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    Trump Is to Accept a Luxury 747 From Qatar for Use as Air Force One

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    The plan raises substantial ethical issues, given the immense value of the lavishly-appointed plane and the fact that Mr. Trump plans to use it after he leaves office.The Trump administration plans to accept a luxury Boeing 747-800 plane as a donation from the Qatari royal family that will be upgraded to serve as Air Force One, in possibly the biggest foreign gift ever received by the U.S. government, a senior official with direct knowledge of the matter said.The plane will then be donated to President Trump’s presidential library when he leaves office, the official said, allowing him to continue using it as a private citizen.The plan raises substantial ethical issues, given the immense value of the lavishly-appointed plane and the fact that Mr. Trump plans to use it after he leaves office. Sold new, a commercial Boeing 747-800 costs in the range of $400 million.Mr. Trump’s own private plane, known as “Trump Force One,” is an older 757 jet that first flew in the early 1990s and was then used by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Mr. Trump bought it in 2011. The Qatari jet, if Mr. Trump continued flying it after leaving office, would give him a substantially newer plane for his own use.The plan — reported earlier by ABC News — is expected to be announced in the coming days, as Mr. Trump makes the first extended foreign trip of his presidency to three nations in the Middle East, including Qatar. It will fulfill the president’s desire for a new Air Force One, after repeated delays involving a government contract to Boeing for two new jets to serve that purpose.Mr. Trump toured the Qatari-owned 747, which is just over a decade old, while it was parked at the Palm Beach International Airport in February. The New York Times reported then that the jet was being considered as a possible new Air Force One.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 Plans to Send Migrants to Libya on a Military Flight

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      Human rights groups have called conditions in the country’s network of migrant detention centers “horrific” and “deplorable.”The Trump administration is planning to transport a group of immigrants to Libya on a U.S. military plane, according to U.S. officials, another sharp escalation in a deportation program that has sparked widespread legal challenges and intense political debate.The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately clear, but a flight to Libya carrying the deportees could leave as soon as Wednesday, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation.The decision to send deportees to Libya was striking. The country is racked with conflict, and human rights groups have called conditions in its network of migrant detention centers “horrific” and “deplorable.”The Libya operation falls in line with the Trump administration’s effort to not only deter migrants from trying to enter the country illegally but also to send a strong message to those in the country illegally that they can be deported to countries where they could face brutal conditions. Reuters earlier reported the possibility of a U.S. deportation flight to Libya.The planning for the flight to Libya has been tightly held, and could still be derailed by logistical, legal or diplomatic obstacles.The White House declined to comment. The State Department and Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.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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      U.S. Military Says Its Air Campaign Has Hit More Than 800 Targets in Yemen

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      President Trump ordered a start to the strikes against the Houthis on March 15. Congressional officials say the campaign has cost well over $1 billion.American forces have hit more than 800 targets in Yemen during an ongoing air campaign that began six weeks ago against the Houthi militia, the U.S. military said on Sunday.The military said the targets of the strikes, called Operation Rough Rider, included “multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations.”Among the arms and equipment in stockpiles struck by the Americans were antiship ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, the types of weapons that the Houthis have used against ships in the Red Sea, the military said. The details were outlined in an announcement issued by U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations and forces in the Middle East.Congressional officials say the campaign has cost well over $1 billion so far, based on closed-door briefings Pentagon officials gave to Congress early this month, just three weeks into the campaign. The New York Times reported in early April on the rapid rate of munitions used in the campaign, a rate that has caused concern among some strategic planners in the U.S. military.The Houthis have been firing projectiles and launching drones at commercial and military ships in the Red Sea as a show of solidarity with the residents of Gaza and with Hamas, the militant group that controls it. They have been under assault by Israel since Hamas carried out a deadly strike in southern Israel in October 2023 and took hostages.On March 15, President Trump ordered the U.S. military to begin a continual air campaign against the Houthis, after the Biden administration carried out some strikes. Until Sunday, the U.S. military had not publicly disclosed the number of targets struck in Operation Rough Rider.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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      Tariffs on China Aren’t Likely to Rescue Battered U.S. P.P.E. Industry

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      The few domestic companies that still make protective gear for health care workers have clamored for federal intervention. But they worry President Trump’s trade war with China won’t help.Few domestic industries have been as devastated by the flood of cheap Chinese imports as manufacturers of face masks, exam gloves and other disposable medical gear that protects health care workers from infectious pathogens.The industry’s demise had calamitous consequences during the Covid pandemic, when Beijing halted exports and American hospital workers found themselves at the mercy of a deadly airborne virus that quickly filled the nation’s emergency rooms and morgues.But as President Trump unveiled his tariff regimen earlier this month, and Beijing retaliated with an 84 percent tax on American imports, the few remaining companies that make protective gear in the United States felt mostly unease.“I’m pretty freaked out,” said Lloyd Armbrust, the chief executive of Armbrust American, a pandemic-era startup that produces N95 respirator masks at a factory in Texas. “On one hand, this is the kind of medicine we need if we really are going to become independent of China. On the other hand, this is not responsible industrial policy.”The United States once dominated the field of personal protective equipment, or P.P.E. The virus-filtering N95 mask and the disposable nitrile glove are American inventions, but China now produces more than 90 percent of the medical gear worn by American health care workers.Despite bipartisan vows to end the nation’s dependency on foreign medical products — and to shore up the dozens of domestic manufacturers that sprung up during the pandemic — federal agencies and state governments have resumed their reliance on inexpensive Chinese imports. Earlier this year, when California purchased millions of N95 masks for those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, it chose masks made in China.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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      Hegseth Said to Have Shared Attack Details in Second Signal Chat

