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  • Judicial district says decisions on ICE presence at Philly courthouse are the sheriff’s ‘sole responsibility’

    Judicial district says decisions on ICE presence at Philly courthouse are the sheriff’s ‘sole responsibility’

    The judicial district that oversees the Philadelphia court system says that the authority for managing ICE’s controversial presence at the Criminal Justice Center rests on Sheriff Rochelle Bilal and that decisions around that are her “sole responsibility.”

    That follows a Wednesday morning news conference where the sheriff joined local elected and community leaders who suggested that court officials or legislators needed to address the ongoing turmoil around courthouse immigration arrests. They called for meetings with court leaders to discuss how to set guardrails on ICE activity.

    The First Judicial District responded with a statement late Wednesday:

    “The First Judicial District is always willing to discuss matters of mutual concern with our justice partners, but managing security in court buildings ― which includes managing ICE’s presence ― is the sole responsibility of the sheriff. These decisions are the sheriff’s to make.”

    The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office responded Thursday that it was “ready to execute all lawful judicial orders.”

    “To be clear,” its statement said, “security inside court facilities is the responsibility of the Sheriff’s Office. … Areas outside of court facilities are public spaces, where individuals retain their First Amendment rights, including the right to assemble and protest. Those areas are not under the operational control of the Sheriff’s Office.”

    The sheriff’s office added that it is committed to maintaining order and safety while upholding the rights of all who enter, and that it remains open to dialogue to ensure “clarity, coordination, and public safety.”

    The sheriff has said her office does not cooperate with ICE, does not assist in ICE operations, and does not share information with the agency. She has not directly addressed whether she believes she has authority to bar ICE agents from the property.

    Her supporters have defended the sheriff by insisting that she does not have that power, that she could only carry out orders issued by a judge or legislature.

    Meanwhile, the presence of ICE in and around the Criminal Justice Center has provoked demonstrations and controversy, with activists charging that the sheriff has allowed ICE to turn the property into a “hunting ground” for immigrants.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not reply to a request for comment on Thursday.

    The group No ICE Philly has castigated the sheriff, saying that by not barring ICE — as judges and lawmakers in some other jurisdictions have done — she has helped enable the arrest of 114 immigrants who were trailed from the courthouse and arrested on the sidewalk.

    That group and others say ICE agents have been allowed to essentially hang out at the Center City courthouse, waiting in the lobby or scouring the hallways, then making arrests outside.

    Many people who go to the courthouse are not criminal defendants ― they are witnesses, victims, family members, and others in diversionary programs. But they have been targeted and arrested by ICE, immigration attorneys and government officials say, causing witnesses and victims to stay away from court and damaging the administration of justice in Philadelphia.

    Aniqa Raihan, a No ICE Philly organizer who has helped lead courthouse protests, said she was not encouraged by the First Judicial District’s statement.

    “We already know that Sheriff Bilal is not doing all she can to protect people at the courthouse,” she said Thursday. “However, the First Judicial District is not powerless. The court can make its own policy, like the court in Chicago did, barring civil arrests on and around the courthouse. … What we’re seeing is a lot of blame-shifting and finger-pointing from our leaders at a time when we desperately need teamwork.”

    The issue around ICE access is complicated by the fact that courthouses are public buildings, generally open to everyone. And sidewalks outside the buildings are generally considered public property.

    Last week the sheriff garnered national headlines ― and condemnation ― for calling ICE “fake, wannabe law enforcement” and for sending a blunt warning to agency officers.

    “If any [ICE agents] want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide,” Bilal said in viral remarks. “You don’t want this smoke, ’cause we will bring it to you. … The criminal in the White House would not be able to keep you from going to jail.”

    On Wednesday, at the news conference at the Salt and Light Church in Southwest Philadelphia, Bilal said her office follows the law and would obey judicial orders and legislative statutes around courthouse security.

    District Attorney Larry Krasner ― whose office led the event, and who reiterated his pledge to prosecute ICE agents who commit crimes ― said victims and witnesses are not showing up for cases due to fear of ICE.

    About half a dozen elected officials and community leaders gathered, with some calling for ICE to get out of Philadelphia.

    They asked for the court system to establish rules and protections for immigrants seeking to attend proceedings at the Criminal Justice Center, and for state court administrators to meet with the district attorney, the sheriff, the chief public defender, City Council members, and others.

    Krasner said Thursday that his office and the other parties “look forward to meeting with the leadership of the courts to discuss lawfully regulating ICE activity in and around the Criminal Justice Center. We will be corresponding with the courts to schedule monthly meetings immediately.”

    At the same time, “we will continue to do all we can to prioritize safety and justice for victims, witnesses, and families who are navigating the criminal justice system,” he said. “Unlawful and unnecessary ICE activity in and around the CJC is deeply traumatizing to those who are already navigating pain and unfortunate circumstances.”

  • David Lynch called Philadelphia one of ‘the sickest, most corrupt, fear-ridden’ cities. That’s what makes it Lynchian.

    David Lynch called Philadelphia one of ‘the sickest, most corrupt, fear-ridden’ cities. That’s what makes it Lynchian.

    When filmmaker David Lynch moved to Philadelphia in 1965 to attend the erstwhile Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he was instantly moved by the city. Though not exactly charmed.

