JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s military said Sunday that up to 8,000 troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission, the first firm commitment to a critical element of U.S. President Donald Trump’s postwar reconstruction plan.
The Indonesian National Armed Forces, known as TNI, has finalized its proposed troop structure and a timeline for their movement to Gaza, even as the government has yet to decide when the deployment will take place, army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Donny Pramono said.
“In principle, we are ready to be assigned anywhere,” Pramono told the Associated Press, “Our troops are fully prepared and can be dispatched at short notice once the government gives formal approval.”
Pramono said the military prepared a composite brigade of 8,000 personnel, based on decisions made during a Feb. 12 meeting for the mission.
Under the schedule, troops will undergo health checks and paperwork throughout February, followed by a force readiness review at the end of the month, Pramono said. He also revealed that about 1,000 personnel are expected to be ready to deploy as an advance team by April, followed with the rest by June.
Pramono said that being ready does not mean the troops will depart. The deployment still requires a political decision and depends on international mechanisms, he said.
Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said any Indonesian role in Gaza will be strictly humanitarian. Indonesia’s contribution would focus on civilian protection, medical services, and reconstruction, and its troops would not take part in any combat operations or actions that could lead to direct confrontation with armed groups.
Indonesia would be the first country to formally commit troops to the security mission created under Trump’s Board of Peace initiative for Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has held since Oct. 10 following two years of devastating war.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority nation, does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel and has long been a strong supporter of a two-state solution. It has been deeply involved in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, including funding a hospital.
Indonesian officials have justified joining the Board of Peace by saying it was necessary to defend Palestinian interests from within, since Israel is included on the board but there is no Palestinian representation.
The Southeast Asian country has experience in peacekeeping operations as one of the top 10 contributors to United Nations missions, including in Lebanon.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump said Sunday that members of his newly created Board of Peace have pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza and will commit thousands of personnel to international stabilization and police forces for the territory.
The pledges will be formally announced when board members gather in Washington on Thursday for their first meeting, he said.
“The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential International Body in History, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman,” Trump said in a social media posting announcing the pledges.
He did not detail which member nations were making the pledges for reconstruction or would contribute personnel to the stabilization force. But Indonesia’s military said Sunday that up to 8,000 of its troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission. It’s the first firm commitment that the Republican president has received.
Rebuilding the Palestinian territory will be a daunting endeavor. The United Nations, World Bank, and European Union estimate that reconstruction of the territory will cost $70 billion. Few places in the Gaza Strip were left unscathed by more than two years of Israeli bombardment.
The ceasefire deal calls for an armed international stabilization force to keep security and ensure the disarming of the militant Hamas group, a key demand of Israel. Thus far, few countries have expressed interest in taking part in the proposed force.
The Oct. 10 U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than 2-year war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military-held zones.
It is not clear how many of the more than 20 members of the Board of Peace will attend the first meeting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held White House talks with Trump last week, is not expected to be there.
Trump’s new board was first seen as a mechanism focused on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. But it has taken shape with his ambition for a far broader mandate of resolving global crises and appears to be the latest U.S. effort to sidestep the United Nations as Trump aims to reset the post-World War II international order.
Trump also confirmed that Thursday’s meeting will take place at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which the State Department announced in December it was renaming the Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.
The building is the subject of litigation brought by former employees and executives of the nonprofit think tank after the Republican administration seized the facility last year and fired almost all the institute’s staff.
The White House is declaring victory on turning around the economy, after months of aides’ urging the president to find a more empathetic tone on Americans’ financial struggles.
But public attitudes about the economy have not risen to match the record-breaking stock market and expectations-beating inflation and jobs report, defining the challenge for the president’s party in November’s midterms. MostAmericans say the economy is on the wrong track and disapprove of Trump’s handling of it, recent surveys show.
The gap between macroeconomic indicators and public sentiment echoes the dynamic that encumbered Trump’s predecessor, which the current president is similarly hoping to overcome through direct appeals to voters.
“I think we have the greatest economy actually ever in history,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow that aired on Tuesday. “I guess I have to sell that because we should win in a landslide.”
Since the fall, advisers sensitive to the persistent pinch of higher prices urged Trump to modulate his tone on the economy by acknowledging the pain, blaming the conditions onformer President Joe Biden, and highlighting his efforts to tame inflation. White House spokespeople and surrogates proved more faithful to that message than the president himself, who largely continued to insist that the economy was great and he deserved more credit.
Trump’s preference has now prevailed thanks to a record-high stock market, surprisingly strong January job numbers, and easing prices for gas, groceries, and housing.
“President Trump is absolutely right to celebrate inflation finally cooling and real wages finally growing for everyday American workers,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
“While Biden downplayed and ignored this reality, President Trump has been focused on ending the Biden economic disaster since Day One with policies that work. That’s why inflation has cooled, real wages are up, and GDP growth has far surpassed expectations.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at about 50,000 points for the first time on Tuesday, and the S&P 500 is also trading at all-time highs. The economy added 130,000 jobs in January, more than double economists’ forecast. A gallon of gas averaged $2.94 on Wednesday, the lowest for this time of year since 2021, according to AAA. And inflation in January dropped to a low last seen in May, before Trump raised tariffs.
