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  • From attendee to MVP: The Rumph Classic women’s final highlights growth of the game

    From attendee to MVP: The Rumph Classic women’s final highlights growth of the game

    Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center was filled with laughter, hugs, reunions, and lots of stellar basketball on Sunday.

    The 21st annual Danny Rumph Classic hosted its fourth women’s championship game Sunday, and though the competition was intense, players and fans were there to support the Daniel E. Rumph II Foundation, and many described Sunday as a “homecoming.”

    “This is just one big happy family,” Delaware County native Joy Morton said of Team Harper. “That’s the only way I can put it. You see people that you grew up with, that you played basketball with, all coming out for a good cause.”

    The five-day pro-am tournament raises awareness and donations in support of research into hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the heart condition that caused Danny Rumph to die unexpectedly in 2005 while playing the game he loved.

    Ashley Jones is a Philly native who graduated from Neumann Goretti.Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer

    Since then, the Rumph Foundation has been committed to providing defibrillators and CPR training at recreation centers and Boys & Girls Clubs in the area. The pinnacle event of the year is the annual men’s classic, which over the years has welcomed NBA stars, including Jalen Brunson, Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Maxey, and more. On Friday, Jaylen Brown made an appearance to watch from the sideline.

    Team Copper and Team Harper faced off Sunday in the final, where Team Copper secured a 62-61 overtime victory. The final point was scored by Ashley Jones, a graduate of Neumann Goretti. She was named co-MVP alongside Azana Davis.

    How Philly hoops shaped D.J. Rivera and his son, Derrick Morton-Rivera, to do ‘what you love’

    “That’s what excites me,” said Rumph’s mother, Viola Owens, after the game. “We get all these young kids here, and look at her [pointing to Jones] — her mother was carrying her when we first started. I had to go hug her, because her father and Danny were friends, and I remember when she was just a little kid, and now she’s MVP.”

    Generations of players were on the court and in the stands. Kids ran around shooting hoops between games, and conversations constantly paused to watch the women dunk or to greet old friends.

    “I’ve been coming since they were still holding this at Mallery [Recreation Center],” said Kristen Hart, an assistant principal at Mastery Charter School. “I’m real excited for this game, because I know all these people, some of them were my students, and there’s a lot of good basketball in Philadelphia, and it’s competitive on every level.”

    Molly Masciantonio played four years at La Salle and was named an assistant coach for the Explorers in May.Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer

    Team Harper held a narrow lead for much of the game, with Taylor O’Brien scoring 27 of the team’s 61 points, until Team Copper shut down O’Brien. That strategy worked, allowing Team Harper — named after Philadelphia basketball legend Laura Harper — to take home the trophy.

    “When I got asked to play [for Team Harper], I was honored, of course I’m going to play,” said Molly Masciantonio, who played at La Salle and is now an assistant coach there. “Especially with the women having this sports culture in Philly, all coming together and showing little girls that they can play this game and make a life doing it. I’m really proud of this team and this event.”

    The women’s championship is followed by the men’s championship on Monday night, where in years past the gymnasium has sold out, and the excitement for the final was already brewing.

  • A 61-year-old woman was killed, another man injured, in North Philly shooting

    A 61-year-old woman was shot and killed in North Philadelphia after a shooting Sunday night.

    Philadelphia Police Department officers responded to the 2800 block of N. 24th Street around 11:49 p.m. for a report of a person with a gun. Officers found Michelle Wilson, 61, on a porch suffering from gunshot wounds to the neck and back. Wilson was transported to Temple University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 12:04 a.m. on Monday.

    A second person, a 67-year-old man, was found on the same porch suffering from gunshot wounds to his backside. Police transported the man to Temple University Hospital and was placed in stable condition.

    Anyone with information is urged to contact the Homicide Unit at 215-686-3334 or call the PPD tip line at 215-686-8477. As with all homicides in the city of Philadelphia, there is a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.

    This section of North Philadelphia has already experienced two fatal shootings this summer in June, according to the most recent data supplied by the City Controller, and in that same month, a 16-year-old was shot and injured one block from where Sunday night’s shooting occurred.

    According to police, at least seven shootings occurred this past weekend, including the fatal shooting of 70-year-old Felix Serrano, who was found shot in the chest while sitting in his car near Hunting Park.

  • How could Cheltenham look in 2040? The township calls for more businesses, community spaces, and may adopt a lesson from Ardmore

    How could Cheltenham look in 2040? The township calls for more businesses, community spaces, and may adopt a lesson from Ardmore

    Cheltenham Township’s latest long-range plan, approved last month, provides a glimpse of how the township of 38,000 could look by 2040.

    The Montgomery County Planning Commission, alongside officials and volunteers from the township — one of Philadelphia’s oldest suburbs — spent several years on the plan, said Carl Freedman, a Cheltenham planning volunteer.

    “Communities like Cheltenham have a difficult time, being so developed, that being given an opportunity to direct where new development goes is helpful,” Freedman said.

    The comprehensive plan, which exceeds 200 pages, lays out challenges and recommendations, ranging from streetlights to denser housing, for the township’s homes, businesses, transportation networks, community services, and historical assets over the next 10 to 15 years.

    More business, more tax money

    Many of Cheltenham’s residents still commute to Philadelphia, but more people are working from home after the pandemic, creating opportunities to welcome new restaurants and other businesses, planners wrote.

    Which is sorely needed, because Cheltenham wants more tax money without a ton of new residents.

    One of the challenges for the township, which has very little undeveloped land remaining, is its large proportion of institutional properties — universities, churches, and other nonprofit entities — that do not pay property tax, planners wrote: “Institutions such as non-profits or higher education have taken over many of the large estates in the township. This supports the preservation of these historic and beautiful places but at the same time has real impacts on the tax revenue of the township.”

    Plans to attract business include reviewing rules for home-based enterprises, identifying opportunities to convert some of the parking spaces at large shopping centers into sites for new shops, and piloting a program to bring more food trucks to major commercial streets.

    More main streets, more trees, slower traffic

    The comprehensive plan identifies several neighborhood hubs with potential for more development that Cheltenham could encourage by slowing traffic with road narrowing and other measures, and adding decor to draw foot traffic into town centers.

    Glenside and Elkins Park East top the list for main street revitalization, according to the plan. Wider sidewalks on Glenside Avenue and decorative lighting on Wesley and East Glenside Avenues could be part of the solution, planners wrote.

    Public art and infrastructure marking the entrances to the downtowns could also help to give these neighborhoods a sense of place.

