Mike Phillips has spent the past year reconciling his vote for Donald Trump with the uncertain future of his farm in central Iowa.
The 72-year-old has been farming for five decades and tills 2,000 acres of soybeans and corn. Trump’s tough talk on trade has always appealed to Phillips, who thinks China’s relationship with American farmers desperately needs a reset. He voted for Trump in each of the past three presidential elections. He believes in GOP farming policies because “we’ve been burned so bad by the Democrats.”
But the tariff war Trump started has been eating into Phillips’s bottom line and clouding his decisions about the best path forward. Thirteen months after Trump won a second term with wide support in farm-dependent parts of the country, Phillips wonders what will come first: Trump’s promised farm resurgence or his own retirement.
“For the most part, farmers — we’ve been willing to kind of go along. But I don’t know about now,” Phillips said. “I know [Trump is] a more practical person. He’s trying to do something. I’m not sure the tariffs were a good idea. I guess I still support him but hope he can get something done.”
Trump announced this month that he will use $11 billion to bail out farmers from “trade market disruptions and increased production costs that are still impacting farmers.” For farmers, trade groups, and industry advocates, however, the bailout marked a tacit admission that a year’s worth of Trump policies have upended their industry and threatened their livelihoods. Still unclear is whether policies that have hurt farmers will also sour the relationship between the president and one of his most loyal and politically symbolic constituencies.
Trump won farm-dependent counties with an average of nearly 78% of the votein 2024, according to Investigate Midwest. Discouraged by rising inflation during Joe Biden’s presidency, farmers hoped a second Trump term would usher in a more favorable climate, said Chad Hart, an agricultural economics professor at Iowa State University.
But Trump’s far-reaching tariffs on imports — and reciprocal levies against some U.S. products — have blunted those hopes. Tariffs on countries including Canada and China, and on specific goods such as steel and aluminum, translated into rising costs for tractors, combines, and fertilizer. Even more damaging for Phillips and farmers like him was the escalating trade war with China, a country American soybean producers have relied on to import the bulk of their crops. Reciprocal tariffs swelled well into the triple digits.
At the same time, Chinese leaders have worked to reduce their country’s reliance on American soybeans. China accounted for half — about $12.6 billion — of all U.S. soybean exports in 2024. In September, the country did not import American soybeans at all.
“For soybean farmers, market losses due to the ongoing trade conflict with China are only exacerbating financial problems,” Caleb Ragland, the president of the American Soybean Association, said during testimony before Congress in October. He pointed to estimates that soybean producers would lose $109 per acre on their crops this year. “It is likely that a quarter of U.S. soy production will need to find new customers.”
Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation farmer who grows soybeans, corn, oats, and hay in Iowa’s Polk County and heads the Iowa Farmers Union, said farmers have “a big dissatisfaction with how this has gone.”
“What we’re seeing right now is we’ve broken all of the trade structures without a real plan to put it back together in the right way,” Lehman said. “Farmers are willing to be a part of the solution, but I don’t think they’re willing just to be a pawn in a trade war that has no path or plan to get to true reform. That’s the disappointing part, because we’re not getting close to a fairer path.”
For some farmers, the White House aid package may cometoo late. About 181 farmers filed for bankruptcy protection in the first half of the year, the Washington Post reported in October, a 60% increase from 2024. It was the highest six-month reading since 2020, court records show. And some of the shifts may be permanent, Phillips and other soybean farmers fear. Chinese importers have strengthened relationships with crop competitors like Argentina, Uruguay, Russia, and especially Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of soybeans.
“The hope for a quick turnaround is now gone,” said Hart, the economics professor. “If you’re holding out hope, that hope is now, at best, looking like it won’t come until a year to three years down the road.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) said farmers in his home state are experiencing a “not-so-perfect storm” of low grain prices, high input costs, industry consolidation and tariff uncertainty that mirrors the tumult of the 1980s, when more than 900 farmers killed themselves across six Midwestern states during what was dubbed the worst agricultural economic crisis since the Great Depression.
“It kind of crept up on us at that particular time,” he said. “And, Congress didn’t see it coming soon enough. Congress waited too long to act.”
During a roundtable announcing the package, Trump blamed the agricultural tumult on inflation linked to Biden — an assertion that industry leaders said is true. But Trump also said that “a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs” is helping to pay for the relief, a statement that many in the industry question.
Trump did not appear to be concerned about his standing with U.S. farmers.
“And, as you know, the farmers like me, because you know, based on — based on voting trends, you could call it voting trends or anything else, but they’re great people. They’re the backbone of our country,” Trump said.
He seemed confident that his supporters in agriculture would blame Biden, not him, for their woes.
“Biden turned that surplus into a gaping agricultural deficit that continues to this day, but we’re knocking it down,” Trump said. “It’s starting to go very good. In fact, China, as you know, is buying a tremendous amount of soybeans.” Trump did not say that China’s soybean imports have actually fallen.
The economic policies that have put farmers in dire straits have been bipartisan in nature, said Tom Adam, the president of the Iowa Soybean Association. Inflation ate into crop profits in the latter portion of Biden’s tenure and has continued, he said, but tariffs have tacked on additional harm.
“Expenses have been very high. Things just keep going up. Everything is getting higher, I don’t care if you’re buying groceries or buying fertilizers, and we just don’t have increasing crop prices,” he said. “We were pretty certain that there would be reciprocal tariffs when this happened. I think farmers support a lot of the things that Trump is doing on tariffs. But at the same time it’s getting pretty painful.”
Adam said the aid is helpful, but “it’s probably not going to be enough. It’s not going to make a farmer wealthy by any means. And there will be some farms that may not make it through. Everyone’s in a little different financial situation, but you can’t rescue everyone. I’ve heard from many that are saying this could be their last year. Whether it’s bankruptcy or whether they want to just try something else.”
