Trump, Donald J

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      Coal and Gas Plants Kept Open Under Trump’s Energy Emergency

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      The grid operators that draw power from the plants said they never asked for them to remain open, and consumers may have to absorb extra costs.A 63-year-old coal-fired power plant was scheduled to permanently close its doors in Michigan on June 1. So was an oil- and gas-powered plant that was built in the 1960s in Pennsylvania.But at the last minute, the Trump administration ordered both to stay open. The orders came as it pursues a far-reaching plan to boost fossil fuels, including coal, by declaring a national “energy emergency.”The grid operators in Michigan and Pennsylvania said they hadn’t asked for the orders and hadn’t planned on using the plants this summer.The costs to keep the plants open, which could total tens of millions of dollars, are expected to fall on consumers. Experts have said there’s little evidence of a national energy emergency, and 15 states have sued to challenge President Trump’s declaration, which was issued the day he took office.The emergency orders, which came last month, surprised the companies that operate the plants, and they are now scrambling to delay some workers’ retirements and reverse nearly complete plans to shutter their facilities. In Michigan, the plant operator raced to buy enough coal to power operations.The episode marks a highly unusual use of the Energy Department’s emergency powers under the Federal Power Act. In the past, the department has typically issued emergency orders at the request of regional grid operators to stabilize the power supply during extreme weather events and blackouts. More

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      If Elon Musk and Donald Trump Make Up, Don’t Be Surprised

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      For all the insults that Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump traded on Thursday, don’t be surprised if they make up again days from now. In the meantime, they both benefit.Elon Musk was once known for doing things. The entrepreneur reached a new peak of fame on Thursday for saying things. It was mostly bad things about President Trump.The spat was revelatory, it was epic, it was historic, at least according to the thousands of earnest and excited commentaries that were instantly published.It was also a well-timed outburst.Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump did not have a feud five days ago and might not have a feud five days from now. Until proven otherwise, all of this is theater. Think of it as the political version of professional wrestling. For a few hours, everyone was diverted by the spectacle of a brawl between the world’s richest man and its most powerful person.Mr. Trump took a break from tariffs and deportations. For Mr. Musk, the episode was even more valuable. His wealth comes from the promise that Tesla, his electric car company, will own a significant slice of the self-driving future. The launch of Tesla’s robotaxi business is next week in Austin. Skepticism abounds. The more attention it gets, the bigger a disappointment it could be.Mr. Musk’s SpaceX business is even more problematic. For all its promise to set up colonies on Mars, it is having trouble with the basics. The ninth flight test of SpaceX’s Starship program a few days ago saw both the reusable booster exploding and, 40 minutes later, the rocket itself blowing up. It wasn’t the first such failure either.SpaceX, which is owned by Mr. Musk, left, is having trouble with the basics of spaceflight. Pool photo by Brandon BellWe 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 Pledge to Not Tax Overtime Could Become Federal Law

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      When President Trump first floated the idea of “no tax on overtime” at a campaign rally last year, he did not elaborate on how it would work. Could anyone who works more than 40 hours a week claim a tax break? Would overtime pay really be completely tax-free?The answer to both questions, as it turns out, is no.Under the sprawling domestic policy bill that Republicans pushed through the House and are preparing to steer through the Senate, the tax break would be limited. It would be available only to Americans who, under federal law, must be paid at a time-and-a-half rate for working any time exceeding 40 hours in a week. That’s a broad group that includes almost all Americans who are paid an hourly wage, but many salaried workers would not be eligible.And the tax relief would not be total. Americans would still owe payroll taxes, and potentially state income taxes, on their overtime pay. Federal income taxes would be eliminated on those wages, but only on the earnings attributable to the 50-percent bump in pay — only a third of the money made while working overtime.Even with those limitations, both critics and supporters of the idea believe the tax break could reshape the American labor market. The White House Council of Economic Advisers expects that the policy will motivate Americans to work more and help strengthen the economy.Skeptics think the change would primarily drive people to reclassify their earnings or even change jobs in order to file for overtime. They worry that if enough people sought jobs that offer overtime, wages in those positions could eventually fall.“Ultimately, it’s going to create unintended consequences that incentivize certain behaviors in the labor market and thus create winners and losers from that,” said Emmet Bowling, a labor policy analyst at the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. “Hourly jobs might become more desirable because of this tax deduction.”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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      How NASA Would Struggle Without SpaceX if Trump Cancels Musk’s Contracts

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      If President Trump cancels the contracts for Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, the federal government would struggle to achieve many goals in orbit and beyond.In 2006, a small, little-known company named Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX, for short — won a NASA contract to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station.At that moment, SpaceX had not yet launched anything to orbit and would not succeed until two years later with its tiny Falcon 1 rocket. But since then, the Elon Musk-founded company has become the linchpin of all American civilian and military spaceflight.It started in 2010 with the launch of the first Falcon 9 rocket. By 2012 the launcher was sending cargo to the space station.NASA money helped finance the development of the Falcon 9, and SpaceX capitalized on the NASA seal of approval to entice companies to launch their satellites with SpaceX.It became the Southwest Airlines of the rocket industry, selling launches and hauling satellites into orbit at a lower price than most other rockets then available.That story repeated during the Obama administration when SpaceX won a contract to take astronauts to the space station, which it did for the first time in May 2020 during the first administration of President Trump.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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      Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Fight Brings the Memes Out in Full Force

