The sanctions entail freezing the companies’ assets in China and banning individuals and organizations from dealing with them, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The companies include Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, L3Harris Maritime Services and Boeing in St. Louis, while defense firm Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey is one of the executives sanctioned, who can no longer do business in China and are barred from entering the country. Their assets in the East Asian country have also been frozen.
The announcement of the U.S. arms-sale package, valued at more than $10 billion, has drawn an angry response from China, which claims Taiwan as its own and says it must come under its control.
If approved by the American Congress, it would be the largest-ever U.S. weapons package to the self-ruled territory.
“We stress once again that the Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in China－U.S. relations,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday. “Any company or individual who engages in arms sales to Taiwan will pay the price for the wrongdoing.”
The ministry also urged the U.S. to stop what it called “the dangerous moves of arming Taiwan.”
Taiwan is a major flashpoint in U.S.-China relations that analysts worry could explode into military conflict between the two powers. China says that the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would violate diplomatic agreements between China and the U.S.
China’s military has increased its presence in Taiwan’s skies and waters in the past few years, holding joint drills with its warships and fighter jets on a near-daily basis near the island.
Under the American federal law, the U.S. is obligated to assist Taiwan with its self-defense, a point that has become increasingly contentious with China. Beijing already has strained ties with Washington over trade, technology and other human rights issues.
If you need another reason to visit the gym this winter, a new study of almost 1,200 healthy, middle-aged men and women found that those with more muscle mass tended to have younger brains than those with less muscle.
The findings, which were presented in Chicago this month at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, add to growing evidence that building and maintaining muscle mass as we age could be key to building and maintaining brain health, too.
The researchers also found that those with high levels of deep belly fat had older brains, raisingquestions about the potentially negative effects of some types of body fat on the brain and how important it may be to combine weight training with weight loss, if we would like our brains to stay youthful.
Why exercise is good for brains
The idea that exercise is good for our brains is hardly new. Past studies in rodents have shown that after exercise, the animals’ brains teem with a neurochemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. Sometimes referred to as “Miracle-Gro for the brain,” BDNF helps spark the creation of new neurons. So it’s not surprising that after exercise, mouse and rat brains typically sprout two or three times as many new brain cells as the brains of sedentary animals. The exercising animals also ace rodent intelligence tests.
People who exercise also show large increases in BDNF in their bloodstreams afterward.
Other studies have shown that as few as 25 minutes a week of walking, cycling, swimming, or similar exercise can be strongly linked to greater brain volume in older people, while taking as few as 3,000 steps a day helps slow cognitive decline in people at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
But most of this research involved aerobic exercise and the brain effects of endurance. Fewer studies have looked at the role of muscle mass. Many questions also remain about the role of body fat on brain health, especially the deep, interior fat around our bellies known as visceral fat, which can increase inflammation throughout the body, including, potentially, in the brain.
Is your brain young or old?
For the new study, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions decided to look deep inside people’s body tissues and brains with magnetic resonance imaging.
They turned to existing whole-body scans of 1,164 healthy men and women in their 40s, 50s, or early 60s. “To understand dementia risk, we’ve got to focus on midlife,” said Cyrus Raji, an associate professor of radiology and neurology at Washington University School of Medicine and the study’s senior author. It’s in middle age that we typically start to develop — or avoid — most of the common risk factors for later dementia, he said, making it a critical time period to study.
The scientists used artificial intelligence to analyze the scans and determine people’s total muscle mass and body fat. The body fat was characterized as either visceral or subcutaneous, a different type of fat found just beneath our skin.
The researchers figured out the apparent age of people’s brains using algorithms based on scans of tens of thousands of other brains. These provided benchmarks of typical brain structure and volume for someone of any age. People’s brains could either match the benchmarks for their chronological age, or look like those of people younger or older. Older-looking brains face heightened risks for early cognitive decline.
More muscle means younger brains
The researchers found that the amounts of people’s muscle mass and their visceral fat were both strongly linked to their apparent brain age, though in opposing ways.
“The larger the muscle bulk, the younger-looking the brain,” Raji said. “And the more visceral fat that was present, the older-looking the brain.” People whose ratio of visceral fat to muscle mass was especially high — meaning they had a relatively large level of visceral fat and low muscle mass — tended to have the oldest-looking brains. (Subcutaneous fat was not linked to brain age in any way.)
The study didn’t look at how muscle and fat affect brains, but both tissues release a variety of biochemicals that can travel to the brain and jump-start various processes there, Raji said. The substances from muscles tend to promote the creation and integration of brain cells and neuronal connections; those from visceral fat do the reverse.
On a practical level, the findings underscore that resistance exercise “is super important” for healthy brain aging, Raji said. Most of us begin losing muscle mass in middle age, but strength training can slow or even reverse that decline.
Shedding visceral fat is likewise a good idea for our brains, he said. Both aerobic and resistance exercise will target visceral fat. Using weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and other GLP-1 drugs can also substantially reduce visceral fat. But many people taking the drugs will drop muscle mass, Raji said — unless they also lift weights.
The study has limitations. It hasn’t been published or peer-reviewed. Because it’s not an experiment, it also can’t show that more muscle and less belly fat cause brains to age more slowly — only that those conditions are all linked to each other.
But its findings are plausible and align with those of a growing number of other studies, said Fang Yu, director of the Roybal Center for Older Adults Living Alone with Cognitive Decline at Arizona State University in Phoenix. She studies exercise and aging but was not involved with the new study.
Essentially, the study’s message is simple, actionable and even rhymes: If you want a younger, healthier brain, Raji said, “strength train.”
Justin Juray didn’t know where to turn. His Maine bowling alley had been the site of a mass killing, and he was struggling — not just to reopen, but to cope with his business’s now notorious place in history.
John Curry was worried about closing his Georgia coffee shop, scrambling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and “drowning” financially as he waited for a $126,000 payment from a federal program for keeping his employees on staff.
In their low moments, they received help from an unexpected source: their United States senator.
Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.), two of the most vulnerable members of the Senate facing reelection next year, have little in common politically. But both have reputations for providing strong constituent services, an often overlooked advantage afforded incumbents that could matter on the margins in close races.
Taking requests for help and working out a solution is one of the most unsung practices in most Senate offices, often overshadowed by committee hearings and Senate floor fights in Washington and by campaign rallies and television ads back home. But no work puts voters in more direct contact with their federal representative.
