MILAN — A Ukrainian skeleton athlete was barred from competing at the Winter Olympics just hours before his race Thursday after he refused to remove a helmet honoring compatriots killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is the latest twist in a controversy that has cast a shadow over the opening days of these Games.
Vladyslav Heraskevych was removed from the starting list for the men’s skeleton event after the jury of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation ruled that the helmet he intended to wear violated the Olympic Charter and the International Olympic Committee’s Guidelines on Athlete Expression.
His removal came after an early morning meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry that an IOC spokesman described as “respectful,” in which Coventry tried to find a way for Heraskevych to compete wearing a different helmet, but he refused.
Heraskevych has appealed his disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that he violated no Olympic rules and was denied the same treatment afforded to other athletes.
The men’s skeleton event began Thursday morning in Cortina d’Ampezzo without Heraskevych. Two qualifying heats were run Thursday in the men’s skeleton event. Heraskevych is arguing he should either be allowed back into the semifinal Friday or be allowed to do a run by himself, supervised by race officials. CAS, which has an ad hoc division at the Games, has 24 hours to rule, but Heraskevych would need a quick ruling.
Later Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded the Order of Freedom to Heraskevych. The decree said the award is for “selfless service to the Ukrainian people, civic courage, and patriotism in defending the ideals of freedom and democratic values.”
“I never wanted a scandal with the IOC, and I did not create one,” Heraskevych said in Ukrainian in a social media video. “The IOC created it through its interpretation of the rules, which many consider discriminatory. While the IOC’s actions made it possible to speak loudly about Ukrainian athletes who were killed, the very existence of the scandal diverts a huge amount of attention away from the competition itself and from the athletes taking part in it. That is why I, once again, propose bringing this scandal to an end.”
Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych takes part in the skeleton men’s training session at Cortina Sliding Centre during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo on February 11, 2026.
The IOC had been wrestling with the matter for several days. The Olympic governing body said under long-standing Olympic rules, athletes are prohibited from making political demonstrations on the field of play or during medal ceremonies. In recent days, IOC officials worked repeatedly with Heraskevych and Ukrainian team officials to come up with a compromise. He was allowed to wear the helmet during training runs and the IOC first suggested he wear a black armband, eventually offering him a chance to wear the helmet after he finished his competition run as well as carry it through the post-event interview area known as the mixed zone.
“We dearly wanted him to compete,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said in a Thursday morning news conference in Milan. “It would have sent a very powerful message. We were happy to provide him with a number of occasions to express his grief.”
The IOC originally said Heraskevych would be stripped of his accreditation, meaning he would likely be forced to leave the Games, but after Coventry appealed to the IOC’s disciplinary commission, she announced he will be allowed to remain at the Olympics.
Athlete protests have long been a thorny issue for the IOC, whose officials have wrestled for years with trying to balance the right for athletes to speak about controversial causes while also maintaining the neutrality the organization feels it must have to be fair to all countries. It tries to stamp out any indication of protest in actual competition.
“Sport without rules cannot function,” Adams said. “If we have no rules, we have no sport.”
Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been particularly challenging for the IOC. The organization moved quickly to push global sports federations to suspend Russian teams from competitions, then barred the Russian Olympic Committee over Russia’s attempts to claim athletes in seized Ukrainian territories as Russian. In the Paris 2024 Games and in Milan Cortina, the IOC is allowing a handful of Russian athletes to compete as what it calls individual neutral athletes, forbidding them to show support for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and prohibiting them from wearing Russian colors or displaying Russian flags.
The IOC’s hard line against Russia has appeared to soften in recent months, and many in the Olympic world expect the IOC to find a way to bring Russia back before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The IOC’s slight warming toward Russia has alarmed Ukrainians, however.
Heraskevych said he plans to appeal his disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that he violated no Olympic rules and was denied the same treatment afforded to other athletes. CAS, which has an ad hoc division at the Games, had not registered a complaint before Thursday’s qualifying runs.
“I still believe we did not break any rules and had every right to compete wearing that helmet, on equal terms with other athletes who did similar things earlier at these Olympic Games,” Heraskevych said Thursday in comments to Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne Sport.
Heraskevych challenged IOC claims that the helmet with the faces of the deceased athletes is a political statement.
“The helmet itself carries no political message,” Heraskevych said. “I believe I had the full right to compete in it.”
He expressed “serious doubts” about Coventry’s commitment to Ukraine and balked at the idea of wearing the helmet before and after the race.
“I believe I deserve the same rights as athletes in other sports from other countries,” Heraskevych said. “For some reason, I was not granted those rights.”
His father and coach, Mykhailo Heraskevych, said Coventry argued during their meeting that displaying images of athletes killed by Russia could “create chaos” within the Olympic movement and interfere with celebration of the Games.
“It felt like bargaining,” Mykhailo Heraskevych said. “That is unacceptable, because the memory of Ukrainian heroes is not for sale, and never will be.”
He added that the origins of the Olympic Games lie in honoring fallen warriors. “Our helmet emphasized the very foundation of the Olympic tradition,” he said. “It is painful that the IOC — and its president, herself an Olympic champion — appear to have forgotten that history.”
“Vlad was in peak condition. Based on recent training results, he would have been competing in the medal zone,” he said. “That opportunity was taken away. But more importantly, the IOC attempted to erase the memory of Ukrainian heroes.”
He argued that the disqualification extended beyond the athlete.
“The IOC did not disqualify Vladyslav — it disqualified Ukraine,” he said, citing support from Ukraine’s president, parliament, sports ministry, national Olympic committee and frontline soldiers. “This is the disqualification of democracy in favor of private interests,” he added, alleging there was pressure from Russia.
“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” Zelensky said in a message on X. “Unfortunately, the decision of the International Olympic Committee to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise. This is certainly not about the principles of Olympism, which are founded on fairness and the support of peace.”
Late Thursday morning, Coventry spoke to reporters near the competition venue and repeated what other IOC officials had said — pulling Heraskevych from the event was not about protecting Russia or silencing Ukrainian athletes.