    The city’s crime, corruption, and urban blight impressed themselves on the young artist’s mind and lent to his uncanny vision combining the sinister and the absurd. The Twin Peaks creator, however, only spent a short time living in the city.

    By 1970, he had decamped to Los Angeles to study at the American Film Institute and work on his first feature, the cult classic Eraserhead.

    But Lynch’s relatively abridged tenure as a Philadelphian has had an outsized impact. Consider him the Terrell Owens of Philly weirdo transplant artists.

    A sign at Callowhill’s Love City Brewery nods to David Lynch’s film “Eraserhead.”

    In the year since his passing, retrospectives of his films have dominated programming at Philadelphia rep cinemas and art houses, Callowhill (where Lynch used to live and work) got a makeover as “Eraserhood,” and the neighborhood’s Love City Brewing’s hazy “Eraserhood IPA” grew in popularity.

    Now, a new podcast is digging deeper into Lynch’s influence on Philadelphia, exploring the extent to which the city impressed itself upon his life and work — from PAFA to Hollywood to the soapy subterfuges of the Twin Peaks universe.

    Launched Jan. 15 (the first anniversary of the filmmaker’s passing), Song of Lynchadelphia explores, in the words of host Julien Suaudeau, “the encounter of the 1950s American innocence with a place where the dream had already, and very concretely, turned into a nightmare.”

    Hidden City supervising producer Nathaniel Popkin (right) and Julien Suaudeau discuss their podcast investigating how David Lynch invented a “cinematic language of fear and strangeness in Philadelphia” on Monday, December 15, 2025.

    For Suaudeau, a writer and scholar who teaches film at Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia served as a creative catalyst for Lynch. Many great cities inspire, whether in their beauty, their scale, or deep history. Philadelphia, which Lynch called “one of the sickest, most corrupt, decadent, fear-ridden cities that exists.” The filmmaker was enamored with its crime and filth in the mid-1960s.

    “He was traumatized by Philly,” Suaudeau said, over drinks at Love City Brewing. “And he turned that trauma into art, something both beautiful and strange.”

    A Parisian native who moved to the region to teach, Suaudeau felt drawn to Philadelphia, and to Lynch, early in life. As an adolescent living in France, he responded to the anxious, hysterical, at-times deeply disturbing depiction of teenage life offered by Twin Peaks.

    At the same time, he fell in love with the ‘70s Philly Soul sound, and admired (then) 76er Charles Barkley. (Suaudeau played power forward in high school and, like Barkley, was also considered undersized.)

    “I didn’t know about Lynch’s foundational years in Philly,” he said, “but that convergence feels so meaningful to me today.”

    Song of Lynchadelphia grows out of Song of Philadelphia, a podcast produced by the local public history project Hidden City, which curates the “Eraserhood Tours” in Callowhill.

    Audience members watch “Eraserhead” by David Lynch at the Film Society Center, in Philadelphia, Oct. 5, 2025.

    The new series explores the city’s secret stories through a distinctly warped Lynchian lens.

    The first episode looks into Lynch’s rather despairing comments on the Philadelphia of his artistic adolescence, a place of “insanity” possessed by a “beautiful mood.” Through interviews with local fans, historians, and Lynch’s collaborators (including production designer Jack Fisk, one of Lynch’s longtime collaborators and a PAFA classmate), archival clips, and distinctly Lynchian soundscapes, Suaudeau guides the listener through Lynch’s relationship with the city.

    “We’re always interested in origins, especially among creative people,” said author and Hidden City cofounder Nathaniel Popkin, who serves as Song of Lynchadelphia’s supervising producer. “There is a darkness that is particularly important [in Philadelphia]. It was a place imagined to have brought light in the 18th century. And it got dark, real fast.”

    A historian interviewed in the series’ first episode cites deindustrialization, white flight, racism, rioting, and rising crime as sources of that creeping darkness.

    This curdling of the so-called American dream, so key to Lynch’s filmography, also defines Philadelphia in the period of the director’s artistic awakening. Popkin notes Lynch was living in Philly around the same time as Ira Einhorn, the rabble-rousing environmental activist who was arrested after his former girlfriend’s remains were found decomposing in a suitcase in his closet.

    In this Jan. 9, 2017, file photo, filmmaker David Lynch attends the “Twin Peaks” panel at the Showtime portion of the 2017 Winter Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

    Einhorn would claim he was set up by the CIA, because he knew too much about their top secret paranormal mind-control experiments, a defense that could be ripped from a Twin Peaks episode.

    This very “Philly” feeling of weirdness and unease, Suaudeau said, permeates Lynch’s work, well beyond the early shorts he made here.

    A character in Twin Peaks calling a cadaver a “smiling bag” dates back to a late-night tour a young Lynch took of a Philadelphia morgue. Visions of soot-covered buildings reveal themselves, decades later, in a particularly nightmarish encounter in Mulholland Drive. Laura Dern’s hard-drinking, no-nonsense character Dianne in The Return lives in Philly and, as Suaudeau puts it, “is the kind of person you would meet in a Philadelphia bar.”

    In Twin Peaks, Suaudeau believes that Lynch reveals the city as a kind of dreamscape. In the series and accompanying 1992 feature film, Lynch casts himself as a good-natured (and doornail-deaf) FBI director, operating out of the bureau’s Philadelphia offices.

    Julien Suaudeau (left) takes a selfie with Hidden City supervising producer Nathaniel Popkin at the David Lynch mural outside of Love City Brewing on Monday, December 15, 2025.

