DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been together 23 years, married for almost nine. We are in our 60s. It’s the second marriage for both of us. I retired due to having to move to another state for his job. I make friends wherever I go and get involved in community activities.
My husband has NO friends. Seriously. ZERO! He goes to work and comes home. Over the years, he has accused me of wanting relationships with my male friends (whose wives are also my friends) and tells me I should just go on and be happy with the other man. Neither my friends nor I have ever done anything to spark his pathological jealousy.
Currently, I am on a nonprofit board of directors and must communicate often with the male president. He has become the new target. Counseling is out of the question because psychiatry is my husband’s specialty. Also, he seems to think he is always right about everything. He has never issued an apology as long as I’ve known him.
I do not respond to his tirades because it’s pointless, but I’m sick and tired of his behavior and thought process. I understand the “why” to this behavior (his heritage and environment), but that doesn’t give him carte blanche to use it as an excuse. Any suggestions for moving forward?
— WEARY IN FLORIDA
DEAR WEARY: From what you have written, your antisocial husband is a bottomless vessel of insecurity. If you haven’t been able to assuage it in all these years, I doubt you ever will. Many psychotherapists use mental health professionals themselves. But unless your husband is willing to admit that perhaps he, and not you, is the problem and seeks help, nothing will change. Frankly, I am surprised your marriage has lasted this long. Is this how you want to live the rest of your life? Answering that question is the way to move forward.
** ** **
DEAR ABBY: I work from home a few days a week and live a block from the local middle school. Recently, I’ve broken up a group of kids in my yard hitting and fighting with each other. I don’t know these kids, have no children in school and realize this is an ongoing issue. I’m not certain how to handle it.
I could ignore it, but I’m afraid not only that one of the kids will get hurt, but also that a parent would be upset that this happened on my property. I could report it to the police, but that may be overkill. I could also try reaching out to the school, but without any information on who these kids are, I’m not sure that would be much help either. Any ideas?
— WITNESS IN OHIO
DEAR WITNESS: I do have a suggestion. You have already spoken to the children involved in these altercations. You are correct that there could be liability if one or more of them are injured on your property. Contact the principal of the middle school and explain what has been going on. Once that’s done, call or visit the police department and report that your yard is being turned into a battleground. If you do, the next time something starts happening and you call the police, they may respond quickly.
ARIES (March 21-April 19). It won’t be necessary to meet anyone halfway because people want what you want. So you’ll have effortless compatibility — the kind where you just understand each other and don’t have to compromise.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20). The day asks for forgiveness, especially of yourself. Carrying old blame into a new year is like wearing too many coats for the weather. Shed it. You’ve learned what you needed to know, and today you are brand new.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Forget about mistakes of the past. Compassionate integration is the way. Take the lesson, close the chapter and let the ghosts linger in history where they belong. This new day is for the living.
CANCER (June 22-July 22). Don’t worry so much about timing. You’re not behind. It’s impossible to know other people’s process, so don’t bother comparing. You’re headed toward good things, and nothing can keep you from your destiny.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Outdated identities no longer fit? Just drop them. You don’t owe loyalty to other versions of yourself. Your self-definition is allowed to change with the times, with your circumstances and according to your latest expectations.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). They say knowledge is power, but today highlights the more accurate truth: knowledge is (SET ITAL) potential (END ITAL) power. Application is everything! The insight you pick up will be a treasure just as soon as you figure out how to use it.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). You’ll find yourself lit up by a podcast or conversation that feeds your mind in a way real-life people haven’t lately. It’ll remind you that your people are out there, even if today they’re voices through speakers.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You may feel like hiding your creativity until it’s “ready,” but that will slow you down. What if you opted for playful experimentation instead? Make messy drafts, weird notes and unfinished scenes, and let the process be joyful instead of secretive.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). People tend to do what’s easy for them. Those who do more aren’t necessarily working harder; they just have more skill or strength. What looks impressive is still easy for them. Those are the ones to hire, befriend and learn from.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). You put people first, and everything good comes from that choice. Relationships bring you opportunities that no one could have predicted. Bonus: When you’re busy making magic for others, your own life feels magical.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Emotional downsides such as embarrassment, rejection or temporary discomfort will be quickly overcome and are worth risking if the upside is money, opportunity, relationships, reputation or progress.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). You’ll have one moment where you think, “Wow, I’m actually proud of how I handled that.” Whether it’s a boundary, a decision or a tiny act of self-respect, it’ll feel like a small but unmistakable shift into your next era.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Jan. 2). Welcome to your Year of the Glorious Detour. The plan changes, and the reroute is destiny. You’ll stumble into opportunities meant for you long before you thought you were ready. Finances stabilize with a clever new habit you adopt almost accidentally. More highlights: a friendship that becomes a chosen-family anchor, three professional showcase moments and a getaway that shifts how you see the world. Leo and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 14, 30, 28, 9 and 22.
The bride wore a sequin silk gown with golden sneakers. The groom, a bedazzled tux. They became husband and wife in the bitter cold of Market Street — in the middle of the Mummers Parade.
Juliana Bonilla, 25, and Stanley Wells, 32, met online three years ago. And they never envisioned their love story would include a storybook Mummers Parade wedding. But on Thursday, the pair, who marched with the Hegeman String Band, officially tied the knot as part of a Mummers Parade performance.
The wedding was a first, said Kelliann Gallagher, captain of Hegeman. At least in the string band division, anyway, she said. At least that anyone had ever heard of.
