Congressional hopeful Ala Stanford on Wednesday morning announced she was dropping out of a WHYY candidates debate two hours before it was scheduled to begin, saying her campaign could not agree with the public radio station on a format for the debate and criticizing her opponents in the race for “misogynistic attacks.”
“I have never been afraid of a hard room,” Stanford said in a statement. “After engaging in good faith with WHYY, we could not reach terms on a format that would deliver the serious accountability voters in PA-03 deserve.”
Stanford’s campaign manager emailed the announcement to reporters around 10 a.m., two hours before the debate on WHYY’s Studio 2 was supposed to take place.
In her statement, Stanford did not clarify what problems she had with the debate format. She also did not provide details on any attacks from her opponents in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District.
A Stanford spokesperson declined to comment beyond her written statement.
Stanford’s surprise announcement came less than three weeks before the May 19 primary, and followed a series of missteps for her campaign, including the revelation that a staffer used artificial intelligence to help answer a candidates’ questionnaire and her stumbling through a question about immigration enforcement in an interview with NBC10.
A recent Inquirer report on her stewardship of the Black Doctors Consortium also found that the organization omitted details about her income that were required to be included on nonprofit tax forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
Ala Stanford, pediatric surgeon and founder of the Black Doctors Consortium, participates in the debate for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District at Center in the Park in Germantown on Tuesday, April 14, 2026.
Stanford’s exit from the Wednesday event meant the other two top contenders in the race, State Rep. Chris Rabb and State Sen. Sharif Street, were the only candidates to participate in the debate featured on WHYY’s Studio 2, the highest-profile live and on-air debate thus far.
It was a relatively subdued affair compared to some of the other more gloves-off style campaign events in the open race. Street and Rabb took questions from moderators and largely agreed on policy, with both saying they support expanding universal healthcare, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and impeaching President Donald Trump.
The two state lawmakers sought to contrast their styles, with Street portraying himself as a more competent legislator.
“I get things done,” said Street, the former head of the state Democratic Party. “Rep. Rabb and I share a lot of value propositions. But the difference is I deliver on ideas.”
Rabb, a progressive who has been endorsed by the Working Families Party, said Street is too closely aligned with the Democratic establishment, and that his ideas are not bold enough.
“There’s so many people who think we can’t do things big and bold,” he said. “They play around the edges, because that’s what establishment politics does.”
State Sen. Sharif Street (left) and State Rep. Christopher Rabb (right) wait for the WHYY studio door to close Wednesday, April 29, 2026 before start of their debate in the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District. The third leading candidate, Ala Stanford declined to attend at the last moment.
Both candidates were also asked about Stanford’s absence and her charge Wednesday that the race has been “marred by misogynistic attacks and lies from both of my opponents.”
Stanford, a first-time political candidate, is the only woman on the ballot.
Rabb said he wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but pointed out that when Stanford was recently heckled by some of his own supporters during a candidates forum, he repeatedly told them to let her speak.
And Street said he has not attacked her directly, but acknowledged that she’s faced criticisms.
“She has been attacked. I’ve been attacked. Everybody on this campaign, I’m sure, has been attacked at some point,” he said.
Rabb and Street said their campaigns did not negotiate with WHYY on the format of the event.
Kevin McCorry, an executive producer and host at the station, said WHYY engaged with Stanford’s campaign “in good faith” and acquiesced to her staff members’ requests, including allowing her to have notes on the table and bring extra staffers to sit in the audience.
He said WHYY learned that she was pulling out when Stanford’s campaign manager released a statement to reporters from multiple news outlets.
“We were flexible with her requests,” McCorry said. “At no time did they say, ‘If X doesn’t change, we’re backing out.’”
State Sen. Sharif Street (left) and State Rep. Christopher Rabb (right) appear in a debate at WHYY studios Wednesday, April 29, 2026 for the Democratic primary in the 3rd Congressional District. The third leading candidate, Ala Stanford declined to attend at the last moment.
Street spokesperson Anthony Campisi accused Stanford of dropping out to avoid tough questions,adding that “her campaign is in free fall.”
“Rather than answer these questions in a debate that’s aired on radio and television, she appears to be taking her ball and going home, which is not what Philadelphians expect from their member of Congress,” Campisi said Wednesday. “Philadelphians deserve a member of Congress who is ready to fight for them and against Donald Trump, not someone who runs from a fight.”
Rabb said that when it comes to campaign events, he and his team “don’t negotiate, we just show up.”
“Even if I didn’t like the format, which is not uncommon, I still show up,” he said, “because I’m a public servant and I’m a public candidate, and I got to reach people wherever they are.”
In her statement, Stanford, a physician, noted she has taken the Hippocratic Oath “to first do no harm.”
“I challenge everyone in this race to join me in promoting the kind of spirited, but serious and meaningful dialogue Philadelphians should expect from those asking to serve,” she said. “In the meantime, I will be where I have always been — on doorsteps, in church basements, and on the corners of the wards that built me.”
Shaun Griffith, a tax adviser and the fourth candidate in the race, did not participate in the debate because he did not meet WHYY’s criteria, which included a fundraising threshold.
He attended the event and sat in the audience, and said afterwards that it was “frustrating to be watching other people get to answer questions and not have the opportunity to do so myself.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply weakened a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act, a ruling that limits the consideration of race in drawing voting maps and could usher in Republican gains in the House.