    Tree cover is also key, the planners wrote — both preserving existing foliage and planting new trees in hotter, exposed areas, like the parking lot at the Elkins Park Square mall.

    Denser housing, more pedestrians

    Cheltenham has plenty of multifamily apartments compared with other Montgomery County towns, making up about a third of residences.

    But putting additional dense housing in the right locations could liven up Cheltenham’s downtowns without adding too much traffic, planners wrote, by encouraging public transit use.

    Putting more apartments above existing storefronts would create taller buildings that balance out some of the township’s wider streets, encouraging pedestrian traffic and patronage of local businesses, the comprehensive plan notes.

    Planners pointed to a similar approach Ardmore took in the 1990s as a model: “Through the Downtown Ardmore District’s work and an increase in multifamily residences in the vicinity of the business district, the neighborhood has experienced increased redevelopment and economic vitality without sacrificing its historic character.”

    Cheltenham could build more attractive bus shelters and benches to further encourage mass transit, and add bike parking at SEPTA Regional Rail stations.

    The township is also considering encouraging more accessory dwelling units, allowing residents to add in-law suites and other small homes to their existing property.

    Tookany Creek in Elkins Park, PA pictured on Monday, April 11, 2022.

    Fresh community spaces

    Cheltenham’s municipal buildings are old: In 2022, the average age of township facilities was 117.

    The township’s administrative building is located in the former home of the Breyer’s ice cream family, Freedman said — and it was built during World War I.

    Cheltenham closed two of its libraries several years ago after boilers failed in both buildings, but plans to renovate only one, La Mott Free Library. The document does not mention plans to rehab the second, East Cheltenham Library.

    The township also plans to continue connecting trails along Tookany Creek and making those trails bike-friendly, and to consider preserving more historic buildings, such as Glenside National Bank.

    This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.

  • Should an insurer or a doctor decide where your care takes place?

    Should an insurer or a doctor decide where your care takes place?

    Every day, physicians, patients, and the families who care for them make hundreds of decisions together about where and how care should be delivered. Those choices reflect what matters most to the patient and family, alongside clinical expertise, patient safety, medical complexity, and access to the resources needed to achieve the best possible outcomes.

    Increasingly, however, these collective judgments are being second-guessed — and often overruled — by large insurance companies through policies that prioritize administrative convenience and cost-shifting over clinical judgment and the needs of the people receiving care.

    At Jefferson, where I am chief physician executive, we believe healthcare decisions should be made by patients, their families, and their care teams — not by insurance company policies that create barriers to treatment.

    Pedestrians walk by the entrance of the Gibbon Building at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Center City in October 2021.TYGER WILLIAMS / Staff Photographer

    That is why we are speaking out against a growing number of managed care policies, including recent actions by Independence Blue Cross, that delay care, increase administrative burden, and interfere with the ability of physicians and patients to determine together the most appropriate setting for treatment.

    Supporters of these policies describe them as efforts to control healthcare costs, but they have the opposite effect — at the expense of patient access, clinical judgment, and safe care delivery. When insurers insert additional layers of authorization, site-of-care reviews, exception requests, and excessive documentation requirements into the care process, the result is not greater value. It is greater friction.

    For patients and families, that friction can mean postponed procedures, unexpected changes in where care will be received, canceled appointments, additional paperwork, and uncertainty at a moment when many are already carrying the weight of a serious diagnosis.

    Families rearrange work schedules, travel plans, childcare, and other responsibilities around a procedure date — and then learn the date has moved for reasons that have nothing to do with the patient’s medical condition. Too often, patients and families are the last to know that a decision about their care is under review, and they are given little explanation of who made it or why.

    That is not information sharing. It is not participation. And it does not reflect the dignity and respect patients and families are owed as full partners in their own care.

    Too often, Edmund Pribitkin writes, patients and families are the last to know that a decision about their care is under review by insurers.manassanant pamai

    For physicians, nurses, and the rest of a care team, it means spending valuable time on administrative requirements rather than at the bedside, answering the questions patients and families actually need answered.

    The IBX Site of Care policy is one example. Under this new rule — which was implemented in June — certain procedures that have long been performed safely in a hospital outpatient setting must now undergo additional review that goes beyond determining whether the care is medically necessary. Physicians may need to prove why a patient cannot receive care in an alternative setting, submit exception requests, supply additional documentation, and navigate new administrative workflows before treatment can proceed.

    These requirements may sound modest on paper, but their cumulative impact is significant. They create new administrative costs that do not improve the quality of care, require additional staffing and resources, slow scheduling, and increase the likelihood of delays and disruptions for patients and families.

    Particularly concerning is the effect on high-volume services such as colonoscopies and other diagnostic procedures that are essential to prevention and early detection — the very care that keeps families healthy and catches disease when it is most treatable.

    This issue extends far beyond a single insurer or policy. Across the healthcare industry, patients, families, and their care teams are confronting an expanding web of insurer-imposed administrative requirements: prior authorizations, repeated documentation requests, portal submissions, denials, appeals, and site-of-care restrictions. Each requirement consumes time, resources, and attention that could otherwise be devoted to care itself.

    The question policymakers, employers, patients, and families should be asking is a simple one: Are these requirements improving care, or are they simply making care harder to access?

    IBX and Highmark want to cut costs by moving more outpatient care to surgery centers

    Patients and families deserve a healthcare system that removes barriers to care rather than creating new ones. They deserve to be told, clearly and promptly, when an insurer’s policy is affecting their care, and to have a real voice in decisions about where and how that care is delivered.

    Physicians deserve the ability to exercise clinical judgment, in partnership with patients and families, without unnecessary interference.

    And health systems should be able to devote their resources to caring for patients rather than navigating ever-changing administrative mandates.

    Jefferson supports accountability, transparency, and responsible stewardship of healthcare dollars. But we will continue to challenge policies that place insurance company bureaucracy between patients, families, and the care they need.

    Healthcare works best when decisions are guided by medical expertise, in partnership with patients and families — not by administrative hurdles that add cost, complexity, and delay without improving outcomes.

    Edmund Pribitkin is chief physician executive and executive vice president at Jefferson Health.

  • Planting native species is gaining popularity. Here’s how Jersey Shore gardeners do it.

    Planting native species is gaining popularity. Here’s how Jersey Shore gardeners do it.

    Virginia Rettig’s garden is her passion.

    The 60-foot-by-100-foot plot on her Cape May property boasts about 200 varieties of native plants, which she estimates have drawn roughly 135 wildlife species. Monarch butterflies, hummingbirds, cardinals, gray catbirds, moths, and a host of other creatures suck nectar from her flowers and drink water from the small waterfall that flows into a pond.