“We’re hitting all-time-high stock numbers,” Trump said Friday in a speech to troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. “All I know is forget about the stock market, forget about Wall Street, your 401(k)s are doing very well. I don’t have to ask you, ‘Is anybody doing poorly with their 401(k)?’ If they were, you’re a pretty bad investor.”
But the positive signsare unevenly felt, and skew toward the wealthy. About 40% of adults in the U.S. do not have a 401(k) or any other retirement savings account, according to a 2025 Gallup survey. Consumer sentiment among people without stock holdings remained near itslowest level since at least 2018, and the overall average wasabout 20% lower than in January 2025, according to the University of Michigan’s benchmark survey.
Desai said the stock market highs reflect pro-business policies that are driving investment and will create jobs and increase wages. Most business spending and stock market increases are driven by investments in artificial intelligence by tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta. The data centers they’re building demand electricity and produce fewer jobs than traditional factories, and some members of Trump’s coalition, such as Tucker Carlson, argue that AI will reduce American jobs in the future.
Fifty-nine percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of their cost of living, 43% strongly, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted Jan. 23-25. He performed better on employment and jobs, though half of respondents still disapproved. The survey found only 28% of Americans said the economy is on the right track.
White House officials also pointed to a four-year low in median national rents and a four-year high in the Intercontinental Exchange’s measure of mortgage affordability. But those measures offer only a partial snapshot. To return to pre-pandemic affordability levels, household incomes would need to rise more than 15% while home prices remain flat, the exchange reported this month. Grocery prices remain volatile, with some falling and others rising — a mix that has made day-to-day food costs uneven for consumers.
“I brought prices way down,” Trump said in response to a question from the Washington Post last week. “You don’t hear it anymore — when I first came in, the Democrats were screaming ‘affordability.’”
Mark Mitchell, the head pollster at the conservative Rasmussen Reports, has been critical of the Trump administration’s emphasis on a surging stock market while young Americans are experiencing difficult job and housing markets. “Let them eat S&P,” he wrote repeatedly on X in response to videos of Trump and top administration officials touting stock performance.
White House officials acknowledged that voters are hard to persuade about their own personal financial circumstances. Since the start of the administration, economic advisers regularlymet to focus on policy actions that would deliver benefits Americans would feel in time for the midterms, one of the officials said. The White House wasdetermined to adopt tax cuts earlier than in Trump’s first term to ensure refunds would begin reaching households in 2026.
The White House is also counting on more momentum, including interest rate cuts from Trump’s new pick to chair the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, and cheaper prescription drugs available through government-negotiated deals on a website called TrumpRx. The websitecurrently lists 43 medications. Desai said the administration is working to add more pharmaceuticals from companies with existing deals and through negotiations with other drugmakers.
“There’s reason for some hope” now for Republicans in Congress, said Gregg Keller, a GOP strategist working for a super PAC supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s Senate race. “If the economy rolls this year and if voters give Trump and Republicans credit for it, that bodes well [for] us avoiding a drubbing in the elections.”
Voters say Trump’s economy is better than Biden’s, but they want to hear more about what the administration is doing to ease everyday costs of living, according to Mitch Brown, a partner at the Republican polling firm Cygnal. Only 30% of voters can handle an unexpected expense of $1,000 or more, heightening their anxiety, Brown said.
“President Trump knows this and his administration is working to not only address these concerns with policy, but getting the rest of the GOP to hit this message hard that we have done great work but will continue to fight hard to lower costs in the midterms,” Brown said. “Democrats don’t hold a majority of voters’ trust on a single issue, so the opportunity to keep the majority is well within the GOP’s grasp.”
Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican consultant specializing in polling, said while people with “substantial resources invested in the stock market” are satisfied with a surging Dow, the data suggest “most Americans are still not happy” with progress on inflation and the strength of the economy.
“Presidents who’ve done a good job capturing the sentiments of the American people are those who articulate a message that is consistent with what most people feel,” Ayres said. “Bill Clinton was probably the best of anyone at that, but it’s very difficult to persuade Americans to believe something they’re not feeling in their daily lives.”
House Republicans need Trump to use the full weight of his presidency to make the case that his administration has brought down the cost of living, said longtime GOP strategist Ron Bonjean.
“House Republicans are entering a really dangerous phase. They have to defy history. They need everything,” he said. “They need a president who has the loudest megaphone in the country’s history.”
Menthol Newports. A stray shoe. Child-sized mittens. Rotten apples. A crushed pineapple White Claw.
These were a smattering of the artifacts emerging from Philadelphia’s permafrost this weekend, when temperatures neared a balmy 50 degrees on Saturday and the last vestiges of a bleak, bleak winter — feet-tall snowpack on sidewalks, in bike lanes, and smooshed between cars — were slowly, but surely, melting away.
