Trump administration rolls out rural health funding, with strings attached

States will share $10 billion for rural health care next year in a program that aims to offset the Trump administration’s massive budget cuts to rural hospitals, federal officials announced Monday.

But while every state applied for money from the Rural Health Transformation Program, it won’t be distributed equally. And critics worry that the funding might be pulled back if a state’s policies don’t match up with the administration’s.

Officials said the average award for 2026 is $200 million, and the fund puts a total of $50 billion into rural health programs over five years. States propose how to spend their awards, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services assigns project officers to support each state, said agency administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.

“This fund was crafted as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed only six months ago now into law, in order to push states to be creative,” Oz said in a call with reporters Monday.

Under the program, half of the money is equally distributed to each state. The other half is allocated based on a formula developed by CMS that considered rural population size, the financial health of a state’s medical facilities and health outcomes for a state’s population.

The formula also ties $12 billion of the five-year funding to whether states are implementing health policies prioritized by the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative. Examples include requiring nutrition education for health care providers, having schools participate in the Presidential Fitness Test or banning the use of SNAP benefits for so-called junk foods, Oz said.

Several Republican-led states — including Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas — have already adopted rules banning the purchase of foods like candy and soda with SNAP benefits.

The money that the states get will be recalculated annually, Oz said, allowing the administration to “claw back” funds if, for example, state leaders don’t pass promised policies. Oz said the clawbacks are not punishments, but leverage governors can use to push policies by pointing to the potential loss of millions.

“I’ve already heard governors express that sentiment that this is not a threat, that this is actually an empowering element of the One Big Beautiful Bill,” he said.

Carrie Cochran-McClain, chief policy officer with the National Rural Health Association, said she’s heard from a number of Democratic-led states that refused to include such restrictions on SNAP benefits even though it could hurt their chance to get more money from the fund.

“It’s not where their state leadership is,” she said.

Experts say fund is inadequate in face of other cuts

Oz and other federal officials have touted the program as a 50% increase in Medicaid investments in rural health care. Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who has been critical of many of the administration’s policies but voted for the budget bill that slashed Medicaid, pointed to the fund when recently questioned about how the cuts would hurt rural hospitals.

“That’s why we added a $50 billion rural hospital fund, to help any hospital that’s struggling,” Bacon said. “This money is meant to keep hospitals afloat.”

But experts say it won’t nearly offset the losses that struggling rural hospitals will face from the federal spending law’s $1.2 trillion cut from the federal budget over the next decade, primarily from Medicaid. Millions of people are also expected to lose Medicaid benefits.

Estimates suggest rural hospitals could lose around $137 billion over the next decade because of the budget measure. As many as 300 rural hospitals were at risk for closure because of the GOP’s spending package, according to an analysis by The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“When you put that up against the $50 billion for the Rural Health Transformation Fund, you know — that math does not add up,” Cochran-McClain said.

She also said there’s no guarantee that the funding will go to rural hospitals in need. For example, she noted, one state’s application included a proposal for healthier, locally sourced school lunch options in rural areas.

And even though innovation is a goal of the program, Cochran-McClain said it’s tough for rural hospitals to innovate when they were struggling to break even before Congress’ Medicaid cuts.

“We talk to rural providers every day that say, ‘I would really love to do x, y, z, but I’m concerned about, you know, meeting payroll at the end of the month,’” she said. “So when you’re in that kind of crisis mode, it is, I would argue, almost impossible to do true innovation.”

---

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Court releases transcript from closed hearing for man accused of killing Charlie Kirk

 A Utah judge on Monday ordered the release of a transcript from a closed-door hearing in October over whether the man charged with killing Charlie Kirk must be shackled during court proceedings.

State District Judge Tony Graf said public transparency was “foundational” to the judicial system before ordering the release of details from the Oct. 24 closed hearing. Attorneys for media outlets including The Associated Press had argued for access because they said it was also the first time defense attorneys suggested a ban on cameras in the courtroom.

Prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 shooting of the conservative activist on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem. They plan to seek the death penalty. Robinson has not yet entered a plea.

In a 97-page transcript released later Monday, attorneys for Robinson argued that widespread videos and photos of him shackled and in jail clothing could create bias against him among potential jurors. Defense attorney Richard Novak said prohibiting cameras would be “very easy” for the court to enforce and could help curb visual prejudice.

“We’re not litigating this case in the press,” Novak said during the Oct. 24 hearing.

The transcript contained limited redactions to remove discussions of security protocols in the closely watched case. Graf also ordered the release of an audio recording of the hearing, again with redactions.

Robinson was not present in court Monday and appeared via audio feed from the Utah County Jail.

Graf has not ruled on the defense’s suggestion to ban cameras, but he has implemented other limitations.

Days after the closed-door hearing, Graf ruled that Robinson could wear civilian clothes in pretrial hearings but must also wear restraints to ensure the safety of court staff and Robinson himself. Utah court rules require defendants who are in custody to be restrained or supervised at all times unless otherwise ordered.

