Trump, Donald J

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      Trump Plan Would Tie Some Drug Prices to What Peer Nations Pay

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      The president announced an executive order aimed at lowering U.S. drug costs, revisiting an idea that was blocked in court during his first term.President Trump will sign an executive order on Monday aimed at lowering some drug prices in the United States by aligning them with what other wealthy countries pay, he said on Truth Social on Sunday evening.The proposal he described, which alone cannot shift federal policy, is what he calls a “most favored nation” pricing model. Mr. Trump did not provide details about which type of insurance the plan would apply to or how many drugs it would target, but he indicated that the United States should pay the lowest price among its peer countries.“Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before,” he wrote in his social media post.Any such plan will most likely be subject to challenges in court, and it is not clear whether it will pass legal muster, especially without action by Congress.In his first term, Mr. Trump tried unsuccessfully to enact a version of this idea for Medicare, the health insurance program that covers 68 million Americans who are over 65 or have disabilities. That plan would have applied only to 50 drugs, administered at clinics and hospitals, that are paid for by Medicare. A federal court blocked it, ruling that the administration had skipped steps in the policymaking process.The pharmaceutical industry bitterly opposes the idea, which would almost certainly cut into its profits, and has been lobbying against it as discussions of the policy have regained steam in Washington in recent weeks. Companies have warned that such a policy would lead them to spend less on research, depriving patients of new medicines.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 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’s Cuts to Education Will Hit the Disabled the Hardest

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      Last week, President Trump introduced the Special Education Simplified Funding Program as part of his 2026 budget proposal. The president’s budget isn’t binding, but it suggests that the way the administration proposes to allocate funds to the states could have an impact on the education of students with disabilities, both in classroom instruction and enforcement of minimum standards.For almost 50 years, parents of students with disabilities have relied on federal oversight to ensure that their children receive a fair education. But under the proposed budget, money earmarked for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) comes with a promise to limit the federal government’s role in education and provide states with greater flexibility, which could mean drastically reducing oversight of how states will use that money.To me and many other parents of the 7.5 million public school students in the country served by IDEA, Mr. Trump’s efforts to eliminate the Department of Education and potentially just give IDEA funding directly to the states is our worst nightmare.Last spring, a group of parents in Oklahoma filed a complaint with the State Department of Education against the Bixby School District, stating that the district had placed their children in segregated classrooms, and that it did not try instead to use supplementary aides and support services, thereby violating the law under IDEA. When students with disabilities are educated primarily in such segregated classrooms, they are often denied the full breadth of learning opportunities and interactions. Most significantly, they learn they do not belong among their peers.Nick and Kristen Whitmer chose to live in Bixby, a suburb of Tulsa, because of the school district’s reputation for inclusive special education. This was what they wanted for their daughter, Adaline, who is 8 years old and has Down syndrome. But her experience last fall hadn’t been what they hoped. Adaline spent less than half of her time at school in a general education classroom. She started her day there with a morning meeting with the other children. But after 10 minutes, a teacher guided her down the hall to the special education room. She rejoined other first graders for recess and lunch, but spent little time in an academic classroom with nondisabled peers. It was hard for Adaline to make friends with classmates. “Adaline is not viewed as a member of the community,” Ms. Whitmer told me. “She is a guest.”In preschool, Adaline had been placed in the Oklahoma Alternative Assessment Program, which is reserved for “students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.” That meant that Bixby district administrators determined Adaline would not be given the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. Ms. Whitmer said that she pleaded with district representatives to put her daughter on the diploma track, but that they initially refused and began bringing a lawyer to meetings.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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      Reluctant at First, Trump Officials Intervened in South Asia as Nuclear Fears Grew

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      After Vice President JD Vance suggested that the conflict between India and Pakistan was not America’s problem, the Trump administration grew concerned that it could spiral out of control.As a conflict between India and Pakistan escalated, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Thursday that it was “fundamentally none of our business.” The United States could counsel both sides to back away, he suggested, but this was not America’s fight.Yet within 24 hours, Mr. Vance and Marco Rubio, in his first week in the dual role of national security adviser and secretary of state, found themselves plunged into the details. The reason was the same one that prompted Bill Clinton in 1999 to deal with another major conflict between the two longtime enemies: fear that it might quickly go nuclear.What drove Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio into action was evidence that the Pakistani and Indian Air Forces had begun to engage in serious dogfights, and that Pakistan had sent 300 to 400 drones into Indian territory to probe its air defenses. But the most significant causes for concern came late Friday, when explosions hit the Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad.The base is a key installation, one of the central transport hubs for Pakistan’s military and the home to the air refueling capability that would keep Pakistani fighters aloft. But it is also just a short distance from the headquarters of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, which oversees and protects the country’s nuclear arsenal, now believed to include about 170 or more warheads. The warheads themselves are presumed to be spread around the country.The intense fighting broke out between India and Pakistan after 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, were killed in a terrorist attack on April 22 in Kashmir, a border region claimed by both nations. On Saturday morning, President Trump announced that the two countries had agreed to a cease-fire.One former American official long familiar with Pakistan’s nuclear program noted on Saturday that Pakistan’s deepest fear is of its nuclear command authority being decapitated. The missile strike on Nur Khan could have been interpreted, the former official said, as a warning that India could do just that.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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      What’s the Cost to Society of Pollution? Trump Says Zero.