Collins’ office helped Juray with tax and insurance issues, as well as securing a disaster relief loan, in the wake of what was Maine’s deadliest mass killing ever, where eight people were killed in 2023 at his Lewiston, Maine, bowling alley.
Ossoff gave Curry his card after an event at the small business owner’s Augusta, Ga., coffee shop in 2023 and told him to call if he “ever needed anything.” When the business faced serious financial difficulties while waiting for funds to cover a string of bills, he emailed the senator for help.
“He called me the next day,” said Curry. “It was not long at all before I got an email from the IRS saying that I had a check on the way.”
In separate interviews with the Washington Post, Collins and Ossoff both said they have worked to create a culture in their offices that prioritizes each interaction with people they represent.
“I know that I have had an impact,” Collins saidwhen asked to reflect on the constituent service work out of her office. “It’s extremely satisfying … when we’re able to solve a problem for an individual.”
Ossoff said he wants his constituents “to experience a level of responsiveness and accountability and concern that they have never felt before.”
Asked why all members of Congress don’t focus as heavily on such services, Ossoff said the current culture in politics is “all about attention.”
“For a lot of people in Congress, their goal is to become more and more and more famous or infamous, find the cameras, post the viral content,” he said. “That’s just not my approach to the job.”
Both Collins and Ossoff face competitive reelections next year.
Collins, who has yet to announce a campaign but has said she intends to run for her sixth Senate term, is the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation and faces an electorate that has voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992.
But Collins, a relatively moderate Republican, also faces pressure from her right, with more conservative members of her state bristling at the times she bucks her party and President Donald Trump. Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced a Senate campaign in October. The 77-year-old Democrat faces a primary challenge from a more liberal candidate, Graham Platner, a Marine Corps combat veteran and oyster farmer.
Ossoff, first elected to the Senate in 2020, faces a similarly competitive election in a state that has only recently been in play statewide for Democrats. Trump won in Georgia by two percentage points in 2024. The Republican primary to face Ossoff is competitive, a sign Republicans view him as vulnerable.
Collins’ six and Ossoff’s four state offices include case workers whose primary focus is helping constituents solve problems. But other staff in the offices — and in Washington, D.C. — regardless of their primary duties, are also expected to pitch in.
The work has created scenarios in which people who may disagree with Collins and Ossoff on specific issues are willing to back them for reelection because of the personal level of work their offices have done.
Juray, the bowling alley owner, offers an example.
Two people from Collins’ office worked with him following the shooting. Juray said they not only cleared up all the questions with his insurance company and the IRS, but they secured him a disaster relief loan that “helped us get everything put back together” so they could reopen in 2024.
Juray, a registered Democrat, has voted for Collins in the past. While he hasn’t decided who he will vote for next year, he says he is “leaning” toward the Republican incumbent.
“Without the senators’ support and without them, I might still be waiting on some of this funding,” Juray said. “It changed the way I saw representation as a whole.”
Chris Gardner, the head of the port authority in Eastport, Maine, was at a loss after watching the town’s historic decades-old breakwater built to protect the city’s harbor “open up like a zipper” and crumble along the rocky coast early one morning in 2014. The collapse put the livelihoods of countless people at risk.
Before the sun rose, Gardner recalled, Collins called him and promised to do “whatever it takes” to rebuild the critical infrastructure at the nation’s easternmost port. When the breakwater was rebuilt and reopened in 2017, Collins was there with Gardner, celebrating the achievement and the millions of dollars the senator helped secure for the project.
Gardner is a registered Republican who at times “hasn’t agreed with some of Senator Collins’ votes.” But he said he tells “anyone who will listen” about the role Collins played in rebuilding the breakwater. “God love her, she is hated by people on both sides of the aisle. … The irony is, she weathers all of that … because she stays focused on doing her job.”
Collins laughed when asked if she thinks her constituent services work helps temper some of the anger directed at her by people who disagree with her politics. She said that often people come up to her at the grocery store and she can tell that they might not be her typical political supporters.
“I always find that people come up to me because I’m alone,” she said. “I’m doing exactly what they’re doing. And they will come up to me and thank me for the work that my offices have done.”
Ossoff, who is far newer to the Senate than Collins, is working to build that kind of reputation.
Shortly after Ossoff joined the Senate in 2021, he invited an executive from a famed Georgia company — Delta Air Lines — to come speak with his staff on “best practices” for his customer service operation, including suggestions that “maybe are not common in the legislative branch or the federal government.”
The result? Ossoff calls a handful of people who received assistance from his office each week to check in on their experience. And at the end of every constituent call with his office, Ossoff said the caller is asked whether they would “recommend the service that my office provides for someone else in the same situation as them.”
For Claven Williams, a retired Navy commander, the answer was yes.
Williams was exposed to Agent Orange during his service in the Pacific from the 1970s to the 1990s and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After initially approving his claim for disability in 2024 under the newly passed Pact Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs reduced his disability to 50% in 2025, claiming that he was cured of the ailment. That prompted Williams to contact to Ossoff’s office, which successfully worked with the department to restore his 100% benefit earlier this year.
“I had dealt with other politicians; they didn’t support you like that, they didn’t go out of your way to help you,” recalled Williams, who voted for Ossoff in 2020.
The casework provided by Ossoff and Collins has drawn praise from those partisans who have opposed their elections.
“Their constituent services are second to none,” Brian Robinson, a Republican operative in Georgia, said of Ossoff’s staffduring an April radio appearance with the senator, praising him for following in the footsteps of former Republican senator Johnny Isakson.
Bev Uhlenhake, the former chair of the Maine Democratic Party who opposes Collins’ reelection next year, said the reason Collins has proved difficult to defeat in a blue state is “her relationships throughout the state of Maine.”
“They are so deep because her staff have helped so many Mainers while in crisis,” Uhlenhake said. “Constituent services in Maine are incredibly important, and she has done it really well.”
PALM BEACH, Fla. — ’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the villa, the president assured children that Santa wasn’t a guerrilla.
“Santa’s a very good person,” President Donald Trump said on Christmas Eve, during the annual presidential ritual of helping excited little ones track Santa Claus’ location. “We want to make sure he’s not infiltrated — that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa.”
This wasn’t exactlywhat Jasper, 10, from Oklahoma, had wanted to know when he dialed the NORAD Santa Tracker on Wednesday afternoon. He had calledto find out where St. Nick and his reindeer were on their nightlong journey circumnavigating the globe, which the hotline “tracks” with the aid of top U.S. military technology.
