Aurelia Butler

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    Ukrainian Peace Plan Hints at Concessions, but Major Obstacles Remain

    Officials in Kyiv plan to deliver their proposal to President Trump’s team, after rejecting a White House plan that would have given the Kremlin much of what it wants.Ukraine’s leadership has drafted a counterproposal to a Trump administration plan that has drawn criticism for conceding too much to Russia. While the counteroffer digs in on some of Kyiv’s earlier demands, it hints at possible concessions on issues that have long been seen as intractable.Under the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times, there would be no restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian military, “a European security contingent” backed by the United States would be deployed on Ukrainian territory to guarantee security, and frozen Russian assets would be used to repair damage in Ukraine caused during the war.Those three provisions could be nonstarters for the Kremlin, but parts of the Ukrainian plan suggest a search for common ground. There is no mention, for instance, of Ukraine fully regaining all the territory seized by Russia or an insistence on Ukraine joining NATO, two issues that President Volodymyr Zelensky has long said were not up for negotiations.Mr. Trump flew to Rome on Friday to attend the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday; Mr. Zelensky had planned to as well, but his spokesman said on Friday that this would depend on the situation in Ukraine, where Russian attacks this week on the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere have left dozens dead and wounded.In a social media post after landing in Rome, Mr. Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” and urged the two sides to meet directly to “finish it off.” Earlier in the day, he said it was possible he and Mr. Zelensky could meet on the sidelines of the funeral. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Mr. Zelensky goes to Rome, he might try to present Mr. Trump with Ukraine’s counterproposal personally.“In the coming days, very significant meetings may take place — meetings that should bring us closer to silence for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said on Friday in remarks that were uncharacteristically optimistic when compared with the tone of previous statements 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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    19 States Sue the Trump Administration Over Its D.E.I. Demand in Schools

    The Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from states that did not enforce its interpretation of civil rights law.A coalition of 19 states sued the Trump administration on Friday over its threat to withhold federal funding from states and districts with certain diversity programs in their public schools.The lawsuit was filed in federal court by the attorneys general in California, New York, Illinois, Minnesota and other Democratic-leaning states, who argue that the Trump administration’s demand is illegal.The lawsuit centers on an April 3 memo the Trump administration sent to states, requiring them to certify that they do not use certain diversity, equity and inclusion programs that the administration has said are illegal.States that did not certify risked losing federal funding for low-income students.Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, said at a news conference on Friday that the Trump administration had distorted federal civil rights law to force states to abandon legal diversity programs.“California hasn’t and won’t capitulate. Our sister states won’t capitulate,” Mr. Bonta said, adding that the Trump administration’s D.E.I. order was vague and impractical to enforce, and that D.E.I. programs are “entirely legal” under civil rights law.The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday evening.The administration has argued that certain diversity programs in schools violate federal civil rights law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs that receive federal funding.It has based its argument on the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending the use of race in college admissions, arguing that the decision applies to the use of race in education more broadly.The administration has not offered a specific list of D.E.I. initiatives it deems illegal. But it has suggested that efforts to provide targeted academic support or counseling to specific groups of students amount to illegal segregation. And it has argued that lessons on concepts such as white privilege or structural racism, which posits that racism is embedded in social institutions, are discriminatory.The lawsuit came a day after the Trump administration was ordered to pause any enforcement of its April 3 memo, in separate federal lawsuits brought by teachers’ unions and the N.A.A.C.P., among others.Mr. Bonta said that the lawsuit by the 19 states brought forward separate claims and represented the “strong and unique interest” of states to ensure that billions of federal dollars appropriated by Congress reach students.“We have different claims that we think are very strong claims,” he said.Loss of federal funding would be catastrophic for students, said Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, an adversary of President Trump who previously won a civil fraud case against him.She noted that school districts in Buffalo and Rochester rely on federal funds for nearly 20 percent of their revenue and said she was suing to “uphold our nation’s civil rights laws and protect our schools and the students who rely on them.” More

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    Trump Officials Weaken Rules Insulating Government Workers From Politics