Julianna Bonilla (middle) and Stanley Wells (right) kiss after saying “I DO” and being officially married by Hegeman String Band captain Kelliann Gallagher (left) during the 2026 Mummers Parade in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
The Mummers Day matrimony had come together by chance, explained Gallagher, who served as the officiant.
Back in October, the South Philly string band was finalizing its parade plans when it struck Gallagher that a real wedding would be the perfect ending to their Las Vegas-themed routine.
“Of course, one of the aspects of Vegas is the little white wedding chapel,” said Gallagher. “So we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we can get someone to actually be married on New Year’s Day?”
They just needed a couple.
Evie Pastor, who serves as sergeant-at-arms for Hegeman, thought of her recently engaged daughter, Juliana. She had grown up around the Mummers, and her stepfather, Jon Pastor, plays first alto saxophone in the string band.
After all, Bonilla, of South Philadelphia, and Wells, of North Philadelphia, who both work as home healthcare aides, had a very Philly courtship. Their first date three years ago was at a Delaware Avenue eatery, where they watched the Eagles play.
She had fallen for him immediately.
“He was a gentleman,” Bonilla said of Wells.
He was drawn to her beauty and humor.
By October, the couple who have a daughter, Kehlani, 2, had already picked out a venue. Bonilla, who is shy and nervous in front of large crowds, was hesitant when her mother asked about a Mummers wedding.
“I don’t like all the attention on me,” she said.
But the more she thought of it, the more the idea grew on her. It would be special. She would be marching anyway. But this year, instead of a parade marshal, she’d be the bride.
“It was something different,” she said.
Julianna Bonilla (left) and Stanley Wells go over wedding service details before being married by Hegeman String Band captain Kelliann Gallagher (right) during the 2026 Mummers Parade in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
Her nerves grew as the parade drew close, and it had nothing to do with Wells. It was about the crowds and the television cameras that would be filming the band’s performance — and her wedding.
She found a long-sleeve gown with a long train and a Mummers vibe. And on Thursday morning, she and Stanley posed in front of the band’s Second Street clubhouse, showing off their golden sneakers.
They practiced their vows on the bus ride to Market Street, where the bands would perform before the judges. The bride packed a flask of Southern Comfort to warm herself against the cold — and to calm herself about the crowds.
And then they waited on Market Street — for hours — due to delays caused when the String Band Division called off its competition because of punishing winds. Many props were destroyed, and five people were sent to the hospital Thursday morning, Mummers officials said.
While no longer competing, the bands would still march.
By 4 p.m., Hegemen String Band finally begun to inch toward the bright lights and crowds at City Hall. As Jon Pastor played “Can’t Help Falling in Love” on his sax, Bonilla and Wells stepped off the band’s bus.
Taking each other’s hands before Gallagher, who would officiate in a bedazzled Elvis get-up, they wanted to at least exchange their vows in the quiet moments before the performance.
“I promise to stand by your side, to support and cherish you in all the seasons of your life,” Wells said.
“I promise to love you without condition or expectation, exactly as you are today and every day after.”
Stanley Wells (left) and Julianna Bonilla kiss after being married by Hegeman String Band captain Kelliann Gallagher during the 2026 Mummers Parade in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
Then, with a showman’s touch, Gallagher shouted, “Stay tuned for the rest of the wedding.”
That took place a short while later, as the band performed its routine under the stars of Market Street. Braving the cold and the crowds, the couple strutted to the front of the line, each holding aloft signs saying, “I do.”
With that, Gallagher pronounced them man and wife to the grandstand cheers.
Evie Pastor began to cry.
“That’s enough, get a room,” joked a parade emcee, as the couple’s kiss lingered.
With that, Juliana Bonilla and Stanley Wells, now husband and wife, strutted down Broad Street, the bride’s nerves finally eased by the overwhelming emotion of the moment.
“I’m glad its done with,” she said. “I can get warm now.”
With sequins and glitter, music and pageantry, the nation’s oldest folk parade strutted through downtown Philadelphia on Thursday, delighting thousands who lined Broad Street despite fierce, damaging, and bitter winds.
Over 125 years, there have been weather events — postponements because of cold, rain and snow and, in 2021, a COVID cancellation. But for the first time in Mummers history, one part of the parade was suspended.
The popular String Band Division called off its competition because of punishing winds that destroyed props and sent five people to the hospital early Thursday morning during parade setup. Each of the 14 string bands marched later Thursday, playing music in costumes and makeup, but solely for entertainment purposes and not with their planned routines.
A full string band competition, with judges and routines the clubs have spent a full year devising and practicing, will happen on a yet-to-be-determined date, after logistics and finances are worked out.
Still, the 2026 parade was quintessentially Philadelphia — not perfect, but full of heart-on-its-sleeve scrappiness.
Ryan Echols, president of the Hegeman String Band, said the group had shortened its performance and packed up props due to the gusty wind, but still came to play.
“The parade still goes on, regardless,” said Echols. “We’re still here to perform for the city of Philadelphia.”
The cancellation had thrown a wrench in the day, said Nick Magenta, captain of the Polish American String Band.
“You get used to all these years — how the parade goes, how the morning goes,” he said. “When you have something like those, it kind of throws you off your focus.”
Still, Mummer morale remained high, he said.
“You can’t change it, regardless,” said Magenta. “Everyone is just looking forward to being out here and celebrating the new year.”
