TODAY’S WHITE HOUSE story

Trump begins East Wing demolition for ballroom

What happened
Demolition crews yesterday began ripping down the facade of the White House’s East Wing to build President Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom. The White House went ahead with the demolition “despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work to government buildings in the Washington area,” The Associated Press said. Trump had pledged in July that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building” and will “be near it but not touching it.”

Who said what
Trump’s promise not to “interfere” with the White House structure “always seemed unrealistic given how big the plans were,” The New York Times said. The proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom would be “nearly double the size of the existing structure,” and the East Wing was “one of the last pieces of the White House complex he hadn’t yet started to make over in his own image.”

“Democrats panned the project,” The Washington Post said. “Seeing the White House torn apart is really emblematic of the times we’re in,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said on social media. The funding of the project, from wealthy private donors and companies feted by Trump at a White House dinner last week, has also fueled ethical concerns about access-buying.

What next?
The Treasury Department, headquartered next door to the East Wing, “instructed employees not to share photos of the demolition” from their “front-row seat” after yesterday’s images “went viral,” The Wall Street Journal said. The White House said construction should be completed “before Trump’s second term wraps in 2029,” The Hill said.

TODAY’S POLITICS Story

Trump nominee in limbo after racist texts leak

What happened
Senate Republicans yesterday warned that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, would not get confirmed, following reports he repeatedly posted racist comments in a group chat last year. Republicans had already delayed Ingrassia’s confirmation hearing over discomfort with his history of inflammatory remarks and ties to white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Who said what
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” Ingrassia wrote in a 2024 group chat with GOP operatives and influencers, according to Politico, which obtained the entire text chain from a participant. “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it,” Ingrassia, now 30, reportedly wrote a few months later, a comment that “was not taken as a joke” and drew pushback from three participants, Politico said.

“He’s not gonna pass,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.C.) told reporters yesterday, urging Trump to pull Ingrassia’s nomination. At least three GOP senators — Rick Scott (Fla.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and James Lankford (Okla.) — said they wouldn’t support Ingrassia. It was a “rare repudiation of a Trump nominee by a Republican Senate that has largely gone along with the president’s staffing choices,” Semafor said.

What next?
Scott, Johnson and Lankford “will have a chance to question Ingrassia Thursday — if Ingrassia’s confirmation hearing goes on as planned,” Politico said. A leaked racist and antisemitic group chat between Young Republicans leaders revealed last week led to the disbanding of chapters in Kansas and New York, the firing of several participants and the formal resignation yesterday of Vermont state Sen. Samuel Douglass (R).

It’s not all bad

Giving patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer an injection of the drug amivantamab can shrink tumors within six weeks, according to research presented at a recent European Society for Medical Oncology conference. Amivantamab is a “smart drug” that targets cancer three ways, blocking two cancer pathways and activating the immune system, said The Guardian. In a trial of 86 patients funded by the pharmaceutical company Janssen, 76% of participants saw their tumors shrink or stop growing after treatment.

Under the radar

Megabatteries are powering up clean energy

One of the biggest problems with many renewable power sources is the mismatch between supply and demand. Solar and wind power generation, for example, “fluctuate according to the weather, the time of day and the season,” said OilPrice.com. When the “sun is shining and solar panels are producing the most energy,” that “also happens to be when the lights are switched off and relatively few people are home using appliances.” The potential solution: storing the excess energy in megabatteries.

Batteries soak up extra power and “discharge energy as the sun sets and demand rises,” said the Financial Times. “Breakthroughs in battery design have played a major role in improving efficiency,” and the price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped significantly since 2010. Those factors have helped megabattery use expand globally, especially in the U.S. and China.

These batteries “store power when it’s cheap and abundant, then release it when it’s scarce or expensive,” said the European Business Magazine. That makes them “invaluable for stabilizing grids,” and “profitable for operators who play the peaks and troughs of wholesale markets.”

“What grid operators and utilities value from batteries is flexibility,” Mark Dyson, a managing director at the Colorado nonprofit RMI, said to the Financial Times. “They can be a ‘Swiss army knife’ and do whatever is needed on the grid, when and where that is required.” Megabatteries are “quietly redefining what energy security looks like,” said the European Business Network.

On this day

October 21, 1959

New York City’s Guggenheim Museum first opened its doors. The museum’s unusual circular shape, now considered one of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s most important works, initially confused and irritated some critics, who said it took away from the Guggenheim’s modern and contemporary art collection. More than a million people visit the museum each year.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Economy great for the rich’

“Power-thirsty AI frenzy incites fury across globe,” The New York Times says on Tuesday’s front page. “Officials undercut Trump on strikes” targeting Caribbean boats, The Washington Post says. “Amazon cloud outage disrupts internet,” says The Wall Street Journal. “Amazon: service outage resolved,” says The Dallas Morning News. “Economy great for the rich, but the rest struggle,” says The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Immigration crackdown “slowing job growth in Texas,” says the Austin American-Statesman. Chicago residents “blowing the whistle on ICE,” the Chicago Sun-Times says. “Peanut allergies drop in children,” the Los Angeles Times says. “Limits on animal research expand,” says USA Today.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Code 420

Within hours of asking for volunteers to smoke marijuana during an officer training event, the Ocean City Police Department in Maryland was inundated with requests to participate. The department sought a dozen volunteers over 21 willing to smoke their own weed in a “controlled, educational setting,” so new officers could observe “real-time cannabis impairment,” said Fox 5. But due to the “overwhelming” response, the department said, they had to close registration.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.