The Brief

MOREHEAD, Ky. — The summer after ninth grade, Zoey Griffith found herself in an unfamiliar setting: a dorm on the Morehead State University campus.

There, she'd spend the months before her sophomore year taking classes in core subjects like math and biology, as well as electives like oil painting.

For Griffith, it was an opportunity, but a scary one. "It was a big deal for me to live on campus at the age of 14," she said. Morehead State is about an hour from her hometown of Maysville. "I was nervous, and I remember that I cried the first time that my dad left me on move-in day."

Her mother became a parent as a teenager and urged her daughter to avoid the same experience. Griffith's father works as a mechanic, and he frowns upon the idea of higher education, she said.

And so college back then seemed a distant and unlikely dream.

But Griffith's stepsister had introduced her to a federal program called Upward Bound. It places high school students in college dorms during the summer, where they can take classes and participate in workshops on preparing for the SAT and financial literacy. During the school year, students get tutoring and work on what are called "individual success plans."

It's part of a group of federal programs, known as TRIO, aimed at helping low-income and first-generation students earn a college degree, often becoming the first in their families to do so.

So thanks to that advice from her stepsister, Kirsty Beckett, who's now 27 and pursuing a doctorate in psychology, Griffith signed up and found herself in that summer program at Morehead State. Now, Griffith is enrolled at Maysville Community and Technical College, with plans to become an ultrasound technician.

TRIO, once a group of three programs — giving it a name that stuck — is now the umbrella over eight, some dating back to 1965. Together they serve roughly 870,000 students nationwide a year.

It has worked with millions of students and has bipartisan support in Congress. Now, some in this part of the Appalachian region of Kentucky and across the country worry about students who won't get the same assistance if President Trump ends federal spending on the program.

A White House budget proposal would eliminate spending on TRIO. The document says "access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means," and it puts the onus on colleges to recruit and support students.

Advocates note that the programs, which cost roughly $1.2 billion each year, have a proven track record. Students in Upward Bound, for example, are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24 than other students from some of the United States' poorest households, according to the Council for Opportunity in Education. COE is a nonprofit that represents TRIO programs nationwide and advocates for expanded opportunities for first-generation, low-income students.

For the high school class of 2022, 74% of Upward Bound students enrolled immediately in college — compared with only 56% of high school graduates in the bottom income quartile.

Students Zoey Griffith (left) and Aniyah Caldwell say the Upward Bound program has been life-changing for them. Upward Bound is one of eight federal programs under the TRIO umbrella.

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Michael Vasquez

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The Hechinger Report

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Upward Bound is for high school students. Another TRIO program, Talent Search, helps middle and high school students, without the residential component. One program called Student Support Services (SSS) provides tutoring, advising and other assistance to at-risk college students. Another program prepares students for graduate school and doctoral degrees, and yet another trains TRIO staff.

A 2019 study found that after four years of college, students in SSS were 48% more likely to complete an associate's degree or certificate, or transfer to a four-year institution, than a comparable group of students with similar backgrounds and similar levels of high school achievement who were not in the program.

"TRIO has been around for 60 years," said Kimberly Jones, the president of COE. "We've produced millions of college graduates. We know it works."

Yet Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the White House refer to the programs as a "relic of the past."

Jones countered that census data shows that "students from the poorest families still earn college degrees at rates far below that of students from the highest-income families," demonstrating continued need for TRIO.

McMahon is challenging that and pushing for further study of those TRIO success rates. In 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that even though the Education Department collects data on TRIO participants, the agency "has gaps in its evidence on program effectiveness." The GAO criticized the Education Department for having "outdated" studies on some TRIO programs and no studies at all for others. Since then, the department has expanded its evaluations of TRIO.

During a Senate subcommittee hearing in June, McMahon acknowledged that "there is some effectiveness of the programs, in many circumstances."

Still, she said there is not enough research to justify TRIO's total cost. "That's a real drawback in these programs," McMahon said.

Now, she is asking lawmakers to eliminate TRIO spending after this year and has already canceled some previously approved TRIO grants.

Opening a door into a broader world

"What are we supposed to do, especially here in eastern Kentucky?" asks David Green, a former Upward Bound participant who is now marketing director for a pair of Kentucky hospitals.

East Main Street in Morehead, Ky., just outside Morehead State University's campus.

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Michael Vasquez

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Green lives in a region that has some of the nation's highest rates of unemployment, cancer and opioid addiction. "I mean, these people have big hearts — they want to grow," he adds. Cutting these programs amounts to "stifling us even more than we're already stifled."