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      The Trump administration has directed agencies to stop estimating the economic impact of climate change when developing policies and regulations.The White House has ordered federal agencies to stop considering the economic damage caused by climate change when writing regulations, except in cases where it is “plainly required” by law.The directive effectively shelves a powerful tool that has been used for more than two decades by the federal government to weigh the costs and benefits of a particular policy or regulation.The Biden administration had used the tool to strengthen limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, factories and oil refineries.Known as the “social cost of carbon,” the metric reflects the estimated damage from global warming, including wildfires, floods and droughts. It affixes a cost to the economy from one ton of carbon dioxide pollution, the main greenhouse gas that is heating the planet.When considering a regulation or policy to limit carbon pollution, policymakers have weighed the cost to an industry of meeting that requirement against the economic impact of that pollution on society.During the Obama administration, White House economists calculated the social cost of carbon at $42 a ton. The first Trump administration lowered it to less than $5 a ton. Under the Biden administration, the cost was adjusted for inflation and jumped to $190 per ton.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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      World Catholics See the First American Pope as Hardly American

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      Catholics around the world were skeptical at first about an American pope. But Pope Leo XIV’s multicultural and multilingual identity has put them at ease.The surprising election of the first American pope felt fraught and disorienting to Roman Catholics around the world, who had considered such an outcome unlikely and perhaps unwelcome — until Pope Leo XIV stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and chose to speak a few sentences in Spanish.In an instant, the new pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, signaled that his identity would defy easy categorization. He chose in that pivotal moment on Thursday evening not to say anything in English or mention the United States. He seemed intent on conveying the message that he was not a typical American.It worked. Pope Leo, who was born in Chicago, has Creole heritage, lived in Peru for decades and speaks at least three languages, established himself as a citizen of the world. Catholics around the globe raced to claim pieces of his multicultural and multilingual background as their own.”He considers himself American, but he also considers himself Peruvian,” said Julia Caillet, a 33-year-old osteopath, who was in line outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for a special service for young Catholics celebrating the new pope on Friday evening. “He is a priest of the world.”At a time when President Trump has isolated the United States from its diplomatic allies and trade partners and upended much of the world order, some Catholics worried that an American pontiff might somehow bring the Roman Catholic Church closer to the tumultuous American government.Instead, Pope Leo appears to have reassured them, at least for now, that he would preserve the church as a global moral voice calling for peace and justice, especially for migrants, the poor and victims of war, in the mold of Pope Francis.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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      ‘Don’t Need a Deal.’ Top Trump Economic Adviser Is All in on His China Hardball

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      In a wide-ranging interview, Stephen Miran, the president of the chair of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, said “volatility doesn’t necessarily mean anything greater for the long term.”The first 100 days of the second Trump administration have been a whirlwind. And Stephen Miran, the chair of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, has been at the center of what he calls “the volatility.” Mr. Trump has raised import taxes to levels not seen since the 1930s. And trade talks to roll them back — or not — are in flux, leaving the trajectory of the U.S. economy, consumer prices and global trade in limbo.Miran, a Ph.D. economist trained at Harvard — who is renown for floating the idea of a Mar-a-Lago Accord to “restructure the global trading system” — has been put in the position of explaining the president’s thinking and ultimate goals.On Wednesday, just before the United States and Britain announced a framework for a trade agreement and ahead of trade talks this weekend between the administration and Chinese officials, Miran spoke with The Times’s Talmon Joseph Smith at his office next to the White House. And he stood by the president’s unconventional moves.The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.You’ve said in public remarks that you are not on the negotiating team, but as an economist, do you believe that this country’s economy can sustain what the Treasury secretary has called the “embargo” levels of current tariffs on China?Yeah, so look, the president has acted with historic scope and speed to put American workers on fairer ground vis-à-vis our trading partners. I don’t think anybody could possibly say that the policy adjustment was not historic or extraordinary. And as a result, there’s been volatility in financial markets. There can also be volatility in economic data, but I think it’s important to understand that volatility doesn’t necessarily mean anything greater for the long term.And so is it possible that economic activity gets substituted from one month to another? Yeah. Are firms waiting to find out the outcomes of the negotiations? Yeah. Are they waiting to find out that the tax bill is being passed and that we’re going to avoid the biggest tax hike in history next year because the president’s 2017 tax cuts are not going to expire? Yeah, they’re waiting for that, too.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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      Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Plans for Mass Layoffs and Program Closures

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      An emergency ruling by a federal judge in California amounted to the broadest effort yet to halt the Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal government.A federal judge on Friday called for a two-week pause in the Trump administration’s mass layoff plans, barring two dozen agencies from moving forward with the largest phase of the president’s downsizing efforts, which the judge said was illegal without Congress’s authorization.Of all the lawsuits challenging President Trump’s vision to dramatically scale back the form and function of the federal government, this one is poised to have the broadest effect yet. Most of the agencies have yet to announce their downsizing plans, but employees across the government have been anxiously waiting for announcements that have been expected any day for weeks now.Ruling just hours after an emergency hearing on Friday, Judge Susan Illston of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the government to pause the mass layoffs as well as efforts to shut down offices and programs.Congress set up a specific process for the federal government to reorganize itself. The unions and organizations behind the lawsuit have argued that the president does not have the authority to make those decisions without the legislative branch.“It is the prerogative of presidents to pursue new policy priorities and to imprint their stamp on the federal government,” Judge Illston wrote in a 42-page order. “But to make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his co-equal branch and partner, the Congress.”While unions and other organizations have sued the federal government over other personnel actions, including indiscriminately firing thousands of probationary workers earlier this year, this is the first time such a broad coalition came together to challenge the administration’s actions. The plaintiffs in the ambitious lawsuit included labor unions, nonprofits and six cities and counties — including Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco and Harris County, Texas, home to Houston.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