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She battled bladder accidents for decades before doctors found the problem | Medical Mystery

From as early as she can remember, Cindy O’Connor couldn’t control her bladder. She would suddenly feel the urge to pee and couldn’t make it to the bathroom before urine leaked out.

In kindergarten, the Wisconsin resident wet her snow pants, which froze to a ledge as she sat outside of school. In seventh grade, a teacher who thought she was faking the need to go stopped her in the hallway, where, surrounded by classmates, she soaked her jeans. When playing outdoors with friends, she would run to a neighbor’s weeping willow and relieve herself under its wispy branches.

Kids called her “pee-britches,” and her parents scolded her. To reduce the need to urinate, she stopped drinking water, only to develop cramps from constipation.

As an adult, especially after the birth of her son, the problem got worse. She had to abruptly leave work meetings, stop the car frequently on road trips, and plan walks around available restrooms. Her regular doctors didn’t suggest any treatment for what they said was an overactive bladder, so she wore absorbent pads and figured she had to live with incontinence.

Other doctors eventually prescribed medications and implanted two devices to try to resolve the issue, but the approaches didn’t help and had side effects. It wasn’t until O’Connor saw another specialist, who ordered a test other doctors hadn’t, that she was diagnosed with a rare condition that is typically caught at a much younger age.

“I wish they would have figured it out years ago,” said O’Connor, now 65. “I wonder what things would have been like to have that normalcy.”

Lifelong struggle

O’Connor’s childhood memories are marked by urinary accidents.

Her parents told her Santa wouldn’t leave gifts if he caught her up at night. Afraid to go to the bathroom, she often wet the bed on Christmas Eve. At the annual carnival in Belleville, the small town south of Madison where she grew up and still lives, she got stuck on a Ferris wheel and couldn’t hold her pee. After accidents at school, she would walk home during recess to change clothes.

“I can’t tell you how many times I heard, ‘Why are you waiting until the last minute?’” O’Connor said.

“‘I don’t,’” she would reply.

When the trouble didn’t go away after her teens, she told doctors about it at visits for other complaints, but they didn’t focus on her incontinence. After her son was born when she was 21, she developed endometriosis, which is when tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside of the uterus. She underwent a hysterectomy a few years later. Her abnormal bladder seemed like a secondary concern.

As she raised her son, helped her husband, Mike, start an insurance business, and cared for her father before he died of lung cancer, O’Connor adapted to her uncontrolled peeing. On morning walks, she and Mike would go by the fire station, their church, a park, a laundromat, and a bar — all of which had bathrooms open early — so she could dash in when necessary.

But the condition was more than a nuisance. After Mike struggled to pull the car over in time, they stopped taking lengthy road trips. Sometimes the urge to pee was so overwhelming that O’Connor’s whole body would tremble. Unless she calmed herself, an accident was inevitable.

“It was like my bladder was spasming, my heart was racing, my ears were ringing, and my head was pounding,” she said. “Everything just goes haywire. If I stood up right away, I was done.”

Unhelpful treatments

In her late 40s, a change in health insurance led O’Connor to see a new gynecologist. The doctor treated her for incontinence with a medication called Detrol. It didn’t help and made O’Connor’s constipation worse.

The gynecologist surgically placed a mesh sling under her urethra, which can ease some kinds of urinary incontinence. But O’Connor’s bladder was nicked during the procedure, requiring her to use a catheter for 12 days. The sling made it hard for her to urinate, so after three months the doctor cut the device to release its tension.

O’Connor tried oxybutynin, another drug for overactive bladder, but it didn’t help and caused dry eyes and blurry vision. She went to another doctor — a gynecologist with training in urology — who prescribed a drug called Vesicare, which had a similar effect. Physical therapy, with Kegel exercises, wasn’t beneficial.

The urogynecologist implanted a device that acts like a urinary “pacemaker,” using electrical pulses to stimulate nerves that communicate between the bladder and the brain.

The device didn’t lessen O’Connor’s bladder symptoms. Instead, it activated another part of her body. “It made my toes curl,” she said.

A new test

In 2013, nearly four years after her first treatment, she saw another urogynecologist, Sarah McAchran, at UW Health in Madison. McAchran, a urologist with training in gynecology, found two things about O’Connor to be unusual. Her incontinence had persisted since childhood, and she hadn’t responded to numerous treatments. McAchran tried two additional drugs, which were also unsuccessful: Mirabegron, which gave O’Connor headaches, and Gelnique, a topical form of oxybutynin, from which she broke out in a rash.

McAchran conducted urodynamic tests, in which catheters, electrodes, and fluids measure bladder capacity, pressure, and flow. O’Connor’s results were unusual. “She had a very early first sensation to void,” McAchran said. “Her contractions got progressively stronger and were all associated with leakage.”

Using a flexible tube mounted with a camera, McAchran inspected O’Connor’s bladder and saw some trabeculations, or thickening of the wall, which suggests the bladder was contracting too much. “It can be a sign that the bladder has had to work harder than it should to try to get urine out,” McAchran said.

Suspecting an underlying nervous system condition, McAchran ordered a spinal MRI. The scan revealed that the tip of O’Connor’s spinal cord was low and that a band of tissue between the tip and her tailbone appeared abnormal, indicating a condition called a tethered spinal cord. In the disorder, the spinal cord attaches to the spinal canal instead of flowing freely. Body movement causes the spinal cord to stretch too much, which can interfere with signals between the brain and the bladder.

The condition can be caused by scar tissue from surgery but is often present at birth, when it is associated with spina bifida occulta, a mild version of a birth defect that can cause serious disabilities. O’Connor almost certainly was born with her tethered cord; many children who have it are diagnosed at a young age. But in a middle-aged woman, “you have to think about it to diagnose it,” McAchran said. “There’s so many other, more common … reasons for a woman to have incontinence that you would focus on those first.”

When she heard the diagnosis, O’Connor was ecstatic. She finally had a response to the ridicule she had endured.

