A decade in New Jersey
It's a milestone day here at POLITICO — the 10th anniversary of New Jersey Playbook. When it officially launched on July 24, 2015, Chris Christie was preparing to run for president, a relative unknown named Phil Murphy was laying the groundwork for governor and — you won't believe this — New Jersey Transit riders had been getting stranded and delayed for days.
Playbook has evolved, but it has had one constant. Matt Friedman has been the author from day one, delivering exclusive reporting, sharp insights into New Jersey politics and tons of puns. It is an unmatched length of time to lead a POLITICO newsletter and a rare feat to keep it relevant with increased competition.
Thanks to Matt, Playbook is New Jersey's must-read newsletter weekday mornings. But a special thanks goes out to all the political junkies and devoted readers who don't hesitate to send me or Matt a note when it hasn't hit their inbox on time, is missing a birthday or the top simply ticks them off.
I also want to acknowledge Ryan Hutchins, who has also been with POLITICO New Jersey from the start, first as bureau chief and now as the company's editorial director of states. He's done his fair share of Playbook duty and been integral to the success of New Jersey's operation.
On behalf of the whole New Jersey team, thank you for waking up with Playbook the last 10 years. Here's to many more.
FEEDBACK? Reach me at dracioppi@politico.com
WHERE'S MURPHY? Traveling to Colorado for the National Governors Association summer meeting.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'The right to vote is a fundamental aspect of our democracy, one that the FBI and our law enforcement partners strive to protect. Craig Callaway's nefarious plot to hijack mail-in ballots resulted in his arrest and subsequent sentencing, and serves as a reminder to like-minded criminals, voter fraud will not be tolerated in New Jersey,' FBI Special Agent in Charge Stefanie Roddy, after Atlantic City council president and operative Craig Callaway was sentenced to two years in prison.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — The AP's Mike Catalini, former Assemblymember Ned Thomson, Ridgewood manager Keith Kazmark.
MORNING MONEY: CAPITAL RISK — POLITICO's flagship financial newsletter has a new Friday edition built for the economic era we're living in: one shaped by political volatility, disruption and a wave of policy decisions with sector-wide consequences. Each week, Morning Money: Capital Risk brings sharp reporting and analysis on how political risk is moving markets and how investors are adapting. Want to know how health care regulation, tariffs, or court rulings could ripple through the economy? Start here.
WHAT TRENTON MADE
JACK AND JIM — Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli formally unveiled his lieutenant governor pick, Morris County Sheriff Jim Gannon, on Wednesday.
Gannon's supporters range the political spectrum. He's posed for pictures with conservative radio host Bill Spadea — who ran against Ciattarelli in the GOP primary for governor — and has been supported by Democrats like former Gov. Dick Codey.
Ciattarelli was eager to note one erstwhile Gannon supporter: Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill (she represents Morris County in Congress).
'I read a quote this morning from someone that said: 'Thank you, Jim, for all your excellent work and making our community better,'' Ciattarelli said inside a packed bar in Boonton. 'That was Mikie Sherrill.'
While lieutenant governor picks are not viewed as attracting votes in November, the selection of Gannon could be viewed as a way to shore up support in Morris County — a longtime GOP stronghold where Democrats have been making inroads. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco, a childhood friend of Gannon who spoke at the launch, said that the sheriff 'has outperformed other Republicans in the district time after time.'
The Sherrill campaign — which has not announced a running mate yet — said that the pick showed Republicans on 'defense.'
'Trailing badly in the polls, Ciattarelli is clearly playing defense in Morris County, a traditional GOP stronghold where Mikie has consistently won and overperformed, as New Jersey voters gear up to reject him a third time around,' Sherrill campaign manager Alex Ball said in a statement.
Spadea praised Ciattarelli's pick for LG in a statement as 'a solid law enforcement leader' and 'beloved public servant' who 'forces Sherrill to fight on her home turf in Morris County and brings some LEO credibility to the Republican ticket.'
— Daniel Han
PLATERSON — Supreme Court sides with Platkin in Paterson police takeover, by POLITICO's Dustin Racioppi: The state attorney general can maintain oversight of the Paterson Police Department, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The decision is a victory for Attorney General Matt Platkin in the nearly two-year legal battle questioning his authority. His office took control of the city police in March 2023 shortly after officers fatally shot a Paterson man experiencing a mental health episode and after years of misconduct in the department.
