Former President Joe Biden completed a round of radiation therapy at a Penn Medicine cancer center in Philadelphia Monday as part of his treatment for prostate cancer, according to a family representative.
Biden, 82, announced in May that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease that had spread to his bones.
A spokesperson for the Bidens, Kelly Scully, said that following his treatment over the course of several weeks, Biden “rang the bell” at Penn, alongside his wife, Jill Biden, his daughter Ashley Biden and grandchildren, Hunter and Finnegan.
Ringing the bell at Penn typically signifies that a patient has completed cancer treatment, according to the health system.
But Biden has not yet made a statement on his treatment, and it wasn’t immediately clear if the former president would need additional treatment.
Ashley Biden posted a story on her Instagram of the bell-ringing moment alongside a woman who Scully confirmed was Biden’s doctor at Penn. Another photo showed the doctor with a bouquet of flowers standing with Biden.
“Dad has been so damn brave throughout his treatment,” Ashley Biden wrote in her post. “Grateful.”
A Penn spokesperson directed questions to the Biden family.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court in Philadelphia to overturn an order that has, for the moment, blocked authorities from deporting pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil — the latest development in a complex legal saga that began when the administration was seeking to crack down on anti-Israeli college campus protests earlier this year.
During a hearing before a three-judge panel in a Center City courtroom, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign said the earlier order, issued by a federal judge in New Jersey, was “indefensible” for several reasons — including that it was issued in the wrong jurisdiction, and that it was effectively helping Khalil’s lawyers improperly “fragment” the various legal proceedings against him and seek venues that might issue favorable rulings.
Khalil’s attorneys, however, said the judges should uphold the lower court’s ruling because the government had illegally targeted the 30-year-old for removal over his political views — something they called a clear First Amendment violation and a situation that could have wider implications amid Trump’s push to increase deportations.
Speaking outside the courthouse after the hearing, Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was born in Syria, told a crowd of supporters he planned to continue his legal fight to remain in the United States.
“This shows how my case is actually just a test for everyone’s right’s here across the country,” he said. “Not only one place, not only for specific people, for immigrants or documented or undocumented people, it’s for everyone across the country.”
Eric Hamell, of West Philadelphia, holds up a sign saying Free Mahmoud Khalil during a rally outside the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
The case against Khalil began in March, when he was arrested by immigration authorities at Columbia University, where he had recently completed a master’s degree and had become a prominent figure at pro-Palestinian protests. Authorities detained Khalil and then pushed to deport him, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio citing an obscure legal statute in contending that Khalil’s rhetoric and continued presence in the country could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.
Khalil’s lawyers quickly challenged the administration’s actions in court — first in New York, where he lived and was arrested, then in New Jersey, where he was detained in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.
Within days, however, Khalil was transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he was held for more than three months (he was living there this spring when his wife, an American citizen, gave birth to their son in New York).
The issue of where Khalil was located was something Ensign, the government attorney, said was important for the appellate judges to consider: Because Khalil was primarily detained in Louisiana, Ensign said, any legal challenge seeking to have him released should have taken place in that jurisdiction.
And in Ensign’s view, that meant the June ruling by a judge in New Jersey that ordered Khalil released — and temporarily blocked his deportation — should be overturned.
Several judges appeared skeptical of the jurisdictional aspect of Ensign’s argument. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, pointed out that authorities were moving Khalil to various jurisdictions over a weekend — and suggested attorneys couldn’t be forced to wait until the work week to file emergency challenges to what they viewed as wrongful detention.
“The lawyers didn’t know” where Khalil was, Bibas said. “They had to do their best.”
The judges seemed more receptive to another of Ensign’s arguments: That Khalil is currently the subject of a complex web of legal cases, with various claims being weighed in various courts.
In addition to the matter being argued in Philadelphia on Tuesday, his immigration case remains pending in Louisiana because of a separate issue: In September, an immigration judge there ruled that Khalil be removed to Syria or Algeria because he failed to disclose information about his past work with pro-Palestinian groups on his green card application.
While his attorneys have appealed that ruling, the appellate panel on Tuesday questioned whether it was appropriate for different jurisdictions to be weighing different aspects of his various cases — particularly when many of the legal issues in them are generally similar.
