Trump's White House ballroom project has two key moments ahead

A federal judge is expected to deliver his ruling this month on whether the construction of PresidentDonald Trump's $400 millionWhite House ballroomcan continue after ahistoric preservation group challengedthe project in court.

The ruling could come just before the National Capital Planning Commission, the central planning agency of the federal government, plans to vote on the project. The 12-member commission, the majority of whom are Trump-appointed allies, will hold the public hearing on March 5.

But the judge's verdict won't be the end of the saga.

"I know it will be appealed. Whichever side wins, the other side will appeal," said U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon last month. "So this case is going to go to the DC Circuit, for certain, and, maybe, perhaps even to theSupreme Court. Who knows?"

Detailed renderings reveal the scale of the proposed 89,000-square-foot White House ballroom. The images by Shalom Baranes Associates—later removed from the National Capital Planning Commission's website—show a new East Wing roughly a city block long, longer than the West Wing and more than half the length of the adjacent Treasury Building.

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See new renderings of massive 89,000-square-foot White House ballroom

Detailed renderings reveal the scale of the proposed 89,000-square-footWhite House ballroom. The images by Shalom Baranes Associates—later removed from the National Capital Planning Commission's website—show a new East Wing roughly a city block long, longer than the West Wing and more than half the length of the adjacent Treasury Building.

At issue is a lawsuit the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed in December against Trump and several federal agencies, asking to halt construction on the 90,000-square-foot ballroom. The non-profit group argued that Trump should have sought Congress's authorization before the demolition of the East Wing.

Trump's team has countered in court that the president did not need approval from lawmakers because the project is not using taxpayer dollars and instead is being funded by private donations.

Trump's project has gone through various changes since the White House first announced its plans in July, includingfinancing, seating capacity and cost.The price tag jumped from $200 million to $400 million, and the ballroom is now expected toaccommodate 1,000 people.

What is the court considering?

Judge Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said there were many "novel" issues at play in the case. He is considering whether the president has the authority to demolish the East Wing and construct the ballroom using a deliberately complicated funding setup with private money while circumventing Congressional authorization.

During last month's hearing, Leon said he also wanted the Trump administration to clearly state what the "dividing line" was between what is permitted and what is not permitted in terms of future construction and demolition in the White House complex.

"I do think if the plan was to just bulldoze the entire White House and build something completely different in its place," it would exceed the scope of presidential authorization for "alteration and improvement," said Jacob Roth, an attorney for the defendants.

"I would hope so," Leon responded, while also noting that the administration had taken a "pretty expansive interpretation of the language."

Roth also described the Executive Mansion as the "core site." He said Congress declared in 1961 by statute that the site was "an important thing to preserve."

Questions swirl around the funding of the ballroom

The Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit organization, is managing the $400 million in donations for the project.

Donors include American corporations that have business with the U.S. government, including Palantir, Lockheed Martin and Meta, according to a list provided by the White House.

In response to aJanuary letterfrom Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the Trust for the National Mall said that it takes "2 or 2.5%" from each donation received.

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For a $400 million in ballroom donations, the Trust will "rake in $8 to $10 million from its fundraising role for Trump's ballroom," the lawmakers said in a separate statement. The Trust has sponsored more than $100 million in restoration projects with the National Park Service since 2007.

"These new details raise even greater concerns about whether Donald Trump's gold-encrusted ballroom has become a vehicle for corruption," said Warren. "We now know the Trust is raking in millions off its Trump ballroom fundraising, and the Trust's board — stacked with business leaders who could benefit from favorable treatment from Trump — specifically agreed to take this on."

Underground bunker and national security concerns

The judge could also rule based on several other factors, including the existence of an underground bunker, which the Trump administration has said is a matter of national security.

Since the 1940's, the East Wing has had an underground bomb shelter built amid concerns of an ariel attack during World War II for the president's safety. Known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), it is meant to serve as a command center for the president as situations arise.

It was demolished in October to make way for the ballroom. The administration's lawyers have argued that stopping the construction in the middle would create security problems for the president.

In a Jan. 25Truth Social post, Trump said that the lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation had exposed a "Top Secret fact" about the involvement of the U.S. military and Secret Service in several aspects of the project, including design.

The preservation group's lawyers argued that they had no issues with reconstructing the "bunker and the other national security elements." However, they objected to using that as an excuse to continue building the ballroom without approvals.

