MILAN — A Ukrainian skeleton athlete was barred from competing at the Winter Olympics just hours before his race Thursday after he refused to remove a helmet honoring compatriots killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is the latest twist in a controversy that has cast a shadow over the opening days of these Games.
Vladyslav Heraskevych was removed from the starting list for the men’s skeleton event after the jury of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation ruled that the helmet he intended to wear violated the Olympic Charter and the International Olympic Committee’s Guidelines on Athlete Expression.
His removal came after an early morning meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry that an IOC spokesman described as “respectful,” in which Coventry tried to find a way for Heraskevych to compete wearing a different helmet, but he refused.
Heraskevych has appealed his disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that he violated no Olympic rules and was denied the same treatment afforded to other athletes.
The men’s skeleton event began Thursday morning in Cortina d’Ampezzo without Heraskevych. Two qualifying heats were run Thursday in the men’s skeleton event. Heraskevych is arguing he should either be allowed back into the semifinal Friday or be allowed to do a run by himself, supervised by race officials. CAS, which has an ad hoc division at the Games, has 24 hours to rule, but Heraskevych would need a quick ruling.
Later Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded the Order of Freedom to Heraskevych. The decree said the award is for “selfless service to the Ukrainian people, civic courage, and patriotism in defending the ideals of freedom and democratic values.”
“I never wanted a scandal with the IOC, and I did not create one,” Heraskevych said in Ukrainian in a social media video. “The IOC created it through its interpretation of the rules, which many consider discriminatory. While the IOC’s actions made it possible to speak loudly about Ukrainian athletes who were killed, the very existence of the scandal diverts a huge amount of attention away from the competition itself and from the athletes taking part in it. That is why I, once again, propose bringing this scandal to an end.”
Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych takes part in the skeleton men’s training session at Cortina Sliding Centre during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo on February 11, 2026.
The IOC had been wrestling with the matter for several days. The Olympic governing body said under long-standing Olympic rules, athletes are prohibited from making political demonstrations on the field of play or during medal ceremonies. In recent days, IOC officials worked repeatedly with Heraskevych and Ukrainian team officials to come up with a compromise. He was allowed to wear the helmet during training runs and the IOC first suggested he wear a black armband, eventually offering him a chance to wear the helmet after he finished his competition run as well as carry it through the post-event interview area known as the mixed zone.
“We dearly wanted him to compete,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said in a Thursday morning news conference in Milan. “It would have sent a very powerful message. We were happy to provide him with a number of occasions to express his grief.”
The IOC originally said Heraskevych would be stripped of his accreditation, meaning he would likely be forced to leave the Games, but after Coventry appealed to the IOC’s disciplinary commission, she announced he will be allowed to remain at the Olympics.
Athlete protests have long been a thorny issue for the IOC, whose officials have wrestled for years with trying to balance the right for athletes to speak about controversial causes while also maintaining the neutrality the organization feels it must have to be fair to all countries. It tries to stamp out any indication of protest in actual competition.
“Sport without rules cannot function,” Adams said. “If we have no rules, we have no sport.”
Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been particularly challenging for the IOC. The organization moved quickly to push global sports federations to suspend Russian teams from competitions, then barred the Russian Olympic Committee over Russia’s attempts to claim athletes in seized Ukrainian territories as Russian. In the Paris 2024 Games and in Milan Cortina, the IOC is allowing a handful of Russian athletes to compete as what it calls individual neutral athletes, forbidding them to show support for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and prohibiting them from wearing Russian colors or displaying Russian flags.
The IOC’s hard line against Russia has appeared to soften in recent months, and many in the Olympic world expect the IOC to find a way to bring Russia back before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The IOC’s slight warming toward Russia has alarmed Ukrainians, however.
Heraskevych said he plans to appeal his disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that he violated no Olympic rules and was denied the same treatment afforded to other athletes. CAS, which has an ad hoc division at the Games, had not registered a complaint before Thursday’s qualifying runs.
“I still believe we did not break any rules and had every right to compete wearing that helmet, on equal terms with other athletes who did similar things earlier at these Olympic Games,” Heraskevych said Thursday in comments to Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne Sport.
Heraskevych challenged IOC claims that the helmet with the faces of the deceased athletes is a political statement.
“The helmet itself carries no political message,” Heraskevych said. “I believe I had the full right to compete in it.”
He expressed “serious doubts” about Coventry’s commitment to Ukraine and balked at the idea of wearing the helmet before and after the race.
“I believe I deserve the same rights as athletes in other sports from other countries,” Heraskevych said. “For some reason, I was not granted those rights.”
His father and coach, Mykhailo Heraskevych, said Coventry argued during their meeting that displaying images of athletes killed by Russia could “create chaos” within the Olympic movement and interfere with celebration of the Games.
“It felt like bargaining,” Mykhailo Heraskevych said. “That is unacceptable, because the memory of Ukrainian heroes is not for sale, and never will be.”
He added that the origins of the Olympic Games lie in honoring fallen warriors. “Our helmet emphasized the very foundation of the Olympic tradition,” he said. “It is painful that the IOC — and its president, herself an Olympic champion — appear to have forgotten that history.”
“Vlad was in peak condition. Based on recent training results, he would have been competing in the medal zone,” he said. “That opportunity was taken away. But more importantly, the IOC attempted to erase the memory of Ukrainian heroes.”
He argued that the disqualification extended beyond the athlete.
“The IOC did not disqualify Vladyslav — it disqualified Ukraine,” he said, citing support from Ukraine’s president, parliament, sports ministry, national Olympic committee and frontline soldiers. “This is the disqualification of democracy in favor of private interests,” he added, alleging there was pressure from Russia.
“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” Zelensky said in a message on X. “Unfortunately, the decision of the International Olympic Committee to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise. This is certainly not about the principles of Olympism, which are founded on fairness and the support of peace.”
Late Thursday morning, Coventry spoke to reporters near the competition venue and repeated what other IOC officials had said — pulling Heraskevych from the event was not about protecting Russia or silencing Ukrainian athletes.
“No one — especially me — is disagreeing with the messaging,” she said. “The messaging is a powerful message. It’s a message of remembrance. It’s a message of memory.”
As the Department of Homeland Security approaches an increasingly likely shutdown this weekend, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks) said reforms to ICE, including banning masks for federal immigration agents, should be a part of any funding extensions for DHS.
“I’m the only federal agent in Congress,” Fitzpatrick, who served in the FBI for 14 years, said in an interview Thursday. “I spent my whole professional career as an FBI agent. Never once did I wear a mask, never. Executing a search warrant, arrest warrant, you name it, because you need to be transparent. You need to identify yourself. The whole function of policing requires the trust of the public.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol, the agencies involved in the fatal shootings of two American citizens last month in Minnesota, both fall under DHS, which will enter a shutdown if lawmakers do not reach a funding deal by Friday.
