The Brief

When Rigoberto Sanchez-Mejia was just 5 years old, he started taking music lessons at the Harmony Project in Los Angeles. He started out on the drums and the piano, but as soon as he picked up the violin, he knew he had found his instrument.

“Once I found the violin, that was it. It’s a big part of me,” said the soft-spoken 17-year-old who’s planning to study biochemistry at UC San Diego in the fall. “It was love at first sight.”

Getting their first instrument is an emotionally stirring experience for many children, but for the low-income students served by the Harmony Project, it’s often a life-changing event as well. Amid the youth mental health crisis in the wake of the pandemic, some find that music can be soothing as well as intellectually enriching.

“I feel like it calms me down,” said Sanchez-Mejia, who plays jazz, classical and mariachi music with his beloved stringed instrument. “The best way I can explain it is sort of when everything is going a bit crazy in my head, there’s a bit too much going on, the violin is just able to calm those down a bit, so I can focus. I’m not worrying about 10 things at once.”

At Harmony, music is an art form and a lifeline that helps pave the way for college. The largest nonprofit music education organization in Los Angeles, serving Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) as well as Compton and South Central among other areas, boasts a staggering 97% high school graduation rate. Roughly 79% of these young artists also become first-generation college students despite the myriad obstacles caused by poverty and worsened by the pandemic.

“It’s rough,” said Executive Director Natalie Jackson. “The last two years we have been seeing kids with so much more anxiety, so much more struggle, so much more loneliness.”

Founded by Margaret Martin in 2001 primarily as a public health intervention, the Harmony Project gives the children of the city’s hardscrabble neighborhoods access to free music education. The core belief here, that music lessons sharpen brain function, setting the stage for academic success, was famously studied by neuroscientist Nina Kraus. Giving children in poverty, who are at a far greater risk of dropping out of school than their higher-income peers, a cognitive boost early on can have a lasting impact on the course of their lives.

“Harmony has changed my life,” said Sanchez-Mejia. “It introduced me to the world of music, and through that I made so many connections and met so many people that really helped set the path I take now, going to college, having the escape of music, and being able to get opportunities others may not.”

Sanchez-Mejia is one of more than 4,000 students enrolled in this research-backed arts education initiative, which taps into the neuroscience of music to spark learning. Playing an instrument strengthens the brain’s ability to capture the depth and richness of language, experts say, boosting the cornerstone skill of literacy. Music is the key that unlocks the brain’s full potential.

“Music education and empowering youth to connect through music is at the core of everything we do at the Harmony Project,” said Jackson. “We envision a world where all youth have equal access to opportunities to make music and the resources needed to thrive in college and beyond.”

Discipline is among the program’s grace notes. Children pursue music for years, from K to 12, helping them develop a dogged sense of persistence and keen commitment to their craft and ambitions in music and beyond. That’s partly because the ability to focus for extended periods of time, a mandatory skill in music class, also buttresses all other academic pursuits.

Wellness is another coord woven throughout the program. In addition to receiving an instrument to take home and free music classes, students also gain access to social services, from food to mental health care. During the pandemic, Harmony tried to provide whatever its families needed.

“Our model is very holistic,” said Jackson. “We’re not just looking at a kid for an hour a day and focusing on whether or not they can play an A major scale. We’re looking to see how we can help the entire family in some way. Once we commit to a community, we really try to stay. Once a child is in our program, we commit for their entire childhood.”

Jackson notes that most students now seem a year or two behind where they were before the pandemic. That learning loss hurts their ability to grasp music concepts initially, but she notes the music lessons also help them catch up.

“Our third-graders aren’t really third-graders,” she said, “they are more like second-graders or first-graders.”

She also sees more families now in which older children must find a job to make ends meet. That cuts into time for music, not to mention school.

“It used to take two incomes to put food on the table, now sometimes it takes three,” said Jackson. “If they have to change their schedule to pick up an extra shift at Taco Bell, we try to accommodate them.”