Modern farms historically have relied on government assistance to stay afloat. The legislation Trump has called the One Big Beautiful Bill locked in more than $65 billion over 10 years in agricultural support programs. And during his first term, Trump released $16 billion in aid to farmers amid Chinese retaliation for tariffs. Corn and soybean advocacy groups have long pushed for policies that would force or encourage ethanol use in gasoline to increase demand for the two products.
Speaking from his farm on a blustery December day, a few months before another round of difficult decisions about how to eke out the most profit from his land, Phillips said he’s also trying to determine how much of the promised government relief might end up in his pockets — even though he knows it won’t be there for long.
“That money is not to the farmers. That money is going to go to their bankers or their machinery dealers or their chemical [fertilizer] companies to pay them,” he said.
He said he understands the infusion is meant as a bridge to a better day, but he would prefer smarter trade policies over a government handout.
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HARRISBURG — In November, Pennsylvania Department of Aging Secretary Jason Kavulich found himself in the hot seat.
He was testifying before a legislative committee on his department’s oversight of 52 county-based Area Agencies on Aging that protect vulnerable older adults from abuse or neglect.
Reading from prepared remarks, Kavulich asserted that under his watch, the department has ushered in an era of modernization and change.
He said the system his agency now uses to determine the quality of protective services is more accountable and gives real-time feedback so any problems can be speedily fixed. He also testified that the department is the most transparent it has ever been, saying that it places an unprecedented amount of data on its website about whether counties are following state requirements for quickly and efficiently investigating abuse and neglect allegations — and keeping older adults safe.
Many of those older adults lack financial resources for alternative care or a network of family and friends to watch out for them — they rely on the system to remain safe.
Protective services work is emotionally and physically taxing. Many caseworkers juggle high workloads, often for little money. Turnover is high, making it difficult to retain qualified, experienced people. Even the most hardened critics of the state’s protective services system acknowledge the difficulty of the work.
Still, new data show that many counties continue to fail in some of the most important areas of older adult protective services.
Critics of Kavulich’s administration, including former protective or aging services staffers at the department, believe many of his changes have relaxed oversight of the county agencies and weakened efforts to ensure they follow rules and keep older adults safe.
These critics note that Kavulich once helmed a county aging agency and later presided over the association that represents their interests. That background, they believe, makes him sympathetic to the very agencies his department is supposed to oversee.
At least one employee is suing him and the department, alleging retaliation for raising alarms about transparency problems and elder abuse system failures.
Most alarmingly, hundreds of older adults continue to die while their abuse and neglect cases are actively being investigated by their local aging agency, according to data provided to Spotlight PA by state aging officials.
“Has he made changes? Yes,” said Sheri McQuown, a former Department of Aging specialist who monitored the quality of protective services by counties, including the one Kavulich once led. “Do those changes benefit older adults? No. They benefit the [counties].”
A new monitoring system
Appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro in 2023, Kavulich has repeatedly asserted that he inherited a deeply flawed system for assessing how well counties investigate abuse and neglect allegations and provide services to keep older adults safe.
He called the system subjective, said it was riddled with inconsistencies, and claimed that it did little to help counties correct problems or improve their performance.
This year, he replaced it with a new monitoring system, called the Comprehensive Agency Performance Evaluation, or CAPE.
Under CAPE, counties are assessed and scored in five main categories, and those results are published online — the first time the department has made that information easily accessible.
CAPE, Kavulich has said, allows the department to drill down on specific problems and help counties in the areas where they are struggling the most, including through training opportunities.
“Accountability is about improvement, not punishment,” Kavulich said at a state Senate hearing in November.
Earlier this year, Spotlight PA obtained copies of the forms and scoresheets the department used to monitor counties both before CAPE and after. Those records show the prior monitoring system assessed counties using a wide range of measures drawn from state regulations.
For instance, it assessed counties on how quickly they met in person with an older adult suspected of being in danger of abuse or neglect. It also monitored them on how quickly the investigation was completed.
Denise Getgen, the department’s former director of protective services, oversaw the agency’s previous monitoring system until her tenure ended in 2023 and rejected Kavulich’s assertion that it was flawed. It was “absolutely based on the law and regulations and our policy documents at the time,” she said.
In fact, Getgen said, the department provided the county aging agencies with paperwork that cited the specific regulation, policy, or law for every point on which they were being monitored.
Kevin Longenecker, who headed the department’s division of housing and aging services before he retired in 2021, echoed Getgen’s assessment of the legacy system. He said the assertion that it was haphazard and subjective “couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“It was the most consistent monitoring we had,” he said.
Former department employees interviewed by Spotlight PA assert that CAPE makes it easier for counties to receive passing grades.
That is because in implementing CAPE, the department did away with the previous weighted scores, meaning local aging agencies are no longer graded more harshly for serious investigative failures. Under CAPE, the department equally scores relatively minor problems — such as poorly kept paperwork — and more serious deficiencies, such as failing to swiftly complete abuse and neglect investigations.
Unlike the previous monitoring system, CAPE does not designate counties as compliant or noncompliant with state regulations. Nor does it assign them an overall score. Instead, it uses a percentage system to score the counties in each of the five main categories — they must score at least a 75% to avoid additional scrutiny from the department.
Since CAPE went into effect earlier this year, 16 county aging agencies have been monitored. Of those, 12 received less than 75% in the “risk mitigation and safety” category, according to department data.
It is one of the most important categories — and one that used to be weighted more heavily.
State aging officials describe it this way on the department’s website: “Risk mitigation for the older adult involves assessing their individual needs, coordinating support services, and implementing protective actions to ensure safety. The goal of risk mitigation and safety is to enhance the older adult’s well-being and protect them from further harm.”
In an email, department spokesperson Karen Gray said criticism that CAPE is more lenient on the counties has “no basis in fact.”
“In fact, some AAAs have not met the department’s minimum compliance threshold of 75% in certain categories, clearly showing the new system is working and readily identifying issues — not masking them within an overall score like the previous system allowed,” she said.
