CHICAGO — Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an immigration crackdown last year, according to evidence released Wednesday by attorneys who accused the Trump administration of mishandling the investigation and spreading lies about the shooting.
Marimar Martinez, a teaching assistant and U.S. citizen, was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in October while in her vehicle. She was charged with a felony after Homeland Security officials accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. But the case was abruptly dismissed after videos emerged showing an agent steering his vehicle into Martinez’s vehicle.
Her attorneys pushed to make evidence in the now-dissolved criminal case public, saying they were especially motivated after a federal agent fatally shot Minneapolis woman Renee Good under similar circumstances.
Martinez’s attorneys are pursuing a complaint under a law that permits individuals to sue federal agencies. They outlined instances of DHS lying about Martinez after the shooting, including labeling her a “domestic terrorist” and accusing her of having a history of “doxxing federal agents.” The Montessori school assistant has no criminal record and prosecutors haven’t brought evidence in either claim.
“This is a time where we just cannot trust the words of our federal officials,” attorney Christopher Parente said at a news conference where his office released evidence.
That included an agent’s hand-drawn diagram of the scene to allege how Martinez “boxed in” federal agents. It included three vehicles Parente said “don’t exist.”
Many of the emails, text messages and videos were released the night before by the U.S. attorney’s office.
DHS didn’t immediately return a message Wednesday.
The shooting came during the height of the Chicago-area crackdown. Arrests, protests and tense standoffs with immigration agents were common across the city of 2.7 million and its suburbs. Weeks before the Martinez shooting, agents fatally shot a suburban Chicago dad in a traffic stop.
The government unsuccessfully fought the release of the documents, including an email from Bovino, who led enforcement operations nationwide before he returned to his previous sector post in California last month.
“In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” Bovino wrote Charles Exum on Oct. 4.
In an agent group text, others congratulated Exum, calling him a “legend” and offering to buy him beer. In previously released documents, text messages sent by Exum, appeared to show him bragging to colleagues about his shooting skills.
“I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” the text read.
The latest documents are public now because U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis lifted a protective order last week. Federal prosecutors had argued the documents could damage Exum’s reputation. But Alexakis said the federal government has shown “zero concern” about ruining the reputation of Martínez.
On the day Martinez was shot, she had followed agents’ vehicle and honked her horn to warn others of the presence of immigration agents. Body camera footage showed agents with weapons drawn and rushing out of the vehicle.
“It’s time to get aggressive and get the (expletive) out,” one agent said.
Martinez, who sat near her attorneys, was largely silent during the news conference.
She declined an Associated Press interview request. But in recent weeks she has spoken to local media and before lawmakers.
Earlier this month, Martinez testified before congressional Democrats to highlight use-of-force incidents by DHS officers. Members of Good’s family also spoke. Martinez is scheduled to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address this month as the guest of U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
She was hospitalized before being taken into the custody of the FBI, which still has her car. Martinez said the incident has left her with mistrust of law enforcement, which accused her of being armed.
Martinez has a valid concealed-carry license and had a handgun in her purse. Attorneys showed a picture of it in a pink holster at the bottom of her purse, saying it remained there during the encounter.
“They are not targeting the worst of the worst, they are targeting individuals who fit a certain profile, who simply have a certain accent, or a non-white skin color just like mine. This raises serious concerns about fairness, discrimination, and abuse of authority,” she said during her congressional testimony. “The lack of accountability for these actions is deeply troubling.”
Martinez’s attorneys said they’d pursue a complaint under the Federal Tort Claims Act. If the agency denies the claim or doesn’t act on it within six months, they can file a federal lawsuit.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Wednesday unveiled PHL PRIME, a new service in Philadelphia that has nothing to do with Amazon — although the e-commerce giant could potentially sign up for it.
At her annual address to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, Parker signed an executive order to establish PHL PRIME, which stands for Project Review and Infrastructure Made Easy. The new program is designed to draw “high-impact economic development projects that generate quality jobs” by helping businesses that are considering investing in Philadelphia to navigate city rules and regulations, according to the mayor’s office.
“I‘m the mayor, and I’m not absolving myself of the responsibility of making sure that bureaucracy is working effectively and efficiently,” Parker said during her annual speech at the Convention Center. “We’re not going to burden business with the ‘time tax.’ We’re going to work at the speed of business.”
Parker told reporters the new program will not involve hiring any new staff. Instead, it’s meant to bring various city departments together into a “PHL PRIME Tiger Team“ to coordinate a streamlined approach and lay out the welcome mat for investment.
In her wide-ranging speech, Parker also said the city was committed to helping major development plans from the Market East corridor and the South Philadelphia Stadium Complex to the port and shipyard.
But Parker did not speak at length about two measures she included in last year’s city budget deal that some have said shows the city is not as welcoming to business as it could be. Both relate to the city’s business income and receipts tax, or BIRT.
Attendees record Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on the big screen as she delivers her keynote address at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia’s Annual Mayoral Luncheon at the Convention Center Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
Parker on Wednesday briefly mentioned a law she and City Council adopted last year that bakes in annual incremental cuts to the two BIRT tax rates over 13 years. And she thanked the Tax Reform Commission for guidance on making the city’s tax structure more business-friendly.
“I am proud to affirm that we proposed and codified into law $210 million in tax investments to provide the kind of predictability that the business community told us that it needs,” Parker said. “I hope that was a direct sign to each of you in this room that the executive and the legislative branches are listening.”
