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  • Layoffs are ‘inevitable’ at Temple as school looks to cut $60 million, president says

    Layoffs are ‘inevitable’ at Temple as school looks to cut $60 million, president says

    Temple University has asked its schools, colleges, and administrative units to cut a total of $60 million to help offset a projected deficit for 2026-27.

    President John Fry shared the plan in a message to the campus community Friday and said a reduction in employees is “inevitable.”

    The message did not reveal how many layoffs the university is considering as it attempts to close the $85 million projected gap. The board of trustees’ executive committee is scheduled to meet next week to consider the proposed budget. The university’s current budget is $1.3 billion, excluding the health system.

    Temple has lost average of $200 million annually as enrollment slides, and retention rates are a major issue, internal report says

    “Unfortunately, some reduction in force is inevitable, given that nearly 70% of Temple’s operating budget is spent on compensation and benefits,” Fry said in the message. “It is my promise that any employee’s separation from the university will be handled equitably and compassionately.”

    He noted that a faculty retirement incentive program this year drew 77 takers — 3% of full-time faculty — and will lessen the need for layoffs. Those faculty are scheduled to leave by the end of this month and their departures ultimately will save $15 million annually. The elimination of vacant faculty and staff positions also has helped, he said.

    Fry did not detail the cuts that are planned but said that colleges, schools, and administrative units each received a budget reduction target.

    Units were asked to make a 5% cut last year, but this year there is a range of percentages among schools, colleges, and administrative units, a university spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to say how many layoffs will occur.

    Ursinus College lays off 15% of nonfaculty staff

    Some potential cuts that have stirred discussion include a reduction in adjunct professors and a pause in doctoral student admissions by some programs.

    Jeffrey Doshna, president of the Temple Association of University Professionals, said Fry’s message seemed to address some of the issues the union has been raising, but said more information is needed, including how many people will lose their jobs and from what areas.

    “Hopefully, they will continue to respond to what we are calling for,” he said, including greater transparency, participation in decision-making, and no job cuts.

    Temple has been trying to cope with lost revenue from a precipitous slide in enrollment and uncertainty around federal funding. Fry has been warning since early April that the university “must act decisively and with a sense of urgency” to address the projected deficit. An internal Temple report obtained by The Inquirer in April said layoffs were coming.

    Last July, Temple laid off 50 employees, less than 1% of its workforce.

    Fry reported to the board of trustees last week that this year’s fall enrollment looks promising, with deposits by first-year undergraduate and transfer students up over last year at the same time.

    He said in his campus message that making the $60 million in cuts is “an important first step toward returning the university to a balanced budget over the next three years.”

    Fry acknowledged that the budget reductions “can create uncertainty and anxiety.” But he said the administration has attempted to be transparent and has held meetings with faculty senate, deans, and schools, colleges, and administrative units.

    “Navigating through this stark financial reality is not easy,” Fry said. “I recognize the difficulty of this present moment. We will emerge from this process stronger and on a more sustainable path moving forward.”

  • Whatever you do in Russia, don’t talk about the war

    Whatever you do in Russia, don’t talk about the war

    The war in Ukraine is a “Special Military Operation,” even though it’s the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II.

    Across Russia, officials blame fuel shortages on “unscheduled maintenance at refineries” without noting a cause, as Ukrainian drones attack fuel refining facilities in the country.

    And Russia’s central bank governor has talked of the “structural transformation of the economy,” as code for military spending that has spiraled and reoriented the economy around the military-industrial complex.

    For years, President Vladimir Putin has insulated Russian society from the consequences of his war in Ukraine, using euphemisms as a psychological shield. But as the war increasingly comes home, the mismatch between rhetoric and reality is becoming a source of frustration for ordinary Russians.

    For days, Putin didn’t mention the June 18 long-range strikes on Moscow, when Ukraine attacked with nearly 200 drones. He didn’t comment as Ukrainians promised to turn Crimea, the peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014, into an island by pounding it with drones and missiles.

    When he appeared June 23 for the first time since the June 18 strikes, which were the largest in the war, he used the moment to blame the West.

    “These drones, strikes on civilian infrastructure — what are they for? To destabilize society, to create uncertainty about the actions of the Russian armed forces,” Putin said. At that time, he did not address the fuel shortages in at least 56 regions, according to Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet.

    On Sunday, Putin did acknowledge fuel shortages. At a meeting of top executives and officials, he said that “systemic measures that match the scale of current challenges” must be put in place, adding that a task force was working around the clock to ensure supplies, especially for agriculture.

    But Putin has not publicly delegated officials to prepare shelters or early warning systems in case of future strikes.

    In the Moscow suburbs of Kotelniki and Lyubertsy, both of which came under drone attack in mid-June, authorities said they would not disclose the locations of bomb shelters or use sirens because the country was not technically on a war footing. They would make this information public only in case of a “period of mobilization and in wartime.”

    Lyubertsy’s administrator suggested that people consult a PDF that appeared on a government website with practical instructions on what to do in case of a drone attack.