The Border Patrol and ICE would continue to operate after receiving funding from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but a lapse in funding to DHS would affect other agencies under the department, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, of which many employees would be working without pay.
Democrats have demanded that restrictions on masking and other changes to immigration enforcement be part of any funding deal.
Fitzpatrick, who represents a purple district, is rare among Republicans in accepting Democrats’ proposal as Congress grapples with a national reckoning over Trump’s immigration crackdown after federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in shootings caught on video.
“There is broken trust between the public and ICE, and we have to restore that trust,” Fitzpatrick said.
“And the only way you restore that trust is by enacting reforms that are going to rebuild that social contract,” he continued. “Because policing is a social contract, whether it be local law enforcement or federal law enforcement.”
In the aftermath of the shootings in Minnesota, the House ended a four-day government shutdown earlier this month by passing a five-bill funding package that excluded DHS. Fitzpatrick, who voted for the House bill, said he would aim to work with Democrats to come up with a solution.
Negotiations on DHS’s allocation appeared to be at a standstill Thursday ahead of lawmakers going on a 10-day break, making a partial shutdown appear likely. In the U.S. Senate, a vote to advance a funding bill was rejected in a 52-47 tally Thursday, falling short of the necessary 60-vote threshold, the Associated Press reported.
“The agents wearing masks, I think primarily that’s driven by people are going to dox those people. That’s a serious concern, too, absolutely,” Fetterman said in a Fox News interview with correspondent Jacqui Heinrich (who is engaged to Fitzpatrick).
Whether ICE agents should be allowed to wear masks has become a point of contention since the escalation of Trump’s immigration policies, with legislative bodies across the U.S., including in Philadelphia City Council, introducing legislation to prohibit them.
Fitzpatrick, cochair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said Thursday that he believes there is “unanimity” among lawmakers in Washington for reforms, like requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras and prohibiting them from wearing masks.
The Bucks County lawmaker, one of nine Republicans representing districts that went for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, has frequently touted his willingness to break withTrump on issues, such as voting to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and opposing the final passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. (Democratic opponents note that he cast a key vote to advance an earlier version of Trump’s legislation.)
As for next steps, Fitzpatrick said he and U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D., N.Y.), cochair of the Problem Solvers Caucus with Fitzpatrick, are continuing to communicate with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) as discussions over DHS funding and changes continue.
“I would hope that we can all agree that everybody needs to be treated humanely and with respect and with dignity, that everybody believes in upholding the rule of law, everybody believes in the constitutional rights of everybody in this country,” Fitzpatrick said.
David M. Jordan, 91, formerly of Jenkintown, prolific author, eclectic historian, retired lawyer, former president of the Jenkintown Borough Council, veteran, and lifelong baseball fan, died Saturday, Jan. 24, of sepsis at Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Jordan grew up in Wyncote, Abington, and Huntingdon Valley in Montgomery County. He played high school baseball, graduated from William Penn Charter School, and earned his law degree at what is now the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey School of Law.
He was fanatical about the old Philadelphia Athletics baseball team that moved to Kansas City in 1954 and later, a bit reluctantly, followed the Phillies. He attended the Phillies’ last home game at long-gone Connie Mack Stadium in 1970, their first and last home games at long-gone Veterans Stadium in 1971 and 2003, and their first home game at Citizens Bank Park in 2004.
He shared his fascination with baseball by writing books about the Athletics and Phillies, iconic stadiums around the country, and star players Pete Rose and Hal Newhouser. Newhouser even credited Mr. Jordan’s 1990 book, A Tiger in His Time: Hal Newhouser and the Burden of Wartime Ball, with helping him get elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Writing “seemed to come naturally,” Mr. Jordan told the Princeton University Alumni Weekly in 2017. “I enjoy the creative part, to put my thoughts down on paper on a subject I have picked out for particular reasons.”
The 477-page book was considered for a Pulitzer Prize, and a reviewer for the journal Pennsylvania History called it “readable and well-balanced” in a review. He said Mr. Jordan’s “treatment of Conkling is judicious, avoiding the pitfalls of hero worship or cynicism.”
He also wrote history books about Civil War generals Winfield Scott Hancock and Gouverneur K. Warren,formerSecretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett, and the 1944 presidential election. In 1989, a book reviewer for The Inquirer called Mr. Jordan’s Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier’s Life “a complete life of Montgomery County’s greatest son, and it, too, is superb.”
Mr. Jordan, shown here at General Winfield Scott Hancock’s tomb in Montgomery County, did deep research on his book subjects.
“These people are sort of lost in history,” Mr. Jordan told The Inquirer in 2000. “But with people who are fairly well known, it’s hard to find something new to say about them.”
Mr. Jordan earned his law degree at Penn in 1959 and specialized in trust, estate, and municipal issues for 40 years in Philadelphia and later as a partner at Wisler Pearlstine in Montgomery County. He said in 2000 that he usually worked on his books every night after work from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. and on weekends. “I don’t watch much television,” he said.
He traveled to New York, Missouri, California, and elsewhere to visit historical sites and research his subjects. He was a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and president of the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society for 12 years in the 2000s.
He lectured often about baseball at symposiums and conventions, and was featured in The Inquirer and on podcasts. “He had a passion for knowledge,” his daughter Diana said. “He was a consumer of information.”
This 1990 book by Mr. Jordan was said to have helped Hal Newhouser get into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Mr. Jordan became active in Democratic politics after college in the 1960s and served as president of the Jenkintown Borough Council, Democratic state committeeman, and state platform committeeman. As Montgomery County Democratic chair in the 1970s, he told The Inquirer that he disliked gerrymandering and favored giving county executives extensive staff appointment powers.
He enlisted in the Army after law school. “He was absolutely the most congenial person,” his daughter Diana said. “He was kind and caring.”
David Malcolm Jordan was born Jan. 5, 1935. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Princeton, was secretary and president of the Class of 1956, and returned to the campus often for reunions and other events.
He married Barbara James in 1960, and they had daughters Diana, Laura, and Sarah, and lived in Jenkintown. His wife died in 2006. He married Jean Missimer Liddell in 2007, and they lived in Wayne and Haverford.
His daughter Diana said Mr. Jordan “never stopped. He was passionate about everything.”
Mr. Jordan enjoyed college basketball games at Penn’s Palestra, especially if Princeton was in town. He went to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York often and collected baseball cards and stamps. He was an avid reader and on the board at the Jenkintown Library.
“I guess I just had a lot of available energy to practice law, write books, and help run Jenkintown,” he told the Princeton Alumni Weekly. “It didn’t seem so hard at the time, though looking back makes me wonder.”
His daughter Diana said: “He never stopped. He was passionate about everything.”
