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  • Speaker Johnson pleads with Republicans to keep concerns private after tumultuous week

    Speaker Johnson pleads with Republicans to keep concerns private after tumultuous week

    WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson is imploring his fellow Republicans to stop venting their frustrations in public and bring their complaints to him directly.

    “They’re going to get upset about things. That’s part of the process,” Johnson told reporters Thursday. “It doesn’t bother me. But when there is a conflict or concern, I always ask all members to come to me, don’t go to social media.”

    Increasingly, they’re ignoring him.

    Cracks inside the GOP conference were stark this week as a member of Johnson’s own leadership team openly accused him of lying, rank-and-file Republicans acted unilaterally to force votes and a leadership-backed bill faltered. It’s all underscored by growing worries that the party is on a path towards losing the majority next year.

    “I certainly think that the current leadership and specifically the speaker needs to change the way that he approaches the job,” GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California said on Thursday.

    Kiley, who has grown vocally critical of Johnson after the GOP’s nationwide redistricting campaign backfired in California, said that the speaker has been critical of rank-and-file Republicans, so “he needs to be prepared to accept any criticism that comes with the job.”

    “And I think, unfortunately, there’s been ample reason for criticism,” he added.

    ‘Why do we have to legislate by discharge petitions?’

    For the first part of 2025, Johnson held together his slim Republican majority in the House to pass a number of President Donald Trump’s priorities, including his massive spending and tax cut plan.

    But after Johnson kept members out of session for nearly two months during the government shutdown, they returned anxious to work on priorities that had been backlogged for months — and with the reality that their time in the majority may be running out.

    First was a high-profile discharge petition to force the vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, which succeeded after it reached the 218-signature threshold. Other lawmakers are launching more petitions, a step that used to be considered a major affront to party leadership.

    “The discharge petition, I think, always shows a bit of frustration,” said GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson.

    Another discharge petition on a bill that would repeal Trump’s executive order to end collective bargaining with federal labor unions reached the signature threshold last month, with support from seven Republicans.

    And this week, GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida brought a long-anticipated discharge petition for a bill to bar members of Congress from trading stock. A number of Republicans have already signed on, in addition to Democrats.

    “Anxious is what happens when you get nervous. I’m not nervous. I’m pissed,” Luna wrote on social media late Thursday, responding to leadership comments that she was overly anxious.

    GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina signed both Luna’s petition and the one to release the Epstein files. She told reporters Thursday that she expressed her frustrations directly to Johnson in a phone call, and also in what she described as “a deeply personal, deeply passionate letter, that we are legislating by discharge petition.”

    “We have a very slim majority, but I want President Trump’s executive orders codified,” Mace said. “I want to see his agenda implemented. Why do we have to legislate by discharge petitions?”

    Johnson’s own leadership team going after him

    At the center of Johnson’s pleas for members to bring concerns to him privately instead of on social media is the chairwoman of House Republican leadership, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik.

    Angered that a provision she championed wasn’t included in a defense authorization bill, Stefanik blasted Johnson’s claims that he wasn’t aware of the provision as “more lies from the Speaker.” She conducted a series of media interviews criticizing Johnson, including one with The Wall Street Journal in which she said he was a “political novice” who wouldn’t be re-elected speaker if the vote were held today.

    Johnson told reporters Thursday that he had a “great talk” with Stefanik the night before.

    “I called her and I said, ‘why wouldn’t you just come to me, you know?’” Johnson said. “So we had some intense fellowship about that.”

    Asked if she had apologized for calling him a liar, Johnson said: “Um, you ask Elise about that.”

    Illinois GOP Rep. Mary Miller released a statement Thursday providing support for Johnson, saying that while there are differences among members “our mission is bigger than any one individual or headline.”

    Democrats, who have had leadership criticisms of their own, have reveled in the GOP’s disarray. House Republican leaders attempted to muscle through an NCAA-backed bill to regulate college sports after the White House endorsed it, before support within Republican ranks crumbled. Some GOP lawmakers pointedly said they had bigger priorities before the end of the year.

    “It’s not that Congress can’t legislate, it’s House Republicans that can’t legislate. It’s the gang that can’t legislate straight. They continue to take the ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

    Underlying GOP unease about 2026

    All eyes in the U.S. House were on a special election Tuesday night in a Tennessee district that a Republican had won in 2024 by nearly 21 percentage points, with Trump carrying the area by a similar margin.

    Republicans hoped the contest would help them regain momentum after losing several marquee races across the country in November. Democrats, meanwhile, argued that keeping the race close would signal strong political winds at their backs ahead of next year’s midterms, which will determine control of both chambers.

    Republican Matt Van Epps ultimately won by nearly 9 percentage points.

    “I do think to have that district that went by over 20 points a year ago be down to nine, it should be a wake up call,” said GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska.

    He argued that Republicans need “to get some economic progress, like immediately,” adding that “the president and his team have got to come to grips” that tariffs are not driving the economic growth Americans are feeling.

    “I just feel like they’re going to have to get out of their bubble,” Bacon said of the White House. “Get out of your bubble. The economy needs improving. Fix Ukraine and we do need a temporary health care fix.”

    Bacon is among a growing number of House Republicans who have announced they will retire after this term. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene abruptly declared last month that she would resign in January, citing multiple reasons, including that “the legislature has been mostly sidelined” this year.

    Those retirements add to the GOP’s challenge in holding the House, as the party must now defend more open seats. Republicans have also seen a redistricting battle — sparked by Trump’s pressure on Texas Republicans and then more states — backfire in part. In November, California voters handed Democrats a victory by approving a new congressional map.

    “That’s living in a fantasy world if you think that this redistricting war is what’s going to save the majority,” said Kiley, now at risk of losing his seat after redistricting in California.

    He added: “I think what would make a lot bigger impact is if the House played a proactive role in actually putting forward legislation that matters.”

  • National Guard can stay in D.C. for now, appeals court says

    National Guard can stay in D.C. for now, appeals court says

    The Trump administration will be allowed to continue its National Guard deployment in D.C. at least temporarily, pending another appeals court decision, a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals judges said Thursday.

    The ruling means the deployment of troops to the nation’s capital could persist beyond Dec. 11, the date a lower-court judge had previously set as a deadline for the administration to halt the mission.

    Judges with the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals granted an administrative stay in the case, meaning the drawdown of troops in the capital will be delayed at least until the appeals court makes an additional ruling. The court emphasized that Thursday’s decision had nothing to do with the merits of the Trump administration’s arguments in the case.

    “The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the judges wrote.

    The appeals court ruling comes the week after an attack in which prosecutors say a man targeted National Guard members, killing one and critically injuring another in a busy downtown area of D.C. blocks from the White House. For Trump administration officials, the attack – allegedly carried out by a lone gunman who was resettled in the United States from his native Afghanistan after work for a CIA-backed counterterrorism squad – only deepened their resolve to keep the troops in the capital city.

