Regardless of frequently repeated claims, voter fraud is exceptionally rare, and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, would only prevent an extremely small number of ineligible votes. While the GOP claims the SAVE Act is an attempt to preserve voter integrity, they know statistically that this will create difficulties for certain classes of voters who often vote for Democrats. Studies have shown, for example, that documentation requirements will place a disproportionate burden on communities of color and those with low incomes. Restrictions on vote by mail are likely to suppress the vote from hourly and shift workers, the elderly, those with disabilities, and people who do not have easy access to transportation to the polls. In this same vein, not allowing people to vote by mail forces them to vote in person, where in some places they may have to deal with voter intimidation and harassment (threats from others, long lines without water, etc.). For years, Republicans have pursued harsh penalties for poll workers — a move that may discourage participation by volunteers and slow down voting on Election Day, which may deter some folks from voting (again, long election lines).
Let’s call it what it is: This is intentional voter suppression and an attack on our democracy.
Kent Kingan, Malvern
. . .
The League of Women Voters is absolutely correct in stating that the SAVE America Act, just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, would add a burden on voters to present documentary proof of citizenship and voter eligibility, a burden that could be substantial for many, to solve a problem that does not meaningfully exist. However, the organization goes too far in stating that Pennsylvania already has safeguards to ensure only eligible citizens vote, because federal law requires voters to attest to their citizenship when they register and “[e]lection officials verify identity and eligibility.” I have been a judge of elections in Philadelphia for more than a decade. With the exception of voters who must present identification because they have not previously voted in my election division, the only means election officials have to verify the identity and eligibility of someone seeking to vote is to ask for their name and address, confirm that that name and address is in our poll book of eligible voters, and then compare their signature with the signature that appears in the poll book, which is a copy of a signature recorded at the time the person with that name and address registered to vote. For some people, the two signatures are an easy match. But for others — indeed, the majority — not so much. This is especially the case with respect to people who registered years ago. And the problem has compounded since we started using electronic poll books, and voters are signing what is essentially an iPad, usually using a finger. Should I prohibit a person from voting because their signature on Election Day does not match the signature they recorded at the time they registered? Should I tell them they can only vote by provisional ballot? If I do not, can I honestly say I have verified the identity and eligibility of that person?
Jeff Braff,Philadelphia
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
Last month, a Pittsburgh-area man admitted in federal court that he made an online antisemitic threat to a public official.
“Go back to Israel or better yet, exterminate yourself and save us the trouble,” Edward Owens Jr. wrote on Facebook Messenger, adding, “we will not stop until your kind is nonexistent.”
This was not some random act — it is part of a larger issue of rising political violence, and an example of what many Jews encounter when they turn on their phones or scroll through their feeds.
The American Jewish Committee’s just-released “State of Antisemitism in America 2025 Report”lays bare the scope of the problem. Online is where American Jews experience antisemitism the most, with 73% seeing or hearing antisemitic content or being personally targeted.
Of those who experienced online antisemitism, 54% found it on Facebook — up 7 points from 2024 — while 38% experienced it on YouTube. That is an especially alarming number, given that it demonstrates an 11-point jump from the year before. Instagram and TikTok also saw concerning increases in reported antisemitic content.
What were once quiet murmurings are now getting very loud. Words matter. AJC’s report found that 55% of American Jews are altering their behavior out of fear of antisemitism. That includes the 39% who are not posting content online that could identify them as Jewish or reveal their views on Jewish issues.
It’s self-censorship as a means of self-preservation. You don’t know who is reading or who may be triggered by what you post. The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle reported that the FBI examined Owens’ phone and found searches tied to antisemitism and “Pittsburgh Jews.”
Owens also texted a friend that he was “ready to hunt down Jews for extermination.” Those may have just been the words of a bitter man who felt Jews were to blame for everything lacking in his life. But Owens also owned several guns, including a 9 mm pistol FBI agents found in his truck with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Noah Rubin, a Penn engineering student, during a “No hate on campus” rally at the University of Pennsylvania in 2024.
We don’t know whether Owens’ words would have turned into violence — the online threats and gun charges were handled separately in this case. However, we also don’t have the luxury of parsing whether someone is merely spewing venom to put a scare into people or is contemplating something more sinister.
Either way, it has an impact. AJC’s report found that 21% of American Jews who experienced antisemitism online felt physically threatened by these incidents.
Put yourself in the shoes of the official who received Owens’ message. Chances are you’ll be rattled by what you read and contact the authorities, who are better equipped to hunt down cowards like Owens who use online aliases. Then you’ll have a better idea of what it’s like to be an American Jew in 2026.
