Aurelia Butler

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    Touring Kennedy Center, Trump Mused on His Childhood ‘Aptitude for Music’

    During his first visit to the Kennedy Center since making himself the chairman of its board, President Trump had a lot to say about Broadway shows, dancers in silk tights, the Potomac River and Elvis Presley.But in a private discussion at the start of a meeting of the center’s board on Monday, Mr. Trump offered something he usually steers away from in bigger settings: a personal anecdote about his childhood.He told the assembled board members that in his youth he had shown special abilities in music after taking aptitude tests ordered by his parents, according to three participants in the meeting.He could pick out notes on the piano, he told the board members, some of whom he’s known for years and others who are relatively new to him. But the president said that his father, Fred Trump, was not pleased by his musical abilities, according to the participants, and that he had never developed his talent. One person in the room said Mr. Trump appeared to be joking about his father. “I have a high aptitude for music,” he said at one point, according to people at the meeting. “Can you believe that?”“That’s why I love music,” he added. Mr. Trump’s remarks have not been previously reported. They were not part of an audio recording of the board meeting obtained by The New York Times earlier this week.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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    Kansas Voters Will Decide Whether to Hold Open Elections for State Supreme Court

    A question on the ballot next year will ask voters to amend the Constitution to set open elections. Republicans said it would empower Kansans, while Democrats argued it would politicize the judiciary.The Kansas Supreme Court, made up mostly of jurists appointed by Democrats, has long served as a check on the Republican-dominated Legislature.The justices have established a statewide right to abortion. They have told Republican leaders that they were not spending enough on schools. And they have weathered repeated attempts to tip the court’s balance of power toward conservatives.But the high court, which is officially nonpartisan, could soon face major changes. Lawmakers decided on Wednesday to place a question on the primary ballot in August 2026 that would ask voters to amend the Kansas Constitution to set open elections for the court. If voters approve the change, justices would become free to campaign and hold leadership positions in political parties.The move, which follows efforts in other states to elect justices, would give Kansas Republicans a clearer path toward a conservative majority on the court and the possibility of revisiting issues like abortion. Conservative lawmakers said making the change would return power to voters.“It comes down to one thing: Do you trust the people of Kansas to select the seven people who run the third branch of our government and who have an enormous say over our government and how it’s run?” asked State Representative Bob Lewis, a Republican from western Kansas who supported placing the amendment on the ballot.Democrats criticized the effort to hold open elections, saying it would empower wealthy campaign donors and politicize the judiciary. They pointed to polarizing elections in places like North Carolina, where the results of a 2024 State Supreme Court election are still being disputed, and Wisconsin, where tens of millions of dollars have been spent ahead of a State Supreme Court election next month.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 Is Said to Sign Order Aimed at Dismantling Education Department

    President Trump plans to sign an executive order on Thursday instructing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the agency, according to two White House officials.The department cannot be closed without the approval of Congress, which created it. But the Trump administration has already taken steps to narrow the agency’s authority and significantly cut its work force while telegraphing plans to try to shutter it.The White House officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the plans, said the order instructed Ms. McMahon to return authority over education to the states.USA Today was first to report Mr. Trump’s intent to sign the order on Thursday. Republican attempts to shutter the agency date back to the 1980s. But the push gained steam in recent years after a parents’ rights movement grew out of a backlash to school policies and shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.That movement, which includes key pro-Trump, grass-roots activists, expanded around opposition to progressive agendas that promoted mandating certain education standards and inclusive policies for L.G.B.T.Q. students. Activists contended that these policies undermined parental rights and values.But the hyper-partisanship around education issues has been present for decades, from progressive-leaning teachers’ unions who organized against President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policies to conservative Republican presidential candidates in 2016 who ran against the Common Core standards elevated by President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” program.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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    SoftBank to Buy Silicon Valley Chip Start-Up Ampere for $6.5 Billion

    The move is a bet that Ampere’s chips can begin playing a significant role in data centers for creating artificial intelligence.SoftBank said on Wednesday that it had agreed to pay $6.5 billion for the Silicon Valley chip start-up Ampere Computing, doubling down on a bet that technology that originated in smartphones will come to dominate the world’s data centers.The deal also reflects the Japanese conglomerate’s belief that Ampere’s chips can begin to play a significant role in artificial intelligence, where Nvidia has reaped the most rewards so far.Ampere was founded eight years ago to sell chips for data centers based on technology from Arm Holdings, a British company that licenses chip designs that have powered nearly all mobile phones. SoftBank, which bought Arm in 2016, has been working to have chips based on Arm technology used more widely and for different tasks.“The future of artificial superintelligence requires breakthrough computing power,” Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s chairman and chief executive, said in prepared remarks. “Ampere’s expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to A.I. innovation in the United States.”SoftBank said it would operate Ampere as a wholly owned subsidiary under its own name.The sale comes amid a flurry of deals and shifting alliances driven by a furious demand for the chips used to power A.I. applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. SoftBank, in particular, has announced a series of transactions in a bid to play a bigger role in the field.In its splashiest move to date, Mr. Son joined President Trump in January to announce an initiative called Stargate, alongside Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief, and Larry Ellison, chairman and founder of the software maker Oracle, which is Ampere’s largest investor and customer.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’s Tariffs Have Sown Uncertainty. That Might Be the Point.

