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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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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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

Several local groups in SoCal have planned demonstrations today over the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minnesota on Saturday morning.

Here’s a list of some of those actions today:

• Echo Park
  
  • 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the corner of Park Avenue & Echo Park Lake Avenue
• Irvine
  
  • 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Corner of Culver Drive & Barranca Parkway
• Ontario
  
  • Starts at 11:30 a.m at Euclid Avenue & Holt Boulevard
• Cypress Park
  
  • Noon to 2 p.m. at The Home Depot on 2055 N. Figueroa St.
• Rancho Cucamonga
  
  • Noon to 2 p.m. at Haven Avenue & Foothill Boulevard
• Long Beach
  
  • Starts at 3 p.m. at the intersection of Pine Avenue and 3rd Street
• Downtown Los Angeles
  
  • Starts at 3 p.m. outside of the Federal Building, at 300 North Los Angeles Street

Some 31,000 nurses, pharmacists and healthcare workers employed by Kaiser Permanente will begin an open-ended strike tomorrow in California and Hawaii, with 28,000 of those workers in California alone.

The health system and the union representing Kaiser workers — United Nurses Associations of California & the Union of Health Care Professionals — have been negotiating for a new labor contract for months. Core bargaining issues include wages for nurses, understaffing and retirement benefits.

"Staffing's been a big problem,  wages, working conditions ... and that's just to name a few," said Peter Sidhu, Executive Vice President of UNAC/UCHP. "We will have the largest open-ended healthcare strike in U.S. history."

Picketing is slated to begin at 12 local Kaiser medical facilities in the following communities: Anaheim, Baldwin Park, Downey, Fontana, Irvine, Los Angeles, Ontario, Riverside, Harbor City, Panorama City, West Los Angeles and Woodland Hills.

Kaiser said in a statement that their hospitals and medical offices will stay open during the strikes, but some pharmacies will close.

Billions of dollars are pouring into data centers to power streaming services, cloud storage and the biggest energy monster of all, artificial intelligence.

Dozens of data centers already dot the region, from El Segundo to downtown L.A. But in Monterey Park, residents concerned about the environmental and health impacts of data centers are drawing a line.

A developer has proposed building a nearly 250,000-square-foot data center in a local business park. Last Wednesday night, hundreds of people packed City Hall to say they didn’t want it — or for that matter, any such facility.

“No data centers in Monterey Park!” the crowd chanted.

Residents’ immediate goal was to ensure the City Council approved a 45-day moratorium on data center development, an item added to the agenda after weeks of mounting public pressure.

What they got, in a meeting that stretched past midnight, was the council’s commitment to draft an outright ban during the 45-day period for a later vote. “That is more than I ever could have hoped for from this meeting,” resident Steven J. Kung said. “I am shocked and a little bit overjoyed.”

Residents organize

Hours earlier at a rally he helped lead outside City Hall, Kung had been far more cautious.

He expressed little faith in city officials, especially after learning that the project had been moving through the city’s planning process for about two years without his knowledge.

Kung said he only found out about the proposal from the Australian-based developer when his husband showed him a social media post by SGV Progressive Action last month — despite their living about 1,300 feet from the proposed site.

“I was incensed that no one had told me, especially since I lived so close,” he said.

Steven J. Kung is part of the activist and resident-led No Data Center Monterey Park.

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Kung joined a grassroots group of residents and activists called No Data Center Monterey Park, which has organized teach-ins, canvassing drives and yard sign campaigns in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Developer's promises

The developer, HMC StratCap, has said its proposed data center on 1977 Saturn Street would generate more than $5 million a year in tax revenue and more than 200 jobs during construction. It’s also promised to build a public park.

But residents said that’s not worth the tradeoff of the massive energy demand of data centers, pollution from diesel backup generators and noise from cooling equipment.

The developer counters that the generators will be strictly regulated, a “closed-loop cooling technology” will use water efficiently and noise will be “similar to a typical commercial area,” according to a handout shared with residents at Wednesday’s meeting.

