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    E.U. Offers Emergency Funding for Radio Free Europe After Trump Cuts

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    The European Union said it would provide short-term financing for Radio Free Europe, but the amount falls short of what the news outlet says it needs to stay afloat.The European Union said Tuesday that it was stepping in to provide emergency funding to Radio Free Europe, though the promised amount fell far short of what the news organization said it needed to stay afloat after the Trump administration froze federal support.Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, announced that the bloc would provide 5.5 million euros ($6.2 million) to support Radio Free Europe, which provides independent reporting in countries with limited press freedoms.“In a time of growing, unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever,” Ms. Kallas said. But she added that the funding would be for the short term and that the European Union could not make up the news outlet’s entire shortfall.Since taking office in January, President Trump has ordered the dismantling of Radio Free Europe’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which provides the broadcaster with $12 million in congressional funding each month. A U.S. District Court judge initially paused Mr. Trump’s termination of the congressional grants, but this month a federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration could continue to withhold the funds.Stephen Capus, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said on Tuesday that he was grateful for the emergency E.U. funding to keep the operation running “for a short while longer.” He said that the news organization was continuing to fight in court for the release of congressionally appropriated funds.“RFE/RL’s survival remains at risk as long as those funds are withheld,” he said in a statement.The news organization on Tuesday filed an emergency petition in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking its May funding. Radio Free Europe said last week that it had received its April funding from Congress, though it came six weeks later than scheduled, forcing the news organization to reduce programming and staff.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been funded by Congress since it began broadcasting during the Cold War, reports on human rights and corruption in several countries run by authoritarian governments. In the 1980s, it reported on the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, details of which the Soviet authorities had obscured.Today, it broadcasts in 23 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus. More

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      Justice Dept. to Use False Claims Act to Pursue Institutions Over DEI Efforts

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      The department’s use of the law is all but certain to be met with legal challenges.The Trump administration plans to leverage a law intended to punish corrupt recipients of federal funding to pressure institutions like Harvard to abandon their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, Justice Department officials announced late Monday.President Trump’s political appointees at the department cited antisemitism on campuses as justification for using the law, the False Claims Act, to target universities and other institutions that Mr. Trump views as bastions of opposition to his agenda and a ripe populist target to rile up his right-wing base.“Institutions that take federal money only to allow antisemitism and promote divisive D.E.I. policies are putting their access to federal funds at risk,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate these violations of civil rights — inaction is not an option.”The department’s use of the law is all but certain to be met with legal challenges. Last week, the Justice Department notified Harvard, which receives billions in government grants, of an investigation into whether its admissions process had been used to defraud the government by failing to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended affirmative action.The department will seek fines and damages in most instances where violations are found. But it will consider criminal prosecutions in extreme circumstances, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche warned in a memo to staff.The initiative will be a joint project of the department’s anti-fraud unit and its Civil Rights Division, which has been sharply downsized and redirected from its historical mission of addressing race-based discrimination to pursue Mr. Trump’s culture war agenda.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 Yemen, $7 Billion in Useless Bombing

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      The Signal scandal drew howls of outrage for the way Trump administration officials insecurely exchanged texts about military strikes on Yemen. But dig a little deeper, and there’s an even larger scandal.This is a scandal about a failed policy that empowers an enemy of the United States, weakens our security and will cost thousands of lives. It’s one that also tarnishes President Joe Biden but reaches its apotheosis under President Trump.It all goes back to the brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Israel in October 2023, and Israel’s savage response leveling entire neighborhoods of Gaza. The repressive Houthi regime of Yemen sought to win regional support by attacking supposedly pro-Israeli ships passing nearby in the Red Sea. (In fact, it struck all kinds of ships.)There are more problems than solutions in international relations, and this was a classic example: An extremist regime in Yemen was impeding international trade, and there wasn’t an easy fix. Biden responded with a year of airstrikes on Yemen against the Houthis that consumed billions of dollars but didn’t accomplish anything obvious.After taking office, Trump ramped up pressure on Yemen. He slashed humanitarian aid worldwide, with Yemen particularly hard hit. I last visited Yemen in 2018, when some children were already starving to death, and now it’s worse: Half of Yemen’s children under 5 are malnourished — “a statistic that is almost unparalleled across the world,” UNICEF says — yet aid cuts recently forced more than 2,000 nutrition programs to close down, according to Tom Fletcher, the U.N. humanitarian chief. The United States canceled an order for lifesaving peanut paste that was meant to keep 500,000 Yemeni children alive.Girls will be particularly likely to die, because Yemeni culture favors boys. I once interviewed a girl, Nujood Ali, who was married against her will at age 10. Aid programs to empower Yemeni girls and reduce child marriage are now being cut off as well.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’s Push to Defund Harvard Prompts Clash Over Veteran Suicide Research