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      The defense secretary sent sensitive information about strikes in Yemen to an encrypted group chat that included his wife and brother, people familiar with the matter said.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.The previously unreported existence of a second Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny.Unlike the chat in which The Atlantic was mistakenly included, the newly revealed one was created by Mr. Hegseth. It included his wife and about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary, and was named “Defense | Team Huddle,” the people familiar with the chat said. He used his private phone, rather than his government one, to access the Signal chat.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 Directive Calls to Turn Border Land Into ‘Military Installation’

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      President Trump announced a plan on Friday to turn a narrow strip along the Mexican border in California, Arizona and New Mexico into a military installation as part of his effort to curtail illegal crossings.The plan, set out in a White House memorandum, calls for transferring authority over the 60-foot-wide strip of federal border land known as the Roosevelt Reservation from other cabinet agencies to the Defense Department. Military forces patrolling that area could then temporarily detain migrants passing through for trespassing on a military reservation, said a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.The directive expands a military presence that has increased steadily along the southern border, even as crossings have already dropped precipitously during the Trump administration. The ordering of troops to the border has already put the military in politically charged territory, and, depending on the details of the effort, the plan could run afoul of laws that limit the use of regular federal troops for domestic law enforcement.The directive says that the border strip will become a “military installation under the jurisdiction of” the Pentagon. Military members would be able to stop anyone crossing into the “military installation” but would not have the power to make immigration arrests, according to the military official. Border Patrol agents could then be summoned to arrest the migrants.The memorandum formalizes a plan that the administration had been considering for weeks. The Washington Post had reported on the plan earlier.A White House spokesman did not respond to questions seeking clarity as to what U.S. forces operating in the strip of border land would be able to do. A Defense Department spokesman also did not respond to questions seeking clarity.Military officials are still working out how to execute the plan, including how long troops could detain migrants before turning them over to Border Patrol agents, and what type of “no trespassing” signs needed to be installed along the border, warning migrants they were about to enter a U.S. military reservation.Then there are other logistics that would have to be hammered out, such as the languages the signs are written in, and how far apart they are posted. There is also the question of where to position military patrols along hundreds of miles of rugged land along the border, and what additional training those troops might need.Adam Isacson, who focuses on border security and human rights at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the memorandum appeared to create a path for using quasi-military personnel to detain migrants.A section of the memorandum calls for the authorization of state National Guard members to work on the military-controlled strip. If those working at the installation hold migrants until Customs and Border Protection officials pick them up, their use “comes very close to military personnel detaining migrants,” Mr. Isacson said.Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      Hegseth Mandates Uniform Fitness Standards for Combat Roles

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      The Pentagon this week ordered the elimination of lower physical fitness standards for women in combat units, a move that is likely to hinder the recruitment and retention of women in particularly dangerous military jobs.An order by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, dated Sunday and announced on Monday, mandated that all physical fitness requirements for combat arms positions — units likely to see significant fighting in wartime — be “sex-neutral,” which is likely to significantly reduce the number of women who meet the requirements. The order directs military leadership to implement the new fitness standards by the end of October.The U.S. military has fiercely debated the issue of how to fairly grade women’s physical fitness in testing to determine their placement into physically demanding combat jobs and their advancement in leadership roles.After years of internal deliberation over new annual fitness tests, the Army eased the grading standards for women and older service members in 2022. A study by the RAND research corporation published that year found that women and older troops were failing the new test at significantly higher rates than men and younger troops.Other branches of the military have also had different fitness test standards for men and women. For example, the Marines have a strength test for all recruits: Men must complete three pull-ups or 34 push-ups in under two minutes. Women must complete one pull-up or 15 push-ups in the same time frame.Those gender-specific standards will remain for some military jobs, Mr. Hegseth said in a statement accompanying the order. But he argued that women should not be allowed in combat units if they could not meet the same fitness standards as men.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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      The Secret History of America’s Involvement in the Ukraine War

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      <!–> [–><!–> [–><!–>On a spring morning two months after Vladimir Putin’s invading armies marched into Ukraine, a convoy of unmarked cars slid up to a Kyiv street corner and collected two middle-aged men in civilian clothes.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> –> <!–> [–> <!–> ]–> <!–> –><!–> –><!–> […] More

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      Spartz, Republican Lawmaker, Faces Anger at Town Halls Over Musk Cuts and Hegseth

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      House Republicans have been told by their party’s leadership to avoid town halls after Democrats and others began to seize on the events to vent frustration with the Trump administration.Representative Victoria Spartz, a third-term Republican from suburban Indianapolis, decided not to heed the warning this weekend — and was met with fury over cuts to the federal government’s services and work force.On Friday and Saturday, Ms. Spartz hosted gatherings with constituents. And each day, she found herself in hostile territory.She was booed, jeered and scolded over the Signal scandal at the Defense Department (she acknowledged the Trump administration needed to do a “better job”), and the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to deport immigrants without due process (she declared that unauthorized immigrants were entitled to “no due process”). And she was accused of standing idly by as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency steered cuts to government services (she said the Trump administration was trying to stop fraud).She faced chants of “Do your job!” At times, the events turned into shouting matches. Some of the exchanges have circulated widely on social media.“You don’t have to scream,” she pleaded at a crowded town hall in Westfield, Ind., on Friday night. The event lasted for two interruption-filled hours.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