Musicians with the Uptown String Band arrive on buses, to play for their theme of “From Script to Screen,” highlighting the golden age of Hollywood movie making.
‘Things were just being ripped out of our hands’
String band officials saw the forecasts: possible snow squalls and wind gusts early Thursday morning. They monitored forecasts hour by hour.
But in the 5 a.m. reality of readying “a mobile Broadway show,” it quickly became apparent that they were not gusts, but, on Broad Street, sustained 30-mile-per-hour winds. As clubs set up their elaborate props, five people sustained injuries that sent them to the hospital. Some clubs had important set pieces destroyed.
“We did everything precaution-wise — sandbags and all of that,” said Sam Regalbuto, president of the Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association. “But as they were trying to assemble, things were just being ripped out of our hands.”
Regalbuto quickly called a meeting of association delegates, and the consensus was to suspend the competition but still march. Only a little differently, not putting anyone at a disadvantage, because several bands had lost key pieces of their show.
Sam Regalbuto, president of the Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association, pauses for a photo with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, during the Mummers Parade Thursday. The string band competition was suspended because of high winds that destroyed props and caused injuries during morning setup. The bands still marched and played their music, but did not carry props, and would not be judged.
Even into the afternoon, winds were still brisk, with temperatures in the 30s. (Cold temperatures are scheduled to continue into the weekend.)
“We’ve lost sets, we’ve lost props that we’ve worked 365 days to put together to bring you the best possible string band spectacular that we do every year,” he said. “It was very hard for all of us, as a unit, to make this decision.”
After the last Comic Divisions finished, it was showtime for the strings, with Duffy String Band leading off.
Crowds seemed unfazed by the amended show. Some Mummers wore beanies instead of their typical elaborate headpieces.
A jubilant Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s spirits were undimmed by the changes.
“I want you to remember how much time, energy, and practice and effort goes into preparing,” Parker said. “Don’t forget about the generations of families who are here. We are proud, and this is our Philly tradition.”
‘Our thing, together’
Dressed in handmade, bedazzled Colonial-era costumes, Joe Bongard, 47, and his teenage daughter, Lucy, were the first Mummers to march.
By parade time, it had almost seemed like they hadn’t slept in days, the Bongards said. Father and daughter had been preparing since September.
Bruce Platt, a parade marshal for 17 years, holds back the rush of Froggy Carr wenches as they take off for their TV start time march,
In the final hours before Parade Day, Lucy sewed her bejeweled and sparkled red-white-and-blue Colonial-era woman’s costume. Meanwhile, her father, who is in his first year as captain of Golden Sunrise Fancy Club, applied finishing touches to his Ben Franklin outfit and practiced his knee step for the dance routine.
Poised in the warming glow of the television cameras, their patriotic sequins and feathers rustling in the icy wind, Joe and Lucy Bongard said this is what they love to do.
“It’s our thing, together,” Joe Bongard said.
Proudly watching her husband and daughter from the grandstand, Erika Bongard laughed when she said that, for her, the Mummers Parade represented something else entirely. “Honestly for me, lots of cleaning, because there is sequins and glitter everywhere for months,” she said, recording as Joe and Lucy began to strut and dance to Rocky theme song “Gonna Fly Now,” officially kicking things off.
“Clearly, Lucy got her rhythm from me, and not Joe,” said Erika Bongard, beaming about her daughter’s smooth steps.
McKenna Wei, 7, gets help putting on a set of beads given to her by a passing Mummer Wench as the Newtown Square family watches the Mummers Parade Thursday, the 125th anniversary of Philly’s iconic New Year’s Day celebration. From left is grandmother Qin; sister Mabel, 12; mom, Helen and dad, Michael.
Nearby, Ellie Jozefowski, 75, fought back tears as she strutted in a sequined Flyers jacket. The tears come easily every year for Jozefowski, a parade veteran of more than three decades.
Thursday was no different. They flowed freely as four generations of Jozefowskis marched together for Golden Sunrise, including Ellie’s 7-month-old grandson, Peter, bundled up in a cheesesteak costume and carried by his mother, Molly.
“I’m crying because I’m happy!” shouted Ellie Jozefowski.
Farther back in line, Mummer Brian Creamer, of South Philly, shivered over his coffee. His young daughter, Amita, also a Mummer, had helped him bejewel his pirate king costume. He would not miss it for the cold or the wind, he said.
“It’s about spreading the new year joy,” he said.
Even farther back, wenches Ricky Dinaro, 35, and his pal, Anthony Putnick, warmed themselves on the regenerative powers of Miller Lite.
They’d been born into the parade, they said, and marched all their lives. They had been drinking for hours.
“I stayed up all night,” said Putnick, of the MGK Outsiders NYB.
Others had found their way into the longest-running continuous folk parade.
Cheyenne Cohen, of Golden Sunrise, grew up in Northern California before joining the Mummers three years ago after she moved to Philly. There was nothing like the Mummers in Santa Cruz, she said, adding that she now also works at the Mummers Museum in South Philly.
“Absolutely, the most welcoming community,” she said of her sequined and feathered found family.
It was a parade of firsts for the Mummers of the Philadelphia Chinese Community Organization United troupe.
Celebrating its inaugural year, the Chinatown Mummers danced traditional Chinese folk dances, which many members practiced late nights after their restaurant jobs.
“We want to welcome people to Chinatown and show our culture,” said member Holly Ming.
In the crowded grandstands, new and old fans shivered.
