The Brief

Some colleges have laid off staff members and cut back services after the Trump administration halted funding for programs that help students from migrant families attend and succeed in college.

The College Assistance Migrant Program, also known as CAMP, has served about 2,400 students annually at colleges and universities since its creation in 1972. Focusing on first-year students, with continued support through their college years, CAMP provides students with internship resources, mental health counseling, tutoring and financial aid.

In June, the U.S. Education Department notified colleges that they would not receive funding for the program — about $2.4 million over five years — this fall. The halt comes as the Trump administration criticizes migrant education programs, claiming in its proposed budget for 2026 that such programs are "extremely costly" and "not been proven effective."

Since schools enroll, and receive funding, for the program in five-year cycles, many schools in the middle of that period were shocked to learn about the abrupt pause.

At Millersville University in southeastern Pennsylvania, four staff members who administered the program and advised students were laid off this summer. The 21 students in the program remain on campus, but the support they get from the CAMP program has been canceled.

"Until we receive the funding, we can't continue this year's program," said Lara Willox, dean of Millersville's college of education and human services.

As at many schools, CAMP at Millersville is also linked with programs that help migrant students earn their high school equivalency diplomas, known as HEP.

In August, a group representing colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations that participate in the CAMP program sued the Trump administration, saying that since Congress appropriated the funding, the money should be restored.

"The closure of these programs located at trade schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities will mean that nearly 7,000 students throughout the country will not receive the support they need this year," Katie Covington, the president-elect of the National HEPCAMP Association, said in a statement.

Typically, the Education Department opens the process for schools to apply for CAMP during the fall semester. This year, the department has yet to open applications for the next cycle, or to notify colleges whether it will resume funding.

Officials at the Education Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

On Sept. 10, a group of U.S. senators from both parties sent a letter to Secretary Linda McMahon of the Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget, urging the department to release the funds allocated to migrant student programs for Fiscal Year 2025.

"This funding is necessary to ensure these educational programs provide critical access to educational opportunities for agricultural farmworker students," the letter stated.

In 2022, there were an estimated 2.9 million workers engaged in seasonal or migratory farm work, according to the National Center for Farmworker Health. For many of their children, frequent relocation can make the transition to college difficult.

Since its inception, CAMP has helped tens of thousands of migrant students, including Sofia Mireles-Gonzalez, a recent graduate of Michigan State University.

"You have to navigate a lot of firsts," she said. Mireles-Gonzalez grew up in the Rio Grande Valley region in Texas and knew she would face many challenges as a first-generation college student.

The CAMP program helped her find a footing at a large university far away from her home. It "really gave me the opportunity to learn a lot, make those connections and have a college experience that allowed me to grow."

An uncertain future

Michigan State, where over 1,000 CAMP students have received support since 2000, is raising the roughly $5,000 needed this year to offer temporary financial assistance.

Around the country, the sudden halt in funding has forced many participating colleges "to lay off staff and to prepare for the closure of projects," said Covington of the national CAMP/HEP organization.

At Millersville, "I think our first hope was that it would be a temporary pause," said Willox, the dean. "And that the money would be released, and we could then continue moving forward."

Instead, as it enters the fifth year of its funding cycle, the university is trying to keep the program alive, at least for the fall semester, without federal funding.

"I think we're going to continue to learn how disruptive this has been as the year goes on," said Willox. Having laid off the staff who work with students, the university is hoping to enlist "second and third year students to be mentors and peer tutors for the first year students."

Data from the national HEPCAMP organization shows that it does produce results, with 76% of students in the program completing their first year and 96% continuing into the second.

A 2024 report to Congress from the Education Department, highlighted in the letter to Secretary McMahon, showed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, CAMP programs retained more first-year college students than the national average, reaching an 81% retention rate at four-year institutions in 2021 and 2022.

"These are results that can help strengthen the economy for agricultural farmworker families and rural communities," the letter stated.

South of Los Angeles, California State University San Marcos has seen similar success.

"We see it in the year-to-year reports that we're able to document the success of our program," said Maria Venegas Escobedo, director of CAMP programs there.

The university enrolled about 40 students into the program each year. Reports to the Education Department showed that, over the past decade, about 90% of them made it through their first year, and 97% of CAMP sophomores returned to campus for their junior year.

"It just speaks to the caliber of the work that we do and the support that we give our students," said Venegas Escobedo.

With the federal funding halt, the university has had to end the financial support for CAMP, such as financial aid for books, computers, and other classroom essentials. And Venegas Escobedo is working to find alternative sources for mentorship and academic counseling.

