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      In Crucial Judicial Race in Wisconsin, G.O.P. Now Has a Financial Edge

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      Two years ago, Democratic money carried a liberal jurist to victory and swung the state’s high court to the left. Now, Elon Musk and other wealthy donors have given Republicans a chance to swing it back.The last time Wisconsin held an election for the state’s Supreme Court, Republicans cried foul over the wave of money from out-of-state Democrats that overwhelmed their candidate.Two years later, Republicans have learned their lesson. It is Democrats who are grappling with a flood of outside money inundating Wisconsin.A super PAC funded by Elon Musk has in just the past week spent $2.3 million on text messages, digital advertisements and paid canvassers to remind Wisconsin Republicans about the April 1 election, which pits Brad Schimel, a judge in Waukesha County and a former Republican state attorney general, against Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who represented Planned Parenthood and other liberal causes in her private practice.The spending by Mr. Musk, the tech billionaire who is leading President Trump’s project to eviscerate large segments of the federal government, comes as Judge Schimel and his Republican allies have spent more money on television ads than Judge Crawford and Democrats have — a remarkable turnaround in a state where Democrats have had a significant financial advantage in recent years.“When I was a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be fighting the world’s richest man,” Judge Crawford told a crowd over the weekend at a campaign stop in Cambridge, Wis.As of Monday, Republicans had spent or reserved $13.9 million of television advertising time for the Wisconsin court race, compared with $10.7 million for Democrats, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. Because a larger chunk of Republican spending comes from super PACs, which pay a higher rate for TV ads than candidates do, the amount of advertising on Wisconsin’s airwaves has remained roughly equal. But the heavy Republican spending has eliminated what was a significant advantage for Democrats in the last such contest, in 2023.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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      Hundreds in Park Service Have Opted to Quit, Agency Memo Says

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      More than 700 National Park Service employees have submitted resignations as part of Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” offer, according to an internal agency memo that critics of the plan said would diminish staffing ahead of the busy summer tourism season.The news of the resignations comes after a decision earlier this month at the Department of Interior to fire more than 1,000 full-time national park employees. According to the new memo sent on Tuesday and viewed by The New York Times, the additional 700 workers who agreed to the resignation plan would not be permitted to work after March 7.The staffing cuts have sparked a public outcry. Conservationists, outdoor enthusiasts and park rangers have warned that the reductions threaten to leave hundreds of national parks understaffed during the busy summer season, and already are causing some parks to reduce hours, cancel tours and close visitor centers.The national park job losses are part of a chaotic effort by President Trump to delete thousands of federal jobs. Adding to the confusion, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the park service also plans to rehire thousands of workers — albeit as temporary, summer positions.“The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in work force management,” Elizabeth Peace, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said in a statement.“We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks,” she said.Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group, has said the temporary positions are not a substitute for the employees with years of full-time experience now lost to the park system.She also noted that about 2,000 prospective seasonal employees had their job offers rescinded when Mr. Trump, during his first days in office, imposed a hiring freeze across the government. That freeze compromised the ability to accelerate the process of rehiring those people.During the warm-weather months, as many as 325 million people visit the nation’s 63 national parks and hundreds of historic sites and other attractions managed by the park service.Federal workers received the Trump administration’s resignation offer in an email last month entitled “A Fork in the Road.” Under the offer, employees who accepted it would leave their jobs, but continue getting paid through September — and those who did not accept it risked being fired. According to the Office of Personnel Management, about 75,000 workers across the government have accepted the offer. More

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      Acting I.R.S. Commissioner Doug O’Donnell to Announce Retirement