Kenzie McBride thought what better year to score front-row grandstand seats for her stepmother, Jennifer Smithson, than the 125th anniversary?
Smithson, bundled in a blanket, approved.
“It’s been on my bucket list,” she said.
And though some would-be parade-goers stayed home because of the string band news, plenty came out to enjoy the iconic parade anyway.
In the grandstands as darkness fell, Patrick Finnegan, 46, of Oreland, danced with his son, Dylan, 6, on his shoulders. His 8-year-old twins, Arielle and Melody, were by his side.
It was the first time he had brought the kids to the parade.
The cancellations didn’t affect their fun, Finnegan said.
“It’s all about riding the train downtown to see the Mummers,” Finnegan said, mid-strut. “My wife thinks I’m crazy.”
WASHINGTON — Over the past two years, a little-known aide to President Donald Trump has become one of the GOP’s most influential content creators, filming him dancing on a tarmac in Malaysia, serving French Fries at McDonald’s on the campaign trail, and greeting small children in the Oval Office.
Margo Martin, a 30-year-old who gets as close to the president as his Secret Service detail, is the quiet engine of a social media operation that has transformed presidential communications.
Armed with an iPhone camera, she gives what feels like a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the president and the most potent element that spurs online engagement: a sense of authenticity.
Martin’s raw material is then processed by a sprawling network of better-known right-wing influencers who use that content for memes, podcast clips, and shows that go viral, reinforcing Trump’s bond with his most ardent supporters and maintaining his status as a ubiquitous pop culture figure for everyone else.
During Trump’s trip to Asia in the fall, vertical videos and photos captured by Martin were viewed nearly 50 million times on her X account and more than 222 million times on the @TeamTrump Instagram and TikTok, not to mention the millions of views on reposts from Trump supporters who cribbed the content and shared it themselves.
It’s curated, of course. You won’t see images of Trump dozing off in a Cabinet meeting or the bruise on his hand that are often promoted bythe left. But even Democrats who view Martin’s efforts as propaganda concede their effectiveness.
“The more you see something, the more you think it’s true,” said Sammy Kanter, a Democratic content creator and new media consultant.
“The more volume of content that they put out there that favors the image that they want out there, and the more that’s in people’s feeds, and the more they see it, the more they’re going to think it’s reality or question less what their reality is versus what they’re being told,” Kanter said.
Martin, who declined an interview request, served as a press assistant in the first administration and then moved to Palm Beach, Fla., to continue working with Trump after he left office. A recording she made of Trump’s book interviews became part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the president’s handling of classified documents. (She was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury.)
All of that — plus a low-key personality that is rare in Trump’s world of brash advisers — has bonded her to the president, who at a campaign rally called her “the most beautiful photographer in the world.”
“She has the trust of the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview, noting the proximity of her desk, just outside the Oval Office. “So she’s able to really see the inner workings of his every day and share that with the American public.”
Compared with the flashy and controversial memes and edits often shared by other Trump and White House accounts, Martin’s content on X is understated, a collection of mostly vertical photos and videos optimized for audiences scrolling on their phones.
Captions usually include a brief description, a quote and pronouncements like “MUST WATCH!” or “THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT!” She’s a frequent user of the red heart, American flag, fire, and laughing emojis.
The basic approach is ideal for creators looking to make their own content, because the clips are free and ready to clip, unlike professional news videos that often require a licensing fee to news services such as Getty Images or the Associated Press.
“It really is about arming your base with the resources that they need,” said Parker Butler, who directed the team that ran the @KamalaHQ accounts for Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.
The stream of material is “so helpful for us to discuss what the administration is doing,” said Link Lauren, a conservative political influencer who also served as a senior adviser for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a Republican influencer or politico who hasn’t reposted one of Martin’s videos or photos. A Washington Post analysis of social media posts found that more than 300 high-profile right-wing influencers and politicians have mentioned Martin since the inauguration, sharing her posts thousands of times.
Her posts have been shared more than 10 times in that time period by Elon Musk, the Republican National Committee, and Fox News.
Leavitt credits Martin with fueling news cycles and prime-time Fox News packages, making her a key cog in a media operation that has increasingly pushed aside traditional adversarial news gathering.
Other allies credit Martin with building relationships among online supporters to further boost the White House message, which gives Martin an influence well beyond her 337,000 followers on her official X account.
“She’s undoubtedly one of the most influential creators right now, and she is maybe the first ever White House influencer,” said Alex Bruesewitz, a senior adviser to a Trump-affiliated political action committee and architect of the Trump 2024 campaign’s online strategy.
“Her content reaches the masses in a way that I don’t think anybody in the administration — in any administration — has done before,” Bruesewitz said.
Not all of Martin’s work appears on her official account. She posts more personal content on Instagram, where she presents as a cross between a travel influencer and a presidential sidekick. Photo dumps and reels include shots of her sitting across from the president on Air Force One and behind the scenes on foreign trips, but are interspersed with gym content, concert videos, and clips of her being an aunt.
That approach reflects the broader social media strategy the Trump campaign and Republican operatives embraced during the 2024 campaign, blending politics with other topics to reach lower-propensity voters.
“She’s kind of combining this lifestyle aesthetic with girl boss energy, and almost like a travel influencer,” said Azza Cohen, who served as Harris’ official White House videographer and director of video.
She pointed to a reel on Martin’s account of Trump’s August summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska as an example of “whitewashing and sanitizing.”