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      The proposed termination of medical research funded by the V.A. is part of the Trump administration’s broader pressure campaign against the university.The Trump administration’s move to cancel a slew of federal contracts at Harvard University has sparked an internal clash over the impact on medical research intended to help veterans, including projects involving suicide prevention, toxic particle exposure and prostate cancer screening, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.The dispute among officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs has focused in part on a collaboration with Harvard Medical School to develop a predictive model to help V.A. emergency room physicians decide whether suicidal veterans should be hospitalized, according to the records.Canceling that contract would result in “more veteran suicides that could have been prevented,” Seth J. Custer, an official in the V.A.’s Office of Research and Development, wrote in a May 8 email asking leaders at the agency to reverse their decision. But John Figueroa, a longtime private industry health care executive and a senior adviser to Doug Collins, the veterans affairs secretary, said that researchers at other institutions could do the work instead.Peter Kasperowicz, a V.A. spokesman, said that the department’s research contracts with Harvard were “under review.” He said the goal of the review was to ensure that “the projects best support the Trump administration’s veterans-first agenda.”Mr. Custer declined to comment. In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Figueroa said the V.A. was examining “every contract” it had issued. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. So did a spokeswoman for Harvard.The tensions inside the V.A. over the Harvard contracts demonstrate how President Trump’s use of research funds as leverage in his broader pressure campaign on universities carries political risks. Mr. Trump and other Republicans have courted veterans as a key political constituency, and Mr. Collins has repeatedly promised that veteran care would not be affected, even as he enacts major cost-cutting measures and other changes.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 Budget Cuts Hobble Antismoking Programs

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      Students at Wyoming East High School in West Virginia’s coal country had different reasons for joining Raze, a state program meant to raise awareness about the health risks of tobacco and e-cigarettes.Cayden Oliver, 17, grew up around generations of people who smoked and vaped, and he wanted to make his own choice. Nathiah Brown, 18, was struggling to quit e-cigarettes and showed up for moral support. Kimberly Mills, 18, wanted to prove that even though she had been a foster child, she would defy the odds.This high school’s program cost West Virginia less than $3,000 a year and was meant to protect teenagers in the state that has the highest vaping rate in their age group. It fell prey to U.S. government health budget cuts that included hundreds of millions of dollars in tobacco control funds that reached far beyond Washington, D.C.At the high school, students pack into stalls in the school restrooms, sneaking puffs between classes. “It’s bad now,” said Logan Stacy, 18, a member of the Raze group. “Imagine what it will be like in two years.”Experts on tobacco control said the Trump administration’s funding cuts would set back a quarter-century of public health efforts that have driven the smoking rate to a record low and saved lives and billions of dollars in health care spending. Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 29 million people in the United States continue to smoke.The decimation of antismoking work follows a year of lavish campaign donations by tobacco and e-cigarette companies to President Trump and congressional Republicans.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 Trump Tax Package, Republicans Target SNAP Food Program