Green described his experience with TRIO at Morehead State in the mid-1980s as "one of the best things that ever happened to me."

He grew up in a home without running water in Maysville, a city of about 8,000 people. It was on a TRIO trip to Washington, D.C., he recalled, that he stayed in a hotel for the first time. Green remembers bringing two suitcases so he could pack a pillow, sheets and a comforter — unaware the hotel room would have its own.

He met students from other towns and with different backgrounds. Some became lifelong friends. Green learned table manners, the kind of thing often required in business settings. After college, he was so grateful for TRIO that he became one of its tutors, working with the next generation of students.

Uncertain future in Congress

Jones, of the Council for Opportunity in Education, said she is cautiously optimistic that Congress will continue funding TRIO, despite the Trump administration's request. The programs serve students in all 50 states. According to the COE, about 34% are white, 32% are Black, 23% are Hispanic, 5% are Asian and 3% are Native American.

In May, Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, called TRIO "one of the most effective programs in the federal government," which, he said, is supported by "many, many members of Congress."

In June, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia and a former TRIO employee, spoke about its importance to her state. TRIO helps "a student that really needs the extra push, the camaraderie, the community," she said. "I've gone to their graduations, and been their speaker, and it's really quite delightful to see how far they've come in a short period of time."

TRIO survived, with its funding intact, when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its budget last month. The House is expected to take up its version of the annual appropriations bill for education in early September. Both chambers ultimately have to agree on federal spending, a process that could drag on until December, leaving TRIO's fate in Congress uncertain.

While lawmakers debate its future, the Trump administration could also delay or halt TRIO funding on its own. This year, the administration took the unprecedented step of unilaterally canceling about 20 previously approved new and continuing TRIO grants.

A big impact on young lives

At Morehead State, leaders there say the university and the region it serves need the boost received from TRIO: While roughly 38% of American adults have earned at least a bachelor's degree, in Kentucky that figure is only 16%. And locally, it's 7%, according to Summer Fawn Bryant, the director of TRIO's Talent Search programs at the university.

TRIO works to counter the stigma of attending college that still exists in parts of eastern Kentucky, Bryant said, where a student from a humble background who is considering college might be scolded with the phrase: Don't get above your raisin'.

"A parent may say it," Bryant said. "A teacher may say it."

She added that she's seen time and again how these programs can turn around the lives of young students from poor families.

Students like Beth Cockrell, an Upward Bound alum from Pineville, Ky., who said her mom struggled with parenting. "Upward Bound stepped in as that kind of co-parent and helped me decide what my major was going to be."

Cockrell went on to earn three degrees at Morehead State and has worked as a teacher for the past 19 years. She now works with students at her alma mater and teaches third grade at Conkwright Elementary School, about an hour away.

Long-term benefits 

Sherry Adkins, an eastern Kentucky native who attended TRIO more than 50 years ago and went on to become a registered nurse, said efforts to cut TRIO spending ignore the long-term benefits. "Do you want all of these people that are disadvantaged to continue like that? Where they're taking money from society? Or do you want to help prepare us to become successful people who pay lots of taxes?"

As Washington considers TRIO's future, program directors like Bryant, at Morehead State, press forward. She has saved a text message that a former student sent her two years ago to remind her of what's at stake.

After finishing college, the student was attending a conference on child abuse when a presenter showed a slide that included the quote: "Every child who winds up doing well has had at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult."

"Forever thankful," the student texted Bryant, "that you were that supportive adult for me."

This story about TRIO was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. 
Copyright 2025 Hechinger Report

Federal officers handle security screening at all but a small fraction of U.S. airports, but the Trump administration is hoping to change that. Under the Transportation Security Administration's new program called TSA Gold+, private companies would play a much larger role in airport security than they have in decades.

The TSA is set to host officials from airports and security contractors to an "industry day" at its Springfield, Va., headquarters on Thursday, as it looks to develop TSA Gold+, a public-private program that the agency calls "transformative."

The agency is billing the program as an update to the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, in which 20 U.S. airports currently use private security screeners rather than federal workers.

"TSA Gold+ marks a significant evolution in the agency's approach to aviation security," a TSA spokesperson told NPR via an emailed statement.

The agency says airports that opt into the program would be able to tailor security systems for their facility — and avoid the TSA staffing shortages that became a very public headache at airports during the recent government shutdown over Homeland Security funding.

