couple hours, and it’s likely to freeze.
Meanwhile, in some parts of the city, accumulation will likely get to a point where snow must be removed from the neighborhood and deposited elsewhere.
The city has also invested in a snow melter “that delivers 135 tons an hour melting snow,” Williams said.
So far, that snow has fallen at a rate of two inches in two hours, said Dom Morales, director of the office of emergency management
Like other officials, he warned of treacherous conditions on the roads, noting that state’s 511PA website can provide details on road conditions.
“Whether you have four wheel drive, all wheel drive, the conditions are not favorable to being on the road right now,” Morales said.
He warned that sleet and freezing rain could create “invisible ice” and lead people to fall off their stoops even if they’ve shoveled earlier.
Morales encouraged people to keep their phones charged in case power goes out and check out the city’s website for details on how to respond to common scenarios including a downed tree, a water emergency, and a power outage.
“Philly we have a few more days ahead of us,” Morales said. “So please, let’s keep ready, and let’s take care of one another.”
Cherry Hill Mall, Christiana Mall close due to snow
Carmen Roman clears snow off her car at the Wawa on Haddonfield Road in Cherry Hill Sunday.
Both the Cherry Hill Mall and the Christiana Mall will be closed Sunday due to the snow.
In New Castle County, level 2 driving restrictions are in effect, meaning only essential personnel are permitted to drive.
In Philadelphia, Emilia, James Beard Award-winning chef Greg Vernick’s Italian restaurant in Kensington, has postponed its scheduled opening from Monday to Tuesday. Vernick told The Inquirer he was unsure if his fish supplier could deliver Monday.
Alex Peralta shovels a sidewalk on Gay Street in West Chester, Pa., Sunday.
Snow totals of 4 to 6 inches have been reported across the region as heavy snow continues.
Meanwhile, the sleet line continues to advance northward and had reached central Delaware by mid morning. The Washington, D.C., area flipped to sleet around 8:30 a.m., after about seven inches had accumulated.
Sleet is expected to join the party in the immediate Philly area by early afternoon, and that would put the brakes on further accumulations. Before that happens, it is possible that the city officially will have had its biggest snowfall in five years.
Parker warns Philly residents to stay home and off the roads
A pedestrian uses their umbrella as snow falls in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia Sunday.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker asked people to stay home and off the roads if possible as the city grapples with a winter storm that has dumped about three inches so far — and is expected to turn to ice in the coming hours.
“This remains a significant winter storm, and there are rough travel conditions expected all day,” Parker said.
Parker said 1,000 city workers are clearing roads and sidewalks and battling snow with about 600 pieces of equipment, including triaxial dump trucks, loaders, sanitation compactors with plows attached, and pickup trucks.
“And this was a new one for me, Philadelphia, even ATVs have been deployed,” Parker noted.
Philadelphia remains under a snow emergency that began Saturday night at 9 p.m.. The city has no update on when it plans to lift the emergency.
The city has teams working in “an enhanced emergency posture” to address the needs of people affected by the bitter cold. The city has implemented 250 additional beds for those in need, Parker said. If residents see anyone in need of immediate help, they can call 215-232-1984.
SEPTA to suspend bus, regional rail service at 2 p.m.
A SEPTA Regional rail train heading through the East Falls section of Philadelphia Sunday.
SEPTA will suspend all bus and Regional Rail service at 2 p.m. Sunday, the agency announced.
As for trolley service, the T1 is suspended, the T3 is cutting back at 59th/Chester, and the T4 is cutting back at Island/Woodland, SEPTA said. The T2 and T5 are currently running regular service.
The Market-Frankford and Broad Street subway lines will continue to run. through the storm, the agency said. Crews have been assigned to keep station entrances, platforms, and sidewalks clean of ice and snow, as best they can.
A pedestrian walks across Race Street along 2nd Street in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia. Michael Thompson (right) and Jonathan Ahmad clear snow. Carmen Roman clears snow off her car after dropping her partner off at work at the Costco In Cherry Hill early Sunday morning.