Circuit Judge Thomas M. Hardiman asked whether doing so would give Khalil a “second bite at the apple” to challenge rulings that don’t go his way.
It remained unclear Tuesday how or when the judges might rule.
Khalil, meanwhile, said outside the courthouse afterward: “We are in the fight until the end.”
When it opened in 1973, Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School was a source of deep pride for East Germantown, the kind of state-of-the-art educational facility that only suburban kids had at the time.
But on Saturday, when police found Kada Scott’s corpse buried in a shallow grave in the woods of the long-ago vacated school grounds, ending a two-week search for the missing23-year-old Mount Airy woman, the Rev.Chester H. Williams saw only decades of failure.
“It’s a disgrace,” said Williams, a pastorwho runs a neighborhood civic group. “We were very hurt to hear that this happened.”
Community members gather for a candlelight vigil in memory of Kada Scott on Monday at Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School.
On top of the shock, Scott’s kidnapping and murder has renewed animus in some quarters aboutthe Philadelphia School District‘s failure to repurpose the blighted property, one of dozens of schools shuttered by the district over the last 20 years.
Since Lewis closed in 2008, local officials and civic leaders said the sprawling seven-acre campus has become a magnet for squatting, illegal dumping, and other criminal activity. City officials have cited the school district 10 times since 2020 for overgrown weeds, graffiti, and piles of trash that blanketed the property, public records show. And four years ago, the district passed on an opportunity to reverse course on the blight.
A proposal to redevelop the land into new homes, championed by neighborhood leaders like Williams, sat before the school board for approval. But the district abandoned the plan at the eleventh hour without public explanation, which the developer alleged was due to meddling byCity Councilmember Cindy Bass — a contention Bass denies.
“The school district, for some reason, we don’t know why, they put a block on anything being built there,” Williams said.
Map of the former Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School in East Germantown
Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. extended “deepest sympathies” to Scott’s family and friends in a statement, and said the district’s operations and safety departments will review the vacant-property portfolio “to create and maintain safe and healthy spaces in every neighborhood.”
While some call Lewis “abandoned,” the district is careful to call the building “vacant,” one of 20 such properties in the district’s portfolio. It says maintenance and inspection logs are kept about work on vacant properties; details were not immediately available.
The debate over Lewis comes at a crucial time for the district: It is preparing to release recommendations about its stock of 300-plus buildings — and likely add to the list of decommissioned schools-turned-vacant public buildings. The district’s master planning process will contain recommendations for school closures and combining schools under one roof, officials have warned.
Butkovitz, in a report released that year, said district inaction around such structures was dangerous and noted that the schools were magnets for criminal activity.
Just before the pandemic hit in 2020, after years of pushback over Ada Lewis, the school district began accepting applications to redevelop the crumbling middle school. Germantown developer Ken Weinstein was one of three developers to place bids. He sought to buy the property for $1.4 million and build 76 new twin homes, at a density that neighbors felt complemented the surrounding area and resolved concerns about density brought by apartment buildings.
Weinstein said he gathered letters of support from 60 neighborhood residents and elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans and then-State Rep. Stephen Kinsey. The school board seemed eager to move ahead and set a final vote for the proposal in May 2021.
The vote never happened. The only explanation given that day was that “the Board had concern” about “what the long-term plan is for developing schools for the 21st century,” according to a district spokesperson.
According to Weinstein, some school board members received calls from Bass asking them to table the vote. Bass has faced criticism for interfering in development projects, including other proposals made by Weinstein, as vacant properties languished for years in her district. Her district includes the Lewis property andparts of North and Northwest Philadelphia, where Weinstein has focused his development work.
Bass, in an interview Monday, denied meddling in the vote. She acknowledged that she did not support Weinstein’s proposal because of the price of the homes — averaging around $415,000 — which she said would have triggered “immediate gentrification in the neighborhood.” But she said she had no involvement in the board’s reversal.
“That was up to the school district,” Bass said. “I don’t sit on the school board.”
While community groups in her district supported Weinstein’s project in 2021, Bass said she objected to market-rate housing as the sole alternative for East Germantown, arguing that it amounted to the district and developers saying “you should just take any old thing just so it’s not vacant.”
