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      How Consumers Can Protect Themselves With the CFPB on Pause

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      Rules on bank and credit card fees, medical debt and payment apps are in limbo. One thing you can do is carefully check your financial statements, one expert says.With the government seemingly stepping back from regulatory duties, consumers may have to act as their own financial watchdogs.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent federal agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to shield people from fraud and abuse by lenders and financial firms, has been muzzled, at least temporarily.“Everything is on pause right now,” said Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace with Consumer Reports. “So it’s back on consumers to be extra diligent.” Ms. Hand previously spent nearly a decade in a variety of roles at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including overseeing complaints and consumer education, before departing in 2022.In early February, the Trump administration ordered the consumer bureau to mostly cease operations. It closed its Washington headquarters, fired some employees and put most of the rest of the staff on administrative leave, and opted not to seek funding for its activities. Several lawsuits are challenging the administration’s actions. On Feb. 14, a federal judge in Washington ordered the bureau to halt firing workers and not to delete data, pending a hearing scheduled for Monday.The administration, however, has already dialed back enforcement — dropping, for instance, a suit accusing an online lender of promoting free loans that actually carried high interest rates. On Thursday, the bureau dismissed a lawsuit that it had brought in January accusing Capital One of cheating customers out of some $2 billion in interest.It’s a stark change for an agency that had been energetic in adopting rules and filing lawsuits aimed at aiding consumers. Under the Biden administration, the bureau moved to reduce or eliminate various fees charged by banks and other financial firms and to remove unpaid medical debt from credit reports, and it fined a major credit reporting bureau for misleading consumers about credit freezes.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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      Inflation Is Rising. What Will That Mean for Trump’s Tariffs?

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      Consumer sentiment has turned south as high prices weigh on households. Could that crimp big pieces of the president’s economic agenda, including tariffs?Stubbornly high inflation is beginning to weigh on households, with sentiment souring fast, economists note.Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesRising prices hit a trade war President Trump isn’t backing off his tariff threats, despite the potential risk to the U.S. economy and financial markets.That puts additional focus on the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures report, the Fed’s favored inflation measure. It’s due for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.The question is whether lingering inflation also will have big implications for the Trump agenda, with some economists predicting that tariffs will raise inflation and lower growth, even if the target countries don’t retaliate. Friday’s report is expected to show only slight relief for consumers.Economists worry about a hot P.C.E. reading, which could push the central bank to keep borrowing costs higher well into the second half of the year, even as consumer confidence and the mood in the C-suites increasingly turn south and the economy shows signs of slowing.A recession is seen as unlikely, but there are other concerns. Recent data shows a growing affordability crunch with egg prices spiking (more on that below), home sales plummeting and jobless claims climbing. Watch next week’s jobs report for more, including which parts of the country could be hardest hit by Elon Musk-led cuts to the federal government. (Alaska is among them.)“With 3 million federal employees potentially worrying about their jobs and 6 million federal contractors worrying about their jobs, the risks are rising that households may begin to hold back purchases of cars, computers, washers, dryers, vacation travel plans, etc.,” Torsten Slok, Apollo’s chief economist, wrote in a research note on Thursday. Sentiment, he added, is “bad.”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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      Office Closures and Relocations Part of Trump’s Plan for Large-Scale Layoffs

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      The newly released requirements for agencies to move forward with mass cuts to the federal work force have employees even more on edge.The Trump administration has moved into its next push and most aggressive yet to drastically overhaul the federal bureaucracy, demanding that agencies produce plans for large work force cuts that involve closing offices and relocating employees outside the Washington region.Agencies have been instructed to turn in a detailed list of divisions that should be consolidated or cut entirely by March 13, according to a recent memo from the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget, as part of a “reduction in force” process ordered by President Trump and orchestrated in large part by Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become a top adviser.By April 14, agencies must deliver new organizational charts and all proposals for relocating offices in the Washington region to areas of the country where the cost of living is lower, according to the memo. Agencies were instructed to be prepared to roll out this part of the plan by the end of September.For government agencies to fulfill these requirements would be an ambitious undertaking under any circumstances. But to accomplish this in accordance with the law in such a short time frame is most likely impossible, experts say.“No agency can do a genuine strategic plan in the next two weeks,” said Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. “They need to figure out what they want to do and how best to do it, before they take a chain saw to government and cut indiscriminately.”The government is expected to follow specific rules when conducting these reductions in force. For one, employees need 60 days’ notice, said Kevin Owen, an employment lawyer with Gilbert Employment Law. (The recent White House guidance said that agencies can request an exception to provide just 30 days’ notice.)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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      ‘Epstein Files’ Release, Hyped by Pam Bondi, Falls Short of Expectations