    Once she even saw a black-billed cuckoo, a rarity in Cape May.

    “During spring and fall migration, millions of birds fly through Cape May County, and every blade of vegetation is critically important for them when they need to stop for food,” Rettig said.

    Rettig owns Cape NativeScapes in Cape May. After a 30-year career in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, she is sharing her knowledge and passion for managing wildlife habitats by helping clients create native gardens.

    Virginia Rettig photographs a bush of bee balm and Eastern swamp milkweed outside her home.Vernon Ogrodnek / For The Inquirer

    She’s found plenty of customers who live at the Shore and want to help — not hinder — native species with their own landscaping choices. Nearly 80% of self-identified gardeners incorporate native plants into their outdoor spaces, according to gardening consumer research organization Simple Spring. And over a third dedicate a quarter to half of their garden to local flora.

    “People love nature and are itching for good information and support so they can provide these habitats for wildlife,” Rettig said.

    Areas once covered by native vegetation have been lost to development, replaced by ornamental landscapes, manicured lawns, and invasive species.

    But this increasingly popular practice of replenishing native plants serves the environment, birds, and wildlife, while growing roots to hold off erosion and conserve water.

    Types of plants at the Shore

    Native plants adapt well at the Shore where the conditions include wind, sandy soil, and salt spray, said Andrew Bunting, vice president of horticulture for the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society.

    Popular varieties include native grasses, such as American beachgrass, coastal panicgrass, and little bluestem varieties, which have a steely blue-green color in the summer and a coppery red hue in the fall.

    Butterfly milkweed, a favorite of monarch butterflies, blooms in Rettig’s garden.Vernon Ogrodnek / For The Inquirer

    “Butterfly weed is one of the most iconic of all the pollinator plants,” Bunting said. It “has vibrant orange flowers and is especially a magnet for the monarch butterfly, which is a threatened species.”

    It’s important to have perennial varieties that bloom at different times in the season to consistently provide nourishment to wildlife, Bunting said. For example, early spring might include a beach plum shrub, butterfly milkweed in midseason, and goldenrod late in the season.

    Native species are very hearty, need full sun, and require little care once established. They need to be watered when first planted, but once they take hold, rainwater is usually sufficient. Native plants can be mixed with non-native varieties as long as they have similar sun and water requirements.

    Attracting wildlife

    Pat Sutton, a working naturalist since 1977 for the Cape May Point State Park, and then the New Jersey Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory, hopes education will encourage more people to move toward native gardens.

    “There has been a lot of focus for too many years on instant gratification — pretty things that are forced to be in bloom well before nature intends,” Sutton said. “The focus on native plants is a focus on making sure wildlife can persist.”

    A bumblebee pollinates a bush of wild bergamot in Rettig’s garden.Vernon Ogrodnek / For The Inquirer

    Sutton’s website includes resources for native plants that attract birds and insects. For example, the coral honeysuckle vine and southern arrowwood shrub are especially attractive to moths when laying their eggs.

    Along with her husband, Clay, Sutton transformed her property into a wildlife habitat containing 205 native plants, including perennials, native trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, and ferns. She has recorded as visitors 213 bird species, 79 butterfly species, and 121 assorted other pollinators, including wasps, flies, bees, and beetles.

    “When I step outside, it’s like going into a wilderness, and it’s just a tiny yard,” she said. “But that’s what’s possible for people who embrace gardening with native plants.”

    Civic responsibility

    Strathmere residents have made native plantings a priority in homes and public areas throughout town. Along with N.J. Fish & Wildlife and Upper Township, the Strathmere Improvement Association Native Plant Committee members have erected gardens at several beach entrances, in front of the Schiavo Library, and around the Welcome to Strathmere sign.

    “We have a gem of a town and wanted to maximize the beauty of our beaches by cleaning up and planting at our entrances,” said Linda C. Bateman, a member of the committee that began planting gardens three years ago, adding a couple streets at a time.

    Native plants, including goldenrod, milkweed, bayberry, elderberry, Virginia rose, and New Jersey-native wildflowers, are labeled to educate beachgoers. The committee has raised awareness by offering talks led by gardening experts, holds native plant sales, and presents garden awards to residents who have dedicated yard space to pollinator plants. The town is a designated monarch butterfly way station.

    The entrance to Corson’s Inlet State Park, a part of Strathmere overseen by Belleplain State Forest, is also getting a makeover to include native plants.

    “Before development, there were areas across the barrier islands that were covered in low shrubs and small patches of forest,” said Chris Konicki, a Strathmere resident who is heading up the Maritime Forest Project with Peter Manzelmann from Belleplain State Forest.

    Their goal is to reintroduce native species that are indigenous to the area. Tree species such as eastern red cedar, American holly, black cherry, sassafras, black gum, and pitch pine will be planted, along with shrubs including bayberry, wax myrtle, beach plum, and Virginia rose. Small trees will feature winged sumac, a non-poisonous native species.

    A bumblebee pollinates a bush of Eastern swamp milkweed in Rettig’s garden.Vernon Ogrodnek / For The Inquirer

    “It’s an ongoing project that will slowly evolve over time and highlight some historical species that are no longer common in Strathmere and the surrounding islands,” Konicki said.

    These initiatives are important, Bateman said, as the native gardens do much more than just beautify and unify the beach entrances. Bees, butterflies, moths, and other insects are drawn to them. Wildlife including bats, frogs, songbirds, red wing blackbird, and finches, will feed on the insects.

    “We used to have fireflies in town, we used to have frogs trying to jump into our garage, and our windshields used to be covered in bugs,” Bateman said. “Where are they all? Clean air and clean water are not just human needs.”

  • Washington grapples with a National Guard deployment extended until 2029

    Washington grapples with a National Guard deployment extended until 2029

    WASHINGTON — It’s been 12 months since President Donald Trump announced a crime emergency in Washington, pledging to make the city “safe and beautiful” and deploying the National Guard.

    But a mission that seemed temporary has been extended through January 2029. Residents and a new cadre of local officials see in it an unacceptable attempt by the federal government to restrict the heavily Democratic city’s autonomy and, a year in, still question why having troops on the streets of the nation’s capital is necessary.

    “There’s a deep irony that here we are in the capital of the free world, and our president is treating it like a police state,” said Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia. “D.C. residents have lived with our National Guard troops in our neighborhoods for about a year, despite the absence of any genuine emergency and really any reason for them to be here.”