Graf also prohibited media outlets from publishing photos, videos and live broadcasts that show Robinson’s restraints to help protect his presumption of innocence before a trial.

The judge briefly stopped a media livestream of a hearing earlier this month and ordered the camera be moved after Robinson’s attorneys said the stream showed the defendant’s shackles. Graf said he would terminate future broadcasts if there were further violations.

Lawyers for the media wrote in recent filings that an open court “safeguards the integrity of the fact-finding process” while fostering public confidence in judicial proceedings. Criminal cases in the U.S. have long been open to the public, which the attorneys argued is proof that trials can be conducted fairly without restricting reporters.

In a separate ruling Monday, Graf denied a request from attorneys for the media who sought to intervene in the case. The judge said members of the press do not need to be formal parties in the proceedings to access court records.

Still, Graf said the involved publications must be notified of future requests to close hearings or restrict access to court filings.

Prosecutors are expected to lay out their case against Robinson at a preliminary hearing scheduled to begin May 18.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Texas to lose D.C. clout as members of Congress chose not to run for reelection

Regardless of the outcome of next year’s midterm elections, Texas will have a less powerful seat at the table in Congress. A wave of retirements and resignations from the state’s delegation is signaling a shift in seniority and influence.

So far, nine members of Congress from the Lone Star State are not seeking re-election.

Among them is Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, who announced earlier this month that he would not run again. Republican lawmakers redrew Veasey’s district, along with those of three other members, as part of a redistricting effort that drew national scrutiny. The redistricting led to two controversial special sessions and is the subject of ongoing federal lawsuits.

Veasey, for his part, is receiving bipartisan praise as he prepares to leave office.

“It certainly is a big loss for Tarrant County because he fought for issues that benefited his district. So I’m going to be sad to see him go, actually. He’s a good friend,” said Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth.

“Marc Veasey was a senior member in North Texas, the most effective member of that delegation because of his seniority,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist with the Lone Star Project.

That seniority gave Texas added weight when it came to passing legislation and securing federal funding. But with Veasey’s departure—and others—much of that institutional clout is disappearing.

In addition to Veasey, six Republicans are not running for re-election. They include Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, who is stepping down as chair of the House Budget Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who previously chaired the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees.

Democrats Jasmine Crockett of Dallas and Lloyd Doggett of Austin are also exiting. Crockett is running for U.S. Senate, while Doggett is retiring rather than facing a potentially competitive primary against fellow Austin Democrat Rep. Greg Casar.

Other departures include Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, who is retiring and endorsing his brother to succeed him, and Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, who is launching a bid for U.S. Senate. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Magnolia, is stepping away from Congress to spend more time in Texas after experiencing what he described as a “moment of clarity” during recent deadly floods. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, is running for Texas Attorney General.

Seven additional members of the Texas delegation are facing serious primary or general election challenges in 2024.

“Less is getting done in Washington now,” said Ben Kamisar, a national political reporter with NBC News.

Kamisar told NBC 5 that a combination of personal, political and practical factors are behind the wave of retirements. Term limits for committee chairs, ongoing partisan gridlock and an overall decline in legislative output have led many members to reconsider their futures.

“When you think about the sort of dwindling of the ability to get things done and the sort of hypertension that exists in this new political world, all of that could be something that compels a member to reconsider whether they want to stick around,” Kamisar said.

The U.S. Congress has passed fewer than 40 bills into law this year, according to data compiled by Purdue University and C-SPAN.

With more departures expected and tough re-election battles looming, Texas is poised to enter the next congressional session with less seniority and influence in Washington than it has held in recent decades.

Allen's public sleeping ban sparks concern from nonprofits over lack of notice

The City Council in the North Texas city of Allen unanimously approved a new ordinance banning sleeping in public spaces, a move that has drawn criticism from some local nonprofits who say the measure was adopted quickly and without public input.

The ordinance was proposed by Allen Police Chief Steve Dye on Dec. 9 during a City Council meeting.

“I’m proposing a new ordinance regarding sleeping and camping in public,” Dye said. “So, over the last couple of years, we have seen an increase in our unsheltered population in Allen. Historically, the majority of those are in vehicles and parking lots, followed by those camping in wooded areas. However, recently, we have an increase in unsheltered sleeping on some of our sidewalks and breezeways in front of our businesses.”

Public places, according to Dye, are defined as a street, highway, parking lot, parking garage, alleyway, pedestrian way, cycling way, equestrian way, walkways, outdoor areas and courtyards of an elementary school, secondary school, college or hospital. Dye said apartment and office buildings, transport facilities and business- or city-owned buildings or facilities are also included in the ordinance.

Police said officers will first issue a warning, valid for 48 hours anywhere in the city, before enforcement actions can be taken.

“Some of the notable exceptions to violating this ordinance would be if the person is in the right of way because of a medical emergency, if they’re operating or patronizing a commercial establishment that conducts business on the sidewalk, if they are waiting in line for goods or services for a public event,” Dye said. “If they are sitting or lying as a result of a disability defined by the Americans With Disabilities Act or if the person owns or has secured permission of the property owner or if our Parks Department has given them permission to be in one of the parks.”