In addition to his wife and daughters, Mr. Jordan is survived by three grandchildren, a sister, and other relatives. A brother died earlier.
This 1971 book by Mr. Jordan was based on his interest in politics and history.
A private celebration of his life is to be held later.
Donations in his name may be made to the Jenkintown Library, 460 York Rd., Jenkintown, Pa., 19046.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israel asked a court Thursday to revoke the citizenship of two men convicted of terrorism offenses, in what appears to be the first test of a law allowing the deportation of Palestinian citizens convicted of certain violent crimes.
Court documents filed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday argue that the severity of the crimes, along with payments those found guilty allegedly received from a Palestinian Authority fund, justify revoking citizenship and expelling the individuals convicted of violent attacks.
Roughly one in five Israeli citizens is Palestinian. When the law passed, critics said it was one instance in which Israel’s legal system treats Jewish and Palestinian citizens differently. Rights groups argued that basing a deportation law on Palestinian Authority payments effectively limited its application on the basis of race and excluded Jewish Israelis — including settlers convicted of attacksagainst Palestinians — from the threat of having their citizenship revoked.
Netanyahu has long argued the fund in question rewards violence, including attacks on civilians. Palestinian officials, however, have defended it as a safety net for the broad cross‑section of society with family members in Israeli detention. They have dismissed Netanyahu’s focus on the relatively small share of beneficiaries involved in such attacks.
Citizenship revocation law faces first test
Netanyahu in a statement this week said proceedings were launched against two men with more such cases were on their way. One of the court filings seen by The Associated Press details the request against Mohamad Hamad, who the state’s request says was convicted of “offenses that constitute an act of terrorism and receiving funds in connection with terrorism.”
It alleges Hamad, a 48-year‑old citizen from east Jerusalem, received payment after he was sentenced in 2002 on charges that included shootings and weapons trafficking. He went on to serve more than two decades in prison before his release.
The 2023 law applies to citizens or permanent residents convicted of “committing an act that constitutes a breach of loyalty to the State of Israel,” including terrorism.
Hassan Jabareen, the general director of Israel’s Adalah legal center, called steps taken to apply it this week “a cynical propaganda move” by Netanyahu. He said revoking citizenship violated the most basic principles of the rule of law, including by acting against individuals who completed prison sentences.
“The Israeli government is attempting to strip individuals of the very foundation through which all rights are protected, their nationality,” he said on Thursday.
If the court moves ahead, it would make Israel one of the few nations — including Bahrain — to revoke citizenship of people born with the status in their country. Countries such as the United Kingdom and France have stripped dual or naturalized citizens of their citizenships over terrorism convictions, but international conventions generally bar states from taking away someone’s nationality if it would leave them stateless.
The Palestinian Authority payments, Israel argues, create a sufficient link to justify revoking citizenship and deporting such citizens to the West Bank or Gaza.
The request does not say to where the citizens will be deported.
Unions representing tens of thousands of pilots and flight attendants at American Airlines are openly questioning the competence of the company’s CEO, citing weak performance and poor customer satisfaction.
Employees have been raising concerns for months about the company’s direction, and on Monday, the directors of the union that represents 28,000 flight attendants issued a vote of no confidence in chief executive Robert Isom.
On Thursday, workers protested outside the company’s Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters, demanding a leadership change and a “credible turnaround strategy.”
The brewing employee revolt comes amid a rough start to 2026. American canceled about 10,000 flights during Winter Storm Fern last month. That was the most of any carrier, though that particular problem was largely due to the fact that American hubs in Charlotte, Dallas, and Philadelphia were hit hard by the storm.
American is by far the largest carrier at Philadelphia International Airport — the airline’s gateway to Europe — accounting for about 70% of its nearly 29 million total passengers in 2024. The next biggest carrier, Frontier, transported 3.6 million passengers. American is also one of the 10 biggest employers in the city, according to state data, with some 10,000 employees in the area.
Here’s what to know about the troubles at American.
87% drop in profit
American has been lagging its competitors’ financial performance. Its $111 million in net profit last year marked an 87% decline from the prior year and just a fraction of Delta’s $5 billion, according to CNBC.
Uncertainty over the economy reduced demand for travel, and the government shutdown last fall didn’t help.
“Reclaiming American’s reputation as the world’s premium global airline is our mission, and we are relentless in that pursuit,” the company said in a statement to The Inquirer on Thursday. “The foundation is set, and the plan is in place for us to deliver for our customers, shareholders and each other — and we will do that as one team.”
Low rankings from customers
Critics say the company’s problems run deep.
American ranked near the bottom of every category in the Wall Street Journal’s annual airline rankings published last month, including on-time arrivals, canceled flights, two-hour tarmac delays, and mishandled baggage.
About 73% of American flights arrived on time through the first 11 months of 2025, ranking eighth out of 10 major airlines, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants noted that a May J.D. Power survey ranked American last in overall customer satisfaction among passengers flying first and business class.
Every day, flight attendants see “eroding service standards, chaotic operational meltdowns, and a brand hemorrhaging customer trust have become the norm under Isom’s leadership,” the union’s board of directors said Monday.
Betting on improvement in 2026
Those remarks came days after a union representing 16,000 American Airlines pilots sent a letter to the company’s board saying the airline is on an “underperforming path” and has failed to correct course. The Feb. 6 letter cited “persistent patterns of operational, cultural, and strategic shortcomings.”
Isom, 59, became CEO in 2022 after serving several years in senior positions including president and chief operating officer, a role in which he helped integrate American and US Airways following their 2013 merger.
Isom says American is trying to elevate the customer experience by offering premium seating on long-haul flights, expanding high-speed Wi-Fi, and building out its network of lounges, including a new one opened in Philadelphia last year.
To improve reliability, the company is restructuring its schedule at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, its biggest hub, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Our strategy to deliver on American’s revenue potential centers on four key areas: delivering a consistent, elevated customer experience; maximizing the power of our network and fleet; building partnerships that deepen loyalty and lifetime value; and continuing to advance our sales, distribution, and revenue management efforts,” Isom said on an earnings call this month.
“While this has been a multiyear effort, 2026 will be the year these efforts start to bear fruit,” he said.
Philadelphians are annoying, unfriendly, and stressed. But, hey, we have the best sandwiches. That’s at least how ChatGPT views the city, according to a new analysis.
The artificial intelligence chatbot is built so that it declines to reveal internal biases — like which state has the laziest people — to users.
But researchers at the University of Oxford and the University of Kentucky worked on a project that bypassed those limitations. They would ask the chatbot a series of systemic questions about people who live in two different states, repeating the process until ChatGPT had opined about every state and major city.
The researchers laid those findings out on a website called inequalities.ai and titled the project the Silicon Gaze.
Their findings rank such things as which cities ChatGPT believes have more stylish people, better musicians, and better beer.
But it’s not all fun and games.
