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      Europe’s Growing Fear: How Trump Might Use U.S. Tech Dominance Against It

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      To comply with a Trump executive order, Microsoft recently suspended the email account of an International Criminal Court prosecutor in the Netherlands who was investigating Israel for war crimes.When President Trump issued an executive order in February against the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for investigating Israel for war crimes, Microsoft was suddenly thrust into the middle of a geopolitical fight.For years, Microsoft had supplied the court — which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands and investigates and prosecutes human rights breaches, genocides and other crimes of international concern — with digital services such as email. Mr. Trump’s order abruptly threw that relationship into disarray by barring U.S. companies from providing services to the prosecutor, Karim Khan.Soon after, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., suspended Mr. Khan’s I.C.C. email account, freezing him out of communications with colleagues just a few months after the court had issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for his country’s actions in Gaza.Microsoft’s swift compliance with Mr. Trump’s order, reported earlier by The Associated Press, shocked policymakers across Europe. It was a wake-up call for a problem far bigger than just one email account, stoking fears that the Trump administration would leverage America’s tech dominance to penalize opponents, even in allied countries like the Netherlands.“The I.C.C. showed this can happen,” said Bart Groothuis, a former head of cybersecurity for the Dutch Ministry of Defense who is now a member of the European Parliament. “It’s not just fantasy.”Mr. Groothuis once supported U.S. tech firms but has done a “180-degree flip-flop,” he said. “We have to take steps as Europe to do more for our sovereignty.”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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      Juneteenth Goes Uncelebrated at White House as Trump Complains About ‘Too Many’ Holidays

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      President Trump made no statement about the federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, other than saying there were too many like it. Lesser occasions routinely garner official proclamations.Juneteenth, the holiday that marks the end of slavery in the United States, has been celebrated at the White House each June 19 since it was enshrined into law four years ago. But on Thursday, it went unmarked by the president — except for a post on social media in which he said he would get rid of some “non-working holidays.”“Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year,” Mr. Trump said in mangled syntax, not mentioning Juneteenth by name nor acknowledging that Thursday was a federal holiday. “It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, indicated to reporters earlier in the day that she was not aware of any plans by Mr. Trump to sign a holiday proclamation. In the past week alone, he’d issued proclamations commemorating Father’s Day, Flag Day and National Flag Week, and the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill — none of which are among the 11 annual federal holidays.In response to a reporter’s question about Juneteenth, Ms. Leavitt acknowledged that Thursday was “a federal holiday,” but noted that White House staff had shown up to work during a briefing that focused primarily on the matter of whether Mr. Trump would order strikes on Iran.Mr. Trump, who has often used holidays as an occasion to advance his political causes and insult critics and opponents on social media, chose the occasion of Juneteenth instead to float the idea of reducing the number of federal holidays, claiming that they are costing businesses billions of dollars. While most federal employees get those holidays off, private businesses have the choice to close or remain open. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas, nearly two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, to finally inform enslaved African Americans there that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved people had been freed. Months later, the 13th Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the final four border states that had not been subjected to Lincoln’s order.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 Buys Himself Time, and Opens Up Some New Options

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      While President Trump appears to be offering one more off ramp to the Iranians, he also is bolstering his own military options.President Trump’s sudden announcement that he could take up to two weeks to decide whether to plunge the United States into the heart of the Israel-Iran conflict is being advertised by the White House as giving diplomacy one more chance to work.But it also opens a host of new military and covert options.Assuming he makes full use of it, Mr. Trump will now have time to determine whether six days of relentless bombing and killing by Israeli forces — which has taken out one of Iran’s two biggest uranium enrichment centers, much of its missile fleet and its most senior officers and nuclear scientists — has changed minds in Tehran.The deal that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected earlier this month, which would have cut off Iran’s main pathway to a bomb by eventually ending enrichment on Iranian soil, may look very different now that one of its largest nuclear centers has been badly damaged and the president is openly considering dropping the world’s largest conventional weapon on the second. Or, it may simply harden the Iranians’ resolve not to give in.It is also possible, some experts noted, that Mr. Trump’s announcement on Thursday was an effort to deceive the Iranians and get them to let their guard down.“That could be cover for a decision to strike, immediately,” James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and the former supreme U.S. commander in Europe, said on CNN. “Maybe this is a very clever ruse to lull the Iranians into a sense of complacency.”Even if there is no deception involved, by offering one more off-ramp to the Iranians, Mr. Trump will also be bolstering his own military options. Two weeks allows time for a second American aircraft carrier to get into place, giving U.S. forces a better chance to counter the inevitable Iranian retaliation, with whatever part of their missile fleet is still usable. It would give Israel more time to destroy the air defenses around the Fordo enrichment site and other nuclear targets, mitigating the risks to U.S. forces if Mr. Trump ultimately decided to attack.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.S. Spy Agencies Assess Iran Remains Undecided on Building a Bomb

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      U.S. intelligence officials said Iran was likely to pivot toward producing a nuclear weapon if the U.S. attacked a main uranium enrichment site, or if Israel killed its supreme leader.U.S. intelligence agencies continue to believe that Iran has yet to decide whether to make a nuclear bomb even though it has developed a large stockpile of the enriched uranium necessary for it to do so, according to intelligence and other American officials.That assessment has not changed since the intelligence agencies last addressed the question of Iran’s intentions in March, the officials said, even as Israel has attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that Iranian leaders were likely to shift toward producing a bomb if the American military attacked the Iranian uranium enrichment site Fordo or if Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader.The question of whether Iran has decided to complete the work of building a bomb is irrelevant in the eyes of many Iran hawks in the United States and Israel, who say Tehran is close enough to represent an existential danger to Israel. But it has long been a flashpoint in the debate over policy toward Iran and has flared again as President Trump weighs whether to bomb Fordo.White House officials held an intelligence briefing on Thursday and announced that Mr. Trump would make his decision within the next two weeks.At the White House meeting, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, told officials that Iran was very close to having a nuclear weapon.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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      Police Investigate Threats to Mamdani in Mayoral Race’s Final Days