During Dye’s presentation, which lasted less than five minutes, he told city leaders the proposal was in response to an increase in unsheltered people sleeping near businesses and in public walkways.

According to background information provided to the City Council, “Their presence in these locations has disrupted business operations at opening and has resulted in the use of resources — such as electrical power and Wi-Fi — without the property owner’s consent. These situations have also created uncomfortable and sometimes concerning interactions for employees and customers.”

No data or recent cases were detailed during the presentation. NBC 5 submitted a request for recent data and had not received the information as of Monday afternoon.

Nonprofit leaders say the policy does not account for limited shelter capacity or the realities facing families experiencing homelessness.

“I’m shocked,” said LaVeeta Hamilton, executive director of Family Promise of Collin County, which serves families in Allen. Hamilton said her organization’s shelter is full and she expects waitlists to grow following the ordinance’s approval.

“We have individuals who are experiencing job loss. They are also experiencing rising rents in their apartment complexes or even with their current landlord,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton also questioned the impact of banning people from sleeping in their vehicles, which she described as a last resort for families trying to remain safe while working or saving for housing.

“If you have a mom and her three children sleeping in a car, you can only imagine what the way that the world is today, how dangerous that can be for that mom,” Hamilton said. “What are these families supposed to do if they are doing everything the right way, but just can’t afford housing?”

City council members approved the ordinance without discussion or questions.

“Once again, this is not a public hearing. We’re gonna move to the council. So, do you have any questions for the chief?” Allen Mayor Baine Brooks said. “That item passes.”

Hamilton said nonprofits and community members were notified only after the decision had already been made.

“They sent that information out after we got it — after the decision was made,” Hamilton said, adding that additional notice would have allowed service providers time to prepare and coordinate support for affected families.

“When you have a situation such as this, at least give the community time to come together to try to work on a solution together. That’s what we did in McKinney with the McKinney Homeless Coalition and the Collin County Homeless Coalition. We met to try and see what we can do to come up with solutions,” Hamilton said.

In October, the city of McKinney passed two ordinances banning sitting, lying or sleeping in public areas.

“Luckily, the police chief in McKinney he’s working with his officers to make sure that the individuals are not being punished for being homeless,” Hamilton said. “This is definitely something that I wish Allen would have done prior to just kind of throwing this ordinance out there.”

Dye said officers will continue to take what he described as a “benevolent approach” when interacting with people experiencing homelessness.

Advocates say that without additional shelter capacity or housing solutions, the ordinance leaves unanswered questions about where people without housing are expected to go.

FBI surged resources to Minnesota over day care fraud claims before viral video, Patel says

The FBI went into overdrive to investigate suspected fraud involving more than a dozen Minnesota social services, according to FBI Director Kash Patel, who posted a statement on X after a YouTube video purporting to show day care facilities that aren’t operational but received state and federal funding went viral over the weekend.

Patel said on X that he was aware of the video, created by right-wing influencer Nick Shirley, 23, but insisted the FBI had already “surged” investigative resources and personnel to Minnesota as part of its ongoing fraud investigation that has largely targeted Somali immigrants.

“The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg,” Patel posted Sunday on X.

Meanwhile, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s office defended its ongoing efforts to crack down on fraud when it was asked about the video.

“The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action,” a spokesperson for the governor’s office said in an email. “He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed.”

The Justice Department has been running a sprawling fraud investigation involving some members of Minnesota’s Somali community for years.

In 2022, during the Biden administration, federal prosecutors announced initial indictments in what they called a $250 million scheme to defraud a federally funded child nutrition program. As of last month, prosecutors had charged 77 people. They described Aimee Bock, who is white, as the mastermind of the operation. She was convicted by a jury in March of this year.

Shirley, a self-described independent journalist, put the subject of Minnesota fraud in the spotlight of conservative media in recent days. His report out of Minneapolis was quickly championed by Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and various right-wing outlets, posted his video on X and YouTube, where it’s been viewed millions of times.

“Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet,” Shirley claimed online. “We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day.”

Among other things, the video features Shirley in front of what appears to be an inactive childcare center in Minneapolis with a sign that reads “Quality Learing Center,” including an apparent misspelling of “learning.”

Shirley contends it received $1.9 million dollars “from the government” this year.

“This is open and blatant fraud taking place here,” Shirley insists, calling it “just one of the hundreds of child daycare centers here inside of Minneapolis being ran by the Somali population.”

Shirley did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. But he is no stranger to right-wing media and did a live interview with a protester at the Jan. 6 riot — who was later sentenced to prison before being pardoned by President Donald Trump — that he posted on YouTube. His YouTube channel says it has 1.2 million followers, and he regularly posts political content there including person-on-the-street interviews from numerous locations. In October, he was a guest at a White House conference on antifa, a decentralized set of extreme left-wing groups.

