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  • Trump officials used AI to distort a photo of an anti-ICE activist. That’s not OK.

    Trump officials used AI to distort a photo of an anti-ICE activist. That’s not OK.

    In the everyday chaos that characterizes President Donald Trump’s America, the news cycle changes faster than most of us can keep up with it.

    But can we please pause for a moment and consider the gravity of what happened to Nekima Levy Armstrong at the hands of the U.S. government? She led a group of activists who interrupted a worship service in Minnesota on Jan. 18. The demonstrators went to Cities Church in St. Paul to stage a protest in support of immigrant rights.

    The choice of venue was very much intentional: One of the leaders at the church is an administrator at a local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. Four days later, Levy Armstrong, a half dozen other protesters, and two journalists were arrested.

    Afterward, while she was still in custody, Trump administration officials released an AI-manipulated image of her on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, on accounts for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the White House.

    The doctored image shows Levy Armstrong (no relation) with her mouth open as if she’s sobbing hysterically. Her face also appears to have been darkened. The photo caption reads: “ARRESTED far-left agitator Nekima Levy Armstrong for orchestrating church riots in Minnesota.”

    It wasn’t a riot. Nor was she crying. But all that is beside the point. The Trump administration officials wanted to make her look bad, even if it meant reshaping reality to do so. What’s especially concerning is the dishonest way it went about it. According to photos and video of her arrest, Levy Armstrong maintained a mostly impassive expression on her face throughout the ordeal.

    On Jan. 22, the White House posted an AI-altered image of Nikema Levy Armstrong on the White House’s official X feed. The altered image makes Levy Armstrong appear as crying, the original image shows no such emotion.

    A lot of people might see the digitally altered image of her sobbing and assume that because it was posted on a verified social media channel from the highest levels of government, it is an accurate representation of what happened — when it’s anything but.

    A New York Times analysis concluded that the photo had been manipulated — something the White House admits to doing, and is unrepentant about. The manipulated photo is a meme, according to White House spokesperson Kaelan Dorr, who doubled down on X, saying, in part: “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”

    No one should be surprised at that reaction, considering how many questionable AI images Trump has shared. (And, although it wasn’t artificial intelligence, don’t get me started on his racist post about the Obamas earlier this month.)

    He once posted an AI video of himself — with a crown on his head — flying a plane that dumps feces onto “No Kings” protesters. It was even more disturbing when he released a deepfake video of former President Barack Obama, who seems to live rent-free inside Trump’s head, being arrested in the Oval Office.

    Imagine the uproar if another president had done such a thing. Many people have normalized this kind of corrosive behavior so much that Teflon Don usually gets off with a shrug. But those of us who care about accountability have to keep calling him out.

    Dirty politics are one thing, but when Trump administration officials manipulated the photo of Levy Armstrong, a private citizen, it made my blood boil. It’s another reminder that there’s no bottom with Trump when it comes to how low he will go, and that’s really scary.

    I recently had a chance to speak with Levy Armstrong, and can report that, despite the administration’s efforts, she is unbowed and unbroken.

    She called the government’s use of the fake image “horrifying and deeply disturbing,” and insists “I was cool, calm, and collected” during the arrest.

    “I guess because they didn’t see me broken, they needed to manufacture an image of me broken,” Levy Armstrong told me.

    “This is not unlike what has happened historically to Black people with all of the Sambo imagery and the mammy imagery that’s out there, with exaggerated features and darkened skin,” she said. “That’s the same thing that I went through, and that’s what they did to me. Not to mention making me look hysterical.”

    She added that “I felt caricaturized, just like our people have been during slavery and Jim Crow.”

    While I had her on the phone, I also asked Levy Armstrong about the arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who covered the protest she organized.

    Journalist Don Lemon speaks to the media outside the U.S. District Courthouse in St. Paul, Minn., on Feb. 13.

    Levy Armstrong disputes MAGA claims that Lemon was a participant in the demonstration, as opposed to being an observer. Levy Armstrong told me, “I just think it’s foolishness that they would try to rope him in as a protest organizer.”

    “He’s not an activist. He’s not an organizer,” she pointed out. “He’s not a protester whatsoever.”

    The former law professor said that referring to Lemon as an organizer was an excuse to attack him, as well as Georgia Fort, an Emmy Award-winning independent Black journalist based in Minnesota, who also faces federal charges after covering the protest.

    Minnesota-based independent journalist Georgia Fort speaks to reporters and supporters outside the federal courthouse in St. Paul, Minn., on Feb. 17, after pleading not guilty over her alleged role in a protest that disrupted a Sunday service at a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul.

    I’ve covered many protests throughout my journalism career, and find what happened particularly upsetting. Republicans talk a good game about upholding the Constitution, but the arrests were clearly an attempt to keep journalists from exercising their First Amendment right to freedom of the press.

    Meanwhile, no arrests have been made in the fatal shootings by Border Patrol and ICE, respectively, last month of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, or Renee Good, a mother of three.

    But Levy Armstrong has been charged for her role in a disruptive but peaceful protest inside a church during which no one was physically harmed. (And, yes, although they are rare, demonstrations in churches happen. During the civil rights movement, demonstrators would hold “kneel-ins” to protest segregated churches in the Jim Crow South.)

    An ordained minister, Levy Armstrong told me she draws strength from such icons of the civil rights movement as Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all of whom had suffered the indignity of being arrested while fighting for their basic human rights.

    “Everybody needs to wake up,” she said. “This is not just about immigration. This is about our constitutional rights. This is about our democracy. This is about our freedoms.”

    Freedoms we stand to lose if we allow the Trump administration to try and silence us the way it has attempted to do with Lemon, Fort, and Levy Armstrong, among so many others.

    Levy Armstrong has nothing but praise for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who is vocal about prosecuting ICE agents who run afoul of the law. Her suggestion for concerned Philadelphians? “Get some whistles,” she said. “Get some people organized. Hold your elected leaders accountable.”

  • Philadelphia Medicaid advocates meet to plan outreach, with coverage at stake

    Philadelphia Medicaid advocates meet to plan outreach, with coverage at stake

    About 300,000 Pennsylvania residents risk losing Medicaid next year when new eligibility rules take effect, and advocates worry that too few people are aware.

    More than 100 public health workers, community advocates, and medical providers gathered Thursday to strategize how to spread the word about forthcoming changes to Medicaid.

    The nonprofit Community Behavioral Health organized the event at its Center City offices as a first step toward rallying the stakeholders tasked with helping people navigate the new rules in order to maintain access to critical health services. The city contracts with CBH to provide mental and behavioral health services for Philadelphians with Medicaid.

    New federal rules taking effect in January 2027 require certain adults to meet work requirements and reapply for Medicaid every six months, instead of the current once a year. The changes were ordered under Republicans’ 2025 spending bill and signed into law by President Donald Trump. They are part of the largest cut in recent history to Medicaid, the publicly funded health coverage program for low-income families and individuals, and people with disabilities.

    The ‘big, beautiful bill’ is poised to cut Medicaid. Here’s what’s at stake for five Philly-area families.

    States will be expected to verify eligibility for millions of people twice as often, a major administrative burden. For now, who will be exempt remains unclear. For instance, the law suggests that “medically frail” individuals will not need to meet work requirements or reapply every six months, without detailing who would qualify.

    The federal government expects to release more details in June.

    Public health leaders say they cannot wait for the additional guidance to begin talking about the forthcoming changes, in order to minimize the number of people who lose coverage.

    “It needs to be consistent and ongoing,” Donna E.M. Bailey, CEO of CBH, said of the group’s outreach efforts. “It really is a Philadelphia responsibility.”

    The coming Medicaid changes

    Roughly three million Pennsylvania residents are covered by Medicaid. About a quarter of them — roughly 750,000 people, including 180,000 in Philadelphia — qualify because the 2010 Affordable Care Act expanded access to low-income parents and childless adults. This so-called expansion group saw the bulk of the Medicaid cuts in last year’s Republican spending bill.