But she did not mention that the enacted tax cuts — the steepest of which will likely take effect after she leaves office — are far less aggressive than the commission’s recommendations, which called for completely eliminating BIRT within eight to 12 years.
Parker also did not address the elimination of an important tax break that allowed businesses to exempt their first $100,000 in revenue when calculating their BIRT liabilities. That policy — which lasted about a decade before Council approved a Parker bill to end it last year — effectively eliminated BIRT for the tens of thousands of businesses that take in less than $100,000 per year from commerce in the city.
Parker has said she supports the exemption but was forced to get rid of it after the city was sued by Massachusetts-based Zoll Medical Corp., which does business in Philadelphia and argued that the tax break violated the Pennsylvania Constitution.
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said it’s unclear what crime the Department of Justice was trying to charge her with when a grand jury refused an indictment over a video in which she, with five other Democratic colleagues, called on service members to “refuse illegal orders.”
“The regular American people that comprised the grand jury saw this for what it was, which was kind of a spurious misuse, abuse of the power of the federal government against the people,” Houlahan, of Chester, said in an interview Wednesday.
“It’s not about me or my colleagues,” continued Houlahan, a former Air Force officer. “It’s about the fact that the Constitution allows for all of us to be treated as equals, and all of us to have the freedom to speak with freedom.”
The Justice Department investigated the six Democratic lawmakers who made the video, all of whom previously served in the military or intelligence agencies. But a Washington grand jury would not sign off on chargeson Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.
It’s a setback for President Donald Trump’s administration, which has targeted the lawmakers in a variety of ways since November, when the president claimed the video was an act of sedition.
Houlahan said none of the Democrats’ lawyers could identify what charges could have legitimately been brought against them.
“Collectively, we all, of course, have unfortunately had to secure lawyers in this process,” she said. “And to a person, none of them could come up really with what it was that we had purportedly done. And clearly the people in the grand jury saw the same thing.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, an Allegheny County Democrat who also appeared in the video, said in an interview Wednesday he is “not surprised at all” by the grand jury’s decision.
“The fact that the Trump administration and their lawyers want to try to charge us with crimes for stating the law and saying words that they don’t like is outrageous, and of course, not something that you should be able to throw people in prison for,” said Deluzio, who served in the Navy.
In a news conference Wednesday, some of the lawmakers suggested legal action against the Trump administration is on the table.
“There will be accountability, and they should be preserving documents, preparing for what’s coming,” Deluzio said.
U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio speaks to a large crowd in front of the Beaver County Courthouse in April 2025 wearing a hat that says “don’t give up the ship.”
Trump accused the Democratic lawmakers of sedition “punishable by death” after they posted the video in November, warning service members and intelligence workers to “refuse illegal orders.” In the video, the Democrats urged service members and intelligence professionals not to “give up the ship,” a sentiment Deluzio repeated Tuesday night.
The phrase, which Deluzio has long referenced, is a rallying cry that’s hung on the wall at the Naval Academy’s Memorial Hall.
“It’s a phrase that means a lot, and it means a lot in this moment of great stress to our country — that this thing is worth our efforts and that we should not give it up,” Deluzio said in theWednesday interview.
The Democrats did not mention any specific orders in the video, but lawmakers who appeared in the video expressed concerns at the time about strikes on boats in the Caribbean and National Guard operations in U.S. cities.
Houlahan said they continue to be concerned about “the unlawfulness of the administration.”
The video also included U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.), a former CIA officer; U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), a former Navy captain; U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D., N.H.), a former intelligence officer; and U.S. Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.), a former paratrooper and Army Ranger.
Federal prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to secure the indictment against all six lawmakers in the video, The New York Times reported. The office that pursued the case is led U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News personality who served as district attorney in Westchester County, N.Y., during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Grand jury rejections are extraordinarily rare, but have occurred repeatedly in recent months in Washington, as citizens who have heard the government’s evidence have come away underwhelmed in a number of cases. Prosecutors could try again to secure an indictment.
Attention on the lawmakers’ video escalated days after they initially posted it when Trump began his social media tirade in November.
“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”
He also shared posts from supporters calling for retribution against the Democrats, including one that said, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” and another calling them domestic terrorists.
“The fact that the president and the people around him, in hearing a reminder about the law, reacted the way they did, which is to call for our death, arrest, to try to imprison us, tells me more about them than I could ever know,” Deluzio said Wednesday.
“A normal person, a normal president, would be reminding their troops of their obligations to follow the law as well because they care about the rule of law,” he added.
Hegseth has censured Kelly for participating in the video and is trying to retroactively demote him from his retired rank of captain.
In response, Kelly is suing Hegseth to block those proceedings, calling them an unconstitutional act of retribution. During a hearing last week, the judge appeared to be skeptical of key arguments that a government attorney made in defense of Kelly’s Jan. 5 censure by Hegseth.
This article contains reporting from The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, testified Wednesday during a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms.
The question of addiction is a key pillar of the case, where plaintiffs seek to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.
At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose lawsuit could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies would play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.
Mosseri said it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and what he called problematic use. The plaintiff’s lawyer, however, presented quotes directly from Mosseri in a podcast interview a few years ago where he said the opposite, but he clarified that he was probably using the term “too casually,” as people tend to do.
Mosseri said he was not claiming to be a medical expert when questioned about his qualifications to comment on the legitimacy of social media addiction, but said someone “very close” to him has experienced serious clinical addiction, which is why he said he was “being careful with my words.”
He said he and his colleagues use the term “problematic use” to refer to “someone spending more time on Instagram than they feel good about, and that definitely happens.”
