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A West Philly man was convicted of first-degree murder for a fatal blaze in Delco

A West Philadelphia man who set a fatal fire in the midst of a tumultuous breakup, killing his ex-girlfriend’s disabled sister, was convicted Friday of first-degree murder.

A Delaware County jury ruled that Aaron Clark, 20, set the the December 2022 blaze in Darby Township that killed Olivia Drasher, the wheelchair-bound sister of his ex-girlfriend, Amira Rogers. He was also found guilty of four counts of attempted murder, one each for the other occupants in the home at the time.

The fire was set on the home’s porch, directly below Drasher’s bedroom, just after midnight. At the time, Drasher, her sister, their mother and Drasher’s full-time nurse were sleeping inside.

Hours before the fire, Rogers ended her relationship with Clark after he choked her during an argument over his alleged infidelity, according to testimony during the five-day trial before Delaware County Court Judge Deborah Krull.

In his closing argument, Clark’s attorney, Michael Dugan, accused prosecutors of having “tunnel vision” and building the case against Clark at the insistence of Rogers and her family.

“This investigation began with a conclusion right from the jump,” Dugan said. “There was never any suspect, there was no investigation of anyone else, other than looking at this man.”

Dugan urged jurors to acquit Clark of all charges, saying a lack of eyewitness evidence and inconsistent scientific rulings on whether the fire was set intentionally introduced too much reasonable doubt.

But jurors were not swayed.

Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallaher challenged Dugan’s assessment, telling jurors not to let the veteran defense attorney mischaracterize the evidence.

“This crime fits this defendant,” she said. “Arson is a very intimate crime, and it’s something a man who has been scorned would do.”

Gallaher said Rogers ended her 10-month relationship with Clark out of fear that he would harm her further. She reported his abuse to her local police department, and even filed a complaint with the United States Postal Service, where the two worked together in Southwest Philadelphia.

But Clark, Gallaher said, could not stand to lose Rogers.

“He tried to kill her and everyone she loved, a family who loved each other unconditionally,” Gallaher said. “The defendant wanted to take it all away because he can’t comprehend that. He doesn’t have an ounce of compassion in him.”

Dugan told jurors that prosecutors had falsely painted Clark as homicidal and vindictive and noted that while the couple had a nasty argument two days before the fire, they had reconciled, posing for pictures in front of a Christmas tree hours later.

“That’s not someone who’s in fear of her life,” Dugan said of Rogers. “That’s just someone who’s in a bad relationship.”

Dugan characterized the prosecution’s case as “full of holes.” One of Rogers’ neighbors, touted as an eyewitness, could not pick Clark out of a police lineup, he said. Arson experts said there was no evidence of any accelerant found at the crime scene.

But Gallaher said there was more than enough evidence to connect Clark to the crime. The pants he was wearing when he was arrested tested positive for a petroleum-based accelerant, and cell-phone tower data showed he was near Rogers’ home at the time the fire was set.

The most damning evidence, she said, were the text messages Clark sent Rogers in the hours before the fire, including telling her: “hope you don’t miss the show.”

“He’s telling her he’s going to create a spectacle,” she said. “He wants her to know that whatever happens, he’s responsible.

“Believe him when he says that.”

A conviction for first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Clark will be sentenced next month.

December 20, 2025
U.S. military launches strikes in Syria against Islamic State fighters after American deaths

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two U.S. troops and an American interpreter almost a week ago.

A U.S. official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had IS infrastructure and weapons. Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.

The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft, and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official said.

“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.

President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. The troops were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the terrorist group.

Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting IS “strongholds.” He reiterated his support for Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who he said was “fully in support” of the U.S. effort to target the militant group.

Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning the group against attacking U.S. personnel again.

“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.,” the president added.

The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops and said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of U.S. strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”

IS has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.

Syrian state television reported that the U.S. strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”

Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Mich., a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.

The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.

The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.

December 19, 2025
CCP board approves a contract for new president

Alycia Marshall will earn $295,000 as the new president of the Community College of Philadelphia under terms of a contract approved by the board of trustees Friday.