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      Limiting funding for SNAP could help defray the costs of President Trump’s tax plans, but could result in millions of low-income families losing access to aid. House Republicans on Monday proposed a series of sharp restrictions on the federal anti-hunger program known as food stamps, seeking to limit its funding and benefits as part of a sprawling package to advance President Trump’s tax cuts.The proposal, included in a draft measure to be considered by the House Agriculture Committee this week, would require states to supply some of the funding for food stamps while forcing more of its beneficiaries to obtain employment in exchange for federal aid. The moves could result in potentially millions of low-income families losing access to the safety net program. But G.O.P. leaders insist that their approach would improve the provision of food stamp benefits while helping to defray the cost of Mr. Trump’s expensive legislative ambitions.House Republicans said in a statement on Monday that their proposal emphasized “reinforcing work, rooting out waste, and instituting long-overdue accountability incentives to control costs and end executive and state overreach.”The Republican overhaul specifically targets the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP With a roughly $110 billion annual budget, it is the federal government’s largest nutrition assistance initiative, providing monthly allotments to an average of 42 million people in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages the program.Proponents of the food stamp program say that it has long served as a critical lifeline for low-income families by ensuring that they do not experience hunger in a nation where about one in seven reported food insecurity at some point during 2023, according to federal data released in September.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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      See Where Federal Dollars Flow to Universities Around the Country

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      <!–> [–><!–> –> <!–>Each circle is a university: PublicPrivate–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–>In fiscal year 2023 alone, roughly $60 billion flowed from the federal government to universities in all 50 states, funding research on an array of topics, like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and rare isotope beams. Funding went to small colleges, like the College of St. […] More

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      DOGE to Dismantle Millennium Challenge Corporation

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      The Trump administration has begun dismantling a small independent agency that aids the economic development of poor but stable nations, according to five people familiar with the matter.Employees for the agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, were told in an email that they would be offered early retirement or deferred resignation after visits last week from Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting team, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.“We understand from the DOGE team there will soon be a significant reduction in the number of MCC’s programs and relatedly the agency’s staff,” read an email sent to staff on Tuesday by the acting chief executive. Staff members were given until Tuesday to decide whether to accept an offer to step down or have their employment terminated as soon as May 5, according to the email.The White House declined to comment Wednesday on the planned cuts at the agency.Mr. Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has in recent weeks moved to gut several federal agencies and entities that work on foreign aid and development projects. That includes the U.S. African Development Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which would shrink to just the legally required 15 positions after employing about 10,000 people before the start of the Trump administration.The Millennium Challenge Corporation is much smaller — roughly 300 employees, mostly in Washington, with about 20 people in offices overseas. But like U.S.A.I.D., it is slated to be reduced to the minimum required by law, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about internal conversations.The agency, established by Congress in 2004, was conceived by President George W. Bush as a way to aid poor nations while holding them accountable for using U.S. funds responsibly. The agency’s annual budget is a relatively modest $1 billion. It provides grants directly to foreign governments for development projects, including ones aimed at limiting the influence of China in Asia and Africa.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 Trump Attack on Harvard, Punishment Before Proof

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      The legal underpinnings of the administration’s broadsides against universities and schools stretch precedents and cut corners.In the White House’s campaign against Harvard University, the punishment came swiftly.The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in grants to the school, while seeking to exert unprecedented control over hiring, impose unspecified reforms to its medical and divinity schools, block certain foreign students from enrolling and, potentially, revoke its tax-exempt status.It is a broadside with little precedent. And, as with the White House’s other attacks on universities, colleges and even K-12 schools, the legal justifications have been muddled, stretched and, in some instances, impossible to determine.“It’s punishment before a trial, punishment before evidence, punishment before an actual accusation that could be responded to,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and the U.S. Department of Education’s third-ranking official during the Obama administration. “People talk about why higher ed hasn’t responded. Well, how can you fight a shadow in this way?​”The legality of each threat varies. In more typical times, some of the individual punishments might be validated by lengthy investigations in which a university would have a right to defend itself.But taken together, law professors and education experts said, the immediacy of the sanctions and threats conveyed an unmistakable hostility toward Harvard and other schools in the president’s sights. The broad vendetta, they said, could weaken the legal argument for each individual action.“You can’t make decisions — even if you have the power to do so — on the basis of animus,” said Brian Galle, a Georgetown University law professor who teaches about taxation policy and nonprofit organizations. “Those aren’t permissible reasons that the government can act. And so what’s interesting about the fact that it’s doing all of these things to Harvard at the same time, is that undermines the legitimacy of each of them individually.”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