The decision is expected to touch off a scramble by Republicans to redraw majority-minority districts, especially in the South. New districts could shiftthe balance of power in Congress by imperiling the reelection prospects of some Black Democrats, possibly as soon as November’s midterms in some instances. Representatives of color in state legislatures and local offices could also be redistricted out.
The court’s conservative majority found Louisiana unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-Black congressional district to comply with the VRA. But the court did not strike down the provision, known as Section 2, as unconstitutional, as many voting rights advocates had feared it would. Still, the court’s liberal justices and voting rights experts said it was effectively gutted.
The ruling carries significant symbolic weight, scaling backthe last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.
In an ideologically divided 6-3 ruling, the conservative justices created a higher bar for the law’s powerful provision that allows states to use race to draw maps that help minority communities elect candidates of their choice. Section 2 is aimed at combating discriminatory gerrymandering that weakens the power of Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian voters.
States must walk a careful line when drawing maps for voting districts. The Voting Rights Act directsstates to consider race to some degreewhen redistricting to ensure that racial minority groups have an opportunity to elect representatives who reflect their priorities. Maps explicitly drawn along racial lines, however, violate the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting practices.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion for the majority, saying it was time to rework Section 2 given gains in ending racial discrimination, the use of VRA lawsuits for partisan purposes, and advances in technology that have made it easier to draw legislative districts that balance partisan interests and racial considerations.
Alito wrote that going forward, plaintiffs would have to show that a state intentionally discriminated against a minority group in drawing a map, rather than simply showing that members of the minority group did not have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice when certain circumstances are met.
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section] 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”
The decision came over the sharp objections of the court’s three liberals. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the dissent from the bench, signaling strong disagreement. In her opinion, Kagan lamented that in rulings over the last decade, the court’s conservative justices had carried out a “demolition” of the VRA that was now complete. She predicted a precipitous decline in minority representation in political office.
“The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. In the States where that law continues to matter — the States still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting — minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process,” Kagan wrote, referring to the process of drawing maps that break up minority voting blocks.
The decision continues a trend by the court’s conservative majority to roll back race-conscious efforts to redress discriminatory practices. It comes two years after another major decision to restrict race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
The ruling lands asa nationwide redistricting war has broken out between Republicans and Democrats, both of which have taken the unusual step of redrawing district linesbetween censuses to try to secure partisan advantages in this year’s races for Congress. Republicans currently hold a slim majority.
Professor Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, said Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still stands but is all but eviscerated.
“The opinion weakens application of the Voting Rights Act to make it a much weaker, and potentially toothless, law,” Hasen wrote on his blog. “It is hard to overstate how much this weakens the Voting Rights Act.”
NAACP president Derrick Johnson said in a statement that the ruling was a major strike to minority political power.
“Today’s decision is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities,” Johnson said. “The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy. This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for.”
The Trump administration hailed the ruling in a statement.
“This is a complete and total victory for American voters,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote. “The color of one’s skin should not dictate which congressional district you belong in. We commend the court for putting an end to the unconstitutional abuse of the Voting Rights Act and protecting civil rights.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the ruling “seismic” and applauded it in a statement.
“The Supreme Court has ended Louisiana’s long-running nightmare of federal courts coercing the state to draw a racially discriminatory map,” Murrill said.
The complicated dispute over the Louisiana voting district has dragged on for years and had been before the court last term.
The case began in 2022 when Black voters and civil rights groups sued Louisiana under Section 2, saying a new voting map drafted after the 2020 Census shortchanged African American voters. The map had only one Black-majority district out of six. African Americans make up one-third of the state’s population.
A federal court ruled for the plaintiffs and ordered the state to draw a new map with a second Black-majority district. After further legal wrangling, the Louisiana legislature drafted one in 2024.
The new map, which was drawn in part to protect the seats of Republican incumbents, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, created a Black-majority district that meandered across the state from Baton Rouge to Shreveport.
A group of self-described “non-Black voter[s]” sued, arguing the new map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that violated the equal-protection clause. A federal district court panel ruled for the non-Black plaintiffs and put a hold on the redrawn map.
The Supreme Court eventually allowed the map with two Black-majority districts to go into effect for the 2024 congressional election. Voters chose Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, for the new district.
The non-Black voters brought their case to the Supreme Court once again. Last term, the justices decided to hold off on a ruling and asked both sides to address whether creation of the second Black-majority district violated the 14th and 15th Amendments, before taking up the case again this term.
During arguments in October, Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga told the justices that any “race-based redistricting is fundamentally contradictory to our Constitution.” He also said that Louisiana had changed in recent decades, so the need for Section 2 had been obviated.
“It requires striking enough members of the majority race to sufficiently diminish their voting strength, and it requires drawing in enough members of a minority race to sufficiently augment their voting strength,” Aguiñaga said. “Embedded within these express targets are racial stereotypes that this court has long criticized.”
Kagan asked an attorney for Black voters in Louisiana what impact gutting Section 2 would have.
“The results would be pretty catastrophic,” said Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
“We only have the diversity we see across the South because of litigation” under the voting rights law, Nelson said, adding that it had been “crucial to diversifying leadership” in Louisiana and other states. She said no Black person has been elected to statewide office in Louisiana to date.
The decision follows another by the Supreme Court involving Section 2 in 2023. In that case, the justices ruled Alabama created electoral maps that unlawfully diluted the power of Black residents. That ruling surprised many court watchers because the justices have chipped away at the VRA in recent years.