When asked whether the department was concerned that the majority of counties monitored so far were falling short in the risk mitigation category, Gray did not respond.
More public data
The department has made good on Kavulich’s promise to make more data about his agency’s work — as well as the work of the county aging agencies — available to the public.
The department now publishes data on its website on how well counties are complying with state rules that mandate caseworkers make “every attempt” to meet face-to-face with an older adult within 24 hours of receiving an emergency or priority report of suspected abuse or neglect.
That is a metric that the majority of counties have, at least since 2017, met with success.
The agency also began posting data about whether counties complete abuse and neglect investigations — and provide services to help an at-risk older adult, if an allegation is substantiated — within 20 days of receiving a report. (Kavulich, as well as representatives of the county’s aging agencies, have asserted that the 20-day deadline is a goal. State regulations say counties “shall make all reasonable efforts” to complete investigations of reports of need in that time frame, “and, in cases of abuse and neglect, at least within 20 days of the receipt of the report.” The Office of State Inspector General has described it as a legal requirement.)
Still, the 20-day compliance data on the department’s website exclude instances where caseworkers were unable to locate an older adult — a change from past practice, when those cases were included. That makes it difficult to determine whether counties have, as the department has asserted, made improvements. It also makes it impossible to compare their performance with past years.
Asked about the change, Gray said the department isn’t excluding those data — instead, it is “no longer including” them in its calculations.
But, she said, the information is still tracked. And the department has a directive that spells out multiple steps counties must take before determining someone can’t be located, including contacting the person’s family and friends and monitoring their residence and frequented locations.
The 20-day deadline is an area in which many counties have historically fared poorly.
A Spotlight PA analysis of compliance data between 2017 and 2024 found that, in the best year, nearly a third of total cases investigated annually by the 52 county agencies either missed the 20-day deadline or contained faulty paperwork that made it impossible to determine how they performed. Some years were far worse — nearly half didn’t meet the requirement.
The 20-day compliance data posted on the department’s website does not permit the public to calculate the percentage of overall cases in which the deadline was missed, although it does provide overall monthly scores for each of the 52 agencies. It also doesn’t break down how many days past the deadline an investigation dragged on. Spotlight PA’s analysis found that investigations at times blew the deadline by months or even more than a year.
The data also do not include the number of older adults who died while their abuse and neglect cases were actively being investigated. In 2018, 888 people died while counties looked into allegations they were being abused or neglected. In 2023 — the last year of complete data — that number was 1,511, a 70% increase over just five years.
The association that represents county aging agencies has argued that those numbers don’t tell the whole story, and that the data are skewed in part by the dramatic impact of the pandemic on the well-being of older adults.
Yet the number of deaths hasn’t dropped dramatically in the years since. Preliminary data show that 1,364 older adults died while under the care of the system in 2024.
A whistleblower suit
Just before Thanksgiving, a longtime employee of the state Department of Aging sued the agency and Shapiro in federal court, alleging retaliation and harassment for sounding the alarm about the state’s failures in protecting older adults from abuse and neglect.
Aging Services Supervisor Richard Llewellyn alleges department brass thwarted his efforts to assist investigations by outside agencies, including the Office of State Inspector General, into the quality of older adult protective services around Pennsylvania.
Llewellyn also alleges that top department officials purposely suppressed or manipulated data to shield problems when responding to public records requests, including in response to one by Spotlight PA. Llewellyn alleges that Deputy Aging Secretary Jonathan Bowman even bragged about his ability to exploit loopholes to dodge having to turn over complete and accurate data.
Llewellyn alleges that when he objected to and later reported the alleged wrongdoing to other state officials, he was subjected to a campaign of retaliation, including targeted administrative complaints and investigations.
He was also stripped of work duties — notably, gathering accurate information in response to Right-to-Know requests.
In his lawsuit, Llewellyn describes a culture of intimidation and retaliation in violation of the First Amendment as well as the state’s Whistleblower Law.
Gray said the department cannot comment on personnel matters or pending litigation.
Llewellyn has been suspended from his position since July, the result of a human resources complaint being filed against him. In all, Llewellyn has been subjected to five complaints in the space of 13 months, and so far has been cleared of wrongdoing in two.
In an interview, Llewellyn said he was never told who filed the complaints, but believes they are part of a concerted effort to intimidate him, hamper criticism, and prevent the system’s problems from being aired publicly.
Llewellyn said he hopes that, as a result of his litigation, the retaliation that has upended his professional life comes to an end.
He also said he hopes it sheds light on what he believes is “outright fraud” by department executives.
“And I hope it helps shed light on the fact that the changes made by Secretary Kavulich benefit the [county aging agencies] and not older adults,” he said. “Because that is what is happening.”
BEFORE YOU GO … If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.
The sanctions entail freezing the companies’ assets in China and banning individuals and organizations from dealing with them, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The companies include Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, L3Harris Maritime Services and Boeing in St. Louis, while defense firm Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey is one of the executives sanctioned, who can no longer do business in China and are barred from entering the country. Their assets in the East Asian country have also been frozen.
The announcement of the U.S. arms-sale package, valued at more than $10 billion, has drawn an angry response from China, which claims Taiwan as its own and says it must come under its control.
If approved by the American Congress, it would be the largest-ever U.S. weapons package to the self-ruled territory.
“We stress once again that the Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in China－U.S. relations,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday. “Any company or individual who engages in arms sales to Taiwan will pay the price for the wrongdoing.”
The ministry also urged the U.S. to stop what it called “the dangerous moves of arming Taiwan.”
Taiwan is a major flashpoint in U.S.-China relations that analysts worry could explode into military conflict between the two powers. China says that the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would violate diplomatic agreements between China and the U.S.
China’s military has increased its presence in Taiwan’s skies and waters in the past few years, holding joint drills with its warships and fighter jets on a near-daily basis near the island.
