Aurelia Butler

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    With Painful Layoffs Ahead, Agencies Push Incentives to Quit

    Federal agencies have accelerated their efforts to cut thousands of jobs, offering buyouts and eliminating entire offices as the Trump administration’s deadline to downsize approaches.At least six federal agencies have in recent days extended a “deferred resignation” offer that was originally pitched to government workers in January as a one-time opportunity that would allow employees to resign but continue to be paid for a period of time.The latest offer was sent to employees at the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, as well as the General Services Administration, according to emails received by workers at those agencies reviewed by The New York Times.Employees at those agencies have to make their decisions between Monday, April 7, and April 11, depending on the agency, the emails said.President Trump and his top adviser on downsizing the government, Elon Musk, have ordered nearly every agency to reduce staff on a tight deadline to overhaul the government, in part by eliminating programs the president views as ideologically objectionable. Mr. Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have promised significant savings to American taxpayers as a result, though wages and benefits for the federal work force amount to just 4.3 percent of the $6.3 trillion federal budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office.Mr. Trump has given Mr. Musk wide latitude to effect change, empowering him to effectively shutter agencies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Columbia Campus Occupation Could Have Ended Without Police, Report Says

    A university senate review concludes that some demonstrators who occupied Hamilton Hall were willing to leave voluntarily.Columbia University’s move to use police force to clear demonstrators from a campus building last spring could potentially have been avoided, as some students were urgently asking if they could leave voluntarily, according to a report released Tuesday by the university’s senate.The students, who early that morning had broken into Hamilton Hall and barricaded the doors, told faculty intermediaries that they had enlisted the help of a Harlem pastor to help them depart safely. But university administrators, saying time had run out, allowed hundreds of police officers to come onto the campus to remove protesters from the building.The new details of the final hours of the occupation of Hamilton Hall on April 30 were among the key revelations of the 335-page report, which was written by a group within the senate, a Columbia policymaking body that includes faculty members, students and administrators, with faculty in the majority. The senate is independent from the administration and has been critical of its protest response.Called the “The Sundial Report,” it provides a play-by-play chronology of the events surrounding the protests on campus related to the war in Gaza beginning in October 2023.The demonstrations and Columbia’s response put the school at the center of a national debate over how to protect students from harassment by demonstrators while also protecting the free speech and rights of protesters.The events of last spring resulted in significant disruption on the university’s Morningside Heights campus, and some critics of Columbia’s response said administrators waited too long to take action. The unrest culminated on April 30, when a smaller group of protesters — including some who were unaffiliated with Columbia — broke off from a tent encampment and took over Hamilton Hall.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    NYT Crossword Answers for April 2, 2025

    Try your hand at Daniel Bodily’s puzzle — it’ll all work out.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — I’m tempted to characterize this as Daniel Bodily’s “opening day” of the New York Times Crossword season. Mr. Bodily constructs puzzles regularly for The Times, but this is the first appearance he has made in 2025.A little fanfare is fitting, anyway, because today’s crossword contains eight — eight! — themed entries, including a split revealer. Let’s get a few reps in, shall we?Today’s ThemeWhat happens when you [go out with a bang]? You get a [hint to 16-, 21-, 29-, 34-, 46- and 54-Across]. The answer to this revealer clue is FINISH STRONG — split between 1D and 44D — and refers wittily to the fact that each of the cited themed entries finishes with a synonym for “strong.”At 16-Across, for instance, [Frame, apron, molding, etc.] are examples of WINDOW TRIM. (If you’re wondering whether “trim” is really a synonym for “strong,” see Mr. Bodily’s constructor notes below.) [Like some photos of yesteryear], pictures may be SEPIA-TONED (21A). One who [Collected hot wheels?] has CARJACKED someone, as “hot” is slang for “stolen” (29A).Now that I’ve personally trained you (eh?), see if you can crack the remaining entries on your own.Tricky Clues5A. I thought that the clue [Threat to a king, maybe] referred to a usurpation of royal titles. This king happens to be a chess piece; he can be threatened by a PAWN.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Wisconsin Voters Approve Amendment Requiring Photo ID to Vote

    The state has required voters to use photograph identification for nearly a decade, but an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution was seen as making it more difficult to roll back that rule.Wisconsin voters on Tuesday approved an amendment to the State Constitution to strengthen a current law requiring photo identification at the polls, The Associated Press said, a victory for Republicans who sponsored the effort.For close to a decade, state law has required the use of photo ID when voting at the polls in Wisconsin.But a constitutional amendment was seen as making it far more difficult to roll back the voter ID law, even under a state Supreme Court with a liberal majority or if the State Legislature fell under Democratic control. The measure was brought by Republicans, who control a majority of seats in the State Legislature and had pressed for the amendment for years.Conservatives have steadily and successfully pushed for stricter voter ID laws across the country, suggesting that they are needed to combat widespread voter fraud. Election experts say that voter fraud in American elections is exceedingly rare.Democratic leaders opposed the effort for the amendment in Wisconsin, arguing that it would disenfranchise voters including students, older people and particularly Black voters, who studies have shown are less likely to carry photo identification than white voters. While Black voters make up only about 5 percent of Wisconsin’s electorate, they overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates.Democrats also questioned why the amendment should be a priority at all, saying that Republicans were neglecting more pressing matters facing the state such as affordable child care, public education and gun control.Last week, President Trump stepped into the fray on voter ID requirements, issuing an executive order seeking to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote. Democrats responded with a lawsuit on Monday, arguing that the president’s order was unconstitutional and that he has no explicit authority to regulate elections.Thirty-six states ask for or require voters to show some form of identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan group.Polls show that voter ID laws enjoy broad bipartisan support, with a Pew Research survey conducted in January finding that 81 percent of voters agree with a requirement that all voters should show government-issued identification to cast ballots.Wisconsin voters also strongly support voter ID laws, according to polls in recent years. A 2021 survey by the Marquette University Law School showed that 92 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Democrats favored requiring photo ID to vote. More