In the most significant ruling in 2013, the justices struck down Section 5 of the VRA, which required states with a history of discriminating against minority voters to get changes to electoral law approved by the federal government or a judge. Most of the states covered by the provision are in the South.
The latest ruling is likely to contribute to the uncertainty surrounding the nation’s electoral maps amid the unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting. Ordinarily, states redraw their lines at the beginning of each decade after the U.S. Census Bureau alerts states to population shifts.
President Donald Trump, concerned Republicans could lose their fragile House majority, began pressing Republican-led states last summer to draw new lines ahead of the midterm elections. Republicans drew better lines for themselves in Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas that could give them strong shots at picking up nine more seats.
Florida Republicans are planning to carve up their districts to give their party up to four more districts, and were debating their plan on the floor of the state House when the court released its decision. Legislators approved the plan Wednesday afternoon.
In response, voters in California approved a new map that will give Democrats up to five more House seats, andvoters in Virginia approved a plan to redraw their map. The Supreme Court turned aside a challenge to the California map in February.
The Supreme Court’s decision probably gives Republicans an opportunity to draw even more districts in their favor.
The deadlines for most states to redraw their maps before the midterms have passed, but it is possible some states push to change those rules. Either way, the ruling could set Republicans up for advantages in 2028 and beyond. In the wake of the decision, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) called on lawmakers in her state to redraw maps to create an extra Republican seat in Memphis.
This Supreme Court term is shaping up as a consequential one for election-related law.
In one major case, the court will decide the constitutionality of counting mail-in ballots that arrive after an election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The justices also allowed a lawsuit by a Republican congressman from Illinois who is challenging the state’s mail-in ballot law.
The justices heard arguments in December over whether to lift restrictions on parties spending money in coordination with candidates, which could be the latest chance for the court to curtail campaign finance limits.
This article contains information from the Associated Press.
At times, Ala Stanford feels like she doesn’t quite fit in.
She’s a pediatric surgeon — albeit very well-known — who is running for political office for the first time, trying to win a seat in Congress that for decades has been held by a seasoned Philadelphia politician.
At campaign events, when the top Democrats in the congressional race are chit-chatting among themselves, Stanford has found herself on the margins. Often, she feels more comfortable talking medical procedures with Dave Oxman, the other physician in the race, than whatever the sitting state representatives have going on in Harrisburg.
The trail may get lonelier. Oxman is planning to drop out Wednesday and endorse Stanford, making her the hands-down most prominent outsider in a race that is stacked with political veterans.
To amass support ahead of the crowded May 19 primary election — the likely deciding contest in one of the nation’s bluest congressional districts — Stanford will have to chart a path that beats both the Democratic establishment and the progressive left, which have chosen other candidates in the wide-open race.
Stanford, 55, knows her lack of political experience makes her stand out, and she’s accentuating it on the campaign trail. She is highlighting her career as a physician, and she says she’ll fix a healthcare system her opponents failed to address in their years as public officials. Her candidacy comes as an increasing number of medical professionals are running for office across the country, and as thousands of Pennsylvanians have dropped their healthcare coverage due to rising costs.
She has kept pace with three sitting lawmakers who are also running for the seat, in part by lending her campaign $250,000 of her own money.
Candidates (from left) State Rep. Morgan Cephas; physician David Oxman; State Rep. Chris Rabb; physician Ala Stanford and State Sen. Sharif Street appear at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee in Mt. Airy Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025.
Stanford alsohas a cadre of healthcare workers uplifting her. She has won endorsements from prominent doctors, as well as a national super PAC, 314 Action, which backs candidates with backgrounds in science and has poured $1.5 million into a pro-Stanford campaign.
The group so far funded five weeks of television commercials reminding voters that Stanford founded the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium. In the throes of the pandemic, she set up mobile testing sites in majority-Black communities and ran vaccination clinics to inoculate thousands of Philadelphians, a grassroots effort to fill gaps left by government-funded programs.
Ala Stanford texts her son while in her office at the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity, 2001 W Lehigh Ave. in Philadelphia on Friday, March 13, 2026
It is a compelling story that has been told many times — across national media, on podcasts, and in Stanford’s own memoir.
What hasn’t been told is why it means she should represent the 3rd Congressional District, which covers much of Philadelphia, over her opponents who have spent years in politics.
“People get so comfortable doing things the same way, the same way, the same way,” she said in a recent interview at her health clinic. “And no one likes change. But the city needs this. The city needs some change.”
Other candidates say Stanford doesn’t have a monopoly on talking about healthcare. State Sen. Sharif Street, another front-runner in the race, has touted that he and other government officials helped secure funding for Stanford’s pandemic operation.
“During COVID, he was very proud of his work,” Street spokesperson Anthony Campisi said, “to ensure that Doctor Stanford’s vaccination efforts received the support they needed so that we could get vaccines into arms quickly.”
Stanford’s opponents also clearly know that her status as a physician may be an asset.
She submitted paperwork to appear on the ballot as “Dr. Ala Stanford.” But on Tuesday, a member of the Democratic City Committee — which endorsed Street — filed a petition in state court, saying Stanford’s name should appear without the “Dr.” in front of it.
In the coming days, a judge will decide.
Leaning on healthcare as a core issue
Stanford does not fit neatly onto the ideological spectrum.
Of course, she is not conservative. She doesn’t call President Donald Trump by his name — he’s “47″ — and she uses words like “tyranny” and “running amok” to describe the current White House.