City workers clean up in front of the vacant Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School Monday, just minutes before the start of a community candlelight vigil in memory of Kada Scott.
A tragic turn for the property
In a letter dated Friday, Bass called on the school district to demolish the vacant school, saying she was troubled by the evidence that led investigators to the property during the search for Scott.
“The continued presence of this unsecured and deteriorating structure is simply unacceptable,” the Council member wrote in a statement, noting the site is now associated with “tragic violence.”
Cell phone records and tips from the public first led police to the former Ada Lewis school last week, where they found Scott’s pink phone case and debit card, but nothing else. Then, late Friday, police received a new tip saying that they had missed something on their first search of the grounds, and that they should look along the wooden fence that divides the school from the neighboring Awbury Recreation Center. Officers returned to the property Saturday and found Scott’s body, buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area behind the school.
Prosecutors expect to charge Keon King, 21, with the murder, though police continue searching for others who they believe may have helped dispose of evidence.
Bass took office in 2012,when the school wasalready vacant. She said she pushed the school district for several years to take action, as nuisances piled up at the property. She said shestill hopes that another “institution” could replace Lewis.
“I think that having something that the community wants is not hard to figure out,” Bass said. “This is what the community’s interested in — they’re interested in another institution.”
She said a proposal for a charter school is now in the works, though she said she was unable to provide details.
Julius Peden, 5, and Jaihanna Williams Peden (right), 14, pause at a memorial for Kada Scott on Monday.
A glut of vacant schools
The school district still views Lewis as a potential “swing space” — a building that could be used to house students if another district building is closed due to environmental problems.
There is precedent: The district has used other school buildings for such purposes, like Anna B. Pratt in North Philadelphia, which was also closed in 2013, to house early-childhood programs, and then students from other North Philadelphia schools whose buildings were undergoing renovation.
Still, it remains unclear how much it would cost to bring the Lewis building back to an inhabitable state.
The school system currently has about 70,000 more seats throughout the city than students enrolled. Though officials have said their first preference is to have closed schools reused for community benefit, it’s unlikely that all will be able to serve that purpose. And the timetable will surely be slow.
City officials at times have expressed frustration with the pace at which the district is making decisions about how to manage its buildings. School leaders have said the wait is necessary given the district’s capacity and the need to make correct choices and not rush the process.
Weinstein said the tragedy that culminated at Lewis reflected the conventional wisdom that blight breeds crime.
“There’s always consequences to shutting down a proposal that the community supports,” Weinstein said. “In most cases, nothing bad happens. In this case, something very bad happened.”
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.
On Tuesday, Harper — an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing — announced the release of Shapiro’s forthcoming memoir, Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service, which will hit shelves on Jan. 27, 2026.
Shapiro, 52, has worked in some level of government for his entire career: on Capitol Hill as a staffer, in Montgomery County as a commissioner, and in Harrisburg as a state representative, attorney general, and now governor. He has noted that he has never lost an election, going back to his election as student body president his freshman year at the University of Rochester. Along the way, elected officials have whispered about his talents as a politician, orator, and rumored presidential ambitions.
The Montgomery County native has become a key player in the national Democratic Party, touting a brand as a governor of a split legislature in the most sought-after swing state. His administration’s motto is “Get Stuff Done,” which he defines as bringing Democrats and Republicans together to accomplish long-delayed reforms, or restarting residents’ trust by improving their interactions with state government. (Pennsylvania still has not finished its state budget, which was due July 1, as legislators from the Democratic-controlled House and GOP-controlled Senate cannot agree on how much they should spend this fiscal year and causing school districts, counties, and nonprofits to take out significant loans to continue offering services during the 113-day budget impasse.)
Shapiro’s rise through the Democratic Party ranks skyrocketed last year, when he became a front-runner for vice president during Harris’ whirlwind, 107-day presidential campaign, in which she ultimately chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Harris also released a book this year, which includes stories from her interview with Shapiro for the role.
Shapiro, who was born in Kansas City, Mo., before moving to Montgomery County, has credited his upbringing by his parents — his father a pediatrician, and his mother an educator — as laying the foundation for his life in public service. Shapiro has four children and is married to his high school sweetheart, Lori. He and his family still live in Abington Township and split their time between their family home and the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg.
