“President Donald Trump is throwing the weight of the Justice Department against the last bastion of U.S. climate action: states and cities.
In a sweeping executive order signed late Tuesday, Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to “stop the enforcement of State laws” on climate change that the administration says are unconstitutional, unenforceable or preempted by federal laws.”
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“The move came as Trump presided over a White House event Tuesday aimed at reviving the coal industry, which has withered against competition from less expensive natural gas and renewables.
He pledged to a row of coal miners standing behind him that he’d direct the Department of Justice to “identify and fight every single unconstitutional state or legal regulation that’s putting our coal miners out of business.”
Some legal experts said the White House’s executive order would be “toothless,” though climate advocates worry about gambling with a judiciary dominated by conservative appointees. And in a statement, Democratic governors said Trump would not intimidate them from climate action.”
“The first case, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, poses the question of whether the 46 states with charter schools must offer public funds to schools that would teach religious doctrine as truth. The second case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involves the claim that religious parents should have a right to opt their children out of controversial public school curricula.
Taken together, Drummond and Mahmoud threaten the twin cornerstones of the American education system that Brown affirmed six decades ago: Since Brown, America’s public schools have operated under a norm of inclusive enrollment, and they’ve offered all children a shared curriculum that reflects the values that communities believe are essential for civic participation and economic success.
If the court tears down these foundational norms, the schools that remain in their wake will be a shell of the democracy-promoting institution the court itself has long lionized — and that healthy majorities of parents continue to support in their local neighborhoods. And although there’s a way to avoid the worst outcome in both cases, the path ahead is uncertain: It will require the court to follow history in an evenhanded manner (in Drummond) and progressives to accept a middle ground (in Mahmoud).
The legal challenges presented in Drummond and Mahmoud did not arise out of thin air. They are part of a long-term conservative movement strategy aimed at eroding public education.”
“Five months later, federal health officials, industry executives and the public health community say they’re more worried than ever.
Kennedy in his first seven weeks atop the Department and Health and Human Services has dramatically reshaped the U.S. health apparatus, eliminating entire agency divisions, abruptly shifting policy priorities and leaving the sprawling department in what six current and former employees described as an unprecedented state of upheaval.
The health secretary and his team forced out top scientists in charge of developing new vaccines and evaluating the safety of medicines, stripping away centuries of collective expertise and institutional knowledge. Government offices that manage key functions like ensuring safe drinking water and alerting Americans to contaminated drugs have been decimated.
In the meantime, Kennedy appointees have sought greater control over scientific decision-making in agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration — going against longstanding norms and roiling a health sector that accounts for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy.
“It’s a mess,” said one former senior HHS official granted anonymity to discuss internal matters. “What was once a very robust place to work, that was trying to lead on innovation, is gone. It’s just gone.”
The rapid overhaul, punctuated by last week’s mass firing of 10,000 employees, has left the HHS workforce traumatized and the broader health community in deep distress, according to interviews with nine current and former health officials, as well as five other public health experts and industry officials, most of whom were granted anonymity for fear of retribution.”
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““They got rid of all the people who made the place work,” said one health official. “It doesn’t seem to be achieving their aims. Unless their aim was just to cause chaos and torpedo morale.””
“The EU can apply retaliatory tariffs on nearly €21 billion of U.S. products like soybeans, motorcycles and orange juice after the bloc’s 27 countries assented to the measures on Wednesday, the European Commission announced.
“The EU considers U.S. tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy. The EU has stated its clear preference to find negotiated outcomes with the U.S., which would be balanced and mutually beneficial,” the EU executive said in a statement.
Hitting back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, the European Union’s countermeasures will apply in three rounds. Measures covering €3.9 billion in trade will go into force next week, with a further €13.5 billion from mid-May and a final round of €3.5 billion following in December.”
“The Trump administration froze $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University, the White House confirmed.
The freeze is the latest in a series of federal funding attacks against the Ivy League, but Northwestern would be the first institution to face a funding cut outside of that group. University officials from Northwestern have said they have not yet received official notice of the funding freezes.”
“San Antonio sends almost half its exports to Canada, which makes the Texas trade hub one of the most vulnerable U.S. cities in the tariff war.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg says one in five jobs in his state is exposed by President Donald Trump’s new tariff regime — “300,000 jobs immediately on the block.””
“When Veronica Sanchez called a Social Security hotline Thursday, she waited two hours before her call was abruptly disconnected.
