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    Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Universities

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    As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University?The administration’s campaign to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses had already forced Columbia University to strike a deal. Now, the White House was eyeing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.“What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”The moment underscored the aggressive, ad hoc approach continuing to shape one of the new administration’s most consequential policies.Mr. Trump and his top aides are exerting control of huge sums of federal research money to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which they see as hostile to conservatives and intent on perpetuating liberalism.Their effort was energized by the campus protests against Israel’s response to the October 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas, demonstrations during which Jewish students were sometimes harassed. Soon after taking office, Mr. Trump opened the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which is scrutinizing leading universities for potential civil rights violations and serving as an entry point to pressure schools to reassess their policies.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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      British Government Takes Control of Country’s Last Major Steel Mill

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      London says it acted to prevent the plant’s Chinese owners from closing the plant, threatening jobs and national security.The British government moved swiftly on Saturday to take control of operations at the country’s last large crude steel producing facility, in what appeared to be a major step toward nationalizing the plant.In an unusual and dramatic move, the government had summoned lawmakers back from vacation on Saturday to approve the government’s emergency legislation.The government said it was acting to prevent the owners of the British Steel complex in Scunthorpe, a Chinese company called Jingye, from taking steps unilaterally to close the blast furnaces, potentially costing 2,700 jobs.“Steel is fundamental to Britain’s industrial strength, to our security and to our identity as a primary global power,” Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, told Parliament on Saturday in introducing the legislation.Members of the Unite and Community unions marched in Scunthorpe on Saturday.Ryan Jenkinson/Getty ImagesDespite the interest in preserving steel making now, it has long been in decline in Britain. Crude steel output has fallen by about 50 percent over the last decade, according to UK Steel, a trade group.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 Digestible Politics of the Message Tee

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      Some elected officials and those in power are making use of a classic bit of fashion to deliver big ideas.With his approval rating dipping, New Yorkers seem to have lost trust in their mayor Eric Adams. But Mr. Adams is up front about where he’s putting his own trust right now: with God.On Tuesday, Mr. Adams, who announced that he would be running for re-election not as a Democrat but an independent, appeared at a press briefing wearing a T-shirt with the words “In God We Trust,” printed above an American flag.“This outfit is not campaigning, this outfit is my life,” Mr. Adams told reporters when asked about the white shirt, which looked to be about as premium as something purchased at a boardwalk souvenir stall.“I went through hell for 15 months and all I had was God,” said Mr. Adams, alluding to the federal corruption charges that were dropped against him this month.Mr. Adams is not the only political figure bringing the graphic T-shirt into formal political spaces.During President Trump’s prime-time address in early March a cluster of Democrats wore slogan T-shirts, providing a cotton-based clap-back to the president’s talking points. A few brandished the recognizable text: “Resist.” Florida representative Maxwell Frost, the first Gen-Z member of Congress wore a tee with the slogan “No Kings Live Here.”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 and Social Security’s Effort to Curb Illegal Immigration

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      As Elon Musk continues to argue that Social Security drives illegal immigration, a new effort at the agency aims to curb it.One hallmark of Elon Musk’s 12 weeks in government has been his focus on Social Security.He has sent one of his closest advisers to work at the Social Security Administration. He has falsely insisted that the program is rife with fraud. And he has depicted the entitlement as a tool — a “giant magnet,” to be specific — that he says entices illegal immigrants to come to the United States.That last part has turned Social Security into a major focal point of Musk’s unfounded belief that Democrats have allowed immigrants into the United States as part of a scheme to tilt the electorate in their favor.A team of my colleagues has reported that Musk is now driving big changes at the Social Security Administration that have braided aspects of his rhetoric about the agency directly into policy. The agency is placing certain immigrants — people who are very much alive — on the agency’s list of dead people, cutting them off from crucial financial services in an effort to push them to leave the country.I called my colleague Alexandra Berzon to talk about this reporting, and she explained that, according to the White House’s own accounting, the targeted migrants did not receive much in the way of government benefits — and none of them received Social Security.The new effort, she explained, is less about cost-cutting than it is about getting the Social Security Administration into the business of immigration enforcement, a push that has deeply alarmed current and former employees of the agency.Explain to me what you and our colleagues discovered when reporting this story. How is the Trump administration using Social Security as a tool for immigration policy?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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      Bob McManus, Blunt Editorial Voice of New York Post, Dies at 81

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      As the editor of the tabloid’s editorial page and as a columnist, he skewered those he considered phonies and symbols of failed progressivism.Bob McManus, the trenchant editorial page editor of The New York Post and a columnist for other conservative publications who prided himself on his unambiguous common-sense commentary about public policy and other topics, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 81.The cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of bile duct cancer, said his wife, Mary McManus.An influential and respected editorialist, Mr. McManus pulled no punches but still managed to be widely liked.He could unleash a fusillade of zingers against public officials and other prominent targets he branded phonies or hypocrites. But he could also leaven his caustic criticism with wit.“His prose style might best be described as a punchy amalgam of Damon Runyon, Raymond Chandler, and — a particular McManus favorite — Red Smith,” Edmund J. McMahon, a friend who is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany, N.Y., said in an interview.After a police officer was assaulted in Times Square last year by a group that included some migrants, Mr. McManus contrasted “a time when slugging a cop would get you bumps on your head” with what he described as the current anarchic system of justice.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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      Coalition Deal in Germany Clears Way for Friedrich Merz to Become Chancellor