The video is edited to look “like any other travel influencer,” she said, even as the content features high-level shots of the president on the plane, the military flyover, their handshake, and the Russian and American flags.
“Visually, it’s very effective because it’s normalizing Putin and it’s normalizing the sort of friendship between the president of the United States and the dictator who commits horrific human rights abuses,” she said.
Trump officials disagree, calling Martin’s work an example of transparency at the highest levels.
“I couldn’t think of anything less curated than an unedited filter video on an iPhone that is literally just simply posted and shared with the world in real time,” Leavitt said.
The Eagles were going through their ball security drills at practice Thursday when running backs coach Jemal Singleton chimed in.
Many starters will get the day off Sunday in the season finale vs. the Washington Commanders. So Singleton wanted to offer a reminder: For some Eagles who will take the field Sunday, their last time getting hit was a while ago. His eyes quickly darted to Tanner McKee, the backup quarterback said.
“It’s actually been a while since I’ve gotten hit,” McKee said Thursday afternoon.
Sure, Jalen Hurts’ backup has hit the field a few times in mop-up duty this season. He handed to Tank Bigsby twice and kneeled twice during the final drive two weeks ago vs. Washington. He led a 17-play drive to the goal line in a blowout over Las Vegas a week earlier. And he handed once to Bigsby before kneeling three times to close out a Week 8 win over the Giants.
This week is different. McKee will get the reins vs. the Commanders as the Eagles give Hurts and some other regulars a week off from game action to get ready for the playoffs. McKee and any other backup will routinely tell you about preparation being the same every week. Backups prepare to start because their number could be called at any time. But McKee said there is a slight difference.
“You’re just more involved with making the calls on the field instead of watching somebody else make the calls,” he said. “So you’re back there and you’re doing your footwork. ‘This is what I would do; these are my reads if I were in.’ But now you’re actually in. It is just kind of getting those physical reps.”
And he will prepare to be hit, too. McKee hasn’t gone into a game as a starter since the preseason. Prior to that it was Week 18 last year, when he completed 27 of 41 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns in a 20-13 win over the Giants. McKee will again face a divisional foe, but the big difference this time is the game has some stakes. The Eagles were locked into the No. 2 seed last season. This time, McKee could help lead the Eagles to a win with a chance to move into the second spot in the NFC if Detroit beats Chicago.
“I’m definitely excited for that,” McKee said. “It’s obviously fun when something is on the line.”
Philadelphia Eagles Tanner McKee throws the football during practice at the NovaCare Complex in Philadelphia
In that regard, McKee hasn’t played a meaningful game since he was at Stanford in 2022. And while this game does have some possible stakes for the Eagles, it definitely has stakes for McKee, who is still a 25-year-old quarterback trying to put good play on tape. Next season is the final year of his contract, and while there are surely some Eagles fans that want him to be a starter here — and will make their voices heard on radio stations heading into the playoffs if he plays well Sunday — McKee is, in a sense, auditioning for his next job. The Eagles could choose to bring him back as a reliable backup option in 2026, or they could try to flip him for draft capital this offseason.
McKee, who had a good training camp with the Eagles, said he wasn’t thinking ahead about that part of it, but is viewing Sunday as just another opportunity to go do his job and perform. He feels more prepared to do that now than he did at this time last year just because of all the practice time he’s gotten since.
“Obviously with more reps you get more confidence, you have that good chemistry with the guys around you,” McKee said. “I feel like I have a good feel, can play fast. As a quarterback it’s really big to be able to play and just react to the game instead of trying to think, ‘What’s my job? What’s my footwork? What’s everybody else doing?’ You can just play and react and so I feel like I’ve gotten to that point and I feel comfortable doing that.”
A year after his last start, he’ll get a chance to show just how comfortable on Sunday.
Rookie right tackle Cameron Williams was added to the active roster after being activated from injured reserve Thursday. Williams’ 21-day practice window was set to expire this week and the Eagles opted to activated him rather than end his season.
Williams, 22, could see his first NFL action Sunday.
Safety Marcus Epps reported concussion symptoms to the medical staff after practice. He has a concussion and is in the concussion protocol.
Jihaad Campbell (back/shoulder) was upgraded to a full participant after appearing on the estimated injury report after Wednesday’s walk-through as limited.
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland — About 40 people were killed and another 115 injured, most of them seriously, after a fire ripped through a bar’s New Year celebration in a Swiss Alpine resort less than two hours after midnight Thursday, police said.
Authorities did not immediately have an exact count of the deceased.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue, and overnight its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin, speaking on his first day in office, said many emergency staff had been “confronted by scenes of indescribable violence and distress.”
“This Thursday must be the time of prayer, unity and dignity,” he said. “Switzerland is a strong country not because it is sheltered from drama, but because it knows how to face them with courage and a spirit of mutual help.”
The country will hold five days of mourning.
Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference that work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, adding that the community is “devastated.”
Thirteen of the wounded were Italian citizens, and another six Italians are unaccounted for, Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told state-run RAI television.
Consular officials at the U.S. Embassy in Bern are ready to provide assistance to U.S. citizens who may have been affected by the fire, the embassy said in a statement Thursday.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
She later said the number of people who were in the bar is “currently totally unknown,” adding that its maximum capacity will be part of the investigation.
Le Constellation has a capacity of 300 people with a terrace that holds 40, according to the resort’s tourism agency.
It is not yet clear how many people were inside the bar when the fire broke out, said Beatrice Pilloud, attorney general of the Valais Canton.