It’s “not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for people’s wellbeing,” Mosseri said.
Mosseri and the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth about cosmetic filters on Instagram that changed people’s appearance in a way that seemed to promote plastic surgery.
“We are trying to be as safe as possible but also censor as little as possible,” Mosseri said.
In the courtroom, bereaved parents of children who have had social media struggles seemed visibly upset during a discussion around body dysmorphia and cosmetic filters. Meta shut down all third-party augmented reality filters in January 2025. The judge made an announcement to members of the public on Wednesday after the displays of emotion, reminding them not to make any indication of agreement or disagreement with testimony, saying that it would be “improper to indicate some position.”
In recent years, Instagram has added a slew of features and tools it says have made the platform safer for young people. But this does not always work. A report last year, for instance, found that teen accounts researchers created were recommended age-inappropriate sexual content, including “graphic sexual descriptions, the use of cartoons to describe demeaning sexual acts, and brief displays of nudity.”
In addition, Instagram also recommended a “range of self-harm, self-injury, and body image content” on teen accounts that the report says “would be reasonably likely to result in adverse impacts for young people, including teenagers experiencing poor mental health, or self-harm and suicidal ideation and behaviors.” Meta called the report “misleading, dangerously speculative” and said it misrepresents its efforts on teen safety.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — For years, a tucked-away corner of the Phillies’ spring-training clubhouse has belonged to the stars. And because the roster hasn’t changed much since 2022, neither have the nameplates above the lockers.
Schwarber did a double take almost as soon as he walked through the door here Wednesday, even before Realmuto pointed it out. Left fielder Brandon Marsh stopped Miller in the hallway and said, “Man, you got a good little locker spot there.”
“They’ve all kind of made little comments here and there about it,” said Miller, the top prospect who now occupies the space once reserved for Nick Castellanos, the disgruntled $20 million right fielder who no longer has a locker (a photo of him was removed from a hallway in the clubhouse, too) because he will be traded or released by the weekend. “I was surprised seeing it myself.”
Miller shouldn’t be surprised. Nobody should.
Never mind that he is 21, the second-youngest player among 68 in camp. Or that he dressed at a temporary locker on the other side of the room last spring and lived with his parents 20 miles north of the Phillies’ complex.
Miller is in the Phillies’ plans — and sooner than later. So, it isn’t a coincidence, according to manager Rob Thomson, that he and fellow top prospect Justin Crawford (No. 80 in your spring-training program) are taking up residence on Millionaires’ Row.
“We upgraded a little bit,” Crawford said, laughing.
In 2026, after back-to-back divisional-round knockouts, the Phillies will still be led by Harper & Friends, few of whom have aged out of their prime. But they also aren’t getting younger.
As it is, the Phillies are trying to become only the 10th team in baseball history to make the playoffs with four players age 33 or older getting at least 500 plate appearances. If new right fielder Adolis García joins Harper, Turner, Schwarber, and Realmuto, the Phillies would be only the third team to make the playoffs with five. It hasn’t happened since the 2007 New York Yankees.
So, the Phillies must get younger if they’re going to prop open the proverbial window to contend long beyond this year. And that’s where Crawford, Miller, and 22-year-old pitcher Andrew Painter come in — and why they may be the three most important players in camp.
“Crawford and Miller and Andrew, we know they’re all very talented,” said Zack Wheeler, at 35 the dean of the starting rotation. “It’s good to have those guys around. You can’t have everybody under big contracts. You’ve got to have some young guys. We have a good locker room to accept those guys. They can ask any of these guys questions, and they’ll definitely help out.”
That’s the idea.
Crawford, 22, is the presumptive opening-day center fielder after batting .300 at every level of the minors. He might’ve gotten called up last August if the Phillies didn’t trade for Harrison Bader at the deadline. His time is most certainly now.
“I’ll say it feels a little different,” said Crawford, who would be the youngest outfielder on a Phillies opening-day roster since Greg Luzinski and Mike Anderson in 1973. “Last year was kind of the excitement of being in big-league camp for the first time. This, I feel a little bit more laid-back and just ready to get to work and compete. Excited to see what happens.”
Crawford insists he isn’t taking anything for granted. His dad, four-time All-Star outfielder Carl Crawford, wouldn’t allow it. Neither would his godfather, Junior Spivey, who played five seasons in the majors, or personal hitting coach Mike Easler, who had a 14-year major-league career.
And then there are Crawford’s new neighbors in the high-rent district of the clubhouse.
“I came in and still it was a little surreal,” Crawford said despite getting a heads-up from a teammate of where his locker was located. “It was like, ‘Wow,’ from being over there [on the other side of the room] last year. So, it’s pretty cool and definitely a good, nice moment.”
The Phillies did this in 2023 with Painter. They gave him a locker alongside Wheeler and around the corner from Aaron Nola and a chance to compete for a spot in the rotation as a 19-year-old. But he suffered a torn ligament in his right elbow, had surgery, and missed two seasons.
Painter has a good chance of making the team out of camp in part because Wheeler will be behind the other pitchers as he comes back from thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in which a vein is compressed between the collarbone and rib cage. Wheeler had a rib removed in September.
But Painter isn’t merely a placeholder. The Phillies remain bullish on his future even after he struggled last season in triple A. Many rival evaluators “cut him some slack,” as one NL scout said, after the two-year absence and believe he still has top-of-the-rotation potential.
Right-hander Andrew Painter has a chance to be in the Phillies’ season-opening starting rotation.