"We're still here, able to respond to questions," she says, but CAMP students have been referred to a different campus office that provides coaching and academic support for students.

As someone who credits CAMP with helping her get a degree, Mireles-Gonzalez says she hopes the program can survive: "As the first in my family to get the opportunity to go to college, I want to see that opportunity for others."

Copyright 2025 NPR

The Food and Drug Administration intends to get tougher on vaccine approvals, as top officials raised concerns about the risk of COVID vaccines for children.

Speaking on Fox News Saturday morning, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said the agency would no longer "rubber-stamp new products that don't work," claiming it made a "mockery of science."

Makary's comments came the day after FDA's top vaccine regulator, Dr. Vinay Prasad, told his team the agency would change its annual flu vaccine framework, update vaccine labels to be "honest," and make other changes to how it reviews vaccines, according to contents of an internal email reviewed by NPR and reported on first by a PBS News Hour correspondent and later by The Washington Post.

Prasad wrote that the FDA would also no longer authorize vaccines for pregnant women without stricter requirements. And for pneumonia vaccines, manufacturers will have to prove they reduce disease rather than show they generate antibodies. He also raised questions about giving multiple vaccines at the same time, which is standard practice.

The changes could make it much more difficult and expensive for vaccines to get approved, further limiting the availability of vaccines, which are considered among the safest and most effective tools for protecting people against infectious diseases.

While all vaccines carry some risks, most public health experts argue the current process for vetting vaccines before marketing has long assured that the benefits of vaccines outweigh their risks. Studies required after vaccines are approved and surveillance systems, including the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), also flag potential safety issues once vaccines are in use.

FDA says an analysis links COVID shots to some deaths

Makary said on Fox News that 10 children had died from the COVID shot during the Biden administration, but did not offer specifics about how the FDA came to that conclusion. Millions of children have received the vaccine. 

Officials with the Department of Health and Human Services and Food and Drug Administration didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the COVID analysis and changes to vaccine review standards.

According to the FDA email from Prasad, he told the agency's biostatistics and pharmacovigilance team to analyze 96 reported deaths from 2021 to 2024, and they determined 10 children died "after and because of" the COVID vaccine. But Prasad said the true number was likely higher.

Dr. Paul Offit, who directs the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a text message that Prasad has not shared the evidence that these vaccines killed 10 children.

"Because he doesn't provide any evidence, he is asking us to trust him on an important issue," Office said. "All this will do is scare people unnecessarily. At the very least, he should provide all the evidence he has so that experts in the field can review it and decide whether he has enough data to prove his point."

Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professor at Georgetown University who held Prasad's job at FDA from 2003 until 2009, said in an email that the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccine approval, has been "recognized globally as a gold standard regulator." Goodman defended "immunologic endpoints like antibody levels" for the accelerated approval of pneumonia and influenza vaccines. He said science supports their use and they are confirmed with studies after approval: "These approaches have helped provide children and adults with timely access to safe and effective vaccines, saving many lives."

Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, reviewed the email from Prasad and challenged his statement that "COVID-19 was never highly lethal for children." Osterholm also questioned the FDA's latest analysis of adverse event reports attributing the 10 deaths to COVID vaccines.

"Prasad's email is filled with factual mistakes and misrepresents both the severity of COVID in children (1597 deaths in 2020-2022) and how the US responded to the first signals of possible vaccine-associated pediatric deaths in May 2021," Osterholm wrote in an email to NPR.

"While Prasad's email notes 10 such deaths, these cases have never been presented for review by the medical and public health communities or published in the medical literature," Osterholm continued. "Given the record of this Administration to misrepresent scientific data regarding vaccines, until these cases have been reviewed by an expert third party, like the National Academy of Science[s], we can not accept the fact they are vaccine-associated deaths."

Surveillance system collects vaccines reports

The FDA makes public data from the VAERS surveillance system co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the FDA cautions, "it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause and effect relationship has been established." In his email, Prasad wrote that "with case reports, causality is typically assessed on a subjective scale. In this scale ranging from certain to unlikely — certain, possible/likely, and probable are broadly considered as related to the product."

Makary said on Fox News that when the COVID shot was first rolled out, it was "amazing" for people at high risk of coming down with severe disease, but things have changed.

"Back in 2020, we saw a reduction in the severity of illness and lives saved, but now recommending that a 6-year-old girl get another 70 million COVID shots — one each year for the rest of her life — is not based on science. And so we're not going to just rubber stamp approvals without seeing some scientific evidence."