There was no answer when an NBC News reporter called the childcare center Monday. But a Child Learning Center at that same address in Minneapolis is licensed with the state to care for 99 children. The facility has been fined twice by the state since 2022 for allegedly not performing a required background check, and had several violations listed from its most recent licensing visit in June.

The state Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Shirley’s claim that this facility received $1.9 million in government funding in 2025.

Walz’s office, in response to an email from NBC News, said the Quality Learning Center has been shuttered and the state DHS has “already referred these providers to law enforcement, and law enforcement has already conducted raids.” Walz’s office did not say when the day care facility was closed.

Shirley, accompanied by a researcher he identifies only as Dave, visited several other day care sites where they peppered apparent Somali immigrants at the facilities with questions and talked to people who said they lived in the area who insist they have never seen any children at any of the locations.

The Trump administration seized on the fraud scandal earlier this month as it embarked on a crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota, which is home to about 80,000 people of Somali descent.

Trump delivered several derogatory rants against Somali immigrants following news reports that dozens of people of Somali descent had been convicted in fraud schemes related to Covid relief that netted over $1 billion.

“I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said. “I’ll be honest with you, OK. Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason.”

Walz blasted Trump for “demonizing” Somali immigrants.

“If you commit crimes, you go to jail,” Walz said at a December event. “Doesn’t matter what your race is, what your ethnicity, religion — but demonizing an entire group of people by their race and their ethnicity, a very group of people who contribute to the vitality — economic, cultural — of this state, is something I was hoping we’d never have to see.”

Members of the Trump administration have also called for the resignation of Walz, a Democrat who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in last year’s presidential election, for allegedly failing to stem the corruption.

But Walz was the governor in 2022 when the DOJ first began charging people in Minnesota with exploiting a federally funded nutrition program for children during the pandemic.

“This was a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” then U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota said when the first federal charges were announced.

Mom sleeps with phone on silent, wakes up to something that nearly stops her heart

With seven adult children, Meredith Thornton of Arkansas keeps her phone on every night, a habit she adopted when her eldest first got a driver’s license.

“Even though they’re grown, it scares me to think about them on the road at night,” Thornton, 54, tells TODAY.com, noting that staying reachable has come in handy over the years, especially as the family has faced “legit emergencies” in the past.

“They know I’m always available,” she says.

Recently, however, Thornton experienced a rare lapse.

When Thornton’s eyes popped open after an uninterrupted sleep, she was greeted by a string of back-to-back missed calls from her 18-year-old son, Van.

“My world stopped. My heart stopped,” she recalls. “What made it worse was the timing. He gets off work around 11:30 at night, and those calls came about an hour later. It lined up with something terrible, like a car wreck, or a mental health issue.”

Thornton, who says she was “paralyzed” with anxiety, managed to summon the courage to check on Van. She didn’t expect to find him safe and sound in his bedroom at home, but there he was, fast and asleep and completely unscathed.

He was also very confused.

“He mumbled something about texting me,” Thornton says. Sure enough, when she checked her phone, there was a message from Van.

The emergency, it turned out, was far less dire than Thornton had imagined. Van needed a Microsoft code — just a simple code — that had been sent to his mother’s email.

Thornton had a feeling the mix-up would strike a chord with other parents on TikTok. And she was right. Her video recounting the ordeal quickly went viral, racking up more than three million views.

“Girl!! 11 messages from my son asking about Roblox code and I’m thinking he been kidnapped,” one person wrote in the comments.

• “I was legitimately on a stage speaking to over 300 people. I keep my phone on silent, but I use it to know the time. My son called eleven times in a row. I apologized to the audience and turned my mic off and took the call. ‘Can I spend 7 dollars on roblox.’ Thank God it was all teachers.”
• “What about the text messages that just say….MOM followed by absolutely nothing else.”
• “Ooooh I get those. Heart attack city.”
• “This happened to me last weekend. And my kids were calling because A BEAR WAS OUTSIDE THEIR TENT.”

Meredith Thornton shared the issue that had her son calling in the middle of the night. (@ironmanmamma via TikTok)

Thornton says she was too relieved to be angry at Van for giving her a scare, especially over something as silly as a passcode — and after all, he had texted her.

“Kids today are up all night,” she says. “I think they forget that some of us actually sleep!”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Travis Barker Got His Daughter, 20, Lingerie for Christmas. A Parenting Expert Weighs In
• Viral Sibling Competition for ‘Favorite Child’ Ends in Flames
• 2nd Grader’s Homework Was to Use ‘Down’ in a Sentence. Her Answer Has Everyone Laughing

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

‘Stranger Things' cast members pick their character's best look over the years

As Vecna might say, “It’s time.”

Time for the series finale of “Stranger Things.”

And it there’s one thing that five seasons and 50 episodes over 10 years have shown, it’s just how much times have changed.

Particularly the appearances and styles — and ages — of the stars of a show set in the 1980s.