But out of the phone Jasper rang came a clatter. It was none other than Trump! Nothing was the matter.
The president played along, disclosing Santa’s location, which at that moment, he said, was in the Czech Republic. But first, he offered a few choice observations about Jasper’s own.
“Santa loves Oklahoma like I do,” Trump said. “You know, Oklahoma was very good to me in the election, so I love Oklahoma. Don’t ever leave Oklahoma, OK?”
“OK,” Jasper replied haltingly. “I’ll try.”
Such was Christmas Eve at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Palm Beach. He had spent the morning at his golf course in West Palm Beach, just across the lagoon, and by the afternoon, he was sitting in a gilded chair before a gilded Christmas tree in his gilded living room, the first lady at his side.
With Melania in her heels and Trump in his tie, the first couple settled down to give Christmas cheer a try. The president took his calls over speakerphone; the first lady took hers murmuring softly into a receiver held closely to her ear: “She’s able to focus totally without listening to this,” Trump said.
Jasper’s 4-year-old sister, Anastasia, told Trump she wanted a dollhouse for Christmas.
“I think we can work that out,” Trump replied. “I think Santa’s gonna bring you the most beautiful dollhouse you’ve ever seen.” (Whether the dollhouse would be subject to his administration’s tariffs, Trump didn’t say. He has been much clearer about dolls, saying earlier this year while imposing globaltariffs that young girls would be “very happy” with just “two or three or four or five.”)
Next was Savannah, 8, from North Carolina, who wanted to know if Santa would be mad if she didn’t leave out cookies for him. The president cocked his head and smirked. “This is getting good!” he told reporters.
“I think he won’t get mad, but I think he’ll be very disappointed,” he counseled Savannah. “You know, Santa’s — he tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. Do you know what cherubic means? A little on the heavy side. I think Santa would like some cookies.”
Amelia, 8, from Kansas, told Trump she wasn’t sure what she wanted for Christmas. “Not coal,” she said.
“Not coal, no, you don’t want coal,” the president agreed. Then he caught himself. “Well, you mean clean, beautiful coal.” He turned to the media. “I had to do that, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Coal is clean and beautiful,” he told Amelia. “Please remember that, at all costs.”
Next up came a 5-year-old who proudly informed the president she was from Pennsylvania.
“Pennsylvania’s great,” Trump said. “We won Pennsylvania — actually, three times,” he continued. (He did not.)
“This is America,” he said to reporters at one point between calls. The president did not explain what he meant by this.
His last call was with a pair of sisters, ages 6 and 10, from Tacoma, Wash. One of them told Trump she would like a pinball machine for Christmas.
“Pinball machine? That’s great.” Trump said. “You know Elton John?” If she did, she did not say. Nor did she point out that The Who, not Elton John, first released “Pinball Wizard.”
“He did ‘Pinball Wizard,’” the president continued. “We’ll have to send you a copy of ‘Pinball Wizard.’”
Trump didn’t take any questions from reporters, though there were many questions to ask unrelated to Santa’swhereabouts. What about the latest tranche of the Epstein files, which include wide-ranging references to the president? Or the Supreme Court decision that thwarts his planned National Guard deployment in Chicago? Is Nicolás Maduro on the naughty or nice list?
Not today — not on Christmas Eve. Couples were arriving in suits and ball gowns; the aroma of roasting meat wafted through the halls. The club’s celebrations were about to begin, and the president was in the holiday spirit. “Show them the festivities,” he instructed his staff, “and then send them home for Christmas dinner.”
Around 7 p.m., reporters were escorted into the Mar-a-Lago ballroom to take in the teeming dessert platters and his guests’ holiday finest. Trump sat at a table near the center of the room with his wife and father-in-law, cordoned off from his fellow revelers with a velvet rope.
Two minutes later, the media were whisked away. But we all heard him Truth, ere he retired for the night: “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly.”
U.S. forces struck Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday evening, following up on threats to the country over killings of Christians, President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Trump said the military conducted “multiple strikes” but did not elaborate. In a follow-up post, U.S. Africa Command said multiple people it said were ISIS terrorists were killed in strikes in Sokoto State, which is in the northwest portion of the country, bordering Niger, and has become a hot spot for a resurgence in violent extremism and the kidnapping of schoolchildren.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” Trump posted to social media.
The Pentagon said the Nigerian government approved the strikes and worked with the U.S. to carry them out. No further details on how the strikes were conducted were immediately available.
A spokesperson for the Nigerian foreign ministry confirmed the U.S. strike Thursday evening, saying that “precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes” had been carried out in response to the “persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism.”
“Terrorist violence of any form, whether directed at Christians, Muslims or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values,” the statement from spokesperson Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa said.
For months Trump and Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas andReps. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, and Riley Moore of West Virginia, have raised alarms about killings of Christians in Nigeria amid larger ethnic and religious bloodshed. Trump had previously directed the Pentagon to plan potential military action in Nigeria, and earlier this month the State Department restricted visas for Nigerians involved in the violence.
Trump threatened an attack in Nigeria early last month, writing on his Truth Social site that: “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
His post followed a meeting in Washington between top advisers and representatives of religious groups and came after he watched a Fox News segment on the topic aboard Air Force One, the Washington Post reported. The push to make the issue an administration priority was long in the making, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, but the president’s threat of military action was entirely unexpected, they said.
The Council on Foreign Relations reported earlier this year that the Sahel, a region that spans multiple countries across Central Africa including Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, and Sudan, has seen a significant uptick in the growth of violent extremist organizations as a result of decreased international counterterrorism support.
U.S. forces lost access to key counterterrorism bases in Niger and Chad in 2024. In their place, a number of proxy military groups such as the Russian-backed Wagner Group have filled in.
But the Trump administration has been looking at ways to reduce the U.S. role in Africa overall as it shifts to a strategy that will focus more military assets and attention to the Western Hemisphere. The administration is also looking at potentially consolidating U.S. Africa Command into a theater command that would also include U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command, which could further reduce the attention and resources the region would receive.
That proposal drew concern from some lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Connecticut, who cautioned against the U.S. pulling back given Africa’s young and quickly growing population and economic importance.
Nigeria is a diverse, multiethnic country split between the mostly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south. The country’s 230 million people are roughly split between Christians and Muslims. While violence has sometimes targeted Christians, it has also deeply affected Muslims, according to Nigerian and Western analysts.