    Trump called for an additional 500 troops; South Carolina’s governor said this week he would send up to 300 members of his state’s National Guard in response.

    “Our warriors are strong and we will not back down until our capital and our cities are secure,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said at a news briefing Tuesday.

    For D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who sued the Trump administration in September over the National Guard deployment, the shooting and its aftermath offered further proof that the deployment of troops was ill-advised and unsafe. D.C. police officers have since paired up with National Guard troops for the troops’ safety, potentially diverting officers from other public safety tasks, he said in a court filing this week.

    “The deployment impinges on the District’s home rule, requires the diversion of scarce police resources, and exposes both the public and Guard members to substantial public safety risks, as Defendants themselves acknowledged at the outset of the deployment, and as the horrific attack on two National Guard members last week tragically underscored,” Schwalb wrote.

    President Donald Trump deployed the D.C. National Guard to city streets on Aug. 11 as part of a broader crime crackdown he initiated in the city. He also took temporary control of the D.C. police department and launched a surge of federal law enforcement into D.C. neighborhoods. Multiple Republican governors heeded Trump’s call for reinforcements and sent troops from their National Guards to the District. As of Wednesday, about 2,300 National Guard members were stationed in the city – about 100 more than the previous day.

    The National Guard members have stood watch at Metro stations and picked up trash at national parks. They also carry weapons and have been instructed to use them only as a last resort.

    Unlike in states, where governors control their National Guards, the president is commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard – a role the administration argues gives Trump vast power over the deployment and legally authorizes his actions in the District. But Schwalb, in his lawsuit, has argued that the president’s power over the Guard has limits. Schwalb also has alleged that the troops in D.C. have been illegally engaged in law enforcement, in violation of a federal law that prohibits military troops from engaging in domestic policing.

    In November, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb sided with D.C. in a preliminary ruling, writing that the National Guard deployment was illegal and that Trump lacked the authority to activate the Guard for the mission. Cobb ordered the Trump administration to halt the deployment in D.C. while litigation continued over whether the troops should be permanently withdrawn. However, she delayed her order from going into effect until Dec. 11 to give the Trump administration time to appeal.

    In response, the administration asked an appeals court for an emergency ruling to allow the deployment to continue while litigation continues, arguing in court documents that Cobb’s order “impinges on the President’s express statutory authority as Commander-in-Chief of the D.C. National Guard and impermissibly second-guesses his successful efforts to address intolerably high crime rates in the Nation’s capital.” The appeals court on Thursday did not rule on that request; the administrative stay means the deployment can continue while the appeals court considers it.

    The Trump administration has argued that the troops have not been engaged in city law enforcement and merely deter crime through their presence, freeing up police for other tasks.

    Questions of the mission’s safety implications have taken on new weight in the aftermath of last week’s attack, but each party in the lawsuit has argued that the city would be safer if the court sided with them.

    A group of retired senior military officers and the Vet Voice Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans and their supporters, filed a brief in the appeals court that they said was “in support of neither party.” They argued that the use of the National Guard in D.C. “threatens to undermine the apolitical reputation of the military as an institution, places service members in situations for which they are not specifically trained, and pulls the Guard away from its critical missions.”

    But attorneys general from 24 Republican-led states – including some that sent their troops to D.C. – argued that crime is high in D.C. and while the mission “has already produced strong results,” there is more to be done. Violent crime is down 28 percent in D.C. compared to last year, although crime in the city began to fall steeply well over a year before Trump surged federal law enforcement in August.

    “Danger still lingers,” the states’ attorneys general wrote in their brief, filed in support of the Trump administration. “Just last week, an Afghani national committed a heinous terror attack, shooting two National Guardsmen at close range and murdering one.”

    In arguing that the Guard troops should stay, they also cited a few actions that Guard members had taken to keep the city safe.

    “National Guard troops have stopped at least one fight near the metro,” they wrote, “helped provide first aid to elderly residents of the district, and aided in the successful search for a missing child.”

  • Immigration crackdown in New Orleans has a target of 5,000 arrests. Is that possible?

    Immigration crackdown in New Orleans has a target of 5,000 arrests. Is that possible?

    NEW ORLEANS — Trump administration officials overseeing the immigration crackdown launched this week in New Orleans are aiming to make 5,000 arrests with a focus on violent offenders, a target that some city leaders say is not realistic.

    It’s an ambitious goal that would surpass the number of arrests during a two-month enforcement blitz this fall around Chicago, a region with a much bigger immigrant population than New Orleans.

    In Los Angeles — the first major battleground in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration plan — roughly 5,000 people were arrested over the summer in an area where 10 million LA county residents are foreign-born.

    “There is no rational basis that a sweep of New Orleans, or the surrounding parishes, would ever yield anywhere near 5,000 criminals, let alone ones that are considered ‘violent’ by any definition,” New Orleans City Council President J.P. Morrell said Thursday.

    Census Bureau figures show the New Orleans metro area had a foreign-born population of almost 100,000 residents last year, and that just under 60% were not U.S. citizens.

    “The amount of violent crime attributed to illegal immigrants is negligible,” Morrell said, pointing out that crime in New Orleans is at historic lows.

    Violent crimes, including murders, rapes, and robberies, have fallen by 12% through October compared to a year ago, from a total of 2,167 violent crimes to 1,897 this year, according to New Orleans police statistics.

    A flood of messages about arrests

    Federal agents in marked and unmarked vehicles began spreading out across New Orleans and its suburbs Wednesday, making arrests in home improvement store parking lots and patrolling neighborhoods with large immigrant populations.

    Alejandra Vasquez, who runs a social media page in New Orleans that reports the whereabouts of federal agents, said she has received a flood of messages, photos and video since the operations began.

    “My heart is so broken,” Vasquez said. “They came here to take criminals and they are taking our working people. They are not here doing what they are supposed to do. They are taking families.”

    Several hundred agents from Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are participating in the two-month operation dubbed “Catahoula Crunch.”

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is from Louisiana, is among the state’s Republicans supporting the crackdown. “Democrats’ sanctuary city policies have failed — making our American communities dangerous. The people of our GREAT city deserve better, and help is now on the ground,” Johnson posted on social media.

    Operation is being met with resistance

    About two dozen protesters were removed from a New Orleans City Council meeting Thursday after chants of “Shame” broke out. Police officers ordered protesters to leave the building, with some pushed or physically carried out by officers.

    Planning documents obtained last month by The Associated Press show the crackdown is intended to cover southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi.

    Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said agents are going after immigrants who were released after arrests for violent crimes.

