A correction to an earlier version of this article has been appended to the end of the article.

On a recent summer afternoon, Randy and Vera Tom prepared a stir-fried lunch in their Redwood City home with their “sous chef,” a 17-year-old Bichon Frise named Munchies, afoot.

Randy, 70, recently overhauled his lifestyle after the couple participated in a Stanford Medicine study tracking their metabolic responses to carbohydrates in real time with a continuous glucose monitoring device.

Randy Tom, center, and his wife, Vera Tom, eat lunch—bowls of stir-fried pork, bok choy, and bean sprouts—at their Redwood City home on June 27, 2025. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

The recently published research tracked the glucose levels in the blood of 55 study subjects as they consumed precooked meals starring different carbohydrates such as grapes, jasmine rice, potatoes, pasta and bread. It was led by genetic deep data specialist Mike Snyder, metabolic expert Tracey McLaughin and research dietician Dalia Perelman at Stanford.

The results could lead to better prevention, diagnoses and treatment of prediabetes, diabetes and other metabolic diseases that lower quality of life and raise health care costs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 38.4 million people, or 11.6% of the U.S. population, had diabetes in 2024.

Most common is Type 2 diabetes, which occurs when the body develops resistance to insulin because of diet, lifestyle, weight and family history. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease attacking cells of the pancreas, disabling the body’s production of insulin, the hormone that orchestrates the body’s food-processing functions. Both types of diabetes are life-threatening without intervention.

According to the CDC, more than a third of the 250 million people 18 or older in the U.S. and almost half of the 60 million who are 65 or older are prediabetic — the vast majority unknowingly.

“How would you know, if you can only know with a test that you get only if there seems to be a problem?” asked Randy, cleaver in hand, chopping neatly organized piles of lean pork and technicolor-green bok choy.

Randy Tom cuts bok choy as he prepares lunch at his Redwood City home on June 27, 2025. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

The opportunity to access more personalized health information while contributing to science attracted the Toms to Stanford’s genomics studies about a decade ago. They’ve been in more than five long-term studies since — the latest was the first involving food.

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When the research team asked Randy what he ate over Christmas after seeing spikes in his blood sugar data, the culprit was tamales. Now, he enjoys just one of the corn-based treats per sitting.

For Snyder, the advancement of physiologically specific care has been personal. From 2009 to 2011, he and Stanford profiled his own descent from prediabetes into type 2 diabetes — the first time the phenomenon was documented at the molecular level.

Snyder, who is svelte and active, said, “When I first became diabetic, everybody looked at me and said, ‘No way, it’s gonna go away.’”

But the proof was in his integrative Personal “Omics” Profile, or iPOP, an unprecedented analysis of billions of individual bits of molecular genetic data collected by powerful cutting-edge technology.

This level of analysis allows researchers to understand people by metabolic subtype and tailor treatment to match.

Right now, doctors begin to classify metabolic shifts or prediabetes when glucose levels in the blood exceed 5.7%, with no information as to why the abnormality exists.

But there are four different pathways to metabolic disease — two where the body doesn’t produce enough insulin and two where the body doesn’t respond properly to insulin.

In the study, McLaughlin and Snyder looked for soft slopes in blood sugar. Jagged peaks are generally normal responses to food or sugar.

Everyone’s blood sugar spikes in response to grapes and rice. But the scientists found that people with metabolic problems spiked higher and for longer to potato starch than people who lacked problems. The “potato-to-grape” reaction ratio correlated with different underlying metabolic dysfunctions.

These differences call for precision medicine and targeted preventative measures. Some people might need weight loss. Others might need exercise. Yet others may need sleep — something that lowers blood glucose levels across the board.

“If we understand where the problem lies, we can treat it more effectively,” Perelman said.

The researchers are looking for markers in cells that can identify these problems more easily through simple blood tests.

In the meantime, continuous glucose monitoring offers actionable information for people who want to be proactive about their metabolic health.