    The head of the Republic of Bashkortostan, a region with 4 million people between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains where Ukraine has attacked refineries, said his administration had decided to not always activate sirens to not stress people out, mentioning a rise in antidepressant use in Russia.

    Downplaying danger and resorting to euphemisms to discuss drone attacks and economic pain is a “performance of obedience” to Putin and his regime, said Aleksandra Arkhipova, a teaching and research fellow in social sciences at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

    She has compiled a list of new war-related terms and euphemisms such as “clap” instead of “explosion,” “deprived of life” instead of “killed,” and “air target” instead of “drone.”

    “Russian political authorities right now are all about pictures in the news,” Arkhipova said. They do not want “to create a huge panic which can be shown by local TV and then on the federal news with a lot of crowds crying and running through the streets.”

    On the news, the recent attacks on Moscow barely figured, in keeping with the state’s stance. Channel One, the Kremlin’s primary cultural and political megaphone, ran a short segment the morning of the June 18 attacks and then stayed quiet until Putin commented several days later. During the evening news broadcasts on June 18 on Channel One as well as on Rossiya 1, or NTV, “not a single word” about the attacks was uttered, according to Telegram channel Agentstvo News.

    Officials and state outlets use confusing and sometimes misleading linguistic formulations to describe certain war-related events, Arkhipova said. In the early days of the war, stores that closed as a result of Western sanctions bore signs for months and in some cases years saying they were “closed for technical reasons.”

    Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency recently announced a “schedule adjustment” at the Krasnodar airport, which is about 150 miles from the front line and in the path of Ukrainian drones. At Sochi airport, authorities don’t write that flights are delayed by incoming drones but instead that the airport is operating according to the “actual schedule” — a confusing term that is meant to distinguish between the two columns on the planned departures and arrivals, “scheduled time” and “actual time.”

    When Moscow’s airports are temporarily closed because of Ukrainian drone attacks, the term used refers to accepting flights “by agreement.” Travelers are told that their flight is delayed because of delays to the incoming flight, rather than because the city is under drone attack.

    Arkhipova calls this linguistic technique “neutralization.” It is about intentional ambiguity, she said, explaining, “People can understand that something is happening, but what exactly is happening is not that clear.”

  • D.C. reaches court settlement with man detained while protesting troops’ patrol with Darth Vader song

    D.C. reaches court settlement with man detained while protesting troops’ patrol with Darth Vader song

    WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia has reached a settlement agreement for an undisclosed amount of money with a resident who claims police illegally detained him for following an Ohio National Guard patrol while playing Darth Vader’s theme song from “Star Wars” on his phone — an act of protest against the Trump administration’s federal law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital.

    A court filing late Thursday says the plaintiff, Sam O’Hara, will drop his lawsuit’s claims against the district and four Metropolitan Police Department officers within three business days of receiving the settlement payment. The filing doesn’t specify a dollar amount for the deal between the district and O’Hara, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.

    In an email on Friday, an ACLU spokesperson referred to the settlement’s financial terms as “a significant amount” that O’Hara ”is pleased with” but said they aren’t disclosing the dollar figure to protect his privacy. A spokesperson for D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office declined to comment on the settlement.

    O’Hara’s agreement with the district doesn’t resolve his related claims against an Ohio National Guard member. Attorneys for the Guard member, Sgt. Devon Beck, has asked a judge to dismiss O’Hara’s claims against him.

    “He was there because that was his assigned duty,” Beck’s lawyers wrote. “This was not an accidental encounter or a one-time disagreement on a public sidewalk.”

    An earlier court filing, in February, said O’Hara had reached a settlement agreement “in principle” with the district. In response, a judge agreed to suspend the case while they negotiated terms.

    “The government’s efforts to silence me ultimately backfired and brought more attention to the unjust deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C.,” O’Hara said in a statement. “This settlement serves as a reminder that constitutional freedoms are worth defending, especially when those in power would prefer we stay quiet.”

    O’Hara sued the district last October, claiming police officers violated his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizures and excessive force.

    The ominous orchestral music of “The Imperial March” from the Star Wars movies was the soundtrack for O’Hara’s peaceful protests against President Donald Trump’s ongoing deployment of Guard members in Washington. Millions of TikTok users have viewed O’Hara’s videos of his interactions with troops, according to his lawsuit.

    O’Hara, an artist who works in the hospitality industry, says he didn’t interfere with the Guard troops during their Sept. 11, 2025, encounter on a public street. One of the troops summoned Metropolitan Police Department officers, who stopped O’Hara and kept him handcuffed for 15 to 20 minutes before releasing him without charges, according to the lawsuit.

    “The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests,” the suit says.

    Trump, a Republican, issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington last August. Within weeks, hundreds of Guard troops and federal agents were helping police patrol the city. The surge inflamed tensions with residents of the heavily Democratic district. Hundreds of Guard members remain deployed in the district nearly a year later, with no clear end in sight.

  • Left-wing Democratic primary wins pose a test for a Jeffries speakership

    Left-wing Democratic primary wins pose a test for a Jeffries speakership

    As New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and fellow democratic socialists celebrated a trio of insurgent leftist victories that rocked last week’s House primaries in New York, so did congressional Republicans.