“No one — especially me — is disagreeing with the messaging,” she said. “The messaging is a powerful message. It’s a message of remembrance. It’s a message of memory.”
As the Department of Homeland Security approaches an increasingly likely shutdown this weekend, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks) said reforms to ICE, including banning masks for federal immigration agents, should be a part of any funding extensions for DHS.
“I’m the only federal agent in Congress,” Fitzpatrick, who served in the FBI for 14 years, said in an interview Thursday. “I spent my whole professional career as an FBI agent. Never once did I wear a mask, never. Executing a search warrant, arrest warrant, you name it, because you need to be transparent. You need to identify yourself. The whole function of policing requires the trust of the public.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol, the agencies involved in the fatal shootings of two American citizens last month in Minnesota, both fall under DHS, which will enter a shutdown if lawmakers do not reach a funding deal by Friday.
The Border Patrol and ICE would continue to operate after receiving funding from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but a lapse in funding to DHS would affect other agencies under the department, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, of which many employees would be working without pay.
Democrats have demanded that restrictions on masking and other changes to immigration enforcement be part of any funding deal.
Fitzpatrick, who represents a purple district, is rare among Republicans in accepting Democrats’ proposal as Congress grapples with a national reckoning over Trump’s immigration crackdown after federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in shootings caught on video.
“There is broken trust between the public and ICE, and we have to restore that trust,” Fitzpatrick said.
“And the only way you restore that trust is by enacting reforms that are going to rebuild that social contract,” he continued. “Because policing is a social contract, whether it be local law enforcement or federal law enforcement.”
In the aftermath of the shootings in Minnesota, the House ended a four-day government shutdown earlier this month by passing a five-bill funding package that excluded DHS. Fitzpatrick, who voted for the House bill, said he would aim to work with Democrats to come up with a solution.
Negotiations on DHS’s allocation appeared to be at a standstill Thursday ahead of lawmakers going on a 10-day break, making a partial shutdown appear likely. In the U.S. Senate, a vote to advance a funding bill was rejected in a 52-47 tally Thursday, falling short of the necessary 60-vote threshold, the Associated Press reported.
“The agents wearing masks, I think primarily that’s driven by people are going to dox those people. That’s a serious concern, too, absolutely,” Fetterman said in a Fox News interview with correspondent Jacqui Heinrich (who is engaged to Fitzpatrick).
Whether ICE agents should be allowed to wear masks has become a point of contention since the escalation of Trump’s immigration policies, with legislative bodies across the U.S., including in Philadelphia City Council, introducing legislation to prohibit them.
Fitzpatrick, cochair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said Thursday that he believes there is “unanimity” among lawmakers in Washington for reforms, like requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras and prohibiting them from wearing masks.
The Bucks County lawmaker, one of nine Republicans representing districts that went for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, has frequently touted his willingness to break withTrump on issues, such as voting to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and opposing the final passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. (Democratic opponents note that he cast a key vote to advance an earlier version of Trump’s legislation.)
As for next steps, Fitzpatrick said he and U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.), cochair of the Problem Solvers Caucus with Fitzpatrick, are continuing to communicate with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) as discussions over DHS funding and changes continue.
“I would hope that we can all agree that everybody needs to be treated humanely and with respect and with dignity, that everybody believes in upholding the rule of law, everybody believes in the constitutional rights of everybody in this country,” Fitzpatrick said.
CLAIRTON, Pa. — For Don Furko, Aug. 11, 2025, was a normal shift. Until it became the shift he would never forget.
At 10:47 a.m., U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works outside Pittsburgh — a sprawling riverside industrial facility and the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere — erupted in an ear-piercing boom.
A steelworker for 25 years and former Clairton local union president, Furko pulled on flame-retardant jacket and pants, a hard hat and safety glasses, left his post and rushed to the black plume of smoke rising from the facility’s batteries — the massive arrangements of industrial ovens that heat coal to some 2,000 degrees, turning it into carbon-rich coke.
Steelworker Renee Hough stands at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Jan. 29. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
Near the wharf, Renee Hough, a utility technician in charge of loading coke, sat in the cab of the plant’s screening station when the explosion ripped through the air, blinding her in black dust. “My first thought was I was dead,” Hough recalls. Flames emerged as the dust settled, and a voice crackled through the radio: Battery 13 had just exploded.
“I can’t even explain how mangled everything was,” Furko recalls. “There were flames everywhere.” Workers shuttled the injured to the helipad for evacuation. Through the chaos, Furko heard a fellow steelworker screaming, buried beneath the rubble.
A worker in the coal fields at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Nov. 19, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
The blast killed two U.S. Steel workers and injured 11 others, including contractors, according to the Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency investigating the incident.
Six months later, workers remain rattled and community concerns about air pollution from the plant are heightened.
The blast comes on top of a string of other accidents at the Clairton plant over time as well as a long history of legal battles between U.S. Steel and Allegheny County regulators, who regularly accuse the company of flouting environmental rules at the facility. As recently as Jan. 27, pollution control equipment at the Clairton plant temporarily broke down and nearby air monitors recorded elevated air pollution, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.
To U.S. Steel’s critics, the August blast highlighted chronic problems at the facility. And some current and former workers at Clairton Coke Works say poor management and underinvestment have exacerbated air pollution and undermined workplace safety at the plant where operators already have little margin for error, Pittsburgh’s Public Source and the Associated Press have found.
The August explosion also came after Nippon Steel’s $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel in June 2025. It’s an open question whether the Japanese steel company will invest significantly in Clairton Coke Works and address issues raised by workers, government officials and environmental watchdogs.
The Chemical Safety Board has said that the August explosion occurred while workers were preparing to replace a damaged valve that was detected in July, as well as other valves. The agency’s investigation continues; it said in December that it has identified “potentially unmitigated hazards for workers at Clairton Coke Works that warrant immediate attention.”