Under the American federal law, the U.S. is obligated to assist Taiwan with its self-defense, a point that has become increasingly contentious with China. Beijing already has strained ties with Washington over trade, technology and other human rights issues.
Justin Juray didn’t know where to turn. His Maine bowling alley had been the site of a mass killing, and he was struggling — not just to reopen, but to cope with his business’s now notorious place in history.
John Curry was worried about closing his Georgia coffee shop, scrambling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and “drowning” financially as he waited for a $126,000 payment from a federal program for keeping his employees on staff.
In their low moments, they received help from an unexpected source: their United States senator.
Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.), two of the most vulnerable members of the Senate facing reelection next year, have little in common politically. But both have reputations for providing strong constituent services, an often overlooked advantage afforded incumbents that could matter on the margins in close races.
Taking requests for help and working out a solution is one of the most unsung practices in most Senate offices, often overshadowed by committee hearings and Senate floor fights in Washington and by campaign rallies and television ads back home. But no work puts voters in more direct contact with their federal representative.
Collins’ office helped Juray with tax and insurance issues, as well as securing a disaster relief loan, in the wake of what was Maine’s deadliest mass killing ever, where eight people were killed in 2023 at his Lewiston, Maine, bowling alley.
Ossoff gave Curry his card after an event at the small business owner’s Augusta, Ga., coffee shop in 2023 and told him to call if he “ever needed anything.” When the business faced serious financial difficulties while waiting for funds to cover a string of bills, he emailed the senator for help.
“He called me the next day,” said Curry. “It was not long at all before I got an email from the IRS saying that I had a check on the way.”
In separate interviews with the Washington Post, Collins and Ossoff both said they have worked to create a culture in their offices that prioritizes each interaction with people they represent.
“I know that I have had an impact,” Collins saidwhen asked to reflect on the constituent service work out of her office. “It’s extremely satisfying … when we’re able to solve a problem for an individual.”
Ossoff said he wants his constituents “to experience a level of responsiveness and accountability and concern that they have never felt before.”
Asked why all members of Congress don’t focus as heavily on such services, Ossoff said the current culture in politics is “all about attention.”
“For a lot of people in Congress, their goal is to become more and more and more famous or infamous, find the cameras, post the viral content,” he said. “That’s just not my approach to the job.”
Both Collins and Ossoff face competitive reelections next year.
Collins, who has yet to announce a campaign but has said she intends to run for her sixth Senate term, is the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation and faces an electorate that has voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992.
But Collins, a relatively moderate Republican, also faces pressure from her right, with more conservative members of her state bristling at the times she bucks her party and President Donald Trump. Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced a Senate campaign in October. The 77-year-old Democrat faces a primary challenge from a more liberal candidate, Graham Platner, a Marine Corps combat veteran and oyster farmer.
Ossoff, first elected to the Senate in 2020, faces a similarly competitive election in a state that has only recently been in play statewide for Democrats. Trump won in Georgia by two percentage points in 2024. The Republican primary to face Ossoff is competitive, a sign Republicans view him as vulnerable.
Collins’ six and Ossoff’s four state offices include case workers whose primary focus is helping constituents solve problems. But other staff in the offices — and in Washington, D.C. — regardless of their primary duties, are also expected to pitch in.
The work has created scenarios in which people who may disagree with Collins and Ossoff on specific issues are willing to back them for reelection because of the personal level of work their offices have done.
Juray, the bowling alley owner, offers an example.
Two people from Collins’ office worked with him following the shooting. Juray said they not only cleared up all the questions with his insurance company and the IRS, but they secured him a disaster relief loan that “helped us get everything put back together” so they could reopen in 2024.
Juray, a registered Democrat, has voted for Collins in the past. While he hasn’t decided who he will vote for next year, he says he is “leaning” toward the Republican incumbent.
“Without the senators’ support and without them, I might still be waiting on some of this funding,” Juray said. “It changed the way I saw representation as a whole.”
Chris Gardner, the head of the port authority in Eastport, Maine, was at a loss after watching the town’s historic decades-old breakwater built to protect the city’s harbor “open up like a zipper” and crumble along the rocky coast early one morning in 2014. The collapse put the livelihoods of countless people at risk.
Before the sun rose, Gardner recalled, Collins called him and promised to do “whatever it takes” to rebuild the critical infrastructure at the nation’s easternmost port. When the breakwater was rebuilt and reopened in 2017, Collins was there with Gardner, celebrating the achievement and the millions of dollars the senator helped secure for the project.
Gardner is a registered Republican who at times “hasn’t agreed with some of Senator Collins’ votes.” But he said he tells “anyone who will listen” about the role Collins played in rebuilding the breakwater. “God love her, she is hated by people on both sides of the aisle. … The irony is, she weathers all of that … because she stays focused on doing her job.”
Collins laughed when asked if she thinks her constituent services work helps temper some of the anger directed at her by people who disagree with her politics. She said that often people come up to her at the grocery store and she can tell that they might not be her typical political supporters.
“I always find that people come up to me because I’m alone,” she said. “I’m doing exactly what they’re doing. And they will come up to me and thank me for the work that my offices have done.”
Ossoff, who is far newer to the Senate than Collins, is working to build that kind of reputation.
Shortly after Ossoff joined the Senate in 2021, he invited an executive from a famed Georgia company — Delta Air Lines — to come speak with his staff on “best practices” for his customer service operation, including suggestions that “maybe are not common in the legislative branch or the federal government.”
The result? Ossoff calls a handful of people who received assistance from his office each week to check in on their experience. And at the end of every constituent call with his office, Ossoff said the caller is asked whether they would “recommend the service that my office provides for someone else in the same situation as them.”
For Claven Williams, a retired Navy commander, the answer was yes.
Williams was exposed to Agent Orange during his service in the Pacific from the 1970s to the 1990s and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After initially approving his claim for disability in 2024 under the newly passed Pact Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs reduced his disability to 50% in 2025, claiming that he was cured of the ailment. That prompted Williams to contact to Ossoff’s office, which successfully worked with the department to restore his 100% benefit earlier this year.