Most violence in Nigeria has taken place in the northeast, where the extremist groupBoko Haram has regularly attacked churches and kidnapped children for more than a decade as part of its campaign to build an Islamist state through violence.
MARACAY, Venezuela — This was not the Christmas that Mariela Gómez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants would have pictured. But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their American dream.
So Gómez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter, and smiled for her in-laws. Hard as she tried, though, she could not ignore the main challenges faced by returning migrants: unemployment and poverty.
“We had a modest dinner, not quite what we’d hoped for, but at least we had food on the table,” Gómez said of the lasagna-like dish she shared with her partner and in-laws instead of the traditional Christmas dish of stuffed corn dough hallacas. “Making hallacas here is a bit expensive, and since we’re unemployed, we couldn’t afford to make them.”
Gómez, her two sons, and her partner returned to the city of Maracay on Oct. 27 after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to Texas, where they were quickly swept up by U.S. Border Patrol amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. They were deported to Mexico, from where they began the dangerous journey back to Venezuela.
They crossed Central America by bus, but once in Panama, the family could not afford to continue to Colombia via boat in the Caribbean. Instead, they took the cheaper route along the Pacific’s choppy waters, sitting on top of sloshing gasoline tanks in a cargo boat for several hours and then transferring to a fast boat until reaching a jungled area of Colombia. They spent about two weeks there until they were wired money to make it to the border with Venezuela.
Gómez was among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who left their home country in the last decade, when its economy came undone as a result of a drop in oil prices, rising corruption, and mismanagement. She lived in Colombia and Peru for years before setting her sights on the U.S. with hopes of building a new life.
Trump’s second term has dashed the hopes of many like Gómez.
As of September, more than 14,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, had returned to South America since Trump moved to limit migration to the U.S., according to figures from Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica. In addition, Venezuelans were steadily deported to their home country this year after President Nicolás Maduro, under pressure from the White House, did away with his long-standing policy of not accepting deportees from the U.S.
Immigrants arrived regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by a U.S. government contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline. More than 13,000 immigrants returned this year on the chartered flights.
Gómez’s return to Venezuela also allowed her to see the now 20-year-old daughter she left behind when she fled the country’s complex crisis. They talked and drank beer during the holiday knowing it might be the last time they share a drink for a while — Gómez’s daughter will migrate to Brazil next month.
Gómez is hoping to make hallacas for New Year’s Eve and is also hoping for a job. But her prayers for next year are mostly for good health.
“I ask God for many things, first and foremost life and health, so we can continue enjoying our family,” she said.
DNIPRO, Ukraine — The cherished, century-old Ukrainian song that Americans know as “Carol of the Bells” was written for layers upon layers of voices to fill churches, concert halls, and city squares.
But in wartime, Ukrainians have learned to improvise.
For one choir displaced by Russian bombardment from the very city where many believe the song was written, that means arranging the complex choral melody for just three singers this Christmas, down from the usual 30.
Hearing the arrangement performed by just three singers gives a sense of Ukraine after years of war at the moment: depleted, persistent, still beautiful.
The choir is from a historic music school in the besieged eastern city of Pokrovsk — an institution so tied to the original Ukrainian song, called “Shchedryk,” or “Bountiful,” that it bears the name of its composer, Mykola Leontovych.
The piece has long served as an unofficial anthem for the city, where he lived from 1904 to 1908.
“Wherever we would go, we would sing this song,” said Alla Dekhtyar, 67, the school’s choir director, who will be one of its three singers to perform at the school’s downsized holiday concert this month. “It was like our business card.”
That was before Russia’s devastating advance on Pokrovsk forced most residents — including every member of the choir — to flee elsewhere in Ukraine or Europe.
The Leontovych music school evacuated its most precious instruments in 2024, and drone footage of the city shows the building has since been largely destroyed. Russian forces now control about 95% of what remains of the city, which they aggressively shelled like so much of Ukraine they have sought to control.
The Leontovych school reopened in exile last year in Dnipro, about 115 miles to the west.
But with Pokrovsk’s population so widely scattered, the choir that once blended dozens of voices for regular performances in Pokrovsk is down to just two sopranos and an alto, including Dekhtyar.
Even so, the trio will go ahead with the modified rendition of “Shchedryk” this year. Choosing another, simpler song to perform at the forthcoming holiday concert was never an option.
Singing the song in its original Ukrainian remains an act of resistance against Russian aggression — and a reminder of Ukraine’s contributions to the global cultural canon.
That is especially true for those displaced from Pokrovsk. While the song is beloved across Ukraine, it is particularly special for the eastern city, where many believe Leontovych began writing it long before it premiered in Kyiv in 1916 and stunned an American crowd at Carnegie Hall in 1922.
“For everyone else, that melody means Christmas,” said Angelina Rozhkova, director of the Pokrovsk Historical Museum, who also lives in exile in Dnipro. “For us, that melody means home — a home that we don’t have anymore, a home that is in ruins.”
“For Russia,” she added, “our home means territory that they want to take from us.”
Leontovych was the son of an orthodox priest and an aspiring music teacher. In 1904, he moved with his young wife to the small eastern village of Hryshyne — a hub for rail workers expanding the train line, which eventually became Pokrovsk.
Leontovych was born in the Vinnytsia region of central Ukraine in 1877, and there are competing tales of how he ended up so far east. One version is that he heard about a job posting to teach music at the railway school from rail workers themselves, Rozhkova said. Another claims he responded to a newspaper ad.
Once there, he directed several musical groups, including a choir of rail workers. They sang songs with Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish roots — but his own music was influenced by sounds from his childhood. Leontovych was a fierce believer in an independent Ukrainian state, and as he gained fame he was viewed, like other Ukrainian intellectuals, as a threat to Russia’s influence over a country it claimed as its own.
“He is connected to the culture of Donbas,” Rozhkova said, referring to the part of eastern Ukraine that includes Pokrovsk, and which Russia is trying to conquer. “He was very much carrying the flag of Ukrainian culture. He was performing repurposed traditional Ukrainian songs with his choir.”
Historians believe that the opening notes of “Shchedryk” — the same ones that have come to signal the start of the Christmas season around the world — originated from a folkloric melody Leontovych heard sometime in his childhood, or that a choir member shared with him from their own memories.