    The continued deployment will be a major test for a new batch of political candidates expected to take office after the midterms this fall. Residents will look to them to push back on the Republican president’s encroachment into the city’s affairs — although they’re limited in what they can do to counter it.

    Temporary deployment goes on and on

    On Aug. 11, 2025, Trump announced he was launching a federal law enforcement surge in Washington aimed at fighting crime. As of Aug. 4, more than 4,600 military personnel from D.C. and 24 states and territories were still deployed alongside unknown numbers of less visible federal law enforcement officers. Some are expected to be withdrawn toward the end of the summer.

    Small groups of armed guard members have become a routine presence on the streets. They have supported arrest operations but are also seen patrolling tourist areas, such as along the Tidal Basin during the Cherry Blossom Festival and in neighborhoods such as Georgetown where violent crimes are rare. They’ve helped with medical emergencies, snow removal, and beautification projects — initiatives that have received support from some residents.

    Extending the deployment into 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion, the Defense Department estimates. Exact figures on what’s been spent so far are unavailable, but the Congressional Budget Office projected in a report earlier this year the total cost for the first year of the deployment would be around $660 million, based on a monthly troop level of about 2,900, a figure that’s fluctuated throughout the mission.

    “President Trump has transformed D.C. from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an email.

    Figures released Monday by the U.S. Marshals Service showed over 16,000 arrests have been made since the surge began, including 35 homicide suspects and 3,200 narcotics arrests. Authorities also have seized nearly 2,000 illegal firearms.

    Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that the arrests and weapons seizures “mean safer neighborhoods and lives protected.”

    Crime, which was falling before the surge began, continues to drop. Metropolitan Police Department statistics show overall crime was down 20% through Friday, compared with the same period in 2025. That includes a 32% drop in homicides, from 97 to 66.

    But there’s a debate over how much of that success is owed to Trump’s mission or to yearslong local efforts to chip away at the crime rate.

    What’s certain is locals feel the weight of the deployment and don’t see a clear way to push back against it. National Guard deployments to other cities have been blocked by courts, and a lawsuit challenging the deployment is pending, but critics of the surge aren’t hopeful.

    “The fact that we still have the National Guard walking our streets a year later with no end in sight is really demoralizing,” city council member Brianne K. Nadeau said.

    Autonomy is a top priority for newly elected candidates

    Because Washington is a congressionally established federal district, Trump has much greater influence over the police and D.C. National Guard, which he controls directly, including its commander.

    The Home Rule Act, passed in 1973, allows residents to vote for local leaders, including the mayor and council members. Congress has oversight over the local budget and review authority of all laws passed and the ability to summon district officials to the Capitol routinely to explain themselves. The D.C. delegate to Congress is a nonvoting position.

    The city’s governmental structure under home rule made it easy for Trump to do what he has done, Nadeau said.

    “There isn’t really any political liability for national leaders to mess with D.C. because nobody really cares,” outside of those directly impacted, she said.

    The law enforcement surge played a major role in Democratic primary elections in June, which elevated candidates who have made Washington’s autonomy and statehood top priorities.

    Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist who in the overwhelmingly Democratic city is likely to be its next mayor, has already rankled Trump. He threatened to put the city under federal control if she wins.

    Robert White Jr., another pro-statehood candidate, won the Democratic primary for the city’s seat in Congress.

    And while they are hamstrung by the city’s status, both hope they have strategies that can help fight back against the president and the deployment.

    White told the Associated Press he plans to build “an army of residents” and allies to target swing districts and work at “un-electing” people critical of the district and “electing those who do support D.C.”

    The action is similar to one a former D.C. congressional delegate, Walter Fauntroy, successfully pursued in 1972, mobilizing Black voters and allies against a South Carolina Congress member who had long opposed D.C.’s independence.

    “He didn’t deploy that strategy a bunch of times, but it sent a signal to people to lay off of D.C.,” White said.

    The city’s outgoing mayor, Muriel Bowser, avoided the kind of biting rhetoric and personal attacks typical of other high-profile Democratic leaders, despite the unprecedented intervention into her city. A major part of that was to avoid raising Trump’s ire and threaten what independence the city has.

    An emailed statement from Bowser’s office said that despite challenges to its independence the city has progressed in achieving its goals. “The safety and well-being of everyone in our city remains our top priority and protecting home rule remains our North Star,” the statement said.

    “We’re more than monuments and politics,” Bowser said in a 48-second video pinned to her X account.

    She said the city is made up of more than 700,00 taxpaying Americans who serve in the military, run businesses, and raise families and “we don’t have voting representation in Congress. We don’t control the D.C. National Guard, and we don’t have full access to full American democracy.”

    Concerns over troops in the city during elections

    Donna Powell, who is living part time in the city, said she and her husband walk and metro everywhere. “We’re already safe and beautiful,” she said. “We don’t need all these National Guard here.”

    The money could be better spent “on healthcare and food for families that need it.”

    The National Guard deployment has raised concerns among some over what the upcoming midterms and the 2028 presidential election will look like with troops on the streets.

    “The last time this president was supposed to come out of power, Jan. 6 happened,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of FreeDC, an activist group that has protested the deployment by following and filming National Guard troops in quiet areas of the city far away from crime concerns. ”Imagine if that happens again but this time he has 5,000 troops standing at the ready to be part of that situation. You know, that’s our worry.”

    WASHINGTON — It’s been 12 months since President Donald Trump announced a crime emergency in Washington, pledging to make the city “safe and beautiful” and deploying the National Guard.

    But a mission that seemed temporary has been extended through January 2029. Residents and a new cadre of local officials see in it an unacceptable attempt by the federal government to restrict the heavily Democratic city’s autonomy and, a year in, still question why having troops on the streets of the nation’s capital is necessary.

    “There’s a deep irony that here we are in the capital of the free world, and our president is treating it like a police state,” said Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia. “D.C. residents have lived with our National Guard troops in our neighborhoods for about a year, despite the absence of any genuine emergency and really any reason for them to be here.”

    The continued deployment will be a major test for a new batch of political candidates expected to take office after the midterms this fall. Residents will look to them to push back on the Republican president’s encroachment into the city’s affairs — although they are limited in what they can do to counter it.

    A temporary deployment goes on and on

    On Aug. 11, 2025, Trump announced that he was launching a federal law enforcement surge in Washington aimed at fighting crime. As of Aug. 4, more than 4,600 military personnel from D.C. and 24 states and territories were still deployed alongside unknown numbers of less visible federal law enforcement officers. Some are expected to be withdrawn toward the end of the summer.