"I think we would respectfully suggest that that's probably something they should have thought about before they tore it down to begin with," said Thaddeus Heuer, the preservation group's attorney.

Public hearing on the ballroom project

The National Capital Planning Commission is slated to vote on the project on March 5. A virtual public hearing will also be held on the same day, where comments can be made on a first-come-first-serve basis.

At 90,000 square feet of new construction, Trump's project "will overwhelm the White House itself," which is 55,000 square feet, said National Trust President and CEO Carol Quillen, adding: "(The addition) may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings."

Early site excavation and other construction workfor the ballroom are already underway, which Trump wants ready by January 2029, the end of his second term. He has said he would like to see future presidential inaugurations in the ballroom.

The NCPC said that, given the anticipated "volume of public participation," details on the testimony schedule will be shared soon.

A court filing last month had indicated registration would open on Feb. 12, but the registration has not yet opened.

On Feb. 13, the NCPC also posted new renderings of the East Wing submitted by the architect Shalom Baranes. The renderings showed an imposing new East Wing roughly a city block long, longer than the West Wing and almost completely obfuscating the view of the Treasury Building from the South Lawn.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY.You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Trump's White House ballroom construction faces two key moments soon

byAlex Wise

in

February 16, 2026

Trump's White House ballroom project has two key moments ahead

A federal judge is expected to deliver his ruling this month on whether the construction of PresidentDonald Trump's ...

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Black activists fought for slavery exhibits 24 years ago. The fight returned under Trump.

A federal judge Monday ruled that the Trump administration wrongly removed slavery memorial panels that were placed at a historical Philadelphia site in 2002. The decision came after the Black activists who pushed the city to place the panels again organized in support of their presence last month.

The National Park Service removed several panels from the President's House in Philadelphia, citinga March 2025 executive orderby President Donald Trump to prohibit exhibitions or programs at federal sites based on race. President's House features exhibits about George Washington and among the 34 historical panels, 13 were created after a group of activists lobbied the city and the park service to include information about the nine men, women and children who were enslaved by Washington there.

U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe granted a preliminary injunction on Monday requiring the return of the panels, pending further litigation.

"We battled for eight solid years the grand opening of the first slavery memorial of its kind on federal property in the history of the United States of America," attorney and activist Michael Coard told NBC News before the judge's ruling. "What started me to do this was anger and rage and outrage."

The movement began in 2002 when the park service and the city of Philadelphia announced the Liberty Bell would move from a pavilionfacing Independence Hallto 6th Street and Market Street, the same location of George Washington's executive residence where he enslaved at leastnine people, including children.

Coard hosted a radio show on WHAT, during which he told listeners that the site was planned without a clear acknowledgment about the enslavement that took place there. It spurred the Avenging The Ancestors Coalition, which protested and raised funds — along with the city government — to pay for panels at the site.

The memorial opened Dec. 15, 2010.

Coard said his organization anticipated what was in store after the executive orders Trump signed upon returning to office last year. The panels were unceremoniously taken down a few weeks ago on Jan. 22.

"The common denominator of the 13 was that they highlighted the horror of slavery," Coard said of the panels. "Not just what we all know — a loss of freedom — but the beatings, the whippings, the rapes, the sodomy."

A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees the park service, said "all federal agencies are to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values." White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump "is ensuring that we are honoring the fullness of the American story instead of distorting it in the name of left-wing ideology."

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Last week, more than 200 activists, residents and supporters protested the panels' recent removal.

The rally attracted people across political ideologies and ethnicities, said Gerry James, 36, who traveled to the event from Frankfort, Kentucky. James is the deputy director of the Sierra Club's Outdoors for All campaign, which is working with Avenging The Ancestors Coalition.

He said his parents often took him and his siblings to libraries and cultural tours to learn more about Black history, aside from the limited information that was present in his textbooks.

"It's just a lot of support for this issue of preserving Black history and preserving Black history as American history," James said.

Supporters pushed back against the administration's moves toward downplaying "our complex national history," specifically when it comes to Black American history.

Mijuel Johnson, a steering committee member of the coalition who also spoke at the rally, said the panels "are not just panels" but serve as a national memorial: "The very fact that this is a memorial to the enslaved people of the United States," and one of the first of its kind on federal property in the United States, he said, "is significant."