Monterey Park City Hall was packed to capacity as people waited to testify in opposition to a proposed data center.

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The developer has also agreed to an environmental impact report.

Kung and others say an EIR is the least the developer should do. They say they’re also troubled by the decision to locate a data center in a city of roughly 60,000 people, more than half of them immigrants.

“They see a small city full of Asians and Latinos, and they don’t think we’ll fight back,” Kung said. “But they’re wrong.”

“People, not machines”

So many people showed up that the lobby was converted into overflow space.

Among them was Alex Leon, a mathematician who attended with his wife, a phlebotomist, and their two young daughters.

“This has kind of been our dream, living in Monterey Park,” Leon said. “I just don’t want it to turn into an industrial farm for big data.”

Alex Leon came to speak out against the proposed data center with his wife Janette and their two daughters.

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Like dozens of others, Leon wasn’t there just to watch, but wanted council members to listen. When his turn came to give comment, he met the eyes of the council members.

“Monterey Park should be built for people, not machines,” he said. “For families, not server racks. For community life, not industrial infrastructure. This is our home, and it’s worth defending.”

“Open and honest conversations”

A handful of speakers supported the project, including a representative for the developer. Laziza Lambert pivoted at the podium to face the crowd.

“We just really want to be good, long-term partners with the community and hope to have open and honest conversations,” she said, as some in the audience started to jeer.

Residents voiced concerns that once one data center is approved, the floodgates would open, noting that the developer owns another parcel on the same street.

But much of the anger that night was aimed at city leaders. Speaker after speaker said they had been kept in the dark.

Tran and

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Katherine Torres, a real estate agent and president of the Monterey Park Women’s Club, said the organization is apolitical, but she would be sure to tell the members.

“I swear, I’m going to spread the word about the data center because they need to know,” she said as the room erupted in applause.

She looked at the council members with whom she was on a first-name basis.

“I have dinner with you guys,” she said. “I go to your events. Why didn’t I know?”

A surprise shift

By the fifth hour, nearly 80 residents had spoken. Then it was the council’s turn to give comments before their vote on the 45-day moratorium.

Two members said they supported going beyond a temporary pause and considering a permanent ban. Jose Sanchez’s opposition to data centers was already known to those closely following the issue. But Elizabeth Yang’s was not.

Yang told the room that her mother and stepfather live within a mile of the proposed site.

The council meeting was preceded by a rally against data centers.

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“I’m not going to vote for something that’s going to hurt my own family,” she said.

She added she was disappointed the developer had not done more with outreach and information.

“Because of all of you feeding us good information, I’m siding with no data center,” Yang said.

The remaining residents started clapping and rose to their feet.

What’s ahead

The council unanimously approved the 45-day moratorium during which city staff will draft an ordinance that could ban data centers outright — a proposal that will return to the council for a vote.

Outside council chambers, Steven J. Kung praised his fellow residents for speaking out and pushing the council to think bigger.

“I’m so proud of Monterey Park and our residents,” he said. “The more I’m here, the more I fall in love with the people.”

He’d celebrate that night. But then it’d be back to work, making sure the ban stands and Monterey Park keeps data centers out for good.

The developer would not be sitting back either. Lambert, the representative for the developer, said they were moving forward with plans to host a town hall with residents in the next couple of weeks.

When Christian Bryson needs quick weather information, like for this weekend's massive snowstorm, he doesn't wait for the 5 p.m. local newscast. Instead, he turns to Ryan Hall.