Philadelphia lawmakers are for the third time trying to pass legislation requiring that stores charge customers a fee for paper bags. And for the third time, it’s facing opposition from the mayor.
A City Council committee on Monday advanced legislation requiring all grocery stores, convenience shops, and other retailers in the city charge 10 cents per nonreusable bag. The goal is to update the city’s already existing ban on the plastic variety and encourage shoppers to bring their own bags.
The full Council could vote on the new legislation in the coming weeks. It is cosponsored by a majority of Council members, meaning it is likely to pass the chamber.
City Councilmember Mark Squilla, the architect of the plastic bag ban that first passed in 2019, said during the hearing Monday that he’s aiming to “change behavior.” The city says the use of paper bags has skyrocketed since the plastic bag ban took effect — studies show that while they are recyclable, unlike plastic, paper bags are still less energy efficient than reusable ones.
Squilla’s original plastic bag ban legislation included a required 15-cent fee on paper bags, but he stripped it from the bill after opposition from former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration. In 2023, Council passed legislation to institute it, but Kenney issued a pocket veto, meaning he left office without taking action on the legislation, effectively killing it.
It wasn’t clear at the time if Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, who was the incoming mayor, would support the legislation if it were reintroduced. She made cleaning and greening the city a top campaign promise, and environmental advocates hoped she’d support efforts to reduce single-use bag reliance.
But one of Parker’s top officials testified in opposition to the legislation Monday.
Carlton Williams, the director of Parker’s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, called Squilla’s effort well-intentioned. But he said charging bag fees could disproportionately impact low-income Philadelphians experiencing high grocery costs, “especially given the current economy.” He also said the fees could push shoppers out of the city and harm mom-and-pop businesses that already operate with low margins.
Councilmember Mark Squilla takes his seat in Council chambers on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, before a scheduled committee vote. Squilla authored legislation requiring stores charge a fee for paper bags.
If the legislation passes Council, Parker could sign or veto it. She could also let it lapse into law without her signature. If she vetoed the legislation — it would be her first since taking office last year — Council could override her veto with 12 votes out of the 17-member chamber.
When the paper bag bill was introduced in 2019, members of Kenney’s administration also said at the time that they were concerned that fees on paper bags would hurt the poorest Philadelphians. Former City Councilmember Maria Quiñones Sánchez similarly described it as akin to a regressive tax.
However, proponents of the legislation said Monday that they don’t think the argument holds up.
Maurice Sampson, the eastern Pennsylvania director of the environmental group Clean Water Action, said prices on essentials such as food could rise for everyone if stores absorb the costs of paper bags.
“There is no foundation or basis,” he said, ”in the idea that fees on bags will hurt low-income people.”
WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday started tearing down part of the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for the first lady, to build President Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.
Dramatic photos of the demolition work showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground. Some reporters watched from a park near the Treasury Department, which is next to the East Wing.
Trump announced the start of construction in a social media post and referenced the work while hosting 2025 college baseball champs Louisiana State University and LSU-Shreveport in the East Room. He noted the work was happening “right behind us.”
“We have a lot of construction going on, which you might hear periodically,” he said, adding, “It just started today.”
Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said at the commission’s September meeting that agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property.
“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” Scharf said last month.
It was unclear whether the White House had submitted the ballroom plans for the agency’s review and approval. The White House did not respond to a request for comment and the commission’s offices are closed because of the government shutdown.
The Republican president had said in July when the project was announced that the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself.
“It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said of the White House.
The East Wing houses several offices, including those of the first lady. It was built in 1902 and and has been renovated over the years, with a second story added in 1942, according to the White House.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said those East Wing offices will be temporarily relocated during construction and that wing of the building will be modernized and renovated.
“Nothing will be torn down,” Leavitt said when she announced the project in July.
Trump insists that presidents have desired such a ballroom for 150 years and that he’s adding the massive 90,000-square-foot, glass-walled space because the East Room, which is the largest room in the White House with an approximately 200-person capacity, is too small. He also has said he does not like the idea of hosting kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn.