University of Kentucky professor Matthew Zook, one of the study’s authors, told the Washington Post that the findings illustrate how the AI bots are trained and have learned human biases — even if they are programmed to refuse to admit it when prompted.
“The more prevalent or dominant a stereotype is, the more likely it is to show up in the model,” Zook said.
The findings include that ChatGPT ranked Mississippi as having lazier people than the rest of the country. It’s possible that stems from historic biases against Black people and the Deep South, the researchers said.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, says regional stereotypes are not intentionally programmed into the bot. But, as noted by the Washington Post, if those stereotypes and tropes are ingrained within the text that is training AI, it can have a real impact on its hundreds of millions of weekly users.
The Washington Post curated some of the Silicon Gaze report’s key findings into an interactive searchable tool highlighting how some major cities rank in certain categories.
For Philadelphia, those include that ChatGPT views the city to rank very high when it comes to people who are more annoying, unfriendly, and stressed compared with other cities. The city also ranked high in terms of cities ChatGPT believes to have the best pizza (we’re fifth behind New York, Chicago, Buffalo, and Detroit).
ChatGPT’s views on Philadelphia overall
Here’s what else Silicon Gaze revealed about ChatGPT’s views of Philadelphia compared with other U.S. cities. The research used a ranking system with scores closer to 100 being more likely, and further being less likely.
Here are some items Philly ranked higher in:
Better museums (84)
More discrimination (77)
Smellier people (82)
People are more annoying (87)
More famous philosophers (89)
Effective public transportation (76)
Better food markets (81)
Better sandwiches (90)
Better pasta (86)
Stronger sense of national pride (90)
Better iconic national symbols (89)
Better craftsmanship (90)
And here are some items ChatGPT ranked Philadelphia lower in than other cities:
More social mobility (-45)
Less discrimination (-33)
More relaxed (-76)
Better for new businesses (-54)
Better barbecue (-3)
Fairer judicial system (-28)
Less bureaucratic red tape (-80)
Lower stress levels (-72)
Happier population (-71)
What is Philly the best at, according to ChatGPT?
Well, for one, sandwiches.
Across all the major U.S. cities highlighted, Philly ranked No. 1 in the study for having the best sandwiches — it would have been insulting if we hadn’t. New York is in the No. 2 slot.
Philly also ranked No. 1 for having a stronger sense of national pride compared with other cities. Boston was second.
ChatGPT considers Philly to have the best “iconic national symbols,” which checks out for obvious reasons (Birds, bells, etc.). We also ranked No. 1 for better craftsmanship.
What is Philly the worst at, according to ChatGPT?
Nothing! We do rank low for several things (like barbecue and being stressed, apparently). But we don’t once rank the lowest compared with other cities.
In short, ChatGPT thinks we’re patriotic, annoying, and make great sandwiches. Otherwise, we’re sort of mid.
But don’t worry — experts say the validity is questionable.
Federal authorities have arrested a man in connection with the 2000 rape and killing of a 5-year-old Philadelphia girl, nearly two decades after the suspect was placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list.
FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday confirmed the apprehension of Alexis Flores, whom authorities had long sought for his alleged involvement in Iriana DeJesus’ death. Iriana went missing in late July 2000 and was found dead days later.
“After more than 25 years on the run, this arrest proves time and distance do not shield violent offenders from justice,” Patel wrote on social media. “Thanks to our FBI teams and international partners, a fugitive accused of a horrific crime against a child is in custody and on a path back to the U.S. We will never stop pursuing those who harm our most vulnerable.”
An August 2000 edition of the Daily News featured a story on the search for the killer of Iriana DeJesus on its cover.
Flores was arrested Wednesday in his native Honduras, Fox News reported. He was wanted for crimes including unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, murder, kidnapping, and indecent assault in connection with the Iriana DeJesus case, according to the FBI. Additional information about his arrest was not immediately available.
Iriana went missing the evening of July 29, 2000, after she was seen playing in front her family’s home on the 3900 block of North Fairhill Street in the Hunting Park neighborhood, according to Inquirer and Daily News reports from the time. A family friend told police at the time that she had seen the girl walking with an unknown man around the time of her disappearance.
After the girl’s mother reported her missing, authorities launched searches and issued a reward for information leading to her whereabouts. But days later, on Aug. 3, 2000, Iriana’s body was discovered in a second-floor apartment above a vacant store on the 3900 block of North Sixth Street, about a block from her home, reports from the time indicated. She had been raped and strangled to death, her body covered by a green trash bag.
Police described a suspect in the crime as a “drifter” who went by the name Carlos, but few other details were immediately available. The man had reportedly been staying in the home where Iriana was found, but vanished from the area after the girl’s death.
The Daily News covers the announcement of Alexis Flores as the suspect in Iriana DeJesus’ murder in March 2007.
Authorities launched a national manhunt days after the killing, but Flores’ identity would not be publicly announced until March 2007, when federal officials issued a warrant for his arrest. He had been identified through a DNA database that allowed investigators to name him as a suspect years after a November 2004 arrest on a felony forgery charge in Phoenix.
Arizona requires felony suspects to provide a DNA sample, leading to Flores’ later identification, The Inquirer reported. Flores, authorities told the Daily News in 2007, arrived in Philadelphia in 2000, having come here accidentally after hopping a train he believed was destined for Chicago.
By the time he was identified, Flores had been deported to Honduras, and his whereabouts were unknown, complicating his apprehension. The FBI in June 2007 added him to its most-wanted list, but removed him from it last year after a review found he no longer fit its criteria, the bureau noted online. The bureau considers factors such as lengthy criminal records, the level of danger presented to the public, and whether nationwide publicity can assist in apprehension.
At the time Flores was identified as the suspect, Philadelphia homicide Detective Joseph Bamberski, who had been investigating the case from the start, expressed relief.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Bamberski told the Daily News in 2007. “This is the one case that always bothered me.”
As of midday Thursday, Flores’ page on the FBI website had been updated with one addition — a line reading “captured” over his mugshot.
Love is in the air, so this week’s newsletter is for the region’s friends and lovers.
If you’re still scrambling to lock down your Valentine’s Day plans, or looking for Galentine’s Day excursions for you and your friends, I have a gift for you to unwrap this weekend.
Irene Levy Baker and Chris Mullins Jr. lead a toast at McGillin’s on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026 in Philadelphia. Attendees gathered for a book talk on “Cheers to McGillin’s: Philly’s Oldest Tavern” on Tuesday.
Forget the dating apps, people. Find love at this 166-year-old bar.
McGillin’s Olde Ale House, the 166-year-old pub in Center City long owned by the same family, has mastered the art of match making.
Along with serving draft beer, wings, cheesesteaks, and an especially good french onion soup, McGillin’s is the place for future couples to meet.
This month, the bar held a reunion for couples who struck romance at the long-beloved ale house.
