The government shutdown headed into its third day after frantic efforts Sunday by a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise on immigration and spending.

“We have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward that would be acceptable for both sides,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday, adding that talks would continue ahead of a procedural vote scheduled for noon Monday.

The effects of the shutdown over the weekend were relatively limited — halting trash pickup on National Park Service property, canceling military reservists’ drill plans, and switching off some government employees’ cellphones.

But the shutdown continuing into Monday, the start of the workweek, means that hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. Passport and visa applications will go unprocessed, federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season.

The impasse continues as it was unclear whether the public would blame the Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, or Democrats taking a stand on immigration while shuttering government agencies.

The moderates’ proposal — to link a three-week extension of government funding to the consideration of an immigration bill in the Senate — prompted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to announce that he would be willing to start debating immigration legislation if an agreement was not otherwise reached by early February.

“Let’s step back from the brink,” he said. “Let’s stop victimizing the American people and get back to work on their behalf.”

But the pledge came with caveats that led senior Democratic aides to question whether it would ultimately be workable. Mindful of the failure of a sweeping immigration bill that passed the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House, Democrats want stronger assurances that the legislation they are demanding to protect young undocumented immigrants will ultimately become law.

Whether Republicans can find compromise on immigration remained as uncertain as ever Sunday, with no clear backing from House Republican leaders or President Trump, who showed no sign of retreating from his hard line on immigration.

Still, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said he was “optimistic” the Senate would vote tomorrow to break the impasse. Schumer, he said, “wants to just give everybody a chance to chew on it and sort of understand it, and so that’s why he didn’t want to have the vote tonight.”

Matt House, a spokesman for Schumer, said the Democrats “made some reasonable offers to Senator McConnell and he hasn’t accepted them yet. The caucus is waiting for him to move some in our direction.”

The bipartisan group scrambled for a compromise, but the decision ultimately belonged to McConnell and Schumer.

What closes when the government shuts down? View Graphic What closes when the government shuts down?

“We’re trying to be helpful in showing them that there is a path forward,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who hosted more than a dozen fellow moderates in her office for an early afternoon meeting.

Sunday began with more of the partisan posturing that marked much of the previous week, delivered on the morning news programs, on the House and Senate floors, and in a presidential tweet.

Trump wrote that if the “stalemate continues,” then Republicans should use the “Nuclear Option” to rewrite Senate rules and try to pass a long-term spending bill with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed to pass most legislation — a notion Trump has previously floated to McConnell’s repeated dismissal.

The president otherwise remained uncharacteristically quiet, heeding the advice of senior advisers who argued that he has the upper hand over Schumer and the Democrats and that they would soon be forced to capitulate.

On the Senate floor, Schumer showed no signs of caving and kept pressure on Republicans.

“Not only do they not consult us, but they can’t even get on the same page with their own president,” he said. “The congressional leaders tell me to negotiate with President Trump; President Trump tells me to figure it out with the congressional leaders. This political Catch-22, never seen before, has driven our government to dysfunction.”

As the clock ticked toward a scheduled 1 a.m. Monday vote — set by McConnell in part because of arcane Senate rules but later postponed — the moderates made the most visible progress toward a deal. Among the participants in the Collins meeting were a number of Democrats who are seeking reelection in states Trump won in 2016 — five of whom voted Friday against sparking the shutdown in the first place.

[House Republicans are unusually united that the shutdown is Democrats’ fault ]

“There are more than just moderate Democrats or conservative Democrats — a majority of Democrats want it to end,” said Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).

All of that weighed on lawmakers who milled around the Capitol, many in flannel shirts, sweater vests and other casual garb.

“If it doesn’t happen tonight, it’s going to get a lot harder tomorrow,” said a windbreaker-and-baseball-cap clad Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has pressed for action on immigration legislation and met with the moderates’ group Sunday.

No firm proposal emerged from the meeting, but senators discussed a broad outline that could unlock a deal: modify the temporary spending bill now under consideration in the Senate to expire on Feb. 8, and then find some way to guarantee that immigration legislation moves forward in the interim.