Marshall, 52, had been serving as interim president since April when longtime president Donald Guy Generals was forced out. Her salary is similar to what Generals earned before he left.

In October, the board selected Marshall for the permanent post from among four finalists and said it would negotiate a contract with her.

The new contract, commencing Jan. 1, is for three years and six months and after that would renew on an annual basis.

“This is a great birthday present,” Marshall said following the unanimous vote on her contract at the brief board meeting. “Today is my birthday. Thank you so much for your support. … It’s been a pleasure serving as the interim and I’m excited to move into the next chapter.”

Community College of Philadelphia interim president is selected for permanent role

Under the contract, she will be eligible for a bonus of up to 15% of her base pay annually and will receive a $2,000-per-month housing allowance and a $650-per-month car allowance.

Marshall, who has maintained a residence in Maryland, is required to move her primary residence to Philadelphia within six months under the contract terms. She would face termination if she failed to do so, the contract states. Marshall has said she intended to move to Philadelphia if she got the permanent job.

Marshall had served as CCP’s provost and vice president for academic and student success for nearly three years before stepping into the interim role at the college, which had an enrollment of 12,400 credit students and 1,381 noncredit students last spring.

CCP’s new president says she’s ‘here for the students,’ who remind her of her late son

She received her bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, her master’s in teaching from Bowie State University, and her doctorate in mathematics education from the University of Maryland.

A native of Maryland, she started her career as an adjunct professor at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, near Annapolis, and later became a full tenured professor and chair of the mathematics department. She was promoted to associate vice president there and founded the African American Leadership Institute and spent a total of nearly 23 years at the Maryland community college.

December 19, 2025
Former Philly football standout Ahkil Crumpton gets life sentence after murder conviction

Ahkil Crumpton, a Philadelphia product and former West Catholic Prep football star who played two seasons for the storied University of Georgia Division-I football program, was convicted on state murder charges in Georgia earlier this week and received a life sentence without parole by Georgia Superior Court Judge Eric Norris.

Crumpton, 28, was already convicted in 2023 on all counts in a federal case related to the same 2021 fatal shooting of RaceTrac gas station attendant Elijah Wood, in Watkinsville, Georgia. Crumpton is serving a 30-year sentence in the federal case, and his federal sentence would run concurrently with the state sentence, meaning he would serve the longer, life sentence.

“We will definitely be appealing the conviction and the sentence,” said Crumpton’s Atlanta-based attorney in the state case, Bruce Harvey. “A sentence of life without parole – essentially death by incarceration – is manifestly unjust for a young, highly accomplished athlete, with no prior criminal history convicted of an unintentional killing. We are all hopeful that Ahkil may return to contribute to the community as exemplified by his life and the testimonials given at the sentencing (Thursday).”

Crumpton will be in state custody, Harvey said, and a court official said Crumpton is currently being held at the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Philly’s Ahkil Crumpton was on a mission to make it in pro football. Then came the murder charges.

It has been a dramatic fall from grace for a player who dreamed of playing in the NFL one day, and who landed at Georgia by way of Los Angeles Valley junior college after graduating from West Catholic.

But despite playing for Georgia coach Kirby Smart – who had identified Crumpton in 2017 as the elite receiver the team needed – for two seasons, Crumpton never reached his goal of playing pro.

“[Crumpton] was on a mission to make it to the NFL. I think he was so hell-bent on playing professional football,” a former L.A. Valley football coach who worked with Crumpton and asked not to be named, told The Inquirer in a past interview. “When things didn’t go the way he had planned, I’m sure it probably broke him, and I’m sure there was a lot of disappointment.”

In 2021, Crumpton’s life was forever altered through his links to two homicide cases – one in Georgia and one in his native Philadelphia.

Wood was killed in March 2021. But after a months-long investigation into Wood’s killer involving multiple state and federal agencies stalled, it was a ballistics match that ultimately led to Crumpton’s arrest for Wood’s murder. A July 2021 homicide in Philadelphia, just four months after Wood’s murder, involved Crumpton. Authorities said Crumpton fired 13 shots at a man named Anthony Jones near a South Street diner in Philly. Jones died at the scene.