The thawing out has left behind a Philly trash special, relics from a bygone era, before the city was buried under historic snowfall and its inhabitants were forced inside. A buffet of Wawa, Starbucks, Dunkin’, and McDonald’s cups once trapped under 9.3 inches of snow and ice have broken free. The littered receipts and Backwoods cigar wrappers sprinkled outside Fishtown bars have been reborn, soggier and muddied. The neighborhood dogs’ poop, bagged or not, has been preserved in subfreezing temperatures.
And for the people of Philadelphia who are stirring from their hibernation, the collective cabin fever is finally breaking. On Saturday afternoon, some ventured into the open air of North Philadelphia to bask in an uninhibited sun. They wore considerably fewer layers, bared arms and legs, and voluntarily gallivanted about in February.
“We celebrate it not freezing,” said Uchenna Ezeokoli, 26, of Northern Liberties, who was seen skateboarding near Johnny Brenda’s. His “coat” was a mere flannel. “If it’s not freezing, it’s a good time.”
Lori Sanchez’s narrow, one-way Fishtown street was never plowed, she said, rendering it inaccessible and shutting her in for a week. But Saturday, strolling down Fishtown’s main throughway with sister-in-law Katherine, she felt the buzz of spring.
“That’s our hope — that it stays warm,” Sanchez, 27, said.
A streak of days when the temperature eclipsed freezing made Bala Cynwyd resident Nicholas Beck, 46, feel like he’d overcome the winter blues: “When the sun comes out, that always helps. … This is probably the turning point, I think.”
Some light rain and snow is expected for tonight, producing minor accumulations over the northern half of the area. Further south towards Philly, more of a rain/snow mix cuts into any accumulation. Areas of South Jersey and Delmarva likely stay all rain. #NJwx#PAwx#MDwx#DEwxpic.twitter.com/oLgmvhpS3T
Rebekah Stewart, a nurse at the U.S. Public Health Service, got a call last April that brought her to tears. She had been selected for deployment to the Trump administration’s new immigration detention operation at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
This posting combined Donald Trump’s longtime passion to use the offshore base to move “some bad dudes” out of the United States with a promise made shortly after his inauguration last year to hold thousands of noncitizens there. The naval base is known for the torture and inhumanetreatment of men suspected of terrorism in the wake of 9/11.
“Deployments are typically not something you can say no to,” Stewart said. She pleaded with the coordinating office, which found another nurse to go in her place.
Other public health officers who worked at Guantánamo in the past year described conditions there for the detainees, some of whom learned they were in Cuba from the nurses and doctors sent to care for them. They treated immigrants detained in a dark prison called Camp 6, where no sunlight filters in, said the officers, whom KFF Health News agreed not to name because they fear retaliation for speaking publicly. It previously held people with suspected ties to al-Qaeda. The officers said they were not briefed ahead of time on the details of their potential duties at the base.
Although the Public Health Service is not a branch of the U.S. armed forces, its uniformed officers — roughly 5,000 doctors, nurses, and other health workers — act like stethoscope-wearing soldiers in emergencies. The government deploys them during hurricanes, wildfires, mass shootings, and measles outbreaks. In the interim, they fill gaps at an alphabet soup of government agencies.
The Trump administration’s mass arrests to curb immigration have created a new type of health emergency as the number of people detained reaches record highs. About 71,000 immigrants are currently imprisoned, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, which show that most have no criminal record.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said: “President Donald Trump has been very clear: Guantánamo Bay will hold the worst of the worst.” However, several news organizationshave reported that many of the men shipped to the base had no criminal convictions. As many as 90% of them were described as “low-risk” in a May progress report from ICE.
In fits and starts, the Trump administration has sent about 780 noncitizens to Guantánamo Bay, according to the New York Times. Numbers fluctuate as new detainees arrive and others are returned to the U.S. or deported.
While some Public Health Service officers have provided medical care to detained immigrants in the past, this is the first time in American history that Guantánamo has been used to house immigrants who had been living in the U.S. Officers said ICE postings are getting more common. After dodging Guantánamo, Stewart was instructed to report to an ICE detention center in Texas.
“Public health officers are being asked to facilitate a man-made humanitarian crisis,” she said.
Seeing no option to refuse deployments that she found objectionable, Stewart resigned after a decade of service. She would give up the prospect of a pension offered after 20 years.
“It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make,” she said. “It was my dream job.”
One of her PHS colleagues, nurse Dena Bushman, grappled with a similar moral dilemma when she got a notice to report to Guantánamo a few weeks after the shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August. Bushman, who was posted with the CDC, got a medical waiver delaying her deployment on account of stress and grief. She considered resigning, then did.
“This may sound extreme,” Bushman said. “But when I was making this decision, I couldn’t help but think about how the people who fed those imprisoned in concentration camps were still part of the Nazi regime.”
Others have resigned, but many officers remain. While they are alarmed by Trump’s tactics, detained people need care, multiple PHS officers told KFF Health News.
“I respect people and treat them like humans,” said a PHS nurse who worked in detention facilities last year. “I try to be a light in the darkness, the one person that makes someone smile in this horrible mess.”