The White House has said it supports the plan for funding through Feb. 8 but has been wary of making concessions on immigration. While legislation protecting DACA recipients could probably move through the Senate with Democrats and a handful of Republicans supporting it, Trump has rejected proposals along those lines and House GOP leaders are under fierce pressure not to bring up any bill that a majority of Republicans would reject.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” White House legislative affairs director Marc Short declined to provide assurances that the president would guarantee a vote on an immigration bill in exchange for a short-term spending deal. “We want to have the right resolution,” he said.

Other Republicans also saw little advantage in making any concessions to advance legislation that would provide protections for “dreamers” — undocumented immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, 690,000 of whom face potential deportation after Trump canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

[Shutdown dynamics highlight the state of politics on Trump’s anniversary]

In a brief closed-door meeting of House Republicans, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reassured lawmakers that there would be no negotiations on the issue as long as the government remained shuttered, affirming the White House position.

Cornyn told reporters that the deadline for action to address DACA remained March 5, when the last of the program’s participants will see their protected status expire.

“We’re more than happy to have a vote on it well before the deadline. We’ve committed to that,” Cornyn said. “But turning the agenda over to Democrats who just shut down the government makes no sense to me. It just seems like it encourages bad behavior.”

While there have been talks since early last year about trading DACA protections for more border security funding, as many Republicans want, negotiations have failed to produce a deal.

Democrats said they made a significant concession over the weekend, agreeing to put major funding behind Trump’s promised border wall, something that has been anathema to liberals since the 2016 presidential election.

Schumer on Sunday said that in a Friday meeting, Trump “picked a number for the wall, and I accepted it.”

“It would be hard to imagine a much more reasonable compromise,” he added. “All along, the president saying, ‘Well, I’ll do DACA, dreamers, in return for the wall.’ He’s got it. He can’t take yes for an answer. That’s why we’re here.”

Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), one of the most outspoken Democratic advocates for immigrant rights, also said in a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week” that he would agree to the funding.

“I think the wall is a monumental waste of taxpayer money,” he said. “Having said that . . . if that’s what the hostage takers [demand for] the dreamers, if that’s their ransom call, I say pay it.”

But the concession was rejected on two fronts. Doubts remained that the Democratic rank and file would agree to wall funding — even with the blessing of Schumer and Gutiérrez. Asked about a deal that could deliver Trump as much as $20 billion for the border wall, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scoffed, “Oh, come on.”

“None of us is at a table where they’re talking about $20 billion,” she said. “Should there be fencing? Should there be technology? Should they mow the grass so that people can’t hide in it? Should there be some bricks and mortar someplace? Let’s see what works.”

And Republicans themselves scoffed at Schumer’s claim that he offered Trump precisely what was demanded. The Democratic offer, they said, fell short of the full, immediate funding the president sought and instead involved yearly installments of funding that could be subject to future shutdown threats.

Moreover, Republicans have demanded concessions on other aspects of the immigration system, including an end to rules authorizing permanent legal immigrants to sponsor family members for legal status and an end to a “diversity visa” program that distributes visas based on a lottery system.

The wall is “one of the three legs of this three-legged stool,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a key House conservative. “I’m glad to hear that there is some movement there, but there’s a couple of other legs of that stool that have to be put forth.”

The battle lines over immigration have become especially firm as spending talks falter. Republican leaders have cast the shutdown as the product of Democrats’ prioritization of undocumented immigrants over American citizens.

But a debate has opened up in the party about how far to push that argument. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) questioned an online ad from Trump’s campaign that said the president’s immigration proposals are “right” and “Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.”

“I don’t know if that’s necessarily productive,” Ryan said on CBS.

Most senators remained cautious about the developments, adding quickly after each burst of optimism that any vote late Sunday or early Monday could easily fall apart and that the moderate group was sparking discussion but was hardly in control.

Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), one of the five Democrats who crossed over on Friday, said he and other Democrats met with Schumer on Sunday morning.