And if Crawford and Painter are ticketed for the opening-day roster, Miller may not be far behind. It isn’t only the placement of his locker. As camp opened for pitchers and catchers, Thomson confirmed that Miller will get reps at third base, in addition to his natural shortstop, a spot occupied by Turner.
It won’t be the first time. Miller played third base at J.W. Mitchell High School, up the road from here in Trinity, Fla., before the Phillies drafted him in the first round in 2023. This spring will be about “relearning” the position, he said, notably the footwork and the hops.
“I just want to get there [to the majors],” Miller said. “I don’t care where it is in the field. As long as I’m there, I’m cool.”
If Crawford, Painter, and Miller can get there, the Phillies will have threaded the needle of replenishing the roster while also contending. It’s a tricky balance.
Thomson was a coach with the Yankees in 2017 when they successfully blended youth (Aaron Judge, Gary Sánchez, Greg Bird, Jordan Montgomery, and Luis Severino) with a veteran core en route to 91 wins and Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
“I think there’s some similarities there,” Thomson said. “If you want to have a really healthy organization for a sustainable future, you have to be able to infuse some youth along the way.”
And it starts, symbolically, with a couple of kids lockering alongside the stars for six weeks in February and March.
Netanyahu spent nearly three hours at the White House, but he entered and left out of the view of reporters and he and Trump didn’t take questions. In a subsequent post on his social media site, however, the president called it “a very good meeting” and said “there was nothing definitive reached, other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated.”
“If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference,” Trump wrote. “If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be.”
He added, “Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal” and were hit by U.S. airstrikes.
“Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible,” Trump wrote.
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders had discussed negotiations with Iran as well as developments in Gaza and around the region and they had “agreed to continue their close coordination and relationship.”
Wednesday’s meeting was their seventh during Trump’s second term and took place as both the U.S. and Iran are projecting cautious optimism after holding indirect talks in Oman on Friday about how, once again, to approach negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump said on reaching an agreement with Iran in a Tuesday interview with Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow: “I think they’d be foolish if they didn’t. We took out their nuclear power last time, and we’ll have to see if we take out more this time.”
“It’s got to be a good deal,” he said then. “No nuclear weapons, no missiles.”
Netanyahu pushes for more in Iran talks
Netanyahu’s office said prior to the meeting that he wants the U.S.-Iran talks to include limits on Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its support for militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“I will present to the president our outlook regarding the principles of these negotiations — the essential principles which, in my opinion, are important not only to Israel, but to everyone around the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said Tuesday before leaving Israel.
But it remains unclear how much influence Netanyahu will have over Trump’s approach toward Iran. Trump initially threatened to take military action over Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests in January, then shifted to a pressure campaign in recent weeks to try to get Tehran to make a deal over its nuclear program.
Trump has said repeatedly that U.S. strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, although the extent of the damage remains unclear. Satellite photos of nuclear sites have recently captured activity, prompting concern that Iran could be attempting to salvage or assess damage at the sites.
Israel has long called for Iran to cease all uranium enrichment, dial back its ballistic missile program, and cut ties to militant groups across the region. Iran has always rejected those demands, saying it would only accept some limits on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Washington has built up military forces in the region, sending an aircraft carrier, guided-missile destroyers, air defense assets and more to supplement its presence. Arab and Islamic countries, including Turkey and Qatar, have been urging both sides to show restraint, warning that any strike or retaliation could have destabilizing consequences for a region already strained by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Gaza was also a topic
In his post, Trump said he and Netanyahu had “also discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza, and the Region in general.”
Trump plans to hold the first meeting next week of his Board of Peace, which was initially framed to oversee future steps of the U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire plan but has taken shape with Trump’s ambitions of resolving other global crises.
Earlier Wednesday, Netanyahu met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Blair House, across the street from the White House, and agreed to be part of the board.
On Iran, Trump said Friday that his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner had “very good” talks and more were planned this week. But the Republican president kept up the pressure, warning that if Iran did not make a deal over its nuclear program, “the consequences are very steep.”
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, made similar comments, saying there will be consultations on “next steps.” He also said the level of mistrust between the two longtime adversaries remains a “serious challenge facing the negotiations.”
He signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium — a major point of contention with Trump.
Netanyahu met with Witkoff and Kushner shortly after arriving in Washington on Tuesday evening and they gave him an update on the talks held with Iran in Oman, the prime minister’s office said.
Before the war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had said Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that was not armed with the bomb.
Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in the June war. Even before that, Iran has restricted IAEA inspections since Trump’s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Talking to reporters gathered at the front of an auditorium at Montgomery County Community College, the collar county’s top officials engaged in a friendly back-and-forth about something local leaders have had to pay unprecedented attention to since last year: how to handle any future federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump.
Within the last year, counties have navigated uncertainty surrounding reductions in funding under the Trump administration. In Montgomery County, those cuts have jeopardized key resources for public health, higher education, and homeless services.
“Naturally, our teams are following what’s coming out of [the Department of Housing and Urban Development], what’s happening with SNAP. We’re trying to anticipate,” said Jamila Winder, a Democrat and thechair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.
Community needs “that arise from the cuts to SNAP and the cuts to Medicaid are significant,” said vice chair Neil Makhija, a Democrat.
Tom DiBello, the board’s lone Republican, had a different view.
“Well, we also have to maybe look at what those reductions are, why those reductions are occurring … and I know this is where we divide,” he said.