Guillermo Tejeda, a jazz musician and educator, said that Harmony’s immersive approach to music education mixed with community outreach has inspired his own work with LA’s Neighborhood Orchestra.

I “highly respect their work in providing music education to underprivileged children,” said Tejada. “Their holistic approach fosters community, discipline, and personal growth, leading to transformative academic results.”

Others applaud the program’s embrace of rigor and research, the core of the science of learning, as well as empathy.

“I’m impressed with the scope and reach of the Harmony Project,” said Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos. “Building trusting relationships, this to me is fundamental to any success in life, and is often overlooked as a core component of a program. Compassion is crucial to a healthy community.”

In an age of distraction, experts say the power of sustained concentration, honed through musical training, often boosts scholastic achievement.

Sanchez-Mejia has studied at Harmony for 12 years, taking part in the youth orchestra as well as helping mentor younger students while also getting on the honor roll at school. He credits Harmony with setting him on the path to college and helping him find his footing along the way.

As a first-generation college student, practicality is top of mind. That’s why he initially struggled with whether to major in music or science at UCSD.

“It is a little scary being the first one to go to college in my family since I don’t really have anyone that I can rely on in my family,” he said, “and instead I have to go out my way to find my own resources.”

In the end, he decided on a science major, but he says he’ll still play the violin 10-12 hours a week. He’s also hoping to snag a spot with Orange County’s Synesthesia Sinfonietta during college, even though it’s a brutal commute.

“I ended up picking biochemistry mostly because it felt a little safer for my future, but that doesn’t mean I’m leaving music behind at all,” he said.”I love the violin.”

There was a celebratory mood in the Oval Office for the November swearing-in of the new ambassador to India, Sergio Gor. One of President Donald Trump's top lieutenants, Gor had been in charge of selecting staff to serve in Trump's second-term White House. Now he was getting a promotion.

Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News personality-turned-U.S. attorney, offered praise for Gor's loyalty, then turned to Trump.

"There is in this room, a group of people who love you, who believe in you, and who are so proud to be in this Oval Office," she said.

That lovefest reflects a real change from Trump's first term, with its rival power centers and steady flow of staff shakeups and firings by tweet. One year into this second Trump presidency, high level staff and Cabinet turnover is significantly lower than it was during the same period in 2017. That's according to a new analysis from Brookings Institution visiting fellow Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, shared exclusively with NPR.

In 2017, Trump oversaw turnover in two Cabinet positions and 35% of senior staff posts. This time around, there's been no turnover at the Cabinet level, and senior staff turnover is at 29%. To keep consistency across administrations, for the Cabinet Tenpas only counts officials in the presidential line of succession.

"For the other six presidents before President Trump, the average [high level staff] turnover in that first year is typically around 10%, so he's much higher than the average, but I will say it is less than his first term by a good margin," Tenpas said in an interview with NPR.

Tenpas also documents the nature of the departures. In the first term, there were a lot of people unceremoniously shown the door by a president whose TV tagline was "you're fired." This time, it has mostly been promotions, such as Gor becoming an ambassador.

"There are far fewer resignations under pressure in this first year, 2025, than there were in 2017," said Tenpas.

In 2017, high-profile aides including chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Michael Dubke and the famously 11-day-serving White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci all exited, often with an announcement by tweet.

The people leaving their jobs this time around aren't household names, says Tenpas, further dialing down the personnel drama.

"You know, I would call these positions influential, but they just weren't public figures, they weren't press secretaries. They weren't chiefs of staff," she said.

People who served in the first Trump administration say this time is different, with Trump learning from his first presidency that he prefers loyalists. He has surrounded himself with aides who more closely align with him personally and with his political agenda.

Gone are the big names he brought on because people suggested he should. Now, loyalty is the coin of the realm.