It wasn’t until a federal agent ran the ballistics on both the Wood homicide and the Jones homicide that authorities came up with a match, tying Crumpton to both murders. Crumpton’s criminal records pertaining to the Jones case were apparently expunged.

Crumpton was living with his former Georgia teammate Juwan Taylor in Georgia in 2021. Taylor later testified against Crumpton in the federal trial that Crumpton came to their apartment after the Wood shooting and was “holding the pistol and was visibly upset saying, ‘I didn’t mean to do it – I just wanted the money, I just shot him at the store,’ ” according to the Department of Justice press release after Crumpton’s federal sentencing.

This week, a Georgia state jury found Crumpton guilty on all six counts, including felony murder.

“(Crumpton) can appeal the conviction and the sentence. But (it’s a life sentence without parole) unless he’s pardoned by the governor, or the law changes, and he can be resentenced, like the Menendez brothers (Erik and Lyle),” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and now the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers. “Something has to change.”

December 19, 2025
Rep. Elise Stefanik says she’s suspending her campaign for New York governor, won’t seek reelection

ALBANY, N.Y. — Rep. Elise Stefanik announced Friday that she is suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not seek reelection to Congress, bowing out of the race in a surprise statement that said “it is not an effective use of our time” to stay in what was expected to be a bruising Republican primary.

Stefanik, a Republican ally of President Donald Trump, said in a post on X that she was confident of her chances in the primary against Bruce Blakeman, a Republican county official in New York City’s suburbs. But she said she wanted to spend more time with her young son and family.

“I have thought deeply about this and I know that as a mother, I will feel profound regret if I don’t further focus on my young son’s safety, growth, and happiness — particularly at his tender age,” she said.

Stefanik has been an intense critic of incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is also seeking reelection but faces a primary challenge from her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.

The announcement marks an abrupt end, at least for now, for a once-promising career for Stefanik. She was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress when she won her first campaign in 2014 at just 30 years old, representing a new generation of Republicans making inroads in Washington. She ultimately rose to her party’s leadership in the House when she became the chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.

First viewed as a moderate when she came to Washington, Stefanik became far more conservative as Trump began to dominate the party. Once someone who refused to say Trump’s name, she became one of his top defenders during his first impeachment inquiry. She would go on to vote against certifying the 2020 election results, even after a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Stefanik was expected to have a bitter Republican primary against Blakeman, who also counts himself as an ally of Trump. The president had so far seemed keen on avoiding picking a side in the race, telling reporters recently: “He’s great, and she’s great. They’re both great people.”

Stefanik’s decision follows a clash with Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she accused of lying before embarking on a series of media interviews criticizing him. In one with The Wall Street Journal, she called Johnson a “political novice” and said he wouldn’t be reelected speaker if the vote were held today.

The tumultuous early December episode appeared to cool when Johnson said he and Stefanik had a “great talk.”

“I called her and I said, ‘Why wouldn’t you just come to me, you know?’” Johnson said. “So we had some intense fellowship about that.”

Still, Stefanik, the chairwoman of the House Republican leadership, has not fully walked back her criticisms. A Dec. 2 social media post remains online in which, after a provision she championed was omitted from a defense authorization bill, Stefanik accused Johnson of falsely claiming he was unaware of it, calling it “more lies from the Speaker.”

State Republican Chairman Ed Cox said the party respected Stefanik’s decision and thanked her for her efforts.

“Bruce Blakeman has my endorsement and I urge our State Committee and party leaders to join me,” Cox said in a prepared statement. “Bruce is a fighter who has proven he knows how to win in difficult political terrain.”

December 19, 2025
Joel Embiid will miss Sixers’ matchup vs. Knicks with illness and knee management

NEW YORK — Joel Embiid has been ruled out for Friday night’s game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden with an illness and right-knee injury management.

The 76ers center was initially listed as questionable due to illness only. However, he’s been dealing with right knee issues since early November, which led to him missing nine consecutive games earlier in the season.