Coard's group — headed by University of Pennsylvania law professor Cara McClellan and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund — joined the city'slawsuitagainst the park service's acting director and the Interior Department.

"One, we're demanding restoration — put the 34 interpretive panels back where they were," Coard said before the ruling. "Two, we're demanding enhancement, which means to expand this President's House slave memorial site. And number three, we're seeking replication. We know that Black people have contributed mightily in every state in the country and maybe even every city in the country, so we want something like this on any federal property throughout the United States where Black folks were enslaved."

He and other activists are optimistic about the future of the site.

"We are passionate about this," Coard said, "and we're going to win this fight."

byAlex Wise

in

February 16, 2026

Black activists fought for slavery exhibits 24 years ago. The fight returned under Trump.

A federal judge Monday ruled that the Trump administration wrongly removed slavery memorial panels that were placed at a...

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Judge orders ICE to release Filipino man after 'pattern of failures' in medical care

A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of a Filipino man from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, noting a "pattern of failures" in his medical care that "more likely than not resulted in the extreme pain and permanent disability."

Judge Tana Lin of the Western District of Washington wrote that the man, Greggy Sorio, saw his health decline while in the facility, eventually suffering two partial foot amputation surgeries, ulcerative colitis, blood loss, a kidney injury, a deficiency in vitamin D and "dramatic unintended weight loss."

Lin wrote the "unreasonable treatment" of Sorio violated the Constitution and that Sorio be released.

Sorio entered the U.S. as a "lawful permanent resident" in 2007, according to the judge's order, and was detained by ICE in March after he was released from prison. He was being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.

In July, Sorio complained of blood in his stool, severe abdominal pain and yellowing of his skin and was denied requests to be sent to the hospital.

By October, Sorio said he was "in extreme pain and could barely walk" and was sent to the hospital after several hours of waiting, the judge's order recounted. Although Sorio was prescribed an antibiotic at the hospital, the ICE facility staff did not fill the prescription and seemed to believe he had been diagnosed with "inflammatory bowel syndromes," an apparent reference to irritable bowel syndrome, the order noted.

A few days later, Sorio reported pain and swelling in his foot and said he was initially denied a hospital visit. When he went to the hospital on Oct. 22, he was determined to have a bone infection and went through two amputation surgeries.

Soriotold NBC's Seattle affiliateafter he was released on Friday, "If they had sent me to the hospital in July when I was begging them, I wouldn't lose my foot. It's preventable. They could have prevented this."

Sorio's criminal record, according to the affiliate station, includes "convictions for domestic violence, assault, theft, forgery and burglary."

Sorio told the outlet, "I did my time on it and I'm a better person now. Everybody has a past."

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

byAlex Wise

in

February 16, 2026

Judge orders ICE to release Filipino man after 'pattern of failures' in medical care

A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of a Filipino man from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Tacoma, ...

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Guthrie suspect's mask, clothing believed to be from Walmart, sheriff says

Sheriff Chris Nanos of Pima County, Arizona, tells CBS News that investigators searching forNancy Guthriebelieve the clothing and face mask worn by the suspect in thechilling doorbell video released last weekwere purchased at Walmart.

They are still working to identify each brand. CBS Newsfirst reportedthat the suspect's backpack, identified as a black Ozark Trail Hiker, was sold exclusively at Walmart.

It remains unclear whether the items were bought online or in-store in Arizona or elsewhere. The sheriff said investigators have spent several days reviewing surveillance video at local Walmarts.

Guthrie, 84, the mother of "Today" show co-hostSavannah Guthrie, has been missing since Feb. 1. Authorities believe she wasabductedfrom her home in Tucson in the middle of the night.

Nanos called the backpack "one of the most promising leads" in the case.

Walmart has provided records of all Ozark Trail Hiker online and in-store purchases over the past several months, including sales beyond the Tucson area, to investigators, Nanos told CBS News.

CBS News has reached out to Walmart corporate offices but a spokesperson declined to comment.

Investigators believe the face mask the suspect wore is black but appears lighter on the video footage due to Nest camera's infrared technology.

DNA evidence on glove

Meanwhile, authorities areconducting DNA testingon a blackglovefound near Guthrie's home which "appears to match the gloves of the subject in the surveillance video," the FBI said in a statement on Sunday.