    “In just 24 hours on the ground, our law enforcement officers have arrested violent criminals with rap sheets that include homicide, kidnapping, child abuse, robbery, theft, and assault,” McLaughlin said Thursday in a statement. Border Patrol and immigration officials have not responded to requests for details, including how many have been arrested so far.

    She told CNN on Wednesday that “we will continue whether that will be 5,000 arrests or beyond.”

    Immigration arrests go beyond violent criminals

    To come close to reaching their target numbers in New Orleans, immigrant rights group fear federal agents will set their sights on a much broader group.

    New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris said “there are nowhere near 5,000 violent offenders in our region” whom Border Patrol could arrest.

    “What we’re seeing instead are mothers, teenagers, and workers being detained during routine check-ins, from their homes and places of work,” Harris said. “Immigration violations are civil matters, not criminal offenses, and sweeping up thousands of residents who pose no threat will destabilize families, harm our economy.”

    During the “Operation Midway Blitz” crackdown in Chicago that began in September, federal immigration agents arrested more than 4,000 people across the city and its many suburbs, dipping into Indiana.

    Homeland Security officials heralded efforts to nab violent criminals, posting dozens of pictures on social media of people appearing to have criminal histories and lacking legal permission to be in the U.S. But public records tracking the first weeks of the Chicago push show most arrestees didn’t have a criminal record.

    Of roughly 1,900 people arrested in the Chicago area from early September through the middle of October — the latest data available — nearly 300 or about 15% had criminal convictions on their records, according to ICE arrest data from the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project analyzed by The Associated Press.

    The vast majority of those convictions were for traffic offenses, misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies, the data showed.

    New Orleans, whose international flavor comes from its long history of French, Spanish, African, and Native American cultures, has seen a new wave of immigrants from places in Central and South America and Asia.

    Across all of Louisiana, there were more than 145,000 foreign-born noncitizens, according to the Census Bureau. While those numbers don’t break down how many residents of the state were in the country illegally, the Pew Research Center estimated the number at 110,000 people in 2023.

  • N.Y. attorney general challenges authority of acting U.S. attorney investigating her Trump lawsuits

    N.Y. attorney general challenges authority of acting U.S. attorney investigating her Trump lawsuits

    ALBANY, N.Y. — President Donald Trump’s effort to install political loyalists as top federal prosecutors has run into a legal buzz saw lately, with judges ruling that his handpicked U.S. attorneys for New Jersey, eastern Virginia, Nevada, and Los Angeles were all serving unlawfully.

    On Thursday, another federal judge heard an argument by New York Attorney General Letitia James that the administration also twisted the law to make John Sarcone the acting U.S. attorney for northern New York.

    James, a Democrat, is challenging Sarcone’s authority to oversee a Justice Department investigation into regulatory lawsuits she filed against Trump and the National Rifle Association. It’s one of several arguments she is making to block subpoenas issued as part of the probe, which her lawyers say is part of a campaign of baseless investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s perceived enemies.

    Her attorney Hailyn Chen argued in court that since Sarcone lacks legitimate authority to act as U.S. attorney, legal steps taken by him in that capacity — like the subpoenas — are unlawful. In response to a question from U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield, Chen said Sarcone should be disqualified from the investigation and the office.

    “Sarcone exercised power that he did not lawfully possess,” Chen told the judge.

    Justice Department lawyers say Sarcone was appointed properly and the motion to block the subpoenas should be denied. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Belliss argued that disqualifying Sarcone would be “drastic and extreme.”

    “We don’t think that’s a proper remedy,” Belliss said.

    Schofield, after peppering both attorneys with questions, did not say when she would rule.

    The fight in New York and other states is largely over the legality of unorthodox strategies the Trump administration has adopted to appoint prosecutors seen as unlikely to get confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

    The hearing came a week after a federal judge in Virginia dismissed indictments brought there against James and former FBI Director James Comey. That judge concluded that the interim U.S. attorney who brought the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department is expected to appeal.

    On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled that Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer, is disqualified from serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor.

    Under federal law, the president’s nominees for U.S. attorney must be confirmed by the Senate. If a position is vacant, the U.S. attorney general can appoint someone temporarily, but that appointment expires after 120 days. If that time period elapses, judges in the district can either keep the interim U.S. attorney or appoint someone of their own choosing.

    Sarcone’s appointment didn’t follow that path.

    Trump hasn’t nominated anyone to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Sarcone to serve as the interim U.S. attorney in March. When his 120-day term elapsed, judges in the district declined to keep him in the post.

    Bondi then took the unusual step of appointing Sarcone as a special attorney, then designated him first assistant U.S. attorney for the district, a maneuver federal officials say allows him to serve as an acting U.S. attorney.

    Chen called it an abuse of executive power.

    The New York subpoenas seek records related to a civil case James filed against Trump over alleged fraud in his personal business dealings and records from a lawsuit involving the National Rifle Association and two senior executives.

    Belliss argued in court that the U.S. attorney general has broad authority to appoint attorneys within her department and to delegate her functions to those attorneys. Belliss said that even if Sarcone is not properly holding the office of acting U.S. attorney, he can still conduct grand jury investigations as a special attorney.

    Sarcone was part of Trump’s legal team during the 2016 presidential campaign and worked for the U.S. General Services Administration as the regional administrator for the Northeast and Caribbean during Trump’s first term.

    Habba also served as an interim U.S. attorney. When her appointment expired, New Jersey judges replaced her with a career prosecutor who had served as her second-in-command. Bondi then fired that prosecutor and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney.

    A similar dynamic is playing out in Nevada, where a federal judge disqualified the Trump administration’s pick to be U.S. attorney there. And a federal judge in Los Angeles disqualified the acting U.S. attorney in Southern California from several cases after concluding he had stayed in the job longer than allowed by law.

  • Who is Brian Cole? What we know about the D.C. pipe bomb suspect

    Who is Brian Cole? What we know about the D.C. pipe bomb suspect

    In a move that could soon bring closure to a mystery investigated by federal law enforcement for nearly five years, the FBI announced a person has been arrested for allegedly planting pipe bombs in Washington ahead of the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

    The suspect was identified as Brian Jerome Cole Jr., 30, of Northern Virginia, Attorney GeneralPam Bondi said in a Thursday news briefing.

    The pipe bombs were placed near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees on the night of Jan. 5, 2021, the FBI previously said. The explosives did not detonate.

    Federal law enforcement officials said they located Cole by using evidence they already had — not a new tip — including cell phone data and purchasing records that a special team of investigators was brought in to reevaluate.

    “That evidence has been sitting there collecting dust,” Bondi said.

    But who is Brian Cole? Here’s what we know so far about the alleged suspect.

    Who is Brian Cole?

    Brian Cole, 30, lives in Woodbridge, Va., a community in Prince William County about 20 miles south of Washington.