    Federal Medicaid and ACA cuts could leave half a million Pa. residents uninsured

    Beginning next year, most people in this group will need to provide monthly proof that they spent at least 80 hours working, volunteering, or participating in job training. Every six months, they will need to reapply for the program. Some experts have compared this process to filing taxes because of the extensive paperwork and documentation required.

    Pennsylvania has estimated that about 300,000 people will lose Medicaid because they cannot navigate the new requirements — even though many remain eligible.

    “It’s hard to imagine with all these changes that it’s just going to be smooth,” said Mike Nardone, a former director of Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program, who spoke during the CBH event. “We’re going to have people who lose coverage, and we’re going to have to understand why that happens.”

    Tens of thousands of immigrants will lose Medicaid next fall when “big beautiful bill” eligibility rules take effect

    Starting outreach early

    Early and frequent communication is the best strategy for minimizing the number of people who lose Medicaid, public health advocates said at Thursday’s event.

    “We need to start now. This isn’t something that can wait,” said Joan Erney, CBH’s former chief executive.

    The dozens of medical providers, social workers, and community advocates in attendance were urged to work together to develop strategies for helping people to understand what new steps to take to keep their Medicaid coverage.

    “We always need the voice of those of you on the ground,” said Leesa Allen, a former Pennsylvania Medicaid director, who spoke during the panel.

    The event was the first in a series planned by CBH, which will expand outreach with similar events throughout Philadelphia designed for families and individuals to ask questions and learn more about the new Medicaid rules.

  • Sen. Dave McCormick says Chester County proves the need for national election rules. But the GOP proposal wouldn’t have solved the county’s problems.

    Sen. Dave McCormick says Chester County proves the need for national election rules. But the GOP proposal wouldn’t have solved the county’s problems.

    When Sen. Dave McCormick stood on the Senate floor to call for nationwide rules mandating proof of citizenship and photo identification for voters, he invoked a drama that had played out three months earlier in Chester County.

    The county had mistakenly left all third-party and unaffiliated voters off the Election Day voter rolls, creating a chaotic scene in which more than 12,000 voters were forced to cast provisional ballots, which take more time to count as officials must verify the eligibility of each voter. A subsequent investigation by a law firm hired by the county attributed the issue to human error and insufficient oversight.

    “Every time Americans hear about election problems like Chester County’s, they rightly question the integrity of our electoral process,” McCormick said.

    But in his recounting of events, the Pennsylvania Republican gave incomplete and inaccurate information about Chester County’s election error.

    What did McCormick say about Chester County?

    Americans, he said, overwhelmingly believe there are problems with U.S. elections, and he argued that has been demonstrated for them on multiple occasions, including in November when Chester County omitted more than 70,000 third-party and unaffiliated voters from its Election Day pollbooks.

    “Registered voters were turned away at the polls. And an unknown number of unverified voters cast regular ballots,” McCormick claimed.

    But there is no evidence that voters were turned away or that ineligible voters cast ballots. McCormick’s office did not respond to questions.

    Were voters turned away?

    According to county officials, no voter who wanted to vote was turned away.

    Instead, for most of the day voters were offered the opportunity to vote by provisional ballot while county and state officials worked to get supplemental pollbooks distributed to polling places across the county.

    Some voters did testify at county election board meetings that they voluntarily left their polling place when their name was not in the pollbook but that they returned later in the day when they could vote on machines.

    Did unverified voters cast ballots?

    There is no evidence that ineligible voters cast ballots. The identity and eligibility of all voters who cast ballots were verified, county officials said.

    When the pollbook issue was discovered on Election Day, Chester County officials initially recommended that poll workers ask voters not included in the pollbook to sign the pollbook manually and vote as normal, according to the independent investigation of the incident.

    To ensure those voters were eligible to vote, county officials said, poll workers were instructed to follow a detailed process that included verifying voters’ eligibility in the full voter list and verifying their identity with photo identification.

    The Chester County Republican Committee has disputed the county’s version of events, contending that photo ID was not checked for all voters who wrote their names into pollbooks and that poll workers were unable to verify voters’ identities using signature matching.

    Around 7:40 a.m., less than an hour after polls opened, Pennsylvania Department of State officials recommended the county shift to asking voters to cast provisional ballots to eliminate the risk of an ineligible voter casting a ballot, thereby invalidating the election.

    A county spokesperson said there is no evidence that ineligible voters cast ballots during November’s election.

    Whether voters wrote their names into a pollbook or cast a provisional ballot, “the identity and eligibility of each individual was verified by the poll workers,” said Chester County spokesperson Andrew Kreider.

    Would the SAVE Act have changed anything?

    The SAVE Act is a collection of election policies proposed by congressional Republicans that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and mandate all voters show photo ID at the polls.

    Such requirements would not have prevented Chester County’s error, which investigators determined was a clerical error resulting from inexperienced staff with insufficient training and oversight.

    “Sen. McCormick was ignoring the facts and feeding into this larger narrative that our elections can’t be trusted and just feeding into the president’s narrative that there’s something wrong with Pennsylvania elections,” said Lauren Cristella, the CEO of the Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based civic engagement and good-government organization.

    In addition to Chester County, McCormick pointed to his own experience in close elections — both his 2022 primary loss and his 2024 general election win — as a reason he supports the bill’s proof of citizenship and voter ID requirements.

    The policy, which passed the Republican-led U.S. House, still faces an uphill battle in the U.S. Senate, where it would need 60 votes to advance. It has faced significant opposition from Democrats who say it would needlessly make it harder for people to vote.

    The proof of citizenship requirement, critics say, would place a higher burden on married people whose last names no longer match their birth certificates.

    Speaking to reporters last week, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said he was “vehemently opposed” to the policy, arguing it would nationalize elections.

    “We are not going to turn our elections over to Donald Trump,” he said.

  • Mitch McConnell is taking a beating in the race to replace him

    Mitch McConnell is taking a beating in the race to replace him

    One Republican candidate to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell introduced himself with an ad that shows a cardboard cutout of the longtime Senate majority leader in the trash.

    Allies for a rival hit back with ads that noted the first candidate gave McConnell money.

    And Daniel Cameron, the former Kentucky attorney general once considered a McConnell protégé, is now keeping his distance.

    “I’m my own man,” Cameron said in an interview, later suggesting McConnell donors prefer one of his opponents.

    The Senate primary to replace 83-year-old McConnell shows how profoundly the GOP base in his home state has soured on one of the most powerful and significant political figures in Kentucky history. McConnell drew low approval ratings for years but fended off challengers by flexing his raw clout and ability to deliver for his state.

    Sen. Mitch McConnell won’t seek reelection in 2026, ending long tenure as Republican power broker

    While he at times expressed frustration or anger with President Donald Trump, McConnell used his political muscle to cement much of the president’s first-term legacy, including a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that has helped pave the way for an even more disruptive second term.

    But many in the MAGA movement still view him as the embodiment of the GOP establishment that sought to hold Trump back. Three former interns for McConnell have distanced themselves while running to succeed him, pitching themselves as “America First” Republicans in Trump’s mold.

    Cameron says voters don’t want a candidate who is “just bashing an old man” — a rebuke of his opponent Nate Morris, a businessman backed by national MAGA stars whose vociferous attacks on McConnell have alienated some Republicans in the state. Many operatives argued his initial assault went too far.

    Still, it’s clear that ambitious Republicans have diverged from the towering conservative figure, who is set to retire next year after four decades in Congress.

    “This is a fight for the future of the Republican Party … Donald Trump’s Republican Party,” said Morris, a friend of Vice President JD Vance, in an interview. “And certainly, if you’re with Mitch McConnell, you’re not part of that future.”

    Mitch McConnell is the arsonist who set America on fire and ran away | Will Bunch

    Terry Carmack, McConnell’s chief of staff, said the senator has secured more than $65 billion in extra federal funding for Kentucky over his career — for military bases, hospitals, law enforcement and more — and added that the state “deserves a Senator who will fill those shoes.”