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      The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is expected to announce on Tuesday that he is retiring, according to three people familiar with the move, the latest agency head to depart after Elon Musk’s team pushed for access to sensitive data and mass layoffs.Doug O’Donnell, a 40-year veteran of the I.R.S., took over the agency last month after the last commissioner stepped down at the beginning of President Trump’s term. Melanie Krause, the chief operating officer at the I.R.S., is expected to become the new acting leader after Mr. O’Donnell leaves on Friday, the people said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Mr. O’Donnell had been considering retiring soon, even before Mr. Trump took office and began cutting thousands of jobs at the tax collector, two of the people said. Mr. Trump has nominated Billy Long, a former Republican congressman who aggressively marketed a tax credit that the I.R.S. has tried to shut down, to lead the agency of roughly 100,000 staff.Still, the I.R.S. has been in the cross hairs of the Trump administration. More than 6,700 employees were laid off last week as part of Mr. Musk’s push to dramatically reduce the size of the work force.The I.R.S. last week reached an agreement setting the terms of employment for a young software engineer, Gavin Kliger, affiliated with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, who is temporarily working at the tax agency. That agreement bars Mr. Kliger from viewing individual taxpayers’ information. More

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      Government Watchdog Moves to Protect Probationary Federal Workers

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      A government watchdog lawyer whose dismissal by President Trump has been stalled by the courts announced on Monday that his office would seek to pause the mass firings of some probationary federal workers.The lawyer, Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency that protects whistle-blowers, said his office had determined that the firings might violate the law.In a statement posted to the agency’s website, Mr. Dellinger said that the decision to fire probationary employees en masse “without individualized cause” appeared “contrary to a reasonable reading of the law,” and that he would ask a government review board to pause the firings for 45 days.The move marks an attempt by federal workers to use the levers of government to push back against the mass firings by the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s team. A spokesman for Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Dellinger’s move, which was reported earlier by Government Executive, a trade publication, also highlights the many layers of government officials who have been targeted by the Trump administration. At every level of the case, the officials reviewing the firings have themselves been dismissed and are using other legal means to fight to hold on to their jobs.The Office of Special Counsel, which was created in 1979, is not connected to the special counsels who are appointed by the Justice Department.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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      Pushback to Latest DOGE Demand May Signal Limits for Elon Musk

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      Pushback against Elon Musk’s latest demand to government employees reveals potential limits to his harsh approach to management and cost-cutting.Federal workers are on edge over Elon Musk’s latest demand that they justify their employment.Eric Lee/The New York TimesA clash over Musk’s latest missiveMonday could bring a standoff between Elon Musk and huge swaths of the federal government, including Trump-appointed agency leaders.The fate of the latest example of Musk’s brutal management style — having government workers justify their employment by midnight or risk being fired — may reveal the limits of President Trump’s cost-cutter-in-chief’s efforts.“For now, please pause any response,” a top Pentagon official told employees this weekend, adding that the Defense Department “will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.” Similar messages went out from Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I.; the State Department; and more.What’s notable is that Trump loyalists lead many of those organizations. But The Times reports that many agency leaders are “tired of having to justify specific intricacies of agency policy and having to scramble to address unforeseen controversies” raised by Musk, especially after the billionaire’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency gained unprecedented access to government systems.It raises the prospect that the Musk approach has its limits. Yes, Musk made a similar move at the social network once known as Twitter. But the federal bureaucracy moves much more slowly than a private company — and has unions who can push back.The president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest such union, declared Musk’s missive “plainly unlawful” and added that the Office of Personnel and Management was being directed by “the unelected and unhinged Elon Musk.”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 Appointees Fire 2,000 U.S.A.I.D. Employees and Put Others Worldwide on Leave