    In the days since, the GOP has gleefully speculated that a potential Democratic majority next year could be just as unruly and restive as its own has been, with an ideological battle between liberals and moderates undermining a possible speakership of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.).

    “You can call it the Bolshevik Revolution of 2026,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said following the election results, while the National Republican Congressional Committee facetiously sent Jeffries a sympathy card and flowers.

    Jeffries and his Democratic allies have downplayed the tensions, noting that their party held together a broad spectrum of members the last time they were in charge of the House, from 2019 to 2023.

    But there are warning signs for Jeffries, who already faces frustration from the Democratic base that he is not fighting back hard enough against President Donald Trump. If Democrats win only a narrow majority in the heavily gerrymandered chamber in November, it will give each vote outsize importance and Jeffries critics more opportunities to stir up trouble.

    Two of the challengers backed by Mamdani, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, defeated Democratic incumbents endorsed by Jeffries; only one of the three, Brad Lander, has committed to vote for him as speaker. Those candidates, all of whom are likely to win their heavily Democratic districts in November, and a handful of others who have prevailed against more moderate Democrats in primaries this year are expected to push for more liberal policies, particularly regarding Israel and Gaza, immigration enforcement, and universal healthcare.

    “What I hope will happen is that Democratic leadership will incorporate the lessons that voters are sending into the agenda that we’re going to be fighting for,” Lander said.

    Jeffries, for his part, has projected his typical calm and refused to engage with conjecture about how his leadership could be challenged. His office did not respond to a list of questions from the Washington Post but pointed to a CNN interview on the subject.

    “What’s in front of us right now is we’ve got to do everything to take back control of the House of Representatives,” Jeffries said in that interview Friday, where he steered every question about the New York primary back to a message of Democratic unity. “That’s actually the moment that we’re in.”

    On Saturday, Jeffries congratulated Valdez, Lander, and Avila Chevalier on social media.

    Not everyone in the party is ready yet to rally around Jeffries in return. A viral video from Valdez’s watch party on Tuesday night showed a crowd erupting with chants of “you’re next” when Jeffries appeared in news coverage they were watching.

    “If he continues to ignore what voters, not only in New York City but across the country, are telling him is important to them, he will do so at his own peril,” said Grace Mausser, co-chairperson of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. “It will weaken his power and ability, not only to control his own caucus, but to fight the right wing.”

    It’s not the first time that Democrats have navigated this dynamic.

    The wave that carried the party to the House majority in 2018 elected “the Squad,” a group of left-wing newcomers — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) — who were more willing to openly challenge party leadership to achieve their aims. Ocasio-Cortez, who also defeated a high-ranking Democratic incumbent in her first primary, notoriously joined a sit-in in then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during her freshman orientation.

    But Pelosi (D., Calif.) wrangled the Squad by simultaneously embracing them and diminishing their power. By 2021, she was delivering historic legislative victories for then-President Joe Biden.

    In an interview, Pelosi dismissed the significance of the liberal victories from 2018, which she said “didn’t make that much difference,” and from Tuesday in New York, which she insisted would not be a problem for Jeffries because the Democratic caucus has long maintained ideological diversity.

    “I wouldn’t make so much of it,” she said. “You always have to balance. We have Blue Dogs to Squad, and they represent their districts as they ought to be respected. So he’ll be fine.”

    Since retaking control in 2023, Republican leaders, who lack Pelosi’s decades of experience, have struggled more to contain their antiestablishment wing: the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, whose members have a history of withholding votes unless their demands are addressed. Those rebellions cost former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) the gavel after only nine months and have nearly derailed some of Trump’s legislative priorities.

    With a new generation of Democratic leadership confronting a rising populist wing of the party, the Jeffries era could face the same kind of turmoil — a prospect that has Republicans gloating.

    “Democrats had a very bad week,” said Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.). “When you’re Hakeem Jeffries and you’re trying to be the next speaker of the House, and you lose three elections in your hometown, that’s a pretty big slap in the face.”

    This year’s cohort of left-wing challengers, many of whom come from organizing backgrounds, is already connected to strategize about their campaigns and beyond.

    Mai Vang — who finished ahead of Rep. Doris Matsui (D., Calif.) in a primary this month for a Sacramento-area seat — said she regularly speaks with other candidates including Valdez, Avila Chevalier, and Chris Rabb, who won the Democratic primary for a Philadelphia House seat in May.

    Under California’s top-two system, Vang will face Matsui again in a November runoff. If she wins, Vang said, she would decide whether to support Jeffries as leader only after a conversation with the other liberal freshman members.

    “These election wins in the primaries are mandates from the people,” she said. “Right now, the Democratic Party has to reckon with whether they are bold enough to represent the people.”

    Democratic strategist Trip Yang said the disagreement is healthy because it keeps the party more responsive to the public.

    “There will be some discord in the House Democratic caucus. Discord is good,” Yang said. Jeffries “is no stranger to hard, necessary conversations.”