But unlike some of her opponents, she is not of the Philadelphia Democratic establishment. She said she feels like the city’s long-entrenched party apparatus had always planned to endorse Street, the former head of the state party and the son of a Philadelphia mayor.
Stanford is also not of the populist left. She believes Palestinians “deserve to have safety and freedom,” but thinks it’s inflammatory when her progressive opponent, State Rep. Chris Rabb, calls Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.”
“I know when you use the G-word how hurtful it is to a group of people,” she said. “It’s like someone saying the N-word around me. I don’t want to hear that. And every time you shout that from the rooftops, how many people are you hurting?”
What she does believe is that government systems have failed underserved communities, and that most domestic issues can be traced back to inequities in healthcare — points she has consistently emphasized in her campaign.
Physician Ala Stanford (right) arrives at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee Dec. 4, 2025. She is a Democratic candidate running to represent Philadelphia’s 3rd Congressional District.
She has hammered Republicans for not extending pandemic-era subsidies that ensured people on Affordable Care Act health plans did not pay more than 8.5% of their income for care. She has advocated for universal healthcare. And she has harshly criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long been skeptical of vaccines.
“In this country, wealth is linked to homeownership, home ownership is linked to education, education is linked to health outcomes, and health outcomes are all exacerbated by racial injustice,” Stanford said during a recent candidates forum. “So when you talk about one, you talk about all.”
Stanford is careful to say that her focus on healthcare doesn’t mean she can’t discuss housing, immigration, or the war in Iran.
But it is clear that she feels most comfortable talking about what she knows best. Her supporters say that’s an asset in the 3rd Congressional District, which has a disproportionately high number of people who rely on public healthcare systems.
More than a third of the district’s residents, or more than 284,000 people, were on Medicaid as of December, according to the state Department of Human Services. Among Pennsylvania congressional districts, that’s the second-highest proportion of residents on Medicaid. (The first highest is the 2nd Congressional District, which also includes parts of Philadelphia.)
There were also more than 80,000 people in the district who last yearhad health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, either through expanded Medicaid eligibility or a plan they purchased through the marketplace.
That number is also likely lower now since ACA subsidies expired this year and premiums rose. Statewide, one in five people who bought plans last year from Pennsylvania’s marketplace, Pennie, opted out for 2026.
Ala Stanford speaks at the Black Doctors Consortium Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity in Philadelphia, Pa., on October 27, 2021. The center was opened with the goal of making healthcare accessible for those in communities who might struggle to get proper healthcare treatment.
Stanford’s supporters think Philadelphia voters will trust a doctor to ensure affordable healthcare access. They point to a survey released this month by the Annenberg Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania that found 86% of respondents said their primary healthcare provider is trustworthy.
Erik Polyak, the executive director of 314 Action, said Stanford’s background differentiates her in a Democratic primary in which most candidates align on key issues.
“Voters want healthcare decisions made by people who understand patients and the science,” he said, “and not politicians chasing headlines.”
Oxman, Stanford’s now-former opponent, said physicians running for office can help rebuild a Democratic Party that has “lost the trust of so many people.”
“So many people see us as not centered on their needs, particularly their economic needs,” he said. “If the Democrats are going to build a party that has a chance of winning in Center City Philadelphia and in central Pennsylvania, it’s got to regain the trust of the voters.”
New to politics, but not government
It was the spring of 2020, and the bills were piling up.
Stanford, who was born in Germantown, had given up her well-paying day job as a surgeon to work full-time with the Black Doctors Consortium. She ran COVID-19 testing clinics in Philly parking lots and churches, and amassed some $200,000 in bills, saying she couldn’t “let one person lose their life for a test that costs $100.”
That was the beginning of her pandemic experience with government.
A lot of it was begging. As Stanford tells it, she peppered government officials with emails, telling them how many people she and her volunteers had tested that day, and asking for help securing funding.
In this April 2020 file photo, Ala Stanford puts on her mask before running a coronavirus (COVID-19) testing site at the Miller Memorial Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans was immediately responsive. He connected Stanford with the White House, other members of Congress, and top insurance companies. And he publicly called on former Gov. Tom Wolf and then-Mayor Jim Kenney to allocate funding to Stanford’s organization, citing the group’s outreach to predominately Black communities and its work to address distrust of medical institutions.
The money came in several months later. It was finally enough for Stanford to pay for testing, compensate her staff, and prepare to vaccinate thousands of Philadelphians.
Fast-forward five years, and Evans has endorsed Stanford to replace him in Congress as he retires after decades of public service. His backing has been invaluable to Stanford, and it surprised some political observers who figured he might endorse one of the politicians whom he’d served alongside.
Stanford said Evans’ support has not convinced some Democratic voters. Some tell her they plan to vote for Street, citing his family name, or they say that “it’s his turn now.”
“What about if he is not what’s best for the people?” Stanford said. “Doesn’t that factor in?”
She tells voters that despite being new to the campaign trail, she isn’t new to government. She worked as a regional director for the Department of Health and Human Services under former President Joe Biden, who appointed her to the role. And she leads medical services at the Riverview Wellness Village, the city-owned drug recovery center opened last year by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration.
Physician Ala Stanford in an examination room at the primary medical care center run by her Black Doctors Consortium at Riverview Wellness Village, a city-owned drug recovery home in Northeast Philadelphia Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025.