“I had dealt with other politicians; they didn’t support you like that, they didn’t go out of your way to help you,” recalled Williams, who voted for Ossoff in 2020.
The casework provided by Ossoff and Collins has drawn praise from those partisans who have opposed their elections.
“Their constituent services are second to none,” Brian Robinson, a Republican operative in Georgia, said of Ossoff’s staffduring an April radio appearance with the senator, praising him for following in the footsteps of former Republican senator Johnny Isakson.
Bev Uhlenhake, the former chair of the Maine Democratic Party who opposes Collins’ reelection next year, said the reason Collins has proved difficult to defeat in a blue state is “her relationships throughout the state of Maine.”
“They are so deep because her staff have helped so many Mainers while in crisis,” Uhlenhake said. “Constituent services in Maine are incredibly important, and she has done it really well.”
Ring in 2026 with fireworks lighting up the Delaware River waterfront. Philadelphia’s New Year’s Eve shows will return with two displays, including an earlier, family-friendly show at 6 p.m., followed by a midnight celebration to welcome the new year. The Rivers Casino fireworks are a rain-or-shine event, with views from several free spots along the waterfront.
Best free viewing spots
For those looking to enjoy the show without a ticket, the fireworks can be seen from various locations along the waterfront, including:
Race Street Pier: 📍 North Christopher Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106
Washington Avenue Pier: 📍Washington Avenue Green, South Christopher Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147
Pier 68: 📍At the end ofPier 70 Blvd., Philadelphia, Pa. 19148
Spruce Street Harbor Park: 📍301 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106
Great Plaza at Penn’s Landing: 📍101 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106
Ticketed events with great views
Elevate your celebration with one of these ticketed options:
Cherry Street Pier: Choose between family-friendly fun or an adults-only party, both offering unbeatable views and live entertainment. 💵 $32.70 (with the service fee); 🌐 delawareriverwaterfront.com
Battleship New Jersey: Watch the fireworks from a unique vantage point aboard this historic ship, complete with food and drinks. 💵 General admission: $10, VIP: $125; 🌐 battleshipnewjersey.org
Think you know your news? There’s only one way to find out. Welcome back to our weekly News Quiz — a quick way to see if your reading habits are sinking in and to put your local news knowledge to the test.
Question 1 of 10
It’s prime Santa season and The Inquirer spoke to some of the devoted Santa actors keeping the magic alive throughout town. One Santa actor in particular, Scott Diethorne, left the mall he was stationed at for years and went freelance after he says mall officials told him to stop flashing his popular Santa-themed arm tattoos. What did the tattoos say or illustrate?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Diethorne has been freelancing for years, ever since he was instructed to tone it down at the Oxford Valley Mall in 2017. That year, he was told to hide his “Naughty” and “Nice” arm tattoos and stop striking funny poses as requested by visitors. Some malls also impose time limits. Now that he’s his own boss, Diethorne says he can give the people what they want.
Question 2 of 10
An authorized print of this historical document — signed by a former U.S. president — will be up for auction soon. Which document is it?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Less than a year after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, two industrious Philadelphians devised a plan to help raise money for injured Union soldiers, war widows, and children left orphaned by the war. The Emancipation Proclamation’s text was printed in Philadelphia in 1864 with Lincoln signing 48 copies, and sold for $10 each. Just 27 copies are still known to exist. One will be sold by Christie’s next month.
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This famous Eagle made a surprise performance at the War on Drugs’ performance at Johnny Brenda’s last weekend:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
During the second night of the War on Drugs’ three-show “A Drugcember to Remember,” the band brought out Eagles guitarist and solo musician Joe Walsh — a big surprise for the 250-capacity room show. The Walsh-Drugs mini-set kicked off with “Rocky Mountain Way.” The musicians first met when War on Drugs played Walsh’s VetsAid in 2023 and kept in touch.
Question 4 of 10
What cleaning service is being reduced in Center City due to rising costs?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The Center City Residents’ Association will not renew its contract with Center City District for sidewalk cleaning that is up at the end of this month, the group said in an email to its members. The residents’ association said its board made the decision because of rising costs charged by Center City District. The new rate would have doubled the proportion of the association’s budget going toward sidewalk cleaning in 2026, from 20% to 41%.
Question 5 of 10
What was the main issue Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said she wanted to address going into 2026 at her State of the City speech?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Parker focused on homelessness during her address. Even as Philadelphia this year shed its long-held title as the “poorest big city in America,” the number of unsheltered people increased by 20% compared to last. While shootings have reached 50-year lows, the open-air drug market that has long plagued Kensington persists.
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Question 6 of 10
Jason Kelce recently invested in this local condiment:
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Kelce invested in Hank Sauce, a Jersey Shore hot sauce company based in Kelce’s beloved Sea Isle City. The sauce is sold everywhere from surf shops to the Acme and produces a variety of hot and not-so-hot sauces that have become ubiquitous at the Jersey Shore and in the Philadelphia area.
Question 7 of 10
The Brandywine Museum of Art is displaying Autumn in the Ramapo Valley, Erie Railway, an 1873 landscape by Jasper Francis Cropsey that hasn’t been seen by the public in 152 years. Since it was first commissioned, it lived in private collections in England until philanthropists brought it back to the United States. What industry is subtly featured in the painting?
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The railroad industry is represented in the painting. It was originally commissioned by James McHenry, a wealthy railroad executive who worked closely with the Erie Railway.
Question 8 of 10
Who is headlining this year’s New Year’s Eve concert in Philadelphia?
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The city will host its first-ever New Year’s Eve concert featuring LL Cool J, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Los Angeles rock band Dorothy, and Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts graduate Adam Blackstone — no tickets required and free.