On Friday, she was on hold for six hours and still did not get through to anyone.
“I’m gonna have to take time out of my work to stand in line and hopefully get this resolved,” the 52-year-old medical practice manager in Canoga Park said Monday before calling one more time.
For Sanchez, the stakes are high: If she does not obtain a medical letter from the agency by April 15, her parents, who are on a fixed income, risk losing about $2,500 a month in medical care. They would no longer receive insulin medication for their diabetes, she said, and could lose their daily visit from a nurse.
But even if Sanchez shows up in person, she is not likely to speak to an agent. Field offices are no longer accepting walk-in appointments.
“The system, it’s broken down,” Sanchez said.
Elderly and disabled people — and those who care for them — are encountering a knot of bureaucratic hurdles and service disruptions after the Trump administration imposed a sweeping overhaul of the Social Security Administration system.”
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“In February, the agency that sends monthly checks to nearly 73 million Americans announced plans to slash 7,000 jobs and consolidate its regional offices from 10 to four as part of an effort to “reduce the size of its bloated workforce and organizational structure.” The cutbacks, enforced by Musk’s advisory team known as the Department of Government Efficiency, represent a 12% reduction of the agency’s workforce.
Sanchez does not believe she is reaping the benefits of government efficiency.
“It’s frustrating,” she said, noting that a call that would once take 15 minutes now involves much more work.”
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“Maria Town, president and chief executive of the American Assn. of People with Disabilities, told The Times that the system changes were not only hurting people’s ability to sign up and enroll for benefits. People already connected to the system who needed support were also having trouble appealing benefits decisions or accessing medical services.
“You can’t get anyone on the phone,” she said.
Even before Trump took office, Town said, the system had challenges: About 30,000 disabled people died in 2023 waiting for their SSDI application to be approved.”
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“About five months ago, Taylor said, he asked for the same letter at the same office and did not run into any issues. He didn’t know what to make of the difference and had not followed the changes in the White House.
“If this is what they’re doing in Washington, it isn’t fair to everyone else,” he said. “Poor people always seem to get the worst of it.””
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a 90-day pause of the higher tariffs against 60-odd trading partners that went into effect earlier Wednesday, with the exception of China — an abrupt reversal of his market-rattling trade policy.
Trump, in a Truth Social post, said he plans to keep the administration’s global baseline tariff increase of 10 percent in place for all countries.
But tariffs he imposed on China will continue to rise, Trump wrote, increasing to 125 percent, due to Beijing’s continued retaliation.”
“The trade war is likely to cause fewer jobs and higher prices, a top Federal Reserve official tells Axios. But price hikes may not show up until the summer, as companies work through pre-tariff inventories.”
“Trump argues that tariffs will stimulate the U.S. economy by boosting domestic production, which is possible only if tariffs make imports more expensive. Yet Trump is loath to admit that tariffs collected from importers translate into higher prices for U.S. businesses and consumers.
“China is eating the Tariffs,” Trump claimed during his first trade war. The upshot, he said, was that “cost increases have thus far been almost unnoticeable.” If so, there was little reason to expect that tariffs would help U.S. companies at the expense of their foreign competitors.
Trump is still pushing these contradictory claims. The White House claims tariffs “do not raise prices” yet somehow “create new incentives for US consumers to buy US-made products.”
During a recent interview, by contrast, Trump admitted that his 25 percent tariff on imported cars might make them more expensive. “I couldn’t care less if they raise prices,” he said, “because people are going to start buying American-made cars.”
Even that concession was misleading, because those “American-made cars” frequently incorporate foreign-made parts, which are also covered by Trump’s tariffs. Overall, Yale’s Budget Lab estimates, Trump’s tariffs will raise car prices by 13.5 percent, adding $6,400 to the cost of “an average new 2024 car.””
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“Trump ignores that tradeoff too, pretending tariffs can be a reliable source of easy revenue even though they are designed to shrink the flow of the products on which they are levied. As Trump tells it, we can tax ourselves to prosperity at no cost to Americans and use the windfall to tackle the federal government’s looming fiscal crisis.
If all that is true, it is a mystery why Trump also presents tariffs as a bargaining tool that can be used to extract concessions from other countries, such as assistance in border control and the war on drugs. Such threats work only if Trump is willing to forgo the supposedly unalloyed benefits of tariffs.”