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      Read Trump’s 2026 Discretionary Budget Request

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      Job Corps

      Program Name

      $ Change from 2025 Enacted (in millions)

      -1,584

      Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP)

      -405

      Brief Description of Program and Recommended Reduction or Increase

      The Budget eliminates Job Corps, which has been a failed experiment to help America’s youth—and, in some cases, has harmed them. The program has been plagued by a culture of violence, assault, sex crimes, drug infractions, and death. A 2017 GAO report found there were nearly 50,000 reported safety violations and 265 deaths in just 10 years of the program. Not only is Job Corps financially unsustainable, with an exorbitant per-graduate cost (some centers spend more than $400,000 per graduate), it fails to give young people the start they need in their careers. In fact, an audit of Job Corps from DOL’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found program graduates made less than the poverty threshold. This program has often made participants worse off, which is severely misaligned with the President’s priority to improve job opportunities and economic growth for all Americans. SCSEP purports to provide job training and subsidized employment to low-income seniors, but fails at its goal: to move seniors to unsubsidized, gainful employment. In reality, it is effectively an earmark to leftist, DEI-promoting entities like the National Urban League, the Center for Workforce Inclusion, and Easter Seals. It also is duplicative of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training and DOL’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding, including the new MASA grant program. Seniors would be better served by programs operated by State and local governments, with proven track records of increasing wages.

      Department of the Interior (DOI) Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations

      Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project

      -609

      Operation of the National Park System

      -900

      The Budget provides $1.2 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project. The Budget reduces funding for programs that have nothing to do with building and maintaining water infrastructure, such as habitat restoration. Instead, the Budget focuses Reclamation and the Central Utah Project on their core missions of maintaining assets that provide safe, reliable, and efficient management of water resources throughout the western United States.
      The National Park Service (NPS) responsibilities include a large number of sites that are not “National Parks,” in the traditionally understood sense, many of which receive small numbers of mostly local visitors, and are better categorized and managed as State-level parks. The Budget would continue supporting many national treasures, but there is an urgent need to streamline staffing and transfer certain properties to State-level management to ensure the long-term health and sustainment of the National Park system.

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      Jeremy Renner and the Science of Extraordinary Near-Death Experiences

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      A little over two years ago, the actor was run over by a snowplow. Like thousands of others, he then felt an “exhilarating peace.” Why?A little over two years ago, the actor Jeremy Renner was run over by a seven-ton snowplow. In a new memoir, he wrote that as he lay near death, he experienced something extraordinary.He could see his entire life at once, and felt an “exhilarating peace” and a connection to the world. He also saw family and friends arrayed before him, telling him not to let go.“What I felt was energy, a constantly connected, beautiful and fantastic energy,” Mr. Renner wrote. “There was no time, place or space, and nothing to see, except a kind of electric, two-way vision made from strands of that inconceivable energy, like the whipping lines of cars’ taillights photographed by a time-lapse camera.”What Mr. Renner described is “classic for near-death experiences,” the term researchers use for such events, said Dr. Jeffrey Long, the founder of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation.Dr. Long’s foundation has collected more than 4,000 accounts similar to Mr. Renner’s. Some people who have come close to death have recounted a sense of energy, peace and absence of time, as Mr. Renner did. Some have also described watching their body from above, moving through a tunnel toward a light and even meeting God.The general public may be familiar with these events through a genre of memoirs that present near-death experiences as proof of a Christian afterlife. But they have been reported across countries, demographics and religions, as well as by atheists, and have been a subject of scientific research for decades.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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      Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed Until May 2026

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      The previous game in the franchise was released in 2013 and has generated more than $8 billion in revenue for Rockstar Games.The anticipated video game Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed until May 26, 2026, Rockstar Games announced on Friday.Fans had expected to return to the sun-drenched beaches and gleaming condominiums of Vice City, a fictionalized Miami, this year based on the game’s first trailer, which featured Tom Petty’s “Love Is a Long Road.”“With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto VI is no exception,” Rockstar said in a statement. “We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.”Rockstar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Matthew Ball, a video game analyst, said that Grand Theft Auto VI had been expected to drive the sales of PlayStation and Xbox consoles this holiday season. Few other video games had announced release dates this fall, wary of directly competing with what is expected to be a blockbuster title.“For the rest of the market, GTA’s delay provides much needed — though only temporary — oxygen,” he said. “The title was expected to devour billions of dollars in consumer spend.”The previous game in the franchise, Grand Theft Auto V, was released in 2013 and has generated more than $8 billion in revenue. More

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      How Rubio Proved Himself as Trump’s Loyal Foreign Policy Foot Soldier