The PHS officers conceded that their power to protect people was limited in a detention system fraught with overcrowding, disorganization, and the psychological trauma of uncertainty, family separations, and sleep deprivation.
“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, chief spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, in an emailed statement to KFF Health News.
Adm. Brian Christine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the Public Health Service, said in an email: “Our duty is clear: say ‘Yes Sir!’, salute smartly, and execute the mission: show up, provide humane care, and protect health.” Christine is a recent appointee who, until recently, was a urologist specializing in testosterone and male fertility issues.
“In pursuit of subjective morality or public displays of virtue,” he added, “we risk abandoning the very individuals we pledged to serve.”
Into the unknown
In the months before Stewart resigned, she reflected on her previous deployments, during Trump’s first term, to immigration processing centers run by Customs and Border Protection. Fifty women were held in a single concrete cell in Texas, she recalled.
“The most impactful thing I could do was to convince the guards to allow the women, who had been in there for a week, to shower,” she said. “I witnessed suffering without having much ability to address it.”
Stewart spoke with Bushman and other PHS officers who were embedded at the CDC last year. They assisted with the agency’s response to ongoing measles outbreaks, with sexually transmitted infection research, and more. Their roles became crucial last year as the Trump administration laid off droves of CDC staffers.
Stewart, Bushman, and a few other PHS officers at the CDC said they met with middle managers to ask for details about the deployments: If they went to Guantánamo and ICE facilities, how much power would they have to provide what they considered medically necessary care? If they saw anything unethical, how could they report it? Would it be investigated? Would they be protected from reprisal?
Stewart and Bushman said they were given a PHS office phone number they could call if they had a complaint while on assignment. Otherwise, they said, their questions went unanswered. They resigned and so never went to Guantánamo.
PHS officers who were deployed to the base told KFF Health News they weren’t given details about their potential duties — or the standard operating procedure for medical care — before they arrived.
Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army general and a psychiatrist who has advised on medical care at Guantánamo for two decades, said that was troubling. Before health workers deploy, he said, they should understand what they’ll be expected to do.
The consequences of insufficient preparation can be severe. In 2014, the Navy threatened tocourt-martial one of its nurses at Guantánamo who refused to force-feed prisoners on hunger strike, who were protesting inhumane treatment and indefinite detention. The protocol was brutal: A person was shackled to a five-point restraint chair as nurses shoved a tube for liquid food into their stomach through their nostrils.
“He wasn’t given clear guidance in advance on how these procedures would be conducted at Guantánamo,” Xenakis said of the nurse. “Until he saw it, he didn’t understand how painful it was for detainees.”
The American Nurses Association and Physicians for Human Rights sided with the nurse, saying his objection was guided by professional ethics. After a year, the military dropped the charges.
A uniformed doctor or nurse’s power tends to depend on their rank, their supervisor, and chains of command, Xenakis said. He helped put an end to some inhumane practices at Guantánamo more than a decade ago, when he and other retired generals and admirals publicly objected to certain interrogation techniques, such as one called “walling,” in which interrogators slammed the heads of detainees suspected of terrorism against a wall, causing slight concussions. Xenakis argued that science didn’t support “walling” as an effective means of interrogation, and that it was unethical, amounting to torture.
Medics practice evacuating a detained immigrant in a simulated exercise at Guantánamo in April 2025.
Torture hasn’t been reported from Guantánamo’s immigration operation, but ICE shift reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the government watchdog group American Oversight note concerns about detainees resorting to hunger strikes and self-harm.
“Welfare checks with potential hunger strike IA’s,” short for illegal aliens, says an April 30 note from a contractor working with ICE. “In case of a hunger strike or other emergencies,” the report adds, the PHS and ICE are “coordinating policies and procedures.”
“De-escalation of potential pod wide hunger strike/potential riot,” says an entry from July 8. “Speak with alien on suicide watch regarding well being.”
Inmates and investigations have reported delayed medical care at immigration detention facilities and dangerous conditions, including overcrowding and a lack of sanitation. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the deadliest year in two decades.
“They are arresting and detaining more people than their facilities can support,” one PHS officer told KFF Health News. The most prevalent problem the officer saw among imprisoned immigrants was psychological. They worried about never seeing their families again or being sent back to a country where they feared they’d be killed. “People are scared out of their minds,” the officer said.
U.S. service members stand by during an April 2025 simulated medical evacuation of immigrants detained at Guantánamo.
No sunlight
The PHS officers who were at Guantánamo told KFF Health News that the men they saw were detained in either low-security barracks, with a handful of people per room, or in Camp 6, a dark, high-security facility without natural light. The ICE shift reports describe the two stations by their position on the island, Leeward for the barracks and Windward for Camp 6. About 50 Cuban men sent to Guantánamo in December and January have languished at Camp 6.