In the original version — the one still sung in Ukraine — there is no “ding dong, ding dong,” no mention of silver bells, no announcement that “Christmas is here.”
The lyrics never even mention Christmas.
Instead, voices describe a swallow fluttering through the sky as it ushers in a prosperous new year, urging a farmer to greet his newborn lambs and celebrate his future. It is because of that Pokrovsk includes a drawing of a swallow on the city’s crest, which is based on a piece of art made by Leontovych’s father.
The song made its major debut abroad only in 1922, one year after a Soviet security agent assassinated Leontovych over his nationalist views. A Ukrainian choir promoting the country’s independence and cultural heritage performed it in Carnegie Hall that year to remarkable reviews — although some American newspapers wrongly praised it as Russian music.
Eventually, Ukrainian American composer Peter Wilhousky adapted the song with a completely different set of lyrics in English, transforming it into a Christmas classic.
“When Leontovych was writing ‘Shchedryk,’ he didn’t understand he was creating a hit,” said Elmira Dzhabrailova-Kushnir, 39, a cultural history specialist in Kyiv. “For him, this was an ethnic study.”
He built the iconic song around the distinct opening notes, building it out into a masterpiece that weaves different voices and melodies into a singular experience for the audience.
“He took three notes and, through his genius, worked it into that song,” Dekhtyar said.
A week before Christmas, Dekhtyar and her trio from Pokrovsk gathered in the new Leontovych music school to rehearse.
The building in Dnipro is cozy and clean, the practice rooms complete with pianos evacuated from Pokrovsk last year.
But the space lacks most of the memories and people that made it home. Albums of archival photos dating back decades sit stacked in a corner. A painting of Leontovych leans against the wall.
Dekhtyar, who used to direct the choir, now sings in it as lead soprano. Her daughter, Natalia Aleksahina, 44, who also teaches vocals at the school, has taken the alto part. Their friend Viktoriia Ametova, 43, joined Dekhtyar as second soprano.
Behind them, a Christmas tree illuminated the corner. Holiday lights twinkled on the walls. But there was little to celebrate. Inside, each singer’s happy memories of home were buried under the pain of leaving.
Aleksahina fled home with her mother in April 2022 after a Russian cluster munition tore through the roof of her parents’ home.
Her 12-year-old daughter was there at the time of the attack but was unharmed. Her father was lightly wounded. The family expected the war would soon end and they would return home and rebuild. They occasionally visited Pokrovsk even as they settled in a rental apartment in Dnipro.
But as Russian forces slowly advanced and a mandatory evacuation order was issued in August 2024, they began to realize their temporary displacement might not be temporary after all.
“It’s a painful subject,” Dekhtyar said. “We all had our own houses. Now there’s nothing left.”
“There’s nothing left,” her daughter repeated. “Our friends, social circle, family — everyone is scattered all over the place.”
Ametova left amid evacuation orders in August 2024, after her neighbor’s building was badly damaged. She still carries the keys to the house and apartment she owns in Pokrovsk everywhere she goes, even if she can’t confirm they’re still standing.
When she thinks of home, Ametova said, “I feel pain.”
The trio agree that singing is one of the only reprieves they have left. And nothing makes them feel better than singing “Shchedryk,” a song they can’t remember not knowing —- a song that lives in them deeper than any other memory.
They stand up. They close their eyes. Dekhtyar raises her hands. They are just three voices, but together, they fill the entire room with the precious sound of home.
WRIGHTWOOD, Calif. — Another powerful storm system threatening to soak Southern California with its wettest Christmas in years rolled into the region on Thursday, bringing the potential for more flooding and mudslides a day after heavy rain and gusty winds were blamed for at least two deaths.
Forecasters warned the additional rain could increase the risk of debris flows in waterlogged areas scorched by wildfires in January. Those burn scar zones have been stripped of vegetation by fire and are less able to absorb water.
Outside of California, a major storm system was moving toward the Midwest and Northeast and was expected to interfere with travel, according to the National Weather Service.
A mix of freezing rain and sleet could create icy conditions across much of Pennsylvania and parts of Michigan and Maryland. Forecasters warned significant ice accumulation on tree limbs and power lines could cause outages. Heavy snow was expected to blanket the Northeast early Friday.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in Southern California issued an evacuation warning for Wrightwood, a mountain town about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, due to a risk of mudslides.
County firefighters on Wednesday said they rescued people trapped in cars when mud and debris rushed down a road leading into Wrightwood. It was not immediately clear how many people were rescued.
Roads in the town of about 5,000 people were covered in rocks, debris, and thick mud on Thursday. With power out, a local gas station and coffee shop running on generators were serving as hubs for residents and visitors. Statewide, more than 80,000 people were without power Thursday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.
“It’s really a crazy Christmas,” said Jill Jenkins, who was spending the holiday with her 13-year-old grandson, Hunter Lopiccolo.
Lopiccolo said the family had almost fled the previous day, when water washed away a chunk of their backyard. But they eventually decided to stay and still celebrated the holiday. Lopiccolo got a new snowboard and e-bike.
“We just played card games all night with candles and flashlights,” he said.
Resident Arlene Corte said roads in town turned into rivers, but her house was not damaged.
“It could be a whole lot worse,” she said. “We’re here talking.”
With more rain on the way, more than 150 firefighters were stationed in the area, said San Bernardino County Fire spokesperson Shawn Millerick.
“We’re ready,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck at this point.”
Deaths and heavy rain
A falling tree killed a San Diego man Wednesday, news outlets reported. Farther north, a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy died in what appeared to be a weather-related crash.
Residents around burn scar zones from the Airport Fire in Orange County were under evacuation orders.
Areas along the coast, including Malibu, were under a flood watch until Friday afternoon, and wind and flood advisories were issued for much of the Sacramento Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The storms were the result of multiple atmospheric rivers carrying massive plumes of moisture from the tropics during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.
Southern California typically gets half an inch to 1 inch of rain this time of year, but this week many areas could see between 4 and 8 inches with even more in the mountains, National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford said.
Snow at higher elevations
More heavy snow was expected in the Sierra Nevada, where wind gusts created “near white-out conditions” in places and made mountain pass travel treacherous. Officials said there was a “high” avalanche risk around Lake Tahoe and a winter storm warning was in effect through Friday.