Trump said in the social media announcement that the project would be completed “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer! The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
The ballroom will be the biggest structural change to the Executive Mansion since the addition in 1948 of the Truman Balcony overlooking the South Lawn, even dwarfing the residence itself.
At a dinner he hosted last week for some of the wealthy business executives who are donating money toward the $250 million construction cost, Trump said the project had grown in size and now will accommodate 999 people. The capacity was 650 seated people at the July announcement.
The White House has said it will disclose information on who has contributed money to build the ballroom, but has yet to do so.
Trump also said at last week’s event that the head of Carrier Global Corp., a leading manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, had offered to donate the air conditioning system for the ballroom.
Carrier confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that it had done so. A cost estimate was not immediately available.
“Carrier is honored to provide the new iconic ballroom at the White House with a world-class, energy-efficient HVAC system, bringing comfort to distinguished guests and dignitaries in this historic setting for years to come,” the company said in an emailed statement.
The clearing of trees on the south grounds and other site preparation work for the construction started in September. Plans call for the ballroom to be ready before Trump’s term ends in January 2029.
A divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday that Donald Trump can send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon, despite objections by the leaders of the city and state, giving the Republican president an important legal victory as he dispatches military forces to a growing number of Democratic-led locales.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Justice Department’s request to put on hold a judge’s order that had blocked the deployment while a legal challenge to Trump’s action plays out.
The court said that sending in the National Guard was an appropriate response to protesters, who had damaged a federal building and threatened U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The unsigned majority opinion was joined by Circuit Judge Bridget Bade and Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson, who were both appointed by Trump in his first term. Nelson also wrote a concurring opinion saying that courts have no ability to even review the president’s decision to send troops.
Circuit Judge Susan Graber, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, dissented. She said that allowing troops to be called in response to “merely inconvenient” protests was “not merely absurd” but dangerous, and she said the full 9th Circuit should overturn the ruling before Trump has a chance to send troops.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson welcomed the ruling, saying Trump had exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel from protesters.
Portland’s city attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On October 4, Portland-based U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who Trump appointed during his first term as president, ruled that Trump likely acted unlawfully when he ordered troops to Portland. She had blocked Trump from sending any National Guard troops to Portland at least until the end of October, and has scheduled a non-jury trial set to begin on October 29 to determine whether to impose a longer-term block.
DEMOCRATIC-LED STATES SEEK TO HALT DEPLOYMENTS
In an extraordinary use of the U.S. armed forces for domestic purposes, Trump has sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Memphis, and announced plans for deployments to Portland and Chicago.
Democratic-led states and cities have filed lawsuits seeking to halt the deployments, and courts have not yet reached a final decision on the legality of Trump’s decisions to send the National Guard to U.S. cities.
Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh his authority to send troops to Democratic-led cities, after another U.S. appeals court ruled against his decision to send troops to Chicago.
City and state officials sued the administration in a bid to stop the Portland deployment, arguing that Trump’s action violates several federal laws that govern the use of military forces as well as the state’s rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment.
The lawsuit accused Trump of exaggerating the severity of protests against his immigration policies to justify illegally seizing control of state National Guard units.
Trump on September 27 ordered 200 National Guard troops to Portland, continuing his administration’s unprecedented use of military personnel in U.S. cities to suppress protests and bolster domestic immigration enforcement. Trump called the city “War ravaged” and said, “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
Police records provided by the state showed that protests in Portland were “small and sedate,” resulting in only 25 arrests in mid-June and no arrests in the 3-1/2 months since June 19.
A federal law called the Posse Comitatus Act generally restricts the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes. In ordering troops to California, Oregon and Illinois, Trump has relied on a law – Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code – that allows a president to deploy state National Guard to repel an invasion, suppress a rebellion or allow the president to execute the law.
The National Guard serves as state-based militia forces that answer to state governors except when called into federal service by the president.
During arguments in the case on October 9, the two Trump-appointed judges suggested that Immergut had focused too closely on protests in the city in September without fully considering more serious protests two months before the troop deployment. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson said that courts should not engage in a “day by day” review of whether troops were needed at any given time.
Immergut issued decisions against the administration on October 4 and October 5, first ruling that Trump could not take over Oregon’s National Guard and then ruling that he could not circumvent that decision by calling in National Guard troops from other states.