A Navy hospital on the base mainly serves the military and other residents who aren’t locked up — and in any case, its capabilities are limited, the officers said. To reduce the chance of expensive medical evacuations back to the U.S. to see specialists quickly, they said, the immigrants were screened before being shipped to Guantánamo. People over age 60 or who needed daily drugs to manage diabetes and high blood pressure, for example, were generally excluded. Still, the officers said, some detainees have had to be evacuated back to Florida.
PHS nurses and doctors said they screened immigrants again when they arrived and provided ongoing care, fielding complaints including about gastrointestinal distress and depression. One ICE monthly progress report says, “The USPHS psychologist started an exercise group” for detainees.
Doctors’ requests for lab work were often turned down because of logistical hurdles, partly due to the number of agencies working together on the base, the officers said. Even a routine test, a complete blood count, took weeks to process, vs. hours in the U.S.
DHS and the Department of Defense, which have coordinated on the Guantánamo immigration operation, did not respond to requests for comment about their work there.
One PHS officer who helped medically screen new detainees said they were often surprised to learn they were at Guantánamo.
“I’d tell them, ‘I’m sorry you are here,’” the officer said. “No one freaked out. It was like the ten-millionth time they had been transferred.” Some of the men had been detained in various facilities for five or six months and said they wanted to return to their home countries, according to the officer. Health workers had neither an answer nor a fix.
Unlike ICE detention facilities in the U.S., Guantánamo hasn’t been overcrowded. “I have never been so not busy at work,” one officer said. A military base on a tropical island, Guantánamo offers activities such as snorkeling, paddleboard yoga, and kickboxing to those who aren’t imprisoned. Even so, the officer said they would rather be home than on this assignment on the taxpayer’s dime.
Transporting staff and supplies to the island and maintaining them on-base is enormously expensive. The government paid an estimated $16,500 per day, per detainee at Guantánamo, to hold those accused of terrorism, according to a 2025 Washington Post analysis of Department of Defense data. (The average cost to detain immigrants in ICE facilities in the U.S. is $157 a day.)
Even so, the funding has skyrocketed: Congress granted ICE a record $78 billion for fiscal year 2026, a staggering increase from $9.9 billion in 2024 and $6.5 billion nearly a decade ago.
Last year, the Trump administration also diverted more than $2 billion from the national defense budget to immigration operations, according to a report from congressional Democrats. About $60 million of it went to Guantánamo.
“Detaining noncitizens at Guantánamo is far more costly and logistically burdensome than holding them in ICE detention facilities within the United States,” wrote Deborah Fleischaker, a former assistant director at ICE, in a declaration submitted as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union early last year. In December, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a separate ACLU case questioning the legality of detaining immigrants outside the U.S.
Anne Schuchat, who served with the PHS for 30 years before retiring in 2018, said PHS deployments to detention centers may cost the nation in terms of security, too. “A key concern has always been to have enough of these officers available for public health emergencies,” she said.
Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said the immigration deployments don’t affect the public health service’s potential response to other emergencies.
In the past, PHS officers have stood up medical shelters during hurricanes in Louisiana and Texas, rolled out COVID testing in the earliest months of the pandemic, and provided crisis support after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Boston Marathon bombing.
“It’s important for the public to be aware of how many government resources are being used so that the current administration can carry out this one agenda,” said Stewart, one of the nurses who resigned. “This one thing that’s probably turning us into the types of countries we have fought wars against.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Brian Finnegan, Brixmor Property Group’s new CEO, is a true Philadelphian.
He was born in Southwest Philly, spent his formative years in Roxborough, and graduated from St. Joe’s Prep. He met his wife, Katie, at a Halloween party in his mother’s Packer Park backyard in 2009, while just down the road the Phillies played the Yankees in the World Series and Pearl Jam closed the Spectrum.
Finnegan, now 45, can’t give up his Eagles season tickets, despite living outside New York and traveling the world as a real estate executive, When he can’t make games, he can usually count on his 73-year-old mother, Geraldine, to take the seats.
Brian Finnegan, who was named CEO of Brixmor Property Group last month, said he’s especially proud of the company’s commitment to its more than 20 shopping centers in and around Philadelphia, where he grew up.
Finnegan lives in Rye, N.Y., with Katie and their three young daughters, Magnolia, Daisy, and Poppy.
The company has invested about $180 million in its Philly portfolio over the past nine years, Finnegan said, and calls itself the largest operator of open-air shopping centers in the region.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How would you say Brixmor is doing overall?
The company is in the best position it’s ever been. We’re signing rents at the highest level that we ever have. We have occupancy levels that are close to the highest we’ve had.
Consumers today are demanding much more of the suburbs in terms of the types of services that they’re looking for, the types of restaurant options that they’re looking for. And that’s allowed us to really improve the merchandising mix at our shopping centers with better food and beverage options and better service options in terms of health and wellness.
Why do you think Brixmor shopping centers are thriving while many brick-and-mortar stores falter?
Grocers, especially [tenants like Sprouts, Whole Foods, and McCaffrey’s], have really invested in their stores, and they’re drawing a lot of traffic.
Sprouts is among the retailers located at Roosevelt Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, one of Brixmor Property Group’s complexes in the region.
