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      Marco Rubio Adds a New Title Under Trump: Interim National Security Adviser

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      The former senator from Florida is now the head of four government bodies. He has outdone Henry Kissinger and even Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who has only three main titles.Secretary of state. Acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Acting archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration. And now interim national security adviser to President Trump.Like a Christmas tree bedecked with shiny ornaments of every shape and size, Marco Rubio, 53, has accumulated four titles starting with his confirmation as secretary of state on Jan. 20, the same day that Mr. Trump took his oath of office.It very well could be a record in the modern history of the U.S. government. And it adds to the immigrant success story that is core to the narrative of Mr. Rubio, a former senator from Florida whose father worked as a bartender and mother toiled as a housekeeper after they left Cuba for the United States.But the proliferation of titles raises questions about whether Mr. Rubio can play any substantial role in the administration if he is juggling all these positions, especially under a president who eschews the traditional workings of government and who has appointed a businessman friend, Steve Witkoff, as a special envoy handling the most sensitive diplomacy.Mr. Trump announced Mr. Rubio’s newest position in a social media post on Thursday afternoon, a surprise twist in the first big personnel shake-up of this administration. The president had just ousted Michael Waltz from the White House national security adviser job as well as Mr. Waltz’s deputy, Alex Wong. In the same post, Mr. Trump said Mr. Waltz would now be his nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations.Mr. Rubio’s appointment to yet another job — as if he were cloned in a B-grade sci-fi movie — was so sudden that Tammy Bruce, the State Department spokeswoman, learned about it when a reporter read Mr. Trump’s social media post to her during a regular televised news conference.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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      Chris Krebs, Ex-Leader of Cybersecurity Agency, Is Under Investigation, Trump Officials Say

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      The disclosure came three weeks after President Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate the former agency leader, Chris Krebs, in an act of score settling.Trump administration officials said on Thursday that Chris Krebs, who debunked President Trump’s lies about the 2020 election as head of the federal cybersecurity agency, lost his membership in an expedited customs program for travelers because he is facing a federal investigation.The officials declined to specify why Mr. Krebs was under investigation, nor did they indicate which agencies were conducting the inquiry. The disclosure came three weeks after Mr. Trump, in an act of score settling and intimidation, directed the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Krebs.“Chris Krebs is under active investigation by law enforcement agencies,” a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “That is a fact disqualifying him for global entry.”The department offered no further explanation about the inquiry into Mr. Krebs, who was appointed to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency by Mr. Trump in 2018. Asked about the suspension of Mr. Krebs’s Global Entry travel program status, a White House official supplied a similar statement, offering no other details. The official did not respond to a follow-up question. It is unusual for a government law enforcement agency to confirm or deny an open investigation. Mr. Trump has cited comparable breaches of protocol in accusing law enforcement of trying to smear him during various investigations into his conduct.The Global Entry program, administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Homeland Security Department, allows low-risk travelers who have passed a clearance process to avoid time-consuming screening procedures at airports.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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      Federal Report Denounces Gender Treatments for Adolescents

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      The H.H.S. review may set the stage for additional restrictions on gender-affirming care. Critics described it as an ideological statement.Federal health officials published a report on Thursday declaring that the use of hormonal and surgical treatments in young people with gender dysphoria lacked scientific evidence and expressing concern about long-term harms, a stark reversal from previous agency recommendations and the advice of top U.S. medical groups.The report instead prioritized the role of psychotherapy, a divisive intervention to treat gender dysphoria that many advocates and physicians have equated with so-called conversion therapy.Other parts of the review seemed to call into question the very notion that some people have a gender identity that does not align with their sex at birth.In January, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” giving the Department of Health and Human Services 90 days to produce a report on the best practices for treating young people who say their gender does not align with their birth sex.But the order made it clear that the administration had already reached its own conclusion about gender transition treatments for minors, characterizing the “blatant harm done to children” as a “stain on our nation’s history.”The 400-page report took a more sober tone but reached a similar conclusion. In a remarkable departure from the standard for medical evidence reviews, the authors were not identified pending a post-publication review process that would begin in “the coming days.”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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      House Votes to Block California Plan to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars in 2035