“‘See, I told you that it’s not my fault; I don’t wait too long,’” O’Connor said she told those close to her. “Nobody would listen to me all those years. That was so frustrating.”

Finding comfort

Despite getting the diagnosis, a remedy did not come easily. When O’Connor was 53, a neurosurgeon cut the band of abnormal tissue connected to her spinal cord to release the cord, confirming during the procedure that the cord had been tethered. The operation, when performed at a young age, can prevent bladder and neurological problems.

The surgery relieved O’Connor’s lower back pain, another symptom of her tethered cord, but it didn’t significantly improve her incontinence. That is because the procedure can’t reverse damage already done, said the neurosurgeon, Bermans Iskandar, of UW Health, who normally operates on children.

“If you wait 50 years, there’s no way you’re going to bring back a bladder that has been damaged over the years,” Iskandar said. “The main reason for the surgery is to prevent additional problems in the future.”

McAchran turned to Botox, injecting purified botulinum toxin through O’Connor’s urethra into her bladder to relax the muscle and reduce contractions. At first, the treatment decreased accidents, even though it made it harder for O’Connor to urinate and sometimes required her to use disposable catheters. But the benefit of the injections, given nine times over more than two years, diminished. “The spasms came back just as hard,” O’Connor said.

The last option was surgery to increase the size of her bladder. It would require her to use a disposable catheter every time she went to the bathroom, regularly flush her urethra and bladder with saline solution, and urinate on schedule, every five or six hours, for the rest of her life. She worried about how she would do those things as she got older.

But on a trip with Mike to Door County, Wisconsin’s version of Cape Cod, she had an accident at a restaurant. As their retirement years approached, she wanted to travel without worrying so much about her bladder.

She decided to have the operation. In October 2018, during the five-hour procedure, McAchran and another surgeon used a piece of O’Connor’s bowel to more than double the size of her bladder, increasing its capacity to store urine more than threefold.

Since then, O’Connor has had only one accident, when she exceeded her scheduled urination time while watching a parade in New Orleans. She has acclimated to using catheters in her daily routine. “It’s natural, it’s normal,” she said.

For much of her life, she struggled with low self-esteem, sensing that people were laughing at her because of her condition. “It wasn’t a death sentence, but it sure wasn’t fun,” she said.

Now, after retiring in September as office manager for Mike, she is embracing a more unencumbered life. She went with Mike to Europe two years ago, took a trip to Nashville last summer with her son and is regularly playing with her granddaughter, who is nearly 2. She and Mike plan to fly to California and drive back along Route 66.

“Mike has always wanted to do that,” she said. “It is something that has never crossed my mind as possible until now.”

David Wahlberg has been a medical reporter for 30 years, including at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison.

January 7, 2026
Emails outline potential cuts affecting thousands of FEMA disaster responders

The Department of Homeland Security has drafted plans to drastically cut the Federal Emergency Management Agency workforce in 2026, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post that detail potential reductions to thousands of disaster response and recovery roles.

The terminations are likely to come in waves, according to three people familiar with the plans who, like some others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. They said the cuts began on New Year’s Eve with the elimination of about 65 positions that were part of FEMA’s largest workforce, known as the Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) — staffers who are among the first on the ground after a disaster and often stick around for years to help communities recover.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas and CNN earlier reported a portion of the New Year’s Eve cuts.

Emails sent to senior agency leadership in late December include detailed tables identifying roles that can be cut from the agency’s divisions. These tables include a 41% reduction in CORE disaster roles, amounting to more than 4,300 positions. They also list reductions in surge staffing, standby workers who are often the first on the ground when a disaster strikes, by 85%, or nearly 6,500 roles.

In a statement, FEMA spokesperson Daniel Llargués said the agency has “not issued and is not implementing a percentage-based workforce reduction.”

“The materials referenced from the leaked documentation stem from a routine, pre-decisional workforce planning exercise conducted in line with OMB and OPM guidance,” Llargués added. “The email outlining that exercise did not direct staffing cuts or establish reduction targets.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has long wanted to cut back on CORE staffing, according to two former senior officials.

Losing a large number of disaster-specific workers over a short period “would mean greater delays in processing and survivors not being dealt with as quickly as they had been before,” said Cameron Hamilton, who led FEMA as acting administrator in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Internal agency emails and documents, as well as people familiar with the plans, suggest Noem is spearheading the drastic reductions, which may impede FEMA’s ability to fulfill its legal obligation to help the nation respond to disasters, according to three FEMA officials.

Noem, who has exercised a tight grip over FEMA since taking over its parent department, has repeatedly expressed a desire to shrink or eliminate the agency. The Post reported that she previously made recommendations to cut agency staffing by about half.

Although the documents call the staffing reduction an “exercise” and say “no staffing actions or personnel decisions are being directed or implemented as part of this request,” two officials familiar with the situation said the tables reflect Noem’s targets for the agency.

An email describes the tables, which list total reduction counts and percentages for most of the agency’s divisions, as a “planning document.”

Llargués said in FEMA’s statement that the “accompanying spreadsheet was an internal working tool used to collect planning inputs.”

The emails show that there have been “deliberate” discussions regarding workforce reductions, said a person familiar with them, who added that the documents request “senior leadership to review and ensure that whatever staff is retained is absolutely necessary.”

DHS has said publicly that it terminated 50 people in early January and that the cuts were “a routine staff adjustment of 50 staff out of 8000.”

Two officials with knowledge of the process said that number is closer to 65. The officials had been told to expect that hundreds more people would lose their jobs by the end of January. CORE staffers whose jobs were supposed to be renewed this week still have not heard anything about their status, officials said.

Llargués said the New Year’s Eve cuts were unrelated to the “planning exercise described in the leaked email.”