At a recent celebration of the final season at The Paley Museum in Manhattan, NBC New York showed cast members pictures of their characters from each season and asked them to select their favorite and least favorite look.

“Whoa, that’s sad,” said Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas Sinclair. “Favorite is five. Least favorite, maybe three…He was just an awkward teenager, and the shorts were killing me. It was hot. The shorts were so stank.”

Maya Hawke, who joined the cast in Season 3 as Robin Buckley, was unable to pick a favorite…or least favorite.

“It’s complicated,” she said. “Three is most iconic. Five is most me…like I like how I look here the most. And then four is awesome and I think my favorite season, maybe. I don’t know. So, I can’t even answer!”

She did, however, have an easy answer when asked for her favorite Steve Harrington look.

“I just gotta go five,” she said of the character played by Joe Keery. “I mean look at him, he’s just gorgeous. What can you say? Headphones on, shirt on. Look at that face. Five! Right? He’s just getting better, aging like a fine wine. Like a pair of old Levi’s.”

Most of the main cast was in attendance at The Paley Museum on Dec. 18 for a screening and behind-the-scenes conversation about the final season, with the two-hour series finale set to be released on New Year’s Eve.

Millie Bobby Brown, who played Eleven, was unable to attend, so the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, were asked to pick their favorite look for the show’s main character.   

“You gotta go with the iconic pink dress and the jacket,” Ross Duffer said of Eleven’s Season 1 look. “She looks so bad a– there.”

“Yeah,” Matt Duffer agreed, “I love the buzz cut.”

It’s a look that Eleven’s nemesis, Vecna, knows all too well.

No character has had a more drastic change in appearance in the show than Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays Vecna in a vine-wrapped body, Henry Creel in a wool suit, and 001 in an all-white uniform.

So, which one does he like best?

“This one,” he said with a laugh while pointing to his face.

It’s time…to look back at how the appearances of other main characters have changed through each season of “Stranger Things.”

Gaten Mattarazzo – “Dustin Henderson”

Finn Wolfhard – “Mike Wheeler”

Noah Schnapp – “Will Byers”

Natalia Dyer – “Nancy Wheeler”

Charlie Heaton – “Jonathan Byers”

Sadie Sink – “Max Mayfield”

David Harbour – “Jim Hopper”

Winona Ryder – “Joyce Byers”

Preserving the past with treasures from a Jewish archive

Otto Frank’s poignant pleas to save his family before they famously went into hiding along a canal in Amsterdam. A photograph of Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher chatting nonchalantly before a crowd of starstruck onlookers at Grossinger’s resort in the Catskills.

Those prized possessions are in the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, celebrating its 100 anniversary. The documents, photographs and objects record modern Jewish history and culture, from the religious to the comic, from the horror of the Holocaust to the joys of Irving Berlin sheet music.

YIVO was established in 1925 in Vilna, then in Poland, now Lithuania, with the support of such luminaries as Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Today headquartered in New York City, it is an institution that represents the wholeness of the Jewish people, said its executive director, Jonathan Brent.

“There are Zionistic works, there are anti-Zionistic works,” he said. “There are materials about anarchism, there are materials about Bolshevism, there are materials about immigration, atheism, the entire gamut of Jewish life.”

That is not by accident, Brent said. Its founding ethos was that every part of Jewish life was important.

To mark the milestone, YIVO selected 100 items from its archives to include in a book, “100 OBJECTS from the Collection of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.”

“Archives and libraries are powerful places,” Stefanie Halpern, the archives director, writes in the introduction. “They can create history or erase it based merely on what they choose to collect and how and to whom they make materials available for use.”

Here’s a look at a few of the objects in the archives.

Otto Frank’s appeals for help

Anne Frank is among the best known victims of the Holocaust, a Jewish teenager who on her thirteenth birthday received a diary in which she would record the family’s two years hidden in an annex of her father’s business along a canal in Amsterdam. Papers from her diary were preserved even as she and the others in hiding were discovered and arrested in August 1944, and after she died early the next year from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

What are less well known are her father’s tragically unsuccessful efforts to bring his family to safety in the United States. In 1941, Otto Frank wrote to Nathan Straus, Jr., the son of a co-owner of Macy’s department store, and his friend from college days some 30 years earlier in Heidelberg, Germany, asking for financial help for a deposit for their travel.

“I am forced to look out for emigration and as far as I can see U.S.A. is the only country we could go to,” Frank wrote to Straus, known also as Charley. “Perhaps you remember that we have two girls. It is for the sake of the children mainly that we have to care for. Our own fate is of less importance.”

The letters and other documents, most dating from April 30, 1941, until December 11, 1941, were discovered in YIVO’s archives in 2005 by a volunteer helping to index the files.

Nathan Straus, Jr., and his wife, Helen, made appeals on behalf of the Franks, according to YIVO. But the new restrictions on immigration were insurmountable, and Otto Frank wrote, “The only way to get to a neutral country are visas of others States such as Cuba.”

In the end, Cuba issued one visa in the name of Otto Frank. Ten days later, when Germany declared war on the United States, it was cancelled.