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      Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats, voted to eliminate California’s electric vehicle policy, which had been adopted by 11 other states.The House on Thursday voted to bar California from imposing its landmark ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, the first step in an effort by the Republican majority to stop a state policy designed to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.The 246-to-164 vote came a day after Republicans, joined by a few Democrats, voted to block California from requiring dealers in the state to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission, medium and heavy-duty trucks over time. And, lawmakers also voted on Wednesday to stop a state effort to reduce California’s levels of smog.All three policies were implemented under permissions granted to California by the Biden administration. They pose an extraordinary challenge to California’s longstanding authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to set pollution standards that are more strict than federal limits.And the legality of the congressional action is in dispute. Two authorities, the Senate parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office, have ruled that Congress cannot revoke the waivers.California leaders condemned the actions and promised a battle.Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called the move “lawless” and an attack on states’ rights. “Trump Republicans are hellbent on making California smoggy again,” Governor Newsom said in a statement.“Clean air didn’t used to be political,” he said, adding, “The only thing that’s changed is that big polluters and the right-wing propaganda machine have succeeded in buying off the Republican Party.”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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      A Tidal Wave of Change Is Headed for the U.S. Economy

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      When the Covid pandemic hit, factories in China shut down and global shipping traffic slowed. Within a matter of a few weeks, products began disappearing from U.S. store shelves and American firms that depend on foreign materials were going out of business.A similar trend is beginning to play out, but this time the catalyst is President Trump’s decision to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to a minimum of 145 percent, an amount so steep that much of the trade between the United States and China has ground to a halt. Fewer massive container ships have been plying the ocean between Chinese and American ports, and in the coming weeks, far fewer Chinese goods will arrive on American shores.While high tariffs on Chinese products have been in place since early April, the availability of Chinese products and the price that consumers pay for them has not changed that much. But some companies are now starting to raise their prices. And experts say that the effects will become more and more obvious in the coming weeks, as a tidal wave of change stemming from canceled orders in Chinese factories works its way around the world to the United States.The number of massive container ships carrying metal boxes of toys, furniture and other products departing China for the United States has plummeted by about a third this month.The reason consumers haven’t felt many of the effects yet is because it takes 20 to 40 days for a container ship to travel across the Pacific Ocean. It then takes another one to 10 days for Chinese goods to make their way by train or truck to various cities around the country, economists at Apollo Global Management wrote in a recent report. That means that the higher tariffs on China that went into effect at the beginning of April are just starting to result in a drop in the number of ships arriving at American ports, a trend that should intensify.By late May or early June, consumers could start to see some empty shelves, and layoffs could occur for retailers and logistics industries. The major effects on the U.S. economy of shutting down trade with China will start to become apparent in the summer of 2025, when the United States might slip into a recession, said Torsten Slok, an economist at Apollo.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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      Microsoft Drops Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Law Firm

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      The tech giant instead engaged a firm that is fighting the president’s executive orders, Jenner & Block, in a sign that those firms can still attract clients.When big law firms attacked by President Trump decided to make a deal with him rather than fight, many did so because their leaders feared that clients would abandon a firm caught on the administration’s bad side.Now that logic may be getting less compelling. A major company, Microsoft, has dropped a law firm that settled with the administration in favor of one that is fighting it.Large companies like Microsoft often farm out legal work to dozens or even hundreds of firms and may move business depending on circumstances, like pricing, expertise or potential conflicts. Microsoft declined to comment on why it changed law firms in a significant case last week, but the switch suggests that a firm that chose to fight the Trump administration could still attract an important client.On April 22, several attorneys at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett informed the Delaware Court of Chancery that they would no longer be representing Microsoft in a case related to the company’s 2023 acquisition of the video game giant Activision Blizzard, according to court filings.Simpson Thacher reached a deal with the White House last month in which the firm committed to perform $125 million in free legal work for causes acceptable to the Trump administration. In a joint statement with other firms making similar agreements, Simpson Thacher said the pro bono work would be on behalf of “a wide range of underserved populations.”On the same day that the Simpson Thacher lawyers filed paperwork withdrawing from the Microsoft case, at least three partners at the firm Jenner & Block informed the court that they would be representing Microsoft in the case. Jenner is fighting in court to permanently block a Trump administration executive order targeting its business.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 Rejects Efforts to Free F.B.I. Informant Who Lied About Hunter Biden