“The pitch is we need to do what’s right for the country and he does, too. He feels the same way, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” said Donnelly, who faces a tough reelection fight in a state Trump won.

Paul Kane, Ed O’Keefe, Jacob Bogage, Cindy Boren, Jenna Johnson, Karoun Demirjian, Elise Viebeck and Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Thousands of demonstrators gathered Saturday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and lined the frozen-over Reflecting Pool to rally for women’s rights, urge women to run for public office and call on citizens to fully engage on issues from sexual assault and racial equality to immigrant protections and gun violence.

The Women’s March on Washington was one of many such protests taking place in hundreds of cities and towns across the nation.

People in the crowd were upbeat and blinking into the bright, sunny day, with temperatures soaring into the high 50s. Many said they were encouraged by recent Democratic electoral wins in Alabama, where black women were instrumental in electing the state’s first Democratic senator since 1992, and in Virginia, where a record number of women won state legislative office.

The rally, which took place hours after the government shutdown that began at midnight, was organized to rekindle the activism and civic participation ignited by the massive Women’s March on Washington held the day after President Trump’s inauguration last year. Organizers said they hope to build on efforts that have pushed women’s issues to the forefront during the politically chaotic year since Trump took office.

[Clad in pink and vowing to vote, activists around the globe flood streets for another Women’s March]

That message was delivered repeatedly by a number of speakers, including top Democratic leaders, many of whom remained in Washington because of the shutdown.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers on the stage and told the marchers they had “transformed the world.”

“Your truth is never more important than now,” she said.

Pelosi pointed out that many more people had turned out for last year’s march than had attended Trump’s inauguration, and she said the president deserves an F for his first year in office.

Trump, at the White House, weighed in on the marches: “Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March,” he tweeted. “Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!”

At the rally, there were few Trump supporters to be found. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, protesters held up a sign that spelled out “Impeach#45” on one side and “Narcissist” on the other. Another carried a sign that referenced a villain and heroine in the Harry Potter series: “When Voldemort is president we need a nation of Hermiones.” Others made the coming fall elections their focus, proclaiming “Blue tsunami coming in 2018” and “Grab ’em by the midterms.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), often mentioned as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, also addressed the crowd.

“It is women who are holding our democracy together in these dangerous times,” she said.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) drew cheers when he criticized Republican congressional leaders and Trump. “ I am sure that if Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and the president were women, we would not be in the middle of a government shutdown right now,” Beyer said.

“Please run! Run smart! Run hard!” he urged the crowd.

Last year’s march “was a rallying cry for a lot of women who wanted their voices to be heard,” said Emily Patton, a spokeswoman for the Women’s March. “This year, we really want to show support for women who are running for office and to encourage more women, women of color and those in the LGBT community, to run for office, to register to vote, to be more civically engaged.”

Lauren Owensby, 51, a Sterling, Va., mother with five daughters, said she has a “house full of feminists” who have been on fire since Trump was elected. She brought two of her daughters to the march, as well as her mother, “an activist for 60 years.”

The federal contractor said her community went into high gear last year.

“After Trump was elected, you have never seen so many people come out of their suburban doors and say they want to get involved,” she said.

There have been coffees, cocktail parties, letter writing — all aimed at opposing Trump and helping get women and Democrats elected in Virginia.

“Women are working, raising families and resisting,” Owensby said. “We don’t read books. We don’t watch movies anymore. We don’t have any time.”

Dilcia M. Molina held up a sign in Spanish calling for the protection of immigrant women. She is a health program manager at a D.C. clinic that works with immigrants.

“We want to demonstrate that immigrant women have a right to live without violence, without ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] looking for them,” she said. “We all immigrated for some reason, because of violence in our countries, because of poverty.”

Judy Glaven, 57, brought the same “Be Brave Choose Love” poster she marched with last year. It is covered with tape because she has taken it to so many demonstrations over the past year.

“Last year I was in shock and depressed. Now I feel determined. I am going to keep working at this,” said the molecular cell biologist from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington. She said that since last year’s march, she has met with senators and representatives, organized her neighbors, and gone to dozens of protests. “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t do something,” she said.