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      The agreement was concluded relatively quickly but still took about six and half weeks, during which the country had been virtually rudderless at a critical moment for Europe.Germany’s centrist parties announced on Wednesday that they had formally reached a coalition agreement to allow Friedrich Merz, a conservative, to take the reins as chancellor at a tumultuous moment when Europe’s economic and security order is being upended.Since Mr. Merz’s Christian Democrats came out on top in elections in February, he has been under tremendous pressure to get a government moving as the Trump administration batters Europe with tariffs, threatens the NATO alliance and cozies up to an aggressive and expansionist Russia.Sensing the urgency, Mr. Merz took the exceptional step of using the interim period to push measures through Parliament to raise debt limits so that Germany could throw billions more at infrastructure and military spending. The coalition agreement announced on Wednesday was the fastest since 2009, when Angela Merkel won her second term.Nonetheless, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has been left virtually leaderless during the multiple overlapping global crises.“We don’t yet know which direction the international situation will take, but that is why our message today is all the clearer: In this global change we want to — and we will — help shape Germany,” Mr. Merz told reporters as the coalition plan was presented.Responding to a question from a reporter, Mr. Merz took a moment to address President Trump directly, in English. “The key message to Donald Trump is Germany is back on track,” he said.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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      Amid Tension Around H.H.S. Cuts, Kennedy Meets With Tribal Leader

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      At the very moment that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was set to take the stage, the governor of Gila River Indian Community was still standing at the podium, articulating his uneasiness around recent Trump administration moves.“Let me repeat that: We have spent a good part of this year providing education on why tribes have a political status that is not D.E.I.,” Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said to a room of 1,200 people, who clapped and cheered.When it comes to cuts sought by what has been called the Department of Government Efficiency, “we need a scalpel and not a chain saw approach to making these changes,” he said. The Gila River Wild Horse Pass Resort and Casino in Chandler, Ariz., owned and operated by two tribes, was the latest stop on Mr. Kennedy’s Make American Healthy Again tour through three Southwestern states. Mr. Kennedy was set to host a “fireside chat” at the Tribal Self-Governance Conference, an event celebrating 50 years of tribal sovereignty under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.The act, passed by Congress in 1975, marked a shift away from federal government control, so that Native communities could run their own programs based on their unique cultural needs.Mr. Kennedy has long expressed a particular zeal for improving tribal health, citing his family’s long history of advocacy, his childhood trips to American Indian reservations, and parts of his own environmental career.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.K. Labour Lawmaker Suspended From Party After Arrest

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      Dan Norris, a lawmaker who won a seat in Parliament last year, was swiftly suspended from Britain’s governing party.Britain’s governing Labour Party on Saturday said it had suspended Dan Norris, one of its lawmakers in Parliament, after he was arrested by the police.Mr. Morris “was immediately suspended by the Labour Party upon being informed of his arrest,” the party said in a statement, adding that it “cannot comment further while the police investigation is ongoing.”The party did not specify why Mr. Norris, 65, had been arrested, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. In Britain, the police typically do not disclose the name of suspects unless they are charged. The BBC said that Mr. Norris was arrested on suspicion of rape, child sex offenses, child abduction and misconduct in a public office.In a statement that did not give any names, the Avon and Somerset Police said that a man in his 60s was arrested on Friday on suspicion of sexual offenses against a girl, rape, child abduction and misconduct in a public office. The police said he had been released on conditional bail.“In December 2024, we received a referral from another police force relating to alleged non-recent child sex offenses having been committed against a girl,” the police statement said.“Most of the offenses are alleged to have occurred in the 2000s, but we’re also investigating an alleged offense of rape from the 2020s,” it added. The police said that the investigation was “ongoing and at an early stage.”The Labour Party’s move is expected to mean that Mr. Norris will, pending the investigation, be effectively suspended from representing the party in the House of Commons.Last year Mr. Norris won a seat in Parliament representing North East Somerset and Hanham, near the city of Bristol, defeating a former Conservative cabinet minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg.Mr. Norris is also the mayor of the West of England, responsible for the administration of several cities in a western region, a position he has held since 2021, though he is not running for re-election when that post is contested on May 1.His political career goes back more than two decades. Mr. Norris was a lawmaker from 1997 to 2010, representing the seat of Wansdyke, in the west of England. He was an assistant whip in the government of Tony Blair from 2001 to 2003, and a junior minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2009 to 2010, under Prime Minister Gordon Brown. More

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      Trump Weighs In on Marine Le Pen Conviction

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      “FREE MARINE LE PEN!”With this blunt call, a strange one in that the French far-right leader is walking the streets of Paris, President Trump has waded into the politics of an ally, condemning her conviction this week on embezzlement charges and her disqualification from running for public office.The conviction was “another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. Elon Musk, his billionaire aide, drove home the point: “Free Le Pen!” Mr. Musk echoed on his social media platform X.More than an extraordinary American intervention in French politics, the statements ignored the overwhelming evidence arrayed against Ms. Le Pen, who was convicted of helping orchestrate over many years a system to divert European taxpayers’ money illicitly to offset the acute financial difficulties of her National Rally party in France.Instead, for the American president and his team, as well as an angry chorus of Le Pen supporters at home, her case has become part of a vigorous campaign to undermine the separation of powers and the rule of law, which have been portrayed by Vice President JD Vance as no more than a means to stifle the far right and to quash democracy in the name of saving it.Ms. Le Pen last year. She became the face of France’s far right after taking over the party from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen will speak at a big National Rally demonstration Sunday in Paris under the banner “Let’s Save Democracy!” The National Rally was founded in 1972 as the National Front, an antisemitic party of fascist roots, by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. It was long seen as a direct threat to the democratic rule of the Fifth Republic, before Ms. Le Pen embarked on a makeover.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