    “Philadelphia is the head space of the director,” Suaudeau said. “It’s the room to dream.”

    The idea of Philadelphia as a great American city, once shining like a beacon-on-the-hill, that had gone to seed by the time of Lynch’s arrival, is itself Lynchian, as a metropolis perched on the porous boundary between dream and nightmare.

    “He’s interested in crawling beneath the veneer, beneath the surface,” Suaudeau said. “It’s a mood, it’s an atmosphere, it’s an aura in his work.”

    “Song of Lynchadelphia” launched Jan. 15. “Dreams & Nightmares: A David Lynch Marathon,” an eight-hour Lynch marathon will take place in Phoenixville’s Colonial Theatre on Jan. 18, 11 a.m., thecolonialtheatre.com. A screening of “Eraserhead” followed by a talk-back with Julien Suaudeau is Feb. 21 at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr. brynmawrfilm.org

  • Phillies sign center fielder Francisco Renteria, a top international prospect, with a $4 million bonus

    Phillies sign center fielder Francisco Renteria, a top international prospect, with a $4 million bonus

    The international signing period opened Thursday, and the Phillies officially signed one of the top-ranked prospects in this year’s class.

    Venezuelan center fielder Francisco Renteria, ranked the No. 3 international prospect in 2026 by MLBPipeline, signed with the Phillies for a $4 million bonus, according to Baseball America.

    The 17-year-old Renteria’s biggest tool is his raw power, while he also has speed and athleticism. At 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, he has experience playing against older opponents in Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. Last month, he put on a show at a Venezuelan home run derby with 18 homers.

    Renteria’s bonus is the second-highest for an international prospect in the 2026 class. It is also the highest for a Phillies international amateur signing since 2015, when Dominican outfielder Jhailyn Ortiz signed for $4 million.

    Ortiz was ranked the Phillies’ No. 18 prospect in 2020, though he did not reach the majors. He ascended to triple A in 2023 but became a free agent after the season and has since played in independent leagues.

    Aroon Escobar is the highest-ranked international signee prospect in the Phillies system. The second baseman signed out of Venezuela in 2022 for $450,000 and is ranked the Phillies’ No. 5 prospect by MLBPipeline.

  • Winter is about to return in Philly. Will snow join the party?

    Winter is about to return in Philly. Will snow join the party?

    As it approaches halftime, the meteorological winter around here so far has been about as inconsistent as the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense, but it is about to get decidedly colder, if not snowier.

    Temperatures on Thursday are due to hover around freezing with a brisk westerly wind gusting up to 30 mph (sympathies to all bikers and runners and those who are navigating those Center City wind tunnels), and then drop into the 20s after sunset with windchills in the teens.

    Then, after a modest warmup Friday and Saturday, the forecast turns decidedly colder and potentially more intriguing, as computer models have been going back and forth on snow potential for the Philly region.

    Philly’s coldest stretch of the winter so far to begin Sunday

    Readings are expected to warm into the 40s on Saturday, but then drop off dramatically during the holiday weekend and may not reach freezing again until Thursday.

    They may not get out of the 20s on Tuesday — when wind chills could fall to 0 in Philly — and Wednesday, with overnight lows in the teens.

    This is called January.

    Will the cold lock in a snow cover?

    A few alarm bells went off Wednesday afternoon when the main U.S. computer model suggested potential major snowstorms along the coast all the way to the I-95 corridor on Sunday.

    However, other computer guidance wasn’t buying it, nor were forecasters. The computer food fight continued Thursday.

    The U.S. model, said Paul Pastelok, longtime seasonal forecast specialist with AccuWeather Inc., “goes wacky all the time.” Maybe not all the time, but a subsequent run of the European model kept the storm offshore.

    “We’re kind of in a waiting game,” said Pastelok.

    Opined the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly in its afternoon forecast discussion, the potential system has “high-end potential but also could end up being nothing.”

    In other words, situation normal.

    The winter so far in Philly and United States

    Oddly, the raw stats for the first half of the meteorological winter — that’s the Dec. 1-Feb. 28 period — are not too far from normal for snowfall and temperature.

    But that’s the result of quite a cold start to an eventful December, followed by a benign and uneventful January around here.

    December temperatures finished at 3.6 degrees below normal at Philadelphia International Airport. And in the first two weeks of 2026, they were 3.6 degrees above normal. Snowfall in December was about an inch above average, but with a paltry 0.3 inches so far this month, the 4.8 total is very close to where it should be.

    The early season coolness in Philly and much of the rest of the East was a surprise, said Owen Shieh, warning coordination meteorologist with NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md. The West, conversely, was quite warm.

    The contrasts were the result of “pattern persistence,” said Tony Fracasso, a weather center meteorologist.

    In the East, “This winter started quite strong,” he added, compared with recent winters. “It was not record cold,” but, “it sure felt cold for us.”

    What’s ahead the rest of the winter of 2025-26

    That likely will be the case early next week, and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has chances favoring below normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation in the Jan. 22-28 period.

    Pastelok said that upper-air patterns are aligning in such a way that favors importing cold air from northwestern Canada.

    The Climate Center’s Laura Ciasto said she does not see a major invasion of the polar vortex in the next few weeks. The vortex circles the Arctic, imprisoning the planet’s coldest air. But on occasion, the winds weaken, the freezer opens, and the contents spill southward.