    Some of the more moderate House Democrats are already bracing themselves. Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D., N.Y.) warned the insurgent candidates who won Tuesday that “they’re going to have to compromise and work together” once they arrive in Congress.

    On social media last week, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.) sounded pessimistic about that prospect.

    “The Democratic-Socialists are bomb throwers, not problem solvers,” he said. “They’ve declared war on common sense Democrats, which will only lead to more deadlock, dysfunction, and hard-working families paying the price.”

    But publicly, most establishment members of the caucus are generally brushing off the idea that the arrival of more liberal colleagues will complicate their agenda should they win control in November. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, plans to launch investigations into the Trump administration’s alleged abuse of the justice system.

    “I served opposite James Comer, and I serve opposite Jim Jordan, so I can work with anybody,” Raskin said, citing two of the most conservative members of the House. “There are exciting new generations within the Democratic Party.”

    Ocasio-Cortez called the expectation that the incoming class of left-wing members would pose trouble for Jeffries a “double standard.”

    “Conversation, negotiation, all of that is the business of governance, and it’s the business of Washington,” she said. “There’s this tendency that when a progressive negotiates, that means that they’re bad, but when a moderate negotiates, that means they’re savvy. And that is a myth. We’re all here doing the same job.”

  • Trump administration quietly removed mentions of slavery from Independence Hall, Thomas Jefferson portrait

    Trump administration quietly removed mentions of slavery from Independence Hall, Thomas Jefferson portrait

    President Donald Trump’s administration has wiped almost all mentions of slavery from a panel accompanying a portrait of Thomas Jefferson at the Second Bank of the United States.

    As the Founding Father who wrote the words “all men are created equal” while enslaving more than 600 people throughout his life, Jefferson embodies the paradox at the heart of the revolutionary era.

    The description under his iconic portrait attempted to grapple with that tension.

    Despite Jefferson’s lifelong pursuit of knowledge, he “never solved the problem of slavery“ and was ”unable to determine how to let go of the notorious system,” the original plaque read.

    But a new panel simply states that Jefferson’s “vision of an informed, self-governing citizenry was central to his belief that education and liberty were the foundations of an ideal government,” among other changes.

    It’s not the only change the administration has made to exhibits around Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park ahead of the 250th anniversary.

    A touchscreen with a virtual tour of Independence Hall’s second floor now tells visitors that one of the rooms was used to hold “individuals accused of crimes of the period” before their court hearings.

    Who were these individuals? A previous version stated clearly: “accused fugitives from slavery.”

    A side by side of the original and new descriptions Thomas Jefferson’s portrait at the Second Bank of the United States. The references to slavery have largely been removed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

    The Second Bank and Independence Hall sites — in addition to the President’s House, where slavery exhibits were dismantled by the federal government earlier this year — had been scrutinized by the administration since last summer.

    While the changes are more subtle than those that took place at the President’s House in January — and the new exhibits the government proposed a few months later — they further underscore the Trump administration’s goal to sanitize U.S. history, as signified by his executive order to review or remove content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

    They also show a lack of transparency. The change to the description under Jefferson’s portrait was only acknowledged following a demand by a federal judge in Boston that the National Park Service share a list of all removals the administration undertook to comply with Trump’s “restoring truth and sanity” edict ahead of the country’s 250th celebration.

    In a statement Monday, Avenging the Ancestors Coalition — which has helped lead the efforts to protect the President’s House — said the additional changes were “extremely troubling.”

    “The preservation of history requires ongoing vigilance,” the organization said. “Restoring historical interpretation is only one part of the work; protecting it from future revision or erasure is equally important.”

    Cheryl LaRoche, a historical and archaeological consultant who helped excavate the President’s House during its development in the early 2000s, said the changes were like “somebody committing murder and wiping the murder weapon clean, so that there is no trace.”

    “One of the greatest disappointments of my life, is that we get to the 250th anniversary of this country, and we are still trying to evade the truth of our founding,” LaRoche said.

    Among the most blatant examples of the federal government’s desire to retell history has happened at the President’s House, which opened almost two decades ago to memorialize the nine people George Washington enslaved at his Philadelphia home. It also serves as a symbol of exploring the stark juxtaposition of slavery and liberty during the nation’s founding.

    But the moves at the Second Bank and Independence Hall signify that the administration is not letting any stone go unturned when it comes to ridding or softening even smaller mentions of slavery at Philadelphia’s most iconic historic sites.

    The Department of Interior did not answer repeated questions about the changes.

    “No changes have been made,” a spokesperson said via email, citing the President’s House litigation. When an Inquirer reporter pressed again about changes to Independence Hall and the Second Bank, the government spokesperson repeated that there were no changes to the President’s House during the litigation. The Department of Interior did not respond to further inquiries.

    At the Second Bank, the panel under Jefferson’s iconic portrait also informed visitors about the population of persons enslaved in 1776, that John Dickinson — a member of the Continental Congress — was an enslaver, and about the life of Moses Williams, an artist who was enslaved at birth and later became a free man.