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      What happens when two billionaires with huge followings on social media start a public feud? Great memes.It was a messy divorce, and the internet was watching from the sidelines. So of course, the memes were out in full force.As the relationship between President Trump and Elon Musk unraveled publicly on Thursday, bystanders flooded social media with memes comparing them to the main figures in some of the most legendary feuds, including the teenage frenemies of “Mean Girls” and the rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar.“The big beautiful bill led to the big beautiful breakup,” one person observed on X, Mr. Musk’s social media platform, referring to the disagreement over Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill that set off the clash. An X account devoted to political jokes posted a doctored image of an iPhone emergency alert: “THE GIRLS ARE CRASHING OUTTTTT,” it announced.It’s “like Kendrick v. Drake but with two Drakes,” another X user posted, comparing Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk to the rapper who was perceived as having definitively lost his feud with Mr. Lamar after Mr. Lamar performed a diss track at the Super Bowl in February.Other scenarios recast Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk as a divorced couple sharing custody of their child, Vice President JD Vance; supermarket lobsters being egged on to fight; and two monkeys engaged in a knife fight surrounded by cheering spectators clutching fistfuls of money — a scene from a 2000 episode of “The Simpsons.”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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      Russia Launches Broad Assault on Kyiv and Other Cities in Ukraine

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      Air defense crews in the capital were racing to combat a large-scale bombardment before dawn on Friday, officials said. Explosions rocked Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, before dawn on Friday as air defense crews raced to combat a large-scale Russian bombardment, the authorities said. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia had begun launching ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at the capital and other cities overnight. Multiple fires were reported across Kyiv, including at a 16-story apartment block. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least three people had been injured, and officials cautioned that the toll could rise as the attack was still underway. Russia has launched more than 1,000 drones per week at military and civilian targets in Ukraine in recent months, including more than 300 in a single night last week. On Wednesday, Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, warned President Trump that his country would retaliate against Ukraine for its audacious drone attack last weekend on airfields across Russia, according to Mr. Trump. On Thursday, Mr. Trump compared Russia and Ukraine to two fighting children who needed to work out their differences before their bloody war could end. “Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” he said in the Oval Office as Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, urged him to leverage the power of the United States to end the conflict. Mr. Trump avoided answering a question about whether he was willing to increase pressure on Russia. The Kremlin has repeatedly resisted his calls for an unconditional cease-fire. Since the beginning of this year, the Russian military has carried out attacks against Ukraine using nearly 27,700 aerial bombs, almost 11,200 Shahed drones, around 9,000 other attack strike drones and more than 700 missiles, including ballistic ones, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Thursday. “This is the pace of Russian strikes, and they deliberately set this tempo from the very first days of the full-scale war,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Russia has restructured its entire state, society, and economy to be able to kill people in other countries on a massive scale and with impunity.” Before the overnight bombardment, Russia launched high-explosive aerial bombs at the center of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday morning, partially destroying the Regional State Administration building and damaging several surrounding structures. On Wednesday night, the Russians attacked the city of Pryluky in the northeastern Chernihiv region, killing at least five people, including a 1-year-old baby, Ukrainian officials said. More

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      Trump’s New Travel Ban Is Rife With Contradictions

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      The Trump administration appears to have relied on a variety of considerations as it put together its latest restrictions.President Trump said on Thursday that his new travel ban against a dozen mostly African and Middle Eastern countries “can’t come soon enough.” He argued the ban would help prevent terrorist attacks and keep out those who overstay their visas.But even by that logic, Mr. Trump’s ban is rife with contradictions.“There’s no consistent set of criteria that would lead you to these 19 countries,” said Doug Rand, a former immigration official in the Biden administration, referring to the 12 countries and seven others that face restrictions but not a full ban. “You have a bunch of countries that seem to be politically motivated and then a bunch of random countries with a fig leaf of data to support their conclusion.”The order, which goes into effect on Monday, bans travel to the United States by citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. And it limits travel from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. It includes some exemptions, including people with existing visas.Mr. Trump argued that the timing of the ban was spurred by a recent attack in Colorado on a group honoring hostages being held in Gaza in which an Egyptian man has been arrested and charged.But Egypt — which is both a military partner and a critical mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas — was not on the travel ban list. Also omitted were nations that national security officials have long treated as pariahs, including Syria, where Mr. Trump has recently sought to improve relations.Mr. Rand and other immigration experts noted that nations home to a higher number of people who overstay visas were left off the list.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