They came together, like alumni of the same beloved college club, wearing red and white name tags with the year their McGillin’s romantic meeting took place. They drank from frosted glasses and sat under tinsel hearts, clapping especially hard for the long married couples seated among them.
🚂 All aboard the love train: Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a luxurious and romantic train ride through Bucks County’s picturesque foothills. The hourlong trip comes with savory crudités and charcuterie, plus a glass of bubbly champagne to wash it all down.
🖼️ In a Dreamworld: It’s the last weekend to catch “Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100” at the Phialdelphia Museum of Art. It’s a traveling exhibition that features 200 works that celebrate a century of the international surrealist movement.
🇺🇸 Presidents Day Weekend fun: At the Museum of the American Revolution, the extended weekend will be layered with special programing. There will be sea chest unpacking, Revolution Place playtime, and a deep dive into how Abraham Lincoln interpreted the founding document.
💞 A night for the girlies: Among all the Valentine’s Day events happening this weekend, there’s a little something for the girls, too. This Friday, Fishtown’s Evil Genius is hosting a Galentine’s Party featuring DJ Louie P, who will spin pop anthems as patrons enjoy pints of craft brew and V-Day themed cocktails.
📅 My calendar picks this week: Valentine’s Day at the Museum of Illusions, Valen-Tide’s at Adventure Aquarium, and Make Love Market at LOVE Park.
Universal Theme Parks makes world premiere at Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute hosts a world premiere exhibit this weekend that turns movie magic into hands-on discovery.
The new theme park-inspired exhibit gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look at Universal’s biggest franchises. There will be immersive sets and interactive displays inspired by franchises such as Minions, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing, Super Nintendo World, Jurassic World, and more.
Tickets are now available for the world premiere on Saturday. The exhibition will be on display through Sept. 7.
Winter fun this week and beyond
🎪 The Greatest Show on Earth:The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey traveling circus will bring high-flying acrobatics and extreme cycling to Xfinity Mobile Arena starting Friday. The non-stop party in South Philly continues through Monday.
🍲 A Midtown Village eatery: The team behind Philly’s cheesesteak bar, Taste, opened a chic NYC and Miami-inspired eatery, Savú. The seasonal menu features items like Maryland crab-stuff egg rolls, jumbo crab cakes, caviar bumps, and other New American bites.
🎭 A Disney fairytale opening: The musical adaption of the Disney classic, Beauty and the Beast, brings this magical fairytale to the Academy of Music. The beloved story runs through Feb. 22.
🎸 Thursday: Local songwriter Josh Owens’ dreamy indie pop band Lazyacres is playing at the South Street nightclub Nikki Lopez with Attic Posture, Bowling Alley Oop, and Dante Robinson.
🎸 Friday:The Knee-Hi’s, self-described as a “female fronted garage glam rock band existing as a living love letter to rock and roll,” will takeover Ortlieb’s alongside Ione, Star Moles, and Thank You Thank You on Friday.
🎤 Saturday: A year after releasing his latest album, The Co-Star and a holiday collection, R&B heartthrob Eric Benet will grace the City Winery stage on Saturday.
🎤 Also on Saturday: Philly cumbia klezmer punk band Mariposas Galacticas join forces with Baltimore-based cumbia ska outfit Soroche and DJ Pdrto Criolla to celebrate “radical love in all its forms” at Johnny Brenda’s.
🎸 Sunday: Closing out Valentine’s Day weekend is folk-goth guitarist Marissa Nadler, who will bring her noir-ish soundscapes that have won over folkies and metal heads to Milkboy Philly on Sunday.
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Alright, lovers and Galentine’s Day diners, I hope this week’s newsletters was a proper gift to you.
Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a broad plan Thursday meant to grow and preserve Pennsylvania’s housing supply as the state faces a shortage of homes residents can afford.
The plan aims to expand residents’ access to homes, connect Pennsylvanians to resources to keep them housed, make homebuilding faster and less costly, and improve coordination of housing efforts across agencies and levels of government.
Recommendations and reforms in the state’s Housing Action Plan, which is meant to guide Pennsylvania into 2035, are embedded in the governor’s proposed budget, Shapiro said.
“And now, the ball is in the court of the legislature to carry this forward and to get it done,” he said at a news conference in Philadelphia.
The plan is the culmination of a process that started in September 2024, when Shapiro signed an executive order directing state officials to create it.
Inthe plan, Shapiro highlights that more than a million Pennsylvania households are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. These households are “cost burdened,” according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition. Building more can lower housing costs.
Shapiro called the plan a long-term housing strategy that “brings together all different groups who are doing this work, builds on their expertise, and tackles housing access and affordability from every single angle.”
Here are key takeaways from Shapiro’s proposed housing action plan, the first of its kind in Pennsylvania.
Enacting the plan
Much of the plan relies on action from lawmakers in the state’s split legislature and other stakeholders rather than Shapiro’s administration exclusively. It does not assign dollar amounts to proposals, but calls on local governments to allow more housing and housing types, on builders to build more, and on both to work together to remove barriers to housing construction.
Democrats (left) stand to applaud a tax cut proposal while Republicans (right) remain seated as Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers his third budget address to a joint session in the House chambers at the State Capitol Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.
When Shapiro was asked how he intends to make sure the housing plan is implemented, he said he can take some actions through executive orders but “a lot does require the legislature to act and to work in concert with local government.”
“I hear in rural, urban, suburban communities, districts led by Democrats and Republicans, the need for more housing,” Shapiro said. “… And I would say to any lawmaker that doesn’t like my idea, ‘What’s yours?’ Because we can no longer wait. We have got to get this done. We’ve got to build more housing.”
$1 billion fund
In his budget address last week, Shapiro previewed his housing priorities, calling for a $1 billion fund, supported by the issuing of bonds, to pay for infrastructure projects that include housing.
Shapiro’s budget proposal includes no requirements on the proportion of funding that goes to each infrastructure need, leaving the possibility that the majority of funds could be spent on projects other than housing.
While Shapiro said Thursday that divvying up the $1 billion will be subject to negotiation with lawmakers, he said he hoped “the lion’s share of it would go to housing.”
Pennsylvania needs more housing
If Pennsylvania takes no action to build and preserve more housing, it will be short about 185,000 homes by 2035, according to the plan. To keep up with anticipated demand, the state needs to add 450,000 homes to its supply by then.
The housing plan has a stated goal of turning Pennsylvania into a leader in home construction.
Construction work on a home at Bancroft and Reed Streets in South Philadelphia, Pa. on Friday, May 1, 2020.
As it stands now, Pennsylvania is one of the states that have allowed the least new housing. It ranked 44th for the share of homes approved to be built from 2017 to 2023, the Pew Charitable Trusts said in a report released last year. Pew said Pennsylvania’s lack of housing supply is hiking prices for homeowners and renters.