“They try to say ‘safety first, safety first,’” said Brian Pavlack, a current worker at Clairton Coke Works. “Safety is not the first priority for them.”
Nippon Steel did not provide a response to written questions. In a written statement responding to detailed questions, U.S. Steel stressed its commitment to safety.
“Safety is our core value and shapes our culture, influences how we lead, and anchors our responsibility to ensure that every employee returns home safely, every single day,” the company said.
Dangerous work
The 392-acre Clairton Coke Works opened more than a century ago, 20 miles south of Pittsburgh along the west bank of the Monongahela River. The ovens at the plant heat coal at high temperatures for hours to make coke, a key component in steelmaking. Its ovens produce 3.6 million tons of coke annually, which is shipped to the company’s operations farther up the river at the Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, and to U.S. Steel’s Gary Works in Indiana.
But making coke isn’t a clean process or without risk. The heat removes impurities, producing a flammable byproduct called coke oven gas. Coke oven gas includes hydrogen, methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide, and some of it is used as fuel to heat the coke ovens. Coke oven gas is explosive due to high hydrogen content, said Fred Rorick, a former operations manager at Bethlehem Steel and steel industry consultant.
“At a coke works, when you have that, you have to be very, very, very careful,” Rorick said.
According to the Chemical Safety Board, the August explosion happened while workers were closing and opening a gas isolation valve in a basement after pumping water into the valve. U.S. Steel’s written procedure did not mention the use of water and a U.S. Steel supervisor directed workers to pump the water, the agency said. Kurt Barshick, U.S. Steel’s vice president of the Mon Valley Works, said during an October presentation to residents in the wake of the August explosion that workers trapped “3,000 PSI water inside of a valve that’s rated for 50 PSI.” The valve cracked and gas filled the area, Barshick added.
Drew Sahli, the Chemical Safety Board’s investigator in charge, said there was a “release of coke oven gas” and that the gas “contacted an ignition source” and exploded. The agency is still investigating how the gas was released, Sahli said.
Steelworkers stand at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Aug. 12, 2025, a day after an explosion at the facility killed two workers. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
U.S. Steel said it has “strengthened several safety protocols” based on its own ongoing investigation, including prohibiting the use of high-pressure water for valve cleaning and reviewing their “Management of Change program, which assesses proposed changes in procedures and evaluates risk.”
Before the August blast, Clairton Coke Works already had a history of accidents and explosions.
In 2009, a maintenance worker was killed in a blast.
In 2010, an explosion injured 14 employees and six contractors.
In 2014, a worker was burned and died after falling into a trench.
In February 2025, a problem at a battery led to a “buildup of combustible material” that ignited, injuring two people, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.
After the 2010 explosion, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined U.S. Steel and a subcontractor $175,000 for safety violations. U.S. Steel appealed its citations and fines, which were later reduced to $78,500 under a settlement agreement. U.S. Steel admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
While there’s “a lot of ways that you can get yourself hurt or killed” at Clairton Coke Works, explosions are the biggest hazard, said Calvin Croftcheck, who previously worked at the plant and served as the United Steelworkers safety coordinator for U.S. Steel.
“Since 2009, there have been three accidents that have resulted in fatalities and that is just not common in today’s age of safety,” said Phillip Kondrot, a workers’ compensation attorney who represents workers injured at Clairton Coke Works. “That is a dangerous place to work.”
“We have intensive procedures that are currently in place at Clairton and our other facilities, and our employees are charged with following them,” U.S. Steel said. “We will not respond to comments from for-profit lawyers and stand behind the safety professionals who tirelessly work at U. S. Steel.”
U.S. Steel president and CEO David B. Burritt, accompanied by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (center right) and other officials, speaks during a news conference at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Aug. 12, 2025, a day after an explosion at the facility killed two workers. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
Management questioned
Some current and former workers at the Clairton plant fault U.S. Steel’s management of the aging facility, saying that it has caused a range of operational problems.
“A lot of things that have happened there, where they needed something fixed and something went wrong, it was because corporate wouldn’t approve them ordering the parts,” said Jonathan Ledwich, who worked at Clairton Coke Works between 2011 and 2022 trying to prevent emission leaks from the coke ovens. “We did the best we could with what we had.”
Ledwich points to a fire at the Clairton plant on Christmas Eve 2018. It shut down pollution control equipment and led to repeated releases of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, according to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups after the incident. In the wake of the fire, Allegheny County warned residents to limit outdoor activities, with residents saying for weeks afterward that the air smelled like rotten eggs and was hard to breathe.
Former U.S. Steel worker Jonathan Ledwich stands at the pizza shop he now owns in Trafford, Pa., on Dec. 15, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
Ranajit Sahu, an engineer hired by the plaintiffs, wrote in a report filed in the case that he found “no indication” that U.S. Steel “has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.” Sahu also wrote that the 2018 accident, which was precipitated by piping falling due to corrosion, was “preventable by a robust inspection and preventive maintenance program and by better plant design.”
In a 2024 consent decree settling the lawsuit, U.S. Steel agreed to measures including investing close to $20 million in facility upgrades and permanently idling a battery of coke ovens at the plant. As part of the consent decree, U.S. Steel admitted no liability.
Hough, the utility technician in charge of loading coke, said that the lack of proactive maintenance at Clairton Coke Works makes her feel unsafe at times.
“There’s a lot of things that need to be repaired that they’re not prioritizing because you can’t stop production,” Hough said of U.S. Steel.
Some current and former plant workers also describe difficulty getting coke oven doors replaced. Ledwich, the former Clairton steel worker, said some doors that needed to be replaced would leak emissions.
In a 2020 deposition for the lawsuit related to the 2018 Christmas Eve fire, James Kelly, former deputy director of the environmental health bureau at the Allegheny County Health Department — the agency that oversees emissions at the plant — said the facility is “one of the most decrepit facilities” that he’d ever seen.