The potential for additional cuts come less than a year after a wave of FEMA terminations, including of hundreds of probationary employees. FEMA officials are also awaiting a final draft of a report by a Trump-appointed review council on the agency’s future, which was supposed to be released last month. The Post previously reported that a version of that report recommended making FEMA leaner but also more independent — findings that countered recommendations from Noem, the council’s co-chair.

Three FEMA officials raised concerns about the rapid and drastic dismantling of the agency workforce.

Under the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, the homeland security secretary is prohibited from taking actions that “substantially or significantly reduce the authorities, responsibilities, or functions” of FEMA.

“It’s not just unprecedented — it directly contradicts the law,” said a veteran FEMA official who has also worked within DHS.

Having the head of DHS determine the fate of disaster response roles “strips FEMA leadership of its statutory authority and puts control of the nation’s disaster workforce in the hands of a department that Congress explicitly told to step back after Katrina,” that person added.

Emergency management historian Scott Robinson said cutting FEMA’s staffing at these levels “would [undo] an act of Congress without an act of Congress.”

“The president is using a lot of administrative tools to try and do things we would have traditionally expected legislation to do,” Robinson said.

There are about 17,500 CORE employees spread across the country — the majority of FEMA’s workforce of 22,316, an agency official said. Under the Stafford Act, FEMA hires these staffers for multiyear terms using the disaster relief fund.

CORE teams partner directly with state and local officials to support ongoing response and recovery after a hurricane strikes or a fire tears through a town. They may move resources from warehouses to hard-hit communities; they process grants and conduct trainings. Some staffers were working on long-term projects related to Hurricanes Sandy, Maria, and Fiona. CORE teams also include lawyers, IT experts, and others who may help oversee nuclear plant operations or help in hazard reduction for earthquakes.

For example, in a region that includes Texas, Louisiana and more than 60 tribal nations, about 80% of the FEMA staffers deployed in support roles are CORE employees, a former senior official said.

Ongoing discussions to downsize FEMA also underscore how much autonomy the nation’s emergency management agency has lost since the start of Trump’s second term. FEMA has been without a congressionally appointed leader for nearly a year, cycling through temporary officials who have lacked disaster management experience, which is required by law to lead the agency. After David Richardson resigned in November, DHS tapped its chief of staff at the time, Karen Evans, to act as the agency’s interim administrator.

An agency official familiar with the discussions said Evans has been part of conversations about the future of this disaster-specific workforce for the past few weeks, including about whether to extend positions for a month or two until the agency has had enough time to review the need for the roles. But the official said it seemed that Noem was making the final decision.

As documents detailing workforce cuts made rounds within the agency over the past week, FEMA officials were stunned and pointed out that getting rid of nearly half of the nation’s disaster workforce would greatly harm communities in various stages of disaster recovery. States would need much more time to prepare and bolster their own disaster capabilities before the federal government significantly pulled back resources such as CORE employees.

“The entire framework of a reduction should be built on stronger state partnerships, not knee-jerk reactions from the federal government,” Hamilton said.

CORE appointments are typically renewed every two to four years. When the end of an employee’s contracted term approaches, their supervisors submit paperwork to renew those roles and send it up the chain. Most of the positions are usually reinstated, according to four current and former FEMA officials, in part because recovery work is long and complex.

In mid-December, DHS took away FEMA’s authority to independently renew these positions, and it instituted a hiring process that requires Noem to review all CORE positions and help decide whether they should continue to exist, according to emails and a person familiar with a meeting where these new requirements were discussed.

An email from Dec. 17 described how Noem — often referred to as “S1” in internal DHS and FEMA conversations and documents — created parameters for keeping the CORE employees.

“To improve DHS review outcomes, each CORE term renewal justification must be written to fit what the S1 verification form is designed to capture,” it said.

Noem overseeing hiring for disaster-specific employees “is completely outside the norm,” said the veteran FEMA official who also served within DHS. “CORE renewals have always been handled inside FEMA, as Congress intended under the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act.”

The new system created year-end confusion as supervisors scrambled to send in detailed letters justifying a variety of positions.

For example, in one region with 40 CORE employees whose jobs were to be renewed in January, supervisors sent lengthy justification notes for about 35 of those workers. That same day, they were told to trim the letters and send them again.

They heard nothing in response, until they learned on Dec. 31 that they would lose nine employees “regardless of the recommendations of emergency management experts,” one official familiar with the situation said. The fate of the rest is unknown, a supervisor said. He said he was also told “there was no plan” to extend any other CORE employees whose jobs were supposed to be renewed this month.

It is unclear whether FEMA or DHS took the justification memos into account.

In the last weeks of December, the office was inundated with hundreds of these justification memos, including statistics and data meant to explain why specific roles were crucial to FEMA’s mission to help communities recover from disasters.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, human resources staffers were told to inform people they had lost their jobs, according to a person familiar with the situation and memos obtained by the Post. Some CORE staffers learned they were fired on New Year’s Day while on vacation, and they were asked to send in their equipment by Jan. 2.

Several agency officials who supervise CORE team members were shocked when they learned that numerous employees had suddenly lost their jobs, emails show.

“This must be a mistake,” one supervisor wrote to FEMA’s HR services and other officials, explaining that they had approved their employee’s renewal and sent the paperwork through the proper channels.

Another supervisor overseeing recovery work for Hurricane Helene expressed concern and confusion over losing a staffer, stating in a New Year’s Eve note to human resources that “based on the attached emails and form,” the worker’s “appointment should be renewed.”

“I would like to resolve this ASAP, as this is a disappointing and confusing email to get right before a holiday,” the supervisor said.

In response, a top human resources official said the situation was essentially out of their hands.

January 7, 2026
The best (and weirdest) tech we found at CES 2026

LAS VEGAS — This week, 2.5 million square feet of prime Las Vegas real estate is packed with visions of the future. Some of them are sensible and going on sale soon, others are way out there and still in development.

That’s business as usual at CES, the massive tech confab once known as the Consumer Electronics Show that opens today. It’s a place where robots roam free, TVs tower over footsore onlookers, and artificial intelligence lurks around every corner.