    She said the vortex winds are slightly weaker than normal but are expected to strengthen.

    It is possible that lobes of the vortex may stretch on occasion, resulting in short-lived periods of cold in the Northeast, said Judah Cohen, research scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    A period to watch would be the first week in February, when a significant disruption of the vortex is possible, Pastelok said.

    A sudden stratospheric warming in the high atmosphere in the Arctic, which can lead to cold outbreaks in the contiguous United States “is not out of the question” late in the winter, Ciasto said.

    Philadelphia’s peak snow season typically occurs in late January through mid-February.

    Of the 10 biggest snowfalls in the city’s history, only three have occurred before Jan 22.

  • Philly is Unrivaled women’s basketball doubleheader at Xfinity Mobile Arena is sold out

    Philly is Unrivaled women’s basketball doubleheader at Xfinity Mobile Arena is sold out

    Unrivaled has sold out its upcoming Philly takeover event at Xfinity Mobile Arena, a Comcast Spectacor official confirmed to The Inquirer on Thursday.

    The 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, which launched last year in Miami, is taking its season on the road in Year 2. The first Unrivaled event outside suburban Miami will be Jan. 30 in Philadelphia.

    Xfinity Mobile Arena, which has a capacity of 21,000 and is owned by Comcast Spectacor, will be by far the biggest venue Unrivaled has played in. The league’s usual venue in Medley, Fla., Sephora Arena, was built just for Unrivaled and holds just 1,000 seats.

    The event, which features a doubleheader between four of Unrivaled’s eight teams, Breeze vs. Phantom and Rose vs. Lunar Owls, is set to bring young stars like Paige Bueckers (Breeze) and Cameron Brink (Breeze), along with Philly natives Natasha Cloud (Phantom) and Kahleah Copper (Rose), to South Philly.

    The doubleheader comes on the heels of the WNBA’s announcement in June 2025 that Philadelphia will be home to an expansion franchise, with play set to begin in 2030.

    If you missed out on purchasing, tickets are available for resale on platforms like StubHub and Ticketmaster, starting at $111.15 for the upper deck as of Thursday afternoon.

  • Philly’s small businesses can get free tax prep services through a new program by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration

    Philly’s small businesses can get free tax prep services through a new program by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration

    Philadelphia small businesses making less than $250,000 can access free tax preparation services through a new city program.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Thursday announced the launch of the Philadelphia Free Business Tax Preparation program, which will cost the city $7.5 million per year and is expected to last at least five years.

    Business owners can learn more at phila.gov/businesstaxprep/.

    The new service is aimed at helping the estimated 50,000 firms this year that will need to start paying Philadelphia’s business income and receipts tax, or BIRT, following the elimination of a popular exemption that primarily benefited small companies.

    Why a popular tax break that helped Philadelphia’s small businesses may be going away

    BIRT returns are due April 15.

    How does the Philadelphia Free Business Tax Preparation program work?

    Under the new program, the city will connect eligible business owners with private tax professionals who will be reimbursed by the city for each client they assist.

    There will be no cost to the businesses. Only firms based in Philadelphia that made less than $250,000 in 2024 are eligible.

    The tax professionals will help firms file city, state, and federal tax returns — not just BIRT.

    “We want you to be ready,” acting Commerce Director Karen Fegley said Thursday. “Let’s be ready for growth.”

    The city so far has contracted with 19 tax preparation companies to participate in the program, and more may join, Fegley said. Together, they offer services in 13 languages, including English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and French.

    Why did the BIRT exemption end?

    For about a decade, firms with less than $100,000 in revenue from transactions in Philadelphia were exempt from paying the BIRT.

    That policy, championed by former City Councilmembers Maria Quiñones Sánchez and William J. Green IV, effectively allowed the tens of thousands of companies making less than that amount to forgo paying the tax at all. During the COVID-19 pandemic, former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration waived the requirement for those firms to file local business tax returns, providing administrative relief for business owners.

    But Parker last year convinced Council to eliminate the tax break after a Massachusetts-based medical device manufacturer that does business in Philly sued the city, saying the policy violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s uniformity clause.

    https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/business-income-receipts-tax-birt-parker-administration-20250424.html

    The policy change will place a significant burden on Philadelphia’s smallest businesses, both financially and administratively, given the complexity of BIRT. The tax includes two levies: Firms must pay 5.71% of their net income, or profits, made in Philadelphia, as well as 0.141% of their gross receipts, or total income, in the city.

    Council last year approved a Parker plan to gradually lower the tax rates over 13 years and eventually eliminate the gross receipts levy, but the most significant cuts are years away.

    Why Mayor Cherelle Parker is asking Council to approve a tax cut that will take effect in 2038

    Parker reiterated Thursday that she supported the $100,000 exemption. But she said her administration settled the lawsuit after determining the city would likely lose in court, potentially risking a ruling that City Solicitor Renee Garcia has said could require the city to repay past tax revenue.

    Critics of the mayor’s decision to settle the case last year questioned why she didn’t fight harder to preserve the tax break. Parker said Thursday that would have been irresponsible.

    “I said, ‘That’s why I’m the mayor and you’re not,’ because we can’t just do that and put the fiscal stability of the city at risk,” Parker said Thursday at a City Hall news conference.