NORCROSS CASE — Norcross attorneys lambast Platkin's appeal of corruption indictment dismissal, by POLITICO's Madison Fernandez: Attorneys for Democratic power broker George Norcross pushed back against state Attorney General Matt Platkin's appeal of a Superior Court judge's dismissal of a corruption indictment against their client, saying that the indictment's 'allegations are stale, with nothing of consequence happening in almost a decade.' Michael Critchley, one of Norcross' attorneys, acknowledged that their response to the appeal, which was filed on Wednesday, 'seems very similar to the arguments we've made previously' because 'the Attorney General has once again failed to identify a single crime that any Defendant committed.' 'Simply repeating the inaccurate and insufficient claims contained in the original charges, as the Office of the Attorney General did in its lengthy appeal, does not change the simple fact that hard bargaining is not a crime and never has been,' Critchley said in a statement.
ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL ORDER — Murphy signs executive order to evaluate megabill impacts, by POLITICO's Madison Fernandez: Gov. Phil Murphy said he is looking to 'mitigate harm' caused by President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act with an executive order that directs state agencies to evaluate the impacts of the federal legislation on their budgets.The order, which Murphy signed on Wednesday, requires all state agencies to submit a preliminary assessment and recommended legislative measures for the current session by Oct. 1. Non-legislative measures need to be submitted by Nov. 15. … 'The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a fiscal disaster that fails to deliver for working-class families in New Jersey and across the country,' Murphy said in a statement. 'This law rips away health care from vulnerable children and families, guts food assistance, and raises costs for everyday Americans.'
GETTING THE HELL OFF THE BEACH — Assembly considering summer voting session, Greenwald says, by POLITICO's Daniel Han: The state Assembly may reconvene for a rare summer voting session, the chamber's majority leader said. The exact scope of the voting session isn't clear, although it would be expected to address legislation to overhaul the beleaguered State Health Benefits Program. The public workers health insurance program is headed toward insolvency and local governments on the plan face a proposed rate hike of around 37 percent for the upcoming plan year. 'I think there needs to be a short-term fix and a long-term fix,' Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald said of the SHBP in an interview. 'We are scheduling a voting session for the summer, which has really never been done in my career.'
— 'NJ public defender's office sues over 'secret' state police DNA database'
TRUMP ERA
HABBA SAGA — The firing of a veteran prosecutor in New Jersey escalates Trump's war with the courts, by POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Ry Rivard: The Trump administration opened a new front in its war with the courts this week — and fired a veteran federal prosecutor in the process — in a dramatic tussle over the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office. Now it's not clear who is in charge. Federal judges exercised a 160-year-old power to select a temporary prosecutor on Tuesday to lead the office, following President Donald Trump's failure to win quick Senate confirmation for his pick: his former personal lawyer Alina Habba.
— 'Who Is Desiree Grace, the Prosecutor Caught Up in a Judicial Crisis?'
IMMIGRATION — 'ICE arrests in Pa. and N.J. are surging, including people without criminal records,' by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Joe Yerardi: 'The number of people ICE arrested in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania surged around the time the agency reportedly implemented a 3,000 arrests-a-day quota in late May, according to recently released government data. Arrests doubled from an average of 26 a day since President Donald Trump took office through May 21 to an average of 51 a day between May 22 and June 26 for the three states. At the same time, the proportion of people arrested without a criminal record or pending criminal charges has exploded, up two-thirds since the directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement was issued.'
SAND DOLLARS — 'Federal cutbacks hit NJ beach renewal projects,' By NJ Spotlight News' Brenda Flanagan: 'For the first time in almost 30 years, the flow of sand and dollars for beach renewal at the Jersey Shore has stopped. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' projects in Ocean City, Stone Harbor and Avalon, among others, were cut in 2025 by the Trump administration. Avalon on its own scraped up and moved 40,000 cubic yards of sand to bolster eroded beaches at its northern end, a stopgap paid for with local tax dollars. But Avalon Mayor John McCorristin said Avalon needs 10 times that amount of sand replenishment, at a cost of millions they can't afford without federal aid.'