Here’s what has stood out from the crowd so far.

Uber’s new robotaxi

The ride-booking giant’s road to robotaxis has been a complicated one: An early Uber self-driving test vehicle killed a pedestrian in 2018. The company sold off its autonomous driving project in 2020 and has since partnered with its would-be rival Waymo in some parts of the country.

Now, Uber is getting ready to roll its own self-driving cars onto city streets once again.

The ride-hailing company didn’t build this thing from scratch. Autonomous driving company Nuro provided the cameras, sensors, and self-driving smarts, all of which are integrated into a Gravity model three-row electric SUV from Lucid Motors.

Uber invested $300 million in Lucid last year and fleshed out the in-car experience for riders. You’ll be able to pick out playlists, adjust the cabin temperature, and make other customizations that are also already offered by Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxis.

On Monday, Uber said that its Lucid vehicles are already being tested on public roads. It plans to make robotaxis available to Uber riders in the San Francisco Bay Area later this year.

There’s no word yet on when these new self-driving Ubers will make it out of California, but at least it doesn’t seem like you’ll have to pay extra for one. When you hail a ride where these vehicles are active, the company says, you won’t have the option of selecting a robotaxi until you’ve already locked in a fare.

A CES attendee sits on VOVO’s $4,990 Smart Toilet Neo.

A toilet that can call for help

VOVO’s $4,990 Smart Toilet Neo comes with now-standard niceties like a built-in bidet and automatic flushing. And VOVO claims its built-in urine analysis sensor can provide deeper insights into a user’s overall health, splashed across a screen meant to be installed nearby.

Scanning one’s pee is par for the course at CES though: stand-alone liquid waste sensors have been floating around the show for years. The Smart Toilet Neo’s standout feature? When installed in a senior’s home, it can send messages to family members if no one has used it for more than eight hours, prompting loved ones to check in and make sure everyone is OK.

Samsung’s 130-inch Micro RGB TV.

A TV for the ‘size matters’ crowd

Samsung’s 130-inch Micro RGB TV broke cover this week, and is so big that the svelte metal frame surrounding it looks barely up to the job.

Long story short, Micro RGB TVs use gobs of incredibly small LEDs in red, green, or blue to light up the screen. That makes them better at delivering bright, accurate colors compared to a more standard LED TV.

It’s unclear when Samsung plans to offer this monstrosity up to consumers, but when it does be sure to steel yourself before checking out the price tag. The company began selling a similar 115-inch model last year for an eye-watering $30,000.

The Pinwheel Home phone.

A retro landline phone for kids

If you’re old enough to remember the pre-cellphone days, cast your mind back to all the time you spent tying up your parents’ phone line when you were young. A company called Pinwheel wants kids of the smartphone era to know what that feels like — without getting distracted by a screen.

The $99 Pinwheel Home, slated for sale in the coming months, is a dead ringer for the corded phones you’d find affixed to kitchen walls in the 1980s. The company says it’s designed to help young ones hone their verbal and social skills by chatting with a handful of preset contacts.

Calling other households with a Pinwheel Home costs parents nothing, but placing calls to regular phone numbers will set you back $9.99 a month. To sweeten the deal and help this throwback gadget further appeal to youngsters, the device will ship with a sheet of stickers.

A portable, battery-powered food allergen detector

For people allergic to gluten or dairy, even a simple meal out can feel like a minefield. Allergen Alert, spun out of a family-owned French biotech firm, wanted to help — by building a $200 portable allergen-sensing gadget they allege delivers lab-grade results.

Here’s how it works: You unpack one of the company’s test pouches (available in packs of five to seven as part of a monthly subscription), and cram a bit of a suspect meal into a slender spoon. Pack all of that into the sensing device, which is about the size of a thick paperback, and you’ll get a result back in a few minutes.

The catch? For now, the company only offers gluten test kits. It says that dairy-specific models will launch soon and that by 2028 the lineup will include tests for most major food allergens, including nuts and dairy.

LEGO chief product and marketing officer and executive vice president Julia Goldin talks as a Wookiee stands behind her during a LEGO news conference ahead of the CES tech show Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Las Vegas.

Star Wars and Lego announce a new partnership

When Lucasfilm chief creative officer David Filoni brought out an array of X-Wing pilots, Chewbacca, R2D2, and C-3PO, he won the Star Wars fandom for Lego.

Lego announced its Lego Smart Play platform on Monday, which introduces new smart bricks, tags, and special minifigs for your collection. The new bricks contain sensors that enable them to sense light and distance, and to provide an array of responses, essentially lights and sounds, when they are used in unison.

Combine this with a newly announced partnership with the Star Wars franchise, and now you can create your own interactive space battles and light-saber duels.

An LG Electronics home robot interacts with the audience during an LG news conference ahead of the CES tech show Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Las Vegas.

LG reveals a new robot to help around the home

File this one under intrigued, for now.

The Korean tech giant LG gave the media a glimpse Monday of its humanoid robot that is designed to handle household chores such as folding laundry and fetching food. Although many companies have robots on display at CES, LG is one of the biggest tech companies to promise to put a service robot in homes.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

January 7, 2026
Letters to the Editor | Jan. 7, 2026

True intention

Why doesn’t Donald Trump direct his boat strike/invasion show toward Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, where most of the cocaine is manufactured, or China and Mexico, where the majority of fentanyl comes from, if his intention to rid the U.S. of illegal drugs killing Americans were true?

K. Mayes, Philadelphia

. . .

Donald Trump’s “special military operation” in Venezuela puts him squarely in the same category as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who used the same phrase to describe his invasion of Ukraine, and China’s Xi Jinping. It was all about oil from the beginning. Bombing boats in the name of “narco-terrorism” was just a cover and a distraction. And he intends to “run” Venezuela? Trump has injected himself and the United States into a big mess in which I don’t believe he has any idea how to actually “run” the country, or any idea of the enormous cost involved. This adventure is simply another episode of self-glorification and probably self-enrichment somewhere down the line, as well. It’s all about himself as usual, not for the good of the United States and our people or our standing in the world. This is hardly making America great again.