Victor Udoewa, a technology policy adviser, was changing his daughter’s diaper while his wife got ready to sing with her social-justice a cappella choir for the assembling marchers. He said the last year has been revealing more than anything, and in some positive ways. “People thought we were further along with sexism and racism than we are,” he said.

After the rally at the Lincoln Memorial, many made their way over to Lafayette Square in front of the White House, where impromptu protests continued.

Saturday’s rally felt quieter and calmer than last year’s, but not everything went smoothly. A number of frustrated marchers found that the public restrooms near the Reflecting Pool were closed. A note posted by the National Park Service explained that this was due to the shutdown.

There were also a few showdowns between marchers and antiabortion protesters, who held up large photos showing aborted fetuses and advertised numbers to call for women facing a crisis pregnancy. Abortion rights activists stood in front of the protesters or blocked their messages with anti-Trump signs.

Washington was the focus of last year’s Women’s March, with hundreds of thousands of protesters filling the streets of the capital. Some of the larger marches held Saturday were in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Charlotte and New York.

One of the biggest events will take place Sunday in Las Vegas, where a concerted effort is being made to push for voter registration. Democrats are eyeing the U.S. Senate race in swing state Nevada, where incumbent Dean Heller (R) is considered vulnerable and first-term Rep. Jacky Rosen (D) is a leading challenger. The Las Vegas rally will also focus on gun violence and sexual assault and is expected to include speeches by Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, actress Marisa Tomei and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

Kayla Epstein and Erin Logan contributed to this report.

Congressional leaders in both parties refused to budge publicly from their political corners Saturday on the first day of the government shutdown, avoiding direct negotiations and bitterly blaming each other for the impasse in speeches. President Trump joined the fray with a series of charged tweets.

But private glimmers of a breakthrough were evident by late Saturday, as moderate Democrats and Republicans began to rally behind a new short-term funding proposal to reopen the government through early February.

That plan could include funding for storm-ravaged states, reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program — and an implicit agreement to hold votes at some point in the coming weeks on a bipartisan immigration deal, according to senators involved in the discussions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed on the Senate floor late Saturday to take up a new spending plan by Monday morning, or sooner, that would keep government open through Feb. 8 but would not contain a solution for “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

“He wants to keep the government shut down until we finish a negotiation on the subject of illegal immigration,” McConnell said of his Democratic counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). McConnell repeated himself: “Shutting down government over illegal immigration.”

Everything you need to know about a government shutdown View Graphic Everything you need to know about a government shutdown

The moderate senators, meanwhile, are trying to reach a deal on immigration in hopes that, should a three-week spending accord be approved, McConnell would allow it to come up for a vote alongside a longer-term spending plan.

Democrats, however, remained intensely opposed to McConnell’s approach, unsure he would agree and frustrated by Republicans’ refusal to meet their demands on immigration while the government is closed. At issue for Democrats is the fate of thousands of young immigrants eligible for protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump canceled the program in September, and it is set to expire in March. Lawmakers are scrambling to enact a legislative solution.

Democrats also questioned the ability of the negotiating group to reach an agreement that can pass the Senate and House and also earn Trump’s approval.

“The conversation that needs to take place is the conversation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where the president of the United States brings in the four leaders from Congress,” said Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.). “We can come up with the best compromise in the world. The key is how to get it through the House and the way to do that is for the president to provide the air cover that he has not so far provided.”

Lawmakers in both chambers were scheduled to return to work Sunday afternoon.

McConnell and Schumer did little in public Saturday besides trade insults in brief speeches on the Senate floor or on television.

“Do you know what number CR this is? This has been going on for six months,” Schumer told CNN, using the legislative term for a short-term spending deal, a continuing resolution. “This is the fourth time. They can’t get it done and they just use these CRs.”

McConnell hunkered down in his office and played phone tag most of the day with Trump, updating him on where things stood and projecting an air of confidence that he was in a strong position, according to GOP senators.