// Timestamp 01/25/26 9:27am
$5 parking in Center City garages to avoid getting your car towed
A Philadelphia Parking Authority truck tows a car from South Broad Street, a snow emergency route, earlier this month.
As the snow covers everything in its path, parking on designated snow emergency routes is the fastest way to get your car towed.
To prevent this, the Philadelphia Parking authority is offering $5 parking for 24 hours in Center City garages until the snow emergency is lifted.
Philadelphia Family Court Garage (1503-11 Arch Street – Going south on 15th Street, enter the garage on the west side just after 15th & Cherry Streets)
Meters and time limit violations won’t be enforced until the emergency ends. But if you suspect your car was towed, call 215-686-SNOWor visit www.philapark.org/tow to locate it. A license plate number is needed.
PennDOT and Philadelphia Department of Streets are working hard plowing to keep highways and roads passable. Please avoid unnecessary travel so they have room to safely work. If traveling, use caution and give yourself at least 6 car lengths behind snow response equipment. pic.twitter.com/yATOdEnJqV
2 to 3 inches of snow have already fallen across the Philadelphia region.
Not that the bar was especially high, but officially Philly has had its biggest snowfall of the month, with 1.6 inches measured officially at the mostly dormant Philadelphia International Airport.
That tops the 1.1-inch report of last weekend. It also brings the seasonal total to 8, and one of the safer bets is that this winter will end up being snowier than the winter of 2024-25 – 8.1 inches.
By 8:30 a.m., amounts of 2.5 to 3 inches were common throughout the region.
The next official report from PHL is due at 1 p.m. For now, it is playing catch-up with the 1.8-inch reading at Rittenhouse Square.
Heavy snow arrives, with ice to follow. It all may stick around for a week or more.
Dog walkers and fresh snow along Cresson Street in the East Falls section of Philadelphia.
It may not approach their magnitudes, but Sunday’s snow-and-ice cold brew is expected to bear eerie similarities to some of Philly’s historic winter storms and perhaps rival them for disruption.
By 7 a.m., up to 3 inches had been reported around the region, with heaviest amounts to the south where the snow started earlier.
Officially, at Philadelphia International Airport, 1.6 inches had been measured, already making this the city’s biggest official total of the month. But Center City trumped it at 1.8.
From 8 to 10 inches was expected around the city before the snow mixes with sleet and possibly freezing rain during the afternoon, said Nick Guzzo, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly. All that is subject to change, of course.
The precipitation is due to shut off early Monday, but by then it may be a case of welcome to ice station Philly.
Nothing that falls is going to melt, as temperatures will get no higher than the 20s Sunday and may not see 30 for the rest of the week
Snow falls in Manayunk. Several inches of snow have already fallen in Bear, Del. Snow covers the trees in Conshohocken, Montgomery County.
// Timestamp 01/25/26 8:11am
Cancellations piling up at PHL
Crews deice a Delta plane as snow falls at Philadelphia International Airport Sunday, Jan 25, 2026.
At least 641 flights have been canceled going into or out of Philadelphia International Airport Sunday, as a major snowstorm moves across the Northeast.
Due to the reduced number of flights, TSA agents will only be operating at checkpoints A-East, D/E, and F.
Travels are encouraged to check with their airlines for the latest flight information.
The National Weather Service is forecasting 8.5 inches of snow will fall in Philadelphia, followed by sleet and freezing rain.
On Saturday, the National Weather Service was going with 8 to 10 inches for the immediate Philly area, said meteorologist Amanda Lee, with less to the southeast. AccuWeather Inc. was calling for 6 to 10 inches.
A lot of that would fall during a “front-end thump,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Elizabeth Glenny. Once the mixing begins, accumulation rates would back off.
While people understandably want to know how many inches of snow are going to land, that is almost always difficult to answer, meteorologists say, especially in a storm of this nature.