    According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia reviewed by USA TODAY, Cole resides in a home with his mother and other family members.

    Prince William County Public Schools Director of Communication Diana Gulotta confirmed to USA TODAY that Cole graduated from Hylton High School in Woodbridge in 2013.

    According to public records reviewed by USA TODAY, Cole does not have a criminal history but does have several traffic violations on file, which took place after the pipe bomb incident.

    What charges is Brian Cole facing?

    Cole is charged with use of an explosive device, Bondi told reporters.

    Documents say Cole bought pipe bomb components from Home Depot, Walmart

    Cole’s credit card and checking account records showed that he purchased multiple items as early as October 2019 through late 2020 consistent with the components used to manufacture two pipe bombs placed at the RNC and DNC offices, according to his 7-page charging document.

    Cole bought components including a galvanized pipe, end caps, electrical wire, battery clips and white kitchen timers, court records also said. Investigators tracked Cole’s purchases at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, and Micro Center.

    The suspect bought items including safety glasses, a wire-stripping tool and a machinist’s file, which could be used to make pipe bombs, officials said. Cole then allegedly continued to buy the components after the pipe bombs were found, including a kitchen timer, more nine-volt batteries and galvanized pipes during January 2021.

    A call to Cole’s phone number listed in public records, as well as to other relatives, went unanswered on Thursday.

    Provider records show Cole’s cell phone connected with towers consistent with his being in the area of the RNC and DNC offices on Jan. 5, 2021.

    In addition, court documents continued, a Virginia license plate registered to a 2017 Nissan Sentra that he owns was captured on camera the same day at 7:10 p.m., at the South Capitol Street exit from Interstate 395 South. That’s “less than one-half mile from the location where the individual who placed the devices was first observed on foot,” records said.

    It was not immediately clear if he had obtained legal counsel.

    On Thursday, Prince William County police and FBI agents sealed the street in front of the suspect’s home.

    It was not immediately known what law enforcement recovered, if anything.

  • Trump hires new White House ballroom architect

    Trump hires new White House ballroom architect

    President Donald Trump has replaced the architect he handpicked to design his White House ballroom, according to three people familiar with the project, ending the involvement of a boutique firm whose selection raised questions from the start about whether it had the capacity to complete the massive, high-profile endeavor.

    For more than three months, James McCrery II and his architecture firm led the effort to design Trump’s $300 million ballroom building — until late October, when he stopped working on the project, one of the people said. It is unclear whether McCrery stepped back voluntarily, but the men parted on good terms and remain so, according to one of the people familiar with the project, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

    Trump and McCrery had clashed over the president’s desire to keep increasing the size of the building, but it was the firm’s small workforce and inability to hit deadlines that became the decisive factor in him leaving, one of the people said.

    Trump has chosen architect Shalom Baranes, who’s been designing and renovating government buildings in Washington for decades, to pick up the mantle, according to two of the people. Baranes’ firm has handled a number of large Washington projects dating back decades, including projects involving the main Treasury building near the White House and the headquarters of the General Services Administration.

    “As we begin to transition into the next stage of development on the White House Ballroom, the Administration is excited to share that the highly talented Shalom Baranes has joined the team of experts to carry out President Trump’s vision on building what will be the greatest addition to the White House since the Oval Office — the White House Ballroom,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a written statement. “Shalom is an accomplished architect whose work has shaped the architectural identity of our nation’s capital for decades and his experience will be a great asset to the completion of this project.”

    The White House and McCrery’s representative have continued to say that McCrery remains involved in the project in a “consulting” role.

    The ballroom building — at 90,000 square feet and estimated to hold nearly 1,000 guests and cost $300 million — was from the start a herculean task for McCrery, said people familiar with his firm’s operations. That might have been true for any firm given Trump’s rushed timeline, but it was especially difficult for the head of a small firm better equipped to design churches, libraries, and homes.

    Trump’s selection of the firm raised eyebrows of architects and planning experts worried that a shop as small as McCrery’s couldn’t complete such a large project in little more than three years. One architect said federal officials tasked with awarding contracts would normally consider only firms four times bigger than McCrery’s to take on projects of that scale.

    Those concerns grew almost immediately, according to one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the project.

    “Everybody realized he couldn’t do it,” the person said.

    McCrery’s spokesman did not respond to requests for an interview.

    The renovation represents one of the biggest changes to the White House in its 233-year history, and has yet to undergo any formal public review. The administration has not publicly provided key details about the building, such as its planned height. The structure also is expected to include a suite of offices previously located in the East Wing. The White House has also declined to specify the status of an emergency bunker located beneath the East Wing, citing matters of national security.

    In the weeks since the switch from McCrery to Baranes, crews of dozens of workers have continued to prep the site for construction, driving piles, stockpiling materials such as reinforced concrete pipes and amassing an array of cranes, drills and other heavy machinery, photos obtained by The Post show. On Wednesday, they erected a towering crane anchored into a concrete paddock.

    On Tuesday, Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that the pile drivers operate “all night” and have created a disagreement in his marriage. The president said he loves the sound while first lady Melania Trump has asked him to make the constant pounding stop, a request he’s denied.

    “Sorry, darling, that’s progress,” Trump said he told her.

  • The last hostage in Gaza was captured while fighting to save a kibbutz

    The last hostage in Gaza was captured while fighting to save a kibbutz

    JERUSALEM — There were hundreds, then dozens, and then just a few. Now there’s one Israeli hostage left in Gaza: Ran Gvili.

    Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as “Rani,” was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. After a series of ceasefire-mandated exchanges of hostages for Palestinians held by Israel, Gvili’s body still has not been recovered.

    His remains are somewhere in Gaza. On Thursday, as Israel woke to the news that remains militants returned the previous day belonged to another hostage, the country mourned Gvili as a hero who died fighting to save a kibbutz that was not his own.

    “The first to go, the last to leave,” his mother, Talik Gvili, wrote on Facebook Thursday. “We won’t stop until you come back.”

    ‘The Shield of Alumim’

    At the entrance to Kibbutz Alumim, one of the many border villages militants attacked on Oct. 7, there is a sign emblazoned with a photo of Gvili smiling in his uniform, his name beneath it.

    “He fought a heroic battle, saving the lives of the kibbutz members,” the sign says. ”Since then he has been known as ‘Rani, the Shield of Alumim.’”

    Unlike those from other Israeli kibbutzim targeted that day, the residents of Alumim survived. They credit that to men like Gvili, who joined a group of emergency response team members, soldiers and police officers who fended off waves of intruding militants.

    Migrant workers on the kibbutz, however, met a different fate. Left exposed in agricultural areas outside the kibbutz’s defensive perimeter, 22 foreign nationals were killed, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

    Gvili died fighting in battle

    On the morning of Oct. 7, Gvili was at home, his younger sister Shira Gvili said in an interview with the AP. He had been on medical leave from his elite police unit for a broken shoulder.