The FBI said it received preliminary results of DNA testing on Saturday, and once those findings were confirmed it would enter what it called "the unknown male profile" into CoDIS, the FBI's national database for matching DNA profiles, which contains data on people with previous arrest records.

The bureau previously described the individual as a male with an average build who is about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall.

Investigators have alsocollected other DNA evidencefrom Nancy Guthrie's property as part of the ongoing investigation, but the results have not led to a suspect, according to Nanos.

Multiple law enforcement agencies spent hoursFriday eveningsearching a residence less than two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home.

Nanos told CBS affiliate KOLD that the activity was the result of following up on "a lead that led to a search warrant and no arrest." Authorities did not release other details on what led them there or what, if anything, may have been found.

On Sunday,Savannah Guthrie postedan emotional video pleading once again for her mother's return.

"It's been two weeks since our mom was taken, and I just wanted to come on and say we still have hope, and we still believe," she said in the video posted toInstagram. "And I wanted to say to whoever has her, or knows where she is ... it is never too late to do the right thing. "

Investigators reviewing retail sales records for clues in Nancy Guthrie case

Investigators chase critical leads as Nancy Guthrie search enters third week

Tom Homan says "I don't like the masks" on ICE agents, but they "have to protect themselves"

byAlex Wise

in

February 16, 2026

Guthrie suspect's mask, clothing believed to be from Walmart, sheriff says

Sheriff Chris Nanos of Pima County, Arizona, tells CBS News that investigators searching forNancy Guthriebelieve the...

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Oscar-winning filmmaker Frederick Wiseman dies, leaving legacy of American institutions

NEW YORK (AP) —Frederick Wiseman, the celebrated director of "Titicut Follies" and dozens of other documentaries whose in-depth, unadorned movies comprised a unique and revelatory history of American institutions, died Monday at age 96.

The death was announced in a joint statement from his family and from his production company, Zipporah Films. Additional details were not immediately available.

"He will be deeply missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and the countless filmmakers and audiences around the world whose lives and perspectives were shaped by his unique vision," the statement reads in part.

Among the world's most admired and influential filmmakers, Wiseman won an honorary Academy Award in 2016 and completed more than 35 documentaries, some several hours long. With subjects ranging from a suburban high school to a horse race track, his work aired on public television, screened at retrospectives, was spotlighted in festivals and praised by critics and fellow directors. Wiseman was in his mid-30s before he made his first full-length movie, but was soon ranked with — and sometimes above — such celebrated peers asD.A. PennebakerandRobert Drewfor helping to establish the modern documentary as a vital and surprising art form.

Starting with "High School" and the scandalous "Titicut Follies," he patented a seamless, affecting style, using a crew so tiny that Wiseman served as his own sound engineer. The results led to acclaim, amusement, head-shaking, finger-pointing and — with "Titicut Follies" — prolonged legal action.

"I don't set out to be confrontational, but I think sometimes the content of the movie runs against people's expectations and fantasies about the subject matter," Wiseman told Gawker in 2013.

Wiseman's vision was to make "as many films as possible about different aspects of American life," and he often gave his documentaries self-explanatory titles: "Hospital," "Public Housing," "Basic Training," "Boxing Gym." But he also dramatized how people functioned within those settings: an elderly welfare applicant begging for assistance, a military trainee complaining of harassment, a doctor trying to coax coherent answers out of a dazed heroin addict, sales clerks at Neiman Marcus rehearsing their smiles.

"The institution is also just an excuse to observe human behavior in somewhat defined conditions,"Wiseman told The Associated Press in 2020."The films are as much about that as they are about institutions."

The bitter and the sweet

For "Titicut Follies," which premiered in 1967, Wiseman visited the Massachusetts-based Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. He amassed footage of nude men being baited by sadistic guards and one inmate being force-fed as he lies on a table, liquid pouring down a rubber hose shoved into his nose. The images were so appalling and embarrassing that state officials successfully restricted its release, giving the film exalted status among those determined to see it.

In "High School," released in 1968, Wiseman recorded daily life in a suburban Philadelphia school. He filmed a student being questioned about whether he has permission to make a phone call, an English teacher earnestly analyzing the lyrics of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Dangling Conversation," an awkward sex education class in which boys are told the more active they are, the more insecure they must be.