The claim is the latest move by Trump administration health officials questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and how the government has regulated them. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long questioned vaccines.

The FDA restricted eligibility for the updated COVID vaccines in August after announcing the agency planned to require more evidence about the shots' safety and effectiveness going forward.

CDC committee will meet to review vaccine policies

The FDA email on vaccine policy comes just before the CDC convenes a crucial two-day meeting of that agency's influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Dec. 4-5. The committee is in the process of conducting a major review of how children are inoculated against dangerous infectious diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio and hepatitis B.

Many public health experts are concerned the committee will upend the childhood vaccination schedule. It could move to delay the timing of some inoculations, space out vaccinations and call for the reformulation of some vaccines. Taken together, the moves could result in fewer children getting protected and the resurgence of once-vanquished diseases.

Asked about Makary and Prasad's claims that the COVID vaccine caused deaths among 10 children, Moderna, whose COVID vaccine is approved for children as young as 6 months old, pointed to a statement it made in September. The company says that multiple published, peer-reviewed studies from a variety of sources show its shot is safe and that it is "not aware of any deaths in the last year or pertinent new information from prior years."

Moderna says it monitors its vaccine's safety along with regulators in more than 90 countries. "With more than one billion doses distributed globally, these systems — including in national health systems across Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the U.S. — have not reported any new or undisclosed safety concerns in children or in pregnant women."

Pfizer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Copyright 2025 NPR

California is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Afghan immigrants, many of them now grappling with the Trump administration’s abrupt visa and asylum freeze.

Friday’s announcement by the White House followed the fatal shooting of a National Guard member in Washington, D.C. a couple days earlier by a suspect who had immigrated from Afghanistan.

In Orange County, where many Afghans have settled as their immigration applications pend, local officials are gearing up to help them navigate the change, even as guidance is scant from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Jose Serrano, director of Orange County's Office of Refugee and Immigrant Services, said the goal is to provide the “most up-to-date information so they can continue on towards their pathway towards citizenship here in the United States.”

“The Afghan population in Southern California, specifically in Orange County, is one that is really important to the DNA of who we are,” Serrano said. “Let's continue to stay together and strong and reimagine a place for belonging for everyone.”

As they await more information, Serrano advised visa and asylum seekers to:

• stay on top of updates from USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security
• contact their local office of immigrant and refugee affairs
• connect with organizations that work closely with immigrant and refugee populations, such as resettlement agencies and legal aid groups

The pull of OC

Nearly 200,000 Afghans are in the U.S., with 39% of them residing in California, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Hundreds of Afghan households have settled in Orange County, Serrano said, making it one of the state’s hubs for Afghan immigrants alongside San Diego and Sacramento.

Serrano said a big draw for immigrants to Orange County is Little Arabia in Anaheim, a regional destination for Middle Eastern food, culture and community life.

Serrano, who spent more than a decade working with immigrants at World Relief Southern California and the state's refugee programs bureau, said entering Afghan homes means being offered large meals. One family had prepared a whole feast for a Time Warner cable worker, he recalled.

“They didn't understand why that person couldn’t stay to dine with them,” he said. “That’s the type of people that are here in Orange County, folks who are so committed to being a part of civic engagement, to connecting alongside other communities.”

Visa applications in limbo

Serrano said many of the Afghans who resettled in the county are Special Immigrant Visa holders, a program created for Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. government during the war in their home country.

That program has now been frozen by the State Department.

Serrano said immigrants who entered the U.S. as refugees and have since become green card holders could see their cases reopened.

Joseph Edlow, who leads USCIS, said the new immigration measures will last until “we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”

For Serrano, the current screening process is rigorous and involves multiple organizations aside from USCIS, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the F.B.I. and counterterrorist organizations.

Applicants undergo health screenings and multiple fingerprinting appointments, he said.

“They're constantly doing an assessment to verify that you are a good-standing citizen,” Serrano said. “One of the things that I think we should be very proud of within the United States is that there is an in-depth screening process for anyone who is seeking a protection.”

STOCKTON, Calif. — Four people were killed and 10 wounded in a shooting during a family gathering at a banquet hall in Stockton, sheriff's officials said Saturday.

The victims included both children and adults, said Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff's office. Early indications "suggest this may have been a targeted incident," Brent said during a news conference at the scene.

Local officials said the suspected shooter has not been caught and pleaded with the public for help. Detectives were still working to identify a possible motive.

"If you have any information as to this individual, reach out immediately. If you are this individual, turn yourself in immediately," San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas said during a news conference.

