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      Dance$ With Emolument$

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      When Donald Trump was headed for the Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, I took Carl Hulse, our chief Washington correspondent, to Trump Tower to meet him.Trump didn’t know anything about the inner workings of Washington. He proudly showed us his “Wall of Shame” with pictures of Republican candidates he had bested. His campaign office had few staffers, but it overflowed with cheesy portraits of him sent by fans: one of him playing poker with Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt, and a cardboard cutout of him giving a thumbs up, flanked by Reagan and John Wayne.As we were leaving, Hulse warned Trump dryly: “If you ever get a call from our colleague Eric Lipton, you’ll know you’re in trouble.”“Eric Lipton?” Trump murmured.The president probably knows who Lipton is now, because the Pulitzer Prize-winning Times investigative reporter is tracking Trump on issues of corruption as closely as the relentless lawman in the white straw hat tracked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Lipton and The Times’s David Yaffe-Bellany were on the scene at Trump’s Virginia golf club Thursday night as the president held his gala dinner to promote sales of $TRUMP, the memecoin he launched on the cusp of his inauguration. (Melania debuted hers two days later.)Trump has been hawking himself in an absurdly grandiose way his whole life. But this time he isn’t grandstanding as a flamboyant New York businessman. He’s selling himself as the president of the United States, staining his office with a blithe display of turpitude.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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      Army Report Links Pentagon Equipment Glitch to Aborted Landings at D.C. Airport

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      The diversion of two commercial flights on May 1 has raised new questions about equipment and safety in some of Washington’s busiest airspace.Two commercial flights were diverted from Ronald Reagan National Airport on May 1 in part because of a communications glitch between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and Pentagon air traffic controllers, according to an Army official who was briefed on an internal review of the matter.The Black Hawk helicopter had tried to land on the helipad near the Pentagon but was asked to fly around and land a short while later, according to an Army statement issued Friday. That request, which came from air traffic controllers at the Pentagon, arose from a short period in which the controllers lost audio and visual contact with the helicopter just moments before it was set to land, the official said.The helicopter “initiated a go-around due to a delay in clearance from the Pentagon Tower,” the Army wrote in its statement. The Associated Press earlier reported details of the Army review.The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are also investigating the event and declined to comment.The May 1 episode, which included the aborted landings of a Delta Air Lines flight and a Republic Airways flight, has been under unusual scrutiny because of the recent spate of problems in U.S. aviation.In January, a midair collision near National Airport between a different Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial flight from Wichita, Kan., killed 67 people. And in recent weeks, air traffic control centers from Philadelphia to the Denver area have been affected by equipment outages that have frightened controllers, raising concerns about air safety.The F.A.A. oversees the National Airport air traffic control tower and has been working to address the equipment and staffing troubles. At a Senate hearing last week, Franklin McIntosh, then the deputy chief operating officer of the F.A.A., said that his agency had not known until the May 1 episode that a hotline linking the Pentagon’s controllers to their counterparts at the National Airport tower had been inoperable for three years. In the meantime, the two entities were communicating over a landline, officials have said.“We were extremely troubled by the incident that occurred,” Mr. McIntosh said, adding that the Defense Department had suspended certain operations in the National Airport airspace afterward. A repaired hotline would be necessary in order for the flights to resume, the F.A.A. official added.The aviation agency recently restricted a particularly treacherous helicopter flight route in the National Airport vicinity and mandated that Army flights operate with a location broadcasting system called ADS-B Out. The Army said on Friday that the Black Hawk in the May 1 episode was using ADS-B Out at the time and that it was also flying on an approved route.The Army also said in its statement that one of the commercial flights was diverted because of a problem with National Airport controllers’ “sequencing” of air traffic. The second diversion request stemmed from conflicting aircraft location data, the statement added, without providing details. More

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      National Security Council Staff Will Be Cut by Half