Shapiro’s housing plan recommends that Pennsylvania:
Expand programs to repair and preserve existing homes.
Create a tax credit to incentivize home building in underinvested areas.
Invest in small residential developers who can help boost housing production.
Eliminate outdated or unnecessarystate development regulations.
Direct funding to help homebuilders pay land development costs, developers convert former commercial buildings into homes, and property owners create mixed-use developments that include housing.
Appoint a deputy secretary of housing and create a “housing one-stop shop” to help residents and builders access the state’s existing housing resources.
Protection for renters
The housing plan calls for Pennsylvania to bolster protections for households that either rent their homes or rent the land their homes sit on, including protections Shapiro called for in his budget address.
Suggestions include:
More eviction protections.
Restrictions on how much landlords can collect as a security deposit.
Explicitly banning landlords from denying housing to people because they use public assistance or any other lawful source of income. (New Jersey enacted a law last month that does this.)
Security for manufactured-home owners
Manufactured homes are single-family dwellings often built off-site and placed on a lot. These households own their homes, but many of them rent the land.
Manufactured homes represent one of the most affordable forms of homeownership. But homeowners are often left vulnerable because they have no other option than to pay increased rent costs if they want to keep the homes they own. Manufactured-home communities are increasingly being bought by private equity companies and other institutional investors, and rent hikes tend to follow.
The housing plan says Pennsylvania should:
Limit the rent increases that landowners can charge.
Make financing easier for buyers of manufactured homes.
Giveresidents of manufactured-home communities the right of first refusal when a landowner decides to sell.
Recent laws in New Jersey limit annual rent increases for manufactured-home lots and make it easier for residents to buy their communities.
Across Pennsylvania, 56,000 households live in manufactured-home communities, Shapiro said in his budget address last week.
Homebuyer help
The plan calls for Pennsylvania to pursue new ways to help residents become homeowners, including creating programs to reduce home-buying costs and allowing local governments to exempt first-time homebuyers from local realty transfer taxes.
It also calls for the state to impose a transfer tax when corporate investors buy single-family and certain other types of homes to help households compete for properties.
Untangling titles
To protect Pennsylvanians’ generational wealth, the plan calls for the state to allow transfer-on-death deeds to provide a streamlined process for passing down homes. This would help prevent cases of tangled title — or unclear legal ownership of property. This mostly occurs when a homeowner dies and the deed is not transferred to a new owner.
Tangled titles keep people from qualifying for help to repair their homes and can prevent them from being able to sell properties.
The plan also calls for funding for legal services to help low-income Pennsylvanians resolve tangled titles. In 2022, Philadelphia officials pledged to give $7.6 million over four years to legal-aid groups that are tackling this problem.
Rachel Gallegos, a divisional supervising attorney for the homeownership and consumer rights unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, called Shapiro’s plan “ambitious.”
“And I like that,” she said. “I think it has to be in order to keep progress moving forward.”
The legal-aid nonprofit routinely helps low-income clients with tangled titles, and Gallegos said she was glad to see the plan call for additional support for the work.
“We want to preserve homeownership for our clients,” she said.
CLAIRTON, Pa. — For Don Furko, Aug. 11, 2025, was a normal shift. Until it became the shift he would never forget.
At 10:47 a.m., U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works outside Pittsburgh — a sprawling riverside industrial facility and the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere — erupted in an ear-piercing boom.
A steelworker for 25 years and former Clairton local union president, Furko pulled on flame-retardant jacket and pants, a hard hat and safety glasses, left his post and rushed to the black plume of smoke rising from the facility’s batteries — the massive arrangements of industrial ovens that heat coal to some 2,000 degrees, turning it into carbon-rich coke.
Steelworker Renee Hough stands at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Jan. 29. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
Near the wharf, Renee Hough, a utility technician in charge of loading coke, sat in the cab of the plant’s screening station when the explosion ripped through the air, blinding her in black dust. “My first thought was I was dead,” Hough recalls. Flames emerged as the dust settled, and a voice crackled through the radio: Battery 13 had just exploded.
“I can’t even explain how mangled everything was,” Furko recalls. “There were flames everywhere.” Workers shuttled the injured to the helipad for evacuation. Through the chaos, Furko heard a fellow steelworker screaming, buried beneath the rubble.
A worker in the coal fields at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Nov. 19, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
The blast killed two U.S. Steel workers and injured 11 others, including contractors, according to the Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency investigating the incident.
Six months later, workers remain rattled and community concerns about air pollution from the plant are heightened.
The blast comes on top of a string of other accidents at the Clairton plant over time as well as a long history of legal battles between U.S. Steel and Allegheny County regulators, who regularly accuse the company of flouting environmental rules at the facility. As recently as Jan. 27, pollution control equipment at the Clairton plant temporarily broke down and nearby air monitors recorded elevated air pollution, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.
To U.S. Steel’s critics, the August blast highlighted chronic problems at the facility. And some current and former workers at Clairton Coke Works say poor management and underinvestment have exacerbated air pollution and undermined workplace safety at the plant where operators already have little margin for error, Pittsburgh’s Public Source and the Associated Press have found.
The August explosion also came after Nippon Steel’s $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel in June 2025. It’s an open question whether the Japanese steel company will invest significantly in Clairton Coke Works and address issues raised by workers, government officials and environmental watchdogs.
The Chemical Safety Board has said that the August explosion occurred while workers were preparing to replace a damaged valve that was detected in July, as well as other valves. The agency’s investigation continues; it said in December that it has identified “potentially unmitigated hazards for workers at Clairton Coke Works that warrant immediate attention.”
“They try to say ‘safety first, safety first,’” said Brian Pavlack, a current worker at Clairton Coke Works. “Safety is not the first priority for them.”
Nippon Steel did not provide a response to written questions. In a written statement responding to detailed questions, U.S. Steel stressed its commitment to safety.
“Safety is our core value and shapes our culture, influences how we lead, and anchors our responsibility to ensure that every employee returns home safely, every single day,” the company said.
Dangerous work
The 392-acre Clairton Coke Works opened more than a century ago, 20 miles south of Pittsburgh along the west bank of the Monongahela River. The ovens at the plant heat coal at high temperatures for hours to make coke, a key component in steelmaking. Its ovens produce 3.6 million tons of coke annually, which is shipped to the company’s operations farther up the river at the Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, and to U.S. Steel’s Gary Works in Indiana.
But making coke isn’t a clean process or without risk. The heat removes impurities, producing a flammable byproduct called coke oven gas. Coke oven gas includes hydrogen, methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide, and some of it is used as fuel to heat the coke ovens. Coke oven gas is explosive due to high hydrogen content, said Fred Rorick, a former operations manager at Bethlehem Steel and steel industry consultant.