    To help ease the transition, Parker last year proposed using the money the city expected to gain as a result of more firms paying the BIRT — about $30 million — to fund business assistance programs. Council increased that total to about $47 million before approving the city budget in June.

    Most of the money will go to existing programs that provide direct grants for businesses, such as the Philadelphia Catalyst Fund, Fegley said. But Parker is also using the funds to launch the tax preparation service.

    “Small businesses are the backbone of Philadelphia, I don’t care what neighborhood you live in,” Parker said.

    What else is being done to help small businesses?

    In response to the elimination of the $100,000 BIRT exemption, Councilmember Mike Driscoll last year introduced a bill to exclude certain types of businesses — entrepreneurs, sole proprietorships, and businesses with one employee — from the tax.

    Many of Philadelphia’s smallest companies are one-person operations, and Driscoll said he aimed to relieve them of the cost and burden of filing a BIRT return.

    Parker on Thursday said her administration is still evaluating the proposal, noting that it would cost the city revenue and could potentially run up against the same legal hurdle as the $100,000 BIRT exemption: the uniformity clause, which requires Pennsylvania businesses, property owners, and individuals of the same “class” to be taxed at the same rate.

    “We will work through that with his team, and do the cost analysis,” Parker said, adding that, “more importantly,” the city’s law department will work “to make sure we are not in violation of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s uniformity clause.”

    Council is expected to consider the measure in a committee hearing in the first half of the year.

  • Is ICE still in Philly? As Bucks ends its alliance, here’s how local officials are (or aren’t) working with federal agents.

    Is ICE still in Philly? As Bucks ends its alliance, here’s how local officials are (or aren’t) working with federal agents.

    Top officials across the Philadelphia region are taking a stand against partnerships with ICE.

    On Wednesday, newly inaugurated Bucks County Sheriff Danny Ceisler terminated a 287(g) agreement with ICE initiated by his Republican predecessor that enabled deputies to act as immigration enforcement officers. Haverford Township also passed a resolution barring participation in a 287(g) agreement.

    And in Philadelphia, elected officials in the so-called sanctuary city have been continuously pushing back against ICE’s presence, with some on Wednesday calling for federal immigration agents to get out of the city.

    These developments come as protests escalate against President Donald Trump’s deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to U.S. cities, after an agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week. Good, a poet and mother of three, was in her SUV when the agent fired into the vehicle.

    Also on Wednesday, Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social, that federal funding would be cut from any states that have sanctuary cities. These jurisdictions, which limit local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, have been increasingly targeted by the president’s administration.

    As local leaders continue to grapple with the ever-changing and escalating Trump immigration policy, here’s what to know about how local governments are interacting with federal immigration authorities:

    Philadelphia

    Is ICE still in Philadelphia?

    Yes, ICE is still active in Philadelphia, but Trump has not sent troops or a large swaths of federal immigration agents as he has to other major, Democratic-led cities across the U.S.

    Everyone has a theory as to why that might be: Could Trump be avoiding the largest city in the most important swing state? Has Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s decision to refrain from publicly criticizing Trump played a role?

    Is Philadelphia still a sanctuary city?

    Yes, but city officials have formally started calling Philadelphia a “welcoming city,” as sanctuary has become an increasingly toxic word because of Trump’s intention to target cities with that label.

    But regardless of the name, a 2016 executive order signed by former Mayor Jim Kenney on ICE cooperation remains in place under Parker’s administration. The directive orders city authorities to not comply with ICE-issued detainer requests to hold people in custody unless there is a judicial warrant.

    Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner speaks at a news conference outside the Philadelphia Field Office for Immigration Customs Enforcement in Center City in August.

    What are local leaders saying about ICE?

    District Attorney Larry Krasner, a progressive in his third term, and members of Philadelphia City Council have been among the most routinely outspoken opponents of ICE deployments. But comments by Sheriff Rochelle Bilal went viral last week when she called ICE “fake, wannabe law enforcement.”

    Bucks County

    The sheriff terminated a 287(g) agreement with ICE — what does that mean?

    Essentially, it means that sheriff deputies are no longer allowed to act as immigration authorities.

    Last April, Ceisler’s predecessor, Fred Harran, a Trump-aligned Republican, signed on to the partnership with ICE, stirring up controversy in the swing county. Ceisler, a Democrat who defeated Harran in November, made terminating the agreement a focal point of his campaign.

    No one in Bucks had been detained under the 287(g) agreement, Ceisler said.

    On Wednesday, Ceisler signed another order that prohibits deputies from asking crime victims, witnesses, and court observers their immigration status.

    Does Bucks County still work with ICE?

    Yes. Bucks County is not a sanctuary county and, in the words of Ceisler, “will never be.”

    The Bucks County Department of Corrections will continue to share information with law enforcement agencies, including ICE. The federal agency will also continue to have access to county jails and Bucks will honor judicial warrants from immigration enforcement.

    Bucks County Sheriff Danny Ceisler announces the termination of the county’s partnership with ICE, an agreement formally known as 287(g), during a press conference at the Bucks County Justice Center in Doylestown, Pa., on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026.

    “It’s sporadic, it’s reports,” Ceisler said of ICE’s presence in Bucks.

    “I can’t get ICE out of Bucks County,” he added. “I have no authority over them. All I can do is prevent 16 deputies from participating in a program that enables them to perform immigrant enforcement in the community.”