The litigation surrounding the Christmas Eve fire wasn’t the first time U.S. Steel was accused in court of skimping on maintenance. In a 2017 amended federal class action lawsuit alleging violations of federal securities laws, U.S. Steel shareholders said that the company CEO hired the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in 2014 after multiple unprofitable years and “implemented extreme cost-cutting measures” in 2015 involving layoffs and deferrals of “desperately-needed maintenance and repairs.” The lawsuit was eventually settled and the U.S. Steel defendants admitted no wrongdoing.
Former U.S. Steel worker Jonathan Ledwich holds his old hard hat at the pizza shop he now owns in Trafford, Pa., on Dec. 15, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
U.S. Steel had “one of the best safety staffs in the country,” said Mike Wright, former director of the health, safety, and environment department at the United Steelworkers. But key safety department leaders were fired, according to Wright and Croftcheck, the former union safety coordinator. Wright said the dismissals occurred in 2016.
Ed Mazurkiewicz, former director of safety and industrial hygiene at U.S. Steel, said that he was let go by the company in 2016. While he knew at the time that McKinsey had been “evaluating all of U.S. Steel” and that there would be downsizing, it was still a shock when his job was eliminated, Mazurkiewicz said.
U.S. Steel said it has “worked with many advisers and partners” over the years and that the company’s “overall transformation efforts have improved our company’s performance, created a robust maintenance program, and improved employee safety over time.” In response to questions about U.S. Steel’s safety department and the firing of department leaders, the company said: “We cannot comment on personnel matters.”
“They brought in McKinsey to tell them really how to run things,” Wright said of U.S. Steel. “We were a little outraged by that.”
McKinsey said in a statement that the company is one of “many advisers that have served U.S. Steel in support of its efforts to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States, improve operational resiliency, and invest in and support the communities in which it operates.”
“As with all our work for the company — and with all our clients — safety is always a top priority,” the company added.
Maintenance practices have changed over time, some current and former workers say.
“I used to see a lot more maintenance and taking care of things and fixing things before they broke, or replacing things that were worn out,” said Hough, who has worked at the plant for 29 years. “That used to happen back when I was first hired there, and that hasn’t happened in the last 10 or so years.”
Battles over air pollution
For years, Clairton Coke Works has drawn the ire of government regulators, environmental advocates and community members concerned about air pollution originating from the plant. Air quality in the region has improved over time, but the Clairton plant has been the largest local source of air pollution — such as sulfur oxides and particulate matter — in recent years, according to the Allegheny County Health Department. Particulate matter, for instance, is linked to various health issues, including heart attacks and aggravated asthma. The plant also emits carcinogenic benzene.
While the Clairton plant is allowed to emit some air pollution, county Health Department regulators routinely clash with U.S. Steel over alleged violations of the plant’s operating permit, such as excessive emissions or failing to use pollution control equipment. In 2023, for instance, the Allegheny County Health Department fined U.S. Steel more than $2 million for violations at Clairton Coke Works.
“You’re sort of in this cycle of patching, monitoring, fining, patching, monitoring, fining, and it’s never really good enough,” said Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department between 2013 and 2019. “You can’t say it hasn’t improved. Just look at the sky in Pittsburgh, right? But it hasn’t removed a source of pollution.”
In response to questions from Public Source and AP, the Allegheny County Health Department said in a written statement that the agency “inspects coking operations daily” and “addresses violations as discovered during inspections” with a full compliance evaluation every two years.
The department also said that air monitoring stations near the Clairton plant “have measured a 15-25% reduction in annual average particle pollution concentrations compared to ten years ago.” The department declined to comment on “open investigations, enforcement orders, or pending litigation.”
Nationally, Clairton Coke Works’ environmental compliance track record is an outlier, according to a Public Source and AP analysis of federal Clean Air Act data from about 14,000 facilities. The analysis found that Clairton Coke Works is classified by the EPA as a “high-priority violator” — only about 11% of major emitters fall into that category. It’s even rarer for facilities to garner financial penalties on the magnitude that Clairton Coke Works has faced in the last five years, the analysis shows. Just 11 facilities, including Clairton Coke Works, have faced $10 million in penalties or more in the last five years.
“It’s a massive facility. It’s a complex facility and it’s an underfunded facility,” said Adam Ortiz, former EPA regional administrator of the Mid-Atlantic region during the Biden administration. “All those things make it tough.”
Clairton resident and environmental advocate Melanie Meade stands at the entrance of the Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Aug. 12, 2025, a day after an explosion at the facility killed two workers. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
U.S. Steel said in its statement that the company spends “$100 million annually on environmental compliance at Clairton alone and has consistently achieved an environmental compliance rate exceeding 99% for regulated activities per year at our Clairton Plant, the largest coke-making facility in North America.”
The company said that it has “invested more than $750 million in environmental improvement projects in the Mon Valley” and that preliminary data shows that a county air monitor located downwind of the Clairton plant has met the Environmental Protection Agency’s national ambient air quality standard for particulate matter since 2024.
“Our steadfast pursuit of environmental excellence will continue,” the company said. “We maintain a productive relationship with the ACHD and other regulators, with a commitment to regulation grounded in science and law.”
Some environmental advocates have argued that the Allegheny County Health Department is outgunned against U.S. Steel. The department’s air quality program, which handles oversight of Clairton Coke Works, is funded by fees paid by industrial polluters. But the program has struggled financially in recent years. In a 2018 report, the EPA asserted that revenue from emissions-based fees was “diminishing as a result of emissions reductions” and that the existing fee structure could potentially “undermine long-term program sustainability.” The Allegheny County Council approved raising the fees in 2021 and again in November.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled that it is taking a more hands-off approach with polluters. In November, President Donald Trump temporarily exempted Clairton Coke Works and other coking plants from provisions of a Biden-era rule that, for instance, required fence line monitoring for benzene emissions. U.S. Steel previously requested an exemption.
U.S. Steel said that the rule “imposed significant compliance costs while setting technically unachievable standards and providing little or no environmental benefit.” Its Mon Valley facilities have “never been fined” for exceeding benzene emission standards, the company said.
