By MARYCLAIRE DALE

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal judge warned Justice Department lawyers on Friday that they were making “dangerous” and “horrifying” statements when they said the Trump Administration can decide what part of American history to display at National Park Service sites.

The sharp exchange erupted during a hearing in Philadelphia over the abrupt removal of an exhibit on the history of slavery at the site of the former President’s House on Independence Mall.

The city, which worked in tandem with the park service on the exhibit two decades ago, was stunned to find workers this month using crowbars to remove outdoor plaques, panels and other materials that told the stories of the nine people who had been enslaved there. Some of the history had only been unearthed in the past quarter-century.

“You can’t erase history once you’ve learned it. It doesn’t work that way,” said Senior U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

The removal followed President Donald Trump’s executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. In Philadelphia, the materials were put in a pickup truck and then into storage, leading Rufe to voice concerns about whether they were damaged.

“Although many people feel strongly about this (exhibit) one way, other people may disagree or feel strongly another way,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory in den Berken.

“Ultimately,” he said, “the government gets to choose the message it wants to convey.”

Rufe swiftly cut him off.

“That is a dangerous statement you are making. It is horrifying to listen to,” she said. “It changes on the whims of someone in charge? I’m sorry, that is not what we elected anybody for.”

Rufe heard hours of testimony Friday from former city officials who had helped plan the exhibit, and said the city had kicked in $1.5 million toward the project. She plans to visit both the storage area and the site before ruling on the city’s request to have the exhibit restored. But she asked the Justice Department lawyers to ensure that nothing else is disturbed.

In den Berken said the Park Service routinely changes its exhibits and tours, and argued that the government cannot be forced to tell a certain story. But lawyers for the city and other advocates said the park service does not have “carte blanche” to interpret the nation’s history as it sees fit.

Related Articles

Freezing reptile dubbed ‘Lizard in a blizzard’ is rescued after being buried in Rhode Island snow

It’s freezing cold and you’ve lost power. Here’s what emergency doctors want you to do

Expanded work requirements for the biggest US food aid program are kicking in for more states

‘Dances With Wolves’ actor Nathan Chasing Horse convicted on sexual assault charges

NASA delays the first Artemis moonshot with astronauts because of extreme cold at the launch site

The exhibit includes biographical details about the nine people enslaved by George and Martha Washington at the presidential mansion. Now, only their names — Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll and Joe — remain engraved into a cement wall.

Michael Coard, an attorney representing one of the advocacy groups supporting the exhibit, said the president was ignoring the power held by Congress, the judiciary and the American people.

“It’s one thing to whisper that type of dictatorial power. But to send lawyers into a public courtroom to make that argument is absolutely frightening,” he said. “I’m really worried about the state of America.”

Rufe said she planned to rule quickly, noting the surge of visitors expected to visit the nation’s birthplace this year to mark its 250th anniversary of being founded.

Residents who have visited the site have shed tears, left flowers and left a handmade sign that said “Slavery was real.”

Less than an hour after the “tools down” call ended the two-and-a-half day Minnesota State Snow Sculpting Competition at the Vulcan Snow Park at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds last Sunday, Jan. 25, sculptor Logan Thomas looked over at his team’s creation and was surprised by what he saw.

A snow sculpture is shown at the Vulcan Snow Park at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds on Jan. 28, 2026, without the “ICE OUT MN” inscription and whistle sculpture that had originally accompanied it. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)

An inscription reading “ICE OUT MN” near the top of the sculpture, which resembles the bottom half of a face ascending into a tornado-like swirl, had been haphazardly and hastily gouged away, and a small whistle sculpture near the base was smashed.

None of the team’s three sculptors saw who had altered their work, and they still do not know for certain, though based on comments from several bystanders who did witness it, the team believes the inscription was removed by Snow Park officials, Thomas and teammate Siera Himmerich both said. The team’s third member is friend Nick Langer.