The shooting occurred just before 6 p.m. inside the banquet hall, which shares a parking lot with other businesses. Stockton is a city of 320,000 about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Sacramento.

"Families should be together instead of at the hospital, standing next to their loved one, praying that they survive," Mayor Christina Fugazzi said.

Authorities did not immediately provide additional information about the conditions of the victims. Officials said earlier that several were taken to hospitals.

Copyright 2025 NPR

A quintessential piece of Los Angeles history — a jaw-dropping midcentury modern house of glass, steel and seemingly all skies soaring high above the Hollywood Hills — is up for sale.

Asking price: $25 million.

The Stahl House, designed and built by Pierre Koenig, photographed by Julius Shulman.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

The Stahl House, otherwise known as Case Study House #22, has stayed with the same family since it was built in 1960.

"After 65 years, our family has made the heartfelt and very difficult decision to place the Stahl House on the market," wrote the Stahl children, Bruce Stahl and Shari Stahl Gronwald.

The 2,200-square-foot home at 1635 Woods Drive has been preserved meticulously, funded in part by proceeds from open-house tours of the space.

"This home has been the center of our lives for decades, but as we’ve gotten older, it has become increasingly challenging to care for it with the attention and energy it so richly deserves," the Stahl children continued.

And they are not just looking for a buyer — but a steward.

The kitchen of the Stahl House, photographed by Julius Shulman.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

"It is a passing of responsibility," the listing for the house reads. "A search for the next custodian who will honor the house's history, respect its architectural purity, and ensure its preservation for generations to come."

Post-war housing shortage

The Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, was designed and built by Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

The futuristic house, with its stunning panorama and a swimming pool perched at the edge of nothingness, has become one of the most recognizable and prized expressions of midcentury modern architecture in L.A. How it came to be built was fueled by a similar spirit of experimentation and audacity.

In 1945, the cutting-edge Arts & Architecture magazine launched the "Case Study House" program to commission the era's biggest and most boundary-pushing architects — Richard Neutra, Charles Eames and the like — to design and build affordable, scalable homes for an exploding middle class after World War II.

"Each house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an 'individual' performance," editor John Entenza wrote in the announcement-slash-manifesto.

The Stahl House photographed by Julius Shulman.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

By its terminus in 1966, the program gave rise to 36 designs, of which 25 prototypes were built — mostly in and around the city — forging L.A. into an epicenter of West Coast modernism.

Case Study Home #22

One of them was Case Study Home #22 by Pierre Koenig, who, as an architecture student at USC in the early 1950s, was already making a name for himself, particularly for his use of steel.

His student work caught the attention of Entenza, who later invited him to join the Case Study House program.

Architect Pierre Koenig was hired by former football player Buck Stahl and his wife Carlotta to build the Stahl House.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

One of the bedrooms in the Stahl House looking out to the pool.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

The Stahl family home

The Hollywood Hills home would be Koenig's second Case Study house — and his most well-known.

The story began with Hughes Aircraft purchasing agent and former football player Buck Stahl and his wife, Carlotta, who bought a small hillside lot overlooking the city for $13,500.

The couple spent weekends putting up a wall around the property using broken concrete sourced from construction sites. Buck, the Stahl family said, had built a model of his dream house to take to architects — many of whom turned the job down because the lot was seen as undevelopable.

The Stahl House, part of the Case Study House program, was completed in 1960.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

Enter Koenig, who signed on for the challenge in 1957. A month before construction began in 1959, the project was christened Case Study House #22. The Stahl House was completed a year later, according to the Los Angeles Times, at a cost of nearly $38,000.

The birth of cool

With its sleek lines and inviting airiness, Case Study House #22 has come to embody the good life in postwar Los Angeles, an idea reinforced by its countless appearances in movies, TV shows and magazine spreads over the decades.

But the photographs that started it all — elevating the home into the stuff of mythology — were taken by Julius Shulman. He was tapped to document the entire Arts & Architecture program after charting an unlikely career photographing modernist architecture in L.A., starting with those designed by Neutra.

Julius Shulman was responsible for documenting houses in the Case Study House program. The Stahl House is among a number of houses he took photos of.

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

(

Julius Shulman

/

© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

)

Shulman shot the Stahl House in May 1960, shortly after its completion. In the most iconic shot of the series, two young women in white party dresses are sitting in the glass living room, conversing leisurely as the house dissolves into the shimmering sprawl below.

"It was not an architectural quote-unquote 'photograph,'" said Shulman about the image in an interview for the Archives of American Art. "It is a picture of a mood.”