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      As Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has been Donald Trump’s reliable echo on issues like Iran, Ukraine and Gaza. But Steve Witkoff, the president’s friend, remains the chief negotiator.After President Trump ousted Mike Waltz, his national security adviser, on Thursday night, he settled on someone less hawkish on Russia and willing to remain in lock-step with his foreign policy approach to Iran, Gaza and China.He didn’t have to look far.By making Marco Rubio the top foreign policy adviser in the West Wing, in addition to his main day job as secretary of state, Mr. Trump turned to a one-time political rival who has spent the first three months of the administration as a loyal, globe-trotting foot soldier and a reliable echo of the president’s agenda.Now Mr. Rubio will help run that agenda from inside both the White House and the State Department headquarters — even as the president’s longtime friend, Steve Witkoff, remains the chief negotiator, in charge of finding an end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and reaching a deal with Iran on its nuclear weapons program.Leslie Vinjamuri, the director of the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House, a London-based research institute, said Mr. Rubio is “willing to align and to follow with where Trump is. What we’re getting, throughout this administration, is: Loyalty comes first, loyalty to the man, loyalty to the mission.”But by consolidating so much foreign policy power in one person, she added, Mr. Trump risks losing someone who might provide him with different policy perspectives or competing advice.“You just reduce the number of potential points for somebody saying, ‘Actually, whoa. Look what just happened,’” she said. “‘Look at this piece of information that flies in the face of what we suspected.’”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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      Reform UK Surges as Conservatives Lose Seats: 4 Local Elections Takeaways

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      Britain’s two main parties suffered significant losses in municipal and mayoral votes as Reform U.K., a right-wing populist party, surged ahead.While the votes in England’s local elections were still being counted on Friday, Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party emerged as the biggest winner of the first major polls since Labour swept into government last summer.Voters have been selecting councilors for about 1,600 municipal seats in 23 areas, as well as six regional mayors.Here are four takeaways from a night that saw Britain’s two major political parties suffer significant losses.Reform U.K. is a serious force in British politics.The right-wing populist party headed by Mr. Farage won a special election in Runcorn and Helsby, in northwestern England, giving it five lawmakers in Parliament. The party also won the mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire, a new position, and is gaining council seats across the country.The party was initially called the Brexit Party but rebranded itself after Britain formally withdrew from the European Union.Results on Friday indicated that Reform’s efforts to shed its image as a single-issue party and appeal to a broader range of voters were bearing fruit. Brexit is now rarely discussed by its politicians, who have been focusing on a hard line on immigration.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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      For the U.S. and China, the Only Talking Is About Whether to Talk

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      The standoff over terms of negotiations, and whether they are happening, signals that a protracted economic fight lies ahead.As trade tensions flared between the world’s largest economies, communication between the United States and China has been so shaky that the two superpowers cannot even agree on whether they are talking at all.At a White House economic briefing this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demurred multiple times when pressed about President Trump’s recent claim that President Xi Jinping of China had called him. Although top economic officials might usually be aware of such high-level talks, Mr. Bessent insisted that he was not logging the president’s calls.“I have a lot of jobs around the White House; running the switchboard isn’t one of them,” Mr. Bessent joked.But the apparent silence between the United States and China is a serious matter for the global economy.Markets are fixated on the mystery of whether back-channel discussions are taking place. Although the two countries have not severed all ties, it does seem that they have gone dark when it comes to conversations about tariffs.“China and the U.S. have not held consultations or negotiations on the issue of tariffs,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said at a news conference last Friday. “The United States should not confuse the public.”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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      In Texas Borderland, Trump’s Immigration Push Suffers Its Worst Legal Defeat Yet

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      Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. is a Trump nominee with conservative credentials. But he found White House claims about a Venezuelan gang “invasion” went too far.Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., a bespectacled, soft-spoken 56-year-old nominated by President Trump, turned his high-backed leather chair toward a government lawyer at the federal courthouse in Brownsville, Texas, and asked a question. Can the president define what counts as an invasion, then declare that an invasion is happening, and then use a 1798 war powers law to expel the so-called invaders?“Yes,” answered Michael Velchik, a Justice Department lawyer.Judge Rodriguez followed up: Wouldn’t that make Mr. Trump’s powers under the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, “effectively limitless?”The question hinted at a groundbreaking ruling that Judge Rodriguez issued on Thursday when he found that Mr. Trump was wrong to claim that the activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang in the United States, amounted to an “invasion” that justified invoking the wartime law.The decision was the most sweeping ruling issued so far by a federal judge blocking the most aggressive prong of Mr. Trump’s effort, one that was already used to deport nearly 140 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador on March 15. It comes after a Supreme Court decision in early April that Venezuelan detainees facing potential deportation under the Alien Enemies Act could file lawsuits in the district courts where they were being held.Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. during his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017.C-SPANThe result of the court’s order has been that challenges to a key piece of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, which began in Washington, are spreading around the country, filling the dockets of federal judges and drawing tough and skeptical questioning — even from jurists with impeccable conservative credentials.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