    Still, when he heard that gunmen were attacking panicked partygoers at the site of the Nova Music Festival, he headed straight for the venue grounds, along with other men from the unit.

    Nova later became the site of the largest civilian massacre in Israeli history, when the militants killed at least 364 people and took more than 40 hostage.

    Gvili and the other officers never made it there, his sister said. Instead, they encountered the militants at Kibbutz Alumim.

    Sgt. Richard Schechtman, a fellow police officer who also fought in the battle, said that Gvili appeared to immediately know what to do.

    “Rani was at the head of the team — because that’s who he was,” Schechtman was quoted as telling the Israeli news site Ynet. “Rani and I were standing on the road. I saw the terrorists, but I hesitated because it was the first time in my life I’d ever seen a terrorist face-to-face, and I had a moment of, ‘Wait, what am I seeing?’ Then Rani pulled the pin and opened fire — and the whole team followed him.”

    At one point in battle, Gvili ran to the western flank of the kibbutz to fight militants arriving in trucks, said his mother, who has spoken with others who fought with him that day. That’s where he was injured in the leg.

    “He radioed his team to warn that more vehicles carrying terrorists were approaching,” his mother said in an interview with Ynet. “He opened fire, and they came at him. He fought them alone, injured in both his leg and arm, and he took down those monsters.”

    Israel’s military says Gvili’s body was abducted to Gaza by the militants soon after. The military confirmed his death, based on an intelligence assessment, four months later.

    Last step in first phase of ceasefire

    The return of Gvili’s remains would mark the completion of the first phase of President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan. The first phase also calls for the release of thousands of Palestinians from Israel, both alive and dead, and an increase of aid shipments into war-ravaged Gaza.

    The next phases of the ceasefire agreement will be much more complicated to fulfill. Key elements include deploying an international force to secure Gaza, disarming Hamas, and forming a temporary Palestinian government to run day to day affairs under the supervision of an international board led by Trump.

    Family worries Gvili’s remains will not come back

    Gvili’s family — which includes his brother, Omri — is holding out hope they’ll receive the remains soon.

    “We see all the other families whose sons came back and we see in their eyes that they have relief,” his sister said. ”This is why it’s so important. Because we want to move on with our with our life and just remember Rani.”

    Gvili was a hero, but he was more than that, his sister recalled: He was protective and goofy; he occasionally told bad jokes that everyone laughed at; he loved playing guitar and singing ‘The House of the Rising Sun’; and he had a tattoo on his leg of his dog, Luna, who the family now cares for.

    Both his mother, Talik, and father, Itzik Gvili, say they fear a worst-case scenario of the type experienced by families of Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin or Ron Arad.

    Goldin was killed in Gaza in 2014. His body was only returned to Israel about a month ago as part of the ceasefire. Arad was abducted in Lebanon in 1988 after ejecting from his aircraft. He’s never been found.

    “We pray, of course, that he will not be another Ron Arad or (Hadar) Goldin,” Itzik Gvili told Kan News. “That we don’t drag it out for many more years.”

    “As far as I am concerned, until Ran comes back, he is alive,” the father said. “I have nothing else to hope for.”

  • She made $14M on OnlyFans. Now, she’s an outspoken anti-porn advocate.

    She made $14M on OnlyFans. Now, she’s an outspoken anti-porn advocate.

    In her early 20s, Nala Ray had it all. Or so she thought.

    She lived in a $4.3 million home in California. She frequently drove luxury cars, including Ferraris, Bentleys and Lamborghinis. Her closet dripped with designer labels — Givenchy, Dior, Prada. Her favorite? A lamb-skin Chanel bag — red, with gold chains. Even her dogs, she says, sported Louis Vuitton collars.

    All the luxury, however, came at a cost, she says. Ray made her fortune posting explicit content of herself on OnlyFans. In fact, she says she was one of the first to ever do so. In the early years of the website, when she made her account, no one quite knew what the fledgling, subscription-based platform would become. Maybe it’d be full of cooking classes. Or fitness tutorials. But, Ray says, because of early adopters like her, it became a de facto porn site, where anyone can upload content of themselves in exchange for cash from paying subscribers. Though not everyone on OnlyFans makes porn, the site has become known for it.

    Most OnlyFans creators make next to nothing. A lucky few make millions. Ray was one of them. Over the course of her five years on the site, she estimates she made $14 million total, averaging $300,000 a month.

    But after what she describes as a spiritual awakening, Ray left OnlyFans and has since become an outspoken critic of the platform. Now, she says, she wants to see OnlyFans — the very website she helped turn into a porn empire — destroyed.

    Her plan? By shedding light on what she describes as the hidden cost of pornography, she hopes to change the hearts and minds of those still on OnlyFans, one person at a time. She wants to see a day when no one frequents the platform anymore.

    “I was so deep in the industry,” Ray says. “I was bold enough to take so many crazy, radical steps into it. And now, I’m just on the opposite spectrum. It’s crazy. That shows God’s glory.”

    How Nala Ray found OnlyFans

    Ray’s upbringing was tumultuous.

    When she was 8, a tornado wiped out her family’s home in small-town Missouri. Her dad had an affair, leading to her parents’ divorce, but they remarried each other two years later. After that, Ray says, her dad took on a newfound religious intensity, becoming a minister. Frequent in-fighting in her Baptist community led her family to hop from church to church. She never felt like she had a spiritual home.

    “You get to see a dark side of religion,” Ray says. “People will kick you out of their church, and that’s so hard to see from people that you kind of fell in love with. So it was kind of major divorces, over and over and over again.”

    Things worsened when her dad took pity on a wayward 16-year-old boy, letting him live in their home. The boy molested Ray when she was 13, she says, and the abuse continued for months until he ran away one night. Ray says neither she nor her family have heard from him since.

    After that, Ray began acting out. She’d sneak out of the house at 2 a.m. to meet boys. She longed for the day she could finally move out and become independent. At around age 20, she found herself in Florida, working for an orthopedics company. She wasn’t sure where to go next.

    Then, she got the Instagram DM.

    “A random guy on Instagram − he was verified − he reached out,” she says. “And he was like, ‘Hey, you’d be so good at OnlyFans.’”

    ‘I couldn’t feel much at all’

    OnlyFans skyrocketed in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ray caught the wave at the perfect time, she says, joining the site in February of 2020. Her first month, she made $87,000.

    It became her new full-time job — and she took it seriously.

    Ray acquired a manager. She read books on men’s psychology, so she could learn how best to appeal to their fantasies. She studied popular porn trends — and adjusted her content accordingly. She went on podcasts and made outrageous statements about sex that would go viral — whatever it took to drive more people to her page. At her peak on the site, she had 270,000 subscribers.