LOCAL
WRECKED DIRECTOR — 'Ex-rec director says Bergen County town fired him over objections to summer camp issues,' by NorthJersey.com's Kaitlyn Kanzler: 'Did a complaint about alleged issues at a summer camp hosted by Cresskill, and run by a councilwoman's relative, lead to the firing of the recreation director? He says so. Jason Mitchell was hired as the director of the department of parks and recreation in 2020 and said he was responsible for 'the planning, implementation and management of recreational programs, including summer camps,' and received praise for his performance.'
— 'Arango, District 9 GOP congressional hopeful, praise Schillari for leaving Dem Party'
— 'As rents surge in Jersey City, mayoral candidates offer diverging plans on affordable housing'
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New York Post
23 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trouble-packed NYC animal shelters land another $1M in taxpayer funds — GOP's Sliwa slams as ‘drop in the bucket'
The city is dumping another $1 million into its troubled jam-packed animal-shelter system to hire and train 14 new staffers, City Hall said Friday. The Animal Care Centers of New York City — a nonprofit with a $1.4 billion contract to run the Big Apple's animal-shelter system for 34 years — recently announced it was suspending its intake of dogs and cats because of 'critical' overcrowding. The move came days after a Post expose revealed ongoing sickening conditions at ACC's new $75 million city-funded shelter in Queens. Advertisement 5 Anna Garguilo, an adoptions counselor with Charmy, 4, an Akita mix. Stephen Yang 'ACC's work to ensure no animal is left behind is essential to protecting animals across New York City, and our administration is proud to invest $1 million in additional funding to support the work ACC does and boost their capacity to better care for animals,' Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. 'I also urge New Yorkers looking for a pet addition to their families to adopt, so we can ensure that every animal can find a loving home.' Advertisement But GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa slammed the funding announcement as a piecemeal solution to the larger problem of animal welfare in Gotham. 'The city has completely ignored animal welfare,' Sliwa wrote on X. 'Today's $1M for ACC is a drop in the bucket. ACC has a 34-year contract worth over $1B—and yet our shelters are overcrowded, surrenders are paused, and animals are suffering.' 5 New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa holds a campaign event outside of an Animal Care Center on 110th street in East Harlem in Manhattan. Stephen Yang 5 'ACC has a 34-year contract worth over $1B—and yet our shelters are overcrowded, surrenders are paused, and animals are suffering,' Sliwa said. Stephen Yang Advertisement The red-beret-wearing Republican, who shares an apartment with six rescue cats, earlier this week called for the city to end its contract with ACC and replace it with a city-run overhaul that would include a 'quasi-private public partnership' to shift the cost away from taxpayers. A new animal welfare agency would be created in the 'basement' of City Hall and all shelters would be kill-free and offer free spay and neuter programs under a Sliwa administration. The ACC has three active sites across the five boroughs with more than 1,000 animals in its care. 5 New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks at a press conference to announce that 200 rescues have been made through the NYPD's drone and enforcement operations targeting subway surfing on July 21, 2025 in New York City. Andrew Schwartz / Advertisement 5 A new animal welfare agency would be created in the 'basement' of City Hall and all shelters would be kill-free and offer free spay and neuter programs under a Sliwa administration. Stephen Yang While the ACC is mandated to have a location in each of the five boroughs, the Brooklyn location is currently closed till 2026 for renovations, and the Bronx resource center has been 'temporarily' closed since May. Another $92 million facility in The Bronx is still under construction even though it was slated to open in the spring. The ACC did not respond to a Post request for comment. Adams' campaign did not respond to a request for comment, either.