“For the time being, we don’t have any suspect,” she added, when asked if anyone had been arrested over the fire. “An investigation has been opened, not against anyone, but to illuminate the circumstances of this dramatic fire.”
Gisler said that the priority until further notice would be identifying the victims and that “this work will have to take several days.”
The Crans-Montana Mountain Resort offers views of the Matterhorn, one of the world’s most photographed mountains, and the Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe. It was acquired by the U.S.-based Vail Resorts in 2023.
“We are deeply saddened by last night’s tragedy in Crans-Montana. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families,” Pete Petrovski, managing director of Crans-Montana Mountain Resort, said in an email.
Vail Resorts does not own the bar, according to Swiss business records.
An evening of celebration turns tragic
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV that they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside.
The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.
Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who survived the blaze, described “total chaos” inside the bar. One of his friends died and “two or three” were missing, he told the Associated Press.
He said he hadn’t seen the fire start, but did see servers arrive with Champagne bottles with sparklers, he said.
Clavier said he felt like he was suffocating and initially hid behind a table, then ran upstairs and tried to use a table to break a Plexiglas window. It fell out of its casing, allowing him to escape.
He lost his jacket, shoes, phone, and bank card while fleeing, but said, “I am still alive and it’s just stuff. … I’m still in shock.“
One of the people unaccounted for was an Italian, Giovanni Tamburi, whose mother Carla Masielli issued an appeal for any news about her son and asked the media to show his photo in hopes of identifying him, according to RAI.
“We have called all the hospitals, but they don’t give me any news. We don’t know if he’s among the dead. We don’t know if he’s among the missing,” she wailed. “They don’t tell us anything!”
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, said Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton.
“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Reynard.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was planning to go to the site on Friday given the significant number of Italians involved.
Three of the wounded were being transported from the Sion hospital in Switzerland to Milan’s Niguarda, the Italian civil protection agency said.
Resort town sits in the heart of the Alps
In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.
With high-altitude ski runs rising nearly 9,850 feet in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit.
The resort is scheduled to host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers for their final events before the Milan-Cortina Olympics in February. The town’s Crans-sur-Sierre golf club stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.
The Swiss blaze on Thursday came 25 years after an inferno in the Dutch fishing town of Volendam on New Year’s Eve that killed 14 people and injured more than 200 as they celebrated in a cafe.
This article includes information from the Washington Post.
Daycare operators say the Trump administration’s restrictions on federal childcare funding unfairly punish them over a conservative activist’s fraud allegations against Minnesota centers that are undercut by state records anddisputed by some of the owners.
YouTuber Nick Shirley recently went to nine federally subsidized daycare centers in Minneapolis, many operated by Somali Americans.
In a 42-minute video of his visits that went viral last week, he claimed that thecenters weren’t caring for any children because none could be seen entering or exiting the buildings.
In response, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cut off funds to the centers until they undergo extensive auditing and announced stricter verification measures nationwide for childcare funds.
Minnesotastate regulators visited the centers within the past 10 months and saw children, according to state officials and records,undermining claims that they are fraudulent businesses.
One daycare manager told theWashington Post thatsecurity camera footage showed Shirley visiting her facility when it was closed. Another daycare director said staff didn’t open the door in part because they assumed that Shirley and six or seven men with him, some masked, were from Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which launched an operation in early December focused on Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis area.
Ahmed Hasan, director of ABC Learning Center, said the YouTuber showed up at the front entrance around noon on Dec. 16. During the winter, most parents use the back entrance and Shirley stayed no more than a few minutes, he said.
“There were kids here all the time,” Hasansaid. “I was also here.”
Hasan said his daycare serves about 56 children, most from low-income East African families. It was last visited by a state regulator on Nov. 7. Since the video went viral, people have flooded his center’s phones with harassing calls, threatening to have him arrested or call ICE, he said.
Ayan Jama, manager at Mini Childcare Center, said that herdaycare has also received threatening phone calls, including a bomb threat, and that people have attempted to break in.
She said Shirley visited in the morning before her center opened after noon. Its typical hours are 12:30 to 9:30 p.m. to serve mostly Somali children after school while their parents work in the afternoons and evenings, she said.
“Why not come during operating hours?” she said. “This is a targeted attack on our community.”
Jama, whose business was last visited by a regulator on June 11, said she won’t be able to keep her doors open if federal funds, which account for 90% of her revenue, aren’t restored.
Of the seven other daycare centers featured in Shirley’s video, five didn’t return requests for comment on Wednesday, the mailbox was full for a sixth, and multiple calls to a seventh resulted in a busy signal.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, said the Trump administration is threatening funding for childcare services “apparently all on the basis of one video on social media.”
“To say I am outraged is an understatement,” Ellison said in a statement Wednesday.
The scrutiny on the nine daycare centers in Shirley’s video has nationwide implications because all daycare centers will have to submit more documentation to HHS before receiving childcare funds.
The new guidelines, while still unclear, mirror “defend the spend” requirements that briefly went into effect in April before they were stopped, child welfare policy analysts said. For a few weeks, states seeking to draw down money to reimburse daycares were asked to upload additional details on why the payments were justified.
That effort significantly delayed payments to providers, said Stephanie Schmit, director of childcare and early education at nonpartisan Center for Law and Social Policy.
If the new documentation requirements are the same or more onerous, providers that are chronically underfunded will struggle to keep their doors open, she said.