    As the earnings ramped up, so did the pressure to make more gratuitous content, she says. She relied on marijuana and alcohol to get through particularly tough filming days. Anything, she says, to numb herself.

    “Honestly, I couldn’t feel much at all. I could feel angry, but I didn’t cry for years. It felt like I didn’t feel sorry for anybody,” she says. “Anytime I would have to do major scenes, I’d have to drink myself into oblivion to just do it.”

    Then, Ray met Jordan Giordano, a Christian influencer, on TikTok in 2023. He didn’t know who she was. They started talking.

    Giordano treated her as a person, not as as sex object. It was his compassion and gentle nudging, she says, that ultimately got her to see the life she was living differently.

    In January 2024, Ray quit OnlyFans. She and Giordano wed that March.

    “There was this tear inside of me. I had built this whole life. I was so independent. I didn’t need a man. I made my bag. I could have anything I wanted. I could go anywhere I wanted, even though I didn’t have a lot of friends or anything. I felt so unique, and OnlyFans had given me that kind of freedom,” Ray says.

    “To cross over into this very unknown world was terrifying to me. I thought so many times, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do this. It’s too scary for me. I don’t know if I’m courageous enough to cross this line.’ And so what happened was, I continued to just talk to Jordan. I continued reading my Bible. I continued to pray. And then Jordan’s mom was actually the one that really helped me make the decision. She was like, ‘You’re on the right path, but you still have this door of darkness open, which is OnlyFans. You cannot have both.’”

    ‘Someone just wants someone else to listen to them’

    Since leaving OnlyFans, Ray’s received tons of backlash online − much of it not from OnlyFans models, but from fellow Christians.

    They call her a grifter. They call her faith a sham. They say she’ll be back on OnlyFans any day now.

    The noise used to bother her. Now, she says, she’s better at tuning it out.

    “The hate got to me for sure,” she says. “It got to my husband. I felt utterly alone some days, just being like, ‘Wow, the whole world hates me.’ And that’s a tough pill to swallow, honestly.”

    Ray still has empathy for the women who do OnlyFans. Though she disagrees with their actions, she knows many have struggles few will ever understand.

    “I have a heart for the OnlyFans girls, not only because I was one, but I saw it,” she says. “So many girls were like, ‘Oh, my dad abused me.’ ‘My stepdad tried to do things with me.’ ‘I don’t have a dad.’ ‘My dad ran away.’ ‘My mom hates me.’ I heard it all … Behavior is a symptom of what’s really going on underneath, right? Hurt damages people so bad, and shame will lead you into things that you never thought you would do.”

    When they ask for it, Ray helps guide people through the process of quitting OnlyFans. She recalls one model who deleted her account after flying to Tennessee to have a heart-to-heart with Ray in person.

    When someone like that contacts her, Ray says she listens to them, without judgment. It’s what her husband did for her − and it’s what she believes makes a real difference.

    “The biggest thing I realized is someone just wants someone else to listen to them,” Ray says. “She just wanted to talk, and I let her. And she just told me everything that was going on in her life with her family and her relationship and how she felt about OnlyFans. And I didn’t pass one word of judgment. That’s it. We just can’t judge other people, because we have no idea what it’s like to walk a day in their shoes.”

    Ray’s life looks quite different than it did a year ago. Her financial situation looks different, too. The OnlyFans money dried up fast, she says. The website took 20% of it. Her manager, 45%. Not to mention the hefty California taxes she owed.

    Although her life hasn’t gotten easier, she says she doesn’t regret her decision. Being honest about her current life is also something that’s important to her, as she charts this new path. She plans on launching a podcast to continue sharing her story.

    “The kind of Christian I want to portray is like, yeah, life freaking sucks,” Ray says. “I mess up. I’m not always modest. I still cuss sometimes. Yes, I want a joint sometimes. That is the Christian walk. I hate it when I see Christians online who just seem so perfect, but yet aren’t real with the fact that life is so hard sometimes.”

  • Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America’s health department is in the business of promoting Kennedy

    Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America’s health department is in the business of promoting Kennedy

    As health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wields one of the louder megaphones the federal government has. Yet he insists he doesn’t want to impose his opinions on Americans.

    “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me,” Kennedy told a Democratic congressman in May.

    Kennedy once expressed different views — for example, about the need to proselytize about exercise. As he said on a podcast, he wants to use the “bully pulpit” to “obliterate the delicacy” with which Americans discuss fitness and explain that “suffering” is virtuous.

    “We need to establish an ethic that you’re not a good parent unless your kids are doing some kind of physical activity,” Kennedy told the podcaster in September 2024.

    RFK Jr.’s pointless dismantling of the nation’s public health system places us all at risk | Editorial

    The Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with communicating information to protect and improve the health and well-being of every American. It provides reminders about vaccinations and screenings; alerts about which food is unsafe; and useful, everyday tips about subjects such as sunscreen and, yes, exercise.

    Under Kennedy’s watch, though, HHS has compromised once-fruitful campaigns promoting immunizations and other preventive health measures. On Instagram, the agency often emphasizes Kennedy’s personal causes, his pet projects, or even the secretary himself. Former agency employees say communications have a more political edge, with “Make America Healthy Again” frequently featured in news releases.

    Interviews with over 20 former and current agency employees provide a look inside a health department where personality and politics steer what is said to the public. KFF Health News granted many of these people anonymity because they fear retribution.

    One sign of change is what is no longer, or soon will not be, amplified — for instance, acclaimed anti-smoking campaigns making a dent in one of Kennedy’s priorities, chronic disease.

    Another sign is what gets commemorated. On the official HHS Instagram account this year, out were posts saluting Juneteenth and Father’s Day. In, under Kennedy, were posts marking President Donald Trump’s birthday and Hulk Hogan’s death.

    Commenting on such changes, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in an email that “DEI is gone, thanks to the Trump administration.”

    Some elected officials are pointedly not promoting Kennedy as a source of healthcare information. Regarding the secretary’s announcement citing unproven links between Tylenol and autism, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told MSNBC (now called MS NOW) that, “if I were a woman, I’d be talking to my doctor and not taking, you know, advice from RFK or any other government bureaucrat, for that matter.” (Thune’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

    At least four polls since January show trust in Kennedy as a medical adviser is low. In one poll, from the Economist and YouGov, barely over a quarter of respondents said they trusted Kennedy “a lot” or “somewhat.”

    The department’s online messaging looks “a lot more like propaganda than it does public health,” said Kevin Griffis, who worked in communications at the CDC under President Joe Biden and left the agency in March.