Crossing the aisle has become rare in the rancorous national political environment. But at Montgomery County Community College on Wednesday, the commissioners emphasized at their annual State of the County address that they are striving for cooperation to be their norm, even as lawmakers in Harrisburg and Washington struggle to work together.
The commissioners have navigated their own tense moments in recent months, particularly related to immigration.
“Look, there are definitely things that we disagree on as a team, but what’s most important is that we’re able to fund the services that we provide to people in Montgomery County,” Winder told reporters.
Montgomery County commissioners and row officers stand on stage during introductions.
Wednesday’s address featured the commissioners reflecting on the county’s accomplishments in 2025 and outlining their goals for the year ahead to an audience of constituents and officials. Those include opening shelters for people experiencing homelessness, determining how to best integrate artificial intelligence in county services, and cutting red tape for residents trying to access local services.
And it was also sprinkled with displays of camaraderie despite political differences, such as the commissioners touting 2026’s bipartisan budget as the first in nearly a decade or DiBello going in for a hug after turning the microphone over to Winder for her closing remarks.
“If there’s one thing I want you to take away from today, it’s this: Under our collective leadership as commissioners, this board will continue to put politics aside to do what’s best for our communities,” Winder said at the address, of which the theme was “collaboration.”
But their interactions have not always fit the cordial image presented Wednesday.
Winder and Makhija called for ICE agents to be held accountable, while DiBello encouraged respect for law enforcement and denounced the incorporation of politics into the meeting.
“People are being terrorized by masked ICE agents in Montgomery County, that’s what we’re saying. And if you can’t be empathetic to that, that’s disconcerting,” Winder said at the time.
Thomas DiBello, the lone Republican commissioner, walks to the podium for remarks during the Montgomery County’s 2026 State of County event in Blue Bell. At right is Jamila H. Winder, the board’s Democratic chair.
“No matter what, we should be respecting our law enforcement agencies until they break the law,” DiBello responded.
On Wednesday, immigration-related disagreements lingered when Makhija told reporters about his opposition to ICE buying warehouses in Pennsylvania, including in Berks County, that may be used to detain people.
“Again we divide, because I will support the rule of law,” DiBello said on immigration enforcement. ”I stand with law enforcement, and if people want changes, they need to go to Washington and ask and promote those changes.”
Investigators said one immigration enforcement official got away with physically assaulting his girlfriend for years. Another admitted he repeatedly sexually abused a woman in his custody. A third is charged with taking bribes to remove detention orders on people targeted for deportation.
At least two dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and contractors have been charged with crimes since 2020, and their documented wrongdoing includes patterns of physical and sexual abuse, corruption, and other abuses of authority, a review by The Associated Press found.
While most of the cases happened before Congress voted last year to give ICE $75 billion to hire more agents and detain more people, experts say these kinds of crimes could accelerate given the sheer volume of new employees and their empowerment to use aggressive tactics to arrest and deport people.
The Trump administration has emboldened agents by arguing they have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty and by weakening oversight. One judge recently suggested that ICE was developing a troubling culture of lawlessness, while experts have questioned whether job applicants are getting enough vetting and training.
“Once a person is hired, brought on, goes through the training and they are not the right person, it is difficult to get rid of them and there will be a price to be paid later down the road by everyone,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2014 to 2017.
Almost every law enforcement agency contends with bad employees and crimes related to domestic violence and substance abuse are long-standing problems in the field. But ICE’s rapid growth and mission to deport millions are unprecedented, and the AP review found that the immense power that officers exercise over vulnerable populations can lead to abuses.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that wrongdoing was not widespread in the agency, and that ICE “takes allegations of misconduct by its employees extremely seriously.” She said that most new hires had already worked for other law enforcement agencies, and that their backgrounds were thoroughly vetted.
“America can be proud of the professionalism our officers bring to the job day-in and day-out,” she said.
Could become a ‘countrywide phenomenon’
ICE announced last month that it had more than doubled in size to 22,000 employees in less than one year.
Kerlikowske said ICE agents are particularly “vulnerable to unnecessary use-of-force issues,” given that they often conduct enforcement operations in public while facing protests. With the number of ICE detainees nearly doubling since last year to 70,000, employees and contractors responsible for overseeing them are also facing challenging conditions that can provide more opportunities for misconduct.
The Border Patrol doubled in size to more than 20,000 agents from 2004 to 2011 — six years longer than ICE took. It was embarrassed by a wave of corruption, abuse, and other misconduct by some of the new hires. Kerlikowske recalled cases of agents who accepted bribes to let cars carrying drugs enter the U.S. or who became involved in human trafficking.
He and others say ICE is poised to see similar problems that will likely be broader in scope, with less oversight and accountability.
“The corruption and the abuse and the misconduct was largely confined in the prior instance to along the border and interactions with immigrants and border state residents. With ICE, this is going to be a countrywide phenomenon as they pull in so many people who are attracted to this mission,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Bier, who has helped publicize some of the recent arrests and other alleged misconduct by ICE agents, said he has been struck by the “remarkable array of different offenses and charges that we’ve seen.”
AP’s review examined public records involving cases of ICE employees and contractors who have been arrested since 2020, including at least 17 who have been convicted and six others who are awaiting trial. Nine have been charged in the last year, including an agent cited last month for assaulting a protester near Chicago while off-duty.
Some of the most serious crimes were committed by veteran ICE employees and supervisors rather than rookies.
While federal officials have justified ICE’s aggression, the behavior of agents is drawing scrutiny from cellphone-wielding observers and prosecutors in Democratic-led jurisdictions. Local agencies are looking into last month’s fatal shootings in Minneapolis of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, as well as the killing of Keith Porter by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve.