    That’s drastically changed in the new panel.

    Jefferson’s grappling with slavery is no longer present and Dickinson is referred to as a “fellow patriot and influential writer. …” The only mention of slavery remaining is Williams’ story, though it’s reworded.

    And at Independence Hall, the touchscreen kiosk describing the second floor Committee of Assembly Chamber previously outlined the irony of the space being used for ratifying the U.S. constitution and later housing the office “where accused fugitives from slavery were held before their hearings, right above the room where the Declaration of Independence had been signed.”

    A touch screen at the entrance to Independence Hall with photos and descriptions of the building’s second floor. The description of the Committee of the Assembly Chamber has been edited to replace the words “accused fugitives from slavery” to “individuals accused of crimes of the period.”

    But the reference to slavery has been removed, among other rewordings.

    It remains unclear when these changes were made. The Inquirer reported last summer that these items — and an interactive exhibit at the Benjamin Franklin Museum about the Founding Father’s conflicting views on slavery, which is still intact — were flagged for review.

    Earlier this month, a federal judge in Boston ordered the Interior Department and National Park Service to restore before July 4 all the removed exhibits nationwide. The order also required the administration to submit to the court a list of all removed items.

    An appeal court has since paused the judge’s order, all but guaranteeing that visitors on July 4 won’t see the original exhibits.

    Why a Boston-based appeals court ruling matters for President’s House

    In addition to the President’s House exhibits, the list says the administration removed a “portrait description” and cites “disparages Americans past or living” as the reason it is gone.

    No entry in the list corresponds to the change made at Independence Hall, which Philadelphia owns.

    The city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    All material changes at Independence Hall should be done after consultation with the city, said Cynthia MacLeod, former superintendent of Independence National Historical Park.

    But the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the administration can make changes to the President’s House, which is owned by the National Park Service.

    “The National Park service has been known for excellent historians and interpreters and its a shame that they are being muzzled now,” MacLeod said. “It’s a shame and a disservice to all the visitors not to have a more complete history told.”

  • House Republicans are looking to get their agenda on track after a chaotic week

    House Republicans are looking to get their agenda on track after a chaotic week

    WASHINGTON — With a social media assist from President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson is looking this week to ease the divisions in his Republican ranks and make progress on key legislative priorities before this fall’s elections.

    Johnson sent lawmakers home early last week after tumult in his conference prevented the House from voting on two spending bills and a measure dealing with veterans’ benefits. Meanwhile, the list of legislative priorities only grew with Trump requesting $87.6 billion in new spending, mostly to cover the cost of the war with Iran.

    The week ahead could signal whether Johnson can turn a short summer in Washington into a productive work period that voters will reward in November.

    “We have got a lot more to do. We have got to keep it going,” Johnson told Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.

    Johnson, of Louisiana, went to the White House moments after the House wrapped up its abbreviated workweek and returned with a coveted Trump social media post telling Republicans to quit voting down the procedural rules that allow for final votes on their legislative priorities.

    “No more grandstanding, please!” Trump wrote.

    Before Trump’s message, Republican and Democratic lawmakers were openly doubting whether the House would even return this week or just follow the Senate’s lead and break for the July Fourth holiday.

    “I got to have everybody working here on all cylinders, and I’m excited to bring them back,” Johnson said on Fox.

    A promising week quickly turns sour for Republicans

    The House began last week with a legislative victory that speaks to voters’ concerns about affordability, passing bipartisan legislation aimed at lowering the cost of housing. It was the culmination of years of work by members on both sides of the political aisle.

    But Trump abruptly called off the bill signing ceremony, saying he would not act until Congress passed legislation that requires proof of citizenship for those registering to vote. Johnson said he would send the housing bill to Trump on Monday and hopes the Republican president signs it with the “biggest, boldest marker that he has.”

    Hard-liners in the House have also taken up Trump’s demand for the elections bill. More than two dozen of them have signed a letter pledging to vote against any Senate bills unless the elections legislation is attached. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R., Fla.) led the blockade that prompted Johnson to send lawmakers home early.

    Democrats seized on the Republican gridlock.

    ”This is the incredibly pathetic Congress,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.). “The fact they can’t get their act together, can’t establish discipline to keep this place running, is stunning. I’ve never seen such incompetence.”

    Republicans also voiced their frustration.

    “I just think it’s a very self-defeating position for anyone to take, that they’re going to shut everything down over one issue,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.).

    But Rep. Andy Harris (R., Md.) predicted there will be more gridlock ahead unless a bill that includes the elections legislation is sent to Trump. While the House has already passed a version of the measure, it has stalled in the Senate.

    “Yeah, I think everything is going to be held up until we come to an agreement on voter ID and especially confirming the citizenship of Americans before they register to vote,” Harris said.

    Asked if Americans want Congress to be advancing other priorities besides the voting bill, known as the SAVE America Act, Harris replied. “I think they truly believe that this is a very important bill. I’m not sure they believe that a lot of the other things we’re doing here in Washington are very important.”