    Transition to a new administration

    The new administration inaugurated dramatic changes. Upon arrival, political appointees froze the health agency’s outside communications on a broader scale than in previous changeovers, halting everything from routine webpage updates to meetings with grant recipients. The pause created logistical snafus: For example, one CDC employee described being forced to cancel, and later rebook, advertising campaigns — at greater cost to taxpayers.

    Even before the gag order was lifted in the spring, the tone and direction of HHS’ public communications had shifted.

    According to data shared by iSpot.tv, a market research firm that tracks television advertising, at least four HHS ads about vaccines ended within two weeks of Trump’s inauguration.

    “Flu campaigns were halted” during a season in which a record number of children died from influenza, Deb Houry, who had resigned as the CDC’s chief medical officer, said in a Sept. 17 congressional hearing.

    Instead of urging people to get vaccinated, HHS officials contemplated more-ambivalent messaging, said Griffis, then the CDC’s director of communications. According to Griffis, other former agency employees, and communications reviewed by KFF Health News, Nixon contemplated a campaign that would put more emphasis on vaccine risks. It would “be promoting, quote-unquote, ‘informed choice,’” Griffis said.

    Philadelphia scientists will receive more than $6 million in funding from RFK Jr.’s new autism research center

    Nixon called the claim “categorically false.” Still, the department continues to push anti-vaccine messaging. In November, the CDC updated a web page to assert the false claim that vaccines may cause autism.

    Messaging related to tobacco control has been pulled back, according to Brian King, an executive at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, as well as multiple current and former CDC employees. Layoffs, administrative leaves, and funding turmoil have drained offices at the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration focused on educating people about the risks of smoking and vaping, King said.

    Four current and former CDC employees told KFF Health News that “Tips From Former Smokers,” a campaign credited with helping approximately a million people quit smoking, is in danger. Ordinarily, a contract for the next year’s campaign would have been signed by now. But, as of Nov. 21, there was no contractor, the current and former employees said.

    Nixon did not respond to a question from KFF Health News regarding plans for the program.

    “We’re currently in an apocalypse for national tobacco education campaigns in this country,” King said.

    Kennedy’s HHS has a different focus for its education campaigns, including the “Take Back Your Health” campaign, for which the department solicited contractors this year to produce “viral” and “edgy” content to urge Americans to exercise.

    An earlier version of the campaign’s solicitation asked for partners to boost wearables, such as gadgets that track steps or glucose levels — reflecting a Kennedy push for every American to be wearing such a device within four years.

    The source of funds for the exercise campaign? In the spring, leadership of multiple agencies discussed using funding for the CDC’s Tips From Former Smokers campaign, employees from those agencies said. By the fall, the smoking program had not spent all its funds, the current and former CDC employees said.

    Nixon did not respond to questions about the source of funding for the exercise campaign.

    Food fight

    At the FDA, former employees said they noticed new types of political interference as Trump officials took the reins, sometimes making subtle tweaks to public communications, sometimes changing wholesale what messages went out. The interventions into messaging — what was said, but also what went unsaid — proved problematic, they said.

    Early this year, multiple employees told KFF Health News, Nixon gave agency employees a quick deadline to gather a list of all policy initiatives underway on infant formula. That was then branded “Operation Stork Speed,” as if it were a new push by a new administration.

    Marianna Naum, a former acting director of external communications and consumer education at the FDA, said she supports parts of the Trump administration’s agenda. But she said she disagreed with how it handled Operation Stork Speed. “It felt like they were trying to put out information so they can say: ‘Look at the great work. Look how fast we did it,’” she said.

    Nixon called the account “false” without elaborating. KFF Health News spoke with three other employees with the same recollections of the origins of Operation Stork Speed.

    “Things that didn’t fit within their agenda, they were downplayed,” Naum said.

    For example, she said, Trump political appointees resisted a proposed news release noting agency approval of cell-cultured pork — that is, pork grown in a lab. Similar products have raised the ire of ranchers and farmers working in typically GOP-friendly industries. States such as Florida have banned lab-grown meat.

    The agency ultimately issued the news release. But a review of the agency’s archives showed it has not put out news releases about two later approvals of cell-cultured meat.

    Wide-ranging layoffs have also hit the FDA’s food office hard, leaving fewer people to make sure news gets distributed properly and promptly. Former employees say notices about recalled foods are not circulated as widely as they used to be, meaning fewer eyeballs on alerts about contaminated ice cream, peaches, and the like.

    Nixon did not respond to questions about changes in food recalls. Overall, Nixon answered nine of 53 questions posed by KFF Health News.

    Pushing politics

    Televised HHS public service campaigns earned nearly 7.3 billion fewer impressions in the first half of 2025 vs. the same period in 2022, according to iSpot data, with the drop being concentrated in pro-vaccine messaging. Other types of ads, such as those covering substance use and mental health, also fell. Data from the marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows similar drops in HHS ad spending online.

    With many of the longtime professionals laid off and new political appointees in place atop the hierarchy, a new communications strategy — bearing the hallmarks of Kennedy’s personality — is being built, said the current and former HHS employees, plus public health officials interviewed by KFF Health News.

    Whereas in 2024, the agency would mostly post public health resources such as the 988 suicide hotline on its Instagram page, its feed in 2025 features more of the health secretary himself. Through the end of August, according to a KFF Health News review, 77 of its 101 posts featured Kennedy — often fishing, biking, or doing pull-ups, as well as pitching his policies.

    By contrast, only 146 of the agency’s 754 posts last year, or about 20%, featured Xavier Becerra, Kennedy’s predecessor.

    In 2024, on Instagram, the agency promoted Medicare and individual insurance open enrollment; in 2025, the agency has not.

    In 2024, the agency’s Instagram feed included some politicking as Biden ran for reelection, but the posts were less frequent and often indirect — for instance, touting a policy enacted under Biden’s signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, but without mentioning the name of the bill or its connection to the president.

    In 2025, sloganeering is a frequent feature of the agency’s Kennedy-era Instagram. Through the end of August, “Make America Healthy Again” or variants of the catchphrase featured in at least 48% of posts.

    Amid the layoffs, the agency made a notable addition to its team. It hired a state legislative spokesperson as a “rapid response” coordinator, a role that employees from previous administrations could not recall previously existing at HHS.

    “Like other Trump administration agencies, HHS is continuously rebutting fake news for the benefit of the public,” Nixon said when asked about the role.

    On the day Houry and Susan Monarez, the CDC leader ousted in late August, testified before senators about Kennedy’s leadership, the agency’s X feed posted clips belittling the former officials. The department also derisively rebuts unfavorable news coverage.

    “It’s very interesting to watch the memeification of the United States and critical global health infrastructure,” said McKenzie Wilson, an HHS spokesperson under Biden. “The entire purpose of this agency is to inform the public about safety, emergencies as they happen.”