Arrests have made local headlines
Around the country, the cases have attracted unwelcome headlines for ICE, which has spent millions of dollars publicizing the criminal rap sheets of those they arrest as the “worst of the worst.”
Among them:
— The assistant ICE field office supervisor in Cincinnati, Samuel Saxon, a 20-year ICE veteran, has been jailed since his arrest in December on charges that he attempted to strangle his girlfriend.
Saxon had abused the woman for years, fracturing her hip and nose and causing internal bleeding, a judge found in a ruling ordering him detained pending trial. “The defendant is a volatile and violent individual,” the judge wrote of Saxon, whose attorneys didn’t return a message seeking comment. ICE said he is considered absent without leave.
— “I’m ICE, boys,” an ICE employment eligibility auditor told police in Minnesota in November when he was arrested in a sting as he went to meet a person he thought was a 17-year-old prostitute. Alexander Back, 41, has pleaded not guilty to attempted enticement of a minor. ICE said Back is on administrative leave while the agency investigates.
— When officers in suburban Chicago found a man passed out in a crashed car in October, they were surprised to discover the driver was an ICE officer who had recently completed his shift at a detention center and had his government firearm in the vehicle. They arrested Guillermo Diaz-Torres for driving under the influence. He’s pleaded not guilty and has been put on administrative duty pending an investigation.
— After an ICE officer in Florida was stopped for driving drunk with his two children in the car in August, he tried to get out of charges by pointing to his law enforcement and military service. When that failed, he demanded to know whether one of the deputies arresting him was Haitian and threatened to check the man’s immigration status, body camera video shows.
“I’ll run him once I get out of here and if he’s not legit, ooh, he’s taking a ride back to Haiti,” Scott Deiseroth warned during the arrest.
Deiseroth, who was sentenced to probation and community service, is on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. “He did something stupid. He owned up to it,” said his attorney, Michael Catalano. “He’s very sorry about the whole thing.”
Several cases of force and abuse
The AP’s review found a pattern of charges involving ICE employees and contractors who mistreated vulnerable people in their care.
A former top official at an ICE contract facility in Texas was sentenced to probation on Feb. 4 after acknowledging he grabbed a handcuffed detainee by the neck and slammed him into a wall last year. Prosecutors had downgraded the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor.
In December, an ICE contractor pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detainee at a detention facility in Louisiana. Prosecutors said the man had sexual encounters with a Nicaraguan national over a five-month period in 2025 as he instructed other detainees to act as lookouts.
Outside Chicago, an off-duty ICE agent has been charged with misdemeanor battery for throwing to the ground a 68-year-old protester who was filming him at a gas station in December. McLaughlin has said the agent acted in self-defense.
Other charges cited corruption
Another pattern that emerged in AP’s review involved ICE officials charged with abusing their power for financial gain.
An ICE deportation officer in Houston was indicted last summer on charges that he repeatedly accepted cash bribes from bail bondsmen in exchange for removing detainers ICE had placed on their clients targeting them for deportation.
ICE said the officer was “indefinitely suspended” in May 2024, before his arrest one year later. He has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of accepting bribes and was released from custody while awaiting trial.
Prosecutors say a former supervisor in ICE’s New York City office provided confidential information about people’s immigration statuses to acquaintances and made an arrest in exchange for gifts and other gain. He was arrested in November 2024, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Two Utah-based ICE investigators were sentenced to prison last year for a scheme in which they made hundreds of thousands of dollars stealing synthetic drugs known as “bath salts” from government custody and selling them through government informants.
Using badges to dodge consequences
The wrongdoing often included the use of ICE resources and credentials to try to avoid arrest or receive favorable treatment.
In 2022, ICE supervisor Koby Williams was arrested in a sting by police in Othello, Washington, while going to a hotel room to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl he’d arranged to pay for sex.
Williams had driven his government vehicle, which was filled with cash, alcohol, pills, and Viagra, and was carrying his ICE badge and loaded government firearm. The 22-year ICE veteran offered a rationale that turned out to be a lie: that he was there to “rescue” the girl as part of a human trafficking investigation. Williams is serving prison time for what prosecutors called a “reprehensible” abuse of power.
“With a duty to protect and serve,” they wrote, “defendant sought to exploit and victimize.”
The Cherry Hill School District has decided against redrawing its elementary school maps to redistribute students and ease overcrowding.
Instead, the school board will consider adding additions to the two schools with the highest anticipated growth— Clara Barton Elementary and Rosa International Middle School — and continuing to monitor enrollment at four other elementary schools.
The decision was announced Tuesday night when the district presented a highly anticipated report on rebalancing school enrollment. The South Jersey school system had been considering adjustingthe boundaries assigned to each of its 12 elementary schools to handle an anticipated increase in students — a move that sparked opposition from some parents.
The recommendation is “a huge win,” said Bruck Lascio, whose children attend Barton. “We’ll take their proposal.”
“The administration is not recommending boundary adjustments at this time,” said George Guy, director of elementary education.
Guy said both schools now potentially slated for expansion are expected to have a severe shortage of seats by the 2028-29 school year. Clara Barton would be 69 seats short, and Rosa Middle 51 seats, he said.
The additions, if approved by the school board, would be ready for the start of the 2028-29 school year, Guy said.
The report also recommends that the district monitor enrollment trends at Horace Mann Elementary, which is also expected to have more students than seats. And it calls for another demographic study in 2026-27 to assess needsat all schools.