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      The release of flight logs and Jeffrey Epstein’s contact list by the attorney general was met with criticism from those who had expected the documents to reveal new information.For days, Attorney General Pam Bondi had talked about releasing the “Epstein files,” supposedly secret documents the federal government has on some of the powerful men who were in the orbit of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.But the roughly 200 pages of documents that Ms. Bondi released on Thursday contained little new information pointing to wrongdoing by anyone other than Mr. Epstein, a registered sex offender who died in jail. The document dump largely consisted of flight logs for Mr. Epstein’s planes — long ago made public — and contact information for hundreds of associates, along with brief descriptions of items found at his residences.The release was billed as a gesture ushering in a new era of transparency at the Justice Department. But the hyped first release of documents (which Ms. Bondi teased as “breaking news” in a Fox News appearance on Wednesday night) appeared to be mostly political theater. Its confusing daylong rollout even spun off a few new conspiracy theories among some Trump supporters, who view the Epstein investigation as a fountainhead for other conspiracies.On Thursday afternoon, Ms. Bondi and Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I., offered a sneak preview of the documents to several conservative influencers, some of whom emerged from the West Wing waving chunky white binders with the label “The Epstein Files: Phase I.” One of them later called it an “interesting souvenir.”But by midafternoon, the Justice Department had not posted the contents. And Ms. Bondi was drawing criticism on social media from those who had taken her at her word the night before. The conservative personality Glenn Beck posted on X: “The Epstein files are a total joke,” and asked, “Who is subverting POTUS?”Ms. Bondi responded by promising more documents to come. Later, she said that a “source” in the F.B.I. field office in New York City had told her the bureau withheld “thousands” of previously unknown pages of Epstein-related documents and that she was determined to get them, according to a letter her spokesman provided to reporters.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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      Stunned U.S.A.I.D. Workers Return to Clean Out Their Desks

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      Democrats said a review mandated by executive order was “not a serious effort or attempt at reform.”Workers for the U.S. Agency for International Development who had been fired or placed on leave returned to their offices on Thursday to retrieve personal belongings, many still dumbfounded by the Trump administration’s sudden dismantlement of the 63-year-old aid delivery agency.Hundreds of workers who just one month ago never imagined that they would soon lose their jobs en masse returned to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in downtown Washington.They were given just 15 minutes each to clear out their old desks.The somber return came a day after the Trump administration revealed in court documents that it had completed a review of all U.S. foreign aid programs and was canceling nearly 10,000 contracts and grants, eliminating about 90 percent of U.S.A.I.D.’s work.The agency’s annual budget of about $40 billion pays for the distribution of food and medicine, as well as disaster relief, disease monitoring, development work, and pro-democracy and civil society programs. Its work has been heavily concentrated in poor and developing countries in Africa and Asia.Foreign aid makes up less than 1 percent of the federal budget.Supporters offered boxes and packing supplies to help fired U.S.A.I.D. workers clean out their desks on Thursday. Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesIn a joint statement, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee denounced the canceled funding, calling the foreign aid review — mandated by an executive order President Trump signed shortly after taking office last month — “not a serious effort or attempt at reform but rather a pretext to dismantle decades of U.S. investment that makes America safer, stronger and more prosperous.”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 Says Canada and Mexico Tariffs Will Go Into Effect Next Week