    “As Kentucky’s longest-serving Senator and the nation’s longest-serving Senate leader, Senator McConnell’s job stayed the same: ensuring Kentucky always punched above its weight,” Carmack said in a statement.

    The primary is effectively a three-way race between Morris, Cameron and Rep. Andy Barr, who touts that he was the Kentucky chairman of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Whoever wins the May 19 GOP contest is likely to represent the solidly red state.

    The fact that all three have ties to McConnell reflects how much in Kentucky GOP politics traces back to the senator. The state Republican Party headquarters bears his name, and he has helped many other GOP officeholders over the years.

    “I challenge anybody who takes this seat to do what he’s done,” said Frank Amaro, the GOP vice chair for Kentucky’s 1st Congressional District.

    The campaign jabs at McConnell have been frustrating to many who have worked with him over the years and say he deserves respect, pointing to his hardball tactics that pushed the courts nationwide to the right and the money he has steered toward Kentucky. The state got nearly $2.6 billion in extra federal funding this fiscal year, according to McConnell’s office.

    “You don’t have to like someone for them to be your go-to to deliver results,” said Iris Wilbur Glick, a former political director for McConnell who called candidates’ positioning on the senator “very disappointing.”

    But many Republicans are critical — especially of his relationship with Trump. Trump has repeatedly attacked him. McConnell held Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though his vote against impeachment helped enable Trump’s comeback.

    After Trump won in 2024 and McConnell stepped down as majority leader, he opposed some of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks — casting the only GOP vote against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of health and human services.

    A December Economist-YouGov poll found that 21 percent of Republicans nationally had a favorable view of McConnell, while 55 percent had an unfavorable view. In interviews, Kentucky voters often knew little about the Senate race or the candidates — but knew they didn’t like McConnell.

    “I want him out of there,” said Julie Jackson, a 56-year-old Republican.

    Cameron, who once worked as McConnell’s legal counsel and rose in politics with his mentorship, launched his Senate campaign last year with an attempt to separate himself. Days after announcing, he put out a video rebuking McConnell for opposing Trump’s Cabinet picks.

    “What we saw from Mitch McConnell in voting against Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK was just flat-out wrong,” Cameron said in the video. “You should expect a senator from Kentucky to vote for those nominees to advance the America First agenda.”

    A year later, one of Cameron’s biggest challenges is raising money — a struggle some Republicans in the state attribute in part to his break with McConnell.

    “Daniel Cameron relied heavily on his connections to McConnell-world in his previous races for fundraising, and that’s simply not an avenue that’s available to him for this race, and it shows in his fundraising reports,” said Tres Watson, a Republican strategist in Kentucky.

    Cameron notes that some McConnell donors have backed Barr — who leads the pack on fundraising. Attack ads on Barr from a group affiliated with the conservative Club for Growth featured old footage of Barr calling McConnell a “mentor.”

    Barr has kept his distance from McConnell, too, however, tying himself to Trump.

    “Thank you for giving me a chance to work with this president to make America great again,” he said to close his speech at recent GOP dinner. His team declined an interview request.

    Trump has stayed out of the Senate race and often avoids weighing in on primaries absent a personal grudge or clear polling leader. But prominent Trump allies have lined up behind Morris, the businessman and friend of Vance. Morris said the vice president called him last year encouraging him to jump into the Senate race, saying that “we’re going to need somebody in that seat that’s not going to stab our president in the back.” Vance allies work on Morris’s campaign and a supportive super PAC.

    Charlie Kirk, the late conservative activist, endorsed Morris before he was killed in September. Morris “is not going to be beholden to the McConnell machine,” said Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for Kirk’s group Turning Point, who called McConnell a “relic.”

    Elon Musk, the billionaire tech CEO who has become a major force in GOP politics, rocked the primary by putting $10 million behind Morris this year after a meeting where he came away impressed in part by Morris’s anti-McConnell message, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

    “[McConnell] has had a stranglehold on Kentucky for 40 years, and it is not the easiest thing to challenge the McConnell mafia right here in the Bluegrass State,” Morris said last month on the podcast of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — where he also launched his campaign. “But we’ve done it and we’ve gone straight for the jugular of Mitch and his cronies.”

    The message hasn’t always gone over well. Morris was roundly booed last year at an annual Kentucky political picnic where the former garbage company CEO declared he would “trash Mitch McConnell’s legacy.”

    “A lot has changed in politics, but you still have to introduce yourself, and he started out just attacking people,” said Adam Koenig, a former GOP state lawmaker.

    Morris dialed back his attacks at a recent event in northern Kentucky, mentioning McConnell only in passing. But he made his antipathy clear.

    “We cannot go back to what we’ve had the last 40 years,” he said.

  • A Homeland Security shutdown seems certain as funding talks between White House and Democrats stall

    A Homeland Security shutdown seems certain as funding talks between White House and Democrats stall

    WASHINGTON — A shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security appeared certain Thursday as lawmakers in the House and Senate were set to leave Washington for a 10-day break and negotiations with the White House over Democrats’ demands for new restrictions had stalled.

    Democrats and the White House have traded offers in recent days as the Democrats have said they want curbs on President Donald Trump’s broad campaign of immigration enforcement. They have demanded better identification for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement officers, a new code of conduct for those agencies and more use of judicial warrants, among other requests.

    The White House sent its latest proposal late Wednesday, but Trump told reporters on Thursday that some of the Democratic demands would be “very, very hard to approve.”

    Homeland Security officials voice concerns about looming shutdown

    Democrats said the White House offer, which was not made public, did not include sufficient curbs on ICE after two protesters were fatally shot last month. The offer was “not serious,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday, after the Senate rejected a bill to fund the department.

    Americans want accountability and “an end to the chaos,” Schumer said. “The White House and congressional Republicans must listen and deliver.”

    Lawmakers in both chambers were on notice to return to Washington if the two sides struck a deal to end the expected shutdown. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters that Democrats would send the White House a counterproposal over the weekend.

    Impact of a shutdown

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said after the vote that a shutdown appeared likely and “the people who are not going to be getting paychecks” will pay the price.

    The impact of a DHS shutdown is likely to be minimal at first. It would not likely block any of the immigration enforcement operations, as Trump’s tax and spending cut bill passed last year gave ICE about $75 billion to expand detention capacity and bolster enforcement operations.

    But the other agencies in the department — including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and the Coast Guard — could take a bigger hit over time.

    Gregg Phillips, an associate administrator at FEMA, said at a hearing this week that its disaster relief fund has sufficient balances to continue emergency response activities during a shutdown, but would become seriously strained in the event of a catastrophic disaster.

    Phillips said that while the agency continues to respond to threats like flooding and winter storms, long-term planning and coordination with state and local partners will be “irrevocably impacted.”

    Trump defends officer masking

    Trump, who has remained largely silent during the bipartisan talks, noted Thursday that a recent court ruling rejected a ban on masks for federal law enforcement officers.

    “We have to protect our law enforcement,” Trump told reporters.

    Democrats made the demands for new restrictions on ICE and other federal law enforcement after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on Jan. 7.

    Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law last week. That package extended Homeland Security funding at current levels only through Friday.

    Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks, to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centers and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras.

    Unmasking ICE in Philly could test the limits of local power over federal agents

    Democrats also say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests and require that before a person can be detained, authorities have verified that the person is not a U.S. citizen.

    Thune suggested there were potential areas of compromise, including on masks. There could be contingencies “that these folks aren’t being doxed,” Thune said. “I think they could find a landing place.”

    But Republicans have been largely opposed to most of the items on the Democrats’ list, including a prohibition on masks.

    Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said Republicans who have pushed for stronger immigration enforcement would benefit politically from the Democratic demands.

    “So if they want to have that debate, we’ll have that debate all they want,” said Schmitt.

    Judicial warrants a sticking point

    Thune, who has urged Democrats and the White House to work together, indicated that another sticking point is judicial warrants.

    “The issue of warrants is going to be very hard for the White House or for Republicans,” Thune said of the White House’s most recent offer. “But I think there are a lot of other areas where there has been give, and progress.”