"I do think that … if you look at what is the core of the stability, it was the emphasis that they put on loyalty in hiring, and that has then subsequently paved the way for less infighting and less drama and a lower rate than in 2017," said Tenpas.

A large share of the departures so far this term were on the National Security Council staff, including national security adviser Mike Waltz, who became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He had been responsible for what was known as Signal-gate, the first major scandal of the term, when he inadvertently added a journalist to a group chat where secret plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen were discussed. But he wasn't fired. He was promoted to a position requiring Senate confirmation.

When Waltz left as national security adviser, he was replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who added another job to an already long list of assignments from Trump. It was supposed to be temporary, but it's been more than eight months.

The high-level NSC staff departures Tenpas tracked reflect a much larger shedding of staff assigned to the National Security Council.

A White House official not authorized to speak on the record tells NPR there has been a significant reduction in NSC staffing over the past year to create a more top-down foreign policy process.

The official called it a rightsizing — a strategic choice rather than White House intrigue.

This Brookings data does not capture firings and upheaval among career officials in other areas of the Trump administration, such as at the State Department, Justice Department or the Defense Department, all of which have seen significant turnover.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Thousands of volunteers will fan out across Los Angeles County this week to survey unhoused people, an annual event that determines how millions in funding is directed across the region.

The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, which starts Tuesday, is the largest of its kind in the country, according to officials, with volunteers covering more than 4,000 square miles in three days. Small groups in assigned areas will tally the number of people, tents, shelters and vehicles they see on the streets.

Typically, the results are released in the spring or early summer.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which leads the count, says the data volunteers collect is essential for understanding homelessness in the region and for sending resources where they're needed most.

“The information gathered by volunteers strengthens our data and helps our system better understand where our unhoused neighbors are, the services they need most, and what it will take to bring them inside,” Gita O’Neill, LAHSA’s interim CEO, said in a statement.

In past years, the annual count has seen a serious shortage of volunteers in some areas, an app plagued by reported technical issues and doubts about data collection, which LAHSA says it’s taken steps to address this year.

When last year's count showed a drop in homelessness for a second year in a row, many officials celebrated the region’s progress in getting people off the street and bucking the trend of years of increases.

But it’s unclear if that trend will continue.

Both the city and county are facing funding losses that are expected to affect homeless services and housing programs, including more than 4,000 Angelenos who are at risk of losing housing vouchers later this year.

How it works

The annual point-in-time count is conducted each year at the end of January, as required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last year was an exception. It was moved to February because of the fires in L.A.

The 2025 count showed homelessness dropped by 3.4% in the city of L.A. and by 4% countywide, including the number of people in shelters and sleeping outdoors.

LAHSA said several factors contributed to those changes, including the clearing of encampments and nearly 28,000 people being placed into permanent housing last year — a record high.

But the accuracy of the numbers has been questioned. A RAND Corporation report released in October found that L.A.’s annual tally increasingly undercounts people on the streets and decreased in accuracy over the past two years.

"In 2022 and 2023, at least in the areas where we count, the [Point-in-Time count] was, as far as I can tell, excellent,” Louis Abramson, lead author of the RAND report, said previously. “I don't know what has happened afterwards."

On Tuesday, the count will start in the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley and Metro L.A. area, including downtown and Skid Row. On Wednesday, volunteers will turn their attention to East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley.

The count is expected to wrap up Thursday in the Antelope Valley, West L.A., South L.A., South Bay and Harbor region.

The 2026 homeless count dates and map.

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Teams typically head out after 8 p.m., when people experiencing homelessness are more likely to have settled down for the night, especially those living in cars or RVs.

But some are done during the day because of visibility or safety concerns, according to LAHSA. The Antelope Valley and parts of West L.A. will be counted Thursday morning like last year while the rest are counted at night.

Areas that may be heard to reach, including river embankments, parks or deserts, are assigned to special teams of outreach workers, according to LAHSA.