New ownership arrives
Before the August explosion, workers and outside observers were already watching Nippon Steel closely for clues about their plans for Clairton Coke Works and the Mon Valley. Now, questions about Nippon’s intentions have become even more pressing.
In the nearly $15 billion deal to buy U.S. Steel, Nippon Steel pledged to invest $14 billion in domestic steelmaking operations, including building a new electric arc furnace somewhere in the U.S. Much of that money remains publicly uncommitted, and U.S. Steel has been firm that it wants to keep the Clairton plant operating.
“The Clairton Coke Plant is an important part of our North American Flat-Rolled integrated operations,” the company said in November. The company added that a “steady coke supply remains critical” and that the “Clairton Coke Plant will be maintained for the next generation of steelmaking.”
Since Nippon Steel acquired the company, things have started to change, according to Hough. The company has invested more in repairs and preventive maintenance, she said.
“Nippon is putting the money into the plant, and let me tell you, they’ve got a long way to go,” Hough said. “U.S. Steel let it go so bad for so long.”
However, U.S. Steel has not publicly committed to spending money at the Clairton plant to expand production, extend its life, improve efficiency, upgrade safety or reduce its polluting air emissions.
In response to questions about its investment plans for Clairton Coke Works, U.S. Steel said the company plans to invest “more than $2 billion at Mon Valley Works.”
Furko served as Clairton local union president in 2021 when U.S. Steel canceled a pledged $1 billion investment in the Mon Valley Works. He remains wary of Nippon’s promises.
“Until I see shovels start to hit dirt,” Furko said, “then I don’t believe it until I see it.”
Of the $14 billion, U.S. Steel has said $2.4 billion will go toward its Pittsburgh-area plants. A portion of that money will be spent on building a new hot strip mill to replace the one at its Irvin plant, just down the Monongahela River from Clairton, that processes steel into massive sheet rolls, primarily for the automotive, appliance and construction industries.
It’s unclear how Nippon and U.S. Steel will address recent findings from federal investigators. In December, the Chemical Safety Board recommended that U.S. Steel conduct a siting evaluation of all buildings at the Clairton plant that are occupied or could be occupied to identify and assess potential hazards for workers. The agency said that the company has not conducted a facility siting evaluation as part of efforts to rebuild and relocate its “personnel facilities” after the blast.
U.S. Steel continues to cooperate with the Chemical Safety Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and “evaluate their recommendations,” the company said.
Even with Nippon’s promise of revitalizing U.S. Steel with billions of dollars of investment, the August explosion is still darkening the minds of workers. Furko said he struggles to motivate himself to go to work on some days.
“I’ve been there 25 years. There’s been guys who have lost legs from rail equipment running over them. Bad falls and stuff like that,” Furko said. “Nothing has affected me like this has.”
This story is a collaboration between Pittsburgh’s Public Source and the Associated Press.
MINNEAPOLIS — The Trump administration is ending the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to thousands of arrests, violent protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens over the past two months, border czar Tom Homan said Thursday.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul area resulted in more than 4,000 arrests, Homan said, touting it a success.
“The surge is leaving Minnesota safer,” he said. “I’ll say it again, it’s less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”
The announcement marks a significant retreat from an operation that has become a major distraction for the Trump administration and has been more volatile than prior crackdowns in Chicago and Los Angeles. It comes as a new AP-NORC poll found that most U.S. adults say Trump’s immigration policies have gone too far.
State and local officials, who have frequently clashed with federal authorities since Operation Metro Surge started in December, insisted the swarm of immigration officials inflicted long-term damage to the state’s economy and its immigrant community.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz urged residents Thursday to remain vigilant in the coming days as immigration officers prepare to leave. He called the crackdown an “unnecessary, unwarranted and in many cases unconstitutional assault on our state.”
“It’s going to be a long road,” Walz told a news conference. “Minnesotans are decent, caring loving neighbors and they’re also some of the toughest people you’ll find. And we’re in this as long as it takes.”
Trump’s border czar pledged that immigration enforcement won’t end when the Minnesota operation is over.
“President Trump made a promise of mass deportation and that’s what this country is going to get,” Homan said.
Some activists expressed relief at Homan’s announcement, but warned that the fight isn’t over. Lisa Erbes, a leader of the progressive protest group Indivisible Twin Cities said officials, must be held accountable for the chaos of the crackdown.
“People have died. Families have been torn apart,” Erbes said. “We can’t just say this is over and forget the pain and suffering that has been put on the people of Minnesota.”
While the Trump administration has called those arrested in Minnesota “dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” many people with no criminal records, including children and U.S. citizens, have also been detained.
Homan announced last week that 700 federal officers would leave Minnesota immediately, but that still left more than 2,000 on Minnesota’s streets. At the time, he cited an “increase in unprecedented collaboration” resulting in the need for fewer federal officers in Minnesota, including help from jails that hold deportable inmates.
Homan took over the Minnesota operation in late January after the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents and amid growing political backlash and questions about how the operation was being run. He said Thursday that he intends to stay in Minnesota to oversee the drawdown that began this week and will continue next week.
“We’ve seen a big change here in the last couple of weeks,” he said, crediting cooperation from local leaders.
During the height of the surge, heavily armed officers were met by resistance from residents upset with their aggressive tactics.
“They thought they could break us, but a love for our neighbors and a resolve to endure can outlast an occupation,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on social media after Homan’s news conference. “These patriots of Minneapolis are showing that it’s not just about resistance — standing with our neighbors is deeply American.”
WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Thursday to block the Pentagon from punishing Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot, for participating in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that Pentagon officials violated Kelly’s First Amendment free speech rights and “threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees.”
“To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their Government, and our Constitution demands they receive it!” wrote Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush.
Kelly, who represents Arizona, sued in federal court to block his Jan. 5 censure from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Leon’s order prohibits the Pentagon from implementing or enforcing Kelly’s punishment while his lawsuit is pending. The judge instructed the parties to provide him with an update in 30 days.
In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers appeared on a video in which they urged troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow unlawful military directives from the Trump administration. Republican President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later.