    Schumer and Jeffries have said DHS officers should not be able to enter private property without a judicial warrant and that warrant procedures and standards should be improved. They have said they want an end to “roving patrols” of agents who are targeting people in the streets and in their homes.

    Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants. Those are internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific person but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent. Traditionally, only warrants signed by judges carry that authority.

    But an internal ICE memo obtained by The Associated Press last month authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections.

    Far from agreement

    Thune, R-S.D., said were “concessions” in the White House offer. He would not say what those concessions were, though, and he acknowledged the sides were “a long ways toward a solution.”

    Schumer said it was not enough that the administration had announced an end to the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to thousands of arrests and the fatal shootings of two protesters.

    “We need legislation to rein in ICE and end the violence,” Schumer said, or the actions of the administration “could be reversed tomorrow on a whim.”

    Simmering partisan tensions played out on the Senate floor immediately after the vote, as Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Homeland Security funding, tried to pass a two-week extension of Homeland Security funding and Democrats objected.

    Britt said Democrats were “posturing” and that federal employees would suffer for it. “I’m over it!” she yelled.

    Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Homeland spending subcommittee, responded that Democrats “want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but only a department that is obeying the law.”

    “This is an exceptional moment in this country’s history,” Murphy said.

  • Pennie cost hikes hit low-income families and older adults the hardest

    Pennie cost hikes hit low-income families and older adults the hardest

    Low-income Pennsylvania families and adults in their late 50s and early 60s have been dropping out of Affordable Care Act health plans at the greatest rates after a key financial incentive expired at the end of last year, causing insurance costs to double on average across the state.

    Some 98,000 people who bought health plans last year from Pennsylvania’s Obamacare marketplace, Pennie, have opted out of coverage for 2026, as of Wednesday. That means one in five previously enrolled Pennsylvania residents have dropped their coverage.

    The number is expected to continue growing, as people begin getting premium bills they cannot afford, Pennie administrators said. They have already seen a significant increase since the end of open enrollment on Jan. 31, at which time 85,000 people had not renewed coverage.

    85,000 Pennie customers dropped health plans as tax credits shrank and costs spiked

    The agency has estimated that up to 150,000 people may ultimately drop coverage if Congress did not renew a tax credit program that ensures no one pays more than 8.5% of their income on an ACA health plan. The tax credits, which were adopted in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, had been renewed annually until now.

    “If the tax credits had stayed in place, we probably would have seen another record enrollment, further reducing the uninsured rate,” said Devon Trolley, Pennie’s executive director.

    The tax credits were a defining issue in last year’s longest-ever federal government shutdown. In that budget stalemate, Democrats wanted to permanently expand the enhanced subsidies, and Republicans refused.

    New Jersey has not yet released the final results for its ACA open enrollment period, which also ended Jan. 31.

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    2026 Pennie enrollment

    The first look at the impact of the higher insurance costs comes from Pennie data at the end of open enrollment. As of Feb. 1, a total of 486,000 people had signed up for coverage in 2026, down from 496,661 the same time last year.

    Some 79,500 newcomers to the marketplace partially offset the people who dropped coverage.

    In the Philadelphia region, more than 27,000 people who were enrolled in Pennie last year dropped coverage for 2026. Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties saw the biggest impact, with enrollment dropping 18% in each.

    Pennie leaders said people dropping plans are not enrolling in another type of insurance.

    That’s notable because those who joined Pennie for 2026 were coming from another form of insurance, such as an employer-based health plan. The people leaving Pennie were expected to become uninsured, Trolley said.

    Now that open enrollment is over, most people who find their plan is too expensive and drop it will not have an opportunity to select new coverage until the fall.

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    Lower-income families were the most likely to drop coverage

    Pennie administrators said they heard from many lower-income families and individuals that the cost increases for 2026 were too much of a strain for already tight budgets.

    Breaking down the terminations by income, the greatest drop was seen among people with incomes 150-200% of the federal poverty rate. That’s an annual income of between $23,475 and $31,300 for an individual. For a family of four, the equivalent income range would be $48,225 to $64,300.

    A total of 13,562 Pennsylvanians in this income bracket declined to renew their Pennie plans for 2026 as of Feb. 1, according to the most recent available data from Pennie.

    “The math just isn’t working for people in those households,” said Trolley.

    People in this income bracket still qualified for some financial assistance. The ACA includes tax credits for anyone with income below 400% of the poverty rate, and these tax credits did not expire.

    Higher earners who would now have to pay in full, without the help of tax credits, account for another large segment dropping coverage.

    This included 11,837 people who earn more than 400% of the federal poverty rate. In the past years, the enhanced tax credit helped families in higher income brackets afford marketplace insurance.

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    Dropouts high among young adults and those near retirement age

    Just under 20,000 adults between the ages 55 and 64 canceled their Pennie plans for 2026, accounting for nearly one-quarter of dropouts as of Feb. 1.

    About two-thirds of individuals in this age group earn enough that they would have had to pay the full price of their health plan, without any tax credits. They already pay more than younger adults for the same plan, under rules that allow insurers to charge more to cover older adults, who are likely to have more medical expenses.

    “That group is where we were seeing the most significant price jumps — a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars,” Trolley said.

    Another 15,356 adults between the ages 26 and 34 — many new to buying health insurance on their own — also dropped out. The ACA allows young adults to be covered under a parent’s health plan until age 26.

    Graphics editor John Duchneskie contributed to this article.

  • Josh Shapiro’s clergy abuse investigation boosted his reputation. Years later, some survivors feel he abandoned them.

    Josh Shapiro’s clergy abuse investigation boosted his reputation. Years later, some survivors feel he abandoned them.

    Sitting onstage in an echoey historic synagogue, next to a U.S. senator and a cardboard cutout of his newly released memoir, Gov. Josh Shapiro reflected on the Pennsylvanians who give him hope.

    As he had in other stops on his book tour up and down the East Coast, Shapiro often referred to his book’s title, Where We Keep The Light, and the ways he finds hope in the “extraordinary impact” of Pennsylvanians. Among them, he said, were those who were sexually abused by Catholic priests in crimes covered up by the church until they were illuminated by the victims’ unrelenting quest for justice.

    In his book, Shapiro details his work as Pennsylvania attorney general to compile and release a bombshell grand jury report that in 2018 revealed thousands of cases of abuse by priests across the state.

    “I find hope in the people I met who were abused over years and years and years,” Shapiro told U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) last month at an event at Sixth and I, a synagogue in Washington, “who still had the courage to show up in a grand jury room to testify and to challenge me to do something to make sure we righted a wrong and brought justice to them.”

    The nearly 900-page report was lauded as the most comprehensive review of clergy abuse across a single state and prompted new laws clarifying penalties for failure to report abuse and allowing survivors more time to pursue criminal or civil cases against their abusers.

    But a key step in delivering justice to those survivors — establishing a two-year window for the filing of lawsuits over decades-old abuse that falls outside the statute of limitations under existing law — remains unfinished.

    The proposal has become one of the most fraught issues in Harrisburg. After a devastating clerical error by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration killed a proposed constitutional amendment in 2021, lawmakers have been unable to come together on a new path forward. Republicans who control the state Senate have tied the proposal to policies Democrats will not support. All the while, the Catholic Church and the insurance industry have lobbied hard against it.

    Nearly a dozen interviews with survivors, their family members, and advocates reveal a deep frustration with the inaction in Harrisburg. Even as Shapiro renews calls for the Senate to act, survivors are divided over whether he has done enough to use his power as governor to advocate for them.

    A key pledge in Shapiro’s bid for reelection — and his pitch to a national audience — is that he can “get stuff done” by working across the aisle. But some abuse survivors in Pennsylvania say the unfinished business in getting justice for them brings that record into question.

    “He got to where he’s at on the back of victims and survivors, and now he’s forgotten,” said Mike McIlmail, the father of a clergy abuse victim, Sean McIlmail, who died of an overdose shortly before he was supposed to testify in a criminal case against his alleged abuser.