    Bucks County was the only county in the Philadelphia region that did not appear on an initial list published by the Trump administration of sanctuary jurisdictions that could have federal funding at risk. That list was later deleted. The most recent list, published by the administration in August, also does not feature Bucks.

    Haverford Township

    Will Haverford Township participate in a 287(g) agreement?

    On Monday evening, township commissioners in the Delaware County suburb approved a resolution that said Haverford police officers and resources would not be used to give local law enforcement immigration authority. Other municipalities in the county, like Radnor, have also passed resolutions limiting cooperation with ICE.

    While the police department has not requested to enter an alliance with ICE, township commissioners passed the resolution as a preventive measure.

    Montgomery County

    What is Montgomery County’s policy on immigration?

    Montgomery County’s Democratic commissioners have not passed a formal ordinance or a resolution labeling Montco a sanctuary or welcoming county, citing limits to their power, concerns about creating a false sense of security, and a preference for internal policy changes.

    In early 2025, county officials approved a policy that limits communication between county employees and ICE officials and said they would not answer prison detainer requests without warrants.

    Montgomery County activists hold a news conference about ICE incidents in the county last month.

    What do Montco residents think about it?

    County residents have urged individual municipalities within the county to limit collaboration with ICE, especially as the county has become a hot spot for immigration enforcement. Norristown, a heavily Latino community, has specifically become a target for ICE.

    “ICE has created a crisis in our neighborhoods, and we cannot afford silence, mixed signals, or leadership that only reacts once harm has already happened,” Stephanie Vincent, a resident and leader of Montco Community Watch, said last month during a news conference at a West Norriton church.

    As of early December, local organizers estimated that only six out of 62 municipalities had enacted policies, though they consider some to be lackluster.

    Staff writer Katie Bernard contributed to this article.

  • From Spotify to Avelo, economic pressure is melting ICE — but we can do more

    From Spotify to Avelo, economic pressure is melting ICE — but we can do more

    When the Rev. Jack Perkins Davidson and other parishioners in his socially active Spring Glen Church in Connecticut learned last year that budget carrier Avelo Airlines — with a major hub at nearby Tweed New Haven Airport — was also operating U.S. government deportation flights, the pastor kept thinking about one thing.

    What would the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. do?

    Davidson said King’s 1955 Montgomery bus boycott against segregation — the iconic protest that launched the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century — was an inspiration as he and a coalition of activists pressured Avelo to stop aiding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its mass deportation campaign.

    “I often think about how the Montgomery bus boycott was a very local action, but it became national news,“ Davidson told me by phone recently. ”Sometimes when I feel so overwhelmed by the state of the world, I take hope in that example — that acting in the local level is a way to create national impact.”

    Davidson and his congregation’s allies, like Connecticut Students for a Dream and the New Haven Immigrant Coalition, spent nine months pressuring Avelo to drop ICE — staging noisy protests, but also doing what the minister called “the unglamorous work” of gathering petition signatures and attending airport board meetings. Last summer, New Haven’s mayor signed their petition as the city banned official travel on Avelo.

    The Connecticut crusaders were joined by activists at other Avelo hubs, including Wilmington. It’s impossible to know exactly how much boycotting air travelers hurts the bottom line of the private, Texas-based corporation, but earlier this month, Avelo made a U-turn. A spokesperson said the airline would halt working with ICE, which “ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”

    Avelo’s exit from the ugly business of flying often handcuffed and shackled migrants out of the United States was a huge win for the growing movement against the Trump regime’s mass deportation raids — but it was not an isolated incident.

    In recent days, the leading music streamer Spotify announced it was no longer running recruitment ads for new ICE agents. The spots urged would-be applicants to “fulfill your mission to protect America,” but sparked outrage among listeners opposed to the agency’s masked goons and its violent raids that have roiled cities from New Orleans to Minneapolis.

    As with Avelo, Spotify’s ties to ICE — the U.S. Department of Homeland Security paid the Swedish-based streamer $74,000, according to Rolling Stone — sparked a nationwide campaign for a boycott that was led by Indivisible, a leading organizer of the massive “No Kings” protests.

    Thousands canceled their paid subscriptions, and some artists pulled their music from Spotify to protest both the ICE ads and the company’s ties to a defense contractor.

    These economic wins come amid a deadly and chaotic start to 2026 that has battered America’s already damaged national psyche. The stunning Jan. 7 Minneapolis murder of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three, by an ICE agent has only upped the anxiety and the stakes.

    Tuesday night, the shooting of a Venezuelan refugee by federal agents in north Minneapolis triggered a chaotic night of protest that has Donald Trump now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in troops, escalating a constitutional crisis.

    Although the immigration raids are exactly what Trump promised the nation before his narrow 2024 election victory, Good’s murder and daily viral videos of federal agents smashing windows or flash-banging peaceful citizens have turned a majority of Americans against ICE and everything it stands for.

    A new Quinnipiac Poll released this week showed that 57% of Americans now disapprove of the way ICE and other federal agencies are enforcing immigration laws, with 53% saying Good’s killing was not justified. A separate Economist/YouGov survey found respondents favoring the abolition of ICE by a 46%-43% majority — a first for that political hot-button question.

    Minneapolis ICE murder is Trump’s Waterloo in America’s war for the truth | Will Bunch

    So, as you can imagine, in a healthy functioning democracy like the United States, the opposition party Democrats are forming a united front in working to abolish ICE, including the withholding of money in the latest budget battle on Capitol Hill, right?