"What we see in Fred Wiseman's documentary ... is so familiar and so extraordinarily evocative that a feeling of empathy with the students floods over us," The New Yorker's Pauline Kael wrote. "Wiseman extends our understanding of our common life the way novelists used to."

Wiseman made movies without narration, prerecorded soundtracks and title cards. But he disputed, forcefully, that he was part of the "cinema verite" movement of the 1960s and '70s, calling it a "pompous French term that has absolutely no meaning."

Oscar winnerErrol Morrisdubbed him "the undisputed king of misanthropic cinema," but Wiseman insisted that he was not a muckraker out to correct injustice. He saw himself as a subjective, but fair-minded and engaged observer who discovered through the work itself how he felt about a given project, combing through hundreds of hours of footage and unearthing a story — sometimes despairing, sometimes hopeful. For "High School II," he visited a school in East Harlem in the 1990s, and was impressed by the commitment of the teachers and administrators.

"I think it's as important to document kindness, civility and generosity of spirit as it is to show cruelty, banality and indifference," Wiseman said when he accepted his honorary Oscar.

He was as adventurous in his 80s and 90s as he was in his 30s, making "Crazy Horse" about the erotic Parisian dance revue, the 4-hour "At Berkeley," about the California state university, and the 2 1-2 hour "Monrovia, Indiana" about an aging rural community. Wiseman also had a long career in theater, staging plays by Samuel Beckett and William Luce among others and adapting his movie "Welfare" into an opera. In 2025, he had brief acting roles in two acclaimed movies — as a poet in"Jane Austen Wrecked My Life"and off-screen as a radio announcer in"Eephus."

Much of his own work was made through Zipporah, named for his wife, who died in 2021. They had two children.

The poetry of life

Wiseman was born in Boston, his father a prominent attorney, his mother an administrator at a children's psychiatric ward and a would-be actor who entertained her son with stories and imitations. His education was elite despite attending schools with Jewish quotas — Williams College and Yale Law School — and his real life experiences were invaluable for the movies he would end up making.

In the 1950s and early '60s, he worked in the Massachusetts attorney general's office, was a court reporter in Fort Benning, Georgia; and Philadelphia, a research associate at Brandeis University and a lecturer at Boston Law School. Drafted into the Army in 1955 and stationed in Paris, he picked up some practical film knowledge by shooting street scenes with a Super 8 camera.

"I reached the witching age of 30 and figured I better do something I liked,"Wiseman told the AP in 2016."It was just a few years after the technological developments that it made it possible to shoot synchronous sound ... so that opened up the world for filmmaking. And there were so many good subjects that hadn't been filmed, as there still are."

His new career began with narrative drama. He read William Miller's "The Cool World," a novel about young Blacks on the streets of Harlem, called up the author and acquired rights. Wiseman served as producer of the low-budget, 1964 adaptation that was directed by Shirley Clarke, and he became confident that he could handle a movie himself.

While teaching at Boston Law School, Wiseman organized class trips to the nearby Bridgewater facility. In 1965, he wrote to officials there, proposing a film — ultimately "Titicut Follies" — that would give the "audience factual material about a state prison but will also give an imaginative and poetic quality that will set it apart from the cliche documentary about crime and illness."

Around the time the movie was screened at the New York Film Festival, the state of Massachusetts sought an injunction, alleging that Wiseman had violated the prisoners' privacy. For more than 20 years, Wiseman was permitted to show "Titicut Follies" only in prescribed settings such as libraries and colleges. The ban was finally relaxed when Superior Court Judge Andrew Meyer in Boston first ruled that the documentary could be shown to the general public if faces were blurred, then, in 1991, lifted all restrictions.

"I have viewed the film and agree that it is a substantial and significant intrusion into the privacy of the inmates shown in the film," Meyer wrote in his initial opinion, in 1989. "However, I also regarded 'Titicut Follies' as an outstanding film, artistically and thoughtfully edited with great social and historical value.

"Another observation about the film: It is true."

byAlex Wise

in

February 16, 2026

Oscar-winning filmmaker Frederick Wiseman dies, leaving legacy of American institutions

NEW YORK (AP) —Frederick Wiseman, the celebrated director of "Titicut Follies" and dozens of other documentari...

Read More