Elsbeth Wrigley, Wyndmoor

. . .

Your recent editorial on Donald Trump’s illegal invasion raises many valid objections to our president’s headlong rush to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without any advice or consent from Congress, let alone the United Nations. I never voted for Trump, and I agree in general with most of your points about where we are with Venezuela. But I was gravely disappointed in your statement that “[f]ormer President George W. Bush at least sold a phony story about weapons of mass destruction to get Congress to go along with his reckless invasion of Iraq.”

Authorities with more expertise on the Iraq War than The Inquirer Editorial Board beg to differ. I refer you to a 2015 op-ed from the Wall Street Journal headlined, “The Dangerous Lie That Bush Lied.” It was written by Laurence H. Silberman, who served as cochairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, a bipartisan body. The gist of what Judge Silberman and others have written is that the motivations for the invasion were much broader than WMDs, and that Mr. Bush’s decision was unduly colored by woefully inadequate intelligence. Hindsight is always 20/20.

While your concerns about how the invasion of Venezuela might affect Ukraine and even Taiwan are also worth stating, the Editorial Board needs to remember that even the noninterventionist Biden administration had put a substantial price on the head of Mr. Maduro. So there is little doubt he is just as bad a character as Mr. Trump portrays him to be. Thus, in the end, though we have probably (to paraphrase former Secretary of State Colin Powell) bought something because we broke it, the invasion may, after a long struggle, advance democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

John Baxter, Toano, Va.

Illegal invasion

Without the consent of Congress, the invasion of Venezuela was both illegal and unconstitutional. Without a follow-up plan, it was also incredibly reckless. It clearly was not about drugs or democracy, but about wealth, power, and greed. It was about oil. This disaster not only negatively affects the U.S. but has the potential to change the world order. It gives other countries permission to do the same. Do we want China to take over Taiwan? Do we want to legitimize Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? I think not. Now, more than ever, we need Congress to step up to the plate and put a stop to this insanity. And it is the job of We the People to make sure that happens. Each and every voice needs to be heard. We are in a mess.

Anne B. Zehner, Palm City, Fla.

Abortion protesters

Having observed the behaviors of protesters at Planned Parenthood’s location at 11th and Locust Streets over the past year, I would encourage the people and/or organizations that pay or otherwise support some or all of the repeat protesters to evaluate their performance and outcomes. Weekday protesters are usually a small number of older men whose dress and loud manner are difficult to ignore. They approach most patients with a brochure and candy, and most often call out loudly to not kill the baby, followed by offers to “help.” Their appearance and boisterous behaviors appear counterproductive. The Planned Parenthood facility provides a variety of healthcare services, so not every woman who arrives is seeking an abortion. I have yet to observe a single woman turn away from an appointment. We should respect the right of the protesters to express their beliefs. But if they hope to influence patients, they could be more respectful. Supporters of the protesters should more carefully monitor conduct and results.

L. David Wise, Philadelphia

Protect clean water

As children learn in grade school, “We all live downstream.” That premise is at the heart of the federal Clean Water Act. If you want clean water for fishing, swimming, and drinking, you need to protect from pollution not just lakes and rivers, but the upstream waters that feed them. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is currently pushing new, polluter-friendly rules that would exclude 80% of the nation’s headwater streams and wetlands from pollution protection. The proposal would go beyond recent U.S. Supreme Court decision-making in narrowing the scope of federally protected waters. Even in Pennsylvania, with its own state-level protections, this cutback in the Clean Water Act would make it harder for an already stretched state Department of Environmental Protection to hold the line against more pollution dumping. Americans must tell the EPA to abandon this assault on our nation’s waters.

Robin Mann, Rosemont

The troops are coming?

A recent article in The Inquirer poses an intriguing question: Why has Philly, an overwhelmingly Democratic city, so far been spared the federal troop deployments President Donald Trump has inflicted on several other Democratic-led cities?

To the list of possibilities explored in the article, I’d add one more: the central role of Philadelphia in the ongoing celebrations of our nation’s 250th birthday. President Trump, ever hungry for the media spotlight, has sought to make himself a focus of these celebrations. (A “fact sheet” on the official White House website is titled, “President Donald J. Trump previews plans for the Grandest Celebration of America’s Birthday.”)

Even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s National Guard deployment in Chicago, the president has suggested that troops could return “in a much different and stronger form.”

If so — and if they show up in Philly — how will it play across the nation, and to the increasing number of Americans disenchanted with the president, if federal troops occupy the city where our grand experiment in democracy began? Does the Trump administration really want viral videos of National Guard troops carrying weapons, or anonymous masked immigration agents bundling people into unmarked vans, with Independence Hall as a backdrop?

Shobhana Kanal, Bala Cynwyd

Safeguard digital environment

As a pediatrician, I see every day how social media is shaping our children’s and adolescents’ lives long before their brains are ready to handle it. My patients tell me about sleepless nights, bullying that doesn’t end when the school day does, and algorithmic “rabbit holes” that amplify their anxiety and depression. I see the toll in headaches, weight changes, panic attacks, and exhaustion. These aren’t isolated cases; they’re part of a public health crisis affecting young people across Pennsylvania.

Families and doctors can provide support, but we can’t prescribe much for an algorithm or a billion-dollar company taking advantage of kids. Other states have already passed Kids Code legislation that requires tech platforms to design their products with children’s well-being in mind. Pennsylvania can and should do the same.

Our kids deserve digital environments that are as carefully protected as the homes, classrooms, playgrounds, and pediatric clinics where they spend the rest of their lives. Lawmakers must step up and pass a Kids Code now.

Joey Whelihan, Philadelphia

Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.