NBC News
24 minutes ago
- NBC News
A global HIV/AIDS program that saved millions of lives faces cuts under the Trump administration
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering a dramatic cutback and eventual phasing out of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the U.S. program to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries that has been widely credited with saving 26 million lives since its inception in 2003, according to multiple congressional and administration officials. Created during the George W. Bush administration, PEPFAR was launched with star-power support from U2 frontman and advocate for developing countries, Bono, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank. In the two decades since, it enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Congress. But as the Trump administration has sought to cut costs across the U.S. government, particularly for global aid programs, PEPFAR has come up on the chopping block. The administration initially proposed a cut of $400 million from next year's budget, but that funding was restored at the last minute by the Republican-led Senate last week, keeping it going in the short term. Four congressional aides told NBC News that the program was virtually frozen, along with most funding for USAID, in early February. Contracts with providers were put on hold and funding was reduced to what they called a 'trickle.' They said that most promised State Department waivers for critical care did not materialize, and that 51% of current PEPFAR appropriations were either terminated or were not functional. 'They're sitting on the money,' congressional officials said. 'We're not seeing it in the field.' According to the aides, in April, the State Department's then-director of the Office of Foreign Assistance, Peter Marocco, working with Elon Musk's DOGE team to dismantle foreign aid, briefed Congress that PEPFAR would refocus on maternal and child HIV transmission, excluding LGBT individuals and most preventative care that the program has done for decades. Earlier this month, a senior State Department official told reporters, 'The program was actually drowning in too much money, in some cases, you know, sort of going beyond its core mandate.' The official said, 'So instead, we're going to focus on that lifesaving care' and 'work with countries on self-reliance' to ensure there is not a gap in coverage. The senior official said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is drawing a distinction between people who have HIV and need lifesaving direct treatment, and preventative care for sex workers as well as bisexual and gay men. The State Department official also said, 'It doesn't mean that the United States has to pay for every single thing around the world." "A lot of these countries, they've graduated to the point where their HIV rates are low enough and their economy is healthy enough that they can continue to pay for some of these things. We can get in, make positive change and then get out rather than paying forever so that every sex worker in Africa has PrEP," the official said, referring to HIV medication. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas testified to Congress last week that, overall, in the administration's budget request for the next fiscal year there is a 54% cut in PEPFAR's administrative, nondirect care funds. That is in addition to a 15% cut in the department's budget request for direct care in the same budget request. A global health staff of 700 people plus contractors in the field prior to President Donald Trump taking office has been reduced to 80 people after recent firings. Last month, White House budget director Russell Vought told a Senate committee, without providing evidence, that PEPFAR spent $9.3 million 'to advise Russian doctors on how to perform abortions and gender analysis.' Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and former chairman of the Africa Subcommittee, told NBC News that PEPFAR had always planned to get countries that had developed their own hospitals and health care systems, such as South Africa, to take over funding the program by 2030. According to Coons, that transition is already underway. But he and other critics of the current budget cuts said that it is not possible in low-income conflict zones, such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti, to replace the U.S program anytime soon. Still, according to a draft planning memo reported by The New York Times, the State Department would shut down U.S. support in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Vietnam within two years. Nations with high HIV infection rates, including Kenya, Zimbabwe and Angola, would get three to four years, the Times reported, while lower-income countries would get up to eight years under the proposal. NBC News has not viewed the draft plan and a State Department official told NBC News it has not been finalized. Dr. Robert Black, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who evaluated PEPFAR for Congress, told NBC News, 'I think two years for a number of countries, for many countries in Africa, would be too short,' adding, 'I just can't imagine two years would be an effective transition.' Black also said maintaining prevention is 'clearly important" and that withdrawing funding for prevention, which is contemplated under the Trump plan, would increase HIV rates and expand the burden. Rubio, who as a senator supported PEPFAR and other foreign aid, defended $20 billion in overall proposed budget cuts to the Senate Foreign Relations committee in May, citing 'duplicative, wasteful and ideologically driven programs.' Asked last week about the PEPFAR cuts, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served in the Bush administration when PEPFAR was launched, told NBC News at the Aspen Security Forum, 'I do think PEPFAR is going to not only survive, I think it's going to be just fine. ... There will be some scaling back, and it's probably worth it to take a look at focusing on what we really need to focus on. We've become pretty dispersed and diffuse in the kinds of programs that we were running.' But, she added, 'what makes America different as a great power is that we have not led just with power, but we've also led with principle.' Later at the conference, Rice said launching PEPFAR was 'the proudest moment' in all of her government service. But she added that the U.S. also wants to build other countries' capacity and health care systems to sustain themselves. Former President Bush, in rare criticism of Trump's policies, praised fired foreign aid workers in a video last month. He told the State Department employees who had been fired, 'You've shown the great strength of America through your work, and that is our good heart.' Citing PEPFAR'S lifesaving work, Bush said, 'Is it in our interest that 25 million people who would have died, now live? I think it is. On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your hard work, and God bless you.' In a video, Bono told the foreign aid staff in verse, 'They called you crooks — when you were the best of us, there for the rest of us. And don't think any less of us, when politics makes a mess of us. It's not left-wing rhetoric to feed the hungry, heal the sick. If this isn't murder. I don't know what is.'
