Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 125 Shares17 Views

    in Elections

    Deep Cuts to Medical Research Funds Could Hobble University Budgets

    The National Institutes of Health announced a new policy Friday to cap a type of funding that supports medical research at universities, a decision that most likely will leave many with a large budget gap. The policy targets $9 billion in so-called indirect funds that the N.I.H. sends along with direct funds to support research into basic science and treatments for diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s to diabetes.Currently, some universities get 50 percent or more of the amount of a grant in indirect funds, meaning a $1 million research award would come with $500,000 to maintain facilities and equipment and pay support staff. The new policy would cap those indirect funds at 15 percent.“I think it’s going to destroy research universities in the short term, and I don’t know after that,” said Dr. David A. Baltrus, a University of Arizona associate professor whose lab is developing antibiotics for crops. “They rely on the money. They budget for the money. The universities were making decisions expecting the money to be there.”Dr. Baltrus said that his research is focused on efforts such as keeping E. coli bacteria out of crops like sprouts and lettuce. He said the policy change would force his university to make cuts to support staff and overhead.The Trump administration has been sharply critical of what it derides as “woke” policies and cultures at universities, which have been bracing for a hit to their budgets. Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals, called for capping these related research funds, saying they were sometimes used to fund diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Cutting such costs would “reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas,” Project 2025’s authors said.An N.I.H. social media post said the change could save the federal government as much as $4 billion and sharply cut payments to Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, which have overhead rates above 60 percent of their grant sums.Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, said in a statement late Friday that the move could “dismantle the biomedical research system, stifle the development of new cures for disease, and rip treatments away from patients in need.”She said the change could shut down some clinical trials at institutions in her state, such as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and University of Washington.The N.I.H. spent about $35 billion in 2023 on about 50,000 competitive grants to about 300,000 researchers at 2,500 universities, medical schools and other research institutions nationwide, according to the new policy. Of that, about $26 billion directly funded research and $9 billion covered indirect costs. The policy is set to take effect Monday. More

  • 163 Shares17 Views

    in Elections

    Girl, 6, Is Dead After Being Found in a Water-Filled Bathtub, Police Say

    The girl was unconscious when officers found her in a Brooklyn apartment Friday afternoon, officials said.A 6-year-old girl died on Friday after being found unconscious in a bathtub filled with water at a Brooklyn apartment, the police said.The cause of the girl’s death was unclear. She had blood clots in her eyes when the officers found her, suggesting the possibility of a struggle, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation.Officials did not identify the girl, and the police said Friday night that the investigation into her death was continuing. The medical examiner’s office was conducting an autopsy, a spokeswoman said.Officers answering a 911 call for help at a home on Elton Street in the Highland Park section found the girl at around 1:30 p.m., the police said. Her parents were home at the time, the police said.Emergency services workers took the girl to Brookdale Hospital, where she was pronounced dead just before 3 p.m., the police said.Several hours later, two officers stood watch in the darkness outside the gated entrance to the small, two-story brick duplex where the girl had been found, on a residential block not far from the elevated J train tracks.Investigators filed in and out of the building’s basement unit through an entrance under a staircase. A small Christmas tree was visible through a front window.Helen Cunningham, who lives across the street, said she had seen officers and emergency workers arrive at the home at around 2 p.m. After a while, she said, they had brought out a small girl on a stretcher, her head visible from beneath the sheet covering her.“I don’t know if she was alive,” Ms. Cunningham, 74, said.She said that the man she knew as the girl’s father had climbed into a second ambulance that followed the one carrying the girl. Some time later, she said, she saw the police leading a young woman away in handcuffs. She said it was the second time in the past week she had seen officers at the address.Ms. Cunningham said she knew the family as neighbors but not by name. “We’re not friends,” she said. She said that two or three children lived at the home and that she had seen the man taking them to school.She said the family had moved into the home within the past few months from a building across the street.The man Ms. Cunningham identified as the father worked at a Bravo supermarket around the corner, according a manager there, Emmanuel Pichardo.Mr. Pichardo said that the father, who has worked at the store for two years and whom he knew only as George, had texted him in Spanish shortly after 4 p.m. to say he would not be coming to work because his daughter had been killed.“I’m going crazy,” the father said in the messages, which Mr. Pichardo shared with a reporter. “I’m here until God gives a miracle. I don’t know what to do.”Chelsia Rose Marcius More