    Small groups of armed guard members have become a routine presence on the streets of Washington. They have supported arrest operations but are also seen patrolling tourist areas, such as along the Tidal Basin during the Cherry Blossom Festival and in neighborhoods such as Georgetown where violent crimes are rare. They have helped with medical emergencies, snow removal and beautification projects — initiatives that have received support from some residents.

    Extending the deployment into 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion, according to a Defense Department estimate.

    “President Trump has transformed D.C. from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in an email.

    Figures posted to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia credit the surge with more than 13,000 arrests.

    Crime, which was falling before the surge began, continues to drop. Metropolitan Police Department statistics show overall crime was down 20% through Aug. 7, compared with the same period in 2025. That includes a 32% drop in homicides, from 97 to 66.

    But there’s a debate over how much of that success is owed to Trump’s mission or to yearslong local efforts to chip away at the crime rate.

    What is certain is that locals feel the weight of the deployment and do not see a clear way to push back against it. National Guard deployments to other cities have been blocked by courts, and a lawsuit challenging the deployment is pending, but critics of the surge are not hopeful.

    “The fact that we still have the National Guard walking our streets a year later with no end in sight is really demoralizing,” city council member Brianne K. Nadeau said.

    Autonomy is a top priority for newly elected candidates

    Because Washington is a congressionally established federal district, Trump has much greater influence over the police and D.C. National Guard, which he controls directly, including its commander.

    The Home Rule Act, passed in 1973, allows residents to vote for local leaders, including the mayor and council members. Congress has oversight over the local budget and review authority of all laws passed and the ability to summon district officials to the Capitol routinely to explain themselves. The D.C. delegate to Congress is a nonvoting position.

    The city’s governmental structure under home rule made it easy for Trump to do what he has done, Nadeau said.

    “There isn’t really any political liability for national leaders to mess with D.C. because nobody really cares,” outside of those directly impacted, she said.

    The law enforcement surge played a major role in Democratic primary elections in June, which elevated candidates who have made Washington’s autonomy and statehood top priorities.

    Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist who in the overwhelmingly Democratic city is likely to be its next mayor, has already rankled Trump. He threatened to put the city under federal control if she wins.

    Robert White Jr., another pro-statehood candidate, won the Democratic primary for the city’s seat in Congress.

    And while they are hamstrung by the city’s status, both hope they have strategies that can help fight back against the president and the deployment.

    White told The Associated Press he plans to build “an army of residents” and allies to target swing districts and work at “un-electing” people critical of the district and “electing those who do support D.C.”

    The action is similar to one a former D.C. congressional delegate, Walter Fauntroy, successfully pursued in 1972, mobilizing Black voters and allies against a South Carolina Congress member who had long opposed D.C.’s independence.

    “He didn’t deploy that strategy a bunch of times, but it sent a signal to people to lay off of D.C.,” White said.

    The city’s outgoing mayor, Muriel Bowser, avoided the kind of biting rhetoric and personal attacks typical of other high-profile Democratic leaders, despite the unprecedented intervention into her city. A major part of that was to avoid raising Trump’s ire and threaten what independence the city has.

    An emailed statement from Bowser’s office said that despite challenges to its independence the city has progressed in achieving its goals. “The safety and well-being of everyone in our city remains our top priority and protecting home rule remains our North Star,” the statement said.

    “We’re more than monuments and politics,” Bowser said in a 48-second video pinned to her X account.

    She said the city is made up of more than 700,00 taxpaying Americans who serve in the military, run businesses and raise families and “we don’t have voting representation in Congress. We don’t control the D.C. National Guard, and we don’t have full access to full American democracy.”

    Concerns over troops in the city during elections

    Donna Powell, who is living part time in the city, said she and her husband walk and metro everywhere. “We’re already safe and beautiful,” she said. “We don’t need all these National Guard here.”

    The money could be better spent “on healthcare and food for families that need it.”

    The National Guard deployment has raised concerns among some over what the upcoming midterms and the 2028 presidential election will look like with troops on the streets.

    “The last time this president was supposed to come out of power, Jan. 6 happened,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of FreeDC, an activist group that has protested the deployment by following and filming National Guard troops in quiet areas of the city far away from crime concerns. ”Imagine if that happens again but this time he has 5,000 troops standing at the ready to be part of that situation. You know, that’s our worry.”

  • Zuckerberg spokesperson says his yacht did not hear call for maritime assist

    Zuckerberg spokesperson says his yacht did not hear call for maritime assist

    The crew of a yacht owned by Mark Zuckerberg did not hear a radio call for a maritime assist from a small skiff that ran out of fuel off the coast of Alaska, and by the time it did, another nearby ship had already rendered assistance, a spokesperson for the Meta CEO said.

    The Alaska Beacon reported that the skiff had issued a call for assistance through the U.S. Coast Guard last week and a nearby small cruise ship, the Wilderness Legacy, towed it into nearby Farragut Bay in Southeast Alaska and refueled it.

    Although it was closer, Zuckerberg’s yacht, called Launchpad, had not responded to the call.

    “I’m on a small-ship Alaska cruise with my son,” Michael Love, a passenger who said he was on the Wilderness Legacy cruise ship, wrote on Bluesky on Aug. 5.

    “Our boat rescued a stranded vessel last night and apparently we did that after the Coast Guard radioed Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht — which was closer — and they repeatedly refused to respond. (There was near unanimous booing when the captain announced this),” he said.

    The Alaska Beacon reported that the spokesperson told them via email on Sunday that the yacht Launchpad did not initially hear the call for assistance.

    “Mark and his family were not on board at the time of the incident. As the Coast Guard noted, the boat was not in distress, and by the time the crew reviewed the Coast Guard contact on a different radio channel from the one they were operating on, the assist was already underway. We’re grateful all parties are safe,” the email to the Alaska Beacon said.

  • They said they would build AI safely. Then it went rogue.

    They said they would build AI safely. Then it went rogue.

    SAN FRANCISCO — Staff at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI didn’t notice for weeks after their AI systems made a chilling leap this spring.

    Instead of answering questions designed to test their cybersecurity capabilities, a group of AI models began colluding on how to cheat, the company said, setting up a secret internal message board where they swapped notes and ideas.

    The misbehaving bots used the secret forum throughout May and June, OpenAI said, eventually figuring out how to break out and access the internet. After staff spotted the escape and cleaned up the compromised system, the AI agents staged another undetected breakout two days later.

    Only after the rogue models hacked into the network of another AI firm last month did OpenAI staff shut them down.