    A reinterpretation of the Hatch Act announced by the administration lets officials wear campaign paraphernalia like MAGA hats, and removes an independent board’s role in policing violations.The Trump administration moved on Friday to weaken federal prohibitions on government employees showing support for President Trump while at work, embracing the notion that they should be allowed to wear campaign paraphernalia and removing an independent review board’s role in policing violations.The Office of Special Counsel, an agency involved in enforcing the restrictions, announced the changes to the interpretation of the Hatch Act, a Depression-era law devised to ensure that the federal work force operates free of political influence or coercion. The revisions, a resurrection of rules that Mr. Trump rolled out at the end of his first term but that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. repealed, could allow for the startling sight of government officials sporting Trump-Vance buttons or “Make America Great Again” hats.Critics have said the law was already largely toothless, and officials in the first Trump administration were routinely accused of violating it, with little punishment meted out. And the changes do not roll back Hatch Act restrictions entirely, but do so in a way that uniquely benefits Mr. Trump: Visible support for candidates and their campaigns in the future is still banned, but support for the current officeholder is not.The move may not violate the law, because it will not influence the outcome of an election, experts say. But it threatens to further politicize the government’s professional work force, which Mr. Trump has been seeking to bend to his will as he tests the bounds of executive power.“This is a really dark day,” Kathleen Clark, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and a government ethics lawyer, said in an interview on Friday. A president should work to ensure that the public knows the government is for everyone, she said.“When you go into a Social Security office, if they’re still open, you will be treated the same whether you voted for the current president or not,” she said, referring to the government downsizing efforts since Mr. Trump returned to the Oval Office.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 Administration Opens Civil Rights Inquiry Into a Long Island Mascot Fight

    President Donald Trump is weighing in on a school mascot dispute at Massapequa High School, where some parents are upset that a Chiefs mascot and logo must go under a state rule.Federal education officials said on Friday that they had opened a civil rights inquiry into whether New York State could withhold state money from a Long Island school district that has refused to follow a state requirement and drop its Native American mascot.The announcement came shortly after President Trump expressed his support for the district, in Massapequa, N.Y., in its fight against complying with a state Board of Regents requirement that all districts abandon mascots that appropriate Native American culture or risk losing state funding.The Massapequa district, whose “Chiefs” logo depicts an illustrated side profile of a Native American man in a feathered headdress, is one of several that have resisted making a change.The name of the town, a middle-class swath of the South Shore where most residents voted for Mr. Trump in the November election, was derived from the Native American word “Marspeag” or “Mashpeag,” which means “great water land.”In announcing the investigation, Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said that her department would “not stand by as the state of New York attempts to rewrite history and deny the town of Massapequa the right to celebrate its heritage in its schools.”JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the state Education Department, said in a statement that state education officials had not been contacted by the federal government about the matter.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 Pardons Paul Walczak, Whose Family Sought to Publicize Ashley Biden’s Diary

    The pardon of Paul Walczak, who had been convicted of tax crimes, comes as the president uses clemency to reward allies and swipe at perceived enemies.President Trump on Wednesday pardoned a Florida health care executive whose mother played a role in trying to expose the contents of Ashley Biden’s diary.The pardon of the executive, Paul Walczak, was signed privately and posted on the Justice Department’s website on Friday. It came less than two weeks after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution, for tax crimes that prosecutors said were used to finance a lavish lifestyle, including the purchase of a yacht.Mr. Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, who was also involved in the health care industry in Florida, is a longtime Republican donor and fund-raiser who played a role in a surreptitious effort to help Mr. Trump by undermining Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 presidential election.During the campaign, Ms. Fago was contacted by a man who was in possession of a diary kept by Mr. Biden’s daughter, Ashley, as she recovered from addiction, The New York Times previously reported.When first told of the diary, Ms. Fago said she thought it would help Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the election if it was made public, two people familiar with the matter later told The Times. The man, Robert Kurlander, circulated the diary at a fund-raiser at Ms. Fago’s house in Jupiter, Fla., in September 2020.Ms. Fago’s daughter passed along a tip about the diary to Project Veritas, a conservative group that had become a favorite of Mr. Trump’s. Project Veritas later paid $40,000 to Mr. Kurlander and an associate, Aimee Harris, for the diary.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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    Elon Musk Could Make Mars His Next Business Venture

    Even as Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency appeared to consume him, his top adviser created a set of companies named Red Planet I, II and III.Elon Musk is leaving his full-time Washington assignment next month to try to save Tesla (which has seen its stock battered), to keep up with SpaceX (which is positioned to do big business with the Trump administration) and to chart a new course for xAI, which he just combined with X itself.He’s a busy guy. So what’s another company — or three?Two months ago, even as Musk appeared consumed by his work at yet another job, at the Department of Government Efficiency, his top adviser, Jared Birchall, quietly created an intriguing-sounding set of limited-liability companies in Texas, whose existence has not been previously reported.Their names: Red Planet I, II and III.For the world’s richest man, who is pursuing an elaborate, decades-long plan to colonize Mars, this seemed no idle corporate filing.When Musk bought Twitter, after all, he formed three holding companies (X Holdings I, II and III) to execute the transaction.So, is he planning to buy Mars?Birchall hasn’t returned my requests for comment since I learned of the LLCs a few weeks ago. But he doesn’t typically take actions like this without his boss’s direction. He registered them on Feb. 25, listing himself as the manager of each and using an Austin address that other Musk entities have used.Still, it is surprising to see Musk take this step now, when he has so much on his plate and is already facing pressure to do less, not more. On a Tesla earnings call last week, he said he would substantially reduce the amount of time he spent on DOGE to spend more time on the car company, whose quarterly revenue is way down from a year ago.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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    Judge Blocks Trump Order Ending Union Protections for Federal Workers