It also says the program would bring "the latest technology" such as AI tools to airport screening operations, to increase capacity and cut wait times, although the agency did not specify how those gains would be achieved. From the details shared so far, the equipment would be the contractors' responsibility — a departure from the current SPP system, in which TSA controls the equipment and oversees the security contract. The TSA says it would perform the oversight role it currently does.

"Industry partners can manage equipment and introduce innovations, while travelers enjoy a smooth, predictable, and bespoke experience," the TSA said as it unveiled TSA Gold+.

Airports currently using the private Screening Partnership Program range from San Francisco and Kansas City to Sarasota, Fla., and Atlantic City, N.J., along with smaller facilities in Montana, Wyoming and other states.

Calls for privatizing airport security screening have come from President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, echoing a recommendation in the conservatives' Project 2025 handbook for a second Trump term. But there are also signs of bipartisan interest in some level of private control over airport security, as seen in Atlanta, where city leaders recently voted to explore joining the Screening Partnership Program.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, touted that bipartisan interest on Wednesday during a hearing on TSA Modernization. But Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which represents TSA officers, said he opposes further privatization — including the TSA Gold+ program, warning that it would hamper accountability and transparency.

Under the new program, Kelley said, contract workers would earn less than TSA officers. He added that while many transportation security officers hold security clearances, under the new plan, the government "would be ceding direct operational control of the most sensitive technology in the aviation security enterprise to private vendors."

The White House budget released last month promises to save some $52 million by privatizing airport screeners and requiring small airports to enroll in the SPP.

But officials at the hearing urged lawmakers to preserve airports' ability to choose.

Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, noted that the SPP has been in place since aviation security underwent drastic changes following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to the creation of the TSA and the SPP system.

"We've had federalized screening for 25 years, almost," McLaughlin said. "Large airports like San Francisco have had an SPP program for 25 years."

Both airports' arrangements work well for them, he told Garbarino.

"The system has been safe for 25 years," he said. "It's important that airports have options."

The new "Gold+" program echoes the Trump administration's promise to bring a "golden age of travel" to the American public. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted those plans earlier this week, as he unveiled $970 million in funding to improve passengers' experiences at airports, from adding family-friendly security screening lanes to improving restrooms and children's play areas.

The money for those projects comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a Biden-era law aiming to update airports' aging infrastructure.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A marine layer will cover mostly the coastal areas today, lowering temperatures a degree or two. Otherwise expect a sunny afternoon elsewhere across SoCal.

L.A. County beaches will see temperatures in the lower 70s today, whereas Orange County could reach up to 79 degrees along the coast.

More inland, the valleys will see highs in the mid 80s. The Inland Empire will see highs from 83 to 91 degrees. In Coachella Valley, temperatures are expected to reach up to 100 degrees.

Happy long weekend! The Late Show with Stephen Colbert plays the funnyman’s swan song tonight, so my calendar is booked to stay up past my bedtime. Closer to home, the Yoko Ono exhibit (which comes to us straight from the Tate Modern in London) opens just in time for Memorial Day weekend, so watch this space for more on that.

There’s music for lovers of every genre this week, according to our friends at Licorice Pizza. On Friday, Yungblud and special guests Warning rock the Greek, and Dethklok plays the Palladium; jazz trumpeter Chris Botti begins his residency at the Blue Note.

Saturday, Bright Eyes performs I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn in their entirety at the Hollywood Bowl with openers the Moldy Peaches; American Football is at the Wiltern; Belgium’s Ultra Sunn plays the Belasco; Italy’s Mina is at the Echoplex; DJ KSHMR plays the Palladium; and then, for a different sort of “Kashmir,” Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening takes over the Greek.

On Sunday, brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack for the millennial dance party of the week at the Forum with Kesha, Chromeo and Sizzy Rocket. There’s also the big Day Trip afternoon concert at L.A. State Historic Park with Joseph Capriati, Toman and Cole Terrazas. For a more mellow Sunday, singer-songwriter Katelyn Tarver is at the Echoplex, R&B singer-songwriter Eric Bellinger plays the Novo, or classic crooner Paul Anka is doing it his way at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can check out four new food halls, wander around a favorite new Sundays-only bookstore, and yes, I’ll remind you again — make your upcoming Election Day picks with the help of our Voter Game Plan.