Embiid’s absence from the Knicks game should not come as a surprise, though. The 7-foot-2, 280-pounder doesn’t play on both nights of back-to-back games. After facing the Knicks (19-7), the Sixers (14-11) will play the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

The Sixers are back, but tonight’s game won’t air on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Embiid is averaging 20.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game. He had a season-high 39 points and nine rebounds in a 115-105 home victory over the Indiana Pacers on Dec. 12. Two nights later, Embiid had 22 points and a season-high 14 rebounds in a 120-117 road loss to the Atlanta Ha

wks.

He’s already missed 14 of the Sixers’ 25 games this season.

Embiid isn’t the only Sixer who will miss the game. Kelly Oubre Jr. (left knee LCL sprain) and Trendon Watford (left adductor strain) will remain sidelined.

December 19, 2025
unCovering the Birds: Can the Eagles keep Nakobe Dean?

Nakobe Dean’s value to the Eagles is as clear as the team’s improved defense performance since his return to play. Coming off his best game of the season in last week’s shutout win over the Raiders, the linebacker has made a remarkable turnaround from a serious knee injury that knocked him out of the Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX championship run. But what’s Dean’s future in Philadelphia beyond this season? The 25-year old is an unrestricted free agent, and for the first time in what feels like forever, the Eagles have depth in the linebacker rotation. With only three games left before the playoffs, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane looks at the likelihood of the Eagles keeping Dean, as well as several other players whose contracts expire whenever this season ends.

00:00 Can the Eagles keep Nakobe Dean? Should they?

14:30 Tiering other key unrestricted free agents on the roster, like Dallas Goedert, Jaelan Phillips, and Reed Blankenship.

unCovering the Birds is a production of The Philadelphia Inquirer and KYW Newsradio Original Podcasts. Look for new episodes throughout the season, including day-after-game reactions.

December 19, 2025
Justice Department releases limited set of files tied to Epstein sex trafficking investigation

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department released thousands of files Friday about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein but the incomplete document dump did not break significant ground about the long-running criminal investigations of the financier or his ties to wealthy and powerful individuals.

The files included a small number of photos of President Donald Trump, sparing the White House for now from having to confront fresh revelations about an Epstein relationship that the administration for months has tried in vain to push past.

It did, however, feature a series of never-before-seen photos of Bill Clinton from a trip that the former president appears to have take with Epstein decades ago.

Reaction to the disclosures broke along mostly partisan lines. Democrats and some Republicans seized on the limited release to accuse the Justice Department of failing to meet a congressionally set deadline to produce the Epstein files. White House officials on social media gleefully promoted a photo of Clinton in a hot tub with a person with a blacked-out face. The Trump administration touted the release as a show of its commitment to transparency, ignoring the fact that the Justice Department just months ago said no more files would be released. Congress then passed a law mandating it.

The records, consisting largely of pictures but also including call logs, grand jury testimony, interview transcripts, and other documents, arrived amid extraordinary anticipation that they might offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Their release has long been demanded by a public hungry to learn whether any of Epstein’s associates knew about or participated in the abuse. Epstein’s accusers have also sought answers about why federal authorities shut down their initial investigation into the allegations in 2008.

Yet the release, replete with redactions. seemed unlikely to satisfy the public clamor for information given how many investigative records the department indicated it was continuing to withhold.

In a letter to Congress obtained by The Associated Press, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that the Justice Department was continuing to review files in its possession and expected additional disclosures by the end of the year. The department also said it was withholding some documents under exemptions allowed in the law and was redacting names of victims. The department expects to complete its document production by the end of the year, Blanche said.

Bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump on Nov. 19 signed a bill giving the Justice Department 30 days to release most of its files and communications related to Epstein, including information about the investigation into his death in a federal jail. The law’s passage, which set a deadline for Friday, was a remarkable display of bipartisanship that overcame months of opposition from Trump and Republican leadership.