    Shapiro, his spokesperson Will Simons said, has fought for survivors “publicly and in legislative negotiations” since 2018. He has promised to sign any bill that reaches his desk establishing the window.

    With a reelection campaign underway and his eyes on flipping the state Senate, the governor renewed that fight earlier this month. He used his budget address to blame Senate Republicans for the inaction thus far.

    “Stop cowering to the special interests, like insurance companies and lobbyists for the Catholic Church,” he said, his voice thundering in the House chamber. “Stop tying justice for abused kids to your pet political projects. And start listening to victims.”

    Mike and Debbie McIlmail, parents of Sean McIlmail, in the office of (left) Marci Hamilton, in Philadelphia on March 29, 2022.

    Years of delay

    Pennsylvania’s extensive investigation, which Shapiro inherited when he became attorney general in 2017, chronicled more than 1,000 cases of abuse by more than 300 priests across the state dating back to the 1940s.

    For most of the cases in the report, the statute of limitations had passed, leaving no legal recourse for survivors.

    The report proposed that lawmakers create a two-year window to allow the filing of civil suits over cases that happened years, if not decades, ago. Despite Shapiro’s advocacy since releasing the grand jury report, the proposal has been trapped in a stalemate for years.

    Pennsylvania trails more than 30 other states that have approved similar legislation.

    Then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks at a news conference in the state Capitol in 2018 about legislation to respond to a landmark grand jury report accusing hundreds of priests of sexually abusing children over decades stalled in the legislature.

    “It’s maddening to have people say, ‘We’re committed to this, this is going to happen, we’re committed to it,’ from both sides of the political spectrum and nothing ever gets done,” said Jay Sefton, who says he was abused by a priest in Havertown as a middle schooler in the 1980s. “It does start to feel like these are lives being used as its own sort of theater.”

    Gov. Josh Shapiro makes his annual budget proposal in the state House chamber Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.

    Speaking to journalists in Washington days before he targeted Republicans in his budget address, Shapiro tied the window’s prospects to Democrats’ ability to win the state Senate for the first time in more than three decades.

    “I’m confident with a Democratic Senate that will be one of the first bills they put on my desk,” Shapiro said.

    Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, a Republican, leaves the House chamber following Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s annual budget proposal speech in Harrisburg on Feb. 3.

    In an interview, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) noted that the GOP-controlled Senate had approved a constitutional amendment to establish the window several times before, although it ultimately failed to ever reach the voters.

    She declined to say whether the state Senate would take up the amendment up this year but said creating the window through legislation, as Shapiro requested, would be unconstitutional.

    She accused the governor of using survivors to score political points as he tries to raise his profile for his reelection this year and rumored 2028 presidential ambitions.

    “He has decided that he’s going to be moral instead of follow the law. Look at his record in his own office,” Ward said, arguing Shapiro has a track record of fighting for some survivors but not others. She pointed to his office’s handling of sexual harassment allegations brought against a former top staffer and close ally. Documents showed that complaints about the staffer were made months before his abrupt resignation.

    For some clergy abuse survivors, the blame lands squarely on Ward and her Republican allies as they insist on a constitutional amendment, which requires two votes by both the House and Senate along with a ballot measure.

    “It’s the Republicans that are blocking it, and I think they’re blocking it because of the church,” said Julianne Bortz, a survivor who testified before the grand jury and whose experience was featured in the report.

    A portrait of former Pa. House Speaker Mark Rozzi hangs alongside painting of other former speakers in hallway at the state Capitol.

    Debate among survivors

    Despite Shapiro’s recent statements, there is a sense among some survivors that lawmakers, and Shapiro, have forgotten about them.

    Former state House Speaker Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat and clergy abuse survivor, said Shapiro “betrayed” survivors and should be playing “hardball” with the Senate to ensure that the bill makes it to his desk.

    “Talk is cheap. Unless you come to the table and cut a deal, nothing else gets done,” Rozzi said.

    Then-Pennsylvania House Speaker Mark Rozzi, center right, embraces Arthur Baselice, the father of Arthur Baselice III, after he testified at a hearing in Philadelphia on Jan. 27, 2023.

    Advocates have spent years pushing lawmakers in Harrisburg and have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of movement.

    “We, being the victims, have always held our end of the bargain. Always. We’ve always shown up when we’ve asked to, we’ve testified when we were asked to, we interviewed, we discussed the worst moments of our lives when asked,” said Shaun Dougherty, who said he was abused by an Altoona-Johnstown priest.

    Now, he said, it’s the governor’s turn to get the work done.

    Former State Rep. Bill Wachob, a Democrat who worked in politics after leaving elected office in the 1980s, is convinced the governor could make it happen through negotiations if he wanted.

    “He and his team have made a calculated political decision that they have gotten as much mileage out of this issue as they’re going to get and they’re not doing anything more,” Wachob said.

    In Shapiro’s memoir, however, he wrote he expected that going up against the Catholic Church in pursuing the 2018 report “was likely the end of the road for me politically.”

    “I’d made my peace with being a one term Attorney General, if it meant that I could put my head on the pillow at night knowing I did my job and made good for these victims,” he wrote.

    Since Shapiro became governor in 2023, his efforts to fight for survivors have been waylaid by an increasingly tense relationship with the GOP-controlled Senate, as evidenced by last year’s nearly five-month bitter budget impasse.

    “I have no doubt that the governor has been doing what he can,” said Marci Hamilton, the founder of Child USA, which advocates for child sex abuse victims. She blamed the challenges in reaching a deal on Harrisburg’s partisan dynamics.

    Recent criticism of Shapiro has driven division within the survivor community in recent weeks, said Mary McHale, a survivor who was featured in a 2022 Shapiro campaign ad.

    “He cares. But he also has a state to run. This can’t be the No. 1 issue,” she said.

    Diana Vojtasek, who said she was abused by the same Allentown priest as McHale, said she worries frustration is being misdirected at Shapiro instead of Republicans.

    “I just don’t see the value in attacking the one who has vowed publicly that he will sign this legislation for us as soon as it’s across his desk,” she said.

    Abuse survivor Shaun Dougherty (left) greets then-Gov. Tom Wolf in the State Capitol on Sept. 24, 2018.

    Could progress come this year?

    Advocates are hopeful that the national bipartisan effort to force President Donald Trump’s administration to release FBI files related to serial abuser and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein may spur new motivation to protect abuse victims in the state.

    “What the Epstein transparency act showed us is we are finally at a point where the protection of sexual abuse victims is nonpartisan,” Hamilton said. “I fully expect to see that that understanding for victims will happen in Harrisburg.”

    Rep. Nathan Davidson, a Dauphin County Democrat who introduced the House legislation to create the window, has scheduled hearings in April to bring renewed attention to the issue.

    Sefton, who said he was abused as a middle schooler in Havertown in the 1980s, will perform a one-man show about his experience in a theater just steps from the state Capitol the week of the hearings.

    He is done hoping lawmakers will establish the window but said it would make the state safer if they did.

    “Nobody is going to give anyone their childhood back. It can’t happen,” Sefton said.

    “There’s always going to be a part of me that’s filled with some rage about people blocking the energy here. If that were to go through, it’s a piece of energy that gets finally freed up.”

  • Big-money and out-of-state donors helped Josh Shapiro raise $30 million while Stacy Garrity raised $1.5 million from Pa.’s grassroots

    Big-money and out-of-state donors helped Josh Shapiro raise $30 million while Stacy Garrity raised $1.5 million from Pa.’s grassroots

    Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is racking up contributions from out-of-state billionaires as well as thousands of individual donors across the country.

    His likely Republican challenger, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, meanwhile, is capturing small-donor donations from Pennsylvanians.

    That’s according to an analysis of the latest campaign finance filings in the Pennsylvania governor’s contest, as a clearer picture of the race emerges nine months out from Election Day. Shapiro entered 2026 with $30 million on hand — money raised over several years as he has built a national profile — while Garrity raised $1.5 million in her first five months on the campaign trail as she tries to unseat the popular Democratic incumbent. Last year, Shapiro brought in $23.3 million.