Jews in America had long been insulated from violent antisemitism. It was something that happened elsewhere. Then, the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were murdered, changed that and precipitated hundreds of incidents in which Jews have been targeted simply for being Jewish.
Last April, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence was torched on the second night of Passover. As with the Owens case, this is what public officials who are also publicly Jewish are currently facing.
Owens is a sorry footnote in this spasm of hate. He will rightfully be forgotten after he is sentenced in April. But what we can’t forget is that he has plenty of company. Jewish or not, that should worry us all.
Marcia Bronstein is the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Philadelphia/Southern New Jersey regional office.
DEAR ABBY: I am 57 and have never been married. I have had many relationships (some good, some bad). Although in the past I experienced heartbreaks, I am now open to meeting someone new.
I recently ended a relationship with “Bill,” a man I met at a resort casino three years ago. I was happy in the beginning, until things started to take a turn.
Because we go to the same places all the time, it was hard to break it off. I tried, but Bill would run back to me, and I always took him back, mostly because I felt guilty for hurting him. I finally ended things for good four months ago, after he did something very rude. A neighbor later told me that Bill was stalking me. Bill denies this, even though I have proof.
Abby, I am writing because, for some reason, I’m still drawn to him. He’s the only man in my life who ever told me he loves me. I’m afraid no one will ever love me the way he does. I know the stalking is a sign that he is mentally unwell, yet we keep bumping into each other, which has caused this pull to want to be with him.
I can’t afford therapy right now, so any advice you can give me to move beyond this “pull” I have for him would be appreciated.
— HEART RULING THE HEAD
DEAR HEART: Honey, if you no longer frequent the places you used to frequent together and keep running into him anyway, has it occurred to you that it’s happening BECAUSE HE’S STILL STALKING YOU? If you’re still going to the same places, it’s time to change your routine. This troubled individual may be the only person who has said “I love you,” but he won’t be the last if you open yourself to other relationships.
You say you can’t afford therapy, but please be aware that free or low-cost counseling is available from your county’s department of mental health services or a local college or university with a psychology department.
** ** **
DEAR ABBY: I’ve been talking to a famous pro wrestler who is having marriage problems. He has been hitting on me through Google Chat. I just want to be a supportive friend whom he can vent to. He says his wife “is getting too old for him,” if you know what I mean. They have a joint bank account, but he says it’s frozen. He has asked me for an Apple card. I told him no and to ask his extended family instead.
Abby, I need my money to help out my brothers and sister. I’d prefer he be like a friend or big brother to me. I need major advice, please, because it feels like my life is going out of control.
— UNCERTAIN IN IDAHO
DEAR UNCERTAIN: People must exercise caution when communicating with strangers online. “Famous pro wrestlers” usually have enough money that they aren’t reduced to hitting up women they meet on the internet for Apple cards. Your life will not “go out of control” unless you allow it to. Regain control by ghosting and blocking this person. He’s a scammer, and he, not you, should figure out his own financial problems.
ARIES (March 21-April 19). Each group of people has its own little culture. Families, neighborhoods, workplaces, classrooms — all have rules worth learning, habits worth noticing, so you can decide to follow, bend or ignore them.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Today’s theme: the intelligence in repetition. Routines conserve energy. Sure, there are a lot of different ways to play the day, but grooves come with momentum of their own and require much less of you.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21). You can disagree without voicing it. And when you must voice it, you do so without provocation. That’s diplomacy: choosing negotiation over conflict, making agreements that protect everyone involved and presenting a unified front.
CANCER (June 22-July 22). You help others through their feelings. You wish your loved ones were spared every bad feeling. If you could take it on instead, you totally would. And you really want the good feelings to last. You’re a true, strong ally, and they feel it.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). People process experiences at different speeds. Some reflect quietly, some act quickly and some need time to sort through emotions before they respond. Today, someone doesn’t respond in the way you would, but they are feeling something similar inside.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). The job looks like it’ll be a real grind, but that’s OK. A grind has its benefits. The knife gets sharp, the stone is polished, and it’s how you make the coffee, the bread and, of course, the money.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). You’ll be proud of yourself for trusting in a slow accumulation process. Affection grows steadily. Savings add up. Work builds. Collections expand. Each careful decision stacks on the last. In a few months, you’ll have a tower of power.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Your focus is your superpower. It’s not about doing more than anyone else but about doing the exact thing that matters. You learn fast, study deeply and work without distraction. Your attention carries more weight than words ever could.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). You’re being pulled in two directions at once, which makes it more challenging to decide who and what should get your time. Just remember, there’s a third option: opt out and do what (SET ITAL)you(END ITAL) want.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). An unrelentingly positive attitude can be as toxic as negativity because it negates certain inalienable realities, such as gravity, shadows and human imperfection. Aim for realism with a 20% pump of hope — a perfect recipe.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You’re no stranger to soft sales, attraction-based strategies, roundabout methods, paying your dues and various other routes to “manifesting.” But today’s most effective tactic for getting what you want is simpler: just ask.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Quiet is a sanctuary. Yes, the sacred wisdom that visits the wooded trail, the cathedral and the library is rather obvious. But chaos can be its own kind of enlightening hum. Your instinct will find truth between the vibrations.
TODAY’SBIRTHDAY (Feb. 18). Welcome to your Year of Dancing Lights, when fleeting moments sparkle into lasting wonder, taking forms such as lifelong friendship, gambles that pay for years and luck that fortifies your relationships and domestic life. Magic and serendipity are the norm. More highlights: playful romance, a creative success that feels almost fated and a paper deal or certificate that gives you financial security. Libra and Sagittarius adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 8, 27, 14, 39 and 5.
A 19-year-old man has been charged with murder in the death of another teen last summer in the East Germantown section of Philadelphia, police said Tuesday.
Tayvone Bibbs was taken into custody on Tuesday by a fugitive task force in connection with the shooting death of 19-year-old Michael Allen on July 3, 2025, police said.
Just after 5:30 a.m. that day, police responded to a report of a person with a gun on the 200 block of East Rittenhouse Street and found Allen lying in the street with a gunshot wound to his face. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Police did not offer a possible motive for the killing or mention any other arrests.
Two weeks after Allen’s death, police released surveillance video of the minivan used in the shooting. Police noted in the video that the vehicle had at least three occupants.
Deep in South Africa’s wine country near the town of Robertson, past rows of tin shacks and up a gravel road where barefoot children play, sits a little piece of Russia.
The apricot-hued building with its curved dome proclaims its affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church on a sign in Afrikaans. The interior is adorned with icons, rugs, and candle stands, things more familiar to a place of worship in, say, St. Petersburg than South Africa’s Western Cape. But the outpost is just one of hundreds of similar churches that have spawned across Africa.
The continent has long been a target for Russia. The Soviet Union supported decolonialization and aided new independent states during the Cold War while the West engendered mistrust with policies such as doing little to oppose apartheid in South Africa.
Now, faced with more sanctions over its war in Ukraine and a new geopolitical era, Moscow is trying to leverage its old, soft power ties again in the absence of any significant economic hard power.
Recent years have seen China dominate, becoming Africa’s biggest trading partner and investing in roads, railways, and ports. The broader aim might be diplomatic, to garner international support from a continent with 54 votes at the United Nations. The Kremlin and its proxies, though, are also leaning on African countries for recruits to bolster its army and the workforce making munitions it uses in Ukraine.
“Russia is trying to develop its policy of influence in all African countries,” said Thierry Vircoulon, coordinator of the Observatory of Central and Southern Africa at the French Institute of International Relations, known as IFRI. “They want to project the image of a great country that is friendly to all Africans.”
A Chinese destroyer and Russian and Iranian corvettes at Simon’s Town harbor in Cape Town on Jan. 9 ahead of multinational naval exercises.
President Vladimir Putin recently created a Kremlin department to coordinate Russia’s interactions and policies with nations personally selected by him. There will be a special team to look after Africa policy, two people familiar with the situation said.
Early on in its war against Ukraine, there were donations of a small amount of fertilizer and grains to African nations to help alleviate shortages caused by the full-scale invasion in February 2022. More recently, Putin ordered ships to sail around Africa, ostensibly to help countries such as Morocco and Senegal map out their stocks of fish.
What’s increasingly visible is the linguistic and cultural push. Russia has opened seven centers known as Russian Houses across the continent and plans more, holding talks over a new site in Namibia in early December. Russian, meanwhile, is being introduced at universities in cities including Abidjan in Ivory Coast and Harare in Zimbabwe.
In 2024, the foundation led by Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova opened a lecture hall at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, to facilitate the teaching of the language.
More than 32,000 students from Africa are currently studying at Russian universities, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in December. Since 2020, the number of scholarships allocated to the African continent in Russia has nearly tripled, reaching more than 5,300 places. They are following in the footsteps of African leaders, many of whom had military or academic training in the USSR.
The Russian embassy in South Africa posted an advertisement for them in December and a politician in Lesotho facilitated sending students to Moscow-based Synergy University earlier in the year.
And, of course, there’s religion — a way of wielding influence going back to Christian missionaries in colonial times. In less than three years, the Russian Orthodox Church expanded to at least 34 countries in Africa from four, grew the number of clergy to 270 and registered 350 parishes and communities as of June 2024, the latest figures available from the church.
The geographical expansion might be the most significant in the Russian Orthodox Church’s history, Yuri Maksimov, chairman of the Africa Exarchate’s mission department, wrote in a 2025 academic paper.
The Russians attracted priests with better salaries, promises of church construction and rapid promotion, according to a study by Father Evangelos Thiani, an academic and Kenyan priest in the Greek Orthodox Church.
Russian orthodoxy welcomed Alexey Herizo, a Madagascan priest in the capital, Antananarivo, with “open arms.” He did online training with a seminary in Moscow, then practical training on site in 2023 for three months before being ordained as a deacon and then a priest within a few days.
That was after years of waiting for the Greek Orthodox Church to accept him, said Alexey, his religious name. The salaries provided by the Russian church allow us “to live decently, take care of our family’s health, and provide for our children’s education,” he said.
The church in Robertson affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Expanding outreach
It’s hard to estimate the number of worshipers the church has now in communities where religion and social conservatism play a large role in everyday life. The church on the outskirts of Robertson, a town named after a Scottish protestant, switched to the Russian branch of the Orthodox faith in 2022. It’s now home to a small congregation of largely white, Afrikaans-speaking South Africans.
While Russian Orthodox churches in South Africa have mainly recruited from Afrikaans communities, with its conservative values appealing to elements of that group, they have also been seeking to add to their numbers with outreach programs to rural, Black communities.
The expansion is aimed at “trying to pull more countries into their orbit,” said Tom Southern, director of special projects at the Centre for Information Resilience, who has looked at the growth. “It’s like spiritual colonialism.”
Russia’s longstanding ties with Africa loosened following the collapse of communism as the country turned to the West. The continent came back into focus after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and relations with the United States and Europe soured.
A report by the European Parliament said Moscow has military cooperation agreements with 43 African countries and is a key supplier of arms. Wagner Group paramilitaries were active trying to fight rebels in places like Mali, though the group has since been disbanded and folded into the government’s Africa Corps. Companies linked with Wagner, meanwhile, had contracts across the continent in security, oil services, and gold mining.
African countries have vast economic and human potential and are playing an increasingly significant role in global politics, Putin said in a written address to the plenary session of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum conference in Cairo in December. Lavrov, his foreign minister, told the event that Russia plans to have trade missions operating in 15 African countries by the end of 2026.
A Russian warship in January joined naval exercises held off the coast of South Africa along with vessels from China, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. The Russian embassy said they focused on maritime security.
Russia’s renewed push into Africa lacks the financial resources of its geopolitical rivals, though. While China is sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest trade partner, Russia ranks 33rd and is superseded by the UAE, U.S., Japan, and eight European nations.
China has built infrastructure in nations from Cameroon to Kenya while the UAE and other wealthy gulf states have become major sources of foreign money in recent years. The European Union is the biggest investor in South Africa and 600 American companies operate in the country.
Putin hosted a Russia-Africa summit in 2019 attended by 43 heads of state, while the second one in 2023 attracted just 17. The Kremlin blamed the low attendance on “unprecedented pressure” from the U.S. and its allies.
There’s an increasing effort to counter that. With President Donald Trump upending the world order with trade tariffs, rivalry with China and more recently the capture of Venezuela’s president, Russia is trying to assert its narratives in Africa.
The state-owned Sputnik news service is hiring South African journalists and in 2026 plans to open a bureau in the country. It would be the second in Africa, following Ethiopia in early 2025, said Viktor Anokhin, who will run the operation. “Our main goal, as it always has been, is to provide an alternative source of news,” Anokhin said when called by Bloomberg. “A balanced offering.”
Recruiting manpower
Russia has sponsored disinformation campaigns and stoked instability in conflict-ridden nations, according to research groups including the European Council on Foreign Relations. The country is also accused of using Africans to aid its war effort in Ukraine.
One of them was Alabuga Start, a recruitment arm of Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan. It set itself a target of hiring thousands of African women between the ages of 18 and 22, saying they will work in fields such as hospitality and construction.
Most of the young women end up in a military equipment factory, according to the authors of three reports from organizations including the Institute for Science and International Security.
“African women typically don’t have access to as many opportunities in life, opportunities to get a well-paying job, opportunities to get an education, opportunities to travel,” said Spencer Faragasso, a senior research fellow at Washington-based ISIS. “The Alabuga Start program really provides on the surface all those benefits. But in reality, they’re working in a drone production factory.”