The judge said there was no evidence that recent protests in Portland rose to the level of a rebellion or seriously interfered with law enforcement, and she said Trump’s description of the city as war-ravaged was “simply untethered to the facts.”
Immergut is one of three district court judges who have ruled against Trump’s use of the National Guard, and no district court judge has yet ruled for Trump in the National Guard cases.
Appeals courts have split over the issue so far, with the 9th Circuit previously backing Trump’s use of troops in California and the 7th Circuit ruling that troops should stay out of Chicago for now.
Despite strong pressure from the Trump administration, including a call with the White House on Friday, colleges and universities are largely rejecting the president’s offer of preferential treatment for funding in exchange for compliance with his ideological priorities.
Six of nine universities offered the deal earlier this month had publicly said no to the White House request by Monday’s deadline.
The administration has said it is seeking to make sure the country’s schools are merit-based, but many universities and higher education advocates said the White House’s proposed agreement would undermine the merit-based process currently utilized to award research grants.
The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is a new attempt by the administration to get schools to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies and ensure more conservative viewpoints and values are integrated into campus life.
The Trump administration offered it to nine colleges earlier this month, casting it as a means to gain competitive advantage for federal and philanthropic benefits and invitations to White House events in return for what the administration described as compliance with civil rights law and “pursuing Federal priorities with vigor.”
The ideological tension was reflected during a call on Friday, which the White House organized and presented as a chance to workshop the terms of the compact in partnership with colleges and universities that had not yet responded, according to a person close to the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
From the Trump administration, Education Secretary Linda McMahon; White House Domestic Policy Director Vincent Haley, Special Assistant Eric Bledsoe and adviser May Mailman; Josh Gruenbaum of the General Services Administration; and billionaire Marc Rowan were on the call, the person said.
But within a day of the call, University of Virginia and Dartmouth College rejected the compact, joining ranks with MIT, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. The University of Texas at Austin was invited to sign on and the chair of the University of Texas System Board of Regents expressed enthusiasm. The University of Arizona and Vanderbilt University have not publicly responded.
Echoing a term that has been often used by the Trump administration, U-Va.’s president said the agreement violated the merit-based nature of the competition for federal research funding. The federal government currently awards billions of dollars in research grants based on peer reviews and scientific merit.
On Saturday, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock wrote to McMahon, Mailman and Haley that she welcomed further engagement on enhancing the partnership between the federal government and research universities and ensuring that higher education “stays focused on academic excellence.” But, she wrote, “I do not believe that the involvement of the government through a compact-whether it is a Republican- or Democratic-led White House-is the right way to focus America’s leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston described the Friday call as “productive.”
“The Administration hosted a productive call with several university leaders. They now have the baton to consider, discuss, and propose meaningful reforms, including their form and implementation, to ensure college campuses serve as laboratories of American greatness,” Huston said in a statement. “These leaders are working steadfastly to improve higher education and have been invited to the table to share ideas with the Administration, and we look forward to discussing transparent ways that, together, we will produce future generations of American excellence.”
A White House official, speaking anonymously to discuss private conversations, said universities will not lose their federal funding because they decided not to engage in the compact.
The sweeping terms of the compact called on schools to adopt the administration’s priorities, including pledging to freeze tuition for five years, cap international enrollment at 15 percent of a college’s undergraduate student body, and bar the consideration of factors such as gender, race and political views in admissions and other areas.
Some legal scholars said the terms were unconstitutional. Trump administration officials have insisted they are protecting free speech by compelling universities to reject a culture that suppresses far-right thought.
Officials asked for “limited, targeted feedback” in writing no later than Oct. 20, with hopes of a signed agreement by Nov. 21.
As schools turned it down, citing similar concerns – Christina H. Paxson, Brown’s president, wrote in a letter to the White House that provisions in the compact restricting the university’s academic freedom and institutional autonomy would impede its mission – the Trump administration invited more universities to participate. Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University joined Friday’s call.
In a Monday statement, Washington University Chancellor Andrew Martin said he had not endorsed or signed on to the compact but agreed to discuss it with the Trump administration. “We believe it is in the best interest of our university, and higher education more broadly, for us to participate constructively, share our experience and expertise, and help inform policies that strengthen the nation’s research and education ecosystem,” Martin said.
