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      Mike Johnson’s Chief of Staff Arrested for DUI After Trump Speech, Police Say

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      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

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      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

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      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

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      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

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      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

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      Adidas Has Sold Its Last Yeezy Sneaker

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      The sportswear maker was eager to put the scandal with the rapper Ye behind it, but its cautious earnings forecast showed the breakup’s effects still lingered.Adidas said Wednesday that it had sold its last pair of Yeezys, a wildly popular and profitable sneaker brand it developed with the rapper and designer Ye, as it tried to move past the publicity nightmare that followed after Ye’s antisemitic comments.The sportswear giant severed ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in 2022 after he posted antisemitic remarks on social media and made other offensive comments publicly. Adidas had said that ending its nearly decade-long collaboration with the American entertainer cost it nearly 250 million euros that year.The rapper apologized to the Jewish community in 2022 only to later retract his apology in a barrage of social media posts in February in which he declared he was a Nazi.The sale of Adidas’ remaining Yeezy inventory generated about €50 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, boosting the company’s overall revenue to €5.97 billion, up 24 percent from a year earlier, Adidas said Wednesday in an earnings report.But the sports brand was cautious in its outlook, cutting its revenue growth forecast for 2025 to 10 percent, from 12 percent last year. It was the first time, the company said, that the outlook did not include revenue from the Yeezy line.The breakup was hardest felt in North America, where the apparel was driven by the Grammy-winning rapper’s popularity. “Sales in North America declined 2 percent solely due to significantly lower Yeezy sales,” said Adidas, which is based in Herzogenaurach, Germany.After ending its ties with Ye, the apparel company struggled with slowing sales and revelations that it had ignored the rapper’s misconduct for years. The severed contract also left Adidas with mountains of sneakers and clothing, and potential losses of €1.2 billion in sales and about €500 million in profit last year.In 2023, under the stewardship of a new chief executive, Bjorn Gulden, Adidas decided not to write off the remaining Yeezy stock but sell it and donate part of the profit to organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.On Wednesday, Mr. Gulden struck an optimistic tone, signaling the company’s eagerness to put the Yeezy scandal behind it with new celebrity collaborations and a focus on other popular sneaker lines, like the Samba, a decades’ old brand that has had a resurgence in popularity.“With all the challenges out there, let’s not forget that there are so many fun things to look forward to in 2025,” Mr. Gulden said.’ More

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      Trump Officials Take Down List of Federal Properties for Possible Sale

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      On Tuesday, the Trump administration identified more than 440 federal properties that could be sold off, a list that included high-profile buildings like the headquarters of the F.B.I., Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services.By Wednesday morning, the entire inventory had been taken down, replaced by an agency web page that said the list of properties was “coming soon.”The General Services Administration, an agency that manages the federal real estate portfolio, had already revised the list at least once. In the hours after it was published, about 100 properties, including many in the Washington, D.C., area, were removed.The changes stirred up confusion over the Trump administration’s plan to offload a vast amount of federal property. Officials at the General Services Administration said the “disposal” of the buildings could help save hundreds of millions of dollars and ensure that taxpayers do not have to pay for “underutilized federal office space.” But the list swiftly came under criticism by some Democratic lawmakers and others who worried about the potential impact on government services across the country.The agency did not immediately respond to inquiries as to why the list had been removed. More

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      C.I.A. Director Says U.S. Has Paused Intelligence Sharing With Ukraine

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      The C.I.A. director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that intelligence sharing with Ukraine had been paused alongside military aid to pressure its government to cooperate with the Trump administration’s plans to end the country’s war with Russia.Speaking on Fox Business, Mr. Ratcliffe applauded the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement on Tuesday praising President Trump and insisting that he supported peace with Russia. Mr. Ratcliffe said he thought intelligence sharing would resume.“President Zelensky put out a statement that said, ‘I am ready for peace and I want President Donald Trump’s leadership to bring about that peace,’” Mr. Ratcliffe said. “And so I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen, I think will go away, and I think we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine as we have, to push back on the aggression that’s there.”On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump ordered a halt to military assistance, officials differed on whether the United States was continuing to share intelligence. One official said all intelligence that was not directly related to the protection of Ukrainian troops had been put on hold. Another official said that exception covered most intelligence sharing, and information still was flowing to Ukrainian forces.Mr. Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that Mr. Trump asked for a pause on intelligence sharing. And his comments suggest that the C.I.A. put at least some of its intelligence sharing with Ukraine on hold for a short time.Trump administration officials have said the pauses were a warning to the Ukrainians of the consequences if they did not cooperate with Mr. Trump’s peace plan. The details of those plans remain unclear. Mr. Trump has spoken approvingly of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and his aides have endorsed elements of the country’s ideas for ending the war.But European countries are trying to develop their own plan that could win over both Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky. More