Aurelia Butler

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    D.C.’s Planned Removal of Black Lives Matter Mural Reflects Mayor’s Delicate Position

    Mayor Muriel Bowser’s decision comes amid calls by the president and other Republicans for more federal control of the city.On Wednesday morning in downtown Washington, D.C., Keyonna Jones stood on her artwork and remembered the time when she and six other artists were summoned by the mayor’s office to paint a mural in the middle of the night.“BLACK LIVES MATTER,” the mural read in bright yellow letters on a street running two city blocks, blaring the message at the White House sitting just across Lafayette Square. In June 2020, when Ms. Jones helped paint the mural, demonstrations were breaking out in cities nationwide in protest of George Floyd’s murder. The creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza was a statement of defiance from D.C.’s mayor, Muriel E. Bowser, who had clashed with President Trump, then in his first term, over the presence of federal troops in the streets of her city.But on Tuesday evening, the mayor announced the mural was going away.Ms. Jones said the news upset her. But, she added of the mayor in an interview, “I get where she is coming from.”The city of Washington is in an extraordinarily vulnerable place these days. Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation that would end D.C.’s already limited power to govern itself, stripping residents of the ability to elect a mayor and city council. Mr. Trump himself has said that he supports a federal takeover of Washington, insisting to reporters that the federal government would “run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely, flawlessly beautiful.” In recent days, the administration has been considering executive orders in pursuit of his vision for the city.Potential laws and orders aside, the administration has already fired thousands of federal workers, leaving residents throughout the city without livelihoods and, according to the city’s official estimate, potentially costing Washington around $1 billion in lost revenue over the next three years.Given all this, Ms. Bowser, a Democrat, described her decision about Black Lives Matter Plaza as a pragmatic calculation.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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    Federal Grant Program Opens Door to Elon Musk’s Starlink

    The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would overhaul a $42 billion federal grant program aimed at expanding high-speed internet to the nation, including easing some rules that could benefit Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink.The program will be revamped to “take a tech-neutral approach” in its distribution of funds to states, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement. The program’s rules, which were created during the Biden administration, previously favored broadband lines made of fiber-optic cables attached to homes.“The department is ripping out the Biden administration’s pointless requirements,” Mr. Lutnick said. The Commerce Department will also remove regulatory and other barriers that slow down construction and connection to households, he added.Congress created the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program in 2021 to extend broadband to the most remote areas of the nation. The Commerce Department came up with standards and rules for states and territories applying for the funds — including the preference for fiber-optic broadband, which provides the fastest internet service speeds.Mr. Musk, who is a close adviser to President Trump and helping to lead a government efficiency initiative, is chief executive of SpaceX, the rocket company that makes Starlink. Starlink uses low-altitude satellites to beam internet service to dishes anywhere on the planet and then to devices. It serves nearly five million subscribers worldwide and was used by emergency responders late last year in North Carolina when communications networks shut down after a hurricane.The Commerce Department’s internet program has not yet disbursed any funds, and Republicans have used it as an example of a program that was slowed down by red tape.Some have accused the Biden administration of unfairly blocking Starlink from the grants and say the satellite service can immediately serve some of the most remote areas of the nation.In 2023, the Federal Communications Commission rejected Starlink’s application for almost $900 million in subsidies in a separate rural broadband program, saying the company failed to show it could meet service requirements for the funding.Brendan Carr, then a Republican F.C.C. commissioner and now chairman of the agency, opposed that decision and said the action had put the F.C.C. on a “growing list of administrative agencies that are taking action against Elon Musk’s businesses.”Mr. Musk’s business interests — which also include the electric-car maker Tesla and the social media company X — have prompted concerns about potential conflicts of interest as he makes important decisions in Washington.On Wednesday, some public interest groups expressed concern that Mr. Lutnick’s plans to change the broadband program could directly benefit Mr. Musk.“Fiber broadband is widely understood to be better than other internet options — like Starlink’s satellites — because it delivers significantly faster speeds,” said Drew Garner, a director of policy engagement for the nonprofit Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to requests for details on the plan. Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. More

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    Elon Musk Meets With Senate Republicans Amid Tensions Over Federal Cuts