In this case, snow amounts are dependent on a coastal storm that had not yet formed Saturday and on what might happen in parts of the atmosphere that are not well-observed.
Temperatures in the bottom 5,500 feet of the atmosphere over Philly are expected to remain below freezing, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines, but computer models insist that a warm layer in the higher atmosphere would result in the changeover.
That warmth would be imported from the Atlantic Ocean by the strong onshore winds from the northeast generated by the storm — it’s not for nothing that these things are called nor’easters.
Another wild card would be if the snow is heavy enough that it could survive the warm layer and delay the changeover.
But the mixing of sleet, which is liquid that remains frozen in its trip through the atmosphere, and freezing rain, liquid that freezes on contact, is inevitable, forecasters said.
Freezing rain atop a snowpack is especially dangerous because it adds weight to vulnerable and snow-burdened power lines and tree branches. Sleet is polite enough to bounce off hard surfaces, but since it is pure ice, it is slower to melt.
Said the weather service’s Mike Lee, the mixing “just means we’re getting a different blend of horrors.”
Midvale Avenue is covered in fresh snow in the East Falls section of Philadelphia.
Snow is forecast to accumulate rapidly Sunday morning, with temperatures in the teens and snowfall rates of one to two inches per hour.
Models were suggesting sleet could mix in as soon as early afternoon, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.
Temperatures in the bottom 5,500 feet of the atmosphere are going to remain well below freezing. However, as the coastal storm intensifies, its onshore winds from the northeast are forecast to import warmer air from over the ocean into the upper atmosphere, which would change the snow to sleet and rain Sunday afternoon and evening.
It’s possible the precipitation will flip back to all snow and accumulate maybe another inch early Monday, Staarmann said. But at that point it would have all the impact of drizzle in the ocean. The mass of snow and ice evidently will be vacationing in Philly for a while.
“It will stick around for a week, maybe two weeks,” Staarmann said.
Vehicle restrictions on Pa. highways now in effect
PennDOT implemented vehicle restrictions on Pennsylvania highways due to the storm
Vehicle restrictions aimed at limiting the number of cars on roads statewide during Sunday’s snowstorm are not in effect across Pennsylvania.
PennDot’s vehicle restrictions are instituted in a tiered system, with today’s coming in at tier four — the second-highest level. Under that tier, commercial vehicles are totally prohibited from using a number of interstates around Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
“The decision to implement these restrictions was made with the intention of balancing safety for everyone on the roadway, including commercial drivers,” PennDot secretary Mike Carroll told reporters Friday at a news conference. “We will remove these restrictions as soon as conditions warrant.”
In addition to limiting the travel of vehicles like tractor trailers and commercial buses, PennDot’s restrictions also apply to school buses, motorcycles, RVs, and passenger vehicles that are towing trailers, Carroll added. None of those vehicles, he said, are permitted to use roadways while the restrictions are in place.
Officials urged motorists to stay home, noting the anticipated snowfall rate of one to two inches per hour, as well as the overall snowfall totals, will make keeping roads safe and clear difficult.
Restrictions, PennDot notes online, are evaluated hourly. Pennsylvania’s traveler information website, 511PA, keeps an up to date map of which roads are impacted by the restrictions, and Carroll recommended travelers check that website before heading out, should they absolutely have to.
“Stay home and watch the NFL games, despite the fact that the Eagles and Steelers are not playing,” Carroll said.
But as large and disruptive as this storm will likely be, it will have a difficult time cracking the list of the top January snowstorms in Philly history.
It would take 12.3 inches of snow for this latest storm to make its way on to the list of the snowiest January storms in Philly history. That would match a 1922 event dubbed the “Knickerbocker storm” because snow caused the collapse of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., killing 98 people, which remains the worst natural disaster in the city’s history.
Here’s the full list of the Philly snowfalls of a foot or more in January history:
