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  • Judicial district says decisions on ICE presence at Philly courthouse are the sheriff’s ‘sole responsibility’

    Judicial district says decisions on ICE presence at Philly courthouse are the sheriff’s ‘sole responsibility’

    The judicial district that oversees the Philadelphia court system says that the authority for managing ICE’s controversial presence at the Criminal Justice Center rests on Sheriff Rochelle Bilal and that decisions around that are her “sole responsibility.”

    That follows a Wednesday morning news conference where the sheriff joined local elected and community leaders who suggested that court officials or legislators needed to address the ongoing turmoil around courthouse immigration arrests. They called for meetings with court leaders to discuss how to set guardrails on ICE activity.

    The First Judicial District responded with a statement late Wednesday:

    “The First Judicial District is always willing to discuss matters of mutual concern with our justice partners, but managing security in court buildings ― which includes managing ICE’s presence ― is the sole responsibility of the sheriff. These decisions are the sheriff’s to make.”

    The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office responded Thursday that it was “ready to execute all lawful judicial orders.”

    “To be clear,” its statement said, “security inside court facilities is the responsibility of the Sheriff’s Office. … Areas outside of court facilities are public spaces, where individuals retain their First Amendment rights, including the right to assemble and protest. Those areas are not under the operational control of the Sheriff’s Office.”

    The sheriff’s office added that it is committed to maintaining order and safety while upholding the rights of all who enter, and that it remains open to dialogue to ensure “clarity, coordination, and public safety.”

    The sheriff has said her office does not cooperate with ICE, does not assist in ICE operations, and does not share information with the agency. She has not directly addressed whether she believes she has authority to bar ICE agents from the property.

    Her supporters have defended the sheriff by insisting that she does not have that power, that she could only carry out orders issued by a judge or legislature.

    Meanwhile, the presence of ICE in and around the Criminal Justice Center has provoked demonstrations and controversy, with activists charging that the sheriff has allowed ICE to turn the property into a “hunting ground” for immigrants.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not reply to a request for comment on Thursday.

    The group No ICE Philly has castigated the sheriff, saying that by not barring ICE — as judges and lawmakers in some other jurisdictions have done — she has helped enable the arrest of 114 immigrants who were trailed from the courthouse and arrested on the sidewalk.

    That group and others say ICE agents have been allowed to essentially hang out at the Center City courthouse, waiting in the lobby or scouring the hallways, then making arrests outside.

    Many people who go to the courthouse are not criminal defendants ― they are witnesses, victims, family members, and others in diversionary programs. But they have been targeted and arrested by ICE, immigration attorneys and government officials say, causing witnesses and victims to stay away from court and damaging the administration of justice in Philadelphia.

    Aniqa Raihan, a No ICE Philly organizer who has helped lead courthouse protests, said she was not encouraged by the First Judicial District’s statement.

    “We already know that Sheriff Bilal is not doing all she can to protect people at the courthouse,” she said Thursday. “However, the First Judicial District is not powerless. The court can make its own policy, like the court in Chicago did, barring civil arrests on and around the courthouse. … What we’re seeing is a lot of blame-shifting and finger-pointing from our leaders at a time when we desperately need teamwork.”

    The issue around ICE access is complicated by the fact that courthouses are public buildings, generally open to everyone. And sidewalks outside the buildings are generally considered public property.

    Last week the sheriff garnered national headlines ― and condemnation ― for calling ICE “fake, wannabe law enforcement” and for sending a blunt warning to agency officers.

    “If any [ICE agents] want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide,” Bilal said in viral remarks. “You don’t want this smoke, ’cause we will bring it to you. … The criminal in the White House would not be able to keep you from going to jail.”

    On Wednesday, at the news conference at the Salt and Light Church in Southwest Philadelphia, Bilal said her office follows the law and would obey judicial orders and legislative statutes around courthouse security.

    District Attorney Larry Krasner ― whose office led the event, and who reiterated his pledge to prosecute ICE agents who commit crimes ― said victims and witnesses are not showing up for cases due to fear of ICE.

    About half a dozen elected officials and community leaders gathered, with some calling for ICE to get out of Philadelphia.

    They asked for the court system to establish rules and protections for immigrants seeking to attend proceedings at the Criminal Justice Center, and for state court administrators to meet with the district attorney, the sheriff, the chief public defender, City Council members, and others.

    Krasner said Thursday that his office and the other parties “look forward to meeting with the leadership of the courts to discuss lawfully regulating ICE activity in and around the Criminal Justice Center. We will be corresponding with the courts to schedule monthly meetings immediately.”

    At the same time, “we will continue to do all we can to prioritize safety and justice for victims, witnesses, and families who are navigating the criminal justice system,” he said. “Unlawful and unnecessary ICE activity in and around the CJC is deeply traumatizing to those who are already navigating pain and unfortunate circumstances.”

  • David Lynch called Philadelphia one of ‘the sickest, most corrupt, fear-ridden’ cities. That’s what makes it Lynchian.

    David Lynch called Philadelphia one of ‘the sickest, most corrupt, fear-ridden’ cities. That’s what makes it Lynchian.

    When filmmaker David Lynch moved to Philadelphia in 1965 to attend the erstwhile Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he was instantly moved by the city. Though not exactly charmed.

    The city’s crime, corruption, and urban blight impressed themselves on the young artist’s mind and lent to his uncanny vision combining the sinister and the absurd. The Twin Peaks creator, however, only spent a short time living in the city.

    By 1970, he had decamped to Los Angeles to study at the American Film Institute and work on his first feature, the cult classic Eraserhead.

    But Lynch’s relatively abridged tenure as a Philadelphian has had an outsized impact. Consider him the Terrell Owens of Philly weirdo transplant artists.

    A sign at Callowhill’s Love City Brewery nods to David Lynch’s film “Eraserhead.”

    In the year since his passing, retrospectives of his films have dominated programming at Philadelphia rep cinemas and art houses, Callowhill (where Lynch used to live and work) got a makeover as “Eraserhood,” and the neighborhood’s Love City Brewing’s hazy “Eraserhood IPA” grew in popularity.

    Now, a new podcast is digging deeper into Lynch’s influence on Philadelphia, exploring the extent to which the city impressed itself upon his life and work — from PAFA to Hollywood to the soapy subterfuges of the Twin Peaks universe.

    Launched Jan. 15 (the first anniversary of the filmmaker’s passing), Song of Lynchadelphia explores, in the words of host Julien Suaudeau, “the encounter of the 1950s American innocence with a place where the dream had already, and very concretely, turned into a nightmare.”

    Hidden City supervising producer Nathaniel Popkin (right) and Julien Suaudeau discuss their podcast investigating how David Lynch invented a “cinematic language of fear and strangeness in Philadelphia” on Monday, December 15, 2025.

    For Suaudeau, a writer and scholar who teaches film at Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia served as a creative catalyst for Lynch. Many great cities inspire, whether in their beauty, their scale, or deep history. Philadelphia, which Lynch called “one of the sickest, most corrupt, decadent, fear-ridden cities that exists.” The filmmaker was enamored with its crime and filth in the mid-1960s.

    “He was traumatized by Philly,” Suaudeau said, over drinks at Love City Brewing. “And he turned that trauma into art, something both beautiful and strange.”

    A Parisian native who moved to the region to teach, Suaudeau felt drawn to Philadelphia, and to Lynch, early in life. As an adolescent living in France, he responded to the anxious, hysterical, at-times deeply disturbing depiction of teenage life offered by Twin Peaks.

    At the same time, he fell in love with the ‘70s Philly Soul sound, and admired (then) 76er Charles Barkley. (Suaudeau played power forward in high school and, like Barkley, was also considered undersized.)

    “I didn’t know about Lynch’s foundational years in Philly,” he said, “but that convergence feels so meaningful to me today.”

    Song of Lynchadelphia grows out of Song of Philadelphia, a podcast produced by the local public history project Hidden City, which curates the “Eraserhood Tours” in Callowhill.

    Audience members watch “Eraserhead” by David Lynch at the Film Society Center, in Philadelphia, Oct. 5, 2025.

    The new series explores the city’s secret stories through a distinctly warped Lynchian lens.

    The first episode looks into Lynch’s rather despairing comments on the Philadelphia of his artistic adolescence, a place of “insanity” possessed by a “beautiful mood.” Through interviews with local fans, historians, and Lynch’s collaborators (including production designer Jack Fisk, one of Lynch’s longtime collaborators and a PAFA classmate), archival clips, and distinctly Lynchian soundscapes, Suaudeau guides the listener through Lynch’s relationship with the city.

    “We’re always interested in origins, especially among creative people,” said author and Hidden City cofounder Nathaniel Popkin, who serves as Song of Lynchadelphia’s supervising producer. “There is a darkness that is particularly important [in Philadelphia]. It was a place imagined to have brought light in the 18th century. And it got dark, real fast.”

    A historian interviewed in the series’ first episode cites deindustrialization, white flight, racism, rioting, and rising crime as sources of that creeping darkness.

    This curdling of the so-called American dream, so key to Lynch’s filmography, also defines Philadelphia in the period of the director’s artistic awakening. Popkin notes Lynch was living in Philly around the same time as Ira Einhorn, the rabble-rousing environmental activist who was arrested after his former girlfriend’s remains were found decomposing in a suitcase in his closet.

    In this Jan. 9, 2017, file photo, filmmaker David Lynch attends the “Twin Peaks” panel at the Showtime portion of the 2017 Winter Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

    Einhorn would claim he was set up by the CIA, because he knew too much about their top secret paranormal mind-control experiments, a defense that could be ripped from a Twin Peaks episode.

    This very “Philly” feeling of weirdness and unease, Suaudeau said, permeates Lynch’s work, well beyond the early shorts he made here.

    A character in Twin Peaks calling a cadaver a “smiling bag” dates back to a late-night tour a young Lynch took of a Philadelphia morgue. Visions of soot-covered buildings reveal themselves, decades later, in a particularly nightmarish encounter in Mulholland Drive. Laura Dern’s hard-drinking, no-nonsense character Dianne in The Return lives in Philly and, as Suaudeau puts it, “is the kind of person you would meet in a Philadelphia bar.”

    In Twin Peaks, Suaudeau believes that Lynch reveals the city as a kind of dreamscape. In the series and accompanying 1992 feature film, Lynch casts himself as a good-natured (and doornail-deaf) FBI director, operating out of the bureau’s Philadelphia offices.

    Julien Suaudeau (left) takes a selfie with Hidden City supervising producer Nathaniel Popkin at the David Lynch mural outside of Love City Brewing on Monday, December 15, 2025.

    “Philadelphia is the head space of the director,” Suaudeau said. “It’s the room to dream.”

    The idea of Philadelphia as a great American city, once shining like a beacon-on-the-hill, that had gone to seed by the time of Lynch’s arrival, is itself Lynchian, as a metropolis perched on the porous boundary between dream and nightmare.

    “He’s interested in crawling beneath the veneer, beneath the surface,” Suaudeau said. “It’s a mood, it’s an atmosphere, it’s an aura in his work.”

    “Song of Lynchadelphia” launched Jan. 15. “Dreams & Nightmares: A David Lynch Marathon,” an eight-hour Lynch marathon will take place in Phoenixville’s Colonial Theatre on Jan. 18, 11 a.m., thecolonialtheatre.com. A screening of “Eraserhead” followed by a talk-back with Julien Suaudeau is Feb. 21 at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr. brynmawrfilm.org

  • Trump threatens to use the Insurrection Act to ‘put an end’ to protests in Minneapolis

    Trump threatens to use the Insurrection Act to ‘put an end’ to protests in Minneapolis

    MINNEAPOLIS — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration’s massive immigration crackdown.

    The threat comes a day after a man was shot and wounded by an immigration officer who had been attacked with a shovel and broom handle. That shooting further heightened the fear and anger that has radiated across the city since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good in the head.

    Federal officer shoots person in leg after being attacked during Minneapolis arrest, officials say

    Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.

    “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.

    Presidents have indeed invoked the Insurrection Act more than two dozen times, most recently in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to end unrest in Los Angeles. In that instance, local authorities had asked for the assistance.

    Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison responded to Trump’s post by saying he would challenge any deployment in court. He’s already suing to try to stop the surge by the Department of Homeland Security, which says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December. ICE is a DHS agency.

    Protests, tear gas, and another shooting

    In Minneapolis, smoke filled the streets Wednesday night near the site of the latest shooting as federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas into a small crowd. Protesters responded by throwing rocks and shooting fireworks.

    Demonstrations have become common in Minneapolis since Good was fatally shot on Jan. 7. Agents who have yanked people from their cars and homes have been confronted by angry bystanders demanding they leave.

    “This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said.

    Frey said the federal force — five times the size of the city’s 600-officer police force — has “invaded” Minneapolis, and that residents are scared and angry.

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit on behalf of three people who said they were questioned or detained in recent days. The lawsuit says two are Somali and one is Hispanic; all three are U.S. citizens. The lawsuit seeks an end to what the ACLU describes as a practice of racial profiling and warrantless arrests. The government did not immediately comment.

    Shooting followed chase

    Homeland Security said in a statement that federal law enforcement officers on Wednesday stopped a driver from Venezuela who is in the U.S. illegally. The person drove off then crashed into a parked car before fleeing on foot, DHS said.

    Officers caught up, then two other people arrived and the three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.

    “Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said. The confrontation took place about 4.5 miles from where Good was killed.

    Police chief Brian O’Hara said the shot man was being treated for a non-life-threatening injury. The two others are in custody, DHS said. O’Hara’s account of what happened largely echoed that of Homeland Security.

    Earlier Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz described Minnesota said what’s happening in the state “defies belief.”

    “Let’s be very, very clear: this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”

    Clashes in court as well

    Earlier Wednesday, a judge gave the Trump administration time to respond to a request to suspend its immigration crackdown in Minnesota, while the Pentagon looked for military lawyers to join what has become a chaotic law enforcement effort in the state.

    “What we need most of all right now is a pause. The temperature needs to be lowered,” state Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said during the first hearing in a lawsuit filed by Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

    Local leaders say the government is violating free speech and other constitutional rights with the surge of law enforcement. U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez gave the U.S. Justice Department until Monday to file a response to a request for a restraining order.

    Justice Department attorney Andrew Warden suggested the approach set by Menendez was appropriate.

    The judge is also handling a separate lawsuit challenging the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal officers when they encounter protesters and observers. A decision could be released this week.

    During a televised speech before Wednesday’s shooting, Gov. Tim Walz described Minnesota as being in chaos, saying what’s happening in the state “defies belief.”

    “Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”

    Military lawyers may join the surge

    CNN, citing an email circulating in the military, says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is asking the military branches to identify 40 lawyers known as judge advocate general officers or JAGs, and 25 of them will serve as special assistant U.S. attorneys in Minneapolis.

    Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson appeared to confirm the CNN report by posting it on X with a comment that the military “is proud to support” the Justice Department.

    The Pentagon did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking more details.

    It’s the latest step by the Trump administration to dispatch military and civilian attorneys to areas where federal immigration operations are taking place. The Pentagon last week sent 20 lawyers to Memphis, U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant said.

    Mark Nevitt, an associate professor at Emory University School of Law and a former Navy JAG, said there’s concern that the assignments are taking lawyers away from the military justice system.

    “There are not many JAGs but there are over one million members of the military, and they all need legal support,” he said.

    An official says the agent who killed Good was injured

    Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed Good, suffered internal bleeding to his torso during the encounter, a Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.

    The official spoke to AP on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Ross’ medical condition. The official did not provide details about the severity of the injuries, and the agency did not respond to questions about the extent of the bleeding, exactly how he suffered the injury, when it was diagnosed or his medical treatment.

    There are many causes of internal bleeding, and they vary in severity from bruising to significant blood loss. Video from the scene showed Ross and other officers walking without obvious difficulty after Good was shot and her Honda Pilot crashed into other vehicles.

    She was killed after three ICE officers surrounded her SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from her home.

    Bystander video shows one officer ordering Good to open the door and grabbing the handle. As the vehicle begins to move forward, Ross, standing in front, raises his weapon and fires at least three shots at close range. He steps back as the SUV advances and turns.

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said Ross was struck by the vehicle and that Good was using her SUV as a weapon — a self-defense claim that has been deeply criticized by Minnesota officials.

    Chris Madel, an attorney for Ross, declined to comment on any injuries.

    Good’s family, meanwhile, has hired a law firm, Romanucci & Blandin, that represented George Floyd’s family in a $27 million settlement with Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black, died after a white police officer pinned his neck to the ground in the street in May 2020.

    The firm said it would conduct its own investigation and publicly share what it learns.

  • Trump’s promised manufacturing boom is a bust so far

    Trump’s promised manufacturing boom is a bust so far

    Introducing the highest U.S. tariffs since the Great Depression, President Donald Trump made a clear promise in the spring: “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.”

    They haven’t.

    Manufacturing employment has declined every month since what Trump dubbed “Liberation Day” in April, saying his widespread tariffs would begin to rebalance global trade in favor of American workers. U.S. factories employ 12.7 million people today, 72,000 fewer than when Trump made his Rose Garden announcement.

    The trade measures that the president said would spur manufacturing have instead hampered it, according to most mainstream economists. That’s because roughly half of U.S. imports are “intermediate” goods that American companies use to make finished products, like aluminum that is shaped into soup cans or circuit boards that are inserted into computers.

    So while tariffs have protected American manufacturers like steel mills from foreign competition, they have raised costs for many others. Auto and auto parts employment, for example, has dipped by about 20,000 jobs since April.

    “2025 should have been a good year for manufacturing employment, and that didn’t happen. I think you really have to indict tariffs for that,” said economist Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State in Muncie, Indiana.

    Small- and midsize businesses have found Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs especially vexing. Fifty-seven percent of midsize manufacturers and 40 percent of small producers said they had no certainty about their input costs in a November survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Only 23 percent of large manufacturers shared that complaint.

    Smaller companies also were more than twice as likely to respond to tariffs by delaying investments in new plants and equipment, the survey found. One reason could be that taxes on imports raise the price of goods used in production much more than they do with typical consumer items, according to a study by the San Francisco Fed.

    Industries producing more technologically complex goods such as aircraft and semiconductors also are paying an outsize price, according to Gary Winslett, director of the international politics and economics program at Middlebury College. Makers of semiconductors, for example, shed more than 13,000 jobs since April.

    “They’re the ones who need the imported inputs. Really advanced manufacturing is actually what’s getting hit the hardest,” he said.

    Trump’s tariffs, however, are not the industrial sector’s only headache. Factory payrolls began their post-pandemic decline in early 2023, almost two years before Trump returned to the White House.

    High interest rates and a shift in consumer spending patterns are hurting the nation’s manufacturers, economists said. Business loans are more than twice as expensive as they were four years ago, with banks charging their most creditworthy borrowers interest rates of 6.75 percent. That discourages businesses from expanding operations and hiring additional workers.

    After bingeing during the height of the pandemic on durable goods, consumers have gradually redirected their spending to in-person services. Money that once went to makers of furniture, televisions and exercise machines now goes instead to restaurants and entertainment venues.

    In Indiana, the spending switch can be glimpsed in the fortunes of the recreational vehicle industry, a local mainstay. RV shipments soared to a record 600,400 in 2021 as consumers trapped at home by the pandemic hit the road. But by 2024, the work-from-home era was over, and sales fell by nearly half. Thor Industries, the largest RV manufacturer, laid off several hundred workers last year, as demand flagged.

    Once Trump returned to the White House, manufacturers responded by over-ordering imports to beat the anticipated tariffs. That’s left many producers with more inventory than they need, suggesting cuts lie ahead, according to Hicks.

    “The manufacturing job losses that we see now are really just the beginning of what will be a pretty grim couple of quarters as manufacturing adjusts to a new lower level of demand,” he said.

    Modest numbers of manufacturing jobs have been trimmed throughout the economy. In December, Westlake Corp., a Houston-based producer of industrial chemicals, said it would idle four production lines at facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi, putting 295 employees out of work. Speaking on an investor call, company executives blamed excess global capacity and weak demand for the move.

    While the jobs that Trump promised have not materialized, factory output rose in 2025, reaching its highest mark in almost three years, according to Federal Reserve data, and administration officials said it is only a matter of time before the full benefits of the president’s plan are felt.

    Trump’s tariffs and jawboning encourage CEOs to invest in new U.S. plants. Provisions in the president’s signature fiscal legislation permitting companies to quickly write off the full expense of new investments in equipment and research and development expenses will spur modern manufacturing, they said.

    “It also encourages the build-out of high-precision manufacturing here at home, which will lead to high-paying construction and factory jobs,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a speech this month.

    Companies are spending more than three times as much on constructing new factories as they did when Trump was first inaugurated, though less than during the Biden-era peak. The White House last fall hailed recent investment announcements by companies such as Stellantis and Whirlpool. Last month, T. RAD North America, a subsidiary of a Japanese manufacturer, announced plans for a new auto parts plant in Clarksville, Tennessee, which would employ 928 workers.

    Nick Iacovella, a spokesman for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which backs Trump’s manufacturing policies, said the roughly 1 percent shrinkage in factory employment last year was less significant than the uptick in business investment.

    “We saw a significant increase in capital expenditures, which is the earliest signal that reindustrialization is taking hold. Those investments take time to permit, build and staff before they show up in employment data,” he said.

    The president’s hopes of increasing manufacturing employment defy decades of experience in the United States and other advanced economies. American factory jobs peaked at 19.5 million in the summer of 1979 and have been sliding ever since, largely because of the introduction of machinery that can do the job of several workers.

    As two presidents sought to revive domestic production over the past decade, manufacturing employment rode a roller coaster. Factory jobs increased by 421,000 during Trump’s first term before sinking by more than 1 million during the pandemic. President Joe Biden used government subsidies to encourage hiring, especially for green energy projects, and manufacturing payrolls rose more than 100,000 above Trump’s highest mark.

    But those gains evaporated by the end of 2024.

    On Tuesday, the president addressed the Detroit Economic Club, touting “the strongest and fastest economic turnaround in our country’s history.” He boasted about growth, productivity, investment, incomes, inflation and the stock market.

    “The Trump economic boom is officially begun,” the president said.

    All that’s missing now are the jobs.

    GRAPHIC

    https://washingtonpost.com/documents/fa67e068-5b52-48f2-aaf1-1cf62d5ac320.pdf
  • Phillies sign center fielder Francisco Renteria, a top international prospect, with a $4 million bonus

    Phillies sign center fielder Francisco Renteria, a top international prospect, with a $4 million bonus

    The international signing period opened Thursday, and the Phillies officially signed one of the top-ranked prospects in this year’s class.

    Venezuelan center fielder Francisco Renteria, ranked the No. 3 international prospect in 2026 by MLBPipeline, signed with the Phillies for a $4 million bonus, according to Baseball America.

    The 17-year-old Renteria’s biggest tool is his raw power, while he also has speed and athleticism. At 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, he has experience playing against older opponents in Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. Last month, he put on a show at a Venezuelan home run derby with 18 homers.

    Renteria’s bonus is the second-highest for an international prospect in the 2026 class. It is also the highest for a Phillies international amateur signing since 2015, when Dominican outfielder Jhailyn Ortiz signed for $4 million.

    Ortiz was ranked the Phillies’ No. 18 prospect in 2020, though he did not reach the majors. He ascended to triple A in 2023 but became a free agent after the season and has since played in independent leagues.

    Aroon Escobar is the highest-ranked international signee prospect in the Phillies system. The second baseman signed out of Venezuela in 2022 for $450,000 and is ranked the Phillies’ No. 5 prospect by MLBPipeline.

  • Winter is about to return in Philly. Will snow join the party?

    Winter is about to return in Philly. Will snow join the party?

    As it approaches halftime, the meteorological winter around here so far has been about as inconsistent as the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense, but it is about to get decidedly colder, if not snowier.

    Temperatures on Thursday are due to hover around freezing with a brisk westerly wind gusting up to 30 mph (sympathies to all bikers and runners and those who are navigating those Center City wind tunnels), and then drop into the 20s after sunset with windchills in the teens.

    Then, after a modest warmup Friday and Saturday, the forecast turns decidedly colder and potentially more intriguing, as computer models have been going back and forth on snow potential for the Philly region.

    Philly’s coldest stretch of the winter so far to begin Sunday

    Readings are expected to warm into the 40s on Saturday, but then drop off dramatically during the holiday weekend and may not reach freezing again until Thursday.

    They may not get out of the 20s on Tuesday — when wind chills could fall to 0 in Philly — and Wednesday, with overnight lows in the teens.

    This is called January.

    Will the cold lock in a snow cover?

    A few alarm bells went off Wednesday afternoon when the main U.S. computer model suggested potential major snowstorms along the coast all the way to the I-95 corridor on Sunday.

    However, other computer guidance wasn’t buying it, nor were forecasters. The computer food fight continued Thursday.

    The U.S. model, said Paul Pastelok, longtime seasonal forecast specialist with AccuWeather Inc., “goes wacky all the time.” Maybe not all the time, but a subsequent run of the European model kept the storm offshore.

    “We’re kind of in a waiting game,” said Pastelok.

    Opined the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly in its afternoon forecast discussion, the potential system has “high-end potential but also could end up being nothing.”

    In other words, situation normal.

    The winter so far in Philly and United States

    Oddly, the raw stats for the first half of the meteorological winter — that’s the Dec. 1-Feb. 28 period — are not too far from normal for snowfall and temperature.

    But that’s the result of quite a cold start to an eventful December, followed by a benign and uneventful January around here.

    December temperatures finished at 3.6 degrees below normal at Philadelphia International Airport. And in the first two weeks of 2026, they were 3.6 degrees above normal. Snowfall in December was about an inch above average, but with a paltry 0.3 inches so far this month, the 4.8 total is very close to where it should be.

    The early season coolness in Philly and much of the rest of the East was a surprise, said Owen Shieh, warning coordination meteorologist with NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md. The West, conversely, was quite warm.

    The contrasts were the result of “pattern persistence,” said Tony Fracasso, a weather center meteorologist.

    In the East, “This winter started quite strong,” he added, compared with recent winters. “It was not record cold,” but, “it sure felt cold for us.”

    What’s ahead the rest of the winter of 2025-26

    That likely will be the case early next week, and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has chances favoring below normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation in the Jan. 22-28 period.

    Pastelok said that upper-air patterns are aligning in such a way that favors importing cold air from northwestern Canada.

    The Climate Center’s Laura Ciasto said she does not see a major invasion of the polar vortex in the next few weeks. The vortex circles the Arctic, imprisoning the planet’s coldest air. But on occasion, the winds weaken, the freezer opens, and the contents spill southward.

    She said the vortex winds are slightly weaker than normal but are expected to strengthen.

    It is possible that lobes of the vortex may stretch on occasion, resulting in short-lived periods of cold in the Northeast, said Judah Cohen, research scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    A period to watch would be the first week in February, when a significant disruption of the vortex is possible, Pastelok said.

    A sudden stratospheric warming in the high atmosphere in the Arctic, which can lead to cold outbreaks in the contiguous United States “is not out of the question” late in the winter, Ciasto said.

    Philadelphia’s peak snow season typically occurs in late January through mid-February.

    Of the 10 biggest snowfalls in the city’s history, only three have occurred before Jan 22.

  • Philly is Unrivaled women’s basketball doubleheader at Xfinity Mobile Arena is sold out

    Philly is Unrivaled women’s basketball doubleheader at Xfinity Mobile Arena is sold out

    Unrivaled has sold out its upcoming Philly takeover event at Xfinity Mobile Arena, a Comcast Spectacor official confirmed to The Inquirer on Thursday.

    The 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, which launched last year in Miami, is taking its season on the road in Year 2. The first Unrivaled event outside suburban Miami will be Jan. 30 in Philadelphia.

    Xfinity Mobile Arena, which has a capacity of 21,000 and is owned by Comcast Spectacor, will be by far the biggest venue Unrivaled has played in. The league’s usual venue in Medley, Fla., Sephora Arena, was built just for Unrivaled and holds just 1,000 seats.

    The event, which features a doubleheader between four of Unrivaled’s eight teams, Breeze vs. Phantom and Rose vs. Lunar Owls, is set to bring young stars like Paige Bueckers (Breeze) and Cameron Brink (Breeze), along with Philly natives Natasha Cloud (Phantom) and Kahleah Copper (Rose), to South Philly.

    The doubleheader comes on the heels of the WNBA’s announcement in June 2025 that Philadelphia will be home to an expansion franchise, with play set to begin in 2030.

    If you missed out on purchasing, tickets are available for resale on platforms like StubHub and Ticketmaster, starting at $111.15 for the upper deck as of Thursday afternoon.

  • Lawmakers propose $2.5B agency to boost production of rare earths and other critical minerals

    Lawmakers propose $2.5B agency to boost production of rare earths and other critical minerals

    WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals, while the Trump administration has already taken aggressive actions to break China’s grip on the market for these materials that are crucial to high-tech products, including cellphones, electric vehicles, jet fighters and missiles.

    It’s too early to tell how the bill, if passed, could align with the White House’s policy, but whatever the approach, the U.S. is in a crunch to drastically reduce its reliance on China, after Beijing used its dominance of the critical minerals market to gain leverage in the trade war with Washington. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year truce in October, by which Beijing would continue to export critical minerals while the U.S. would ease its export controls of U.S. technology on China.

    The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China, which processes more than 90% of the world’s critical minerals. To break Beijing’s chokehold, the U.S. government is taking equity stakes in a handful of critical mineral companies and in some cases guaranteeing the price of some commodities using an approach that seems more likely to come out of China’s playbook instead of a Republican administration.

    The bill that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) and Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.) introduced Thursday would favor a more market-based approach by setting up the independent body charged with building a stockpile of critical minerals and related products, stabilizing prices, and encouraging domestic and allied production to help ensure stable supply not only for the military but also the broader economy and manufacturers.

    Shaheen called the legislation “a historic investment” to make the U.S. economy more resilient against China’s dominance that she said has left the U.S. vulnerable to economic coercion. Young said creating the new reserve is “a much-needed, aggressive step to protect our national and economic security.”

    Rep. Rob Wittman (R., Va.) introduced the House version of the bill.

    New sense of urgency

    When Trump imposed widespread tariffs last spring, Beijing fought back not only with tit-for-tat tariffs but severe restrictions on the export of critical minerals, forcing Washington to back down and eventually agree to the truce when the leaders met in South Korea.

    On Monday, in his speech at SpaceX, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon has in the past five months alone “deployed over $4.5 billion in capital commitments” to close six critical minerals deals that will “help free the United States from market manipulation.”

    One of the deals involves a $150 million of preferred equity by the Pentagon in Atlantic Alumina Co. to save the country’s last alumina refinery and build its first large-scale gallium production facility in Louisiana.

    Last year, the Pentagon announced it would buy $400 million of preferred stock in MP Materials, which owns the country’s only operational rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, and entered into a $1.4-billion joint partnership with ReElement Technologies Corp. to build up a domestic supply chain for rare earth magnets.

    On Wednesday, Trump announced in a proclamation that the U.S. is “too reliant” on foreign-sourced critical minerals and directed his administration to negotiate better deals. He said possible remedies would include minimum import prices for certain critical minerals.

    “Reshoring manufacturing that’s critical to our national and economic security is a top priority for the Trump administration,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson.

    The drastic move by the U.S. government to take equity stakes has prompted some analysts to observe that Washington is pivoting to some form of state capitalism to compete with Beijing.

    “Despite the dangers of political interference, the strategic logic is compelling,” wrote Elly Rostoum, a senior fellow at the Washington-based research institute Center for European Policy Analysis. She suggested that the new model could be “a prudent way for the U.S. to ensure strategic autonomy and industrial sovereignty.”

    Companies across the industry are welcoming the intervention from Trump’s administration.

    “He is playing three-dimensional chess on critical minerals like no previous president has done. It’s about time too, given the military and strategic vulnerability we face by having to import so many of these fundamental building blocks of technology and national defense,” NioCorp’s Chief Communications Officer Jim Sims said. That company is trying to finish raising the money it needs to build a mine in southeast Nebraska.

    Relying on allies for help

    In addition to trying to boost domestic production, the Trump administration has sought to secure some of these crucial elements through allies. In October, Trump signed an $8.5 billion agreement with Australia to invest in mining there, and the president is now aggressively trying to take over Greenland in the hope of being able to one day extract rare earths from there.

    On Monday, finance ministers from the G7 nations huddled in Washington over their vulnerability in the critical mineral supply chains.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has led several rounds of trade negotiations with Beijing, urged attendees to increase their supply chain resiliency and thanked them for their willingness to work together “toward decisive action and lasting solutions,” according to a Treasury statement.

    The bill introduced on Thursday by Shaheen and Young would encourage production with both domestic and allied producers.

    Past efforts to bolster rare earths production

    Congress in the past several years has pushed for legislation to protect the U.S. military and civilian industry from Beijing’s chokehold. The issue became a pressing concern every time China turned to its proven tactics of either restricting the supply or turned to dumping extra critical minerals on the market to depress prices and drive any potential competitors out of business.

    The Biden administration sought to increase demand for critical minerals domestically by pushing for more electric vehicle and windmill production. But the Trump administration largely eliminated the incentives for those products and instead chose to focus on increasing critical minerals production directly.

    Most of those past efforts were on a much more limited scale than what the government has done in the past year, and they were largely abandoned after China relented and eased access to critical minerals.

  • Public mistrust linked to drop in deceased donor organ donations and kidney transplants

    Public mistrust linked to drop in deceased donor organ donations and kidney transplants

    WASHINGTON — Organ donations from the recently deceased dropped last year for the first time in over a decade, resulting in fewer kidney transplants, according to an analysis issued Wednesday that pointed to signs of public mistrust in the lifesaving system.

    More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are on the list for an organ transplant. The vast majority of them need a kidney, and thousands die waiting every year.

    The nonprofit Kidney Transplant Collaborative analyzed federal data and found 116 fewer kidney transplants were performed last year than in 2024. That small difference is a red flag because the analysis traced the decline to some rare but scary reports of patients prepared for organ retrieval despite showing signs of life.

    Those planned retrievals were stopped and the U.S. is developing additional safeguards for the transplant system, which saves tens of thousands of lives each year. But it shook public confidence, prompting some people to remove their names from donor lists.

    Andrew Howard, who leads the Kidney Transplant Collaborative, said last year’s dip in kidney transplants would have been larger except for a small increase — about 100 — in transplants from living donors, when a healthy person donates one of their kidneys to someone in need. The collaborative advocates for increased living donations, which make up a fraction of the roughly 28,000 yearly kidney transplants.