The court case is just one front in a broader dispute that has spiraled between the group of Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration since they posted the video. Earlier this week, a Washington grand jury declined to indict the lawmakers over the video.
Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin has said she has been told the Justice Department could seek a new indictment as soon as Friday. Kelly and Slotkin said at a news conference Wednesday that they are keeping all legal options on the table regarding potentially suing the administration.
Leon said that Kelly “is likely to succeed on the merits” of his free speech claim. “He has also shown irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities fall decidedly in his favor.”
Hegseth said Kelly’s censure was “a necessary process step” to proceedings that could result in a demotion from the senator’s retired rank of captain and subsequent reduction in retirement pay.
The judge concluded that Kelly’s speech is entitled to full First Amendment protection. Leon wrote, “Horsefeathers!” in response to the government’s argument that Kelly is trying to exempt himself from the rules of military justice.
“Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired servicemembers, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired servicemembers have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years,” Leon wrote.
“If so,” he added, “they will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights!”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the judge’s ruling.
Kelly said in a video statement posted after the ruling that the case was about more than just him and that the administration “was sending a message to millions of retired veterans that they too can be censured or demoted just for speaking out.”
He added that the ruling was unlikely the end: “This might not be over yet, because this president and this administration do not know how to admit when they’re wrong.”
The 90-second video was first posted on a social media account belonging to Slotkin. Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania also appeared in the video. All of the participants are veterans of the armed services or intelligence agencies.
The Pentagon began investigating Kelly in late November, citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other punishment. Hegseth has said Kelly was the only one of the six lawmakers to be investigated because he is the only one who formally retired from the military and still falls under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.
Kelly’s lawyers said the Pentagon’s censure of Kelly — and its efforts to reduce his retirement grade and pay — are an unprecedented attack on the rights of veterans to publicly debate national security issues.
“Defendants assert an absolute and unreviewable authority to impose military punishment on a retired veteran and sitting United States Senator for engaging in speech a civilian political appointee dislikes. That position is as alarming as it is unprecedented,” they wrote.
Government lawyers said the case “is not about legislative independence or freedom of speech in civilian society.”
“Instead, this case involves a retired military officer who seeks to use his military status as a sword and his legislative position as a shield against the consequences of his actions in military personnel matters,” they wrote.
Hegseth, the Defense Department, Navy Secretary John Phelan and the Navy are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
President Donald Trump has backed down from his decision to exclude Democratic governors from an annual White House meeting that has long been bipartisan, according to the National Governors Association.
For decades, the White House meeting between the president and governors — held around the NGA’s annual winter gathering in Washington — has included Republican and Democratic governors. That nearly changed last week when Trump did not extend an invitation to Democrats, sparking concern among governors. After telling Democratic governors Friday that they would not be invited to the meeting, the bipartisan NGA said the meeting would no longer be part of the organization’s official schedule for the gathering.
On Wednesday, however, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), the NGA chairman, told governors that Trump would be inviting all governors to the White House on Feb. 20 for the NGA’s business breakfast.
“He was very clear in his communications with me that this is a National Governors Association’s event, and he looks forward to hosting you and hearing from governors across the country,” Stitt wrote to the governors. “President Trump said this was always his intention, and we have addressed the misunderstanding in scheduling.”
Governors from all states are expected to gather in Washington for their conference from Feb. 19 to 21.
And while all governors are now being invited to the White House, not all Democrats were invited to a separate dinner there scheduled to be held around the NGA gathering. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, both Democrats, said in recent days that their invitations to the dinner had been rescinded. The other 16 Democratic governors remained on the guest list but decided Tuesday that they would not attend unless all 18 of them were invited.
Trump said on social media Wednesday that the situation over the White House meeting invitations had been a misunderstanding — and he blamed it on Stitt, whom he referred to as a “Republican In Name Only.” Stitt “incorrectly stated my position on the very exclusive Governors Annual Dinner and Meeting at the White House,” Trump wrote, and said that invitations were sent “to ALL Governors, other than two, who I feel are not worthy of being there.”
Trump emphasized that Polis and Moore had not been invited to the dinner, slinging baseless accusations against them, but he noted that he did invite some Democratic governors that he has repeatedly sparred with, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Stitt got it WRONG!” Trump wrote. “I look forward to seeing the Republican Governors, and some of the Democrats Governors who were worthy of being invited.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had defended Trump’s decision to exclude the Democrats from the meeting only a day earlier. “The president has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House,” she told reporters.
NGA CEO Brandon Tatum said in a statement that the organization was “pleased the president will welcome governors from all 55 states and territories to the White House.”
“The bipartisan White House governors meeting is a valued tradition and an important opportunity to build bridges and hold constructive conversations,” Tatum said. “The NGA looks forward to continued collaboration between governors and the White House.”
The Democratic Governors Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting and dinner.
NEW YORK — Activists planned protests at more than two dozen Target stores around the United States on Wednesday to pressure the discount retailer into taking a public stand against the 5-week-old immigration crackdown in its home state of Minnesota.
ICE Out Minnesota, a coalition of community groups, religious leaders, labor unions, and other critics of the federal operation, called for sit-ins and other demonstrations to continue at Target locations for a full week. Target’s headquarters are located in Minneapolis, where federal officers last month killed two residents who had participated in anti-ICE protests, and its name adorns the city’s major league baseball stadium and an arena where its basketball teams plays.
“They claim to be part of the community, but they are not standing up to ICE,” said Elan Axelbank, a member of the Minnesota chapter of Socialist Alternative, which describes itself as a revolutionary political group. He organized a Wednesday protest outside a Target store in Minneapolis’ Dinkytown commercial district.
Demonstrations also were scheduled in St. Paul, Minnesota, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, North Carolina, San Diego, Seattle and other cities, as well as in suburban areas of Minnesota, California and Massachusetts. Target declined Wednesday to comment on the protests.