Events

L.A. Fleet Week

Through Monday, May 25
Pacific Battleship Center
250 S. Harbor Blvd., San Pedro 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy L.A. Fleet Week

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Tour the U.S.S. Iowa and check out the three visiting battleships at San Pedro’s Pacific Battleship Center during L.A.’s annual Memorial Day weekend Fleet Week on the waterfront. Plus, there are exhibits to walk through, food stands to try and music for the whole family. Not to mention those cute sailors in their whites.

Topanga Days

Saturday to Monday, May 23 to 25, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga
COST: ADULTS $31.80; MORE INFO

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Fadeout Media

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Topanga Days

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Topanga Days is the easiest way to time-travel back to a simpler time when folk musicians roamed the hills, winning a yodeling contest was the biggest bragging right and you spent all year coming up with your parade costume. Those days are here once a year at Topanga Days, headlined on Saturday by New Orleans icon Cyril Neville and peppered with cherry-seed-spitting and bubble-gum-blowing contests, tons of other music, food, and, of course, the parade.

Exit the King

Through Sunday, May 31
A Noise Within
3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
COST: FROM $49.75; MORE INFO 

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Craig Schwartz

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Lucy PR

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The name of this Eugène Ionesco classic alone — Exit the King — should give you some sense of where the always-on-point folks at A Noise Within were going when they chose it at this moment. The political satire borders on the absurd, with the L.A. Times likening the vibrant characters to “those in a deck of wild cards designed by Salvador Dalí.”

K-Expo

Saturday and Sunday, May 23 to 24
L.A. Live 
1005 Chick Hearn Court, Downtown L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy BLND PR

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K-Pop fans will flock to the K-Expo at L.A. Live, where you can see free exhibitions and events featuring 100 Korean brands and companies across content, beauty, food and technology all weekend long. Stick around Saturday night and grab a ticket (from $47) to the mega K-Pop concert at the Peacock Theater, featuring Jay Park and P1Harmony.

MAINopoly 

Sunday, May 24, 1 p.m. 
Main Street, Santa Monica 
COST: FROM $28.01; MORE INFO

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Courtesy MAINopoly Santa Monica

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Eat your way down Main Street in Santa Monica at the annual Monopoly-themed food festival, which this year will allow drinks while you walk and eat thanks to a new city permit. The popular food-and-bar stretch near the beach is experiencing a little revival with the reopening of dive bar favorite Circle Bar, plus newish hot spots like Triple Beam Pizza and June Shine. I also heard a rumor that something new is finally coming into the old World Cafe space (!!).

Arroyo Secodelic Festival

Friday to Monday, May 22 to 25
Various locations, Highland Park
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Arroyo Secodelic

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As LAist's Robert Garrova reports, a new four-day music festival takes over Figueroa Street in Highland Park this weekend. The Arroyo Secodelic Festival will feature 65 bands, with acts hailing from Los Angeles, Mexico and as far as France and Holland. Highlights include Flamin' Groovies, Fear and Adolescents.

Angel City Chorale Spring Concert 

Sunday, May 24, 4 p.m.
Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center 
1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach 
COST: FROM $17; MORE INFO 

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Mel Stave Photography

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Angel City Chorale

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Enjoy the healing sounds of Angel City Chorale as they perform a new show with the theme "The Red Thread" as “a tribute to the beloved age-old parable and celebration of the invisible threads that connect as humans, our hopes, joys, resilience in the face of adversity, connection to nature and a shared planet Earth.”

Kevin Morby

Friday, May 22, 8 p.m.
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
COST: $50-$60; MORE INFO 

Kevin Morby plays the Wiltern on Friday.

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Jim Bennett

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The nouveau bard of Kansas City returns to his once-adopted hometown of Los Angeles on the heels of his newest release, Little Wide Open. Morby's latest effort might be his most realized, fully embracing the Technicolor sweep of his indie-Americana sound — striking the sonic equivalent between a Terrence Malick film and Robert Frank's roadside photographs, seen through a passenger car window of a cross-country train. This time, Morby tapped Aaron Dessner of The National to serve as producer — who has most recently done the same for Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams and Sharon Van Etten — alongside a constellation of collaborators, including Justin Vernon, Lucinda Williams, Katie Gavin, Mat Davidson and Meg Duffy. Brooklyn-based Liam Kazar opens. –Gab Chabrán

UCLA JazzReggae Festival

Monday, May 25, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
UCLA Wilson Plaza
COST: $26.14; MORE INFO 

Three little birds told me to get down to the UCLA JazzReggae Festival on Memorial Day. The yearly music fest draws students and neighbors alike for a full day of sunshine, food, music and jammin’. The fest is fully organized and run by student volunteers, and has been since its founding 40 years ago.