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      Tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico would go into effect on March 4 “as scheduled,” President Trump said on Thursday morning, claiming that those countries were still not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs into the United States.China will also face an additional 10 percent tariff next week, on top of the 10 percent he imposed earlier this month, the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.“Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels,” he said. “A large percentage of these Drugs, much of them in the form of Fentanyl, are made in, and supplied by, China.” He added that the levies were necessary until the flow of drugs “stops, or is seriously limited.”In an effort to stem the flow of migrants and drugs, Mr. Trump threatened to impose tariffs on all products from Canada, Mexico and China in early February. But after Mexico and Canada promised measures like sending more troops to the border and, in the case of Canada, appointing a “fentanyl czar,” Mr. Trump paused their tariffs for one month.He moved ahead with imposing a 10 percent tariff on all products from China, on top of those already in place, which prompted China to retaliate with its own tariffs on American goods.The post Thursday appeared to be an attempt by Mr. Trump to clarify his plans, after his remarks at the White House on Wednesday sowed confusion about whether the tariffs had been delayed.When asked about tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that they would proceed — but mentioned April 2, which is when he has said another batch of tariffs on various countries, which he has called reciprocal tariffs, would go into effect.Some investors interpreted those remarks as a sign the president meant to continue delaying the tariffs related to drugs and migrants, and the value of the peso and the Canadian dollar increased. But a White House official on Wednesday clarified that the April 2 date referred to other tariffs, not those on Canada and Mexico.“The April Second Reciprocal Tariff date will remain in full force and effect,” Mr. Trump wrote Thursday. More

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      Chief Justice Allows U.S. to Continue Freeze on Foreign Aid Payments

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      Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Wednesday night handed the Trump administration a victory for now in saying that the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department did not need to immediately pay for more than $1.5 billion in already completed aid work.A federal judge had set a midnight deadline for the agencies to release funds for the foreign aid work. The Trump administration, in an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court just hours before the deadline, said the judge had overstepped his authority and interfered with the president’s obligations to “make appropriate judgments about foreign aid.”Chief Justice Roberts, acting on his own, issued an “administrative stay,” an interim measure meant to preserve the status quo while the justices consider the matter in a more deliberate fashion. The chief justice ordered the challengers to file a response to the application on Friday, and the court is likely to act not long after.In another aggressive move on Wednesday to carry out President Trump’s Day 1 directive to gut U.S. spending overseas, lawyers for the Trump administration said that it was ending nearly 10,000 U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department contracts and grants.The administration actions stunned diplomats and aid workers already reeling from mass firings at U.S.A.I.D., which funds food, health, development and democracy programs abroad, and which the Trump administration has systematically dismantled. A former senior U.S.A.I.D. official said the cuts account for about 90 percent of the agency’s work and tens of billions of dollars in spending.The signage for U.S.A.I.D. in Washington, which has been covered up with tape, seen on Tuesday.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesWe 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 Seeks Prompt Supreme Court Review of His Power to Fire Officials

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      The Trump administration told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that developments in the first case arising from the president’s blitz of executive actions to reach the justices would require prompt action.The court ruled last week that President Trump could not, for now, remove a government lawyer who leads the watchdog agency that protects whistle-blowers. But the court’s order said that it would hold the government’s emergency application “in abeyance” and might soon return to the issue.The ruling noted that a trial judge’s temporary restraining order shielding the lawyer, Hampton Dellinger, was set to expire on Wednesday.Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel.U.S. Office of Special Counsel, via ReutersAfter a hearing on Wednesday, the judge, Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington, extended her order until Saturday to provide time for her to write an opinion in the matter. In a letter to the justices, Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general, wrote that developments since they last acted had underscored the need for a prompt resolution.Mr. Dellinger has been busy, she wrote. In his role as the head of the Office of Special Counsel, he filed challenges to the firings of six probationary employees before the Merit Systems Protection Board, which temporarily reinstated them on Tuesday.“In short, a fired special counsel is wielding executive power, over the elected executive’s objection, to halt employment decisions made by other executive agencies,” Mr. Harris wrote. The merit board, moreover, she wrote, “is being led by a chairman who has herself been fired by the president, only to be reinstated by a district court.”All of that means the justices must act soon, Ms. Harris wrote.“The government respectfully asks that this court at a minimum continue to hold the application in abeyance, if the court does not grant it now,” she wrote. “Once the district court issues its final decision, presumably on March 1, it may become necessary for the government to request further relief.” More