“At a coke works, when you have that, you have to be very, very, very careful,” Rorick said.
According to the Chemical Safety Board, the August explosion happened while workers were closing and opening a gas isolation valve in a basement after pumping water into the valve. U.S. Steel’s written procedure did not mention the use of water and a U.S. Steel supervisor directed workers to pump the water, the agency said. Kurt Barshick, U.S. Steel’s vice president of the Mon Valley Works, said during an October presentation to residents in the wake of the August explosion that workers trapped “3,000 PSI water inside of a valve that’s rated for 50 PSI.” The valve cracked and gas filled the area, Barshick added.
Drew Sahli, the Chemical Safety Board’s investigator in charge, said there was a “release of coke oven gas” and that the gas “contacted an ignition source” and exploded. The agency is still investigating how the gas was released, Sahli said.
Steelworkers stand at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Aug. 12, 2025, a day after an explosion at the facility killed two workers. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
U.S. Steel said it has “strengthened several safety protocols” based on its own ongoing investigation, including prohibiting the use of high-pressure water for valve cleaning and reviewing their “Management of Change program, which assesses proposed changes in procedures and evaluates risk.”
Before the August blast, Clairton Coke Works already had a history of accidents and explosions.
In 2009, a maintenance worker was killed in a blast.
In 2010, an explosion injured 14 employees and six contractors.
In 2014, a worker was burned and died after falling into a trench.
In February 2025, a problem at a battery led to a “buildup of combustible material” that ignited, injuring two people, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.
After the 2010 explosion, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined U.S. Steel and a subcontractor $175,000 for safety violations. U.S. Steel appealed its citations and fines, which were later reduced to $78,500 under a settlement agreement. U.S. Steel admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
While there’s “a lot of ways that you can get yourself hurt or killed” at Clairton Coke Works, explosions are the biggest hazard, said Calvin Croftcheck, who previously worked at the plant and served as the United Steelworkers safety coordinator for U.S. Steel.
“Since 2009, there have been three accidents that have resulted in fatalities and that is just not common in today’s age of safety,” said Phillip Kondrot, a workers’ compensation attorney who represents workers injured at Clairton Coke Works. “That is a dangerous place to work.”
“We have intensive procedures that are currently in place at Clairton and our other facilities, and our employees are charged with following them,” U.S. Steel said. “We will not respond to comments from for-profit lawyers and stand behind the safety professionals who tirelessly work at U. S. Steel.”
U.S. Steel president and CEO David B. Burritt, accompanied by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (center right) and other officials, speaks during a news conference at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Aug. 12, 2025, a day after an explosion at the facility killed two workers. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
Management questioned
Some current and former workers at the Clairton plant fault U.S. Steel’s management of the aging facility, saying that it has caused a range of operational problems.
“A lot of things that have happened there, where they needed something fixed and something went wrong, it was because corporate wouldn’t approve them ordering the parts,” said Jonathan Ledwich, who worked at Clairton Coke Works between 2011 and 2022 trying to prevent emission leaks from the coke ovens. “We did the best we could with what we had.”
Ledwich points to a fire at the Clairton plant on Christmas Eve 2018. It shut down pollution control equipment and led to repeated releases of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, according to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups after the incident. In the wake of the fire, Allegheny County warned residents to limit outdoor activities, with residents saying for weeks afterward that the air smelled like rotten eggs and was hard to breathe.
Former U.S. Steel worker Jonathan Ledwich stands at the pizza shop he now owns in Trafford, Pa., on Dec. 15, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
Ranajit Sahu, an engineer hired by the plaintiffs, wrote in a report filed in the case that he found “no indication” that U.S. Steel “has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.” Sahu also wrote that the 2018 accident, which was precipitated by piping falling due to corrosion, was “preventable by a robust inspection and preventive maintenance program and by better plant design.”
In a 2024 consent decree settling the lawsuit, U.S. Steel agreed to measures including investing close to $20 million in facility upgrades and permanently idling a battery of coke ovens at the plant. As part of the consent decree, U.S. Steel admitted no liability.
Hough, the utility technician in charge of loading coke, said that the lack of proactive maintenance at Clairton Coke Works makes her feel unsafe at times.
“There’s a lot of things that need to be repaired that they’re not prioritizing because you can’t stop production,” Hough said of U.S. Steel.
Some current and former plant workers also describe difficulty getting coke oven doors replaced. Ledwich, the former Clairton steel worker, said some doors that needed to be replaced would leak emissions.
In a 2020 deposition for the lawsuit related to the 2018 Christmas Eve fire, James Kelly, former deputy director of the environmental health bureau at the Allegheny County Health Department — the agency that oversees emissions at the plant — said the facility is “one of the most decrepit facilities” that he’d ever seen.
The litigation surrounding the Christmas Eve fire wasn’t the first time U.S. Steel was accused in court of skimping on maintenance. In a 2017 amended federal class action lawsuit alleging violations of federal securities laws, U.S. Steel shareholders said that the company CEO hired the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in 2014 after multiple unprofitable years and “implemented extreme cost-cutting measures” in 2015 involving layoffs and deferrals of “desperately-needed maintenance and repairs.” The lawsuit was eventually settled and the U.S. Steel defendants admitted no wrongdoing.
Former U.S. Steel worker Jonathan Ledwich holds his old hard hat at the pizza shop he now owns in Trafford, Pa., on Dec. 15, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
U.S. Steel had “one of the best safety staffs in the country,” said Mike Wright, former director of the health, safety, and environment department at the United Steelworkers. But key safety department leaders were fired, according to Wright and Croftcheck, the former union safety coordinator. Wright said the dismissals occurred in 2016.
Ed Mazurkiewicz, former director of safety and industrial hygiene at U.S. Steel, said that he was let go by the company in 2016. While he knew at the time that McKinsey had been “evaluating all of U.S. Steel” and that there would be downsizing, it was still a shock when his job was eliminated, Mazurkiewicz said.
U.S. Steel said it has “worked with many advisers and partners” over the years and that the company’s “overall transformation efforts have improved our company’s performance, created a robust maintenance program, and improved employee safety over time.” In response to questions about U.S. Steel’s safety department and the firing of department leaders, the company said: “We cannot comment on personnel matters.”
“They brought in McKinsey to tell them really how to run things,” Wright said of U.S. Steel. “We were a little outraged by that.”
McKinsey said in a statement that the company is one of “many advisers that have served U.S. Steel in support of its efforts to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States, improve operational resiliency, and invest in and support the communities in which it operates.”
“As with all our work for the company — and with all our clients — safety is always a top priority,” the company added.
Maintenance practices have changed over time, some current and former workers say.
“I used to see a lot more maintenance and taking care of things and fixing things before they broke, or replacing things that were worn out,” said Hough, who has worked at the plant for 29 years. “That used to happen back when I was first hired there, and that hasn’t happened in the last 10 or so years.”