    The test ahead is on an important defense bill

    Trump’s admonition to House Republicans to quit voting down their own procedural rules will be put to the test this week. Leadership is expected to tee up a vote on an annual defense policy bill, must-pass legislation that calls for some of the increased spending that Trump wants for the Pentagon.

    Luna, a Trump ally, was making no promises about standing down, even after the president’s social media post. She has proposed attaching the elections legislation to the defense bill. Because of the narrow Republican majority, it takes only a few Republican “no” votes to block a bill from advancing to a final vote.

    “If they want my vote, they should entertain it, debate it, and if they block it, then we’ll see. But that’s how you get my vote,” Luna told reporters.

    There’s little time left for top GOP priorities

    The House is scheduled to be in session for only about 28 days before the midterm elections. The lawmakers are out for virtually all of August and October, giving them additional time to campaign back home for reelection.

    In that window, they must pass bills to keep the government running beyond the Sept. 30 end of the budget year. They also aspire to pass a bill on a party-line basis that would include more defense spending, partially paid for by cuts in other programs. Republicans have billed their effort as going after waste and fraud.

    It would be the successor to the big tax and spending cut bill that Republicans passed last year. That measure extended the tax cuts passed in Trump’s first term and expanded tax breaks for those who get income through tips and overtime. The bill also focused on boosting immigration enforcement, paid in part through reduced spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance.

    Johnson has talked optimistically about being able to pass such a bill before the August recess. He met with members of the House Budget Committee last week as they try to find a path forward. But Republican senators are not counting on it. There are also doubters in the House, given the difficulty of the process that is required to bypass a filibuster in the Senate.

    “I’m just not seeing a path forward on it,” said Republican Rep. David Valadao, who represents a perennial swing district in California’s farm belt.

    But Budget Committee Chairperson Jodey Arrington (R., Texas) said members are close to a framework. He predicted it will be politically rewarded if they are able to address election integrity and curb waste and fraud.

    “We have to energize our base, and we have to address the enthusiasm gap,” Arrington said.

  • Supreme Court rules constitutional privacy protections apply to cellphone users location history

    Supreme Court rules constitutional privacy protections apply to cellphone users location history

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court held Monday that constitutional privacy protections extend to cell phone location information, ruling in the case of a bank robber whose identity was discovered through a geofence warrant.

    Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the 6-3 court that people don’t forfeit expectations of privacy even when they opt into Google’s location history.

    “A cellphone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties — which then can be freely passed on to the government — just by doing the ordinary things cellphone users do,” Kagan wrote.

    Justice Samuel Alito wrote in dissent that Okello Chatrie had no expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turned over to Google.

    The decision is the court’s latest effort to apply a constitutional provision ratified in 1791 to technology the nation’s founders could not have envisioned.

    Police obtained a geofence warrant after a bank robbery in a suburb of Richmond, Va., and used it to locate cell phones that were near the bank around the time it was robbed in May 2019.

    One of those phones belonged to Chatrie, who had eluded the police until they turned to the powerful technological tool.

    The warrant kick-started the investigation. After determining that Chatrie was among those near the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian at the time, police obtained a search warrant for his home. They found nearly $100,000 in cash, including bills wrapped in bands signed by the bank teller.

    Chatrie pleaded guilty to robbing the bank and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison. His lawyers argued on appeal that none of the evidence should have been used against him.

    They challenged the warrant as a violation of his privacy because it allowed authorities to gather the location history of people near the bank without having any evidence they had anything to do with the robbery. Prosecutors argued that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy because he voluntarily opted into Google’s location history.

    The Supreme Court did not decide Monday whether the search complied with the Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures. It sent the case back to a lower court for more work.

    A federal judge had ruled that the search violated Chatrie’s rights, but allowed the evidence to be used because the officer who applied for the warrant reasonably believed he was acting properly.

    The federal appeals court in Richmond upheld the conviction in a fractured ruling. In a separate case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that geofence warrants “are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.”

  • Float builders are transforming history into colorful, sequin-filled displays for the Semiquincentennial parade

    Float builders are transforming history into colorful, sequin-filled displays for the Semiquincentennial parade

    In the dull glow of the overhead Convention Center lights, Todd Marcocci and a band of craftspeople stood next to large wheeled platforms, some housing floral gazebos, others a recreation of a Pennsylvania farm. Sweat dripping from his brow, Marcocci intently drilled palm tree crowns into the base of a platform dedicated to Central and South America.

    With just days until Philadelphia’s Semiquincentennial parade, Marcocci, alongside his crew and John Shaw of Shaw Parades, is assembling 19 parade floats to commemorate the United States’ 250th birthday.

    Todd Marcocci works on a float back stage with the crews of Friday’s parade and festival.

    The “Salute to Independence” Semiquincentennial Parade is scheduled to begin at noon Friday nearwhere the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, which Marcocci reminded himself of while he designed a historical parade.

    “I told all the groups who signed on for the parade that we’ll be lining up in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers,” Marcocci said. “We’ll walk through history.”

    In the halls of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where float builders worked on Monday, larger-than-life recreations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman awaited placement on a platform celebrating the Civil Rights movement.