  • 138 Shares28 Views

    in Elections

    Trump and Musk Attack Journalists by Name in Social Media Posts

    Since his inauguration, the president has been quick to demonize what he calls “the fake news media.” On Friday, both men demanded that individuals be fired.President Trump has made clear his animus toward mainstream media organizations. Now he’s getting more personal.Mr. Trump and his key lieutenant, Elon Musk, who has been empowered to run what they call the Department of Government Efficiency as a “special government employee,” have attacked journalists by name in recent days on the social media platforms they own: Truth Social and X.On his Truth Social account on Friday, Mr. Trump called for The Washington Post to fire Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, and labeled him “incompetent.” Mr. Trump frequently posts on the account to his millions of followers and regularly condemns perceived enemies.Mr. Robinson had written in an opinion column on Thursday that top Republican senators “should be ashamed of themselves” for not standing up to Mr. Trump during the confirmation process for some of his cabinet picks and for not protesting Mr. Musk’s taking an ax to government departments like the United States Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid programs. Mr. Robinson also appeared on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC on Friday to discuss his column.“So sad to see him trying to justify the waste, fraud, and corruption at USAID with his pathetic Radical Left SPIN,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He should be fired immediately!!!”In an email, a spokeswoman for The Post said: “Eugene Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with a 45-year record of integrity, professionalism and scrupulous reporting and commentary. The Washington Post stands behind Gene — just as it stands behind all journalists and news organizations dedicated to independent coverage and a free press.”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

  • 125 Shares18 Views

    in Elections

    Trump Administration Move to Freeze E.V. Charger Funding Confounds States

    A new federal order that freezes a Biden-era program to build a national network of electric vehicle charging stations has confounded states, which had been allocated billions of dollars by Congress for the program.In interviews on Friday, some state officials said that as a result of the memo from the Trump administration, they had stopped work on the charging stations. Others said they intended to keep going.In Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has welcomed federal money to build 19 E.V. charging stations, Breanna Badanes, a spokeswoman for the state’s Transportation Department, said Friday that “it’s safe to say we’re not sure” how or whether the state will build more.“Those stations will continue operating, but as far as what comes next, we’re in the same boat with everyone else, just trying to figure it out,” she said.The Feb. 6 memo signed by Emily Biondi, an associate administrator at the U.S. Transportation Department, said that the administration was “suspending approval of state electric vehicle infrastructure deployment plans.” The memo singled out the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, which was authorized under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.A national network of fast charging stations was part of President Joseph R. Biden’s Jr.’s effort to combat climate change by accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles.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

  • 125 Shares28 Views

    in Elections

    Barbara Kingsolver Uses ‘Demon Copperhead’ Royalties to Build Rehab Center

    Barbara Kingsolver has put royalties from her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to work in the region it portrayed, starting a home for women in recovery.When Barbara Kingsolver was writing “Demon Copperhead,” a novel that explores the devastating effects of the opioid crisis in southern Appalachia, she was doubtful that people would want to read about such a grim subject.To draw readers in, she knew she would have to ground the narrative in real stories and push against stereotypes about the region. So she traveled to Lee County, Va., a corner of Appalachia that’s been battered by drug abuse, and spoke to residents whose lives had been wrecked by opioids.“I sat down and spent many hours with people talking about their addiction journey,” Kingsolver said. “There are stories that went straight into the book.”Published in 2022, the novel was an instant success, in time selling three million copies and winning a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2023. But even before the novel came out, Kingsolver felt indebted to the people who shared their stories.“I felt like, I am getting a novel from this place, and I’m going to give something back,” she said.Kingsolver decided to use her royalties from “Demon Copperhead” to fund a recovery program for people battling addiction. In a social media post this week, Kingsolver announced that she has founded a recovery house for women in Lee County, where the novel is set.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