“You see what spikes you, you see what doesn’t spike you, so you eat what doesn’t spike you,” Snyder said.

After the study wrapped, the Toms obtained their own monitoring devices. Vera, 71, reacted moderately to her data; Randy took things further.

Pictured is a bowl of stir-fried pork, bok choy, and bean sprouts Randy Tom made for lunch at his Redwood City home on June 27, 2025. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

He avoided foods that caused sustained spikes in his blood sugar and joined a master’s swimming team. The retiree and part-time model dropped 25 extra pounds, shed numbers from his high cholesterol count and reversed his prediabetic condition.

“I don’t think people know that you can reverse it,” he said. “It’s just hard to do. You don’t just take a pill.”

Last fall, continuous glucose monitors became available over the counter. A drawback is the $80 monthly cost because insurance only covers the devices for diabetics.

Snyder, who wears multiple devices tracking his body’s functions and removes them only before getting weighed, thinks everyone should try one.

Perelman said the monitors are not a replacement for clinical consultation. McLaughlin added that the devices can yield false metrics in certain situations.

The next phase of the research will test different foods and “mitigators” — proteins or fats that can lower blood sugar fluctuations when consumed with carbohydrates. Toasted bread, for example, is easier on the system for some people when eaten with meat or a fat source like heavy cream. Mitigators don’t work as well for people with metabolic disorders — another crumb for research. Cornflakes and milk? Bad for nearly everyone.

This time, study participants will receive interventions, from medicine to personalized instructions for diet and lifestyle modifications.

Perelman said, “I want people to know that there’s delicious food that’s incredibly healthy.”

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has looked to the marble finishes and hefty price tag of the Federal Reserve headquarters to claim grounds to fire Chair Jerome Powell, with whom he has tussled for years over interest rates. But the extensive use of marble in the building is, at least in part, the result of policies backed by Trump himself.

As the Fed moved forward with plans to renovate its Great Depression-era headquarters in Washington during Trump’s first term, it faced concerns in 2020 during a vetting process involving Trump appointees, who called for more “white Georgia marble” for the facade of building.

The Fed’s architects said the central bank had wanted glass walls to reflect the Fed as a transparent institution, but three Trump appointees to a local commission felt marble best fit the building’s historic character. Marble was added as a result, according to the minutes of the Commission of Fine Arts, which advises the federal government on architecture.

The marble does not explain the roughly $600 million in cost overruns for the Fed headquarters and another nearby office building, now budgeted to cost $2.5 billion, which also includes the addition of an underground parking garage and new glass atria in the building’s courtyards. But the roots of its extensive use further muddies the White House’s attempts to use the renovation to paint the central banker as profligate spender as a possible pretext to removing him.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the result costs more” because of the added marble, said Alex Krieger, a Harvard University emeritus professor who was a member of the commission and participated in hearings on the Fed’s proposal.

Russ Vought, Trump’s top budget adviser, cited “premium marble” in a letter to Powell last week as an example of the “ostentatious overhaul.”

In a response late Thursday, Powell wrote that the project would “use new domestic marble” for several reasons, including “to address concerns raised by external review agencies.”

The National Capital Planning Commission, which also reviewed and approved the Fed renovation project, has started an inquiry into how Powell oversaw the updates.

“The Federal Reserve’s extravagant multi-billion dollar renovation happened on the watch of the Fed’s leadership, and the Fed’s leadership needs to own up for this mismanagement of taxpayer dollars – as well as its botched coverup job,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai. A Fed spokesperson declined to comment.

There is an uncomfortable possibility that the fate of the U.S. central bank and its foundational role in the economy hinges on a dispute about renovation costs and architecture, one that could lead a broader legal battle as to whether Trump can dismiss a Fed chair he dislikes after the Supreme Court in May described the institution as having protections against an abrupt firing.