    Mike Oyer works backstage on the floats.

    The next float over was bathed in white sequins, where a giant “peace dove” sculpture accompanied by a globe would rest. A few paces over sat a 6-foot-tall Wawa smoothie and coffee cups, and right by that were multiple United States-themed layered birthday cakes marking the various anniversaries of the country.

    Shaw worked a blade saw, slicing through two-by-fours to construct the float frames that Marcocci and Co. were painstakingly deciding the minutiae of, such as how many American flags or sequins can be threaded through a float.

    Annie Woods (left) and Johanna Gelber working on the floats.

    Shaw, whose parade float company has passed down through four generations, said Philly Fourth of July parades usually average seven floats. “This year it’s almost tripled,” he said. “Todd designs everything in his head, and then we collaborate back and forth to come up with the plan to actually make these ideas work.”

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker will be on board the “One Philly — A United City” float, which features a large sculpture in the shape of the number 1 and a butterfly-and-floral gazebo symbolizing the city’s commitment to a clean and green city, Marcocci said.

    Jeremy Williams, works on a float back stage.

    A Liberty Bell float will commemorate some of the Founding Fathers and Betsy Ross with an Independence Hall backdrop. Another celebrates Philadelphia Pride with prominent LGBTQ figures and pride flags atop a vibrant rainbow platform.

    “The most important thing for me is that people, whether they’re watching on TV at home across the nation or here in person, is that they see themselves in our parade,” Marcocci said of representing the diversity of America’s history.

    Philadelphia’s Semiquincentennial Parade on Friday starts at noon at Fifth and Chestnut Streets, passing such historical landmarks as Independence Hall before heading to Sixth and Market Streets and then west on Market to circle City Hall before ending at Broad and Chestnut Streets after a heat emergency was declared, cutting short the route that was to continue to Logan Circle and loop around before heading back to City Hall.

    Fan zones are at Sixth and Market Streets , 11th and Market, and the northeast side of City Hall, where a bar is available for those 21 and over.

    Television coverage is on NBC10.

  • Supreme Court rules mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day can be counted

    Supreme Court rules mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day can be counted

    The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Mississippi law that allows officials to tally mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive later, a decision that keeps voting procedures in place in several states as the midterm elections loom.

    In an ideologically mixed 5-4 ruling, the justices turned aside a challenge by Republicans and Libertarians, who argued federal law preempts a Mississippi statute that allows the counting of such ballots that arrive up to five days after polls close.

    The decision could make less likely similar legal challenges in 14 states that allow the counting of ballots that arrive days or weeks after polls close, and others that allow military members to return ballots later. Most states require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered the opinion for the majority, which included Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberals. Barrett said federal election law did not address when ballots should be received.

    “The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose,” Barrett wrote.

    The ruling came over the objections of four of the court’s conservatives. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion for the group, which included Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

    “Not only is today’s decision inconsistent with statutory text, legal context, historical practice, and precedent; it also threatens to produce lamentable consequences,” Alito wrote. “The majority’s holding spawns a slurry of troubling election-law questions and risks further undermining Americans’ confidence in election integrity.”

    President Donald Trump and some Republican allies have falsely argued that voter fraud is rampant in mail-in balloting. Trump partly blamed his loss in the 2020 presidential election on mail-in votes and unsuccessfully called on states to stop tallying them during the contest.

    Trump called the ruling a “tremendous loss” in a post on Truth Social. He called on Congress to pass the Save America Act, which tightens voter identification laws.

    Republicans in a number of states have launched legal challenges to mail-in voting, which has grown in popularity since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. One study found about 1 in 3 voters voted by mail in 2024, but the practice is more widespread in Democratic-leaning states.

    Conservatives in Congress also have introduced legislation to limit mail-in voting.

    In March, Trump issued an executive order telling the Postal Service to send ballots only to voters who appear on lists of citizens created by states in conjunction with the federal government. A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked that provision of the executive order last week, saying states — not the president — are responsible for setting election rules.

    Despite his criticism of mail-in voting, Trump voted by mail in a special election in Florida earlier this year.

    In the case decided by the high court, the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, a state voter, and a county election commissioner had sued Mississippi in 2024, claiming it was illegal to count mail-in ballots that arrive after polls close because federal law sets elections for a specific day. The Libertarian Party later filed a similar suit.

    The cases were consolidated by a federal judge, who allowed groups of veterans and retirees to intervene in the suit on behalf of Mississippi. The judge dismissed the case, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed that ruling. Mississippi then appealed to the Supreme Court.

    During arguments in March, Paul D. Clement, an attorney for the conservatives, told the justices that casting and counting ballots at the same time has long been “intertwined.” He said allowing mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day could increase fraud and undermine faith in elections, particularly if the winning candidate was not the one ahead when polls closed.

    “The losers are going to doubt the result, full stop,” Clement said. “That is bad for our system.”

    Mississippi Solicitor General Scott G. Stewart countered that existing law required only that voters fill out their ballots by Election Day. He said mail-in voting has a long history in the United States, pointing to field voting that occurred during the Civil War.