  • 125 Shares21 Views

    in Elections

    White House Forces Showdown Over Congress’s Power of the Purse

    The confirmation of Russell T. Vought to lead the powerful White House budget office is likely to escalate the funding fights roiling Washington and the nation.Susan Collins was a Senate intern in 1974 when Congress, in response to President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to spend on projects he opposed, passed a sweeping budget law to bar presidents from overriding lawmakers when it came to doling out dollars.The resulting law, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, is “very clear, and it re-emphasizes the power of the purse that Congress has under the Constitution,” Ms. Collins, now a 72-year-old Republican senator from Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said in an interview this week.She and her fellow appropriators in both parties will have a fight on their hands if they hope to retain supremacy in federal spending. The question of who has the final word is emerging as a central point of contention between members of Congress and the White House, a clash that is likely to escalate after the confirmation on Thursday of Russell T. Vought as the director of President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.Mr. Vought has flatly declared that he — and Mr. Trump — consider the budget act to be unconstitutional. They contend that the White House can choose what gets money and what doesn’t even if it conflicts with specific directions from Congress through appropriations measures signed into law. Others on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, vehemently dispute that idea.The disagreement is spurring the uproar over Mr. Trump’s move to suspend trillions of dollars in federal spending while the executive branch reviews it to determine whether it complies with the his newly issued policy dictates, as well as the president’s efforts to gut the United States Agency for International Development.Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, Democrats of Virginia, at a rally in support of U.S.A.I.D. at the Capitol on Wednesday. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe 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

  • 163 Shares24 Views

    in Elections

    Kris Jenner Puts the ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ House Up for Sale

    The six-bedroom home in Los Angeles, where the family’s reality TV show was filmed for more than a decade, is being listed for $13.5 million.A slice of television history is hitting the market: Kris Jenner, momager and matriarch of the Kardashian family, is selling the clan’s longtime family home. Viewers who have kept up with the lives of Kim, Kylie, Kendall, Kourtney and Khloe (and sometimes Rob) will instantly recognize its iconic foyer with its black-and-white checkered floor; the backyard that hosted their extravagant Christmas parties; and the kitchen table where so many La Scala chopped salads were consumed over more than a decade of episodes of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”The home is full of custom upgrades. The family’s longtime real estate agent estimates the Kardashian-Jenner clan spent millions on design and renovation alone.Wayne FordThe six-bedroom, eight-bath home, which sprawls more than 8,000 square feet and sits on more than an acre of land in the exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood of Hidden Hills, is being listed for $13.5 million.“I’ve shared so many unforgettable memories in this incredible home with my family, and I’m excited to see it start a new chapter with its next owners,” Ms. Jenner told The New York Times in a statement.Ms. Jenner bought the home in 2010 with the media personality and retired Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner, who was then her husband and known as Bruce Jenner. They needed space: The couple each had four grown children from previous relationships, plus their daughters — Kylie and Kendall — who were teenagers and still living at home.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

  • 113 Shares25 Views

    in Elections

    Sacramento County Jail Death Leads to Accusations of Neglect

    Court-appointed monitors of Sacramento County jails say a man’s fatal overdose was one of multiple deaths in which deputies and nurses exhibited a “callous” indifference toward detainees.A Sacramento man suffering from a drug overdose was neglected by a police officer, medical workers and sheriff’s deputies over the course of more than two hours before he died at a county jail last May, according to reports from court-appointed monitors.That man, David Kent Barefield Sr., 55, was among seven detainees the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office reported dying at its facilities last year — and one of three who died at its main jail in the span of about a month.Jail staff members claimed he was faking illness, and the Sheriff’s Office told the California Department of Justice that his death was from natural causes. But an autopsy by the county Coroner’s Office found he had overdosed on methamphetamine and fentanyl.Like many jails and prisons across the country, those in Sacramento County have been faulted for inadequate medical care in recent years. Details of Mr. Barefield’s last hours were captured on jail video footage, which has not been publicly released but was viewed by lawyers appointed to monitor conditions at the county jails as part of a 2020 consent decree in a federal lawsuit.The lawyers’ report described a culture of neglect for detainees in the jail system. Two medical experts, also assigned to track compliance with court-ordered reforms, asserted that there was misconduct by police officers, sheriff’s deputies and jail medical personnel in handling Mr. Barefield and others who died.“Review of these deaths showed serious system and individual performance issues, including inadequate emergency response, inadequate medical care prior to death, and in one case, callous deliberate indifference to a man who was so obviously gravely ill that even a lay person would see that the patient needed emergent care,” the medical experts wrote.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