Otto Frank was the sole member of the family to survive the Holocaust. Anne’s sister, Margot, died with her in the Bergen-Belsen camp. Their mother, Otto Frank’s wife, Edith, died from starvation in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death and concentration camp.

The family’s hiding place in Amsterdam has been turned into a museum. More than 30 million copies of Anne Frank’s diary have been sold.

A Nazi portrait (on a desecrated Torah scroll)

One of the more bizarre items in the YIVO archives is this portrait of a Nazi painted on a Torah scroll.

It is believed to be of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian official who shared responsibility for the deportation of Dutch Jews to death camps. In a speech in 1941, he said, “We will smite the Jews where we meet them and whoever goes along with them must take the consequences.”

After the war, he was indicted for crimes against humanity, and at the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to death. He was hanged in 1946.

The oil painting was found by chance in a Vienna flea market by an American couple from Pennsylvania, Shirley and Mortimer Kadushin. Mortimer Kadushin served in the U.S.Army during World War II and himself was the target of antisemitic discrimination.

Seyss-Inquart looks like an ordinary bureaucrat, Brent said, a tax official or bank teller, except that the portrait appears on a piece of parchment ripped from a Torah, desecrating the text. The painting encapsulates the way the Nazis treated murdering European Jews — and destroying their culture and their God — as an administrative affair, Brent said.

“It was really an act of tremendous, lethal hatred that inspired it, and which you have to somehow connect with that very banal expression,” Brent said.

A manuscript hand-written by a Rothschild

Before the Rothschilds became Europe’s most famous banking family and their name synonymous with great wealth, there was 12-year-old Amschel Moses Rothschild, copying a tractate from the Talmud dealing with Jewish monetary law, perhaps as part of his scribal training as a bar mitzvah student.

He produced the tiny manuscript between 1721 and 1722, ornately decorated and passed down through generations of the Rothschild family for more than a century. He later worked as a money changer in Frankfurt, Germany, and a silk cloth trader and it was his son Mayer Amschel Rothschild who went on to found the Rothschild banking dynasty.

The Rothschild family has had long ties with YIVO, and in 2012, YIVO honored a sixth-generation descendent of Mayer Amschel Rothshild, Baron David de Rothschild.

Vibrant dolls outfitted in an Italian camp

A colorful collection donated to YIVO in 1989 consists of what appear to be the famous Italian-made Lenci dolls, constructed of wool felt, known for their heat pressed faces and painted features, and dressed in cotton, felt, silk and velvet. 

The 17 dolls wear the traditional clothes of Siena’s contradas or districts, that are represented during a costume parade that precedes a twice-a-year horse race, the Palio di Siena, Halpern, the director of the YIVO Archives, points out in “100 Objects.” 

Why are the dolls, purchased sometime in the late 1940s, in YIVO’s archives? All of the clothes were made by children living in a displaced persons camp in Florence after the end of World War II. Some 250,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust stayed in displaced persons camps in Italy, Germany and Austria, 50,000 of them in the 35 camps set up in Italy between 1945 and 1948. 

“The dolls from the DP camps are extraordinary expressions of hopefulness about the future, about children playing, the idea that children actually could play,” said Jonathan Brent, YIVO’s executive director. “These were children largely born in the camps or somehow saved during the war, and they had hope for the future. And that’s what you see in those dolls.”

Antisemitic rejection from a New York resort

The letter to the couple from Accord, New York, seeking employment at the Lake Mohonk Mountain House is brief in its rejection, only two paragraphs, but devastating.

“We are in receipt of your letter of June 14th to Mr. De Witt and wish to state that we do not employ people of your race,” reads the first of the paragraphs, written by a J.W. Smith for Daniel Smiley, proprietor.

Mohonk Mountain House is a Victorian castle 90 miles north of New York City. The resort dates to the 1869, when Albert Smiley bought a 10-room inn by a glacial lake, and renovated and expanded it. Today, the Smiley family still owns and runs the property, on the Shawangunk Ridge.

At the time that Morris Feldberg and his wife applied for work there in 1922, antisemitism was flourishing across the United States. In Michigan, Henry Ford was engaged in an antisemitic campaign in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, publishing articles about a supposed international Jewish conspiracy based on the scandalous antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Articles drawn from the newspaper became the volumes of “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.”

“They’re turned down, and the reason for their being turned down is very interesting,” Brent said. “It’s not that we don’t employ people of your religion. It’s that we do not employ people of your race. And therefore what this reflects is the race thinking and the racial philosophies that were then dominating the United States of America, that were part and parcel of the eugenics movement and what has become known as white supremacy.”

The letter from Lake Mohonk Mountain House, dated June 15, 1922, went on to say, “Trusting that our delay in answering you has not caused you too much inconvenience.”

The nearby Catskill Mountains became known for Jewish vacation spots in the early to the 20th century, a result of pervasive antisemitism that also gave rise to the Jewish Vacation Guide. Like the Green Book that followed and which was written for Black Americans, the Jewish Vacation Guide directed Jewish travelers to places where they would be safe, initially to farmhouses that took in boarders and later resorts.