Question 9 of 10
This activist and public figure was recently spotted rocking a Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt:
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In a brief post shared with her 3.7 million Instagram followers, Malala Yousafzai shared seven photos and looked back on her 2025. Tucked in the seven-photo carousel of the 28-year-old is a photo of her wearing a kelly green Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt as she’s getting ready to eat some Popeyes. Yousafzai was in Philadelphia promoting her new memoir in October, with Eagles superfan Kylie Kelce moderating the conversation. Kelce encouraged Yousafzai to partake in a “Go Birds” cheer.
Question 10 of 10
Less than one year removed from winning Super Bowl LIX, former Eagles practice-squad offensive tackle Laekin Vakalahi put his Super Bowl ring up for auction. About how much did it sell for?
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The ring sold for $124,440 through Heritage Auctions last weekend. It has Vakalahi’s last name printed across the side. The New Zealand native Vakalahi came to the Eagles in 2024 and spent the Super Bowl-winning season as part of the practice squad. He was released on Aug. 26, 2025 as a part of the team’s final roster cuts.
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PALM BEACH, Fla. — ’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the villa, the president assured children that Santa wasn’t a guerrilla.
“Santa’s a very good person,” President Donald Trump said on Christmas Eve, during the annual presidential ritual of helping excited little ones track Santa Claus’ location. “We want to make sure he’s not infiltrated — that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa.”
This wasn’t exactlywhat Jasper, 10, from Oklahoma, had wanted to know when he dialed the NORAD Santa Tracker on Wednesday afternoon. He had calledto find out where St. Nick and his reindeer were on their nightlong journey circumnavigating the globe, which the hotline “tracks” with the aid of top U.S. military technology.
But out of the phone Jasper rang came a clatter. It was none other than Trump! Nothing was the matter.
The president played along, disclosing Santa’s location, which at that moment, he said, was in the Czech Republic. But first, he offered a few choice observations about Jasper’s own.
“Santa loves Oklahoma like I do,” Trump said. “You know, Oklahoma was very good to me in the election, so I love Oklahoma. Don’t ever leave Oklahoma, OK?”
“OK,” Jasper replied haltingly. “I’ll try.”
Such was Christmas Eve at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Palm Beach. He had spent the morning at his golf course in West Palm Beach, just across the lagoon, and by the afternoon, he was sitting in a gilded chair before a gilded Christmas tree in his gilded living room, the first lady at his side.
With Melania in her heels and Trump in his tie, the first couple settled down to give Christmas cheer a try. The president took his calls over speakerphone; the first lady took hers murmuring softly into a receiver held closely to her ear: “She’s able to focus totally without listening to this,” Trump said.
Jasper’s 4-year-old sister, Anastasia, told Trump she wanted a dollhouse for Christmas.
“I think we can work that out,” Trump replied. “I think Santa’s gonna bring you the most beautiful dollhouse you’ve ever seen.” (Whether the dollhouse would be subject to his administration’s tariffs, Trump didn’t say. He has been much clearer about dolls, saying earlier this year while imposing globaltariffs that young girls would be “very happy” with just “two or three or four or five.”)
Next was Savannah, 8, from North Carolina, who wanted to know if Santa would be mad if she didn’t leave out cookies for him. The president cocked his head and smirked. “This is getting good!” he told reporters.
“I think he won’t get mad, but I think he’ll be very disappointed,” he counseled Savannah. “You know, Santa’s — he tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. Do you know what cherubic means? A little on the heavy side. I think Santa would like some cookies.”
Amelia, 8, from Kansas, told Trump she wasn’t sure what she wanted for Christmas. “Not coal,” she said.
“Not coal, no, you don’t want coal,” the president agreed. Then he caught himself. “Well, you mean clean, beautiful coal.” He turned to the media. “I had to do that, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Coal is clean and beautiful,” he told Amelia. “Please remember that, at all costs.”
Next up came a 5-year-old who proudly informed the president she was from Pennsylvania.
“Pennsylvania’s great,” Trump said. “We won Pennsylvania — actually, three times,” he continued. (He did not.)
“This is America,” he said to reporters at one point between calls. The president did not explain what he meant by this.
His last call was with a pair of sisters, ages 6 and 10, from Tacoma, Wash. One of them told Trump she would like a pinball machine for Christmas.
“Pinball machine? That’s great.” Trump said. “You know Elton John?” If she did, she did not say. Nor did she point out that The Who, not Elton John, first released “Pinball Wizard.”
“He did ‘Pinball Wizard,’” the president continued. “We’ll have to send you a copy of ‘Pinball Wizard.’”
Trump didn’t take any questions from reporters, though there were many questions to ask unrelated to Santa’swhereabouts. What about the latest tranche of the Epstein files, which include wide-ranging references to the president? Or the Supreme Court decision that thwarts his planned National Guard deployment in Chicago? Is Nicolás Maduro on the naughty or nice list?
Not today — not on Christmas Eve. Couples were arriving in suits and ball gowns; the aroma of roasting meat wafted through the halls. The club’s celebrations were about to begin, and the president was in the holiday spirit. “Show them the festivities,” he instructed his staff, “and then send them home for Christmas dinner.”
Around 7 p.m., reporters were escorted into the Mar-a-Lago ballroom to take in the teeming dessert platters and his guests’ holiday finest. Trump sat at a table near the center of the room with his wife and father-in-law, cordoned off from his fellow revelers with a velvet rope.
Two minutes later, the media were whisked away. But we all heard him Truth, ere he retired for the night: “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly.”
U.S. forces struck Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday evening, following up on threats to the country over killings of Christians, President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Trump said the military conducted “multiple strikes” but did not elaborate. In a follow-up post, U.S. Africa Command said multiple people it said were ISIS terrorists were killed in strikes in Sokoto State, which is in the northwest portion of the country, bordering Niger, and has become a hot spot for a resurgence in violent extremism and the kidnapping of schoolchildren.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” Trump posted to social media.
