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      Biden Is ‘Optimistic’ About Cancer Treatment in First Remarks Since Diagnosis

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      The former president said on Friday that he was taking a single pill daily to treat aggressive prostate cancer.Former President Biden said on Friday afternoon that he was feeling good after beginning treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer.“The prognosis is good,” he said.“We’re working on everything. All the folks are optimistic,” he added, referring to his medical team. He said that one of the surgeons treating him was given the same diagnosis 32 years ago.Mr. Biden spoke to reporters after an event honoring veterans in New Castle, Del., making his first public remarks since May 18, when his office announced his illness and said the cancer had metastasized to the bone. Mr. Biden attended the event, which fell on the 10th anniversary of the death of his son Beau, with Beau’s son, Robert Biden II, who graduated from high school this week.Mr. Biden said that his treatment was “all a matter of taking a pill, one particular pill.”“The expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this,” he said.Mr. Biden’s cancer was given a Gleason score of 9. The score is used to describe how prostate cancers look under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive.Mr. Biden, 82, left office in January as the oldest-serving president in American history.Asked about a new book, “Original Sin,” by the journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which details how Mr. Biden’s advisers curbed discussion of his age-related limitations in the run-up to the 2024 election, he responded tongue-in-cheek, saying, “You can see that I’m mentally incompetent and I can’t walk.”He added that he “could beat the hell out of both of” the authors.Mr. Biden also said that he had no regrets for deciding to run for re-election, before ultimately dropping out. He responded to a question about Democrats who hold that he should not have by saying: “Why didn’t anyone run against me then?”“We have a lot going on, and I think we’re in a really difficult moment, not only in America, but in the world,” Mr. Biden quickly added. “I think that this is one of those inflection points in history.”He said that he was “very proud” of his time in office. “I put my record as president against any president at all,” he said. He added that leading presidential historians ranked his term highly, and that President Trump was rated last. More

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      Trump, Bashing the Federalist Society, Asserts Autonomy on Judge Picks

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      The president has grown increasingly angry at court rulings blocking parts of his agenda, including by judges he appointed.President Trump appears to be declaring independence from outside constraints on how he nominates judges, signaling that he is looking for loyalists who will uphold his agenda and denouncing the conservative legal network that helped him remake the federal judiciary in his first term.Late Thursday, after a ruling struck down his tariffs on most imported goods, Mr. Trump attacked the Federalist Society, leaders of which heavily influenced his selection of judges during his first presidency.“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” Mr. Trump asserted on social media. “This is something that cannot be forgotten!”Hours earlier Thursday, the Justice Department severely undercut the traditional role of the American Bar Association in vetting judicial nominees. A day before, Mr. Trump picked a loyalist who has no deep ties to the conservative legal movement for a life-tenured appeals court seat, explaining that his pick could be counted on to rule in ways aligned with his agenda.Together, the moves suggest that Mr. Trump may be pivoting toward greater personal involvement and a more idiosyncratic process for selecting future nominees. Such a shift would fit with his second-term pattern of steamrolling the guardrails that sometimes constrained how he exercised power during his first presidency.But it could also give pause to judges who may be weighing taking senior status, giving Mr. Trump an opportunity to fill their seats. Conservatives have been eyeing in particular the seats of the Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, who will turn 77 next month, and Samuel A. Alito, 75.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 ICE Is Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations Through Courthouse Arrests

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      Officials had largely steered clear of arrests at immigration courts out of concern that they would deter people from showing up for hearings.A hearing on Tuesday at immigration court in Van Nuys, Calif., was supposed to be routine for a young family from Colombia, the first step in what they hoped would be a successful bid for asylum.To their surprise, the judge informed the father, Andres Roballo, that the government wished to dismiss his deportation case. Taken aback, Mr. Roballo hesitated, then responded: “As long as I stay with my family.”Moments later, as they exited the courtroom into a waiting area, Mr. Roballo was encircled by plainclothes federal agents who ushered him into a side room. Other agents guided his shaken wife, Luisa Bernal, and their toddler toward the elevator.Outside the courthouse, Ms. Bernal collapsed on a bench. “They have him, they have him,” she wailed. “We didn’t understand this would happen.”Mr. Roballo’s arrest was part of an aggressive new initiative by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants at immigration courts, the latest escalation by the Trump administration in its all-out effort to ramp up deportations.Agents have begun arresting migrants immediately after their hearings if they have been ordered deported or their cases have been dismissed, a move that enables their swift removal, according to immigration lawyers and internal documents obtained by The New York Times.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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      Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration, for Now, to End Biden-Era Migrant Program

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      The Trump administration had asked the court to allow it to end deportation protections for more than 500,000 people facing dire humanitarian crises in their home countries.The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration, for now, to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian program intended to give temporary residency to more than 500,000 immigrants from countries facing war and political turmoil.The court’s order was unsigned and provided no reasoning, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, saying the majority had not given enough consideration to “the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”The ruling, which exposes some migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti to possible deportation, is the latest in a series of emergency orders by the justices in recent weeks responding to a flurry of applications asking the court to weigh in on the administration’s attempts to unwind Biden-era immigration policies.Friday’s ruling focused on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s expansion of a legal mechanism for immigration called humanitarian parole, in which migrants from countries facing instability are allowed to enter the United States and quickly secure work authorization, provided they have a private sponsor to take responsibility for them.Earlier this month, the justices allowed the Trump administration to remove deportation protections from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants who had been allowed to remain in the United States under a program known as Temporary Protected Status.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. Oil Companies Are ‘Battening Down the Hatches’