    Elon Musk heads to Capitol Hill for a diplomatic mission.Yesterday, Senate Republicans were quick to give Elon Musk a standing ovation in the House chamber as President Trump heaped praise on his efforts to overhaul the federal government.Today, though, they seized the opportunity to ask him some questions privately: an hour and 45 minutes’ worth of questions, to be exact.Musk’s foray into government led the world’s richest man, a person who intends to colonize Mars, to find himself in the more earthly confines of Senate Republicans’ regular Wednesday lunch.A phalanx of photographers and reporters waited in a Senate hallway, under a portrait of the former senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner, hoping to get a chance to ask Musk about his first diplomatic mission to Capitol Hill since Trump took office.Photographers’ lenses swiveled every time someone came around the corner.“Not me!” Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota said at one point. “Next one.”Musk appeared shortly behind him, deep in conversation with Senator Rick Scott of Florida, before disappearing into the lunchroom.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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    Mike Johnson’s Chief of Staff Arrested for DUI After Trump Speech, Police Say

    The U.S. Capitol Police said the chief of staff to Speaker Mike Johnson was arrested for drunken driving on Tuesday night after the top aide backed his car into a parked Capitol Police vehicle.The arrest came soon after President Trump, with Mr. Johnson presiding behind him, finished delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress since returning to office.“A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.,” a Capitol Police spokesman said in a statement. “We responded and arrested them for D.U.I.”Mr. Johnson’s office confirmed on Wednesday that Hayden Haynes, the speaker’s chief of staff, was involved in an “encounter” with Capitol Police on Tuesday night, releasing a statement that indicated that he would continue to hold his powerful post.“The speaker has known and worked closely with Hayden for nearly a decade and trusted him to serve as his chief of staff for his entire tenure in Congress,” Taylor Haulsee, Mr. Johnson’s spokesman, said in a statement about the arrest, which was reported earlier by NBC News. “Because of this and Hayden’s esteemed reputation among members and staff alike, the speaker has full faith and confidence in Hayden’s ability to lead the speaker’s office.”Mr. Haynes was released with a citation, rather than taken to jail, and would have a court date “within the coming weeks,” according to the Capitol Police. Since drunken driving cases in Washington, D.C., are prosecuted by the district’s attorney general rather than the U.S. district attorney’s office under the Justice Department, the Trump administration would have no apparent role in the case. More

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    Pro-Palestinian Activists Occupy Barnard Building for 2nd Time in Week

    The Police Department said several demonstrators were taken into custody during the sit-in at the college’s main library.About two dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Barnard College in Manhattan occupied the lobby of the school’s main library on Wednesday, escalating a confrontation with school administrators and leading to several protesters being taken into custody, the police said.Chanting “Free Palestine” and wearing masks and kaffiyeh over their faces, the protesters began their sit-in inside the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning about 1 p.m. The school blocked access to the building shortly afterward, and classes were disrupted.The protest came at a moment when pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses is a subject of intense interest to the Trump administration. In executive orders, President Trump has threatened to revoke federal funding to universities that allow what he and his administration regard as antisemitic activity, and he has made clear that pro-Palestinian protests, particularly those that appear to support Hamas, can qualify as such in his view.Hours after the protest began on Wednesday afternoon, the situation remained fluid as Police Department vans and officers with zip ties began gathering near Barnard’s campus at 116th Street and Broadway. Shortly afterward, Barnard administrators announced to protesters that they had received a bomb threat, and police and security began evacuating the building.The protesters initially decided to remain, chanting over the sound of alarms, according to a witness and social media reports.At 5 p.m., Police Department officers walked through the lobby inspecting the building as chanting continued, according to a video shot on site. About 10 minutes later, the police began pushing the protesters out of the building.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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    Strong Winds Send U.S. Customs Blimp on a 600-Mile Trip Across Texas