    The race between Josh Shapiro and Stacy Garrity for Pa. governor has officially begun. Here’s what you need to know.

    Here are three takeaways from the first campaign finance filings in the race, tracking fundraising heading into 2026.

    Almost all of Stacy Garrity’s contributors are from Pennsylvania, while 62% of Shapiro’s are in state

    Nearly all of Garrity’s individual 1,155 contributors — more than 97% — live in Pennsylvania, and on average gave $889 each.

    Shapiro — who has amassed a national following and is a rumored 2028 Democratic presidential contender — had a much further reach and attracted many more donors from around the country. He received contributions from 4,981 individual donors, 62% of whom are from Pennsylvania. The average individual donor to Shapiro contributed $3,461, a number buoyed by multiple six- and seven-figure contributions.

    Shapiro received most of his remaining individual donations from California (7.1%), New York (6.3%), New Jersey (2.5%), Florida (2.5%), and Massachusetts (2.4%), according to an Inquirer analysis.

    (The analysis includes only donors who contributed more than $50 in 2025. Campaigns are required to list only individual donors who contribute above that threshold.)

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    Shapiro’s broad donor base is a result of his status as a popular incumbent governor who is liked among people of both political parties, said Robin Kolodny, a Temple University political science professor who focuses on campaign finance.

    “These amounts that you’re seeing is a very strong signal that ‘This is our guy,’” Kolodny said. “That underscores he is a popular incumbent.”

    Kolodny also noted that Shapiro’s state-level fundraising cannot be transferred to a federal political action committee should he decide to run in 2028. But his war chest shows his ability to raise money nationally and his popularity as the leader of the state, she added.

    Governor Josh Shapiro during a reelection announcement event at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026.

    Only a small percentage of the population contributes to political campaigns, Kolodny said. And sometimes, it’s the smallest contributions that pay off the most, she said. Small-dollar donations suggest grassroots support that can translate into a person assisting the campaign in additional ways to get out the vote, she said.

    Both Shapiro and Garrity have received a significant number of small-dollar donations that illustrate some level of excitement in the race — though Shapiro’s more than 3,000 in-state donors outnumber Garrity’s total by nearly 3-1.

    “Think of fundraising as not just a money grab, but also as a campaign strategy,” Kolodny said.

    Since announcing his reelection campaign in January, Shapiro has run targeted social media ads and sent fundraising texts, asking for supporters to “chip in” $1 or $5. The strategy worked, bringing in $400,000 in the first two days after his announcement, with an average contribution of $41, according to Shapiro’s campaign. This funding is not reflected in his 2025 campaign finance report.

    Most of Shapiro’s money came from out-of-state donors, including billionaire Mike Bloomberg and a George Soros PAC

    While Shapiro garnered thousands of individual contributions from Pennsylvania in all 67 counties, according to his campaign, the latest filings show it was the big-money checks from out-of-state billionaires that ran up his total.

    Approximately 64% of the $23.3 million Shapiro raised last year came from out-of-state donors.

    And more than half — 57% — of Shapiro’s total raised came from six- or seven-figure contributions by powerful PACs or billionaire donors.

    By contrast, only 31% of Garrity’s total fundraising came from six-figure contributions.

    The biggest single contribution in the governor’s race came from billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave Shapiro $2.5 million last year.

    Shapiro also received $1 million from a political action committee led by billionaire Democratic supporter George Soros; and $500,000 from Kathryn and James Murdoch, from the powerful family of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

    Kolodny noted that big contributions from people like Bloomberg are a drop in the bucket of his total political or philanthropic spending.

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    “This is not something extraordinary,” Kolodny said. “He’s got nothing but money.”

    In Pennsylvania, Shapiro received notably high contributions from Philadelphia Phillies owner John Middleton, who gave $125,000, and Nemacolin Resort owner Maggie Hardy, who gave $250,000, among others. He also received a number of five-figure contributions from private equity officials, venture capitalists, and industry executives in life sciences, construction, and more.

    Garrity’s single biggest donation was $250,000 from University City Housing Co., a real estate firm providing housing near Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. Her largest contributions from individuals included $50,000 from her finance chair, Bob Asher of Asher Chocolates, and another $50,000 from Alfred Barbour, a retired executive from Concast Metal Products.

    Garrity has served as Pennsylvania’s state treasurer since 2020 and has led the low-profile statewide office with little controversy. She did not join the race for governor until August and raised only a fraction of the funds Shapiro did in that same time. Meanwhile, Shapiro spent 2025 at the political forefront as a moderate Democrat trying to challenge President Donald Trump in a state that helped elect him. Shapiro also benefited from his national name recognition after he was considered for Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024.

    Shapiro has so far outraised Garrity 30-1, and top Pennsylvania Republicans have said they want to see Garrity fundraising more aggressively nationally.

    Facing an uphill battle against Gov. Josh Shapiro’s $30 million war chest, Stacy Garrity still has to convince top Republicans she’s worth investing in

    Kolodny said Garrity’s low fundraising is a reflection of the state of the race: Republicans put up a weak candidate in 2022 against Shapiro during his first run for governor, and now many powerful donors want to keep the relationship they have formed with Shapiro over the last three years.

    “That will reflect as a lack of enthusiasm for her,” Kolodny said. “Now she could turn that around, but from what I see, I don’t see her that much, only recently. She had the last six months; she could have done a lot more.”

    Controversy over donations tied to associates of Jeffrey Epstein

    Shapiro’s top contributions from individual donors also included a $500,000 check from Reid Hoffman, the Silicon Valley-based billionaire cofounder of LinkedIn. His name showed up thousands of times in the trove of documents recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice related to the investigation into financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    Garrity has highlighted the donations Shapiro received from Hoffman, and has publicly called on Shapiro to return the tech billionaire’s campaign contributions from last year and prior years, totaling more than $2 million since 2021.

    Hoffman has claimed he had only a fundraising relationship with Epstein, but publicly admitted he had visited his island. He has not been charged with wrongdoing.

    A spokesperson for Shapiro said Garrity should “stop playing politics with the Epstein files.”

    “Donald Trump is mentioned in the files over 5,000 times. Is she going to ask him to rescind his endorsement?” asked Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s spokesperson.

    Garrity has previously downplayed Trump’s appearance in the Epstein files, and argued that Democrats would have released them much sooner if there was clear evidence of Trump partaking in any inappropriate behavior.

    Trump endorsed Garrity for governor last month.

    GOP candidate for Pennsylania Governor, Stacy Garrity and Jason Richey hold up their arms in Harrisburg, Pa., Saturday, February 7, 2026. The PA State Republican Committee endorsed the two in their quest for the governor’s mansion. (For the Inquirer/Kalim A. Bhatti)

    If Shapiro were to return the funds from Hoffman, it would be bad for Garrity, Kolodny said, because she has made very few other political attacks against him.

    “That’s her [main] issue,” she said.

  • Philly DA Larry Krasner casts doubt on running against Mayor Cherelle Parker

    Philly DA Larry Krasner casts doubt on running against Mayor Cherelle Parker

    Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner on Wednesday dismissed rumors that he may challenge Mayor Cherelle L. Parker when she will face reelection next year, and he said in a statement that he is focused on his job as the city’s top prosecutor.

    Krasner, who last year won his third term as district attorney and has cultivated a national brand, told The Inquirer that talk he might challenge the incumbent divides the city’s leadership.

    His statement came after the news website Axios Philly reported that some political insiders were floating Krasner’s name as a potential mayoral contender.

    “Especially in these times, all Philadelphia residents need to stand together and work together for Philly,” Krasner said. “Not sure whose agenda this narrative serves, but there’s nothing new about insiders stirring things up to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else.”

    Talk of Parker facing a potential primary challenge ramped up in recent days after the mayor’s political action committee filed a campaign finance report showing she had raised $1.7 million last year, a striking sum for a sitting mayor two years out from a reelection bid.