January 7, 2026
Dear Abby | Couple’s long relationship reaches tipping point

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been together for 18 years. Everyone we know thinks we are married, but we never got it on paper. He has always been less empathetic than I would like, and there’s a lot of stuff I either had to accept or move on. He never buys me gifts (no matter how much I’ve told him it bothers me), and it has been a struggle for him to even hug me when I’m sad.

These last few years have been harder than usual. I have blown up like a freaking balloon from emotional eating, and our relationship is falling apart. We haven’t had sex in six months (who knows when before that), and it’s taken a toll on me. I keep wondering if it’s me.

He used to at least give me massages, and I’d feel closeness through that intimacy, but now it feels like we are strangers. I know we have a lot of stressful stuff going on, but where’s the love? How do I talk to him about this?

— STRANGER IN LOVE

DEAR STRANGER: Choose a time when you and your partner are calm and as stress-free as possible. Open the conversation by saying you don’t think HE is happy and ask him why. Couples don’t “not get around” to getting married. There are usually explanations for it. Those reasons should have been dealt with years ago.

Once he’s done expressing what he thinks about your relationship, it will be time to tell him how lonely, isolated and unhappy you have become. If you are both willing to work on making it better, you have a chance for a better future with him. However, if he runs true to form, then it is time to cut your losses before you starve to death from lack of affection, which is likely the reason for all of your emotional eating.

** ** **

DEAR ABBY: My ex-girlfriend just can’t get a clue. She continues trying to get me back and even goes so far as to stalk me. I blocked her phone number, but it has become exhausting. How do I tell her I don’t love her anymore and really no longer even like her? I can’t stand her, her family or her friends. She gaslit me for years. Our entire relationship was built on a lie. I’m so much happier without her in my life, but she just won’t go away. Any advice on how to deal with this crazy person would be great.

— SO OVER HER IN FLORIDA

DEAR SO OVER HER: Continue to avoid your ex, and if you see her, do not acknowledge her. If she approaches you, tell her you are done and to leave you alone. Do not respond to her calls, emails or texts, and if she mails you anything, write “return to sender” on the package or envelope.

Tell your friends that she is stalking you and her behavior is creepy, and then continue dating and resume your social life. If she acts out or damages your property, report her to the authorities. The most effective way to get rid of her is to resume the life you had before you met her and don’t look back.

January 7, 2026
Horoscopes: Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Your recollection may not be 100% factual, but that’s just the nature of memory in general. At least your recollections will be kind and positive, so happy stories will get better over time and sad stories will lose their sting.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Daunting tasks need doing. They look complicated, heavy or painfully boring, but they’re usually quicker than they appear, and the psychic lift afterward is delicious. Jump in, get it done and enjoy the freedom that follows.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). If a choice feels impossible, zoom out. Instead of, “Which one is right?” try, “Which one would future-me thank me for?” Decisions get easier when you let identity lead. Your future self has better taste than you think.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). Sometimes you just don’t trust others to give you the right help, or you fear the hidden costs. Sometimes you simply like doing things alone. You’re like a creature whose needs shift with the seasons, and the right care will come.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Some of the choices are too big, too hot, too cold, and suddenly, you’re in the Goldilocks challenge of doing what’s just right. What Goldilocks didn’t get right was falling asleep on the job. Don’t get too comfortable, and you’ll be fine.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Although no one else can stop you, you’ll be wise to stop yourself every so often. Take breaks! Good, healthy pacing allows you to avoid the burnout that could prevent you from collecting your prize at the finish line.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Your thoughts will move in straight lines, and everything else will support your purposefulness. It’s all getting straight to the point now. People will literally step aside because no one dares get between you and your target.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You’re hungry for glamour and bright, creative minds to riff with. If the world isn’t serving it up, curate your own scene. Throw a gathering, join one or even start a little salon. The vibe you’re after is waiting to be conjured.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). There’s a prize for winning, but honestly, it’s not the only reward. It may not even be the best reward, as life has a way of doling out “participation prizes” that are more valuable than the big trophy.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Ideas will click into place, blueprint-style, giving you a future you’re excited about. The vibe is “totally doable.” Wrap one project and the support for the next pops up automatically, like the system is refreshing itself for you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You’ll be made aware that you’re not where you want to be in terms of performance. Maybe it’s good enough for the others on your team, but you think you can do better, so it’s not good enough for you. Keep putting in the practice. You’ll get there.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). You contain multitudes, but multitudes can’t be taken in all at once. Offer one thread of yourself today. It invites people in instead of leaving them unsure where to begin.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Jan. 7). Celebrate your Year of Bold Receiving. You’ve given so much; now life gives back. Supporters show up, networks widen, and an exciting opportunity arrives because someone can’t stop singing your praises. Love energizes you. Money matters stabilize and then improve. More highlights: a bucket-list event, confidence in your voice and a mentor who truly sees your potential. Cancer and Leo adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 7, 18, 20, 34 and 48.

January 7, 2026
Fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack brings fresh division to the Capitol

WASHINGTON — Five years ago outside the White House, outgoing President Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters to head to the Capitol — “and I’ll be there with you” — in protest as Congress was affirming the 2020 election victory for Democrat Joe Biden.

A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.

On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree to a shared history of the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.

Instead, the day displayed the divisions that still define Washington, and the country, and the White House itself issued a glossy new report with its own revised history of what happened.

Trump, during a lengthy morning speech to House Republicans convening away from the Capitol at the rebranded Kennedy Center now carrying his own name, shifted blame for Jan. 6 onto the rioters themselves.

The president said he had intended only for his supporters to go “peacefully and patriotically” to confront Congress as it certified Biden’s win. He blamed the media for focusing on other parts of his speech that day.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (second from right, front row), a Pennsylvania Democrat, was among members of Congress watching a video from the Jan. 6 attack during a hearing at the U.S. Capitol.

At the same time, Democrats held their own morning meeting at the Capitol, reconvening members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack for a panel discussion. Recalling the history of the day is important, they said, in order to prevent what Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) warned was the GOP’s “Orwellian project of forgetting.”