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      The Trump administration had signaled it might try to undo the guilty plea and six-year prison sentence for Alexander Smirnov.A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid by the Justice Department to free a former F.B.I. informant who had pleaded guilty to lying about Hunter Biden and evading his taxes, saying that nothing about the facts of the case had changed and the man might still flee if released.The longtime informant, Alexander Smirnov, pleaded guilty in December in exchange for a six-year prison sentence, admitting that he had lied to the government when he claimed to have information about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter.Before Mr. Smirnov was charged and eventually admitted his guilt, Republican lawmakers had promoted his false claims about the Bidens in their push to try to impeach President Biden. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Smirnov’s allegations were also amplified by the Trump supporter Kash Patel, who is now the director of the F.B.I.Then, in an abrupt reversal this month, the Justice Department that had sent Mr. Smirnov to prison filed court papers seeking to have him released early, saying it was taking a second look at the case. That request was filed under instructions from senior Justice Department officials in Washington, according to people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a U.S. District Court judge, Otis D. Wright II, rejected that request, saying neither prosecutors nor Mr. Smirnov’s lawyers had presented any evidence that Mr. Smirnov was any less of a flight risk than when he was arrested. The judge also pushed back on what he said were inaccurate claims by the lawyers about the precise terms of his plea deal.The parties in the case, the judge wrote, “present no new facts in their papers that would alter the court’s conclusion that Smirnov is a flight risk, let alone provide ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that he is not one.”The Smirnov case was an offshoot of the federal investigation into Hunter Biden, and the plea deal was negotiated by David C. Weiss, the special counsel who led the inquiry and then stepped down in January.During the Biden administration, the Justice Department argued against the release of Mr. Smirnov, who had been arrested at the Las Vegas airport after returning to the United States from overseas.In the department’s filing earlier this month, prosecutors said that “clear and convincing evidence for defendant’s nonviolent offenses of conviction shows that defendant is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person.”The judge’s order said that the government’s new argument was unconvincing, writing that “the fact remains that Smirnov has been convicted and sentenced to 72 months in prison, providing ample incentive to flee.” More

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      Trump Tariffs and Shrinking GDP Raise Political Stakes

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      The report that the economy contracted in the first quarter underscored how much President Trump has at risk as he pursues an aggressive trade war.President Trump took office 101 days ago after a campaign in which voters bought his argument that he could skillfully manage the economy and that his policy prescriptions could both bolster growth and eradicate inflation.So the news on Wednesday that the nation’s gross domestic product had contracted in the first three months of the year was a sharp political jolt as well as a blinking economic warning.It came at the end of a quarter in which stock prices were down sharply, Wall Street’s worst performance at the start of a new presidential term since Gerald R. Ford tried to steer the country out of scandal and inflation 51 years ago. And it only added to the widespread uncertainty among businesses and consumers about what the rest of the year might hold as Mr. Trump pursues a trade war that is already choking off supply chains and threatening to push prices up and lead to shortages of critical components and products on shelves.It is too soon to predict where the American economy is headed for the rest of the year, and Mr. Trump remains insistent that he will produce a flurry of trade deals that will bring manufacturing back to the United States and usher in a new age of prosperity.But the first-quarter figures brought the political risks for him into focus. For Mr. Trump, what is at stake is a question of fundamental competence on an issue that he has always used to define himself.If the report proves to be a harbinger of an extended slowdown or recession, the situation could become the economic analog of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s fumbled withdrawal from Afghanistan four years ago this summer. Mr. Biden’s job approval ratings never recovered from that early debacle. Nothing he did later — not the millions of jobs created, not the big legislative victories, not the rapid response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — could restore the sense among voters that he could be trusted to carry out the job with the skill they assumed he brought to it.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