    With the exception of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, organ transplants have been rising year-to-year. Last year’s decline in deceased donors didn’t translate into fewer transplants overall: There were just over 49,000 compared with 48,150 in 2024. Transplants of hearts, livers and lungs continued to see gains, according to federal data. Howard said that was likely due to differences in how various organs are evaluated and allocated for transplant.

    The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations wasn’t involved in Wednesday’s analysis but expressed alarm, calling on its members, hospitals and federal regulators “to unite in restoring public trust and strengthening this critical system.”

  • Philly’s small businesses can get free tax prep services through a new program by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration

    Philly’s small businesses can get free tax prep services through a new program by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration

    Philadelphia small businesses making less than $250,000 can access free tax preparation services through a new city program.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Thursday announced the launch of the Philadelphia Free Business Tax Preparation program, which will cost the city $7.5 million per year and is expected to last at least five years.

    Business owners can learn more at phila.gov/businesstaxprep/.

    The new service is aimed at helping the estimated 50,000 firms this year that will need to start paying Philadelphia’s business income and receipts tax, or BIRT, following the elimination of a popular exemption that primarily benefited small companies.

    Why a popular tax break that helped Philadelphia’s small businesses may be going away

    BIRT returns are due April 15.

    How does the Philadelphia Free Business Tax Preparation program work?

    Under the new program, the city will connect eligible business owners with private tax professionals who will be reimbursed by the city for each client they assist.

    There will be no cost to the businesses. Only firms based in Philadelphia that made less than $250,000 in 2024 are eligible.

    The tax professionals will help firms file city, state, and federal tax returns — not just BIRT.

    “We want you to be ready,” acting Commerce Director Karen Fegley said Thursday. “Let’s be ready for growth.”

    The city so far has contracted with 19 tax preparation companies to participate in the program, and more may join, Fegley said. Together, they offer services in 13 languages, including English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and French.

    Why did the BIRT exemption end?

    For about a decade, firms with less than $100,000 in revenue from transactions in Philadelphia were exempt from paying the BIRT.

    That policy, championed by former City Councilmembers Maria Quiñones Sánchez and William J. Green IV, effectively allowed the tens of thousands of companies making less than that amount to forgo paying the tax at all. During the COVID-19 pandemic, former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration waived the requirement for those firms to file local business tax returns, providing administrative relief for business owners.

    But Parker last year convinced Council to eliminate the tax break after a Massachusetts-based medical device manufacturer that does business in Philly sued the city, saying the policy violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s uniformity clause.

    https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/business-income-receipts-tax-birt-parker-administration-20250424.html

    The policy change will place a significant burden on Philadelphia’s smallest businesses, both financially and administratively, given the complexity of BIRT. The tax includes two levies: Firms must pay 5.71% of their net income, or profits, made in Philadelphia, as well as 0.141% of their gross receipts, or total income, in the city.

    Council last year approved a Parker plan to gradually lower the tax rates over 13 years and eventually eliminate the gross receipts levy, but the most significant cuts are years away.

    Why Mayor Cherelle Parker is asking Council to approve a tax cut that will take effect in 2038

    Parker reiterated Thursday that she supported the $100,000 exemption. But she said her administration settled the lawsuit after determining the city would likely lose in court, potentially risking a ruling that City Solicitor Renee Garcia has said could require the city to repay past tax revenue.

    Critics of the mayor’s decision to settle the case last year questioned why she didn’t fight harder to preserve the tax break. Parker said Thursday that would have been irresponsible.

    “I said, ‘That’s why I’m the mayor and you’re not,’ because we can’t just do that and put the fiscal stability of the city at risk,” Parker said Thursday at a City Hall news conference.

    To help ease the transition, Parker last year proposed using the money the city expected to gain as a result of more firms paying the BIRT — about $30 million — to fund business assistance programs. Council increased that total to about $47 million before approving the city budget in June.

    Most of the money will go to existing programs that provide direct grants for businesses, such as the Philadelphia Catalyst Fund, Fegley said. But Parker is also using the funds to launch the tax preparation service.

    “Small businesses are the backbone of Philadelphia, I don’t care what neighborhood you live in,” Parker said.

    What else is being done to help small businesses?

    In response to the elimination of the $100,000 BIRT exemption, Councilmember Mike Driscoll last year introduced a bill to exclude certain types of businesses — entrepreneurs, sole proprietorships, and businesses with one employee — from the tax.

    Many of Philadelphia’s smallest companies are one-person operations, and Driscoll said he aimed to relieve them of the cost and burden of filing a BIRT return.

    Parker on Thursday said her administration is still evaluating the proposal, noting that it would cost the city revenue and could potentially run up against the same legal hurdle as the $100,000 BIRT exemption: the uniformity clause, which requires Pennsylvania businesses, property owners, and individuals of the same “class” to be taxed at the same rate.

    “We will work through that with his team, and do the cost analysis,” Parker said, adding that, “more importantly,” the city’s law department will work “to make sure we are not in violation of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s uniformity clause.”

    Council is expected to consider the measure in a committee hearing in the first half of the year.