Asked about the letter, the current president of the Mohonk Mountain House said that the Smiley family could find no evidence of a discriminatory policy toward staff or guests in business records from more than 100 years ago.

“Our ancestors were devout Quakers, believing in the equality of all people, and were deeply concerned about the social inequities of their time,” the president, Eric Gullickson, one of the fifth generation of the Smiley family, said in an email. “They dedicated their lives towards efforts to improve the human condition.”

He said employees working in the front office signed all letters for Daniel Smiley.

“We regret that 103 years ago an employee of Mohonk took this action on behalf of the Smiley family,” he said. “This has never been a policy in Mohonk’s 156-year history — not then, nor is it now, a policy of the Smiley family or Mohonk Mountain House.”

Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher and a crowd of admirers

The photograph was taken at Grossinger’s hotel, probably in 1959, the year Elizabeth Taylor married singer Eddie Fisher. A group of waitresses captivated by famous couple crowd in the doorways.

Grossinger’s was among the best known of the Catskills’ Borscht Belt resorts, which were known for their entertainment, from musicals to stand-up routines.

“It was the New York City escape to which all other Catskills operations—indeed, lodgings throughout America—aspired,” the Smithsonian magazine wrote in 2015.

This was Taylor’s fourth marriage. Fisher and Taylor’s third husband, Mike Todd, were best friends and after Todd died in a plane crash, she kept him alive by talking about him with Fisher, she said. She liked Fisher, but never loved him, she admitted later.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t remember too much about my marriage to him, except it was one big, frigging awful mistake,” she says in a 2024 HBO documentary, ‘Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes.’ “I knew it before we were married and didn’t know how to get out of it.”

Fisher was a regular at Grossinger’s, and had married his previous wife, Debbie Reynold, there, said Eddy Portnoy, YIVO’s senior academic advisor and director of exhibitions.

An obituary of one of the resorts’ founders, Jennie Grossinger, that appeared in The New York Times noted that Eddie Fisher was an unknown singer at the hotel when he was discovered by Eddie Cantor, then a guest. Fisher “started on the road to glory from the hotel,” according to the obituary.

“Elizabeth loved coming up to Grossinger’s because she could relax and no one would bother her,” Jackie Horner, a dancer who knew her, told the Times Herald-Record in 2011.

A one-of-a-kind menorah

The unusual glass menorah, with eight bowls and a place for the highest candle, is actually a bong or a water pipe for smoking cannabis.

It was created by David Daily, the owner of a company called GRAV, which makes pipes and bongs, and the artist Charlie Glass. It was intended for celebrating Hanukkah with Daily’s family — the holiday of lights that commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, when lamp oil meant for only one day lasted eight instead.

But Daily later put it into production.

It is one of the newer additions to YIVO’s archives, and part of a collection on Jews and cannabis. Archeological discoveries in Israel have shown that it was used by ancient Israelites in religious rituals, according to Portnoy.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The New Year's ball will drop twice in 2026. Here's why

This New Year’s Eve celebration will look different.

Normally, every year, New Yorkers will gather in Times Square on New Year’s Eve to watch the Constellation Ball drop from the iconic One Times Square building. This celebratory moment signifies the start of a new year.

However, on Jan. 1, New Yorkers might be surprised to see that there’ll be two ball drops instead of one.

In honor of the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary of when the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Times Square Alliance — a group that organizes the annual ball drop — decided it would be best to include a second one in the night.

The Alliance has also been working with America250, a nonpartisan body that Congress established in 2016 for the upcoming anniversary, to put the whole event together.

According to America250, the second ball drop will start at around 12:04 a.m. EST. Unlike the first ball drop, this one will feature a red, white, and blue design.

During the celebratory moment, New Yorkers will be covered with “2,000 pounds of red, white, and blue confetti.” There will also be a pyro finale set to Ray Charles’ rendition of “America the Beautiful,” according to the press release.

“Our goal is to inspire all 350 million Americans to join in this moment to celebrate our country,” Rosie Rios, Chair of America250 said in a press release.

Tom Harris, President of the Times Square Alliance added, “Every year in Times Square on New Year’s Eve we unite the crowds cheering in the streets with the millions of people around the country and the world to celebrate one of the most iconic moments together as one. It’s perfect that this moment will be in partnership with America250 and the very first moment of a year’s worth of moments to celebrate our country’s 250 great years.”

The decorated Times Square Ball will also drop again on July 3, 2026, the eve of the nation’s birthday. This will mark the first time in history that the Ball drops outside of New Year’s Eve.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Chevy Chase Say He Felt ‘Hurt’ Being Left Out of ‘SNL’ 50th Anniversary Special
• Where Jonathan and Nancy’s Relationship Stands Now After ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5
• Who Lily Collins and Ashley Park Think Their ‘Emily in Paris’ Characters Should End Up With

At Gaza's only animal shelter, workers share what food they have with hungry dogs, cats

A humble shelter operating out of a tent remains the last beacon of hope for the injured and hungry animal population in war-ravaged Gaza, even as its workers and volunteers face their own impossible conditions.