Still, Stanford very much sees herself as a doctor.
She often works out of a corner office in the North Philadelphia health center, and she still is alerted when the temperature of the vaccine refrigerator dips a degree too low. She has, on more than one occasion, tended to someone experiencing a medical emergency while she was campaigning.
She knows that overseeing day-to-day operations at the health clinic won’t be possible if she’s in Congress. There’s a succession plan in place.
“It’s just about, how can I have more significance at a larger scale? Congress is definitely a way to do it, but it might be somewhere else,” Stanford said. “That is, if I don’t win. But I want to win. I should win.”
Lost in the economic and political fallout from Donald Trump’s war in Iran is the growing chaos at airports and an increased terrorist threat inside the United States.
More than 60,000 Transportation Security Administration employees have been working without pay because of the partial government shutdown that began on Feb. 14. More than 300 TSA agents have quit and thousands more have been calling out from work, prompting long lines at many airports.
TSA temporarily closed the security checkpoint at Terminal C in the Philadelphia International Airport last week.
Despite staffing shortages, the wait times for travelers in Philadelphia remained manageable for now. But travelers at other airports waited more than three hours to get through security.
The partial shutdown that resulted in funding lapses for the Department of Homeland Security could not come at a more dangerous time. Federal law enforcement agencies remain on high alert following threats to the United States after Trump and Israel began bombing Iran.
Airline passengers wait in long lines outside the terminal to get through the TSA security screening at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston on March 8.
Indeed, Trump’s war has apparently already spurred several terror attacks on U.S. soil.
Two teens from Bucks County who said they were inspired by ISIS were charged with trying to set off homemade bombs during a protest outside the residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Iran-linked hackers claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Stryker, a Michigan-based company that makes a range of medical equipment and technology.
A U.S. citizen born in Lebanon drove a truck into a synagogue in Michigan last week after four of his relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
A naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone accused of killing an ROTC instructor at Old Dominion University was previously convicted of supporting ISIS.
A U.S. citizen from Senegal who was wearing a T-shirt with the colors of the Iranian flag was accused of killing three people and injuring a dozen more outside of a bar in Austin, Texas, the day after the initialattack on Iran.
The motives for the attacks are still being investigated but law enforcement officials urged people to report suspicious activity, and police have increased patrols around synagogues and public transit hubs.
The growing threats come as the Trump administration spent the past year decimating national security.
FBI Director Kash Patel fired counterterrorism agents because they were involved in the investigation that led to Trump’s criminal indictment in 2023 on charges of mishandling classified documents.
At the same time, the FBI and Homeland Security have shifted thousands of agents to focus on immigration enforcement, while the Justice Department’s elite national security division has faced mass firings, resignations, and forced retirements.
FBI Director Kash Patel fired counterterrorism agents because they were involved in the investigation that led to President Trump’s criminal indictment in 2023 on charges of mishandling classified documents.
More unsettling, the person now overseeing Homeland Security’s terrorism prevention programs is a 22-year-old former Trump campaign worker fresh out of college with no apparent national security expertise.
Meanwhile, thousands of TSA agents — who are charged with screening customer baggage and cargo for weapons and explosives — are overworked and not getting paid.
TSA agents, who make an average of $35,000, endured a 43-day government shutdown last fall, making this the second time in six months they have been forced to work without pay.
A TSA union representative said several employees reported lacking money for daycare and food. “They just want to know why the hell they can’t get paid when we have money to shoot missiles into other countries,” Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100 and a Dallas-based TSA worker, told USA Today.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers blamed each other for the shutdown underscoring the deep political divide and dysfunction in Washington.
Airline chief executives demanded Congress find a way to pay the TSA workers as the shutdown disrupts travel and undermines safety.
Trump, who took a break from his war to play golf over the weekend, offered cold comfort when asked if Americans should worry about terror attacks in the United States: “I guess,” he responded. “Some people will die.”
Philadelphians are facing a growing affordability crisis, and City Hall needs to act quickly to counter the impact of funding reductions from the federal and state governments, leaders of the progressive group POWER Interfaith said Monday.
“Living comfortably in our city is becoming unattainable,” the Rev. Cean R. James, senior pastor of the Salt + Light Church, said at the gathering at Arch Street United Methodist Church. “The mayor’s recent budget does focus on economic mobility, and that is noble. But it does not go far enough. It’s not sustainable.”
POWER, an influential coalition that includes more than 50 congregations in the city, on Monday released a report based on interviews with 750 city residents at church meetings, neighborhood gatherings, and other events. The informal survey found:
About two-thirds of respondents had to forego another bill to pay mortgage or rent, and 80% struggled to afford property taxes.
A majority of congregations surveyed have seen the number of unhoused members in their congregations increase.
Ninety percent of respondents said the city hasn’t done enough to “invest in their community’s needs.”
POWER leaders on Monday called on City Council to hold a hearing on affordability. But the report did not include policy prescriptions for addressing the crisis it described, and it’s far from clear what city lawmakers or Mayor Cherelle L. Parker can do to make it easier to get by in the city.
Philadelphia already has a relatively small property tax burden, and the city has some of the strongest protections in the nation for people struggling to stay in their homes.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to City Council, guests, and dignitaries at start of her budget presentation in Council Chambers last Thursday.
But with little ability to affect the cost of goods and state-imposed restrictions on how it can collect taxes — preventing the city from imposing higher rates on wealthier residents — Philadelphia officials have limited options when it comes to addressing affordability.