    Since taking office, President Trump and his advisers have explained the president’s aggressive economic approach to tariffs with a litany of conflicting ideas. Other countries are “ripping off” America and need to be stopped. The United States is fighting a drug war with Canada, Mexico and China. Tariffs will help pay down the nation’s $36 trillion debt load.The messaging hodgepodge comes as the U.S. economy shows signs of strain in response to Mr. Trump’s steep tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China and as he prepares to enact “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from around the world on April 2.The tariffs have sowed uncertainty and dampened business investment and consumer sentiment while sending markets gyrating daily. They are also likely to prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting rates as policymakers wait to see exactly what measures Mr. Trump follows through with and how they affect the economy.But rather than trying to provide more coherence about their economic strategy, Mr. Trump and his advisers seem to be embracing the uncertainty of his approach as a feature, not a bug.“Absolutely, between now and April 2, there’ll be some uncertainty,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said on CNBC this week amid questions about what investors are to make of Mr. Trump’s trade agenda.Mr. Trump, when asked whether he would give the business community more clarity about his overall approach, largely dismissed concerns that corporations needed predictability.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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    Stefanik Will Be Released From the House Soon for UN Ambassador Confirmation

    Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, is set to be released from the House on April 2 and head toward a confirmation vote to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, after weeks of waiting to join President Trump’s cabinet.Senate Republicans have been slow-walking Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation because of the too-tight margins in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson could not afford to lose a reliable Republican vote when he needed to pass the stopgap government funding measure that Democrats almost unanimously opposed.So, despite being Mr. Trump’s first announced nominee to serve in his cabinet, Ms. Stefanik is now the only one who has yet to be confirmed. That has left her in a strange in-between: She is a member of the 119th Congress who is not seated on any subcommittees, and she attended the first Trump cabinet meeting despite the fact that she is not technically in it yet. When Mr. Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, she sat with the cabinet rather than her House colleagues.But Ms. Stefanik’s awkward life in limbo can start to resolve on April 2, when two Trump-endorsed Republicans are expected to fill a pair of seats that were left vacant after the departures of former Representatives Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Senate Republicans are then expected to move ahead with Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation, according to two people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The details of Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation proceedings were first reported by Axios.A spokesman for Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, declined to comment on the schedule for the confirmation vote.The Republican majority in the House will remain slim, but Mr. Johnson will have a little more room to maneuver. He has been forthright about his challenges.“I had 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats, and then President Trump began to cull the herd,” Mr. Johnson said last month, referring to the president’s decision to select House Republicans to serve in his administration. “We have a one-vote margin now — smallest in history, right? So for a big chunk of the first 100 days of the Congress, and perhaps beyond, this is not an easy task, but we’re going to get it done.” More

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    Trump’s Tariffs Could Deal a Blow to Boeing and the Aerospace Industry

    Aerospace companies are big exporters but also very reliant on a global supply chain, making them vulnerable.Boeing is the kind of manufacturer — one that exports billions of dollars of goods — that President Trump says he wants to protect and nurture.But his tariffs could have the opposite effect on the company’s suppliers.Mr. Trump has imposed a few tariffs so far, but he says more are coming in just a few weeks. That threat has unnerved the aerospace industry, of which Boeing is one of the largest companies. Duties on aluminum and steel, two of the most important raw materials used in aircraft, are expected to raise manufacturing costs. But the industry is far more concerned by tariffs that take effect on goods from Canada and Mexico next month, which could disrupt the highly integrated North American supply chain.“These tariffs are particularly fraught for an industry like aerospace that has been duty-free for decades,” said Bruce Hirsch, a trade policy expert at Capitol Counsel, a lobbying firm in Washington, which has aerospace clients. “Parts are coming from everywhere.”Aerospace experts say the industry is an example of U.S. manufacturing prowess. It offers well-paying jobs and has produced one of the largest trade surpluses of any industry for years. Aerospace is expected to export about $125 billion this year, according to IBISWorld, second only to oil and gas.But the industry is operating under a cloud of uncertainty. Many companies have been able to avoid costly cross-border tariffs under a short-term reprieve for products covered by a North American trade agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated in his first term. But that deal expires in April.In a letter to administration officials last week, groups representing airlines, plane repair stations, suppliers and manufacturers asked for an exception to the tariffs, arguing that it was needed to keep the industry competitive on the global market.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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    Why Period Products Aren’t Widely Provided in Schools

    A lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education alleges that not providing free products amounts to discrimination.Alisa Nudar was in the middle of her math exam when she realized she had unexpectedly started her period.Nudar raised her hand and asked for permission to go to the bathroom. When she got there, she found that she had bled through her underwear. She didn’t have any period products with her, and there were none in the bathroom. “I kept asking people who were coming in and they were, like, Oh, I’m so sorry, I don’t have any,” Nudar said. “And already 10 minutes had passed.”She walked out of the bathroom looking for a better solution and bumped into a friend who ran back to her classroom to get one of her own pads.All of that searching took about 15 minutes, Nudar said — wasted time that she could have put into her exam. Back then, in 2021, Nudar was a freshman at Bard High School Early College in New York City. And legally there should have been tampons and pads in the school bathroom, provided for free by the New York City Department of Education.Now a nonprofit organization called Period Law and an anonymous student are suing the Education Department for not providing those products in schools, a failure that, according to the legal complaint, effectively amounts to discrimination against menstruating people.In 2016, New York City became the first jurisdiction in the country to pass a law mandating every school to be stocked with free period products. The law paved the way for other legislators to pass their own versions of a similar law. Today, 28 states and the District of Columbia have laws on free period products in schools.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