Politico
24 minutes ago
- Politico
The red state broadcaster bracing for funding cuts
Presented by Chevron Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond. Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben President DONALD TRUMP on Thursday signed legislation making sharp cuts to public broadcasting. Now, small, rural radio and TV stations across the country are bracing for the worst. One of those outlets is KEDT-TV/FM, a public radio and TV station in Corpus Christi, Texas. It's the only radio station in the region that has a news department, said station president and general manager DON DUNLAP, and covers a rural service area with a primarily Republican, low-income and Spanish-speaking audience. 'There are 10 public TV stations in Texas, and we're thinking probably six of them will close down within a year,' Dunlap predicted in an interview with West Wing Playbook. The White House maintains that the cuts — included in a rescissions package clawing back about $9 billion in previously approved federal funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid — would limit the taxpayer dollars going to NPR and PBS, the independent but publicly funded news outlets Republicans have long accused of peddling a leftwing bias. 'Democratic paper-pushers masquerading as reporters don't deserve taxpayer subsidies, and NPR and PBS will have to learn to survive on their own,' said White House principal deputy press secretary HARRISON FIELDS. 'Unfortunately for them, their only lifeline was taxpayer dollars, and that ended when President Trump was sworn in.' But critics, including four Congressional Republicans, have maintained that the rescissions would imperil dozens of local newsrooms with little connection to the national organizations — many in rural, deep-red areas. 'I think [lawmakers'] decisions were not informed,' Dunlap said. 'We're there to help people.' This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How will the passage of the rescissions package affect your stations? We would have to make a decision whether we're going to shut down the television service or we have to shut down the radio service. Both of them provide unique services in these communities that are not going to be picked up by commercial media, because the content is not commercially viable. There are other secondary impacts that we don't have any data on right now. What is it going to do to our programming costs? We buy about $600,000 worth of programming from NPR and PBS, and obviously their programming model is going to have to change if there are fewer stations involved. All these different unknowns make this scenario planning very, very difficult. Republicans say they're defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because NPR and PBS propagate left-wing positions. You're in a red district in a red state — how do you respond to that? That's said by a lot of people who don't listen or watch what we're doing here. On the TV side, there's just no way that we could even have two sides to something. What's the political side of bald eagles or nature programs about hurricanes or volcanoes, or classical music programming to play on the radio? There's no political side to that. We have a program on the radio called 'All Things Considered.' I think the nature of that program is what these people don't like. Some people don't like things to be talked about or covered. They want their information limited. So then they have to come up with a name for it, call it 'woke' or something. Both of Texas's senators supported the rescissions, as did your congressman, Rep. MICHAEL CLOUD (R-Texas). Have you spoken to any of them? Michael has been over here to the station, actually. We do an academic quiz show for high school kids that just finished season 20 … and we had him ask some questions about government. What I have found — watching the Congressional testimony and during our visits to the Hill — is that these members and senators have so much information coming to them. The only ones that really know anything in depth about it are their staff, and they're just boiled down to a couple of talking points. A spokesperson for Cloud did not respond to a request for comment. It's likely that many of your listeners are Republicans, too. What do they think about the cuts? We've had a ton of phone calls about all this. I haven't heard from anybody who supports cuts to public broadcasting. We have a big service with the schools down here. We work with over 100 school districts in South Texas, which we provide with PBS LearningMedia — over 120,000 educational videos. It's highly used in the schools, but nobody mentions that as one of the services that we do. MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at westwingtips@ Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe! POTUS PUZZLER Under which president was the Fine Arts Committee for the White House created? (Answer at bottom.) WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT TWO CAREER NOAA OFFICIALS OUT: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration placed two veteran officials on administrative leave today, NOAA's communications director confirmed to Ben and POLITICO's E&E News' DANIEL CUSICK. JEFF DILLEN, who was serving as NOAA deputy general counsel, and STEPHEN VOLZ, assistant administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service, were both placed on leave for separate issues, according to Kim Doster, the agency's communications director. 