Trump White House investigating renovation

Trump, who has redecorated the Oval Office in gold leaf, has argued that inflation is not a concern, so the Fed can dramatically slash its rate to encourage more borrowing. But Powell and other Fed committee members are waiting to see whether Trump’s tariffs lift inflation, which higher interest rates could help blunt.

The Fed chair pushed back against criticism during a June congressional hearing that the renovation was lavish by saying some features were removed due to cost, leading the White House to speculate as to whether Powell deceived lawmakers or made changes to the renovation plans without getting additional approvals. At that hearing, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also cited “white marble” as an example of extravagance.

James Blair, a White House deputy chief of staff who was recently added to the planning commission, said Wednesday that he would send a letter to the Fed requesting any revisions to the project. His goal is to see whether Powell was accurate in his congressional testimony.

“He’s either telling the truth or he isn’t,” Blair told The Associated Press. “If he’s telling the truth, he can prove it by just submitting all the plans and revisions.”

Trump said Wednesday that he’s “highly unlikely” to try to fire Powell unless there was what he deemed as “fraud.”

The attempt to remove Powell before his May 2026 term as chair ends could unleash a devastating financial blowback, as financial markets expect the Fed, with its mission of stabilizing prices and maximizing employment, to be free of White House politicking. The perception that the central bank would use its powers to serve Trump’s political ends could lead to higher interest rates on the U.S. debt and mortgages, instead of the declines being promised by the president.

Trump appointees push for more marble

The 115-year old Commission of Fine Arts reviewed the plans for the renovation three times in 2020.

Duncan Stroik, who was appointed to the commission in 2019 during Trump’s first term, “proposed an amendment requesting that the next submission include an alternative design in white Georgia marble, the same material used for the five existing buildings along the north side of Constitution Avenue,” the minutes of a Jan. 16, 2020, meeting said.

Stroik “does not think the proposed additions defer to the historic buildings as great marble edifices on an important street,” the minutes added.

Stroik’s amendment was voted down, but the commission didn’t fully endorse the Fed’s plans. The architects presented new plans in May 2020, though those didn’t appear to satisfy Trump’s appointees.

Some commissioners “continued to object to the addition as a glass box that is reminiscent of a commercial office building, glowing at night, that would present an unacceptable contrast to the solid masonry architecture of the historic building in its monumental context,” the commission wrote in a May 2020 letter to a Fed official.

By July 2020, however, the Fed’s architects came back with a new proposal, which included “panels of white Georgia marble” which would be used for the “base, cornice, and other details, consistent with the historic building,” the commission’s minutes said.

Neoclassical vs. modern designs

Stroik, now a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame, said in an interview that “stone buildings don’t necessarily have to cost a fortune.” But he acknowledged that the commission had not discussed expenses, which has not been part of its mission.

“If they wanted to play the cost game, you do a marble facade and you do the glass facade and you compare the cost,” Stroik said. “And you know, they never did that.”

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Krieger, the former commission member, noted that the body’s discussions became much more contentious after the Trump administration removed several members and replaced them with Stroik and James McCrery, a professor at Catholic University, whom he said often echoed the sentiments in a then- draft executive order from Trump that extolled classical architecture.

“At the time, it was a fierce battle over how literal to the original design should the renovations be,” Krieger said. “Normally, that attitude does add costs to the construction project.” McCrery declined to comment.

Trump issued the executive order in December 2020, which criticized modernist architecture and expressed a preference for “beautiful” classical buildings with more traditional designs. Biden revoked the order, and Trump reissued it the first day of his second term.

The commission did not fully approve the Fed’s project until September 2021, after McCrery and another Trump appointee, Justin Shubow, had been removed by then President Joe Biden.

Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Each Friday, City Limits rounds up the latest news on housing, land use and homelessness. Catch up on what you might have missed here.

Workers at the Urban Justice Center and New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) launched a strike in Manhattan’s Foley Square Tuesday. More than a dozen local politicians showed out to support the employees. (Tareq Saghie/City Limits)

Welcome to “What Happened This Week in NYC Housing?” where we compile the latest local news about housing, land use and homelessness.