Ski resorts around Lake Tahoe recorded about 1 to 3 feet of snow overnight, said Tyler Salas, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Reno, Nev. Forecasters expect to see up to another 3 feet of snow through Friday, Salas said. The area could see 45 mph gusts of wind in low elevation areas and 100 mph winds along mountain ridges.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in six counties to allow state assistance in storm response.
The state deployed emergency resources and first responders to several coastal and Southern California counties, and the California National Guard was on standby.
NEW ORLEANS — Dinnertime had just ended when there was a loud knock at the door. Jhony grabbed his ID card and the documents showing he had protection from deportation. His wife, Aracely, rushed the children upstairs.
Six years ago, Jhony had arrived in New Orleans and found work helping renovate the Superdome,which became a symbol of the city’s fortitude after Hurricane Katrina. Now he stood inside his home with an ear to the door as his mind raced through what he would do if someone broke through. Aracely peeked through their window curtains.
Two immigration officers stood outside.
The men wore masks, protective vests, and caps, the couple later recounted. One of them pounded on the door four times. It was raining, and they stood waiting on Jhony and Aracely’s stoop for several minutes. Then they left. Jhony relaxed, but not completely. His papers, earned after filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor for wage theft, did not give him a legal status, and he knew they did not entirely shield him or protect his family.
“We came because at our home, there was no peace,” Jhony said of relocating to the U.S. as agents drove slowly through his neighborhood in a convoy of Chevy Suburbans again the next afternoon. “I feel like I am reliving my life in Honduras, but here.”
Hondurans have been arriving in New Orleans in search of work since the city emerged as a key port in the banana trade over a century ago. They have continued to settle here in successive waves ever since, fleeing political turmoil and poverty in their homeland and helping rebuild after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A bronze-and-marble statue depicting a Latino worker with a hammer stands in the city in honor of their contributions.
For many Hondurans, the Department of Homeland Security’s launch of Catahoula Crunch in early December has felt like whiplash. The operation’s name is a reference to the Catahoula leopard dogs trained by early Louisiana settlers to hunt wild boar. DHS contends the operation is needed to remove criminals released under “sanctuary” policies that limit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officers. So far, federal officershave arrested more than 250 people, including at least two dozen they say have criminal records, some of whom are Honduran.
“They honored us for rebuilding the city, doing work no one else would,” said Mario Mendoza, another undocumented Honduran construction worker. “They called us essential workers during the pandemic. Now, we are criminals?”
Latino-owned businesses have locked their doors, and some immigrants are sleeping at their workplaces because they fear being stopped by federal officers on their way home. Construction sites are emptying. Mothers of newborns are sending breast milk via courier to their hospitalized infants or skipping follow-up appointments. Food banks are begging undocumented families not to come in person but to send someone else.
For Jhony and his family, the DHS sting has required painful decisions. The couple spoke on the condition that they be identified by only their first names because they fear being targeted by immigration officers. He and his wife want their five children to advance in school, but they are also terrified they could get detained while walking them there. All but one, the youngest, are undocumented.
Some days, they feel brave and go. Others, they don’t.
After the knock at the door, no one left the house for four days.
‘Invisible’
Jhony arrived in New Orleans in 2019, he said, after his sister, a schoolteacher, was hacked to death by gang members with machetes after a dispute with a local leader. After the killing, Jhony said, the men began to stalk him. A vehicle no one recognized parked outside his family’s home every night. Fearful for their lives, Jhony and his wife said, they decided to head north. They closed the restaurant they ran and set out with their four children.
They crossed illegally on foot, each parent clutching two of their children. Aracely held the youngest, a 1-year-old girl.
They headed to New Orleans because they knew other Hondurans had found work there. Generations of their compatriots had made the city and its adjacent parishes home before them. Hondurans began settling here in the early 1900s as the city became a major hub for United Fruit and Standard Fruit. Both enterprises had lucrative banana plantations in Honduras, and many Hondurans found work in docks and offices in New Orleans.
Another wave of migrants arrived a half-century later as Honduras was struck by political and economic instability, some of it fueled by U.S. support for the nation’s military during the Cold War, and again after Hurricane Mitch left much of the country in ruins in 1998.
The Honduran arrivals built businesses and integrated into the city’s multiethnic culture while introducing their own, one baleada — a traditional taco-like Honduran staple — at a time.And although many arrived as undocumented immigrants, in 1999, the Clinton administration granted Hondurans temporary protected status, reasoning that the widespread destruction caused by Mitch made it unsafe for many to return home. Temporary protected status was not a pathway to citizenship, but it spared tens of thousands from deportation.
Then came Katrina. In the months and years after Hurricane Katrina, thousands of Hondurans arrived in New Orleans to work when the city needed help rebuilding entire neighborhoods destroyedby the storm. Tens of thousands of workers descended on the city, and studies estimate nearly half were immigrants and at least a quarter of all workers were undocumented Latinos. Nearly a third of the undocumented were Honduran, and large numbers stayed in the region.
“Hondurans are integral to the history of this place,” said Sarah Fouts, who is writing a book on the history of immigrant labor in New Orleans post-Katrina. “They’ve created homes and they’ve made their spaces and earned their spaces visibly in churches, through restaurants and local soccer leagues. But there are also ways in which they are invisible within the rebuilt infrastructure.”
Hondurans kept arriving even after most of the initial rebuilding was complete. Established networks of friends and family made finding jobs easier, and while some aspects of life improved in Honduras, political corruption and insecurity continued to push people out. Jhony found work within weeks of arriving. He said he worked on road and bridge repairs, home demolitions, and reconstruction. Some of it was long-delayed work from Katrina and, later, part of the recovery from Hurricane Ida in 2021.
A year later, Jhony was hired as part of a subcontracting crew to help with concrete demolition and interior renovations at the Superdome ahead of the 2025 Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
“It felt like God had brought us here because we settled quickly,” he said.
A UH-1Y Venom helicopter from Marine Light Attack Squadron 773 flies over the Superdome on Feb. 8 ahead of the Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans.
But the commemorative statue to honor Latino immigrant workers and the words of solidarity and gratitude that followed Katrina’s aftermath had begun, in recent years, to feel like relics of a time and sentiment that no longer existed. An estimated 23,000 immigrants arrived in Louisiana in the last two years of the Biden administration — one of the largest influxes the state had seen in decades.
New Orleans itself had adopted policies to limit cooperation between local police and federal immigration officers, but the surrounding suburbs where many Honduran immigrants had built their homes took a different approach.