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The POWER report acknowledged the predicament.
“To be very clear: There are no easy answers to these challenges,” the report said. “We must prepare serious and sober projections about the impacts of the impending revenue losses we face, and then we must develop a menu of policy options to soften those impacts and mitigate harm to residents. And we must ensure that any actions we take do not make the current cost-of-living crisis even worse.”
The city’s limited options on addressing affordability won’t stop it from being a major topic during this spring’s budget negotiations. Affordability has recently become a political buzzword, and Democrats are hoping to win back Congress in November in part by blaming rising costs on President Donald Trump’s administration.
This year, thousands of Pennsylvanians are abandoning the state’s Affordable Care Act insurance exchange after congressional Republicans declined to renew expanded healthcare subsidies. Trump’s efforts to increase tariffs and the war with Iran threaten to increase inflation nationwide. SEPTA last year increased fares and is still facing a fiscal crisis due, in part, to objections by GOP lawmakers in Harrisburg.
It’s unlikely the city could meaningfully address any of those losses without significantly increasing taxes, which would in turn make Philadelphia less affordable. And hiking any of the city’s three major sources of local revenue — the wage, property, and business taxes — all come with significant downsides or political roadblocks.
Increasing the wage levy alone would make the city’s tax structure more regressive, meaning a greater share of the overall tax burden would be paid by poorer workers.
Increasing the real estate tax rate could make the tax structure more progressive, because property owners tend to be wealthier than the average resident. But POWER and other left-leaning groups generally oppose that option due to concerns about displacing low-income homeowners.
And when it comes to the business income and receipts tax, or BIRT, City Hall has recently been moving in the opposite direction of POWER’s goals. Council last year approved a proposal championed by Parker and Council President Kenyatta Johnson that will provide annual cuts to the BIRT rate over the next 12 years.
Philadelphia City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas addresses members of POWER Interfaith during a news conference on affordability at Arch Street United Methodist Church. at Broad and Arch Streets, on Monday.
POWER leaders have called on lawmakers to pause those reductions or even increase the tax. But the political headwinds they face in City Hall were evident at Monday’s news conference. Two of three Council members in attendance voted for the business tax cuts last year: Democrats Jamie Gauthier of West Philadelphia, and Isaiah Thomas, who represents the city at-large.
“It’s very difficult, as we discussed in the past, for local government to be able to step up and address some of these concerns,” Thomas said at the event. “There’s not much we can do as it relates to the catastrophe that we’re seeing around healthcare. There’s not much we can do as it relates to all the tariffs and the cost of living that’s going up significantly. But there are things that we can do, that we control.”
The Rev. Carolyn C. Cavaness, pastor of Mother Bethel AME, said she understands that lawmakers have to deal with complicated political dynamics. But she said she hopes that POWER’s focus on the affordability crisis will reset the conversation.
“I always think about context. … Sometimes we’re in tight spaces,” Cavaness said at the POWER event. “I think also conditions then were much different than what they are now. … We’re really back to ground zero.”
The Transportation Security Administration temporarily closed the Terminal C security checkpoint at Philadelphia International Airport on Thursday morning.
“Due to staffing constraints related to the government shutdown, the TSA, in collaboration with the airport, is temporarily closing the Terminal C checkpoint,” said PHL spokesperson Heather Redfern.
All other security checkpoints remain open, and TSA PreCheck passengers can use the designated lanes at the Terminal A-East and D/E checkpoints. There is no timeline for when Terminal C will be back up and running.
“We encourage you to check the MyTSA app or the airport’s website to find current wait times and to arrive early to the airport,” said an American Airlines spokesperson. “We are grateful for our federal partners at TSA who continue to ensure safe travel for our customers.”
The scene at the TSA checkpoint line in Terminal B at Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday morning, Nov. 9, 2025.
The TSA is experiencing a lapse in funding, alongside other Department of Homeland Security agencies, because its budget has not been passed by Congress.
In January, federal lawmakers narrowly avoided another full government shutdown by approving budgets for all federal agencies except the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans and President Donald Trump agreed to carve out the DHS budget for further negotiations as Democrats want to put more guardrails on federal immigration enforcement.
There have been a couple of attempts at passing the DHS budget, but neither side has budged on its demands. The only Senate Democrat to support funding DHS is Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman.
At this point, there is no end in sight to the DHS shutdown and, by proxy, the lapse in TSA funding that is leading to staff shortages across the country, including Philadelphia’s airport.
The Justice Department on Thursday publicly posted additional records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including some that include allegations against President Donald Trump, following sharp criticism of the agency’s handling of the issue.
The agency said the files, which include detailsfrom FBI interviews with a woman who told authorities she had been sexually assaulted by Trump and Epstein, had not been previously released because they were incorrectly determined to be duplicates of other records. The Justice Department has posted millions of pages of Epstein-related records online, including investigative materials, following the passage of a law last year mandating their release.
The woman, who was interviewed by the FBI in 2019, accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades earlier when she was a minor. No evidence has emerged publicly to corroborate that accusation. The White House called the allegations against Trump “completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence.”
The additional records were posted as Trump and his administration have struggled to combat controversies involving the release of files connected to Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 while facing charges of sex-trafficking and abusing girls.
The Justice Department has faced particular criticism over its response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a measure passed by Congress last year that demanded the agency make public a wide array of records by mid-December. While the agency did release more than 100,000 pages by that point, it did not make public most of its files until weeks later, well after the deadline.