Alabuga didn’t respond to requests for comment, while the Russian embassy in South Africa said in August it had no evidence that the rights of those recruited by Alabuga were being violated, describing reports as “biased.”
On the battlefield, Ukraine estimates that more than 1,400 Africans are fighting for Russia. Kenya’s foreign minister said in November at least 200 Kenyans had been recruited to Russia’s military, often after being told they would work as security guards or drivers.
A report this month by All Eyes on Wagner, a nonprofit research group, said Russia has recruited from about 35 African countries and provided the names of about 300 Africans killed while fighting for Russia.
In South Africa, where fighting for a foreign military or assisting it is a crime, a daughter of former President Jacob Zuma is being investigated by the police for allegedly helping to recruit about 20 men for Russia’s military. She told them they were going on a bodyguard training course.
Separately, South Africa arrested and charged state radio presenter Nonkululeko Mantula and four men she allegedly recruited for the Russian military. Her trial is due to start in April. Bloomberg reported on Jan. 7 that Russia targeted South African video gamers as part of the recruitment drive, according to documents involving two men who left to fight.
South Africa, Kenya, and Botswana have announced investigations into how their nationals became involved in fighting for Russia. South Africa and Lesotho have publicly warned against accepting some job opportunities and scholarships in Russia.
Worshipers enter the Cathedral of St. Sergius of Radonezh on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Religious leaders
The widening footprint of the church is symbolic of Russia’s desire to sway Africans to its cause.
In a 2022 news conference to celebrate the first year of work in Africa, Leonid Gorbachov, the then Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, said the church works with Russian government agencies and was in talks with the government about the exarchate’s needs.
“It is religious leaders in Africa who remain the most trusted and respected, with religion taking center stage in politics, elections and developmental concerns,” Father Thiani, the Kenyan priest and academic, wrote in the July 2024 paper published by Studies in World Christianity. “The use of religion for entering Africa is therefore an ideal form of Russian soft power.”
Churches now range from rural outposts in Kenya, Madagascar and the one in Robertson to the St. Sergius of Radonezh cathedral on the outskirts of Johannesburg, which is adorned with grand golden cupolas. Founded in 2003, it was — until the establishment of the Africa Exarchate — the only Russian Orthodox Church in sub-Saharan Africa.
The activities of the Russian Orthodox Church have raised concerns in a number of countries outside Africa.
The Czech government placed Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on its sanctions list in April 2023. It cited his support for the invasion of Ukraine, a country who’s church declared full independence from the Moscow patriarchate in 2022.
In Moldova, a former Soviet state with eyes on EU membership, the government has described the Moscow-linked church as a tool of Russian influence aimed at spreading propaganda and causing instability.
Priests spoken to by Bloomberg denied the church expansion in Africa was related to Russia’s political objectives.
Nicholas Esterhuizen, who runs the Saint John of The Ladder Church above a café in Cape Town, said ties with Russia were spiritual and “transcend the current political climate.”
“If the state is the problem, if the state is at war, why do you need to draw the church into the state? The president is not a leader of the church,” said Daniel Agbaza, a Russian Orthodox priest in Nigeria, where a new church is being built in Benue State. “Because it is called Russian does not mean that it is a Russian government church.”
DNA from gloves found a few miles from the Arizona home of Nancy Guthrie did not match any entries in a national database, authorities said Tuesday, the 17th day of her disappearance.
“There were no DNA hits in CODIS,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said, referring to the national Combined DNA Index System.
“At this point, there have been no confirmed CODIS matches in this investigation,” the department said, suggesting that other DNA samples had been put through the system.
CODIS is a storehouse of DNA taken from crime suspects or people with convictions. Any hits could identify possible suspects in Guthrie’s disappearance.
The sheriff’s department said it’s looking to feed DNA evidence into other “genetic genealogy” databases. It did not elaborate.
Investigators, meanwhile, were seen inspecting exterior cameras at a neighbor’s house Tuesday. Vehicles were also arriving and departing from Guthrie’s Tucson-area home while a thick line of news media watched from the street.
The 84-year-old mother of NBC Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie was reported missing from her home on Feb. 1 after spending the previous night with family, police said. Her blood was detected on the porch.
A porch camera recorded video of a man with a backpack who was wearing a ski mask, long pants, a jacket and gloves. The FBI said the suspect is about 5 feet, 9 inches tall with a medium build.
Gloves were found about 2 miles from Guthrie’s home. The FBI has said that the gloves appeared to match those worn by the man in the video.