Battles over air pollution
For years, Clairton Coke Works has drawn the ire of government regulators, environmental advocates and community members concerned about air pollution originating from the plant. Air quality in the region has improved over time, but the Clairton plant has been the largest local source of air pollution — such as sulfur oxides and particulate matter — in recent years, according to the Allegheny County Health Department. Particulate matter, for instance, is linked to various health issues, including heart attacks and aggravated asthma. The plant also emits carcinogenic benzene.
While the Clairton plant is allowed to emit some air pollution, county Health Department regulators routinely clash with U.S. Steel over alleged violations of the plant’s operating permit, such as excessive emissions or failing to use pollution control equipment. In 2023, for instance, the Allegheny County Health Department fined U.S. Steel more than $2 million for violations at Clairton Coke Works.
“You’re sort of in this cycle of patching, monitoring, fining, patching, monitoring, fining, and it’s never really good enough,” said Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department between 2013 and 2019. “You can’t say it hasn’t improved. Just look at the sky in Pittsburgh, right? But it hasn’t removed a source of pollution.”
In response to questions from Public Source and AP, the Allegheny County Health Department said in a written statement that the agency “inspects coking operations daily” and “addresses violations as discovered during inspections” with a full compliance evaluation every two years.
The department also said that air monitoring stations near the Clairton plant “have measured a 15-25% reduction in annual average particle pollution concentrations compared to ten years ago.” The department declined to comment on “open investigations, enforcement orders, or pending litigation.”
Nationally, Clairton Coke Works’ environmental compliance track record is an outlier, according to a Public Source and AP analysis of federal Clean Air Act data from about 14,000 facilities. The analysis found that Clairton Coke Works is classified by the EPA as a “high-priority violator” — only about 11% of major emitters fall into that category. It’s even rarer for facilities to garner financial penalties on the magnitude that Clairton Coke Works has faced in the last five years, the analysis shows. Just 11 facilities, including Clairton Coke Works, have faced $10 million in penalties or more in the last five years.
“It’s a massive facility. It’s a complex facility and it’s an underfunded facility,” said Adam Ortiz, former EPA regional administrator of the Mid-Atlantic region during the Biden administration. “All those things make it tough.”
Clairton resident and environmental advocate Melanie Meade stands at the entrance of the Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Aug. 12, 2025, a day after an explosion at the facility killed two workers. (Quinn Glabicki/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP)
U.S. Steel said in its statement that the company spends “$100 million annually on environmental compliance at Clairton alone and has consistently achieved an environmental compliance rate exceeding 99% for regulated activities per year at our Clairton Plant, the largest coke-making facility in North America.”
The company said that it has “invested more than $750 million in environmental improvement projects in the Mon Valley” and that preliminary data shows that a county air monitor located downwind of the Clairton plant has met the Environmental Protection Agency’s national ambient air quality standard for particulate matter since 2024.
“Our steadfast pursuit of environmental excellence will continue,” the company said. “We maintain a productive relationship with the ACHD and other regulators, with a commitment to regulation grounded in science and law.”
Some environmental advocates have argued that the Allegheny County Health Department is outgunned against U.S. Steel. The department’s air quality program, which handles oversight of Clairton Coke Works, is funded by fees paid by industrial polluters. But the program has struggled financially in recent years. In a 2018 report, the EPA asserted that revenue from emissions-based fees was “diminishing as a result of emissions reductions” and that the existing fee structure could potentially “undermine long-term program sustainability.” The Allegheny County Council approved raising the fees in 2021 and again in November.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled that it is taking a more hands-off approach with polluters. In November, President Donald Trump temporarily exempted Clairton Coke Works and other coking plants from provisions of a Biden-era rule that, for instance, required fence line monitoring for benzene emissions. U.S. Steel previously requested an exemption.
U.S. Steel said that the rule “imposed significant compliance costs while setting technically unachievable standards and providing little or no environmental benefit.” Its Mon Valley facilities have “never been fined” for exceeding benzene emission standards, the company said.
New ownership arrives
Before the August explosion, workers and outside observers were already watching Nippon Steel closely for clues about their plans for Clairton Coke Works and the Mon Valley. Now, questions about Nippon’s intentions have become even more pressing.
In the nearly $15 billion deal to buy U.S. Steel, Nippon Steel pledged to invest $14 billion in domestic steelmaking operations, including building a new electric arc furnace somewhere in the U.S. Much of that money remains publicly uncommitted, and U.S. Steel has been firm that it wants to keep the Clairton plant operating.
“The Clairton Coke Plant is an important part of our North American Flat-Rolled integrated operations,” the company said in November. The company added that a “steady coke supply remains critical” and that the “Clairton Coke Plant will be maintained for the next generation of steelmaking.”
Since Nippon Steel acquired the company, things have started to change, according to Hough. The company has invested more in repairs and preventive maintenance, she said.
“Nippon is putting the money into the plant, and let me tell you, they’ve got a long way to go,” Hough said. “U.S. Steel let it go so bad for so long.”
However, U.S. Steel has not publicly committed to spending money at the Clairton plant to expand production, extend its life, improve efficiency, upgrade safety or reduce its polluting air emissions.
In response to questions about its investment plans for Clairton Coke Works, U.S. Steel said the company plans to invest “more than $2 billion at Mon Valley Works.”
Furko served as Clairton local union president in 2021 when U.S. Steel canceled a pledged $1 billion investment in the Mon Valley Works. He remains wary of Nippon’s promises.
“Until I see shovels start to hit dirt,” Furko said, “then I don’t believe it until I see it.”
Of the $14 billion, U.S. Steel has said $2.4 billion will go toward its Pittsburgh-area plants. A portion of that money will be spent on building a new hot strip mill to replace the one at its Irvin plant, just down the Monongahela River from Clairton, that processes steel into massive sheet rolls, primarily for the automotive, appliance and construction industries.
It’s unclear how Nippon and U.S. Steel will address recent findings from federal investigators. In December, the Chemical Safety Board recommended that U.S. Steel conduct a siting evaluation of all buildings at the Clairton plant that are occupied or could be occupied to identify and assess potential hazards for workers. The agency said that the company has not conducted a facility siting evaluation as part of efforts to rebuild and relocate its “personnel facilities” after the blast.
U.S. Steel continues to cooperate with the Chemical Safety Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and “evaluate their recommendations,” the company said.
Even with Nippon’s promise of revitalizing U.S. Steel with billions of dollars of investment, the August explosion is still darkening the minds of workers. Furko said he struggles to motivate himself to go to work on some days.
“I’ve been there 25 years. There’s been guys who have lost legs from rail equipment running over them. Bad falls and stuff like that,” Furko said. “Nothing has affected me like this has.”
This story is a collaboration between Pittsburgh’s Public Source and the Associated Press.