The count is conducted visually, meaning volunteers are supposed to tally only what they see in front of them. For example, if a volunteer does not see anyone but hears voices coming from a makeshift shelter, they’re instructed to count the shelter instead of the voices.

Marina Flores, left, and Helde Pereira document homeless sightings during LAHSA's annual count last year.

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A Shelter Count and Housing Inventory Count will also be held Wednesday. The Housing Inventory Count is a point-in-time tally of projects or sites that provide beds and units for the unhoused or formerly unhoused community.

The Youth Count, an estimate of the county’s unsheltered youth population, is conducted throughout the month with service organizations. It’s a survey-based tally where young people are asked about their housing status, rather than a visual count.

A separate demographic survey is also being done by the University of Southern California to gather details like age, gender, race and veteran status, among others. The survey started last month and runs through March, according to LAHSA.

Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach conduct separate counts on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

What’s new

This will be the first count conducted since Measure A went into effect last spring.

The new voter-approved half-cent sales tax is expected to generate about $1 billion annually for homeless services and affordable housing in L.A. County. The specific funding formula that determines which all 88 cities get what is based mostly on each city’s homeless count results from the past two years.

LAHSA said it has made several improvements for this year’s count, including simplified volunteer training and better maps created in partnership with people in the community.

The agency will be working with additional outreach staff from the L.A. County Department of Health Services and L.A. County Emergency Centralized Response Center to boost counting efforts in hard-to-reach areas that are too dangerous or inaccessible for volunteers, according to officials.

LAHSA is again using an app made by Esri, a software company based in Redlands, to collect volunteer data for a fourth year.

Helde Pereira documents sites of homeless encampments during LAHSA's annual homeless count last year.

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Technology problems have popped up with the app before. Volunteers from the 2024 count told LAist previously that data entry errors were common, and several said they had to wait hours to start counting when they had trouble logging in.

Teams from Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s office regularly volunteer for the count.

Representatives from that office told LAist recently that the council member has been vocal about his concerns over logistics, specifically glitches with the app over the years. Blumenfield’s team usually does a paper count in addition to using the app in case there are any discrepancies, his office said in an email.

LAHSA said more of its staff will be assigned as technical support at deployment sites this year.

Ahmad Chapman, LAHSA’s director of communications, told LAist the agency has also made several changes to the Housing Inventory count to improve data collection and make it easier to validate responses.

Last summer, LAist reported that LAHSA revised the locations of more than 400 sheltered people in the 2025 count, moving them out of the city of L.A., days before the results were released publicly.

At the time, Chapman told LAist the revisions were made because the agency discovered that its new housing inventory system had incorrectly tagged several hundred interim housing units as being within the city of L.A. The agency said it fixed the problem in July.

This time around, Chapman said, LAHSA held live training sessions for providers on how to submit data, revamped forms so information is provided by site location instead of by project and added ways to let LAHSA staff look at submissions in “near real-time.”

Volunteers at the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count go over a map of Westwood before heading out.

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Volunteers

LAHSA says it hopes to have about 4,200 volunteers help complete the count from roughly 150 deployment sites, which are like base camps for each neighborhood.

L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said volunteer participation is essential for capturing a complete picture of homelessness.

“These counts help us see where progress is being made, where additional resources are needed, and how we can better serve our most vulnerable residents,” Solis said in a statement.

Multiple L.A. councilmembers and their staffers are volunteering in their districts this week, including Blumenfield in Reseda, Eunisses Hernandez in Highland Park and Hugo Soto-Martínez in Rampart Village, their offices confirmed to LAist.

About 4,000 volunteers registered as of Monday, which was up from 2,200 volunteers the week before. Some deployment sites, including Westwood and Avocado Heights, had more vacancies than volunteers, according to LAHSA’s live tracker.

O’Neill said in a statement ahead of the count that LAHSA was still looking for more sign-ups, especially in East L.A., the South Bay and the San Gabriel Valley. All ages can register, but volunteers under 18 must be with an adult at all times. You can learn more here.