Target first became a bull’s-eye for critics of the Trump administration’s surge in immigration enforcement activity after a widely-circulated video showed federal agents detaining two Target employees in a store in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield last month. Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos Minnesota, an immigrant-led social justice advocacy organization that is part of the ICE Out Minnesota coalition, said his group is focusing its protests on the Richfield store.
One of the demands of Wednesday’s protests is for Target to deny federal agents entry to stores unless they have judicial warrants authorizing arrests.
Some lawyers have argued that anyone, including U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customers Enforcement agents without signed warrants, can enter public areas of a business as they wish. Public areas include restaurant dining sections, open parking lots, office lobbies and shopping aisles, but not back offices, closed-off kitchens or other areas of a business that are generally off-limits to the public and where privacy would be reasonably expected, those lawyers say.
Target has not commented publicly on the detention of the store employees. CEO Michael Fiddelke, who became Target’s chief executive on Feb. 2, sent a video message to the company’s 400,000 workers two days after a Border Patrol agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer shot and killed Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
Fiddelke said the “violence and loss of life in our community is incredibly painful,” but he did not mention the immigration crackdown or the fatal shootings of Pretti, an ICU nurse at a medical center for U.S. veterans in Minneapolis, and Renee Good, a mother of three fired on in her car by an ICE agent.
Fiddelke was one of 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies who, in the wake of Pretti’s death, signed an open letter “calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”
The protests over its alleged failure to oppose the immigration crackdown in Minnesota come a year after Target faced protests and boycotts over the company’s decision to roll back its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At the time, critics said the decision marked a betrayal of Target’s retail giant’s philanthropic commitment to fighting racial disparities and promoting progressive values in liberal Minneapolis and beyond.
The retail chain also is struggling with a persistent sales malaise. Critics have complained of disheveled stores that are missing the budget-priced flair that long ago earned the retailer the nickname “Tarzhay.”
While Wednesday’s protests targeted a tiny fraction of the company’s nearly 2,000 stores, the negative attention serves as another distraction from Target’s business, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of the retail division of market research firm GlobalData.
“The agenda has been hijacked by this,” Saunders said. “And it is a bit of a distraction for Target that they’d rather not have.”
In recent days, a national coalition of Mennonite congregations organized roughly a dozen demonstrations inside and outside of Target stores across the country, singing and urging Target to publicly call Congress to defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement among other demands.
A spokesperson for Mennonite Action said the coalition was not formally connected to ICE Out but following the lead of organizers in Minneapolis.
The Rev. Joanna Lawrence Shenk, associate pastor at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco, said the group did not plan any actions on Wednesday but was mapping out weekend singalong events at Targets in a handful of towns and cities, including Pittsburgh and Harrisonburg, Virginia. She estimated that by the end of the weekend more than 1,000 congregation members will have participated.
Shenk noted that the Mennonites sing This Little Light of Mine and other gospel songs and hymns.
“The singing was an expression of our love for immigrant neighbors who are at risk right now and who are also a part of our congregation,” she said. “For us, it’s not just standing in solidarity with others but it’s also protecting people who are vulnerable.”
WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to slap back President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare if largely symbolic rebuke of the White House agenda as Republicans joined Democrats over the objections of GOP leadership.
The tally, 219-211, was among the first times the House, controlled by Republicans, has confronted the president over a signature policy, and drew instant recrimination from Trump himself. The resolution seeks to end the national emergency Trump declared to impose the tariffs, though actually undoing the policy would require support from the president, which is highly unlikely. The resolution next goes to the Senate.
Trump believes in the power of tariffs to force U.S. trade partners to the negotiating table. But lawmakers are facing unrest back home from businesses caught in the trade wars and constituents navigating pocketbook issues and high prices.
“Today’s vote is simple, very simple: Will you vote to lower the cost of living for the American family or will you keep prices high out of loyalty to one person — Donald J. Trump?” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who authored the resolution.
Within minutes, as the gavel struck, Trump fired off a stern warning to those in the Republican Party who would dare to cross him.
“Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!” the president posted on social media.
The high-stakes moment provides a snapshot of the House’s unease with the president’s direction, especially ahead of the midterm elections as economic issues resonate among voters. The Senate has already voted to reject Trump’s tariffs on Canada and other countries in a show of displeasure. But both chambers would have to approve the tariff rollbacks, and send the resolution to Trump for the president’s signature — or veto.
Trump recently threatened to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada over that country’s proposed China trade deal, intensifying a feud with the longtime U.S. ally and Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Johnson (R., La.) insisted lawmakers wait for a pending Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuit about the tariffs. He engineered a complicated rules change to prevent floor action. But Johnson’s strategy collapsed late Tuesday, as Republicans peeled off during a procedural vote to ensure the Democratic measure was able to advance.
“The president’s trade policies have been of great benefit,” Johnson had said. “And I think the sentiment is that we allow a little more runway for this to be worked out between the executive branch and the judicial branch.”
Late Tuesday evening, Johnson could be seen speaking to holdout Republican lawmakers as the GOP leadership team struggled to shore up support during a lengthy procedural vote, but the numbers lined up against him.
“We’re disappointed in what the people have done,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, told reporters at the White House on Wednesday morning. “The president will make sure they don’t repeal his tariffs.”
Terminating Trump’s emergency
The resolution put forward by Meeks would terminate the national emergency that Trump declared a year ago as one of his executive orders.
The administration claimed illicit drug flow from Canada constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat that allows the president to slap tariffs on imported goods outside the terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, said the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. is a dire national emergency and the policy must be left in place.
“Let’s be clear again about what this resolution is and what it’s not. It’s not a debate about tariffs. You can talk about those, but that’s not really what it is,” Mast said. “This is Democrats trying to ignore that there is a fentanyl crisis.”
Experts say fentanyl produced by cartels in Mexico is largely smuggled into the U.S. from land crossings in California and Arizona. Fentanyl is also made in Canada and smuggled into the U.S., but to a much lesser extent.