As it relates to fitness and wellness, and higher quality food and beverage options, I think consumers today care more about what they’re putting in their bodies and how they look than they ever have.
You have to create an environment at specific shopping centers where if one tenant draws traffic, another tenant can complement them.
It really matters who your neighbor is, so if you’re able to put a strong merchandising mix together, which we’ve been able to do at our centers in Philadelphia, you’re really going to see traffic.
The Ross Dress for Less at Roosevelt Mall is one of several off-price retailers that have found success in Brixmor Property Group centers, according to CEO Brian Finnegan.
What would you like to accomplish as CEO?
We’d love to find some new opportunities to grow our footprint in Philadelphia.
The deals that we’ve done in Philadelphia, many of them are [with retailers new to Brixmor’s national portfolio], like with Lululemon, like with Free People, like with Warby Parker, like with Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma.
We think about how our centers connect with the communities that we’re in. We’re part of those communities. We’re actually landlords to Philadelphia institutions like Chickie’s & Pete’s and P.J. Whelihan’s.
The more that we can tie our assets with retailers that are relevant to those communities, the better.
What makes you optimistic about shopping centers amid all the e-commerce competition?
What [the pandemic] showed was that people like connectivity. They don’t like to just have things delivered to their door. They want to go out and experience things. They want to touch and feel things.
Our traffic since the pandemic across the entire portfolio is up 7%.
Barnes & Noble is shown at Barn Plaza shopping center in Doylestown, which is one of more than 20 complexes in the region owned by Brixmor Property Group.
If you talk to a lot of these major retailers, what they’ll say is the store is the center of everything that they do. They’re utilizing that store to be able to connect with the consumer in store, at delivery, as part of pickup.
I’m pretty bullish. There are a lot of retailers that continue to thrive despite the fact that consumers have options to be able to get something online if they wanted to.
The federal official in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers visited Ocean City and other Jersey Shore communities Friday, along with U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, pledging that beach replenishment help is on its way.
Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, came to New Jersey for a tour hosted by Van Drew. The Army Corps manages beach projects and puts up the majority of money. States and municipalities contribute the rest.
“There’s emergency funding that’s available,” Telle said from Fifth Street on Ocean City’s boardwalk, adding that some beaches would see repairs by summer.
Telle said the money does not hinge on legislation and has President Donald Trump’s support.
The Army Corps will evaluate which beaches are in the most severe condition, he said, including Ocean City, which is among the top of the list. Telle and Van Drew did not cite a specific amount of money but indicated millions could be available.
Telle, Van Drew, and other officials visited Strathmere, Avalon, and North Wildwood, which have all been heavily impacted by storm erosion over the last year. The short-term goal this year would be to take spoils from Army Corps projects and spread that on beaches.
They said they plan to draw on a mix of funding, including money still remaining from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, other supplemental funds, and earmarks — language in appropriations bills to direct federal funds to state and local projects.
Van Drew, a Republican, represents multiple Shore towns on the southern tip of New Jersey.
Friday’s tour came on the heels of zero dollars earmarked for beach replenishment in 2025 — the first time that had happened since 1996. Up to $200 million annually has typically been awarded for beach erosion control projects.
Van Drew also introduced a bill last week to establish a new source of continuous beach replenishment money through the Coastal Trust Fund Act.
The bill would pay for ongoing coastal storm risk management by the Army Corps. U.S. Rep. Laura Gillen, a Democrat from New York, is a cosponsor.
According to Van Drew, the legislation would use revenue from offshore energy leases to fund $1 billion a year into Army Corps of Engineers coastal storm management projects.
He said his bill, if approved, would create a permanent source of funding so that it would not depend on yearly appropriations from Congress.
“We need to get a permanent system in place so we aren’t riding this roller coaster,” Van Drew said.
However, he acknowledged that getting any bill approved in Congress right now is difficult.
“It’s going to be a labor of love,” Van Drew said, adding that he is gathering “support from all around the country.”
There is no date for a vote on the bill.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (center), Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle (right) and Upper Township Mayor Curtis Corson Jr. discuss shore erosion and beach replenishment in Strathmere.
A measure has been introduced by U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican from Tennessee, for $23 million to fund coastal replenishment projects this year. That would be supplemented by a Senate bill introduced by U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, that would allocate $62.2 million. However, neither bill is scheduled for a vote.
In 2025, multiple New Jersey Shore towns found themselves in a crisis over erosion as Congress and Trump pushed for a huge reduction in the federal budget.
No money was made available for crucial beach nourishment projects. The lack of funding became a political issue in New Jersey, which depends heavily on its beaches for tourism revenue.
For decades, beach projects have been a staple of coastal management in the United States. In 2025, projects were paused in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Projects set for Cape May, Stone Harbor, Avalon, Sea Isle, Strathmere, Ocean City, and Long Beach Islandwerestalled because of the lack of funding. Georgia and Florida also were affected.
In October, Ocean City declared a local emergency over the severe erosion exacerbated by storms like Hurricane Erin and a potent nor’easter in October. The city was left grappling with sand cliffs upward of five feet high after the storms scoured its beaches.