The agency usually sees the largest surge in registration the week leading up to the count, according to Chapman. He also said any areas not counted the next three nights will be considered a “make-up” and tallied shortly after as part of the agency’s data quality assurance process.

The Los Angeles Police Department is requesting nearly $100 million in city funds for vehicles and equipment for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, more than two years out from the world's largest sporting event coming to L.A.

LAPD wants to buy around 500 vehicles and "mobile units," including 300 patrol vehicles, vans and an armored SUV worth half a million dollars. It also is requesting funds for an upgraded radio network and equipment including new computers and more than 1,600 body cameras. In total, it's asking for around $96 million.

The request raises questions about promises that the Olympics will be "no-cost" for taxpayers. The spending laid out in the police department's proposed budget for 2026-2027 names the city as the funding source.

The federal government has set aside $1 billion for Olympics security spending, some of which is expected to flow to local and state law enforcement. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is tasked with distributing those funds, hasn't yet shared details on the scope or timeline of the application process.

LAPD officials told the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners at a meeting in November that they will need the funds before there are details on what will be reimbursed by the federal government.

"It's not clear as to what specifically will be recovered at all," Lt. Joseph Fransen with the department's major events group told the commissioners. "But if it is, the city may still have to come up with the capital investment up front."

The police department's request for next year is an early part of the overall budgeting process. Mayor Karen Bass has until April to outline her own budget for the coming year. Her office did not respond to questions about where the money for LAPD's Olympic spending would come from.

"The Mayor's Office is reviewing the request and will continue working with the LAPD as the City prepares to deliver a balanced budget and a safe 2028 Games," a spokesperson said via email.

LAPD says it needs funds

At the police commission meeting in November, police department staff said the additional vehicles and equipment would be necessary to police the eight Olympic venues within city bounds and continue normal operations elsewhere. According to the budget request, the new vehicles will take 12-20 months to be delivered.

But the budget request indicates that the Olympics also present an opportunity to get new gear that would long outlast the Games. According to the request, the additional vehicles would be used to temporarily expand the department's fleet for the Games and then replace outdated vehicles after 2028.

Some commissioners questioned if the new vehicles in the budget proposal were necessary, or the most economical.

"I just want to make sure that when we're saying, look, we need new cars, is this truly a need or is it a it would be nice to have," said Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields, referencing the city's fiscal crisis. "Because I think every department in the city is going to have to be struggling for funds and I don't want the department to ask for something that isn't truly essential at this stage."

Tension in City Hall

The request for Olympics funding presents a new area for potential dispute in the city's upcoming budget cycles.

City Hall is already at odds over the police department's budget. Last year the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut Mayor' Bass's request to hire 480 new LAPD officers to 240, citing the city's $1 billion budget shortfall.

The mayor has continued to seek funds from the city council for more LAPD new hires. The city council approved additional funding for up to 40 officers in December, but some council members pushed back on requests for even more new hires.

At the time, budget committee chair Katy Yaroslavsky said the money wasn't there.

“I want to grow the police department, but I have yet to see a proposal that identifies an ongoing funding source to pay for more officers," Yaroslavsky told LAist in an emailed statement in December.

Tensions over the police department's staffing and funding – and who will pay for additional costs – are likely to increase as the Olympics approach. Another major coming expense for the L.A. police department will be staffing and overtime for policing the Games.

LA28, the private non-profit putting on the Olympics and Paralympics, has agreed to pay the city for the needed additional services and staffing. However the two sides have not yet agreed on the scope of that commitment, despite an Oct. 1 deadline.

That deal is now nearly four months late. If it leaves L.A. exposed to unexpected or additional expenses, taxpayers could end up paying many millions.

President Trump once insisted he had "nothing to do with Project 2025," the right-wing policy plan that became a key flashpoint during the presidential campaign.