“There is additional DNA evidence that was found at the residence, and that is also being analyzed,” the sheriff’s department said.
In addition, the department said it’s working with experts to try to locate Guthrie by detecting her heart pacemaker.
Parsons Corp. said its BlueFly device, which weighs less than a pound and has a range of up to 218 yards, can detect signals from wearable electronics and medical devices. The company said the technology has been used from the air and on the ground in Arizona. It declined further comment about the search.
The sheriff’s department released numbers to show how the public is reacting to Guthrie’s disappearance and the appeal for any information. There were 28,000 phone calls from Feb. 1-16, a 54% increase over the same period a year ago. Not all calls were tips.
Savannah Guthrie posted an Instagram video Sunday in which she issued an appeal to anyone with information about what happened to her mother.
“It is never too late to do the right thing,” she said. “And we are here. And we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, that it’s never too late.”
ILULISSAT, Greenland — When he was growing up in a village in northern Greenland, Jørgen Kristensen’s closest friends were his stepfather’s sled dogs. Most of his classmates were dark-haired Inuit; he was different. When he was bullied at school for his fair hair — an inheritance from the mainland Danish father he never knew — the dogs came to him.
He first went out to fish on the ice with them alone when he was 9 years old. They nurtured the beginning of a lifelong love affair and Kristensen’s career as a five-time Greenlandic dog sled champion.
“I was just a small child. But many years later, I started thinking about why I love dogs so much,” Kristensen, 62, told the Associated Press.
“The dogs were a great support,” he said. “They lifted me up when I was sad.”
For more than 1,000 years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen. But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, around 186 miles north of the Arctic Circle, that’s not possible.
Instead of gliding over snow and ice, Kristensen’s sled bounces over earth and rock. Gesturing to the hills, he said it’s the first time he can remember when there has been no snow — or ice in the bay — in January.
The rising temperatures in Ilulissat are causing the permafrost to melt, buildings to sink, and pipes to crack but they also have consequences that ripple across the rest of the world.
The nearby Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is one of the fastest-moving and most active on the planet, sending more icebergs into the sea than any other glacier outside Antarctica, according to the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO. As the climate has warmed, the glacier has retreated and carved off chunks of ice faster than ever before — significantly contributing to sea levels that are rising from Europe to the Pacific Islands, according to NASA.
Jørgen Kristensen rides with his sled dogs in Ilulissat, Greenland, on Jan. 27.
In the 1980s, winter temperatures in Ilulissat regularly hovered around -13 Fahrenheit in winter, Kristensen said.
But nowadays, he said, there are many days when the temperature is above freezing — sometimes it can be as warm as 50 degrees.
Kristensen said he now has to collect snow for the dogs to drink during a journey because there isn’t any along the route.
Although Greenlanders have always adapted — and could make dog sleds with wheels in future — the loss of the ice is affecting them deeply, said Kristensen, who now runs his own company showing tourists his Arctic homeland.
“If we lose the dog sledding, we have large parts of our culture that we’re losing. That scares me,” he told AP, pressing his lips together and becoming tearful.
A sled dog stands as the northern lights shine over Ilulissat, Greenland, on Jan. 28.
The sea ice is disappearing
In winter, hunters should be able to take their dogs far out on the sea ice, Kristensen told AP. The ice sheets act like “big bridges,” connecting Greenlanders to hunting grounds but also to other Inuit communities across the Arctic in Canada, the United States, and Russia.
“When the sea ice used to come, we felt completely open along the entire coast and we could decide where to go,” Kristensen said.
This January, there was no ice at all.
Driving a dog sled on ice is like being “completely without boundaries — like on the world’s longest and widest highway,” he said. Not having that is “a very great loss.”
Several years ago, Greenland’s government had to provide financial support to many families in the far north of the island after the sea ice did not freeze hard enough for hunting, said Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents Inuit people from across Arctic nations.
The warming weather also makes life more dangerous for fishermen who have swapped their dog sleds for boats, because there is more rain instead of snow, said Morgan Angaju Josefsen Røjkjær, Kristensen’s business partner.
When snow falls and is compressed, air is trapped between the flakes, giving the ice its brilliant white color. But when rain freezes, the ice that forms contains little air and looks more like glass.
A fisherman can see the white ice and try to avoid it, but the ice formed from rain takes on the color of the sea — and that’s dangerous because “it can sink you or throw you off your boat,” said Røjkjær.
Climate change, Olsvig said, “is affecting us deeply,” and is amplified in the Arctic, which is “warming three to four times faster than the global average.”