Guy left open the possibility that Mann could also get an addition to ease overcrowding. The district also plans to monitor enrollment at Joyce Kilmer, Richard Stockton, and Woodcrest Elementary Schools.
Why was rebalancing under consideration?
A demographic study conducted in 2024 showed that five of Cherry Hill’s 12 elementary schools are expected to have a total shortage of 337 seats in the 2028-29 school year, and prompted the school board to look into rebalancing.
Cherry Hill began the rebalancing project with a possibility of changing the boundaries for students at five of its 12 elementary schools. Some elementary schools are nearing capacity, and a few have surplus seats.
In developing a recommendation, Guy had to consider parameters set by the board. It was also important to considertransportation and avoid having students spend longer periods of time on buses.
Board president GinaWinters said the board basically had two choices: shift students where there were available seats or add more capacity to keep students in their neighborhood schools.
Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill.
Changing the boundaries would have affected 534 children in the district, which enrolls about 11,000 students, Guy said. Clara Barton and James Johnson Elementary Schools would have faced the biggest impact, he said.
The sprawling 24.5-mile community of nearly 75,000 is divided into elementary school zones. Most students are assigned to a neighborhood school within two miles of where they live.
The district also dismissed possible relocation of some special education programs to ease overcrowding because that would further stress students and staff, Guy said.
Guy said creating new English as a second language (ESL) programs at more schools was also considered, but that option was rejected because it would not have adequately addressed the overcrowding.
According to Guy, the costs would not affect the property tax rate. Winters said there could be additional budget costs in the future to hire additional teachers and administrators.
How did parents react to the proposal?
Parents who had lobbied heavily against having their children moved because they like the convenience of neighborhood elementary schools welcomed the recommendations.
“We love our school,” said Katie Daw, whose children attend Clara Barton in the township’s Erlton section. “This is the best-case scenario.”
Marie Blaker said she had braced for bad news Tuesday. She is part of a Clara Barton group that has organized other parents.
“We didn’t think it was going to go like this,” Blaker said. “I’m thrilled they listened to us.”
What’s next?
The nine-member board did not vote on the recommendations Tuesday night. Winters said the board appeared to support the recommendation.
Winters said public hearings would be held at Barton and Rosa. A final plan is expected by the summer, at which point the board will vote on the proposal.
Guy has said officials are not yet examining future enrollment needs at the remaining middle schools and high schools.
“The reality is that we will be faced with very difficult decisions,” board member Renee Cherfane said.
PORTLAND, Ore. — After the 76ers’ victory at the Phoenix Suns last Saturday, Nick Nurse was still irked about the game they let slip away at the Los Angeles Lakers two nights prior.
“Quarter here [Monday] that’s really bad, and one quarter in L.A.,” Nurse said late Monday about the 3-2 trip. “But most of it was really good basketball.”
That was all part of the Sixers’ busy week out west, which overlapped with the trade deadline. The Sixers said goodbye to Jared McCain and Eric Gordon in the middle of the trip. Joel Embiid remained dominant in the three games he played. Tyrese Maxey was invited to the three-point contest at All-Star Saturday.
Next, the Sixers have one more game against the rival New York Knicks before the All-Star break.
“Everybody will get up for [that],” veteran wing Kelly Oubre Jr. said of the Knicks game. “Take care of that one, and we feel good going into the break.”
First, here are some additional nuggets and observations from the Sixers’ five-game trip.
Maxey three-point contest
Tyrese Maxey declined an invitation to compete in the three-point contest at All-Star Weekend in 2024, acknowledging he was “nervous” and wanted to soak up the experience as a first-time All-Star.
“This year, I definitely wanted to do it, man,” Maxey said Monday morning from Portland. “I wanted to be a part of that night, and I’m going to go out there and try to win.”
Maxey was announced Sunday as a participant in the event that now headlines All-Star Saturday. He has become one of the league’s most dangerous long-range shooters because of the variety of attempts he can fire off the catch and dribble, and because he has extended his range. He entered Wednesday shooting 37.9% on 8.8 attempts per game this season.
Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey will participate in the three-point contest at All-Star Weekend.
Shooting off a rack, however, is quite different than taking a shot in the flow of a game. Maxey said he has a little experience in such competitions in high school and while at Kentucky, and might spend some time practicing off the rack Tuesday night. And Sixers player development coach Toure’ Murry has told Maxey since the beginning of the season that he has “got something for me” as far as strategy with where to place the “money” balls worth extra points.
Maxey has fond memories of watching former Golden State Warriors “Splash Brothers” Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson get hot in the three-point contest. Former winners Damian Lillard and Devin Booker are also in this year’s field.
And now, Maxey is far from nervous to join them.
“Everything from that weekend and being a part of it is special,” Maxey said. “It’s a blessing, and I’m not going to take any of it for granted.”
Plan for Paul George
As the Sixers walked into Santa Monica Prep for their first shootaround of this trip, Paul George was among those in attendance. George’s personal trainer also has continued to travel with the team.
George still has 19 games remaining in his 25-game suspension for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy. But he is permitted to remain around the team for practices and shootarounds.
“The organization’s equipped in any way to provide him whatever he needs,” said Nurse, alluding that George has at least partially attributed his positive drug test to mental health struggles. “ … We want to keep him as engaged on the basketball side.”
Oubre, who is now tasked with making up for some of George’s production on both ends of the floor, expressed support for his teammate during this time.
“My first thought was just praying for him,” Oubre said upon hearing the news of George’s suspension. “Obviously, that’s tough, man, especially when you talk about mental health, because that’s the unseen. You see us physically, but you don’t know what’s going on in our head and in our lives.”