And the former leader of the militant Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, summoned people for a midday march retracing the rioters’ steps from the White House to the Capitol, this time to honor Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the Jan. 6 siege and its aftermath. More than 100 people gathered, including Babbitt’s mother.

Tarrio and others are putting pressure on the Trump administration to punish officials who investigated and prosecuted the Jan. 6 rioters. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack, and he is among more than 1,500 defendants who saw their charges dropped when Trump issued a sweeping pardon on his return to the White House last year.

“They should be fired and prosecuted,” Tarrio told the crowd before they arrived at the Capitol, confronted along the way by counterprotesters, and sang the national anthem.

The White House in its new report highlighted the work the president has already done to free those charged and turned the blame on Democrats for certifying Biden’s election victory.

Echoes of 5 years ago

This milestone anniversary carried echoes of the differences that erupted that day.

But it unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, particularly after the U.S. military’s stunning capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Trump’s plans to take over the country and prop up its vast oil industry, a striking new era of American expansionism.

“These people in the administration, they want to lecture the world about democracy when they’re undermining the rule of law at home, as we all will be powerfully reminded,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on the eve of the anniversary.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, responding to requests for comment about the delay in hanging the plaque honoring the police at the Capitol, as required by law, said in a statement on the eve of the anniversary that the statute “is not implementable,” and proposed alternatives “also do not comply with the statute.”

Democrats revive an old committee, Republicans lead a new one

At the morning hearing at the Capitol, lawmakers heard from a range of witnesses and others — including former U.S. Capitol Police officer Winston Pingeon, who said as a kid he always dreamed of being a cop. But on that day, he thought he was going to die in the mayhem on the steps of the Capitol.

“I implore America to not forget what happened,” he said, “I believe the vast majority of Americans have so much more in common than what separates us.”

Also testifying was Pamela Hemphill, a rioter who refused Trump’s pardon, blamed the president for the violence and silenced the room as she apologized to the officer sitting alongside her at the witness table, stifling tears.

“I can’t allow them not be recognized, to be lied about,” Hemphill said about the police who she said also saved her life as she fell and was trampled on by the mob. “Until I can see that plaque get up there, I’m not done.”

Among those testifying were former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who along with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the two Republicans on the panel that investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win. Cheney, who lost her own reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, did not appear. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi urged the country to turn away from a culture of lies and violence that she said sends the wrong message about democracy.

Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who has been tapped by Johnson to lead a new committee to probe other theories about what happened on Jan. 6, rejected Tuesday’s session as a “partisan exercise” designed to hurt Trump and his allies.

Many Republicans reject the narrative that Trump sparked the Jan. 6 attack, and Johnson, before he became the House speaker, had led challenges to the 2020 election. He was among some 130 GOP lawmakers voting that day to reject the presidential results from some states.

Instead, they have focused on security lapses at the Capitol — from the time it took for the National Guard to arrive on the scene to the failure of the police canine units to discover the pipe bombs found that day outside Republican and Democratic party headquarters. The FBI arrested a Virginia man suspected of placing the pipe bombs, and he told investigators last month he believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen, authorities say.

“The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on Jan. 6,” Loudermilk said in a social media post. “My Select Subcommittee remains committed to transparency and accountability and ensuring the security failures that occurred on Jan. 6 and the partisan investigation that followed never happens again.”

The aftermath of Jan. 6

At least five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police while trying to climb through the window of a door near the House chamber, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later, some by suicide.

The Justice Department indicted Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack.

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last month that the riot at the Capitol “does not happen” without Trump. He ended up abandoning the case once Trump was reelected president, adhering to department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump, who never made it to the Capitol that day as he hunkered down at the White House, was impeached by the House on the sole charge of having incited the insurrection. The Senate acquitted him after top GOP senators said they believed the matter was best left to the courts.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the Supreme Court ruled ex-presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.

January 7, 2026
Trump says U.S. to get 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela at market price

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Donald Trump said Tuesday on his social media site that “Interim Authorities” in Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of “High Quality” oil to the U.S. at its market price, an announcement that came after officials in Caracas announced that at least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the dead-of-night U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges.

Trump posted on Truth Social that the oil “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.” He said the money would be controlled by him as president but it would be used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.

Separately, the White House is organizing an Oval Office meeting Friday with oil company executives regarding Venezuela, with representatives of Exxon, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips expected to attend, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the plans.

Earlier Tuesday, Venezuelan officials announced the death count in the Maduro raid as the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she’d face an outcome worse than Maduro’s if she does not “do what’s right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with U.S. interests. Trump has said his administration will now “run” Venezuela policy and is pressing the country’s leaders to open its vast oil reserves to American energy companies.

Rodriguez, delivering an address Tuesday before government agricultural and industrial sector officials, said, “Personally, to those who threaten me: My destiny is not determined by them, but by God.”

Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab said overall “dozens” of officers and civilians were killed in the weekend strike in Caracas and said prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a “war crime.” He didn’t specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans.

In addition to the Venezuelan security officials, Cuba’s government had previously confirmed that 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela were killed in the raid. The Cuban government says the personnel killed belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the country’s two main security agencies.

Seven U.S. service members were also injured in the raid, according to the Pentagon. Five have already returned to duty, while two are still recovering from their injuries. The injuries included gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A video tribute to the slain Venezuelan security officials posted to the military’s Instagram account features faces of the fallen over black-and-white videos of soldiers, American aircraft flying over Caracas and armored vehicles destroyed by the blasts. Meanwhile, the streets of Caracas, deserted for days following Maduro’s capture, briefly filled with masses of people waving Venezuelan flags and bouncing to patriotic music at a state-organized display of support for the government.

“Their spilled blood does not cry out for vengeance, but for justice and strength,” the military wrote in an Instagram post. “It reaffirms our unwavering oath not to rest until we rescue our legitimate President, completely dismantle the terrorist groups operating from abroad, and ensure that events such as these never again sully our sovereign soil.”