Greenlandic sled dogs stand in Ilulissat, Greenland, on Jan. 27.
The glaciers are melting
Over the course of his lifetime, the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier has retreated by about 25 miles, said Karl Sandgreen, 46, the head of Ilulissat’s Icefjord Center, which is dedicated to documenting the glacier and its icebergs.
Looking out of the window at hills which would normally be covered with snow, Sandgreen described mountain rock revealed by melting ice and a previously ice-covered valley inside the fjord where “there’s nothing now.”
Pollution is also speeding up the ice melt, Sandgreen said, describing how Sermeq Kujalleq is melting from the top down, unlike glaciers in Antarctica which largely melt from the bottom up as sea temperatures rise.
This is exacerbated by two things: black carbon, or soot spewed from ship engines, and debris from volcanic eruptions. They blanket the snow and ice with dark material and reduce reflection of sunlight, instead absorbing more heat and speeding up melting. Black carbon has increased in recent decades with more ship traffic in the Arctic, and nearby Iceland has periodic volcanic eruptions.
Many Greenlanders told AP they believe the melting ice is the reason Trump — a leader who has called climate change “the greatest con job ever” — wants to own the island.
Since Trump returned to office, fewer climate scientists from the U.S. have visited Ilulissat, Sandgreen said. The U.S president needs to “listen to the scientists,” who are documenting the impact of global warming, he said.
Jørgen Kristensen gets on a boat by an iceberg at Disko Bay near Ilulissat, Greenland, on Jan. 29.
Teaching children about climate change
Kristensen said he tries to explain the consequences of global warming to the tourists who he takes out on dog sled rides or on visits to the icebergs. He said he tells them how Greenland’s glaciers are as important as the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
International summits, such as the United Nations climate talks in November in the Amazon gateway city of Belem, play a role, but it’s just as important to “teach children all over the world” about the importance of ice and oceans, alongside subjects like math, Kristensen said
“If we don’t start with the children, we can’t really do anything to help nature. We can only destroy it,” Kristensen said.
The U.S. attorneys representing the federal government argued previously that the White House has full discretion over the exhibits in national parks, an argument U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe called “dangerous” and “horrifying” during last month’s hearing.
The notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at this stage does not require a brief arguing what the government says the judge got wrong when she issued the injunction. But the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service said in a statement Tuesday that the agencies “disagree” with the injunction.
“The National Park Service routinely updates exhibits across the park system to ensure historical accuracy and completeness,” the statement said. “If not for this unnecessary judicial intervention, updated interpretive materials providing a fuller account of the history of slavery at Independence Hall would have been installed in the coming days.”
Neither agency responded to a request for more information on the plan for alternative panels. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Rufe on Monday granted Philadelphia’s request for an injunction requiring the full restoration of exhibits removed from the President’s House on Jan. 22. She further enjoined the federal government from making any changes to the site without the agreement of the city.
The panels that tell the stories of the nine enslaved African people who lived in President George Washington’s house must be displayed again swiftly, the judge said in her 40-page opinion.
The order directs the agencies to comply “immediately” and “forthwith” but does not include a specific deadline.
“Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history,” wrote Rufe, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.
In addition to the appeal, the federal government will need to ask for a stay on the order or risk not complying with Rufe’s injunction.
Parker addressed the injunction in a video Tuesday celebrating the ruling as a “huge win for the people of this city and our country.”
“This summer Philadelphia will lead a litany of Semiquincentennial celebrations in honor of America’s 250th birthday, and please know that we will do so with a great deal of pride,” Parker said. “A pride that comes from acknowledging all of our history, and all of our truth, no matter how painful it may be.”
Philadelphia’s lawsuit was the first in the nation challenging the removal of exhibits from national parks in accordance with President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order, which instructed the Interior Department to remove any content or displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
The federal government violated a 2006 cooperative agreement between the National Park Service and the city when it dismantled the exhibits without notice in what amounted to an unlawful “arbitrary and capricious” act, Philadelphia’s lawsuit said. Rufe found that the agreement is still binding.
As the city’s litigation proceeds following the injunction, it is not the only effort to address changes to historic exhibits on federal parks.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday by park conservation advocacy groups in Massachusetts federal court says that removals of the type that took place in Philadelphia violate “Congress’s clear instructions.”
The suit asks a federal judge to order the Interior Department and National Park Service to “cease all unlawful efforts to remove up-to-date and accurate historical or scientific information from the national parks, and order that interpretive materials that have been removed pursuant to the unlawful Order be restored.”