    Right?

    Um, not exactly. To be sure, Good’s murder and the appalling scenes in Minnesota have triggered a more radical response from some Democrats, including more than 50 members, so far, who’ve signed on for the impeachment of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. But many in Congress are insisting ICE can somehow be reformed — including an utterly bizarre proposal to put scannable QR codes on immigration agents so the public can identify them. It’s an echo of the tepid reform ideas that failed to stop police brutality after George Floyd’s 2020 murder.

    “Clearly, significant reform needs to take place as it relates to the manner in which ICE is conducting itself,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told MS Now on Tuesday night — minutes before agents in Minneapolis reportedly shot a flash-bang grenade into a moving car and injured six children, including a baby.

    You don’t significantly reform the brand of fascism that we can all see on the icy streets of the Twin Cities. You fight it like the existential crisis for American democracy that it is. Millions of everyday Americans are both feeling that urgency and dismayed that the institutions they thought would oppose autocracy — Congress, the media, the U.S. Supreme Court — aren’t standing with them.

    No wonder people are fighting with the only real ammunition they have under late-stage capitalism: their dollars.

    Nearly one year into the second coming of Trump, many of the major victories by citizens resisting his regime have come through the fingertips of everyday folks clicking on a “cancel” button.

    The best-known example came last summer when Disney-owned ABC briefly suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in a flap over some (fairly tame) comments he made after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The network raced to put Kimmel back on the air after the cancellation rates for two lucrative Disney-owned streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu, doubled. And Disney recently extended the contract of Trump’s least-favorite comic by another year.

    Other economic pressure campaigns have badly damaged U.S. brands without getting results … yet. The best example is the giant retailer Target, whose decision to end its diversity initiatives after Trump’s inauguration sparked calls for a boycott by prominent Black activists and some labor unions. Since then, foot traffic at Target stores has dropped (while increasing at more “woke” rival Costco), and the stock price of the Minnesota-based company has plunged by 33%.

    This hasn’t yet inspired Target’s management to fully restore its diversity initiatives, and it more recently has angered some activists by insisting it has no power to stop ICE agents from using its parking lots and even entering its stores to make arrests. None of this should deter the public from keeping the pressure on Target.

    Allison Folmar of West Bloomfield joined the protesters who advocated for a boycott against Target in April.

    The weeks of Minnesota mayhem have focused attention on a new corporate bête noire: Hilton Worldwide Holdings. Two of the hotel chain’s properties in Greater Minneapolis have been the scene of noisy, all-night protests after reports that out-of-town ICE agents are staying there. And Hilton further infuriated activists and sparked calls for a boycott by delisting a third Minneapolis hotel after an employee said ICE was not welcome.

    I will not stay at any Hilton hotel as long as the company thinks it’s OK to host masked thugs who are snatching laborers off the street and shooting or tear-gassing anyone who objects to that, and I hope you would consider doing the same.

    As New Haven’s Davidson rightly said, using economic pressure to end injustice takes time and hard work that isn’t always glamorous or made for the cable-TV cameras. Some 71 years ago in Montgomery, Ala., the King-led bus boycott took 381 days and a lot of sacrifice from unsung heroes like Claudette Colvin, who died this week at age 86, and working-class Black people who walked or carpooled to their jobs until claiming victory.

    The bottom line has not changed since MLK’s time. The color that matters most to corporate America is the color of money. The pursuit of profit is why cowardly law firms or TV networks like CBS are aiding American dictatorship instead of fighting it. But it’s also what makes them reverse course when they realize that hate is actually bad for business in a consumer society.

    Boycotts aren’t the only solution, but in a world where feckless institutions have given up, they have become an essential tool. Spend your dollars with any company that still believes in a decent, diverse America, and put the collaborators out of business. Consider it an early birthday present for Dr. King.

  • Suburban Square now has apartments

    Suburban Square now has apartments

    Apartments have come to Suburban Square.

    This week, owner Kimco Realty and developer Bozzuto Development announced the opening of Coulter Place, the first apartment community in the Ardmore shopping destination.

    The five-story, mixed-use development includes 131 apartments with one to three bedrooms and about 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. Amenities for residents include a fitness center, clubroom, game room, pool, coworking spaces, and pet-care spaces. It has two courtyards and garage parking with electric-vehicle charging stations.

    The promise of apartment residents helped attract new retailers to Suburban Square, including New Balance, Sugared + Bronzed, and the apparel brand Rhone on the ground floor of the apartment building.

    The complex is one of a few projects planned in recent years that have added or will add hundreds of apartments near Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore. One Ardmore, a 110-unit apartment complex, opened in 2019 after a yearslong campaign by residents to stop it. The long-awaited Piazza development is expected to add 270 apartments and almost 30,000 square feet of retail space when it opens in a couple of years.

    This rendering shows the outdoor pool at Coulter Place.

    Conor Flynn, CEO of Kimco Realty, said in a statement that Suburban Square is an “iconic, walkable destination” and that the addition of apartments creates “a more vibrant, connected experience for residents, retailers, and visitors alike.”

    “Coulter Place represents the next chapter in Suburban Square’s evolution and a clear example of how we’re unlocking long-term value through thoughtful mixed-use development,” Flynn said.