    ‘Clear, powerful messages from Bobby’

    Kennedy’s Make Our Children Healthy Again report, released in September, proposes public awareness campaigns on subjects such as illegal vaping and fluoride levels in water, while reassuring Americans that the regulatory system for pesticides is “robust.”

    Those priorities reflect — and are amplified by — cadres of activists outside government. Since the summer, HHS officials have appeared on Zoom calls with aligned advocacy groups, trying to drum up support for Kennedy’s agenda.

    On one call — on which, according to host Tony Lyons, activists “representing over 250 million followers on social media” were registered — famous names such as motivational speaker Tony Robbins gave pep talks about how to influence elected officials and the public.

    “Each week, you’re gonna get clear, powerful messages from Bobby, from HHS, from their team,” Robbins said. “And your mission is to amplify it, to make it your own, to speak from your soul, to be bold, to be relentless, to be loving, to be loud, you know, because this is how we make the change.”

    The communications strategy captivates the public, but it also confuses it.

    Anne Zink, formerly the chief medical officer for Alaska, said she thought Kennedy’s messaging was some of the catchiest of any HHS director.

    But, she said, in her work as an emergency physician, she has seen the consequences of his health department’s policies on her puzzled patients. Some question vaccines. Children show up with gastrointestinal symptoms Zink says she suspects are related to raw milk consumption.

    “I increasingly see people say, ‘I just don’t know what to trust, because I just hear all sorts of things out there,’” she said.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

  • Philly’s Arts Scene Runs on “Temple Made” Talent

    Philly’s Arts Scene Runs on “Temple Made” Talent

    Philadelphia is home to world-class museums, a nationally recognized public art collection, a celebrated orchestra, renowned dance companies, and a thriving film and theater scene. It is a global arts destination. Many of the people who power this cultural engine share the distinction of being “Temple Made.” They are the artists, storytellers, and cultural leaders who keep the city’s creative life moving forward.

    Across generations, alumni from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, the Boyer College of Music and Dance, and the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts (TFMA) have shaped Philadelphia’s artistic identity. Now, more than 15,000 Temple arts alumni call the region home. They lead cultural institutions, curate cutting-edge exhibitions, and produce prize-winning performances. They work at every level of the creative sector as cultural influencers, independent artists, teachers, clinicians, and community innovators. Together, they are creating new spaces that keep the arts vibrant and accessible. And by fueling the arts in Philly, these Owls are moving Philadelphia forward.

    “The way in which art builds community is critical,” Susan E. Cahan, the dean of Tyler School of Art & Architecture, said. “Art expands what we can imagine, and everything else flows from that: empathy, mutual understanding, and our ability to envision shared futures.”

    Temple’s roots in arts education stretch back more than a century. Today, Tyler, Boyer, and TFMA collectively present hundreds of exhibitions, performances, and productions each year on Temple’s Main Campus. Recently, the university announced a new partnership with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. That collaboration, along with the acquisition of Terra Hall in Center City and the construction of the Caroline Kimmel Pavilion for Arts and Communication (scheduled to open in fall of 2027 on Broad Street on Temple’s Main Campus) positions the university as a vital anchor at multiple points along the Avenue of the Arts. Together, these developments are greatly expanding Temple’s creative influence and furthering its mission to combine artistic excellence with public purpose.

    “Philadelphia has a reputation as an arts powerhouse that we’ve had the privilege to build upon, and we take our responsibility to sustain it seriously,” Robert T. Stroker, the Joslyn G. Ewart Dean of Temple’s Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts, said.

    Here’s how three Temple alumni are stewarding Philadelphia’s cultural infrastructure in order to keep the arts alive, evolving, and rooted in community.

    Valerie Gay

    Chief Cultural Officer, City of Philadelphia

    Executive Director, Creative Philadelphia

    Valerie Gay, who goes by Val, oversees one of the nation’s largest and oldest public art collections, which comprises more than 1,000 works including A Quest for Parity: The Octavius V. Catto Memorial and the forthcoming Harriet Tubman monument, by Alvin Pettit at City Hall. In her role with the City of Philadelphia, she also guides citywide cultural programming; exhibitions in City Hall; and major initiatives such as Healing Verse Germantown, a poetry and public art installation; Mural Arts Philadelphia, a nonprofit that supports the creation of public murals; and the city’s first Arts & Culture Master Plan, an initiative by Creative Philadelphia to imagine the city’s cultural future.

    Gay earned her master’s in voice performance from Temple’s Boyer College of Music and Dance while working full-time. That experience shaped her disciplined, systems-based leadership style. “Temple taught me that structure brings freedom,” she said.

    For Gay, sustaining Philadelphia’s cultural landscape is both a responsibility and a joy. “Philadelphia doesn’t just power the arts,” she said. “The arts power Philadelphia.”

    Lindsay Smiling

    Co-Artistic Director, Wilma Theater

    For Lindsay Smiling, theater has always been a way to explore identity and connection. At the Wilma Theater, one of Philadelphia’s most influential theater companies, he leads with a vision that elevates bold storytelling while ensuring audiences feel invited into the performance.

    “Even when the work is abstract, it shouldn’t feel inaccessible,” he said. After earning his MFA at Temple, Smiling built a wide-ranging acting career before joining the Wilma’s HotHouse Company, known for its collaborative, actor-driven approach. When he later stepped into a leadership role, he was determined to keep artists at the center of the process.

    Now, as part of Temple’s faculty, he’s inspired by the students shaping the future of the field. “I learn from them every day,” he said. For Smiling, seeing Temple alumni across the city reinforces a shared foundation. “We’re coming from something special,” he said.

    Jennifer Zwilling

    Curator and Director of Artistic Programs, The Clay Studio

    Jennifer Zwilling’s work at The Clay Studio helped lay the foundation for Philadelphia’s rise as a national destination for contemporary ceramics. In her role, she leads exhibitions, residencies, and hands-on learning programs that welcome thousands of people, from schoolchildren to working artists, into the studio each year. She has helped to strengthen The Clay Studio’s role as a citywide resource for creativity, connection, and craft.

    A Tyler alum, Zwilling earned her master’s in art history while soaking up the school’s studio culture. Her education shaped her belief that artists and scholars should work side by side. After 14 years at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as an assistant curator of American Decorative Arts and Contemporary Craft, she joined The Clay Studio in 2014 and helped guide its 2022 relocation to a new 34,000-square-foot home in Kensington.

    “Art isn’t just something to look at,” she said. “It’s something people deserve to experience and make. That belief drives everything we do here.”

    Owls in the Arts

    Temple alumni play major roles at these Philadelphia arts organizations and more:

    • BlackStar Film Festival
    • City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy
    • Crane Arts
    • Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts
    • The Clay Studio
    • The Wilma Theater

    Read more about how Temple powers the arts in Philly.