Attempts to contact Vulcan Snow Park organizers directly were unsuccessful. In response to several specific questions about the circumstances surrounding the sculpture’s alteration, the Pioneer Press received the following statement from the Winter Carnival’s spokesperson:

“The Minnesota State Snow Sculpting Competition has been hosted by the Saint Paul Vulcans since 1985 to promote outdoor winter fun. This state sculpting competition, as with most sculpting competitions, has strict rules, regulations and guidelines shared in advance and reiterated onsite prior to the start. One of those rules requires sculptures to be family-friendly and non-political.”

The situation mirrors another incident this month at the World Snow Sculpting Championship in Stillwater, where organizers unilaterally deconstructed Team USA’s sculpture, which depicted peace signs and hand gestures in American Sign Language, including words for “love,” “unity” and “ICE out.”

At the Vulcan Snow Park, the core of Thomas’s team’s sculpture was reprised from sketches the trio had made for the 2025 competition, which they were unable to participate in due to illness. Their inspiration last year was the question, “What’s on your mind?”

In planning for this year’s sculpture, the team realized that their overwhelming answer — all that was swirling around their heads — was federal immigration agents’ conduct in the Twin Cities. So their updated design plans included a whistle, a tear gas canister, the hat a five-year-old Minnesota boy was wearing when he was detained by ICE on his way home from preschool and other subtle nods to resistance movements.

The decision to add the inscription “ICE OUT MN” was made on-the-spot Sunday morning, in the final hours of the competition, after the trio watched the shooting of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti and the resulting protests unfold the day before. The sculptors knew they were taking a risk and had accepted that their decision would likely hurt their sculpture’s competitive chances, Thomas said.

“It was almost hard not to do something; it was so upsetting,” Thomas said. “We knew it might get disqualified. We definitely didn’t know it was going to get defaced.”

Thomas said judges were walking around the Snow Park while sculptors were working and representatives from the Vulcans did not express specific concerns about the team’s piece during the two-and-a-half-day work period. On the contrary, he said, one judge thanked the team for speaking out, as did several community members watching the sculptors work.

Snow Park officials also did not at any point communicate with the sculptors about their ostensible plans to alter the sculpture, nor did they offer for the sculptors to modify the work themselves, Thomas and Himmerich both said. As of Thursday evening, the sculptors had not been contacted directly by Snow Park officials to explain the situation.

This, to Himmerich, is the most disappointing part of the whole situation.

“I thought that they would be more collaborative and talk to us about it,” Himmerich said. “We knew that maybe they wouldn’t like it, but we took a chance and expected a conversation — not that they would go break stuff.”

This year is Thomas’s ninth competing in the state snow sculpture competition and Himmerich’s eighth. The team got its start in snow sculpting through the Vulcan Snow Park and hopes to be allowed to compete again next year, but Thomas and Himmerich both said they do not regret speaking out rather than staying silent to fit the competition’s rules.

“We do art that speaks to us,” Himmerich said. “I do want to say I think it’s interesting that it was perceived as so controversial. We’re putting on that sculpture what we see every day. I feel like ‘neutral’ isn’t really possible right now. Saying nothing doesn’t necessarily mean neutral. Saying nothing is supporting, and saying something is anti.”

Related Articles

Crowds gather in downtown Minneapolis for First Ave concert, anti-ICE rally

The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights probe into the killing of Alex Pretti

Journalist Don Lemon is charged with federal civil rights crimes in anti-ICE church protest

Pothole season in full effect — and so is St. Paul’s new asphalt recycler

Bells will ring in unity across the Twin Cities on Saturday

By KAITLYN HUAMANI

Roblox, the online gaming platform wildly popular with children and teenagers, is the “ultimate virtual universe” where users can “be anything you can imagine,” according to the platform’s website. Recently, some young users have been imagining themselves as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Related Articles

Judge calls Justice Department’s statements on slavery exhibit display ‘dangerous’ and ‘horrifying’

Former ICE spokesman: Agency encouraged Trump propaganda more than facts

Fearing ICE, Native Americans rush to prove their right to belong in the US

Justice Department releases massive trove from its Jeffrey Epstein files

New US sanctions against Iran target interior minister over crackdown on protesters

Some users have donned ICE gear and carried out “raids” on a popular roleplaying game within Roblox. Other young people on the platform have taken to the virtual streets with signs in their avatar’s hands in protest, expressing sentiments like “We hate ICE” (all signs are free of expletives, of course, which are banned on Roblox).