“We already know that childcare providers don’t have a lot of additional time to do things like this,” Schmit said.
HHS said federal childcare dollars, which help familieswith low incomes pay for care, will be frozen to the centers under suspicion until they release extensive documents, including attendance records, inspection reports, and complaints.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the agency has “a clear duty to verify the proper use of taxpayer funds.”
“The documentation process exists to rule out fraud and confirm that funds are supporting legitimate child care providers,” he said in a statement. “Any provider operating should be prepared to demonstrate compliance.”
Clare Sanford, a government relations chair for the Minnesota Child Care Association, which represents more than 300 centers across the state, called the viral video misleading.
For example, daycare centers often lock their front doors for safety reasons, and it is not unusual for employees to not answer a door if they are caring for children and not expecting a visitor, she said.
If an employee opens a door, children might not be visible because daycare centers keep them in classrooms, away from entrances, she said.
Shirley did not return requests for comment Wednesday evening.
The action comes amid state and federal fraud investigations of 14 Minnesota-run safety net programs, including for child nutrition, housing, and autism assistance.
President Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers, and conservative activists and media outlets have cited the involvement of Somali Americans to blast the immigrant group. Trump said in a Cabinet meeting last month that he doesn’t want Somali immigrants in the United States and referred to them as “garbage.”
Around threedozenpeople gathered Wednesday at the Minnesota Capitol to express opposition to the childcare funding restrictions, holding signs that said “No child care, no workforce” and “Fund care not fear.”
“Let’s be honest about how we really got here: Our president decided he doesn’t like the Somali community and he wants to destroy them,” said Amanda Schillinger, a Minnesota childcare provider, to a loud chorus of boos.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, tweeted Tuesday that Trump was “politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
State Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, a Democrat who is cochair of the House Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee, said thestate has been actively working for years to put safeguards in place against fraud.
“It’s incredibly frustrating to me that Donald Trump and the Republicans want to use this as a political vehicle to cut funding to our state,” she said.
Eight of the daycare centers depicted in Shirley’s video have received multiple violations by state regulators. ABC Learning Center was cited for deficiencies, which Hasansaid were corrected and described as common among daycares, such as not having food menus with proper nutritional requirements and not having an individual care plan for a child with a known allergy.
The ninth center in Shirley’s video — Super Kids Daycare Center — had its license activated Oct. 1 and shares the same address as another daycare center whose license expired that same day and previously received violations.
The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families did not return requests for comment after the Trump administration announced its funding freeze.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian officials said Thursday that a Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and wounded at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said in a statement on Telegram. He said that one of the drones carried an incendiary mixture, sparking a blaze.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a strike. The attack could not be independently verified by the Associated Press.
The attack was condemned by a number of Russian officials as tensions between the two nations continue to spike despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks.
Valentina Matviyenko, the chair of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, said that the strike “strengthened” Russia’s resolve to quickly achieve its goals in its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine.
The strike “once again demonstrates the validity of our initial demands,” Matviyenko said.
The statement follows claims from Moscow that Ukraine launched a long-range drone attack against one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official residences in northwestern Russia on Tuesday. Kyiv has denounced the claims as a “lie.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Thursday that its specialists had accessed the navigation system in one of the drones it claimed was used in the Tuesday attack and used its data to confirm that Putin’s residence was the drone’s final destination.
The claim could not be verified as the ministry did not share evidence on the findings, but officials said that it would transfer the data to U.S. officials “through established channels.”
On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry also released a video on Wednesday of a downed drone it said was involved in the attack.
The nighttime clip showed a man wearing camouflage, a helmet, and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the Defense Ministry provided any location or date and neither the video nor its claims could be independently verified.
Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Putin’s residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have ramped up in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.
In his New Year’s address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a peace deal was “90% ready” but warned that the remaining 10%, believed to include key sticking points such as territory, would “determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, how people will live.”
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday that he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany, and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process.”
“We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of (Trump’s) peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart,” Witkoff said in a post on X.
Lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov also reaffirmed that European and Ukrainian officials plan to meet Saturday. Zelensky is due to hold talks next week with European leaders.
In the diplomatic sphere, Kyiv has also continued to push the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take action against Russia for alleged attacks on electricity infrastructure deemed “critical for nuclear safety and security” at Ukraine’s nuclear power stations.
The IAEA on Tuesday published a Note Verbale sent by Kyiv to the agency, saying that a Russian drone and missile attack on Dec. 23 had caused certain Ukrainian nuclear power plants to lose a “significant part of their off-site power connections.”
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia attacked the Odesa region overnight, targeting civilian infrastructure in several waves of drone attacks, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
In a post on Telegram, Kiper said that a two-story residential building was damaged and that a drone hit an apartment on the 17th floor of a high-rise building without detonating. There were no casualties reported.
In its daily report, Ukraine’s air force said air defense forces had downed or suppressed 176 of 205 drones targeting the country overnight. It said hits by 24 strike drones were recorded at 15 locations and the attack was still ongoing.
Chad Hanson remembers a time, not so long ago, when driving on a bridge across Florida’s Apalachicola Bay meant witnessing an astounding sight.
“You’d see just boats lined up along the reefs and spread out,” he said of the hundreds of oyster fisherman that used to harvest fromroughly 10,000 acres of the bay, about 75 miles southwest of Tallahassee.
For generations, those boats helped fuel the local economy and provided 90% of the oysters harvested in Florida, as well as about 10% of the nation’s wild caught oysters.