Limited details about Trump

The released files include a small number of photos of Trump, which appear to have been known for decades, including two in which Trump and Epstein are posing with now-first lady Melania Trump in February 2000 at an event at Trump’s Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, before the pair’s friendship ruptured.

Trump was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling-out. Neither he nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said last month that she had ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to Trump’s political foes, including Clinton. Bondi acted after Trump pressed for such an inquiry, though he did not explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate.

In July, Trump dismissed some of his own supporters as “weaklings” for falling for “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax.” But both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) failed to prevent the legislation from coming to a vote.

Trump did a U-turn on the files once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted that the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the Republican agenda and that releasing the records was the best way to move on.

After nearly two decades of court action and prying by reporters, a voluminous number of records related to Epstein had already been public well before Froday, including flight logs, address books, email correspondence, police reports, grand jury records, courtroom testimony, and transcripts of depositions of his accusers, his staffers and others.

New photos of Clinton

Senior Trump White House aides took to X to promote photos in the Epstein files that show Clinton with women whose faces are redacted.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, wrote “Oh my!” and added a shocked face emoji in response to a photo of Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.

“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said in a statement.

“There are two types of people here,” he said. “The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships after that. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”

The Epstein investigations

Police in Palm Beach, Fla., began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at his mansion. The FBI joined the investigation, and authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they had been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.

Ultimately, though, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Epstein’s accusers then spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside. One of those women, Virginia Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with numerous other men, including billionaires, famous academics, U.S. politicians, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Britain’s Prince Andrew. Mountbatten-Windsor denied ever having sex with Giuffre, but King Charles III stripped him of his royal titles this year after Giuffre’s memoir was published after she died.

Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Giuffre’s claims, but her account fueled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia in April at age 41.

Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail a month after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse.

Maxwell was convicted in late 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she was interviewed over the summer by Blanche. Her lawyers argued that she never should have been tried or convicted.

The Justice Department in July said it had not found any information that could support prosecuting anyone else.

December 19, 2025
Soaked ground and 60-mph wind gusts could cause outages and commuting woes around Philly

What’s left of the season’s first snowfall is all but gone with the wind — and the heftiest rains since October. And having done its best to disrupt Friday’s morning commute, the weather evidently is executing an afternoon encore.

After backing off for a few hours, the winds came back with a vengeance Friday afternoon. A thunderstorm gust of 62 mph was recorded at Philadelphia International Airport at 2:35 p.m.

The weather service’s wind advisory for the entire region remains in effect until 1 a.m. Saturday, and conspiring with snow melt to saturate the soils, SEPTA is particularly concerned about the potential for uprooted trees along its Regional Rail lines, said media relations director Andrew Busch.

“The recipe for problems is there,” he said. “We will have crews stationed across the system to respond quickly.”

Peco heard the rumors, and while the utility is “not expecting impacts, we’re going to continue to monitor conditions,“ said Candice Womer, senior communications specialist.

The deciduous trees are mostly bare, so winds can sail through branches that are not weighed down with leaves, but the weather service advises that “some power outages” are possible.

About 16,500 outages were reported at midafternoon.

An additional concern was the predicted wind shift during the day, from southerly in the morning to westerly in the afternoon, and how that might stress vulnerable trees, Womer said.

The strongest winds will occur during the afternoon

The gusts are likely to be “widespread” during the afternoon, said Paul Fitzsimmons, a lead meteorologist at the weather service’s Mount Holly office. That would be after the rain-producing front crosses through the region and winds become westerly, peaking in time for the afternoon commute. Gusts to 50 mph are possible.

Rain totals in the Philly area are expected to be in the 1-to-1.5-inch range, Fitzsimmons said.

No stream flooding is anticipated, however, as levels are quite low. Despite the snow and a decent soaking on Dec. 2, precipitation the last two months is only about 75% of normal throughout the region, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center.

How dry we’ve been

The gusts aside — not a trivial omission — this system should produce a “beneficial rain,” the weather service notes.

A drought warning remains in effect for all of New Jersey.

Water levels are so low that computer models show only about a 10% chance of streams reaching even the preflood “action” phase.