A TikTok account sharing videos of such raid reenactments and protests has racked up millions of views in recent weeks. Much of the gameplay involving raids appears to be taking place on a private server within the Brookhaven roleplaying game, which is one of Roblox’s most popular and widely played games.

Protests against ICE and immigration raid reenactments within the vast world of Roblox are not new. Video clips of such behavior on the gaming platform cropped up on social media last summer when “No Kings” protests were being held across the country, largely in response to increased immigration enforcement. But the resurgence of such content on social media and within the game suggests young people are responding to the government’s immigration operation in Minnesota and the strong resistance they’ve been met with by protesters.

This behavior, particularly the digital protests, could be a healthy way for children and teens to cope with news they’re seeing about immigration enforcement, according to Giovanni Ramos, an assistant professor of clinical science at the University of California, Berkeley. But roleplaying the raids could be more worrisome — and they go against Roblox’s own rules.

A Roblox spokesperson said Friday that the reenactments of immigration raids are in violation of the platform’s community standards and said the company takes “swift action against users found to be violating” those policies. The user guidelines state that Roblox prohibits content that “recreates specific real-world sensitive events, mocks the victims of such events, supports, glorifies, or promotes the perpetrators or outcome of such events or capitalizes on these events for commercial purposes.”

Roblox uses a multi-layered approach in enforcing community standards, with a combination of human moderators, user reports and advanced AI models. The company encouraged users in its statement to report any behavior or content that goes against our community standards so it can “investigate and take immediate action.”

“No system is perfect, but we work to strengthen our user protections every day,” the spokesperson said.

Ramos said these virtual raid reenactments could “minimize the emotional impact that immigrant youth are experiencing by being exposed to this chronic stressor,” and they may be invalidating the emotions of kids who are especially impacted if the raids are seen as fodder for jokes.

Still, he thinks in many cases, those taking on the role of immigration officers on the platform and carrying out raids could just be doing so out of curiosity. “It could be youth exploring what they’re seeing in the news or what they hear adults talking about at home and trying to make sense of those experiences,” Ramos said.

The protests and demonstrations on Roblox could also be a way children are seeking out social support, Ramos added. They are “creating community and connecting with people who actually are going through similar things, who might understand their emotional experiences,” he said.

That kind of connection is valuable and shouldn’t be dismissed, Ramos said. “That can really be a lifeline.”

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Wildlife officials say a “lizard in a blizzard” has been rescued after a man discovered the large cold-blooded reptile buried in snow in Rhode Island, somehow surviving the frigid temperatures.

Related Articles

It’s freezing cold and you’ve lost power. Here’s what emergency doctors want you to do

Expanded work requirements for the biggest US food aid program are kicking in for more states

‘Dances With Wolves’ actor Nathan Chasing Horse convicted on sexual assault charges

NASA delays the first Artemis moonshot with astronauts because of extreme cold at the launch site

NASCAR’s Greg Biffle wasn’t flying his plane before crash that killed him and 6 others

According to the New England Wildlife Center, the Providence man spotted the tegu lizard from his driveway on Tuesday. The reptile was quickly brought it indoors and wrapped in a T-shirt to help conserve heat.

ET Reptiles, a reptile store based in Rhode Island, agreed to pick up the tegu and take it to an animal hospital. There, veterinarians found the tegu to be “extremely weak, underweight, and not moving well.” The tegu’s tongue had also suffered frostbite and muscle weakness due to prolonged exposure to the cold — a circumstance that leads to cell failure in cold-blooded animals in low temperatures.

A small portion of the tegu’s tongue was amputated to help with its recovery.

“He is now resting comfortably and finally warm, which makes all the difference!” the wildlife center said in a social media post. “We will be rooting for a good outcome and will share updates as we have them.”

The center says it’s unknown if the lizard escaped on its own from wherever it was being kept or was abandoned.

The black and white lizards are native to South America and have become popular in the pet trade. They have become known as an invasive species in certain states, like Florida, as more owners who had intended to keep them as pets abandon them into the wild. They can grow to 4 feet long.