Forest Lawn Memorial Day remembrances

Monday, May 25 
Various locations 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Forest Lawn in Glendale is one of several locations hosting Memorial Day events.

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David McNew

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Getty Images

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Honor veterans across Los Angeles as Forest Lawn hosts Memorial Day remembrances at each of its six Southern California locations: Cathedral City, Covina Hills, Cypress, Glendale, Hollywood Hills and Long Beach. The parkwide events will celebrate the lives of those who served, with patriotic music, wreath layings, presentations and retirings of the flag, keynote addresses, presidential proclamations, invocations, giveaways, coffee and sweet treats. All events will include American Sign Language interpreters.

You could call it a fulfillment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous promise from the first Terminator movie in 1984: “I’ll be back.”

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the bigger budget, multi-award winning follow-up to that first film is coming back to theaters in Los Angeles starting this weekend, in celebration of the film’s 35th anniversary.

Considered one of the best action films and best sequels of all time, it’s also celebrated among film experts for its groundbreaking use of CGI visual effects — most notably for the T-1000 character, a liquid metal cyborg masquerading as an LAPD officer, played by Robert Patrick.

Where to watch ‘T2’ on the big screen

While the American Cinematheque’s first two 35th anniversary screenings of Terminator 2 are already sold out, as of this article’s publishing time, tickets to screenings on May 29 (at Los Feliz 3) and May 30 (at Aero Theatre in Santa Monica) are still available.

Tickets for screenings on May 22 at The Ojai Playhouse and June 6 and 7 at The Vista in Los Feliz are also still available, and Rialto Pictures also lists screenings on July 2-5 at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana.

And while the screening at The Academy Museum on May 27 (with the film’s Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren in person) is sold out, we have you covered with some highlights from Muren’s interview with LAist below.

Making the impossible possible with CGI

Terminator 2, director James Cameron’s follow up to his surprise 1984 hit, The Terminator, was the first (and still only) movie in what would become the six-film Terminator franchise to earn an Oscar win or nomination.

Ultimately, the film took home four Oscars — for visual effects (for Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren, Jr. and Robert Skotak), makeup, sound, and sound effects editing — and also earned nominations for cinematography and film editing.

The visual effects studio responsible for the T-1000 character’s CGI effects was Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), founded in 1975 by Star Wars creator George Lucas. Dennis Muren headed up their Terminator 2 team, which consisted of about 35 artists.

Muren remembers first being taken with visual effects at the age of 6 or 7, watching The War of the Worlds (1953) in Los Angeles. He made his first film — a “creature feature” called Equinox — the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Pasadena City College, and would go on to work for ILM on visual effects for movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and (fittingly) the 2005 version of War of the Worlds.

A scene from 'Terminator 2' (1991).

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ILM and Muren began development on the CGI techniques that would be needed to pull off Terminator 2’s T-1000 character in movies like 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes and 1989’s The Abyss, which was also directed by James Cameron.

“ILM has been so good at being able to really do the impossible,” Muren said. “And we kind of joke about that, but we've got many different ways of doing things.”

When the opportunity for Terminator 2 came up, Muren had also just returned from a year-long sabbatical he spent studying computer graphics, and said he was confident ILM had the tools needed to make the T-1000 character a reality.

“We were ready to input the film digitally,” Muren explained. “[To] do all the manipulation in a computer instead of with optical film running through printers and going to labs for processing.”

And when ILM got that digital system for “compositing” — combining live-action images, practical and CGI effects — working seamlessly, Muren says, “That was an incredible tool.”

But that didn’t mean that pulling off a shiny, shape-shifting, liquid metal character successfully would be easy.

“It's just complicated,” Muren explained. “You've just got this reflective material [and] how are we supposed to be able to see depth or shape when it's deforming?” But at the same time, Muren said, “that's what was exciting about it.”

Muren says the trickiest scene for the team to figure out is when the T-1000 walks through a cell door made of metal bars. While it happens in a matter of seconds on screen, it amounted to 14 to 16 weeks of work for the visual effects team.

“I always said that shot, even as we were doing it, and we got close to finishing, I said, ‘This is an absolutely impossible shot,’” Muren explained. So when they got it right, he said, “It was like a new world.”

Today, while he says Jurassic Park (1993) is the film he’s now asked about most often, he always reminds people: “T2 was really the breakthrough film.”