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      The industry is bracing for the OPEC Plus oil cartel’s meeting on Saturday, which is widely expected to further increase oil production despite weak demand.U.S. oil companies are pulling back as lower commodity prices take a toll.After two months of crude oil prices hovering around $60 a barrel, companies are shutting down drilling rigs and laying off workers as they pare spending. It now appears very likely that U.S. oil production will not grow much this year, if at all.There are two main reasons for low oil prices. President Trump’s trade war is likely to slow the global economy, hurting demand for fuel. And OPEC Plus, an oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia, is increasing production of oil as demand is softening.On Saturday, eight members of the cartel are widely expected to announce plans to bring even more oil to market this summer, which could send prices lower still.American oil companies are not waiting to find out.While the oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron are maintaining their spending plans, smaller companies are pulling back. Those focused on drilling for oil now plan to spend around 3.5 percent less this year than previously planned, according to a BloombergNEF analysis of a dozen publicly traded companies. All things equal, more drilling tends to drive oil prices down and less drilling generally props them up.“We can’t run our program on hope,” Tom Jorden, chief executive of the oil and gas producer Coterra Energy, told analysts during an earnings call this month. “So we are battening down the hatches, expecting this to last for a while.”The Houston-based company said it would drill less in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, the top U.S. oil field, and more in the Northeast, which is rich in natural gas. Prices for that fuel, used in power plants and for heating, have been much more resilient.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 Nominates a Former Far-Right Podcast Host to Head an Ethics Watchdog

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      The president picked Paul Ingrassia, the current White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which examines public corruption.President Trump on Thursday nominated Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host now serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to a new key role: head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent corruption-fighting agency that safeguards federal whistle-blowers and enforces some ethics laws.The office has had a bumpy ride in the second Trump presidency. In February, Mr. Trump fired the office’s head, Hampton Dellinger. Mr. Dellinger sued to keep his job, was temporarily reinstated by a court order, began investigating complaints arising from the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers and was removed again in March after an appeals court ruled in the administration’s favor. The Office of Special Counsel dropped its inquiry into the mass firings in April.The office had annoyed Mr. Trump during his first term by pursuing allegations of misconduct, resulting in a finding that 13 senior aides had campaigned for his re-election in violation of the law known as the Hatch Act.Before working for Mr. Trump, Mr. Ingrassia, 30, hosted a podcast, “Right on Point,” with his sister, Olivia Ingrassia. In December 2020, as Mr. Trump was contesting his election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the podcast posted on Twitter, “Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election.”Mr. Ingrassia has represented the “manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently facing criminal charges in Romania and Britain, and pushed a false theory that Nikki Haley was ineligible to run for president. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.In a Truth Social post on Thursday night, Mr. Trump called Mr. Ingrassia “a highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.”Mr. Ingrassia posted on X that as head of the office, he would “make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal workplace, and Revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.” More

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      Musk Leaves Washington Behind but With Powerful Friends in Place

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      The world’s richest man created disruption and fear before giving up on revamping government. But his companies will now face less oversight.Just three months ago, Elon Musk stood before a crowd of roaring conservatives and held up a chain saw. He was at the height of his influence, swaggering in a self-designed role with immense power inside and outside the government.“We’re trying to get good things done,” he said, using the chain saw as a metaphor for the deep cuts he was making in government. “But also, like, you know, have a good time doing it.”Mr. Musk’s time in government is over now. His good time ended long before.Mr. Musk is leaving his government position after weeks of declining influence and increasing friction with both President Trump and shareholders of his own private companies. But Mr. Trump on Thursday suggested that he was still aligned with one of his chief political patrons, saying that he would appear with Mr. Musk at the White House on Friday afternoon for a news conference. “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will always be with us, helping all the way,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his social media site. “Elon is terrific!”Mr. Musk’s time in Washington has brought significant benefits to his fastest-growing company, SpaceX, the rocket and satellite communications giant. Musk allies were chosen to run NASA and the Air Force — two of SpaceX’s key customers — and one of the company’s major regulators, the Federal Communications Commission.But Mr. Musk never came close to delivering on the core promise of his tenure: that he could cut $1 trillion from the federal budget.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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      JD Vance’s Campaign Plane Is Being Used for Migrant Deportation Flights

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      The Boeing 737 has been chartered more than a dozen times this year by the federal government to deport migrants to several countries in Central America.In its former life, the charter plane with the tail No. N917XA went by the moniker Trump Force Two.The ubiquitous red, white and blue livery logged thousands of miles last year as the campaign plane of JD Vance, who was elected as President Trump’s vice president in November.But that plane — the same one the campaign offered rides on to entice donors to give money — is now carrying out a much different and clandestine kind of task for the Trump administration.The Boeing 737 has been chartered more than a dozen times this year by the federal government to deport migrants to several Central American countries, according to public aviation logs and a group that tracks the flights.The Trump-Vance campaign rode to victory in part on its vow to undertake the largest deportation push in American history. The Trump administration has since expanded the range of people who can be targeted for removal, sped up the deportation process for others and, in some cases, tightened the rules for legal immigrants.In 2018, during President Trump’s first term, the plane was used for at least three deportation flights that took about 360 migrants to El Salvador and Guatemala, according to the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington. The center obtained the data through a public records request.A fourth flight, chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of what is known as its ICE Air program, was used to transfer about 144 migrants between detention centers in the United States.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