In the interagency U.S. Drought Monitor map posted Thursday morning, most of Philadelphia, adjacent South Jersey, and Chester County were in the “severe drought” category, along with portions of Bucks, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties.

Most of Pennsylvania and New Jersey were in at least “abnormally dry” conditions.

The forecast for the weekend

After the winds die down Friday evening, the region should be in for a dry but chilly weekend.

Temperatures during the day Friday are forecast to dive from a high in the 50s in the morning to the 30s by nightfall, and they won’t get out of the 30s on Saturday.

Sunday’s forecast high in the mid-40s would be close to normal for the date.

Peeking ahead, the prospects of a white Christmas are not especially promising.

The region may have to settle for a wet one. Rain is possible Christmas Day with highs in the 40s. That’s not quite what Irving Berlin had in mind.

December 19, 2025
Have that nasty stomach bug? It hit one South Jersey school hard. Here’s how to avoid it.

A South Jersey school was hit with an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness last week, as cases of norovirus, a common stomach bug, recently surged nationwide.

Camden County officials could not definitively say the illness was norovirus, since no lab testing has been done. However, they noted it was a candidate.

“The symptoms, infectious period, and incubation periods seem to be consistent with norovirus,” said Caryelle Vilaubi, director of the Camden County Department of Health and Human Services.

The school in Haddonfield, which officials declined to identify further, first reported a spike in gastrointestinal symptoms among students on Dec. 10, followed by an increase the next day.

Cases have since fallen dramatically, Vilaubi said, as outbreak control measures — including use of disinfectants, sending sick students home, and promoting proper hand hygiene — have been put into place.

They’re hoping to end the outbreak in the school community as early as next week, if they can go without new cases for four days, she said.

A variety of sources can cause gastrointestinal illness, including viruses, bacteria, and parasites. Norovirus is one of the common culprits this time of year.

“We typically see a spike from November through April, not just in Camden County, but throughout the state, and often throughout much of the country,” Vilaubi said.

The highly contagious virus can spread through close contact with an infected person or with contaminated food, water, and surfaces. Symptoms usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain, and start 12 to 48 hours after exposure.

Most people will feel better after one to three days.

Here’s what to know about the virus:

How can you protect yourself against norovirus?

Norovirus is a “hardy and resistant virus,” Vilaubi noted, making it especially hard to clean off. Hand sanitizers are not effective against it.

People should instead wash their hands frequently with soap and water, and use bleach-based disinfectants (or any Environmental Protection Agency-registered disinfecting product against norovirus) on hard surfaces, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How long does norovirus stay on surfaces?

Norovirus can survive on surfaces for weeks.

It is also relatively resistant to heat, able to survive temperatures up to 145°F.

People should make sure to regularly disinfect high-touch surfaces such as doorknobs, keyboards, and light switches.

How long does norovirus last in adults?

Though people will usually feel better after one to three days, they are still highly contagious for a few days after.

“If your child begins to show symptoms, please keep them home until at least 48 hours after symptoms resolve to prevent further spreading the illness,” Virginia Betteridge, liaison to the Camden County Department of Health and Human Services, said in a Dec. 12 news release.

Those infected with norovirus should avoid contact with others as much as possible during this period.

How to treat norovirus at home?

There is no cure or specific treatment for norovirus. The advice generally is to let the virus run its course.

To ward off dehydration, people should make sure to drink lots of fluids to replace what’s lost from vomiting and diarrhea. Taking small sips of water and sucking on ice chips may be easier on an upset stomach.

People can also consider drinking clear broths, noncaffeinated sports drinks, and oral rehydration solutions, which are available over the counter.

Drinks that contain a lot of sugar, including soft drinks and certain fruit juices, can make diarrhea worse and should be avoided.

How does norovirus spread from person to person?

Norovirus is considered highly contagious, as only a small amount of virus is needed to infect someone.

People contract it by accidentally touching tiny particles of stool or vomit — where the virus is primarily shed — from an infected person and getting them in their mouths.

These particles easily contaminate hands, surfaces, food, or water.

December 19, 2025