"It's as if he's sitting in the living room with you tracking the storm," said Bryson, a 21-year-old meteorology student at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Hall, who goes by "Ryan Hall, Y'all" on his social media platforms, calls himself a "digital meteorologist" and "The Internet's Weather Man." His YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers. Hall did not respond to a request to comment about his platform.
Hall is part of an increasingly popular genre of social media weather accounts that share information leading up to extreme weather, and then livestream for their viewers, sometimes for hours at a time. Overall, Hall offers solid information and is a good communicator with a few technical omissions, experts told NPR. But the weather genre online spans a wide range of sources — from amateurs with no science background to accredited meteorologists.
Experts say that while weather influencers can help fill an information gap, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X tend to prioritize engagement and likes over accuracy. That means extreme weather updates on social media are often sensationalized or lack context, says Gary Lackmann, a professor of atmospheric science at North Carolina State University.
"They're not going to the National Weather Service web page, they're just looking at what's in their feed," Lackmann said. "Once you start clicking on viral extreme weather stuff, then the algorithm is going to just feed you more and more."

Rise in social media use for weather updates

Lackmann, who is also head of NC State's department of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences, said in 2024 during Hurricane Helene, a weather disaster that swamped western North Carolina, killing 108 people, he started to see more and more people getting their weather information from social media
He says that, in the face of extreme weather events, people need credible and authoritative sources such as the NWS.
But with social media, sometimes "you get some kid who wants to get a lot of shares and likes and be an influencer on social media," he said.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist for the weather app MyRadar, has personal experience with both worlds. He worked for years at the Washington Post as a meteorologist, and now posts weather forecasts on the internet.
Cappucci said his success on Facebook, Instagram, and X shows how rapidly people are shifting from getting their weather information from traditional news outlets versus social media.
"Within two months, I was able to reach 60 million-plus people on social media, just on Facebook," Cappucci said
Bryson, the 21-year-old, said Hall and other credible weather influencers use language that non-meteorologists understand and they can share information at any time of the day.
"The fact that it's available at your fingertips," Bryson said. "I could go to Ryan Hall at 4 p.m. I'm eating my dinner and get the information that I need."

Digital meteorology can help fill information gaps 

There are positives to having meteorologists and credible weather sources on social media, Lackmann said. He's seen local weather influencers in North Carolina help disperse information from official outlets.

"There's a real need for that kind of localization and personalization of weather information," Lackmann said.
Aaron Scott, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Tennessee at Martin, said digital meteorology, a relatively new certification program that encompasses all forms of digital media, has an important place in the new media landscape.
"People do trust them, and they have built rapport," Scott said. "Sometimes that can make the difference if someone's going to actually go take shelter from a tornado or not."
Scott's department at UT Martin is now offering a digital meteorology class dedicated to teaching students how to engage with an online audience.
Cappucci also sees the positives with his own content. Social media allows for more flexibility than on-air television, he said. He pushes back on climate misinformation or weather conspiracy theorists.

A minefield of misinformation on social media

But all three experts interviewed by NPR see the downsides in the way social media algorithms push the most sensationalized — not always the most accurate — information to the forefront.
"The brightest colors, the most outlandish information will always get more following than actual truthful information," Cappucci said.
Cappucci said the ability to make increasing amounts of money on social media can also lead to inaccurate weather information.
"As TV viewership wanes and as salaries come down, it's easier to make up that money by posting crazy stuff online," Cappucci said.
Meteorologists use a number of different numerical models as they predict the possible outcomes of an extreme weather event. Because of this, people can "cherry-pick" one model and sensationalize a forecast, Lackmann said.
"You cry wolf too often, and people won't take proper precautions when there really is a high probability of an extreme event," Lackmann said.

The effort to preserve credible weather reports

Meteorologists and other weather professionals are grappling with how to navigate the new media landscape and prioritize accurate information, the experts said.
NWS has increased its social media presence, Lackmann said. Experts at the American Meteorological Society have discussed a social media certification that extends beyond the digital media certification currently available.

Scott said how the field will grapple with social media, and now AI-generated media, is "a huge question mark."
"That's the million-dollar question," Scott said. "How do we make it? Do we have some type of badging system where you're certified, you're not? Then, who decides that?"
Copyright 2026 NPR