    The details of how OpenAI repeatedly lost control of its AI technology, disclosed by the company at a computer security conference in Las Vegas Aug. 5, delivered an explosive finale to two weeks of revelations that have sent shock waves through the tech industry, prompting fierce criticism of the security practices of AI firms. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and state law enforcement officials across the country have called for new scrutiny and regulation on the industry.

    A series of disclosures by OpenAI, Claude chatbot maker Anthropic, Facebook-owner Meta, and British government researchers have revealed that in recent months some cutting-edge AI models asked to perform tasks designed to test their cybersecurity capabilities tried to cheat. Instead of solving a problem, the models ventured outside their test arenas, using hacking skills and tricks including impersonating humans to break into other companies’ networks.

    The incidents have prompted warnings that an era of disruptive, AI-powered cyberattacks could lie ahead unless ways can be found to prevent such misbehavior and ensure that AI helps defenders as well as bad actors.

    “In the past six months AI has gotten powerful enough to automate hacking; this will fundamentally change the dynamics of cybercrime and military cyber conflict forever,” said Joshua Saxe, co-founder and chief technology officer of the cybersecurity firm Abundant Security. “AI systems will only get better at this, and will only get cheaper.”

    OpenAI said Aug. 7 that it was delaying the release of a new AI model, called Astra, out of concerns that it could be used by hackers to run circles around human cyber defenders. After disclosing its own breaches on July 30, Anthropic said it had stopped testing its own AI technology on cybersecurity problems.

    Many AI and cybersecurity experts say the recent incidents raise questions about the practices of the two firms. OpenAI and Anthropic became the shining stars of the AI boom by aggressively upgrading their hit chatbots ChatGPT and Claude while professing to also be working to prevent AI from becoming dangerous.

    In 2023, Anthropic and OpenAI’s chief executives told a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee in separate appearances that they were committed to preventing AI from one day escaping human control. “We make significant efforts to ensure safety is built into our systems at all levels,” Sam Altman of OpenAI said. Dario Amodei of Anthropic said his firm “aims to lead by example in developing and publishing techniques to make AI systems safer and more controllable.”

    Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. The company said Aug. 7 that it was delaying the release of a new AI model, called Astra, out of concerns that it could be used by hackers to run circles around human cyber defenders.Godofredo A. Vásquez

    Both companies set up internal groups dedicated to researching the best ways to ensure AI models were “aligned” with humans and didn’t act in ways that could be harmful.

    Yet the two firms said in their recent disclosures that when AI did attempt to break out, staff initially did not notice.

    “These companies are moving so fast that they are not taking the time to do things well and that I think explains both of these incidents,” said Helen Toner, executive director of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University. She resigned from OpenAI’s board in 2023 after supporting an effort to remove Altman as chief executive.

    The AI escapes follow months of debate in the Trump administration over how to ensure the hacking skills of advanced AI don’t destabilize critical industries like banking by making it easier to stage cyberattacks. The incidents come as more politicians and voters from across the political spectrum are calling for more rigorous oversight of AI firms, due to concerns over the power of their technology or the expansion of data centers across the nation.

    “This is an emergency and we need to act like it,” Rep. Greg Casar (D., Texas) said in an interview. “Those CEOs need to answer to the American people about what went wrong, what other incidents like this they failed to catch, how they’re going to make sure it never happens again.”

    Casar said he’s spent recent days briefing other members of Congress on the recent security incidents and wants Amodei and Altman to testify about them on the Hill.

    Last week, 15 Republican state attorneys general told OpenAI that it may have broken the law when its systems hacked other companies, and instructed the company to retain records about the incidents. On Thursday, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D., Delaware) wrote to both companies demanding more information about their security practices.

    In a blog post recently announcing it was delaying the Astra release, OpenAI said it was working to strengthen its security systems and practices. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

    Anthropic said the industry as a whole needs to improve security. “As we shared after disclosing our own incident last week, the field needs stronger, shared standards for how evaluation environments are built and secured,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.

    Some details from the incidents disclosed in recent weeks could have been culled from a sci-fi thriller.

    The British government’s AI Security Institute said last week that one Anthropic model it tested engaged in what security experts call social engineering as it created online profiles and used them to try to pressure a human software developer into approving malicious code the model had submitted to an open source software project. The human administrator did not approve the code.

    Meta said one of its models was told to hack into a fictitious company in an internal test environment but instead broke into a real company with a website that used the same name.

    The social network company said a contractor helping to run the tests, Irregular, incorrectly allowed the model to access the internet during testing. Anthropic said three cases of its own models hacking outside companies involved the same misconfiguration by Irregular.

    A spokesperson for Irregular said it has resolved the issues and is developing a new set of standards for how to safely test AI models.

    OpenAI staff did not realize their AI models had broken out for a second time until AI software platform Hugging Face disclosed in July that it had been hacked by unknown AI models, Michael Dalton, a security engineer at OpenAI said during a talk at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas.

    The second breakout was more sophisticated, according to the talk. The AI models communicated to coordinate their actions, identifying each other by names such as “Jan18″ and on one occasion asking another model to wait before executing an action until receiving confirmation from another agent.

    OpenAI staff used the stream of text that advanced AI models spit out as they work on a problem to try to understand what prompted the models to team up. “Help peer. But our task doesn’t benefit. Yet collective may yield generic route if someone frees time,” the internal dialogue of one model read, according to OpenAI.

    “You can see the models realizing, ‘If I help out this collective group it could save everyone time as a whole which might benefit me, even though it might not immediately benefit my current task,’” Eric Wallace, an OpenAI researcher, said during the presentation.

    The dramatic disclosures provided new ammunition to critics of AI development who argue the race to develop the technology must be paused or ended because it endangers humanity.

    Activists calling for an international agreement to freeze AI development have spent recent days protesting outside one of OpenAI’s offices in San Francisco, calling on AI executives to commit to slowing down development of the tech.

    David Krueger, an AI professor at the University of Montreal, said the industry is unprepared to contain the models it is building now and in the near future.

    “When AI companies can’t control their systems, can’t even contain their systems, it’s just very clear that they don’t know what they’re doing and it’s super dangerous,” Krueger said. He is founder of the nonprofit Evitable, which aims to stop the development of “superintelligence,” or AI that has capabilities far beyond humans.

    The idea that it may be necessary to slow down AI development is becoming more widely discussed in Silicon Valley. Last month, over 1,000 employees from the top AI companies signed a letter asking the U.S. government to find a way to slow down the tech if the pace of progress becomes too rapid.

    OpenAI and Anthropic also endorsed the letter but their public statements after the recent security incidents suggest the companies expect to continue developing the technology after updating their testing protocols.