    Wind blasts dislodged the aircraft from its moorings in South Padre. The blimp drifted all the way to the Dallas area, where it crashed into power lines.Strong winds dislodged a U.S. Customs and Border Protection surveillance blimp in South Padre Island, Texas, this week, sending it on an unplanned journey of nearly 600 miles across the state until it crashed into power lines outside Dallas, the authorities said. The blimp, which was about 200 feet long, broke free from its tether just after 3 p.m. Monday during a “severe wind event,” the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations division said in a statement. Maximum wind gusts were around 30 miles per hour that day, slightly stronger than normal, said Ben Ellzey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville.Operators lost contact with the white blimp shortly after it became loose, according to the statement. The agency asked residents to report any sighting of it.According to the Air and Marine Operations division, Quinlan Texas Fire and Rescue found the blimp on Tuesday in Hunt County, about 30 miles east of Dallas.Chief Ryan Biggers of the South Hunt County Fire Rescue said he was puzzled when the department received a “weird” call about 6:40 a.m. Wednesday from Border Patrol seeking help with recovering the blimp. “I was kind of unsure what they meant,” Chief Biggers said.When he responded, he saw white material hanging over trees and power lines, as if a white tarp had been laid out, he said. “I couldn’t even tell it was a blimp,” Chief Biggers said.The balloon was too tangled for fire equipment, he said, adding that a heavy rotator wrecker was needed to lift the debris and what remained of the blimp off the power lines it had crashed into.Jake Cunningham, operations manager at Benson Bros. Wrecker Service, a professional towing company that was called in for assistance with recovering the blimp, said, “Fortunately, we are a little more experienced in some of the stranger calls.”Mr. Cunningham said that two operators had extracted the balloon using a 60-ton rotator, a crane with a long arm that spins, in a process that took about two hours. “It was a delicate situation,” he said.Chief Biggers, reflecting on the event, said, “I never received a call like that, and I doubt I ever will again.”The U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to offer additional comment. More details will be shared as they become available, the agency said.The Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment.The air and marine operations branch of Customs and Border Protection, which is responsible for stopping the illegal movement of people and cargo approaching the country’s borders, employs about 1,800 agents and other support personnel and has 240 aircraft and 300 marine vessels.U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses aerostat systems, also called blimps, to provide aerial surveillance at the border. The blimps are attached to the ground and can hover as high as 15,000 feet, with a search area of approximately 200 feet, according to the agency. They can weigh as much as 2,400 pounds. More

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    Trump’s Nominee for N.I.H. Chief Faces Questions From Senators

    Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University health economist who came to prominence crusading against lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, faced questioning from the Senate health committee on Wednesday morning as President Trump’s nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health.The agency, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, has been rocked lately by the Trump administration’s efforts to block government spending and shrink the federal work force. Hours before Wednesday’s hearing, the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, trumpeted the cancellation of N.I.H. grants.Dr. Bhattacharya, who has a medical degree and is a professor of medicine but has never practiced, has expressed an interest in restructuring the agency and reducing the power of “scientific bureaucrats” who he has said end up “dominating a field for a very long time.”His views on medicine and public health have at times put Dr. Bhattacharya at odds with many of the scientists whose research the N.I.H. oversees.While he has defended vaccines and has said he was dubious that they caused autism, Dr. Bhattacharya told an interviewer last year that he could not rule out a link. “I don’t know that for a fact,” he said. Extensive evidence shows no link between immunizations and autism.Dr. Bhattacharya became a go-to witness in court cases challenging Covid policies, including mask mandates. In several cases, judges said he was disregarding facts or was untrustworthy. His detractors note that while he has published studies on health policy issues — like drug prices and the link between different types of health insurance and H.I.V. deaths — he is not a scientist conducting biomedical research, the core mission of the agency.But supporters have said that Dr. Bhattacharya could bring needed reform to the N.I.H. and have defended some of his contrarian views on Covid.Dr. Bhattacharya burst into the news at the height of the pandemic in October 2020, when he co-wrote an anti-lockdown treatise, the Great Barrington Declaration, that argued for “focused protection” — a strategy that would focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable while letting the virus spread among younger, healthier people.The nation’s medical leadership, including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denounced the plan. Referring to Dr. Bhattacharya and his co-authors as “fringe epidemiologists,” Dr. Collins wrote in an email that “there needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of its premises.”Dr. Collins, who later stepped down as the N.I.H. director to pursue his laboratory research, retired last week in anticipation of Dr. Bhattacharya’s arrival. More

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    Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Bid to Freeze Foreign Aid

    The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected President Trump’s emergency request to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid as part of his efforts to slash government spending.The court’s brief order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. It said only that the trial judge, who had ordered the government to resume payments, “should clarify what obligations the government must fulfill.”But the ruling is one of the court’s first moves in response to the flurry of litigation filed in response to President Trump’s efforts to dramatically reshape government. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberal members to form a majority.Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the four dissenting justices, said the majority had gone profoundly astray.“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) $2 billion taxpayer dollars? “ he asked. “The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.”The administration halted the aid on Jan. 20, President Trump’s first day in office. Recipients and other nonprofit groups filed two lawsuits challenging the freeze as an unconstitutional exercise of presidential power that thwarted congressional appropriations for the U.S. Agency for International Development.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