The Pentagon said the Nigerian government approved the strikes and worked with the U.S. to carry them out. No further details on how the strikes were conducted were immediately available.
A spokesperson for the Nigerian foreign ministry confirmed the U.S. strike Thursday evening, saying that “precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes” had been carried out in response to the “persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism.”
“Terrorist violence of any form, whether directed at Christians, Muslims or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values,” the statement from spokesperson Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa said.
For months Trump and Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas andReps. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, and Riley Moore of West Virginia, have raised alarms about killings of Christians in Nigeria amid larger ethnic and religious bloodshed. Trump had previously directed the Pentagon to plan potential military action in Nigeria, and earlier this month the State Department restricted visas for Nigerians involved in the violence.
Trump threatened an attack in Nigeria early last month, writing on his Truth Social site that: “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
His post followed a meeting in Washington between top advisers and representatives of religious groups and came after he watched a Fox News segment on the topic aboard Air Force One, the Washington Post reported. The push to make the issue an administration priority was long in the making, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, but the president’s threat of military action was entirely unexpected, they said.
The Council on Foreign Relations reported earlier this year that the Sahel, a region that spans multiple countries across Central Africa including Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, and Sudan, has seen a significant uptick in the growth of violent extremist organizations as a result of decreased international counterterrorism support.
U.S. forces lost access to key counterterrorism bases in Niger and Chad in 2024. In their place, a number of proxy military groups such as the Russian-backed Wagner Group have filled in.
But the Trump administration has been looking at ways to reduce the U.S. role in Africa overall as it shifts to a strategy that will focus more military assets and attention to the Western Hemisphere. The administration is also looking at potentially consolidating U.S. Africa Command into a theater command that would also include U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command, which could further reduce the attention and resources the region would receive.
That proposal drew concern from some lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Connecticut, who cautioned against the U.S. pulling back given Africa’s young and quickly growing population and economic importance.
Nigeria is a diverse, multiethnic country split between the mostly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south. The country’s 230 million people are roughly split between Christians and Muslims. While violence has sometimes targeted Christians, it has also deeply affected Muslims, according to Nigerian and Western analysts.
Most violence in Nigeria has taken place in the northeast, where the extremist groupBoko Haram has regularly attacked churches and kidnapped children for more than a decade as part of its campaign to build an Islamist state through violence.
MARACAY, Venezuela — This was not the Christmas that Mariela Gómez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants would have pictured. But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their American dream.
So Gómez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter, and smiled for her in-laws. Hard as she tried, though, she could not ignore the main challenges faced by returning migrants: unemployment and poverty.
“We had a modest dinner, not quite what we’d hoped for, but at least we had food on the table,” Gómez said of the lasagna-like dish she shared with her partner and in-laws instead of the traditional Christmas dish of stuffed corn dough hallacas. “Making hallacas here is a bit expensive, and since we’re unemployed, we couldn’t afford to make them.”
Gómez, her two sons, and her partner returned to the city of Maracay on Oct. 27 after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to Texas, where they were quickly swept up by U.S. Border Patrol amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. They were deported to Mexico, from where they began the dangerous journey back to Venezuela.
They crossed Central America by bus, but once in Panama, the family could not afford to continue to Colombia via boat in the Caribbean. Instead, they took the cheaper route along the Pacific’s choppy waters, sitting on top of sloshing gasoline tanks in a cargo boat for several hours and then transferring to a fast boat until reaching a jungled area of Colombia. They spent about two weeks there until they were wired money to make it to the border with Venezuela.
Gómez was among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who left their home country in the last decade, when its economy came undone as a result of a drop in oil prices, rising corruption, and mismanagement. She lived in Colombia and Peru for years before setting her sights on the U.S. with hopes of building a new life.
Trump’s second term has dashed the hopes of many like Gómez.
As of September, more than 14,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, had returned to South America since Trump moved to limit migration to the U.S., according to figures from Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica. In addition, Venezuelans were steadily deported to their home country this year after President Nicolás Maduro, under pressure from the White House, did away with his long-standing policy of not accepting deportees from the U.S.
Immigrants arrived regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by a U.S. government contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline. More than 13,000 immigrants returned this year on the chartered flights.
Gómez’s return to Venezuela also allowed her to see the now 20-year-old daughter she left behind when she fled the country’s complex crisis. They talked and drank beer during the holiday knowing it might be the last time they share a drink for a while — Gómez’s daughter will migrate to Brazil next month.
Gómez is hoping to make hallacas for New Year’s Eve and is also hoping for a job. But her prayers for next year are mostly for good health.
“I ask God for many things, first and foremost life and health, so we can continue enjoying our family,” she said.
DNIPRO, Ukraine — The cherished, century-old Ukrainian song that Americans know as “Carol of the Bells” was written for layers upon layers of voices to fill churches, concert halls, and city squares.
But in wartime, Ukrainians have learned to improvise.
For one choir displaced by Russian bombardment from the very city where many believe the song was written, that means arranging the complex choral melody for just three singers this Christmas, down from the usual 30.
Hearing the arrangement performed by just three singers gives a sense of Ukraine after years of war at the moment: depleted, persistent, still beautiful.
The choir is from a historic music school in the besieged eastern city of Pokrovsk — an institution so tied to the original Ukrainian song, called “Shchedryk,” or “Bountiful,” that it bears the name of its composer, Mykola Leontovych.
The piece has long served as an unofficial anthem for the city, where he lived from 1904 to 1908.
“Wherever we would go, we would sing this song,” said Alla Dekhtyar, 67, the school’s choir director, who will be one of its three singers to perform at the school’s downsized holiday concert this month. “It was like our business card.”
That was before Russia’s devastating advance on Pokrovsk forced most residents — including every member of the choir — to flee elsewhere in Ukraine or Europe.