    Some cybersecurity and AI experts have said the recent incidents show there are basic procedures that could have stopped AI models from breaking onto the internet or provided early warning of misbehavior. They include monitoring tests more closely and performing them on “air-gapped” systems not connected to an outside network.

    “These incidents reveal how little care has been put into designing these [evaluations] and the security around them,” said Zack Korman, CEO and co-founder of Embroidery, an AI cybersecurity company. “They don’t monitor what’s happening. They’re just letting agents run wild both within their environment and in partner testing situations.”

  • A Bala Cynwyd native is bringing Philly pride to a ‘Vanderpump Rules’ star’s new spin-off

    A Bala Cynwyd native is bringing Philly pride to a ‘Vanderpump Rules’ star’s new spin-off

    Would you go months without talking to your bestie if they didn’t congratulate you on an Eagles win?

    Well, die-hard fan Rob Evors did. And the fallout was captured by camera crews.

    The Bala Cynwyd native stars in House of Stassi, a new Freeform and Hulu unscripted show that follows former Bravolebrity and Vanderpump Rules “It girl” Stassi Schroeder as she attempts to come back from cancellation and cement herself as the next Kris Jenner. There’s relationship and friendship drama, explosive fights and humble reconciliations, and elaborate parties — all the trappings of binge-worthy reality TV.

    Rob Evors is captured Tuesday, July 28, 2026 , at a cocktail party celebrating Freeform and Hulu’s “House of Stassi” in New York City.Courtesy of Disney/Arthur Gareev

    But a through line of the inaugural eight episodes is an ongoing rift between Evors and Schroeder’s husband, Beau Clark, sparked by a perceived slight against the Philadelphia Eagles.

    An exasperated Clark explained in episode two: “I haven’t talked to [Evors] in nine months because during football season, I didn’t congratulate him on his team’s wins on a couple group chats.”

    Schroeder declared, “This is not about f-ing football, and I won’t let either of them convince the world that it is.”

    What was left out, however, is that Clark, a Rams fan, actually failed to congratulate Evors — who “bleeds green” and has Boathouse Row and the Eagles logo tattooed on his arm — on the 2025 Super Bowl win.

    “It wasn’t like it was Week Six and I was like ‘you’re not texting me about my football team’ — it was winning the Super Bowl,” Evors said in a phone interview.

    “I might as well have given birth to a child and you didn’t reach out.”

    Three Philly-area contestants have entered ‘Love Island USA’ with hopes of finding love and winning $100,000

    So, yeah, the snub went deeper than pigskin: Evors and Clark’s decades-long friendship has ebbed and flowed, and Evors ultimately just wanted Clark to take an interest in his life, he said. (Spoiler: The men hashed out their evolving dynamics on camera, and Evors said the duo are cordial — even after a tumultuous season finale.)

    Evors, 50, moved to Bala Cynwyd as a toddler and grew up a “stone’s throw” from City Avenue, he said. He graduated from Episcopal Academy and left the Philadelphia region for Syracuse University, eventually landing in Los Angeles to pursue acting full-time. He now lives in Austin, Texas.

    His career, however, started on the Main Line doing community theater and training at the Actors Center in Old City. Evors remembers stopping at Roy Rogers on weekly drives to New York City and eventually taking the Peter Pan Bus alone to the Big Apple for auditions; he landed a Dorney Park commercial that “paid for college.”

    Rob Evors pictured in his Philly gear.Courtesy of Rob Evors

    Reality TV is a new world for Evors, who has since racked up acting credits in scripted shows like Criminal Minds, All American, and FBI: International and the 2012 movie Project X, according to IMDb. He also won a game on Wheel of Fortune.

    House of Stassi has been among Hulu’s top-charting series since its debut. And it has been a long time coming for the show’s namesake, who was fired from Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules in 2020 for racist actions against her costar. Across eight seasons on Vanderpump — which initially chronicled the 20-something staff at the West Hollywood restaurant SUR — Schroeder became infamous for her candor, wit, “dark passenger” alter ego, and at times villainous persona. (Bucks County’s own Alex Cooper also made a cameo appearance on House of Stassi.)

    “This is real life,” Evors said of the show. “The things that pop up on that show are still real-life issues in our lives every day.

    “I call it ‘chaotic therapy.’”

  • Surprise nominees, candidate scandals scramble the battle for Congress

    Surprise nominees, candidate scandals scramble the battle for Congress

    The final stretch of primary season has scrambled the battle for Congress, as scandals, insurgent victories, and voters’ rejection of party leaders’ preferred candidates reshape a small but critical set of races.

    Democrats’ path to a Senate majority narrowed with the triumph of progressive insurgent Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, whom polls show faring worse against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R) than his primary rival. Republicans suffered their own setbacks as a Trump-endorsed congressional candidate in Michigan lost to a rival who had suspended his campaign, while misconduct allegations drove a vulnerable North Carolina incumbent from the race.

    Republicans are eager to face several Democrats they believe are too far left for their districts, while Democrats see new openings where GOP candidates have suffered from controversies. With control of Congress potentially turning on a handful of seats, both parties are betting individual candidates will matter as much as the political terrain — though operatives’ judgments about electability often prove wrong.

    “It’s really hard to tell you what the board’s going to be like,” said Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta, noting that antiestablishment fervor among grassroots organizers has made prognosticating harder for consultants and pollsters, and scandals are adding more volatility.

    For Trump, the stakes include the fate of his policy agenda for the rest of his term, as well as burdensome oversight and possibly a third impeachment. But he has taken a hands-off approach to the midterms, frustrating some Republicans who want him to help mobilize his supporters and dip into his super PAC’s $400 million war chest.

    “I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute, you don’t understand — I won, I’m not campaigning,’” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News released Friday. “If I don’t run, will those people go out and vote? … Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans.”

    Senate candidates scramble the usual map

    To win the Senate, Democrats need to defend their seats in Michigan and Georgia, pick up North Carolina and Maine, plus win in two more states that Trump won by more than 10 points in 2024 — a tall order even in a year expected to favor them.

    The latest polls show how individual candidates can defy a state’s typical partisan makeup. Democrats are currently leading in red states like Ohio, Iowa, and Texas by more than in left-leaning Michigan or Maine.

    Without Michigan, Democrats would have to win in a third state that Trump won by at least 10 points in 2024. Polls showed Rep. Haley Stevens (D., Mich.), who was endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), faring at least slightly better against Rogers than El-Sayed. But he edged her out in Tuesday’s primary by about one percentage point.