Lawmakers have faulted the Justice Department for missing the deadline, failing to redact some information related to victims’ identities and redacting other information. Last month, after multiple media outlets reported thatsummaries of the woman’s account had not been included, the Justice Department said it was examining whether it wrongly withheld records containing allegations against Trump, who had been friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out.
On Thursday, the Justice Department said in a social media post that it had discovered that “15 documents were incorrectly coded as duplicative.” Among these records were notes from multiple FBI interviews with the woman, who spoke to authorities following Epstein’s arrest in 2019.
According to the interview notes, the woman told investigators that she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and Trump during separate incidents in the 1980s, when she was a minor. The Washington Post has been unable to corroborate these allegations or reach the woman.
Though summary reports of three of her FBI interviews were not included in files previously released by the administration, the Justice Department had already posted a report on one of the interviews as well as a summary file referencing the woman’s allegations against Trump.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, pushed back against the allegations in a statement Friday.
“The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden’s [Justice Department] knew about them for four years and did nothing with them — because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong,” Leavitt said. “As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files.”
The Justice Department this week said it had “not deleted any files from the library,” and a spokeswoman called it “the most transparent Department of Justice in history.”
In addition to the FBI interviews, the Justice Department said Thursday that federal officials in South Florida had separately concluded that five prosecution memos “initially marked as privileged could be released while still protecting the privileged materials.” Those were also released, the agency said.
The release of the FBI interviews and other documents came a day after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, escalating tensions between Congress and the administration.
Bondi, testifying last month before Congress, said the Justice Department “spent thousands of hours painstakingly reviewing millions of pages to comply with Congress’s law.”
It was not clear how Bondi intends to respond to the subpoena, which compels her to appear before the committee for a closed-door deposition about the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein records.
Council President Kenyatta Johnson, a Democrat who controls the flow of legislation in the chamber, said he has scheduled a hearing to take place at 10 a.m. on April 6 before the Committee of the Whole, which comprises all 17 Council members.
That means every lawmaker will have the opportunity to question members of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration, as well as immigration advocates, about the package.
The timeline means mid-April is the earliest that Council could pass the package. Fifteen of the body’s 17 members have expressed support, and that constitutes a veto-proof majority.
City Councilmembers Rue Landau, a Democrat, and Kendra Brooks, of the progressive Working Families Party, sponsored the legislation introduced in January, which prohibits ICE agents from wearing masks, bans them from staging raids on city property, and makes it illegal to discriminate against someone based on immigration status.
The legislation also clarifies how and when Philadelphia officials can coordinate with federal immigration enforcement.
Parker has said an executive order signed by her predecessor remains in place, limiting some cooperation between law enforcement and ICE. But the legislation that Council is considering goes further, codifying a prohibition on city officials assisting ICE and prohibiting data-sharing agreements.
Interfaith religious and community leaders prayer vigil outside the Philadelphia U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 114 N. 8th Street in Center City on March 2.
It comes as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is undergoing a revamping to its leadership structure. President Donald Trump on Thursday ousted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and said he intends to nominate U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R, Okla.) to replace her.
Several local officials said this week that they’re worried the federal government will surge enforcement efforts in Philadelphia in order to fill the centers, and that the city must move quickly to pass its legislation.
“I’m extremely concerned,” said City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, a Democrat whose North Philadelphia-based district has a large immigrant population. “We need to really figure out what our position is as it relates to working with ICE very closely. We have community residents that we should be protecting.”
Two are in Pennsylvania and could reportedly hold about 9,000 beds in total.
Spotlight PA reported Tuesday that ICE is referring to a facility in Tremont, located in Schuylkill County, as the “New ICE Philadelphia Mega Center” and one in Upper Bern Township in Berks County as the “New ICE Philadelphia Processing Center.”
Landau said Council is “paying close attention to these developments and the questions they raise about the expansion of detention facilities in our area.”
“The majority of Philadelphians are deeply disturbed by ICE’s tactics,” she said.
Johnson said in an interview last month that the detention centers are a reason to move swiftly on the ICE-related legislation.
The proposed laws, he said, are a means to “be out in front” of a potential surge of immigration enforcement in the city.
“Some people say, ‘Well, they’re not even here yet.’ But they just built a warehouse in [Berks County],’” Johnson said. “I believe that was strategic. It took some planning to say ‘We want to set up shop right in your backyard.’”
More than 800 former federal workers have been hired by the Pennsylvania government in the last year, as thousands of Pennsylvania-based federal government employees quit or lost their jobs.
Pennsylvania’s Office of Administration announced the count this week. It’s been one year since Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order streamlining the hiring of former federal workers to state-government positions.
“Federal employees bring world-class training and a deep commitment to public service,” Neil Weaver, secretary of the Office of Administration, said in a statement this week. “By tapping into their expertise, we’ve strengthened our workforce and improved the delivery of programs and services that Pennsylvanians depend on every day.”
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The 800 former federal employees who now work for Pennsylvania are in law enforcement, public safety, human services, health care, and other areas.
The Office of Administration said it had “moved at the speed of business to implement the executive order and capitalize on the opportunity to hire displaced federal workers to fill existing, funded vacancies in state agencies.”