The Democrats tried to turn the 900-page Heritage Foundation-led blueprint to remake the government into a political boogeyman, and succeeded to some degree, but it wasn't enough to win the election.

A year later, many of the policies have been implemented, from cracking down on immigration to dismantling the Department of Education.

"A lot of the policies from Day 1 to the last day and in between that the administration has adopted are right out of Project 2025," said Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, who has used Project 2025 to prepare legal papers against the administration.

Concerns about the project started to bubble up over the spring of 2024, but really caught fire a few months later when actress Taraji P. Henson singled out Project 2025 while hosting the BET awards.

"Pay attention. It's not a secret. Look it up!" she said, speaking directly into the camera during the show. "They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game."

'Ridiculous'

Then-candidate Trump tried to dismiss the hysteria, calling the ideas "ridiculous" — and claiming he did not know who was behind it — even though key people involved in developing the plans served in his first administration.
And when it was clear the firestorm would not go away, Trump went on the attack against those allies who wrote the playbook.

"They're a pain in the a--," said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, who tore into the organizers of Project 2025 at an event hosted by CNN and Politico during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

"Look, I think that in the perfect world, from their perspective, they would love to drive the issue set, but they don't get to do that," he added.

Yet days after winning, Trump tapped Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget — considered the nerve center of the White House. Other contributors followed.
Trump soon unleashed a flurry of orders reshaping the government, many of which were outlined in Project 2025.

"As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female," he said during his inaugural address.

Trump ended diversity, equity and inclusion programs. He launched massive immigration enforcement and took the first steps to overhaul the federal workforce.

Bonta, the attorney general of California, said Project 2025 defined Trump's first year back in office. The country's 23 Democratic attorneys general studied Project 2025, consulted with each other and, he said, prepared a response for every potential action should it be taken.

"The existence of Project 2025 was the Trump administration telling us exactly what they were going to do and sending it to us in writing," Bonta said.

Bonta has filed or joined lawsuits that have successfully blocked Trump's policies requiring states like California to join his immigration crackdown, freeze of domestic federal funding and layoffs at agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education.

The White House dismissed concerns about Project 2025, calling them irrelevant theories from Beltway insiders.

"President Trump is implementing the agenda he campaigned on and that the American people voted for," said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

Jackson said the president focused on implementing the agenda he campaigned on — lowering gas prices, accelerating economic growth and securing the border.

Fueling controversy

Trump may have actually fueled the controversy by rejecting Project 2025 during the campaign, said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former White House aide to George W. Bush.

"I would say that Project 2025 was largely standard conservative fare, but with a bit more of a MAGA flavor than previously."

Troy sees little difference between what the Heritage Foundation did with Project 2025 and what think tanks on the left and right have been doing for years compiling policy proposals for incoming presidents.

He pointed to the personnel and policy ideas of the Hoover Institution that helped shape the George W. Bush administration and the Center for American Progress' influence on the Obama administration.

"If the Trump campaign had leaned into it and said, 'sure, this is an agenda that has been put out as a think tank. This happens all the time. We will look at them in due time when the election is over,' " said Troy. "By criticizing and disavowing Project 2025, it suddenly became more radioactive."

Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, says he never took the attacks personally, which he chalked up to political calculus. 

He likened watching the president sign executive orders and directives that first came across his desk to being an animator who watches his or her sketchbook come to life on the big screen.

"I believe the proof is in the pudding," said Dans, who also served in the first Trump administration. "Every day that President Trump rolls out another Project 2025 item, it's really an endorsement of our work, myself and the work of thousands of patriots who came together."

Dans is now highlighting that work in a run for the Senate, against Trump-ally, Republican Lindsey Graham.

Trump did eventually embrace Project 2025 during the shutdown fight last fall.

He boasted of meeting with "Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame," while threatening to dismantle federal agencies.

"I can't believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity," he said.

Copyright 2026 NPR