“Pretty much the whole community, in one way or another, was involved with the oyster industry,” said Hanson, a science and policy officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts who works on conservation issues around the Southeast.
Now, more than a decade after the once-iconic industry began to fade — and five years after harvesting was shuttered completely — Apalachicola’s storied oyster beds have opened once more, on the first day of 2026.
In 2013, the fishery entered a precipitous decline, the result of pressures such as excessive drought, overharvesting, the loss of reef material and long-running water disputes along the rivers that feed the bay— a reflection of stressors that have affected oyster populations across the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.
By 2020, Florida had imposed a five-year oyster harvesting ban, in an effort to try to jump-start an ecological recovery.
When harvesting in Apalachicola begins anew, it won’t be anything like the glory days just yet, with a truncated season, fewer permits available to access fewer acres and catches strictly monitored and limited.
But for folks such as Shannon Hartsfield, a fourth-generation Franklin County fisherman, it’s something.
“How can I put it?” Hartsfield, 56, said on a recent afternoon. “It’s a step forward, but it’s not going to be enough to say you can make a living in the bay.”
The decision to reopen the bay
In the fall, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to reopen Apalachicola Bay to oyster harvesting on Jan. 1 — a decision that drew swift praise from Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
“Apalachicola’s oyster industry has been the cornerstone of Florida’s seafood economy for generations. No place knows oysters better than Apalachicola,” DeSantis said at the time.
“I look forward to continuing to invest in restoration activities that support the long-term restoration of Apalachicola Bay and the communities that rely on it,” DeSantis said.
The approval came with a series of restrictions. To begin with, the state will allow only a two-month season, ending on Feb. 28. If all goes well, officials plan to reopen future seasons beginning in October.
For now, the state considers only about 500 acres suitable for harvesting, and commercial crews who qualify for a permit will be allowed to fish Monday through Friday along four small, designated reefs.
Each permit holder also will be limited to a certain number of bags from each reef. A bag is equal to two 5-gallon buckets, one 10-gallon bucket, or 60 pounds of oysters.
No one is pretending that such modest limits are enough to bring back oystering jobs that have been lost over the years, or to immediately make harvesting a sustainable line of work again in Apalachicola, where some oystermen have sold their boats and many have had to seek other kinds of work.
“I just don’t know how it’s going to be,” said Hartsfield, who said he quit harvesting oysters in 2013 but has helped academic researchers with their ongoing search for solutions. “We have a drop in the bucket compared to what we used to have.”
Merely reaching the point of being able to temporarily reopen Apalachicola Bay to harvesting took years of work and significant funding.
Numerous small-scale restoration efforts have unfolded during the years of closure, but the largest effort came in 2024, whenthe state’s fish and wildlife commission constructed 77 acres of new reef on degraded oyster habitat, the agency said.
State officials have set a long-term goal to restore 2,000 acres of oyster reefs in the bay by 2032 — still a fraction of what once existed, but far more than its recent lows.
The state also hopes to reestablish an oyster fishery with a long-term “cultch” program, in which oyster shells or other material are added back onto reefs to create an ideal habitat for baby oysters to attach and grow.
Such a program “is necessary component of any sustainable oyster fishery,” state wildlife officials wrote in a recent presentation.
“The success of oyster recovery in Apalachicola Bay, which includes a viable oyster fishery, depends on continued restoration and reef maintenance,” the agency wrote, estimating that such efforts will require an annual budget between $30 million and $55 million.
A budget proposal rolled out by DeSantis in December seeks $30 million in funding to expedite the state’s efforts to restore oyster habitats, including $25 million in Apalachicola Bay. But even if that amount ultimately is approved, restoring resilience in the estuary will take time.
“I’ll be frank,” said Hanson, who also serves on the board of the Partnership for a Resilient Apalachicola Bay. “Oyster restoration and habitat rebuilding is on the order not of years, but decades.”
Stress on the industry across the region
The pressures facing Florida’s once-renowned oyster industry are not unique. Other oyster populations around the Gulf of Mexico have faced declines in recent years for a litany of reasons, including habitat loss, pollution, and damage from storms.
Recently, Alabama announced that the state would close all public water bottoms oyster harvesting on Dec. 23 after one of the worst harvests in years.
State conservation officials said in a statement that surveys of reefs “suggest Alabama’s oyster populations have faced multiple stressors in recent years which have led to a population decline.”
Those threats extend across much of the Gulf Coast — and far beyond — said Tom Wheatley, a conservation project director for Pew. “It’s a global issue,” he said.
Indeed, researchers have estimated that as much as 85% of oyster reefs have been lost. Those losses matter not only because of the fishing industry they support, but also because of the habitat they provide for other marine life and the critical role they play in improving water quality and helping buffer the impacts of storm surges and waves.
Hanson said so much work remains in Apalachicola Bay before its beloved reefs resembled anything from decades ago. But he sees the reopening of the harvest season as a small step to a potentially brighter future.
“Hopefully, this is the beginning of a success story,” he said.
Hartsfield, like others who come from generations of oyster families, shares that hope. He said he plans to be back out on the water come January, and so does his 78-year-old father.
But he also knows how delicate the situation remains. How if another drought hits hard, or salinity levels aren’t just right, or other threats deepen, “It could go right back to where it was” when officials closed the bay in 2020.
“Right now, for the next few years, we will just be waiting to see what happens,” he said. “It’s very fragile.”