Some of the wording in the compact is vague. But the magnitude of the stakes is clear: The Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars of federal research funding at multiple colleges that it has accused of violating federal civil rights laws for issues such as having diversity, equity and inclusion policies and allegedly not doing enough to prevent antisemitism.
At Harvard University, which has filed two lawsuits to fight the government’s actions, the administration has tried to bar international students and scholars from campus, threatened to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status and has begun an effort to block the school from receiving any federal grants.
Faculty, alumni and students at many of the nine schools urged university leaders not to sign. Rallies against the compact occurred on multiple campuses, and student leaders from seven of the nine original schools issued a joint statement opposing it. More than 30 higher education associations issued a statement of opposition Friday, saying “the conditions it outlines run counter to the interests of institutions, students, scholars, and the nation itself.” A coalition formed of alumni groups opposed to the compact.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media that the administration would continue efforts to swiftly enforce federal law at universities that “continue to illegally discriminate based on Race or Sex,” but that “those Institutions that want to quickly return to the pursuit of Truth and Achievement” were “invited to enter into a forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
Nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians — including 500,000 Philadelphia residents — won’t receive SNAP benefits in November if the federal government shutdown continues, state officials said.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides $366 million a month to low-income people in the state, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Most households that receive SNAP benefits consist of elderly people, children, or individuals with disabilities, according to hunger experts.
This is the first federal shutdown in at least 20 years in which SNAP will not be made available, said George Matysik, executive director of the Share Food Program, a food bank that serves 500,000 people living in the region.
“It’s like a horror movie where the call is coming from within the house,” Matysik said in an interview last week. “Our own federal government is making the choice to take benefits from Pennsylvanians,” who are among 42 million people nationwide who participate in the program.
In Philadelphia, Share has seen a 120% increase in food need over the last three years, Matysik said. “And that was with SNAP,” he added, saying the city faces a greater food crisis now than it did during the pandemic.
In an email Monday, the Pennsylvania DHS blamed Republicans “who control the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the White House” for failing to pass a budget and causing the current difficulties Americans endure.
“We urge Republicans in Congress to reopen the government and protect vulnerable Pennsylvanians at risk because of this inaction,” the email said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office could not be reached for comment. In May, Shapiro said that the commonwealth would be unable to replace lost funding for SNAP should the federal government fail to pay.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, did not return calls for comment. The White House issued a statement that the shutdown is affecting personnel in its press office, delaying responses. The statement blamed Democrats for the government’s closure: “Please remember this could have been avoided if the Democrats voted for the clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government open.”
To receive SNAP benefits, individuals carry EBT (electronic benefits transfer) cards that are loaded monthly with the amounts to which they are entitled.
The shutdown began Oct. 1 after Congress could not reach a compromise to allow funding to continue. The region’s 46,000 federal workers found themselves without paychecks. The Trump administration, meanwhile, began laying off federal workers, with a goal of sacking 4,000 of them. A federal judge in California intervened to halt the layoffs. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
Like other states, New Jersey faces the same funding difficulty. If the federal government remains closed by Nov. 1, about 800,000 people will be without SNAP benefits.
Elderly people who rely on SNAP will suffer throughout Pennsylvania because, for them, “food is medicine,” said Allen Glicksman, director of research at the Eastern Pennsylvania Geriatrics Society in Newtown Square. “Without it, there’s the chance of a health catastrophe that will cost more money in Medicaid and in emergency room visits.”
There are 234,638 Philadelphians age 65 and older, 104,972 (45%) of whom live below the federal poverty line ($21,150 for two individuals in a household), Glicksman calculated.
Brian Gralnick, executive director of the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of Elders (CARIE) in Center City, agreed. “Consequences will be devastating. Without federal government dollars, ending or even addressing hunger in the region will be as successful as draining the Delaware River using Eagles helmets.”
For children, the potential shortage of SNAP benefits will be no less calamitous, said sociologist Judith Levine, director of the Public Policy Lab at Temple University.
“Food is a necessary element for brain development and growth,” she said. “And there’s a clear connection between hunger and the ability to perform in school.
“This is a complete crisis we are facing.”