“You cannot look at a creature that trusts you and eat in front of it without sharing,” Saeed Al-Aar, who founded the Sulala Animal Rescue shelter in 2006, told NBC News last month.

Despite bombs raining down and a lack of tools, food and medicine, the shelter has remained operational throughout the two-year conflict, working to help emaciated and injured dogs, cats, donkeys and horses.

At the shelter’s site in Deir al-Balah, several dogs with three legs are among the animals running around, a stark reminder of the toll that the war has taken. In a large tent, veterinarians and volunteers work together to place an IV into the leg of a small, whimpering puppy.

Dr. Hossam Mortaja, one of the few remaining veterinarians in Gaza, is often forced to improvise, using expired medicines or human drugs like amoxicillin when veterinary supplies run dry.

“You cannot look at a creature that trusts you and eat in front of it without sharing,” Saeed Al-Aar, who founded the Sulala Animal Rescue shelter in 2006, told NBC News last month. (NBC News)

“Animals suffer like humans — they feel fear, even convulsions,” he said. The organization shelters about 70 dogs and 50 cats, many injured or left without owners by the war. During the worst aid shortages, the team shared scarce rice, pasta and canned tuna with the animals, a desperate measure to prevent starvation.

Since the war erupted in October 2023, Gaza’s animal population has plummeted. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, an estimated 97% of the strip’s livestock has been destroyed through bombing, starvation and looting. This includes cows, sheep, goats and poultry.

Large animals like donkeys and horses have dropped to around 30% of their former numbers.

Stray pets have not been spared; countless dogs and cats were abandoned as families fled, leading to a surge in malnutrition, diseases like parvovirus, anemia and respiratory infections. Veterinary reports describe animals in states of “cachexia” — severe wasting — with weakened immune systems exacerbating outbreaks of gastroenteritis, jaundice and eye diseases. Sulala’s clinic treats these conditions daily.

Since the war erupted in October 2023, Gaza’s animal population has plummeted. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, an estimated 97% of the strip’s livestock has been destroyed through bombing, starvation and looting. (NBC News)

“People seek comfort in animals. Some find support in dogs, while others find it in cats. During the war, I witnessed many individuals caring for and sheltering animals, both cats and dogs. They reached out to us, and we consistently provided them with food,” Al-Aar told NBC News.

The Sulala Animal Rescue team worked in dire and dangerous conditions as Israel continued its assault on Gaza. Famine conditions in Gaza City have eased since the ceasefire began in October, according to a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world’s leading authority on food crises, but the situation remains critical, with the entire strip still at risk of starvation.

Veterinarian Muath Talat Abo Rokba, who worked with Sulala and also ran his own veterinary clinic, was reportedly killed by Israeli forces in October, while the ceasefire was in effect. He had been visiting the ruins of his home in the Jabalia area, close to the “yellow line” marking Israeli-held territory, Sulala Animal Rescue said at the time. The IDF told NBC News that it was not aware of the specific incident.

Stray pets have not been spared; countless dogs and cats were abandoned as families fled, leading to a surge in malnutrition, diseases like parvovirus, anemia and respiratory infections. (NBC News)

“There are no words we have about losing him,” said Annelies Keuleers, a remote volunteer and spokesperson for Sulala Animal Rescue. “In many ways, he was absolutely irreplaceable.”

The shelter’s Instagram page has attracted a dedicated following amid the conflict, with 180,000 followers, many of whom are located in the West, eagerly watching for updates on Al-Aar, his team and the animals the organization helps.

Keuleers, who volunteers from Belgium, told NBC News that she worries constantly for the safety of the rescue team on the ground.

“Saeed and his children have been in dangerous situations to try and pick up animals that have been left behind during evacuations, that have been starving there.”

Even with a fragile ceasefire in place, human suffering in Gaza remains acute, compounding the animal plight. (NBC News)

She continued: “There’s been a couple of times where I hadn’t heard from anyone for a day or a day and a half. And that’s been scary, as I wasn’t sure how I would know if they were bombed or killed.”

Even with a fragile ceasefire in place, human suffering in Gaza remains acute, compounding the animal plight.

While the ceasefire has improved the flow of some deliveries into Gaza, the World Health Organization warned earlier this month that “humanitarian needs remain staggering, with current assistance addressing only the most basic survival requirements.”

Lucia Elmi, UNICEF’s director of emergency operations, warned that fragile gains made during the ceasefire could vanish overnight if fighting resumes, adding: “We need sustained humanitarian access, restored basic services, and above all, lasting peace.”

Despite the dangers that persist for Al-Aar and the other veterinarians and volunteers, they remain devoted to helping animals, even at a time when so much human suffering persists.

“They live in fear and horror, just as we do,” Al-Aar said.