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      Trump administration appointees in charge of the U.S. Agency for International Development sent employees an email on Sunday afternoon saying that they were firing 2,000 workers and putting up to thousands of foreign service officers and other direct hires around the world on paid leave starting that night.The only exceptions to the leave would be people working on “mission-critical programs,” as well as “core leadership” and employees supporting “specially designated programs,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times.The email said appointees running U.S.A.I.D. were firing 2,000 employees based in the United States using a mechanism called “reduction in force.” The mass firings are part of a series of layoffs of agency employees by the Trump administration during a broad effort to halt almost all U.S. foreign aid using a blanket freeze.The moves came after a judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration could proceed with plans to lay off or put on paid leave many agency employees and close down operations overseas, which means forcing employees based abroad to come back to the United States. Some of those employees say they expect to be fired once they return home.The judge, Carl J. Nichols of the Federal District Court in Washington, had been reviewing a lawsuit that aimed to block Trump administration officials from enacting the layoffs at the aid agency, putting people on paid leave and compelling overseas employees to quickly return home.Since late January, Pete Marocco, a State Department political appointee who was a divisive figure in the first Trump administration, has overseen the dismantling of the aid agency, working alongside Elon Musk, the tech billionaire adviser to President Trump who has posted dark conspiracy theories about U.S.A.I.D.Early this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was the new acting administrator of the agency and was appointing Mr. Marocco as his deputy.The email on Sunday said employees taking the “voluntary” route to returning from overseas soon would have their travel paid for by the agency.Last week, the appointees running the agency fired about 400 employees who work as contractors on urgent humanitarian assistance. That action added to an understanding among many employees that Mr. Rubio does not actually support such programs.Late last month, Mr. Rubio promised that “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” programs could continue. But almost no programs have been able to operate because the agency’s payment system does not function, meaning partner groups cannot get funds.Mr. Rubio has said some foreign aid will continue after a 90-day review process, but neither he nor Mr. Marocco, who oversees foreign aid at the State Department, have publicly explained the process, if there is one. More

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      Trump Appointees Fire Hundreds at U.S.A.I.D. Working on Urgent Aid

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      Trump administration appointees running the main United States aid agency have in recent days fired hundreds of employees who help manage responses to urgent humanitarian crises around the world, according to two U.S. officials and four recent employees of the agency.The firings add to doubts raised about whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio is allowing employees for the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., to carry out lifesaving humanitarian assistance, as he had promised to do late last month during a blanket freeze of almost all foreign aid from the U.S. government.Trump appointees have fired or put on paid leave thousands of employees of U.S.A.I.D. A task force of young engineers working for Elon Musk, the billionaire tech businessman who is advising President Trump, has shut down many technical systems in the aid agency and barred employees from their email accounts. Mr. Musk has posted dark conspiracy theories about U.S.A.I.D. on social media, asserting with no evidence that it is a “criminal organization” and that it was “time for it to die.”The latest round of dismissals occurred on Friday night, when hundreds of people working for the agency’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance got emails saying their jobs had been terminated. Two employees who got the emails said they were strange because they did not state any job titles specifically and did not have the recipients’ names in the “to” field. They were generic emails sent out in a large wave.The New York Times obtained a copy and confirmed those descriptions. The employees who agreed to speak for this story did so on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize the 15 days of pay they were scheduled to receive after being given a termination notice. The two U.S. officials feared retaliation.In addition, 36 people were fired from the Office of Transition Initiatives, a unit in the agency’s conflict prevention bureau that specializes in helping partner countries with political transitions and democratic initiatives, said the U.S. officials and recent agency employees.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 Tells Federal Workers to Detail Work in an Email or Lose Their Jobs

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      Elon Musk deepened the confusion and alarm of workers across the federal government Saturday by ordering them to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that a failure to do so would be taken as a resignation.Shortly after Mr. Musk’s demand, which he posted on X, civil servants across the government received an email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line, “What did you do last week?”The missive simultaneously hit inboxes across multiple agencies, rattling workers who had been rocked by layoffs in recent weeks and were unsure about whether to respond to Mr. Musk’s demand. Officials at some agencies, including the F.B.I., told their employees to pause any responses to the email for now.Mr. Musk’s mounting pressure on the federal work force came at the encouragement of President Trump, who has been trumpeting how the billionaire has upended the bureaucracy and on Saturday urged him to be even “more aggressive.”In his post on X, Mr. Musk said employees who failed to answer the message would lose their jobs. However, that threat was not stated in the email itself.“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished this week and cc your manager,” said the Office of Personnel Management message that went out to federal employees on Saturday afternoon. The email told employees to respond by midnight on Monday and not to include classified information.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