One in four Philadelphia children experiences food insecurity — lack of enough food over the course of a year to live a healthy life — according to a City Council report.
In the neighborhoods, the word about the halt to SNAP benefits is circulating. Fear and confusion had already been growing after the Trump administration announced changes to the SNAP program that would make it more difficult for some people to access benefits.
Among the changes: Some SNAP recipients ages 18 to 54 who are able to work and do not support a child under 18 are now required to report at least 20 hours of work, training, or volunteering per week, or 80 hours per month, to keep their benefits.
Despite the revisions to the program, however, many people these days are more worried about what happens if SNAP halts.
“People are very anxious about that,” said Pastor Tricia Neal, director of the Feast of Justice food pantry at St. John’s Lutheran Church in the Northeast.
“The anxiety level is driving more people to come here, and, because we serve 5,500 households, we are well beyond the capacity of what we can support. It’s really horrendous to look at what’s happening here.”
That much is clear, according to Rosemary Diem, who tries to stave off hunger for her and her husband by combining SNAP benefits with visits to Feast of Justice.
“Everything at the pantry is running low,” said Diem, 60, who is disabled, as is her husband, Joseph, 63. “I see us getting hurt without SNAP. There won’t be money for milk and eggs.
There’s a smoke shop in North Philly peddling recreational drugs across the street from a daycare. A West Philly storefront that sells loose cigarettes on a residential block. A convenience store in Spring Garden that advertises urine to people looking to pass a drug test.
These are among the so-called nuisance businesses that City Council members and neighborhood association leaders cited Monday as lawmakers advanced legislation to make it easier for the city to shut down stores that sell cannabis and tobacco products without licenses.
And legislators said their next target could be the landlords who rent space to those businesses.
“We have to work with our city departments and our state partners to clamp down on these businesses,” said City Council Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who represents the city at-large. “We’re just being inundated.”
Members of Council’s Committee on Licenses and Inspections passed two bills Monday that city officials say seek to close loopholes store owners exploit to avoid being cited for failing to obtain proper permits.
In introducing the legislation earlier this year, Gilmore Richardson cited an Inquirer report about Pennsylvania’s unregulated hemp stores, which sell products advertised as legal hemp that are often black market cannabis or contaminated with illicit toxins.
One bill makes it easier for the city to shut down nuisance businesses by removing language that classifies some violations as criminal matters, requiring that the police investigate them as crimes rather than civil violations that are quicker to adjudicate.
The second piece of legislation makes it illegal for businesses to essentially reorganize under a new name but conduct the same operations as a means of evading enforcement.
Both pieces of legislation could come up for a full vote in the Democratic-dominated City Council in the coming weeks. Members of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration testified in favor of them, meaning the mayor is likely to sign both.
A smoke shop in South Philadelphia.
Neighborhood association leaders also testified Monday in favor of the changes, but several said more aggressive enforcement is needed. They said smoke shops in particular have popped up throughout their commercial corridors, as have convenience stores that don’t even have licenses to operate as businesses, let alone sell recreational drugs.
“We’ve seen firsthand the selling of illegal drug paraphernalia and [loose cigarettes], many of which children walk past in order to get to the candy bars and seniors walk past to get to the milk,” said Heather Miller, of the Lawncrest Community Association. “We need to address this.”
Elaine Petrossian, a Democratic ward leader in Center City and a community activist, called for “much” higher fines and penalties for landlords. She cited progress the municipal government has made in New York City, where authorities cracked down on building owners who knowingly rented space to tenants selling cannabis or tobacco without licenses to do so.
Several lawmakers said they’d support a similar approach. Councilmember Mark Squilla, who represents a district that spans from South Philadelphia to Kensington, said landlords must be held “more accountable.”
“If they had some skin in the game, maybe they’d think twice about renting to an illegal operation,” he said.
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents parts of West Philadelphia, agreed. She said she recently attempted to meet with a building owner who rents space to a problematic smoke shop in her district, but was rebuffed.
“He was like, ‘These people pay me rent, and that’s the extent to which I basically care,’” Gauthier said. “We need something that forces property owners to be more accountable than that, because neighbors are suffering.”
Staff writers Max Marin and Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