Trump grumbles about how Democrats reacted to the raid

Trump on Tuesday pushed back against Democratic criticism of this weekend’s military operation, noting that his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had also called for the arrest of the Venezuelan leader on drug trafficking charges.

Trump in remarks before a House Republican retreat in Washington grumbled that Democrats were not giving him credit for a successful military operation, even though there was bipartisan agreement that Maduro was not the rightful president of Venezuela.

In 2020, Maduro was indicted in the United States, accused in a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking conspiracy. White House officials have noted that Biden’s administration in his final days in office last year raised the award for information leading to Maduro’s arrest after he assumed a third term in office despite evidence suggesting that he lost Venezuela’s most recent election. The Trump administration doubled the award to $50 million in August.

“You know, at some point, they should say, ‘You know, you did a great job. Thank you. Congratulations.’ Wouldn’t it be good?” Trump said. “I would say that if they did a good job, their philosophies are so different. But if they did a good job, I’d be happy for the country. They’ve been after this guy for years and years and years.”

With oil trading at roughly $56 a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. The U.S. goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela’s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Despite Venezuela having the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, it only produces on average about one million barrels day, significantly below the U.S. average daily production of 13.9 million barrels a day during October.

What U.S. opinion polls show

Americans are split about the capture of Maduro — with many still forming opinions — according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure.

Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country.

Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a U.S. courtroom on Monday. U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife early Saturday in a raid on a compound where they were surrounded by Cuban guards.

In the days since Maduro’s ouster, Trump and top administration officials have raised anxiety around the globe that the operation could mark the beginning of a more expansionist U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. The president in recent days has renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

Colombia responds to Trump

Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Villavicencio said Tuesday she’ll meet with the U.S. Embassy’s charge d’affaires in Bogota to present him with a formal complaint over the recent threats issued by the United States.

On Sunday, Trump said he wasn’t ruling out an attack on Colombia and described its president, who’s been an outspoken critic of the U.S. pressure campaign on Venezuela, as a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”

Villavicencio said she’s hoping to strengthen relations with the United States and improve cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.

“It is necessary for the Trump administration to know in more detail about all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking,” she said.

Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom on Tuesday joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in defending Greenland’s sovereignty. The island is a self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark and thus part of the NATO military alliance.

“Greenland belongs to its people,” the statement said. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

January 7, 2026
AP source: John Harbaugh leaving the Baltimore Ravens after 18 seasons as coach

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — John Harbaugh is leaving the Baltimore Ravens after 18 seasons as their coach, a person with knowledge of the decision told the Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the Ravens haven’t announced the decision.

The move comes after the Ravens were one of the league’s most disappointing teams this season, going 8-9 and missing the playoffs after entering Week 1 as one of the Super Bowl favorites. Baltimore’s season ended Sunday night when Tyler Loop missed a last-second field goal, allowing Pittsburgh to hold on for a 26-24 victory in the game that decided the AFC North title.

Cowboys and Commanders fire defensive coordinators; Kliff Kingsbury also leaves Washington

Harbaugh went 193-124 including the postseason. He led the 2012 Ravens to a Super Bowl title and reached the AFC championship game on three other occasions. This season was only the sixth time Baltimore missed the postseason under Harbaugh. That’s the same number of times the Ravens won the AFC North with him at the helm.

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh talks with an official during a loss to the Steelers on Sunday.

But most of Baltimore’s postseason success came in his first few seasons. The Ravens went to the AFC title game three times in his first five years as coach, culminating in their run to a Super Bowl title as a wild card, when Harbaugh beat his brother Jim’s San Francisco 49ers for the title.

At that point, Harbaugh was 9-4 in the postseason, but after that he was just 4-7. After three straight seasons without a playoff berth, Lamar Jackson arrived in 2018 and led Baltimore to a division title. But Harbaugh’s lone trip to an AFC title game with Jackson was wasted two seasons ago when Baltimore lost at home to Kansas City.

Four NFL coaches fired, including ex-Eagles coordinator Jonathan Gannon and Philly-area native Kevin Stefanski

This season was a mess pretty much from the start, when Baltimore looked great for much of its opener at Buffalo before blowing a late lead. Indeed, squandering fourth-quarter advantages become a troubling trend for the Ravens in Harbaugh’s last few seasons, and after a hamstring injury sidelined Jackson, Baltimore stumbled to a 1-5 start in 2025.

Harbaugh and the Ravens worked their way back into contention and eventually reached Sunday’s winner-take-all matchup as a favorite to beat the Steelers. But despite Derrick Henry’s early dominance on the ground and Jackson’s sensational fourth quarter, another season ended in excruciating fashion.

AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this report.

January 6, 2026
Shooter who killed Brown students and MIT professor planned attack for months, says DOJ

BOSTON — The man identified by law enforcement as the shooter who killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor had been planning the attack for at least six semesters, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after he killed two students and wounded nine others in an engineering building on Dec. 13. Two days later, he killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline.

Justice Department officials said Tuesday that during the search of the storage facility where Neves Valente’s body was found, the FBI recovered an electronic device containing a series of short videos made by Neves Valente after the shootings.

In the recordings, the shooter admits in Portuguese that he had been “planning the Brown University shooting for a long time,” according to a press release. He did not provide a motive for targeting Brown or the MIT professor, with whom he attended school in Portugal decades ago.

He said he felt he had nothing to apologize for. He also complained in the videos about injuring his eye in the shootings.

“I’m not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me,” he said.

Neves Valente said his “only objective was to leave more or less” on his “own terms” and to ensure he “wouldn’t be the one who ended up suffering the most from all this.”

“No, that cannot happen. So if you don’t like it, tough luck,” he said. Neves Valente called his execution of the murders “a little incompetent.”

“But at least something was done,” he said.

In the recording, he said he’d had the storage space where his body was found for about three years.

January 6, 2026