The Leontovych music school evacuated its most precious instruments in 2024, and drone footage of the city shows the building has since been largely destroyed. Russian forces now control about 95% of what remains of the city, which they aggressively shelled like so much of Ukraine they have sought to control.
The Leontovych school reopened in exile last year in Dnipro, about 115 miles to the west.
But with Pokrovsk’s population so widely scattered, the choir that once blended dozens of voices for regular performances in Pokrovsk is down to just two sopranos and an alto, including Dekhtyar.
Even so, the trio will go ahead with the modified rendition of “Shchedryk” this year. Choosing another, simpler song to perform at the forthcoming holiday concert was never an option.
Singing the song in its original Ukrainian remains an act of resistance against Russian aggression — and a reminder of Ukraine’s contributions to the global cultural canon.
That is especially true for those displaced from Pokrovsk. While the song is beloved across Ukraine, it is particularly special for the eastern city, where many believe Leontovych began writing it long before it premiered in Kyiv in 1916 and stunned an American crowd at Carnegie Hall in 1922.
“For everyone else, that melody means Christmas,” said Angelina Rozhkova, director of the Pokrovsk Historical Museum, who also lives in exile in Dnipro. “For us, that melody means home — a home that we don’t have anymore, a home that is in ruins.”
“For Russia,” she added, “our home means territory that they want to take from us.”
Leontovych was the son of an orthodox priest and an aspiring music teacher. In 1904, he moved with his young wife to the small eastern village of Hryshyne — a hub for rail workers expanding the train line, which eventually became Pokrovsk.
Leontovych was born in the Vinnytsia region of central Ukraine in 1877, and there are competing tales of how he ended up so far east. One version is that he heard about a job posting to teach music at the railway school from rail workers themselves, Rozhkova said. Another claims he responded to a newspaper ad.
Once there, he directed several musical groups, including a choir of rail workers. They sang songs with Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish roots — but his own music was influenced by sounds from his childhood. Leontovych was a fierce believer in an independent Ukrainian state, and as he gained fame he was viewed, like other Ukrainian intellectuals, as a threat to Russia’s influence over a country it claimed as its own.
“He is connected to the culture of Donbas,” Rozhkova said, referring to the part of eastern Ukraine that includes Pokrovsk, and which Russia is trying to conquer. “He was very much carrying the flag of Ukrainian culture. He was performing repurposed traditional Ukrainian songs with his choir.”
Historians believe that the opening notes of “Shchedryk” — the same ones that have come to signal the start of the Christmas season around the world — originated from a folkloric melody Leontovych heard sometime in his childhood, or that a choir member shared with him from their own memories.
In the original version — the one still sung in Ukraine — there is no “ding dong, ding dong,” no mention of silver bells, no announcement that “Christmas is here.”
The lyrics never even mention Christmas.
Instead, voices describe a swallow fluttering through the sky as it ushers in a prosperous new year, urging a farmer to greet his newborn lambs and celebrate his future. It is because of that Pokrovsk includes a drawing of a swallow on the city’s crest, which is based on a piece of art made by Leontovych’s father.
The song made its major debut abroad only in 1922, one year after a Soviet security agent assassinated Leontovych over his nationalist views. A Ukrainian choir promoting the country’s independence and cultural heritage performed it in Carnegie Hall that year to remarkable reviews — although some American newspapers wrongly praised it as Russian music.
Eventually, Ukrainian American composer Peter Wilhousky adapted the song with a completely different set of lyrics in English, transforming it into a Christmas classic.
“When Leontovych was writing ‘Shchedryk,’ he didn’t understand he was creating a hit,” said Elmira Dzhabrailova-Kushnir, 39, a cultural history specialist in Kyiv. “For him, this was an ethnic study.”
He built the iconic song around the distinct opening notes, building it out into a masterpiece that weaves different voices and melodies into a singular experience for the audience.
“He took three notes and, through his genius, worked it into that song,” Dekhtyar said.
A week before Christmas, Dekhtyar and her trio from Pokrovsk gathered in the new Leontovych music school to rehearse.
The building in Dnipro is cozy and clean, the practice rooms complete with pianos evacuated from Pokrovsk last year.
But the space lacks most of the memories and people that made it home. Albums of archival photos dating back decades sit stacked in a corner. A painting of Leontovych leans against the wall.
Dekhtyar, who used to direct the choir, now sings in it as lead soprano. Her daughter, Natalia Aleksahina, 44, who also teaches vocals at the school, has taken the alto part. Their friend Viktoriia Ametova, 43, joined Dekhtyar as second soprano.
Behind them, a Christmas tree illuminated the corner. Holiday lights twinkled on the walls. But there was little to celebrate. Inside, each singer’s happy memories of home were buried under the pain of leaving.
Aleksahina fled home with her mother in April 2022 after a Russian cluster munition tore through the roof of her parents’ home.
Her 12-year-old daughter was there at the time of the attack but was unharmed. Her father was lightly wounded. The family expected the war would soon end and they would return home and rebuild. They occasionally visited Pokrovsk even as they settled in a rental apartment in Dnipro.
But as Russian forces slowly advanced and a mandatory evacuation order was issued in August 2024, they began to realize their temporary displacement might not be temporary after all.
“It’s a painful subject,” Dekhtyar said. “We all had our own houses. Now there’s nothing left.”
“There’s nothing left,” her daughter repeated. “Our friends, social circle, family — everyone is scattered all over the place.”
Ametova left amid evacuation orders in August 2024, after her neighbor’s building was badly damaged. She still carries the keys to the house and apartment she owns in Pokrovsk everywhere she goes, even if she can’t confirm they’re still standing.
When she thinks of home, Ametova said, “I feel pain.”
The trio agree that singing is one of the only reprieves they have left. And nothing makes them feel better than singing “Shchedryk,” a song they can’t remember not knowing —- a song that lives in them deeper than any other memory.
They stand up. They close their eyes. Dekhtyar raises her hands. They are just three voices, but together, they fill the entire room with the precious sound of home.