    “There’s a serious distinction, a big difference between somebody like Haley Stevens, who has far-left positions — and we would hammer her every day and litigate those positions — and somebody like Abdul,” said Alex Latcham, who runs Senate Leadership Fund, the flagship Republican super PAC in Senate races.

    Schumer, who spoke to El-Sayed on Wednesday, said in an interview that he was confident Democrats would hold Michigan. No Republican has won a Senate race there in more than three decades, and Trump is not popular there.

    El-Sayed just needs to “keep talking about jobs, talking about lower costs, talking about corruption — the same things that our candidates talk about across the country,” Schumer said.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton beat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn over the objection of GOP leaders and now trails Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in most polls.

    In Maine, establishment favorite Gov. Janet Mills stalled out against Graham Platner, who later withdrew amid sexual assault allegations. The Democrats’ new nominee, Troy Jackson, is in a tight race against five-term incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R).

    Republicans had already largely written off Georgia after no formidable challenger to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) emerged. Their nominee, Rep. Mike Collins, trailed by 13 points in a Fox News poll conducted in late June and came under further pressure after CNN reported that his live-in son-in-law shared white supremacist and neo-Nazi content online.

    Collins disavowed those views but did not distance himself from his son-in-law. The campaign argued the race remains competitive by pointing to $60 million commitments from outside groups to help Collins.

    “Political ‘experts’ and the news media were laughingly wrong — just this week — about the competitiveness of the Senate primary in Michigan,” Collins spokesperson Corbin Keown said. “Mike Collins will beat Jon Ossoff in November, and the media will once again be left wondering how they got it so wrong.”

    The primary calendar could still reshape another Senate race. Alaska generally votes Republican, but Sen. Dan Sullivan faces a competitive race against former Rep. Mary Peltola (D), so Republicans are hoping a second candidate named Dan Sullivan does not make the top four and advance to the November ballot, where he could confuse voters and siphon off votes from the incumbent.

    House primaries create openings for both parties

    While midterms are historically tough on the sitting president’s party, Republicans moved the House map in their favor by gerrymandering additional states to eliminate blue seats and narrow the competitive field to only a couple of dozen districts. Democrats are hoping Trump’s unpopularity can push them deeper into red territory.

    The Senate result in Michigan immediately spilled into House races. Trump and other Republicans immediately moved to cast El-Sayed as a new party standard-bearer, seeking to make his progressive positions a drag on the entire Democratic ticket.

    “Michigan Democrats proved that their party has been completely taken over by the radical socialist left,” Rep. Bill Huizenga (R., Mich.) said in response to Tuesday’s results, linking El-Sayed with his own Democratic challenger, Sean McCann.

    The controversy around El-Sayed may have also hurt the Trump-endorsed candidate in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, Amir Hassan. Republican operatives said voters may have confused him with controversial podcaster Hasan Piker, who campaigned with El-Sayed.

    Hassan lost Tuesday’s primary to another Republican named Tom Smith who raised almost no money and suspended his campaign last month. In lieu of a campaign finance report, he sent the Federal Election Commission a handwritten letter.

    Smith acknowledged his race got far less attention than the Senate contest and said his win surprised him too. In a statement Friday, he echoed national GOP attacks on left-leaning candidates, saying he and Trump-aligned Michigan Republicans would be a foil to the “failed socialist policies” of progressives like El-Sayed.

    Incumbent Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet’s (D) campaign manager, Bobby Bennett, said the campaign didn’t see either Republican as harder to run against. The Cook Political Report rates the race as leaning Democratic.

    Voters also rejected Trump’s endorsement in Tennessee by ousting incumbent Rep. Andy Ogles. Still, national Republicans did not rue his roughly six-point loss to Charlie Hatcher on Thursday, since Ogles had faced ethics investigations and raised less money than Democrat Chaz Molder. Ogles lost much of his incumbency advantage when Republican-led redistricting replaced about 80% of the district’s voters as part of an effort to eliminate a Democratic-held Black-majority seat.

    Trump endorsed Hatcher on Friday, saying he had stuck with Ogles “even though he had virtually no chance of winning.”

    Elsewhere, both parties seized on primary results they argued had strengthened their prospects in competitive House races. Republicans cheered when national Democrats lost their preferred candidates in California’s 22nd District, where Bernie Sanders-endorsed Randy Villegas will take on incumbent Rep. David G. Valadao, and Arizona’s 1st District, where failed 2024 nominee Amish Shah beat ex-Republican Marlene Galán-Woods to take on Trump-endorsed Jay Feely.

    Democrats also acknowledged a tougher road against Rep. Tom Barrett (R., Mich.) with their nomination of William Lawrence, a progressive activist who co-founded the Sunrise Movement. “Even Democrats admit that Socialist William Lawrence is too extreme for Mid-Michigan and that he will be rejected this fall,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Zach Bannon said Thursday.

    A few consequential House primaries remain. In Florida’s primary on Aug. 18, some House Republicans are backing a challenger to Rep. Cory Mills (R), whom they view as unusually vulnerable amid a House Ethics investigation and assault allegation.

    Democrats see several Republican-held seats becoming more competitive because of scandals or candidate vulnerabilities. Rep. Max Miller (R., Ohio) faces pressure to resign over domestic abuse allegations, and Rep. Chuck Edwards (R., N.C.) dropped his reelection bid after the Ethics Committee found inappropriate conduct toward female staff. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R., N.J.), also drew criticism for missing almost four months of votes while struggling with depression. Cook rates Kean’s race a toss-up.

    Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R., Pa.), running in another toss-up district, is facing scrutiny over extensive stock trading after campaigning on banning the practice among lawmakers. Democrats are also bullish about flipping Texas’s 23rd District after Tony Gonzales admitted to an affair and resigned. The replacement Republican nominee, Brandon Herrera, known on YouTube as “The AK Guy,” faces San Antonio attorney Katy Padilla Stout.

    The odds of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio) hanging onto her seat, after Republicans redrew her district to favor them, improved in Democrats’ eyes when the GOP nomination went to former state Rep. Derek Merrin, whom she beat in 2024.

    Staffers of candidates who defeated national Democrats’ preferred contenders dismissed electability concerns and pointed to the quick postelection support of the party’s House campaign arm, a typical practice. In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, state Auditor Matthew Dunlap defeated state Sen. Joe Baldacci, whom the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had included in its “Red to Blue” program. Since the primary, Dunlap’s campaign has built working relationships with the national group, spokesperson Matt Herdman said.

    “It’s going to be a difficult race, everyone knows that, but we feel like we’re on a good path,” Herdman said.