After President Donald Trump was sworn into office again in January, police departments in Kenner and Gretna signed up to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement through a program known as 287(g). The initiative trains local officers to carry out some of the functions of a federal immigration agent. Traffic stops ended in immigration arrests. Officers handed jail inmates over to ICE. They chasedand arrested day laborers outside hardware stores.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and state lawmakers simultaneously pushed measures to mandate state police cooperation with federal agents in an effort to buoy the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Landry argued that the Biden administration had failed to thoroughly vet the people it had allowed in, and that new immigrants were both a danger and a burden to states now responsible for providing services like education for their children.
“Entering this country illegally doesn’t make you immune from the law,” he said as Catahoula Crunch got underway. “If you commit crimes here, you face consequences — just like any citizen who breaks the law.”
Homero López, legal director of the New Orleans-based Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy organization, said it is not an exaggeration to say that nearly everyone in New Orleans has had work done on their homes or businesses by unauthorized immigrants or has hired undocumented labor. It is not a hidden fact, he said, but it is an inconvenient one for state and federal lawmakers who have not provided a long-term solution.
“We’re still working off of something that was built in 1965,” López said,referring to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which established the framework for immigration to the United States still used today. “The world has significantly changed in 60 years, but we haven’t really changed our immigration system very much in those same 60 years.”
Jhony and his wife contacted an immigration attorney when they arrived in New Orleans, but despite his sister’s slaying, he said, he was counseled not to file an application for asylum. To qualify, migrants must prove they face persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or belonging to a particular social group — and the lawyer told them they probably would not meet those requirements. So they opted to wait.
His work at the Superdome paid well — when his bosses did pay, he said. But Jhony and his coworkers were routinely not paid for overtime work, and he said they lost thousands of dollars. He filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor with the help of a national advocacy organization for day laborers. The agency investigated the claims, finding employers violated federal overtime work laws and underpaid laborers by misclassifying them and keeping incomplete records. The workers negotiated thousands of dollars in back wages, and the victory made Jhony eligible for a Biden-era program that offered protections to workers who blow the whistle on labor violations.
Jhony got a Social Security card, work authorization, and a promise from the federal government that he would not be removed to Honduras. But those protections did not offer a path to a legal status or any guarantee he would not be deported to another country. He knew he would be vulnerable when immigration agents came to town.
Fear
Drones buzzing in their suburban New Orleans neighborhood were the first unnerving signs that federal immigration officers were about to arrive. Two hovered in the backyard of their duplex apartment. Vehicles with out-of-state plates and dark-tinted windows then began circling the streets and watching as people walked their children to school. Some agents took photos of cars, neighbors, homes.
Aracely quit her part-time job at a restaurant. They scaled back meals to basics like tortillas and beans to save money. They began relying on friends and grocery delivery services to avoid trips outside the home. And they joined a neighborhood messaging group that shared tips on ICE’s and Border Patrol’s whereabouts.
It is a half-mile walk to the local elementary school. To get there, Aracely and two of her children, ages 7 and 9, walk past rows of townhouses and neighbors out with their dogs. The couple has tried to keep their children’s lives as normal as possible. On the days when immigration officers are not spotted nearby, Aracely feeds them breakfast, braids her daughter’s hair, and escorts them to the school’s entrance.
Forecasters had warned of rain one such morning. The children threw on jackets and walked outside. Then Aracely noticed a white unmarked vehicle following them.
She turned toward the vehicle and locked eyes with a man inside wearing a vest, mask, and cap.
“ICE is behind me,” she texted her husband.
The car’s engine accelerated. The driver got closer. But then he turned.
There were sightings and scares like this all around the Jefferson Parish communities where Hondurans had made their homes. Jefferson Parish is a Republican stronghold, but among council member at-large Jennifer Van Vrancken’s constituents, the arrests sparked concern. Border Patrol officers clad in black neck gaiters pulled up over their mouths descended on a Home Depot in Kenner and a Lowe’s in Elysian Fields. They used a fire department ladder in Slidell to arrest three workers from the roof of a condominium under construction. One hotel reported that it had no housekeeping staff.
“My constituents voted for President Trump and absolutely are supportive of any effort to close the border and to get dangerous illegals out of the country,” Van Vrancken said. “But they did not envision what we have now. They are very disturbed by what seems to be a ‘pick everybody up and ask questions later’ approach.”
She said that Kenner, a city within the parish, is home to the largest community of Hondurans outside that country and that large numbers of them are legal residents who are too afraid to go to work amid the seemingly indiscriminate roundups. Van Vrancken said she is meeting with local law enforcement, ICE, and Hispanic business leaders to learn whether there is a way to “fine-tune the process.”
“I don’t understand why the unmarked cars and masking is necessary. It just seems aimed at fear,” said Van Vrancken, who describes herself as an outspoken Republican in favor of detaining people with no legal right to be in the country. “If our everyday brave men and women can show up in a uniform and marked car, why is it any different in this scenario?”
Home builders say Catahoula Crunch is exacerbating an already steep labor crisis. Even workers who have a legal immigration status are afraid of being stopped, said Dan Mills, chief executive of the Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans. The result is an increase in labor costs because the supply of workers is shrinking while demand remains high. He pointed to work being done by several local contractors to improve homes through a federal grant program. Projects that were estimated to cost $8,000 per home have now risen to $10,000.
“If we don’t have workers, we can’t move projects forward,” Mills said.
No Christmas lights
The day Aracely was followed had spooked them all. Jhony began checking his phone every 15 minutes for neighborhood updates. Their two older children ran home from their bus stop through the rain because they were afraid of being grabbed.
Aracely was making tortillas later that week to eat with a stew her brother-in-law had brought over. Her hands made a slight slapping sound as she molded the flour disks. Then she looked at her phone and paused.
“He’s here,” she said, walking over to her husband. “They’re here on our street.”
Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino was inside a giant SUV surrounded by a caravan of immigration officers and state police driving slowly on a street alongside their building.
Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino walks with border patrol agents through a neighborhood during an immigration crackdown, in Kenner, La., on Dec. 5.
“Don’t open your doors for anyone!” neighbors texted. “Chicos, La Migra está aquí.”
Jhony looked at his wife, whose breath began to quicken. They logged on to a live stream from local journalists following the agents with cameras. The honks from neighbors shrieked louder and louder as the caravan got close.
“Any minute now, my little one will come running down the steps,” Jhony said, and, as if on cue, his 7-year-old daughter sprinted into his arms.