    The apartments are across from Trader Joe’s and the Ardmore Farmers Market and within walking distance to the Ardmore station for SEPTA and Amtrak trains.

    Apartments available for lease at Coulter Place range from one-bedroom, one-bathroom units for about $3,030 per month to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom unit for $7,035 per month.

    Philadelphia-based JKRP Architects designed the apartment building.

    Suburban Square was developed in 1928 and now has about 80 shops, restaurants, fitness spaces, and more. Businesses include Apple, SoulCycle, Warby Parker, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, CAVA, and Di Bruno Bros.

    This rendering shows one of the courtyards for residents of Coulter Place.
  • Flyers recall goalie Aleksei Kolosov from Lehigh Valley and move Bobby Brink to injured reserve

    Flyers recall goalie Aleksei Kolosov from Lehigh Valley and move Bobby Brink to injured reserve

    BUFFALO — What a difference 24 hours make.

    At morning skate on Wednesday at KeyBank Center, things were looking up as defenseman Jamie Drysdale was set to make his return to the lineup.

    But just a few short hours later, the injury bug resupplied its stinger and stung several times.

    Defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, who was a full participant at morning skate and took power-play reps with the top unit, is now listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. He did not dress for warmups.

    Dan Vladař injured, Flyers’ skid reaches four after 5-2 loss to Sabres

    Then, goalie Dan Vladař suffered what looked to be a lower-body injury in the first period of the Flyers’ 5-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres before allowing two goals on five shots. Coach Rick Tocchet did not have an update when he spoke postgame, and according to a team source on Thursday, the team is still awaiting test results to determine the extent of the injury.

    On the first Sabres goal, it appeared that Vladař moved awkwardly when he wasn’t sure where a missed shot by Josh Doan went. He was slow to get up and was able to reset, but Rasmus Dahlin beat him from the point with Jason Zucker setting a screen on a power play.

    Losing Vladař for any amount of time would be a significant blow, especially as the Flyers jockey for playoff position in a tightly-contested Eastern Conference. The Czech goaltender has arguably been the team’s most valuable player this season, posting a 16-7-4 record and a .905 save percentage in 28 starts. Vladař is also set to play at the Olympics for his country after being named to the Czech Republic’s team last week.

    According to a team source on Thursday afternoon, the Flyers may have avoided the worst-case scenario on Ristolainen and Vladař’s injuries. While the early findings are positive, they won’t know more for a few days.

    So, with the Flyers needing a roster spot for a goalie replacement, on Thursday morning, forward Bobby Brink was placed on injured reserve. It is retroactive to Jan. 6, when Brink was injured on a blindsided hit by Anaheim Ducks forward Jansen Harkins just 2 minutes, 38 seconds into the first period.

    Brink has practiced in Philly but was not spotted on the trip to Western New York. He can come off injured reserve at any time, as it is retroactive and has been a minimum of seven days since his injury and time missed.

    The Flyers recalled goaltender Aleksei Kolosov from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League on Thursday.

    Aleksei Kolosov was recalled from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League to complete the Flyers’ goalie tandem with Sam Ersson in the interim. In 19 games with the Phantoms, Kolosov is 9-9-1 with a 2.54 goals-against average, .908 save percentage, and two shutouts.

    On Dec. 31, he had a 31-save shutout against rival Hershey, and he has won three of his past four starts. The shutout came during a two-game stretch in which he went 2-0-0 with a 0.50 GAA and a .984 save percentage, and was named the AHL’s Player of the Week.

    Flyers goalie prospect Aleksei Kolosov named AHL Player of the Week

    It’s a marked improvement from last season with the Phantoms, when Kolosov had an .884 save percentage in 12 games, and from his first experience in North America, when he posted .885 across two games in 2023-24. Kolosov also struggled mightily at the NHL level last season after making his NHL debut Oct. 27, 2024. His .867 save percentage across 17 games and 13 starts last year ranked dead last among the 71 goalies to make at least 10 starts.

    “He is a different player, different personality,” assistant general manager Brent Flahr told The Inquirer in December. “He’s really trying to fit in. He’s very athletic, very competitive, and he’s giving our team a chance to win down there almost every night. He’s a talented kid, so he’s got a chance to be an NHL goalie now. He just skipped a step last year. Now he’s building it back up again here, and we’ll see where it goes.”

    The Belarusian has also appeared in two games for the Flyers this season, when Ersson was placed on injured reserve in late October. On Nov. 1, he stopped all seven shots he faced against the Toronto Maple Leafs in relief of Vladař, before stopping 19 of 21 the next night in a 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames.

    The Flyers play at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night (7 p.m., ESPN), and Ersson will start. He played the final two periods on Wednesday, allowing two goals on eight shots. The Swede, who is sporting a disappointing .855 save percentage on the season, has allowed at least four goals in four of his last five starts, including seven on Saturday against Tampa Bay.

    Breakaways

    On the same day that Denver Barkey was named the Phantoms’ representative to the 2026 AHL All-Star Classic, the forward will return to the Flyers lineup. Barkey, who was a healthy scratch for the first time in his career on Wednesday, has one goal and three points across 11 games since being called up. He struggled in his last two games, both against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and had the puck stolen by Brayden Point ahead of Nikita Kucherov’s first goal on Saturday and Nick Paul’s goal later in the game. Nic Deslauriers will draw out of the lineup.