'Mr. Dillen was placed on administrative leave by the department's senior career attorney pending a review of performance issues over the past several weeks,' NOAA communications director KIM DOSTER said in a statement, adding that Volz was placed on leave 'on an unrelated matter.' It comes less than a week before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee takes up the confirmation of NEIL JACOBS, Trump's nominee to lead NOAA. Jacobs served as NOAA's acting administrator during Trump's first term, where he found himself embroiled in the 2019 'Sharpiegate' scandal, where he and another NOAA official, JULIE ROBERTS, were accused of pressuring scientists to alter the forecast of Hurricane Dorian, which killed dozens of people. Jacobs and Roberts were attempting to align the forecast with statements made by Trump, who said in the Oval Office that the hurricane would hit Alabama. In 2020, Volz led the investigation into Jacobs and Roberts, and found that the two officials violated the agency's 'scientific integrity policy.' The Oval 'THEY WANT TO DIE': Trump today said Hamas 'didn't want to make a deal' and that 'they want to die,' claiming the U.S.-designated terrorist group wants to retain the hostages to keep its negotiating power, Irie reports. It comes a day after the U.S. pulled out of ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas amid pressure on Israel from American allies to halt its military campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, which has led to widespread death and starvation. French President EMMANUEL MACRON said Thursday that his country would become the first of the G7 to recognize a Palestinian state. And Australian Prime Minister ANTHONY ALBANESE said that 'The situation in Gaza has gone beyond the world's worst fears.' Agenda Setting RELEASE THE FUNDS: KATIE BRITT (R-Ala.), along with 13 of her GOP colleagues, sounded the alarm about 'the slow disbursement rate' of National Institutes of Health funding included in the March spending bill signed by Trump, our KATHERINE TULLY-McMANUS reports. Britt, who serves as chair of the Senate Appropriations homeland subcommittee, wrote a letter today to White House Budget Chief RUSS VOUGHT, urging the Office of Management and Budget to 'fully implement' the stopgap government funding package enacted earlier this year. Suspension of the appropriated funds, whether delayed or formally withheld, 'could threaten Americans' ability to access better treatments and limit our nation's leadership in biomedical science,' the senators warned in the latest example of Republican pushback to the administration's pattern of withholding money from programs that lawmakers have explicitly set aside funds for. FUNDS, RELEASED: The Trump administration will release billions of dollars in education funding that have been on hold for review for weeks, our MACKENZIE WILKES reports. Approximately $1.3 billion for after-school programs was released by the administration last week, with today's move marking the release of the remaining portion of the nearly $7 billion in withheld funding. The remaining dollars include money to support teacher preparation and students learning English, among other initiatives. 'UNAVOIDABLE' LAYOFFS: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is planning for mass layoffs in October due to the Trump administration's budget cuts, POLITICO's E&E News' CHRISTA MARSHALL reports. In a video distributed to staff this month, Lab Director MICHAEL WITHERELL said 'as we look ahead to the federal budget for fiscal year 2026, it has become clear that staffing reductions at the lab are unavoidable.' It comes as the nation's 17 national labs that support research on technologies ranging from EVs to coal are facing significant changes due to the cuts. Energy Secretary CHRIS WRIGHT has been a major proponent of the labs, calling them important for implementing the administration's energy priorities. Even as the administration builds additional data centers throughout the country, the president's proposed budget for fiscal 2026 would slash funding for many lab programs, including Lawrence Berkeley. What We're Reading Inside Trump's plan to keep control of Congress in 2026 (POLITICO's Jake Traylor and Adam Wren) ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship (The Atlantic's Lila Shroff) What the Timeline Reveals About Trump and the Epstein files (POLITICO's Ankush Khardori) Trump bump drives D.C. demand for house managers and private chefs (Axios' Mimi Montgomery) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER During the JOHN F. KENNEDY administration, first lady JACQUELINE KENNEDY created the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, made up of specialists in the field, and hired LORRAINE WAXMAN PEARCE as the first curator of the White House, according to the White House Historical Association. To learn more about the presidents and first ladies and how to draw them, check out How to Draw the Presidents and First Ladies.