Mayor Jay Gillian and others pushed for urgent state and federal intervention, citing the difficulty of managing large-scale beach replenishments and dune restoration with city resources alone.
Gillian said Friday at the tour stop in Ocean City that he welcomed any help from the Army Corps and Van Drew.
“They’re working for a solution,” Gillian said of Telle and Van Drew. “The permanent funding, that’s huge because it stops the games, and it stops the politics.”
Van Drew represents the largely conservative 2nd District, which spans mostly rural and Shore communities in South Jersey, including all of Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Salem Counties, plus parts of Gloucester and Ocean Counties. He remains optimistic for funding.
Amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and deployment of federal officers to cities across the country, students at Philadelphia-area colleges are protesting against the appearance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at campus career fairs.
At least four local universities — Thomas Jefferson, Villanova, Temple, and Rowan — have faced opposition to allowing recruitment in recent months.
A petition circulated at Jefferson last week sought to keep CBP from appearing at a campus career event. CBP and ICE — both agencies that enforce immigration laws under the Department of Homeland Security — have been at the center of a national debate after two Minneapolis residents were killed by federal immigration enforcement agents in shootings now under investigation.
“Due to the harm CBP has caused to communities across the nation, it is abhorrent for TJU to accept CBP at their institution,” said anoccupational therapy student who signed the petition and asked that her name be withheld, fearing retribution. “I don’t think any institution should be encouraging students to get involved in these kinds of agencies, given the current climate.”
But the petition has since come down, the student said, and CBP is not on the list of employers due to appear at the event, called the 2026 Career Day and Design Expo, on Thursday at the East Falls campus. Jefferson has not acknowledged that CBP was on the list initially or responded to questions on whether it was removed.
CBP, which has offices in Philadelphia, has appeared at campus career events in the area in the past.
An email seeking comment from CBP’s media office was not returned.
At Rowan University in New Jersey earlier this month, the participation of CBP’s Trade Regulatory Audit Philadelphia Field Office in a career fair drew some student protest. Members of a student activist group distributed fliers speaking out against CBP during the fair, according to Rowan’s student newspaper, the Whit, and campus police and administration officials came to the scene.
The agency also reserved a table and came to afall event at Rowan to share information about accounting-related auditing internships, said Rowan spokesperson Joe Cardona,and has done so at the public university for the last decade.
Rowan’s Rohrer College of Business Center for Professional Development hosts more than 200 employers each year, including local, state, and federal agencies as well as private-sector groups, he said.
“The presence of any employer on campus does not constitute institutional endorsement of that organization’s policies or actions,” Cardona said. “Rather, it reflects our commitment to supporting student career exploration while upholding principles of open access and free expression.”
At Villanova, CBP pulled out of a career fair it had planned to attend earlier this month, according to the Villanovan, the student newspaper. The withdrawal followed criticism on social media about the organization’s planned appearance.
The organizer of an Instagram account that opposed the agency’s participation said they wished that Villanova had made the decision to disallow the group rather than the group withdrawing, according to the student newspaper.
“I think a lot of students will feel a lot safer and more comfortable attending this Career Fair,” the organizer said. “But it doesn’t take away the anger that this was ever something that was gonna happen.”
Villanova said in a statement that CBP‘sOffice of Trade had participated in prior career events and that employers with prior participation were contacted “through standard outreach” about this year’s event.
Temple’s law school last semester had planned to host a “Coffee and Careers” networking event with a DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer but later canceled it, according to the Temple News, the student newspaper. The event was replaced with a talk on public interest law by Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau.
DHS “chose to engage directly with students interested in DHS opportunities rather than participate in a scheduled career event,” Temple spokesperson Steve Orbanek said.
He also noted that “career fairs are university-sponsored events, and actions that disrupt these events may violate university policy and established on-campus demonstration guidelines.”
NEW YORK — It’s been a confusing time for people with student loans. Collections restarted, then were put on hold. At the same time, borrowers had to stay on top of changes to key forgiveness plans.
Last year, the long-contested SAVE plan introduced by the Biden administration ended with a settlement agreement. President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” introduced new borrowing limits for graduates and raised challenges to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. While several changes for student loan borrowers will take effect this summer, other key questions remain unresolved.
More than 5 million Americans were in default on their federal student loans as of September, according to the Education Department. Millions are behind on loan payments and at risk of default this year.
Borrowers “genuinely struggle to afford their loans and then to hear that the administration is making it more expensive and taking away some of the tools and resources that help folks afford their loans is really, it’s panic-inducing,” said Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at Protect Borrowers.
Last month, the Education Department announced that it would delay involuntary collections for student loan borrowers in default until the department finalizes its new loan repayment plans. The date for this is still unclear.
If you’re a student loan borrower, here are some key things to know.
If you were enrolled in the SAVE plan
The SAVE plan was a repayment plan with some of the most lenient terms ever. Soon after its launch it was challenged in court, leaving millions of student loan borrowers in limbo. Last December, the Education Department announced a settlement agreement to end the SAVE plan. What is next for borrowers who were enrolled in this repayment plan is yet to be determined.
