Fresh out of Barnard College with a degree in political science, Riley is learning the ropes as a writer and reporter for GZERO. When she isn’t writing about global politics, you can find her making GZERO’s crossword puzzles, conducting research on American politics, or persisting in her lifelong quest to learn French. Riley spends her time outside of work grilling, dancing, and wearing many hats (both literally and figuratively).
40: Officials are planning to lay off at least 40% of the Federal Housing Administration’s staff as part of President Donald Trump’s government overhaul. The FHA, one of the world’s biggest mortgage insurers, provides mortgage insurance on loans for those who otherwise wouldn’t qualify and is key to many first-time home purchases, especially for low-income Americans.
282: In Turkey, the police have detained 282 suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, aka PKK, in raids stretching across 51 provinces over the last five days. The raids were justified as counter-terrorism operations, and suspects were arrested on accusations of spreading PKK propaganda, financing the group, or joining in protests. They come as Turkey continues to remove pro-Kurdish mayors from their elected positions.
42.7 million: A federal judge has refused to block DOGE’s access to the Department of Education’s data on student loan borrowers. The judge ruled that the case brought by the University of California Student Association did not prove the agency posed irreparable harm to the privacy protections of the 42.7 million student loan borrowers if DOGE was not preemptively stopped.