Pennsylvania partnered with Civic Match, a job-seeking platform focused on state and local government positions, and which hosts virtual job fairs. The platform is managed by national nonprofit Work for America. Since it launched in 2024, the platform has shown almost 900 Pennsylvania job listings.
As of Thursday afternoon, Pennsylvania’s own online job board showed 657 vacancies. They include an aquatic biologist, police cadet, accountant, and an air monitoring equipment specialist.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump said Thursday he should be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader as the U.S. and Israel hammered the country for a sixth day. Iran kept up retaliatory attacks on Israel, American bases, and countries around the region.
Trump ruled out Mojtaba Khamenei, a front-runner to replace his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening strikes of the war. Trump’s comments to the American news website Axios were likely to renew questions about whether the U.S. and Israel seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic or just a change in its policies, as the conflict has appeared increasingly open-ended.
The war has escalated each day, affecting an additional 14 countries across the Middle East and beyond. On Thursday, Azerbaijan accused Iran of drone attacks, which Tehran denied. Iran said the U.S. would “bitterly regret” torpedoing an Iranian warship near Sri Lanka a day earlier.
Israel issued a mass evacuation warning for Beirut’s southern suburbs as the fighting escalated with Iran-allied Hezbollah militants. U.N. peacekeepers reported ground combat in southern Lebanon as more Israeli troops crossed the border.
Iran’s attacks have targeted their Arab neighbors, disrupted oil supplies, and snarled global air travel. The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 120 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six U.S. troops have been killed.
Trump’s decision to strike Iran won enough support from Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House on Thursday to defeat a resolution to halt the bombardment. The Senate voted down a similar measure a day earlier.
Trump again urges Iranians to ‘take back’ their country
In brief remarks at the White House, Trump again urged the Iranian people to “help take back your country.” This time he promised the U.S. would grant them “immunity” amid the war and ongoing dangers under the current Iranian regime.
“So you’ll be perfectly safe with total immunity,” Trump said, without giving any details about what that meant. “Or you’ll face absolutely guaranteed death.”
In the Axios interview, Trump derided the 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, who has never been elected or appointed to a government position, as “a lightweight.”
“We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.
“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” Trump said, referring to the acting president in the South American country. Delcy Rodríguez took power in January after a U.S. military operation captured Nicolás Maduro and whisked him to the U.S. to face federal drug conspiracy charges.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said this week that Iran’s next supreme leader — if he continues to threaten Israel, the U.S. and others — “will be a target for elimination.”
Iran remains defiant
Iran is not engaged in any direct or indirect communication with the United States to bring an end to the widening war, Iran’s ambassador to Egypt told the Associated Press on Thursday. Ambassador Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour said comments by Trump that Iran wants to negotiate aren’t true.
He blamed a lack trust after the U.S. twice attacked Iran amid negotiations of a possible nuclear deal.
“There will be no trust in Trump,” Ferdousi Pour said.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the U.S. Navy of committing “an atrocity at sea” for sinking the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 87 people. He said on social media the U.S. “will come to bitterly regret” its action.
The Iranian ship was returning from an exercise hosted by the Indian navy that the U.S. also joined. Sri Lankan authorities said 32 crew members were rescued. Araghchi said it had been carrying “almost 130” crew.
An Iranian cleric later called on state television for the shedding of both Israeli and “Trump’s blood.”
The statement from Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli represented a rare call for violence by an ayatollah, one of Shiite Islam’s highest clerical ranks. There are dozens in Iran.
Sri Lanka said more than 200 sailors aboard another Iranian warship near its coast were being escorted to a naval base outside the capital, Colombo. The ship will be taken to a Sri Lankan port, said Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The war keeps expanding
Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that U.S. forces have sunk more than 30 of Iran’s ships, including “an Iranian drone carrier ship roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier.”
“And as we speak, it’s on fire,” Cooper said.
The Israeli military carried out a wave of strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile launch sites, and its top general said that 80% of Iran’s air defenses and 60% of its missile launchers had been destroyed.
Still, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said: “The threat has not yet been removed.”
Gulf countries also reported coming under fire. The U.S. State Department announced it was closing the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, which activated air defense systems in response to incoming missiles.
Iran has fired waves of missiles and drones at American-allied Kuwait, where a drone strike Sunday killed six American soldiers.
In the United Arab Emirates, a drone was shot down near the Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts U.S. forces. Shrapnel fell to the ground, authorities said, and six people were wounded.
Qatar evacuated residents near the U.S. Embassy in Doha as a temporary precaution and later reported a missile attack. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed a drone in a province bordering Jordan.
Bahrain said an Iranian missile hit a state-run oil refinery Thursday, sparking a fire that was extinguished. It said there were no reports of casualties.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of carrying out “a groundless act of terror and aggression” after a drone crashed Thursday near an airport. Another drone fell near a school. Authorities said four airport workers were wounded.
Iran denied it launched drones toward Azerbaijan. Iran has also repeatedly denied targeting oil infrastructure and other civilian targets, even as its missiles and drones have hit such sites.
Cars sit in traffic on a highway Thursday as residents flee Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israel issues evacuation warning for Beirut suburbs
Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs Thursday evening after urging residents to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately.” Two hospitals evacuated patients and staff.
The Lebanese health ministry said the death toll has risen to 123 since the resurgence of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which struck Israel in the opening days of the war.
A spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, Tilak Pokharel, said Thursday that peacekeepers had seen and heard clashes, including ground combat, in southern Lebanon as more Israeli forces have moved across the border.