There were no substantive talks between Schumer and McConnell. The real effort at bridging the divide was that bipartisan collection of roughly 20 senators from the less ideological wings of their respective caucuses. That group met and was trying to advance a deal that would open the government for three more weeks and set up a series of votes on competing immigration proposals. Still, several Senate Republicans said that McConnell was in no mood to give Schumer any assurances to open up the government.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) are leading the moderate group, with Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), both of whom have worked closely with Schumer on immigration issues in the past, serving as go-betweens for the two parties. The duo shuttled back and forth between Schumer’s and McConnell’s offices on the second floor of the Capitol trying to forge a political peace, but they left for dinner shortly after 6 p.m. with no solid agreement with either leader.

It is unclear whether there is enough bipartisan support for the immigration proposal being floated by the moderates — or for one that Senate conservatives are also drafting. And the possibility of no resolution to the immigration standoff before the DACA deadline remained.

So far, Trump, McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) have refused to consider Democrats’ demands until there is a bipartisan agreement to reopen the federal government.

“Senate Democrats shut down this government, and now Senate Democrats need to open this government back up,” Ryan said in a midday speech.

Trump, who spent the day at the White House, weighed in on Twitter: “Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!”

[House Republicans are unusually united that the shutdown is Democrats’ fault]

In a bid to move past the political squabbling, the moderate senators met for a second day in Collins’s office. She led a similar bipartisan group in working to resolve the last shutdown in 2013.

Moderates are “trying to find a pathway forward,” Manchin said.

[Everything you need to know about the shutdown]

Democratic leaders made their case for blaming Republicans for the shutdown. As thousands of women gathered along the Mall in Washington to protest Trump’s first year in office, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stood at the Capitol and pointed to a poster depicting a Trump tweet from last May calling for a “good shutdown.”

“Happy anniversary, Mr. President,” Pelosi said. “Your wish came true. You wanted the shutdown? The shutdown is all yours.”

Trump, who marked the first anniversary of his inauguration on Saturday, canceled plans to visit his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for a weekend of celebrations. His scheduled trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this coming week was also up in the air, according to an aide.

At the White House, a phone line for comments directed callers to voice mail with a message slamming Democrats. “Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate. Due to this obstruction, the government is shut down,” a woman’s voice said on the message.

[The strong case that Trump is a big reason the government is shut down]

The White House said it supports the plan for funding through Feb. 8, eliminating a potentially significant hurdle to its enactment. Yet the simmering tensions between the Trump administration and Schumer, who said Saturday that negotiating with the president was like negotiating with “Jell-O,” underscored the delicacy of the moment.

Schumer and Trump had met privately on Friday afternoon, giving some lawmakers optimism that their deliberations would advance a deal to avoid a shutdown.

Schumer left the meeting buoyed, telling others that Trump seemed willing to strike a deal on a days-long funding extension in exchange for concessions such as border wall funding. But by midnight, he complained to his members that Trump had suddenly reneged on the possibility.

The White House told a different story. Briefing reporters at the White House on Saturday, budget director Mick Mulvaney disputed Schumer’s claim that he offered Trump his desired border wall funding during their meeting.

“Mr. Schumer has to up his game and be more honest with the president of the United States if we are going to be seeing progress,” Mulvaney said.

Schumer spokesman Matt House fired back on Twitter that Mulvaney, who was not present for the meeting, was “not telling the truth” about what happened.

[Shutdown dynamics highlight the state of politics on Trump’s anniversary]

Democrats pushed for a shutdown to spite Trump for his accomplishments, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short argued to reporters.

“Their reaction is, ‘Because we can’t beat them, what we’re going to do is shut down the government,’ ” he said in a news briefing Saturday.

There was scattered and acrimonious activity on the House and Senate floors.

McConnell sought to bring up the four-week spending bill that failed Friday night; Democrats blocked the attempt. Democrats asked to vote on a bill guaranteeing federal workers their back pay for the period of the shutdown; McConnell objected, saying they deserve a full funding bill.

Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who objected to McConnell’s attempt to revive the short-term bill, questioned McConnell’s embrace of the GOP proposal to extend funding of the Children’s Health Insurance Program — and highlighted the discord that defined the day.

“He sounded like Marian Wright Edelman last night, the founder of the Children’s’ Defense Fund, with his newfound interest in the children’s health plan,” Wyden said in an interview. “It sounds like I’m listening to Ted Kennedy talk about health. . . . I’ve never heard of this being a priority [for Republicans].”

In the House, lawmakers prepared for a possible deal by debating a special rule allowing them to consider any bill that passes the Senate on the same day. The debate devolved into a shouting match over displaying disparaging photos of other members — such as Schumer — on the floor.

[Huddled masses? Come back later: The Statue of Liberty closed by shutdown]

Elise Viebeck and Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Tom Petty, the singer and guitarist whose influential music spanned four decades, died in October from an accidental drug overdose as a result of mixing medications involving opioids, his family announced Friday.

A Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner’s report reveals that Petty had traces of multiple opioids including fentanyl in his system when he died at age 66 after being found unconscious at his home in Malibu, Calif. He had suffered cardiac arrest.

The cause of his death had until Friday remained a mystery. For months, his fans wondered what killed Petty after his death certificate, released about a week later, registered the cause of death as “deferred” pending an autopsy. He died a week after concluding a nationwide tour with his band, the Heartbreakers. He told Rolling Stone at the time that the tour might be his last. “I don’t want to spend my life on the road,” he said.

Petty’s wife, Dana Petty, and his daughter, Adria Petty, wrote in a statement posted to the band’s website and Facebook page that Petty had suffered from emphysema, knee problems and a fractured hip. Out of commitment to his fans, he toured for 53 dates with the fractured hip. But the pain soon became unbearable and led Petty to turn to medication, the family said.

“We knew before the report was shared with us that he was prescribed various pain medications for a multitude of issues including Fentanyl patches and we feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident,” the family wrote.

Our family sat together this morning with the Medical Examiner – Coroner’s office and we were informed of their final…

Posted by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Friday, January 19, 2018

The family shared the coroner’s report to “spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis.”

“We hope in some way this report can save lives,” the family wrote.

Fentanyl, a synthetic narcotic about 50 times stronger than heroin, is linked to thousands of overdoses and fatalities across the country. Fentanyl-related deaths increased nearly 600 percent from 2014 to 2016 in 24 of the nation’s biggest cities, according to health departments. A report by The Washington Post last year showed 582 fatal overdoses from fentanyl in 2014, followed by a surge to 3,946 such deaths in 2016.

[Tom Petty was a heroin addict in the ’90s. Here’s why he’s finally talking about it.]

Petty in 2015 opened up about his addiction to heroin in the 1990s. Petty for decades had kept the addiction a secret and, before talking about it to biographer Warren Zanes, told him: “I am very concerned that talking about this is putting a bad example out there for young people. If anyone is going to think heroin is an option because they know my story of using heroin, I can’t do this.”

“I think you’re going to come off as a cautionary tale rather than a romantic tale,” Zanes recalled telling Petty, according to The Washington Post’s Geoff Edgers.

Prince in 2016 also died from a fentanyl overdose a week after the pop singer’s plane made an emergency stop in Moline, Ill., for him to receive medical treatment as he was returning from an Atlanta concert.

Petty broke into the rock-and-roll scene with the Heartbreakers in the 1970s with songs that included “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down” and “American Girl.”

His family said they were proud Petty could still perform those songs for his fans on his 40th anniversary tour last year.

“We now know for certain he went painlessly and beautifully exhausted after doing what he loved the most, for one last time, performing live with his unmatchable rock band for his loyal fans on the biggest tour of his 40 plus year career,” Petty’s family wrote.

Read more:

Perspective: Tom Petty’s Americana felt stranger than the rest

Perspective: Tom Petty The Heartbreakers, ‘American Girl’: The Week In One Song