“Seven and a half million borrowers who are currently enrolled in SAVE need to be moved to another plan,” Berkman-Breen said.
As part of the agreement, the Education Department says it will not enroll new borrowers, will deny pending applications, and will move all current SAVE borrowers into other repayment plans.
The Education Department is expected to develop a plan for borrowers to transition from the SAVE plan, yet borrowers should be proactive about enrolling in other repayment plans, said Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet.
If you are looking to enroll in an income-driven repayment plan
Borrowers can apply for the following income-driven plans: the Income-Based Repayment Plan, the Pay as You Earn plan, and the Income-Contingent Repayment plan.
“They all have similar criteria, and they function similarly. Your payment is set as a percentage of your income, not how much you owe, so it’s usually a lower payment,” Berkman-Breen said.
The payment amount under income-driven plans is a percentage of your discretionary income, and the percentage varies depending on the plan. Since many people are looking to switch plans, some applications to income-driven repayment plans might take longer to process, said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
You can find out which repayment plan might work best for you by logging on to the Education Department’s loan simulator at studentaid.gov/loan-simulator/.
If you’re working toward your Public Service Loan Forgiveness
There are no changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program yet. Last year, the Trump administration announced plans to change the eligibility requirements for participating nonprofits.
The policy seeks to disqualify nonprofit workers if their work is deemed to have “substantial illegal purpose.” The Trump administration said it’s necessary to block taxpayer money from lawbreakers, while critics say it turns the program into a tool of political retribution.
The proposal says illegal activity includes the trafficking or “chemical castration” of children, illegal immigration, and supporting foreign terrorist organizations. This move could cut off some teachers, doctors, and other public workers from federal loan cancellation.
“This is something that obviously is very stressful, very nerve-wracking for a lot of people, but given that we don’t know exactly how this is going to be enforced, how these terms are going to be defined, it’s not really something that you can try to plan ahead for now,” Wood said.
While this policy is currently being challenged by 20 Democrat-led states, it’s expected to take effect in July. In the meantime, Wood recommends that borrowers enrolled in the PSLF program continue making payments.
If your student loans are in default
Involuntary collections on federal student loans will remain on hold. The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it is delaying plans to withhold pay from student loan borrowers who default on their payments.
Federal student loan borrowers can have their wages garnished and their federal tax refunds withheld if they default on their loans. Borrowers are considered in default when they are at least 270 days behind on payments.
If your student loans are in default, you can contact your loan holder to apply for a loan rehabilitation program.
“They essentially come up with a payment plan where you’re making a reduced payment,” Woods. “After five successful payments on that rehabilitation plan, wage garnishment will cease.”
If you’re planning to attend graduate school
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has changed the amount graduate students can borrow from federal student loans. Graduate students could previously borrow loans up to the cost of their degree; the new rules cap the amount depending on whether the degree is considered a graduate or a professional program.
Wood said that if you’re starting a new program and taking out a loan after July 1, you will be subject to the new loan limits.
Under the new plan, students in professional programs would be able to borrow up to $50,000 per year and up to $200,000 in total. Other graduate students, such as those pursuing nursing and physical therapy, would be limited to $20,500 a year and up to $100,000 total.
The Education Department is defining the following fields as professional programs: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology.
If you want to consolidate your loan
The online application for loan consolidation is available at studentaid.gov/loan-consolidation. If you have multiple federal student loans, you can combine them into a single loan with a fixed interest rate and a single monthly payment.
The consolidation process typically takes around 60 days to complete. You can only consolidate your loans once.
Philadelphia could be hit with some sloppy, slushy snow Sunday.
After a banner day Saturday, with a downright balmy high of 47 degrees in Philly, forecasters now expect a coastal storm to spread precipitation through the region late Sunday into Monday,
“It’s one of those situations where if we have just enough cold air and just enough intensity, we could get several inches,” said Ray Martin, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Mount Holly office. “But if the temperature is just a little bit warmer — even just a degree —it could end up being a rain-snow mix where there’s no accumulation. It’s a really borderline situation.”
Currently, forecasters are calling for an inch of snow in Philadelphia, Martin said.
“But I wouldn’t be shocked if we got unlucky and maybe got two to three inches of sloppy wet snow,” he said. “I also wouldn’t be shocked if we ended up with just mainly rain. There’s still some uncertainty with this forecast.”
Still, he said, more snow would not necessarily represent a major blow to Philly’s efforts to dig out from its most stubborn snowpack in 65 years, courtesy of January’s blizzard and recent polar temperatures. With temps expected to climb back into the low 40s Monday, any accumulation will quickly melt away, Martin said.
“Everything will look less brown,” he said. “But it’s not going to be 10 tons of snow or anything like that.”
The changing forecast comes 24 hours after earlier weather models showed higher potential snow totals, Martin said.
“There was some guidance suggesting a significantly higher snowfall of up to six inches of heavy wet snow,” he said. “But it’s way backed off from that.”