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      The drastic restructuring, revealed by Marco Rubio, the acting national security adviser, is likely to encourage the president’s preferred style of top-down decision-making in foreign affairs.Marco Rubio, the secretary of state who is also serving as the national security adviser, on Friday revealed a significant restructuring of the National Security Council, reducing the size of its staff by at least half, according to a person with knowledge of the move.The dramatic downsizing of the council, a coordinating body across departments that guides the president and his top aides on key policy decisions, comes as Mr. Trump has built his national security and foreign policy teams with officials who largely share his skepticism of foreign interventions, and who will not work aggressively to oppose that perspective.Rather than build decisions from the ground up incorporating an array of sources and offering a significant menu of different viewpoints, the changes are likely to help Mr. Trump conduct foreign policy debates in his preferred style, with advisers taking the president’s desired outcomes and finding a way to comply with them.Some National Security Council officials from other agencies are returning to their original offices, and others are being placed on administrative leave, effective immediately, said the person with knowledge of the move, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Some of the teams on the council that focus on specific regions or issues will be gutted, while others will be collapsed and folded into others. Still other teams will cease to exist.Andy Baker, Vice President JD Vance’s national security adviser, will serve as the deputy for the reconfigured council, alongside Robert Gabriel, whose current title is assistant to the president for policy.The changes were reported earlier by Axios. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The council has a core staff of presidential appointees supported by dozens of specialists who are detailed — or essentially on loan — from other departments and agencies across the government. Presidents have used the council in different ways, but it has had a central role in foreign policy events since its creation in 1947.Mr. Trump’s allies have long argued that the council had grown too large over time.Mr. Trump has also held a deep distrust for and suspicion of the council since the earliest days of his first term, in 2017. People who have worked for him over time say he believes it was the source of significant undermining of his policy views.Mr. Trump’s first impeachment involved testimony before Congress from Alexander S. Vindman, the council’s director of European affairs, who said the president pressed the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, for an investigation into Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his family. At the time, Mr. Biden was one of Mr. Trump’s chief potential rivals in the 2020 election.In early April, Mr. Trump fired several N.S.C. aides after a meeting with the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who presented him with a list of people she suspected of disloyalty. More

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      These Are the U.S. Universities Most Dependent on International Students

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      The Trump administration’s threat to block Harvard from enrolling international students would remove more than a quarter of the university’s student body, a share large enough to rock its campus and, potentially, its tuition revenue.The move, frozen within 24 hours on Friday by a federal judge, also highlights the risk other universities face from an administration that has shown deep hostility toward higher education. N.Y.U., Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Carnegie Mellon have even larger international student shares than Harvard does.This metric that once reflected their international renown — and financial strength — now looks like a vulnerability. More

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      Gloves Lincoln Wore to Ford’s Theater Sell for $1.5 Million at Auction

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      More than 100 relics connected to President Abraham Lincoln brought in $7.9 million, auctioneers said. The proceeds will help a presidential foundation repay a loan.A pair of leather gloves worn by President Abraham Lincoln to Ford’s Theater on the night of his assassination fetched $1.5 million at auction this week, part of a trove of relics from his life and death that a debt-saddled presidential foundation had put on the block.One of two handkerchiefs that Lincoln had with him on that fateful date in American history, April 14, 1865, sold for $826,000, according to Freeman’s | Hindman in Chicago, the auction house that handled Wednesday’s sale.Like the gloves, which a friend of the Lincolns had framed for display on his dining room wall, the handkerchief was described in an auction catalog as having been potentially stained with the president’s blood.And a cufflink-style gold and onyx button with the letter “L” on it, which a doctor removed to check for Lincoln’s pulse as he lay on his deathbed, went for $445,000.The auction of the items from the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, which was conducted in person, online and by phone, raised nearly $7.9 million, the auctioneers said.The total included a 28 percent buyer’s premium, which auction houses tack onto the hammer price to help cover expenses from sales.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 Threatens 50% Tariff on E.U. and 25% Tariff on Apple