PAWTUCKET, R.I. — The person who opened fire Monday during a youth hockey game at a Rhode Island ice rink was specifically targeting family members, killing an ex-wife and son as many fans dived for cover while a handful rushed the shooter to stop the attack, authorities said.
Pawtucket Chief of Police Tina Goncalves said the shooter’s ex-wife Rhonda Dorgan and adult son Aidan Dorgan were killed and three others were injured: Rhonda Dorgan’s parents, Linda and Gerald Dorgan, and a family friend Thomas Geruso, all of whom remained in critical condition Tuesday afternoon, Goncalves said
Police identified the shooter as 56-year-old Robert Dorgan, who died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Dorgan also went by the names Roberta Esposito and Roberta Dorgano, authorities said.
Goncalves said there was “no indication” there would be violence at the ice rink in Pawtucket on Monday afternoon, adding that Dorgan had been to many hockey games to watch family members play before without incident.
Gender identity apparently was a contributing factor to Dorgan’s wife filing for divorce in 2020 after nearly 30 years of marriage.
Court filings show Rhonda Dorgan initially wrote “gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic + personality disorder traits” as reasons for filing but crossed that out and wrote “irreconcilable differences which have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage.”
Court documents show that two shared the same last name even prior to getting married. Authorities have not provided additional details about the same name.
Under the name Roberta Dorgano, Dorgan posted on X that Rhonda Dorgan “hates the person who stole her husband” while posting about the couple’s marital troubles in 2018. A year later Dorgan wrote on social media: “Transwoman, 6 kids: wife – not thrilled,” and encouraged people to not let being transgender stop them from creating a family.
A day before the shooting, Dorgan responded on X to anti-transgender posts by actor Kevin Sorbo and Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones by saying that constant criticism of transgender people is “why we Go BERSERK.”
Brutal attack ended when fans rushed to stop shooter
Goncalves on Tuesday credited several “good Samaritans” who intervened and quickly stopped the attack
At least three bystanders were able to contain Dorgan in the middle of the stands as the crowd fled and ran around them, but said Dorgan was still able to reach for a second firearm and died of a self-inflicted gunshot, Goncalves said.
The hockey game was livestreamed by LiveBarn, a streaming platform for youth sporting events, whose videos have been shared on social media showing players on the ice as popping sounds are heard. Chaos quickly unfolds as players on benches dive for cover, those on the ice frantically skate toward exits and fans flee their seats.
LiveBarn’s social media account has been issuing warnings to those who shared the video that they do not have permission to do so.
Michael Steven, who recorded video after the shooting, recalled crying parents trying to locate their children outside the arena and young people being taken out on stretchers.
“It happens far too often in our nation,” Steven told reporters.
Members of the community held a vigil at Slatersville Congregational Church in North Smithfield in the evening Tuesday.
“It’s absolutely mind-boggling that this could happen to people we know and love and support through everything,” said Amy Goulet, whose son is a hockey player in the community.
Shooter known for bad temper, coworker says
Dorgan was an employee of General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, a ship building facility in Bath, Maine, that contracts with the U.S. Navy, David Hench, a spokesperson for the shipyard, said Tuesday. Coworkers said Dorgan often used the first name Roberta at work.
A colleague, Destiny Mackenzie, recalled that Dorgan used the women’s bathroom and said the two of them would often talk about family. Mackenzie said Dorgan’s ex-wife never came up in conversation but a hockey-playing son was a frequent topic.
“What was supposed to be some seniors’ only chance at playoff games is now ruined,” she wrote in a message to The Associated Press. “Images that these kids and family’s now have to live with. That’s who I send my condolences to is those families.”
Mackenzie said Dorgan had a bad temper that sometimes led to screaming matches with colleagues.
Another coworker said Dorgan appeared to be split on the issue of transgender acceptance, one second being proud of transitioning and the next, embarrassed. That coworker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of workplace reprisals, said they knew Dorgan owned guns but was unsure how many.
Dorgan briefly served in the Marine Corps, enlisting on April 26, 1988, according to military records provided by the service. Less than three months later, on July 13, Dorgan was separated from the service with the lowest military rank.
Maj. Jacoby Getty, a Marine Corps spokesman, told The Associated Press that the rapid discharge indicated Dorgan’s character “was incongruent with Marine Corps’ expectations and standards.”
Getty declined to provide more detail.
Monday’s shooting came nearly two months after the state was rocked by a shooting at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, as well as left a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor dead. Authorities later found Claudio Neves Valente, 48, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility.
“Our state is grieving again,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement. “As governor, a parent, and a former coach, my heart breaks for the victims, families, students, and everyone impacted by the devastating shooting at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket.”