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    G.O.P. Bolsters House Majority by Retaining Two Seats in Florida

    The Republicans who were elected on Tuesday to fill seats left empty by Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz had President Trump’s backing.Two Trump-backed Republicans won special congressional elections in Florida on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, shoring up their party’s slim majority in the House at a crucial moment for President Trump’s domestic agenda.Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, won the race to replace Matt Gaetz in the First Congressional District, on the western end of the Panhandle. With most of the vote counted late Tuesday, Mr. Patronis had won 57 percent.And State Senator Randy Fine captured the Sixth District seat that had been held by Michael Waltz, now Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. That district is rooted in Daytona Beach and parts of the northeast coast. Mr. Fine had 56.7 percent of the vote as of 9 p.m.Both seats had been expected to remain in Republican hands, though some private polls showed Mr. Fine facing a close contest against Josh Weil, his Democratic opponent. Mr. Weil and Gay Valimont, the Democrat who ran against Mr. Patronis, each raised millions of dollars for their campaigns despite the Democrats’ struggles in Florida.Florida Sixth District Special Election ResultsGet live results and maps from the 2025 Florida special election.Mr. Gaetz resigned from his House seat last year after Mr. Trump nominated him to be attorney general. He later withdrew from consideration for that post, amid an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Set to Meet With Top Aides to Decide TikTok’s Fate

    President Trump plans to meet with top White House officials on Wednesday to discuss a proposal that could secure TikTok’s future in the United States, two people familiar with the plans said.Mr. Trump will consider a proposal for a new ownership structure for the popular video app, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance. Lawmakers and other U.S. officials have argued that the app’s ties to China raise national security concerns, and a federal law that was passed last year requires TikTok to change its ownership or face a ban in the United States. The latest deadline for that ban is Saturday.The meeting is set to include Vice President JD Vance, whom Mr. Trump tapped to find an arrangement to save the popular app early in February, and other top officials, the two people said on the condition of anonymity. The new ownership structure, they said, could include Blackstone, the private equity giant, and Oracle, the technology company.The meeting is another twist in the long national saga of TikTok, which surged in popularity in the United States despite sustained and deep scrutiny in Washington and state capitals. Mr. Trump, who made repeated assurances that he wants to save the app, extended the deadline for a deal in January and suggested that he might do so again if a suitable plan was not reached by early this month.TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment.It is not clear that the kind of deal under discussion would comply with the law, which calls for no more than 20 percent of TikTok or its parent company to be owned by people or companies in so-called foreign adversary countries, a list that includes China.The law also bars a new entity from working with ByteDance to operate its video-recommendation technology or creating a data-sharing agreement.Mr. Trump suggested last week that he might relax upcoming tariffs on China in exchange for the country’s support of a deal.TikTok has maintained that it is not for sale, in part, it says, because the Chinese government would block a deal. More

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    Republicans Invoke Newsom in a Hearing on Transgender Sports

    California Democrats rejected two Republican bills that would have banned transgender athletes from female sports. In a rare turn, Republicans tried to use the Democratic governor’s own words to challenge Democrats.It was a discussion of a kind rarely, if ever, seen in the California State Capitol. For hours on Tuesday, Republicans repeatedly invoked the views of Gov. Gavin Newsom, while the governor’s fellow Democrats took pains to avoid saying his name.At issue were two Republican bills that would have banned transgender athletes from female sports, just days after Mr. Newsom had reiterated his personal belief that their participation was unfair to those who were born as girls.“For the first time ever, Gavin Newsom and I agree,” said Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative advocacy group.Democrats, who control the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism, ultimately quashed the bills after dozens of people spoke in a packed hearing room. The debate brought into stark focus an extraordinary rift among California Democrats on the issue of transgender participation in female sports.Mr. Newsom, a longtime supporter of expanding L.G.B.T.Q. rights, publicly broke with his party last month when he said on his new podcast that he thinks it’s “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in female sports. The governor repeated that position Friday during an interview on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” in which he also said the Democratic Party brand is “toxic.”Mr. Newsom has not publicly weighed in on the transgender sports bills, and his office declined to comment on Tuesday. But his recent comments have scrambled the conventional coalitions in California’s Capitol, where Democrats hold a supermajority in the Legislature and occupy every statewide office. While it is common for Democrats to split on bills concerning the environment, economy, crime or education, divisions over L.G.B.T.Q. rights are rare.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Joe Rogan, Voices on the Right Raise Alarm Over Trump’s Immigration Moves

    Influential figures on the right have largely cheered on the opening months of the Trump presidency. But as the administration has rushed to carry out deportations as quickly as possible, making mistakes and raising concerns about due process along the way, the unified front in favor of President Trump’s immigration purge is beginning to crack.When the administration deported a professional makeup artist and accused him of being part of a criminal gang, the enormously popular podcaster Joe Rogan balked.“You’ve got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons,” Mr. Rogan, who endorsed Mr. Trump, said on his show “The Joe Rogan Experience.” He added that the case was “horrific.”When the administration arrested a former Columbia University graduate student who had been involved in campus protests, the far-right commentator Ann Coulter questioned the move.“There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment?” Ms. Coulter wrote on social media.The dissenting voices, which have been limited mostly to commentators rather than elected Republicans, are remarkable because conservatives don’t often openly break with the president. And while the objections have largely been contained to tactics — not the overarching goal of ramping up deportations — the cracks show how seriously some conservatives are taking the administration’s aggressive and at times slapdash methods.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More