Edgecombe’s bounceback
VJ Edgecombe said his 1-of-11 shooting dud on Feb. 2 at the Los Angeles Clippers was easy to mentally flush. But Nurse took things a step further, immediately calling the Sixers’ first couple of plays for Edgecombe in the following night’s matchup at Golden State.
That ignited the rookie guard’s 25-point outburst on 11-of-20 shooting, a significant lift as the Warriors’ defense relentlessly swarmed Maxey.
“Just to say, ‘We’re going to VJ,’” Nurse said “ … I didn’t know it was going to be that good. But I figured he’d be ready to go, and we just wanted to let him know we believe in him.”
Consider that another example of the immense — and rare — confidence Edgecombe has instantly instilled in his coach and teammates. And Edgecombe feels that reciprocated.
“Once your teammates have trust in you, I feel like you can just go out there and just go hoop,” Edgecombe said. “ … You don’t have to worry about if they care if you’re missing. It’s a team game. They know I’m going to make the right plays. They just have a ton of faith in me.”
That performance also arrived in his second matchup against mentor and former Bahamian teammate Buddy Hield, whom Edgecombe playfully talked trash to after taking him off the dribble for a score. Edgecombe also jawed with fellow Bahamian teammate Deandre Ayton during Thursday’s loss to the Lakers, and said goodbye to Eric Gordon when the Sixers traded him at the deadline.
Nurse credited Gordon with helping foster Edgecombe’s poise as an immediate impact rookie.
“That type of steadiness and calmness that Eric kind of always has,” Nurse said, “I think was valuable to VJ. He probably picked some of that up.”
Bona’s hands
Adem Bona nabbed a steal against the Warriors, and had a wide-open court in front of him. The reserve center methodically dribbled and threw down the dunk, prompting a more-excited-than-usual reaction from the Sixers’ bench for a fairly routine transition bucket.
“It’s kind of a joke from the previous game [against the Clippers],” Bona said, “where I was running too fast and I fumbled the ball. I was taking my time this time. I was a little slower. … I was super slow.”
Sixers center Adem Bona has worked diligently to be able to catch passes on the move.
Bona’s hands have warranted critique since taking on a more important role as the backup center, whether Joel Embiid or Andre Drummond starts the game. He regularly drills those fundamentals, including before games while working with assistant coach TJ DiLeo on moving up and down the court while dribbling between his legs and behind his back.
Evidence that this is still a work in progress: He mishandled an alley-oop catch during Saturday’s victory at the Phoenix Suns.
Tardy in San Francisco
Even NBA travel parties can get caught in San Francisco traffic. Especially while immersed in Super Bowl week hubbub before the big game played in nearby Santa Clara.
The Sixers’ team buses were more than an hour late to the Chase Center last Tuesday, throwing off pregame routines for players who are creatures of habit. Nurse secretly hoped players would ditch those warm-ups entirely, because “I’m not that big of a believer” in expending that energy on the second night of a back-to-back.
Nurse, meanwhile, used the additional bus time to flip on some film that he planned to watch in his office. And it caused him to expedite a series of meetings with various coaches that typically begin about two hours before tipoff.
“They’re just review, review, review,” Nurse said, “one last time before we take the test.”
The move was somewhat anticlimactic, given his impact this season as a rebounder, cutter and all-around hustle role player. And his postgame comments about the conversion were somewhat subdued, given that they occurred after the Sixers had surrendered a 14-point lead against the Lakers.
Yet all of that also demonstrates how much Barlow has thrived as a late signee with the Sixers, in a situation where he feels his skills are “valued and appreciated.” This career season comes after Barlow spent his first three seasons with the San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks, where he made a combined five starts and never averaged more than 14.6 minutes in those appearances.
“I feel that energy here,” Barlow said, “ … I’m just having so much fun being out there with everybody.”
Beauchamp makes his debut
Perhaps the one positive of the Trail Blazers’ drubbing of the Sixers Monday? MarJon Beauchamp got his first NBA minutes of the season, totaling 10 points, four rebounds, and four assists.
Even better: That performance occurred in the arena closest to Beauchamp’s roots that the Sixers will travel all season. The 25-year-old was born in Yakima, Wash., and went to high school in Seattle before joining G League Ignite and getting drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2022.
Nurse said he was impressed with Beauchamp’s quickness and aggressiveness to push the ball off rebounds. The coach also did not notice any glaring mistakes within the Sixers’ schemes or Beauchamp’s individual assignments. After suiting up for three NBA teams last season, Beauchamp said he was focused on playing with confidence in his first extended minutes at this level in an estimated 18 months.
“I just tried to be assertive, not think too much, and just play hard,” Beauchamp said after the game.
Added Oubre: “He did a really good job of picking up on everything, so that goes to show that he’s been studying and putting in the work and staying ready, just giving him confidence and making sure that he feels like we’re all together, he’s in this with us and not just visiting.”
Beauchamp flashed that confidence when he tried to uncork a dunk on Portland rookie Yang Hansen, who stands 7-foot-1. Beauchamp said he attempted such a feat when he was signed to a training camp deal with the Trail Blazers this past fall, but that in-game attempt was “probably the closest I’ve been” to throwing it down.
“I wanted that dunk so bad,” Beauchamp said. “Next time, though.”
Quotable
Oubre on reaching the All-Star break: “We have a blank canvas on the season, and we want to create a masterpiece at the end. We’re still painting.”