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      Voice mail messages promising violence against Zohran Mamdani, a progressive Democrat, came as attacks on politicians, judges and other government officials have skyrocketed.The New York Police Department is investigating threats against Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, one of the leading candidates in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary.Andrew Epstein, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said he was cooperating with the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force after an unidentified man left a string of profane voice mail messages at his district office in recent weeks. One message left Wednesday morning threatened Mr. Mamdani, who is Muslim, and his family.The man called Mr. Mamdani a “terrorist” who “is not welcome in New York or America,” according to audio provided by the campaign. Although Mr. Mamdani does not own a car, the caller said he should be careful starting one.“The violent and specific language of what appears to be a repeat caller is alarming and we are taking every precaution,” Mr. Epstein said in a written statement.“While this is a sad reality, it is not surprising after millions of dollars have been spent on dehumanizing, Islamophobic rhetoric designed to stoke division and hate.”A police spokesman said there had been no arrests, but that an investigation was continuing.The threats came at a deadly moment for elected officials in the United States. Violence against politicians, judges and other government officials has skyrocketed in recent years.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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      Fed’s Interest-Rate Approach Keeps It on Collision Course With Trump

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      The central bank signals little urgency to cut interest rates despite demands from President Trump for lower borrowing costs.Just hours before the Federal Reserve was set to announce its latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday, President Trump unleashed a barrage of attacks on its chair, Jerome H. Powell.“I call him every name in the book trying to get him to do something,” Mr. Trump said at an event at the White House, where he bashed Mr. Powell for not slashing interest rates.“I’m nasty, I’m nice — nothing works,” he lamented as he called Mr. Powell a series of names, including “stupid” and “Mr. Too Late.”The central bank’s resolve in the face of what has been an unrelenting pressure campaign from the president was on full display on Wednesday. Policymakers held interest rates steady for a fourth straight meeting, and nearly half of them signaled in new projections less scope to cut interest rates this year in anticipation of resurgent inflation. The Fed’s benchmark interest rate is currently in a range of 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent.Mr. Powell was also unwavering in his message that the Fed could afford to take its time on interest rate cuts and would stick to a “wait-and-see” approach until officials had more clarity about how Mr. Trump’s policies were affecting the economy.That could take months, keeping the White House and the Fed on a collision course that economists say stems directly from Mr. Trump’s policies, including his global trade war.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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      In Appalachia, a Father Got Black Lung. Then His Son Did, Too.

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      Denver Brock and his son Aundra used to spend early mornings hunting rabbits in the wooded highlands of Harlan County, Ky. But they don’t get out there much these days. They both get too breathless trying to follow the baying hounds.Instead, they tend a large garden alongside Denver Brock’s home. Even that can prove difficult, requiring them to work slowly and take frequent breaks.“You get so dizzy,” Denver Brock said, “you can’t hardly stand up.”The Brocks followed a long family tradition when they became Appalachian coal miners. For it, they both now have coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, a debilitating disease characterized by masses and scarred tissue in the chest, and better known by its colloquial name: black lung.Mr. Brock, 73, wasn’t all that surprised when he was diagnosed in his mid-60s. In coal mining communities, black lung has long been considered an “old man’s disease,” one to be almost expected after enough years underground.But his son was diagnosed much younger, at just 41. Like his father, he has progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of the disease. And today, at 48, he’s even sicker.When he followed his father into mining, he thought he was entering a safer industry than the one prior generations had worked in. By the 1990s, safety standards and miner protections had nearly consigned the disease to history.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 Supreme Court Case on Trans Care Ruled Against My Daughter

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      There is something incredibly surreal about finding your family at the center of a landmark Supreme Court decision, from the robes and the formality to the long, red velvet curtains behind the justices. No mother imagines that her everyday fight to do right by her child would land her there.My daughter, L.W., came out as transgender late in 2020. She was just shy of 13. Four and a half years later, she is thriving, healthy and happy after pursuing evidence-based gender-affirming care. But the very care that is improving her life became a primary political target of the Republican supermajority in our home state, Tennessee. When the legislature banned my daughter’s care in 2023, we fought back by suing the state. Today, we found out that we lost that case when the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, to uphold Tennessee’s ban on such care.I am beside myself. Our heartfelt plea was not enough. The compelling, expert legal arguments by our lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal were not enough. I had to face my daughter and tell her that our last hope is gone. She’s angry, scared and hurt that the American system of democracy that we so put on a pedestal didn’t work to protect her.My family did not start this journey to land in Washington in front of that white marble hall of justice. We ended up there through parental and civic duty. My and my husband’s demands in our lawsuit against the ban felt quite basic: Let us do our job as parents. Let us love and care for our daughter in the best way we and our doctors know how. Don’t let our child’s very existence be a political wedge issue. Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a parent of a teenager is hard enough.Raising a transgender kid in Tennessee, we know that not everyone understands people like her or her health care — and that’s OK. We don’t need to agree on everything. But we do need our fundamental rights respected.I have devoted myself to finding our daughter consistent care in one state after another. The nightmare of our disrupted life pales in comparison to the nightmare of losing access to the health care that has allowed our daughter to thrive. After Tennessee passed its ban, we traveled to another provider in a different state. After that state passed a ban, we moved on to another one. We are now on our fourth state. The five-hour drive each way, taking time off work and school, is hard, but thankfully, we found a clinic and pharmacy that take our insurance.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