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      The president threatened both Apple and the European Union with higher tariffs on social media Friday morning, saying that trade talks with the Europeans had stalled.President Trump threatened to revive his global trade wars Friday morning, saying he would apply a steep tariff to European exports starting in just over a week and warning Apple that iPhones manufactured outside of the United States would face a 25 percent tariff.The president wrote on Truth Social Friday morning that discussions with the European Union “are going nowhere” and that he is recommending a 50 percent tariff on European imports as of June 1.“The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with,” Mr. Trump wrote. He claimed the bloc’s trade barriers, taxes, corporate penalties and other policies had contributed to a trade imbalance with the United States that was “totally unacceptable.”In an earlier social media post, the president also targeted Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, who visited Mr. Trump at the White House last week. The president wrote that iPhones sold in the United States should be “manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”If they are not, Mr. Trump said the smartphones would face a 25 percent tariff.The posts appeared to rattle financial markets, with stock futures pointed sharply lower in premarket trading. In Europe, carmakers’ shares were the worst hit. Shares in Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz fell about 4.5 percent, and shares in Volkswagen and Porsche were down more than 3 percent. Estimates by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German economic research institute, showed that the tariffs would lead to a 20 percent drop in exports from the European Union to the United States in the short term, as well as a more than 6 percent increase in prices 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

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      Woman Arrested for Spitting on Ed Martin, Former Trump Justice Dept. Official

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      Ed Martin, the former interim U.S. attorney for Washington, stepped down from the position earlier this month.Federal police arrested a Washington woman on Thursday and charged her with assault for allegedly spitting on Ed Martin, who was at the time the chief prosecutor for the nation’s capital appointed by President Trump.Earlier this month, Emily Gabriella Sommer, 32 confronted Mr. Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, during an interview with journalists outside of his office in Northwest Washington. Ms. Sommer, who was walking a dog on a leash, approached Mr. Martin, asked him “Who are you?” using an expletive, and then spat on him. As she walked away, she told Mr. Martin, “You are a disgusting man.”Later that evening, a social media account — “@EmilyGabriellaS” with the username “leftits” — then repeatedly confronted Mr. Martin in the replies to his social media posts, mocking him and claiming responsibility for the incident.Mr. Martin stepped down from his position as the interim U.S. attorney earlier this month after it became clear his work for Jan. 6 rioters would stop him from getting confirmed by the Senate. He is now the self-described “captain” of the Justice Department’s “weaponization” group, among other roles, leading President Trump’s campaign to carry out retribution against his perceived enemies. He often appeared to do just that in his role as the top prosecutor in Washington, and it was one of the obstacles in his ultimately doomed path to Senate confirmation to be the capital’s permanent U.S. attorney.According to the criminal complaint submitted in federal court, U.S. marshals interviewed a witness at Ms. Sommer’s home, who identified her as the person who spat on Mr. Martin. In a statement on Thursday, the Justice Department announced that they had arrested and charged Ms. Sommer with one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding a government official.Although spitting is considered a form of assault in most U.S. jurisdictions, prosecutors do not usually pursue assault cases for spitting unless there is some aggravating circumstance. In 2020, for example, a New York woman was charged with assault of a federal employee for spitting on a postal worker and claiming to have been infected with the coronavirus. A study published in “Forensic Science International” in 2021 found that “spitting is generally considered more of a nuisance than a truly violent act,” adding that one of the exceptions would be potential exposure to an infectious disease. More

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      What to Know About Suspect in D.C. Shooting That Killed Israeli Embassy Aides

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      The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, was charged with gunning down two Israeli Embassy workers outside a Jewish museum in Washington. Here is what we know about him.Elias Rodriguez, a Chicago resident, was charged on Thursday with first-degree murder and other crimes in the killings of two Israeli Embassy aides outside a Jewish museum in Washington.By some accounts, Mr. Rodriguez, 31, led a life typical of a college-educated young professional in Chicago, residing in an apartment in a middle-class North Side neighborhood, with friends and family nearby.But he was also increasingly active in left-wing politics, posting on social media and joining demonstrations in Chicago in opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, large corporations and racism.When Mr. Rodriguez was taken into custody after the shooting on Wednesday night, he told police officers, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” according to an F.B.I. affidavit filed in federal court.Here’s what else we know about him.A school and work life that raised no concernsBorn and raised in Chicago, Mr. Rodriguez graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago, a school west of downtown that attracts many local residents.Sherri McGinnis Gonzalez, a university spokeswoman, said that Mr. Rodriguez attended from the fall of 2016 through the spring of 2018 and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree.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