Know of a story we should include in next Friday’s roundup? Email us.

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Nonprofit legal providers at the Urban Justice Center and the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG)—including housing attorneys who represent low income tenants—went on strike this week over wages, caseloads and other issues. They face a more worker-friendly political landscape than they did in the last strike of this magnitude, which took place under the Giuliani administration in 1994.

The Trump administration’s plan to exclude undocumented children from Head Start programs, which support low-income and homeless families, will almost certainly have an impact on services in New York City, though providers are unsure of the scale, as they’ve never had to track participants’ immigration status before.

Independent mayoral candidate Jim Walden lays out his housing plan for City Limits’ readers, including a proposal to set affordable housing rents at 25 percent of each borough’s median income.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

Mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo says he wants to repeal the state’s Urstadt Law, which gives Albany control over New York City’s rent regulations (though he never sought to do so during his time as governor), Gothamist reports.

A look at the TikTok strategy of Kenny Burgos, head one of the city’s main landlord groups, via Hell Gate.

The city released long-awaited rules for homeowners looking to build backyard and basement units, according to Crain’s (subscription required.)

The number of building permits filed by developers jumped 43 percent in the second quarter of the year, City & State reports.

City Hall mounted its first legal defense this week against a lawsuit challenging the mayor’s City of Yes for Housing plan, according to the Queens Eagle.

The post What Happened This Week in NYC Housing? July 18, 2025 appeared first on City Limits.

By MELISSA GOLDIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Missouri congressman Billy Long will be ceremonially sworn in as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service on Friday, taking over a beleaguered agency that he once sought to abolish and that has since been beset with steep staffing cuts and leadership turnover.

Long won confirmation in a 53-44 Senate vote last month despite concerns from Democrats about his connection to a tax credit scheme and campaign contributions he received after then President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for the top IRS job in December.

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Long’s commissionership comes after months of acting leaders and massive staffing cuts that have threatened to derail next year’s tax filing season. Tens of thousands of workers have voluntarily retired or been laid off as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy through the Department of Government Efficiency.

“In my first 90 days I plan to ask you, my employee partners, to help me develop a new culture here,” Long wrote in a message to IRS employees. “I’m big on culture, and I’m anxious to develop one that makes your lives and the taxpayers’ lives better.”

While in Congress, where he served from 2011 to 2023, the Republican sponsored legislation to get rid of the IRS. A former auctioneer and real estate broker, Long has no background in tax administration. He also hosted a radio talk show from 1999 to 2006 “on which the IRS was always a hot topic,” according to his biography on the agency’s website.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News in February that Trump’s “goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” referring to tariffs imposed on other countries. The president has also floated the idea of getting rid of the federal income tax and using tariffs to make up the difference.

The nearly 900-page tax and spending bill Trump signed earlier this month contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. They include new tax deductions on tips, overtime and auto loans, as well as scores of business-related cuts.

Long has toed the Trump party line for years. In 2022, during an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, he released a 30-second ad that falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” from Trump — claims the president frequently touts himself.

During his Senate bid, Long worked with a firm that distributed fraudulent, pandemic-era employee retention tax credits. He appeared before the Senate Finance Committee in May and denied any wrongdoing related to his involvement in the scheme.

Democrats have called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to other alleged tax loopholes. They have also written to Long and his associated firms detailing concerns with what they call unusually timed contributions made to Long’s defunct 2022 Senate campaign committee shortly after Trump nominated him.

Long is not the only Trump appointee to support dismantling an agency he was assigned to manage.

Linda McMahon, the current education secretary, has repeatedly said she is trying to put herself out of a job by closing the federal department and transferring its work to the states. FBI Director Kash Patel has proposed radical overhauls to the 117-year-old agency. And Rick Perry, Trump’s energy secretary during his first term, called for abolishing the Energy Department during his bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.