    Mayor Cherelle Parker’s campaign raised an eye-popping $1.7 million last year though she won’t face reelection until 2027
    In this 2024 file photo, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is flanked by Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and District Attorney Larry Krasner during a news conference.

    The fundraising report fueled speculation among the city’s political class that Parker, a centrist Democrat who is backed by much of the party establishment, may be expecting a challenge in the primary.

    A progressive would be a natural fit for a challenger. The city’s left has opposed some of Parker’s initiatives, including her law enforcement-driven plan to address the Kensington drug market. Activists have also been critical of Parker’s cautious approach to President Donald Trump, whom she generally avoids attacking directly.

    Krasner, 64, is the most prominent progressive in the city. He won reelection last year in landslide fashion, and he has positioned himself as the city’s most vocal Trump opponent, often drawing comparisons between the federal government and 20th-century fascism.

    And several past district attorneys have run for mayor, including Ed Rendell, who went on to serve two terms in City Hall and then was elected governor of Pennsylvania.

    But for Krasner, any run at Parker would be tricky.

    Krasner, who is white, has been successful in electoral politics in large part because of support from the city’s significant bloc of Black voters, politicians, and clergy. Those groups are also key to the base of support that has backed Parker, who comes from a long line of Black politicians hailing from the city’s Northwest.

    Allies of the district attorney say a better fit — if he decided to seek higher office — could be running for a federal seat.

    Political observers have suggested a handful of Democrats, including Krasner, could run for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Sen. John Fetterman. The Democratic senator, who will be up for reelection in 2028, has an independent streak and has angered many in the party for at times siding with Republicans.

    Several other Democrats have been floated as potential contenders for the seat, including U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, of Philadelphia, and Chris Deluzio, whose Western Pennsylvania district includes Allegheny County. Some have also speculated that former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, also of Western Pennsylvania, could run.

    Fetterman has not said whether he intends to run for reelection. Left-leaning organizations have already pledged to back a primary challenger against him.

  • Bad Bunny, MPLS, and the ‘neighborism’ saving America | Will Bunch Newsletter

    Maybe it’s because I’ve watched every blessed one of them, starting as a curious, nearly 8-year-old boy in 1967, but the Super Bowl has always felt like the ultimate barometer of where the American Experiment is at. Super Bowl LX (that’s 60, for those of you smart enough not to take four years of Latin in high school) was no exception. The actual game was something of a snoozefest, but the tsunami of commercials revealed us as a nation obsessed with artificial intelligence, sports betting, weight loss, and anything that can lift us from middle-class peonage without having to do any actual work. As Bad Bunny said, God bless America.

    If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

    Bad Bunny’s real message: From P.R. to Minnesota, we are neighbors

    Bad Bunny (center top) performs Sunday during the halftime show of the NFL Super Bowl XL football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, Calif.

    Right-wing media prattled on for months about how Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar who is the world’s most streamed artist, would politicize and thus ruin the NFL’s halftime extravaganza at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif.

    The babble became a scream seven days before the Big Game kicked off, when Bad Bunny won the record of the year Grammy Award and began his acceptance speech with the exhortation “ICE out!” adding, “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans.”

    But on the world’s biggest stage Sunday night — seen by 135 million in the United States, a Super Bowl record — Bad Bunny sang not one word about Donald Trump, not that MAGA fans even bothered to hold up a translation app. The white-suited Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio danced his way through the history of Puerto Rico and the Americas writ large, from the plantations of yore to the exploding power lines of the hurricane-wracked 21st century. He whirled past an actual wedding, stopped for a shaved ice, and for 13 spellbinding minutes turned a cast of 400 into what his transfixed TV audience craved at home.

    Bad Bunny built his own community — a place not torn asunder by politics, but bonded by love and music.

    Without uttering one word — in Spanish or English — about the dire situation in a nation drifting from flawed democracy into wrenching authoritarianism, the planet’s reigning king of pop delivered the most powerful message of America’s six decades of Super Bowl fever. Shrouded in sugar cane and shaded by a plantain tree, Bad Bunny sang nothing about the frigid chaos 2,000 miles east in Minnesota, and yet the show was somehow very much about Minneapolis.

    Bad Bunny finally gave voice to what thousands of everyday folks in the Twin Cities have been trying to say with their incessant whistles.

    We are all neighbors. The undocumented Venezuelan next door who toils in the back of a restaurant and sends his kids to your kids’ school is a neighbor. But Haiti is also a neighbor, as is Cuba. We are all in this together.

    The word I kept thinking about as I watched Bad Bunny’s joyous performance is a term that didn’t really exist on New Year’s Day 2026, yet has instantly provided a name to the current zeitgeist.

    Neighborism.

    The great writer Adam Serwer — already up for the wordsmithing Hall of Fame after he nailed the MAGA movement in 2018 in five words: “The cruelty is the point” — leaned hard into the concept of “neighborism” after he traveled to Minneapolis last month. His goal was to understand an almost revolutionary resistance to Trump’s mass deportation raids that had residents — many of whom had not been especially political — in the streets, blowing those warning whistles, confronting armed federal agents, and tracking their movements across the city.

    Serwer visited churches where volunteers packed thousands of boxes of food for immigrant families afraid to leave their homes during the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, and talked to stay-at-home moms, retirees, and blue-collar workers who give rides or money to those at risk, or who engaged in the riskier business of tracking the deportation raiders.

    “If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology,” Serwer wrote, “you could call it ‘neighborism’ — a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.” He contrasted the reality on the ground in Minneapolis to the twisted depictions by Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, who’ve insisted refugees are a threat to community and cohesion.

    Of course, it’s not just Minneapolis, and it’s not just the many, liberal-leaning cities — from Los Angeles to Chicago to New Orleans and more — that were the incubators of the notion that concerned citizens — immigrant and nonimmigrant alike — could prevent their neighbors from getting kidnapped. Even small towns like rural Sackets Harbor, N.Y., the hometown of Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, rose up in protest to successfully block the dairy farm deportation of a mom and her three kids. It’s been like this everywhere regular folks — even the ones who narrowly elected Trump to a second term in 2024 — realize mass deportation doesn’t mean only “the worst of the worst,” but often the nice mom or dad in the house, or church pew, next to theirs.

    Only now that it’s arrived is it possible to see “neighborism” as the thing Americans were looking for all along, even if we didn’t know it. It is, in every way, the opposite vibe from the things that have always fueled fascism — atomization and alienation that’s easy for a demagogue to mold into rank suspicion of The Other.

    I’m pretty sure Bad Bunny wasn’t using the word neighborism when the NFL awarded him the coveted halftime gig last fall. But the concept was deeply embedded in his show. He mapped his native Puerto Rico as a place where oppression has long loomed — from the cruelty of the sugar plantations to the capitalist exploitation of the failed power grid — but where community is stronger.

    Then Benito broadened the whole concept. Reclaiming the word America for its original meaning as all of the Western Hemisphere, Bad Bunny name-checked “Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil,” and Canada, as well as the United States. These, too, are our neighbors. “God bless America,” he shouted — his only message of the night delivered in English.

    So, no, Bad Bunny never mentioned Minneapolis, but a tender moment when he seemingly handed the Grammy he’d won just a week ago to a small Latino boy had to remind viewers of the communal fight to save children like the 5-year-old, blue bunny hat-wearing (yes, ironic) Liam Conejo Ramos, who was just arrested, detained, and released by ICE. (A false rumor that the Super Bowl boy was Ramos went viral.)

    But arguably, this super performance had peaked a few moments earlier, when the singer exited the wedding scene stage with a backward trust dive, caught and held aloft by his makeshift community in the crowd below. Bad Bunny had no fear that his neighbors would not be there for him. Viva Puerto Rico. Viva Minneapolis. Viva our neighbors.

    Yo, do this!