The immigration officers lingered and left after what felt like hours but was around 30 minutes. Two days later, Jhony went back to work. A colleague with a green card began picking him up. Each morning, he would give Jhony a heads-up on whether La Migra was near. If all was clear, he would run out of his house and into the truck.
“I’m putting myself at risk every day,” he said. “Before I leave for work, I give each of my children a kiss because I don’t know if I’ll return home or not.”
The worst part, Jhony said, is watching how his children have changed. They can’t go to the park every Wednesday and Saturday as they had before to run and kick around a soccer ball. His usually rambunctious girls have grown quiet. They stopped going to church and won’t step outside into their fenced-in backyard. They don’t want to go to school.
The family spends more time together, but it’s clouded by all that is happening and all they cannot do. Jhony and his wife weren’t sure how they would buy Christmas presents.
In early December, the family nonetheless started decorating their home for the holiday. They hung green Christmas garland on the wall and covered the kitchen table with a decorative cloth with images of wreaths, snowflakes, and candy canes.
They put up a tree, too. But the eldest girls made a demand.
They did not want to string holiday lights.
They were afraid it would signal to immigration officers that the family was inside.
LOS GATOS, Calif. — Like many retirement communities, the Terraces serves as a tranquil refuge for a nucleus of older people who no longer can travel to faraway places or engage in bold adventures.
But they can still be thrust back to their days of wanderlust and thrill-seeking whenever caregivers at the community in Los Gatos, Calif., schedule a date for residents — many of whom are in their 80s and 90s — to take turns donning virtual reality headsets.
Within a matter of minutes, the headsets can transport them to Europe, immerse them in the ocean depths, or send them soaring on breathtaking hang-gliding expeditions while they sit by one another. The selection of VR programming was curated by Rendever, a company that has turned a sometimes isolating form of technology into a catalyst for better cognition and social connections in 800 retirement communities in the United States and Canada.
A group of Terraces residents who participated in a VR session earlier this year found themselves paddling their arms alongside their chairs as they swam with a pod of dolphins while watching one of Rendever’s 3D programs. “We got to go underwater and didn’t even have to hold our breath!” exclaimed 81-year-old Ginny Baird following the virtual submersion.
During a session featuring a virtual ride in a hot-air balloon, one resident gasped, “Oh, my God!” Another said with a shudder: “It’s hard to watch!”
The Rendever technology can also be used to virtually take older adults back to the places where they grew up as children. For some, it will be the first time they have seen their hometowns, virtually or otherwise, in decades.
A virtual trip to her childhood neighborhood in New York City’s Queens borough helped sell Sue Livingstone, 84, on the merits of the VR technology even though she still is able to get out more often than many residents of the Terraces, which is located in Silicon Valley, about 55 miles south of San Francisco.
“It isn’t just about being able to see it again. It’s about all the memories that it brings back,” Livingstone said. “There are a few people living here who never really leave their comfort zones. But if you could entice them to come down to try out a headset, they might find that they really enjoy it.”
Adrian Marshall, the Terraces’ community life director, said that once word about a VR experience spreads from one resident to another, more of the uninitiated typically become curious enough to try it out — even if it means missing out on playing Mexican Train, a dominoes-like board game that is popular in the community.
“It turns into a conversation starter for them. It really does connect people,” Marshall said of Rendever’s VR programming. “It helps create a human bridge that makes them realize they share certain similarities and interests. It turns the artificial world into reality.”
Rendever, a privately owned company based in Somerville, Mass., hopes to build upon its senior living platform with a recent grant from the National Institutes of Health that will provide nearly $4.5 million to study ways to reduce social isolation among seniors living at home and their caregivers.
Some studies have found VR programming presented in a limited viewing format can help older people maintain and improve cognitive functions, burnish memories, and foster social connections with their families and fellow residents of care facilities. Experts say the technology may be useful as an addition to — not a replacement for — other activities.
“There is always a risk of too much screen time,” said Katherine “Kate” Dupuis, a neuropsychologist and professor who studies aging issues at Sheridan College in Canada. “But if you use it cautiously, with meaning and purpose, it can be very helpful. It can be an opportunity for the elderly to engage with someone and share a sense of wonder.”
For older people, VR headsets may be an easier way to interact with technology than fumbling around with a smartphone or another device that requires navigating buttons or other mechanisms, said Pallabi Bhowmick, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who is examining the use of virtual reality with older adults.
“The stereotypes that older adults aren’t willing to try new technology needs to change, because they are willing and want to adapt to technologies that are meaningful to them,” Bhowmick said. “Besides helping them to relieve stress, be entertained, and connect with other people, there is an intergenerational aspect that might help them build their relationships with younger people who find out they use VR and say, ‘Grandpa is cool!’”
Rendever CEO Kyle Rand’s interest in helping his own grandmother deal with the emotional and mental challenges of aging pushed him down a path that led him to cofound the company in 2016 after studying neuroengineering at Duke University.
“What really fascinates me about humans is just how much our brain depends on social connection and how much we learn from others,” Rand said. “A group of elderly residents who don’t really know each other that well can come together, spend 30 minutes in a VR experience together, and then find themselves sitting down to have lunch together while continuing a conversation about the experience.”
It’s a large enough market that another VR specialist, Dallas-based Mynd Immersive, competes against Rendever with services tailored for senior living communities.
Besides helping create social connections, the VR programming from both Rendever and Mynd has been employed as a possible tool for potentially slowing down the effects of dementia. That’s how another Silicon Valley retirement village, the Forum, sometimes uses the technology.
Bob Rogallo, a Forum resident with dementia that has rendered him speechless, seemed to be enjoying taking a virtual hike through Glacier National Park in Montana as he nodded and smiled while celebrating his 83rd birthday with his wife of 61 years.
Sallie Rogallo, who does not have dementia, said the experience brought back fond memories of the couple’s visits to the park during the more than 30 years they spent cruising around the U.S. in their recreational vehicle.
“It made me wish I was 30 years younger so I could do it again,” she said of the virtual visit to Glacier. “This lets you get out of the same environment and either go to a new place or visit places where you have been.”
In another session at the Forum, 93-year-old Almut Schultz laughed with delight while viewing a virtual classical music performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado and later seemed to want to play with a puppy frolicking around in her VR headset.
“That was quite a session we had there,” Schultz said with a big grin after she took off her headset and returned to reality.