Torn between Trump and tariffs
Ahead of voting, some rank-and-file Republican lawmakers expressed unease over the choices ahead as Democrats — and a few renegade Republicans — impressed on their colleagues the need to flex their power as the legislative branch rather than ceding so much power to the president to take authority over trade and tariff policy.
Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) said he was unpersuaded by Johnson’s call to wait until the Supreme Court makes its decision about the legality of Trump’s tariffs. He voted for passage.
“Why doesn’t the Congress stand on its own two feet and say that we’re an independent branch?” Bacon said. “We should defend our authorities. I hope the Supreme Court does, but if we don’t do it, shame on us.”
Bacon, who is retiring rather than facing reelection, also argued that tariffs are bad economic policy.
Other Republicans had to swiftly make up their minds after Johnson’s gambit — which would have paused the calendar days to prevent the measure from coming forward — was turned back.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to have to support our president,” said Rep. Keith Self (R., Texas).
Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said he doesn’t want to tie the president’s hands on trade and would support the tariffs on Canada “at this time.”
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president’s chief protector.
Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary speech in which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.
“You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have it,” Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. ”I am not going to put up with it.”
With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi forcefully defended the department’s handling of the files related to the well-connected financier that have dogged her tenure. She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump’s successes, when it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the files and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to conservative influencers at the White House last year.
The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not “going to get in the gutter” with them. In one particularly fiery exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a “washed-up loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”
Trying to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement issues like violent crime and illegal immigration. Bondi repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks seemingly gleaned from news headlines as she sought to paint them as uninterested about violence in their districts. Democrats became exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.
“This is pathetic. I am not asking trick questions,” said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi whether the Justice Department had questioned different Trump administration officials about their ties to Epstein. “The American people deserve to know.”
Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files since handing out binders to a group of social media influencers at the White House in February 2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein, leading to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.
In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information and about their abuse and said she “deeply sorry” for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that “any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.”
But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump’s Justice Department has “put them through” and accused the Washington state Democrat of “theatrics.”
Bondi’s appearance on Capitol Hill comes a year into her tumultuous tenure that has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to target political foes of the president. Just a day earlier, the department sought to secure charges against Democratic lawmakers who produced a video urging military service members not to follow “illegal orders.” But in an extraordinary rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment.
Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch has become politicized, Bondi touted the department’s work to reduce violent crime and said she was determined to restore the department to its core missions after what she described as “years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization.”
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden’s Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged in two criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024 election victory.
“What a difference a year makes,” Jordan said. “Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions — upholding the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans safe.”
Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and also included nude photographs. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations has found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or nonexistent redactions that have revealed sensitive private information.
“You’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims,” Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. “That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change the course. You’re running a massive Epstein coverup right out of the Department of Justice.”
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who broke with his party to advance the legislation that forced the released of the Epstein files, also took Bondi to task for the release of victims’ personal information, telling her: “Literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did.”
Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump-derangement syndrome.”
Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors, but that errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the speed at which the department had to release them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department took down files when they were made aware that they included victims’ information and that staff had tried to do their “very best in the time frame allotted by the legislation” mandating the release of the files.
After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it had concluded a review and determined that no Epstein “client list” existed and there was no reason to make public additional files. That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass the legislation demanding that the Justice Department release the files.
The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote when Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on her desk for review. Bondi later said she was referring to the Epstein files in total, not a specific client list.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Police on Wednesday identified the suspect in a school shooting in Canada as an 18-year-old who had prior mental health calls to her home and who was found dead following the attack that killed eight people in a remote part of British Columbia.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Jesse Van Rootselaar had a history of mental health contact with police, and that the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were found dead in a home near the school.
The motive remained unclear.
Police initially said nine people were killed Tuesday in the attack, but McDonald clarified Wednesday that there were eight fatalities, plus the suspect, who authorities said shot herself. McDonald said the discrepancy arose from a victim who was airlifted to a medical center. Authorities mistakenly thought that person had died.
More than 25 people were wounded Tuesday in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, police said.
Town is near border with Alberta
The town of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 600 miles northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.
Police said the victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five students, ages 12 to 13.
McDonald said the suspect’s mother, who was also 39, and an 11-year-old stepbrother, were found at the suspect’s home.
The killings at the home occurred first, he said. A young family member at the home went to a neighbor, who called police.
At the school, one victim was found in a stairwell and the rest, McDonald believed, were found in the library. The suspect was not related to any of the victims at the school, he said.
“There is no information at this point that anyone was specifically targeted,” McDonald said.
Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun. McDonald said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call. When they arrived, shots were fired in their direction.
“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he arrived in Parliament.
Deadliest rampage since 2020
The attack was Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.
Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this.”
Shelley Quist said her neighbor across the street lost her 12-year-old. “We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s body,” Quist said.
Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.
“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.
Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting started.
“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.
Darian Quist said he knew the attack was real when the principal came down the halls and ordered doors to be closed. He said fellow students texted him pictures of blood while he remained locked down in a classroom.
“We used the desk to block the doors,” he said.
School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.
A video showed students walking out with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.
Village is a ‘big family’
Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said it was “devastating” to learn how many had died in the community, which he called a “big family.”
“I broke down,” Krakowka said. “I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims.”
The Rev. George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church went to the recreation center where victims’ families were awaiting more information.
“It was not a pretty sight. Families are still waiting to hear if it’s their child that’s deceased and because of protocol and procedure, the investigating team is very careful in releasing names,” Rowe said Tuesday.
Rowe once taught at the high school, and his three children graduated from there.
“To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same again,” he said.
The school district said the high school and elementary school will be closed for the rest of the week.
Carney’s office said he called off a planned trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Munich, Germany. He had been set to announce a long-awaited defense industrial strategy Wednesday in Halifax before heading to Europe for the Munich Security Conference.
British Columbia Premier David Eby on Tuesday said he had spoken to the prime minister about the “unimaginable tragedy.”
“I know it’s causing us all to hug our kids a little bit tighter tonight,” he said. “I’m asking the people of British Columbia to look after the people of Tumbler Ridge tonight.