    • Some 63 years after he was gunned down by a white racist in his own driveway, the Mississippi civil rights icon Medgar Evers has been having a moment. A fearless World War II vet whose bold stands for civil rights as local leader of the NAACP in America’s most segregated state triggered his 1963 assassination, Evers’ fight has become the subject of a best-selling book, a controversy over how his story is told at the Jackson, Miss., home where he was killed, and now a two-hour documentary streaming on PBS.com. I’m looking forward to watching the widely praised Everlasting: Life & Legacy of Medgar Evers.
    • After the Super Bowl, February is the worst month for sports — three out of every four years. In 2026, we have the Winter Olympics to bridge the frigid gap while we wait for baseball’s spring training (and its own World Baseball Classic) to warm us up. Personally, I try and sometimes fail to get too jacked up around sleds careening down an icy track, but hockey is a different story. At 2:10 p.m. on Tuesday (that’s today if you read this early enough), the puck drops on USA Network for the highly anticipated match between the world’s two top women’s teams: the United States and its heated rival Canada. Look for these two border frenemies to meet again for the gold medal.

    Ask me anything

    Question: How is it that some towns have been able to prevent ICE from buying warehouses and turning them into concentration camps, while others say they are helpless against the federal government? What does it mean that several are planned for within a couple of hours of Philly? — @idaroo.bsky.social via Bluesky

    Answer: Great question. It seems ICE and its $45 billion wad of cash are racing in near-secrecy to make this national gulag archipelago of 23 or so concentration camps a done deal. The places where they’ve been stopped, like one planned for Virginia, happened because locals were able to pressure the developer before a sale to ICE was concluded. That’s no longer an option at the two already purchased Pennsylvania sites in Schuylkill and Berks Counties. The last hope is pressure from high-ranking Republicans, which may (we’ll see) have stopped a Mississippi site. Pennsylvanians might want to focus, then, on GOP Sen. Dave McCormick. Good luck with that.

    What you’re saying about …

    It’s conventional wisdom that the best argument for a Gov. Josh Shapiro 2028 presidential campaign is his popularity in his home state of Pennsylvania, the battleground with the most electoral votes. So it’s fascinating that none of the dozen or so of you who responded to this Philadelphia-based newsletter wants Shapiro to seek the White House, although folks seem divided into two camps. Some of you just don’t like Josh or his mostly centrist politics. “I think he’s all ambition, all consumed with reaching that top pedestal, not as a public servant, but because he thinks he deserves it,” wrote Linda Mitala, who once campaigned for Shapiro, but soured on his views over Gaza protesters, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and other issues. Yet, others think he’s an excellent governor who should remain in the job through 2030. “Stay governor of Pa. when good governance and ability to stand up to federal (authoritarian) overreach is dire,” wrote Kim Root, who’d prefer Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear for the White House.

    📮 This week’s question: A shocking, likely (though still not declared) Democratic primary win for Analilia Mejia, the Bernie Sanders-aligned left-wing candidate, in suburban North Jersey’s 11th Congressional District raises new questions for the Dems about the 2026 midterms. Should the party run more progressive candidates like Mejia, who promise a more aggressive response to Trump, or will they lose by veering too far left? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Dems 2026” in the subject line.

    Backstory on how the F-bomb became the word of the year

    Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day performs Sunday before the start of Super Bowl XL in Santa Clara, Calif.

    I’m old enough to remember when the world’s most famous comedy riff was the late George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” — its point driven home by Carlin’s 1972 arrest on obscenity charges that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A half century later, you still can’t say dirty words on broadcast TV — cable and streaming is a different story — but that fortress is under assault. In 2026, America is under seemingly constant attack from the F-bomb.

    It is freakin’ everywhere. When the top elected Democrat in Washington, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, cut a short video to respond to the president’s shocking post of a racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, he said, “[F-word] Donald Trump!” If uttered in, say, 1972, Jeffries’ attack would have been a top story for days, but this barely broke through. Maybe because that word is in the lexicon of so many of his fellow Democrats, like Mayor Jacob Frey, who famously told ICE agents to “get the [F-word] out of Minneapolis,” or Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, who begged federal agents to “leave us the (bleep) alone.” (Smith is retiring at year’s end and seems to no longer give a you-know-what.)

    The poor guys with their finger on the silence button at the TV networks, where you still can’t say Carlin’s seven words, can barely keep up. The F-bomb was dropped at this year’s Grammys, where award-winner Billie Eilish declared “(Bleep) ICE!” as she brandished her prize. The F-bomb was dropped, of course, at the Super Bowl, when the only true moment of silence during 10-plus hours of nonstop bombast came during Green Day’s pregame performance of “American Idiot,” when NBC shielded America’s tender ears from hearing Billie Joe Armstrong sing about “the subliminal mind(bleep) America.”

    We’re only about six weeks into the new year, but it’s hard not to think that Merriam-Webster or the other dictionary pooh-bahs won’t declare the F-bomb as word of the year for 2026, even if I’m still not allowed to use it in The Inquirer, family newspaper that we are. So what the … heck is going on here? One study found the F-word was 28 times more likely to appear in literature now than in the 1950s, so in one sense it’s not surprising this would eventually break through on Capitol Hill or on the world’s biggest stages.

    But the bigger problem is that America’s descent into authoritarianism and daily political outrage has devolved to such a point where, every day, permissible words no longer seem close to adequate for capturing our shock and awe at how bad things are. Only the F-bomb, it turns out, contains enough dynamite to blow out our rage over masked goons kidnapping people on America’s streets, or a racist, megalomaniac president who still has 35 months left in his term. Yet, even this (sort of) banned expletive is losing its power to express how we really feel. I have no idea what the $%&# comes next.

    What I wrote on this date in 2019

    What a long, strange trip for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the four richest people on the planet. Today, Bezos is in the headlines for his horrific stewardship of the Washington Post, which has bowed down on its editorial pages to the Trump regime, lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and laid off 300 journalists. It’s hard to recall that seven years ago, Bezos and Trump were at war, and there was evidence Team MAGA had enlisted its allies from Saudi Arabia to the National Enquirer to take down the billionaire. I wrote that “a nation founded in the ideals of democracy has increasingly fallen prey to a new dystopian regime that melds the new 21st century dark arts of illegal hacking and media manipulation with the oldest tricks in the book: blackmail and extortion.”

    Read how from Feb. 10, 2019: “Bezos, the National Enquirer, the Saudis, Trump, and the blackmailing of U.S. democracy.”

    Recommended Inquirer reading

    • My first and hopefully not last journalistic road trip of 2026 took me to Pennsylvania coal country, where ICE has spent $119.5 million to buy an abandoned Big Lots warehouse on the outskirts of tiny Tremont in Schuylkill County. I spoke with both locals and a historical expert on concentration camps about their fears and the deeper meaning of a gulag archipelago for detained immigrants that is suddenly looming on U.S. soil. It can happen here. Over the weekend, I looked at the stark contrast between Europe’s reaction to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal — where ties to the late multimillionaire sex trafficker are ending careers and even threatening to topple the British government — and the United States, where truth has not led to consequences so far. The Epstein fallout shows how the utter lack of elite accountability is driving the crisis of American democracy.
    • One last Super Bowl reference: Now that football is over, are you ready for some FOOTBALL? Now just four months out, it’s hard to know what to make of the 2026 World Cup returning to America and coming to Philadelphia for the very first time, and whether the increasing vibe that Donald Trump’s United States is a global pariah will mar the world’s greatest sporting event (sorry, NFL). Whatever happens, The Inquirer is ready, and this past week we published our guide to soccer’s biggest-ever moment in Philly. Anchored by our world-class soccer writer Jonathan Tannenwald and Kerith Gabriel, who worked for the Philadelphia Union between his stints at the paper, the package provides not only an overview of the World Cup in Philly, but previews the dozen teams who will (or might) take the pitch at Lincoln Financial Field, with in-depth looks at the powerhouses (France) as well as the massive underdogs (Curaçao). June is just around the corner, so don’t let the paywall become your goalkeeper. Subscribe to The Inquirer before the first ball drops.

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