    “States have allowed it for over a century, and Congress has respected it,” Stewart said.

    This term has been an active one for the justices on voting and election issues. In January, the court allowed a Republican congressman from Illinois to challenge the state’s mail-in balloting laws, finding candidates have inherent standing to sue over election rules.

    The case brought by Rep. Mike Bost (R., Ill.) also argues that federal law prohibits ballots from being counted after Election Day. The case was sent back to the lower courts.

    The justices also severely limited a key section of the Voting Rights Act, which has cleared the way for a number of Republican-controlled states in the South to carve up districts held mostly by Black Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. Hundreds of other minority officeholders could be redistricted out of their seats in state and local boards.

    The court has yet to rule in a case challenging limits on spending coordinated between political parties and candidates that is being pushed by the Republican Party. Striking down the spending limits could give Republicans a big money boost in November.

    Fourteen states provide grace periods for all mail ballots, and another 16 provide them for military and overseas voters. Republican-led states have been steering away from ballot grace periods recently, with Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah eliminating them last year, according to Voting Rights Lab.

    RNC Chairperson Joe Gruters said Republicans would push Congress to pass legislation requiring ballots in all states to be returned by Election Day.

    “Democrats are inviting chaos at the ballot box by allowing elections to drag on for days and weeks after voters cast their ballots,” he said in a statement.

    Voting rights advocates praised the decision, saying they feared the court could reverse long-standing policies on when ballots are due.

    “Good news rarely comes out of this Supreme Court, but today’s ruling is a win for our democracy,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said. Virginia Kase Solomón, president of Common Cause, said the decision was correct because voters “shouldn’t lose their voice because of mail delays outside their control.”

  • Joe Frazier statue moves to the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

    Joe Frazier statue moves to the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

    “Smokin’” Joe Frazier is finally in his new home, just in time for the 250th birthday of the United States.

    City officials, alongside Frazier’s family, friends, and fans, on Monday unveiled the real-life heavyweight boxing champion’s statue at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Intended to be the statue’s new location in perpetuity, the spot was occupied by a monument to fictional boxer Rocky Balboa for two decades.

    “During this 250th celebration in the birthplace of democracy, we will forever remember that the city got right what it had gotten wrong for a long, long time,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said. “Now, Joe Frazier is attached, and connected to, and will permanently be here at our Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

    Monday’s unveiling was the culmination of months of planning. The Philadelphia Art commission in February approved a plan to move the statue from by Creative Philadelphia, the city’s office for the creative sector. Chief cultural officer Valerie V. Gay said Monday’s event was something of a “soft launch” for the statue’s new home, as a granite base will be installed in the future, along with more formal interpretive panels.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks at the unveiling of the statue of former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier at its new home outside the Art Museum.

    “Today, we did not want to wait,” Gay said.

    Frazier’s statue, after all, lived at the South Philadelphia sports complex for more than 10 years. Created by sculptor Stephen Layne, the statue was unveiled outside what is now Stateside Live! in 2015, four years after Frazier’s death in 2011 following a battle with liver cancer. Frazier, the undisputed heavyweight champion in 1970-1973, is probably best remembered for his three battles against Muhammad Ali in the 1970s.

    The city’s statue of Rocky had called the base of the Art Museum’s famed steps home since 2006. The monuments’ moves are part of a larger shuffling of statues at the Art Museum that began in March, when the Rocky statue was moved inside the museum for the first time as part of the ongoing exhibition Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments.

    That Rocky statue will be installed at the top of the Art Museum steps in the fall, when the statue of the Italian Stallion currently there will be returned to actor Sylvester Stallone’s private collection. Stallone, Parker said, was supportive of the Frazier statue’s new location.

    Dozens of the boxer’s supporters attended on Monday, including Philadelphia boxer Bernard Hopkins who held world championships in two weight classes, promoter Joe Hand Jr., and Frazier’s daughter Jacqueline Frazier-Lyde. Frazier-Lyde, a retired boxer and current Municipal Court judge, said the the color of the shroud covering her father’s statue — green —was fitting.

    “My mother’s favorite color was green, because we’re from the South and we love green, because it represents life,” she said. “My father, Joe Frazier, liked it because it was the color of money.”

    Boxing legend Bernard Hopkins at the unveiling of the new home for the statue of heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier.

    To the end, the statue’s new location wasn’t the end of efforts in the boxer’s memory. Parker also announced plans for a capital campaign to restore the former Joe Frazier’s Gym on Broad Street above Glenwood Avenue in North Philadelphia. Now a discount furniture store, the building is a legendary location in Philadelphia boxing history, having served as a training location for not just Frazier but other famed fighters and community members.

    Parker said plans were underway to establish a way to accept donations for that effort via the Philadelphia City Fund. The amount of funds targeted be raised was not immediately clear.

    “It’s important to show the world who we are,” Gay said. “Joe Frazier was a humble underdog whose determination and grit inspires us all. What could be more [a] more Philadelphia story than that?”