    An order signed by President Trump last month was aimed at stripping collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers.A federal judge in Washington blocked President Trump from ending collective bargaining with unions representing federal workers, stymying a component of Mr. Trump’s sweeping effort to strip civil servants of job protections and assert more control over the federal bureaucracy.Judge Paul L. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Washington ruled in favor of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents tens of thousands of federal workers across the government. Without including an opinion explaining his decision, Judge Friedman ruled that the executive order from Mr. Trump was unlawful, and he granted a temporary injunction blocking its implementation while the case proceeded.“An opinion explaining the court’s reasoning will be issued within the next few days,” Judge Friedman wrote in the two-page order.The order, if implemented, would strip collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers, effectively banning them from joining unions.Those unions have been a major obstacle in Mr. Trump’s effort to slash the size of the federal work force and reshape the government. With every stroke of the pen from Mr. Trump enacting new orders aimed at tightening control over the federal bureaucracy, federal worker unions have responded with lawsuits, winning at least temporary reprieves for some fired federal workers and blocking efforts to dismantle portions of the government.Mr. Trump had framed his order stripping workers of labor protections as critical to protect national security. But the union noted that it targeted agencies across the government, some of which had no obvious national security portfolio, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.“The administration’s own issuances show that the president’s exclusions are not based on national security concerns,” the suit said, “but, instead, a policy objective of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions.” More

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    My ‘Natural’ Hairdresser Uses Synthetic Chemicals. Can I Leave a Bad Review?

    The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on responding to a small-business owner’s misleading claims.I’ve been going to a hairstylist who promotes his all-natural, organic dye as healthy for hair. I never questioned it, until at my most recent visit he dyed my hair the wrong color. When I asked him to fix it, he made it even worse, turning my hair a deep mahogany instead of the golden copper I requested. For two weeks he repeatedly insisted, via text, that he had done it correctly, and that I didn’t know what I wanted. His rude, angry responses made me too uncomfortable to ever return. Frustrated, I researched the dye brand he used and was horrified to learn that its key ingredient, ethanolamine, is potentially more damaging to hair than ammonia, and I’ve read that it could be carcinogenic.Now I’m torn. My hairstylist refunded my money, and I sympathize with him as a small-business owner, but I also feel compelled to warn people that his “healthy” dye may not be as safe as he claims. Am I obligated to speak up, or should customers be responsible for doing their own research? Would posting a negative review protect others or punish him by potentially putting his small business at risk? What’s the right thing to do? — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:I understand why you’re feeling torn. You don’t want to jeopardize someone’s livelihood over a disappointing experience, but you also feel a responsibility to speak up if others might be misled. Two key questions are whether your stylist knowingly misrepresented the product and whether it really poses health risks.It’s entirely possible he genuinely believed what he was saying. Companies often use carefully crafted language to make their dyes sound especially “natural.” Naturtint, for example, highlights its U.S.D.A. BioPreferred certification and touts “botanical-inspired formulas.” Aveda describes its hair-color line as “vegan.” Both brands still contain industrially synthesized chemicals. (Yes, chemists classify most carbon-containing compounds as “organic,” but that’s not how marketers use the term.) Your stylist may simply be parroting what the product reps told him.When it comes to safety, precision matters. Ethanolamine-based dyes may not be as gentle as their marketing suggests — some studies do indicate they can weaken hair more than ammonia does. Still, they’re far less harsh than the all-natural potash or slaked lime our ancestors once used. Like ammonia, ethanolamine helps open the hair cuticle so color can penetrate. It’s also a normal product of our body’s metabolism, though it’s industrially produced for commercial use. While it shouldn’t be combined with substances that can form harmful nitrosamines — a risk reputable brands are careful to avoid — ethanolamine is not classified as a carcinogen.Which brings us to your dilemma. If you do write a review, focusing on your personal experience — the color errors and how the stylist responded — would be the fairest and most helpful approach. There’s no clear legal definition of “natural” for cosmetic products; the status of ethanolamine is complicated; and unless you feel confident explaining it clearly, it may not be the most relevant detail to include.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